On a quiet, summery day, Loki would be found holed up in the humid library, attempting to fan himself with a book, shrinking from the sweltering heat and praying for an early winter. It was a specific, torturous kind of misery that he was made victim to each year, and the weather never failed to send him scurrying for the indoors. His brother, on the other hand, was exactly the opposite, and the friends that always stayed so close to him were the same.

They could all be found laughing amidst the heat, running around and sparring when they felt the need or diving headlong into water that remained forbidden to them. Loki hardly ever saw them inside the palace on such days, and perhaps enjoyed the solitude over their rambunctious presence. But when he was trying to read, the pads of his fingers slick with sweat just as the wet strands of his dark hair clung to his forehead, he loathed the silence around him, for it bettered his ability to hear the chatter going on outside the window, allowed him to detect with greater clarity the squeals of delight and excited laughter echoing far below.

It grated on his self-composure, and Loki, upon hearing Sif's overly high-pitched giggling just like knives thrown in his ears, slammed his book down on the stone floor, ignoring the immediate pang of guilt that washed over him at the notion of him mistreating one of his favorite stories. Walking over to the open window, he leaned over the stone to look down at the courtyard, where Thor and Fandral were calling out to Sif, who waded happily in the water a bit farther off as Volstagg continuously splashed her, eliciting playful and girlish giggles from the young child. Her blonde tresses, usually so intensely curled and falling gracefully down her back, stuck to her small, pale-skinned face, the strands so straight and so long as to reach her hips as they floated around her, a pool of dark gold in the clear water.

Her cotton dress puffed about her legs beneath the water, and she paddled forward with those bright, lively eyes of hers shining from so very far, and Loki heard Thor shout her name, beckoning, as she turned in his direction. She climbed clumsily out of the water, running and laughing when her dripping feet made tracks upon the warm, dry stone of the court, and rushed up to him, ever the loyal companion.

While they talked, Loki watched, aware of the loud splash of water as Fandral dived into it to give the lone Volstagg company, and hardly noticed when Sif's eyes wandered over and up to where he leaned out the window, silently observing them. She laid a gentle, absent hand on Thor's arm before raising her other to wave up at Loki, grinning in that odd, outgoing way of hers, akin to seeking some sort of attention, her cheeks flushed.

"Come down from there, Loki! The water is magnificent," she shouted, and yet Loki stood still, watching the children before him with equal measures of shock and reluctance.

Thor, too, turned to call him down, but the trickster only sank back into the welcoming, heated shadows of the library, cheeks reddened and heart racing. Hardly anyone ever desired Loki's company, and he ignored the feeling blossoming in his gut, that small flutter of amazement at the idea that someone could want to seek him out.

He ignored it and went back to his book and refused to think about it for the rest of the day, but an absentminded smile still graced his features.

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