~~Chapter 1~~

The Swift Logic of a Woman

She was the last one Thor would have wanted to encounter before leaving Asgard, and, thus, she was destined to be in his path. If the act that he was about to commit was as reckless as he surmised it to be, then her presence was necessary to confirm his belief that this course was correct. As he rounded the garden path while doing a mental checklist of all the items that he would need to gather to go on this journey, he nearly collided with her form as she stepped boldly out before him, one long, booted leg placed directly where his next step would have fallen. With her arms crossed she had the bearing of a soldier, but the delicate folds of her cloak and the carefree fall of her hair spoke of her feminine grace. She had always been this to him: the perfect blend of warrior and woman.

"And where could Asgard's crown prince be off to in such darkness?" Sif scolded. "And in such weather!" The tone of her voice was only sincere enough to skirt the edge of mockery.

"I have an urgent errand," said Thor curtly, attempting to step around the limb she had extended, only to feel the firm press of her hand against his chest.

"I heard that there was an unwelcome guest at the Assembly." This statement was far more accusation than observation.

"Sif, I promise that I will tell you everything when I return, but now . . . ." He tried to force her out of the way by pressing forward, but she met his effort with an equal strength.

"No!" she demanded, the thin black lines of her eyebrows pinching together in a harsh warning. "You will make me a vow before you depart from Asgard."

As usual, Thor found himself more than impressed with this woman's physical strength; she held him firmly at bay with a solid push and a cold glare. Though he could have overpowered her with a bit more effort, he moved back from her and nodded in acquiescence. "What would you have of me, my Lady?" he asked.

"Promise me that this has nothing to do with Loki."

He shook his head with false laughter.

"No lies," she added harshly, as though she had already detected his intent to deceive her.

What inexorable magic dwelled within a woman's intuition? He had often experienced the same eerie foresight from his mother when he had intended to mislead her. It had shamed Thor to his very core to convey falsehoods to his mother, and yet it was a power that Loki seemed to be able to wield almost effortlessly. This was why, Thor reminded himself, he always left the lying to his sibling. Honesty, then, was likely the wiser course - although some details may still find themselves untold in the name of a greater good.

"I am going to Nornheim," the blonde man declared. He braced himself for the coming tirade, and yet none followed. If Sif had been Valkyrie, he would already have a split lip and a purpling cheek. This was Sif, however, and so he would be allowed a latitude that others would not grant him, for despite her hardened exterior and her valor in the face of certain death, he had always been her weakness. In order to maintain this as an advantage, however, he must feign as if he were unaware of it.

The female warrior drew a long, heavy sigh. She looked down upon the cobblestones and shook her head, her face molding into a look that was laughing and weeping in equal parts. "Nornheim!" she chuckled, but the sentiment did not reach her eyes. "I have followed you to a number of outrageous places, Thor Odinson, but I shall not -"

"No, you shall not," he interrupted before she could finish her assumption. "I am going alone."

"To see the Norn Queen?" Sif shot back. "She is as mad as she is powerful! You cannot possibly expect to return from such a journey!" Her eyes had grown soft, pleading, and she was on the very edge of revealing the true depth of her affection for her lifelong friend. Then the unyielding mask of a soldier fell over her once more, and she jutted out her chin. "Someone should go with you."

"I will not endanger the lives of my friends with a fool's task." Thor pushed past her again, and this time she allowed him to advance a few steps before speaking her thoughts.

"So this is about Loki, then?"

He was not about to answer that inquiry, but it stopped him just the same. Without turning toward her, he merely stood still, feeling the warmth of humiliation ghosting across his cheeks, and said, "It is about the fate of us all, my Lady." He began to depart again, and he heard the quick sound of her boots on the stones as she hurried to meet his pace. They fell into step with one another but did not look to either side.

"Please, Thor, I am begging you," she said in a near whisper. "Let me go with you."

"You know my answer before I give it, Sif," Thor deflected, increasing his speed to no avail. He was heading for the armory of Thrúdheim, where he would equip himself with weapons and supplies.

"If he were here, you would allow him to go with you," she accused him. There was no need to clarify who 'he' might be: Loki had accompanied him on every senseless quest he had ever undertaken.

Thor paused, his mind momentarily cleared of every thought. He heard the howling of the wind above the gardens, from which they were shielded by a dome of magic courtesy of Odin Allfather. Again, he wondered where in all of this savage weather his unbalanced sibling might be. That person was not his brother - not the same graceful, haughty creature with whom he had crossed many realms. This Loki was a lost soul, for all he pretended otherwise. He was no longer meticulous about his appearance nor mysterious about his habits. Rather, he was a wild thing, hair grown long and carelessly tended, his complexion sallow and his eyes a deep well of hunger - of want. Still, she was not entirely mistaken.

