Chapter Text
Dawn had not so much arrived as infiltrated in an amber diffusion through the mullions and sundered stone. It oozed into the wreckage like resin over a carcass, catching on the serrated edges of collapsed lintels and the charred embroidery of tapestries long since blackened by fire.
The manor, once a bastion of symmetry and sanctum, now lay in an architectural autopsy: roof ribcage gaping, beams flayed open like tendon beneath a wound.
Thor had alas left, his distant footsteps now echoing through the marbled nave before stillness reasserted its sovereignty.
Sif remained seated statuesque in posture, but far from composed after her conversation with the crown prince.
“For all my brother’s surreptitiousness, I feared he would never find it in himself to trust another with his heart...and I feared, just as greatly, that you would never allow yourself to receive what has always been freely offered.”
Somewhere in the wreckage, the wind produced a dissonant melody, equal parts breath and lament.
The day couch, an antique more accustomed to court gossip than battlefield detritus, gave a weary creak as she shifted. One hand curled reflexively around her side where bandages bloomed like pallid petals beneath her armor.
Beside her, Loki slept on completely undisturbed.
He lay in hypnotic collapse, spine curled in on itself, as though sleep had found him mid-confession and refused to let go. One arm inert, draped across her waist with dark, unruly locks handing over his brow in ruin.
The collar of his tunic had been tugged askew in sleep, exposing a glimpse of clavicle and the mottled discoloration of bruises on his chest like watercolor bleeding across vellum. His repose was not gentle; it was utterly spent. The kind of sleep born from catastrophic expenditure; both psychological and physical.
How many times had she wondered what he looked like unmetabolized by performance, nor masked in sarcasm and weaponized by aloofness?
Only once before had she seen him like this.
They had been adolescents then, still padded with invincibility. She remembered the flicker of the fire casting ginger and garnet along Fandral’s grin, all the while Volstagg’s prosperous jests and Hogun’s snickers became lost in the wind.
Loki had been reserved for most of the evening, taut with vigilance. He had conjured the flame they all gathered around and early filtered the glacial stream into drinkable water when the barrels were spilled during their skirmish with the Nykur.
However his efforts were not done without a cost.
By the time their food was charred and passed around on wooden trenchers, Loki was slumped over by the firepit with an untouched plate still in his lap, head bowed like a wilted flower.
He had been the first to fall asleep, though clearly on accident.
His cheeks were rosy-pink from expending his seiðr, his disheveled black curls fell into his lashes, and his leine hung open at the collar, revealing a pale collarbone and the glisten of sweat along his neck.
He looked… youthful, serene, and dare she admit it…handsome in a way that startled her.
The others had giggled behind trenchers and bedrolls at the princeling who’d fought so hard, only to be undone by his own exhaustion. Thor had joined them at first, chuckling as he pointed to his brother’s sagging head and mumbled, “He sleeps as if cursed.”
But then he had gone quiet and without a word, he dug through his travel sack and fetched a spare blanket. Then draped it over Loki’s narrow shoulders and ruffled his sibling’s curls with a fondness that nearly made Sif’s heart ache.
His lashes fluttered like wings testing the air. Then slowly, those green irises previously veiled by sleep but unmistakably lucid, revealed themselves once more. He blinked once, then again, recollection sliding into place behind his gaze.
“…Sif?”
“You’re awake,” she said softly.
He didn’t reply immediately, just allowed his gaze to drift to the fractured ceiling, to the parabola of dust, then at their hands; or more specifically, hers resting on the curvature of his wrist.
“…Of all the places to wake,” Loki murmured.
Sif leaned in as if to kiss the nape of his neck just below his ear, before the bellowing of Thor and Volstagg permeated from the opposite end of the manor and startled her.
“We should go,” she hurriedly whispered instead, “They’ll be expecting us.”
Loki gave a fractional nod, though his posture didn’t follow suit. The tension in his brow had merely retreated, like a tide before the next wave.
Still, with a kind of reluctancy, he sat up and rolled his shoulders once, then arose.
His armor lay across the room in a state of disassembly; greaves, bracers, chest-plate; all cast off with the indifference of someone who had finally relinquished pretenses. Beneath them he wore only a linen undershirt and charcoal trousers, both crumpled and scarred by soot and oil.
Sif’s gaze lingered on him as he moved like tension waiting for a trigger, his every joint engineered for evasion.
