Despite being thoroughly familiar with the Asgardian saying which roughly translated was similar to the Midgardian expression "desperate times call for desperate measures", Einar never would have guessed in a billion years that he would ever be desperate enough to resort to the measures he was on the verge of taking. Needless to say he would have never agreed to do such a thing were it not for the fact that he indeed found it the one true, unfortunately undeniable remedy to his concern, much as he wished it hadn't been.

In hindsight, perhaps it should have taken him significantly less time to realize what he now suspected was the matter with his friend. In his defense, he was understandably happy to see Sigyn so eager to immediately immerse herself in a life that was so radically different than what it had been until that point; all of a sudden, rather than being the cautious —if not borderline judgemental— soul she had always been, she suddenly approached everything and everyone with an open mind. Needless to say nobody could blame her; it was only natural that when overcoming disappointment or whenever a cycle within one's life came to a close that one should feel the urge to try new things, both for the sheer sense of adventure and to serve as a distraction.

Days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and since the maiden appeared as enthusiastic as ever to meet new people (and to engage in quite frankly any social activity of which she heard), Einar had seen no need in worrying about her, although he should have known better than to shrug his shoulders resignedly at the fact that she seemed to have bounced back from utter heartbreak suspiciously quickly. Perhaps, he wondered now in retrospective, so fervent was his desire to see her freed from that poisonous bond that when it'd happened at last, he didn't even want to question it, instead simply wholeheartedly embracing it without second thought.

Now that he thought about it, there had been at least a thousand different things that should have alerted him something was the matter with his best friend. Nevertheless, at the time, for whatever reason, they had remained invisible, only rising to his attention after one specific conversation which in the end shook him hard enough to make him look back upon recent events with a brand new, more observant, perspective.

Having stepped into the tavern as he usually did upon having been relieved of his duties for the evening, the member of the Einherjar was pleased to find several of his friends already gathered at a table— and he was surprised to see Sigyn there with them.

"Are you not supposed to be working, my Lady?" he wondered amusedly.

"Why, Sire, haven't you noticed I haven't been to work for weeks?" answered the maiden in a laugh as she exchanged complicit glances with the rest of the group, for they all seemed to be aware of what Einar evidently ignored.

Visibly startled, and also hesitant regarding how to react to such a nonchalant —if only slightly condescending— response, the guard could only smile, since after taking a gander round the table, he found far too many emptied drinking vessels which led him to believe it was hardly a time for meaningful conversation. Happy to shrug off his worries of the day, the warrior joined in their mirth, rushing through a couple of pints of mead himself so as to match their debauchery.

After that, the evening became perfectly delightful, a night of laughter and good company, a celebration with no occasion which always felt like the best kind of celebration in the first place. So it was, at least, until Sigyn seemed to have caught sight of something or someone positioned behind Einar. Oh, how grateful was he that he had been fortunate enough to have been looking at her, otherwise he would have missed that fraction of a second in which the light had drained from her features, right before s he made up for it beautifully by adopting a refined and posed manner that could not be interpreted as anything but perfectly lovely. Only someone who knew her as well as Einar did, someone who had seen her beaming at her brightest, would have been able to tell this was but an empty, servicing demeanor.

As he looked over his shoulder, Einar discovered its recipient was Theoric, who in turn offered her a smile objectively dashing and yet so undeniably foolish and a wave whose coordination would have convinced anyone who ignored what a mighty warrior he was in reality that he could not be trusted with a sword. Perplexed, with the gaped lips and wide eyes of one who has suddenly made a realization that had been in front of them all along but only just began to make sense —similar to when babies discover their own feet or their ability to emit sounds—, he glanced between him and Sigyn as she graciously excused herself from the table.

A metaphorical veil had suddenly lifted from his recollection of certain events, now that he was thinking back on them. Whatever had inspired him to take a gander into the past through the lens of this new perception of reality of his, he hadn't the faintest idea. Nevertheless, he was grateful, feeling all of a sudden as though he was finally seeing things clearer than ever before: All of a sudden, he realized Sigyn had in fact not been herself in quite some time; he couldn't remember the last time he had seen her read, or the last time she had rushed towards him, eager to share some fascinating piece of historical information anyone else would have found trivial but that to her was absolutely fascinating; no longer did she try out every pastime imaginable, yearning to learn everything about anything. She was still energetic, yes, but he noticed now that her eagerness was now focused on finding her distractions, new people to meet, new parties or celebrations to attend, new excuses so she wouldn't be left alone with her thoughts.

