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It was a merry night, until Loki came. He sat down next to Thor just like a shadow.
"That tunic of yours has an interesting cut, Loki," Fandral said affably, when the conversation fell to a lull. "The latest fashion I suppose, though I've only seen such a style on the court ladies."
The problem, Sif thought, as she stared into her half-filled mug, was that Loki couldn't help but escalate.
"I wouldn't know, Fandral," Loki replied smoothly. "Perhaps Thor does. From his, ah, personal experience."
Sif's grip tightened on her mug. The theft of Thor's hammer and the humiliation he had undergone in regaining it still left her uneasy. The Thrymskvida, Loki had named it. She still remembered how Thor had blushed when Loki stood suddenly before the crowded hall and insisted on reciting the saga he'd composed about the incident. Like everything that came out of Loki's mouth, the poem was deliberate, well-crafted, and cruel.
He still took every opportunity to revel in Thor's one short-lived moment of shame.
"I couldn't say, Brother," Thor mumbled. "Anyway, 'twas you who picked out the dress I wore."
"It was," Hogan said reflectively. "We were quite bewildered, but you seemed well-informed." Hogan's tone was neutral, but Sif caught the soft smirk playing on his lips.
So did Loki. His silence took on a deadly, coiled feel. Sif was reminded irresistibly of a viper, coating its tongue with venom before striking.
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"I require assistance with these straps," Thor said tightly. Sif kept her gaze fixed on the floor. She did not want to be party to his humiliation any more than she had to be.
"Ask Sif," came Loki's response, from the other side of the room.
Sif clenched her fists.
"Don't be ridiculous, brother," Thor said. "Sif is a warrior. She is no more accustomed to these useless fripperies than Fandral or Hogun."
His quick defense warmed Sif. Though in this case, he was wrong. Sif had learned to lace a dress when she was a young girl and that was not a skill easily forgotten.
She supposed none of the others had seen her in a dress. Having fought so long to weal mail, she avoided womanly attire. But a few dresses still hung neglected in the back of her closet. It had never seemed quite right to throw them away.
"I'm afraid my specialty is more, ah, in the area of unlacing," Fandral called out.
"If none of you is capable of lacing a dress . . ." She heard Loki sigh. A second later, he emerged from behind the curtains. He was wearing a simple green dress that accentuated his natural slimness. He'd used some art to lengthen his hair, which now fell past his shoulders in a graceful sheet that made Sif mildly jealous. Her own hair gave her no end of grief, though she'd resisted every suggestion that she shear it.
Looking every inch a maiden, and yet unmistakeably Loki, he crossed the room and took up his place behind Thor. His nimble hands worked swiftly at the strings.
"You should be a seamstress's assistant," Thor murmured. "Lady Elan could not lace a dress faster."
Thor's brotherly ribbing broke the tension that had been building. Sif and the other laughed.
"Ah!" Thor said a moment later. "Not so tight."
"My apologies," Loki said. He sounded sincere. Then again, he always did.
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Sif sunk her head closer to her mug of mead, hoping that the topic would die a natural death, like a fire starved of air.
"You made a terrible fuss about a – what was it, now? Some kind of brooch?" Fandral said.
"Of course I did," Loki replied, with a smugness that to Sif's ears sounded forced. "All maids wear such a thing. Its absence could have given us away."
"Well, I have dallied with many a maiden and never noticed," Fandral said.
"Nor have I," Hogun added. "What about you, Volstagg?"
Volstagg looked up from his drink, uncomfortable at being asked to speak. Then he shrugged. "I know only one woman well," he said. "My wife. I have never noticed her wearing any such ornament."
Loki's razor stillness shifted to Volstagg and Sif braced herself.
Sure enough – "I was speaking of maidens," Loki said sweetly. "Volstagg, I don't quite know how to say it . . ." he trailed off, the implication clear.
Volstagg's face grew a dark, blotchy red.
That was what Loki did. Ashamed of his own weakness, he resorted to cruel attacks. And no one ever had the words to match him.
Sif felt her frustration growing. Loki had brought this on himself in trying to take advantage of Thor's one moment of weakness, but Thor was a true knight of Asgard – bold, compassionate and fierce. Didn't Loki understand that no dress could unman him?
"What does it matter how Loki wore his dress," she found herself saying. The others quieted at her words. "He's quite the same with one or without one."
Loki's head darted up to look at her, his eyes dark and watchful.
With no little satisfaction, Sif finished speaking. "He does not need a dress, to act a woman."
Her words received the loudest roar yet.
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The night was grown late, when Sif slipped into her bedroom. She felt strangely exhausted by the night's ribaldry.
Loki didn't understand. It wasn't clothing that mattered. Thor could wear a dress every day, and he would still not be a sneak, a liar, and a coward. He would still be a man.
Sif was accepted as a warrior, not because she wore mail, but because she was prepared to back up her words with steel, as a man would, not with pretty words and flashing seiror, the deceptive weapons of a faithless maid.
Acting on some obscure impulse, Sif opened her closet and drew out a dress her grandmother had gifted her upon her hundredth birthday. She laid it out on the bed, smoothing away the wrinkles that creased the fine fabric. In the low candlelight, the dress gleamed a gold that – for an instant – seemed more lovely than the light struck off any sword.