He briefly looked over his shoulder and caught her staring.
Naturally.
Though he didn’t jest, just offered a small, unreadable curve of the mouth before turning to retrieve a shoulder guard.
Sif then remembered his cloak, tattered at the hem and smudged with blood still around her body. She at once unsnapped the buttons and extended it without a word.
“Keep it,” Loki said.
Sif’s brows lifted slightly in surprise, but she accepted it. The cloak was weighty and still fragrant with iron and burnt resin…and him.
Once suited in his armor again, Loki gave an exaggerated, yet gallant bow, somehow devoid of irony.
“I’ll leave you to dress,” he murmured shyly, before disappearing into the corridor beyond.
Loki traversed the fractured corridor in silence, the ambient chill seeping into his skin as if to leech away the heat still clinging to his flushed face and the throbbing ache in his sternum.
Children darted barefoot across the shattered tiling, their laughter a melodic counterpoint to devastation. It was fragile yet simultaneously irrepressible, like birdsong stitched through storm-drowned rafters. Near the ivy-entwined columns, the Warriors Three had assembled in loose formation. Bandages hung clean and makeshift satchels bulged with salvaged provisions.
Thor stood at the axis of it all radiating equilibrium, the kind that dared the world to flinch first.
Until his gaze landed on Loki.
“Well, well,” Thor called out, his voice curling with irrepressible amusement, “The last of the sleeping lions stirs from his lair.”
“I...I was merely gathering my things while clearing my head,” Loki replied with studied nonchalance, reaffixing his half-fastened pauldron in a flick of polished muscle memory.
Fandral quirked a brow, “An entire hour after the rest of us? Must be quite the labyrinth you wandered.”
“An epic in tangles,” Volstagg boomed, laughing as he leaned his considerable weight into the haft of his axe.
“I imagine Loki’s thoughts are always tangled,” Hogun offered in his usual basalt-dry tone.
Loki’s lips pressed into a thin, unreadable line.
“Oh, he’s in rare form today,” Fandral smirked.
Thor stepped forward, “We were starting to suspect the ruins had claimed you.”
“They nearly did,” Loki said, brushing flecks of masonry from his sleeve with a gesture more ceremonial than practical. “Splinters in the upholstery, mildew in my lungs…”
Thor grinned a sharp-toothed, unrepentant grin, the kind that made trouble look like a gift to which a vein began to bulged above Loki’s brow nervously.
Thor then nodded toward the children now gathered around Volstagg, who was distributing dried fruit like a benevolent chieftain.
Before silence could grow teeth, Fandral wandered over, two water-skins swinging from his fingers, “For you, my prince,” he said brightly, “Hydrate before you ossify into melancholia.”
Loki accepted one without commentary.
Fandral was never one to leave an opening, so continued, “I must admit, you’re, dare I say… mellowed?”
“I am not mellowed,” Loki muttered.
“Mmm,” Fandral hummed still unconvinced.
From a pillar, Hogun added, “Scowl any harder, and your skull might fracture from the strain.”
Thor chuckled, “Leave him be.”
Volstagg rejoined the group, wiping his palms on his tunic, “Time’s narrowing Lads, the scouts will descend soon, and the All-Father awaits a debrief from his champions.”
“Champions,” Loki echoed, glancing down at his dirt-streaked sleeves, damp with sweat, “Do we look like heroes?”
Thor clapped his shoulder firmly yet fondly, “You look like survivors, that itself is enough.”
It was then that the door behind them creaked opened and Sif entered.
Thor cheerfully greeted her first, “Lady Sif,” he intoned with mock gravity, “you honor us with your punctuality.”
“I wasn’t aware you’d been named steward of the hourglass,” she returned smoothly, though a faint smile played at the edges of her mouth.
Thor cleared his throat in an attempt to hide his amusement, “While the scouts are coming to assess the ruins, I imagine Father will want a full report.”
“…and you’ll deliver it?” Sif asked in an arched tone.
Thor exhaled as if the very idea wearied him, “As ever, the burden of being beloved.”
Loki muttered, “Self-anointed.”
Thor ignored him.
The company soon dissolved into movement, set off to pack the remainder of their belongings. Thor sought off to follow them, but not before casting one final smirk over his shoulder at Loki.
Across the highlands, sleek silver vessels crested the far clouds, descended in v-formation toward the scorched hills.
