After almost two weeks in the countryside, Sigyn was finally beginning to appreciate Trondheim. It was certainly different in comparison to everywhere else she had been in her life, but she was starting to see the beauty of it. The castle was nestled at the far side of the lush valley she had traveled through, and she had initially ignored most of the greenery because of the condition she was in. However, now that she had fully recovered from the ordeal, she had the chance to look around properly, and she certainly liked what she saw. The valley was full of all sorts of flowers and plants, and Dotta had an extensive knowledge of many of their herbal properties. Although the girl was younger than Sigyn, her experience with the greenery far surpassed her own, and Sigyn felt like a student as she followed the girl through nearby fields to collect herbs for the apothecary.

Once her novelty had worn off, Mistress Ira was much less of a pest; the woman checked in with Sigyn once a day, invited her to attend whatever lunch or gathering she and her ladies were having, and then left Sigyn to her own devices around the palace. For the most part, Loki was gone during the day, off to speak with other minor lords in neighbouring counties about a rebellion against his father, which meant Sigyn really had nothing more to do than explore. With Dotta by her side, Sigyn became familiar with the kitchens, the baths, and the gardens. She introduced herself to a number of the support staff – the ones that Dotta recommended, anyway – and usually steered clear of the noblewomen unless it was absolutely necessary. Her nights were reserved for her husband, as they ought to be, and he seemed greatly appreciative of it.

Despite the fact that they spent each moment of their night together, Sigyn had barely spoken with her husband of anything beyond common pleasantries. He liked to whisper things to her while they were intimate, things that made her blush, but when they were finished, sometimes they simply lay together in silence until she fell asleep. When she awoke in the morning, her husband would be gone, and the first person to greet her would be Dotta with her breakfast tray. She would have liked for more; Loki was an intelligent and diplomatic individual when she saw him with the men of the castle, and she assumed he would have also made for a good conversationalist with her. However, that notion seemed to have fallen flat thus far.

Still, Sigyn did her duty each night, and she hardly considered it an effort. In comparison to Theoric, Loki was such an incredibly hands-on lover, one who liked to touch and taste and feel every part of her when they were together. He did it with neither a clinical sense nor a lustful leer, but instead he explored her affectionately, perhaps even possessively. Although they had yet to make a real public appearance together, the occupants of Trondheim Castle knew that Sigyn belonged to her husband by the marks – love bites, as Dotta proclaimed them with a giggle – on her neck. There were only two, and they were somewhat painful to the touch, but Loki always slid his fingers over them tenderly when she lay against him, struggling to stay awake.

Those were her nights – they belonged to Loki. Her days, however, belonged to Dotta, and that sunny day in particular was one that Sigyn used to teach Dotta something. The young woman was especially gifted with mixtures of herbs and medicines, but her sewing skills were lacking. After all, although she had made the majority of her clothes (with guidelines set by her mistress), Sigyn could see the frayed ends and broken stiches, and she figured it was time to teach the girl how to do it properly. So, she ordered Dotta to gather whatever materials she might normally use to sew, and the two retreated to a small sanctuary in the garden outside of Sigyn's window. It was situated directly across from her balcony and consisted of several wooden benches surrounded by the most spectacular purple flowers.

The castle may have been a dull brown, but its gardens were a marvel to behold. It was the first day since she arrived that the weather had not been questionable, and she thought it best that they make use of the sunshine while it lasted.

"Good, good, but you're still spacing your stitches too far apart," Sigyn insisted, leaning toward Dotta's bench to show her recent handiwork. "Do you see how I have no gaps in mine? That will make your sewing less noticeable."

Dotta's forehead wrinkled as she peered down at Sigyn's stolen yellow dress, the very same she had worn in her hasty escape from Asgard. She had no fabric of her own to bring to the lesson, so she thought she would demonstrate proper techniques on the dress that nature had sullied during her travels. There were a number of tears that were certainly worth stitching, and she planned to eventually add another underlay beneath the skirt to make it a little sturdier.

