I Know Places

by murdur

After taking the throne, Loki learns that Sif has been keeping a secret.

Loki has worn the Allfather's face for more than a fortnight before he first hears of it. He has been busy, preoccupied trying to calm the realm after the events of the previous few weeks. The loss of their queen, the loss of their golden prince, his own second death, the city in rubble and ruin. For a race whose existence spans thousands of years, so much change and catastrophe in such a short span of time is nearly incomprehensible, and it is days before he can even spare a thought for her.

The task of embodying his not-father is beginning to lose the excitation it first held as he sat upon the golden throne and sent Thor away, dizzy in his own cleverness and power. There had been no chances for mischief as of yet, needing to keep up the appearance of a strong leader in these times, lull the Asgardians back into a stupor. He thinks he might like calling upon her and the Bumbling Three to stand before him and face consequences for yet another bout of treason against the House of Odin. He asks one of his guards after her whereabouts while he strolls across the grounds, supervising some repairs being made to the columns near the training yards. "I would think one of Asgard's commanding warriors would be a bit more present in seeing her realm restored?"

"I assume she is with her child, my lord. I don't believe the babe is yet old enough to be weaned from his mother," the guard answers and offers to fetch the shieldmaiden.

A moment passes before Loki fully processes what the guard has said, before he feels all of the air stolen from his lungs, and he is glad he has Odin's staff to support him in that moment. "A child?" his voice is pathetically thin.

"Yes, sir."

"What do you mean?"

The Einherjar hesitates a moment. "Her son, my liege. Born in the dead of the winter past?"

"And the father?"

The guard looks mildly concerned. "She has refused to answer all inquiries of such, as far as I know, Allfather. I've heard she employs a nursemaid for assistance in the child's care when she has duties to fulfill. Although I've seen her with the babe strapped to her chest. Or left with your wife before..." He looks unsure whether he should continue.

"Ah," Loki feels a punch to his gut this time and something wars in his chest. Longing and hope, fear and dread. The Lady Sif, a mother. To whose child? Did she lie with another? Forsaking him completely, tossed aside just as he was tossed from the bridge? Did she and Thor find comfort in each other? Or perhaps they danced and rucked on his grave in celebration; he knew there was no love left for him in those final days. Not after what he'd done, what she'd done. She had forced his hand with the Destroyer, had she not? If she had only stayed...

His mind whirls and tilts. How long had he been gone from this realm, from that life and lie? It feels like decades, centuries. Surely too much time has passed for a child to have come from their dalliance. When was the last time they had lain together? The days before his fall are a blur of pain and anger. But he finds the memory he seeks and a shiver runs down his spine. The night before that cursed coronation, she had come to him, standing still as he paced the golden floors of his room. She had seen the darkness swirling in his mind and in his heart, she thought she knew his pain.

Lovely Sif, the look of acceptance in her eyes, offering empty words about purpose and character meant to soothe the burn of his father's rejection. Attempting to persuade him of his own unchanged standing in the eyes and hearts of Asgard, in hers, manifested in fingertips, tongues and lips and teeth. He had been desperate to believe her, clung to to her in a frightfully reckless way and devoured her offerings, wishing that her sentiment was enough.

But even her warmth could not drive out the coldness in his heart, rising in the morning to leave her alone in his bed while he secreted his way to Jotunheim.

Theirs had been one of darkened corridors and stolen moments. Even so, his former self was sure that he had loved her. But that part of him is dead, fallen from a bridge and left in the dirt. He is a monster without ties nor time for sentiment.

Fickle Sif, that look of acceptance, so different from the contempt hardening her eyes and her heart just days later as she kneeled before him, begging him for something he would not give. He wonders what she thinks of his true self. Would she keep a child of a beast? Does she even know?

He is hardly even aware of the guard's voice at his side again, asking after his well-being and he wonders if his face looks as stricken as he feels. With a wave of his hand he dismisses the guard, reporting that he feels the need to lie down and makes his way hurriedly to the Allfather's chambers.

The great golden doors have hardly slammed shut behind him before he reaches the west-facing balcony and shifts his magic to coat him, pulling and tugging his skin and bone and blood into sleek feathers. Loki flies as a raven, quick and clever towards that familiar cabin in the woods. The cold air he rides signals the coming of winter and there is a bite of snow in the air, but he feels it does nothing to clear his mind. His bird-heart races when the soft glow of candles lighting the window of the home's top bedroom, Sif's room, comes into view in the steadily darkening evening. Swooping down, Loki lands lightly upon the windowsill and slants his large beak to peer through the glass.

