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There is a portrait that Frigga has kept in her rooms since her children were young. One that she has loved since it was made, but that she avoided looking at after Loki fell. Loki is back now, brought home bound and gagged from Midgard by his brother who had turned him over to Odin. Loki refuses to act like the prince he once was and Thor has not seen him since Odin had imprisoned him.
Frigga visits her youngest son every day. Sometimes she stays for minutes, sometimes for hours. Sometimes Loki will talk and sometimes he will ignore her. And every time she leaves him down in his prison she goes back to her private rooms and looks at the portrait. Reminds herself of what used to be. What she must find a way to fix.
One day, after a particularly trying visit with Loki, she simply can’t bear how her family is torn apart. Loki may not have come from her but she’d raised him and loved him, he would always be her son. She can't stand that her husband won't speak to him properly, that her oldest son can't talk to his father about his brother without yelling, that her youngest will no longer acknowledge her husband as a father and holds every secret ever kept from him as wounds on his heart, that her sons will not even look upon each other because each thinks the other does not care, that their entire kingdom thinks of her youngest as a villain. The three men she loves most in all the world are at odds with one another.
She cannot take it any longer. she stays in her private rooms all day. Her rooms where not even Odin will enter without invitation. She sits weaving, gazing into time hoping that she can see some path of redemption for her youngest son, some way her sons can come together again. She hates that they are split apart. She looks and looks but she cannot see any path out of this misery while the men in her life refuse to bend.
Then, for the first time since he was a child, Thor knocks on her chamber door. She had begun to think he'd forgotten about her rooms, but she calls that he is allowed in. He enters her rooms warily, knowing that it is her space, but he seeks her counsel quite desperately and she has made it clear that she is unwilling to leave her rooms for the time being. She tries to put on a smile for him, he looks so out of place as an adult in her rooms. He has not been there since he was small enough for her to lift and he spent all his time playing on the floor with Loki while she wove or read. She sighs and looks over to the portrait, her smile faltering, and he can’t help but follow her gaze.
Suddenly the man before her seems to melt into the boy she once knew. He looks sadly at the picture and is clearly remembering Loki for the brother he has been for most of their lives. Frigga can't help but comment, "He is still my son, just as you are"
Thor's eyes linger on the portrait before turning back to her, "I know, mother. He will always be my brother. Even if sometimes I wish he wasn’t"
she frowns at that, she’s never heard Thor talk that way before. He tends to avoid speaking of emotions, "No matter what he does, he loves you. You must know that." Thor flinches at that. “Loki loves so little and so strangely that I know it’s hard to see sometimes, but it’s there. He misses you even now."
Thor frowns. “Does he?"
"He does. Perhaps you should go down and try to speak with him." Frigga knows that Thor hasn’t been to see his brother since he brought him back from Midgard bound in silence. “He has it in his head that he lost you long ago."
At that Thor looks at her sadly, “He’ll never lose me. I can’t imagine a life where I don’t love Loki."
Frigga doesn’t know how to react to that admission. She is sad for her sons, their relationship is broken. But she has no idea how to resolve anything between them, it is something they will need to work at themselves. She sits and talks to Thor for some time. He seems to be having trouble taking the counsel of his closest friends. They do not understand his experiences on Midgard and how they have changed him. When he leaves, he seems somewhat lighter, but it seems like he still won’t visit his brother. He is still hurt by everything that has happened. Still hurt by the secrets Odin kept and the decisions Loki made.
But Thor loves Loki. Enough to admit it aloud. That is something that surprises her and that is what she dwells on. Thor is one of the few people Loki has ever loved. One of the reasons she knew he child born of ice wasn’t as cold-hearted as some people suspected.
Perhaps there was another resolution. After all, Thor and Loki were never meant to be brothers. Perhaps they could grow to be something else.