He thought about poor Theoric, who had already confessed to him his intention to marry her, who had shared with him what had transpired during his private audience with the All Father— before, Einar had been fearful that Sigyn would be so blinded by that poisonous, helpless hold the God of Mischief seemed to have upon her that she would turn down the warrior's proposal. Now, on the other hand, he was actually fearful she might accept it, thus condemning him to a lifetime of being bound to an unhappy person that had most likely settled for him, and her, most importantly, to a lifetime of unhappiness and second-to-bests.

"Sigyn!" he called out to her after having returned from that epiphanic train of thought, chasing after her all the way to the outside of the tavern. "Theoric, my man," he greeted his fellow guard with pretend cheer. "Might I deprive you of this lady's company for just a moment?"

Visibly confused and yet elegantly obliging, as always, Theoric responded with a bow of his head and a glance at his companion before he made himself scarce. Sigyn, as much at a loss as he was, approached her friend tentatively.

"Something the matter?"

"You tell me," Einar replied.

"I'm in no mood for jests," confessed the maiden with a bored sigh. "Is something the matter or not?"

"You left your work at the archives."

"—haven't we just had this conversation? Yes. I did."

"You say it as if it were nothing..."

"Because it is nothing, it took them minutes to find a replacement."

"Well, they must have taken a page out of your book, in that regard."

From the beginning, Sigyn had sensed that Einar's demeanor was confrontational, it was nothing she hadn't seen before; like in all rapports of all natures, people who've spent as much time together as they had were bound to have moments of friction, moments in which one of the two parties became more irked than normal, moments in which they wouldn't see eye-to-eye. Nevertheless, this conversation in particular smelled to her like a turning point, an imminent moment of truth that some people can go their entire lives without experiencing, that moment in which someone who has been avoiding mirrors all of a sudden is forced to gaze into their monstrous reflection.

"Have you had your fun, Sire, may I be excused?" she snarled in a much colder, visibly irked fashion, eager to bring that conversation —if that was the proper name for it, Sigyn thought to herself, for it was short from an attack, really— to an end.

"Sigyn—" insisted the young man with quite a commanding, dry tone, if only because he was indeed so determined to get to the bottom of her despondency. "Will you, please, just tell me what's wrong?"

"Did you know it was never him who put me in the archives?" While it sounded like a radical change of subject, Einar knew better than to question she was trying to explain herself thoroughly. "It was the Queen. He was merely trying to recommend me for it, because he thought I'd be perfect for the job and they didn't believe him. He was the first person ever to see any potential in me and no one has ever believed that! It was never Loki who looked down on me, it was every body else—- like the idea of someone genuinely caring for either one of us, and that there truly was something more to us than mere vanity on one side and blind devotion on the other, was absolutely absurd."

The young man might have held no right to invalidate anything his friend claimed were her true feelings, and of course he knew that; however, he was unable to conceal his discontent with that remark of hers in which she categorized him as just one more out of the bunch who had always looked down on her by furrowing his brow and hardening his jaw.

"He is not the only one who believes in you, you know. He never was."

"Except he was. Him and the Queen, I suppose, but I daresay there are very few people on Asgard her Majesty doesn't esteem." In her eyes, Frigga would always be spared of any accusations she might carelessly release into the universe. "For most of my life, before you and I ever met, he was the only one."

"Well, he's not anymore," Einar insisted.

"And of course I know that," sighed Sigyn almost impatiently, hands landing on her hips as she momentarily bent her knees as if genuinely worn down by that conversation. "But see, that's not all he was to me, it wasn't that I was only allured to his caring about me, I was allured to him. To how brilliant he is, how eloquent he is, and, yes, even to how mind-numbingly thick he can be."

Far from dissuading the guard's vexation, her clarification had only enhanced it.

"If the rest of us are so unworthy of your attention, how come you are spending your every minute with us instead of him?"

"Oh, for mercy's sake, Einar, must you be so dramatic?" she pleaded, stomping her foot, and speaking so harshly it finally shook the other from his inflexible mentality. "I am heartbroken. I'm sad and I'm desperately lonely and I am allowed to behave a little selfishly while I'm feeling that way."

At last, her friend realized he had indeed been behaving rather insensitively; even if he were acting exclusively for her sake —and he was—, it would not have gone amiss to have asked her how she was feeling rather than practically ambush her, never mind that his intensity originated precisely from that fervent desire to protect her.

"Of course you are, I'm sorry." He adopted a much more passive stance, lowering his head as he linked his hands behind his back and shifted his weight from one foot to the other; he looked rather like a child who had just been told off by a parent. "Could I just ask... what happened?"

Sigyn's eyes, which had until them been fixed on the floor, glanced back up at the young man, and she shrugged her shoulders, as if saying 'your guess is as good as mine'.

