Archive of Our Own ^beta

> > >

The first thing that Sif becomes aware of is the sound: a certain low hum, muffled footsteps and voices far away, that make her suspect she is in the Healing Halls. The sound is an oddly comforting one; she's spent enough time here over the years with her various injuries and battle wounds that the place has become as familiar to her as her own bedchamber. The smell is familiar too—whatever method they use to sanitize the place has a mild, pleasant, sweet scent that she's come to associate with healing and safety. 

How strange; she cannot recall what mishap landed her here. She knows she should open her eyes and look around, but she doesn’t want to just yet; she feels as though she is suspended is a muted gray sea, and to swim her way to the surface would require more energy than she can muster right now.

So she lays there, eyes closed, trying to remember how she got here, until she becomes aware of something else: not all of the sounds are coming from outside the room, for she suddenly hears footsteps, followed by a quiet sigh, that seem close enough to reach out and touch. And that does give her the motivation to break the surface of that gray sea and open her eyes, curious to see who is in her room.

It is Loki, to her immense surprise, standing on the far side of the room and gazing out a window. How very unexpected; has he been keeping vigil by her sickbed? She wouldn't have thought he would; they are on perfectly friendly terms, but he's never been any closer to her than he is to any of the Warriors Three. And he certainly wouldn't sit by Hogun's bed while he recovered.

There is only one way to get answers to the questions that plague her. "Loki," she says, her voice coming out of her dry throat in a husky whisper.

He whips around to stare at her, his eyes wide with surprise; then his shoulders sag in relief. "Sif," he replies, his voice equally hushed, something in his face she cannot read, and he takes a step toward her—

Only to halt in his tracks when the door suddenly opens and Eir and Frigga bustle in; Eir comes straight to Sif’s bedside, while Frigga shoots Loki a look, as unreadable as the expression on his face.

"Oh, dear girl," Eir says, "how good to see you awake. We weren't certain how long that spell would keep you out."

"Spell?" Sif repeats, her voice a little stronger this time.

"Yes, fortunate for you lot that Loki was there," the healer observes, placing two fingers against the side of Sif's neck—checking her pulse or doing magic, Sif isn't sure which. Behind Eir and Frigga, Loki drops into a chair by the window. "It's not every day that you face such a powerful sorcerer."

"Sorcerer?"

Eir blinks in surprise and shoots a glance at Frigga. "How much do you recall of the battle?"

Sif casts her mind back, but can retrieve no memories of fighting a sorcerer recently. She can't even recall discussing or preparing for such an outing. "Nothing," she admits.

It's almost comical, the way identical frown lines simultaneously appear between Eir's and Frigga's brows. They exchange another glance, and then Frigga asks gently, "What is the last thing you recall?"

Sif shrugs and is pleased to find that there's no answering pain or soreness in her chest and shoulders; perhaps this will be a quick recovery. "The usual things I do: breakfast, training . . ." She hesitates. "Well, I didn't have breakfast, I suppose. I woke very late because we were up so late at the feast."

"Feast?" Eir prods.

"Yes, Odin's birthday feast."

Behind the healer and the Allmother, Loki jumps to his feet as though his chair is suddenly scalding hot. Eir and Frigga exchange a strange look. "That's the last thing you remember?" Frigga asks.

A feeling of dread stealing through her, Sif confirms that is the case. "We stayed up late drinking, I woke too late for breakfast, and I went out to train. And then . . . things become a little hazy after that." Did her injury happen while she was in the training yard?

The women exchange another look, which is beginning to frustrate Sif; can't they just tell her what they're thinking? She would far rather know the full extent of what she is facing than be protected and coddled. "What is it?"

When Eir turns to look at her, her face is full of sympathy, which is worrying. "I'm afraid that it seems that you have lost some memories," she explains. "We'll do some tests to see whether it's the result of a spell or you injured your head more than we thought."

"How much?" she demands, and when they do not answer, she repeats more forcefully, "How much?"

Frigga sighs. "You've only been in the Healing Halls for a day," she says gently. "But Odin's birthday feast was ten months ago. The harvest season has just ended."

Stunned, Sif turns her head to stare at the ceiling. Ten months? She has lost ten months of memories, ten months of her life? Movement in her peripheral vision catches her eye, and she turns her head to see Loki approaching the bed. His expression is nothing out of the ordinary, but there is something about him that makes her think that he is not so calm as he pretends to be. A strange thought, for she has never been good at catching him in his lies.

"You remember nothing of the last ten months?" he says, and there is something in his voice that, again, makes her think that he is holding something back. Eir and Frigga glance at him when he speaks, and though Eir looks back at Sif almost immediately, Frigga's gaze lingers for a moment.

"If it has been ten months," Sif says, forcing her voice to remain firm, forcing herself not to reel at this shocking revelation, "I remember none of it."

For the briefest moment, Loki's brows furrow. Is he concerned for her? "It is kind of you to worry," she says, for he must be worrying, to react that way and to sit by her bedside.

He blinks in surprise, and then his face smooths into the amicable expression he usually gives her and the Warriors Three. "It is my fault you are here," he says reasonably. "Fighting a sorcerer is my area of expertise, and for you to be incapacitated by a spell means that I did not do my job well. I thought I owed it to you as a comrade-in-arms to ensure that you are well."

A reasonable answer; Loki has joked more than once that his magic is his only contribution to their little group, so it does not surprise her that he should feel some responsibility when magic is the main order of the day. Frigga glances at Loki again, but her face gives away none of her thoughts.

The silence is uncomfortable, for the last thing Sif wants right now is to be left with the enormity of her thoughts—the enormity of the realization of what has just happened to her. So she turns to Eir. "What now?"

Frigga gives her a curious look. "You are taking this all very well."

"I assure you, I am panicking," says Sif with a sort of grim humor. "But I deal with panic by planning my next steps."

"Wise," Eir agrees. "Well, your physical injuries seem to be minimal, though as I said, we'll double-check your head to ensure we did not miss an injury that could account for the memory loss. But I suspect we shall find it is the result of the spell that knocked you out."

"Very possible," Frigga agrees. "The foe you fought was known for magicks that affect the mind."

"So, perhaps another day of tests and observation, and then you may return to sleeping in your own bed," Eir says. "But we shall continue to investigate your memory loss, to see whether it is a spell that can be reversed."

There is a moment of silence while Eir consults the tablet she carries with her, until Frigga suddenly breaks it. "May I suggest that Loki be given that assignment?"

The other three occupants of the room stare at her.

"He has done a great deal of research into the branch of magic that this sorcerer practiced," she says. "I know he is not one of your healers, but I suspect that his expertise in this area is unrivaled in Asgard."

Loki looks at his mother, then at Sif, then at Eir. “I would be happy to do all I can help to help the Lady Sif.”

"I think that an excellent idea," Eir agrees, and it is decided: once Sif has been released from the Healing Halls, she will meet daily with Loki so he can investigate her malady.

"I should like to get started consulting some reference works," he excuses himself. He gives Sif a formal nod. "My lady, I am pleased you are awake." But when he lifts his head, for a moment his brow furrows, and his eyes lock on hers with a strange intensity.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Then he nods to Eir, kisses his mother on the cheek, and leaves the room.

Frigga steps forward and clasps Sif's hand where it lays on the sheets. "Do not worry," she tells Sif. "We will sort this out. All of it."

> > >

Sif does not see Frigga or Loki again during her time in the Healing Halls, although Thor and the Three visit twice and are noisily pleased to see her recovering and noisily shocked to learn she does not remember most of the last year. They try to fill her in on what she missed, and she is pleased to hear that Volstagg’s wife is pregnant again.

“You were pleased the first time you learned about it, too,” Volstagg laughs. “Maybe that’s a benefit of your memory loss: you get good news twice.”

Nothing her friends tell her sparks any recognition or shakes any memories loose, but they promise to answer any questions and continue to share stories of the last ten months as they remember them. She takes comfort in that, for though she pretends to be unbothered, the fact is that she is greatly distressed by losing nearly a year of her life, when she lets herself think about it.

In the meantime, continued testing and observation confirm that she has no injuries that could account for her condition, and Eir concludes that the memory loss is indeed caused by the spell that incapacitated her. A note arrives for her, written in what she recognizes as Loki’s precise, formal handwriting, telling her that they will begin their sessions on the day after she is released from the Healing Halls. She stares at the confidently formed runes for a long time, hoping that he is equally confident about getting her memories back.

A day and a half after she wakes, she is released from the Healing Halls with a clean bill of health for everything but her mind. Everyone is already at the evening feast, but she has no interest in going there, for she is tired and rumpled and dressed in the simple tunic given to her by the healers—what she’d been wearing was apparently badly damaged in the battle—and she hasn’t bathed in some time.

Instead, she stops a passing servant and requests a tray be sent up to her room, then retires to her bedchambers for the night. The room gives her a strange feeling, for a few things have changed in the last ten months: there is a dress in the wardrobe that she does not recognize. The curtains have been replaced with ones in a different color. Items on her desk have been rearranged. She remembers once being on a quest, waking in the middle of the night, and tripping over Fandral’s pack because he had moved it after she fell asleep. She gets that same feeling now of stumbling in the dark, and supposes this is her new reality for the foreseeable future unless Loki can fix it.

The tray is soon delivered with her dinner, and she eats it while indulging in a long, hot bath—a pleasure she rarely has time to enjoy. It is late by the time she finishes, and although she has lain in bed for the last several days, she finds herself exhausted. So when she has dried her hair, she goes to her dresser to prepare for sleep.

And that’s when she has another of those tripping in the dark moments. For when she rummages through the drawer with her nightclothes, her fingers hit something solid, and she is baffled to find a book hidden among her things. Even more baffling is the title: Collected Poems, by a writer whose name she does not recognize.

To find a book in her room would be baffling enough, for she does not enjoy reading. To find a book of poetry is utterly bewildering, for if she must read, she reads histories of long-past wars and treatises on military strategy. Why would she have such a book, and why would it be hidden?

Curiosity overcomes her, and once she is prepared for bed, she takes the book with her as she turns off all lights but the bedside lamp and climbs under the covers. Letting the book fall open to a random page, she begins to read.

It is a love poem, she realizes immediately, and a glance at a few other pages confirms that they all seem to be love poems. She is not sure she has ever read a love poem; what poetry she has read has been epic classical poems assigned to her by tutors and teachers when she was young. She enjoyed the battles and epic quests in those works well enough, but she has never understood poetic language; “Why can’t poets just say what they mean without being so flowery and roundabout?” she demanded of more than one tutor.

These poems are very different animals. She doesn’t entirely understand them either, but the language is beautiful; the words make music inside her. What she does manage to glean from them speaks of joy, of passion, of devotion, and they are surprisingly compelling; she reads three in a row without stopping and feels the words settle into her chest.

But then she slams the cover closed. Where in the world did this book come from? Did she become a lover of poetry in the last ten months? Confused and frustrated, she opens the book again, planning to look for more clues—and there, on the inside of the front cover, she finds one.

