He appears beyond the Bridge, what splinters remain of it, drawn vividly back to his first senseless battle with his brother, his empty threats of doing Jane Foster harm, when his hair was still the length of a boy’s and his heart only freshly cloven in two.
But he comes to Asgard’s ruins, eyes wet with windburn and sorrow, with longing for the beautiful woman atop his horse, from behind. He slips through the viscous slimy vaguely womb-like membrane between realms, stepping from on board the refugee ship destined for slaughter, with his new and secretmost quest imparted, into the recent past, to protect what parts of the universe are soon to literally disintegrate.
“My love,” he calls, voice trembling only slightly, and steps toward the royal party. “Please, have patience, just a little longer. Dismount and join me.”
He bows–the prince and once-king–to his bride, deeply, raven curls tumbling across his shoulder.
“I beg of you. This is of grave importance. Beyond that which any of our ancient prophecies have foretold.”
the hair on the back of her neck stands on end before she hears his voice. it’s weak, soft, not at all the loki that had left asgard. she’s already off the horse before the two guards can think to ascertain that it is truly loki – sigyn knows. she half kneels, half collapses to his level and sweeps him in a crushing embrace before he can be taken away from her again or worse, he fades between her fingers. she prays this is flesh and blood, and no illusion. her heart will not take it. there are tears streaking long across her cheeks until her mouth tastes of salt.
“you’re not making sense, my love.” she murmurs fiercely, cradling her husband’s face between slender fingers, memorizing and committing everything she can in this moment to her memory. he has changed, that much is certain, but sigyn cannot be entirely sure of how much. “ancient prophecies – i do not understand. where have you been? what’s happened to you, loki?” she half begs, because it hurts to know he’s been harmed and sigyn has been powerless to protect him, as is her duty. her healing magic warms her fingertips, swirling with a soft energy up her arms to encase the pair of them. to ease his distress, so she hopes.
“tell me what i must do to help you.”
“ … . I don’t know,” Loki gasps, and finds himself at the brink of tears, all his calculations and machinations and schemes lost as though tossed over the Rainbow Bridge, over the waterfall into the abyss of space. “What I am called upon to do does not yet make full sense to me, and yet I am told by a most ad-hoc ally that it is the only way, in over fourteen million possible outcomes.”
Mischief’s cold hands close over Constancy’s; she is warm and soft and he adores and pities her for being saddled with his propensity to attract chaos.
“Find Heimdall. The same Heimdall that I exiled. Take all that remains of Asgard, ALL of it, every man, woman and child, and begin evacuation to earth, via the Bifrost. The man … who took me from you, the madman who made my mind burn for vengeance, and for a false safety I never obtained, he is coming back, and he wants something in the Vault. I must take it to an ally, an ally on earth, so that she can destroy it.”
He seizes her hands from his face, and brings them to his chest.
“ Sigyn… . ! If you see me again, and I appear to know nothing of this, do not tell me. I am displaced in time. I am from the future … but not a point in the future that renders all hope irretrievable.”
Loki draws Sigyn tight against him with but one arm. He smiles slyly down at her, quite accustomed to their spars of flirtation well after the early days of their marriage.
“Mm-hmmmmmm?” he hums, attenuating the sound playfully.
He dances his fingers up into his wife’s hair and tenderly undoes her elaborate braid all the way to her scalp, which he massages.
she isn’t sure how much more of this she can take.
asgard is in chaos – what’s left of it. thor and loki have been gone for far too long and it’s taken every ounce of her not to go and find them. but she cannot; they are rebuilding and somehow she has been seen as their defacto leader, wife of one prince and good sister to the other – there is no one left to lead, and sigyn is left with the duty of trying to rebuild in the midst of her own worries of the war waging on planets she cannot think to name. her worries for loki. her worries for the babe she had yet to tell him of, it’s thrum of a heartbeat in tune with it’s mothers.
asgard is in chaos, yes, so it must take a goddess of chaos to restore it to some balance.
but in the times when she is not needed, she waits. she sits atop loki’s own favorite steed, black as the night, flanked by two guards. she waits at the end of the bridge to the other worlds, a sentry until exhaustion wins out. she is loyal, without fault. and she will not rest until loki comes across the bridge – walking or not. alive or not. the latter pains her to consider, so she envisions the former. envisions it so much it pains her, as well. until the tears well up in her eyes with the force she is staring at the bridge, waiting. praying. begging.
