The spring was her favored place to reflect on the teachings she received, whether that day's effort was physical training or her practical lessons on laws and the times of old. The court's high respect for her family had earned her a relationship with the same schoolmistress who had instructed Thor and Loki in areas too cumbersome for Frigga's schedule of duties. The tutor was happy she had taken a sudden interest in symbology, as the royal sons had completed those courses long ago and it was a subject she wrote upon with flourish, but Sif had felt fairly inept at knowing she was taking up what had only been a child's recitation for Thor.
She paid less attention to the woman's casual references to Loki's quick progress. There seemed to be no competing with him; even when Sif had still been a child without any battle training she had been aware of how Loki would polish off his lessons in a hurry only to move onto whatever private application perfected the first of his tricks he didn't seem to have learned from his mother. Perhaps the knowledge too had somehow been attained through tricks. She had gathered long ago that it was taboo to ask what he could and could not do, or at least it was not her place to expect answers where Thor got none.
The spring murmured serenely, and just as she was shaking away her thoughts to stretch out in a couple limber motions, she saw someone had approached her and looked up in surprise to see Thor.
"...Well, I hope you're half as soft-footed when you try to be," she remarked.
"Of course," he boasted. "I do hunt."
"Never with me," she pointed out.
There was a look of consideration that almost looked strange on him, then a crack of small smile. "I'd never assume you to be one for the team hunt."
She returned the smile a little mysteriously. "That is true."
"How are your studies?" he asked, approaching the water. From him, she knew, that question was small politeness; she could converse about her progress in languages and he'd have no memory of it later for all his interest in the subjects. He could have been engaged if she were translating the old war stories, but it was only conjugations today. As such, he didn't seem to notice she didn't give an answer as he took a stone from his pocket and skipped it along the water's ripples, just as she'd taught him to do several seasons back.
"Are you only here to throw stones?" she teased.
They took a walk around the curved progress of the water. She allowed him to brag about how he was faring in falconry, only giving him the compliment he was looking for in the form of a dismissal, saying that he would find something else to give his fickle time to once he was satisfied he'd mastered the basics, even if that mastering would be fast. He didn't need the approval but his eyes gleamed under it, and she noticed something different in his pride, the way it was obscured clumsily in gallantry. He was becoming a man, and her tenderness towards him was becoming more frustrated. It was a little unnerving, and pleasantly so.
"Sif," he said thoughtfully, and the question seemed to have just occurred to him. "Why have you never competed for the Valkyriad? You would win a place, I'm sure of it, and you're the right age…"
She was laughing. "That playacting show? I have better things to do than—"
"No, the dedication play is only part of the final ritual." He seemed surprised by her ignorance, and was more verbose in his astonishment. "Sif...Karta's Valkyriad is a tribute paid to the greatest of fallen warrior women, and only the strongest compete, why, they...they must learn in competence to tame and mount the pegasus—that's the first test, because they can't get to the palace without coming astride the one that's sent for them—and they must prove their feats before the librarian judges, and survive the trial quest in the harsh highlands of Nevire—but you could do it. I know you could even beat some of the women with the advantage of years…"
Not wanting to quickly admit she was honored or intrigued, she smirked. "Sounds like your type of sport, for sure."
"Oh, I would love to pursue it."
"I'll lend you a gown then." She couldn't help cynically adding, "We'd both fit in right along with Karta's women, with our flaxen heads."
Thor pouted in confusion. "That's not required. The Valkyrie often had darker coloring."
Sweetened, her smile bloomed, a little sad. "You know, sometimes you're as innocent as a pup."
His look was puzzled, but he fell silent. After another moment of walking, she couldn't withstand his frowning.
She gave the lightest touch to his forearm. "I'll think on it."
"Will you?" His face lit up faster than a comet's glide. "Oh, I would be very proud to have such an esteemed competitor among my guard."
"You mean among your men?" she said, casting him an oblique look. They both knew that guarding the gateways at court was hardly her life's aspiration.
Awkwardly, Thor said, "If you did well...it would go far in proving your worthiness against some doubts…"
"My friend, I can prove my place in battle at your side at the first opportunity."
