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The Convergence was always going to be a momentous occasion. Even as long-lived as many of those residing in the Nine were, it was a very rare occurrence and Queen Saga of Alfheim was delighted that she would be around to see it.
Of course, she was not blind to the possibilities such an event created for foul play.
As a Seer, she Knew things. She may not always have context, and often it was little more than a feeling, but still: she Knew things, and she Knew that the Convergence would be important…somehow.
There was another thing she had Known for over a millenia now as well:
There was Something About Loki.
Saga, at least, had had questions regarding the Prince’s actions on Midgard, even if no one on Asgard did. And how stupid was that, the sense of superiority really was beyond ridiculous on the eternally golden realm (and yes, she did mean that eternal in its more insulting connotation): where, exactly, had the young man got his army? Did Odin and the other fools seriously just dismiss the fact that the Chitarri might come for him – either to rescue him from imprisonment or to punish him for failure, depending on what view of his invasion you subscribed to? According to Saga’s spies in the golden realm, Odin hadn’t even bothered to question his youngest before sentencing him to life in the dungeons.
Fool.
Now, Saga herself did not know the full story there. How could she? Last she had heard, Loki was dead – Loki had committed suicide, not that anyone on Asgard was admitting that. She knew though, and she had made sure his Uncle – the King of Vanaheim – knew as well. They had long been suspicious (and invested), the pair of them, knowing that there was something about Loki. Various somethings, actually.
But she digressed.
She did not know the full story. She did, however, know that Loki’s invasion of Midgard was very out of character for him. Not only actually invading (that was far more his brother’s preferred passtime) but how he had gone about it, by all accounts she had heard of.
Odin may not have been asking questions, but Saga (and others) sure was.
She had heard the theory that it was recompense against Thor for Loki’s ‘imagined slights’.
She called bilgensnipe-shit on that one. Not only were such slights most definitely not imagined (thought the bitterness and suspicion that had come to be Loki’s shield and arguably a large part of his personality over the centuries would, no doubt, have made him begin to see intended slights where there was no intent she was sure – such was the mind, unfortunately, and Loki had been stuck in a toxic environment for far too long), but since when had Thor cared about mortals? A three or so day vacation to learn to control his temper, meeting a couple of beautiful women and putting one of them on a pedestal (Saga did not believe for a second that the two were genuinely in love, such emotions just didn’t happen that quickly, and they knew very little about each other) and suddenly the realm is under his protection? Please. The rest of the Nine had something of a ‘hands off’ policy when it came to Midgard for a reason – several, actually, and not just because Odin had declared it so regardless of what the old fool thought.
So yes. Loki. Something had obviously happened to him to make him commit suicide – something more than the usual treatment he had to endure. And the thing was, Saga knew that those views of him were not universal, not even on Asgard. Unfortunately, it was generally the people Loki had to be around that disdained him so, so when he did come across citizens who genuinely did like and respect him for everything he was, he didn’t believe them. Pity. His self-confidence could have used the boost, she well knew. And then there was his turning the Bifrost on Jotunheim as a weapon…
Now, Saga knew – though she was quite certain Odin did not want her and her fellow other rulers to know – that Thor had been banished in part for his actions against the ice realm (there was also something in there about him yelling at Odin afterwards, and in her more bitterly cynical moments she was inclined to think that this, rather than his slaughter of near 300 Jotnar and his inciting a new war with them was what had caused his father to punish him when he hadn’t really before). So she knew – or at least suspected – that something must have happened there.
Asgard’s royal family was being very cagey about whatever it was though.
She wasn’t sure what the Convergence had to do with why her thoughts were increasingly turning towards Loki – currently locked up in Asgard’s dungeons – as the major event came ever closer, but she Knew that he would be important during it. Why or how she did not know: she just knew that something to do with him and directly impacting or involving her would occur during the Convergence.
So she set her people about monitoring the situation – both the Convergence, and All Things Loki on Asgard as far as she could through her spies. She also informed Freyr of her suspicions that something would happen regarding his nephew soon – not precisely what as she didn’t know, nor the connection with the Convergence. But… Well. She knew that he had always far preferred Loki over Thor – truthfully, outside Asgard the younger prince was generally preferred by a great many people. He wasn’t as bloodthirsty or prone to violence at the drop of a hat. Oh he was brutal and deadly, and all sorts of dangerous – but he wasn’t nearly as likely to slaughter you where you stood in a fit of temper or even for 'fun' as his imbecile of an older brother was. Freyr had never liked Odin, and this dislike extended to Thor as it became more and more obvious that they shared many similar traits. (Not to say that Loki didn’t share some with his father either. But somehow, it just wasn’t the same.)
