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.
Grinning brilliantly.
Sigyn stopped at the top of the last flight of stairs, taking her place next to Queen Frigga, who’s calm, dignified grace stood as a direct contrast to her seemingly wild enthusiasm. Her cheeks flushed bright pink from running as she returned Loki’s wide smile.
Her gaze briefly met the bronze-clad visage of the AllFather- stern, with a hint of annoyance and disapproval glinting in his one eye. She felt its stare burn into her skull. However, she pulled her focus away from her father-in-law to greet her husband.
Sigyn reaches out towards Loki as he approaches, taking his hands in hers.
“I’m glad you are home, my dear!”
Loki’s breathy wheezes of laughter are audible before he has even reached his bride. Nevertheless he strides across Odin’s line of vision and pulls down her thick brocaded veil, to kiss, first, her forehead, and then, quite unapologetically, her rosy mouth.
“Do me a favor,” he murmurs against her lips, “absolutely never stop being exuberant about every single endeavor. It delights me to see some color in this place.”
Loki, who picks up Narvi, and drapes him over a shoulder as dawn approaches, turns silently to his wife and displays the brooch. He tilts his head and pouts with a touched maternal expression. Then he nods her toward her gift, in Vali’s grasp, with a knowing breath of laughter, tongue poking between incisors.
Sigyn looked up from the shattered remnants of a carving depicting Odin. Constancy’s hand is still glowing slightly from the magical blast of energy that had precipitated its demise. Her expression is somewhat guilty at being caught.
“…I know, dearest. I’m just so angry at him, for causing so much damage. For judging others so harshly when he knew he was guilty of far worse himself. And because he did not have to answer for any of it! I suppose when I thought about it I rather…lost control.”
“It is a strange wonder … . but as the years have passed, I have … come to feel only a vague despair when I think on my father.”
It must be true. This is the first time that Loki has referred to Odin as his parent, and not “The Allfather” or some more disparaging variant, since his fall from the Bifrost.
But he draws Sigyn’s fingers into his own, twining them, a silent act of solidarity and gratitude.
“However much forgiveness he may or may not deserve, he is dead and gone, and we yet live. That is our triumph, my 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.
“Eheh, my love…! That remark, and the expression you wear when you speak it, make me somewhat certain that you refer to activities of a licentious nature.”
Loki draws Sigyn flush against him and cards fingers down the length of voluminous auburn hair.
“Pay me no heed, I tease. But kiss me just the same, and let us make our plans.”
“Until we are both ancient joint-creaking prunes, my love?”
Loki chuckles at the notion, equally plausible and implausible, for it will be many thousands of years before they resemble anything like the elderly, and yet here she always and ever is, at his side.
He conjures sprigs of mistletoe intertwined with blossoms native of Vanaheim, or at least, their well-crafted illusion, and decks her hair.
“I shall love you constant as the evergreen, my Sigyn.”
“I shall put your soul like a new lotus blossom in my pocket and carry it ‘round with me whenever I cannot be with you. And when I can we shall walk hand in hand always. Remember this, Sigyn.”
Loki’s smile is soft and uncharacteristically indulgent.
“Sigyn, my dear friend, you make such a noble pursuit sound so easy. I haven’t been a desirable entity, within my family or our shared culture, since I was very young. More practical, and useful in terms of long-range survival, to play the role I’m dealt by those who have power over my welfare. And dearest, I am afraid that there is no such thing as freedom, in the sense of having no one in charge of your destiny. Tis better to operate within the confines of a given system, and slowly usurp it, than outright declare one’s deviation from the norm.”
Loki waits at least fifteen minutes of this elaborately crafted childish prank before “discovering it at last,” and running his long slender fingers through the glistening signature hues.
“Are my younglings paying me tribute upon this mot naughty and tricky of days?”
He flicks a wrist and the iridescent gold and green cloud cleaves in two, to descend over his sons’ heads.
icyxmischief 