"Were this but a dozen years ago, I would have to agree. Had I undertaken such an unreasonable mission, I would not have done so without my brother. It would have been unthinkable."

The still of the deserted gardens was pierced by the sound of her laughter. "Were this but a dozen years ago, I would swear that he held you beneath the power of some spell! Do you not hear the contradiction in your own words? Hel's depths, Thor!" she chided him. "You are not doing this without him! You are doing this for him! Surely you cannot be so naïve that you do not see that!"

Being called out for his blindness, the blonde man's cheeks flushed deeply again, but he prayed that the reaction had been buried in the darkness of his surroundings. He turned his face to gaze at something random beyond his left shoulder in case it was not.

"I am sorry, Thor," Sif said, her tone more gentle. "I do not claim to understand the affection that ties you to that - that creature." As the words left her lips, she raised a hand to cover them, perhaps in an attempt to prevent the sentiment from escaping her that came too late. Thor did not face her, but she could see every sinew in his bulky frame draw taught. When her next words came, they issued from a throat that was dry with fear and regret. "Forgive me," she pleaded, grasping his upper arm gingerly as though it might grow teeth and snap at her. "I did not intend that the way it must have sounded." The dwindling of her reserve only made more plain the truth that she was constantly striving to keep from him: that she held more than just esteem for her ally and friend. She loved him. It was as bare as the pain in her voice.

Just as overtly, she expected his next declaration to be a roar of dissent, but there was no response. He drew himself up to his full height, his figure shown to her only in profile, and one finger hovered above his lips in consideration. She wished that she could read his eyes then, for they never ceased to betray his true thoughts to her. However, she would likely not have wanted to know his exact musings at that moment, as he was splitting his energies between the emerging rage that her slight had stirred in him and the absurd notion that this woman who abhorred his brother with such vehemence was actually Loki's duplicate in many respects. Certainly there were physical similarities, most obviously the pallid skin and the starkly raven hair. Plus, Sif's obstinance and quick intellect were surpassed only by his sibling. And they had always both been fiercely jealous of Thor's devotion to the other. Yet, for whatever attributes she had in common with his brother, Loki's absence created a void that she simply could not fill.

Through bared teeth, he bit back his anger just long enough to begin his reply. "You cannot possibly . . ."

Had it been a dozen years ago, he would have spilled out his response in a fit of unrestrained malice, expecting to hear no dissent and not caring if he actually received any. Tempering himself, he began again, but more evenly. "Sif," he said, "I do not expect you to understand what is between Loki and I. I can try to convey it to you, but there are truly no words that express it completely. The amusing thing is that he would be far better at explaining it to you than I." He chuckled, but the effort was weak. "But, to further the irony, he would never admit to the depth of the bond that we share." This sentiment was strange on his tongue, as if it were not a lie, but it was not fully truthful, either. Would it seem unnatural to her if he revealed the unusual link between himself and his brother? From the oddly contorted look on her face, it would likely be more so if he did not try to explain it to her in some fashion.

"I do not know how to begin to describe our bond," Thor sighed, his resolve weakening in the face of his uncertainty. "I am not entirely sure that I have encountered its like in the years of my existence. We share no blood - I suppose you have heard that by now." Sif nodded, and they began to walk again.

He was loathe to elaborate on the point about Loki's heritage, simply because he did not know how deep her understanding of the situation went. It was now commonly known among the citizens of Asgard that Loki had been adopted. His madness was typically described as either a mental collapse from the weight of finding out that he was not entitled to the life that he had been given (the official version) or that he had always been unbalanced, and the truth that he would never hold the throne tipped him over the edge into a murderous rage (the more common version). Both tales, in a way, were true, but they simply omitted the most important part of the narrative: that he discovered that he had been born a Jötun, a revelation that was further compounded by the fact that his true father had been the King of Asgard's most despised enemy. This information was then further bundled, rightly or wrongly, (probably wrongly, Thor deduced) with the notion that Odin had saved his life and brought him into his home in order to improve the chance of an armistice with Jötunheim. It was not the only reason - in fact, Thor truly believed that his father had learned to love Loki as he would his own son. Certainly, at times he felt that Odin had been softer on Loki than he had been on Thor. In the past, this disparity had nettled him. Now, Thor only wished that his father had been softer still.

They were approaching the doors to the armory, and he slowed his pace so that they might first finish their conversation. "Even though we are not related by blood, he is still my brother," Thor said. "I cannot convey to you how strange I find that - that I feel linked to him in some fashion. He who is not my kin biologically. Yet I feel him even now - or, rather, the absence of him - as if it were a wound. Perhaps, more like a part of me has been detached and that its lack has left a chasm within me."

