Chapter Text
Sif moved away from the braying and bellowing of the men as they went through the same rituals once more, posing and strutting and acting as though each attempt to wield the Hammer was new, each contestant untested, each moment a chance for something unexpected to happen. But it wouldn’t. It never had.
She made her way to the dark edges of the Hall, a bottle swinging by its neck from her hand, and took a place next to the only person to whom she could express her dissentient opinions.
“It seems as though we have been playing this same game every night for a hundred years.”
Loki lifted his chin from where it rested on his sharp knee, and turned to her.
“How do you know that you haven’t?”
Sif shrugged, and filled his cup and then her own with mead. They sat together and watched as each man in turn inevitably failed to move the Hammer. And each time Thor laughed, as though his own power was newly proven by their defeat.
“It is beyond my ken how they have not yet grown weary of this childishness. Not that it is not a fine weapon, of course. But…must we watch it tested and tested and tested again?”
“It is not the weapon being tested. The weapon cannot fail.”
“No. I suppose not. But at any rate, I consider it a dull way to spend an evening, let alone a score of them…”
“I cannot imagine what you mean.” Loki said drily. “Why, any moment now it will be Thor’s turn, and we can watch our beloved Prince prove his strength by lifting the unparalleled Mjolnir and using it to break an as-yet unknown piece of furniture. It could be anything. Perhaps tonight it will be only a settle, or there again he might take out one of the roof beams with one blow and bring the Hall down upon our very heads.”
Sif looked up nervously.
“You would save us, if he did that? With one of your spells?”
“I might.”
“You would! Otherwise you would be killed too!”
“Maybe I would spirit myself away to safety and let the rest of you look to yourselves?” Loki shrugged and took a gulp of mead before proceeding gloomily. “Or perhaps I would just let the rafters fall, and do nothing. Is it really worth the struggle? I am surely doomed to die at Thor’s hand one day. What difference does it make if by his Hammer or a falling roof joist?”
“To be slain with Mjolnir would be a much nobler death than the other.” Sif pointed out. “Especially if it were in battle.”
They both watched as Thor stood, to cheers and cries of encouragement, and swallowed a great goblet of ale in one mouthful before casting the empty vessel aside into the ashes.
“Besides.” Sif continued “You’re talking nonsense. Why should you die at Thor’s hand? You may disagree sometimes, but he would never see you come to harm, much less commit such violence upon you himself. Why, only think of all the men that he has beaten and maimed in your defence over the years?”
“Yes. He doesn’t like other people using his things.”
Loki frowned at his brother, who was now striding up and down encouraging the drunken crowd to chant for him. Sif watched too, and sighed impatiently.
“If I was skilled in trickery and mischief…” she began hopefully “I would cast some enchantment or however it is done so that one night, when everyone was watching, he found himself unaccountably unable to lift the thing. That would teach him a lesson.”
“Would you indeed? You would meddle with the deep magic of the AllFather in order to enrage a drunken fool in front of all his people?”
Loki’s tense face was suddenly trembling with an anger that had sprung up all at once from some hidden place to seize him. Sif saw that she had overstepped herself, her tongue too loose from drink. She held up her hands in supplication.
“I meant nothing by it, Loki. I know naught of the matter. Nor would I ever perform any action that might appear to suggest disrespect of the AllFather...”
“Oh, the AllFather...” Loki repeated, in an unnervingly disrespectful tone, almost one of disgust.
And then the rage was gone, and instead his voice was almost cheerful, in a brittle sort of way.
“It’s His, you know. The Hammer. They say it’s Thor’s, but truly it’s His. Odin’s. Everything’s His. The magic in it, that’s His too. Does that not worry you? Do you think it meet that a man should wield his own power through the power of another? Do you trust it?”
The words seemed to burst out of him, and there was a manic quality to his questions. Sif shifted uncomfortably.
“I am certain that it is not my place to consider such things, much less question them. They are the AllFather’s concern.”
Loki blinked at her for a moment. Then he nodded, and his nervous energy subsided.
“That is true, of course.” he said flatly. “We none of us have any right to ask questions.”
And he slumped back into the shadows and raised the cup to his lips.
Sif sighed in relief. Presumably she had passed Loki’s test, although she couldn’t imagine what that test might have been. You never did know with Loki.
***
They sat together in silence, and drank. Now that there was nothing to distract her mind other than the interminable bragging and posturing surrounding the Hammer, Sif’s thoughts slid back to the conversation at the dinner table earlier that night.
