The day was old, the fire of the sun just faded, last vestiges of soft crimson and gold slowly melding into the velvet canvas of the night sky. Day, Loki mused, who rode the firmament on his great stallion Hrimfax, bringing light to all nine worlds of the great World Tree. He was followed on his endless rounds by his mother, Night, on her own celestial steed, who travelled so that the worlds would have relief from her son's searing brilliance. He sipped his tea. It wasn't his habit to take dinner out on the verandah- usually, with Yamino cooking, he ate in the dining room, with dinner a rather formal affair that was as aesthetically and nutritionally balanced as Yamino could make it. But it wasn't his habit, either, to suddenly take a fit of conscience and send Yamino out to town for a night out with his siblings, something that he thought was long overdue. He was fully capable of fixing his own meals, after all, and it was high time Yamino took a break from waiting on him, no matter how much he claimed nothing would make him happier than playing butler to his father. It had been all too long since his children had had a chance to play together. In Asgard, they had always been treated as monsters, but in the human world, Midgard, they had a place in, where as long as they kept the illusion of human form up, they would be accepted. Loki put the teacup back into the tray, along with the dirty dishes from dinner. The house was quiet, with the children away and Thor and Mayura gone; a peaceful sort of silence, settled around the house like a blanket on a sleeping child, a silence which Loki found he rather liked. He yawned. His original plan for the evening had been to do a bit of quiet paperwork in the study, but now he decided that reading himself to sleep in bed looked like the better option instead. Picking up his tray, he looked at the horizon where grey storm clouds were gathering, and wondered if there would be rain tonight. Yamino knew enough about how the human world worked to take care of himself and his siblings; and barring anything that even he couldn't handle, Hel and Fenrir would be able to take care of any nasty thing Odin might choose to send. He wasn't worried, not about them. But.. rain. Normally, he couldn't care less about the weather, unless it figured into his plans, but there was something about the upcoming storm- it would be a storm, that he could tell- which sent odd tremors down his back, premonitions of upcoming danger. What, or who would it be this time? He thought, as he got up and walked towards the stairs, leaving the tray in the kitchen sink on his way. Odin had already tried to send most of the major Norse pantheon against him, and so far none of them had been successful. Thor, Frey, Freya, Heimdall.. He frowned, tugging at the bow around his neck as he thought. It was strange, how they hadn't seen hide or hair of Heimdall for a week since that last time they met, when he had cleansed the god of light's heart of the darkness plaguing it. Heimdall was definitely more persistent than that. Even without the aminosity from the matter of Loki putting out his eye, they had never got along. Loki was a god of evil, and he had never liked the way the old Heimdall had acted, all sweetness and light and the pet of Asgard, the faithful guard-dog who looked after the gates, the anal-retentive who was all about rules and following them, never questioning what he believed was right. And always believing that he was right.