~Loki’s Chambers~

Blood boiling in his veins as he stormed into his chambers, Loki twisted his wrist and the enchanted black doors slammed behind him.

He barely touched his food at dinner thanks to that aggravatingly gorgeous woman.  What had he been thinking when he requested that his mother seat Sigyn next to him?  He certainly hadn’t been using his head when he made that decision.

His nearly empty stomach growled as he grabbed a kelly green apple from an aged brass bowl atop the black wrought iron sofa table and bit into it, his jaws sending a loud crack through the dark room.  He grimaced at the tart taste and threw the rest of the fruit across the room with such force that it smashed the mirror it collided with.  At the sound of shattering glass, the large sleeping black wolf that was sprawled across the fireplace rug lifted his huge head to glare at his master.  He glared right back, lips pressed into a thin line, jaws clenched.

“Sorry, Fenrir,” he mumbled, the words so low that even the beast, with his superior ears, leaned closer to hear the apology, cocking his head to the side and blinking at him, as though asking what happened?

He squatted next to his beloved wolf and hung his head.  If there was anyone that he felt he could speak to, completely uninhibited, it was Fen, who understood and empathized, wordless though he was.  The fact that he couldn’t spill Loki’s secrets didn’t hurt either.  Even Frigga, in all her gentle motherly love and leadership, had proven to be an unworthy confidante at times.

Nothing more than a boy, Loki was playing tag with Thor and his friends in the palace halls.  Concerning himself with not getting tagged, he found his way to the servants’ wing.  Atop a plain wooden table sat a beautiful bouquet of flowers.  They smelled as sweet as they looked.  Reds, oranges, purples created a fiery sunset blooming.   Stealing them for his mother, he quickly ran in the direction of the queen’s chambers.  

Thor charging around the corner, of course, caught him. “I thought we were playing tag?  And here you are collecting flowers like a girl!  You’re it now, little girl!” Thor laughed and made to run away but Loki grabbed him by his sleeve, and when it ripped, the older brother turned red with anger.

            “I didn’t mean to, Thor!” Loki cried as the blond boy punched him hard in his gut causing him to drop the flowers and double over in pain.   Thor was powerfully built even as a child, and Loki bore the brunt of his, mostly, playful violence.

            “What are you doing with these stupid stems anyway?” Thor reached a hand to Loki and helped him to his feet, regretting his actions at the sight of his little brother’s skinny frame hunched over.  

            “They’re for Mother. I found them, and she will love them.” Loki smiled proudly as he swiped the buds back up and held his stomach, wincing slightly. 

            “She won’t want them if you stole them.”   Thor sniffed at a blossom and scrunched his nose. “They stink.”

            “They do not! And she won’t know where they came from anyway.”   Loki turned and skipped in the direction of the queen’s chambers with Thor hot on his heels.

            “I’m going to tell her that you took them.” With that, Thor grabbed the bouquet and ran to their mother’s rooms.

When Loki caught up to his brother, Thor was already handing the flowers to Frigga.

            “He stole them! I saw him!”

Frigga looked at Loki, a disappointed expression spreading across her elegant features, as he held his head low.   He only wanted to give her something pretty.   Who cared where it had come from?  What did servants need them for anyway?   In his mind, he did nothing terribly wrong.   His mother dismissed her eldest and called Loki to sit with her, discussing the usual “don’t take what isn’t yours” and “the ends don’t justify the means” lectures that he’d been given before.

            “Do you not like them at all, Mother? I thought you would because they are so pretty…like you.” His eyes glistened, waiting for her response, hoping for some semblance of affirmation, of appreciation.

            “I do, my love,” Frigga said, hugging him tightly.

He left feeling whole, complete, loved, but when he received the same lecture, albeit in a far sterner manner, from Odin at the night meal, Loki looked at his mother.   She kept her eyes on her husband as he fought back tears.

Loki stopped the memory dead in its tracks.  It was, perhaps, a silly thing to feel betrayed over, but it was just one of countless others he kept pushed at the back of his mind.  He loved his mother, and she loved him, even if she’d shared some things with his father that he wished she hadn’t.  His mother wasn’t perfect, but she was still the anchor in his constantly storming sea every time he was reminded of his strained relationship with, well, everyone.

