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The Runic Edda
Chapter 7: Uruz

Midgard Date: 07.28.19
Location: Vanaheim

"So… we need a plan." Darcy lets her feet fall from where she's pulled them up, toes touching the thick rug underfoot. The astronomy tower is comfortable, but in this moment, that's not necessarily a good thing.

The sudden proclamation breaks the silence that's settled over the four of them, each at their own tasks. Jane, Loki, and Sif are trying to figure out how Baldr's here and not in Hel, and Darcy's trying to catch herself up on the history of the Nine Realms as told by their more long-lived races. Some of the stuff is wild, but awesome and crazy and fascinating as it is, she can't even enjoy it. Not with this nagging at the back of her mind.

When they've all actually paused to look at her, she continues. "I mean, this thing we're doing is really important, I get that. But right now we're basically hermits, and that means Baldr gets to do whatever he wants with the entire government of Vanaheim, and we have no idea what he's up to, really."

It's not news to them, of course, but she wonders if maybe they've underestimated the importance. Or their own capacity to do something about it.

Jane settles the book she's reading down over her lap, furrowing her brow until a little crease appears over her nose. "Sure, but it's not like any of us are going to be able to get him to tell us his aims or goals or whatever." She wrinkles her nose, probably considering what those could possibly be. 'Mess with Loki and Sif' seems like a fair guess, but it's way too nonspecific to be actionable.

Darcy pulls in a breath, clearing her throat softly. "Actually, she I said 'we need a plan' I meant 'I have a plan,' but the thing is I don't think any of you are going to like it." She runs her fingers over the embroidered arm of the plush chair she's in. One of them is a little loose; she wraps it around her finger until it's tight enough to cut off circulation. A few tugs prove ineffectual—everything around here is built so much stronger, built for people who routinely exert more force than she has in the whole of her body.

"…what's the plan?" Jane's tone is cautious; and bless her, really. She knows Darcy wouldn't bring this up if she didn't at least think the terrible idea had a reasonable shot at success. Maybe she would have, once—embraced her extraneous starts and said and done extraneous things to go with—but they can't afford for anyone not to pull some weight.

The kind of weight Darcy can pull isn't exactly intellectual heavy lifting. Not of the science kind, anyway. But it might be something. "Baldr's used to people basically being stupid for him, right?" she asks, knowing full well what the answer is. She lifts her eyes, easing her hold on the thread, and resists the urge to chew her lip. "Why not give him what he expects?"

She looks at Jane, mostly because Darcy figures her boss is the most likely to support the plan.

"Absolutely not." The first response is Loki's, unsurprisingly, his tone hard as steel and sharp as jagged ice. She doesn't blame him for that.

"She has a point, Loki. It's not terrible." Sif's response is more measured; a quick glance reveals that she's crossed her arms over her chest and is regarding Darcy appraisingly.

She sits up a little straighter, scooting to the edge of the seat cushion so she can put her feet properly on the ground. Damn her vertical challenges. Everything in this place makes her feel small.

Maybe she imagines it, but she swears Loki's eyes actually flash when they flicker to Sif. "No. She has no idea how dangerous—"

She does blame him for this.

"Uh, hello? She is standing right here. And has an opinion." Darcy tilts her chin up, knowing it's ridiculous to try and make herself look any tougher in front of someone like him. He's more acquainted with both mortal fragility and godly strength than she is, probably. But her pride won't let her be spoken about like she's not even present.

"It's not—I know that." Loki seems to deflate a little, shoulders sloping downwards, though the tension is still there. He makes direct eye contact with her, expression troubled. "But you don't know him as we do. The risk is…"

Darcy sighs. It would have been easier to argue if he'd kept the sharpness and brittle bite he used with Sif. But she gentles her tone, too. "Look. We all know someone has to take it. We can't sit here in the dark or it's only a matter of time until he wins. He won't tell you or Sif anything in a million years, and he's not getting within a mile and three stone walls of Jane if I can help it. I'm the only option." She is also the best qualified, in a way. He'd expect the least of her, believe the worst of her most readily. Loki and Sif are gods, and Jane is both a genius and—more relevant to Baldr, probably—famously the Soulmate of a god. They are obviously special.

She isn't.

Jane breaks into the conversation, eyes soft like maybe she's caught the direction of Darcy's thoughts. "Darce, are you sure about this? What if you can't fool him? What if he knows when someone's not under his enchantments?"

