On the bridge, Freya stood from her throne with Fenris in her arms as Loki was sulking a few steps away with her arm bent at an unnatural angle. The mad scientist gripped the forearm of her injured limb and gave it a casual jerk that snapped the bones back into alignment, all without even a twitch of annoyance appearing on her face or even in her mind. To her, the pain was as minute as one popping their fingers against each other.
"That wasn't very Queen-like of you, Freya. If you wanted her back so bad, you could have just demanded imperiously. We're not the blind cave dwelling neanderthals our ancestors were… well, my ancestors at least. You still act like one. Hehehe—EEP!"
A quick duck saved Loki's head from being possibly removed from her body by Freya's White Scythe. Honestly, Freya looked like she was only disappointed that her target was so good as evading her chastisements. "Not like it would have been the end of you, although it would have been fun. What do you think, Fenris?"
"EEWWAAHH!"
She laughed and giggled at her Aunt being funny. This got Loki to dramatically sulk into her own sphere of misery while muttering "worst courtship ever" which got another beheading attempt by Freya. Unfortunately for the queen, her friend seemed to be able to switch moods in an instant and reacted accordingly to the even closer encounter by flashing out of reach and leaving a trail of black smoke in her place. Give her credit, she did look a bit upset now.
"You're getting way too close for my comfort with that scythe, my friend. You better go ahead and leave before your mothered up hormones make you more irritable. Being so close to our natural nursery chambers can't be good for your dilly-dallying self." Really, now she was in a stern scientist mood. Before Freya could reply, Loki cut her off. "Don't even worry about addressing your people. I'll explain and they'll understand. I'll beam up and the rest of the mothers onboard with their children to the nurseries as well since they won't like having to take the long and slow way there. I know you also wanted to show Fenris to Yiazmat but the elder wyrm is older than me and still living, so he can wait what would be a tiny nap for Fenris to mature more."
Before Freya could even open her mouth to state her thoughts on the matter, Loki cut her off again.
"Zip it, Freya. Don't worry. Despite having never imagined this day actually coming to pass, I have nonetheless been long prepared for it. The people will be fine without you for a little while." She closed the distance and nuzzled Freya a final time that the queen returned. Loki spoke again, in a softer tone. "Think of this like one of those human vacations. Get to bond with your daughter, nurse her into a healthy girl, protect her from curious and greedy little girls, etcetera etcetera."
With a flick of a mental switch, she had the teleporters aboard the ship beam away Freya, Fenris, and all the nursing mothers inside the secondary nurseries in Outer Heaven. With a sigh, Loki knew Freya would be upset with the abrupt dismissal but honestly, she is more stubborn than she comprehends sometimes.
"Now, time for me to run an empire," she said to herself with barely contained excitement. Freya, despite her nature, held Loki's loyalty in the highest regard among her people and the woman would not disappoint her. After all, she had to modify much of their space navy and ground army to new requirements, maintain the political alliances of the Valkyrians, tighten a few openings in their systems, and punish a certain prison warden for upstaging her in a field she thought herself the undisputed master in.
Moments after Freya reappeared, she got an unfamiliar shiver down her spine and a sense of foreboding uncertainty. I better send Loki a list of things to check up on while I'm away. Even though I will be occupied with this little one, I don't like procrastinating on my smaller projects.
Quick as a thought, she sent the orders to the exasperated woman who reiterated the term "vacation" to her, which excluded micromanaging. Freya was a bit put off by it but chalked it up to Loki basically having almost complete free reign over the empire now.
Freya looked down at a curious Fenris who was glancing around at her new surroundings. She joined her in admiring the grand architecture carved into the stone surfaces around her. They and about two hundred other mothers were currently outside of the entrance to their original homes that now served as the primary nursery caverns for Valkyrian mothers to care for and bond with their children, imprinting upon them absolute love and loyalty that would be returned naturally. Even after millions of years of moving out from their ancestral subterranean homes, their instincts still called for them to return upon becoming a mother, even across the vastness of space. It was the main reason why the Valkyrians never fully colonized planets since no true substitutes for the nursery was ever able to be replicated. The secondary nurseries hidden throughout their reach were actually bits cut out from the original.
The main and only entrance was within the very deepest bowels of Freya's own palace that her people carved from within a great mountain. She built a vast fortress around this entrance long ago. Over time, it kept growing and growing as they dug further outward until the entire mountain became the very city of Tecomfpzhire itself, the capital of their very empire. The nurseries were kept as one of the very greatest secrets of the Valkyrian people and as such, due to the primary one's location, no non-Valkyrian alien has even stepped foot on their planet in Freya's history.
