The wrecked end of the Bifrost came alive with blue fire, startlingly violent, and then there they stood: two figures, the capsule with the crackling Cube between them, and for an instant with so much light Sif could not tell the one from the other but it did not matter because there were two of them, standing straight and tall, which meant that Thor had returned to them - alive.
And that easily, she could breathe again.
Thor, she had pleaded with him, an edge of something that sounded far too much like desperation in her voice, you do not have to do this.
She remembered how the line of his shoulders had stiffened, ever so slightly, before he had turned all his attention back to the preparations he was making for the journey. Of course I do. He lives, Sif.
So simple, as if that were all there had ever been to the matter, but she had seized his elbow and forced him to look at her. That is not what I meant. I meant that you do not have to do it alone!
He had been startled, and then relieved; he had put his hand over hers, squeezed gently, and thanked her for her concern. With the Bifrost broken, it will be very hard for Father to send even one, he'd reminded her, but she had known he was pleased she hadn't meant to suggest he shouldn't follow his - shouldn't follow Loki to Midgard.
(And she hadn't.) (She would never have meant that.)
In the end, of course, there had been no real question. If it could only be one of them, there was no finer warrior in all of Asgard.
(But...)
"Thank Idunn's golden apples," Volstagg breathed beside her, and she thought she could hear her relief reflected in his voice but did not dare turn her head to look.
Ceremony was to thank for their presence in what would otherwise have been a private moment, and so Sif would play her role, small as it was, to rigid perfection. As the King and Queen's personal escort, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three provided a line of defense between them and the prisoner; there they would remain until the Einherjar had taken that prisoner into custody, at which point Prince Thor would step forward, kneel before Their Majesties, and present them with the Cosmic Cube.
It was then that Sif planned to catch his eye and smile warmly for him, as warmly as she possibly could, so that he might know without words how glad she was to see him home again and safe. Hopefully it would be enough, for she likely wouldn't have a chance to speak with him until tomorrow.
Or, at least, that was what should have happened.
But the last of the Cube's blue fire had not even quite flickered out when she heard a sound like a strangled sob from behind her, and then her queen shot past her, heavy skirts bundled in her hands and all pretense abandoned as she rushed to embrace her-
-not her son, she was not running for Thor, and Sif's hands were on the hilt of her spear before she had even really registered the full magnitude of her queen, moving to embrace a monster and a criminal when Frigga halted abruptly, as if she had come up against an invisible wall. For an instant, Sif thought the enormity of the breach in protocol had overwhelmed her, but no, she was clearly staring at something, something Sif could not see from her vantage point, and now the Queen had dropped her skirts, hands moving slowly to cover her mouth instead.
Risking a glance over her shoulder at the assembled Einherjar, Sif could not tell what any of them thought of the display: They were statues, their faces blank; they had been well-trained. But she could not imagine they approved, and it made her heart clench even as she turned carefully back. As much as she wanted to, she did not quite dare the same glance at her king's face.
Until, of course, he spoke, and to look anywhere else would have been worse. "Thor, Son of Odin." His voice was deep and resonating, his expression grave. "You have done the Realm Eternal a great service this day."
Thor hesitated, then stepped forward, leaving his mother and his - the prisoner behind. "Thank you," he said, his own voice taut.
It was almost as it should have been; almost ceremonial again. After a moment, Thor even went down on one knee. But, where he should have lifted the Cube to present it, he spoke instead, and what he said was as wrong for the moment as the sight of the Queen standing beside the criminal.
"He is home."
Sif fought to keep herself from flinching, but Odin only gazed down at him, unblinking, for long seconds before at last inclining his head in the smallest, faintest acknowledgment. Nonetheless, it was enough for the Einherjar, who snapped to attention and moved to... fulfill their duty.
And it was only then, as she found herself lowering her eyes instead of watching the procession, that Sif realized how thoroughly she had been avoiding looking at him - had been avoiding thinking of him. As if the sound of his name in her own mind would shake her apart.
The cowardice disgusted her.
Loki. She forced the syllables, squeezing her eyes shut. Loki, Silvertongue. Loki, Liesmith. A thousand other epithets, some far less kind. Loki, Loki, Loki.
And still it was difficult to look at him, but she forced that too, opening her eyes and raising them to stare.
Loki was not looking at her, his attention all on the Einherjar as they approached, but as she watched he lifted his hands - chained together, she saw - and stepped forward to meet them with his head held high.
