A/N: This is more of a prologue, beginning before the events of Thor and continuing through it. It is Loki/Sif, only because I could see how she would give up the daydreams of Thor eventually and embrace a mature romance. I figured dreams should be the place to start.

Disclaimer: I own nothing here.

Please review. Enjoy!

The long fingers of one hand curled elegantly around the goblet stem, the movement registering from the corner of her eye. He brought it slowly to his lips but did not drink, his gaze, cool and clear, fixed elsewhere than on the woman diagonally across the oaken table. The urge to stare hummed alongside the alcohol in her veins, and she gritted her teeth against its incessant pull. He took a sip, idly swirled the contents of his glass, to all eyes seemingly unaware of the action. His hands were porcelain against the burnished metal.

Hands ghost over the column of her throat. Lips soon follow. A book falls to the floor and –

Her cheeks burned at the sudden image, and she nearly choked on her ale.

"Something trouble you, Lady Sif?" The heavy-set man seated across from her paused in his devouring of a braised lamb shank, questioning eyes peering out from above the russet tangles of his beard. He meanwhile hadn't spared her a glance.

– she is pinned to the desk. A tongue brushes against the delicate flesh, teases the skin beneath her ear. His breath –

The lady warrior shook her head, fingers fisting in the rough material of her trousers. Her nails bit lightly into the skin beneath, but the sensation only served to ground her further in the concrete comfort of the present. A shuddering breath, and an excuse dropped from her lips without a thought. Granted it wasn't a very good one, but it sufficed. "I'm fine, Volstagg. Merely laughed a little too hard is all."

He appeared puzzled for a moment, missing her clear desire to let the matter fade.

"But who was telling the joke?"

Damn. "Thor. Down the table. You must not have heard." She offered up a silent prayer of thanks when another round of boisterous laughter issued from the warriors surrounding the golden-haired god, a few clapping him on the back or raising their goblets in toast. In reality, Sif could only guess what adventure he was regaling them with, though no doubt whatever it was she had probably been present for it. Shrugging, her companion at arms returned to his lamb shank, the matter paling in comparison to the meat yet to be stripped from the bone.

Her eyes fell to her plate, streaked with sauce and uneaten pheasant, trying to ignore the prickling sensation that indicated another's gaze upon her. He was sly about it, she knew, it had taken her years to finally perceive the action – now that she had, however, she often felt it when he thought she wasn't looking. Whether feasting or training, to her mind's eye, it was an almost tangible flutter against her cheek.

– washes coolly over the nape of her neck. Pale hands drift lower to rest against the swell of –

A flush seared her chest in a way it never had before, at least not in regards to the current subject of her admiration. Lust was no stranger to her doorstep, but this was an odd case indeed.

Raising the stein to her lips, the dark brew frothed greedily over her tongue and down her throat. Resolutely pinning her gaze to one of the statues against the far wall, she emptied half the tankard in one long swig, begging it to clear her head as training, running, and various other forms of physical activity had not. Thoughts had risen unbidden all day from the recesses of her mind, plaguing her with the divinely tortuous and confusing images she had experienced in a dream the night before. She had managed to tamp them down for the most part, driving them from her body and mind through hours of training with a blade. When Fandral, dripping with sweat and breathing heavily, had commented on her unusual drive to fight, to move, to remain a step ahead of her thoughts – she had merely shrugged and claimed she trained for Valhalla. It wasn't exactly untrue, of course, and he had accepted it after a moment, but when she took up battle stance once more he had laughed and sheathed his blade. Bereft of a partner, she had run through sword form and footwork exercises, imagining a host of Frost Giants in need of slaying rather than the images threatening to break free.

If ale wouldn't clear her head in the end, which was probably the case now that she thought about it, she simply prayed it flushed the dreams in question from her mind as it had in the past. A warrior was no stranger to disturbing nightmares, often waking with the fading stench of smoke and death in one's nose, but the dreams she had encountered the previous evening troubled for a very different reason. Perhaps most importantly, they refused to retreat.

Deep in reverie, she had missed the figure climbing deftly onto the bench beside her. Fingers soon snapped inches before her eyes, however, ripping her from her thoughts. A familiar charming grin met her gaze, blond coif styled with painstaking care in a way he believed attracted the most attention from those of the female persuasion. It did make him look rather handsome, she had to grudgingly admit, but she refused to stoke his ego by doing so aloud.

"Yes, Fandral?"

She turned to her companion with a composure she did not feel, wiping the sheen of ale from her lips. The tankard was deposited back on the table with a dull thud, and she was almost disappointed to observe Loki in conversation with a neighbor. "A simple hello has been known to work just as well."

His ever-present grin widened, and he reached knife in hand for the pheasant arranged before him. A tantalizing aroma wafted from the dish, steam curling delicately into the air from where he partitioned off a slice. Normally it would have whetted her appetite, but she didn't seem to have much of one that night, at least not one for food. "I see the feast has not improved your mood much, good Lady. Still sore from all the excitement we had today?"