Many a times there have been request to visit but no matter how important they believed themselves to be, they were vehemently denied by the Valkyrians at every turn, no matter how long allies they have been. The only ones whom Freya wouldn't personally have a problem with would be the Wyrms and Akrid but even she knew rational opinions didn't stand a chance against the instinctual need for the nursery's privacy, thus the impossibility of alien allies visiting the planet.
Around her, the group stood in a massive rock complex that towered for hundreds of meters upwards until darkness completely shrouded any hint of a ceiling. Large rock columns lined into dozens of rows with several dozen meters equally between them all littered the room, reaching up into the swallowing darkness. Hanging onto these columns, hidden by the shadows, were thousands of advanced combat A.I. platforms called BIA. Aside from the valuable and rare Bogeys, these were of the most advanced and deadliest single combat model in service. The expansive room was several thousand meters in length and width, so there was plenty of room for them to fall upon any enemies like a never-ending rain and do battle.
The lower half of the room was illuminated with soft glows of navy blue fires from hundreds of torches posted four to each column. The low levels of light were preferable to the mothers and children since their species originated from the depths of the planet's crust.
Freya looked around and saw the eyes of hundreds of women and children glowing in the soft darkness. Many showed annoyance at having been beamed into another place after having been comfortable in the same spot on Outer Heaven for several years.
"I apologize for Loki's abrupt beaming, my fellow mothers. She felt it would be best to be done with it quickly instead of us taking a longer method of travel. Our ancestral homes call to me as it does you all. For those who haven't been here before, the nursery is almost always inhabited, so show the same amount of courtesy as you did in the ones in Outer Heaven."
A drowsy yawn escaped from Fenris's mouth as the call of her new home calmed her body and mind like a psychic drug. It was working on Freya as well since she was feeling no irritation like earlier from Loki's teasing. "My own little one is tired so I bid you farewell lest we settled down near one another."
She received several soft words of congratulations from those who've not met or seen her new child yet and all of them began venturing into the dark depths of the cave, watched over by the thousands of cybernetic guards who never rested from their eternal and sacred duty.
It would have been total darkness within the cave but like their ancestors long ago, the Valkyrians had evolved and adapted to the dark. Forgone of any clothes, Freya's body began softly glowing a magenta color that was unique among the hundreds of reds and blues behind her. Her eyes, the dry sap-like orbs on the end of her feelers, and—unique to just her—several fluid, river-like lines along her chest, arms, and legs shined brilliantly in the dark without illuminating the cavern while her hair was like a ghostly white veil down her back.
A few murmurs among those following commented on the unique beauty of their queen and even Freya had to admit to not being used to such a reaction. She'd never ventured into the caverns of the primary nursery outside of a few inspections yet never shone like this. It was usually just her eyes and feelers that glowed. Perhaps now that she had a child of her own? She didn't glow like this when in the secondary nursery in Outer Heaven, though she was just there for a visit at the time. It would be a curiosity she'd explore and debate amongst herself or Loki while she is down here.
Her own child's eyes glowed the same as hers as well, though her stubby feelers weren't developed enough to glow themselves. They would emit vibrations that would travel on a frequency specific to her, allowing her to always know where she was within the caverns once she grew enough to walk and interact with nearby children, though she'd never be more than a few strides away.
For over an hour, they walked and Freya could feel that they've descended several hundred meters. It was at this time they entered the first chamber that had a few sources of light from tubes in the wall that contained harmless plasma to give the chamber a dark orange tone. A few dozen pairs of mature eyes opened to see their entrance. Many were momentarily startled by the amount of bodies moving in yet they all were quickly drawn to the unique bio-luminescence of Freya. Many soft greetings floated to her ears, careful not to disturb nearby companions who were sound asleep with their child.
To Freya's eyes, all of them looked as if they hadn't moved in years given that many were covered in a thin layer of rock dust. Seeing as mothers spent the majority of the first several years simply sleeping with their children while only waking up to feed them, only those who'd yet to settle or whose children were grown enough to start moving around (thus their mothers moving around with them) were likely to get up and greet them. A couple did to greet Freya as their children were about up to their knees now while many were still cuddling to their mothers' chests.
Following their instincts, several mothers broke off from the new group to pick a place and got comfortable, resting with their children who still slept. It was an instinct among them to not just return to this nursery, but to find a certain spot. It was specific with each mother even though another might use the same spot a few decades or centuries later. They just followed what felt… right.