His unseeing gaze wandered from the flames to the ceiling, mouthing “why” as he shook his head.  He’d hoped that Sigyn would be a new confidante, a true companion.  He rolled his eyes.  Obviously, he wanted her in his bed, too.  Looking around his room, he chewed his lip.  He also wanted her on his desk.

…and bent over the back of that chaise lounge.

…and up against his shower wall.

Damn.  It.

The line between his brows deepened as he scratched the back of his neck.  It seemed he’d lost those options already.  Fenrir laid his heavy head on his leather clad thighs.  How had he let this night go to Hel?  Her once wanton thoughts had become anger-filled within the span of a few seconds.  Why had he been so arrogant?  Just how fragile was his ego?  All because the green dress wasn’t for him.  Really?  What was it he’d said to her, in all his idiocy?

You’re no match for me.

What an incredible lie.  She absolutely was his match, and he could not lose her over something so unbelievably petty.  For pity’s sake, she was a sorceress, and a dark one at that.  He didn’t just want her, he needed her.

His mother’s voice sounded in his headー “There’s a young Vanir woman arriving today, Loki, and I think you will like her very much.”

He snorted, unamused.  Hadn’t that been the understatement of the century.  Was it possible that she didn’t feel the same?  He shook his head.  No, he was certain she wanted him.  Running a hand through his hair, he closed his eyes.  Did he really care how she felt?  With the way he was responding to this situation, clearly all that mattered was that he still wanted her, desperately so.  Hel, he was already losing his mind over her, and he’d only known she even existed for about five hours.

What in Odin’s name is WRONG with me?

He stroked Fenrir’s head before pulling himself to his feet.  The glowing green flames in the fireplace mocked him with their dancing, and he snuffed them out with another flick of his wrist.  His usually comforting dark chambers were suddenly stifling as an odd sense of claustrophobia settled over him. 

Sigyn had a magnetic effect on him, an effect which he was not prepared to handle.  Never in his nine hundred years had he wanted a woman so…. obsessively.  Again, after only a measly five hours.  He knew he was being beyond petulant—a child given a toy during Yule only to have his mother take it away the same night for not playing with it nicely.

Not that he considered Sigyn a toy, but he did want to play with her.  From the second she shot a glare at his brother in the throne room, Loki saw how dangerous she was, and that (combined with obvious physical appeal) made him want to drag her away with him and live up to his mischievous reputation.  Removing his black topcoat and armored breastplate, leaving only his black and green leather tunic, he left to lose himself in the only place no one would bother him.

---

~The Royal Library~

So much for no one bothering him.  He’d not had fifteen minutes to himself before he heard the familiar heavy footfalls of his brother.

“Loki?” Thor used his best version of a library voice.  Not that there was anyone else within the hall to scold him. “Brother, please?  I barely saw you in the dining hall.  Father spoke of politics at me the entire meal, and when he finally released me, I saw my brother storming out early.”

Sadness enveloped his tone, and Loki could not continue in his favorite hiding spot among the rafters.  His brother’s pain was his pain, and he would not endure it willingly.  He suffered enough on his own.

“I’m up here.” He spoke from his makeshift seat atop the cherry plank, his long legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, his back leaning on the vaulted ceiling.  

He closed the book he’d pulled from the shelf.  Midgardian poetry was oddly beautiful despite his lack of respect for the humans.  That said, it was foolish to read such romantic words in his current despairing mood.  Closing his eyes, he recited a passage from memory.

“I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare. (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)  Is it perfume from a dress? That makes me so digress?” ¹   

Sigyn’ s face (and that gorgeous not for his benefit dress) came to mind.  He wanted to feel her arms and be close enough to smell her neck.  He had been so close at dinner, then he of course screwed it up.  Reading this romantic shit was not helping his mood.

“Doing a little light reading for the evening, I see,” Thor said with a small smile, his voice softening further as he stared up at the musing black-haired prince.  

Loki shot a glare at him, quoting another line from the poem. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”¹

Perhaps he truly would have been better off if he’d been born as a lobster.  Hanging his head, he sighed.  His brother climbed gracefully, impressive for his size, up to the same perch and hurled himself over the rafter.  Straddling the thin plank, boots hanging off the edge, Thor swung his legs slightly as he peered at his dark brother.  