Almost as if to display the dark stripe across his jaw, the stark metal cage that held his mouth firmly shut.
No wonder Frigga had been so aghast. Even the Einherjar hesitated for a moment before one stepped forward to address him.
"Loki Odinson."
They were visibly ready to seize him but he only stood there, waiting, and his obvious silent cooperation gave them no opportunity. Instead, they were eventually forced to lead him from the bridge.
He swept past her and Thor and his king without so much as a glance for any of them, so full to brimming with dignity that it was almost difficult to remember - even with the chains, even with the gag - that he was a criminal and not still a prince, receiving the escort due to his station.
(It would be hours before she really registered how thin he had looked, how pale: all the meanness of a starving animal beneath tarnished regalia, the worn cloth of his finery and the ragged length of his hair. In that moment, Sif had seen none of those things, as potent an illusion as any he had ever crafted.)
Too late, she remembered her intent to catch Thor's eye and turned to find him staring after Loki with an expression on his face that she had never wanted to see there again.
Sif closed her eyes.
That night was bitterly cold in her memory, as nights in Asgard almost never were. There had been a feast, one of many, and all the citizenry had been in attendance - even the Einherjar, even Heimdall himself, to celebrate Thor's restoration... the return of his power and, most had thought, his soon-to-be ascension.
(It had seemed so inevitable back then.)
And that night, like most of the nights that followed it, they had been at Thor's elbow, drinking like everyone else to his health, while he offered sallow smiles to the court and emptied more than one wine cask himself before slipping away as early as he possibly could.
Usually, on nights like that one, she and the Warriors Three had let him retreat to his chambers to sleep off all he had imbibed. It will do him good and us no harm, Volstagg had said the first time it happened, and they had all agreed; since Thor seemed not yet ready to speak to them, the least they could do was allow him to indulge in whatever helped him get through these feasts.
But this night, when Thor stood from the banquet table with a vague smile for his friends and subjects, something in her heart had clenched. Maybe it was the way he had not seemed to hear her when she she'd spoken to him earlier; maybe it was the distance in his eyes now. Either way, an urge rose up in her to follow him, now, quickly, before it was too late.
The urge had made no sense, but Sif had not honed her instincts for a thousand years only to disregard them when they screamed so clearly, and from the way he narrowed his eyes Hogun shared her sense. She inclined her head at him, and he jerked his head ever so slightly to the side. No words were needed for them to understand each other in this moment; he would stay here, and she would follow Thor, but he wanted to know what she found.
And so Sif had made her own excuses, then left the feast behind to trace Thor's path. It was her good fortune that his steps were heavy, slowed from what seemed to be deep thought, and he was not difficult to shadow from the banquet hall.
He did not, of course, go to his chambers. In fact, he left the castle and then the city completely, his head tilted back and his eyes on the sky.
Sif remembered the entire evening with unusual clarity: she remembered the chill on her skin, the pale light of the waning moon. But no part of the night was so vividly burned into her memory as when they finally came to the sundered bridge.
For a long while, Thor had simply stood there, gazing down it, while she hunkered behind a column and waited. Then he had stepped forward, as if he made to cross something which could no longer be crossed, and she was forced to follow him out onto the long, narrow bridge.
She had had no cover there, no hope of hiding herself if he had but turned his head, and Sif had begun to imagine the conversation that would then ensue. Not that she thought he would be - angry, precisely, but if it were her... if he had crept after her like a thief, wouldn't she have felt just the tiniest bit... betrayed? This was spying. She was spying on Thor. And the closer he got to the edge of the bridge, the more certain she became that, well-intentioned or no, she was spying on a very private moment indeed.
Finally Thor stood on the very end of the bridge, where his might had shattered it to ragged pieces, and bowed his head.
The site where he had severed his connection to Midgard, and the mortal woman there. The site where he had fought his brother, and lost him.
While the rest of Asgard celebrated his many victories, their prince mourned.
Sif hung back as much as she could, knowing it would not be enough, and yet - unwilling to put any further space between them.
It would not be the last time she found him like this, standing on the very end of the bridge and staring down into the swirling darkness, lit from below by the bridge's rainbow light.
And it would not be the last time that she hovered, far enough away to give him what privacy she could, but close enough that if she ran with all her strength she might yet catch his hand, if...
If.