"And if this is the first opportunity?"
"I told you I will think about it." She heard the bluntness in her voice a little too late.
"...Have I spoken wrong?"
"Of course not. I am honored to be advised by you."
He made a motion which halted them both, drew them in to face each other. "I would rather be your compatriot than your prince."
Happy again, she laughed. "Isn't it always your inclinations that are so winning?"
Faced with his confused look again, she gave a respectful bow of her head. "Good day, Thor," she said, before turning to walk the long way around on her own.
Several ages later she remembered this, sitting as a woman at the same patch where she used to take her studies. She was letting her hair down one shoulder, and it ran a shining black now between the fingers she used to comb it out. Her motions were agitated. This was a bad day, when he found her.
The crack of twigs underfoot brought her glance around to meet the sight of Thor, still dressed in his armor. She took a little notice of his expression before looking back over the water, its surface catching the embering light of the moon in early evening. "It might be unwise for me to speak with you now."
There was a silence, brief, and she heard him say, "You fought well. Father should have honored you in his retelling. Still, I think leaving the feast early does little to—"
"You're the one who has no place to leave before the formalities are done," she interrupted, going over to him now where he stood by the slightly curved trunk of the old tree. "If I am not honored, I can't assume I am missed. Your concern here is childish, if it's concern at all and not your petulant boredom with the speeches."
Just as she knew she'd spoken out of turn, that regret was interrupted with small shock, as his hand caught her forearm.
There was more than enough light still for her to meet his vibrant eyes, speechless.
"My concern for a woman such as you is never misplaced." His emphasis was heated with feeling: "No, you are no helpless companion, but you are my companion."
"Thor," she said, the word smaller than intended. His hand was straying down to close around hers. "You've been in your cups."
This softness to his voice was strange. "You doubt my intention."
Her eyes were fixed on their joined hands for a long frozen moment. Finally she looked deliberately into his eyes, voice stronger now. "Yes," she said. "I do."
Their glances were locked tensely together, a breeze shifting across the water and then dying before the slyness slowly ebbed into Thor's features. A laugh came into his eyes, and she shook off his touch as if stung.
"You're pathetic, Loki," she spat, shaking in humiliated anger.
Dissolving out of his illusion and into a satisfied smirk, he began snickering almost too hard to say, "I'm pathetic? I kneaded you like soft dough. I only had to—"
"—parade your envy rather than enjoy some contentment with your family for one evening?"
"Oh, I would think envy is a perfectly good bedfellow while my brother shows so much interest in that dark maiden serving the wine. Or am I to believe you hadn't noticed?—"
"Enough!" she demanded.
But he was already trying to make his sniggering exit when suddenly, not seeming to yet know herself just what she was doing, she pulled him bluntly into her grasp and pressed him hard under her forearm against the tree. He would feel now how she was trembling with rage, and while his smile did not completely fade, there was a shade of uncertainty that she snatched for with relish, glaring into him from a finger's width between their faces.
"You began this game," she snarled. "Finish it."
After only brief confusion, he understood her meaning with so much alarm he almost forgot his wit, but then laughed. "Surely you don't—"
"Surely I do."
She pulled back a few steps, him following forward a little way in an imbalanced little trip as he was freed from her clawing. She began to let her hair down and heard his small tight gasp as she did so, as she let out the catches of her plackart and with its tossing to the grass, her tunic fell loose and light on her body. She felt him looking and grinned cruelly, even though the cruelty was also his, almost entirely his, she knew, because of the apparent weight of the temptation he had dangled in front of her. But that she would keep in mind.
"If you would have and relish my humiliation..." She circled her pacing around him as she further loosened the ties and let her tunic drop to the ground, leaving only her sweat slip underneath, and there was a deep satisfaction she felt to begin this facing Loki's eyes but then come around to be looking into Thor's as she finished her walk around him. "So be it. But know that some day, Loki, whether you are able to foresee it or not...I will have yours in return, and you will not refuse it."
He did not sneer at her threatening promise. He only made every detail of himself as effective a disguise as possible.