It is a note, written in a hand she does not recognize—an informal but surprisingly elegant scrawl, vastly different from the sharp, formal runes she was taught by her tutors.

My love, it reads,

All the speech I can muster, all the power of my tongue, could never express all I feel for you, so I have enlisted these poems to my cause. It still could never be enough to praise your strength, your beauty, and your grace, but I’ve got to start somewhere.

And it is signed only, Yours, as long as you’ll have me.

And Sif can only stare, her mind reeling. Did she get this book from someone who was the recipient of that impassioned inscription? Perhaps she borrowed this from the palace library, and the writer and recipient of that note are both long dead. (But the book seems new. The inscription seems new.)

Or . . . or is it just possible that the inscription was written for her? Could she have begun a romantic relationship within the last ten months, and this book is a gift from her suitor? But if so, why would he not come see her while she was in the Healing Halls? Why is he not rushing to her side, fretting over her injury and keen to be with her while she recovers? Could it be a romantic relationship that began and then ended, all within that ten-month span of time that she lost?

Or . . . could it be a relationship that ended a long time ago? 

She scrambles out of bed and hurries to her desk, looking in a back drawer for one of the few mementos she has from her time with Haldor. The two of them were not sentimental, though they were reasonably affectionate with each other, and he gave her very few gifts and wrote her very few love notes. But is it just possible that this book was a gift from him, and in the centuries since his death, she forgot about it? Could she have found this forgotten gift in the last ten months, pulled it out of wherever she had it stored, and then forgotten about it again when that sorcerer’s spell struck her?

There it is, tucked into a little box that she hasn’t touched in centuries: one of the few notes Haldor ever wrote her, wishing her a happy birthday.

The handwriting looks nothing like the note in the book.

Confused and intrigued, she returns to her bed and flips through the book, looking for more clues. Here and there, lines of poetry have been underlined in pencil or had stars drawn next to them. That, she thinks, is an argument against this being her personal property; it seems absurd to imagine that not only did she start reading poetry for pleasure in the last ten months, but she became so dedicated to the endeavor that she would underline parts that stuck out to her. So perhaps a previous reader did this.

Still, why would she have this book in her room? Why would she hide it in a drawer?

She turns off her lamp and stares up at the ceiling, hands clenched into fists. It is beyond frustrating to not know the answer to this question, to try again and again to search her memory but come up only against a blank, solid wall in her mind.

It is a long time before she falls asleep that night.

> > >

“You have spoken of quests and adventures,” she observes to her friends the next day as they eat lunch after the morning at the training yard. “What of day-to-day life at the palace? Is there anything I have forgotten that I should know about?”

She doesn’t really expect one of them to say, “Oh, you have an ardent suitor”; if that were the case, surely they would have mentioned him when they visited her at the Healing Halls. And she doesn’t really expect one of them to say, “Oh, I lent you a copy of my favorite book of poetry,” for that would be a strange thing to bring up, out of all that must have happened in the last ten months.

But she cannot help asking. The mystery has plagued her since last night, consuming much of her mind, and she cannot help prodding for more information. (But she is hesitant to ask outright; she would find it humiliating to ask if she had been seeing anyone and her friends had to remind her that she had been single for the last few centuries. She would much rather poke around carefully than ask point blank.)

Before breakfast, she went to library and checked their catalog, but they do not own any copies of this particular collection by this particular poet. If it is borrowed, it came from an acquaintance, not the library. If it was a gift . . . 

If it was a gift, she hardly knows how to react to the ardent inscription. And she would certainly like to know who gave it to her.

“Not much that I can think of,” Thor responds. “We did the things we always do: training, drinking . . .”

“I’ll ask my Hildegund,” Volstagg promises. “She’s much better at remembering details than me.”

But Hogun is frowning, his gaze distant, as though trying to catch at some thought just out of reach. “You seemed . . . busy,” he says finally.

Fandral’s brow furrows thoughtfully. “I know what you mean,” he tells Hogun, then turns to Sif. “I feel like I haven’t seen you as much as I normally do these last few months.”

“I haven’t been training with you all?”

“No, you have,” Hogun responds.

“Yes, we saw you every morning,” Fandral agrees. “And you ate with us every night. But outside those times, I normally run into you several times throughout the day. But the last few months . . . not as much.”

“Afternoons,” Hogun agrees. “You seemed gone more often in the afternoons.”

“I suppose that does ring a bell,” Volstagg agrees.

“What would I have been doing?” Sif wonders, but the others just shrug.

Could she have been with this beau? But why wouldn’t she tell her closest friends about him? For clearly, if she had a suitor, they know nothing about him. They all knew about Haldor; they were fond of him and supportive of the relationship, and they all mourned with her when he died. So why would she keep a new relationship secret?

So perhaps it was simply that she developed a passion for reading and spent her afternoons tucked away somewhere, reading poetry.

“Strange,” she says.

Fandral leans forward. “Perhaps you met—” He waggles his eyebrows at her— “a young man.”

“And if my doing so would make you act like a gossipy old crone,” she retorts, “I can see why I kept him a secret from you.”

The group laughs, but the exchange sticks with her.

> > >

That afternoon, she has her first session with Loki; she hasn’t seen him since she woke, which he explains is because he’s been busy prepping for these attempts to reverse the spell. He is perfectly cordial and amicable as they talk, just the same as he has always been, and again she reflects on how strange it was to find him keeping vigil at her sickbed—not at all in keeping with the friendly but not overly close relationship she thought they had.

A whisper of suspicion curls through her belly. She’s wondered, if she has a suitor, why he was not the one waiting by her bedside. Could it be—?

“We only have an hour,” he says, breaking into her thoughts, “for I must prepare to greet the Vanir ambassador with my family soon. So today we shall simply go through the battery of basic spells for counteracting other spells. I expect that none of them will work, but we need to eliminate the more obvious possibilities before we dive into the more complex and obscure magicks.”

Of course he knows complex and obscure magicks. Sif has no talent for the art herself, and honestly, little interest in it. But she’s always admired competence, no matter the subject, and as she listens to Loki’s explanation of fundamentals of counteracting other casters’ spells, she can’t help but be impressed at his clear mastery and encyclopedic knowledge of seiðr.

He looks commanding, too, as he stands there in his well-tailored clothing. The light coming in through the windows highlights the planes and angles of his face, turning his handsome visage into something genuinely striking.

If he were her secret suitor . . . hmm. Loki rarely has romantic liaisons; in fact, can she even remember him ever having had anything more serious than a brief flirtation? So the idea of him changing that for her is . . . intriguing.

His explanation through, he has her sit on a chair while he tries the first spell. Nothing seems to change; her memories do not come rushing back to her.

“Nothing?” he asks.

She shakes her head.

He nods like he expected that. “Like I said, I do not think any of these will help. He was a powerful enchanter, and breaking this could take time . . .” He hesitates, brow furrowing. “If it is even possible.”

Sif nods, her heart sinking in her chest. She had not realized, until he said that, just how much she’s been relying on Loki to fix her memory. But he’s right: she has to be ready for the possibility that it cannot be fixed.

But she’s distracted from her morose thoughts when Loki moves to a table near her to jot down something in a notebook he has open there. “A report for Eir and my mother,” he explains when he sees Sif looking, and she glances at what he’s just written.

The handwriting there is sharp, formal—befitting a well-educated prince.

And Sif kicks herself. Of course Loki couldn’t be her secret suitor; she’s seen his handwriting before—saw it yesterday when he sent her that note, in fact—and it looks nothing like the elegant scrawl in the poetry book. How silly of her to have forgotten.

But it finally occurs to her that if she wants to find the writer, she has an important clue: she simply needs to look at the handwriting of the people around her and see if anything matches the inscription in the book.

And if she borrowed the book from someone, she’ll return it, and if it was a gift . . . well, she’ll cross that bridge when she gets to it. It lifts her spirits to think of having a mystery to solve and a lead to follow. It gives her something to think about other than her missing ten months.

So she is cheerful as Loki starts the second spell . . .

. . . even if she does feel an unexpected pang of disappointment when she glances back at his notes, and the handwriting so unlike the handwriting in her book.

> > >

The first thing to do, she decides, is to check Thor, Hogun, and Fandral’s handwriting. It seems utterly impossible that she should have become romantically involved with one of her closest friends—though her younger self would have loved the idea of Thor suddenly developing feelings for her—but like Loki’s spellcasting yesterday, it makes sense to eliminate the most basic possibilities first. 

So, after her session with Loki, she goes to each of them with some excuse to collect a sample of their handwriting—asking Thor to write down directions to a tavern he mentioned, asking Fandral to write down some famous saying he quoted at her, asking Hogun to write down the name and author of a book he mentioned. (That Hogun mentioned a book to her seems notable—her other friends do not read much—and her stomach ties itself in knots while he’s writing. She is surprised at the relief that courses through her when his handwriting is nothing like the note in the book.)

So, dead end there; she will start broadening her search tomorrow.

The feast that night gives her little time to think, for many have heard of her malady and come to speak to her. It is generally well meant, so she keeps a placid expression on her face, but the truth is that she hates the whole experience. She finds it frustrating to answer the same questions over and over again, and she hates being an object of pity, and were she a person less in control of her emotions, she might have stormed out of the room shortly after the feast began.

At least her friends are there to support her, although only one prince is by her side tonight; Loki has elected to sit next to his mother. This is not surprising, for he does it often (or, at least, that was true ten months ago, and she assumes it still is); he is close to his mother, and also sometimes she gets the impression that he gets a little annoyed at the drunken noisiness and off-key singing that generally occurs at any table where Thor and the Warriors Three are.

So she hopes he is happy at the head table—but perhaps he is not, for when he turns his head in her general direction and she can see his face, she is surprised to see that, just for a moment, his expression is full of a bone-deep sadness she has never before seen on the second prince. As she watches, he quickly smooths it over into his usual placid expression, but it's too late; she saw it, and it struck her in a way she would not have expected. 

Perhaps she is more than usually aware of him because of the kindness he showed her in sitting by her sick bed and working to undo this enchantment. Whatever the reason, his sadness bothers her, and she thinks about it for the rest of the night. 

> > >

Her next plan is to investigate the handwriting of members of the Einherjar; she knows herself well and knows that she is far more likely to develop an interest in a fellow warrior than in a scholar or an artist or a laborer. If she did start a romantic relationship, it would make a great deal of sense for it to be with a warrior with whom she trains on a daily basis. 

Fortunately, a casual conversation with Magni gives her the perfect opportunity to start looking at possibilities: it is time for him to start the yearly skills evaluations for all the Einherjar, but he is swamped with preparing the security details for a large diplomatic delegation that is soon to visit Asgard. So Sif casually offers to do the testing for him, knowing that it involves filling out a form for each warrior. If she does it, she can make them write down their own name and information, then examine what they’ve written.

Magni looks at her sidelong when she makes this offer, but he is canny enough that he doesn't ask any questions and risk alienating the person who's offering to save him a lot of work.

> > >

“What's that for?”

Loki blinks at her. “The feverfew?”

