[X] No! You don't believe it.
"Liar." The word is out of your mouth before you can think about them. It's just instinct. It doesn't matter who they are no one gets to say things like that about your family. A bright blue eye fixes right on you again. He still hates you, loathes the fact that you exist and wants you to stop being alive. On Odin's shoulder his raven fluffs up its feathers glaring at you with its beady bird eyes. Fear, cold and stifling, winds around your lungs.
"Y-You're a liar. Dad wouldn't tell you anything." It's impossible to ignore your fear but that doesn't mean has to rule the rest of your actions. Odin is scary, terrifying, but you trust dad more than you're scared of him. You don't care what Odin says against him Loki is your dad.
"And what would you know about Loki, pup?" Odin asks and takes a step forward, a huge imposing figure. "Do you live with him day after day? Do you put up with his tricks and his plots and his betrayals? Do you-"
"I know my dad!" It's more a bark than a sentence and it doesn't make an impression on Odin at all. His raven preens itself but that's all the motion you see. Hel's arms grow tighter and she takes half a step back, turning a little so you have to struggle to keep your eyes on Odin.
"Fenny what are you doing, that's Odin!" She hisses at you, fear written all over her.
"He can't say that about dad. He's wrong, dad isn't like that. He's not!" Hel starts stroking between your ears and scratching gently behind them.
"I know, but-"
"Loki isn't here, we are, and those monsters won't be tolerated any longer! Stand aside or I will make you!" Thor booms and draws his mighty hammer, both hands clamped tight around it and gauntlets singing like metal against metal. He marches towards mum, intent obvious.
"Thor-!" Tyr sounds scandalised, you're just furious. Hel holds tighter, her arms threatening to crush your ribs, stopping you leaping out of her arms and bounding for Thor. You're making it hard for her, paws scrambling for purchase, ears flat back against your skull, teeth bared and ready to tear Thor to pieces for threatening mum or die trying.
Jormy doesn't have your sister to restrain him.
"Jörmungandr!" Mum shouts but it's obvious he's not listening as he lunges at Thor, just like you've seen him lunge at unfortunate prey a thousand times before. Head darting forward and down fast as Thor's lightning, huge fangs almost the same size as you are trailing greenish venom from their razor tips.
Thor isn't a simple deer or fish frozen in terror of a gigantic snake bearing down on them. He's one of the Aesir, musclebound and battle-brained according to dad. He swings his hammer, lightning crackling around its edges, muscles of his arms rippling and flexing as he puts everything into the blow.
Hammer meets the lighter, smaller scales on the underside of Jormy's jaw with a titanic crash. You whine and press your head into Hel's shoulder, ears filled with stabbing needles. Jormy is flung back, reeling and dark blood mixed with venom scatters over the grass, hissing and smoking where it lands. Whole patches of grass turn black and whither away.
He lands on his back and the ground shakes. Hel staggers, almost losing her grip on you. Jormy coils the rest of his body around his head, instinctive protective action. Your heart clenches in sympathy while growing wings of heady relief that he's okay.
Thor laughs and twirls his hammer in one hand, brash and arrogant and you want to sink your teeth into his wrist and tear until he can't use it any more. Jormy explodes out of his protective huddle, tail scything at Thor faster than you can see. It connects with a thud that you feel reverberate in your chest and the Aesir goes flying.
"Go Jormy!" You cheer and get a cuff round one ear from your sister. She's smiling as well though, hiding it a little by perching you up on her shoulder so Odin and Tyr can't see her face. Jormy spits, obliterating one of the few intact parsnip plants left after this morning.
"Jörmungandr, stop this!" Mum shouts, marching up to your brother like he's of a size that she can just pick him up and carry him inside and lock him in there. He's not you so she can't.
"He was going to hurt you. All of them were." He casts a glare toward Tyr and Odin. All of them still might, Odin has acquired a spear from somewhere and Tyr's half drawn his sword. Neither seem likely to interfere right this minute but it's obvious that they intend to.
"That is not an excuse to-"
"Move!" Hel, always more aware than you or Jormy, screams at the top of her voice. You whimper again at the volume but you can't tear your eyes away from what's happening.
Thor, not looking any the worse for Jormy smacking him down field, races past Odin and Tyr. His hammer isn't just glimmering with lightning it's dripping white blue crackling sheets of the stuff. He leaps, hammer high over his head poised to come down the wrath of a very angry god of thunder. Jormy snatches mum with his tail, bunches up and hurls himself to one side.
He's not going to make it, Thor's too fast and Hel didn't warn Jörmungandr fast enough for him to get out of the way. Your heart's in your mouth, beating fast enough to explode, certain that you're about to see Thor toast your big brother or worse.
A bird, small and dark flashed with white on each wing, plummets from the sky right at Thor in complete silence. The Aesir swings wildly at the bird, which rolls nimbly out of the way. Strike fouled Thor crashes shoulder first into Jormy and bounces off him.
