Headcanons welcome

[awanderingbard]

So, I'm working on a Thor fic, and it suddenly occurred to me: how the hell did Odin and Frigga pass off Loki as their son? I mean, clearly Frigga wasn't pregnant, so it must have been a bit dodgey when they just announced 'oh look, we had another baby'. Especially since the view we have of baby!Loki is not of a newborn, so not only did a baby appear, but one at least a few months old. So, did Frigga go-off planet for a while and come back with Loki claiming she gave birth to him while she was away? Because if they presented him as an adopted baby, I really don't think Loki could have lived that many hundreds of years without someone letting it slip, even if the whole of the Nine Realms were asked never to tell him.

Am I thinking too much about this?

Comments

[joyfulfeather.livejournal.com]

My thoughts are basically ~handwavy gods and magic stuff~. Who knows if Asgardian procreation is anything like ours? Maybe there's no outward sign of pregnancy. And they could say they kept the child secret because he was sickly and might not have survived.

[bookblather.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Norse gods tend to turn up in really weird and unexpected ways. Loki himself gave birth to a couple of kids (once as a horse, gj Loki) and somebody got born from the sweat of someone's armpit, and yeah. I expect actual Asgardian childbearing isn't as weird as the sweat of someone's armpit, but the mythology had to come from somewhere.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I always assumed it was ~handwavy gods and magic stuff~ like joyfulfeather mentioned, although, if you think about it, Asgardians *aren't* human. Who says they have pregnancies like we do? Maybe after sex if they want a baby the fertilized egg is placed in an incubator to grow? Or if, instead of copulation as we think of it, two consenting adults submerge themselves in a special pool, kiss under water and when they emerge to take a breath a baby is in their arms?

It's mythology, anything goes!