Author's note: Yay for sucky summaries. Most of what I've come up with here is based on the four pages of headcanon notes I scribbled down while intently listening to the album, and I'd like to apologise formally to the Mechanisms if I fucked up their storyline or their established canon. Someone please ask me about my headcanon so I can send you all of them and scare you off forever.

Something is wrong.

It's not the first time Loki wakes disoriented, wide eyes trying desperately to pierce the darkness, and deep down she knows it won't be the last. Fear clutches her heart like a vice, makes it flutter and beat painfully as though fighting against the grip holding it tight. She doesn't know what it is that scared her so, and she wishes that fear was the only memory her dreams left her with. She can't recall them, never knows what they showed her – but even as she fears them, she loves them. She craves whatever it is they consist of, that thing that leaves her in terror, and in awe, an almost religious reverence. It is as though, in her dreams, she experiences the highest revelations, the highest rapture, and a part of her wants nothing more than to fall back asleep and return to what the waking world made her forget.

It's the same part that pushes her towards Odin's project every day, compels her to spend nearly every minute thinking about it, working on it, unless she forcefully tears her mind away from the train tracks.

Something is wrong.

Snippets of songs she's never heard waft through her thoughts and slip away when she tries to pin them down, and the darkness around her distorts, pushes glowing, swirling clouds and whirls into her vision. They're beautiful. Breathtaking.

Terrified, Loki blindly fumbles for the light switch. It's just a train, she tells herself, not entirely sure why. It's just a train, as the bright artificial light chases away shapes and colours that she cannot name and can't quite comprehend. It's just a train, and why can't she let it go, why can't she remember the wonders of her dreams, why can't she sleep in peace, why──

"Loki?"

Her breath snags in her throat before it finally begins to even out. She takes a moment to make sure her expression is under control and then turns, an apologetic smile on her lips. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Sigyn, leaning on her elbow and clutching the blanket to her chest against the chill, frowns at her. Concern lines her features, but her hair is a tangled mess around her face as she squints against the light, not entirely awake yet, and Loki's lipstick has left traces around her lips, and Loki's heart slowly approaches a normal pace again. She slumps forward a little in exhaustion just as Sigyn sits up straighter. "What's going on?"

Straight to the point, as always. One of Sigyn's best traits, and one of her worst. Loki's eyes close, tightly, for a second, two, three, considering her answer, considering if she even knows it herself, and then they snap open and decidedly don't skitter from the woman before her.

"Nothing," she says, which is a weak answer and a lie, and Sigyn doesn't believe it and doesn't approve, so she adds, "I don't know." It's no less weak, but a lot closer to the truth, no matter how Sigyn scowls at it. For once, though, she says nothing, just shifts forward until she can wrap herself around Loki half from behind, and Loki leans into the embrace once the eye contact is broken.

There is silence, for a short while. As if by accident, Sigyn's fingers linger at Loki's throat, and she knows they both feel her pulse jumping against the fragile skin.

"Sometimes I wonder if the project isn't… if we're reaching to far with it." The bedsheets are dark blue with faint golden threads running through them. She's seen them a million times and they never change, yet now they hold her attention as though the glittering patterns revealed secret knowledge. Even so she almost feels Sigyn's quizzical look.

"'We' as in – us? Or 'we' as in Asgard?" Asgard, meaning, Odin and all her posse. But Loki means both, and neither.

"'We' as in all of us. Perhaps some things are better left untouched."

"Things like what, exactly?"

She has no answer. It is seldom enough that Loki has an honest interest in expressing herself clearly, doesn't wish to talk in circles and snares around her point, but when clarity is required, she usually still excels at giving it. Enlightening, unambiguous, hurtful clarity, truth spilling from her tongue as easily as lies and evasions, but now her words fail her.

Loki exhales in frustration. She will show no sign of it tomorrow, she knows, she will smile through her teeth and make fuel of all her hate and fire that are so strangely absent tonight. She's tired, but something calls her, pulls at her – the train, the Bifrost, whatever it is, a singing in the back of her mind, dangerous and alluring, confusing, and abruptly she turns towards Sigyn and kisses her.

