iv.
Loki had once read the works of a scholar who theorized extensively about the passage of time in the cosmos. The idea was that it was relative: that time passing in one place was inherently unlike time passing in another. From Jötunheimr you could not mark the hours of the day in Svartálfaheimr; from Asgard you could not track the seasons in Vanaheimr. Later various mechanisms and methods of tracking exactly those things rendered these theories obsolete. Time was, instead, absolute. It passed the same in all places throughout the cosmos and only the reckoning of it changed. Loki knew this and still he could swear, as his time in Asgard neared a close, that days, weeks, months had shrunken away to nothing before he could experience them.
At the very edge of the palace gardens, there was a stretch of land where the perfectly pruned shrubbery turned ragged, and the grass grew longer than a precisely measured fingerlength. Just past it, the forest sprang up green and wild. Sif and Thor cavorted loudly in the grass and dirt while Loki reclined under a nearby tree, passing one of the final days of his stay.
Thor and Sif's current battle had begun with them practicing staves. At their last formal training session, the battlemaster had given Sif praise for her work and cuffed Thor for his. Sif was meant to be helping Thor improve his technique, but the brutal nature of her teaching methods and the petulant nature of her student had quickly seen the lesson deteriorate into a wrestling match.
Loki only half minded them as he wrote diligently in a small leather book. The rhythmic scratch of the pen on paper spurred his thoughts on. He'd found a book, a small book, about the Bifröst. It was far more concerned with dubiously poetic praises of the device's power and majesty, but there were some things it said — in roundabout ways — that got Loki's mind working. The bridge itself was still beyond his comprehension and operating it or anything like it would require a massive power source to which neither he nor any of his people had access. It sliced through the cosmos, dashed between the realms so easily. Working out just some of the principles of the thing and applying them to what he already knew could still help him understand other paths and other methods.
Sif shrieked as Thor cast her over his shoulder. She pushed into the momentum and flipped head over heels to land in a crouch behind him. Her hair, loosed from its tie, fell wild about her face, her shoulders, the slim column of her neck. She kicked Thor's knee out from behind him. His leg buckled and her laughter pealed.
Loki looked back to his book. The weight in his gut, which seemed to grow heavier as his days in Asgard grew fewer, lurched. There was still so much to do. He'd barely made the beginnings of a dent in the library for all his late nights. He would have something to show for it when he was home again, certainly. Much more, even, than Leikr who had shown himself too proud to take full advantage of the opportunity. He would not have the Æsir think that Jötunheimr lacked. It was a concern Loki understood — he haunted the library at night for a reason — but Leikr's inability to work around it was disappointing.
Loki had gone other places under cover of shadow as well. Once deep into the bowels of Odin's palace, to a long, guarded corridor where he could feel vital energy surging past the far doorway. There were wards heavy in the air and he knew where to stop before he set them off. He left and did not return. What good would any of this be if Odin believed Loki attempted to steal from his vault? What might have been down there — what must have been down there — still hummed in Loki's veins.
Even without those last steps, though, Loki had learned enough that he was considering attempting the sage's harrowing when he was home. He would not actually take up a sage's robes were he to pass it — and he would — he simply wanted to prove that he could. The occupation itself was not of interest to him and, as prince, he was allowed to hold no position but that into which he was born. He could acquire all the skills he liked, but he could only ever be heir to Jötunheimr.
The wrestling match had stopped and his companions were both again on their feet. Thor was attempting to catch Sif, now, and he looked like a lumbering bull as much as anything else as she darted swift and nimble around him. Sif reclaimed a staff and brandished it at Thor, who slowly raised his hands in surrender. She offered the weapon to him then.
"Run through the forms," she commanded, teeth flashing, then gave him a mocking half bow before turning away.
Thor was too obnoxiously noble to cheap shot her while her back was turned and dutifully began to work through forms. Sif paced towards Loki, her hands in her hair as she pulled it up again in a tie that'd been on her wrist. Loki looked back to his writing. It was no good. The flow of his thoughts was arrested.