The warrior stands with her back to the glass, wearing loose pants and a simple top that are familiar to him, her bare feet padding along the floor in a slow, rocking pace. Even through the icy window pane he can hear the soft tune she hums as she spins a slow circle. It is a moment before she turns enough, and he sees her profile lit in the soft warmth of the candle light. He is struck by her beauty, peaceful and content in this quiet moment. So long has he carried her betrayal, that face hard with disdain in his heart, offered to him again with a blade to his throat just moons ago.

But now, for a moment, he is transported back to years past when he would sneak into her room in a manner similar to this. Quiet and quick, even long past the death of her father and the threat of being caught. She had made this little home her own, enjoying having her space, a place to escape to away from the clamor and cramped quarters of her warrior's room within the palace. Her own refuge that she had invited him to be a part of, and his heart pangs with the nostalgia.

He stills his ruffling feathers, watching her complete her calming circle to face the window fully, seeing she is cradling a baby to her chest. His pulse races impossibly faster at the sight. The child cannot yet be old enough to walk, yet is no longer an infant. The cheek pressed against Sif's shoulder is plump and eyes are shut peacefully in slumber. She completes another turn and bends at the waist, lowering the sleeping child softly into the bassinet standing near her own bed, murmuring quietly and Loki stares.

His talons dig into the wood of the windowsill, taking in the child with his pale skin and hair as dark as the raven wings he wears, darker still than even Sif's locks. It is incomprehensible. He wants to fly off, far away and never return. Instead he finds himself, his own true self, in a flash of green standing upon the wooden floor, back pressed to the cold window.

"Is he mine?" his voice is no more than a whisper.

In a flash, Sif has whipped around to face him, her sword, swiftly retrieved from under her bed, now leveled at him. Her stance is wide and strong, standing between Loki and the crib, but her arm wavers. He cannot look away as confusion, anger, and something he cannot place play across her face. Before it is wiped and only fire burns in her eyes. "He is mine, and mine alone."

Loki takes a hesitant step forward, his gaze shifting to the small being resting with tiny fists tucked near his pale face. Her sword wavers again when he paces once more but the blade finds his throat as she demands, "How?"

He says nothing. Before, when he blade was at his throat, he had laughed. But no laughter now.

"How? You are dead. Twice over," her voice catches and he turns his eyes to her. In only a whisper she utters, "Not again please."

Her sword drops with a clatter to the floor, and before he has time to move, her fist connects solidly with his jaw. He tumbles backwards and drops to the wooden floor in a heap.

"Does Thor know?" her voice is rage. "The Allfather?"

"The Allfather is dead," Loki confesses, the shock and strangeness of this moment, of seeing Sif, Sif, with a child leaves his Silvertongue useless to manipulate and deceive. "Or, he will be soon."

She must see the truth in his face, where he is sprawled holding his jaw and his eyes wandering back to the bassinet.

"You bastard," her voice drops low. "What did you do? What did you do to him?"

"I didn't...nothing! When I returned from Svartalfheim, I was disguised as a guard and I told him that both Thor and I had perished, that all of his family was lost. I meant to, I just wanted... But he just collapsed. I have doubts that he will awaken again, and I have worn his face since." The words tumble inelegantly, remembering dragging Odin's body to the royal wing of the palace, laying his aged body on the floor of some forgotten chamber and warding the room from intruders.

"Stealing the crown, stealing his face? Will your depravity to take the throne ever cease?"

"The throne was rightfully mine! You took it from me!" he roars now, pushing himself up to his elbows. "How many treasons have you committed against your beloved crown?"

"I have made choices for the betterment of the entire realm." Her voice is ice.

"Which is exactly what I was attempting to do," he rises from the floor and steps towards her to shout, "to rid the cosmos of its filth. To destroy those monsters!"

The room fills with ear splitting wailing, the baby waking at the commotion and Loki startles backwards. Sif takes the opportunity to retrieve her sword, her arm steady.

"Be gone from here. Or I will give you your third death, and I will make sure it sticks this time."

He stumbles again, eyes darting between her sword and the bawling child then flourishes an arm, soaring on raven wings back to the castle, his mind racing quicker than his pulse.

