"Can you see him?" I ask, looking out over the broken edge of the rainbow known as Bifrost. "Where he has gone?"
Heimdall does not answer for long moments. He holds a stillness I have only ever known him to be able to achieve, seeming not even to breathe. I know his senses range far across the realms, throughout the Nine Worlds and beyond, from my own Vanaheimr to Svartalfheimr, but I do not know if he can see where Loki has fallen.
"I see him," Heimdall says, his deep voice threading into my reverie seamlessly. If any here know my plans, it would be he, but he is the last who would prevent me, as well.
"How far?"
"Very far."
I close my eyes. They are green, but not green like Loki's. My eyes are the golden green of sunlight through new leaves. Loki's eyes are shadowed forest pools.
If it sounds as though I love him, it is true. I do. I have. I will.
He speaks of being in his brother's shadow, always - although light is my nature as lightning is Thor's, I always followed Loki's shadow. No - these Midgardian metaphors are difficult. I shadowed him, from afar. No - I cannot make this clear. Only listen, and you will see.
I close my eyes, and leap.
I don't know what to expect. Perpetual falling, down the star-streams of night? Immeasurable squeezing, down the wormholes through the fabric of space-time? Will it hurt?
It is a bit like both. It does hurt, but it is not the physical pain I expected. It is a pain of separation, of absence; something is deeply iwrong/i. I carom through the universe, bouncing and spinning and whirling; stars pass me by, or I pass them by, in groups and clusters and galaxies, and ahead of me on the shrieking of the stellar winds I can hear Loki.
Screaming.
Endlessly.
I give chase; no more aimless drifting and slipping but movement with purpose, strand by strand from star to star.
This is agelessly familiar; I have always followed him. Our youthful pranks were always led by him, though I suppose I did my fair share of enabling. Once we switched Volstagg's favourite spices for Hogun's mother's super-hot spices, then replaced all the kegs with solid blocks of wood (I ached for a week after, but, oh, was it worth it). We tricked Sif into shaving her head, we hid the spear Gungnir, we lured Fandral into an assignation with a svartalfr, we turned Hogun's mace into a bouquet of roses. We spiked all the tobacco with explosive powder.
We learnt to fight together.
Loki only ever let me see him after a bout with Thor once. He tried so hard to be what he thought Odin's son should be. His body was bruised, his mouth bloody, but his eyes ... oh, his eyes were full of frustration. But Loki was ever private with his pain, and his heart was already guarded.
He had yet to learn that you cannot guard from what is already within you. As I was.
Sif and I were young girls together, almost before she ever conceived the thought of a warrior maiden. As her first steps with sword and staff, shield and bow, so mine with speech and spell, song and gesture. And so my meeting with Loki.
From the first, no other could match his skill. I imagine, as I fall, that some now say that should have been a clue to his true heritage, forgetting the power that dances in Frigga's blood as well, from whence we all knew it came. As Thor is so clearly Odin's son, so we believed Loki held true to his mother's line. For all I know now, that may yet be fact. Certainly no other has more information than I, save Odin Allfather himself, who lies yet in his sleep.
Yet for all his skill with spell, Loki's desperate desire to emulate his brother in the arts of war did much to push many of us, his fellows, away. His rank often did the rest. I do not say Loki was shunned by his peers, only that he was often distant, and much solitary. I think it was this habit of his that first drew my attention, for I am ever curious. I took to following him, first by scrying, then invisibly, and when he began to practise fetches, and warding, I would twist my spells to follow his essence. He told me later how he was aware of my magic, as if a faint spotlight was always trained on him.
It became a game, him to hide and I to find, and for long months we did not speak of it, or each other, nor to each other save what might be required in the lessoning. The day it came to an end, I followed him, by my arts and skills (I fondly hoped) invisible and undetectable, into the farthest treasure hall of Asgard. It was not a place I had yet been, nor sought to go, though there was no reason I should be denied entrance. Thus I had no awareness that my youthful spells were stripped from me by the virtues of the hall until Loki turned from his study and his green eyes fell upon me.
I knew in that moment he saw me true, and pride straightened my spine; I am as fearless as any warrior born, though my talents lie elsewhere.
"You are Synne, of the Vanir, are you not?" he asked, as polite and cool as if we met by chance in the feasting hall far above. I bowed my acknowledgement, pushing my tumbled blonde curls back over my shoulders with both hands as I rose.
"And you are Loki, son of Odin and brother of Thor," I returned, determined to be no less honourable than he. He flourished a bow in return, but could not hold his solemnity and broke into a wide grin. Our laughter woke echoes in the hall and from that moment was our friendship sealed.
As ever his heart yearned to follow his brother, but it was to me he turned in moments of quietude. My magic healed his battle-wounds, and together we began to build that style of combat which was his alone, best suited to his lithe quickness and agile mind. I saw the restlessness of the younger son begin to work itself deep into his nature.
For all the love between the two brothers, some things may not be shared between siblings.