AN: Written for an anonymous prompt on tumblr (my blog is psychoticgirl) requesting loki/sif playing chess in his cell.
"Why do you come?"
It wasn't the first time she'd appeared in his cell. No. She was one of the first from his past to pay him a visit, apparently unable to deny herself the opportunity to express her hatred.
At first she railed at him, throwing accusations and, occasionally, his books at him. And he had railed right back, the sting of her betrayal, the way she had ran so eagerly to Thor's aid, ran away from him, a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
Eventually he had stopped rising to her goading, turning his back to her verbal tirades. Sometime after, she stopped talking as well, spending her short but relentless visits leaning against the clear wall of glass.
"Why do you come?" But she would not give him an answer.
He felt exposed here, the bright white lights allowing him no reprieve, no place to hide. And under her gaze, he felt as though his skin was being peeled back from his bones. She would stand across from him, where he sat with a book or laid upon his hard cot. She would gaze at him with anger, or contempt, or worst of all pity.
So on the day she sat down at his table, pulling the chessboard to the center, he found himself intrigued.
His mother had stocked his small cage with some of his previous belongings, a sad semblance of his former comforts. Unintentionally, the Allmother had almost made his punishment all the more cruel. The things he had treasured so dearly in his past life, his books, his solitude, the silence, had been turned against him. A scholar's delight. A mockery.
The chess board had been particularly absurd, for who was he to challenge and match wits with alone and forgotten in the belly of Asgard?
But she would not leave him alone. Long after the others had abandoned him to his fate, still she came.
Sif reached forward and moved a pawn across the board. White, of course.
She said nothing, only looked at him with her brows raised, waiting. Loki rose, seating himself across from the warrior. He did enjoy a challenge.
For several moments, the only sound was the slow advance of the pieces on the board.
"Why do you come?" He slid a black pawn forward. "Why would you travel all this way to play a game of chess, Lady? Surely your battle strategies would be of better use serving the Realm, which is, if the gossip of my guards is to be trusted, on the brink of war."
"Actually, I would have rather made conversation. But that didn't seem quite your style."
"I have no time for idle chatter."
"But you have time for a game of chess."
"Chess focuses the mind. And you have not answered my question."
"No, I haven't, have I?"
Sif moved her own pieces slowly, carefully surveying the checkered board, silently deliberating, the very image of someone deep in thought, before putting them in place.
Loki made his moves with greater speed, hardly seeming to spare a glance at the board, his eyes trained on the woman seated across from him. He studied his opponent, anticipating how she would counter his moves.
"Why do you come?"
Sif pushed a piece forward. "Your family misses you."
He felt slightly disappointed at her uninspired play. "I have no family."
A white rook was swept from the board.
"Thor still looks to you. Every time he recites some inane joke or tale, he turns to the space you've left, looking for your approval."
Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "How sad for him, to have one less person to indulge his boasting."
"Your mother has not let anyone touch your chambers." Sif sighed. "She has great hope that you will occupy them again one day."
Loki moved a rook forward, setting it upon its square with more force than he intended. "This game begins to pall. If you are going to insist upon tedious drivel, the least you could do is provide stimulating game play."
"A great darkness is gathering upon our doorstep."
"And of what concern is that to me?" he drawled, plucking another white piece from the board.
"Even down here, you will not be exempt from the battle, you must know that. I fear there will soon be no place to hide in all the Branches of Yggdrasil. These foes mean to consume us, and many more dark things are lurking in the shadows. If Asgard burns, you will burn with it."
"What if I am the one to bring the fire? Surely you've heard the tales."
He let himself study Sif's fingers as she moved a pawn across the board. There was blood and dirt caked in a thin line around the beds of her nails, a seemingly permanent stain. The deep red cloth wound around her wrist and palm was fraying, overused. When Loki captured the pawn next, it was still slightly warm from her touch.
"Asgard was your home once. It can be so again, despite your treason."
Loki opened his mouth to speak, to lay her own betrayals bare, but Sif continued.
"Perchance, some memory of loyalty, of affection still lingers, for the ones who raised you. For the ones who loved you. It seems we have strayed from our paths, all of us, in our journey to do right."
He traced the contours of the little black horse before moving it, thoughts briefly lingering on old memories of a long spine under the brush of his fingertips.
"Perhaps this coming war will be our chance to wash ourselves clean, to make amends for our past indiscretions," Sif spoke softly to the captured pawn held in her palm. "A new start after our foe has fallen."
"Ah, a rebirth from the ashes. How poetic." Loki's pace picked up in speed without turning sloppy; simply a touch less thoughtful, focus drifting from the pieces to the person holding them and her words. "And you, what would you have me do? What place does a traitor have among the coming battle?"
"I would have you stand beside me." Sif touched her queen, abandoned it, and moved her bishop instead. "Beside Thor. Stand with us, join in the fight. If death awaits us, would you not it rather come upon a battlefield, with a purpose, rather than waiting for it, trapped in this cage?"
Loki swallowed but did not speak. He did not want to die at all. He did not want her to die either. Though their past affair died the day she turned her back on him, the day he sent the Destroyer after her, he did not wish for her death. For the death of Asgard. Despite himself, he did not want this.
"Check. And, if I may say so, mate in three."
Loki's brows furrowed, the fathomless pits of his eyes scanned the board once, twice, three times. "How could that happen?"
Lulled into oblivious inattention at her seemingly safe, predictable moves, her slow and steady advance coupled with a few bold moves had overwhelmed his clever, but hasty play. Foolish, to think of War as being anything but dangerous.
Sif smiled, gently. "You are so often blind to the obvious truths before you, Loki."
He dropped his eyes, long fingers traced a small crack in the aged wood of the dark table.
"You asked me a question earlier." Her voice was but a whisper.
His throat felt dry and his lids heavy as he met her gaze.
With a slow movement, she reached across the table and placed her hand upon his. He balked, startled by the warmth of her. He could not recall the last time someone had touched him. It felt foreign, yet achingly familiar. He did not pull away.
"Why do you come?"
Twisting her hand, she twined their fingers, I miss you written in the sweep of her thumb.
How obvious is it that I have never played chess before and really know nothing about it? haha