Sif plopped to the ground, then stretched out beside him in the grass. Her shirt rucked and a sliver of pale skin peeked out at her waist when she raised her arms to pillow them behind her head.
"And what are you studying now?" she asked, looking up at him. It had become a familiar question. She had come to sit with him in the library more times than the first. He wasn't sure why, exactly. She only ever inquired after what he was doing then harassed him about his "dull" interests once she found out.
She hadn't fallen asleep again. Not like the first night, with her cheek pressed hot on his shoulder and her hair falling against him, tickling his arm and his back. At times, she'd doze, but would always rouse herself and retire to her rooms.
She hadn't mentioned her father again either since that night. At least not in Loki's hearing. He wondered if she spoke of it to Thor, in some quiet, private place where she might reveal herself more fully, more readily. The thought sat uncomfortably in his chest and he pushed it away.
"See for yourself," Loki said and held the open book up in front of her face. Her eyes crossed briefly at the Jötnar script and she shoved it away.
"You know I can't read that," she groused.
"Oh my," Loki said, all alarm. "I'd entirely forgotten."
Sif pursed her lips — they were very slightly chapped — and made a rude sound. In front of them, Thor twirled the staff inexpertly above his head, then around behind his back. He cursed inventively when it slipped from his hands. The grass was dew-sticky around Loki; it rose up to cradle him. Beside him, Sif's eyes slipped closed, her breath coming, light, through her nose.
Asgard was so very different; he still had not gotten used to it. So different from the brisk, snow-bright plains of Jötunheimr, from the close, sturdy walls of Gastropnir. So different from dazzling the youngest children, the ones still smaller than him, with simple charms and Skadi accusing him of cheating at dice. Different, but not disparate and not irreconcilable. Asgard had its worthy parts, and one could not replace the other.
"Hold your arms straighter!" Sif called out to Thor, who grumbled something unintelligible back. "Wrists looser!"
Loki thought she might rise again and go to him, but she only sat up on her elbows. She let her head drop back, her neck bared as she stared at the tree above them, at the sky peeking between the leaves. Then she looked to Loki.
"It's time for you to leave soon, isn't it?" she asked.
Loki had not expected the question, but he took it in stride.
"In a few days, yes," he said. He flipped through the pages of his book, the symbols blurring as they flew by. "I apologize profusely for leaving you bereft of my company."
"Oh, shut up," she said, gruffly. "Your head's as big as Thor's."
"I will ignore that vile insult and continue to consider this a successful educational venture."
She expelled a breath; a loose strand of her hair fluttered in it.
"Educational for you, perhaps," Sif said. "With your tours and your library visits. What have the rest of us learned?"
"Well, if you're so alight with academic curiosity," he said and his tongue stuck briefly in his mouth. "You could always come to Jötunheimr and learn firsthand as I did."
She dropped back to the grass. "Oh, so that you could mock me with your friends without me understanding? Or to your girl," she said with excessive emphasis, "who wouldn't like me?"
She joked for it was a jest: the idea that she should ever want to go with- to go to the place of Æsir children's nightmares. And why should he care if she didn't? He didn't care. But he could have shown her- he could have shown any of them what Jötunheimr truly was. Not a wasteland or a corpse, but his home, his kingdom.
He filled the silence before it grew too heavy. "Then you best ask me any questions you have while you still can."
He expected her to drop it, having no actual interest in the topic, but she looked at him curiously for a moment, her expression appraising. She sat up fully, even with him.
"The markings on your skin," she said. "What are they? That is, they look as scars, but they aren't accidental. Most of the Jötnar here have so many. What's the significance?"
It was one of the only genuine questions about his people he'd been posed in his entire time in Asgard. Most people gave him wide berth; others were painfully polite and politely avoidant as if acknowledging that he was jötunn at all would shatter some fragile balance. Yet others were less kind.
