iii.

When she could put it off no longer, Sif returned to her father's house. On the night of the welcoming banquet Auda had said a few days. Sif let it go for weeks, just as she had cleaning her room as a child. She avoided her father — which was not so difficult as he had not sought her out either — and spent her days with Thor as she ever had. Though now with Thor meant also with Loki and that, at least, was new.

Her estimation of him had improved after that first night when they danced. He was every bit as insufferable as she had thought, but he was also a boy, little different from other boys, she'd come to find. He was quite sure of himself and needed, always, to be right. Then there were the things that were purely Loki. How he hated to say what he truly meant and preferred instead to pretend everything significant a jest, at the expense of others or even of himself. She didn't know whether he truly felt he had something to hide or if he just found it amusing not to speak plainly, to tie his words and meanings, his truths and lies, in knots and leave them for others to unravel. Sif would not grant him the satisfaction of attempting to figure him out — or letting him think she was doing so — and their coexistence was surprisingly peaceful for it.

Thor had confided that he thought Loki odd, but inoffensive. Once, long ago, he had thought the same of Sif, so he was happy to let it lie.

Sif left them both that evening, though she did not mention why, and set out into the city. The twilight sky boasted a riot of violets and oranges, swirling behind the mountains and reflecting off of the sea. The balmy summer air made the journey at least pleasant, even if Sif's thoughts would not be calmed so easily. She'd dressed well, an offering or a compromise, whichever way it was taken, in a well-cut red jacket over her neat riding leathers. Auda smiled at her when she opened the door.

The house was the same as it ever was, her father's tastes specific. He waited at the dinner table, his regard icy. Their meal was punctuated only by Auda's pleasant inquiries after Sif's activities. Sif answered dutifully, ignoring her father's pointed silence.

"You should come by more often, Sif," said Auda. "The house is so much livelier with you in it."

"She will be back for good soon enough," Stigandr said, breaking his silence at last.

Sif set down her fork. "Is there something you wish to say, Father?"

"What would it matter if there were?" he asked. "You know so much. Why, you know everything already. No need to listen to me or anyone else."

"I don't need to know everything to know what I want," Sif said, pushed out through her teeth.

"What you want?" he spat. "What you want is nothing to what you need. You want, it seems, to insult the queen, the prince, the Allfather! But I assure you it does you no favors."

Her muscles tensed. Sif gripped the edge of the table to keep herself seated. Her knuckles trembled, whitened.

"The only one insulted is you!"

He scoffed. "Do you think everyone is so graceless as you? That they reveal all they think and feel to anyone who asks?"

"Stigandr, please," said Auda, but he ignored her.

"Why do you resist it so?" Stigandr asked Sif. His brow softened, his curiosity genuine, and Sif thought she might weep for it. "Is it- is it only to be willful? To punish me for some transgression I do not know?"

"Father-" Her voice broke. She hated it.

"You must have some affection for Thor, the way you follow him about like a dog." He threw up his hands, dripping frustration. "Even now, when he's burdened with that filthy jötunn!"

"You leave him be!" Sif yelled; it burst from her more violently than she expected. "Loki's got nothing to do with this!"

"Is there someone else?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

"What?" Sif breathed.

"Is there another?" Her father spoke each syllable with exaggerated slowness. "Is there someone you prefer to Thor that you should reject the prince of all Asgard? Tell me who it is and if he is appropriate then perhaps-"

"No!" Sif flew from her seat. A glass of wine upended and spilled. It trailed a sticky, red river across the table. "There is no one else! I am not a brood sow to be given away at your whim! Why is it so hard for you to understand that I have- I have thoughts- feelings of my own! Aspirations beyond who you want me to spread my legs for."

His face went pale, and his beard looked redder for it. Auda's mouth made an "o" from which a smothered sound emitted. Sif had never spoken to her father thus, and now she could not stop.

"If you wish to choke all the will, all the life out of me, then do it for real. At least then I could fight and not be expected to give in by inches, like a good daughter."

The wine had made it to the edge of the table. It dripped mournfully onto the floor.