It's a fair point, but she's kind of counting on it not being true.

"Actually, that part I can solve," Loki murmurs. "With the right protections." He expels a breath through his nose, long and slow, and turns to Sif, some question there Darcy can't interpret.

The warrior drops her arms back to her sides and nods thoughtfully. "I can help, too. We won't send you in defenseless."

Midgard Date: 07.31.19
Location: Vanaheim

"So remind me exactly what this is going to do again?" Miss Lewis sits at the edge of Loki's worktable, her feet swinging freely back and forth. She is so diminutive that they don't chance to touch the ground, even when she the points her toes and sweeps them in lazy pendulum-arcs, swishing the linen of her iris-blue gown. She does not seem to favor the garments of the Vanir, for all he thinks they favor her. But if she is to go through with this scheme of hers, needs must. He does not complain that she forgoes some of the niceties in his company, however. The shoes, it seems, are just as disagreeable in her estimation.

He tears his eyes from the ripple in her skirts and replaces them on the diagrams in front of him. The spellwork is complicated, and it doesn't escape him that if any part of it fails, she will be in even graver danger. The thought sits ill with him, but he tries for nonchalance in his inflection, reluctant to consider it. "It should protect your against Baldr's attempts to manipulate your mind, and alert you when such an attempt is made."

"So it's not just something he does all the time? The enchanting?" She tilts her head to study his diagrams as well. While they're likely naught but nonsense to her, she squints at them anyway, likely matching some of the patterns to things she has seen in other books he's asked her to read.

Despite himself, he has to suppress a smile at her evident curiosity. "Bringing someone into his thrall is a complicated process. It involves reading them, discerning what it is that they… need, or desire, and then presenting himself as that something." Certainly not an instantaneous process, and more difficult the less straightforward the personality. Or perhaps only more difficult the more deviant from the norm.

"I guess that explains why it worked on Odin and stuff. Cause I have to say, I was not getting a very brotherly vibe from him." Miss Lewis scrunches her nose, rolling her eyes in obvious distaste.

He wonders for a moment at the curious warmth he feels, in that moment. It is seldom that someone would disdain Baldr's company for his own, but these Midgardians did not even hesitate. "Yes, well… he would not have chosen that approach with you."

Loki knows what he chose instead. He just can't figure out why it didn't work. He knows why the effort has no effect on Sif—perhaps the answer is the same in Miss Lewis's case. He can't help but hope it isn't.

"Well, that was dumb of him. I could really use a brother." Miss Lewis, oblivious to the direction of his contemplations, frowns and pushes her spectacles up her nose.

Loki cannot help but want to follow up on what seems very much like a cracked door, half an invitation. He has always been curious by nature, even if the curiosity seldom leads him to satisfaction. And he knows so little of her, really. "Do you have none?"

"Nope. No family at all, really. Well, except Jane, and Erik, and then Thor." She shrugs, but her eyes fix on the opposite wall, something unreadable passing through them, like a faint shadow thrown from a candle.

"I… see." He isn't sure what to do with that. His complaints about his family—she must think him the very epitome of entitled fool, to gripe so about people who were at least around to love him, in the best ways they knew how. For a moment, something uncomfortably bitter rallies in him, a buried ember of resentment flaring against his heart. He's half-ready to defend his charges, even in the face of someone who has no ability to make her own.

But Miss Lewis turns her head to regard him, and she smiles, genuine enough to crease the skin beside her eyes. If she senses his readiness to go to battle for his right to think himself once-wronged, she gives no indication of it. "Don't feel bad, Mischief. It's not like you could have known. My situation's not exactly typical for people on Midgard, I guess."

The ember snuffs out, leaving less than a faint curl of smoke. Loki shifts, his hand gripping the edge of the work table and squeezing. It is built to withstand the likes of Vanir, but he almost feels the wood creak under his grip. Could it really be so simple?

His lips are moving before his brain has caught up. "And what exactly is your situation?"

"I dunno." Miss Lewis shrugs again and pushes out a breath. Weary, perhaps, but he does not think it is wistful or melancholy. She pulls a bit of long, umber-colored hair forward over her shoulder and toys with it, her hands restless. "I was put into the system when I was too young to remember anything. Aged out of it and went to college. It wasn't the worst thing, I guess; none of my foster homes were like… horror stories or anything. Some of them were pretty all right. But… not family, you know?"

