His first encounter with her was as a woman defeated, but she held no grief in her eyes, no despair, as so many that came through his father's great hall did. This made an impression on Loki. Elegant, tall, red hair, bright eyes, turquoise silk gown, and skin kissed by the sun, she did not look like the girls his age at court. Nor like the village girls he'd seen in passing. Not even Sif. But she seemed no less fierce than his warrior friend.

"Welcome, Sigyn, to fair Asgard! It must be so different from what you are used to in the land of your people."

She turned to the elder Odinson, her head high, her voice crisp, "You assume I have not seen the city, that my people have never left their lands. I am no fair, quaking country maiden, Thor Odinson. My father may no longer to act as King, our sovereignty bent to Asgard for protection against the raiders that have dwindled our numbers. But there was no such bargain that I relinquish my right to step up as our Queen. You would be best to remember that."

Thor shook his head, amused, chuckling at her, "You have spirit. But you would best remember you surrendered."

"Only out of necessity to preserve the lives of my people. And not to you." She turned from Thor and approached the throne, passing Loki and Frigga. She bent to one knee, "Odin All-Father. We are grateful for your understanding in our situation and the grace you have extended us since."

"Of course, Lady Sigyn. You did not know us from your captors. I hope my men preserved life as often as they could. We intended you no harm. Honestly, we were unaware you were encamped where the raiders found you and we found them. And please, rise. You are a Queen to your people. You need not stay bent."

"Thank you. We are few in number, All-Father. Our invisibility is our survival. So we often keep our whereabouts unknown."

"That is a wise course of action. Your people are settling well in the city?"

"Settling, but not all of them well. We are used to wandering. While there is safety here, some of our fellows are restless and seek the wider fields they knew in their youth, before the raiders became such a threat."

"Do you think they will find ways to satisfy their wanderlust?"

"Not all of them. Some will will leave and return to where we came from. They would rather risk death than die slowly pinned in a house. But there are other who are finding the comforts of a home that does not move to be a luxury they will certainly keep."

"That is their right. And I understand this. But we may not be able to protect them, so I would strongly advise against allowing those with children to leave."

Sigyn tilted her head, "What does one having children have to do with if they leave?"

"Would they not seek to take their sons and daughters with them?"

"No. That is not the way we run our families. If a father or mother leave, there will be others who have raised the children ready to step in. We do not imperil our children unnecessarily, Odin All-Father. We may be a wandering people, but we are a careful one with what is most precious."

He nodded, "Good. There is little known about your tribe. You keep to yourselves. And you do not seem to lose people to the cities often."

"We like to keep to ourselves. And we likely will here, as well. My father sends his thanks for your generosity in housing us and for allowing him to step aside so that I might lead our people in this new life. But I have come with another request."

"Oh?"

"My people are finding work difficult. While my father has set up his work with metals, much else of our tradesfolk's tools were burned or destroyed in the battle. We have little to work with and your city is not so welcoming to the people from the wild as you have been. They see us as theives and whores. We have inquired for occupation and little has been offered, most doors shut in our faces. We require tools and the means to make our own work within our community and for the wider use of Asgard. All-Father, I come with a list, carried in the memory of my handmaid, Iceni. I ask that you trust her mind and record what she asks for and for whom. We need your assistance in getting these things or our people will simply turn to crime to stave off starvation or return to our old life to die there instead of strangers in an unwelcoming land. We can work. We want to. But it is not, at the present, possible. And keeping our trades will make settling in this new world easier."

Odin nodded, "Would she be willing to sit with our Queen and our scribes so that the list can be written?"

"She will if I ask."

"Good. Then please make that arrangement."

"Thank you, All-Father. May I take word back that we are going to receive some help from our hosts?"

"Yes, you may. We will first have to know the list to understand what help we may give, but we will do what we can."