"Our adornments signify many things," Loki explained. "Milestones, special skills, achievements. Rites of passage or tests of will or ability. Sometimes, even professions. By the time we reach maturity any given person's adornments might be more varied than you can imagine."
"What about this?" Sif asked. "What does this one mean?" And she reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers lightly across his forehead.
Loki's back went ramrod straight and all his words caught in his throat. His crown adornment had been such an unnecessary bother to him and he'd had so many different words — mostly derisive and dismissive — about what it truly meant. Yet all he could do as Sif stared at him expectantly was feel dreadfully, ridiculously embarrassed. Her fingertips had been callused as they rasped against his skin. She seemed so much closer than she had moments before. Her eyes were huge; the edge of her teeth peeked out, white, from behind her slightly parted lips. He wanted to- He wanted. He didn't know what he wanted. He'd only a compulsion with a force he'd never felt before and no name he dared put to it.
She was so near. He thought to run. He thought to hide himself. He thought unbidden of the shadowed corner with Brynja, of their awkward, mismatched fumbling. Of Brynja, but not of Brynja, for Bryna's hair had never been so dark as he now saw it; the angles of her face had never been so sharp. Brynja leaned down to him; she did not reach up, dragging, grasping.
It sank heavy in his chest. It was ludicrous that he should feel such, here and now and for her.
"Loki?" Sif asked, concern knitting her brow. He wanted to mimic the path her fingers had followed on his own face.
Ludicrous it certainly was, but it was also true.
"It-it only means- I am… mature," he managed and hoped she did not notice how little he sounded like himself.
She stared at him and even though he'd set his face, his mask dropped and locked into place, he felt like she could still see through him. She acted that way sometimes, as if she could read him as easily as a signpost. He usually thought she was bluffing, but today he had no wish to risk it.
Thor came over to them and Loki rejoiced.
"What are we discussing while I toil alone?" he asked, still gripping the offending weapon.
"Loki's departure," said Sif, quietly.
Thor frowned, his expression pensive. "I do think I shall miss you, Loki," he said, without further consideration or preamble, and meant it.
"I think you will, indeed," Loki agreed. Thor merely nodded, smiling.
"We should make the best of the remaining time you have with us then," he declared. "Join Sif and I. At least another critical pair of eyes could do no harm."
"Of course," Loki said and began to rise.
Thor jogged back to where he had been and Sif was last to move. She stood and wiped grass from her trousers; bits and pieces clung still to the back of her shirt and to her hair. Loki's fingers twitched to sweep them away, to fit his hand between her shoulderblades, to twine her hair about his wrist. He clenched his fist. He tucked his book into the pocket of his trousers.
"I would come," Sif said suddenly, just before he made to walk away. He turned to her, but before he opened his mouth, she continued. "To Jötunheimr. If you invited me. If I was allowed. I would come."
She smiled at him, just a curling at the corners of her mouth, but honest and without mockery or challenge. He watched her walk away.
The fanfare that met their departure was significantly more subdued than that which had signaled their arrival. Loki did not miss the great hall filled with gawking onlookers. They stood instead on the steps outside the palace. Odin Allfather, Queen Frigg, and Thor all arranged to bid their visitors farewell. Sif, where Loki had marked her without even thinking to do it, stood alongside the central road of Asgard with the others who had gathered to watch. Odin spoke of friendship and strengthening ties, and Mimir spoke of the bright future that would chase away the shadows of the past.
"You have honored us with your presence," Odin said finally to Loki and inclined his head.
"I hope then," said Loki, "that soon we in Jötunheimr should be similarly honored."
All went quiet. Frigg smiled, a pleasant smile, no different than the kindness with which she had treated Loki during their entire stay. Thor's face lit with excitement, eagerness, and Loki was grateful for it, more so than he expected he would be. He did not look to Sif.