He prepares for her retaliation, for him to be found out, but it is nearly a week still before the Lady Sif requests an audience with the king, with the first snow fluttering from the sky. Loki braces himself when she is announced, expecting her to bring fire and fury to drive him from the throne. However, when she enters the hall, she has no army and no torches. She is alone. He cannot help to notice how quickly she kneels before him now, all hesitation gone from the years before.

"Lady Sif," Odin's voice rings across the golden hall. "What brings you to call upon the House of Odin, on a night such as this? I presumed that you would be making ready to ride out for the Wild Hunt at nightfall to welcome Yule to our lands."

He watches her warily as she stands, rising from the floor with her shoulders back and her head held high and proud. "In the spirit of such revelry and reverence at the beginning of another Yule," her voice is strong and she meets his gaze fully. "I would extend an invitation to the House of Odin, for you to visit your blood. Ullr. Loki's son."

A hum sweeps the throne room as some guards shift and murmur. He waves a hand for silence but even Loki himself is taken aback. She has come not to kill him, instead she stands before him, before others, and names him.

"Oh, dear Lady," he says in a voice that is perhaps too slippery for the Allfather. "Have you not heard? Loki is no blood of mine. No blood of Asgard at all."

Sif does not look away from his gaze. "I have heard tales of what transpired on Svartalfheim. Despite origins or ancestry, some acts, some choices can bind in ways that are stronger than flesh and blood."

"Hmm," he ponders her, her words, thinking of his mother and runs one finger across his white beard. He nods once. "Very well. I will consider your invitation."

She bends again, with her arm over her chest and leaves the room, taking Loki's breath with her.

The night is deep and dark and a thick covering of snow has fallen to blanket the realm in quiet and calm. Folding the deep red of Odin's cape around himself until it engulfs him in onyx and plume, he soars. Loki takes the form of a raven once more and makes his way west, peering down at the deep cut path leading to the small cabin with smoke rising from the chimney in the cold night air.

He waited as long as he could bear before departing the feasting halls, where Yuletide merriment was still being made inside its grand doors, celebrating the bounty of the hunt and another cycle of seasons passed. He is exhausted from a day spent in the public eye, leading ancient ceremonial traditions and rites, making his own offerings to Yggdrasil and reflecting upon the past year to commence the feast. He spent the day contemplating Sif's words, about the weight of actions and ancestry. He tried not to let his gaze linger upon her over-long, dressed in her sparkling winter gown with long sleeves. Tried not to stare as the babe was passed, happily and familiarly, between Sif and the Warriors Three, and many others along the table too. A rare enough occurrence among a near immortal people, children were, that the baby seemed to be the cause for celebration for so many. Some mix of emotions tore at Loki's chest, a deep ache, that he pushed down and turned his gaze away when Sif lifted her eyes to the High Table. Yet that ache kept calling, compelling him to her door.

Darkness swirls and he stands as Odin again upon the threshold of Sif's home. He tries to calm his pounding heart, peering back down the lane and to the glittering stars and branches above. The cabin is tucked back into a grove of tall pines, obscuring even the top of the golden palace and the bustling city surrounding it. Here there is only silence in the softly falling snow.

He knocks three quick raps on the door and it is but a moment before it is opened by the shieldmaiden. Her gaze is guarded but she steps aside, still dressed in the deep scarlet gown of the Yule feast, to let him in.

"This will occur on my terms and my terms alone, do you understand?" She lifts a finger as she closes the door behind him and he tries not to feel trapped. Loki nods silently, knowing that his words were often the quickest way to incur her wrath.

"Good. Now," she waves her hand down at the dark golds and black of Odin's outfit, "enough of this. If you're going to come to my door as an old man, I would prefer you to be atomte, leaving gifts for Ullr. Although with your own ridiculous helmet, I think you'd make a better Yule goat."

"Whose face do you wish me to wear?"

"Your own."

He wants to argue, ask her if she'd prefer his true face, the one that was unknown even to himself until not long ago, but he can see the challenge in her eyes. "There are no lies here. Know this now, I will not tolerate any mischief or misery here."

"I was under the impression that you enjoyed a certain type of my wickedness," Loki sniffs but drags his hands down his frame, melting his clothes into green and gold and slipping into the face he owned for centuries, one of pale sharpness, his hair long and curling at the base of his neck.