The thought was an insult, so she did not finish it that night or any other. Of all the many ways a warrior's life could end, there were none quite so dishonorable as this. Sif had, herself, never felt anything but scorn at the idea. It was cowardly, it was base, it was beneath the dignity of an Asgardian, let alone-
But it seemed there was some difference between an idea in the abstract and seeing a friend (only a friend?) brought so low.
Sif remembered the rest of the night much less vividly. She knew she had watched him stand there for hours, unmoving, and that only the tremendous weighted slowness with which he finally lowered his head and turned to head home saved her from detection. She knew she had gone back to the banquet hall and reported to Hogun as little of what she'd seen as she possibly could, and she remembered the way his sharp black eyes had fixed on her face and how certain she had been that he was hearing far more than her halting words could possibly have conveyed.
How much he had told Fandral and Volstagg, she could not say, but the hunting trip that followed was a unanimous decision, and for weeks after they had all worked together to keep Thor as occupied as was possible. Expeditions, quests, contests - whatever pretext they could contrive, no matter how flimsy, to coax him from his father's halls.
It had been difficult. It had been exhausting. And a year was not nearly long enough for him to truly recover from such loss, but gradually his smile had come to brighten. These days, she thought it might even have touched his eyes.
He had not been happy, or whole; he had missed the mortal woman, and he had mourned his brother, and perhaps he always would have - but he had not been quite so haunted. The shadows had receded.
And now, so easily, they were back. Back, and darker than ever.
She had to struggle to keep her breathing even and could not hope to focus on the rest of the ceremony as it resumed around her, the voice of her king a distant drone, but then Fandral shifted beside her, brushing her shoulder in a way that could have been incidental but did not feel it, and she took some small solace from the careful reminder that she was not alone in her desperate disappointment. No, and neither would she be alone in seeking to remedy it. Together they had chased those shadows from Thor once, and together they would do it again. For as long as the trial lasted, if Thor needed it.
(Because perhaps he would not.) (Perhaps, as the trial wore on, he would finally see...)
One thing at a time, Sif reminded herself. She could not control what the months ahead would bring. Best to focus on this moment and the coming night. Another feast, in honor of Asgard's favorite son, and, if she could not count on an opportunity to speak with Thor himself, she and the Warriors Three would at least be able to keep an eye on him while they made their plans.
Yes. She could already imagine the arguments over which adventure they would conjure for Thor this time, and as she imagined the tight knot in her belly slowly loosened.
.
But in the end, the arguments they had were not over whether treasure-hunting was better than dragon-slaying, and they could not keep an eye on anyone because Odin sat alone on his dais that night. And the next night.
And the one after that.
There was no risk in gazing openly at him now, not with so many in attendance and so much noise, and Sif found herself watching her king often - and comparing the impassive expression on his face with the way Frigga had picked up her skirts to run across the Bifrost.
No: impassive was the wrong word. Distant, yes; distant in a way that Frigga had never been, not with the headstrong girl who had befriended her son and not with anyone. But not impassive.
Though she was not close to her king and had never felt comfortable guessing at his state of mind, Sif thought... a better word might have been troubled.
"And the doors to Thor's chambers are still barred?" Volstagg was murmuring, mostly into the haunch of meat in his fist.
"He sees no one," Fandral replied. "The Queen has taken ill, and the Prince is still exhausted from his journey to Midgard. Or," he added, with a pale imitation of his usual roguish smile, "that is what the serving girls say, at least."
A brief silence fell, and Sif realized they were both looking at her expectantly. She did not often let comments like that go unremarked upon. Perhaps something like, Oh, are you dallying with the servants now instead of the livestock? You are moving up in the world after all! But the moment stretched on, and Fandral eventually cleared his throat and looked away from her.
"Those, of course, are the official explanations." He took a pull of his goblet, then set it down on the table with care. They were all very careful with their goblets these days. "But he had strength enough today to attend the trial, and you would think that a great deal more taxing than a feast."
The first day of the trial. How had that gone, Sif wondered.
If she could have, she would have gone with him. She would have sat beside him and given every ounce of her strength that he might feel it and be - comforted. But the assembly was for nobles only, and she was not permitted even to enter its hallowed enclave. All she had been able to do was wait, and imagine.
Mostly, she had found herself imagining Thor's face, and the shadows there growing heavier and heavier while she, they, could do nothing for him.
