Ever since he'd met the young and bright Sif, Loki had always regarded her as tempered, a steady flame, burning up everything around it just slowly enough that notice was only taken when it was too late. For most of the years after, he'd stayed true to that belief, known that Sif was made stronger by whatever she experienced, known that she was the epitome of strength itself. She was to be both admired and envied.
Later, when Loki found himself in the hormonal, stressful throes of adolescence, he realized how wrong he'd been, on a chilly day in the middle of the coldest winter they'd ever had, snow blanketing the ground in thick, fluffy mounds of white. A green scarf wrapped snugly about her pale, ivory-skinned neck (compliments of one mischievous teenager), Sif had been shivering uncontrollably as they took a casual stroll through the nearly abandoned square, the only people out and about in Asgard's roughest winter.
Loki, wearing only his usual leather, had felt completely comfortable in the frigid air, and Sif had eyed him warily every now and then, as if he might turn blue and keel over at any second, and he'd watched as the falling snow dotted the fur of her cloak and made her ebony hair look darker than midnight. Squinting against the blinding light of the illuminated snowfall, he'd brushed a flake from her flushed cheeks and her light gaze had widened noticeably.
There had been flecks of snow on his own face, covering his lips, and yet they hadn't melted against his skin, and he'd smirked, about to wipe them away with the back of his hand. Sif, though, with all of her grace and speed, had leaned up to meet his lips with her own and the heat of her kiss, searing and nearly unbearable, had melted the snow instantly.
When at last she'd pulled away, albeit reluctantly, he'd still had his eyes open, pupils blown large as he stared, and in that soft gaze of hers was a steel he'd never noticed before. He'd been wrong, Loki had realized.
Sif was not a constant, destructive force; she was a wild, untamed thing, and it shone so very vividly in both her sharp eyes and wicked smile.