Constancy’s gentle observation has come on the cusp of a long staring match between husband and wife; more a confirmation of their trust in each other, to meet eyes so long without a word to buffer them. Loki’s smile spreads his lips like a soft pink serpent uncoiling, or an accordion prepared to play. It savors her.
“That’s my line,” he informs her, and bestows a slow kiss.
“Can’t I catch you off guard with any gifts?” the God of Mischief complains, as warmly he rolls on top of his bride.
He cups her face between thin, cool hands, and smirks down at her with childlike conceit, and something softer, too.
“It’s more of a meeting, than a gift, I suppose. Or perhaps it is both. We’re going to make contact with my children who were banished. I’ve spent weeks conjuring the particular sort of dimensional portal that grants us access to all three simultaneously. I want you to speak with them, and show them the faith you hold in each of them. I feel it is a task to which you are equal.”
“Remarkable. It would seem that all of Asgard celebrates this peculiar Midgardian festivity this year. Though I could scarcely complain when you are the one showering me in affection.”
Loki collects Sigyn’s bouquet and kisses the top of her hand as though they have only begun courting. He swirls his wrist in a cyclonic form around the wildflowers, conjuring a perfect white rose whose petals are rimmed in peach. This he hands to Sigyn.
“It’ll flourish all through winter, if I’ve conjured correctly,” he purrs.
Loki stands at the mouth of his lover’s Nóatún bedroom. Slender fingers demolish the single loose emerald thread dangling from his fitted vest; he is always painfully aware of his alien presence in this thriving paradise of fragrant blooms and roaring seasides, so unlike the inhospitable darkness in which his bastard hide was born.
“I … I crave your advice. I have been disagreeable and severe with your father, who is kind to a fault, on many occasions in the past. He treats me as if I’ve done no wrong, but I know better. My tongue is sharp and cruel. Tell me how I might make amends?’
“My darling,”
Sigyn quickly rose from her seat in front of a carved alabaster vanity, striding to greet her lover. She meets him with a kiss upon his cheek, while her hands grasps his, drawing them away from his anxious fiddling and instead guides them about her exposed waist.
Holding him close, she listens as Loki makes his confession before giving a reply.
“Well, saying to him what you’ve just said to me would make an excellent start. My father does not dwell on the past, but is rather focused on the present, and it is your present efforts that have earned his attention. In my father’s eyes, actions will speak louder than words.”
A cool breeze blows in from the nearby sea, causing Sigyn’s freckled skin erupt in goosebumps.
“Believe me. You don’t have to worry about winning my father’s approval. You already have it.”
“Is there truly such a man, such a father, capable of an even temper and a large heart? Would that I could erase my misplaced hostilities altogether.”
The cold does not trouble Loki; contrariwise he finds it invigorating. But Sigyn’s rosy skin beneath his palms objects. He draws her near. For all his vices, Loki’s protective instincts, which spring from a stunningly keen maternal source, are inviolate.
He winces, as, so plain-spoken, she unearths her suspicions of his true concern: that damned word, approval. Perhaps she is right. Even so …
“It’s not his approval I seek so much as his consolation. I want him to know that I … care … for him.”
A heavy exhale, and he brushes her cheek against his knuckles.
“Actions. Words are my weapons and my tools, but I shall endeavor to make some sort of unspoken gesture. At the very least, I can show him my love and my respect for you.”
Loki’s head snaps like a striking viper from the books with which he’s surrounded; when his eyes soften from their glint of malice, however, and take in Sigyn’s form, his lips falter.
“I …beg your pardon, my lady.”
The company of woman has ever soothed Loki; they are implicitly more trustworthy than any man he has known. Men trample and shout and feud; women weave and reflect and calculate carefully.
“What brings you to my quarters?”
Sigyn leaned against the door frame to his room, not actually going past the threshold unless invited in.
“You have been inside for too long,” she stated as if she knew. She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers in his general direction, an inviting smile on her lips. “Come, friend, the last days of summer are here.”
“If you have a suggestion as to a destination out of doors, and are so inclined, I would gladly join you. But it will be a visit to the deepest and oldest woodlands surrounding Asgard’s city limits: not my mother’s formal gardens.”
Loki leanly grins.
“Yet I’ve a feeling that you, Sigyn, will be untroubled by this.”
A pause, as the Trickster’s lupine features soften, and open, as deep water to the sun.
“If I have ever been … short … with you, because of … ehm, trials, which have befallen me, conditioning me to a certain severity of temperament, I must entreat your forgiveness. It is not something you deserve to be the brunt of, with your gentle and even temper, and your excellent schooling in the Seidhrs.”
@victorious-sigyn liked for a starter!
********** “What?”
Loki’s head snaps like a striking viper from the books with which he’s surrounded; when his eyes soften from their glint of malice, however, and take in Sigyn’s form, his lips falter.
“I …beg your pardon, my lady.”
The company of woman has ever soothed Loki; they are implicitly more trustworthy than any man he has known. Men trample and shout and feud; women weave and reflect and calculate carefully.
“I have done nothing of late to win your hand,” Loki observes, striding past Sigyn with playful earnest. “Don’t mistake our courtship for an instant to be over. It’s time I performed an outstanding task, to sweep my Goddess of Constancy off her feet again. A tribute to the mother of my children, hm?”
Sigyn turns around to watch her beloved walk toward her. She smiles, as she so often does at the sight of him.
“Oh, dearest, surely you know you do not need to do anything.” Above all things, Sigyn wishes Loki to feel secure in their love. She grins, matching his playful expression. “But, I could never object to your sweeping me off my feet, since the results are always so delightful.”
She takes his hands in hers,and gives them a gentle squeeze. “What did you have in mind, my dearest?”
“Nay, none of that,” Loki scolds, “as the purpose of this exercise is to orbit you, whether you may think I need to or not, for it is the recognition that I demand for you. Grant me the opportunity to make you the axis of focus for once.”
Loki lopes in long fluid strides around Sigyn, as though to demonstrate his idea as some sort of metaphysical dance. He wrings his hands, anxious for a task.
“Dream up some great feat of cunning and grace, some exercise of the mind, some … exhortation of the body to its limits, and then set me on the quest!”
“I have done nothing of late to win your hand,” Loki observes, striding past Sigyn with playful earnest. “Don’t mistake our courtship for an instant to be over. It’s time I performed an outstanding task, to sweep my Goddess of Constancy off her feet again. A tribute to the mother of my children, hm?”
Loki stands at the mouth of his lover’s Nóatún bedroom. Slender fingers demolish the single loose emerald thread dangling from his fitted vest; he is always painfully aware of his alien presence in this thriving paradise of fragrant blooms and roaring seasides, so unlike the inhospitable darkness in which his bastard hide was born.
“I … I crave your advice. I have been disagreeable and severe with your father, who is kind to a fault, on many occasions in the past. He treats me as if I’ve done no wrong, but I know better. My tongue is sharp and cruel. Tell me how I might make amends?’
icyxmischief 