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The paint on Loki’s helm is faded and the metal tarnished from its time in the sea. Sif holds it in her hands for a long while before she can make herself speak, stilling the trembling of her fingers.
She asks Frigg why. Why her, rather than Loki’s own family? Why show her this?
“I see that I was right to do so,” Frigg says. She lays her hand on Sif’s wrist. Her touch is gentle and kind. “You may keep it.”
Sif accepts without a word. Any attempt to decline the offer would be pointless, even if she could bring herself to.
-
Sif gracefully acknowledged the praise of her comrades as she extended her hand to Fandral, helping him up off the ground. The color was high in her cheeks and she thought she could love nothing better than this, than the exertion of a good fight out in the open air.
She looked off past Hogun and Volstagg to where Loki and Thor were standing, talking in low voices. Or, as low as Thor could be, anyway. He did little quietly.
Thor clapped Loki on the back and then was called away, leaving Loki to approach them on his own.
Sif was still watching them and Fandral said, “The sunlight does Thor many favors, does it not? Shall we begin plans for the wedding feast in your honor, Lady Sif?”
“When you are finished extolling his virtues, Fandral,” Sif said, “perhaps you should like to marry Thor yourself. You would make a beautiful bride.”
“Wouldn’t I, though?” Fandral said, with a wide smile.
They were all laughing but Sif was looking at Loki, at the faint twist of his lips that was the only indication that he was amused.
Sif was always looking at Loki. It was only the rest of Asgard that believed she was looking at Thor.
-
Loki’s helm sits in the corner of Sif’s bedchamber. She thinks she should give it to Thor, who grieves for his brother even still, after everything Loki’s done.
But she cannot.
-
“You missed,” came Loki’s mocking voice as Sif’s knife thudded a hairsbreadth to the left of her target.
“Yes, thank you, I can see that,” Sif said through gritted teeth.
“If you should like a lesson, I could--”
Sif whirled to face him where he sat at the base of a tree, a large book spread across his knees. “You may be certain that if I desired your help, I would have asked for it.”
Loki’s smirk was infuriating. “You will forgive me if I have difficulty envisioning you asking anyone for help, let alone me.”
“Return to your books, Loki,” Sif said, turning her back on him again and aiming another knife.
“Such disdain in your voice. You sound like Thor. That is not a compliment.”
“I believe I would faint if you were to compliment me.” The knife landed perfectly. Sif nodded to herself in satisfaction.
“Now that would be a sight to see,” Loki said, suddenly at Sif’s ear, his breath on her skin.
Sif only just caught herself from shivering. She turned her face towards his. “An impossibility on both sides.”
Loki was just barely smiling at her. “I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?”
Sif tossed another knife. Loki’s smile grew wider.
He paid her no compliment and she remained steady on her feet.
-
Sif sits by the water as the tide comes in. She thinks of Loki’s helm, caught up in a fisherman’s net. Sometimes she imagines the currents might bring back Loki himself.
She wonders what she would do if they did.
But it doesn’t matter because it is nothing more than idle imaginings. The Bifrost is lost, and Loki with it. All his games and all his cunning, and the end was only his own ruin.
Sif wishes she hated him.
But she does not.
-
The mead flowed as freely as the conversation in the dining hall and Sif was beginning to feel pleasantly warm and at ease, listening to Thor’s greatly embellished tale of their victory. She caught Loki’s gaze from over the rim of her mug, grinning at the exasperated rolling of his eyes.
“Do you not find your brother amusing?” she asked him as she passed behind his seat, leaning in so that they might hear each other better amidst the noise.
“I find my brother quite a lot of things, though amusing would not be at the top of the list.”
“There may be different pleasures to be had elsewhere, if this is not to your liking,” Sif told him, her fingertips on the back of his neck, brushing through his soft, dark hair. Loki’s pale skin betrayed him, showing the barest hint of a blush.
When Sif left for her bedchamber, she was not surprised that Loki followed her.
She kissed the smirking tilt of his mouth, swallowed his laughter. His hands were on her waist, her hips; his lips were on her throat, the swell of her breasts. Sif pulled him close, closer, exactly where she wanted him, as his breath came in small, shuddering gasps against her.
After, they lay together in silence. Loki drew his fingers over the skin of Sif’s arm, her back.
He did not ask to stay but Sif did not make him leave.
-
“My lady,” Sif murmurs as Frigg walks into the room, the fires burning warmly. She thinks to leave, to let the queen be alone, but as she moves Frigg stops her with a word.
“Will you sit with me, Sif?”
“Of course,” Sif says, and takes a seat on one of the large sofas, beside Frigg.
“Your thoughts are often with my son,” Frigg says, and it is not a question but Sif gives a reply anyway.