Thor is waiting for her when Loki leaves her quarters in the morning, and he doesn't bother hiding his smirk. "You've decided to entertain out Midgardian guest by yourself then, I take it?"

Loki smiles back freely as she closes the door, quietly enough not to disturb the hopefully still sleeping Sigyn. "She is a talented chess player indeed. We were up until the early morning hours, and she bested me quite a few times." Said with just the right level of innocence to make anyone listening aware that there is nothing innocent about Loki. Not that Sigyn isn't brilliant at chess, a truly formidable opponent. Loki bites her tongue to keep her smile from becoming too fond.

Thor doesn't notice, he just laughs and claps her shoulder. "Just try not to antagonise her all too much, or Odin will be most displeased with you. And perhaps let the rest of us have a chance to woo her as well?"

"I do believe the Lady Sigyn has made up her mind, for the moment, as to whom she wishes to spend her nights with. And I may add that, historically, I am a lot less likely to openly antagonise Asgard's allies and potential sponsors than you are, my friend."

Thor's expression turns a little sour, and Loki just laughs all the more. Neither of them has forgotten the memorable occasion when the head of Svartalfheim's Nidavellir Corporation left a charity ball fuming after a lengthy conversation with Odin's most likely successor, threatening to withdraw all their company's funding and support. Odin was far from pleased, and Loki spent a considerable amount of time with Thor to figure out an appropriate apology to rectify his mistake, one that didn't involve Thor alienating Svartalfheim for good.

They continue bickering until they reach the corridor with the Allmother's temporary office. Odin is already striding towards them and nearly collides with Thor as she turns the corner. She pays no mind to his startled yelp, simply grabs his elbow to swing him around and pull him with her in the direction they just came from. Loki follows in stride, though more elegantly.

There's a site inspection of the building area scheduled today, despite there being hardly anything to see yet. Loki should know, seeing as her plans for the tracks so far are rudimentary at best. The wormhole – the Bifrost – has been opened experimentally a couple of days ago, but it is still directionless, unstable, a one-way street leading nowhere. An entrance to an unexplored dimension, without an exit. Loki's heartbeat accelerates when she thinks about it, her mind buzzing with calculations and ideas, theories being constructed and discarded within moments. When she closes her eyes, she sees colours, an endless, swirling Void beyond the known borders of space and time, capturing her attention like nothing else can. She wants to open the gates again, feel its pull again, see what her eyes can barely discern, and hear the siren song, the sweet challenge of suppressing the urge to let go. To step forward and let the Void have her, body and soul.

She glances at Odin and, in a rare moment of genuine understanding, sees the same desire reflected in her eyes. The same excitement. Their objectives may differ, but their means of achieving them are the same for now, and on this, they will work together more closely than they have on anything else before.

Odin answer's Loki's smile with a grin of her own, a bright glint in her eyes. Thor looks between them, shakes his head. Somehow, he doesn't understand. Loki hasn't expected him to. She doesn't know how he can be so uncaring, almost bored, in the face of their endeavour, but it hardly matters.

She stares at the Bifrost's gates, now closed, and barely hears the rambling explanations of the site's supervisor leading them around as though don't know the way. Nobody stops her as she walks up to the gate, Odin just behind her, or perhaps next to her. Together, they peer through the empty frame at the concrete and thrown-up earth and debris behind. There is no energy crackling between the door posts this time, no rupture in the universe's fabric allowing a glimpse at the strange, surreal dimensions beyond.

Something in the back of Loki's mind sings. It drowns out whatever Thor is remarking behind her. When her gaze touches Odin, the Allmother's eyes are closed, a serene smile tugging at her lips.

The dreams don't stop, but Loki is a quick learner. She never remembers what happens in them, and thinking about it too much gives her a headache, so when she catches herself trying, she stops.

She learns that she is more likely to wake in a panic when she hasn't been to the Bifrost site for a while, but it's only logical for her to be there regularly anyway, given her work on the tracks. Odin is overseeing the progress more often than not.