As usual, all the talk in Thor’s Hall had been of one matter alone. That was how things always seemed to be. The subject varied of course. Often it was a planned hunt, or a quest for some fell beast or other. For many a month it had been Thor’s long-awaited ceremony of manhood. Once that hallowed day had finally arrived, been lived through, and passed into memory, the talk instead was of the Hammer, that wondrous gift with which Thor had been blessed on that most prestigious of occasions. And now that the company had begun to grow accustomed even to that mighty weapon, the talk had changed once more. Now it was all on the subject of The Journey.
As part of the honours bestowed upon him by the King at his age ceremony, Thor had received a commission to travel to Vanaheim as an Ambassador for Asgard, and to take with him a company of Asgardian warriors from his own household. This much anticipated event was a matter of great excitement for all concerned, a chance for Thor’s followers to show their worth to him, and for him to show his regard for them by appointing them to places on the expedition. Not only was it a signifier of the new, more respected position he held now that he was finally of age and had received his mighty and powerful Age Gift from the hands of the AllFather himself, but it also marked the first time he would leave Asgard as a Prince, and as the arm of Odin
Although from listening to Thor’s men, you would have known little of this. With them, all talk was of the Games; the tournament between the great houses of Asgard and Vanaheim that would supposedly be an unparalleled display of sportsmanship and manly prowess such as had never before been heard of in the Nine Realms. Or, in Sif’s opinion, would be a big, flashy event with a lot of flags and shouting, which performed the function of giving the whole rigmarole of the trip some appearance of a purpose beyond allowing Thor a chance to parade his new status throughout what was considered (by its own accounting, at least) the Second Realm.
Sif was as dismissive of the whole matter as it was possible to be in an atmosphere saturated with enthusiasm for everything to do with the Games. This passed without comment, partly because nobody was much interested in Sif’s opinions and partly because it seemed entirely in character for their humourless, stone-faced battle-maiden to consider the display of war arts in a sporting competition to be disrespectful and inappropriate. Of course she would not understand. These were men’s matters.
Truthfully however, and to her great shame, Sif fairly burnt with both jealousy at being excluded from Thor’s latest moment of glory and indignation that not one voice had been raised to bemoan her loss from their ranks, despite the surely obvious fact that she would have been a fierce competitor who might have brought Asgard great glory. Were there not several fields of warcraft at which she excelled above all others in the realm, making her the natural choice to represent it in any tournament? And yet, to the insult of her being barred from competing due to the minor detail of her gender was added the injury of her not even being missed.
And so she had to sit night after night, overlooked and bitter, listening to the men talk of what they would do and see and eat and drink and so on and so on, when they were in Vanaheim. All the time knowing that she would not be with them. That she was not included.
And this evening, like all the others, she had sat and listened to Volstagg eulogising the many legendary dishes of the realm, and Hogun reminding them of some of the more legendary defeats it had suffered at the hands of Asgard, and Fandral harping on about its many legendary beauties, some of whom he implied that he had known rather well. And, as always, she had rolled her eyes at them, and they had ignored her.
This evening had been one of the better ones though, as at least Loki had been there. Loki who was also to be left behind. Loki who was also weary of overblown tales of Vanaheim. Loki who rolled his eyes also, and then smiled conspiratorially at her when she saw him.
In fact, on this particular night he had gone further, and much to Sif’s relief interrupted Fandral mid-way through a seemingly endless and meandering drunken speech about how much he was looking forward to visiting the ancient sites that featured in so many tales, and seeing with his own eyes the Old Gods of Vanaheim. Particularly, of course, Lady Freyja. Freyja the Fair, Freyja the Golden, Freyja the Beautiful and Bounteous and Buxom and … on and on he went, until Sif could not hide the impatience on her face. And Loki saw it, and he spoke to silence Fandral.
"You will see no Old Gods in Vanaheim.”
His voice cut through the chatter. Fandral frowned at him.
“And why should we not? We are not just any common or garden visitors. We shall make up a royal delegation.”
His voice was swollen with pride. He glanced around the table at the other men set to accompany Thor, who enthusiastically nodded their agreement as though each considered himself evidently deserving of the attention of any minor sovereign. After all, did they not serve Asgard, and the High King?