She bowed briefly, "Then my task here is done." Odin tipped his head in acknowledgement. She turned and strode from the room. Loki's eyes follow her as his mother slipped off to meet with her handmaid. He wondered why the list was not written down. But Sigyn's brisk pace, her elaborate carved walking staff, and her clothes, billowing as though she had wings, all served as distractions. Her strong elegance bore an attraction that fascinated him more than he had ever been drawn to a woman. And yet this Queen appeared his own age and he was not yet considered a man, shy of it by just a few years, a fact Thor always used to taunt him.

Odin moved on to other business, but Loki wanted to meet this Sigyn. He bowed to his father and was dismissed with a wave. He left quickly, hoping she had not gone too far. He caught up to her near the courtyards, the air heavy with the scent of his mother's honeysuckle. She leaned on the rail, the sun on her copper hair forming an aura around her.

"Excuse me, Madam..."

She turned her head, glancing over her shoulder, "Sigyn. We need no formality. You are not addressing me as a Queen. Or are you? For if you are, I expect you to first bow before you approach."

"No, not as a Queen. As a peer. Perhaps as a friend."

"I make no friends before I know them, so as a peer only."

"Ah. Understood."

She smiled and gestured for him to join her; he rested against the rail, his back to the sunlight, "You are new to the city, week before last, correct?"

"Yes."

"My father told me of your fight. I am sorry for those losses you incurred at our hands. You were only defending yourselves."

"We should have recognized the forces of Asgard from the raiders."

"It was the middle of battle. I have no doubt your people were afraid- Father said you were outnumbered and close to annihilation. It is easy to mistake friend for foe in such circumstances."

She shrugged, "I suppose. And thank you for your attempts at condolence. It is, of course, short, but all words will be when half your people fall."

"Half?"

"We tallied our numbers after and that of our dead. A full half of our tribe lies freshly buried in the field."

"Oh, gods, that's...that's terrible."

"That it is."

"And yet you maintain your composure here, speaking of it."

"I am Queen; I have no other choice. Have you yet seen war?"

"I have been taken as a standard bearer. I am not yet old enough to ride with my brother and friends."

"Those who are old enough to die are old enough to ride."

"That is not how we do things here."

"Then you are lucky you have never faced such a real threat as demanded every one of your people, from the smallest child to the oldest woman, to take up arms." She stood up, "It has been a lovely conversation, but I must be going. My people need word that we will not starve to death. So I must return to our enclave."

"Will we have the chance to speak again?"

"Perhaps."

"Only perhaps?"

"I never say 'yes' when it comes to seeing someone again. They die so often, and so quickly."

"Oh."

"So 'perhaps' is the closest you will hear me come to it."

Loki took a deep breath, "Before you leave, may I be so bold as to say that you are captivating and your gown is like none I have ever seen?"

She smiled, a radiant grin lit her face and made the colour rise in Loki's cheeks, "Of course. But I am no Aesir goddess with skin fair and hair of gold. I am what I am. I wear my mother's silks and attempt to fill her place as Queen. That you appreciate this is very kind."

"May I walk you to the gate?"

"No. I cannot be seen as puppet to the house of Odin. And so I will walk alone."

"Ah. Goodbye, then."

"Yes. Goodbye."

And she was gone.

The second time she came to the palace, it was to escort the tools and materials for her tradespeople to her corner of the city. She appeared in sage, her gown billowing behind her down the halls. She had negotiations first with the captains escorting the supplies- there was to be no great military presence with them when they walked into the enclave and yet that was exactly what the All-Father usually did, marching in as a saving grace, a peacekeeping force, and the hero. But that was not what she wanted. She needed him to walk beside her, an ally, with only men enough to guide the horse-drawn carts. People on foot, not warriors on their steeds.

There was a break in the day for lunch and for a rest before they departed. She ate with the royal family and then excused herself to the gardens, once again leaning on the short wall to smell the flowers and listen to the birds and insects humming in the sun.

Loki approached her again, "Good day, my lady."

