But Mother, I'm in Love With a Criminal

Chapter title is a lyric from Christina Perri's song, "A Thousand Years". The other three chapters and story title before this one are all obviously from Britney Spears's "Criminal". I think both songs fit Loki and Sigyn's relationship well.

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Chapter Four: Waiting For You

In time, Loki healed.

Due to the risk of someone discovering him, Sigyn relocated Loki to his private chambers in the palace. Even though Odin sentenced him to the dungeons, nobody had reclaimed Loki's bedroom or redecorated it. Everything lay exactly where Loki had placed it last aside from a few books taken from the shelves probably by Frigga to send to him in the dungeons.

The warding around Loki's chambers also shrouded him from Heimdall's view, leaving him virtually invisible while he rested. Sigyn tried her best to be discreet, but even after knowing Loki for most of her life, she had not quite replicated his ability to sneak around unnoticed.

Then one day, while Sigyn left to retrieve a meal to share with Loki, she returned to an empty room. Loki left no note, and judging by the unbroken spells guarding his chambers, nobody had entered to take him away.

For a while, Sigyn panicked, wondering if whatever forces who tried to kill him on Svartalfheim somehow found him to finish the job. Having discovered no signs of a forced entry or unwanted visitors, Sigyn's fears turned to Loki wandering alone. He must have left on his own volition because nothing else could explain his sudden disappearance.

All thoughts turned to the conversation they had the previous night. Loki had avoided any prying questions Sigyn had about Midgard and the Void, saying simply he had to work on himself before committing to her again. The way he said it made Sigyn believe Loki still loved her, and although she couldn't quite shake the anger and betrayal simmering beneath her temperate surface, she had offered to give him a second chance.

He must have taken her words to heart or assumed she wanted him gone because she had not seen him since. Her hopes of him returning faded after a month of waiting and some failed search attempts.

Asgard and Thor, on the other hand, believed Loki had died on Svartalfheim. For some reason, Odin commissioned a statue in Loki's honor and even allowed a rather popular theater production about Loki's life to perform once a month in the palace.

Then Heimdall got banished and Thor left to scour the cosmos for a quest so secretive even the most reliable gossipers were quiet.

Odin changed, too. Many assumed the death of Frigga impacted the All-Father more than the king would ever admit, and they wouldn't dare judge a grieving husband for being a little too lax of a monarch. The Nine Realms, however, did start to feel the consequences of a powerful king losing his beloved queen. Civil unrest and typical squabbles which normally did not occur under the All-Father's rule were left unchecked and festered until they grew into almost utter chaos.

While Sigyn did not spend as much time around Odin as she did Frigga, she started to notice some oddities not pertaining to a gloomy widower. The few times they crossed paths, Odin tended to stare at her a little too long and display characteristics more aligned with Loki than of the All-Father.

Sigyn, of course, had her suspicions—one could not court Loki for centuries without learning his mannerisms. However, despite her connections within the palace, as the daughter of farmers and not anyone of noble status, she could not dare to question the king. Odin became lazy—more interested in theater, music, and literature than in the numerous issues arising across the Nine Realms.