The scouts were here.
The lead ship descended in a practiced swoop, its hull catching the morning sun. Dust scattered along the manor’s stone path as the vessel settled, its underbelly hissing open with a soft thrum of magic.
From within emerged the first scout, followed swiftly by a cluster of golden-armored Einherjar.
Then behind them…Odin Allfather approached.
He stepped from the ship with a commanding air, Gungnir gleaming in one hand, with Huginn and Muninn circling high overhead. The moment he set foot upon the earth; silence fell like snow.
Thor moved to greet him first, every bit the dutiful heir, but Odin raised a hand to pause him, his good eye scanning the group, then surprisingly it first landed on Loki.
“…My son,” Odin said.
Loki blinked in surprise at the acknowledgement, “Father.”
Odin stepped forward, but there was no fury in his gaze, only something that imitated respect.
“I am told,” Odin said firmly, “that you saved Lady Sif’s life.”
Loki’s jaw tightened and Odin’s eye flicked to Sif, who stood just a pace beside him.
“How fare Yee Lady Sif?”
“I fare as one does after battle, my king,” Sif replied steadily, bowing her head.
Odin studied her a moment longer, then with uncharacteristic softness, he added, “Your parents have been beside themselves. The Queen sent word to them as soon as we received an update about your condition.”
Sif’s throat bobbed, “Thank you, your highness.”
Then, turning once more to Loki, Odin spoke again even lower, meant only for his younger son, “You have done well.”
The words settled strangely like cold water over a burn. So rare were they from his father’s lips that for a heartbeat, Loki wondered if he imagined them.
The Hall of Concordia was cloaked in perfumed smoke and murmurs of diplomacy, where elder jarls and titled lords and platters of harvest-fruit lined the trestle tables as the convocation unfolded.
Loki had been seated near the periphery, his presence tolerated more than welcomed, “A prince, aye, but an untested one,” they'd whispered.
Then came a strangled, grotesque croak that silenced the room more effectively than any gavel. Lord Erik, the venerable Keeper of the Northern Sentinels, had slumped forward, with a reddened face as he clawed at his throat. A single grape had somehow lodged itself in his windpipe.
The gathered nobles froze, looking horrified and helpless. Healers darted too slowly from their distant corners. Even the Allfather remained momentarily statue-still, but Prince Loki moved.
He was up in an instant, crossing the patterned stones, “Make room!” he commanded and instantly several startled lords parted before him.
Erik collapsed backward and the adolescent Loki caught him by the shoulders. With care, he wrapped his arms around the jarl’s broad torso and thrust upward, beneath his ribcage.
Once. Then twice.
Until at last, there was a sickening lurch.
There was then a wet gasp as the grape shot free, bouncing off the Chancellor’s scroll with a dishonorable plop. Lord Erik coughed violently, sputtering as his lungs awakened to breath once more.
Loki steadied him, guiding the older man back against the carved chair with a quiet, “Easy now.”
A stunned silence followed.
He could feel the eyes of the entire council upon him, yet he didn’t look up. His hands were trembling faintly, “I learned that maneuver from Algrim,” he murmured to no one in particular. “He taught me how to speak to the lungs through the body, when breath forgets its path.”
At last, Odin’s voice broke the hush: “A swift mind, and a steadier hand.”
The compliment was addressed to the chamber. However, for one heartbeat, Loki allowed himself to believe it was actually meant for him.
Now, that same man stood before him, offering words he had once begged for in silence. Before Loki could respond, Odin had already moved onward and continued toward the other warriors clustered nearby.
The moment shattered when Thor elbowed Loki lightly in the ribs, “Look at that,” he whispered, grinning, “He didn’t even yell at you. How historic, little brother”
“He’s probably saving it for later,” Loki muttered under his breath.
Soon, the manor emptied, and voices faded as the final survivors boarded. Then, at last, only the main party remained.
Odin stood at the base of the ramp, looking over them all.
“It is time.”
Sif turned slightly, catching sight of a streak of ash smudged faintly along Loki’s jaw. Without thinking, she reached up, thumb poised to sweep it away.
But Loki caught her wrist before she could touch him.
His grip was gentle, not brusque, yet it still stopped her.
Surprised, Sif blinked then withdrew her arm away, gaze flickering with astonishment she concealed quickly.