She meets his eyes directly, then, and he is struck by the vulnerability there. Now she is expecting him to fight. Or, no—perhaps not that. She is expecting him to dismiss this lack of hers. As he expected her to dismiss him.

He finds, as he studies her face—the slope of her brow, the perfect night-dark blue of her eyes, and most importantly of all the complete lack of artifice to any of it—

He could not. Cannot. And wouldn't want to in any case.

Loki swallows, searching for his voice and finding it only several heartbeats later. "Perhaps I do."

This is the part where he ought tear his eyes away from her. Look back at the diagrams. Finish the spell. It's important. It would be a perfectly legitimate reason to break this… moment. This thing that distends, stretches outward until his sense of time is no longer reliable, for it cannot decide for him whether what has passed is fractional seconds or entire minutes. Time is strung tight as lute-wire, and he wonders if there isn't the same promise of music in it, if only something moves it the right way. Miss Lewis is strangely unreadable for all her openness, and he wonders if she feels it there, too, pulled taut in her limbs. An odd kind of inertia that will not allow change but cannot abide its own stillness.

She pulls in a breath, the rise of her shoulders with it breaking the absolute stillness and snapping the wire. Loki realizes that he hadn't breathed either—and that it is oddly difficult to do so again, requiring more concentration than breath should, as though it is a habit he has been away from for too long.

"Anyway, uh." Miss Lewis clears her throat, color blooming softly over her face. He wants to know why, but resolves to do her the courtesy of ignoring it. "So the reason Baldr's magic doesn't work on me is because he assumed something about what I wanted that wasn't true?"

Loki considers this, then nods slowly, though his words are a bit more measured.

"Possibly. The more nuanced his understanding of the subject, the more effectively he can tailor his illusions. What he did to the overall Aesir population was present them with a hero of the kind their culture revered: an accomplished warrior with feats of glory to his name and the boldness and brashness they favor." Not that it took a mastermind to deduce such things about them. The Aesir had always been quite open about what they venerated—and what they reviled. And if he missed the occasional outlier who preferred something else in a hero, well… it hardly mattered.

"But to deceive others, who interacted with him face-to-face, he had to decide not only what he wanted to be to them, but what specific traits would accomplish the end. He was different to each of his lovers, for instance. To Thor, he was an uncle and a mentor, someone who validated his natural inclinations and excused his flaws. As children so often want." Loki of all people knew the power of validation. Thor had known it often and potently, too.

Miss Lewis purses her lips. "But not you?"

Clever girl, she is.

"I think I wanted that even more than Thor did. But my own magic was inherent protection, and Baldr never understood me. Not properly. It never gained quite the same purchase. He knew my mother and father better, and so their seidr was less protection." Not none—Odin and Frigga had cast off the enchantments upon themselves eventually, though not before Loki had been punished for orchestrating Baldr's death. Perhaps some part of it had always remained with the All-Father; it would be a tidy explanation for the undercurrent of bitterness that lingered after, but Loki knows that trying to make the explanations for these things too neat ruins their veracity. Much more than this lay between him and the man he is now willing to call his father again.

And the chance to address any of it has passed.

But he is drawn away from the melancholy of that thought by Miss Lewis's hum, a thing caught somewhere, he thinks, between contemplation and outright amusement. "So basically you were able to beat him because you were a misfit and he didn't get you?"

It's such a succinct way of putting the issue that it sounds almost trivial. But her simplification loses little of its truth.

He shrugs, turning a page in one of the tomes as though they are not treading dangerously close to what has in the past been a personal… the Midgardian term would be land-mine. It is appropriate. "I suppose you could put it that way." He attempts to make himself sound diffident, unaffected, not particularly interested, and he thinks perhaps he succeeds.

But she is not so easily dissuaded from her course. "I like putting it that way," she says, sweeping away the delicate structure he has tried to impose upon the conversation. The subtle turning away from this matter and back to others, or perhaps the entirely unsubtle deflection he just tried to make. "I like that you didn't fit into his idea of what you should be. That you didn't want what he thought you should want."

It sounds, Loki thinks, very much like validation. As alluring as it has ever been.