Loki stared daggers. “Don’t ask.”

“I wasn’t going to.” Thor put his hands up as though admitting defeat. 

Leaning his head back, Loki sighed heavily. “That woman.”

Those two words were all he could manage as he pulled his hand down his face.  This woman rendered him speechless.  It baffled him.   No one rendered him speechless.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brother throw his hands up and hang his head.

“Really, Loki?  Now that Vanir girl is on the receiving end of your scorn as well?  You just met her!”

Turning his head sharply, Loki snapped, “I know that!”

Balancing the book on his thighs, he looked sideways and crossed his arms.  Thor played with the fabric of his cloak, pulling at an imaginary thread.  He worried for his younger brother.  Loki needed to get a hold of his over-the-top emotions if he were to be Thor’s highest advisor when the throne passed to him.

After all, how could he rule Asgard without his brother at his side?  He was cunning and far superior in his intellect.  Even if he could find a way to bring and sustain peace within the realms without Loki’s diplomatic skills, it wasn’t what he wanted.  He didn’t want to do this alone.  His love for the man brooding across from him was enough to break him.  He would die for his brother, not a second’s consideration needed.

Loki slid the book just inside the waistband of his breeches and jumped down with ease, feet landing squarely beneath him.  He barely noticed Thor’s boots thudding softly on the floor behind him.  Walking in circles around one of the many fire pits in the hall, he ran a hand through his raven black hair and groaned.

“Sigyn is not responding as I’d hoped,” he admitted, then rolled his eyes. “Well, she had been until…”

He let the sentence trail off as the memory of that horrible display with Fandral, of all people, flashed across his vision.  Gods, she all but stuck a knife in him and twisted the blade within the wound when she walked off with that vapid blond cretin.

He rolled his eyes again.  This was ridiculous.  What sort of god of mischief didn’t like a sharp tongue?  A clever retort?  Seriously, what was wrong with him?  Maybe he’d been pursued so often himself that he’d forgotten how to pursue.  More likely, he so often shielded his heart that he’d forgotten he had one.  Well, tonight Sigyn proved that it still beat within his chest.  He was not the cat, and she was most certainly not the mouse.

Sighing, Thor ran a hand through his blond locks. “What did you expect her to do?  Should she have just crawled into your lap on the spot?  I know you asked mother to place the girl next to you.”

He put his hand on Loki’s shoulder only to have it shrugged off.  His jaw clenched at the hostility rolling off his brother.  It mattered not who or what had upset him.  Thor was always on the receiving end of the man’s wrath.  Perhaps it was because, as brothers, they had no need for pretense between them, thus giving their emotions free rein because of that same blood that flowed through their veins.  However, that shared blood slithered black through Loki.  Something was off within him that Thor never could pin down, and he sometimes thought they were not brothers at all.

Voice dripping with sarcasm, Loki rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, did Mother tell you, then?  Or did the mighty Thor seek out the seating chart himself?  She can’t keep anything from you.”

He had to rid himself of this incessant unworthy feeling.  It was killing him.  He’d felt it throughout his childhood.  His father had given his brother preference in everything.  Thor had the better tutors, the more skilled trainers, the benefit of the doubt even when the so-called “golden” prince hadn’t deserved it, the shorter lectures…. the fucking hammer.

Teeth clenched and eyes pinched together at the thought of Mjölnir, his seiðr rushed out of his extremities in a glowing green light, and he kicked powerfully at a plush reading lounge, its heavy brass frame flying into a nearby bookshelf.  Beautiful leather-bound pages scattered across the floor along with the feathers that had been encased in the now shredded fabric of the seat.

Thor’s voice cracked imperceptibly.  “Mother adores you, Loki, and you know it.  Remember that Midgardian bard?  She used to recite his sonnets to us at bedtime. ‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks but bears it out even to the edge of doom.’ ² She taught you that, and you’d do well to remember it.” Loki’s despair was his Achilles’s heel.  Keeping his wits about him became damn near impossible when his little brother behaved so hopelessly.

Exasperated, Loki dragged both hands down his face. “Why must you always come after me in the manner of a shepherd on the trail of his lost little lamb?  Just leave me be, Thor!”

