Loki checked the address again as he stood outside a rather unsuspecting place. There were some seriously big and ugly pick-up trucks in the lot. The place looked run down at best, and there was a sign proclaiming that they had the best po-boys in the parish. Whatever a po-boy was. It was also hot as all get out. At least in comparison to the cave he'd been stuck in for however long he'd actually be there... and much warmer than it had been in Edmunton.

( Though, maybe it was the humidity )

A hundred thoughts and questions must have run through Odin's mind as he stood just outside Niflheim. He could see the dragon in the distance, and was sure at one point, at least, Nidhogg had seen him as well. But he was far enough away the beast held no danger for him. The potential threat lay far in the mists. Which was where those thoughts leaned. Some filled with hope, most with fear and worry. Mimir had been right- only one man knew the answers to those questions.

( So he waited. )

Loki felt like a colossal ass.

There was no way around it, though. Either he was completely honest with his wife and he took her with him to Niflheim and risked getting absolutely nowhere with Hel, or he deliberately deceived Sigyn so that he could go alone. He chose the latter for the greater good.

( It was easier said than done, though. )

Her first inclination had been to take them somewhere remote, a small town somewhere perhaps. But there was a problem with small towns: everyone knew everyone else, who they were related to, where they worked, who they had gone to kindergarten with. There was no way to blend in in a small town. Everyone would take notice of new arrivals and speculate where they had come from or why they were there.

Not that she expected to outsmart Odin, not for any length of time. Loki had pointed out, and he was right, that they'd never be able to keep out of sight with him having Hlidskjalf. Forget Huginn and Muninn, troublesome as they were, it was the all-seeing ability the throne gave him that would derail them. If he truly wanted to find them. Sigyn was taking a gamble, and a very large one at that, that Odin still had some care for his blood-brother and he wouldn't hunt them down with pitchforks and torches. No, it wasn't Odin she was trying to avoid.

( It was the rest of them. )

Continued from here.

Loki blinked in disbelief. What exactly had he done? He knew that he ripped his arm free, unintentionally, but on an emotional level there was something more to it. His son. Correction, he and Sigyn's son, or what remained of him, was now torn... broken... He wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He wondered if he was hallucinating. Lifting his free arm again, he turned it around, watched it twitch and felt the muscles burn from sudden use. No, it was quite real. In a fury he had ripped apart some of Narvi's remains.

He dropped the arm at his side. ( It hurt already. )

It was a trek Hel had not made many times over the long years, though one would have expected such a devoted daughter to have done so. Truth was, Hel couldn't stand to see her father like this. Bound, unnecessarily, for all this time. It was gross, which said a lot as an opinion of someone who spent their entire life with half her body rotting. It was unbefitting. And it was irritating. There was no reason he should still be there, as far as Hel was concerned.

Yet, occasionally, she made the journey regardless of how much it might make her bile rise. He was still her father, and she felt the need to remind him that she loved him every now and again. And there was still that small spark of hope that one of these times she might convince him to leave. The possibility that maybe this time Loki would have come to his senses. That it had been long enough. That he was still needed elsewhere.

( So far she had been met with nothing but failure. )