Loki is weary to the bone. He has no idea how long they have been gone from Asgard, has lost count of days long since. He has been as good as his word, following Thor and the Warriors Three through combat after combat, challenge after challenge. He thinks they've visited all the Nine Realms, saving only Jotunheimr, and done battle in each. It has been full distracting, but not healing. In the times between, when his blood is not rushing hot in his veins and he is not watching everyone else's back, he cannot avoid the memories.
Synne's golden laughter.
Her eyes, silver-green.
A tumble of blonde curls.
At this point, he is sure the others have guessed the cause of his brooding, but they say nothing. Not one word. He cannot decide if he is grateful or annoyed. Then again, he can't decide if he even wants to talk about it.
Perhaps to his mother, who has managed Odin these many years. But not, absolutely not, with his brother or any of the Warriors Three. Possibly Lady Sif, though that relationship is so strange he is not even sure how he could begin. Sif may be female in body, but it is long since he thought of her as aught but a warrior.
And warriors do not speak of broken hearts.
But they have returned to Asgard now, battle-worn but triumphant. A grand feast has been prepared for them, in the brothers' feasting hall; all Loki can think of just now is his desperate desire to get out of his armour and get clean, though.
And he wants some time to think. The irony is fantastic. He followed his brother from Asgard to escape thinking, and now that they have returned, thinking is all he truly wants to do. He's seen much on this trip, though, in between avoiding memories of Synne. And those parts of him that are not tied up yet in his grief over her have a lot to process.
Like his brother.
His impetuous, battle-mad, ungovernable, heedless brother.
Loki has always believed before that his brother's headlong approach to all things was something Thor would grow out of. Or possibly Odin would teach it out of him. After all, it was all well and good for a young boy to wish to hunt down all the monsters, and even a growing lad, but a king needed to be more circumspect.
And Thor was anything but circumspect.
Now he is beginning to wonder, undismissably, if perhaps Thor is not suited to be the heir to the throne.
Perhaps fortunately, this particular train of thought is spectacularly derailed by the voice emerging from the great hall. They have returned in late evening for Asgard, and many folk of the court gather there to mingle and game, drink and boast together. Just now, though, there is utter silence, save the one voice.
It is a voice Loki recognises instantly.
How not? He has listened to it night and day for more years past than he can bear to think on just now, though never in all that time has he heard it as he is hearing it now. As pure and distant as starlight, as high and cool as the peaks of Jotunheimr, his lost Synne is singing to a hushed hall.
"At world's edge, where stars are sown, and serpent's breath will freeze your bones / A banner stands on a rocky shore, wrought with runes and Viking lore / Rorik was a noble king, and of him now a tale I sing / Of how he came to world's end, and victorious returned again."
Loki is frozen where he stands, half-hidden in the shadows near the entrance to the hall. He hardly dares breathe, fearful of missing even a single note. His heart hurts.
"His dragon ship was proud and fair, a silver crown on chestnut hair / And to his queen he'd sworn a vow, to place a star upon her brow / So in the dark of early dawn, she came to clasp his sword belt on / And as a parting gift, she brought a silken banner, silver wrought / Runes upon a staff of yew, serpent flown on black and blue / In the dragon ship it stood, while in the prow good Rorik rode."
He knows the song now. It is old and familiar, long a favourite among the warrior-lords who throng Asgard's halls. Never, never has he heard it rendered thus. Closing his eyes, he envisions the scene: Synne, tall and proud and straight, her sunlight hair flowing about her and clad in her favourite blue, poised on the lowest step of Odin's seat, while all around the half-drunken fighters cluster, gazing at her with tears in their eyes.
"Through the seas whose shores he knew, proud the serpent banner flew / Until the seas grew dark and cold, and overhead in pale gold / The sun was faint and glimmered far; the skies grew thick with stranger stars / A barren island marked the bound between the earth and sky, he found / The dragon ship he anchored there, and in his hand the banner fair / Through the crashing surf he strode, to rocky shores, where starfire glowed."
Oh, it burns, that they could now have what he could not. He becomes aware he is grinding his teeth, and cannot stop. Poised in the corridor, he fights a battle with himself, an achingly familiar battle between jealousy and love.
"But heaven's gems are not unguarded; thus a serpent, scales hardened / With fires of the moon and sun, and the strength of battles won / Rose from 'neath the darkened deep and roared a challenge meant to keep / Rorik's hand from plucking down to the wealth of stars that there he found."
So very many of those men are regarded as better than he. He cannot conceive what she saw in him, what possible hold he might ever have on someone such as she. He is not deserving. Surely she has already turned from him, even his memory, to someone else, some greater man, stronger.
"Through the night the foes did battle; stones cried out and weapons rattled / Sun and moon did pass away, till dark alone was holding sway / Mighty were the blows, red-handed; Rorik by the fell claws branded / Till at last the serpent, winded, took Rorik's spear in one eye, blinded."
She had chosen him. He holds fast to that; from the start, she had chosen, not he. Hers were the first words, the first kiss. He has spent the last little time proving himself in battle, has he not? And he survived, and returned victorious, even as Rorik in the song.
"And while the serpent foundered bleeding, Rorik grasped his banner, weaving / Up between the standing stones, and left it there to stand alone / Then he grasped his hard won prize, a star as bright as serpent's eyes / And homeward sent his ship away, in his hand a lone star, shining."
And there was the truth of it: whatever she saw, however he thought of himself, or others not her thought of him, she believed him worthy. Might yet believe him deserving. As she was a star, guiding him, so might he be to her. He didn't know. Had never even asked.
It was something of a revelation.
"At world's edge, where stars are sown, and serpent's breath will freeze your bones / A banner stands on a rocky shore, wrought with runes and Viking lore / Rorik was a noble king, and of him now a tale I sing / Of how he came to world's end, and victorious returned again."
Rorik had fought hard, risked much, and won his prize, in the song. Loki thinks to himself now that he could do worse than to take the ancient lay as his model. He will need some assistance in this, but already a plan is forming in his mind, and some of his weariness has vanished, like mist at dawn.
He hurries down the corridor now, not caring to hear what reception Synne receives for her song, for his mind is too busy. He will bathe, first, to avoid the sharp tongue of his lady mother. A servant, to Thor, with his regrets for the feast. Time for that later.
Loki mentally cups a hand around the tiny flame of hope. He will win Synne back. He will change.
For her.