“And a very fine and noble company you will make, to be sure.” Loki said tartly. “But that is neither here nor there. Your visit may be as royal as it pleases, but still it will not be the Old Gods who will receive you. Why should it be? The Old Gods do not reign in Vanaheim. Or anyplace else, for that matter.”
“But does not Asgard receive them as royal guests?” Fandral objected. “I understood…”
"You understood nothing.”
Loki cut him off with an imperious wave of his hand.
Fandral sat back and glowered at him, flanked by his two closest companions, whose faces showed similar displeasure at the unwelcome involvement of the inferior prince.
“The Old Gods were vanquished.” Loki began to lecture, in the didactic tone that Thor’s companions found so aggravating. “They no longer rule. They are allowed the trappings of monarchy when they come here as a sign of respect for what they once were. It was part of the treaty. But they may keep no courts of their own; store up no arms, command no soldiers, hoard up no treasures. It is just a show, so that they may save face.”
“But was there not talk, not so long since, of our Most Worthy Prince being wedded to the Lady Freyja?”
Fandral gestured to Thor, somewhat unnecessarily since the appellation had made it clear that he was not referring to Loki.
“What of that?” he continued. “If the Old Gods are nothing…”
"They are not nothing, Fandral!” Loki said with a shocked little gasp, sounding affronted at hearing Fandral speak such words. “They are the Old Gods. They are part of our history, and their blood holds power. It is a great disrespect to speak of them so.”
"I though you said…” Fandral began, in a complaining tone.
Loki interrupted him again.
"I did not. Nor did you.”
"What?”
"Say.” Loki clarified. “And think.”
Sif snorted with laughter, and hurriedly turned her head to hide her amusement behind her dark hair.
“So, the long and the short of it is that we can’t speak well of them, and we can’t speak ill of them?” Volstagg suggested, taking a gulp of his ale.
"Correct.” Loki confirmed. “Either risks treason.”
And then, turning to Fandral.
"Your stout friend has the right of it. Be silent and sup deep while you can. You would do well to follow him.”
Fandral glowered at Loki.
Thor, who up until now had appeared blithely unaware of the tension growing at his table, suddenly swept forward and seized his friend about the neck with one mighty arm, slapping him genially on the chest with a broad paw.
"Worry not, Fandral my friend. Leave the politics to me. You need only be at my side to feast and merrymake at the expense of the court of Vanheim.”
“What court then would this be? If there are no kings in Vanaheim...”
“Oh, you know.” Thor waved his hands vaguely about, slopping a fair amount of ale onto the tabletop, as well as the heads of some of the unluckier men. “The court of whichever caretaker lord my noble Father didst appoint to watch over Vanaheim in his name. What is the fellow called again, Loki?”
"Ullr.” Loki said, with great weariness. “You could remember that much at least, Thor.”
And he pursed his lips disapprovingly at his older brother. Fandral bristled at his insubordinate manner in respect of the elder prince, and Volstagg said something to Hogun, in what he presumably imagined to be a discreet whisper, about a nagging shrew, and how they might as well invite their wives to dinner if this was to be the way of things.
But Thor merely smiled and let go of Fandral to place a hand on his brother’s shoulder, the very tips of his fingers slipping beneath the fall of black hair and just barely brushing the nape of Loki’s neck, a patch of tender white not protected by the dark wrappings in which he was otherwise sealed. And Loki let his brother stand behind him and stared at the hostile crowd with defiant eyes.
`
***
“How do you think Thor will do without us?”
Sif asked this now, as she watched Thor brandishing the Hammer to cheers and approbation, spinning and flourishing it in a manner meant for display, rather than its true purpose as a tool of war. For herself she found it more impressive to watch Thor wield the weapon on the battlefield, rather than show it off like a fancy engraved toy gifted by his Father. But there was much more opportunity for the latter than the former. Rather too much, unfortunately.
"Poorly.” Loki answered, as he raised his cup. “It is a shame that all his companions are imbeciles.”
"You are too harsh on Hogun.”
"Possibly.” Loki conceded. “Who could tell?”
And he moulded his face into a pantomime of Hogun’s grim, silent visage. Sif laughed.
“Is it true?” she asked, after a while. “What you said about Freyja?”
Loki’s face changed now to wide-eyed disbelief, his mouth open in a dramatic gasp, his hand at his throat.
“Lady Sif! You are surely not suggesting that I would prevaricate?”
Sif laughed again, and he made a face or two to entertain her. But then she quieted, and he quieted also, and lent close to her.