“Yes. I know that Thor--”
“My other son,” Frigg says gently.
Sif flushes.
“It is good to know that I am not the only one who still thinks of him with some kindness in their heart.”
“I’m not certain kindness is the proper word,” Sif says. She grieves for Loki, that much is true, but she also burns with anger. Whether there is more anger for him or for herself, she has not yet decided.
Frigg smiles faintly. “Perhaps not.”
“I should have seen it. I knew of his jealousy and resentment but I did not think… I did not believe he could ever harm Thor. I did not believe he could love power more than his brother.” Sif clenches her fist. “I should have seen it.”
“Perhaps. But so should we all have done.” Frigg’s voice is soft and wistful and Sif’s heart aches for her.
“I should have done more.”
“More than come to the aid of Thor, when he needed you the most?”
“I should have done more for Loki. Perhaps I could have… If he might have listened to me--”
Frigg lifts her hand to brush the backs of her fingers lightly against Sif’s cheek. “A man cannot do right because of anyone else, no matter how much he may love them. A man must do right because he believes it himself.”
Sif knows that Loki’s choices were not her responsibility. She knows that she can only do what she herself believes to be right.
That doesn’t mean she cannot still have regrets.
-
Sif had not long left the healing room before Loki appeared in her bedchamber, knocking only once before walking in without waiting for an invitation. Sif was only half-dressed and Loki strode over to her, his long, slender fingers moving over the skin of her back as if to search for evidence of her wound.
He would find none. The healers were thorough.
Still, Sif could not object to the feel of Loki’s hands on her, for whatever reason. The silence and peace of the healing room always left Sif with a desire for action, for energy, for life, and perhaps Loki would oblige her.
“He will get you killed,” Loki said, voice tight. His hands were still on Sif’s skin.
That was not what she had expected him to say. Shrugging carelessly, Sif said, “If I am not quick enough, once, someday, perhaps. It will be a warrior’s death and that will please me.” She wasn’t even certain why they were having this conversation. If Loki could not accept the facts of Sif’s life then he didn’t deserve a place in her bed.
Loki’s eyes flashed as he stepped away from her. “You are just as foolish as he is.”
“You say foolish. I say brave.”
“Rushing headlong into battle when there are other options is foolish. It does not make you a coward to--”
“Talk your way out of danger? We do not all have your clever tongue, Loki,” Sif said, trailing her fingers down Loki’s arm in a manner that made color rise in his cheeks. His tongue was clever in more ways than one and Sif knew which way her touch made him think of. She hoped to distract him, so that he might distract her.
“That is obvious,” Loki said, visibly refocusing.
“Perhaps you are only jealous that I would be willing to die for him,” Sif teased. “Are you not also my prince? I would die for you, too, Loki, never fear.”
Loki drew back, his face still and furious. “I would never wish for that,” he said, and was gone.
It was only then that Sif understood quite how bothered Loki had been, then when it was too late and Loki was already gone. She found herself staring into the empty doorway, long after there was nothing there to see.
-
Thor is standing by himself on the balcony, all of Asgard stretched out below him, shimmering and beautiful. He does not smile when he sees Sif, for he is never false with her.
Sif does not speak. She merely stands beside him and waits. She does not wait long.
Thor says, “You think me foolish to grieve for him, after everything he did.”
“No,” Sif says, but Thor continues as though she has not spoken.
“You think me a fool to love him still, when he plainly thought so little of my love, and when he felt so little for me.”
“No,” Sif says, more forcefully this time, making Thor be quiet. “If Loki had felt so little for you he would not have thought himself so grievously wronged. I do not think you a fool at all, Thor, nor do I think myself one.”
Thor’s forehead creases ever so slightly in confusion and Sif realizes that Thor truly doesn’t know; Thor has never known.
Sif swallows. “He was your brother; you loved him.” She hesitates, and cannot say it. “We all loved him. The greatest tragedy is that Loki himself did not know it.”
She walks away and leaves Thor to his grief.
Sometimes mourning must be in solitude. Sif should know.
-
There was laughter drifting from the dining hall. Sif could imagine what the joke was, which story being told. She could imagine, but she did not care to.
Loki’s fingers tugged at her hair, his tongue pushed past her teeth. Sif dragged her nails over his pale skin, leaving long scratches that his clothes would hide. She broke the kiss, bit at his throat. Loki hissed.
There was no need to think on what passed in the dining hall because Sif had amusement enough beneath her hands, pressed to her lips, gripping at her waist. She did not think of love, but she thought of enough.
Enough for now.
-
The helm still sits in the corner of Sif’s bedchamber. She looks at the empty face of it and says, “You chose wrongly, Loki.”
Now they all must live with the ramifications of that choice.
All except Loki.
End