She can target when using osanwë to communicate. Well, that's a relief. Macalaurë says. You have other ways to verify your own identity.

Yes, although it shouldn't be "shapeshifting" or "becoming invisible", I suppose. Oh, and general identity confirmation measure: I may or may not now have cool ice powers and I mean to find out.

How does one discover cool ice powers? Was it not previously the case that you either may or may not have had ice powers?

Prolonged exposure to a Balrog wore off some of a spell that seems to have been keeping me in extremely convincing Asgardian form since I was, presumably, kidnapped as a baby. Under that I seem to be an unusually short frost giant. They have cool ice powers. I will try to figure out how to use them in some sort of controlled environment.

That's horrifying, I'm sorry.

Want the rest of my extrapolation? It's also horrifying but in a fascinatingly convoluted way!

I'd be delighted.

So what I think happened is Odin decided she wanted to end the entirely too prolonged war with the frost giants, and because to her mind 'parenting' is not a concept, she assumed that a foolproof plan for doing this would be to kidnap a frost giant baby - possibly even an authentic frost giant baby princess; actually, for all I know I could have originally been a prince - and raise it as her own. Then, because parenting is not a concept, it would be trivial to install this legitimate-by-blood ruler on a recently conquered Jötunheim and operate it as a puppet monarchy. Nothing could possibly go wrong. There is no danger that raising a baby frost giant to think that the galaxy would be a better place if frost giants were extinct could have unprecedented psychological consequences, it is no great setback if your adoptive child displays a temperament which does not seem suited to imposing Asgardian values on others, and of course there is no need to teach your secret frost giant baby anything about her future subjects except insofar as she learns - in the course of her perfectly normal Asgardian princess upbringing - to kill them. Isn't this a wonderful plan? The only question is whether Frigg knew about it or if Odin decided she'd like to spoof the ostensible father of her stolen baby frost giant. It's certainly not biologically impossible, just inconvenient.

Is taking a child from its parents a crime even a Queen can be prosecuted for, in Asgard? Because it certainly would be here.

You know, I'd have to look up the war crimes code, I know that normally killing infants is on there but I don't recall anything about adopting them. But we do have a lot of exceptions for frost giants, so she's probably in the clear about me. I'm going to have to be awfully careful when I tell Thor so she doesn't just decide to exterminate me on the spot for pretending to be her sister.

Never been a fan of alcohol! I have no idea if that's a frost giant trait or not! But thank you for offering.

I'm sorry that you had such a dreadful mother in so many respects. I'm glad she wasn't more competent in her dreadful parenting.

It might have taken more than competent parenting to turn me into who she was hoping to get, but yes, it could have been worse. Beat. Anyway, I could loiter around here or go back to your cousins or swing down to Brithombar or hang out in Doriath, I'm not meeting Maitimo for several days, we allowed a while for the trial.

And you'd be working on spell development either way? Stay here and save yourself the travel time, I know the locations you've been picking to meet Maitimo are relatively close. I'm sure Doriath is prettier but we now have sheet glass and working plumbing and other such delightful amenities, as part of my effort to persuade the Thindar to stick around.

Ooh, plumbing. All right, I'll visit Lúthien on my way back from Dwarves, plumbing's very convincing. Any preferences where I should park?

One of the most recently constructed buildings is housing for guests. He gestures. I can have meals brought to you there, if that's easiest.

It would technically be easiest but only in a fairly trivial sense; I don't forget to eat. I am accustomed to spellcrafting when I must remember not only to eat but to attend lessons, spend half an afternoon limiting the extent to which my prodigy sister beat the crap out of me in sparring matches, show up to public functions, and be ready to hide everything when the door creaks in case I'm recruited on an expedition to hunt owls for their feathers. Speaking of sparring, the Nolofinwëans want me to teach them to fight and I said I would consider it and extend a similar offer to you.

We accept, obviously. We were training illegally in Valinor but expertise matters a lot in every field and it sounds like this is Asgard's. He starts walking.The new building is dark grey stone with newly-planted vines trying to decide whether to grow across the exterior.

Loki heads for the guest building. I can start thinking about a schedule and a regimen with a better idea of what everyone already knows how to do and about how many people you want trained up in what aspects of fighting.

We have sixty thousand people. I could spare five thousand to start an intensive training program, right now everyone's in this area mining and farming and defending the miners and farmers and I don't have the resources to pull more off that even if you could train them. Everyone older than thirty can fire a bow. The people you'd be training can all wield a sword or an axe without injuring themself or their fellows, and carry a spear on horseback. We don't have anyone with serious training in melee fighting, and they've learned whatever they do know by practice fighting with each other. Valinor had a number of gymnastics disciplines that trained people in falling well and we've all practiced that.

Do you have practice weapons or do I need to assume that everyone will be wielding a sharp edge?

We have wood. It's not very helpful because balance is so different. We don't have enough swords to give people dulled ones.

Loki takes notes. My archery information is old and probably not a substantial improvement on what you've got. I've studied mounted combat but it's not often practiced, so similar situation there. Might get the most mileage out of just plain sword work. I don't think I can effectively manage five thousand people at once, at least not without delegating; maybe give me thirty and then give them some manageable number each while I'm off elsewhere and so on.

Certainly. That's easy. Thank you. He pushes open the door. The room is wood-paneled and has a definitely magical tapestry, so detailed it looks like staring through a window, hanging on one wall. Baths, bedrooms.