She leads him further inside, to the small sitting area where a fire is crackling and warmly lighting the room. The baby is there, lying on his belly and kicking happily on the gray fur pelt of a wulver, made into a rug after the beast attempted to take Sif's arm many centuries ago. The baby smiles up at his mother with a gurgling coo and looks to Loki with a curious gaze.

"Loki, meet Ullr. Ullr, your father."

The prince freezes in the doorway, staring down at the tiny creature while Sif crosses the room to a table lined with a small selection of her many weapons. She sits upon a hard chair, spreading her festive skirts and lifts a dagger, running its edge along her whetstone to sharpen and hone. She gestures with one hand to the low sofa facing the hearth, and the babe, "Sit down, Loki. No need to be afraid. He bites a bit, but he only has two teeth."

Skirting the edge of the room, Loki makes his way to the worn leather of the old couch, sitting stiffly. What does one do when they meet their secret, illegitimate child?

He tries not to wring his hands nervously in his lap, choosing instead to run his palms against the leather and cloth of his clothes and watches the baby push his chest up off the floor to better survey the visitor. Ullr. Glory. Of course a warrior would name their child such. Uncertain of what to say to a baby, he lets his eyes slide to the shieldmaiden.

"I must admit, when you came to the palace this morning, I thought you were going to reveal me."

"I did entertain the idea," Sif smiles, the sliding zing of her blade on stone punctuating her words.

"Why didn't you?"

"I'm not sure," she shrugs. "But if what you said about the Allfather is true, I don't know what good would come of it. Who would rule if I were to expose you? Thor has made his choice clear, and your mother..." she seems to lose her train of thought for a moment and Loki swallows roughly and turns his gaze to the lightly crackling fire instead. "It would be just one more confusion to throw this realm into. And our enemies need not know."

"Am I not an enemy? Did you not lock me in a cage?"

"I heard of what you did, Loki. For Frigga. Maybe I kept your secret for her. She never did lose faith in you. Maybe I did it for Ullr. It's not his fault, that things have turned out the way they have between us. He should not have to bear the burden of our mistakes. And perhaps I wanted to give him the chance to know a truth that was kept hidden from you." He can feel her eyes on him but he does not look her way. "Whatever the case, the one who wanted the throne most now has it. You haven't brought fire and ruin to this realm yet. And if you do, my promise to kill you still stands."

Loki sighs, running a hand over his face. "Lady, I am beginning to think that would be a blessing."

She eyes him, taking in the exhaustion smudged under his eyes, his face more gaunt than she can likely ever recall, and lets a smirk pull at her mouth. "Kinghood not all it's cracked up to be?"

"For a people who have been alive so many hundreds, if not thousands of years you would think they'd be more self-reliant and capable. You cannot imagine the inane and menial details they cannot seem to sort out on their own. As if a king should have time to decide which detail to inlay onto the stone of the reconstructed kitchens or -"

Loki stops, feeling the beat of tiny hands knock against his boots, grasping onto his trouser leg in an attempt to pull up. The baby has made his way, crawling and pulling on his tummy over to investigate the curious new visitor. The dark prince peers down at the child, who is looking expectantly up at him. Loki falters. What if his touch triggers something inside the child that cannot be undone? Will he turn blue? Will he hate him?

Hesitantly, he leans forward and lifts the baby under his arms, long fingers careful to rest only on the soft fabric of the deep blue pajamas, and holds the child at arms length. They stay, staring at each other, assessing. Taking in their matching raven hair and pale blue eyes, Loki bracing for the seeping of murderous red. Another moment passes under Loki's scrutinizing gaze before Ullr's face begins to crumple, bottom lip pushing out and a sob wracking his body.

Loki panics. Sif sighs. "He is tired. It has been a very busy day with the festivities and a late night visitor. He is usually long asleep by now." When Loki still does not move and the baby continues to weep, Sif's voice comes harsh. "Hold him, Loki."

Stiffly, he brings the child nearer, moving one hand under his rear with the other supporting his small back, he brings him against his own chest. Surprise at how warm the baby feels against him is mixed with the welcoming smell of a vanilla and powdery scent of lotions and something that is undeniably baby. The child fusses against the cold metal of Loki's chest plate, tiny hands moving to rub at his eyes and bat at Loki's chest. Carefully, Loki shifts the baby to lie in the crook of his arm, until they are once more staring at each other. The baby settles, his sobs dying down to half-hearted whimpers.

