Chapter Text
The storm had come with a sepia hint to the silver-black sky, as if it already knew the winds and rain it wrought would echo for eternity.
And, knowing what storms were like on Asgard, it likely would.
Sif looked away from the half-frosted window when she heard the floor creak, and saw a pale face framed by midnight hair peek in hesitantly. “Loki?”
The eleven year old girl smiled nervously, wincing as lightening struck outside. “Just checking on you.”
“Sure you were.” Sif replied, bemused. “You aren’t scared of the storm, then?”
Loki scoffed in indignation. “Obviously not.”
“Okay then.” But Loki didn’t leave, hanging in the doorway unsure. Sif tried not to look smug. “Want to play Hnefatafl?” She asked instead.
Clearly thankful for an excuse, Loki crossed the room, lifting her white nightdress to climb up on Sif’s bed. “Well, you’ll never improve if you don’t practise.”
Sif raised her eyebrow but only smirked, reaching under her bed and rummaging for a moment in the dark before she found the wooden latticed game board. “We have to bet on who’s going to win.” She said, taking a hair slide and three coins and placing them on the bed beside the board. “You can have these if you win.”
“Must everything be a challenge with you?”
“Well, why not?”
Loki sighed, climbing back up and leaving them room. Soon she returned with a hand sewn purse, from which she produced a small wooden ship, a dagger and a bag of playing beads. She wasn’t sure whether Sif would want the knife, but judging by her grin it was the perfect thing to bet on.
The two girls set up the pieces together, Sif telling Loki that one day she was going to be good enough to beat all the old men that played whilst being stuck in the hall during midwinter. “You’re already beating men at swordsmanship and combat, must you make them feel completely useless?” Loki replied dryly, causing Sif to grin.
When the board was set up (Sif had, of course, chosen to be playing attacker as usual, Loki forever stuck in the role of defender), Loki passed Sif the dice to roll first.
“Do you think Thor’s having a bad dream?” Sif asked as thunder crashed outside and Loki tried not to wince.
“Uh, no, probably not. He can hardly pick up the hammer yet, let alone control the weather with his feelings.”
Loki thought amusedly back to Thor that morning, his head filled with visions of glorious battle and monsters, having Mjölnir nearly topple him every time he attempted to lift it.
“True. I bet I could lift it.”
Sif rolled the dice and moved one of her pieces vertically along the board. Muttering something, Loki took the dice and rolled, looking annoyed at the result and moving a piece horizontally beside her king.
“No you couldn’t.” Loki said grumpily. “And neither can I. Or anyone else but Thor. I bet it has less to do with actually being worthy and more to do with who father wants to have it.”
“Maybe.” Sif shrugged. They continued playing in silence for a while. Sif noticed that the game had distracted Loki from the storm and she smiled to herself.
After a while, though, Loki had her pieces on three of the corners of the board, and Sif furrowed her brow in concentration to find a way out of this so she didn’t lose.
“Still want to be tafl champion when you’re older?” Loki teased, happy to be winning something for once.
“No,” Sif muttered, her fingertips brushing the top of a piece but pulling her hand back off when she decided it wasn’t the right one. “I never wanted to be a champion. Just better at it then everyone else. I actually want to be a warrior.”
Loki snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“You think I couldn’t?”
Sif placed a piece diagonally to the fourth square surrounding Loki’s king and grinned, sitting back as she’d won.
Sighing, Loki pushed her things forward, and Sif picked them up, examining the knife and looking through the beads. Loki hoped she wouldn’t regret giving her a dagger she could easily conceal in her clothes.
“I think you’d be very well suited to it. But it’s a very male-centric field, you mightn’t be allowed. You could be a Valkyrie, though.”
Sif contemplated. “I think I’ll try my luck as a warrior. You could be a Valkyrie though.”
“I know. But I wouldn’t want to be. I want to be a sorceress like mother.”
“Your father won’t like that.”
“Well, it’s not his choice.”
Sif put her things back in a box along with Loki’s, leaning down and sliding them under her bed. “If a woman marries a warrior,” she said slowly. “She can do as she pleases, right? As long as they say so.”
“I guess.” Loki huffed.
“Well, what if you and I’d get married then, when we’re adults? You can be my wife and I’ll let you be a sorceress.”
Loki arched her eyebrow but a small smile played on her lips, deciding to ignore the naivety of the suggestion because of how innocently Sif had asked. “Okay.” She said, and Sif grinned and took her hand, kissing the back of it.
A loud bang of thunder came, twinned with an earthbound streak of lightning, but neither of them heard it as both girls had fallen asleep to the steady sound of rain, Sif still holding Loki’s hand.
It’s been several days since Loki’s fall into the wormhole, where the chitauri and their leader had saved him and brought him back with them to the dark parts of space. Several days since the sceptre was placed in his hand and since he’d been given a new purpose.
He sits at the edge of their world and watches the sparks of a far off meteorite shower, remembering a long ago storm in Asgard, long before his heart had been poisoned by those lies, when two little girls fell asleep, not knowing what their future might hold.