"What is in your mind?” he asked.
Sif turned the cup of mead around in her hands, looking into its depth.
"I have heard tales of her…” she began quietly.
"Yes, haven’t we all.” Loki agreed. “Bawdy, no doubt.”
He rolled his eyes. Sif shook her head.
"No, not tales like that. I heard that once she was strong and fierce, and claimed the greatest warriors for her Hall, even before the AllFather.”
The firelight danced in her eyes as she spoke. And then she remembered herself, and where she was, and damped down her enthusiasm.
“Once upon a time, anyway…” she tailed off. But there was a gleam of hope in her voice.
"Once upon a time.” Loki repeated, in tones of dreamy melancholy. “Yes, they say that was so. Or they used to say it, before Odin silenced them. Many things were great and glorious before he put them down, and covered their memories in dirt…”
He was staring now into the fireplace, watching the flames dance, his gaze distant and unfocused. This was a mood that usually presaged trouble. Sif began to worry that she had been foolish to speak to him of such secret things.
She gestured at the happenings across the room, hoping to pull Loki back into the physical present by giving him something to mock. The something being Volstagg, who was contorting his great bulk in an attempt to leverage it against the Hammer and thereby lift it from the carven banquet table on which it rested. Fandral was attempting to add to the weight on Volstagg’s side by hanging around the older man’s neck, which was not helping matters.
"Look at those idiots! How will they ever manage without us?”
Loki did not respond. Sif tried again.
“Well, at least we are to be left behind together. That’s something, is it not?”
She wiggled the bottle in her hand, which drew Loki’s attention. He held out his cup for a refill.
"I suppose.” he said gloomily.
“Does it not gall you?” Sif persisted, her own indignation rising as she put words to her thoughts. “Does it not seem unjust, that we two are the only members of Thor’s High Table who will not form part of his company?”
Loki swallowed a mouthful of mead with a grimace.
"I have told you many times and often, Lady Sif; I am not one of Thor’s company.”
"And yet you sit at his table...”
Loki made a gesture of despair and raised his eyes to the distant roof, hidden in darkness.
"And again, I have spoken of this matter to you. I am not part of his company. I am not one of you. I do what I will, sit where I please. Should the fancy take me to feast with my brother, then I shall do so. And if not, I shall do otherwise. All of Asgard is my playing-ground, and I go where I wilt.”
And he threw up his arm with a little twist that made Sif think for a moment that he was going to transform himself into a coil of smoke, and escape from her into the eaves. But of course he did no such thing. Instead, he took another mouthful of mead, and drew his eyebrows down sulkily.
"All of Asgard?” she asked, sceptically. “Even the AllFather’s Hall? His council chamber? His throne room?”
Her tone of mockery increased with each suggestion. Loki did not look pleased to be joked with in such a manner.
“You are drunk, My Lady.” he said coldly. “You show yourself too openly.”
"And so too do you, My Lord .”
Sif met his tone, and held his stoney gaze. And then, after a moment, he inclined his head in a nod of recognition, and perhaps even respect.
They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the proceedings across the room. Volstagg had retired, looking potentially bruised and definitely winded, and Fandral had taken his place and was seemingly conducting tests as to whether he could lift the Hammer if he in turn was lifted by Thor. The results were inconclusive, as Fandral was too far gone in his cups to maintain either grip or balance.
“We’ve exhausted our supply.” Sif said hopefully, swinging the empty bottle in front of her.
Loki made a pass in the air, and produced an interesting looking sealed flask which he handed over to her.
“Is this from the AllFather’s personal store?” she asked, somewhere between admiration and fear.
Loki shrugged.
“It’s from Loki’s private reserve, the origins of which are hardly your business.”
He gave her an extremely suspicious wink, and an even more suspicious face of innocence. Sif laughed, and opened the flask.
“It’s delicious.”
“Of course. It’s the best mead in Asgard. How could it be any less?”
“I suppose so.” Sif nodded, and sipped. “I’m surprised it isn't served at Thor’s table.”
“You mean because Thor is so terribly important, or because he is such a renowned connoisseur of spirituous potables?”
“Um...the former?”
“The less insulting of the two options.” Loki nodded. “To Thor, at least. And of course, he is your chief concern.”
“As it should be.”
“If you say so, My Lady.” Loki sipped at the mead. “Howsoever that may be, I’m sure you must agree that the golden liquor from the very teat of the blessed Heidrun herself would be wasted upon those louts.”