It was just as well. When she gave herself to this counterfeit of Thor's passion, she knew it would only be worth the brunt to herself if she surrendered completely. So she forgot, only for the sweetness of the moment, that there was anyone here but herself and Thor. She pulled off his clothes ceremoniously, and when impatient not so carefully; she pressed her hands and her lips to his chest and his hips and his cock. She palmed golden threads of hair between her fingers and moaned as he entered her; her eyes flickered at the softness and the hardness of him, his warrior's muscles pulling tight with the rhythmic cresting of her own. When he whispered, "My lady," and whispered it again in a cracked groan, when he made his purchase, when hers was given in long deliberate thrusts that caressed deep inside of her. And when it was done, when she was barely recovering her mind out of the blow of the pleasure, he wasted so little time in beginning to make mocking scoffs with his own voice again that all she could do was roll away, pull her garment back up around her, and use her free grasp to collect her ceremonial armor.
He didn't even have to replace his clothes. After all, he hadn't been naked. He hadn't really been there, she told herself.
He'd been as much in her bed as he was ever anywhere at all, which was his constant riddle he held against the world, one she'd learned early never ever to underestimate.
.
.
.
.
This began something. It happened a number of times, edging into what could define an affair. The occasions weren't beyond count, but she hardly bothered to count them.
The idea that Loki could have ever become her one source of fulfillment was laughable; there were other men who would tumble her out of her garments out behind the village stables time and again. And yet this sordid arrangement was continuing long enough to become not just a private embarrassment but a guarded secret. There were reasons more mundane for her going to him, but if she was honest, the real underbelly of every inclination she had to take from him again was some sense of bitter deprivation, of a lack of satisfaction propped somewhere between idle restlessness and something more lonely. He was far too tempting a toy, and it was far too dangerous to play with frauds when one's emotions were on the table; and still.
It was a relief that Thor never noticed anything, but then, there had always been pretenses to her treatment of the brothers. In the company of both they were all friends from the battlefield, competitive and playful except for where her humble respect for the family was appropriate. But in Thor's absence she and Loki had long had an understanding that she wasn't always taken in by him; she never spoke bluntly of his resentment of his brother but she glared upon it obviously enough, and Loki wasn't a fool.
Only fool enough to think this game was only for his laughter, or her pleasure, as far as that could go.
At the feast welcoming a foreign nobleman and his wife on the occasion of their newborn heir, the wine seemed to be having a most unusual effect on her mood. It wasn't too strange for her to find herself in that kind of feisty when she'd had so much to drink, but when the very sight of Thor having made the rare choice of opting for more courtly dress—exposed shoulders and collarbone above loose robes—made her have an aggressive impulse to seize him on the spot, she had to dismiss herself from the long table to try to pace off the thought.
The loud roar of cheerful singing close by didn't reverberate in her senses quite like the loose longing sweat that was peeling along her skin; she felt like a spot of ink smudged by the massive thumb of one thought only. It was utterly powerless. She cursed in irritation, not sure if she should go to Frigga, not sure if that would be too humiliating—if this were some madness that made her feel if she didn't have indulgence with some naked body, now, immediately...
Loki was whispering something into Thor's ear as he grinned back into the dining hall where she finally stumbled to find them out at the balconies, not even sure why she'd come out there, and she had a moment of horrific certainty that they had been watching and laughing at her. But then they only then noticed her.
"Lady Sif," Thor announced happily, and she almost stepped back warily when he came quickly forward and clapped his hands at her shoulders. She clenched her teeth together, fearing that to move at all would mean to take his mouth against hers; what was wrong with her? But then he said with laughter, "I'm afraid Loki has had a jest on the heads of our guests."
He walked off, and Sif barely had presence of mind enough to give a questioning look at Loki; he had already turned in boredom to look out onto the heavily starred atmosphere, slinging his goblet up for a rich gulp. But apparently sensing her glance, he lazily assured, "Only a harmless trick. I placed a draught in the cups of the king and his wife that makes for a more insatiable appetite than the food can nourish. It has been amusing watching them squirm for a graceful exit to their guest chambers. I suppose Thor's about to politely express some concern for his very tired-looking guests and show them to their..."
