Nightmares

Loki woke with a start, he noticed it was still dark, so he pulled a pelt up under his head and settled to go back to sleep. He closed his eyes again only to become aware of small laughter. He turned his head to the side and only then realised that Maebh was not sleeping against him, but instead was fully on the other side of the bed while she continued to laugh quietly. "Dare I enquire as to what is so funny?" He asked, his voice heavy with sleep.

"You." She giggled, causing him to furrow his brow, unsure of what it was about him that had humoured her so as he slept. "You were talking in your sleep." She informed him. "And it was actually quite funny."

"What did I say?" Loki groaned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Only that it was Thor's fault."

"That sounds about right."

"And you were begging him to give you back your clothes as you were approaching the village and you were frightened that your father and some King Brynjar would see you both." She laughed. "Why were you without clothes, or dare I ask?"

Loki took a moment to recollect the event she was talking about, only to recall it as being from a time in his adolescence. "It was summer, Thor and I were young at the time, and we decided to go swimming with our friends, but Thor thought it would be funny if he hid my clothes. We were due back for a banquet as the king of Alfheim was after arriving, so Thor headed home with both his clothes and mine in hand."

"Wait, he remained naked also?" Maebh asked, almost scared at what the response would be.

"I think you are more than aware that my brother is neither shy nor without shame, you have spent more than enough time in his company to know that, or do you need to be reminded of the day we arrived to his home after your night of little revelations only for him to speak to us at length as bare as the day he entered the world?"

"I fear I shall never be allowed forget, the child Sif is bearing is a result of why he was bare to begin with, after your little brotherly hunt."

"I did not need to know that." Loki grimaced before deciding quickly to get off the subject. "Why were you awake, was it my sleep talking?"

"No." Maebh's voice was small, telling Loki all he needed to know.

"More nightmares?" he extended his arm and tried to gently pull her back to him. She crawled over and laid her head on his chest. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"It is the middle of the night."

"Maebh, my love, if you want to talk about it, I would not care if it was Ragnarok, I would sit and listen." He could not see her face clearly in the darkness, so instead to reassure her, he began to play with some of her hair.

"This has only started happening since I became with child." She moaned.

"Which is also the time that you killed your uncle in Midgard, perhaps that is the cause of your nightmares? With so many of them being regarding your family and with your revenge sought, maybe your mind is trying to deal with it all. Do you wish to tell me what it was about this time?"

"No, I just want to sleep, but I cannot, for the life of me, get comfortable."

"You are showing quite a bit for someone at your stage, there cannot be too many ways to sleep that would allow for you to be comfortable I would imagine." Loki slid his hand down to her stomach, feeling the small but firm roundness of his child growing within her.

"I am not showing too much, only when I am without clothes can you see for certain."

"Soon clothes, no matter how loose fitting you try to make them, will not be enough to hide it. I can see it when you are dressed too, albeit because I know to look for it. We will need to tell Nafi soon too."

"We will wait a little longer to tell him." Loki became slightly crestfallen, even in the darkness, Maebh could sense it. "I am frightened to tell him too soon, I am frightened that something could go wrong and I would lose the child, I would feel I had left him down as well as you. I worry that he could get excited only for it to go wrong. It is the same reason I did not tell you in Vanaheim, I was worried the journey would cause it harm, if that had happened and you knew, I would have felt as though I fail both the child and you."

"I would never have blamed you, so early on, it can happen, it would have been out of your control. I understand you not telling me, I would not have been able to settle until we got home. I was anxious at you being so ill on the boat, had I realised the true reason for it, I would have been a danger to us all. On that note, I have not seen you ill in days."

"It has seemingly ceased, thank the Norns, I will not miss it."

Loki rubbed her stomach gently. "We will be able to feel it moving soon."

Maebh laughed slightly. "You are hardly able to contain yourself, are you?"

"I cannot express the joy it gives me to see you becoming heavy with my child, to see it grow within you."

"Mmhmm."

Loki could feel Maebh curling into him for comfort as her voice began to become quieter. "Go back to sleep sweetheart." He kissed the top of her head.

"Yeah." She sighed sleepily.

Though it meant Loki was not in the most comfortable of positions, he refused to move his hands from Maebh's hair and stomach, wanting to soothe her and hopefully ensure her some rest. He thought back to when Aslaug was carrying Nafi, of her aversion to his touch, her anger at his happiness at there being a child, and to her almost sneering smile at his desire to feel the child move when she would not permit it. Though he recalled how he had wanted to be around Nafi, it was not as strong as the yearning he had to be near the second one, but he was convinced that was to do with the woman carrying the child, rather than on the children themselves. Loki rubbed Maebh's rounded stomach again before drifting back to sleep.