He bent down, removing the shining silver dagger that he kept faithfully sheathed in his right boot, and slammed it point down onto the closest cherry wood reading table, one of hundreds scattered throughout the hall.

Lips in a thin line, Thor crossed his arms. “I can’t imagine that Lady Sigyn did anything so horrific to deserve this kind of response.”

Steadying himself in preparation for the coming onslaught of piss and hate, Thor squatted low, barely escaping the body bending pain of his brother’s magic, as the green light shot out from Loki’s hand.  Thor pulled Mjölnir from his belt, and seeing the hammer, Loki closed his eyes and sheathed his knife.  Returning to his full height, Loki swallowed back the frustrated growl that wanted to escape from his throat.  Why was he letting her get to his head like this?  

“You’ve no idea what took place in that hall.”

Thor hung the hammer once more on his belt and rubbed his eyes, exasperated.

“She was toying with you, Loki.” His baby brother was exhausting him with his sarcasm and bitterness, and for all his intelligence, was also being impossibly dense. “Can you not see that?  You will lose her, that is, if you haven’t lost her already.”

He didn’t wait for Loki to respond, only sparing him one last look of concern before turning away from the seething glare etched into his brother’s features and exited the library silently.  Loki climbed back to his rafter perch.  Sighing, he slumped over and pulled the book from his waistband.  It was a relief no one was there to see his pathetic display of emotion.  He would have been humiliated.  Remembering the words on the page, having put them to memory long ago, his lids fell shut as he whispered them to himself.

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.  I do not think that they will sing to me.  I have seen them riding seaward on the waves.  Combing the white hair of the waves blown back.  When the wind blows the water white and black.  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea.  By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown.  Til human voices wake us, and we drown.”³

---

~Two Hours Later, The Training Fields~

Head down, Thor stomped across the wide snow-laden path that led to the arena.  His attempt to comfort or understand his brother had failed, once again, miserably.  Anger was brewing within him steadily, starting at the middle of his chest and moving outward in all directions.  He’d tried to brush it off, and just go to bed, but his sheets had been absolutely stifling, so, now here he was, desperate to push the extreme ire out of his body and into dozens of training dummies with thousands of punches.  Brooding tended to make him more than a little hot under the collar, which most likely explained why he didn’t mind the frigid air currently stinging his eyes.

The moons were mere slivers of light, but when he looked up, he could still make out the shape of something straight, thin, and black zipping through the air on the other end of the arena.  The thing, which as his eyes adjusted to the dark, was an arrow (was that smoke trailing behind it?) embedding itself into one of many practice-dummies the warriors used for archery practice.  Within the span of five seconds, ten more followed, each splitting the previous one in two.  

Amazed and in awe of such skill, he turned his gaze to the small shadowy figure wielding a longbow, that was clearly not of Asgardian make.  Eyes widened in shock, he ducked at the sudden change in posture of the small dark warrior, and with an audible whoosh, an arrow slammed into a pole only three inches in diameter of the fence that formed the boundaries between the four separate fields right at his back.  The wood splintered just as his chest would have if he’d remained standing.  He resumed his posture cautiously as the figure grew closer, running directly at him.

Who else would be out here at this either extremely late (or extremely early) hour?  He had no time to guess as the figure came clearly into his vision and stopped short.  Storm cloud eyes bore into him as she lowered the lithe and gracefully curved longbow so that it hung to her side, brushing against the dark green silk of her skirt.  

Sigyn?  She wore no cloak, no coat, no outer protection from the icy wind that whipped about them.  Her dress swished about her, and her long black hair spun around her face as a gust blew across the expansive field.  Seeing her now, in all her wild, dark, dangerous beauty, he could see why Loki was so deeply affected by her, even within a ridiculously short period of time.  He’d never known his brother to have a type, but if Thor could have imagined Loki’s dream girl, it would have been this woman.  The dark clouds above seemed to descend upon them as they glared at each other, and a soft layer of snow formed on the dead grass under their feet.  Thor broke the silence that overwhelmed the ten feet separating them, a deep chasm that he had no intention of falling into.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

Deep frown clouding her lovely features, she shrugged.

“I’ve always found violence to be the best remedy for sleeplessness.” She turned her gaze to the hammer in his fist and back up to his face. “I think perhaps you believe the same.”

A genuine smile broke across his face, and he held up a finger.

