Three – Sif, Wife Of Loki
…The next thing she knew, Loki's flat hand hit her face, hard.
"What have you done you stupid whore?!"
For a moment, Sif simply stayed where she was, until the pain in her cheek truly registered.
Then she jumped to her feet and hit the burnt half of his face with all her strength, gratified when she heard the sound of a joint unhinging.
"How dare you! I saved your life you ungrateful cur!"
The dislocated jaw didn't silence the younger prince for very long, because magic took quick care of such things.
"You ruined my life you daft fool!" Seidr was crackling around Loki's fingertips, and his eyes were filled with rage. "Be grateful that our lives are bound, or I would kill you where you stand!"
Sif had her sword in her hand before her mind had even processed just what madness he was screaming at her. It didn't matter anyway. No one called her a whore and a fool and got away without injury. Loki was a prince of her home realm, and that was the only reason why she would let him live. (Well, that and the fact that she would hardly undo all her hard work in saving said life just to avenge her honour.) That didn't mean that he wouldn't lose a limb.
They advanced on each other, both uncaring about the other people in the Observatory. Sif struck first, slashing at Loki's arm in a bid to draw his attention, while using her left hand to try and stab his leg with a dagger.
'Try' being the pertinent word, because he caught her wrist and – in a feat of physical strength that honestly surprised her – used his hold to unbalance her, swiping his knees out from under her and throwing her to the gilded floor.
The moment she touched the ground she tried to twist out of his hold, while he did his best to stab her, a knife appearing in his hand out of nowhere.
"ENOUGH!"
Sif and Loki both froze.
When Sif – slowly, ever so slowly – turned her head, she saw Odin dismounting Sleipnir, Gungnir in hand.
"Cease this unworthy fighting, both of you."
Sif immediately let go of her sword, even if it went against her warrior's instinct. Loki was much slower to obey, only letting go of her when Odin took a warning step towards them.
"Loki, apologise for whatever atrocious thing you have said. Lady Sif, I would ask that you graciously overlook my son's transgression, for we have much more important things to worry about at this moment."
Sif got up from the floor, ignoring Thor offering her a hand, and bowed to Odin. Loki glared at his father in undisguised wrath.
"Do you have any idea what she has done?! Be grateful that I only called her a whore, for she deserves much worse!"
"Enough, Loki! We will address her actions in due time, in private. But whether she has wronged you or not, I will not tolerate this disrespect. Now apologise."
Loki crossed his arms over his chest, looking for all the world like a stubborn child, if slightly more angry.
"No."
Odin's expression promised dire consequences, but he didn't press the matter. Sif felt worry fill her chest like cold ice. If the Allfather was ready to let this disobedience stand, something had to be very, very wrong.
"Very well. We will talk about that later. Now, Lady Sif, I would have words with you and my son." The king held up a hand when Thor opened his mouth as if to protest. "Thor, keep out of this. You have done quite enough damage in getting you and your brother discovered."
Thor looked like he had received a blow to the head, completely stunned and clearly not used to his father scolding him. But when Odin ordered him to bring the injured to the healing rooms, Thor obeyed without making a fuss.
Soon Sif, Loki, the Allfather and Heimdall were the only people in the Observatory. Odin looked at the Gatekeeper.
"Heimdall, my wife's chambers. I think it would be wise to have her advice in this matter."
Heimdall nodded at the king, laying his hands on his sword, still stuck in the Bifröst lock.
Her brother caught Sif's eye for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then the light of the Bifröst whisked them away.
Sif hadn't known that the Bifröst could be used to travel such short distances. She was still reeling from so many things that she didn't understand happening in such a short amount of time when they appeared in the queen's stateroom.
Frigga looked unsurprised by their sudden arrival, quickly dismissing her handmaidens. Sif bowed hastily.
"Husband."
Odin nodded at Frigga.
"My wife, it seems that our son and the Lady Sif have gotten themselves into quite the situation."
He sounded weary, and Sif felt as if he ice in her chest had spread through her whole body to freeze her solid. She had never, not once in her life, heard the Allfather sound weary.
Frigga looked at Sif with compassion in her gaze.
"My dear, why don't you sit down?"
Still feeling like she was drowning in confusion, Sif sat. So did Loki, after Odin bodily pushed him into a chair. Frigga turned towards her son, giving him a stern look.
"Now, Loki, why don't you explain to Sif what she has done that has you so enraged."
If looks could kill, Sif would have dropped dead from the venom in Loki's.
"She trapped us in this…this…parody of a marriage!"