"Hello."

"Was lunch to your liking? We weren't sure what your people's tastes were."

"It was lovely, thank you. Not entirely in our traditions, of course, but a good culinary adventure is always something I embrace."

He smiled, "Good. I will tell our chefs they did not offend. They were worried."

"Why? This is your home, not mine."

"We try to be sensitive to the tastes of our guests."

She watched him, "You haven't been sent to be the diplomat, have you? Because you lack the awkwardness I've seen when meeting with the chiefs of other tribes."

"Is 'chief' your father's title?"

"No. Nor was it." She turned back to the garden.

"My apologies. That was insensitive of me."

"He is a metalsmith now. That is the only title he carries." She straightened and brushed the front of her dress, "But he was once called king."

Loki stepped closer, "May I be so bold as to escort Her Majesty to the gardens?"

"You mock me?"

"No. I mean it only in reverence. You are unlike any Queen I have yet met."

"And you have met a few?"

"Yes. Alfheim. Vanaheim. Those who held the title in the outer lands." He offered his arm with a raised brow and she accepted.

"So long as you do not get foolish ideas from a walk in the gardens."

"Foolish ideas are no harm, my lady. Actions based on them are. All people have dreams and fantasies. It is indulgence that causes trouble."

She smirked, "Are you admitting you have had fantasies about me?"

"What man would not? You are a woman of grace and power. That is incredibly alluring."

"I think your brother believes I ought to have dreamt of him. He has been flirting since I first stepped into this world."

"Likely. Father has been telling him he ought to take a wife."

"Ah." She paused by a flowering tree and plucked a bloom from the branch, tucking it in her hair, "Well it will not be me. It is not my fate to be Queen of Asgard."

"Oh? And how do you know it isn't?"

She walked to a spot of shaded grass and sat down under the trees, "Because I do not foresee it."

Loki sat carefully beside her, "Foresee? Do you have the gift of future sight?"

"A little. I see mostly shadows. But it is a skill I wish to cultivate."

"It is my mother's gift. But like all with it, she cannot speak of what she sees."

"Those of us who see shadows have more freedom. Perhaps I should leave my sight clouded."

Loki shrugged, "Whatever you wish. There are advantages to both. Do you practice any of the other arts?"

"Do you mean of sorcery and energies beyond, or do you mean music and dance and song?"

"Either."

"Why?"

"Because you are an itriguing woman and I wish to know."

"Both. But my mother is dead and so I have no one else from which to learn to bend reality. I am no master of illusion."

"And the other?"

"I dance with my people in our tradition. And I drum with them."

"Drum?"

"Yes. Our dances are rhythmic. Some use other instruments, yes, but the beats drive our feet. We are wanderers, we cannot carry with us an orchestra."

Intrigued, Loki stood, offering a hand, "Teach me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you are not one of us nor do you know the stories behind them. The dances are not just motions. They are one of the ways we keep the old traditions alive. So to tell of how Catha and Boghill danced under the stars to beat the earth into existence, pushing the water to the edges off into their beds as their bodies melded to create our race? This is a sacred story. And it is danced." She accepted his hand, "But if you are interested in our people, in our stories, perhaps you can observe as a guest. You will not repeat it, though, on your own. Nor will you bring others with you, or speak during the dance."

"Are you inviting me?"

"Only after I know you better. I have to know I can trust someone with sacred things before I bring them to our circles." She stood, "But there are other concerns today. I have to deliver these things to the people who need them. And convince your father that he needn't ride in the saviour."

"Good luck. Though you are better to deal with him than with Thor. My brother has no sense of subtlety or tact."

"And you?"

"I at least make an attempt."

She laughed, "You are at least honest about yourself. This is good. Goodbye for today, Loki, son of Odin. I will return when we are more settled and perhaps we can learn one another when there are no responsibilities to attend." He offered her arm and they walked back into the palace so she could finish her duties and return home.