“Any of it, really “ Sif says. “Normally, when I see you do magic, you don't use anything like that.” She waves her hand at the table before them, which holds bits of plants and jars of powders and vials of strange-colored liquids. 

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Suddenly you want to know about seiðr? I seem to recall you annoying a few magic tutors with your total lack of interest.”

“I’m curious,” she says simply. It’s true, but it’s not the whole truth. Loki’s sad expression last night has continued to lodge in the back of her mind, like a pebble in her shoe. And maybe it’s just the power of suggestion, but she fancies there's a touch of reserve about him today—perhaps whatever made him sorrowful still lingers.

And talking about magic often seems to put him in a good mood; Loki has always liked to have people make a fuss over him—he is her friend, but she is honest enough to admit that he is a bit vain—so of course he enjoys speaking of things that he is an expert in. But she and the rest of her friends rarely ask him about magic.

As she'd expected, his expression lightens at her response, though he is not the type to make a big show of his emotions. “Really?”

“Really.”

He hesitates, looking at her as though he's not sure he believes her. And then the tiniest smile touches his face. “Well, basic spells generally don't require such things, especially if it's a spell you're familiar with. But for new or difficult spells, it can be helpful to have a physical focus . . .”

And do you know, his explanation is actually rather interesting. 

> > >

There is a flaw in her Einherjar plan: there are more than a hundred of them, and testing them takes a half-hour each. She’s going to be at this for the next few decades, it seems.

She only gets through six on her first day, and none of them have handwriting that matches her book. Even knowing that, though, she finds herself carefully considering each of the six men that she evaluates.

They’re all handsome; Asgardians as a whole have a reputation among the Nine Realms for physical attractiveness—not to mention, you can’t join the Einherjar without being in incredible physical shape, which she’s always been attracted to.

She’s always known that she spends much of her time around good-looking men, but she has rarely allowed herself to notice it; she is so often busy training or going on quests that she has little time for such things. Plus, it is so difficult to get people to take her seriously as a warrior, and the last thing she wants to do is give people a reason to focus on her gender more than her martial prowess, as a relationship could do. She remembers all too well the way people responded when she became involved with Haldor, when the number of people who asked when she was going to hang up her sword and get married was astounding.

She’s known this for centuries. She risked it for Haldor, but has not been inclined to do so again since his death. And that’s what makes this book of poetry so strange. Did she change her stance on romantic entanglements? Somewhere among the Einherjar, is there a man who convinced her to give him a try?

If she’s entirely honest with herself, the idea intrigues her. She enjoyed being with Haldor; she liked his company and his handsome face and his arms around her. It could be nice, maybe, to have that again at some point.

If she could figure out what paragon of manhood moved her to get past her hangups about being in a relationship . . . would she make that choice again? Would she decide, once again, to be with him, letting him matter more than other people’s judgments of her? She is surprised to see that the thought of it causes a sort of effervescent feeling to simmer gently behind her sternum.

That night, as she prepares for bed, her eyes fall on the book of poetry on her nightstand. She has been through it several times looking for hidden clues in the pencil markings, but she hasn’t read any of the poems since that first night. But now, with that effervescent feeling still in her heart, she flips open the book to one of the pages and reads the poem.

Her eyes reach two lines that have been underlined.

  and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
  and whatever a sun will always sing is you

And she finds herself smiling.

> > >

“The advantage of a potion is that is stores the enchantment for later use,” says Loki. “A magic worker must create it, but then anyone can make the enchantment take effect just by drinking the potion. With a potion, you needn’t be able to perform magic in order to use magic.”

“That makes sense,” says Sif, casting her mind back to lessons from her tutors. “It makes me think of potential energy—like a boulder at the top of a slope. It took a great deal of energy to roll it up the slope, but it’s easy to remove the wedge holding it in place, letting the boulder roll back down and unleashing all that energy.”

Loki’s eyebrows lift. “I never thought of it that way, but that’s a clever way to look at it.” 

Warmth fills her chest at the approbation. Loki is the smartest person she knows, so for him to compliment her mind means a great deal. She could use the bit of cheer, for his initial investigation of her enchantment and attempts at removing it have so far borne no fruit, which has made her spirits very low; he says he still has a great deal more he wants to try, but it’s difficult not to feel discouraged at the lack of progress so far.

These discussions of magical theory during their sessions, originally intended to cheer Loki, have been a nice distraction for her as well. It’s better than sitting in increasingly worried silence for an hour or two each afternoon while Loki mutters enchantments under his breath and consults dusty old tomes and mixes mysterious powders together.

Plus, she’s actually learning a great deal; Loki is so clever, and he’s surprisingly good at teaching her what he knows.

“So I assume an enchanted object, like an amulet, is similar?”

He nods approvingly. “Very similar. The main difference is . . .”

> > >

“You ought to spend some time practicing the Pirc defense,” Sif observes as she sheathes her sword and leads her way out of the sparring ring. “It’s an excellent way to protect that left flank.”

Fandral ducks his head, and she can see that he’s fighting a smile.

“What’s that look for?” she demands.

He’s hesitant at first, but at her insistence, he explains, “We had this very conversation about a month ago. You were going to teach me the Pirc, but we didn’t have time before . . .”

There it is again, that tripping in the dark feeling, and she hates it. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demands. “You should have given me a chance to keep a promise I had made.”

“I never thought of it that way,” he admits. “I was thinking that it seemed unkind to force you to keep a promise you didn’t remember making.”

She concedes that they both have good points. But she promises to start teaching him the Pirc the next morning.

The conversation lingers with her as she returns to her room to change out of her training clothing. Do other people have similar experiences? Are there other people in the palace keeping quiet about things that happened in those lost ten months, not wanting to hold her to promises she doesn’t remember making?

And as she enters her room, she goes straight to the book of poetry and opens it to the inscription. She’s been so baffled and annoyed that whoever wrote this—if he did indeed write it for her—has not made himself known (not because she's desperate to be with him again—she can't say that, as she doesn't even know who he is—but because the uncertainty and the mystery are driving her mad).

But it hasn’t occurred to her until this moment that perhaps this mystery man, if he exists, hasn’t spoken up because he does not want to hold her to vows of love she does not remember making. 

But if that’s true, why not attempt to get to know her again? It ought to occur to him that if she fell for him once, surely she could again.

But perhaps he thinks that is impossible—that since she has forgotten that time, those feelings she once had for him are lost forever. Perhaps he, trying to be kind, refuses to say anything because it would pressure her into being in a relationship that she doesn’t remember her reasons for being in. Perhaps he let her go because he believes it is the right thing to do. Perhaps there is, at this moment, a man somewhere in this palace who is heartbroken every time she walks past him with no recognition in her eyes.

If so, how very selfless, and rather sad; she can only respect his restraint (if this is indeed his reasoning). But on the whole, she finds that she wishes that he would say something—anything. She wishes he would try again. She would rather she got to make the decision about their relationship for herself, rather than him making it for the both of them.

love is more thicker than forget, she thinks, recalling one of the poems she read last night. it is most sane and sunly / and more it cannot die.

A beautiful sentiment. But in her case, she fears that it does not seem to be true.

> > >

Forty Einherjar in and no luck on the handwriting. In truth, a number of them have such terrible handwriting that she can barely read their names—nothing at all like the elegant scrawl of her suitor.

(If it is my suitor, she has to remind herself. It is surprising how quickly she has become accustomed to assuming that the note was for her, that she has a sweetheart somewhere in Asgard.)

Not to mention, very few of them give the impression that they like to read poetry—or read at all.

“What do you like to do in your spare time?” she asks one of the Einherjar, whose handwriting is the most similar to the book that she’s seen so far—not a match, but at least somewhat similar. Yes, it’s a stretch, but she is feeling discouraged by her lack of progress. “Go for walks, read books . . . ?”

He seems baffled at the question. “Uh . . . lifting weights, I suppose.”

Not her mystery suitor, then. Not a man who would think of poetry when it came to expressing the words he could not say. She fights back a sigh.

> > >

(If it is surprising how quickly she has become accustomed to assuming she had a suitor, it is shocking how invested she has become in finding him.

It is only natural, she tells herself; if true, this is a major part of her life that she has forgotten, and she is desperate to claw back any part of those missing months that she can. The mystery plagues her: who could have convinced her to completely change her mind? Of course she wants the answer to that question; who wouldn't? 

And also . . . also, now that the idea of finding love has been placed before her, she finds her mind wandering back to it often.

Maybe it’s the book of poems by her bed, which she’s taken to studying every night, trying to glean a clue about the writer of the note and decide if she is the person who underlined certain lines. The words printed there—strange, breathless, beautiful—have gotten under her skin until she finds them drifting into her mind at the oddest moments—

  But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
  And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart —

and it’s putting ideas in her head that she might not have thought otherwise. So it’s no shock that she’s suddenly more interested in romance than usual.)

(And what if she finds her mysterious lover? What if it turns out that he is indeed holding back for her sake, but he misses her and wishes they were together again? She’s not sure what she’d do then. She has forgotten this man entirely, along with all her reasons for being with him. And all her reasons against being with anyone—the way it distracts her from her duties as a shieldmaiden, the way it makes people look at her differently—still remain.)

(But still, in her heart of hearts, she suspects she might not require much persuasion to give their relationship a second try.)

> > >

Loki’s investigation has accomplished nothing so far, and Sif is beginning to worry.

Not that she minds the time spent in his company; he is so clever, and she enjoys talking to him, and even when he’s focused on his magic, he’s so good at making her laugh. Plus, he is certainly not a chore to look at; though she tends to favor Thor’s variety of obvious golden good looks, she’s always known that Loki is a good-looking man as well. And the more time she spends with him, the more she finds his more understated looks compelling, with his sharp features and his watchful eyes. 

Plus, he has started doing this thing where, when he is hard at work during their sessions, he pushes his sleeves up to his elbows, and she is rather fascinated by his forearms, which somehow appear delicate and strong at the same time. She is so accustomed to thinking of male strength in relation to the sturdy builds and muscled, sinewy arms of warriors like Thor and Volstagg, but there is such coiled strength in the elegant lines of Loki’s forearms that she finds herself staring—and trying so hard to make sure Loki doesn’t notice her staring—

The point is, she doesn’t mind the time spent in Loki’s company. In fact, she looks forward to their sessions; he trains with her and Thor and the Three many mornings, but they spend so little time together, just the two of them, during those training sessions. So she enjoys having an hour or two every afternoon with his full focus and his brilliant mind and his striking blue-green eyes fixed solely on her.

But the fact remains that nothing has come of it so far, and the more time passes, the more she comes to fear that perhaps nothing can be done, and she will never get her memories back.

She does not say anything at first, not wanting to complain or to sound ungrateful. But finally, one afternoon, after another session has borne no fruit, she finds herself broaching the topic in a roundabout way: “I imagine you never realized you’d be stuck working on my little problem for such a long time.”

They are walking down a hallway together, on their way to dinner, so it’s only out of the corner of her eye that she sees Loki shoot her a look. “I hate to contradict a lady, but I assure you, I knew from the beginning that it would be a lengthy commitment.” He hesitates, then touches her arm to pull her to a stop, a feather-light contact that leaves tingles in its wake. “Are you worried about the time it’s taking?”

