The Queen of Jotunheim

Chapter 14: Life's not fair.

Chapter 14: 
Didn't anyone tell you? 
Life's not fair. 

"How are you not furious!" Loki exclaimed with frustration, pacing around Nix's room. Luckily she had not been badly burned. She had gotten injured, but nothing that some magical healing had not been able to fix, along with some ice magic for comfort. "If I was you I would have-"

"And if I was you, maybe I could have," Nix said in a low voice, looking at Loki, "but I am not you, I am the Queen of Jotunheim, and so, I can't." Loki was completely broken out of his own rage by the look in Nix's eyes, such ancient sorrow in such young eyes was shocking him to his core. "... What do you mean?"

"I am angry, Loki, furious even..." Nix said slowly, looking out the window in her room, "but unlike you, I don't have the luxury of showing it, if I did I would just be confirming all the things that they think about me and my people."

"What things?" Loki asked, feeling like he should know something that was obvious, but he had somehow forgotten. "That we are monsters, savages, brutes, whatever you may call it," Nix said as she turned fully toward the window. "Someone will take it as proof that we are not worthy of the mercy the Allfather is showing, or that we are not a civilized people at all. They will use it as evidence that we need to be put down like the monsters your fairytales make us out to be."

"But..." Loki wanted to call out that it was not fair, that everyone was allowed to be angry, but he knew that was not the truth of the world. He remembered back to his own childhood, remembered the pranks he and Thor would pull together, as brothers would do, and also remembered how his father would react to it...

"It's not fair!" Loki cried out, turning to his mother with tears in his eyes. "Why is Father only punishing me?! It was Thor's idea this time, I just helped!"

"Your father is disciplining Thor too, Loki, it is not just you being punished." His mother tried to assure him, but even though he was as young as he was, he knew it was a lie. "It's not the same!" Loki said, stomping the ground hard. "Why do I get punished while he gets a life lesson!"

"You must trust that your father has a plan, Loki, we must trust that this will all lead to something good." His mother begged, stroking his arms in an attempt to comfort him, but Loki was not having it. "BUT-" He had started but was interrupted by his father.

"NO BUT'S" His father yelled, entering the room. "A good king admits his mistakes and does not throw a tantrum about it, Loki, you are a prince of Asgard, act like it!"

Loki remembered a lot of times like that, him being punished more than Thor, him not being allowed to be upset about it... He was not allowed to be upset about a lot of things. Anytime he complained, he was told 'You are a prince of Asgard' and that meant that he was to keep his emotions in check.

And yet... Thor could throw tantrums... Even when he was not punished like Loki he would still throw tantrums... And their parents let him.

... How was that fair? Loki knew the answer.

"That is not fair," Loki said in a cold voice, "if anything, right now they are the barbarians! Monsters! Looking for anything they can use against you and you can't even defend yourself without proving them all right."

He noticed Nix's surprised look and sighed sadly. "... You are not the only one being treated unfairly, Nix," he explained. "So I see," Nix said, walking over to Loki, "but such is life, it does not give equally. Sometimes the only difference between a king and a peasant is who they were born to."

Loki looked up at Nix, his own eyes shining with a fragment of the sadness in her. "Well," he said, his lips forming a smirk without any real humor, "sometimes a peasant can have it better than a king."