"—he wouldn't tell me." She nodded comprehensibly at the look of outmost puzzlement with which Einar had wordlessly replied, her way of remarking that had been her exact same reaction at the time, and that she remained equally as puzzled today. "Regardless," she went on, faintly shaking her head as if trying to put the matter aside. "It made me wonder whether I should trust the judgement of someone who does things like that."

"Why would his judgement even matter to being with?" he demanded, though now he did sound sincerely empathetic as opposed to accusatory like before. "You told me once that you were longing for something in your life that couldn't be traced back to him, whatever happened with that?

"I was being horribly self-centered. You know, living in that palace has really been filtering my perception. When you are surrounded by the fair few Asgardians that actually stand out, you forget that most people are in fact… ordinary. I don't know why I ever thought I was meant to be extraordinary in any way, that I had been born to excel at something. Some of us simply… are."

"What is that supposed to mean, you will spend the rest of your life as a ghost of yourself merely because some moody brat wouldn't tell you why he won't be with you?"

"It's not to do with him, Einar, it's me! I am the one who set an unreachable goal for myself because I just couldn't fathom the idea of being regular. And the truth is, I am. I keep waiting for my life to take an exciting turn, when in reality, that hardly ever happens."

"But it does happen," Einar rebutted. "What makes you think it never will for you?"

"What is it you want from me, Einar, what would have me do?" she said exhaustedly with a heavy sigh.

"Ideally, see reason," answered he. "But if heartache truly is making that impossible for you at the moment, which I understand... I'll simply compel you to leave Theoric out of this."

"What does Theoric have to do with any of this?"

"Precisely— Sig, that man is in love with you, he intends to marry you." His friend stared at him with visibly sincere bewilderment, which in turn bewildered him, for he had believed Theoric's feelings for her to be utterly evident by then. "What I meant to say is, he deserves better than for you to settle for him just because you're afraid nothing better will come along."

By then, Sigyn had brought a hand up to cup her own forehead as her eyes slid shut, like someone does when they are trying to nurse a sentiment-induced headache, or to get their surroundings to stop spinning, or to have a moment of peace so that they could gather their thoughts. Einar gave her a moment, and then eventually spoke up again:

"I think it safe to assume this isn't the last we've spoken on the matter," he began, to which she answered with a reluctant —but resigned— nod. "But for now, all I ask of you is that you take into account Theoric's feelings before you make any decisions. You're allowed to be a little selfish, darling, I'll give you that... just don't let that justify the unjustifiable."

A deep breath later, Sigyn had composed herself, straightening her back as she once again nodded in agreement, for she was still not fully composed and speaking out remained out of the question. As a matter of fact, it took her several attempts before she was able to properly thank her friend and wish him a goodnight before she made her leave.

Several days had gone by since that conversation, and far from seeing an improvement in Sigyn's mood, it seemed as though it had somehow worsened. Perhaps it was simply a matter of time before such melancholy blew over, and perhaps he was once again meddling past the acceptable amount, but Einar had once again decided to intervene, having gone as far as requesting a secretive audience with the last person with whom he thought he'd ever want to be alone in the same room, for he believed he had pinpointed what it was about it that was still weighing heavily on Sigyn's conscience.

Even though Loki had very skillfully avoided showing too much emotion as a reaction to everything the warrior had to tell him, Einar believed he had recognized a moment or two in which he had seen glimpses of genuine surprise and even a little delight. After all, he wouldn't have been shocked in the least to learn Loki was in fact glad Sigyn was miserable without him and not thriving as he'd once thought.

"I won't pretend I understand it," said Einar, trying his best to keep his eyes down and not looking up at the God of Mischief. "—as a matter of fact, I won't even pretend to be remotely pleased about it. But Sigyn is the closest I've ever had to a sister and, believe it or not, I've developed a very sensitive perception about her."

"Have you now?"

"Seeing as, in this extremely rare case, it actually vouches in your favour, your Highness, you might not want to question it."

"Go on."

"—in any case, I believe your intervention may just make a difference..." He couldn't help himself. "And for the better, for a change."

"And here I was, thinking you despised me."

"Oh, I do, my Liege," Einar assured him with outmost solemnity, for there was not but a piece of humorous about it. "I am sworn to protect you and your family, I will gladly die defending you, as is my duty, but let it be understood that I do most wholeheartedly detest you."

"Would you find any comfort in seeing me affected by your opinion?"

"No."

"Oh, how fortunate. I don't think I could have feigned interest if I'd tried my hardest." Loki followed his statement with a bright, charming and yet undoubtedly fake smile.

Einar rolled his eyes and left.