I'm so happy to see such an outpouring of reviews for this little fic of mine!

As it stands, the numbers are:

13 - Thorki

2 - Sifki

2 - Sorki

If you don't like these numbers, feel free to vote and change them! Also, I recently rewatched Thor, and I have so, so, so many ideas with which to tie it in - Hell, I may even write a chapter or two connecting the film to this fic. This is going to be painfully, painfully fun.

The next winter...

Loki stopped sleeping. Well, he tried to.

Every night, a cold, thready voice wove through his mind, treppanned his skull and funneled in new, dangerous ideas. Revolution, mutiny, uprising and overthrowing. He was not the man for the job, and he didn't need to do it.

Did he?

It bothered Thor, who knew, and Sif, who didn't; both of them saw how weary he was, how the shadows wreathing his viridian eyes were darkening still, like storm clouds prophesying nothing but dread. They did their best to get him to sleep, even plying him with Frigga's medicines when they could, but taking it too often led to narcoleptic symptoms and pain, long before death would set in - agonizing, as if one's blood had been replaced with acid - and sleep was not worth death.

Nothing was worth that kind of suffering, not for Loki, not to them.

The next best option was an old favourite; as they often had in times of great strife, Sif and Thor deigned to share a bed, for Loki's sake, puppy-piled between air-light sheets and heavy furs, warming his bed and holding him close.

Of course, unlike Loki, they did not have the apparent ability to go sleepless for weeks - months, even - and as soon as they cradled one cool appendage, Sif resting against the planes of Loki's chest from under an arm while Thor curled around him and bound one leg between his own, they were usually unconscious within seconds. Loki was not so lucky.

Staying awake left him alone with his thoughts. While occasionally pleasant - memories of Hela and Fenrir and Jormungandr and Sleipnir playing, Angrboða holding his hand in that golden cell and reading with him, Svaðilfari murmuring satiny praises in his ears and lauding him for virtues oft invisible to his own eyes - more times than not, they were dark, filling his head with visions of the Ice Witch's betrayal, Svaðilfari's departure, his children's terrified eyes and cries as Odin threw them through the Void to the most desolate and dangerous Realms or beat them into service.

Sleeping, however, left him with those nightmares, insidious and cold and slick, waking him without a breath in his lungs, as if he were drowning, and though he had always had a greater capacity for waiting out his needs - going for weeks without food and not feeling a thing while his friends hungered inconquerably after a day or so at most, withstanding frigid temperatures while they shivered and went back inside, sleeping four hours after a month of insomnia and suffering nothing for it - he eventually fell victim to them and caved to their call. He slept the night through, but he was not rested, and he would go another great stretch of days before succumbing once more.

It was a situation in which he could not succeed. He was trapped in a cyclical trap, running himself ragged and sleeping fitfully before starting again, bouncing from night terrors to memories that served the same purpose.

Some times, one of his beloved bedmates would show some sign of recognition of his wakefulness or his fitful sleep, but once Loki forced himself to stay still, they descended back into sleep and left him to his books. Loki spent his nights reading, sometimes writing to Hela and Fenrir when he couldn't make a visit, and doing his very best not to think about how terrible it would be to close his eyes.

It was difficult. Imagine being told that you could think of anything but a bilgesnipe in a dress for the next minute; immediately, one's mind flits to that bilgesnipe - what colour dress is it, why is it wearing a dress, is it in some sort of period costume, etcetera, ad infinitum.

There are times, Loki mused, when having an active mind is more burden than blessing.

There was a lull, for a while. Things were quieter. Odin had returned from Vanaheim and fallen, immediately, into one of his famed Odinsleeps, and when he awoke nearly a month later, he'd gone out on another political trip - this time, to Jotunheim. It was peaceful, with Odin gone. Loki's last months as a nineteen-year-old were far calmer and far better than any he could have imagined, in spite of his sleeplessness.

On the day of his twentieth birthday, he visited Niflheim through the Bifrost, Heimdall letting him through unaccompanied by Odin's men, with Sif and Thor at his side.

"Thank you both, for coming with me," Loki said, smiling softly.

