Sharing a bed was an intimate thing. Or at least, it would be if Loki could just fall asleep.

For all her reservations about sharing a bed Arha had fallen asleep quickly. She was still, too still and with her hands folded in her lap that he half expected her to start drifting away while he would have to raise the bow with the flaming arrow notched to set fire to her funeral boat. Her chest barely moved with breath while his began to fly fast and he sat up in bed, her light slumber broken almost instantly as he glared at her.

"You're driving me mad!" He spat out and she sat up as well, cocking her head in confusion. "You're not a corpse, stop pretending to be one."

Arha smiled and he wriggled as he felt her amusement in his head, like a tickling brush of feathers.

Every bond was different and yet he couldn't quite understand why theirs was growing in such leaps and bounds. There was that odd blanketed calm in the back of his head that wasn't his and it unnerved him. It was hers he knew, he could tell by the sudden spike of emotion that he could see on her face sometimes, echoed by the break in calm but the calm…

Loki was never calm. Or tranquil, or at peace or any of those things that she was and to suddenly feel her calm was beyond odd.

She was a bit terrifying. Because Loki, Loki always took an interest in people but they rarely interested him. Arha did.

She shrugged and leaned back, her hands crossing behind her head to cradle it as she yawned. The long sleeves of her gown fell back to reveal ink and scars that he hadn't seen, unclear in the shadows thrown by the dim light and when Loki conjured more light she closed her eyes, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek.

He thought it would be his Words but it wasn't. Asgardian inks were filled with lines that curved, knots and branches to anchor themselves to Yggdrasil, the straight lines too much like the runes of the Words and it was assumed to be a taboo to have anything imitating those straight lines anywhere on skin.

The dark ink running up her arms was nothing like what he had seen. It was all hard lines, bands filled with web like nebulous patterns of thin bars, triangles coloured in black, arrows shaded in grey and more. A long thin white line, a scar marred the right sleeve of ink.

"How have I not seen those before?" Because they extended all the way down to her wrist and he knew he had seen that part bare and lacking ink before.

"I covered them before. They can be construed to be a sign of aggression. Taking that risk here seemed unwise." Construed, not misconstrued. They had meaning then, a meaning that she needed to hide. "These patterns are older than Odin. During the War," And he knew her well enough now to know that she was not talking of the one with Jotunheim, "The Resistance wore similar patterns. They indicate fealty to Vanaheim, to the homeland and to its people."

Loki knew well how history lied, how stories were changed to give glory to one and take from another. He knew that it was part of what Asgard had always done, part of the reason why they were still so feared but he had only ever seen it from the eyes of the victor as a necessity. But Vanaheim was one Realm he didn't expect such from. Perhaps it was simply because of his mother and Hogunn, that they never resented Asgard for the hand it had dealt them. Even when they were there for quests and such it had always seemed like little more than an extension of Asgard where Thor was lauded for his feats of strength while everyone else faded into the background.

Then again they wouldn't would they, he realised. Frigga and Hogun, they had spent centuries thinking of Asgard as their home. Even when Hogunn went back to Vanaheim it was only to visit. He didn't belong there anymore than Loki did.

And there Loki was, bound to one who had her rebellion against everything his family stood for etched into her kin. It took being in bed with the enemy to new realms.

"It surprises me that they let you live till now." It was how things were done on Asgard. Stirrings of discontent were rare but not unusual and though there had never truly been a revolution of any kind, there had been a bit of trouble centuries ago, when Loki was still a child. While he didn't know exactly how they had been taken care of, all signs of it wiped out of existence to the point where it was little more than urban legend, so he was all but certain it wasn't pleasant.

"They didn't take us seriously when we started out and by the time we were a proper threat there were too many who supported us. Any official action they could take would have to be mandated by the Allfather and it would be difficult to explain how they had let us grow to this extent without revealing their own failures. Thus the assassination attempts." She slid down the headboard and yawned again, eyes turning teary with the effort to stay awake. He had seen the same expression on Thor's face so many times during lesson that he couldn't help but crack a weak grin.

"Weren't you the one feeling shy about sharing a bed?" He drawled recalling her former anxiety at sharing chambers and she flushed and glared.

"It's only for a few days anyway." She settled back to sleep and he followed her lead, turning off the bright lights and closing his eyes. "Tomorrow's the coronation and after that it's just a few days of feasting." She continued softly and bade him sweet dreams.

And Loki's eyes snapped open.

Tomorrow was the coronation. Tomorrow Thor would prove his unsuitability to the throne. Tomorrow Loki would have committed the worst treason in all of Asgard.

Tomorrow the Frost giants would come.