You breathe out, heart slowing to a more manageable speed in your chest, and the black and white bird lands just out of Thor's reach to laugh at him. It keeps laughing when Thor swipes at it again and misses by a hair. Only then does red blush along the feathers and puff outward to resolve into dad crouching in front of Thor, still laughing.
"Dad!" You and Hel call out eagerly and she hurries towards him, still carrying you. You wriggle and squirm and quickly Hel drops you so you can bound over to dad and leap up to him eagerly.
"Loki…." Odin's breathed exclamation carries further than it should.
"Brother!" Dad smiles, wide and fake if you're any judge of dad's smiles, and brushes past you towards Odin, arms wide like he's expecting the old god to embrace him. That doesn't happen and dad's hands fall back to his sides. "What is this? Why is Thor trying to murder my son?"
"That monstrous serpent-"
"Jörmungandr." Dad corrects Odin coolly. Odin's face contorts for a moment then smooths out and when he speaks his tones are hushed. Your ears prick up, your hearing is much better than Jormy or Hel's or mum's, you hear every word Odin says.
"Jörmungandr is prophesied to do great evil come Ragnarok, that cannot be allowed to happen. As are the wolf and the half dead girl over there. To prevent that we must act to restrain them before they grow too much, before they can become that dangerous to the nine worlds." Dad doesn't reply for a while, thinking it through you know, coming up with the best way to beat Odin.
"If we are brothers in blood then they are your nephews and niece, how could they possibly pose a threat to such a loving, caring uncle?" Dad says sweetly, his words unctuous like honey but sting like bees as Odin hears them. Then Odin is the one wearing a crafty smile and he throws an arm around dad's shoulders. Dad instantly stiffens.
"You are of course quite correct Loki, and such a caring uncle would bring his family into his house to ensure that they are being raised properly." Odin pats dad on the back in a brotherly manner and leans closer to whisper something in his ear that you can't hear.
"Angrboda?" Dad asks, voice completely devoid of inflection, emotion and personality.
"If she wishes to go with them of course she is welcome. Never let it be said that I'm not a generous man." Another pat and Odin lets dad go, almost pushing him towards mum and Jormy. Dad's not smiling anymore.
You trot over, trying to avoid the razor sharp glare of Odin's single eye, and brush up close by dad's side. You lean against the soft orange brown of his leggings, knowing that leaping up at him and trying to lick his face like you would to cheer Hel up doesn't work. He rumples your ears halfheartedly as he walks towards mum and Jormy.
"What did Odin say Loki? Will he leave us alone now?" Mum asks, looking at Jormy's jaw. He's lost a tooth, the hammerblow must have ripped it clean out, and several of his scales are cracked. The scales will fix when he sheds next but the tooth probably won't grow back. Dad kneels to rub the small ridge of scales over Jormy's eye with only a few tremors and slight hesitation. Jormy rumbles happily.
"Odin wants to bring the children to Asgard, so he can keep a close watch on them." Dad says and mum pales.
"They'll be hated, you saw what Thor did." She hisses, gesturing to the thunderer where he's brushing grass and dirt from his hammer like it's the most precious thing in the world. Weirdo.
"Well I tried, it's better than whatever he intended to do." Dad glares at her and starts to rise. Mum snatches his wrist and pulls him back down hard, he winces in pain.
"And what about me, Loki? What am I supposed to do?"
"I don't know, go back to Jotunheim?" Dad says carelessly with a shrug. What? That's not what Odin said. You're about to say so but mum slaps dad hard across the face.
"If I ever see you again it will be too soon!" She shouts at him, turns and storms away, across the plain towards the forest. You stare after her in shock, Jormy looks between her retreating back and dad jaw dropped. Hel runs after mum at top speed, dress flapping around her ankles. Tyr takes a few steps after her.
"Don't be such an interfering busybody Tyr, you know as much about children as you do about women." Dad's words have Tyr halt and glower at him.
"And you know as much about children as you do honour." Tyr retorts and continues after Hel and mum.
[ ] Stay with Jormy and dad. Why did he say all that to mum? Doesn't he love her? Isn't that the whole point of this, the reason why you exist at all, because he loves her? And you need to know if Jormy's alright, a lost tooth is no small matter and who knows what else the first strike Thor landed might have done to him!
[ ] Go after mum and Hel. Hel's always been closer to mum than you and Jormy so she needs some support right now, not to mention you love mum a lot and her not coming with you feels wrong. Maybe you can plot to escape with her! Or at least arrange to visit her or something. It's not like you can be trapped in Asgard or anything. Also, maybe you can talk to Tyr he seems nicer than the other two Aesir.
[ ] Maybe, just maybe you can try talking to Odin? Apologise for almost eating his raven friend? If that fails there's always trying to talk at Thor, a useless pursuit according to dad but anyone who can charge a giant serpent without is either insane, which you'd like to know about, or probably has some pretty good stories to tell and you kinda want to be distracted by a good story right now.