"That's what I was trying to do," the girl said after a long pause. "Why doesn't mine look like that?"

"It's just practice," she insisted with a kind smile, settling against the sloped back of her bench contentedly. "You need to work without worrying you'll stick your fingers."

"When I do that, I always stick my fingers." Dotta's laugh had an infectious quality to it, and Sigyn couldn't help but chuckle when the girl snorted. "Mistress Ira threatened to take my needles away because my marks were unsightly."

"I'll bet she did."

Sigyn's voice picked up an unnatural tight quality to it whenever Dotta told her what Mistress Ira told her to do; the woman was absolutely horrible to her servants. Naturally, she did everything with a smile, but Sigyn wasn't foolish enough to think that the smile downplayed her cruelty. She rented Dotta out to visiting noblemen, even the ones with wives, whenever the castle hosted guests, and she forced the girl to wander around in garments so sheer that even Loki noticed the absurdity of it. Dotta, on the other hand, barely seemed to notice she was being mistreated – she apparently thought Ira's requests were perfectly normal.

"Well, my fingers were unsightly for a long time," the girl added cautiously. She had clearly caught on to Sigyn's annoyance of Ira's practices, though neither of them had discussed it outright. "They were covered in little red dots… It put some of the ladies off their drink!"

"I had an aunt once," Sigyn recalled from some very distant memory, "who said that she taught all her daughters to sew by wrapping their fingers first. When they poked themselves, they wouldn't bleed, and they stopped being nervous of the needles."

When Sigyn glanced up, she saw the younger woman staring at her with such intensity that it was almost unnerving. However, after spending such a short amount of time with her, she quickly realized that was how Dotta showed she was really paying attention: eyes wide, lips slightly parted, completely still. She wanted to tell her that one could appear attentive without making a mockery of oneself, but there was only so much that Sigyn thought she ought to chastise about Dotta's behaviour.

"Maybe I'll wrap my fingers next time," Dotta said finally after Sigyn tied off her stitch and broke the thread. There, now one would barely even notice that the dress had been torn by a branch. "I've already nicked myself twice today…"

Sigyn spied the little red dots on the girl's thumbs, and then shook her head. "Don't be silly… Look at them as your battle scars. When you finish a garment, each prick will remind you of how far you've come from the beginning."

"You're so very smart, my lady."

She fumbled over the thread in her hand, but quickly regained her composure when Dotta appeared to notice. No one had ever given her such a compliment before; she had been praised for her cooking and cleaning abilities, but never for her intellect. "Thank you."

They settled into a comfortable silence as Sigyn estimated the amount of thread she would need to close the next tear in her dress, and then wrapped the string around her fingers a few times extra for good measure. She broke the thread and wove it through the small hole at the end of her new metal needle, and then braced herself to tackle the rip – it was quite large indeed.

"What's it like having a husband?"

The question came out of nowhere, and Sigyn looked up at Dotta, startled. The girl stared at her with that intensity again, but then hastily glanced back down at her garment when she no doubt realized she was doing it.

"It's… nice," Sigyn managed. In all honesty, she wasn't really sure what to say. "I suppose it is also comforting to know you will have a companion for the rest of your lifetime." She nodded. "Yes, it's nice."

Dotta's lips curved into a smile. "Oh, good."

"Why do you ask?"

"I should like to get married someday," the girl explained, flinching when she pricked her finger again. "Mistress Ira is always complaining about marriage and what it does to a woman… I had thought they were all like that."

"Well, she has been married more than two weeks," Sigyn acquiesced with a slight roll of her eyes, "but every marriage will be different, won't it?"

"I suppose."

Oh, they certainly were. Sigyn couldn't even imagine a life with Theoric after her experience with Loki, and they hadn't even been together a month yet.

"I bet marriages change too," Sigyn mused as she began to stitch, barely needing to look down to know what she was doing. "Perhaps they start off wonderfully and end the other way around."