Or perhaps the allure has more to do with how she's looking at him, when he raises his eyes from the page and meets hers. For weeks now, he has watched her watch Vanaheim. Watched her intake and process all of the new information set before her in whatever form it comes: books, people, lectures, even the clues pressed into the architecture. And so he knows what it looks like when she is bored.

She does not look at him as though he bores her.

He lets himself imagine, for just a moment, that the way she looks at him now is different than the way she looks at even the most interesting of Vanaheim's wonders. That the keenness of her narrowed eyes, the angle of her fan of dark lashes, the way she's braced on her nearer hand as if to lean towards him—that all of that means something beyond an expression of her natural curiosity. That he—to her—is something beyond a curiosity.

It's enough to prickle his skin, to make him feel too tightly squeezed into his own dimensions, an odd disorientation that is as much giddy as terrifying.

"Sometimes," he murmurs, "I don't want what I think I should want, either." And sometimes is now, because it is almost a physical pull, the desire that floods him. To take a step away from the spot at the table that is his and into the one that is hers. To stand in the space between her legs and run his hands from her delicate ankles to her thighs, let the fabric of her skirt pool in her lap, just to feel the texture of her skin. He does not know what she would do if he did. But part of him wants desperately, suddenly, all at once, to find out.

"Yeah," she says, nodding like she understands exactly what he has said—and perhaps also some of what he has not said. "I think I like that, too."

He has to remind himself that she is not an enchantress, that she has not actually ensnared him and plucked the contents of his thoughts from his head. That she is remarking upon his words, and not the sentiments that underlie them. That she cannot possibly know the strangeness of what has gripped him, and certainly did not mean to endorse his preposterous fantasy.

And it is fantasy.

Loki feels his face contort, his displeasure with his own internal difficulty manifesting in something physical. Miss Lewis, of course, misinterprets, and believes she has said something wrong, if the way she reels back suddenly is anything to go by. He wants to correct her, but also cannot, and so he clears his throat, resetting himself in what seems to be the same way she is.

"So, uh… how about those spells, huh?" she tries for a smile, but it is strained.

And he—well, the infamous Silvertongue can only nod tightly, and force himself to think of nothing but the preparations.

Midgard Date: 08.04.19
Location: Vanaheim

Darcy wakes with a start, sitting up and pressing a hand to her sternum. Her breath is way too fast, and she can feel the uncomfortable slick of a thin layer of cold sweat between the sleeves of her nightshirt and her skin. Shifting back a little, she leans her head against the carved wooden bedframe and tries to slow it down.

The nightmares are formless, but she's certain that they're nightmares, even if the details of them slip out of her mind like water between her fingers. She isn't sure what's brought them on—but this isn't the first time she's had bad dreams as part of… a stress response, maybe. All the anxiety she pushes down, surfacing at the one time she can't do much to control what goes on in her own head. Maybe that's a fanciful way of putting it, but psychology backs it up. She read an article once, or something.

Whatever the reasons they're there, they are, and now that she's up, she can feel that falling back asleep probably won't happen. It's hard to tell what time it is; there's not anything on Vanaheim designed to mark the hours, except maybe the candles, which she's noticed are marked. But she figures the Vanir probably have some innate sense of time passing that she just doesn't, so all she knows is it's dark and Jane's out cold next to her on the other side of the boat-sized bed. That's good—last night Darcy's thrashing woke her, and it's better if she gets whatever rest she can.

Jane's starting to look a bit wan, even though Darcy takes every opportunity to stuff her with as much of the rich food they make around here as possible.

Pushing back the coverlet, Darcy turns, bare feet hitting the rug noiselessly. Not quite so quiet is her nocturnal search for pants—while her nightshirt is pretty big, raided from Thor's left-behind stash of Midgard threads, it probably doesn't count as 'decent' on a planet where people still wear gowns on the regular.

Hell, Darcy probably doesn't count as decent on this planet. In general. But there's less she can do about that, and she steps into her jeans as soon as her hands alight on the spot where she threw them over the back of the sofa on the other side of the room. Shoes aren't happening, but the floors seem clean here, so she doesn't really care.

In fact, in her haste to get out of the room and to the nearest available fresh air, Darcy forgets to care about a lot of things, like who or what she might run into in the corridors.

"Ugh." Thanks to Sif's lessons, finding the garden isn't hard, and she lets herself wander kind of aimlessly after that, until she comes upon one of the really still, clear pools that Loki says are for diviners. Apparently his mother was one, among her many talents, hence the presence of aids to scrying. Scrying. God, her life is a fantasy novel these days.

