Advesperascit: The approaching dark; the evening draws near.
"What are you still doing up?" Loki asks, rubbing his eyes of sleep as he enters the nursery to find Modi and Jory sitting by the window, looking at the brilliant colours dancing outside in the sky. "It is far past your bedtimes." Additionally, Loki has no idea how Modi managed to clamber up onto the window seat - there is no evidence of a stool or a tower of blocks to carry him up there - but he decides to leave that issue for another day. Thor is snoring away in the other room, his breaths like thunder rumbling in the far off distance, and Loki is vastly surprised yet again at how he can manage to sleep next to that great roaring beast night after night.
"Sky awake. Me awake," Modi tells him, and Loki sighs.
"I understand that your papa and I have been watching Frozen a lot recently, but you cannot use that as an excuse for staying up past your bedtime," Loki scolds mildly. Modi looks up at him impishly, and Loki can only smile and sigh.
"It is a very pretty sight, isn't it?" he asks, going over to his children and sitting down beside them, wrapping them up with him in the loose sleeves of his nightshirt.
"Why?" Modi asks, pointing out the window.
"Why?" Loki thinks for a moment. "The colours happen when solar winds hit the atmosphere and other charged particles. I believe that is the reason."
Modi and Jory look at him blankly.
"Ah," Loki laughs, pinching Modi's cheek. "it's because you're a very special boy. And you're a very special snake," he adds to Jory, who hisses contentedly and goes back to staring out the window at the bright stripes of colour dancing across the sky.