The walk continued for several more hours for Freya as the rest of her group were dispersed amongst the dozen other nurseries they'd passed, each wishing her or their friends well. The only one with her still was Frigga with little Brynhild making small talk. At a couple of points in their trip, Freya was tasked with holding both their children as Brynhild was using this time away from the other kids to monopolize Fenris's attention. The little girl made much small talk with Fenris, complementing her eyes, letting her gnaw on her fingers now that she knew she didn't have teeth yet.
It was too their surprise at how quickly the walk went as they made idle chat that they actually walked into a dead. The path opened up into a small chamber that didn't lead anywhere else. The room was smaller than the rest, stretching about forty feet in width and fifteen in height, and it looked like it had never been used before. Thankfully, their instincts ended in this room as well. It'd be pretty awkward if they couldn't feel a spot when they'd been through the whole maze. Freya and Frigga both took seats next to each other against the far side of the wall.
Freya felt the wall a little unpleasant so scrubbed her back side-to-side against it, easily grinding away the rock into powder so that it was more smooth for her. With a relaxing sigh as the pressure on her mind finally went away, she looked over at Frigga who was within arm's length as she tried to settle Brynhild down. The child was a bundle of sweet energy and Freya saw her little blue eyes glance from her mother to Fenris who was yawning audibly.
Freya could feel Frigga feeling hopeless at calming the active child down so she sought to help. "It would be no problem for me to hold Brynhild for a little while as long as Fenris is awake. She will have to let her sleep when she sleeps though."
She gave a small giggle as the mother seceded her hold and the child tottered over to her. Freya straightened a leg out to allow the child to climb up her much larger frame. Brynhild was quick to hug Fenris with one arm while softly rubbing her head with her other hand. As Freya relinquished Fenris to her, the child turned and sat against Freya's stomach, hiding beneath her bosom. The queen was alright with that and wrapped her arms around both Fenris and Brynhild, gently embracing them. Since she couldn't really see them—because of you know what that she sincerely hoped would shrink a bit by the time Fenris matured more—she could feel and hear them and simply closed her eyes in patient wait.
Brynhild continued to rub and talk to Fenris, the baby giving her half of her attention as she sleepily gnawed on one of her twin tails. Brynhild tried to talk to her, such as repeating her name, telling her hers in an effort to get her to say it as if she was capable of such speech at her age, and trying to tell her about her mom. It took much effort on her part since she was still very young and only could talk in one—sometimes two—syllables that she would have to try multiple times to say every now and then. It was a bonding experience for them as well as a vocally growing one so the two mothers were happy and content to watch the one-sided conversations.
It Frigga' relief, Brynhild finally showed signs of sleep after an entire hour. Fenris had long since fallen asleep and Freya would have taken her back there but Brynhild surprised her by noticing her sleepiness and didn't talk anymore and became content with just holding and petting her. While Freya couldn't really see them, Frigga told her what was going on and how adorable it was so Freya let it go on.
Now that Brynhild was falling asleep, Freya easily lifted the children up and Frigga slowly pried her daughter's arms off of Fenris. With their own children in their clutches once again, both women shared a humored smile and decided to follow the kids' lead into the embrace of sweet Morpheus (sleep and dreams). Much of her dreams at the start were of how her plans for Fenris's homeworld would play out. She made a promise she was honor bound to keep to make her the strongest. Sure, she was a manipulator, but when she actually gave her word, she kept it.
Though she never did specify when that would be or how. She could order her forces to wipe out all ninjas on the planet and thus, with a little bit of ninja training from Kushina's memories, she wouldn't technically be the strongest. However, thanks to Obito's memories, she found herself anticipating the coming war. Sure, she wouldn't involve herself in it unless absolutely necessary, but as a spectating mother, she would watch over it all. Fenris was her first child after all, so it wouldn't be right if she wasn't there for her. However, she had plans for the Elemental world and even though Obito's plan's time schedule was due to peak in about sixteen years, Fenris wouldn't be matured enough by then, yet without the Kyuubi, the "Eye of the Moon" Plan would be delayed indefinitely.
Now, Obito and the Akatsuki would be following her time table. She had no intention of rushing Fenris's growth because a few meta-humans were impatient. With their technological might, the colony set up in the Uzu Islands would be safe and her treaty with the major villages would ensure a unified front to act as a buffer zone should Obito get any ideas about invasions or assaults. The ninja villages would respond in kind and hunt down the Akatsuki, aided by her forces if need be. Obito was trapped in a box and only she had the key to let him out.