She cannot quite meet his eyes. “I’m not upset about the time spent—in that regard, I’m only sorry to be claiming so much of your life. But . . . yes, I’m a bit worried.”

He’s silent a long moment, and when she finally looks up at him, the word she would use to describe his expression is “pained.” He appears to be choosing his words carefully. “I cannot promise miracles,” he says finally, his voice gentle. “I wish so badly that I could—that I could guarantee that we will get those memories back and you will remember . . . everything. But I assure you I won’t give up until we have exhausted all possibilities. And we are barely a quarter of the way through my initial list of possible avenues to investigate. I am a long way from losing hope.”

Tension she didn’t notice she was holding in her shoulders drains away. “Thank you, Loki,” she says huskily, her voice barely above a whisper.

She could swear he starts to move toward her then, as though he means to embrace her. But immediately he stops, and she’s not sure if she only imagined it. “Come, let’s eat.”

And when they reach the Great Hall, and Loki moves as though to go to the head table as he has done the majority of evenings since she awoke, she finds herself catching at his sleeve to stop him. “Come sit with us,” she beseeches. She would normally let him do as he will, but she just . . . lately, she’s just found that she enjoys having him near her.

He looks over at her, surprised. And then he smiles.

> > >

  You are tired,
  (I think)
  Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
  And so am I.

  Come with me, then,
  And we’ll leave it far and far away —

> > >

Fifty-four Einherjar, and no luck yet. Plus she’s beginning to doubt her assertion that she’d be happy with one of them; good men all, but they are not very well-rounded in their conversation, and now that she is spending all day every day in their company, she is starting to find them a little boring.

Case in point: Tari, who is widely considered one of the handsomest of the Einherjar (at least, if the sighing of the court ladies is to be believed), and who flirts outrageously with her the whole time she does his evaluation. Under his flirtation, though, is sincere admiration for her abilities, so when he asks if she will sit with him at lunch, she agrees; her friends have already eaten today.

So they eat together, and he is charming and gregarious and warm and handsome, and they talk easily about weapons and monsters and quests—her favorite subjects—and she feels . . . nothing.

Maybe it isn’t a warrior who would touch her heart. Maybe searching among the Einherjar will bear no fruit and she needs to be open to the possibility that her suitor is not to be found with a sword in his hand.

> > >

“Tell me about the sorcerer who cast this enchantment,” Sif requests of Loki one day.

It’s surprising, really, that it took her this long to ask; she’s been curious for a while. But when she’s with her friends in the training yard or the Great Hall, they’re often distracted by other matters, and when she’s with Loki . . . well, the same is true. They still talk often about magical theory, but their conversations have broadened out to other things—casual, personal things like adventures they’ve had in the past and would like to have in the future, but also serious things like philosophy and history and other cultures.

He’s so clever and so thoughtful; there’s no topic that comes up that he isn’t well-informed about and that he hasn’t thought deeply about. But that doesn’t mean that every conversation turns into a one-sided lecture, as would be the case with many men she knows who are more interested in the sound of their own voices than in hearing what she has to say. He asks her opinions often. He prompts her to contribute her thoughts. He wants to hear her speak.

(All of this is made more remarkable by the fact that this is Loki, and she knows that he does indeed like the sound of his own voice. He’s not this way with their other friends, or when they’re all eating together in the Great Hall. It’s her, and their private magic sessions, that bring out this side of him; it’s as though he fights his natural inclination toward self-focus when he is with her. She doesn’t let herself look too closely at why that pleases her so much.)

Loki looks surprised at her request. “You don’t know?”

“No one has told me anything,” she shrugs.

His brow furrows in thought. “We’d been aware of him for a long time; he dabbled in magicks that are considered dark, for the harm they do to mind and spirit. But as long as he wasn’t using these spells against anyone, we let him be. Unfortunately, three months ago he began a campaign to conquer part of Vanaheim, and we had to respond. We spent a while preparing—a number of local magicians helped bespell everyone’s weapons and armor, while Mother and I looked into ways to counter his particular variety of magic. Then you and I and Thor and the Three, along with part of the Einherjar and forces from Vanaheim, went to confront him.”

“Did we defeat him?”

Loki nods, a worry line appearing between his brows. “But you were struck by a spell in the process, and we couldn’t wake you, so we rushed you back to Asgard.” He pauses, looking as though he’s looking for the right words to explain. “Spells can leave a residue that other sorcerers can detect, but as you get more skilled, you can learn to eliminate it so that after a spell has been cast, it’s basically undetectable. So though we could see you’d been affected by the spell that hit you, there wasn’t all that much we could do to investigate the spell, for it left no trace of magic within you. Even now, I can perform spells that should affect certain types of enchantments and see if they have any effect, which gives me a clue about the nature of the enchantment that hit you. But there’s little I can do to directly investigate it.”

That makes sense, and also destroys a bit of the hope that she still clings to. She tries to make a joke: “I suppose I’ve learned I should be better at defending myself when sorcerers start throwing spells.”

To her surprise, Loki grabs her forearm, his eyes locked on hers. “This was my fault and no one else’s,” he says. “I was in charge of this expedition. I was the one who spent all that time preparing to fight him. I should have anticipated his moves and come up with better defenses. I should have prevented this.”

Strange, how his hand covers only a small part of her skin, and yet she feels tingling running through her whole arm. in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, she thinks, recalling a poem she read recently.

She finds she doesn’t want him to move his hand just yet, so she covers it with her own. “Loki,” she says lowly, “I know you. So I trust entirely that you did all you could to prepare. Injuries and accidents happen, even to the best-prepared.”

He glances down at her hand on his, then back up at her. “Thank you for saying that,” he says quietly.

She keeps her hand where it is. It’s just feels nice, is all. in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, she thinks again, or which i cannot touch because they are too near.

> > >

“You and Loki have become good friends,” Volstagg observes at the feast one night.

Indeed, at her behest, Loki has eaten with them every night for a week, and she is pleased at the new development. She’s always been on friendly terms with Loki, but it’s always been an impersonal sort of cordiality; she and the Three have long been best friends with Thor, and Loki often trains and quests with Thor, so therefore they’re all acquainted. But it’s only now that she feels that she and Loki have truly become friends.

This night, Loki is eating with them, but excused himself a moment ago as he had matters to discuss with someone at a different table. So he does not hear Volstagg’s question or Sif’s answer.

“We’ve been spending so much time trying to reverse this enchantment,” she explains. “I feel terribly sorry to be filling so much of his schedule, but the positive side of it is that we have come to know each other much better.”

“He doesn’t mind spending so much time,” Thor assures her. “I heard him tell our parents as much.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she says, very sincerely. He was already quite busy, between his duties as prince and his magic study and his physical training, and she knows that it has been difficult to find a way to shoehorn in two hours a day to spend with her; he always seems to be squeezing her in between other obligations. She’s glad to know he does not resent it. “It’s nice that, after being acquainted with him for so long, I feel that we’re finally genuinely becoming friends. I enjoy his company.”

Hogun has been frowning all this while as though trying to remember something. “I think you two had started getting to know each other better during . . . you know.”

“The time I forgot,” she finishes. “What do you mean?”

“This summer,” he says. “We fought bandits near the capital city of Ringsfjord, and when we finished, the people invited us to their summer solstice celebrations, do you all remember that?”

“Beautiful city,” Volstagg recalls.

“Beautiful women,” Fandral adds with a grin.

“Fandral disappeared immediately, doing who knows what,” Hogun continues, “and Volstagg and Thor and I got quite drunk, so you and Loki wandered the city together that night. I asked you about it the next morning, and you said that you found Loki to be surprisingly good company.” He shrugs. “So perhaps your becoming better friends with him now is really just a continuation of a process that started five months ago.”

Sif knows it’s useless, but she tries anyway to remember a summer solstice celebration in Ringsfjord—she’s been to the city in the past, and knows that it is a wondrous place, full of trees and canals and lit by beautiful lanterns even when they’re not having a celebration—and wandering through the revelers with Loki. Of course, there is nothing in her memory but blankness. But she wishes she could remember; it sounds lovely, and if she was with Loki, she suspects she had a lovely time.

“Well, then I’m glad I had the good sense to get to know him better twice.”

> > >

The servants have begun decorating the palace for the upcoming Yule season, which is a strange thought, for last year’s Yule celebration is one of the last major events she remembers (Odin’s birthday, the very last thing she remembers, comes only two weeks after the Yuletide). She is coming to terms with her missing memories, somewhat—or at least, these days she rarely gets that sick, anxious feeling in her stomach when she thinks of them. But still, it is strange. So she tries instead to focus on the good cheer that permeates the palace at this time of year.

Every surface is covered with greenery and hung with beautiful gold and silver decorations, which she loves, and they have hung a multitude of kissing boughs, which she does not. She’s never been one for kissing someone just because you happened to stand under a plant together, so every year, she stays light on her feet and dodges the courtiers who try to catch her under one (her decision to become a warrior has caused many people to eye her strangely, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is an attractive woman, so the gentlemen of the palace are still very willing to try to kiss her).

And this year, feeling all adrift without her memories, with a book of poetry by her bed that may or may not be a gift from a beau who may or may not be watching her, heartbroken, at this very moment, she is more than usually unwilling to be caught under a kissing bough.

But plenty of other people seem willing to take advantage of them, she thinks as she turns a corner and sees the maid who cleans her room—a sweet, gentle slip of a girl called Margit—smiling shyly up at one of the footmen. He seems equally pleased and bashful, and after he has kissed her, they are both blushing; when they see her, they duck their heads and hurry away hand in hand.

And Sif is surprised at the pang of longing that courses through her. If she knew who had given her the book, would they be going out of their way to find themselves under kissing boughs?

And how has she become so attached to the idea of this man who might not even exist?

it is so long since my heart has been with yours, she thinks, since your mind has walked into / my kiss as a stranger.

She really ought to stop reading the book of poetry each night. It is making her maudlin.

> > >

One hundred and eight Einherjar, and no match yet. She is beginning to think this is a fool's errand. 

> > >

It's a bad day to begin with; Sif sleeps poorly and wakes up tired, and that makes her slow and sluggish in the training yard. She loses a bout with one of the Einherjar—unfortunately, one who received mediocre marks in his evaluation and is upset with her for it, so he crows loud and long over his victory. 

So she is already in a bad mood when she goes to lunch with her friends. Loki has not been with them at all today (which she finds she is glad of, as she wouldn't want him to see her lose a fight she should have so easily been able to win), but the rest of her friends gather at one of the tables to eat and talk. 

And at first, their friendly, familiar carrying on is a comfort to her. But then, a courtier approaches and asks to hear the story of their triumph against a mountain troll a few months ago—during the time that she lost—and suddenly she is not enjoying the meal nearly so much.

Thor and the Three are only too happy to oblige; Loki would usually be pressed into service as a skald in such a situation, but as he is not present, Fandral (also a good storyteller, and always pleased to be the center of attention) takes that role.

