By its own accord, for neither of them had requested it nor made any particular efforts to make it so, their relationship had become a secret. Whenever they did anything outside of arguing, they did so in private, be that in their chambers or else in a secluded corner behind a curtain. Truth of the matter was Sigyn had no one in particular with whom to speak of their secret rendezvous in the first place, with the exception —perhaps— of Einar; at the same time, however, Sigyn felt very strongly about that particular bond with the Prince of Asgard, respecting it too much —maybe to a fault— to be speaking about it with any third parties. Loki, on his part, hadn't told a soul either; as far as everyone in Asgard was concerned, the younger Prince had simply outgrown meaningless and rather public flirts overnight, all of a sudden nowhere to be found amongst his brother and his dimwitted friends as they chased after potentially interested parties.

Another contributing factor to their secrecy could have been the fact that they found something accelerating in all that stealthiness. Now they had found an alternative to sharp comments, the only way they had had up until then to get into each other's nerves, which was to subtly tempt each other in public. Occasionally, for a ceremony or an event, Sigyn would wear a backless dress and very conveniently end up spending most of the day standing with her back turned to the youngest of Odin's sons. And occasionally, when nobody else was paying close attention to where his hands were, Loki would engage in conversation with somebody else, acting naturally, as if he wasn't tracing the length of her bare back with the tip of his finger in an attempt to make her shiver. The only thing they found more entertaining than inspiring that energy build-up within each other was releasing that same energy later on.

Despite having believed she already knew him rather well, Sigyn soon came to realize she still had plenty more to learn about Loki. For instance, for a considerable amount of time in the beginning, she usually tried to keep her hands to herself, for the God of Mischief was quite reserved when it came to physical affection himself, which had led her to believe he was simply not very fond of it. Eventually, nonetheless, she discovered that, in fact, the opposite was true.

One day in particular, Loki stormed into his own chambers in a rampageous rage after an audience with the All Father. Sigyn was already there when he arrived; finding her in those rooms, after all, would not have been an odd sight to anyone, since the maiden was known to borrow a number or two from the Prince's private library from time to time— not to mention she had foreshadowed that he would need some soothing down after that encounter. Needless to say that she knew better than to ask how it had gone; instead, she devoted her whole attention to his inevitable rant, listening to him as he complained and listed every way in which his father favoured his older brother over himself. Whether she herself believed it or not, Sigyn thought, was irrelevant, since what mattered was the fact that Loki perceived it so.

Through that entire harangue, she did not agree nor disagree, for there was no telling how much of it he actually meant and how much of it was just a projection or simply due to an outburst of anger. She only listened, allowing him to get all of that toxicity out of his system as efficiently as possible; after all, the sooner he did, the sooner he would be able to look back upon that audience with a less clouded and biased perspective. Analyzing things in his current state would have been, the maiden believed, counterproductive.

"Feeling better already, are we?" she ventured with a gentle smile when the God of Mischief had paused at last and exhaled a heavy sigh.

"Hardly," he disagreed.

Wanting to make herself useful, she took him by the hand and led him to a nearby chair so he would take a seat. Loki let himself be led, which might have seemed surprising to most, if not everyone with the exception of Sigyn.

"Your Mother will make him see reason, doesn't she always?" she sweetly reminded him, slightly lifting the skirt of her dress so she could take a seat across his lap.

"Asking my Mother to fight my battles for me?" Loki retorted with an elbow propped up on the armrest, his temple leaning against two of his fingers as if he were nursing a headache. "Not necessarily an orderly way of earning my Father's respect."

"Would you prefer I fought them for you instead?" she playfully suggested, daring to poke at his cheekbone with the tip of her nose while she offered him a smile.

"I'm in no mood for banter," he half-heartedly protested, while still offering her a faint smile in return.

After having apologized in a whisper, Sigyn set aside all intention to jest. She left him to his thoughts for a while longer as she provided him with supportive company, a loose arm around his shoulders being as far as she was prepared to go in terms of physical affection. For some reason that remained unbeknownst to her, she had the constant, irrational fear gnawing at the very back of her mind that expressing herself as openly as she would like to would somehow result in Loki's withdrawal, as if a sudden demonstration of affection would be enough to scare him off. Off of what, of course, was not clear to her, although she supposed that was why they called it an irrational fear.

"I cannot be trusted, can I?" he abruptly mused, and Sigyn suspected he had originally intended to keep that statement an inner thought.

"Your father trusts you," she assured him, giving his shoulder a tender squeeze.

"As much as he trusts Thor?" he challenged.

Perhaps Sigyn herself was biased but she could not sincerely state that Odin treated both of his sons equally. She wanted to believe it was Thor's age and nothing more, which in turn granted him the immediate right to the throne of Asgard, which inspired the King to treat his firstborn the way he did in comparison to Loki— she had to admit, nonetheless, that what he lacked in Odin's favour he more than made up for in Frigga's.

Her initial intention had been to extend to her companion's cheek a mere brush with her thumb in the form of a fleeting caress. The moment her hand had gotten close enough to his face, however, —though not without a fair share of hesitation— Loki tilted his head in order to lean into her palm, his own hand rising to hold hers in place. It was then that Sigyn realized just how much he seemed to long for loving, caring contact rather than, like she had so foolishly believed until then, being repelled by it. Now that the Prince had chosen to expose his own vulnerability, the young woman decided to do the same. She leaned in to press a lasting, soft kiss to his temple right before she whispered her confession:

"I'd trust you with my life."

