Mirror's To Emotion
By SaintClaire
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Whoever said a person's face is a mirror to their emotions was a liar.
Loki's face gave away exactly nothing that he did not want it to, the careful mask painstakingly arranged with the emotion that suited him. Few things annoyed Sif more. The mortal girl of Thor's, unshaped armour, and dull blades where on par with this particular annoyance, but when she thought about it, she couldn't actually think of anything that did annoy her more.
Yet.
Something was bound to turn to trump it.
Her feelings softened, however slightly, when her blade flew up to meet his neck, as it had so often before in a clash of tempers, and she looked him in his laughing, dancing eyes.
Whoever said a person's eyes were a window to the soul was also a liar. How a single pair of eyes were supposed to reflect every complicated and twisting wisp that made up Loki's soul was a mystery to Sif.
"Betray him, and I'll kill you." The flick of her tongue against her teeth gives away her smile. No trace of a mask is visible, he stares at her with open warmth that Thor and his silly mortal cannot see. She couldn't kill him if even if she wanted to, they both know that. Not a chance. No sooner than she could sink a blade into his side than he would materialize across the other side of the room with smirk.
Thor is her greatest friend, but he is no saint, and had only learned his humility in the last few months. Before that, they had all gone through periods of hating his guts, for his pride, his arrogance, and his utter disrespect to the races he considered beneath him. It would do him no harm to suffer through whatever Loki had planned. Through all the hundreds of years they had all spent together, he had most definitely earned his just desserts from the younger prince.
So many old feelings, buried or just coming out of the ground, still covered in dirt fly between the two. They have never needed words to communicate. Her hair is sweaty and matted in strands, he wears handcuffs around his wrists and reeks with the smell of an infested prison. Where the situation not so pressing, and Thor not present, she would jump him anyway. Lock her legs around his waist and refuse to let him go, like so many times before.
After decades of practice, her face is no mirror to emotion either. She hopes. He doesn't seem to catch this particular notion to fly into his arms, anyway.
A gentle smirk, merged with a smile, flits across his face as he stares at her. Is he remembering what she is? With his soft chuckle, she guesses he is. "It's good to see you too Sif". With his words, she swings the leaf-bladed weapon away, leaving him free to go.
He would go, to help Thor save his mortal pet, and would betray him on the way. After revealing whatever true scheme he had (which no doubt consisted of avenging Frigga) he would return home, in whatever form he deemed entertaining. Probably after tipping Thor and his fledgling headfirst out of the boat and into the sea, but they couldn't expect everything. They probably wouldn't drown before being picked up by some commoner fisherman. As the Warriors Three all knew, Thor was annoyingly hard to kill. Or damage. In any form, even when blind drunk. The mortal weakling less so, but it might do Thor good to have his efforts focused in saving another for once. That was his price to pay for becoming so attached to something breakable, that he would not have given the time of day to in years before.
Loki waits a single moment longer than necessary, still turned towards her before slipping gracefully away after his companions, leaving her standing there. She hardens her thoughts, tenses her body and tries to focus her mind.
She wants to slam his head though the marble floor almost as much as she wants to strike him down against it, climb on top of him, and ravish him senseless. His hair bounces gently as he begins to run the length of the corridor, and she is struck with a desperate desire to embrace him tightly, bury her face in his neck and just stay there with him. Instead she has to watch him run away from her. Again.
When she turns to face the guards streaming towards her, she is concentrating hard. It is time to focus. And yet the memory is there, of a pair of laughing, sparkling eyes, looking at her with such warmth it would be as if no time had passed between them. She smiles viciously as they run to come at her.
She wears no mask, and her eyes gleam bright. Loki runs free, no doubt with some scheme that no-one will see coming, leaving them all in the dust. And yet they will all return alive, if not unblemished and unscathed. Life would be boring if there was no challenge, she knew this when she first trained as a shieldmaiden, when she first looked up to find Loki's eyes trained on hers with a knowing smirk on his face. Her only goal to be focused on the task.
All her senses prepare for the onslaught before her, a shimmering mirage of dark and laughing eyes wavering in front of her the only thing she leaves in place. In her joy, her eyes brighten dangerously to match his, as he sprints down the corridor behind her. She swings her staff to position, shifting her weight to crouch in readiness, a gleaming smile now gracing her face as the smell of metal swords become tangible. Let them make of that what they will.
Because as we all know, whoever said a person's face is a mirror to their emotions is a liar.
Which is lucky for Sif.
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AN – I felt this scene deserved something special. My thanks to those who reviewed my previous fic on Sif and Loki. Consider this a present for you, and to everyone else – reviews are a present for me. Also, my thanks to the person who drew the cover picture, I couldn't work out how to contact you to ask for your permission to use it.