It is an exciting story, and very well told. Apparently Sif acquitted herself admirably and played an important part in bringing the troll down, and the listeners shoot approving glances her way. And the story pleases her friends, who are always happy to reminisce about exciting adventures they've had.

And yet Sif is miserable. She has told herself she is coming to terms with what she lost, and some days it's true. But today it rankles to hear of a grand adventure that she has forgotten, to have her friends throw excited glances her way when Fandral speaks of some heroic thing she did and only be able to respond with a polite smile. It is disorienting to hear of things she has done that she cannot recall, and every word out of Fandral’s mouth only makes her more and more frustrated.

As soon as the story ends she excuses herself; it is not her friends’ fault that she is unhappy, and she does not want to inflict her poor mood on them. But her unhappiness isn't over yet; on her way to her room, she runs into Margit, the maid who cleans her room, accompanied by the shy young footman that Sif recently saw her kissing.

Sif has always liked Margit, so she stops to say hello and ask if she has any plans for Yule. But to her surprise, the maid's face falls, and she mumbles something about staying in the city for the holiday and then scurries away.

Baffled, Sif looks at the young footman who was with her. “Is something the matter?” she asks. 

He is not inclined to answer at first, but when she insists, he admits, “She can't afford to travel home to see her family. Apparently . . . apparently you promised to help her out. But now . . .” He shrugs helplessly. 

Sif stares at him, then marches down the hall in the direction the maid went in, finding her dusting a nearby nook. She's not going to trust a footman she doesn't know, but she does trust Margit.

“Did I promise you money to go home?” she demands. 

The girl won't respond at first, but Sif insists, and finally Margit nods.

“Forgive me,” Sif says gravely. “Will you allow me to rectify this now?”

She agrees, so Sif leads the maid to her chambers, where she counts out a handful of coins and places them in Margit’s palm.

“Oh, this is too much!” Margit protests, but Sif insists she take it as an apology for the distress that she has inadvertently caused her.

The maid thanks her profusely and all but runs from the room, leaving Sif alone. And she should be happy, thinking of the good she has just done, thinking of Margit able to visit her family, but instead she is more miserable than ever. How many other promises has she inadvertently broken? How many other people has she let down? How many people like Margit are out there right now, hurt because they can no longer rely on Sif to keep her word? Apparently it is not enough for the spell to take away ten months of her life; now it is taking away her good name, making her a liar and an oath breaker. 

The thought presses down on her like a boulder. And then she looks around at her room with the curtains she does not recognize and the dress she does not remember buying and the book of poetry that plagues her, and then she thinks of Fandral telling a story she cannot recall living, and then she thinks of the wall of blankness in her mind where the last ten months should be, and suddenly she is so tired and frustrated that she wants to cry. 

She cannot stay here in this room that reminds her of what she has lost, and it is nearly time for her meeting with Loki, so she storms out, promising herself that she will get her feelings under control by the time she gets there. But—just her bad luck—barely twenty steps out of her door, she runs into the very man she is going to see, who is apparently taking the same path as her to get to their usual room. 

“Sif,” he says pleasantly, coming to a stop in the middle of the hall, but then he must get a better look at her because his brow furrows. “Are you all right?”

She cannot storm past him without it becoming clear that something is wrong, but she cannot let him see the tears gathering in her eyes either. So she says “Fine” while pretending she needs to see to the knot on the bracelet she is wearing—a flimsy pretense her companion immediately sees through.

Or at least she assumes so, because Loki is silent a moment, and then he gently grasps her wrist—his hand warm and strong—and tugs her through a nearby door into a rarely-used sitting room. A wave of his hand locks the door behind them, and then he sets the book he’s holding down on a nearby table. She glances at it to see it is the notebook he’s been writing in during each of their sessions, Investigation into the Enchantment on Sif Tyrsdottir written on the cover in Loki’s careful, formal runes. And then, because she does not want to make eye contact with him, she just keeps looking at the book.

She’s surprised at how much she misses the contact when he releases her wrist. “Did something happen?” he asks gently.

But she does not want to answer, and not only because she thinks she might actually rather die than admit to weakness. The truth can only hurt his feelings and his pride, for she knows him well enough to guess that if she admits that she is so frustrated over her lost memories that she’s close to tears, he will blame himself for not having reversed the enchantment yet. And that would be massively unfair; she knows that these past weeks, he has been running himself ragged trying to fit his work with her into his already packed schedule. It is astonishingly kind of him to work so hard for her, and she doesn’t want him to think she does not appreciate it.

“Sif, please,” he says, which is a rare enough occurrence that she looks over at him in surprise. His expression is serious and pleading. “I want to help, if I can.”

That gentle concern is what pushes her over the edge, and a single tear escapes and courses down her cheek. Immediately she turns away from him, staring determinedly up at the ceiling, trying to force her emotions back under control. How humiliating—she has not cried in decades, not since the death of her beloved grandmother, and now she is crying in front of Loki, someone whose good opinion has recently come to matter a great deal to her. What will he think of the shieldmaiden, who has always prided herself on her strength, crying over lost memories?

When he speaks, his voice sounds strange. “You’re worrying me,” he says. “Did something happen?”

“Nothing has happened,” she assures him, forcing her voice to stay firm. “Your concern is kind, but there is nothing you can do that you are not already doing.”

“Ah,” he says. “This is about your lost memories?”

He sounds a bit deflated, and she rushes to assure him, “I do not blame you. You have worked tirelessly to help me for weeks now, and I appreciate it more than I can say. But . . .” She forces herself to look directly at him, trying to prove to him that she’s all right, despite the fact that her eyes are swimming with tears that are threatening to break free and humiliate her further. “It is a little frustrating, that’s all.”

His expression as he looks steadfastly at her is caring and concerned, and she manages to maintain eye contact with him for only the span of a breath before she ducks her head, afraid that if she looks at him any longer, she’ll start crying in earnest.

There’s a moment of stillness. And then she feels Loki’s hand come to rest gently on her shoulder.

That does it. That opens the floodgates holding back her emotions, and without meaning to, she finds herself crumpling against him, her face buried in his shoulder. Fortunately, she barely has a moment to worry about how Loki must feel about her ridiculous behavior before his arms come up around her, pulling her close, holding her gently but securely. So perhaps he isn’t too disgusted by her silly emotional display. Her hands come up to grip the sides of his tunic, and she breathes deeply and tries not to cry.

It has been an incredible amount of time since she has been embraced—truly embraced, that is. Thor and the Three will sometimes dispense quick, excited hugs, complete with those slaps on the back that men seem to favor, when they have dispatched a dragon or accomplished something notable in the training yard. But it’s been years since someone held her so long and so tenderly, and back then, it would have been a family member. She’s not been held this way by a man since . . . well, since Haldor.

And it is surprising how much she likes it. She gets so little human contact that isn’t accompanied by violence that she’s forgotten the way it calms her, body, mind and soul—the way it makes a sense of well-being permeate through her.

So, despite how humiliated she is to know that she is such a mess that Loki feels the need to hug her—despite how much she worries that Loki hates this but feels obligated to help (he doesn’t seem the type to enjoy hugs, she thinks)—she stands there and lets herself soak up the support he is offering.

But she’s not going to let herself cry any more, she tells herself . . . and then is immediately made a liar when a few more tears escape, soaking into Loki’s tunic, and it embarrasses her to think that he must be able to feel that.

“My apologies,” she mutters against his shoulder. “I do not usually let my emotions get the better of me.”

To her surprise, Loki lets out a soft chuckle and pulls her in even closer. “Sif, you have experienced something genuinely devastating. I would be shocked if you didn’t shed tears over it at some point. In fact, I’ve been shocked you’ve been holding up as well as you have. I’d have fallen apart ages ago.”

His gentle solicitude causes her eyes to prick again, and without thinking, she slides her arms around his waist to return the hug, and she turns her head so that her cheek is laying against his shoulder, and she tries to stop berating herself for her emotions.

She hardly knows how long they stand there before her frustration finally starts draining away; in the space where it used to be is bone-deep exhaustion and a surprisingly content stillness. And in that stillness, she gradually becomes aware that she can feel Loki’s breathing, the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest under her cheek. She can feel the warmth of his body through his tunic. She can feel one of his hands slowly rubbing her back in a gesture that she would not have expected she would find so comforting. She can smell whatever the palace washes the royal family’s clothes in.

She suddenly finds herself aware of every place her body contacts his, and though this is a comforting hug, underneath that feeling of well-being is a soft buzz, like an electric current under her skin.

And she likes it—the contact and the comfort and the electricity and the smell of his clothing. She likes it all.

Her gaze falls on his notebook on the table, and she is suddenly sorry that the handwriting there is not the elegant scrawl from her poetry book.

> > >

  You have played,
  (I think)
  And broke the toys you were fondest of,
  And are a little tired now;
  Tired of things that break, and —
  Just tired.
  So am I.

> > >

It is not long after this that Sif finds herself summoned to Frigga’s private sitting room. She has rarely been invited to the royal family’s wing of the palace, so she assumes it is because of her lost memories, and she is correct.

“Welcome,” the Allmother says warmly when she enters. “Please come and sit. Something to eat?”

When Sif shakes her head, Frigga situates herself regally on a settee. “Forgive my interrupting your day,” she begins. “I’ve just had so little time to check up on you of late, and I wanted to see how you are doing. It cannot be easy, I would imagine, dealing with such a loss as you have experienced.”

Sif looks at her sharply. “Did Loki say something?”

Frigga seems surprised when she answers. “He has given Eir and myself updates on his efforts to reverse the enchantment, but he has said little about your emotional state.”

And while Frigga is very talented at convincing people of what she wants them to think, Sif finds that she believes the Allmother in this case. Interesting that Loki has said nothing to his mother of Sif’s breakdown. Is he trying to protect her from embarrassment? Or does her emotional state just matter very little to him?

(She cannot believe that second one. She and Loki have grown so close in the six weeks since she was hit by that spell, and he has been so kind and so solicitous of her welfare—two things that normally do not describe the second prince, but he seems to make an exception for her. And the way he held her when she cried—she later realized they were in that room for over half and hour, and instead of seeming annoyed at the wasted time, Loki just held her and rubbed her back and murmured comforting things in her ear. And since then, things have been . . . different between them. Warmer. He smiles easily at her, and it’s not the practiced, polite smile taught to a prince; it’s warm and unguarded and it does something to her pulse. So no, she cannot believe that she does not matter to him at all.) 

But now Frigga is looking at her curiously, so she admits, “I have been . . . a little upset on occasion. But I trust Loki’s skill, and am trying to learn to be resigned to the possibility that the spell may not be reversible.”

Frigga reaches out her hands; Sif, after a moment of uncertainty, reaches out as well, and Frigga clasps her outstretched hands. “I wish I could promise you that this can be fixed,” she says, an echo of what her son said to Sif a few weeks ago. “But if anyone in Asgard can do it, it is Loki, and I know he will not rest until he has exhausted all possibilities.”