Sif stopped before the iron-hinged door to the Hall's weapons and supply cache with a guarded demeanor. Thor allowed her to absorb what meaning she could from his confession as he worked the ancient latch. When it did not give easily, Sif brushed him aside and released it without ceremony.

"You have to pull it a little to the right before you push left," she explained. "It is a bit rusted." She then took a few steps back while Thor swung the door open, the weight of its wood causing the unkept hinges to groan with complaint. He gestured for her to go before him, but she ignored it, her stance remaining stiff with tension. Knowing that it would be futile to continue to insist, he entered first.

As he picked through the limited display of hand weaponry, he could sense his companion shadowing his every step. Several times she paused as if she might speak, but then her face twisted into a look of tormented confusion. She was turning over his confession in her mind, giving fair consideration to the words themselves but still scowling as if they held no meaning. Meanwhile, Thor chose several close-combat blades: daggers, short-swords, and the like. He did not want to be encumbered with large weapons, but he also knew the folly of relying on a single one. Small knives, in particular, tended to be taken away by an enemy or could be left lodged in the flesh of an adversary. Then, of course, he must also outfit himself against a ferocious storm, adding bulk and weight that would only make his journey more daunting.

"So, tell me," Sif finally said, the edge of her reply raw with doubt. "What makes you so certain that you and Loki are . . . 'linked,' as I believe you put it? Could there be something inexplicable guiding your hand or, perhaps, even your thoughts?"

"I know what you are suggesting, Sif, but it is not magic. It is no trick of Loki's that we are joined thus. He desires to be free of it as much as I do."

"How can you be so sure?" Her tone was turning sharply critical again, and yet she was still leading him around the room and filling his arms with the most suitable provisions for his expedition, albeit in a forceful manner. "If I thought for a single moment that my own impressions of this situation would be met with some credence, I would offer them to you." This final declaration was punctuated by a mound of furs being heaved at him, although with enough temperance that they landed in his arms without causing him to drop the supplies he already held. She was holding back, betrayed again by the depth of her own affections. "Yet, I will give them to you, anyway. I think he uses you, Thor. I think he despises you down to his bones, and he manipulates your kind heart in order to draw out your vulnerabilities."

Thor had to move swiftly to intercept the bag of edible roots and dehydrated meats that she flung next. "I think he delights in coaxing out your fondness for him, pairing it skillfully with the guilt that you harbor about his years and years of envy, and then he wounds you to the core, all the while delighting in the little changes on your face as he twists the knife. He is but a predator toying with its prey." A pair of gloves alighted on the pile, skidding to a stop just before it slapped his face. She was still bridling herself. Had her position been reversed with Loki's, he would be splayed out on the floor under half the armory by now.

This notion demonstrated the exact dichotomy that the woman was so desperately trying to impress upon him: Loki would not restrain his blows. For all that Thor claimed his brother was dedicated to him, Loki would hardly forgo any opportunity to injure him if provoked. Yet, somehow, he held his precarious sibling in higher esteem than this woman who was here with him now, counseling him and preparing him for a perilous trek, with her love for him conveyed so exquisitely by her actions. There was no way to accurately relate the truth of it: that he would freely suffer a hundred harms from Loki than remain here, helpless but in the company of those whose devotion he so clearly held. Was this not some form of madness?

"I understand your apprehension, Sif. I do," he tried again, although the sound was now somewhat muffled by the mass of supplies. "I can only offer you the same proclamation that I have before: I just know. When we face one another in conflict, I can read the pain in his eyes, and beneath it there is a struggle to contain his wrath. In my eyes, I know that he sees the twin of his own strife, only in myself it is reflected as a battle not to strike him in return. We are balanced, I suppose you would describe it. It is as though my rise was the cause of his decline, as if his descent into insanity was a product of my own acquisition of the knowledge of what lay beyond my own world. What feeds me devours him." He took a moment to reflect on this idea, and it was so perfectly true that it was freshly bruising.

"It is my conviction that we are entwined by fate," he finished.

"So is this the impetus for your expedition to the Norn Queen? To prove that you are tied to him by some device of the Fates?"

"Not precisely," he deflected. "I have a different motivation for this endeavor."

"Loki asked you to do this, didn't he?" Sif was now examining the edges of his sharpened steel for nicks or dull areas. He could see her determined reflection in the cold steel of the sword she was scrutinizing, and her pearlescent skin glowed in the dim light from the torches. She had always been so beautiful . . . and so strong. Her mind was endlessly clever and forthright, and she loved him. She loved him. Were she called upon to do so, he knew that she would die for him. It should all be so easy.

So why wasn't it?

"Honestly, yes. Loki did ask this service of me."