"But deliberations were over hours ago," Volstagg complained. "Oh, I do not like this. Where can he be?"
It was a question they had all asked at one point or another over the last few days, and by this point it was dull; resigned, and almost rhetorical. Volstagg almost certainly did not expect an answer; for his part, Fandral took another long sip of wine, and Sif only stared at the dais and its empty thrones.
But Hogun, who had until that point spent the entire evening watching the far door with his usual focused intensity, had another response. He said, "With Loki."
Beside her, Sif was aware of Fandral going very still and the sound of Volstagg's voice, low and oddly distant:
"Is- He's allowed visitors?"
Hogun's response, too, seemed somehow muffled. "The Queen has been to see him."
"And with the trial beginning today..." Volstagg let out a rumbling sigh. "Aye, he'd want to let Loki know how it was going."
Now Fandral was on his feet, hands slamming down on the table, and Sif wondered how he had managed it with so little noise. "Is he mad?!"
"Now, lad... He is still Thor's brother."
And that was the difficulty, wasn't it.
Loki, this is Sif. Sif, this is my brother Loki.
Thor's voice was so young in her mind, but even then he had been all broad smiles and healthy bronzed skin - and the boy who followed in his wake, though apparently his brother, could not have been more different. Pale, with luminous eyes that seemed too large in his narrow face, and nervous, wrapping skinny arms around himself and staring at her. None of Thor's easy confidence, and she remembered a wave of pity that had made her extend her hand all the more readily, determined to befriend him.
Pleased to meet you, he had said, very proper and polite but also hushed. Thor has told me so much about you.
Sometimes, in her memory, she thought she saw a little flicker of something in his face as he said it; a curl of his upper lip, a wrinkle on the bridge of his nose - some small sign of distaste. But memories played tricks like that sometimes. Once you knew what you'd thought a branch was really a serpent, you always fancied you must have seen a ripple of movement or heard that telltale hiss.
To have seen nothing...
To have been flattered that Thor had told the snake so much about her...
"Oh, yes," Fandral was agreeing, and the sharpness of his voice brought her attention back to the present. "His brother. A brother who killed him last year, who gutted him days ago! I somehow doubt being imprisoned has much improved his mood."
"His spells are bound, aren't they?" Volstagg protested, but he sounded less certain now. "And he will be unarmed..."
Fandral shook his head, lips thinning. "You underestimate him. You've always underestimated him."
And he was right, Sif knew. They all had.
"Heimdall would see it," she found herself protesting softly. "Even Loki would not dare attack him now."
The smile Fandral turned on her was mirthless. "No?" he asked. "And what has he left to lose, I wonder?"
Sif hesitated, but Hogun said, "His life," and not even Fandral could argue with that.
The rest of that night was spent in silence, save for the sounds of silverware and goblets, while they waited - but still Thor did not come to that feast, or the one that followed.
.
Sif could be patient. She had waited for a great many things in her life, all of them more sorely needed and each time longer than four days. Her patience should not have worn thin, and certainly not this easily, but wearing thin it was.
She had given up on the idea of him ever coming to a feast; the excitement was already dying down and soon there would no longer be feasts for him to miss. But Thor was not only absent at the feasts: he was absent completely, and his chambers remained barred. The only time he left them at all, according to Fandral, was to attend the assembly sessions. Except for yesterday, when he had apparently gone to speak with Heimdall first.
The strain of the trial. It was absorbing all the energy he had to spare. Yes, Sif thought; that was a reasonable explanation. She needed only to wait a little while longer, and...
But this was the fifth day. There would be no assembly, and it would have been so easy for him to show himself at last. In spite of herself, Sif had allowed herself to picture it: how, as they came together at the same corner of the training grounds they always favored, they would find Thor already waiting for them, perhaps even with an apology on his lips.
And the disappointment she felt when they arrived instead to an empty field was all the more bitter for that small swell of hope.
Fandral murmured, "A chamber maid told me he was bound for the library this morning. I thought she must have been mistaken."
How desperate he is to avoid us went unsaid in the silence that followed, but after a moment Volstagg unsheathed his sword and drove it into the soft earth like a curse.
"I cannot take this any longer," the large god announced. "We must see him! He needs us."
"Someone should tell him that," Fandral retorted, but his words did little to disguise the eager gleam in his eyes.
They, too, had had enough of waiting.