"Get out," said Stigandr.

Sif gaped at him.

"Consider yourself relieved of the burden of my concern- of my love for you. Do not worry on it again. Do as you like and leave my house and do not come back."

"Stigandr!" Auda yelled, aghast, and at last he looked to her. Sif's body felt as stone. She could not move it.

His voice was soft as he spoke to Auda. "She does not want for my influence or my opinions, and she does not respect them. I stifle her. She wants to fend for herself. Then I'll let her."

He stood and paced from the room and as he disappeared through the door, Sif turned and ran. She burst from the house and into the street with force such that it spooked her horse. Auda came after her and grabbed at her arms, cradled her face.

"Sif!" Auda said, as Sif struggled. "Sif, listen to me! You two are alike in temperament. You are both hurt. You will both calm. Come back in-"

"No," Sif said as she wrenched away. Her eyes burned furiously. She would not cry. "I am sorry, Auda. But no. I will not come back."

She loosed the reins from the post and mounted, then raced off, almost blindly into the night. The evening had grown no colder, but it did nothing for her eyes, they ached and ached. She made her way to the central road, which cut a straight line through Asgard, and her eyes fell on the Bifröst in the distance. Her chest hitched, her throat closed, and she swerved away. She could not be seen, would not be seen, like this, not by anyone.

"Please," she whispered into the air, knowing it would carry, knowing he could hear. "Do not look."

Sif rode for the palace. When her horse was dealt with she streaked from the stables and out into the gardens. The interior training yard was empty, as she had hoped and, in the moonlight, she paced one of the rings back and forth like a caged animal. Sobs tore at her chest, her lungs cramped with them, but she would not give them voice. Instead, she pulled a glaive from a weapon rack.

She worked it and worked it through forms. Parry, spin, thrust, slash, feint, riposte, dodge, again and again. The glaive's dull blade whistled through the air, cutting, cutting, cutting through- Nothing. Until her muscles burned with weariness, until her eyes stung with the sweat dripping on her brow. When she could hear nothing but her heart pounding in her ears and her breath came in gasps so desperate that her chest hurt, Sif stopped.

She set the glaive back on its rack and, burning, ripped her jacket open. Her perfectly cut jacket for which Auda had measured her so precisely. One of the buttons, a pearl set in silver, loosened. It hung precariously from its thread. Sif thought to throw the jacket to the ground, stomp it into the clay until it, and all the things said and unsaid sitting like stones in her gut, were no more. Instead, she folded it over her arm and walked, tired, into the palace.

Voices still rose from some of the sitting rooms and halls in the more public parts of the palace, people cavorting late into the night. Sif marched past, heading to the east wing where her chambers lie. Then, she saw it.

It was nothing, yet it was something. A shadow on the floor, flickering, but with no source. Then it moved and disappeared around the corner. Sif, confused, followed. A gust of cool air hit her when she got to where it had been, though the rest of the hall was of moderate temperature. She did not see the shadow and the corridor forked. In one direction, more dining rooms, in the other the library. The pocket of cold snaked down the hall towards the library, Sif could feel it when she moved. She walked towards the library.

The door opened when she thought it should have been locked. Inside, the stacks towered around her like a forest and the smell of parchment, dust, and ink permeated the place. There was no sign of the shadow. The cool air had dissipated. She peeked down one row, then another. Nothing but books greeted her. She was ready to call herself mad and go to bed when she heard paper shuffling. She rushed towards the sound, considering what was near that she could use as a weapon, then stopped short.

Loki sat in an alcove at the end of a shelf of massive books that looked both very old and very boring. One such book was open on his lap. A tiny blue light bobbed near his head like a firefly. She wondered why, of all places in the palace, he would use his magic to sneak into the library.

"You have excellent senses," he said. He did not look up at her.

"I was meant to be a seer," Sif replied, though she did not know why. It seemed to slip from her tongue without her behest.

His eyes did dart to her then, curious, as she moved closer, but he did not voice a question.

"What are you doing here?" Sif asked him.

"Reading, of course," he said. "With the company you normally keep, I'm not surprised it's foreign to you."

