I went back to my rooms and crawled into bed - fully clothed because I was exhausted. Face first into my pillow, blanket over my head, I fell asleep.

Upon first waking, I had the horrible feeling of not knowing what time it was nor what day - I had turned my head, so my cheek was creased from my pillow and my head was feeling a bit odd from the elaborate braids I'd left my hair up in - and the gown I wore was constrictive - it came back to me. The night, Loki in the garden and Frigga in her rooms - groaning I rolled over and stared up into the darkness. I could make the room alight with as much or as little illumination as I wanted, but I was hoping that I could fall back under - without a trip to the garden with my newly appointed guard.

It wouldn't happen, I knew, while I stayed fully clothed and with my hair still wound so tight. Perhaps another warm bath - it had helped before - I would just skip the window seat. Sliding out of bed, I felt it again. The chill creeping up my spine, the same chill that I'd felt while reading that caused me to catch sight of Loki in the garden - but my rooms were so dark that I could barely see my own hand in front of my face - how could he see me from that far.

"I don't need to hide in the bushes to not be seen," Loki had said when I'd asked him how long he'd been keeping watch for me during my nocturnal wanderings.

Closing my eyes to keep from screaming, I took a deep breath to calm myself and also to add soft light to my rooms. When I reopened them, there he sat in my window seat, reading my book as if it were his right.

"Do you mind?" I stared at him, wondering why he would bother coming to my rooms at all, much less to lurk. "I was preparing to take a bath."

"Oh, I know," he didn't look up, but a lecherous smile started to curl across his lips. "Don't mind me, Lady Sigyn, do go about your evening routine as if I weren't here at all."

Squinting at him, I contemplated tossing something very heavy and very sharp at his head, but I knew that he'd simply evade it - damn him and his abilities. His smile grew and I knew he read me like the book he held in his long fingered hands. "Do you often invite yourself into random women's rooms and lurk while they're sleeping?" As I spoke, I chose a gown to change into - I fully intended to take my bath - once he left, obviously.

"Not at all," he shot back. "Mother insists we travel to Midgard together, so we SHOULD get to know one another, shouldn't we?" His eyes hadn't left the pages of my book, but I took note that he also hadn't turned the page. "The green brings out the color of your eyes -"

I had two shifts on my bed, deciding between the two - a pale green, almost the color of moss through glass and a dark blue that was as if night had been made liquid - when he spoke I looked up expecting to see his head rose up from the position he'd been in since I'd lit the room, but he was in the same position.

"And what does the blue do?" I touched it, while the green was soft and velvety, the blue was silky - after a bath it felt as if I were still soaking.

"It would look like you were cloaked in the night sky, but with your hair -" he stopped, snapping the book shut. "It's a nightshift, why does it matter?"

"No idea." I shook off the bubble we'd been in. "You were saying that you came in while I was sleeping because you felt it pertinent to get to know one another before we set off for Midgard?"

Loki hadn't moved from his reclined position in my window seat - but without the book to study, he was now focused on me, and without the nightshifts, I was now focused on him - and I was unsure if either of us had ever been in such a position.

"Mother has made certain that you learned how to harness your powers," my head tilted as I listened to him, his voice was almost spellbinding. "No one has thought to teach you how to protect yourself -" I opened my mouth to argue, but he held up one hand and I stopped. "Not illusions or glamour, Lady Sigyn. Those will not always work - especially on Midgard."

"Have you been?" I sat down on the edge of my bed, beside the gowns I'd laid out. He nodded, face slightly absent - either in memory or thought. "And it's dangerous?" That wasn't quite the story that I'd heard. Weren't we - Asgardians - considered godlike among the Midgardians?

"It can be, especially for anyone who isn't prepared -" me, clearly. "I think I should teach you -"

"What precisely?" It wasn't meant as disparagement, simply that I wasn't entirely certain what Loki wanted to teach me.

Eyes flashing, he stared at me. "Would you prefer to have my brother teach you?" Thor? Why would I want that?

"Thor?" What in the - "Why would Thor teach me anything?" Had Loki gone mad?

"My brother and you -" Thor and I? "You seem very close during meals -" During meals, Thor and I seem close? All the words on their own made sense, but put together -

"Thor and I -" his eyes narrowed and I felt taken aback. "I haven't a clue what you're referring to, my prince." When I addressed him as 'my prince' his eyes widened and his nostrils flared.

"I think I should let you have your bath," suddenly I didn't want him to go - I wanted to talk, get to know one another more, like he'd offered. "You didn't rest well last night, Mother told me." Was that concern I heard in his voice? "If you want to walk out into the garden tonight -"

"I asked her for a guard," his eyes narrowed again. "I thought you'd rather have YOUR evenings for yourself."

A curt nod and he bid me goodnight. I was left sitting on my bed, as breathless as if I'd run through the gardens at top speed and no more the wiser for the time I spent in conversation with him. What had he meant about his brother and me? Thor was - well THOR.