for want of nothing
Summary - He wants (and wants and wants) and cannot see that he already has
Pairing - Sif/Loki
Rating - T (at most)
They lay in honeyed sunlight, hidden in a copse of trees in Idunn's orchard, his fingertips stuttering along the golden glow upon her toned thigh. She hums, a little contented noise echoing in her throat (so out of character) before shifting to straddle him (far more in character).
The beat of war-drums have dulled in her veins, but they will return (always return) and her time here in this place is limited by the temporary restfulness of her pulse.
"This is lovely," she says.
This won't last, he thinks she means.
"I know," he tells her (and he does).
He doesn't go with to Niflheim. It's barren and cold and something in his bones has always ached with an uneasy sense of familiarity amongst the tundra. He goes to Alfheim instead, a familiar stranger in their court and in their libraries.
He finds trouble here (finds it everywhere) or maybe it finds him. The magic of Niflheim might always have agreed with him, but the order of it does not. The tidiness of things, the predictability of them, he cannot abide (in this they are alike; war follows no blueprints).
She's been back in Asgard for two summers before he sees her again, a blink of an eye to their kind. She socks him in the jaw the moment she sees him, laying him out flat upon the grass of his mother's gardens, bloodied but smiling.
He can smell the wildness building in her blood again already, hear the rage of adrenaline and glory thrumming through her body like a living thing. She is war embodied and he ought know better than to poke her (than to love her), but he is mischief and he cannot help himself.
War follows on Thunder's heels, a realization of the promises made by the fury and cruelty of nature. They are one and the same, an unending tumult of power and strife. They are glorious to behold, acting in concert.
Whispers follow them (have always followed them) that they are a match well made, that it is written in the stars.
They know better.
(He does not).
There are times when he follows, a trickster in her wake, skirting on the edges of her light. He cannot help it, for she is a thing of beauty always, but especially so in her element. She spins and slashes and guts with a war-cry on her lips and it's intoxicating. He is a creature of shadows and slight-of-hand, the child of possibility and chaos, but she is magnificent in her violent fury and even anarchy itself is not immune to the enthrallment of war.
One such time, she comes to him after the battle in the solitude of his tent, the stench of death still on her but the gore wiped clean. She presses her mouth to his like she's still doing battle, her teeth tugging at his lips like she's trying to draw his secrets from him (which is ridiculous because, whatever she might think, she already has them).
They tell no one, because what is there to tell? They've no promises made between them, no devotions whispered in the dark (not aloud at any rate) and who would believe him anyhow?
(There are days he scarcely believes himself)
The whispers of Yggdrasil tease the winds of Asgard's gardens, an impish thing always hinted at on the breeze, but never heard with clarity. It is a trick better played than any he's done, but perhaps Yggdrasil alone is allowed this.
"Tell me one of your stories," she says, her pulse calmed, sated by hard earned victory and blood spilled that was rarely her own.
"And what tale would you prefer I tell, my lady?" He asked.
"I don't know. Something outlandish," she demands.
He turns his head to the side, watching her as he listens for age-old wisdom rustling through the branches, but hears none.
"There once was a lady. An unbeatable warrior-maiden fiercer than anyone the realms had ever seen," he begins. "And in her time between battles, when blood had been spilt and honor defended, she loved not the heir as everyone assumed, her comrade-in-arms, but the second son, the darker prince. She loved, too, more fiercely than anyone the realms had ever seen. She loved him in secret, until the thrill of battle beat throughout her veins so fiercely that she could not deny its call. But she would always return and he would always welcome her, for he could not imagine doing otherwise."
"Pfft," she replies with a roll of her eyes. "And they call you Liesmith. I asked for something outlandish."
(But it is, he thinks, for she cannot really feel thusly)
The scream does not sound like her. Her scream is the cry of battle eternal, of imminent glory and judgement of the gods. Hers has never been a cry of pain, an almost mortal wail. Her body is too strong for that; war is not left broken and bleeding on the battlefield for it is always triumphant.
And yet…
"You do not want to go in there, brother."
A weighty hand on his shoulder tries to still him as heavy words do the same. But there is heat in his veins, a too-fast thrum of panic and terror that he's only known before on the face of a battlefield, and he cannot calm the tattoo of his heart.
It's funny, as that seems a simple trick to perform.
He tries to pass, could slip his brother's hand if truly he tried, play with shadows and reflections and pale imitations until the older prince knew not where to look and who to stop. But the torrent in his blood has his thoughts muddled and his magic dances tantalizingly just out of his reach.
"She will live, they say."
But only just, goes unsaid. It matters not for the truth of it thunders in his brother's eyes, a storm of concern gathering in the pale blue.
"Give the healers their time to mend her. Our might and tricks are useless in the aid of such an injury. I know you love her well, brother. As we all do. But we can be of no assistance to her in this."
You know nothing, he wants to scream back, but that's too honest for his comfort. So he holds his secrets in white-knuckled fists and sets his jaw so tight that his lips might as well be sewn shut.
She mends in time, as promised, her wounds fading to a long, silvery scar that she bears with pride. He cannot look upon it without terror boiling his blood as it did that day, so he takes it as fuel and kisses her harder, winds his fingers in her dark tresses more tightly and he tells himself it doesn't stink of desperation.
She doesn't seem to mind.
He will forever remember this time as holding a sense of inevitability, like heavy clouds rolling across a pale blue sky with rain yet unfallen scenting the air. And still, he grips to it tightly as long as he can, until the skies break and the deluge pours.
It is early morn when she dons her armor again, a hint of her silvery scar visible. He cannot help but stare at it in the dawn's light, a violent reminder that while they may be immortal, they are not invincible. Not even her.
He cannot abide it.
"You would follow him anywhere," he says. "You would follow him to Valhalla."
It sounds like an accusation because it is.
"I am a warrior and he is my prince," she says, confusion written upon her lovely face.
"Yes…" he drawls. "That much is quite clear."
And what am I, he thinks but does not say because honesty has always sat sourly on his tongue.
Anger edges into her features as his words roll past his lips, bitter and petulant as they are.
"You cannot possibly-"
"Oh, can't I?" He interrupts with words he has always quietly believed. "You trail after him like a shadow, realm after realm, for centuries. You, Asgard's favorite daughter, forever at his side, fighting for his favor."
"I fight for myself! For Asgard and glory and - yes - for the crown, but not for him. I am war, Loki. This jealousy is misplaced. It doesn't befit you."
"And lies suit you not."
"Coward," she spits like the foulest of curses (and to her it likely is). "You coward."
She is not wrong, but he says nothing in reply and the silence loudly echoes the nothingness of their future.
"This is how you would end it, then?" She asks and he tells himself he sees only battle in her eyes and nothing more. "All this time and you would break us with false accusations and ill-formed lies. For what? For unearned jealousy and childish fear? What is it that you're so afraid of? That I'm secretly in love with Thor or that you're secretly in love with me?"
"You presume too much. There was never anything to break in the first place," he tells her coolly, because it's the only part of what she's said that he dares address.
"Liar," she accuses knowingly, voice low and dark and full of more than he chooses to hear.
But for the first time in memory she walks away from a fight instead of running towards it, leaving him alone with his shadows and secrets.
(It is not his fault, he thinks. She was never meant for him. Nothing is meant for him. She is Thor's, like everything else.)
The greatest lies he's ever told are the ones he thinks to be the truth.