Chapter Text
After Thor proposed, but before he and Loki were actually wedded, Thor realized that one important member of his family was missing. Perhaps he'd been missing the whole time. He approached his mother about this.
Frigga was in the sitting room, putting the final touches on her tapestry. All she said was, "Yes, well, he was concerned when Loki appeared. I didn't understand why at the time, but now I expect he must have known that Loki didn't give us New Asgard in good faith. Possibly he even knew Loki was one of the Ancient Winters. He certainly knew why Loki was banished, and he might have known of Loki's dealings on Svartalfheim and Vanaheim, and maybe even that Loki wrote The Wicked Brother."
"Knew all that?" Thor said. "And didn't tell us? That's not like him."
"It's very like him," Frigga insisted. "He can't tell us everything. Could you imagine if he ran about telling everyone everything he sees all the time? There wouldn't be enough hours in the day."
"But where's he gone?" Thor said. "I thought he was watching over New Asgard all along, mother, but now I see he's not at his post."
Frigga paused in her work, considering.
"He said something about two possible paths, and went off to speak to Brunnhilde for a bit," she said. "So I expect he's with the Norns."
And indeed, that was precisely where Thor found Heimdall. At the well of fate, surrounded by three great beings that were not so large as Ymir, but were just as unsettling as the old giant. All three had his dark blue skin. Urd, Thor supposed, must be the one with cataract-yellow eyes, Verdandi the one with pale eyes of orange, and Skuld with the bright red eyes of a young giant.
The three goddesses were deep in conversation with Heimdall, who appeared to have their bucket. He kept holding it out to them and then drawing back to himself, considering, making the three goddesses hiss in frustration.
"Will you give us our bucket so that we might tend to the world tree already, watchman?" cried the one Thor thought must be Urd.
"Just one more thing," Heimdall murmured.
"One more thing, one more thing!" snapped perhaps-Verdandi. "It has been one more thing for weeks now!"
"That long?" Heimdall said.
"We've agreed to drop the path where the great snake murders your king," said Skuld irritably, "and the one where one of the youngest babes tears the other limb from limb. We've agreed that Loki shall not succumb to madness or murder, and that you shall not have to kill him, nor him you—"
"All that wintry cold inside him, and for nothing," sighed Verdandi. "And he was just the path by which we might bring more ruin to the line of Odin."
"What's going on here?" Thor put in now. "Why do you speak of Loki in this way?"
"My king," Heimdall said turning to him. Now Verdandi lunged for the bucket, but Heimdall was too quick for her, drawing back and holding her off with an arm.
"Fair's fair, great goddess," Heimdall said. "You know you must bargain with whoever holds your bucket."
"You haven't told us what you'll give us!" cried Urd now, stamping her large foot. "The Valkyries gave us their afterlife for the chance to do Odin an ill turn, and the little winter was foolish enough to inadvertently sacrifice six hundred years of happiness to save his queen. But you, you ask for far more than they did, and yet offer us nothing!"
"I was waiting for him," Heimdall said, jerking his chin at Thor. "He's the one you really want, isn't he?"
Three large, horrible pairs of eyes fixed now on Thor. But Thor had been before the All-Winter, so he knew by now how to manage this.
He put his hands on his hips and traced a toe in the sand at the base of the well, thinking.
"I couldn't possibly give it to you, no," he decided.
"What?" demanded Urd. "What couldn't you give us?"
"It's too great," said Thor. "Too marvelous. I cherish it above all things. I've spent so much time siphoning my power off there, you see."
Verdandi's thick, shapely blue arms scrabbled for her sisters.
"Where?" she shrieked. "Where? You don't mean to a land of the dead?"
"Oh, but I just can't give it up," Thor said, getting really into the swing of things. "My wondrous Bilskirnir. Greatest of places! Most magnificent of halls!"
"We'll give you and the watchman anything," Skuld decided. "Anything at all, if you offer us your Bilskirnir. If you let us finally, finally into the halls of the dead, so that not even Odin can wriggle away from our designs!"
"I couldn't," Thor said, trying not to look at Heimdall, for if he looked at Heimdall he was sure to burst out laughing. He tried to consider how long it might take for him to build a Bilskirnir.
"It's just so amazing," he decided. "It has five hundred and forty rooms, you know. And every one just so...so beautiful. I couldn't possibly trade it away."
"We will give you eternal happiness for you and your loved ones!" shrieked Verdandi. "An unending peace and prosperity for New Asgard, for Jotunheim!"
"Well, with some adventures, surely," Thor said. "If it's too peaceful it will get boring, and my daughter will never forgive me for that."
"Peace with adventures, then!" said Urd.
"Very well," Thor said, sighing. "But you three, you're getting the better end of this bargain. For Bilskirnir is so, so incredible. Although you'll have to give me a few hundred years, seven hundred years maybe, to clean out all the rooms."
"Seven hundred years?" said Verdandi.
"There are five hundred and forty rooms," Thor reminded her. "Five hundred and forty? Yes, I said that, didn't I. Five hundred and forty."
"You get five hundred and forty years, one for each room," Skuld said flatly. "And no more. In exchange for happiness for you and those you cherish, peace and good fortune for your nation and your beloved's, and some adventures thrown in. Final offer."
"I'll take it, but you're twisting my arm," said Thor.
Heimdall returned the bucket to the Norns after they'd shaken on it. Then he waved goodbye and walked away with Thor, their heads bent low together.
"It's high time you learned to make your own hall anyway," he told Thor. "Your mother can teach you that. And Loki will help. Took you long enough to get here, by the way."
"Why did I promise them five hundred and forty rooms?" Thor said, as it dawned on him just how magnificent Bilkskirnir would have to be. "I only came here to invite you to my wedding."
"You're only getting a wedding, and not a far, far worse fate, because you came here," Heimdall said. "From the moment I saw Loki again, I knew either chaos or great joy would follow, and the Norns have ever shown which option they prefer."
"Chaos and great joy followed," Thor pointed out.
"Yes, well. It's Loki," Heimdall said.
"Wait, what was that you were saying about madness?" Thor asked now, as he replayed Heimdall's earlier conversation with the Norns. "The youngest babes? All that?"
"You'll have three more children, for a total of five. Which is madness," Heimdall said easily. "I advise you not to tell Loki. He'll find out soon enough."
"Yes, we discovered a few days ago that he's pregnant," Thor admitted. But then something occurred to him.
"Why are you not surprised by me and Loki?" Thor asked Heimdall. "Has it always been so obvious? Even to you, Heimdall? Hela said as much, but I thought you perhaps, in your observatory, might not have noticed."
Heimdall clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm the All-Seeing, my king," he said. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I was the very first to notice that, where Loki is concerned, you've always, always been a randy little weirdo."