“I know,” says Sif lowly, feeling in her heart the truth of Frigga’s words. “I trust him, and I appreciate more than I can say that he is so dedicated to this.” She hesitates. “I am a little sorry that it is taking up so much of his time, however. Every time we meet, he always has to run off afterward to some other obligation. I feel guilty that I seem to be adding to the burden of all he has to do.”

Frigga shakes her head emphatically. “You are important to this realm, and we would want to help you no matter what.” She has not released Sif’s hands yet, which is odd, but comforting. How strange to think that she’s had more human contact this week than she has in ages, and it’s all from the royal family. “And Loki does not mind, I assure you. He enjoys a magical problem to solve. And also . . .” She squeezes Sif’s hands gently. “He won’t often show this; my boy has always struggled with showing vulnerability.” She smiles. “I think you understand that; you are the same way.”

Sif can’t help smiling at the truth of that.

“But I assure you, Loki has always valued you.” There is something very earnest in her tone. “He could never begrudge time spent helping you.”

This is news to Sif, but then, Frigga is right when she says that Loki plays things close to the chest. His mother knows him better than anyone; if she says he is glad to help her, Sif will believe it.

And if she says that he values her . . . in whatever way that means . . . 

“Thank you, your highness,” Sif says softly, unable to keep a small smile from her face.

Frigga squeezes her hands again. “You are very welcome, my dear.”

> > >

Torstein Agdestein is the last of the Einherjar to be evaluated. His handwriting does not match that in her book, and Sif watches him walk away with relief in her chest: relief that this task she volunteered for is finally over . . . and, honestly, relief that she was not being courted by a member of the Einherjar. These last few days, she’s thought that she’d hardly know what to do if one of them had turned out to be her secret suitor; she still finds something very beguiling in the notion of finding love again, but she finds she’s not much interested in finding that love among the warriors at the palace. She needs someone that she can talk to about something other than fighting.

But the truth is that with every day that passes, she is less and less certain that she actually had that during her lost months.

Back in her room, Sif sits on her bed and runs her fingers over the inscription in the book; she does not need to read it, for she has looked at it so often that she has it memorized. And she admits to herself that she likely misunderstood the whole thing.

Baffled by the mystery of the hidden book, intrigued by the idea of inspiring such devotion in an admirer, she convinced herself that this book was a gift to her, that the inscription was dedicated to her. But it’s been two months. And in all that time, there’s been no sad, lonely swain standing at the edge of the training yard during the day, no pair of mournful eyes watching across the Great Hall at night.

Yours, as long as you’ll have me, wrote the unknown person with the elegant scrawl, but no devoted lover has presented himself to her since she woke. Someone who truly loved her couldn’t completely ignore her for two months, could he? Even if he was trying to avoid pressuring her to get back into a relationship she couldn’t remember her reasons for being in, surely he would at least try to be near her, perhaps try to get her to fall for him again.

So, two possibilities: either the relationship began and ended during her lost months, or—far more likely—this book and this note were never meant for her. Perhaps someone lent the book to her, or perhaps she found it in a second-hand shop. Of course, she still has no idea why she started reading poetry, but the idea of her acquiring a new love of reading and borrowing or buying this book seems more likely than that an ardent beau gave it to her and then completely lost interest.

So she’s done. She’s done looking for the person with the elegant scrawl, because she is no longer certain that the note was for her (and because even if it is, whoever wrote it doesn’t seem to care enough about her to make himself known to her now). But . . .

She runs her fingers over the title of the book, feeling herself smile softly.

. . . but she’s not over the idea of finding someone. These poems have penetrated her walls of duty and obligation and settled themselves in her heart, painting a picture of happiness and passion and companionship, and suddenly, for the first time in centuries, she wants that so much—

  the best gesture of my brain is less than
  your eyelids’ flutter which says

  we are for each other: then
  laugh, leaning back in my arms
  for life’s not a paragraph

  And death i think is no parenthesis

She wants that. She wants to recline in the arms of the man she loves, to know—and to know that he knows—that they are for each other.

She wants a man who makes her think, makes her laugh, makes her feel cared for—someone who will hold her when she’s upset and never judge her for her tears, who respects her and wants to hear what she has to say, who she can talk to for hours.

And she may have given up on the idea of the man with the elegant scrawl, but she thinks that finding someone who fits this new set of criteria won’t be very difficult at all.

> > >

So it’s just her terrible luck that as soon as she’s made the decision to stop assuming she had a suitor, she discovers that he’s real.

It’s that very night, after the feast has ended. The usual drinking and carrying on ends much earlier than normal, for there is a visiting dignitary at dinner, which means that everyone is on their best behavior. It also means that Thor and Loki must sit at the head table with their parents, which means that Sif spends the entire meal trying not to let the others see that she is shooting surreptitious glances that way.

Loki looks especially handsome tonight in his formal wear; she wonders who his tailor is, for they have certainly earned their keep. Where most of the men in the room favor styles made to make them look large and strong—understandable, in a realm that so highly values warriors—Loki’s clothing is cut in a way to make him look sleek and elegant. He is like a panther prowling among a herd of complacent wildebeests, and he catches her eye so easily every time she glances in that direction that she can’t believe that she’d never really noticed him before now.

She should not look so much; she is sworn to serve the royal family, not ogle them. But still, she looks again and again toward the head table, and fights back a smile.

And then, later that night in her rooms, she makes the most unexpected discovery.

She is planning what she will wear to the Yule feast in a few days; normally she cares little for her appearance, wearing whatever fine dress her eyes fall on first in her closet, but the Yule feast is an especially notable night. Besides, lately, she finds that she wants to look her best when she is out among the other inhabitants of the palace.

Her dress chosen, she turns her thoughts to accessories. Her most impressive option is a hair comb set with priceless jewels, a gift from a wealthy king she once gave assistance to. Because of its value, she keeps it hidden away in a secret drawer at the back of her jewelry box; so, wanting to see if it matches her dress, she pulls the jewelry box onto her bed and presses the hidden latch.

And to her surprise, the comb in surrounded by pieces of parchment—mostly small strips, folded in half, filling the drawer to bursting. Clearly, these are papers she wanted hidden away from any prying eyes, and she is startled and confused as she picks one up and unfolds it.

The handwriting there hits her like a blow to the face: an elegant scrawl that has looked up at her from her poetry book every day for nearly two months.

I will count down every second until I am back in your arms, it says. Ten days feels like forever to be away from you.

She opens another.

I saw this in the market and thought of you, it says, with no indication of what gift it accompanied.

The next:

A few things in this life give me true joy and pleasure: a good book. A beautiful sunset. Watching you destroy that arrogant whelp in the training yard this morning.

So that answers her lingering question: these notes seem to have definitely been written to her.

Do you know how stunning you looked tonight? reads the next. It took all my concentration not to let the whole of Asgard see me staring at you.

If this is from her suitor, and he was trying to keep others from seeing him look at her, that seems to confirm her suspicion that they were keeping their relationship a secret.

The past three months have been beyond all my wildest expectations; I hope I have brought you even a fraction of the joy you’ve brought me. Here’s to all the months to come.

And then,

I love you. It is such a relief to finally be able to say aloud the words that have been trying to fight their way free from my heart for so long. And I meant what I said: do not feel pressured to say it back before you’re ready. For now, it is more than enough for me that I’m allowed to say it to you: I love you, Sif.

Sif sits back, dazed, with a field of parchment scattered around her on the bed. He’s real. Her suitor is real, and their relationship was real, for it seems that these were not sent by some stranger admiring her from afar—she and this mystery swain seem to have been courting. She cared enough to keep all his notes carefully folded up and tucked away somewhere safe. She cared enough to read the book of poetry he gave her and underline her favorite parts.

She truly was in what seems to have been a loving relationship.

And Sif is furious.

How could this mystery man write such beautiful things and then disappear from her life entirely? How could he write Yours, as long as you’ll have me and Ten days feels like forever to be away from you and I love you and then vanish at the moment when she most needed support from people who care about her? And if he loves her so much, why isn’t he here trying to win her back?

And what on earth is she supposed to do with this information? Is she supposed to avoid getting into another relationship, knowing that somewhere out there is someone she is probably technically still in a relationship with, as she assumes they never actually broke up? Is she obligated to wait for this man to make himself known?

Well, that she refuses to do. He’s had two months of chances to try to win her love again and has taken none of them. He’s not even here trying to befriend her or win her good opinion.

Really, this is all for the best, she decides; she’s undoubtedly better off without such a spineless, craven coward in her life, someone who won’t even fight for the woman he claims to love. She’s done with him. She doesn’t care about his heartfelt notes and the beautiful poetry he gave her; she doesn’t care that she clearly used to care about him. He had his chance, and now she’s moving on.

But that doesn’t stop her from reading each of the notes before carefully refolding them and slipping them back into the hidden drawer.

> > >

“You seem . . . upset.”

Sif answers Fandral’s observation with a swing that nearly takes his head off—or it would if they weren’t using dull wooden practice swords—and he barely dodges in time. “But we don’t have to talk about it,” he says, hands lifted in a mock gesture of surrender.

“I’m not upset,” she insists, stopping to wipe the sweat from her brow. “I’m just . . . thinking.” But then she hesitates. Fandral knows her better than almost anyone, and he knows relationships better than almost anyone. And underneath his charming, devil-may-care exterior is a loyal man who would do nearly anything for the people he cares about. If she was going to choose any of her friends to talk about this with . . .

So she hesitates, then she glances around to ensure no one is nearby. “This doesn’t leave this sparring ring,” she says firmly.

“I swear it,” he says, uncharacteristically solemn.

Sif looks at him a moment longer, then sighs. “I found a note in my room,” she says, unwilling to admit to him the whole extent of it, the dozens of notes she has in her hidden drawer. “It had no name on it, but it made it seem that . . . perhaps I had a suitor in that time that was lost.”

This surprises Fandral, she can see. “A love note? So you think that you may have been in a relationship?”

“I am not certain, but I had the note carefully hidden away. Surely if it was unwanted, I would have simply thrown it away. I assume that I had positive feelings toward the writer.”

“No clues as to the person’s identity, I assume?” When Sif nods, Fandral furrows his brow in thought. “I had no idea,” he says. “I mean, I think Hogun mentioned some time ago that you seemed to be gone more often in the afternoons, but you never said or did a thing to indicate it could have been because you had a beau.” He hesitates. “Which is not like you. You have never been very skilled at deception, my friend.”

“True enough.”

There is a moment of silence, punctuated only by the clash of wooden swords and grunts of exertion from other sparring rings. Then Fandral says, “Perhaps this is only the power of suggestion. But now that I am thinking back, I do think that in the summer and fall, you seemed . . . happier.”

And this Sif does not want to hear. “Do not attach too much meaning to all this,” she says. “I do not intend to seek this mystery man out.”

Fandral rears back in surprise. “What? Why? The Lady Sif finally finds a man she finds worthy of affection, and she is giving up on him so easily?”

“He gave up on me first,” she says firmly. “If he exists, where is he now? Why has he not made himself known? If you truly loved someone and they lost their memories of you, then even if you felt you could not be with them, wouldn’t you want to at least stay near them and be sure they were all right? And perhaps try to earn their affection again?”