Sif feigned surprise at this revelation, her hand clasped to her breast and her mouth open in a comically rounded expression. "Surely not," she teased.

"However, it is not as straightforward as you might think. It was more as if he left me a suggestion many years ago that I am just now beginning to unearth. If it gives you any comfort, Sif, I do not expect to find him at the end of this road."

The lady warrior had moved on to the extensive pile of furs he had amassed, and she inspected each for tears and worn areas. There were almost as many pieces that she discarded as she allowed him to keep. "I shall find no comfort until you return intact." She did not dare to look at him as she said this, lest her emotions be easily read upon her features. "Besides," she said, "I know you have already entrusted that task to another."

Thor could have laughed to hear her speak so forthrightly had his mood been lighter. Of course she knew. She was Sif. The only person in all of Asgard who was closer to him was his brother - his brother whom he could not trust.

This situation was becoming most bewildering.

"Brunnhilde will find him and then report to me his location. That is the extent of her involvement."

"So her loyalty to you only goes so far?" Sif said. "Did you even consider that she might find herself enamored with him again after all these years? She used to dote on Loki ridiculously, even though I know she would deny it."

"She did."

"I would not put my faith in her lack of involvement. Brunnhilde looks at Loki as she would a pet - as if he were the most perfect, precious being in all of the Nine Realms." She was leading him off toward the stables now, carrying nearly half of his gear as an indication of her loyalty. "I only hope she remembers that her 'precious creature' has claws."

The stables lay beyond the main walls of the fortress, and so they paused at the side gate to outfit themselves against the cold. It was not blowing a full force gale as it had been during last night's drama; however, it was still harsh enough that they fastened a leather belt between the two of them so they would not be separated. There was no purpose to attempting communication, either, for the effort of passing through the high, thick snow required a steady flow of breath, and, whatever sounds they might have made were carried away by the gusts around them.

When the pair had passed within the walls of the animal pens, they finally dared to continue their discussion. "I pray that you know what you are doing," Sif said. She was crossing before the stalls that contained the smaller horses for riding and moving quickly to those that harbored the broader-backed pack animals. "Loki already has you under his spell, and if Brunnhilde falls to his wiles, I shall be left alone to sort out all of this unpleasantness." A cheeky grin crept onto her lips as she said this.

"Oh, do not pretend that you have always been exempt from his charms," Thor replied with a similar smirk.

"When he had them," she stated. "But I do not fear his allure any longer," she teased, "for I know the mind that lies beneath all that appeal." Her expression changed into a somber one. "However, I do worry for you, Thor," she said. They stopped at the end of the row of enclosures between two of the largest horses in all of Asgard.

"I also know his mind, Sif," he assured her. "I will not allow my affection for him to compromise the wellbeing of Asgard. It contains all those most dear to me."

"Well, all except for one. But I suppose I am through lecturing you about him." She swung open the door to the pen at her back, the motion she had used to unlatch it so elegant that it had gone undetected. The pen she had chosen was not the one containing either of the hulking stallions, but rather a large, low animal that was so covered in trailing strands of thickened wool that it looked like a floor mop.

"A mount fit for a king," she ribbed him.

Despite its comical appearance, it was wide and sturdily built. That, along with its thick coat, made it strangely ideal for a trip through deep snow and rocky terrain.

"Is this a goat?" Thor asked as the animal nuzzled his hand. It had two thick, ridged horns that emerged from its head, each twisting in a single spiral and ending in a blunt tip. If there were eyes, they lay buried deep within its layers of string-like fleece.

"He belongs to my father," Sif said. She stroked the crown of the goat's head fondly. When it turned to encourage her attention, Thor was able to make out the brief flash of a large, black eye.

Well, at least his mount would not have to navigate by sound alone.

"Tanngrisnir is a native of the high, snowy peaks where my family has its roots. My ancestors wore their fleece to ward off the intense cold." She was smiling at the puffy beast with amusement. "They must have looked ridiculous!" She ruffled its crown into a round pile of fluff, and her dark eyes danced with the humor of it.

The simple camaraderie of the moment overwhelmed the blonde prince, and he swept his friend up into a warm embrace. He then held her away from his body but still well above the floor and looked into her eyes. "Thank you, Sif," he spoke, a small tremor marring the words. "Thank you for everything you have done for me." He kissed her heartily on the cheek and then set her down.

Her blush was either from the surprise of the action or the intense intimacy of the moment. It did not matter to him which it might truly be.

"Well, you will have to repay me," she chuckled, breathlessly.

"How so?"

That curtain of steely resolve fell over her again, and she met his eyes with a cruel sincerity. "You must return - breathing - to Asgard. And when you do come back -" She hesitated, her lips a line of tension. Then, after a weighted pause she said: "When you return, do not bring Loki with you."