"This is your birthday, beloved," Sif murmured, kissing his temple. "And I wish to meet your children. One day, we are to be married, and then they will be mine, too."

Thor just smiled back, silent, and rested his hand on Loki's neck. They flew along the Bifrost that way, and landed at the gates of Hela's palace, quickly making their way inside.

Hela, sitting sidesaddle on Fenrir's shaggy back, grinned. "Papa! Happy birthday, Papa!"

Loki knelt down and hugged them both tight, kissing their foreheads. "All the happier for seeing you two."

Fenrir nuzzled Loki's jaw. After months of Loki's presence, he'd come to realize that their father wouldn't abandon them, wouldn't break little Hela's heart. Hela, who had never had such misgivings, just scrambled onto Loki and hugged him back, wiry little arms squeezing. "Who are those people, Papa?"

Thor knelt at Loki's side, smiling broadly at his niece. "I am your Uncle Thor, little one, and this is..." This is difficult to explain.

Sif stepped in. "I am your Papa's fiancee. We are to be married."

Hela frowned, cocking her head as Fenrir sniffed Sif's throat. Hot puffs of lupine breath gusted over her neck and she swallowed hard. You have good teeth, he growled.

"What did he say?" Sif asked, fingernails digging into her knees.

"He said - it translates roughly to 'You are a good warrior.' He respects you." Loki lifted one of Sif's hands gently, resting it on Fenrir's neck, and scrunched her fingers, guiding them through scratching Fenrir's neck. "There."

Fenrir made no sound, didn't pant and whine and yip as he did when Loki scratched his fur, but leaned into Sif's hands all the same.

"Uncle Thor, you're rather big," Hela said, chewing on her little fingers ponderously. "What's it like, the view from up there?"

"How about you tell me?" Thor offered, scooping her off of Loki and settling her on his shoulders. Hela squealed, grinning, and grabbed hold of his cape to use as reins. The back of his head, padded with thick blond hair, was warm against her stomach, and after a few minutes, she was sprawled over the crown of his head, half-conscious and smiling. A shade, half-present and a dark blue-grey, swept in and reached for her, offering silently to take her to bed.

Loki looked over and smiled at the sight, fondly recalling his own daydreams of Thor covered in little blond babies before he shook them away. Sif, fingers still buried in Fenrir's scruff, looked up at Loki and grinned. "So, birthday boy, what are your plans?"

Loki sat down on the cold stone floor, a smile spilling slowly across his face. "This. I would spend this day with all my children."

He did not say, though it lay heavily on his tongue and his heart, that Sleipnir was drawing away from him so fast he had no hope of ever catching up - that the only child he had ever borne was now rejecting him as violently as one's body does a disease.

He did not say that Jormungandr was missing, and had been for nigh four years, swallowed by salty grey seas with waves rougher than anything.

Instead, he let Fenrir clamor into his lap and scratched behind his ears. "My good, good boy," he murmured. Fenrir snuffled, prideful - Naturally, Papa.

Loki huffed a laugh and kissed the ridiculously fluffy fur between his eyes. "Of course. There is nothing in you but good."

Hela is going to bed, Papa. She likes you to sing before she sleeps. Fenrir bounded out of Loki's lap and chased after the shade, Loki close behind.

And then, all too suddenly, he recalled that shades' appearance - wispy and grey or fully formed - was fickle, subject to change upon the whim of the shade itself.

He recalled this because, in Hela's room, tucking her under a heap of blankets, stood her mother.

She was not so richly dressed as she had been when Frigga made her clothes, nor was she clad in furs and gold as Jotnar often were; thin blue arms poked out of a worn, rust-coloured shift, and her feet padded bare over the stone floors. With her hair in two long braids down her back, Loki could not help but remember that, once, they had been friends. Lovers. Family.

"Papa," Hela said sleepily, little arms reaching for him. Fenrir curled up around her, warm and soft. "Papa, sing, please?"