"Or they start off horribly, and then the two end up falling madly in love," Dotta added with a giggle, pretending to swoon when Sigyn glanced over at her. She smiled, always touched by the woman's childish dramatics.

"Yes, I suspect that has happened too."

And which one would she and Loki be? Was this the high point in their marriage – cautious exchanges by day and ferocious lovemaking by night? Or would it only improve from here? She certainly hoped that it wouldn't get worse over the years, but it was something she tried to mentally prepare for.

"I found a man I might like to marry."

Sigyn smiled when she spied Dotta's flushed cheeks. "Oh?"

"He isn't handsome like the prince," the girl said quickly, as though she needed to explain her choice, "but he is very sweet to me, and he likes to bring me sweets from town when he visits."

"A man doesn't need to be handsome to be a husband," Sigyn told her firmly. "Kindness is what matters… Why does he visit?" She desperately hoped that the man was not one of Ira's "guests" who rented Dotta for the night.

"He and his father supply the kitchens with grain," she replied with a contented sigh. "He has the sweetest brown eyes… Wide and dark… Like a deer!"

Sigyn held a hand over her mouth as she giggled, thrown by Dotta's enthused outburst. "He sounds wonderful."

"He would need to pay a lot for me," Dotta admitted once her laughter subsided. She struggled to get the needle through her thick material, and then set it aside with a huff. "Mistress Ira says my bride-price is at its highest now that I've become of age." Sigyn frowned, but before she could ask why Ira could decide such things, the girl added, "If my parents were around, I suspect they would have given me away for a pittance… but Mistress Ira says I'm worth more."

"You're worth all the riches in the kingdom," Sigyn insisted.

"Oh, don't say that!" Dotta moaned. "Ulfr will never be able to afford me then!"

Sigyn scoffed at her silliness, as she seemed serious about it, and the girl fell into a somewhat miserable silence. Ira must have realized she had a prized beauty on her hands, and she wondered if she planned to sell the girl off to the highest bidder. She pursed her lips; perhaps she could see if Loki might indulge her in buying the girl first?

Oh, that would be wonderful! She would much rather take Dotta on as a handmaiden – when the time came – than any of the noblewomen around the castle. Her stomach curled with excitement at the thought, but she kept it to herself: she didn't want to disappoint the girl if it couldn't be done.

However, she didn't like seeing her companion so downtrodden, and decided to change the subject.

"Why do you all dye your hair like that, Dotta?" she asked, nodding to the bright blonde tips of her brown hair. The girl glanced down at them too, and seemed to brighten at the question.

"Oh, it's quite fashionable, my lady," she insisted, holding out her lengthy hair for Sigyn to view. "It's a sign of wealth for most women. If you have the money, you can change your hair colour… Poor women have other things to worry about."

"Hmm." She leaned in closer, eyes narrowed at the hair. The blonde looked quite natural – there wasn't a hint of brown beneath it. "It looks as though it is your normal hair."

"Yes, you can only get rid of it by cutting the colour out," Dotta lamented. "My entire head was blonde for a time, but Mistress Ira likes the way it looks now with the two colours." Sigyn nodded – of course Mistress Ira did. Suddenly, the girl's tone changed. "Oh, would you like to have your hair done?"

She opened and closed her mouth several times, and then shrugged. "I wouldn't know what to do."

"Maybe dark?" the girl suggested excitedly. "I could do it for you! I do it all the time… Mistress Ira would be flattered that you've taken on our fashion trends."

"I… Perhaps," Sigyn replied softly, considering the possibilities. Loki had said they needed to keep their whereabouts a secret, and she was so distinguishable with her blonde tresses… "Could you show me the colours you have?"

Dotta grinned and then took her by the hand, tossing her stitched garment aside as she practically dragged Sigyn back to the castle.