“Perhaps,” Fandral says gravely. “Or perhaps I would be heartbroken to know that I could not be with the one I loved. Could you imagine? A relationship severed so brutally—in some ways, it would be as though the one you love is dead now, for she no longer knows she once loved you. To have to see her every day and be reminded of all you have lost . . . it could be devastating. Perhaps he is indeed devastated, and it’s easier to keep his distance.”

Oh, that’s . . . an interesting thought.

“Or perhaps he is waiting to see if they are successful in undoing the spell that made you lose your memories. For then you will remember that you cared for him, and he doesn’t have to try to convince you of something you’ve forgotten. That would be reasonable, would it not?”

For a moment, Sif’s stubborn indignation wavers, but then she shakes her head. “And if my memories can't be restored? He is risking a lot deal, given how much he claims to care about me.”

“Fair,” Fandral admits. “Just . . . stay open to the possibility, would you? You deserve happiness, and if this man made you happy in the past . . .”

“Or perhaps another man will make me happy in the future,” she says without thinking, and Fandral’s whole face lights up.

“Are you open to that?” he asks. “Because I have so many friends who’ve asked me to introduce them to you. I’ve always told them that your one true love is punching people, but if you’re open to meeting someone . . .”

Only imagine the sorts of gentlemen who would confide in Fandral about their romantic wishes! “I will punch you if you try to make such an introduction,” she says.

Fandral gives a heavy sigh. “Understood.”

> > >

The day of the Yule feast arrives. Sif and Loki decide to forego their usual magic session that day; he says it’s just because they’re busy with all the festivities, but Sif wonders if his reason for suggesting it is the same reason she agreed: so as not to spoil the holiday spirit with yet another disappointment.

The truth is, though, that while there would indeed be disappointment, Sif has largely reached a calm state of mind when it comes to her lost memories. She holds out hope that Loki will find a way to restore what she’s lost; if she loses that hope, she will despair. But if she focuses too much on that hope, then every time she and Loki meet and nothing is fixed, she will also despair. So she mostly just tries very hard not to think about it, and it mostly works.

In the evening, she dresses carefully, and when she opens the secret drawer of her jewelry box to get her jeweled hair comb, she ignores the notes hidden there.

(She has refused to look at the notes again and hasn’t opened the poetry book in several days, but phrases from both keep floating into her head at inopportune moments—

i like you better than everything in the sky—sunlight and singing welcome your coming—

I woke up this morning in a good mood, and I wasn’t certain why until I realized it was because I’d get to see you at breakfast—

and it takes no small amount of focus to force them back out again. She is furious with her suitor, whoever he is, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t gotten under her skin.)

She gives herself plenty of time to do her hair—that has never been one of her core strengths, so it's useful to have a buffer in her schedule—but her tresses are unusually cooperative, and she finishes nearly half an hour before the feast is due to start. There’s no sense sitting around in her room until then, so she supposes she’ll go downstairs and see if any of her friends are similarly early.

There’s a room where they often gather, located not far from the Great Hall; a thousand years ago it was some sort of reception room, but at some point, the princes began to take it over for lounging and spending time with friends and sparring when the weather makes it unpleasant to be outside, and now no one uses it except for the six of them. That is where she goes now, for if any of her friends are waiting for the feast to start, that is where they will be.

Her assumption proves true: Loki is already there, seated on one of the comfortable low couches. His head is bowed over a notebook that he holds in his lap, and he is scribbling away in it with such concentration that he does not even notice her enter. And Sif has the rare opportunity to unabashedly watch the younger prince.

He is finely dressed, gold accents flashing as they catch the light; the royal family always dresses this well for major events. But what catches her eye are not these symbols of wealth and power, but the frown of concentration marring his brow; it’s such a Loki expression that it makes her smile. What she’s come to realize over the last two months—something she should have noticed much earlier—is that Loki takes on the mantle of a warrior, of a man of action, because it is expected of a prince of Asgard. But this is the true him, the person he is when no one is looking: a deep thinker, a scholar, a mage, someone who loves a puzzle to be solved more than an obstacle to conquer.

And she’s surprised at how much she likes the real version of Loki.

Smiling at the thought of a chance to talk to him alone for a while—she missed him this afternoon—she approaches the couch where he sits. But she is so quiet, and he is so absorbed in his writing, that he does not notice her until she is nearly upon him. And then he looks up and is so startled that he jumps to his feet without thinking to grab for his notebook; it flies from his lap and lands on the ground some distance away.

“Let me get that for you,” she chuckles, and stoops to pick up the notebook.

And then she stops and stares. Because covering the paper is an elegant scrawl that has haunted her for two months.

For a long, shocked moment, Sif can do nothing but gape at the notebook in her hands. Then she slowly rises back up to her full height, then slowly drags her astonished gaze to Loki.

His brow is furrowed; clearly he noticed her reaction.

“This is not your handwriting,” she says finally. “The notes you’ve sent me about our meetings—they don’t look like this at all.”

“Ah, that,” he says, looking relieved—that he has an explanation for her odd behavior, perhaps? “I taught myself to read and write when I was young; later, when I was old enough to be educated by the royal tutors, they taught me the official, formal script I was expected to use for my duties as a prince. But I find it overly stiff and rather time-consuming. So I still use the hand I first learned when I am writing for personal or private matters.”

Personal or private matters. Like notes to a secret sweetheart. “It’s you,” she breathes, her mind too stunned to even notice what’s coming out of her mouth. “It’s been you the whole time.”

He frowns. “It’s me?”

“The poetry book,” she says, and Loki goes very still, his face blank. “The notes.”

He stares at her for long, silent moments. And then he says, equally quiet, “I didn’t think you’d kept them.”

By the Norns—it’s true, then. It’s him. Sif steps dazedly toward him. He watches her with wide eyes.

And then she punches him hard in the shoulder.

“Ouch!” he yelps. “What was that for?”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” she demands—not quite a yell, but close. “Did you not think about how much confusion and distress it could cause me to find those and not know what they meant?”

“Of course I did,” he insists, rubbing his shoulder (she hopes it bruises). “That’s why I tried to clear everything out of your chambers before you were released from the Healing Halls.”

That was the wrong thing to say to defend himself. “You snuck into my chambers and went through my things?” she exclaims, and punches him in the other shoulder.

“I thought that finding them would upset you!” he insists as he slips out from between her and the couch, probably trying to put space between them so she can’t punch him again.

She pivots to face him as he moves away. “Did you ever think of telling me the truth?”

“Yes, that would have gone over extremely well,” he says sarcastically, backing up another step. “‘Sorry to hear you’ve lost your memories, Sif. But—surprise!—after centuries of ignoring me, you finally agreed to let me court you. I know that sounds completely out of character for you, but you’ll just have to trust me on this, because we never told anyone so no one can back up my story. Now let’s just pick up where we left off!’”

She frowns. “You had so little faith that I would trust that something had moved me to accept your suit the first time? That I could discover those feelings again?”

He runs his hand through his hair, mussing it—something she’s only seen him do on rare occasions, when he’s genuinely upset. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to get you to agree to it the first time? Hours of persuasion—days of it. And even when you agreed, you insisted that no one else could know. It seemed like you always had one foot out the door—like you were never really willing to commit to us being together.”

“Of course I would insist no one could know! When I think of the endless nagging I endured when I was with Haldor about when I’d finally give up on being a warrior and get married . . . And how much worse would it be with a member of the royal family? Half the palace would think I’d gotten my position by seducing a prince.”

He’s quiet a long moment. “You said that last time,” he admits.

“Why didn’t you believe me?” she demands. “Why would you want to be with someone you can’t bring yourself to trust?”

He blinks at her, speechless for once.

She stares at him, her heart and mind a whirlwind that leave her no safe place to stand. “Lock the doors,” she commands; she knows he can do that spell, and she does not want to be interrupted.

Obediently he lifts a hand, and the doors swing closed.

“When did this begin?” she asks patiently.

He looks at her a long moment, then sighs. “The summer solstice. We were in—”

“Ringsfjord,” she says. “The others told me. They said you and I spent the evening wandering the city together.”

He nods. “I saw young men buying flower crowns for young ladies, so I bought one for you. Little did I know that there’s a tradition there—if the girl accepts the crown, she pays for it with a kiss. Everyone started cheering for us to kiss, so we did. And it was . . .” He trails off, his expression wistful and sad. “It gave me the courage to admit that I’d wanted to kiss you for . . . a while. You said that it had never crossed your mind, but that you’d enjoyed it more than expected. And that gave me hope—hope for something I’d wanted for a very long time but had never expected I could actually have. We spent the rest of the festival together, with me trying to convince you to allow me to court you. But you didn’t agree until we were back in Asgard, and you insisted that we keep it secret. Which we managed for four months.”

“And then I forgot,” she says softly.

“And then you forgot,” Loki agrees somberly. “And I couldn’t tell you the truth, because even if you believed me, what could it do but make things awkward between us? I couldn’t expect you to come back to me when you didn’t remember being with me in the first place. And I didn’t think I could talk you into it a second time, considering you barely agreed to it the first time around. It felt kinder to keep it from you.”

“Including taking things from my room.”

“Only a few trinkets I’d given you. I couldn’t find anything else.” He hesitates. “I took that to mean you hadn’t kept the notes or the poetry book, which only seemed to confirm my fear that you’d never been as committed to the relationship as I was.”

Some of what he says is perfectly reasonable, but Sif, thinking of all she has been through the last two months, feels her anger rise. “So that was it? You claim you were so committed to our relationship, and then you tossed all of it aside that quickly?”

“I didn’t,” he insists. “I never gave up hope. But I decided it was better to try to reverse the effects of the spell, so you could remember on your own. I've been working my fingers to the bone trying to fix this . . ." His shoulders droop. "Trying to get you to come back to me."

That takes the wind out of her sails: his logic, for she supposes she can see the logic in it, and the obvious pain in his words. It would certainly explain why he has worked so hard, spent so much of his limited free time on this project, if he thought it was the only way he could win her back.

Still . . . "You should have told me. You should have allowed me to make that decision for myself, rather than taking it out my hands."

His eyes are inexpressibly sad. "I was trying to do the right thing," he says. "You think I was happy to break my own heart? But doing anything else felt so unfair to you. You would feel pressured. You would feel you owed me something." He breathes out the tiniest sigh. "I want you to want to be with me, not to feel obligated because of what we were to each other in the past. And don't pretend that wouldn't have crossed your mind, Sif. You very much let duty dictate your actions."

He's not wrong, but he's not entirely right either. "You should have told me," she repeats. "I've been so confused and so angry with whoever wrote me those notes for just disappearing when I needed support."

He winces.

She strides away and looks out the window, giving herself time to think. She thinks about the notes carefully folded and hidden away in the jewelry box; she thinks of the book of poetry and the stars she drew next to lines that spoke to her—i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet). She thinks of things that her friends have said to her about that missing period of her life. And then she thinks of Loki, who never told her why he was so determined to help her, but who has been the one person by her side all this time, working tirelessly to try to help her regain her memories.