She had seen him cry before, but never had it been voluntary on his part. As a matter of fact, the few times she had ever witnessed him shedding a tear, he had done so without even realizing it himself. That was the first time, nevertheless, when Loki had in fact felt a tear or two streaming away from his eyes and down his face yet made no effort in concealing it. Sigyn did not brush them away; instead, she hugged his head to her chest, extending a light, constant caress to his cheek with her thumb while whispering warm reassurances into his hair.

Eventually, and not too long after that day, Loki made a realization of his own: He knew Sigyn enough to tell when she was lying, he knew her enough to sometimes foreshadow what she'd say or how she'd react, he knew her enough to be able to recite her interests, her likes and dislikes— that was, however, quite literally all he knew about her. That conclusion immediately became haunting once the Prince had thought of it, deciding to act upon it the second after it had dawned on him.

"What was your mother's name?" he asked out of the blue.

He was seated on the ground, his back propped against the trunk of a tree. Sigyn was seated beside him, though most of her was leaned back into his chest. Both were reading, each a book of their own, although Loki had lowered his onto his lap some time ago when his train of thought had become too absorbing for him to be able to concentrate. Sigyn was, to say the least, taken aback by such an unanticipated question.

"What?"

She tilted her head back so she could see his face; Loki, in turn, looked down at her as well.

"Your mother. You've never told me her name."

"Oh, of course I have!" she disagreed, lowering her gaze onto her book once more. "I must have."

"Not to my recollection," he insisted.

Sigyn glanced up from the page and stared at nothingness as she tried to recollect a conversation between the two of them in which she had referred to her mother by name. To her surprise, no matter how fervent her attempt at remembering, she could not come up with a single occasion in which she had. She was not exactly sure how she was to feel upon that realization, but something told me that whatever emotion she experienced from it would require a lot of time and energy to process, both of which she was not prepared to spare at the moment. She therefore decided to repress it behind a facade of indifference.

"—oh." She gave her head a quick shake. "I could have sworn you knew. Well, for what it's worth, it was Dagmar."

"It's... worth plenty, I hope," Loki ventured to comment. "How could I have possibly known? You never talk about her."

It was Sigyn's turn to put down her book once and for all. She adjusted herself, taking a proper seat next to him. Her companion, in turn, for he did not want to renounce that physical closeness, locked an arm around her waist which kept her near enough, yet still at a distance where they could look each other in the eye, the least such a sensitive topic deserved.

"Well, to what do we owe this sudden curiosity?" wondered she with a smile.

"Sigyn, if you'd rather not talk about it…" the Prince offered, worried that he might have brought up a particularly fragile subject of conversation.

She hesitated, but only because she had not expected him to be so accurately perceptive of the discomfort she was trying to conceal.

"No, no, I do!" After all, she had to admit she found it rather endearing that her companion was taking an interest, as odd as it struck her to be asked about topics she could not remember having ever discussed out loud with anyone else before. "You've just caught me off guard, is all. What would you like to know?"

"Anything you'd like to tell me. What do you remember about her?"

"To be sure, not much. I barely knew her, I was quite young when she died."

"What happened to her?"

"Oh, please, I know you know that much," Sigyn remarked, because she herself had received the news of her mother's demise together with the Queen.

"Where could I have learned about it?" Loki demanded.

"Surely, your mother's told you," she assumed.

"Do you honestly believe she and I would just tittle-tattle about your life behind your back like that?"

"Oh, don't pretend to be so scandalized," said the maiden with a laugh, extending a gentle nudge to his side. "You've asked her about my family before."

The Prince, on the other hand, did not appear to be amused. "On one occasion, perhaps, two at the most, but never about your mother."

"Is that so?"

"Why would I lie about that?"

"For the same reason you've always lied about everything else, I presume," Sigyn suggested, all of a sudden stuck in a tendency to answer with teasing alone, unable to formulate a serious reply.

"Well, I would never lie to you."

"How do I know that right there wasn't a lie?"

Once she had a moment to catch her breath, looking away momentarily, Sigyn realized she was deflecting, noticing she had succumbed to a defense mechanism. Accusing Loki, even jokingly, of being capable of lying to her, being dreadfully aware as she was that trust was a very sensitive topic for him in particular, had broken its spell, allowing her to think clearly for a change. When she turned her head to look at him again, rather than finding any vexation upon his features like she had expected, instead she found a patient, gentle expression, as though Loki had realized a lot sooner that she was simply avoiding the topic of conversation and was waiting for her to perceive it as well. Wanting to apologize for her reaction as well as show appreciation over the fact that he did not give her any grief about it, she extended a tender squeeze to his chin.

"I do know you'd never lie to me," she stated, wanting to make that specifically perfectly clear.

"I never would," he promised for good measure.

"I know."

In the end, they talked about everything she remembered, however little. More than once did Loki pose questions that she herself had never wondered, whose answers most definitely sounded like conclusions she should have drawn much earlier in life, had she only given herself the chance to actually think about it. The God of Mischief was aghast, utterly shocked at the amount of information Sigyn had been withholding all along, wondering how she had managed to keep all of that silent for as long as they had known each other.

Deep down they had suspected it for quite some time, but now that they had seen each other at their most vulnerable, having trusted each other with information they had never shared with anybody else before, it had become official and undeniable: Sigyn and Loki knew each other far better than anyone had ever known them, a rather awkward and yet distinctive experience for them both.