So when the Convergence came and with it the Dark Elves who had long been believed to have been wiped out by Odin the Tyrant’s near-equally tyrannical father, well… She was ready.
***
Thor breaking Loki out of jail to use for his own ends (again with the mortal woman, and Norns but she was an idiot. Scientific curiosity was all well and good and Saga generally applauded it, but sticking your utterly unprepared nose into things with no safeguards and an infatuation with a more or less unknown alien man as your dominant guiding principle? Like she said: idiot). But yes: the golden boy breaking Loki out of jail for his own ends was not overly surprising.
Nor, when she thought about it, was said golden boy abandoning his little brother’s body to rot where it lay, not even attempting to find some shelter from the elements for it, believing him dead or not. Saga was furious at this treatment – yes, there was an emergency the idiots were dealing with, but they had managed to find themselves shelter in a cave, so why had they not even attempted to move Loki’s body? Apparently over a thousand years of brotherhood amounted to nothing in the Thunderer’s eyes, as he had so quickly and easily tossed his brother aside on the word of his tyrant father. So much so that he offered him no dignity at all even in death. And she highly doubted he even saw anything wrong with his treatment – actually, in any of his treatment of the younger prince.
When Saga had become aware of what was happening, when she had found a portal herself opening up to Svartalfheim, she had wasted no time in retrieving the Prince’s body.
She wasn’t fool enough to believe that a simple impaling would kill the trickster, as she had never been one to purposefully underestimate him.
And she had been right. His life signs were weak, but they were definitely there, and his body had already begun to heal itself even in the short time it had taken her to retrieve him.
The wound and the poison coursing through him from the cursed blade, she set her healers to sorting.
When scanning him, it immediately became obvious that there were signs of mental tampering as well. There was also signs of healing there, which helped explain why he had not left the dungeons himself. (As she had said, she was not one to underestimate the young prince. She had no doubts that he would have looked into how to get out of those cells a long time ago. After all, it was difficult to hold a Skywalker in one place at any given time. And Loki Odinson had grown up becoming increasingly suspicious of those he was surrounded with at court, and for good reason. Of course he would have covered his own ass by finding various ways to get out of potential situations, even being imprisoned.)
Saga, despite her duties and her presence being needed elsewhere shortly, observed for a while through the observation window as her healers began to operate on the young prince. They were using a soul-forge, and Saga was furious at what she saw.
She had known Loki hadn’t been himself in that invasion, that something was wrong.
Seeing the evidence of old wounds, of horrendous wounds as the healers did deeper and deeper scans the more they found, of wounds that were still healing (and of course, Asgard’s cells blocked magic to an extent, of course that would have impacted on how well Loki would have been able to heal himself even after all this time), Saga found her ever-present disdain and anger at Odin Oath-Breaker growing by the minute.
Her disdain for his queen, Freyr’s sister or not, was also increasing. She knew well that Frigga had been a war-bride, the marriage an arranged one. That her power was limited. However, it had always galled her how the idiot woman had pandered to her husband at the expense of her children – yes, both of them. If Frigga truly couldn’t see Thor’s innumerable short-comings, then she was a bigger fool than Saga had ever thought, and the Vanir woman was supposed to be no fool.
Her spies had done much to observe the relationship between mother and sons and the various family dynamics as well, after all.
Saga wasn’t blind, she could recognise abuse when she saw it. She wondered if Frigga had truly convinced herself that how her sons – especially her youngest – were treated was genuinely fine, or if she was still just protecting herself and her position.
Perhaps she would never know, but for now… For now, she would see to it that the other woman’s son was cared for and recovered, as Frigga was apparently unwilling to do.
…Had been unwilling to do. The news of the AllMother’s death had been a shock to the realms, and she knew Freyr would be grieving and, most likely, angry all over again at Odin Borson. Saga herself felt a pang of grief, but for now, watching the young man clinging to life on that operating table, she felt more anger than anything at the fact that she would not be able to chew the woman out and bring her to task for all that she had stood by and let be done to the son she had claimed to love.
Would she be telling Asgard that their youngest prince still lived?
Absolutely NOT.
They did not deserve him.