He gestured in the direction of Thor’s table. Sif wrinkled her nose and looked at her cup.
“It’s not really straight out of a magical goat, is it?”
“So Odin says. And he is after all the Keeper of all our Stories.”
“Even though some of them are older than he?”
“Even though.”
Loki’s eyes turned to the fire, and his gaze turned inward. Sif slid her eyes sideways to watch him, as the flames played on the sharp bones of his face. She thought about stories. Stories that were told, and stories that were not. Stories that were kept, and stories that were lost. Stories that were allowed, and stories that were forbidden.
"Do you think that time may come again?” she asked the fire, her voice just above a whisper.
“What time?”
“The time of Freyja. The time of women.”
A little thrill ran through Sif at the wickedness of her words, her daring at letting such thoughts out into the world, making them real. She turned to Loki, his face unreadable, somehow both still and twisting in the glow of the flames. After a moment he nodded.
“Any time may come again. It is in the nature of the thing that it should be so.”
He paused, thought a moment. Sif waited.
"Perhaps it is harder in Asgard though.” he offered. “Here time does not move as in other places. We run along the same tracks over and over. Not changing or growing. Just repeating.”
"You make it sound like we’re cursed.”
"Do I?”
He turned to look at her then. Something bleak and hopeless was in his face.
A shiver ran through Sif.
"You don’t believe, then, that there is hope for Asgard to change?”
"I think just the opposite.” Loki drained his cup. “Asgard will change. That is a certainty. Everything changes eventually. But for Asgard that change can only come in one way….”
"What way?”
"It cannot be growth, so it must be destruction…”
"You would see Asgard destroyed?”
"I will see Asgard destroyed, whether I would have it or no.”
Loki gave a shrug, and moved to pour more mead. Sif frowned.
"How can you live, believing that?” She demanded “How can you go on every day with your silly tricks and your sly comments, when you think that at any moment this whole world will come tumbling down around our ears?”
She had spoken without thinking, without moderating her tone or couching her words in a veneer of respect. It seemed that, as so often when in Loki’s company, she had allowed herself through familiarity or affinity to fall into a false sense of security. Which was a mistake. Loki, whatever else he was, was not safe.
But there was no bright flash of anger, no poison barb from a sharp tongue. Instead Loki merely stared at her, his gaze distant.
"That is a question indeed, Lady Sif.” he said softly.
And his eyes moved away from her face, away from the light, to whatever he saw in the place beyond the shadows.
Sif wondered then if Thor knew about this darkness in his brother. It was not something that Her Prince, someone so inclined toward light and goodness, would think to look for. And perhaps not something he could even recognise; what could he know of such blackness, golden as he was in spirit? Most certainly it had not touched him, he could not be aware of its presence, or how could he be so carefree even as his brother stood beside him, nursing such horrid things in his cold bosom?
I shall have to watch them, she thought now. I shall have to watch them both. Thor to see that his glory is not contaminated by this hidden poison, and Loki to see that it is kept in check within him and not allowed to spread. It was well that she was here, pledged to Thor, seeing more of the danger that faced him because she stood a little closer to it than his merry, heedless companions. And bound too to Loki, in a way. One did not come without the other, she saw now. Those who thought only to follow Thor, and dismissed Loki out of kind, would come to regret it in the end. But not Sif. Sif knew more than them, saw more, and understood more. Perhaps a little too much. So, then, she would watch herself too.
***
It was late.
The two of them sat together, and drank, and watched the hoards of men as they yelled and spilled and stumbled and grabbed for food and ale and the flesh of passing women. Their hands were rough, their faces coarse, their eyes blind. And above all they were greedy.
A sorrow came over Sif then. A great, hollow despair of the sort that has taken many men, and women too, when they were too deep in their cups. Perhaps the same hopeless melancholy that had swallowed Loki earlier.
“Why is it so?” she heard herself saying. “Must it always be so, Loki?”
And somehow Loki knew. He understood her, and he answered.
“It is so because it has always been so. The women make, the men take. Everything becomes theirs in the end, one way or another. And The Father sits above us all, unchallenged…”
A lump came to Sif’s throat.
“Is it like that everywhere?”
Her voice was small, like that of the young girl she had once been and had long since left behind. But there was a note of hope in it. Loki felt that note reaching out to him, and he smiled.
"Why? What would you do if there were other worlds, with other ways?”