He appears beyond the Bridge, what splinters remain of it, drawn vividly back to his first senseless battle with his brother, his empty threats of doing Jane Foster harm, when his hair was still the length of a boy’s and his heart only freshly cloven in two.
But he comes to Asgard’s ruins, eyes wet with windburn and sorrow, with longing for the beautiful woman atop his horse, from behind. He slips through the viscous slimy vaguely womb-like membrane between realms, stepping from on board the refugee ship destined for slaughter, with his new and secretmost quest imparted, into the recent past, to protect what parts of the universe are soon to literally disintegrate.
“My love,” he calls, voice trembling only slightly, and steps toward the royal party. “Please, have patience, just a little longer. Dismount and join me.”
He bows–the prince and once-king–to his bride, deeply, raven curls tumbling across his shoulder.
“I beg of you. This is of grave importance. Beyond that which any of our ancient prophecies have foretold.”
(Defo not my making/edit, but an awesome one. Credit to whoever made this – and if you see this hit me up and I will ‘@‘ where credit is due! Found this on Pinterest and just fell in love)
Loki’s falcon gaze catches Sigyn’s enthusiastic waving. He coughs, contains himself quickly and hesitates only long enough to pass a glance his father and brother’s way. Something about the indecent warmth of the gesture, and the way the Einherjar continue to stand at stiff attention over the courtyard, and the way sundry palace-goers with their elaborate coiffure and glistening silken attire gawk, all amount to his own contrary glee.
So he turns his mare and bids her bolt up on two legs in a whinnying salute, while waving with equal abandon all the way up at the rampart.
Loki’s very public affections warranted a handful of cheers from the crowds there to witness their monthly dose of Asgardian pomp- and a loud whistle issued by his brother.
“hmmm,” Sigyn hummed against his lips, before giving a quick kiss in return. “You seem to do plenty of that yourself! But I shall do my best to aid your efforts.”
Following close behind her husband, the AllFather greeted his Queen with regal restraint, almost as if an example. Together, Odin and Frigga turned to lead the way back from the open courtyard and into the palace, with Thor swaggering behind them, Sigyn and Loki following.
Sigyn clasped Loki’s hand tightly in her own. She had deeply missed the company and affections of her new husband, not quite realizing the attachment she felt until his prolonged absence.
“Won’t you tell me about the tour? I want to hear every detail!
“But of course, my darling.”
Loki scratches his chin in Thor’s direction, concealing a saucy hand gesture in the process. Shrewd eyes follow the Allfather and Allmother, lips pursing at Odin’s incessant disapproval, and Loki swallows the barb in his throat as ever, to compartmentalize and later ferment into further resentment.
For now, he focuses on his wife, one arm at her disposal, his opposite hand stroking her knuckles.
“Alfheim remains my favorite realm away from home, if only for their superior libraries chock full of rare magical scholastics, and their …let’s say, open mindedness, about the practice of sorcery. Oh, but Sigyn, I shan’t pretend that your beloved Vanaheim was not also a delight. You remember the unparalleled assortment of flowers and herbs, for all manner of bodily healing? I’ve brought you back a small apothecary with which to weave your charms. I remember your fondness for the art. Frankly I think you could teach the midwives and other, ehm, authorities on fertility practices, how to better perform their tasks.”
Loki doesn’t speak for a long moment. He draws a cleansing breath, and then, hands meant for weaving and lock picking and theft and stealth and persuasion … rest on his wife’s.
Loki pauses in the grinding of ingredients, as Sigyn enters his expansive study, seat of a plenitude of exactly two things: fat books, and herbs.
He sets aside his mortar and pestle, squints and aims an index finger around the room, ducking beneath a dangling brace of drying weeds and wildflowers.
For he is indeed a witch.
“Under the eye of newt, I believe? I found it this morning and meant to give it to you. Terribly sorry about that, love.”
icyxmischief 