"Hello, Ullr." Loki's voice is hardly a whisper. Cautiously he lifts a long finger and gently taps the tip of the baby's nose, causing Ullr to blink uncomfortably up at the strange man. The baby's appearance remains unchanged. He can feel Sif's eyes upon them. She is sitting stone still, the task of sharpening her blades forgotten although a dagger is still clutched in her fist. Though, at this moment he cannot look away from the small face in his arms.

"He looks like me," he murmurs.

"Well, yes." Her voice is dry.

"But," Loki falters, a knuckle now dragging down Ullr's plump cheek. "How?"

"You seemed to know exactly what you were doing, all those nights we spent together."

"I mean," he watches the baby's lids flutter, sweeping his finger down the ridge of his nose. "He doesn't look like a..."

"A Jotun?"

"A monster."

Sif sighs. "He can be a real terror sometimes. His wailing can be loud enough to shatter glass and he can be awfully impatient and demanding. All things that I believe have been inherited from you. But no, Loki, he's not a monster."

"Why did you keep him? Knowing what I am. I didn't know you wanted this life."

"I didn't think I did. But it was just one more surprising revelation in a time that was filled with the unimaginable. And I've never been one to back down from a challenge." Her voice is fond, eyes on the small being struggling futilely against sleep in his arms.

Looking at her, face soft and loving, and at the child, innocent and vulnerable, Loki suddenly feels like an intruder, feels the weight of what carving out a place in their life would mean, resting upon his shoulders. The urge to run wells in him again. "Perhaps this isn't such a good idea."

"What your parents did was wrong, Loki. They should not have kept that secret from you. I will not subject Ullr to that same pain."

"Is that why you've never named him as mine?" Loki feels his rage boil up, and does nothing to stop it, even glad for it. Things would be easier if he just stayed away. "Your secret shame."

"It was your choice," Sif snaps, and he can see her walls slam shut to him, "to keep us a secret. Possessive thing that you were. After you fell, part of me thought I was honoring your memory in doing so, but it meant nothing more than another blow to suffer in the shadows."

She is on her feet now, weapons clattering to the table as she crosses the room. "If you do not want to be here, if you do not want to know him, fine." Bending, she takes the baby from his arms and holds him against her chest. "But that choice now rests in your hands."

Loki rises too, straightening his clothing as she leads him to the door. She sighs, pressing her lips to the baby's head and looks up at him.

"What do you want, Loki? From this, all of this?"

He pauses, looking at the child in her arms, thinking about the throne he holds and admits, "I do not know."

She sighs again. "You may come again in two days time. Wear something a little less abrasive next time."

He does return, and is invited back with each parting, again and again. He is unsure why he comes, flying to the cabin in the fading light and the growing cold. It would be easy to cast the child, his bastard, aside. Sometimes he thinks that would be the better option for the baby. Avoid an inevitable messy end. But Loki is selfish, and he cannot deny that he finds himself looking forward to the nights he is welcomed into the small cabin, to the only place he can wear his own face, use his own voice to converse and express his own thoughts.

Yet each time Sif welcomes him into her home, he cannot help but doubt that she will allow it to continue.

"Why?" he questions again, Ullr bouncing on his knee.

She looks to him, knows what he's asking and smiles. "I always did like a challenge."

"You cannot fix me, Sif." He wants her to understand desperately. He is broken and dangerous and she is a fool if she cannot see that.

"I know that. That is your own burden to bear."

"I cannot promise to be good," he looks at her again.

"Then just promise to be here," she gestures with her hand about the cabin, towards the child.

He thinks of his own childhood, of how often he was cast aside; and something inside of him claws at the chance to do better for this child, just as much as a part of him wants to burn everything to the ground in spite. That was his plan when Odin collapsed in front of him for a second time; make all of those who have wronged him and deceived him pay.

But Ullr's interest in him has no ulterior motive, just pure curiosity and acceptance. Loki finds pleasure at the look of recognition that begins to light in Ullr's eyes when he enters the room, or the way he babbles back at him, responding to his voice with a smile.