She was occupied with the dawning realization when he finally glanced over and furrowed his brow.
Seeing the sheen of sweat and her shaky posture, he asked with at least not quite as much disinterest as had been in his voice a moment ago, "Are you ill?"
"When I greeted her, I asked..." She was becoming almost out of breath now. Even Loki looked unbearably desirable at the moment, so she looked away, just barely able to feel any anger underneath the surge of everything else. "How she liked the wine. She whispered to me that she never cared much for drink but didn't want to seem ungracious, and mine was half gone so I offered that we might trade goblets..."
His laughter was as delighted as she had ever seen him, the barely seen mirth that came from something that actually wasn't of his design, and something stirred weirdly at her desire to see that grin. Then he said, "At least I know how well it works; I had wondered why it didn't affect the bride so apparently," earning a groan of anguished fury from her.
He was starting to move past her and she gritted her teeth again, blocking him back against the balcony with a push. "Don't you dare tell Thor! Loki, you must cure it."
"There is no cure," Loki managed through his smirk, and he seemed in the mood for simple enough games that she figured that had to be the truth. His body was trembling with flattened laughter against hers, and the length and subtler strength of him had never been so appetizing before; he might shake so underneath her with a different sort of gasp, he might let her hold him down and—
His eyes met hers with a condescending sort of curiosity as if to ask just where her mind was going, and she shook him hard.
"There isn't one, not in the way you mean," he continued. "It only needs to be...ah, sated, and the discomfort will only grow the more you let it go untended."
"And you would have told Thor?!" she asked, twice horrified now, and Loki blinked in belated understanding. Thor would have turned scarlet and felt he had to offer some way to assist, to help her find some available body or perhaps even—the damnable good man—offer his own charity. Thankfully, this possibility failed to amuse Loki nearly as much as her predicament.
He simply said, "The bard's nephew is comely, is he not? I noticed him glancing your way during the feast."
She grunted from her pit of frustration, pulling away from him.
In less than an hour's time, pride had defeated her. She would have rather suffered this madness than try to make a conquest with a near-stranger, or even worse a friend, while she was behaving like some panting animal, and she'd soon become completely unable to show her face among the crowds. Surely some release should have come from her own hand, but the thought of it did not burn with nearly the same impulse; it wasn't the demand of the potion. Sif needed another heartbeat joined against her own. It was beyond want.
When she found Loki in the long hall leading to the royal chambers, he halted at the sight of her. She didn't want to imagine how she appeared, brightly flushed and so inelegantly wanton. She could barely care.
"Perhaps it would be best to tell Thor," Loki said in a flat, pestered way, but there was something else she heard there. Unease.
She did not answer. She did not say anything. With not even enough of a glance to be sure they were alone, she pulled him into one of the tall hollows where the statues were nested into the wall.
He slipped into Thor's body as fluidly as the shadows overtook them, and when she palmed him and found him already hard, her gasp hissed through her teeth. She set her body up between the edge of the sculpted dais and the hollow's wall, shirking only the obstructing clothes and grappling her thighs around him in an almost fluid movement. She heard the swift whisper of cloth being untied and then the strong grasp at her hips and he was quickly, rudely within her. She cried out into her own wrist, biting down on it, and his arm kept her propped where she wouldn't fall back against the stone as his hips took to fucking her in sweet, rough suddenness. This time she moaned Thor's name outright, as if she was unable to hold it in, her mind coming lucid enough to be distantly pleased to know he would hate that even if he pretended his only enjoyment of this was mockery.
Loki didn't laugh at her openly this time when they were finished, but she knew, somewhere in his twisted thoughts, he was laughing at her every single time. And he knew how she rankled in this knowledge, that he was somehow not placed in the act but somewhere outside of it, sneering at her from the corner as she lost herself in feeling.
In the cold movements of their retreating back to solitude, she felt more sharply his power over the situation, and her own uncertainty.
Where was he, really, when he was with her?
She did not need to know.