Loki mostly sleeps through the night when she's sufficiently tired out, and she has plenty of opportunity to get there. Whenever it doesn't seem quite enough, she makes sure to spend the night alone. She learns, painstakingly slowly, to wipe her mind blank in order to fall back asleep quickly enough to still catch a little rest after snapping awake, to banish the lingering impressions of unknowable songs. She doesn't manage to lose the compulsive need to switch on all the lights she can to chase away the colours that glow before her eyes, blind in the dark.

Svadilfari laughs at her, the one time he witnesses the occurrence. She tells him she was confused about the room and needed to see where she was, with a sheepish smile. He tells her, affectionately, that she's being silly, and pulls her closer before falling back asleep long before she does.

Angrboda, a few weeks later, stays unaware beneath the covers, snoring gently while Loki tries to breathe.

Sigyn appears to be awake nearly each time Loki fails to keep her dreaming private, but although her frown grows deeper with every time, she somehow knows not to ask questions. For now. Hopefully Loki will have figured out how to answer, once they do come.

Perhaps she doesn't hide the shadows beneath her eyes quite as well as she thinks, or perhaps she just slips up that once. Loki takes a few seconds too long to focus on Thor, who is squinting at her over his ale. She takes a large sip of her own and raises her eyebrows. "Sorry, what?"

If anything, Thor's forehead grows more furrows in response. "I called your name three times. Did you not hear me?"

Loki shrugs. "I did not. It's loud."

It is loud, though not nearly enough for Thor's rumble to go unheard, and he hardly acknowledges her response. "You look terrible. Is the Allmother working you into the ground? The both of you hardly seem to have slept at all during the last months." Thor shakes his head, and Loki is not sure if the sound he makes is one of derision or exasperation. "A few days ago I met her wandering the corridors in the middle of the night. I am not certain she noticed me at all."

Apparently whatever topic Thor was talking about before is now discarded. Loki hides her discomfort behind the careless amusement she is well-known for amongst many Asgardians, even though Thor knows her better than that. "Who knows, perhaps the Allmother has taken to sleepwalking in her old age. Odin wanders through the empty halls, looking to howl at the moon like the lone wolf she is..." Her smirk is more discreet than Thor's undignified snort at the rather lame jest, and the guests at the adjacent table glance over. Loki nods to them, her eyes lingering for a moment on the more handsome of the two. It doesn't matter if they overheard the jokes about Odin. Both Loki and Thor are close enough to the Allmother to jape about – and with – her without having to fear repercussions. Loki is glad for it – much to her regret her control over her tongue tends to slip a little after one or two ales too many, and she knows that once or twice she has uttered things someone else might have gotten in trouble for. Although she likes to think she has learned since then.

Thor clasps her shoulder, making the liquid slosh around in the mug she still holds. "Will I find you walking around in your sleep these days as well, then?"

Loki's stomach squirms unpleasantly, and she carefully sets down her drink. Thor isn't usually one to pry, and it's clearly making him uncomfortable now. She's almost touched at his concern. "You most certainly will not. I prefer to be awake and conscious for my own indignities," she says haughtily, and Thor accepts that for an answer.

They spend the remainder of the next hour bickering about whether it counts as being awake and conscious if you still cannot recall any of it the morning after the fact, and all Thor says when Loki excuses herself for the night is, "take care, Loki."

Tomorrow, Sigyn will depart for Midgard. Her stay on Asgard has come to an end, a good six months that had seemed like such a long time, gone by in what feels like the blink of an eye. Some of the answers she sought she has found, others are likely to be clear in the future. And of course she found a plethora of new questions as well. That is alright. It's enough to be able to form tentative new plans, ones that may be possible to realise in some form. The project may or may not play a role as well, but it's still in it's early stages anyway – there is time. Midgard has held out this long, and her people are strong. They will keep going. Sigyn will have three months to consider every new bit of intelligence on the way back home. It feels a lifetime away, somehow. She hasn't expected to find anything on Asgard worth missing upon her return, and yet…

She met Thor only briefly, but Loki spoke so fondly of him that Sigyn could not help but like him before she even had a single conversation with him. There is Baldur, who was shy at first but opened up soon enough, talking animatedly about the Bifrost project, so honoured to have been selected as a member of the team, an innocent gleam in his eyes that speaks more of the joy of belonging than about the actual project. There is Freya, who holds herself as regally as a queen and keeps her distance, except when Frey spikes her punch and she suddenly knows the funniest stories and asks Sigyn if she ever considered getting a cat. When one looks closely, Freya's classy dresses are covered with cat hairs, and she laughs when Sigyn tries to pluck them off, to no avail.