Odin said only: "In time." By rote. A dismissal.
Loki afforded the rest of the proceedings little of his attention.
An honor guard accompanied them across the rainbow bridge, and Thor insisted, as well, he go along. This too Loki appreciated and if he wished for something else, he understood how propriety disallowed it and understood even better how unwise he was to want it.
The stern-faced Gatekeeper saw them off in another blinding flash of light.
"Oh you've already grown so much taller," Farbauti said when Loki at last stood back on Jötunheimr, where he already felt so much smaller. His mother bore him up in her arms, pressed him to her bosom there outside the gates of Utgarde. Loki endured her affection without complaint. When she finished, Laufey reached out his hand and ruffled Loki's hair and stroked it once as if he were still a very small child.
His parents spoke mostly with Mimir and Leikr during the walk back to Gastropnir, though they arranged themselves on either side of Loki, as if to block him in, as if he might slip away again. For his part, Loki enjoyed the walk more than he ever had before. The autumn wind swirled about him and for the first time in many months he did not feel at all overheated. His eyes readjusted to the calm blue cast of Jötunheimr, to the cloudy white of its daytime sky, as if to the light upon waking in the morning.
He begged release to reacquaint himself with his room when they reached Gastropnir, and Farbauti and Laufey allowed it with promise of a private dinner in their rooms a few hours hence.
His return had been announced and people had watched from the walls as he entered the keep. In the halls, they stopped and bowed acknowledgment as he passed. At the bend of the last hall before the royal chambers, Skadi waited. She stood up from the wall against which she had been leaning when she saw him.
"Did the Æsir deny you food?" she asked in greeting, though her pleasure at seeing him was plain on her face. "I hadn't thought you could get even thinner."
"I so love to upset your expectations, Skadi, you know that," Loki replied.
She came closer and wound one arm about his shoulders, half a hug and half a headlock.
"How was it?" she asked. "How poorly did they treat you?" Her eyes narrowed at the suggestion.
"Not so poorly," Loki assured her. "They did leave me constantly with their oafish prince, but I found amusements."
"You shall tell me more of it," she commanded, releasing him, and Loki thought he would at the same time that he thought of what he could not tell her. But what was there to tell of that? Nothing, he assured himself. Nothing at all worth the mentioning, nor would there ever be.
"You've come back just in time for a venison hunt," she continued and Loki rolled his eyes. "I'll not allow you to avoid it."
"Will you at least allow me to continue to my room?" he asked.
Skadi shoved him away so that she could bow, but the bow itself held no less sincerity than the others that had greeted him in the halls.
"My prince," she said, then, smirking, turned to leave him.
His bedroom brightened as if to welcome him home, all his wards still in place. It was no different than he'd left it and Loki breathed in deeply with an edge of emotion he didn't care to examine. He hung his cloak and took off his boots, and then went directly to his desk. He unraveled the charm in which he'd wrapped his research, the spell crystal and his transcriptions and equations and notes. He'd kept the small notebook he'd used on Asgard in his pocket, even when the rest of his possession were being ferried by servants.
When he pulled it out, it dislodged the remainder of his pocket's contents. He set the book down on the desk and picked up his dropped treasure. A tiny pearl button winked up at him from his palm. It had fallen from Sif's jacket that first night in the library. Its thread had broken as he folded the garment to make her a pillow. He'd thought to give it back, he'd meant to, for weeks and weeks, but he didn't. He hadn't known why then. Truly, he still didn't know now for it was only a button, of little value and even less interest. Still he'd carried it with him like a talisman, and in all the many hours she was near him, he had never once reached for it to relinquish it.
Loki closed his hand around it. It warmed in his palm. He replaced it in his pocket. When he saw her next, he would return it. When the seasons had finished their slow changes and summer came again, he'd make certain he could travel the stars, leave his home and its comforts behind, that he could go to her. And bring her what was hers.