Xidaer: Darcy has the option to actually have a giant dog of her own- but prefers Thor in the end.
siesiegirl: jealous!Sif fucking with Darcy. (and along those lines, whose side will the Warriors Three take in that feud?)
EmilieMonaghan : Sif might not know what a 'bestie' is, but she knows a rival when she sees one.
Wherein Sif learns about Harry Potter. (Humor/Friendship. PG.)
Outside the healing room, Sif sits with her head in her hands.
The commotion within is nothing she has not heard before — she is a warrior. Injuries are part of her life. But wounds, even accidental ones, are one thing; illness is another. And mortals are so fragile. How could she have forgotten? How could she have dismissed the signs? Is she so blind?
Or is her dislike (her jealousy) so profound that she knew what was happening, and subconsciously yet willfully dismissed it?
What has she done?
"What have you done?"
That cold, irritatingly familiar voice is not what Sif wants to hear right now. "It was an accident," she says.
Loki stops before her and crosses his arms with a look of contempt. (Howdare he treat her with disgust. She knows what he is. A traitor to Asgard. A danger to Thor. He has always been jealous of his brother.) "An accident," he repeats with a drawl. "I see."
Another burst of hurried voices from within the chamber.
"Thor had spoken of bilgesnipes," says Sif. "Darcy Lewis—"
"Bestie Darcy Lewis, my lady. We ought show her the respect of her proper title."
Sif grits her teeth. "Bestie Darcy Lewis—" (what is a 'bestie', anyway, aside from a rank that clearly exceeds hers?) "—expressed an interest in the hunt. As Thor was occupied, I offered to take her to the stables to see the destriders."
"Only the destriders?" Loki raises a single eyebrow. The mortal girl is supposed to be his friend, his friend who lies possibly dying through a single set of doors, and he is enjoying this. "Not the twelve-foot hunting dogs as well?"
She swallows. "Yes. Those as well."
There are no hounds of such size on Midgard — or anywhere else, for that matter. Perfectly safe if you know how to handle them, but…
She had only meant to unsettle the mortal. Darcy Lewis has been socomfortable since the moment she stepped foot in Asgard. Far too comfortable for a girl of a mere twenty-two years who has never seen a world beyond her own — and not even much of that. Sif only thought to show her something that might… remind her of her inexperience.
She never meant to hurt her.
She doesn't even know how it happened.
"It was an accident," Sif says again.
"A fact which will comfort Thor in the event of her death."
"She will not die."
"Are you certain?"
No.
Wait— yes. Yes, she is. "You would not be so calm," Sif says to Loki, realization dawning, "were she in serious danger."
Loki's expression of distant disapproval doesn't even waver. "Darcy Lewis and I are hardly more than acquaintances," he tells her. "She is a loud-mouthed irritant more often than not."
A lie. Sif is not blind. Loki certainly does not cling to Darcy Lewis as he does to Jane Foster (a subject of ongoing curiosity in the halls of Asgard), but his sharp tongue curbs itself for her nevertheless. And he does not bristle at the way she teases him in return. This is as close to friendship as Sif believes Loki capable.
(She tried to be kind when they were children. She disliked him, but shetried, yet Loki only ever showed resentment that his brother's attention became divided. As though it were not enough that Thor loved Loki most — the jealous little snake could not tolerate his having other friends at all. Siftried, and Loki turned her hair dark out of spite.)
The second Prince of Asgard is a talented liar, but if he truly feared for Darcy Lewis, his dagger would be at Sif's throat. She knows this. She might allow it, rather than face Thor when he finds out.
(Will he hate her for this? Centuries at his side, and will he turn away from her for a woman he's known only a few heartbeats?)
Loki's hand comes to rest on Sif's shoulder. She shrugs him off. "Don't touch me," she warns.
"Of course," he says smoothly. "I meant only to offer my sympathies. It is a discomfiting thing, when a little prank goes awry."
She wasn't playing a prank. Sif does not play pranks. She is the first warrior maiden of Asgard. Pranks are beneath her.
(Darcy Lewis had knelt in the straw of the stable, red-faced, sneezing, gasping for breath. She had just meant to rattle the girl. It was a prank, and Sif has never been more ashamed.)
The doors of the healing room swing open. Sif leaps to her feet, but Eir only has words for Loki. "My Prince," the old woman says, a wealth of barely-repressed anger in her tone, "I mean no disrespect, but we cannot continue our ministrations if your consort insists upon—"
"Hey, Loki!" Jane Foster calls from within (voice carries too easily through these halls, in Sif's opinion). "They have a quantum field generator in here! Why didn't you tell me that? A quantum field generator!"