Loki realizes that Ullr is the only one who touches him, tucking his sleepy face against Loki's shoulder or holding onto his hands to stand and bounce uncoordinatedly on Loki's knees. Loki didn't realize how much he had missed it, the feeling of warmth the contact brings him. It was something he had always craved, whether he ever admitted it out loud or not; and it was something Sif had learned to tolerate, even offer freely in the past; allowing him to wrap around her, running her fingers through his hair. Now it appears that Ullr has inherited the demand, wanting to be swept up and held after a tumble or a startle, when he is overtired or he is cutting a tooth. Loki refuses to name the pang in his heart when Ullr reaches for him, crawls to him, looking for comfort. He presses his cheek to the top of his small head and he always departs feeling more grounded after a visit.

Sif is always in the room, supervising the interactions. Her demeanor towards him vacilitates, sometimes wildly. Often she is standoffish and cool, other times she joins him on the couch or the floor shaking a rattle for Ullr and warmly recounting tales from her pregnancy or Ullr's infancy that Loki did not witness.

Sometimes she lectures him, lays all of his wrongdoings before him and demands answers for the choices he made. It was after one particularly long council meeting spent discussing the happening across the realms, the whisper of Thanos and the mad titan's growing collection of Infinity Stones, and the need to fortify that the weight of his past is too big a burden to bear. Loki responded in an outburst to her needling questions, screaming that he knew how horrible he was, screaming his rage at her for betraying him, screaming at himself, all of his self-loathing, fear, and guilt overflowing in an eruption that caused furniture to skitter and topple. Loki had fled the home to the sounds of Ullr's terrified crying, and returned to their doorstep in shame and remorse days later to find him clinging to Sif in fear upon his arrival, and never had he felt more monstrous.

After that, he tries harder. To keep his voice level. To accept that Sif is and was doing what she thought was best. To accept his role in creating the need for her to make so many difficult decisions.

More often than not, he succeeds. Their conversations are now pleasant, if somewhat reserved. Sometimes, he tells her in bits and pieces of what he saw, falling and crashed through the cosmos, Thanos and his demands. There is still bickering, and that is something he would miss terribly if he was honest with himself. He always did find her the most beautiful when she was full of passion and heat. Even though he knows that door is closed to him now, he cannot help but admire her. He even decides to invite her onto his, Odin's, war council. She knows more about what is truly happening in their realm and beyond and he cannot help but appreciate her sound counsel to the "Allfather". More and more he finds himself at her door, in her presence, seeking her out.

One eve, deep into the winter with the snow piling high, he arrives at the home, and Sif beckons him inside. She has a pot simmering over the fire, and bends to place a lid on top of it before reaching for Ullr sitting propped on the fur. The child is dressed in a dark grey romper, the fuzzy sleeves and legs of it plush and warm.

"I hope you brought something a bit warmer than that," she calls to him. "Volstagg has gifted Ullr a hand-me-down." She smiles and points to the sled propped near the door.

"I cannot," he protests. What if someone saw them? It would be inappropriate for Odin to be calling upon the shieldmaiden at this hour. And would be even worse for her to be seen walking with the ghost of a traitor.

"Of course you can," she rolls her eyes and throws open the door. "When were you afraid of a little snow?"

"And who's face am I to wear?"

"Your own. The pines will be your cover, no one wanders out this far. Now come."

Loki hesitates for a moment before he motions with his seiðr to don a cloak of deep green and collared with rich fur to pull around his shoulders. Sif throws on her own shawl, lined with fur and pulls the dark navy hood over her hair, carrying the baby out into the snow, pulling his own gray hood onto his head.

Sif places Ullr onto the sled, and hands the string to Loki. He trudges forward in the deep snow and Ullr shrieks and squeals a laugh when the sled bucks into motion. Sif laughs too, walking behind the sled and something in Loki's stomach swoops. Has she truly laughed in his presence during these visits?

His feet feel light as he continues on, feeling more free and unburdened in this moment than he can recall for ages. He has not been able to show his own face outside of the cabin in a very long time. He is himself, and nothing horrible is happening because of it. A bark of laughter escapes him at the ease and openness of this night and he allows himself to join in the laughter behind him. He lifts his eyes to the dancing greens of the Northern Lights above them, and is immediately struck in the side of the head with a snowball.

He turns to see a laughing Sif placing Ullr down onto the snow, where he eagerly kicks and swats at the cold fluff. Sif's laugh is cut off as she gasps at the snowball that explodes against her temple.