His eyes gleamed with something wild and wicked as he looked at her, and his tempting, sinuous voice wound around her.
“Would you have me lead you there? Would you walk with me on secret, forbidden paths? Would you break your oath to serve the AllFather, and turn your back and slip into the shadows, and be as one lost? Is that what you want, Lady Sif?”
"I swore to serve Thor, not the AllFather.” Sif countered.
"You swore to serve Asgard. Odin is Asgard.”
Sif frowned at Loki’s games.
"Well, and what if there were yet enchanted lands somewhere ruled by proud and unbowed queens, where the Valkyrie still rode and older magics still ran? Even if they were anywhere to be found, how could you lead me there? You wouldn’t belong in such a place, among the women.”
But Loki smiled still.
"You have no faith in my cunning and complexity. I would contrive entrance somehow. No gates are barred to me.”
Sif rolled her eyes at his arrogance.
"You would be the last person they would welcome. The son of the AllFather himself? What could be more foolish than to let you inside?”
"I am more persuasive than you think…” Loki assured her as he filled their cups once more.
Sif scoffed.
"You must think them fools indeed, to let honeyed words and sly tricks persuade them to bring a viper into the bosom of paradise, to spread its poison…
"Perhaps you are right.” Loki said, thoughtfully. “I am poison wherever I ago, it seems…”
Sif waved a hand to dismiss his words as she swallowed a mouthful of mead.
"Anyway, this is childish foolishness. There is only the world as it is, and I serve the AllFather faithfully and defend the Golden Halls of Asgard until death. And I am blessed to do so. Only a half-wit would believe your nursery tales.”
"You deny the Old Goddesses then?”
"There are no Old Goddesses, Loki. There is only Odin. Even Freyja, the only one who remains, has bowed to him.”
"Nobody now remembers mild Lofn or Vár the Upholder of Oaths, or Beda and Fimmilene and their fierce sister Alaisiagae. But they were here once, nevertheless. For all that may be worth.”
"What does it matter to you?” Sif demanded, giving way to irritation. “A man, a Prince, the son of Odin! You need not look to old tales to help you figure out how you fit into this tapestry. You are lucky. You never had to fret about such things. Your place is already decided.”
“Is that so?” Loki tipped his head to the side like a bird and blinked at her. “How lucky for me. It seems I have led a charmed life indeed.”
"And still, you can never be content”. Sif grumbled.
Loki looked at her, his eyes bright and piercing.
"Oh Lady Sif, what sort of a fool could be content?”
He said the word with withering scorn, looking at her the while until he saw upon her face the acknowledgement of this truth as far as she was concerned. Then he let her look away.
They sat in silence again. The conversation seemed at an end. But when Loki moved to slip away, as he always did, she lifted her head and frowned as if she wished him to stay. And yet she did not speak.
Eventually Loki stretched his black limbs out like a cat that had lain too long at the hearth and longed for the hunt, yawned wide enough to show his sharp little teeth, and turned toward her.
"What do you want, Lady Sif?”
“Can I not sit beside you without wanting something?” she said indignantly.
"I do not know. Can you?”
Sif frowned. But she seemed to have decided that there was little point in prevaricating further.
“This visit to Vanaheim.”
“Yes...” Loki prompted.
“Is there more to it than has been said?”
"There is more to everything here than is said.”
Sif sighed at this subtlety.
"I have never cared for diplomacy.”
"No. You would not. You have no natural talent for it whatsoever.”
Sif ignored this sally, occupied with working her way toward the question that loomed in her thoughts.
"Do you think though...” she continued. “Do you think that they plan to find Thor a wife? Is that why they are sending him to Vanaheim?”
She looked anxiously at Loki.
"No.” he said with a wry smile. “Set your mind at rest, Lady Sif. Thor will not be betrothed on this visit.”
"Are you sure?” she insisted. “Because there are many fair and high-born ladies in that land who would be only too eager to snatch him up and tie themselves to his fortunes. And the Lady Freyja...”
"I have already said that she will not be there. None of the Old Gods will be there. And no one else of importance either.” Loki assured her. “This is merely a play-visit to the Little Lords who are permitted by Odin to pretend that they rule Vanaheim. Asgard has agreed to send emissaries as a pretence of respect, regularly enough that Vanaheim can claim that it has not been forgotten, that its old glories have not faded into irrelevance. It doesn't matter. That is why they are trusting Thor to go; a puppet in a tin crown could do the job as well.”