A small voice inside Sif protested that she should wait at least one more day - that Thor must have his own reasons for avoiding them, if that was truly what he was doing - but her threadbare patience was no match for the appeal of the thought Fandral's careless words had planted in her.
"Someone will tell him that," she said, and could not help but smile.
Volstagg and Fandral were quick to match her smile; Hogun narrowed his eyes at her with a quiet warmth that was as close as he ever came.
"They say a dragon razes the countryside near the Blue Mountains," Volstagg offered thoughtfully.
"Do they really? Why," Fandral said, widening his eyes, "that's less than half a day's journey from here. We could be there and back again by nightfall."
A longer distraction would have been preferable, but the assembly would resume tomorrow and by now it seemed safe to assume that Thor would not be willing to risk missing it. A day was the most they could manage - for now.
So they would just have to make the best of it.
The journey from the training fields to the Hall of Knowledge was not a brief one, as they lay on opposite edges of the city, but they mounted without hesitation and passed the time exchanging stories they had heard of a place none of them had ever been before.
"There are books which speak their words to you," Volstagg recounted, and Fandral said, "Handy for you, since you cannot read," and Sif promised airily, "We'll let you know if we find one that flatters the reader instead so you can marry it," and if only Thor had been there with them to laugh in his rich low rumble it would have been...
Not yet perfect, no. But so much closer than they had come in the last year that it made her chest tight.
Then they had arrived, the Hall of Knowledge stretched out before them, and with their horses stabled she and the Warriors Three walked up to its doors.
There were larger halls in Asgard - most of them, in point of fact - but the Hall of Knowledge was perhaps one of the more impressive pieces of craftsmanship, with the runes of a thousand or more languages engraved on its marble columns spelling words of welcome to the curious eye.
As she passed through them, Sif caught herself wondering which of these was the language Thor had called English.
We were expected to speak Old Norse, his voice said in her ear, bright and earnest. Or at least - I think Selvig said 'Norwegian'. They were very surprised to hear me use instead a 'very English sort of English'. And then in her memory he laughed, more softly than she had liked.
"So," Sif said, turning her attention firmly to the men with her, "assuming that Thor is still here, where would he be?"
She had not intended it to be a difficult question, but as soon as the words passed her own lips she realized that she herself had no idea.
"-There must be books about fighting," Volstagg said at length, hands settling on his hips. "Yes. Histories of wars past!"
"Or techniques," Fandral added. "Instructions for..."
But there he came up short, and Sif frowned. That seemed unlikely. What teacher would write down instructions instead of telling interested pupils directly, whereupon mistakes could be so much more easily corrected? The idea of a history had more merit, especially on the wars of mortal races. She could imagine that some, at least, would be interested in an account more detailed than was practical for a rousing after-dinner ballad.
"...Well," Fandral said, "we can start with the war histories. I wonder where you would find those?"
He reached for the door, faltering slightly when it opened on its own before he could so much as lay a hand upon it, and then all four of them paused to take in the silent hall beyond, well-lit by hanging torches and large windows but still somehow... gloomy.
Sif took a step over the threshold, willing herself not to be affected by the hallowed atmosphere, but even as the others followed her lead it was easier said than done. She had never been in so still a place, had never been so conscious of her own breathing except on the field of battle, and-
-no, she realized almost immediately; no, that was not true. There was one other place, in Asgard itself, where she had held her breath just as instinctively and felt just as thoroughly smothered by the quiet.
The Weaving Hall, where her mother had once sent her with every determination that she learn arts more suited to a woman and forget this childish nonsense of wanting to wield a sword. Rows upon rows of looms, dozens of girls her own age, and every head bent to the reverent task of sliding strands of colored yarn into place.
Without meaning to, her own footsteps had grown soft; she found herself reluctant to speak, reluctant to make more sound than a whisper of pages turning, and Sif immediately quickened her pace so that her boot heels echoed sharply off the walls.
"Come on, then," she said over her shoulder with as much volume as she could muster, and she tried not to let the relief she felt show as she marched down the steps and into the library stacks.
Perhaps it was because the Warriors Three followed her lead in this, too, tromping in her wake, or perhaps it was simply custom in the Hall of Knowledge, but either way they did not get far before they were beset by young pages eager to help them find whatever it was they were so loudly looking for.
"Show us your war histories!" Volstagg said immediately, and Fandral had to rush to redirect: "Or you could just point us to Prince Thor, if he's still here?"