“Violence that doesn’t hurt anyone,” he clarified, to which she shrugged and nodded. “I think perhaps our sleeplessness stems from the same root,” he added.  

The black smoke that had first shown in the throne room, formed at the hem of her dress, and she once again fisted her hands.  Thor gave her an empathetic half smile.  Loki had hurt her.  Badly, from the looks of it.  What had that idiot brother of his said to the poor girl?

“Whatever he said,” Thor whispered, daring a step forward as she stood still, eyes not leaving his, “I promise you, Lady Sigyn, he did not mean it.”

She merely shook her head, still staring at him, but not seeing him.  Her eyes glazed over as a pair of emerald eyes set in a sharply carved pale face framed with the blackest hair flashed across her vision.  The angry tears on her cheeks froze as the temperature dropped further, and her face crumpled shamefully.

“I should hate him,” she said and ran a thumb under her eye then offered him a weak shrug. “But I can’t.”

Thor’s heart broke in mutual understanding, and he crossed the distance between them in two steps, wrapping his strong arms around her.  She started at the sudden physical contact, but he did not release her.  The dislike she’d had for the golden prince from the moment he’d hurled that insult at her in the throne room faded somewhat under his kind embrace.

Thor stepped back to look her in the eyes. “It’s as exhausting as it is impossible to hate him.  Believe me.  I know that better than anyone.”

---

~Same Time, The Royal Library~

Loki awoke on his library perch.  He had fallen asleep with his head bent to the side, resting on his shoulder, and it had left a terrible pain in his neck.  Rubbing the ache, he stood from the rafter.  It was still dark out, and the torches in the room had been snuffed out, he guessed by palace servants, while he’d been asleep.

The moons cast a silvery glow through the arch window, and he crossed the wooden plank to admire them.  The moons had a way of reminding him how small he was in this universe, and thus how small his problems were, which was incredibly comforting when he was overwhelmed.  And if ever he’d been overwhelmed, it was now.  The library stood at one end of the palace and faced west.  There was little to see from the window other than the training arena which was currently unoccupied and covered in a new layer of snow.

Wait….

Cocking his head to the side, he jumped to the window ledge and squinted his eyes for a better look.  At least, at this hour, it should have been unoccupied.  The dim light from the hazy moons fell, showing very clearly, a tall broad figure with a blond head and a hammer swinging at its side, but the figure was not alone.  No. No. No.  He had to be hallucinating.  He wished he were hallucinating.

Walking next to the man, shoulders covered with his brother ‘s red cape, was a woman, a good head shorter than him, with long black hair.  Heart sinking, angry tears building, Loki’s stomach churned as he watched the scene in horror.  The blond man was draping his arm around her waist and pulling her close.  Pulling Sigyn close.

Jaw clenching, Loki’s eyes blew wide.  What was this?  Had not an hour passed since the man walking across the field below had been in the library, seemingly so concerned for the happiness of his younger brother?  And now Thor was taking the one thing that Loki wanted and claiming her for himself?

He went numb.  He wanted to look away, but apparently, he was a masochist, and he continued to stare in shock at what appeared to be a love scene playing out before his eyes.  He didn’t want to truly destroy anything, but his magic had a mind of its own, swarming around him, bathing him in the eerie neon green light of his powerful seiðr, and sharp deep cracks wove a jagged web across the plate glass window, twenty feet wide and twice as tall at the tip of the arch, before exploding violently, heavy shards of the glass crashing loudly in the garden below.  The pair in the arena heard the sound (who wouldn’t have?) and parted, staring at the empty space where the window had been.

Loki watched as Thor shook his head and finished the trek across the arena in solitude.  The other figure removed the red cloak and stilled herself, facing him, her moon lit eyes meeting his as the wind whipped his hair about his face.  Unable to hold her gaze any longer, he turned away, jumping back to his rafter and down into the dark hall where his magic had left nothing but broken fragments of furniture and pages of books hurled in all directions across the massive space, all the while hearing her quietly saying his name into the frozen wind.

SOURCES: 1 Loki is quoting stanza 11, line 73 of poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot. 2 Thor quotes lines 11 and 12 from “Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare. 3 Loki quotes stanzas 17-20, lines 124-131  of “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot (1920)