Sif looked at Loki, trying to gauge if he was lying. Surely he could not mean what he'd just said.
Loki looked…well, angry. But there was something else there, in the angry line of his mouth and the unhappy slant of his brows. Something almost like…defeat. Sif swallowed.
"I…don't…trapped? But…surely it would be possible to, to dissolve the marriage. Even if Sinmara did a handfasting, that can be...unmade, broken. I am certain, I've seen it done!"
She was vaguely aware that her voice had become shrill and panicked by the end, but the fear and utter confusion she felt wouldn't let her pay it any mind, even in front of her King and Queen.
Surely she couldn't be married to Loki. Surely she couldn't be married at all!
Sif had always known, from the moment she had first picked up a sword, that she could be a Shieldmaiden or a wife, but never both. It was why she had never let any man's courting of her get very far, for she had always known that she would spend her life unwed.
Contrary to what most of Asgard thought, there had been Asgardian warrior women before her. Women like Astrid, Lady of Swords and Gudrun the Brave had been her role models as a child, and she had devoured all stories about them and was still able to recite most of them by heart.
But what all of these women had in common was not their skill with weapons, or that they were warriors. No, it was that the moment one of them had decided to wed a man, their days of fighting had been over. The moment they took a husband, they had been forced to lay down their weapons and forsake their warrior ways.
If she was married, all that she had fought and struggled for in her life would have been for nothing, all her training and her perseverance in vain.
No. This was not happening.
Loki's voice was cold and scathing when he replied.
"Ah, Asgardian handfastings are easily dissolved, that is true. But what binds us, my dear Sif, is a marriage by the laws ad traditions of the Fire Giants."
He leaned towards her, as if confiding a secret, but there was something wrathful and ugly in his expression.
"Now, you see, the fire ettin are quite matriarchal people, the blame for the…failure of a marriage is always lain solely on the husbands shoulders."
He leaned back, his expression smoothing out into something almost…gentle, a false mask of calmness, almost like he was indulging her by explaining.
"Do you want to know how fire ettin end a marriage? Should I tell you?"
Feeling strangely numb, Sif nodded. Loki's smile was as fake as the cheap paper flowers travelling merchants sold in front of the whore-houses in the Red Quarter.
"Why, it's quite simple. If an ettin woman wants to get rid of her husband, she does. By killing him."
Sif was grateful that she was sitting down, for surely she would have fallen over otherwise. She felt like someone had turned the world upside down.
"And wouldn't that be a shame, for you did marry me to save my life did you not? Oh, if only you and your ilk could be bothered to touch a book once in a while, then we would not be in this mess!"
The last part he spat at her, the false calmness cracking and his anger returning full force. But it didn't touch her, for she had gone completely numb. Sif saw nothing but the blackness at the edges of her vision and heard nothing beyond the rush of blood in her ears.
She was married. She was married to Loki. Married to a trickster, a lying sorcerer and the younger Prince of Asgard. She would never be a Shieldmaiden again, never again ride into battle. Sif would be nothing but the wife of Loki for the rest of her life.
She hadn't known that it was possible to feel numb and like you were about to be sick at the same time, but that was exactly what she was feeling.
She startled when Frigga touched her arm. She hadn't even noticed that the Queen had taken a seat beside her.
"You see now, my dear, why my husband cannot simply unbind you and Loki."
Behind Frigga, standing next to a his still furious son, Odin shook his head.
"I could not have done so even if the handfasting was an Asgardian one. If Loki was no longer married, he would once again fall under Muspelheim's laws. Sinmara would end his life, and could well declare war also." He sighed heavily. "The best we can do is to make this marriage look like a political match. Sif is half-Vanir after all, and even if our alliance with Vanaheim is strong, few would find a marriage to strengthen relations with another Realm suspicious, though surely many will wonder at the suddenness of this particular union. If we are lucky, they will blame it on nothing but my sentimentality towards my son, and think that I simply did not wish to burden him with an arranged marriage to a foreigner. And no matter what they might or might not believe, if I give my blessing they will have to keep it to themselves or risk being accused of treason for questioning their king."
Sif couldn't move. She felt like screaming, but something kept her still as a statue as the Allfather sealed her fate. Frigga glowered at her husband.
Looking uncomfortable in the face of his wife's anger, Odin gestured rather helplessly before donning a regal and commanding expression.
"I understand your displeasure, my Queen, but in this I have to be King first and father second. You know that I love my son dearly, and hold deep respect for the Lady Sif, as one of Asgard's finest warriors. But if their marriage is what will keep us from war with Muspelheim, not to mention safe Loki's life, then they will stay wed. Until death shall part them."