Loki nodded, mute, and sat down by her head, stroking her curls softly as he sang her to sleep. Even Fenrir, who decidedly was not tired, succumbed to slumber. It was very difficult not to fall under the sway of Loki's voice when he attempted to convince you of anything.

When they were resting, he rose and turned, practically burning. "You submitted our daughter to this. You told my father where we hid, knowing what he would do, knowing that our children would be harmed." Smoke bloomed, thick and dark, around his feet where they singed through his boots, and he stepped so close that he could taste every breath she did not breathe. "Why?"

Angrboða's throat worked in memory of function, compulsive, and she flitted backwards. "I did not love them, nor did I love you. I had no cause to continue your protection."

"Perhaps you have forgotten the cause of common decency for one's fellow beast?" Loki hissed, following. She was now backed into a corner, crimson eyes wide and glinting. Frost spread from her fingertips where they touched the wall, and Loki spat a hasty binding verse, staying her magic. "No matter what you felt for us, there is still due and just cause to protect other children from suffering at Odin's hands as you did, other people. Explain your actions, you foul, gutless... bilgesnipe."

Angrboða laughed, bright and clear. "If that is the best you, in all your silver-tongued glory, may contrive, then I wonder whether the years have taken from you your wits as they have me my life." She ducked away from him, light on her incorporeal toes, and her skirts swished around her delicate ankles.

"For a time, I had lost them," Loki snarled, grabbing her arm. "For a time, dearest, for a time I went mad at your betrayal and the loss of our children. You, sweet sister, you drove me mad."

She pouted softly, one small hand reaching up to cup his cheek, and simpered, "My poor, sweet husband, robbed of his sanity by a mere girl."

"You have never been merely anything," he laughed bitterly. Still, he did not move to take away her hand; small and smooth and pale, it was too heavily weighed with good memories for him to wish it gone, even as she poisoned those memories with cruel, biting words. "Why did you do it?"

Angrboða blinked at the sudden softness in his voice. "My sweet prince. I did it because I could." She could almost taste silver on her tongue with the lie, and Loki saw that.

"Why did you do it, 'Boða?" The childhood nickname rolled easily off his tongue, and Angrboða felt a sudden surge of anger. How dare he? How dare he attempt to sway her, to pray on a heart long since dead in every way?

"Because you, little prince," she spat, "you had everything. You had a mother who would do anything to see you happy and safe, who cares for you more than anything. You had a brother who would die to protect you, to this day, who loves you - more than perhaps your current lover does, more than I ever could. You had friends. You had freedom. I had nothing.

"And what better way to right that imbalance than to make us equal? What better way to even the score than to make certain that you had nothing, too?"

Her eyes, which had until that moment been fixed unflappably on his, flickered over to his cheek. Where her hand sat, blue and trembling with fury, his cheek matched. She had attempted to freeze him, as was the skill of all Jotun parents, and yet her attempt had failed. Rather than blackened, frost-bitten Aesir flesh, his cheek was a bright, clear, beautiful blue.

She pressed her hand harder, urging her skin to make him scream in pain, and yet more of him changed. Stiff ridges became clear on his forehead, cheeks, and chin - royal lines, decreeing him the heir to the throne, the vessel of the Void and bearer of the Casket. Her future king.

"There is a code, upon Jotunheim, is there not?" Loki's hands conflagrated, bright flames leaping up his wrists. "To protect all children; any and all young are near sacred in your Realm. Why would you break that code to spite me for mere jealousy? Unfounded, at that. My mother loved you, as she would have her own daughter, as she did me. Thor would have loved you, had the two of you met. Our children, despite your coldness towards them, adored you." He sucked in a breath, staring at the charred stone around his feet. "I loved you, Angrboða. You had love enough to spare, and you were so determined not to see it that you hurt your own family."

Loki laughed. "You say Thor would die to protect me? Your brother. He lived, for he had no magic in him, and on the news of your demise, he traveled to Asgard to retrieve your body. He loved you so greatly that he risked his own life - lost it - in order to free your corpse from Asgard and return it to the Void. And you say you were unloved."

"If he is dead, then why have I not seen him?" Angrboða shouted. "You lie, Silvertongue, you have always been a liar when it suits you, what cause have I to believe you now?"