And then there is, of course, Loki. Nobody seems to know exactly what her position is in relation to the Allmother, except that she and Loki have been close almost as soon as Loki first appeared on the public eye's radar. Some say she slept her way to the top in record speed, rumours even going as far as "Odin's favoured personal concubine" if one listens to the nastier tongues. Others say she simply does whatever she fancies at any given moment, and if she fancies building an impossible train with Odin Allmother, then who was to stop her?

Many dislike her, few trust her, but most admit she has a certain charm unlike anyone else. And all respect her sharp intellect. Coming to Asgard, Sigyn believed herself sufficiently prepared. In her book, Loki counted as a wild card, and Sigyn meant to stay away from her. Well.

At least she is fairly certain that to everyone else's eyes, there is no more than a flighty acquaintanceship between them, as much as would be expected with Loki's reputation as a hedonist and history of charming pretty strangers to her heart's content. Nobody gives much of a thought to foreign guests frequently exiting Loki's chambers. Why would they? So, Sigyn reasons as she knocks quietly, even if anyone noticed her now, they would think nothing of it.

One thing that is true about Loki: if she does not want you to know what she is thinking, you won't be able to tell. She doesn't appear surprised to find Sigyn when she opens the door, nor does she seem concerned. A smirk is fixed on her thin lips, as though Sigyn ignoring their agreement to stay apart simply amuses her.

What the expression cannot hide are the shadows beneath her vibrant eyes, deeper than Sigyn has seen them before, nor the minute tremor of her hands as she passes her a cup of tea. As if afternoon tea was something they even remotely did and it wasn't already near midnight.

Loki's own cup, half empty, has dried coffee stains on the outside. "I spoke with Odin yesterday," she says, trailing the cup's rim with her thumb. "She still wants to focus on Midgard, but I suggested that once we know how to fully control the Bifrost and its directions, it will be a small step to tweak it towards the other worlds as well. She'll have years to think about it, so there's no need to pressure her now, but I have no doubt she will come to agree long before we're done."

Years. Sigyn twists her lips but says nothing. It is just one of the ideas that they came up with, but it's the one Loki keeps returning to, as though everything is already decided. Build the tracks and train, connected to all of Yggdrasil's worlds, use them to their own gain somehow. Perhaps a system-wide revolution, if they can coordinate it. But they don't even know yet what possibilities the project might bring at all, and even in an ideal case it's nearly unfeasible to plan it out at this point, no matter Loki's fixation on the concept. Everything will take years, decades even, perhaps.

She doesn't comment on the frustratingly slowness of the proceedings, nor on how Loki acts, at times, like this is the only plan they have considered. Loki is already doing her best to speed it all up, but with all the necessary experimenting, calculations, adjustments, and re-calculations, it can only go so fast. The Bifrost is, after all, entirely new terrain for all of them. And Sigyn doesn't want Loki to dedicate herself even more to the project. Perhaps some things are better left untouched, she remembers, and makes herself nod and then shifts the topic away from the train. "Once I'm back on Midgard, I will talk to my group and find out who else might be willing to join us." Her group, so far, consists of her, her youngest cousin who is a hopeless idealist, and a young janitor who writes inflammatory leaflets and short essays and neatly hides them where they will be found eventually. "I have one or two people in mind..."

Loki's eyes, which have wandered aimlessly around the mess of clothes and papers and empty cups and paper plates that litter the room, snap back to Sigyn's face. "See to it that you're careful," she says, her gaze intense, almost feverish. It sounds like an order, and even though she is aware that it's most likely due to the worry she hides so well, Sigyn raises her eyebrows at Loki.