Loki was tired. After traveling out each day to the rural kingdoms in order to talk pleasantries with the lesser lords, Loki was weary of it all. He may have been an excellent speaker, but he had always found that Thor excelled in the area of pointless chatter, while he preferred to wait until there was something interesting to say before he said it. However, if he wished for those smaller lords to give him soldiers for the war he intended to declare on Odin, then he would need to smile and nod and laugh at anything and everything they had to say.

All that pretending took a toll, and it certainly didn't help that he hardly got any sleep once he returned to Trondheim Castle at night. As expected, Sigyn waited for him in their chambers, done with whatever she had busied herself with for that day, and he usually took her to bed the moment he saw her. She was… Well, she was more than he could have ever hoped for in a wife. Odin and Frigga – back when he considered them his parents – had never once given any thought to Loki's future with a woman. Yes, they had discussed Thor's potential matches in great detail, but not a moment was spared for Loki and his potential connections.

So, he was glad he had taken it upon himself to find a woman of his own. She was beautiful, compliant, and ceaselessly kind. After all, she had no reason to be so patient with him; there was probably some sense of duty in her that insisted she care for her husband, but Loki knew she didn't love him. There were countless matches out there that began in loveless marriages, but Sigyn saw to his needs as though she already felt very deeply for him. She was either a splendid little actress, or Loki was unaccustomed to genuine kindness – he assumed it was a little of both.

In all honesty, Loki wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with her now that she was his wife. Before, their lives consisted of secret moments and stolen glances, and he had charmed her with his wit and banter. Now that he had her, he wasn't entirely certain what he was supposed to do with her. He had no desire to discuss warfare and political coups with her, as she probably had no experience in either, and unfortunately those were the thoughts that preoccupied his mind as of late. In all actuality, he didn't really know much about her beyond the fact that she liked to garden and she didn't want to marry Theoric, which left them at a bit of a stand-still in terms of what they could actually talk about.

So, Loki took her to bed. There was no need to talk about anything in bed, and she was so wonderfully willing to let him have her that it was by far the best option they had. She was always ready for him whenever he had her, and he seemed to do an adequate enough job of reciprocating the pleasure he felt when they joined. Their nightlife – as it stood – was the thing Loki was most confident about in their young marriage, and that was probably a good thing. The bed was the one place where he knew she couldn't put on act – her body wouldn't let her. So, while there may have been the occasional false smile in conversation, he knew her whimpers and moans were earnest – that made him happy.

He was also pleased that he did not have to delicately explain their situation to her; the Crimson Hawkes would be hunting for them, and if anyone were to give them away, it would be Sigyn during her chatter with the other women. However, rather than being the gossipy woman he had anticipated his wife to always be, she was quite mute on her private life. Of the few times he had spoken with Ira recently, the woman kept hinting at what a little secret his wife was, all the while snobbishly complaining that Sigyn preferred the company of servants to Ira and her ladies.

That was something Loki could understand – Ira was barely tolerable on a good day, and even her husband sought various means to escape her. Sigyn had made him proud thus far, and he couldn't have asked for a better companion to go into hiding with. When she said she would keep their secrets, she meant it wholeheartedly. That would prove to be valuable when she was his queen.

And she would be his queen, and the queen of all of Asgard by the time he was finished with this realm. Odin was getting too old – it was time for a new king to govern the realm, and Loki had proven to be better than Thor in a time of crisis. The golden throne belonged to him, and he would take it with the help of the common people by the end of this year. It would undoubtedly take the citizens of Asgard's main city some time to adjust to the changes, but he would rule as a king ought to – sternly but fairly – and his wife would coddle them with her kindness.

Ah, but that was so far in the future still. For now, he needed the lesser lords to agree to march on the capital, and that would still take some careful persuading.

At this very moment, he could settle on a goblet of ale and an empty dining hall to make him happy. He had arrived in the early evening with Tolvast, and after a brief meal with the castle's happy couple, Loki was given the privacy he needed to mull over the day's events. He hadn't exactly made much progress, but he was able to see that there were many able bodies in the villages around the lesser lords' palaces; it was a start. However, he couldn't take another moment entertaining Ira or Tolvast, and kindly requested some solitude to be alone with his thoughts.