The pages, who moments ago had seemed quite confident in their authority over warriors in the Hall of Knowledge, withered visibly at this line of questioning. One said, "Ah," and the other glanced away before adding, "His Royal Highness has asked that he not be disturbed."
Sif stared at them until they withered further.
"But," the first page said, "I am quite sure he did not mean you! For you are the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three, are you not?"
"Yes, yes, of course," the second page agreed, all but laughing with relief. "Close friends to the Prince! Surely he would want them admitted."
"You may even be able to help him in his search."
"Yes! A few extra pairs of eyes could only be appreciated."
"Right this way, Lady Sif."
As they turned away, Fandral clapped her heartily on the shoulder. "Truly a force to be reckoned with," he said. "On or off the field of battle."
Sif eyed his hand and, when he hastened removed it, gave him her prettiest smile while Volstagg laughed and Hogun narrowed his eyes again. "Aye," she agreed, "and you would do well to remember it."
"I will never forget," Fandral told her with all the wistful sincerity he usually reserved for promises to maidens who knew no better, and when he punctuated it with a low scraping bow she turned on her heel and set off after the pages so quickly that she knew he would have to run to keep up.
Just as well that he could not see her face, however; the smile she could feel tugging at her lips was warm affection for the lot of them, and it would have rather undermined her point.
They could do this. Sif had never been more certain of it. All they needed was to see him, and that would happen in mere moments. Any second now, they would turn a corner, open a door, and-
(strange, her heart was beating so quickly)
-there he would be, perhaps surprised to see them and perhaps not wholly pleased but they would fix that soon, and then he would be only grateful to have such fine friends.
By the time they did, in fact, turn that corner and open that door, the image in her mind was very clear. But somehow, in spite of where they were and what Thor must have come to the Hall of Knowledge with every intent of doing, it had not included any books - and certainly not piles of them, set here and there like spires on a castle, with Thor sitting crosslegged in their midst, one large tome open in his lap and another in his hands. The sound of the door opening did not even appear to faze him.
Sif paused, keenly aware of her own mouth gaping, and Volstagg bumped into her with a force that would have sent a lesser woman sprawling.
"What? What is it?" he demanded, at the same moment as one of the pages announced timidly, "Lady Sif and the Warriors Three to see you, Your Highness."
Which, at least, did finally get Thor's attention; he blinked once, then slowly lifted his head and turned to stare up at her in the narrow doorway and what he could see of Volstagg behind her.
And for an instant as his eyes widened, Sif really thought he might run - but then the instant passed and he was shoving himself up to his feet, letting the heavy tomes fall, to say brightly: "My friends!"
Too brightly, perhaps. Sif stepped into the room to make space for the Warriors Three, and watched as Thor beamed just as forcefully for them.
"It is good to see you! But what brings you here on so fine a day?"
He was not, and never had been, a skilled liar; the way his eyes darted from one to the other of them, the rising pitch of his voice, and how quickly he spoke were all wrong. A poor imitation of what he should have - and once had - exuded naturally.
It did not help his facade that he also looked... markedly unwell. The beginnings of dark circles loomed beneath his eyes, yet his throat was flushed, sweat staining his hairline dark. At the very least, he was not sleeping well.
Abruptly it infuriated her.
"What brings us here?" Sif repeated archly. "What brings you here?"
She could have said more. The words were there within her, a violent torrent just waiting to burst forth.
Where have you been for the last four days? And before that! What happened to you on your visit to Midgard?! Why do you avoid us now, do you not know how worried we have all been, do you not care?
At her elbow she was dimly aware of the pages making hasty excuses, and less dimly of Hogun shifting so that he stood between her and Thor or Volstagg's hand settling on her shoulder. Steadying. Reassuring.
Letting her know, without words, that they had the same questions - and reminding her that now, perhaps, was not the time.
Sif took a deep breath, and smiled instead, well-aware that hers was probably no more convincing than Thor's had been and taking some small vengeful pleasure in the way he now looked at her with uncertainty. "After all, I would never have thought to find you reading," she finished, almost smoothly.
"Indeed!" Fandral said quickly. "You must admit, friend; it's not your favored pastime."
"And so many of them," Volstagg agreed. "Are there pictures, at least, to make the reading go faster?"
It was not the easy banter she had hoped to bring him, but after a beat Thor still hitched his smile up a little higher.