Rolling her eyes at the innuendo embedded in the remark, she grunted in reply and drained the last of her ale. The Dashing One chuckled at his own cleverness, before falling into eager conversation with Volstagg about some pretty young maid the two had spied earlier in one of the gardens. Gorgeous, golden-haired, with the blush of a rose upon her cheeks – she had heard a similar description from them about another woman a few days prior, and in quite colorful terms no less. Unable to contribute much to that sort of talk and not for the first time bemoaning the fact that all her friends were men, she listened without real interest and reached to refill the tankard gone suddenly far too dry.

The flagon's handle was barely within her grasp before another's hand closed lightly over her own.

"Allow me."

His words, and the images they evoked – flushed scorching writhing – sent gooseflesh rippling down her spine. The cool barely-there pressure of Loki's fingertips on her skin was maddening, perhaps only because she could remember feeling it decidedly somewhere else the night before. Stifling such errant thoughts, she held her voice steady.

"This really isn't necessary –"

"Nonsense." In what she fervently denied was a gentle manner, he plucked her fingers from the handle. "It's only polite."

He reached for her tankard and began to pour, his unruffled expression as blank and carefully guarded as always. The golden luminescence filling the ornate hall had bronzed the visages of her friends, and in a way, it served to lesson some of his pallor. She traced the high cheekbones and proud curve to his jaw, jutting above the high-collared jerkin he wore as a poor barrier against the world. In the span of a few moments, Sif found herself cataloging a profusion of details with the meticulousness she reserved for battle milieu. The fact that she was analyzing him surprised even herself, since Sif couldn't say the last time she had bothered to appraise him as anything other than a friend. Appraising him as a woman appraises a man was almost an alien concept, one that thrilled as much as it made her question. With Thor, yes, it happened more than she would like, even Fandral, enough to convince her to invite him to her bed on more than one occasion.

But him?

She could not recall when his touch had ever affected her so. He encouraged physical contact so sparingly, yet she was not blind to the fact that what little he gave was usually with her for one reason or another. Yet on her part this new-found interest in her friend was almost certainly the last throes of the dream, a perverse fascination inspired by a curious mind.

Or, perhaps, a trick.

Swallowing thickly, she scanned his features for any indication that the notion was legitimate, but attempting to glean anything from his visage was useless. To her knowledge, the bewitchment of dreams was not mischief he had yet wrought, but it didn't seem out of the realm of possibility. And, to be quite frank, it wasn't a possibility she felt comfortable considering, at least not with the man himself seated across from her. He may very well have lacked the ability to read a fellow Asgardian's mind, but she never left that sort of thing to chance.

Either way, the explanation was simple really. Surely.

Smiling, she concealed her previous thoughts with the gracelessness of one unused to doing so, and accepted her full glass. "Battle is simple in comparison. Thank you, Loki."

For a moment, Sif could almost see the twitch of a burgeoning grin upon his thin lips. He opened his mouth as if to reply, but the presence of a firm hand on his shoulder promptly stilled his tongue. The councilman could not perceive it from his vantage point, of course, but Sif did not miss the momentary flash of annoyance in the younger prince's eyes. It was gone before she could blink.

"Pardon me, Lady Sif, I do not mean to interrupt." The bearded councilman, a man by the name of Anundr if memory served correctly, trained his hazel eyes upon her. Given that her father was one of his colleagues, she should probably have been more certain.

"By all means, please." Her reply was laced with amusement, and the slight narrowing of Loki's gaze did not escape her notice. Whether that was at her half-jesting desire to be rid of him or the fact that the councilman had sunk onto the bench beside him, she supposed she would never know. By virtue of his younger status, Loki was not often called upon to make political decisions, but it wasn't uncommon for his advice to be sought on a scientific matter. The bit that she caught of their conversation seemed to be something along those lines, and no doubt Loki could have cared less.

Turning once more to two thirds of the Warriors Three, her relief that they had moved on in conversation topic was palpable. Of course, now the issue at hand was a discussion of longbows, a weapon in which she had adequate training but little interest when compared to the others. Nevertheless, she partook merely for the debate and the welcome distraction it offered from her thoughts.

There were no spells that could bewitch dreams, were there? As she made conversation with Volstagg between mouthfuls of fowl and surreptitiously stole a glance or two at the even-tempered man sitting to his right, Sif honestly couldn't say. No doubt it would be rather amusing to see her squirm, but he had never performed anything but harmless pranks on her before; pranks that had neither involved a loss of mental privacy, nor haunted her thoughts for hours after.

She wasn't sure what troubled her more – the fact that he was perhaps bewitching her dreams, or that maybe, he didn't need to.

So which is it? I plan to explore Loki, and Sif especially, in depth, and very realistically. As I said, this was more or less a prologue. Please review!