She'll say one thing for the spot: it's really chill. Serene, even. She has no idea how the magic works, but despite the brightly-lit city beyond the palace, light pollution seems not to be a thing here, and the sky overhead is even more clear and beautiful than the one in New Mexico, even if the stars are totally different. She's almost proud of herself for being able to recognize that. And when she gets tired of craning her neck back to look, she settles herself down next to the pool and stares at the reflection of them in the water instead.

"Lady Darcy. What an unexpected pleasure."

Darcy starts; she isn't sure how she didn't hear him coming, with how quiet it is, but the sound of Baldr's voice has her scrambling to her feet. She hadn't really planned to put her plan into motion in a situation like this, but she's going to have to act her socks off anyway.

"Lord Baldr." She pauses, then ventures what she hopes sounds like an innocuous, polite question. "Is it Lord? I'm sorry—all this is still really new to me." She doesn't put it past any of these people to think of Midgardians as idiots anyway. Not even Thor had a great view of them back in the day.

But Baldr smiles, the expression so mild it's impossible to tell if he's secretly laughing at her stupidity or just pleased by her presence. Maybe both; he seems like the kind of guy that could manage both at the same time. "I should just as soon have you call me Baldr, milady."

Okay, courtly, then. He's going for chivalrous and shit. Darcy can do this.

"I couldn't possibly, but thank you." She mirrors his smile with one of her own, a touch more simpering, but not over-the-top. It'd be weird if her behavior changed too much from the library, after all. "May I ask what brings you out at this time of night?" Fancier diction, like she's trying to be more impressive.

He seems to have been expecting the question, which—duh. You don't interrupt a near stranger in the middle of the night and not expect them to ask you questions about it. "You'll think it strange, perhaps, but I was beset by a most disquieting dream. I thought to clear my mind with the aid of the evening air."

That throws Darcy for just a moment. She blinks at him, her tongue getting ahead of her brain.

"Me too! I mean, uh… well, I also had a bad dream." She resists the urge to wince. Confidence, Darcy. Confidence is literally like eighty percent of anything like this.

Baldr takes a few steps closer, eyes on the pool. She's not buying that, though, not with the way he stops just inside her personal space like he doesn't even notice. She's sure he'd back right off if she called him out on it, feigning distraction. Ad if she'd been anything but warned, she'd have given him the benefit of the doubt, too, but knowing what she does makes the same actions look very different. "The Norns work in interesting ways, don't they?" he says, brows furrowed. "Perhaps you would consent to speak with me a while?"

And she's not entirely sure if maybe this really is a work of coincidence, or some fate-entities trying to give them a shot at each other to see who can outwit whom. Maybe it is. Maybe it's something more calculated than that. Either way, she knows he's trying to take advantage of it. The air around him shimmers a deep red—he's trying magic. The color means… yep, he's going for the charm again. She can almost feel it press against her mind, a pressure to respond in a certain way, almost a shift in her perceptual field as her heartbeat kicks up an involuntary notch. The feeling is downright bizarre, though. Probably not how it should function, from his point of view.

She needs to act like it's working this time. At least a bit. Though Darcy doesn't doubt people throw themselves at this guy on the regular—magic aside he's fucking gorgeous even for an Asgardian—she didn't before, and even if she could bring herself to fawn over him now, it would be too different from what little he knows of her. But she can drop some hints, for sure.

The blush is half-involuntary, more in league with the acceleration of her heart, but she'll happily use it. "Oh, um… all right. I think I could do that." She smiles shyly, but lets it drop almost immediately, as though she's somehow uncomfortable with her own reaction. That much is entirely her own artifice.

"Excellent." Baldr jumps on the opportunity regardless. It would actually almost be flattering in some twisted way, if not for the fact that she knows this isn't about her at all, really. "Tell me, Lady Darcy, how did you come to find yourself in the company of my nephew?"

Yep. This is definitely actually about Loki.

"Oh, well." She shrugs. They'd discussed this part, all of them. The goal is to make it look like she's the obvious outsider in the group. Like a wolf culling a deer from the herd, Baldr would go for the limping runt doe much sooner than any of the others. "I guess it was mostly by association. I'm Jane's assistant, you see. And after Thor died, we sort of… ended up with him." She rounds her eyes, utterly guileless.