"He fought back!" Loki roared. The air crackled, flame surrounding him, and Angrboða recoiled from him. It was too hot, much too hot. She couldn't stand the heat any more dead than she could when living, and the scorching swelter of Loki's rage was painful for her. "He was brave, and loyal, and good! He rests now with the Valkryies, in Valhalla, because his love for you - the sister he had not seen in over ten years - was stronger than anything."

As if the breath had been torn from her still, dead lungs, Angrboða let out a quiet little gasp. "I am so... My Lord, I am sorry."

Loki blinked. Out went the fire; the blue faded from his skin, leaving him somewhat flushed, but otherwise his normal pale hue. "Do not toy with me. Do not apologise if you do not mean it."

She knelt, one fist over her heart, the other arm bent behind her back. "My Lord. There is... there was a prince, stolen from Jotunheim in the last great battle of our war with Asgard. He was the heir to our throne. He was precious and beautiful and strong, and he was stolen. But every year, on the eve of his birth, the whole of Jotunheim would glow with the light of a million, million lanterns, and every Jotun would sing to the snow and the Void, begging for the return of our prince." She looked up, crimson eyes boring into him. "Tonight, they light those lanterns and sing, My Lord. I am twenty-two this year. I would have liked to see those lanterns burn."

Loki frowned. Why did everyone insist upon telling him tales of this Jotun prince? Surely, this absent child was no more. It had been decades since his disappearance, over twenty years. He was most likely dead in the melee, and the Jotnar had not the heart to break their King's. "I do not like what you have done, Angrboða, but I love our children. I cannot always be here. You are their mother. You will care for them with all the love you did not show them at birth, or I will ensure that you dwell nowhere so nice as Niflheim again."

Angrboða nodded and rose, fading into a vague grey shape before evaporating almost completely. Loki bent to kiss Hela's hair, to scratch Fenrir's back, and left the room, walking back down to his companions.

"You were gone a while," Sif quipped, though her expression became more solemn at the sight of him. "Beloved? What went on upstairs?"

Thor rushed to his side, checking him for injury and holding him close. "Brother?"

"She was here." Loki buried his face in the warmth of Thor's shoulder, clinging to his cape. "Thor, Angrboða was here. She was the shade who carried Hela upstairs. She has been here with Hela and Fenrir this whole time."

"She has not harmed them?" Thor craned his neck as if, at the right angle, he could see through stone.

"No." Loki swallowed the lump in his throat and looked up, beaming. "No. She apologised. She... She is reformed, by some miracle. She will not harm my family."

Sif squeezed his shoulder, kissing his temple. "And you are well, dearest?"

"I am better than I have felt in years," Loki promised, kissing her properly, Thor's arm between them.

The rest of the day was uneventful, wonderful. It was as good as Loki had imagined it could be and more, and when they left for the night, a soft smile still sat on his lips. Upon their return, Loki kissed Sif good night, but did not retire.

Rather, with Heimdall's assistance, he spied in on Jotunheim. It did, indeed, burn with the light of a million million lanterns, and indeed, every Jotun sang.

Thor sat at his side, shivering. "What are you doing, brother-mine?"

"Every year, on this night, the Jotnar pray to the Void and the snow for the return of their prince. They have faith, no matter that it has been almost twenty years since last he was seen." He took off his cloak and draped it around Thor's shoulders, letting him warm himself. "And every year, they sing and shine and hope. It is... It's beautiful."

"Indeed, brother."

Loki insinuated himself under Thor's arm, head resting against his shoulder, and Thor tugged gently at his hair.

Come morning, when Heimdall returned to his post, he found the two of them slumped over each other, sleeping soundly, smiles on their faces. He had not the heart to wake them.

So this one took a while. I'm sorry about that. But!

But!

BUT!

It's here and I'm pretty sure it's awesome. Please feel free to review.

(Note: Angrboða's return does not mean that there will be some weird inter-matter form hanky panky. No. NO! There will be Sifki and then Thorki, as the votes currently stand. Enjoy.)