"True enough," he said, rueful as he turned back to face the 'spires'. "This is not my usual wont. But I do not read for the pleasure of it."
Fandral knelt to one of the books. "No," he said with some amusement, "I should think not. Thor, where did you get these? 'And then Sir Hrodreker spoke unto-'" He stopped himself, frowning. "I've heard that name."
"Hrodreker," Volstagg repeated, and he too looked thoughtful now. "Aye, lad, of course you have. He was a sorcerer, four thousand ago. Imprisoned for crimes against the throne, they eventually executed him - which wasn't easy, mind you. Old Hrodreker was a shapeshifter, faked his own death at least three times before the All-Father..." The sentence trailed away, and he made no move to continue.
Sif looked from one of them to the other, then to Thor, whose head was bowed. "Those are law-books," she realized. The sheer size and number of them suddenly made a great deal more sense. "You are reading about previous trials."
"...Yes," Thor admitted. Tension had stiffened the line of his shoulders, coiled his hands to fists. "I have been hoping... Asgard has punished men like him before. If I could find a case where - they were able to find justice without..."
His voice was terribly small, terribly soft. The hope fragile enough that he dared not speak it aloud, lest it shatter in the open air.
She did not want to hate Loki. She had spent centuries struggling not to hate him. But oh, it was so very hard in moments like this.
Why couldn't you just have stayed dead?
"You will find a way," she told him, and wished she could have - said more, done more. A wish she had made all too often over the last week; over the last year.
Thor glanced up at her, visibly startled, and at first she thought he was staring at her - her face, perhaps, to judge her sincerity, or - no, he was staring at her hair, why would he - but then all his attention was on her face again and he was smiling as if nothing had happened, oblivious to the war now waging within her as she fought to slow her heartbeat and even her breathing.
(Stupid, childish reaction.) (Her hair had been black for centuries, why did it still hurt to be reminded...?)
"Thank you, Sif," he said, with such warmth. "I know there has been no love lost between you."
(But when all of Asgard could not stop staring, he alone had never seemed to notice, had never seemed to care. He alone had never made her feel ugly.)
She had to force the smile, but the words came easily. "I love you, Thor. And he is your brother."
The Warriors Three were quick to chorus their agreement, raising swords to give further testament to their enduring loyalty, and Thor smiled for all of them - warm, appreciative, and she would have thought genuine, except...
Except for the strange something which had moved in his face at her words.
"Still," Volstagg said cheerfully, "I think you've spent enough time this morning with your nose stuck in these dusty old books. If you really want to know about old Hrodreker, I can tell you, and you'll get fresh air at the same time."
Thor hesitated, casting one last lingering look at the books, but finally he relented. "A short break, at least, might serve me well."
A short break. Sif tried not to let her smile falter, and knew from the way the others exchanged glances that they were no more pleased than she. A short break would not be nearly enough time to reach the Blue Mountains, let alone slay a dragon.
Still, it was... progress. A beginning. And an infinite improvement, Sif reminded herself, on the last four days.
They would just have to make the best of it.
"Well, let's be off, then," Fandral hurried to say. "It's been too long since we last had a proper match, and I want the honor of the first round. I..."
But Thor was bending to the books again, this time a smaller stack that had not previously stood out from the rest but now Sif could not help but notice how little like the law-books they looked. Each a different color, some bound in leather, and some very old.
He ran a finger over each spine, mouthing words that might have been the titles, and then nodded to himself with clear satisfaction before lifting his eyes once more to his friends.
"Lead on," he said, grinning at their startled faces. "I will... borrow these on the way out." The unfamiliar concept seemed only to please him further.
His time in Midgard had changed him. Sif knew that, had seen the evidence of it time and time again over the last year, and... not all that change had been for the worse. Thoughtfulness, concern for the safety of his friends - those would only serve him well when he became king.
So why, then, did moments like this - where the boy she had thought she knew so well surprised her even a little - ache?
"Of course," Sif said, ushering the Warriors Three ahead of them. "This way."
Soon they would be outside, she told herself. Soon they would be on the same training field they had favored for centuries.
She would try not to wonder what he wanted those books for. She would try not to think of the obvious answer, the answer to so many things where Thor was concerned.
But in her mind's eye, she might let herself picture that skinny boy with the pale, luminous eyes and wonder whether Thor would have been so easily taken in by the monster again and again if it had been wearing its own colors of blood red and deathly blue.