"I think I was happy with you," she says softly, not turning to face him.

"I was very happy with you," he says, equally quiet.

"So you wish we were still together?"

A long pause. And then a shaky whisper. "Yes."

She turns to face him then: the handsome prince, the brilliant scholar, the quick-witted mage. And she admits to herself that the more she got to know Loki, the less she wanted any suitor who wasn't him.

He looks uncertain and hesitant and handsome and just the tiniest bit hopeful. She likes that hope in his eyes. She likes being the one who put it there.

"Then kiss me."

Loki blinks, stunned. Then he shakes his head. "You don't owe me anything, Sif. There is no obligation—"

"I know," says Sif, and takes a step forward. "That's not why I asked. I want you to kiss me because in the last two months, in all the time we've spent together—everything changed for me. I found out that you're extraordinary and brilliant and that I love spending time with you. I've been looking for the person whose handwriting matches the note in my poetry book since the moment I found it, and almost from the beginning, I was disappointed that it didn't seem to be you."

He stares at her, heartbreak and hope splashed across the face. And then he gasps out her name before striding across the floor to catch her face in his hands. His kiss is urgent and insistent; he is a man dying of thirst in a desert who has just found a spring. But it is somehow familiar too, in a way she finds comforting; perhaps her body remembers what her mind cannot. Or perhaps her body just feels, as her mind suddenly does, that this is where she is meant to be.

 my blood approves,
 and kisses are a better fate 
 than wisdom
 lady i swear by all flowers

His hands in her hair are going to wreak absolute havoc on the hairstyle she was so proud of just a few minutes ago, but she does not care and returns the favor on his careful coiffure. Thoughts vanish. Each searing kiss blends into the next, and some hazy part of her brain hopes it never ends.

So of course that is the moment when the door handle rattles. "Why is this locked?" Thor's voice calls out.

Sif and Loki break apart but stay close. Loki mutters a soft curse under his breath, and Sif laughs.

"We'll be out soon," she calls to Thor. "Just taking care of something first."

Thor mumbles something they cannot hear, but the door handle stops shaking, so perhaps he is leaving.

"He'll be curious about what 'taking care of something' means," observes Loki.

She kisses him again, simple and quick. "Let him wonder."

Loki sighs contentedly and leans his forehead against hers. "What now?" he asks.

Sif closes her eyes and savors the feeling of his skin against hers, his warm breath on her lips. "Now I think we must start over, unfortunately," she says. "I wish I could meet you where you are, but I can't; as far as I can remember, that was our first kiss. Any memories or inside jokes we shared—they're gone. I think that you have a harder road ahead than I do; you will constantly have to juggle the memory of what we were with the truth of what we are now."

"It will be worth it," he says immediately, and leans back just far enough to press kisses to both her cheekbones. "Sif, these last two months . . . I don't think I can find words for how it felt to learn you had lost your memories. I know it must have been more difficult for you, but still, to have finally gotten what I'd wanted for centuries, only to have you forget it entirely a few months later—and to have to spend so much time with you and pretend my heart wasn't breaking every moment of it . . ."

Her heart aches for him, but she wants to see him smile again, so she leans back and catches his eye, keeping her arms looped around his neck. "For centuries, you say?"

As hoped, he ducks his head with an embarrassed smile. "Yes, for centuries," he admits. "So even if things are a little awkward as we navigate the gap between my memories and yours, it's worth it to be with you. Any sacrifice is worth it to be with you."

That earns him another kiss. And once again, it is interrupted by Thor trying the door. "Seriously, what are you doing in there?" he calls.

"Seriously, is there nowhere else you can be right now?" Loki growls, and Sif laughs.

"You should head to the feast, Thor," she calls. "We'll meet you there."

"Fine," says Thor. Sif hopes he really leaves this time.

Loki snorts. "What will you tell him when he asks what you were doing in there?"

"I will tell him the truth," says Sif, sliding her hands from behind his head to rest on his shoulders. "With your permission."

Loki's mouth falls open slightly. "The truth?"

"All my reasons for secrecy remain," says Sif. "I do not relish people thinking I did not earn my place among Odin's warriors, that I was given a spot I do not deserve because of my connection to you. But on the other hand, I see what our secrecy did last time—how much pain it caused you. And how much pain it caused me, really. If we'd spoken to others earlier about our relationship, none of that would have happened."

He stares at her. "Of course I want the world to know that we chose each other," he says. "But are you certain?"

"Entirely." Her voice is low and earnest. "We're going to do things differently this time. I want to love you openly." She moves one hand to his cheek and brushes her thumb across the corner of his mouth, marveling that her lips were just there (and that apparently they have been time and again since the summer solstice). "And if my memories come back, excellent, but if not, we will figure this out as we go. Together." She hesitates, her lips softening into a smile. "And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant," she says quietly. "And I don't want to lose that again."

His eyes widen. "You read the poetry book?"

"Cover to cover. More than once. How did you turn me into someone who likes poetry?"

He breaks into the happiest smile she has ever seen on his face. "And whatever a sun will always sing is you," he murmurs. "All right, let's do it. Let's tell everyone."

"Agreed," she says. "In a moment." Then she pulls him close and kisses him again.

> > >

It is more than a moment before they make their way to the feast, and neither looks quite so put-together as they did a little while ago. But Loki has helped her tidy her hair and assured her that she looks beautiful, and as his is the only opinion that matters to her, she strides into the Great Hall confidently.

Everyone is already eating, so they attract little attention as they enter the room hand in hand. It is only when they approach the table where Thor, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg's whole family sit that Fandral looks up, sees their joined hands, and gasps audibly. "Loki?" he asks, but he's looking at Sif, eyes narrowed. "Note writer or future happiness?"

And serious, somber Sif can't help the smile that breaks across her face. "Both."

Fandral's eyes widen comically, and then he throws his head back and laughs. "This is the perfect outcome!" he exclaims. "You two need to come sit by me and tell me the whole story."

The others are looking now to see what the fuss is, and Thor breaks into a massive grin when he sees Sif and Loki take their place at the table, hands still joined. "You two?" he demands, looking back and forth between them. "This is the best news I've ever heard!"

Sif grins. Loki, to her immense astonishment, might actually be blushing. At the very least, he is ducking his head, pleased and embarrassed in a way she has rarely seen from the stately second prince. How delightful to know he'll react like that—how delightful to know that he cares that much, that serious, dignified Prince Loki can be reduced to blushes over her.

"How did it happen?" Fandral asks.

Sif glances at Loki. "Well, it turns out something had started between us before I lost my memories," she says. They discussed this on the way to the Great Hall and decided that while they are going to be open about their relationship from this point forward, they plan to downplay the seriousness of their previous connection for the first little while—to give everyone only one surprising piece of news at a time. "But Loki, trying to be a gentleman, didn't want to press me until I got my memories back. But even without that knowledge, after spending hours every day together for the last two months, I ended up falling for him again."

Thor actually gets teary at that. "As though Fate brought you back together. Truly, you two have been blessed by the Norns." He throws an arm around Loki's shoulders and clamps his free hand down on Sif's. "The best of brothers and the best of friends: how perfect you have found each other. My two favorite people in the world deserve each other."

"I'm not your favorite?" Fandral demands, as Sif looks up at Loki and smiles.

"I agree," says Loki. "The two most wonderful people in Asgard should be together."

Sif, laughing, leans up to kiss him while the rest of the table cheers. When they break apart, she looks over and sees the Allfather and the Allmother watching them; Odin looks benevolently pleased, but Frigga is absolutely beaming.

"It seems like your parents approve," she murmurs to Loki.

He glances over, then grins. "I have long suspected my mother knew," he says, leaning in close so he can murmur quietly to her ears only. "Or at least that she guessed."

Sif thinks back to her conversation with Frigga, and then to Frigga insisting that Loki be the one to investigate her malady. "I think you may be right."

"To Loki and Sif!" Thor says, lifting his tankard in a toast.

"To future happiness," says Fandral with a wink at Sif.

"To love," adds Volstagg's wife, and Volstagg throws an arm around her shoulders.

Loki slips his arm around Sif's waist, his touch sending tingles shooting up her side. "To our second chance," he says quietly.

"To loving each other openly," she says back.

And they all drink.

> > >

It's another four weeks before they successfully restore Sif's memories, and getting them back might be more disorienting than losing them—one moment, there is nothing but blankness in that corner of her mind, and the next she is flooded with images and feelings and sounds and thoughts. She's so overwhelmed that she actually falls to her knees, and Loki falls right down beside her, wrapping his arms around her (to celebrate their success or to keep her from falling over, she isn't sure).

It takes a full day for them to talk through everything; it's as though her brain has all the pieces back but has to rebuild the network of connections between them. Thor and the Warriors Three help, but for everything related to their secret courtship, only Loki can walk her through it.

When her mind has finally stopped spinning, she and Loki sit together in a room in the royal wing of the palace; they come to the royal wing often so they won't be bothered by the other inhabitants of the palace, and they like this room's comfy chairs and massive windows. She pulls her feet up under her and leans her head on his shoulder while he idly plays with the ends of her hair (once she and Loki began courting again, she quickly learned that she enjoys cuddling with him like this; now, she is amused to search her memories and realize this is also how they often sat during her lost months).

"How does it feel to have your memories back?" he asks.

"Like I'm complete again," she says after moment. "But do you know what's honestly on my mind?" She lifts her head from his shoulder, and he turns to look at her. "How glad I am that I didn't have to wait until now to learn the truth about us," she finishes.

He snorts softly. "My apologies again," he says. They never have come to an agreement about whether he was in the right in keeping it from her, but he apologizes for it because he knows she still thinks she's right about it.

"That wasn't a complaint," she smiles. "I'm simply saying, the past month has been wonderful. The memories I've regained have also been wonderful, but I'm glad we had the last month together."

He gets that knowing look he sometimes gets when he's thinking something and not saying it.

"What?" she asks.

He hesitates. "I'm sorry you went through so much uncertainty," he says, taking her hand in his. "But strangely, your ordeal was positive in some ways for me."

Her brow furrows in confusion.

"Before, I never knew if you really wanted to be with me or if I just wore you down until you capitulated against your will. But now I get the comfort of knowing that you've chosen me twice."

She smiles. "And it's the two best choices I ever made." She hesitates. "Well, that and becoming a shieldmaiden."

"Of course," he agrees, and she settles back down against his shoulder to watch the sunset.

After a moment, she asks, "Read me a poem?" She's come to love reading poetry—he's introduced her to a few of his other favorite poets, and she's learned to enjoy them as well—but she finds she likes it even better when he reads it to her in his rich, warm voice.

He grasps at thin air and pulls his copy of that first poetry book he gave her out of the pocket dimension he keeps it in for moments such as these. It opens easily to a well-loved page, and she cuddles in closer and listens to her beloved read.

  i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
  my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
  i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
  by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
  no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
  no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
  and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
  and whatever a sun will always sing is you

  here is the deepest secret nobody knows
  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
  higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
  and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

  i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

> > >

fin