#sigrvif

He isn’t sure why he’s nervous.

Bundling his youngest children out of the car ought to have been at least something of a distraction, but they are too well-behaved for that ;  Jahan steps off onto the pavement and stays dutifully put as Luke unclips Huld from her carseat and hoists her onto his hip. She is livelier than her brother, but not enough to trouble him. Which gives him plenty of time to consider why, exactly, the prospect of seeing Signe again is making him light-headed.

And he knows the answer, even as he shifts his daughter on his hip and takes his son’s  hand. He knows that, if Signe Huldgren were not his child’s teacher, he would already have asked her out for coffee.

This walk through the long corridors is filled with considerably less dread than the last -- not least because Jahan and Huld’s curiosity needs tending to. And before he can even really process it, they are standing in front of Ingulf’s classroom.

"Am I bothering you ? I can go if you’d like... ”

At first Hætta could only stare, incredulously, while the bright tail of some sort of cloth garment dissapeared through his doorway. The Giant Wanderer stood suspended, stiff with shock at the treeline. His bounty of harvested roots and herbs in a basket beneath his drawn cloak, near forgotten as he tensed and heard the woven edge crack between his fingers.

How? This was no ordinary house. It was no house at all! No thief should have breached it, nor a seeker have found shelter within it. He knew his dwellings were sought after, he had built the rumours regarding his trade and knowledge himself after all. 

But those who sought him waited.

They did not enter a stranger’s abode without permission.

There was no sign of violence though. In his mind Hætta groped for his connection with Skuld as he silently paced forward, noting everything as he had left it, right down to the moss that crept errantly about his front porch. The Norn avoided his probe like an eel. She knew, then. She hadn’t fallen asleep at her spinner.

He made no noise as he entered, his gaze upon the tiny figure and its’ mop of long dark hair. Only when he placed his basket upon the table aside the doorway did he draw attention,

@hvcdrungr sent: "If it isn’t the most beautiful sight this side of Vanaheim…“

  ❝ Loki, ❞ the name is rushed with a sigh. The house is a mess. Two little ones tackling each other in the next room and dinner? Barely cooked. She had little time between the tantrums and spats and lack of naps.

   ❝ Oh… you… ❞ Quick steps bring her to him, and she decidedly leaves the half boiled potatoes on the stove. ❝ You are late. ❞ Her finger jabs at his chest lightly. She is gentle still despite her annoyance. ❝ And flattery is not going to help you right now. ❞    

“I am quite aware and deeply ashamed”, he replies merrily, as he reaches to grasp his wife’s hand. “Deeply ashamed”, he reiterates before kissing the back of it.

Instead of clarifying it any further, he keeps his warm smile towards her and ponders on whether she would be surprised if he answers that, once more, his blood brother has kept him. “By the Norns, you are gorgeous”, he adds simply.

     every word is one deserved, however cutting their edges may be. in fact, the hellhound remains placid in the face of sigyn’s well-placed but uncommonly seen rage, trying & only slightly failing to keep the hurt from showing on her face. how far she must have fallen that she can no longer deflect her emotions so easily, that the crack in her mask shows but she doesn’t defend herself yet. 

     the accusation wasn’t misplaced but the goddess was failing to see ren’s reasoning behind it. this wasn’t just a babysitting / guard-dog situation any more, that the reason ren clung so closely & so tightly was far more personal than a job assignment from her master.