"Traitor!"

"Usurper!"

"Panty-Waist!"

"Well, this is unpleasant," Sigyn said.

"Come, my dear – you didn't expect them to stop their protesting just because I had a date, did you?" Loki said, as they walked past the line of guardsmen pushing back the protestors outside the palace.

"Perhaps we shouldn't have come this way," she said. "Taking a flyer would have been… more anonymous."

"But it's only a short walk to the restaurant. Angrboda didn't mind. Actually, she seemed to enjoy the attention."

"Which says something about her," Sigyn said. "We shouldn't give these people the opportunity to become… uncivil."

"Actually, one of them did chuck a rock at me last night, apparently," Loki admitted.

"What? Were you hurt?" Sigyn said.

"No, no, I caught it. No harm done. Angrboda seemed to be impressed when she told me about it."

"Wait – so this is something you don't remember doing?"

"Well, I was kind of blackout drunk."

Sigyn gave him an incredulous look. "Is catching a stone someone randomly threw at you something you were likely to do when you weren't blackout drunk?"

"I can speak for when I am blackout drunk, but when I'm sober I can snatch arrows."

Her eyebrows shot to her hairline. "Really? Is that… natural ability… or training?"

"Training. Father used to take me out into the courtyard and loose arrows at me, and I had damned well better catch them…"

"No!" she said.

He smiled. "Of course not. But I had you going, didn't I?"

"That's not very funny. I was almost prepared to believe it."

"Odin was a bit neglectful, perhaps, but he wasn't openly abusive. Don't worry about such things."

"So how does one learn one has a talent for snatching arrows?"

"On the battlefield. Where else?"

"It just seems like, with all the chaos of battle, you wouldn't be able to see something as small and swift as an arrow coming towards you, let alone be able to react to it."

"I don't know how I do it. I definitely don't see it. It's more like I sense it. Sometimes I can hear it but usually it's just a sense that something is coming at me."

"That's some spatial awareness, then."

"You don't believe me. You think I'm bragging?"

"No, no… it's just… all your powers, all your skills… it starts to sound a trifle… unlikely. Even for royalty. And you are the god of deceit, aren't you?"

"I'm the god of mischief and of fire. I got a reputation for deceit only because of my talents of illusion."

"And for… tricking people."

"That was just mischief."

They reached the restaurant and Loki held the door for her. Fine dining was not a big thing in Asgard – most gods stuck to dining at the inns and taverns – and these places kept their doors open by virtue of playing to their clientele's biggest weaknesses: prestige and stupidity. Consequently, they all worked to the same business plan: take something cheap and plentiful, like Asgardian Whitefish, which was cheaper than ever now because of how much of it had washed up boiled on the shoreline after Loki dealt with Malekith, and price it astronomically high so that only the richest of the rich could possibly afford to order it. That way, it becomes a symbol of status to order it and so, everyone wants it. It was ludicrous: Asgardians, as a general rule, did not like fish, and the accidental boiling in salt water hadn't done it any favors whatsoever, but still they clamored for it, because to be seen ordering it was a mark of great prestige.

The waiter sat them at an intimate table and handed them menus. "Order whatever you wish," Loki said. "You can have the fish, if you want."

"I'm not a big fan of fish," Sigyn said, opening her menu. "And the price they want for it is insane. I think I'd rather have something with chicken."

"Practical," he said. "Get what you want to eat rather than what you want people to see you eating. I wonder what Angrboda would choose if I brought her here?"

"Oh, Angrboda would get the fish," Sigyn said, rather dismissively.

"Does she like fish?" Loki asked, eyebrow raised.

"It wouldn't matter. Angrboda believes life is to be lived large. If she had the opportunity to get the most expensive item on a very expensive menu, she would go for it, whether there was any tangible or intangible benefit to eating it or not. It's her way. It's not right or wrong, it just is."

"Yet you seem very judgmental about it."

Sigyn sighed. "We are all raised by a certain set of values. As we grow, we develop our own. My values are not Angrboda's. I try not to judge others, but I do feel that the pursuit of pleasure is a low priority compared to… many other things."

"Like what things?"

"Family, friendship, duty… love."

He looked at her over his menu with some incredulity. "You're a noble-born goddess, and you're worried about love? You really didn't want to be involved in this arrangement debacle, did you?"

"I didn't. And I rather took it out on you, for which I apologize. Even a criminal doesn't deserve that, especially at a Sanitarium."

Loki hid behind his menu again. "So what's his name, then?" he said.

"What's who's name?" she said.

"The god you're in love with."

"I'm not in love with any god."

"Goddess, then."

"There's no goddess, either!"

"It's Angrboda, isn't it? You're jealous because I might take your girl away from you."