Give a guy like this a Damsel Classic, and you get…

Baldr frowns as if troubled, studying her face with intent scrutiny. Despite herself, Darcy really has to struggle to keep her focus. His eyes are bright and clear, fragments of sunshine even in the dark. He almost glows, and it's not just the funny magic-detector Loki installed in her regular ol' human OS, either. "Forgive me if I overstep, milady, but Loki is not… the most pleasant of individuals. He has not harmed you in any way, has he?"

Bingo. Knight in Shining Armor(tm).

But damn, it's a really good thing she's over those and not in the least distressed, because if she were otherwise…

Darcy feigns a mild panic in what she hopes is a convincing manner, drawing in a sharp little glance and darting her eyes around, as if to find Mischief himself lurking in a nearby bush. "What—no! I mean, I shouldn't—"

"My lady, please. If he has done anything untoward…" Baldr takes another step in, reaching halfway across what little space remains between them. His concern is so earnest it's cloying; he's overplaying the role, and if anything that makes it easier for her to see past it.

She shakes her head, urgent and uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, Lord Baldr. I can't—I should go."

He backs off, just a touch. Chivalry won't let him 'insist' much more than that, fortunately. "As you wish, Lady Darcy. But please. If ever you find yourself in fear, know that I would hear your concerns. I know little of the circumstances, but it seems you were a friend of Thor's. As he can no longer extend his protection, I would do so in his stead."

Yeah, I bet you would. She doesn't laugh at him, but it's a near thing.

"I… thank you, milord. I understand." Darcy takes her exit, but pauses in hesitation, turning back over her shoulder to take the final glance he's probably expecting. It takes her a moment of lip-chewing indecision to force out a final, uncertain: "Good—goodnight."

And then she's off in a hustle, rolling her eyes when she's certain there's no way he'll see.

Maybe she can manage this after all.

Midgard Date: 08.04.19
Location: Vanaheim

Jane wakes to an empty bed.

There was a time in her life when this would have been normal, when it would not have bothered her in the slightest. And in truth, what she shared with Thor never really got much chance to be a 'waking next to the one you love' sort of thing. The world always needed saving, and they both had parts to play in that which did not lend themselves to lazy Sunday mornings and gentle, languid sex and breakfast in bed.

But for the last few weeks at least, Darcy's been keeping her company, because neither of them wants to sleep in a bed the size of a boat and much too cold because of the emptiness.

Darcy isn't here now, though, and when Jane touches her hand to the dent in the sheets where she's been, it's only slightly warm. She wonders if perhaps her friend didn't also have a nightmare. Her own is vague now, indistinct and as difficult to grasp as water.

Rolling over onto her back, Jane pulls the covers up to her chin and stares blankly at the ceiling. Not that she can see much; the chamber is dark but for the sliver of moonlight peeking in through the curtains on the far wall, just enough to highlight her left foot under the sheets and cut to the vacant half the bed. She waves her foot back and forth, dropping her eyes to the play of light and shadow there, and knows she won't be getting back to sleep anytime soon.

Beneath the covers, she rests a hand on her distended belly, easing the slight discomfort she feels there. Sometimes when they kick, she worries they've already started on the super-strength thing that Asgardians have, and there's a very real concern that her Midgardian body won't maintain its integrity against such an assault. But Loki seems confident that this is not the case, and that for all the difficulties she will endure, that at least is one she need not fear.

"What do you think?" she asks them, because this is a thing she does now. Talks to her children when no one else is around to hear her. "Time for a stroll?"

She takes the soft kick as affirmation, and rolls herself out of bed, swathing herself in several layers of Vanir robes and some shoes. She's at least decent, even if she's aware this excursion would not necessarily be approved by those who now consider themselves responsible for her safety.

Jane tries not to let the restrictions rankle. She does not always succeed.

Perhaps she can ask Loki's double for an escort.

When she emerges from the room, though, she finds that the double is gone. In its place stands Sif, fully dressed but looking slightly disheveled. There are dark circles beneath her eyes, and her hair is faintly askew.

"You shouldn't be out here at this time of night." The disapproval is clear in her voice. Usually she makes some attempt to hide it. Perhaps she's too tired to spend the effort.

"Sif." Jane's too tired to put much effort into hiding how little she cares. "I know, but—what are you doing here, anyway?" That much, she thinks, is a fair question.