"Thor can read," she said, too tired to avoid the bait.

"Indeed, he simply chooses not to avail himself. Why be troubled by so useless a pastime as thinking?"

"You shouldn't be rude about him," Sif snapped. "He isn't about you, though you give ample reason."

Loki smiled, but it was a tight smile and it did not reach his eyes.

"My apologies," he said and gestured grandly in her direction, his hand fluttering like a bird's wing. "I shall not insult your swain again, you defend him so admirably."

"I defend him because he is my friend!" Sif shot back. She was near to yelling, but she did not care. "You do have friends, don't you? You understand how they function? Not everything a person does is about fucking or marrying someone!"

Loki blinked at her, wide-eyed. It was the most caught off-guard she'd ever seen him look. Her ears felt hot, her neck flushed, as he stared at her. In the near dark, his eyes gleamed like gems, polished garnets set in his face.

"I do have friends," he said at last. "One in particular, I think you'd like very much."

As Sif watched him, he ran one long finger down the crease between the pages of his book.

"She wouldn't like you though," he continued with a smirk.

Sif huffed. "Dare I ask why not?"

"Oh, she doesn't like Æsir very much. Nothing personal, you understand. Not everyone is so enlightened as I am."

Sif meant to snort or to scoff, but instead she only sighed, long and low. Her jacket hung from one hand. It trailed on the floor. She set the other against the bookshelf nearest to her and leaned. She was so very tired, down to her bones.

In the soft blue light of his spell, Loki still gazed at her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

He did not mean it. He did not care; why should he? But still Sif said: "No."

He waited, expression placid, but she could see him looking at her rumpled jacket and her hair, stringy as the sweat in it dried.

"I argued with my father." Should it be so easy to say? No part of it ever had been. "He doesn't approve of me."

It was much more than that, and yet it wasn't.

"Ah," said Loki. He shifted slightly where he sat. His legs were folded, leaving a space to nest the book, and his feet were bare. His chest was not much better off. He wore one of his odd jötunn style tunics: a length of cloth draped and wrapped and tied off in some arcane configuration. It swooped over one shoulder and left the other uncovered. Sif could see his collarbone and the lean muscles where his long neck met his shoulder.

"You'll prove yourself," Loki said. "You are headstrong and unrelenting, and… very skilled from what I've seen. I'm not that versed in the ways of Asgard, but no father could help but to be proud, even in spite of himself, at so fierce a daughter as the warrior: Lady Sif."

She searched his face for insincerity — for something else that she heard, gentle, in his voice, though she knew not what — and could find nothing. He hid so well, the same way his skin almost disappeared into the nighttime shadows.

"You are full of horse shit," Sif said, and the fondness in it surprised her.

"I've heard worse," he replied.

She walked over to him and sat beside him in the alcove. Her arm pressed against one of his. She could feel his skin through her thin shirtsleeves, dry and cool. She bunched her jacket up on her lap.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

He swallowed, then cleared his throat. "A history of research into the mathematical principles governing spells that alter perception."

"On purpose?" she asked. "In the library, in the middle of the night?"

He grinned. "It's really quite interesting."

"Do tell," she said wryly.

In what could only be an act of most heinous revenge, he did tell. Sif fell asleep somewhere between the third sorcerer who killed another to steal her formulas and the one who fooled an entire city of dwarves into thinking he was twenty feet tall, but did the math wrong so they also thought he was naked.

When Sif woke, the early morning sun cast blocks of light onto the floor between the stacks and slashed across the rows of books. She slumped in the alcove, curled half into a ball. Her jacket was folded beneath her head and a heavy fur cloak was thrown over her. It smelled of winter and some spicy tang she couldn't identify. She moved her foot and it hit Loki's thigh.

He still had the book in his lap and he looked at her as she stifled a yawn.

"You snore," he informed her. "Very loudly. It put me in mind of the neighing of one of your horses. I could hardly concentrate."

Sif kicked him again, though she noticed that he had, indeed, hardly progressed from the chapter he was on when she first fell asleep.