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The thunder rolled over the village of Volkang and passed on, but it lingered in the foothills, low and growling, waiting to see if it was needed again.
"Are you sure you want to stay the night?" he asked, with a hesitancy that clenched softly at Sif's innards. "Or else I can go."
"...It's your tent. Would you really have it said of me that I threw the king out of his own tent?"
"Better that than to say that the king compelled a woman to leave his tent in the middle of a stormy night."
"Well," said Sif philosophically, "I did help cause the storm." His beard prickled against her forehead, and it was a comforting feeling. She burrowed closer against his side, relishing the gentle, hesitant afterglow of their lovemaking. They were grieving and exhausted, the both of them, but there was relief, as well. And elation. And confusion. "There's no question of my leaving, Thor. I am here because you needed me... if only as a friend."
"I think you're rather more than 'only' a friend," Thor rumbled, touching her.
She let out an embarrassingly loud moan and kissed him hard, stroking him from root to tip and pulling an equally loud and flustered cry from his throat. Sif couldn't help it. She giggled.
"Sorry," he said, a blush heating his skin. "It's been... uh... a while."
"I can imagine," Sif replied, deeply curious about how he and Jane Foster had parted company, but too shy of asking just then. "And you've been busy."
"'Busy,' yes, that's one way of putting it... you?"
"Not long. I've had no shortage of lovers, here on Vanaheim." A sour smile played over her lips and she couldn't quite keep it out of her voice, when she added, "Shall I name them for you, your majesty?"
"Never. You have admirers wherever you go. You should take your due of them." He brushed a kiss over her hair. "But you've no need to divulge your bedmates to me."
"No... you've never judged me for them. Not as others did."
"Others?"
She heard the warning frown in his voice, and warmed to it. "People at court and in the city, who thought me desperate enough to bed both you and Loki at once to earn my place as a warrior. It hardly matters now..." She fell silent for a time. "It's so strange to think... all our old lovers are all gone. All our Asgardian ones, at least. "
"There's Loki."
Sif wrinkled her nose. "Loki declares himself Asgardian and not by turns, and has been dead at least once, so I'm not sure he counts. But as to the rest? Gone... gone. "Your lovers, my lovers, Fandral's lovers..."
"Not all of them."
"Well, he had so many. I suppose a few of them were bound to survive. It's a simple matter of probability."
"Unna."
Sif sat up abruptly. "She was his lover? I... you're joking, surely."
"I'm not. More importantly, she's never been the joking type."
"I would never have thought Unna his type. She's always seemed so... lofty."
"I know, but it seems she lowered herself to mingle with the common run of Asgardian royal bastards at least once. And from what rumors I've heard, many times more than once. They cared for one another deeply, it seems."
Sif gawked at his outline for another few seconds, and then lay back down, shaking her head. "I hardly know what to make of that."
"Neither do I," Thor admitted, a wry smile in his voice. "I wouldn't have mentioned it – it's her business, after all – but that it came up in conversation."
"My astonished lips are decidedly sealed," vowed Sif, much to Thor's apparent relief. It was painfully plain that he wished he had said nothing about the matter. "Only... it's such a strange thing to think. That something so important slipped past our notice for so long."
"Not so strange." Thor's palm passed lightly over her bare arm, setting her nerves a-fire. "Something deeply important to me slipped past my notice for centuries."
Sif tensed. It was too much, after the past few days and the past few hours... she had to beat back the urge to bolt from the tent. Instead, she made an effort, and remained where she was. "I was always there. Resigned to the fact that you would never want me, but always hoping."
Thor replied with a wordless rumble and slowly shifted until she was beneath him, allowing ample time for a refusal that did not come. "I hope you never doubted that I wanted you at my side," he murmured, kissing her hungrily, "as my comrade in arms, as my friend, as more than merely a friend... as much as I need you now, for the same reasons."
"No," said Sif, gasping as she took him inside her again, "that, I never doubted."
The thunderstorm over Volkang roared back to life with a vengeance.