He made a gesture of dismissal.
Sif frowned at this disrespect of Thor, and Loki made a face to show that it was all in fun, merely brotherly mockery born of love.
When he spoke again it was in a light tone, one calculated to turn everything into jest.
"Though of course, we are fortunate that Lady Freyja will not be present. Else we might find all our plans set to ruins. After all, if Thor were to set eyes upon her radiance, he would be sure to fall under her sweet spell. How could he not, even if it be in opposition to the AllFather’s will? And then naturally she must lure him away from us, as all enchantresses seem wont to do, and we would be bereft.”
Sif rolled her eyes at Loki. But she was smiling too at his drollery.
“Not to say that you yourself are not passing fair, my Lady” Loki made a funny little bow in her direction, in mockery of the chivalrous mode. “But Queen Freyja is a beauty nonpareil, on a plane far above such lowly insects as you and I. We are in the dirt, and she is as the stars themselves. Who could stand beside her without trembling, she who makes the corn grow and the seas swell, the Mother of Gemstones and Sister of the Harvest? Even where she weeps there are treasures, for her tears are as rich jewels.”
He made strange, jerky movements as he spoke, in imitation of the skalds when they trotted out their standard words of praise for The Lady, their movements by rote, so mechanical as to make them look like clumsy automaton wound up for the entertainment of Odin’s court.
Sif tutted at the over-used banalities and waved her hand to swat them away like irritating gadflies.
“Yes, yes, we all know of The Lady. Let us not repeat between ourselves the doggerel that the dull of wit attach to her name. It is all nonsense anyway...”
“So you say that The Lady is not so fair...”
“No. I do not say that.” Sif sighed. “Who could ever argue so? Freyja is ... something beyond beauty. That hair, spun of pure gold, they say...”
She lifted a handful of her own dark locks as she spoke, without consciousness of the gesture. Loki smiled.
“Are you asking me to fetch you some golden hair, Lady Sif?”
"Don’t be so foolish”
She waved him away. And then, after a moment, spoke again with an element of regret, looking down still at the black mass in her hand.
“And besides, it wouldn’t be real.”
"But of course it would!” Loki objected huffily. “Do you imagine that I am offering to buy you a hairpiece? You hardly need my help for that. I should think that you could find a wigmaker on your own.”
"As though I would wear a wig.” Sif huffed back. “And how else would you do it? Witchcraft I suppose…”
“No, no, that wouldn’t do at all.” Loki shook his head. “It would be merely an illusion. The truth would still be there. It wouldn’t even be hidden, to those who had eyes to see.”
"I had thought the point of magic was to change things?” Sif puzzled.
“That is not so. It could not be so, when the deeper truth is that there is no such thing as change.”
Sif looked blankly at him.
He sat forward, all sharpness now, to explain. His slender hands danced before him as he spoke, pale beside the darkness of the room and the darkness of his body.
"You see, all things have their own true essence. You can redirect forces, but you can’t truly alter them. That is, not without corrupting them.”
Sif frowned, nodded, trying to understand. Leant toward Loki, as he leant toward her.
“It is hard to explain, there aren’t proper words.” He frowned too; his frustration shown in the two creases on his otherwise smooth brow. “But…the way of it is that, come what may, whatever I did to you with my magic, you would always be Sif. In some way. Even if no one could see it.”
"But if no one can see it, then how am I still I ?” Sif asked earnestly.
"Are you only yourself to others then?” Loki asked her.
Their heads were together now, voices lowered to speak of such things.
“No, of course not. But still, I mean…I have heard of people changed utterly by sorcery… I believe it possible…?”
She spoke uncertainly, looking to Loki for answers.
"No.” He told her. “You cannot simply take someone and force them to become something else, twist and melt and reshape them as though they were base metal in a forge. Not without inexorable damage. To them, and to the channels of reality… It would be base arrogance.”
"Since when have accusations of base arrogance concerned you?”
Sif spoke lightly, but a laugh died in her throat when she saw the grim look on his face. It seemed there was no joke in this for him. He looked back at her, hollow-eyed.
“You cannot just take someone else’s body and reshape it for your own needs. Not without consequences…”
He did not seem as if he was speaking to her anymore, his gaze unfocused, elsewhere. Sif did not understand these changes of mood he so often exhibited, and found them difficult to deal with. She tried again to jest.