Sif barely registered that both King and Queen left shortly after Odin's proclamation, with a vague statement about allowing Loki and her "to settle things between them", and a promise from Frigga that should Sif be injured on her return, she would put Loki over her knee no matter his current age. (Though Sif might have imagined that because she was still in shock.)
For a while they both sat in silence, Loki glowering at the ornate floor and Sif staring at her hands. Then Sif forced herself to find her voice, even though talking to the trickster was the last thing she wanted to do.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry…"
He scoffed.
"Well, I'm sure you are very sorry that you're stuck with me for the rest of my life, you don't have to spell it our for me."
"…but why did you have to get discovered in the first place?!"
Loki jumped out of his seat like he'd been stung by a nettle, toppling the chair in the process.
"Thor got us discovered! I certainly did my best to save us with one of my childish tricks! What was I to do, spirit myself away and let him die?!"
"Well I am going to kill Thor."
To her surprise that startled a laugh out of him.
"Oh no, no, you don't. Related by blood over related by marriage, if anyone is going to strangle that blonde oaf it is certainly going to be me."
Sif couldn't quite stop the corners of her mouth from forming the beginnings of a smile.
"Yes, but wouldn't it be far more damaging to his reputation if the great Thor was slain by a woman?"
And just like that the almost palpable tension was broken.
"Stab him with a sharpened comb, it will be a saga for the ages."
She snickered (because a warrior woman didn't giggle like some blushing maiden), and half-heartedly tried to slap him.
"Oh shut it."
"You will find that murdering my brother is a subject I can speak about at quite some length, especially with someone who is as invested in his demise as I am."
She threw a cushion at him.
"Stop it, we'll both be accused of treason!"
"Yes, but you would eventually get to be Queen for your troubles."
He winced a second later, realising what he'd said. Sif felt her momentary good mood give way to helplessness.
"But I don't want to be Queen! I never even wanted to be a princess, even if everyone thought I was going to marry Thor one day."
"I know. I know that you were exactly were and what you wanted to be just yesterday, and so was I. But now we are stuck like this and may only choose between making the best of it or spending the rest of our lives angry and miserable."
Loki's voice sounded honestly sympathetic. Sif looked up at him from where she was still sitting on a low chaise lounge, blinking back tears.
"Does that mean you're no longer angry at me?"
He laughed in a slightly hysterical way, sitting down beside her.
"Oh, I am very angry at you. Have it that I could carve out your tongue and stitch your lips shut like I dearly want to, but mutilating his wife is something the people of Asgard will not tolerate even from their prince."
Sif tried not to visibly recoil. She had always known that Loki could be harsh, but this viciousness still surprised her. He had often spoken to her in anger, but he had never threatened her in any serious manner.
"Surely you don't mean that."
"Oh I mean every word of it my dear, but I have learned the hard way to live with unbearable situations. And as a prince of Asgard I have always known that I would marry whoever my parents choose for me. The only foolish thing I did was to hope that it would be someone who didn't hate me."
Sif blinked, surprised.
"I don't hate you."
"Yes you do."
"No Loki. I dislike you and your tricks, and I think that your silver tongue gets you in more trouble than anything else, but I don't hate you. I am just…not overly fond of you."
"You are a horrible liar."
"No, you cannot stand hearing the truth, once you have convinced yourself of some lie."
"Well, we will have to agree to disagree then."
She sighed.
"Yes."
There was a long pause before Sif spoke again.
"What will happen now?"
Now it was Loki's turn to sigh.
"Fa…The Allfather will no doubt announce our engagement at the earliest opportunity, not telling anyone that we are already married of course. The Harvest Festival is in a week, it would be a good time for the handfasting ceremony. He might tell people that I insisted on a small wedding to explain the lack of lengthy preparations, and they will no doubt believe that I am simply being difficult once again. It will be just enough time to prepare suitable clothes for both of us and move our possessions to shared quarters. And prepare for the festivities of course."
"One week?!"
Loki favoured her with a bitter smile.
"Whatever is the matter? Have you forgotten that we are already married? It will simply be one week before the rest of Asgard knows it as well, if Thor and the Fools Three don't tattle beforehand. And no doubt Odin will swear them to secrecy."
"Yes but…" She trailed off, not knowing what to say.
"But nothing. You are my wife now, and in a week you will simply be Prince's Consort as well." He stood up. "And now I believe I should go and assure mother that you are alive and well, least she make good on her threat and smacks me with her hairbrush."
With that he left the room, the doors falling shut behind him leaving Sif alone with her thoughts.