But Sif might not share the view, because she purses her lips, her eyes shifting away to an unremarkable spot on the wall. If it was an attempt at casually refusing to answer, it absolutely fails. The awkwardness hangs thick in the air.

Jane sighs; she can't help it. "Look, I really need to take a walk, or… or something. Would you mind coming with me, if I shouldn't be alone?" Standing here uncomfortably is only vaguely better than laying in her bed, restless and fidgeting.

She thinks she can detect a bit of surprise on the other woman's features, but the more certain part is that she gets a nod. Tight, uncomfortable, but a nod nonetheless. She'll take it.

They walk in almost painful silence for several minutes. Slowly, because Jane can't manage quickly at the moment. Sif adjusts, though at times her step hitches as though she's forgotten she really can't take full strides as rapidly as habit dictates. Not unless the wants to leave Jane in her dust, anyway, and for all the tension here, she clearly doesn't mean to do that.

Jane decides that if she wants this experience to be more restful than strained, she's going to have to break the ice first. She tries for something innocuous, calling up what she knows about her quasi-willing companion. "How are your parents?"

Sif halts, blinks. "What?" It's almost harsh, but Jane thinks she might not mean it to be.

So she tries again, repeating herself right down to the mild tone of her voice. "Your parents—Ravdna and Dag, right?"

"How could you possibly know that?" Bewilderment and a trace of suspicion that time.

"Thor, of course." Jane wasn't sure why this would be confusing. Their singular point of connection to each other is rather obvious, after all.

But this only barely seems to clarify anything for Sif. "Thor… spoke of me? To you?"

Jane's brows furrow, but she thinks she might understand where this is coming from now. She chooses her next words very carefully, trying to stick closely to the truth, but not at the expense of kindness. "Of course he did. You were friends—he always talked about his friends."

Sif's head jerks in a way that's probably supposed to be another nod. "Friends. Yes. I suppose we were that." The flatness of the statement confirms Jane's hypothesis.

It's a strange thing to have to deal with, at a juncture like this. She's never known Sif well enough to know what her feelings are about Thor, and Thor himself either hadn't known about them or had downplayed them in his tellings. Probably because they were friends. It isn't really Jane's secret to know, but now she does.

"…I'm sorry. For whatever that's worth." She isn't sure it's the right sentiment, but it's the honest one, at least. Jane has never really been an expert in emotions.

Sif's expression twists into something equal parts frown and grimace. "What are you sorry for? His words were yours, and yours were his. Even I understand what that means. It is nothing to apologize about."

Something about that sounds odd to Jane's ear. "'Even you'?" She repeats the phrase with the right indexical change, but Sif's reason for using it is no clearer that way.

But the other woman shrugs. "Yes. Even a Markless."

That hangs in the air for several seconds, and Jane realizes they've both stopped walking. Sif is watching her closely now, body taut as a bowstring. As though she expects… well, Jane's not sure exactly what she expects, but if it's anything like the way some people treat the Markless on Midgard, it's probably nothing good.

She expels a slow breath through her nose. "I see. Well, maybe I don't see, really. But… just because you have no Mark doesn't make your feelings unimportant." It's the closest either of them has gotten to really naming the thing that sits between them, thick and sharp and pungent.

"I…" It seems to almost ease something in Sif, unexpected as that is. She pulls in a deep breath, her eyes sliding away from Jane and towards her own feet. It's the most vulnerable body language Jane's ever seen her use. "I don't even, usually, with men. But he was—" The words stop as abruptly as they started; she's run out of them.

But Jane knows what she means anyway. "Special."

A pause. "…Yes."

"Then I'm still sorry."

It was hardly the dissolving of everything between them. But it was something.

And for just a moment, Sif's expression eased. "In that case… I accept your apology."

Deep sigh (tm).

Okay, so, this took a while. And the story is probably going on hiatus as of now, because the semester has happened and my dumb butt needs to get working on stuff. It'll get finished eventually, for sure, but I can't say when exactly that's going to be, so if y'all are bookmarkers or alert-setters or whatnot, you may want to do that so you know when new stuff happens. Sorry to suspend things here; I was really hoping I wouldn't have to, but that's how it goes sometimes, I guess.

Also apologies for any typos. I really wanted to get the thing out and am falling asleep at my keyboard here.