Naturally, he kept the bottle of spirits – that was never something he would request to be rid of. A part of him had hoped that Sigyn might have joined them for the meal, but Ira informed him that his little wife was off doing goodness knows what with her servant, and she had taken a late lunch that afternoon. No matter; he took a sip of his drink, stretched out lazily on the solid wooden chair at the end of the dining table.

His solitude was interrupted, however, when a woman slipped in through the heavy set of double-doors at the end of the sparsely decorated hall. For a moment, Loki assumed it was a servant coming to refill his drink, which was almost finished. His assumption fell flat when he realized that she had no jug in her hands. Instead, her dainty hands were folded together in front of her, and his eyes narrowed when he realized she fiddled with them anxiously in the same manner that Sigyn did. This woman's hair, however, was just as dark as his – it wasn't his wife, but she looked damn close.

In fact, her entire posture was remarkably similar to Sigyn, right down to the way her shoulder slumped forward just slightly. Loki openly gawked at her as she approached, wondering what sort of trickery was before him, and he pondered if he had found her estranged twin. She nibbled on her pale pink lower lip as she approached, and Loki continued to stare.

"Do you like it?"

His jaw hung open when he heard Sigyn's voice come from that mouth, and another onceover told him that it was, in fact, his wife that stood before him. She had done something incredibly drastic with her hair; gone were those tumbling golden locks, replaced with dark tresses that matched his.

"Sigyn, I…" He fumbled over his words for the first time all day, and instead patted his knee for her to sit. She obliged, as expected, and settled herself daintily atop his knee, her hands folded in her lap. He could feel her eyes on his face, searching it for approval, and she stiffened when he lifted his hand to trail his knuckles over a curl. "It's… very different."

"Is it awful?" she asked softly. He noticed her eyes watering when he met her gaze, and he tried to offer a reassuring smile.

"Well, no, not awful," he told her, carefully choosing his words as he went back to studying her transformation. "It's… different. Why… Why did you do it?"

"You said that we were hiding," she muttered as she fidgeted with her nails, "from the Crimson Hawkes, from Odin… from everyone."

"I did."

"And I thought this might be a suitable disguise," she admitted weakly. "I thought that if we traveled somewhere, I could look like a… sister or a cousin, and no one would know it was me."

"Oh."

"Was it foolish of me?" He looked up at her quickly, barely catching her words now that her voice had dropped below a whisper. "Was it foolish to do this? I can't wash it out-"

"No, not foolish," he insisted, taking her by the chin and gently forcing her head up to his. "Clever and thoughtful… and perhaps a little hasty." He chuckled when her lower lip wobbled – he knew she anticipated a chastising, but he wasn't going to give it to her. "It's only hair, wife."

She nodded, and they lapsed into a somewhat strained silence as they stared at one another. So, to break it, Loki leaned up and took her by the lips, claiming them roughly enough to make her gasp. He wasn't sure what else to say to her, and kissing was a much more enjoyable alternative to uncomfortable silence.

He snaked his hands up through her hair; it was softer than usual. He liked it. She could have chosen any colour to suit her "disguise", and yet she chose one that would work best with him. Before anything or anyone else, Sigyn had thought about how her decision would be received by him. There were few people in this realm – or any other – who put his thoughts above all others, and the notion made his chest constrict uncomfortably. He knew he needed to thank her for her kindness, for her innate ability to care for him without explicitly doing so.

Like any woman, Sigyn surely would have preferred a word of thanks rather than action, but Loki remained incapable of speaking to her about such matters. Instead, he hoisted her up onto the table, knocking his nearly empty chalice onto the floor in the process. Without a hint of hesitation, she parted her legs for him, allowing him to step between them as he trailed his lips down her neck – her beautiful, soft, sensitive neck. He could smell hints of whatever dye she used on her hair; the scent was almost fruity.