"What does it matter? I’m certainly not going to let you enchant my hair. Or any other part of me.”
And then his focus was back, his eyes running across her face, reading her.
"What does it feel like? To be so surely Sif?”
"Are you not surely Loki?”
“I cannot say I am always entirely certain.”
Loki held out his own hand, flame and shadow dancing on the bare flesh and painting it in ever-changing colours.
"My outline is not as clear as yours.” He told her thoughtfully. “Or is it that the materials are impure? Or that the craftsmanship was at fault?”
"Craftsmanship?” Sif questioned. “You mean your parents? It was they who made you. And their ability to shape and form beings can scarcely be in question.”
Her gaze moved across the room to where Thor stood, mighty as Yggdrasil itself, throwing back his leonine head to laugh, shining and golden and solid and surrounded by his friends.
Loki watched her, saw where her eyes wandered. His mouth twisted.
“No, of course not.” he said sourly. “Two perfect creators, and their flawless progeny. So then from whence did the flaw enter the process…?”
His pale fingers touched the dark leather over his heart.
A deeper gloom came over him then, and he reached for the cup of mead that waited by his side.
Sif was no longer listening. She was watching Her Prince, surrounded by his admirers, near and yet so distant still from her in some confusing way. One of the men beside him slapped his back now and they laughed together, brothers in arms, well matched, as though they came from the same set of painted wooden soldiers. And now he sat, and pulled to his lap one of the girls who served the wine, she blushing modestly at the strong arm around her waist, her eyes sparkling with excitement. It all made a pretty picture, everybody in their right place, well-fit and proud.
And beside them, dimly reflected in a polished shield resting against one of the great pillars, Sif saw her own face, wavering and uncertain, present and yet not, like an unregarded ghost
Loki was watching her watching the others. After a while he spoke, just above a whisper, the sound soft and subtle as it slid around her.
“It is difficult.” he said gently, his voice so full of understanding and sympathy that it hurt to hear. “Difficult to reconcile two contradictory desires. You want them to look at you, but yet you cannot stand their gaze. Because when they look, they do not see what you want them to see. They see what you are supposed to want them to see; beauty. And you do not want to be seen for beauty, and you are angry at your beauty, but still you would not give it away; because if you did, you would not be seen at all. And that’s worse again. But then you think, what if that is a form of cowardice? Perhaps clinging to your beauty is keeping you trapped, holding you back? But it may also be what holds others to you, and without it your value would fall. And who has ever chosen willingly to devalue themselves, even if they did not respect the currency?”
Sif’s eyes were full of tears. A knot sat in her chest. The laughter of the others seemed very far away. Loki was close behind her now, his breath at her ear. She could neither turn to him nor move away. Her old wound was troubling her, the traces of poison biting deep within.
And before her, as always, was Thor. Thor who was hope and truth and the promise that there was good in the world.
“He will never understand it.” The words slithered on. “He has always been beautiful, and he has never even considered it because he has so much else. When people look at him, they look with envy. But not to possess; to aspire toward. When they look at him, they do not want to own him, they want to be him. Or if not, follow him.”
And they were looking into each other’s eyes, face to face, as though looking at a mirror.
"You know what I mean.” Loki‘s gaze was steady, as one who speaks truth. “I know how it is for you. I know what you want. I recognise your heart.”
There was a brief flicker between them, a moment when each saw their own secret in the other. When they knew.
Then Sif pulled away.
"I am not in love with him.” she declared, seizing her cup and swallowing the contents as though it were an antidote to some venom.
“Yes, you are.” Loki said dismissively.
He was all detached disinterest now, kicking out his long legs as he sank back onto a rich fur, his cup of mead swinging loosely from his slender fingers.
“I assure you that I am not.” Sif insisted.
“But of course you are. Everyone is.” he said impatiently. “It doesn’t mean anything. Why wouldn’t you be?”
He filled his drink with a wave of his hand, sighed.
“But I am not talking about that now. I am talking about you.”
"You don’t know me.”
Sif spoke stiffly, already regretting how free she had been with her thoughts. Somehow this always seemed to happen with Loki, even though he was the last of all people to be trusted.
“You presume too much.” She told him now. “We are not alike.”
Loki regarded her, two eyes shining in the darkness. Two eyes, and the slice of a smile.
“Is that so, Lady Sif? But then, if we are truly nothing like, if there is nothing between us, nothing that we hold in common, then why should it be that we are both out here in the shadows together?”