She is moving towards him in a flash, hurling snow as she runs and he laughs again, bounding away to circle back towards Ullr, his cape flying out behind him.

"Sif!" he howls, her aim deadly. He waves a hand up and behind himself as she closes the distance between them. The magic shakes a great pine tree, cascading a wave of snow onto Sif just as she passes under, burying her, only her dark boots visible under the heap of white.

"Sif?" He questions, glancing toward the child still sitting happily in the snow. She does not move. Warily, he makes his way closer. He calls her name again and nudges the sole of her boot with the tip of his own. In a blinding flurry, she springs up and tackles him to the ground, shoving snow into every available opening of his clothing. He yelps, grabbing handfuls to defend himself. He flounders under her immense strength, kicking and yowling and finally does what he learned to do in such circumstances when Sif would tickle him mercilessly; he stops fighting.

"Oh come now!" She was unprepared for his surrender and his limp limbs cause her to crash down against his long form, her hands bracing in the snow near his head, where his hair looks like dark ink spilled against the startling white. "Are you truly giving up that easily?"

"I do not wish to fight you, my lady," he breathes, and there is something more true in those words than he intended.

Sif's laughter fades, her face hovers above his and her eyes watching his mouth. Looking at his liar's tongue he supposes, but he hope she hears the full truth of it. Her voice is soft but still fierce when she answers.

"Then stop running. Stop fighting. Just be here. Be home."

Home, he thinks. He wants to ask her where that is, what that is, his eyes flicking across her face.

A squeal across the small clearing snaps both of their heads around, the heavy moment dissipating between them. Ullr, it seems, has tipped over in the snow onto his back, snowflakes stuck to his eyelashes. Still his legs kick happily and he shrieks again at this new view.

Sif's face shift back to a smile and she chuckles again. She moves quickly off of Loki, offering her hand to help him stand. He accepts and they make their way towards the child, watching him inspect his own mittened hand covered in snow, bringing it to his mouth to taste.

"Having fun, little one?" she asks shivering from where she stands near the baby.

Loki tugs the gloves from his hands, pulling warmth to his palms with a soft verdant glow and runs this long hands over his body and through his hair, dissipating the cold wet snow into a soft swirls of steam. He turns to face her.

"May I?" he asks, hesitantly hovering his long hands above her own. She nods, her eyes soft.

Delicately he takes one hand into his own, carefully peeling her damp glove from her skin, and then the other. She shivers at his touch, though his hands are warm and glowing. He works the heat into her skin, massaging gentle circles and suddenly unable to look her in the eyes.

He thinks it is an odd thing, how tonight is the happiest he's been in a long time. Holding the hand of this woman he's known for ages, once an lover then an enemy, and frolicking with her child. His child. Theirs.

"Thank you," she whispers.

"No, thank you," he murmurs. He is still baffled by it all, he does not deserve this, any of it after the horrible things he has done, but he desperately cherishes it.

Slowly he moves his hands up her arms and to her shoulders. He hesitates there, but Sif does not move to stop him, her eyes locked on his own. He continues his heated path, tracing up her long neck to push his hands into her damp hair, his heart stuttering as her eyes flutter closed and her sigh escapes as a puff of steam into the night air. He bends his head, slowly, slowly, and places a soft kiss against her brow, then tilting her head to press his lips against the delicate skin of her eyelids; one and then the other. He moves to pull away but Sif has him caught by the fur of his collar and pulls him back, catching his lips with her own.

Loki does not protest, cradling her head, her face, as heat flows warmer in his glowing palms at the frantic beating of his blood. Sif sighs again and dips her hands under the fur to find his skin, touching him, holding him to her as she moves her lips smoothly against his own.

When they finally pull apart, she is smiling up at him. "Come. Let's go home, Loki."

With great difficulty, Loki pulls his hands away and bends to pick up Ullr. Part of him expected the child to turn blue in the cold of the snow, but the child is rosy cheeked and happy, nestling into Loki's warm embrace. Loki turns towards SIf as she bends to retrieve the string of the sled and walks towards them. He holds out his hand to take the rope, and instead Sif slips her hand into his own. He does not attempt to keep the pleasure from spreading across his face as they walk together through the snow.

Home.

Home, he thinks, is the cabin with Ullr. Home is her. Home is here.