"I am no fool, and I hardly trust people blindly."

Loki waves her hand as if to wipe away her remark. "That may be so, but you are inexperienced. I caught your little act of petty sabotage when you first arrived. If anyone else had seen you – Baldur, or Norns forbid, Odin..."

"They didn't," she cuts in sharply. "And you only noticed because you yourself were poking around where you shouldn't be."

"My presence there is not technically forbidden." Even as her words continue the argument, Loki deflates, averting her eyes as she shakes her head. "Forgive me," she murmurs. Her fingers twitch and reach for her cup again, which she drains in one gulp. "I don't like that I'm putting you in danger."

"I'm putting myself in danger, and have done so before now." Gentle as it is, Sigyn's voice books no argument on that front. There is much more she could say, about danger and safety measures and the need for subtlety and secrecy and for more precise plans and more information and allies and better organisation and means of communication and regular meetings without the constant risk of someone becoming suspicious, and maybe the need for both of them to tone down the paranoia because so far there is nothing to incriminate either of them – but it's too much for this last night they weren't even supposed to have. It's already enough to make her head spin, and Loki is shaking just a little bit with exhaustion or caffeine poisoning already without fruitlessly talking through every worry they can conceivably come up with together.

"I don't like this," Sigyn blurts suddenly, surprised herself at the words that came without her permission.

Loki huffs tiredly. "What, Asgardian high society? Planning organised resistance? My rooms?"

Sigyn looks at her, watches the amusement slip away and leave behind a resigned weariness that Loki makes no effort to hide. "The project."

Loki leans back and cocks an eyebrow. Her right leg crosses over her left and continues to move, tapping the air restlessly. Even now, late enough at night to be called early, after doubtlessly to many days with no or merely uneasy sleep, there is an undeniable energy within her, all around her. Her eyes flit around every other minute to take in her surroundings, her fingers twitch and play with her clothes, her hair, tap against her lips in contemplation and drum rhythms on the table. She's hard to pin down, both literally and figuratively, but Sigyn has gotten better at it. She doesn't like it, but right now, even though, sunken and tired eyes aside, Loki looks hardly any different than at any other time, the word her mind keeps coming back to is fragile.

"Ever since you first opened that experimental Bifrost doorway, something has been… off." Loki rolls her eyes, and Sigyn narrows hers. "You talk in your sleep," she says bluntly.

At that, Loki starts, instantly serious. "What." It's hardly even a question, and Sigyn almost regrets how strangely harsh she sounded.

"Not about anything that would be an issue if someone heard," she reassures her, "hardly even anything coherent. But you also wake up in a state more often than not, if you sleep at all." In retrospect, she should have said something before now. She sighs and keeps her gaze on Loki's wide, green eyes. "Perhaps we should reconsider. The train is a great asset, if we can use it to our advantage, but it will take ages before it's even close to completion. We can focus on other ways, perhaps quicker ones, even. You could stop working on the Bifrost project." It's not god for you, Sigyn doesn't say, but suspects Loki hears anyway.

Loki, clearly incredulous at her suggestion, laughs. "Even if there were better ways – which I doubt – I could not possibly stop working on the Bifrost. Can you imagine what Odin would say?" Still smiling widely, Loki reaches out to take Sigyn's hand in her own. "Nor do I wish to. Regardless of what we plan to do with it, this train is── it's incredible. It will be one of the most beautiful things ever built, and I cannot let that opportunity go to waste. An artificial, controlled wormhole! Interplanetary travel cut so short to be almost laughable, and just think, if we manage to expand its reach beyond Yggdrasil..."

Loki's face shimmers with excitement. Her hand is small in Sigyn's, and not quite steady, as she speaks of the Bifrost like it's all but functional already. Sigyn listens, and has no convincing argument to make against the project.

"I can do this," Loki says, her eyes glowing and piercing reality to look at something Sigyn cannot see, and what are a few sleepless nights when there is this? "I can do this. And you'll see, it will be glorious."