He hitched her dress up around her hips, infinitely pleased that she wore nothing beneath it, and then paused when she caught his face. Loki remained still and stiff as she tugged him up, studying his features with her bright blue eyes, her eyebrows somewhat furrowed. He quickly found himself growing uncomfortable under her scrutiny, even though the soft caress of her fingertips should have been soothing.

So, he turned her sharply, stepping out from between her thighs and rolling her onto her stomach, one hand resting on her back while the other trailed up her thigh. Her breathing was uneven as he delved between her folds, which moistened under his touch – nowhere near wet enough for him. He watched her nails dig into the polished wood of the table when he slipped his thumb in her, her body stiffening at the touch.

He knew this was how she was used to being taken: on her knees. He had no intention, however, of remaining as hands-off as her former lover had been – he had managed to coax such sensitive information from her in the midst of passion one night, and he almost found it laughable how unwilling Theoric was to truly take his woman, to possess her entirely. How dull their couplings must have been.

She whimpered as he gathered her hair and set it to the side, planting firm kisses to her neck and down her spine, all the while pleasuring her with what had become skilled digits over the years. When he could feel her heat against the palm of his hand, he pulled away from her; she went limp in his absence, breathing heavily with her nails still indented in the table. His jaw clenched as he stared down at her, at the wetness on her thighs, and he quickly tugged his trousers down, eager to have his wife again.

He had perhaps overestimated her readiness for him: when he thrust in, filling her entirely, she cried out, and not in the pleasurable way he had grown accustomed to. So, he stayed still for a moment to let her adjust, leaning over and littering her cheek and ear and neck with soft kisses. She seemed to be holding her breath, and only when he felt her relax around him did she finally let it out. He whispered her name gently, coaxing her to arch up for him as he wrapped a hand around her neck. He felt her swallow thickly, lips parted as she let out a shaky breath, and he was unable to restrain himself any longer.

For her sake, he kept his thrust shallow to begin with, though he was pleased with the way even those encouraged little gasps and moans from her. When her hand wrapped around his wrist, the wrist of the hand that held her throat, he straightened up, bringing her with him, and grew more careless with the way he pounded against her. She let her head loll back against his shoulder as his thrusts became sharper, harder, and he wondered if one day he might break her.

No matter how harshly he fucked her, she made no noise beyond that of breathy moans. At one point, however, she did tug at the hand on her throat, pulling at the fingers frantically enough to make Loki realize that he had been pressing too tight. He opted to hold her against him by splaying his hand across her chest, the tips of his fingers using her collarbone as a grip.

He wanted to see her face when she came. He wanted to see ultimate pleasure wash over her features, and he wanted to hear the sounds she would make, all the while knowing it was because of his hard work. However, Loki also knew he was selfish – selfish in the way that she was selfless – and that she wouldn't be coming tonight. One day, when he was less childish in his need for her, he would really take his time and show her how wonderful their lovemaking could truly be, but not now. No, now he was overwhelmed, and he bit down sharply into her shoulder when his climax came out of nowhere. He groaned noisily, lips and teeth and tongue against her flesh, and he vaguely felt her hand in his hair.

When he released her, she gently eased herself back onto the table, bent over and panting before him. He remained inside of her, shuddering when her body gave the occasional clench around him.

"Does…" He heard her start, her voice soft. "Does this mean you like my hair?"

Loki glanced down at her, eyebrows furrowed, and then realized she had tried to make a joke. He grinned and buried his hand in her hair, tugging her head up just enough to kiss her once more.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

It seems like a lot of seckz right now, but I look at it as though these two are newlyweds, and they're just having a lot of sex – sex that they obviously hadn't had before they got married.

Also, here is my solution to the issues with Sigyn's hair colour. In some of the comics she is blonde, and in others she is a brunette – tralala we've got her as both!

Thank you all for the lovely support, kind reviews, and lurky-lurkerson follows! I really appreciate it!