Chapter 3: 10 Years Later

A/N: I don't know if Asgard has birthdays, this stuff is just my theory, so don't flame me. In this AU, Asgardians celebrate birthdays Each year until they reach 15 years of age, after which they only celebrate centuries. Another point, Asgard doesn't actually revolve around a sun, but I'm considering that they do have a sun to light the sky. Again, don't flame.

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974 AD: 10 Years

It's been 10 years since I was reborn as Baldur, and I have to say, it's been good. We don't count days, like Midgardians do, as it'll be too much of a hassle. We do have Seconds, minutes, and hours, Months, and years. But we don't count a day by saying 24 hours, like on Midgard. We do it by the position of the sun.

Flat Earth society would love Asgard, as Asgard is actually flat, and the Sun of Asgard is simply a small star that revolves around Asgard. It's nowhere near the size of Sol, the Sun of the Solar System, but it is about the size of the moon. Similarly, Asgard is small too, reaching at most the size of a continent.

It's mostly held together by Asgardian Magic, a dash of science, and butt load of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. I still don't know much about it.

After my and Thor's first birthday, I finally started doing what every Isekai protagonist does. I started training my mind. I started by meditating for at least an hour every night before sleeping, and before the noon nap. I concentrated on my memories and mostly focused on building a mind palace. Sherlock Holmes style. Once I could do that, and get into a zen like state, which took me 5 months to accomplish, I sensed an energy deep within myself.

Yeah, real cliché, I know. Shocked me too. The energy was very wild, at first, and I didn't manage to do anything to it until my 7th birthday, but that's for later. And in the three years since then, I've only managed to use it to enhance my hands and legs, and to send it to my brain, so I can view my memories more clearly.

And it was amazing! I sort of discovered Occlumency in MCU, which is an advanced form of a Mind Palace. I could now watch most of my previous memories, including the many anime series, TV series, movies, and the very few comics, and manga. I had a lot of fun watching Naruto again. Sigh. Maybe in next life I'll be in Naruto.

Anyways, about one month after our first birthday, Odin returned from the war with Jotunheim, with one eye less, and a baby more. Loki. And as soon as Loki was brought to the palace, I realized that being born as Baldur sucked. Big time.

You see, Odin favoured Thor because he was the heir to the Throne, and his replacement for Hela. He favoured Loki, because he was adopted, and an unloved bargaining chip was sort of useless. Plus, Loki sort of looked like Hela.

Now, the middle child got fucked over. Ergo, me.

He barely spoke to me, as much as he did with Thor and Loki. I didn't mind it much, Frigga still loved me But it still hurt, as I could clearly see that Thor and Loki was favoured, Thor more than Loki.

Frigga balanced it out though, and I am thankful for it. She personally taught us three to read, write and talk. Which language? Asgardian. Yes, there is such a thing as an Asgardian language. It's complex, hard to learn, and very rough on the ears. It was only thanks to the AllSpeak that Frigga had already mastered that I could understand her properly. But speaking English, or Hindi, or Marathi, when my mother is teaching me Asgardian language, is a dumb move. So I learned.

I still kept playing with my two brothers, Thor and Loki. I was not going to let my anger at Odin get between my brothers and I. Plus, Frigga encouraged it, to irritate Odin and let him know that he is in the wrong.

Loki at the young age of 9, already noticed that Odin favours Thor over us, and himself over me. But, thanks to that, I was the favourite brother. HAHA! SUCK IT THOR!!

Loki was a gifted magician, as was known already. Frigga took it upon herself, when she noticed Loki and me try to imitate her illusions, when we were 5 and 6, to teach us her brand of magic. Thor was offered too, but he called it a woman's art and rejected. Dumbass.

I, unfortunately was not as good as Loki, when it came to Illusions. Fortunately, I balanced it out by being better at conjuring weapons. I even witnessed Loki's pranks on Thor, and I have to tell you. Loki is a perfect blend between the most Slytherin Slytherin, and the Weasely Twins.

His pranks mostly included Illusions and stabbing Thor, which I found extremely amusing, Odin found horrifying, and Frigga found concerning, about the fact that Loki casually stabbed our brother. I did gift him half my share of deserts that night though. Thor's scream, really was funny.

As of now, me, Loki and Thor were walking towards our Father's throne, with Frigga, as he had called us. If I'm correct, we are about to begin our training.

The Throne room is even more.. golden, than the rest of the palace. I have no idea why they use Gold as bricks, or where they found it all. The Throne was right in front of the gates to the throne room, standing above the floor, with stairs leading to it. Odin was seated on the throne, with his guards staying near, but far enough.

All three of us kids enter the room, and kneel down, Thor to my left, and Loki to my right, with Frigga behind us, and chorus, "All-Father!"

"Rise." Odin whispers, but we all hear anyway. We get up from our kneeling position, and look at him. He looks each of us in the eye, to test us. I manage to hold his eye for a few seconds, Thor is carefree as usual, while Loki gets scared a little, due to the intensity of his sight. He continues, "I have called you here today, because you are set to begin your training from tomorrow. Do your duty as Princes of the realm, and do not disappoint me. Tyr will personally train you, along with the more promising warriors of Asgard and her allies, and you will do your best."

"Yes, Father!" We all chorus, a little seriously.

Odin pauses a second, and again continues, "You will follow every order that Tyr gives you, and stop only when he tells you to. Your.. extra studies..." he says the extra studies in a little distaste, considering magic is mostly used by witches, and says, ".. will continue on your own time, at your mother's discretion. You will not let it interfere with your training with Tyr. Dismissed."

We bow to him and Frigga herds us out of the hall. Damn that feeling was intense. It's like.. he has an aura, that subtly forces you to bow to his whims. Scary, I know. But I know he's using either his magic, or the Odin Force to bring that effect. I'll manage to get over it, some day.

"What do you think we will learn?" Loki asks, turning to me.

Before I can answer what I think, Thor waves his hands around, excitedly, mimicking punches and kicks, and loudly proclaims, "Oh, we'll learn to fight monsters like Frost Giants, or fire demons! Or, or, we'll learn how to break mountains with our bare hands!"

I and Loki roll our eyes at his antiques, and I answer, "Yes, that. But probably step by step. If I guess correctly, we'll start with hand to hand combat, then blunted weapons, and then bladed weapons. Whichever suits us more."

Thor opens his mouth to quarrel, but Mother interrupts him, saying, "Baldur is right, Thor. You won't learn to fight anyone this early. You will start at dawn tomorrow, with first strength and endurance training, and then, when you can stand strong till noon, you'll go on to learn Hand to Hand combat."

Thor scrunches his eyebrows, and asks, "Why would we not stand strong at noon?" Loki has the same look on his face, but a little hidden, while I was smirking at him, and dreading the training at the same time.

Frigga chuckles at us, sending a shiver down our spines, and says, "You'll see, kids. You'll see."

As we're now out of the Throne, and closer to the residential area, I smirk at Thor and Loki and say, "The last one to the rooms is a rotten bilgesnipe!" and start running towards the rooms.

"Hey! No fair!" A chorus of Loki and Thor sounds out as they start running behind me. This childish behaviour of ours is really a good thing to distract me from my.. situation.