"I'm not going to lower myself to your level of immaturity."

He put his menu down. "All right, I'm sorry. I just assumed there had to be someone you had your heart set on if you were so very upset about possibly maybe getting married to me."

"There was no one. I just… never had the opportunity to find anyone."

"And you think there's no chance you could find it with me."

"I don't… mean to be offensive, but… I don't see how."

"Well you're not exactly my cup of tea, either."

"I wouldn't expect to be. We're very different people."

Fortunately, the waiter came and took their orders, saving them from any more of this. After he left, they lapsed into an uncomfortable silence over their wine.

At long last their meals came. Loki cleared his throat. "Judah really seems to like you," he said, just to have something to say.

She smiled. "He's a lovely boy. He's certainly very fond of you."

"You like children?"

"I do. I hope to have some of my own someday."

"I hope to give my son a good mother."

"I hope you do. I hope Judah is very happy, whatever your choice."

"I want that more than anything else. For Judah to be happy."

"That means you're a real parent."

"Did you think I was not?"

"I confess, I wondered. You have a certain reputation for frivolousness and immaturity. I thought perhaps raising a mortal child was a kind of whim for you, a game you were playing."

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do."

"Maybe I don't."

She turned her attention to her plate of home-style "chicken," actually not chicken at all since there were no birds in Asgard, but it was white meat, feathered, and tasted roughly the same so that was what they called it in English. Loki cut a piece off his steak – it wasn't beef – and chewed. He didn't look forward to teaching Judah about Asgardian livestock.

"So… I got a taste of what you're teaching Judah from the homework he had last night," Sigyn ventured, after a sip of wine. "Is there anything in particular you're keen for him to learn?"

Loki sighed. "Everything. He's the size and mental development of a sixty-eight-year-old but he's only been alive for nine Midgardian years. He has so much to learn. Fortunately, he's incredibly bright. We're mostly focused right now on learning to speak Asgardian. He doesn't need to go through his days not knowing what everybody is saying around him."

"Does he find it very difficult?"

"He doesn't find it easy, but he'll learn. He's only just begun, after all. I should have started him on it sooner, but I never really intended to bring him here."

"Have you given a mind to sending him to school?"

"On Midgard, I couldn't – he did not legally 'exist' there. Here, I don't know… there's so much emphasis on military training, especially for the upper classes. I don't want that for him."

"What if he wants it?"

"When he reaches the age where he has the knowledge and years to make such a choice, I will honor it, but in the meantime, I don't want him brutalized and brainwashed into thinking that's all there is for him to be."

"What if he decides to become a warrior and then finds he hasn't the training to handle it?"

"Unfortunately, right now my son appears to have his heart set on becoming a Battlemage." He tilted his head and his wineglass at opposing angles and gave her a cockeyed grin that had no humor in it. "Just like Dad."

Sigyn sat back in her chair. "How does that make you feel?" she asked.

"I said I would support him in whatever he wished to do, but I will do my damnedest to convince him to pursue some other line of work."

"I don't blame you."

"You don't?"

She shook her head slowly. "I don't."

It was Loki's turn to sit back. "I expected you to say I was being selfish."

"No one knows better than a Battlemage what kind of Hel being a Battlemage can be. I have treated a fair number of your fellows over the years. The stories they've told about the training program are… horrifying. I understand magic is dangerous and that mages attract demons, so I understand the need for discipline, but I do not understand the need to torture and abuse children for the sake of turning them into Battlemages."

"I, too, will never understand it," Loki said. He took a sip of wine. His hand was shaking.

"Perhaps if you shared… some of this… with Judah, he would understand why it is you do not want him to follow in your footsteps," she suggested.

He laughed feebly. "Should I tell him how I was stripped naked and chained by my wrists to a stone wall at night instead of sent to a bed to sleep?" he said. "I don't want to give the boy nightmares."

"You're a very smart god," she said quietly. "Surely you can find a way to communicate to him the fact that it was traumatic, without going into deep, and potentially traumatizing, detail."

"Yes, I suppose I could. I would venture to guess he will still want to study magic, however."

"Is that a bad thing? Do you object to the study of magic in its entirety or only to the Battlemage program?"

"Magic is dangerous."

She picked up her cutlery. "So is a fork. One can be taught to use it properly and responsibly."

"That's not quite the same level of danger. What can happen if you misuse a fork? You put out an eye? Ask my father – the loss of an eye is not such a big deal."

She put the fork down. "You fear demonic possession. Did you fear it before your captors attempted to force you to summon a demon?"

"Can we not perform psychoanalysis at the dinner table?" Loki said.

She smiled just slightly. "There is no wrong time for psychoanalysis," she said, but she let the matter be.