"Soul Forge," Eir mutters under her breath.
Loki doesn't even make an effort to repress his smile. "I suggest you let Jane Foster do as she will. Dissuading her from disassembling objects in the name of science is a waste of everyone's valuable time."
"'Tis not 'science' — it is magic."
"Indeed. And when you have that discussion with her, I really must insist on being present. I'll even bring popcorn."
"Popcorn?"
This is no time for bickering. "How is your patient?" demands Sif. "Will she recover?"
"She will," says Eir, "though I confess I've no notion of how, nor of what ailed her."
"It was the hounds." Loki glances at Sif, his grin widening. "Darcy Lewis is allergic to dogs. A uniquely mortal ailment, though not uncommon. It is why she chose to take a job at the DVD rental store while Thor worked at the pet shop; his jeans had to be washed twice before she stopped sneezing."
Sif would rather bite off her tongue and swallow it than admit she only understood one word in five of what Loki just said. "So she'll be well."
"Keep her away from the stables and she'll be right as rain. Idiom," he adds before either Sif or Eir can ask. (As though he didn't use it only to irritate them.)
Eir turns to Sif, looking very much as though she's considering retirement to the far outskirts of the realm. "Bestie Darcy Lewis has been requesting your presence," she says.
Oh.
Several minutes pass before Loki is able to remove Jane Foster from the healing room, only succeeding with solemn promises of access to the Soul Forge as soon as possible. (Eir's lips had pressed together so tightly they nearly disappeared.) It takes nothing more than a nod for Sif to clear the rest of the healers as well, so that she and Darcy Lewis can speak in private – for if Darcy Lewis wishes to (rightly) castigate her for her actions, Sif would just as soon there not be witnesses.
But the mortal does no such thing. "Hey," she says, smiling as though nothing has happened. "Can you get me out of here?"
Sif blinks. "I beg your pardon?"
"The nurses keep looking at me like I'm a frog in a freshman bio class. I thought Jane would be able to spring me, but she got distracted, and you're not the distractable type, so… yeah. Will you tell them to let me go?"
"Perhaps you should remain until you are—"
"Dude, I feel fine. Those giant dogs of yours need baths, though. Just saying." Darcy Lewis adjusts her spectacles, then suddenly frowns. "Hey, you're not feeling bad, are you? It's no biggie."
Not even an event like this can disturb this human's placidity. How can that be? "I nearly killed you," Sif says, voice rising.
"Nah. It'd be nice if I had an inhaler or something, but no one ever died of a sneeze attack. I don't think."
"Why are you not angry with me?"
"I don't really get angry. Total waste of energy. Besides, we're both Hufflepuffs."
Sif cannot hide her bafflement.
Darcy Lewis continues: "See, I figured it out awhile ago. It's why Jane and Thor and Loki and I handled life so well. It's all in the balance. Loki is totally a Slytherin, Jane's about the biggest Ravenclaw to ever Ravenclaw, Thor couldn't be more of a Gryffindor if he tried—"
Does anything this mortal says make sense?
"—and I'm a Hufflepuff. I know. I took about a zillion quizzes." Darcy Lewis swings her legs over the side of her bed. She does look well. "The point is, you're a Hufflepuff too. So I get it. You're super-loyal to Thor."
"Yes. I am." It is the most important part of her life.
"But you really don't have to worry about other people being loyal, too, is the thing. I'm not going to stab him in the back or anything. I look out for him. I look out for all of them, 'cause, I don't know if you noticed, but theyreally need looking after."
Sif has noticed. At least with Thor — she would follow him anywhere, but other voices must guide him as well. But she does not know Jane Foster, and Loki… he is a different matter.
(There are traitors in the house of Odin, Laufey said.)
"My point is, it's okay if you don't like me. You guys have your little Hogwarts — except I don't know who Hogun is, probably the Ravenclaw — and we have our Hogwarts, but it's not like we have to fight just because we share a Gryffindor." Sif just shakes her head, and Darcy Lewis sighs. "Maybe Thor can translate it better for you. I got him to watch the movies. Anyway, are we cool?"
Sif isn't sure she can be 'cool' with Darcy Lewis. (That term, at least, she came to understand almost the moment the mortals arrived.) But… "I suspect you are as wise as Thor says," she tells the bestie.
"Great. So you'll get me out of here before they start poking me with that Quantum-Forge-Whatever again? Because it seriously creeps me out."
"I will."
"Sweet."