Hello again! Thank you to everyone who's been reading this! I really appreciate the reviews I've gotten as well. They're always welcome. I truly value your feedback as you read. :-)

Here, we're back in the past on Asgard, keeping up with that storyline. That being said, enjoy!

Sif had marched straight out of the dungeons, trying to forget every trace of tears and – Odin forbid – that myriad of emotions that had wracked her as she stood before Loki's door. The bottled fury didn't lessen throughout the walk back to her room in the palace. It didn't fade even after she had slammed her heavy wooden door with a resounding bang that had probably woken all the late risers in the court. She still burned inside, even after she picked up a golden vase full of calla lilies and hurled it at the wall, the metal denting unattractively and the flowers spilling out onto the flagstone floor.

Sometimes she hated being right.

She almost regretted going to see him. She definitely regretted speaking to him as she had. If he hadn't been in enchanted chains behind a magicked door, she would have boxed his ears. She would have elbowed him in his solar plexus, knocking the air out of his lungs. She would have blackened both of his eyes and broken his perfect, straight nose. She would have gone after him with the dagger – the one he had given her when they were children. As she paced her room, she imagined several scenes that depicted what could have happened, had they both been free – things she would have done.

But he was in prison. And rightly so, she told herself, as if the repeated thought would eventually convince her to hate him, the remnants of his actions festering in her heart until she had no choice but to loathe his every breath.

She yelled in frustration, tearing her hair out of its braid and tangling the dark strands furiously with her agitated fingers. Why had she spoken to him as she had? What had come over her? There was no reason for such sentimentality between them. What had possessed her to go to the dungeon a dozen times in two days, just checking to see if she could go in? They'd told her! The guards had said when she would be allowed to see him, and yet she had returned like an anxious child. And to think that she had spent the entire night in a state of sleeplessness before finally bolting out of the palace at dawn's first light to try her luck once more.

It was inexcusable.

She stopped pacing and stood stock-still, her breath still heaving as it did in the midst of a war. But she was not fighting. A small nudging in the back of her mind challenged her, asking her what she actually was doing, if not fiercely battling something.

But she wasn't. This was not war, and nor was it anything closely related.

There was a quiet knock at her door.

For a moment, she contemplated screaming for the visitor to go away – to leave her alone! But she stopped herself before she could, remembering that she had to set an example for others, regardless of her unbridled irritation. She took a deep breath, eyes closed, trying to calm her upset senses. Once she felt certain that she wouldn't lash out at whomever it was at the door, she reached for the handle.

Thor waited patiently on the other side, looking more than slightly worse for the wear. She was about to comment, but thought better of it, seeing as she probably did not look excessively beautiful herself. He prevented a long deliberation on her part, though, speaking first. "Lady Sif."

"Thor."

He stared at her for a moment, and she amended tartly, "Prince Thor. Forgive me."

Raising his eyebrows at her, he said, "I was just observing your state." His blue eyes – dulled by far too long a time without proper sleep – scanned her up and down more pointedly.

"I realize that I hardly appear presentable," she replied, unable to entirely keep the bitterness from her tone.

"Neither do I, and I have been attending peace conferences across the Nine Realms."

She had to admit, he had a point. For a representation of Asgard, he was looking rather haggard. He sighed heavily and continued, "I wished to speak with you regarding my brother."

Sif balked immediately at the mention of the fallen prince – as he had come to be known – her face growing cold and inaccessible. Yet, because Thor was Prince and because he was, more importantly, her friend, she bit, "I shall tell you what I can."

"I have heard that you visited him."

She neither confirmed nor denied, but her silence was enough of a response for Thor to know that she had indeed been to see his brother.

Thor hesitated with his next question, turning the words over in his mouth like a new food. Finally, he said, "Did you get to speak with Loki?"

Sif's ears both perked and closed at the mention of his name. She knew Thor had intentionally used it, though his purpose was not to further confuse her rather whiplash thoughts. She knew exactly why he had used it, so, when she replied, "Perhaps," she knew the darkness that came over his face was warranted.

"Perhaps?" he repeated.

She took a step back from the door, granting him entry, getting the daunting idea that this conversation would be a long one. Thor sank heavily onto her bed without being invited, though she cared not what he did.

"I think I spoke to him," she said quietly, remembering the deadness in his face, despite their words. "He seemed to listen."

"What did you say?"

Thor had meant the question in the best of ways, his nature far from prying or invasive, yet she took it as a knife to her stomach. Her words spoken without thought in the stillness of the dungeon rushed back to her, despite her best attempts to forget them entirely, and the memory almost made her sick. She swallowed hard, heart kicking strangely in her chest; she had never been as adept at lying as the Silvertongue.

She almost hoped that Thor would notice her discomfort, but the idea left her as quickly as it had come; Thor would never see her struggle to edit her thoughts. Loki would – and he would call her on it. But Thor? Never. He was much safer.

Sif took a breath, holding it in for a moment, before the words tumbled out on the wave of her exhale. "I told him a great many things. Whether he chooses to believe them is out of my hands."

For a second, Thor just looked at her. Then, his eyes drifted down to her right wrist, and his large hand lifted hers, his thumb and forefinger delicately pinching a thin, black cord that she had tied there. It was so long that it wrapped twice around her wrist before settling into a thick knot that had kept it secured through many training exercises and battles alike. Sif wondered with a brief and unexplainable pang of terror if Thor knew the history associated with the slim band of leather; from the way he looked at it, she surmised with relief that there were still aspects he did not understand, though he could probably guess rather accurately at the trinket's origin.

His blonde brow knit as he considered the only piece of jewelry Sif made a habit of wearing – more so, the only article to stay on her person at all times. Granted, she could not remove it if she wished to, for the knot had been tied far too securely. But Sif alone knew that, should she lose it, she would feel naked as a babe.

"This –"Thor's voice jerked Sif from her imaginings. When his eyes rose to meet hers, they were the most agonizing combination of sorrow and weariness – something with which she could truly identify. "You mourn him," Thor stated softly.

Sif held her head higher, trying desperately to ignore the slight irregularity of breathing that had weaseled its way into her rhythm. "Yes," she said simply, taking care to keep her face bland and her voice neutral.

Thor gave a strained chuckle, the sound raw, as if his larynx was unused to the action of laughing. "And I was under the impression that the pair of you abhorred one another."

Her face grew a trifle too warm for her taste; she had never hated Loki. They had merely had a unique way of expressing their friendship. When he called her names, she would hit him – quite hard, for a young lady of the court. When she got cocky, his words and quips would cut her down to size immediately. Theirs had been an interesting childhood, and, grown-up as they had pretended to be before Loki's fall, such slights could have been heard from both parties on occasion, when they thought every ear was listening elsewhere and every eye was turned aside.

It suddenly dawned on her with such an intensity that it made her ache inside that she wanted nothing more than to hear him call her a "leaden-tongued, steel-veined, hard-hearted brute who is so infatuated with her sword that she remains clueless as to the finer points of battle." He had told her as much once before, and it surprised her that she remembered it word-for-word. She had, after all, been quite offended (though she would never admit to realizing the truth in such a statement later on).

"No," was all she could bring herself to say to Thor. When the silence that followed grew thick, she added, "We have never held true dislike for one another. Although, I can see where my bruised ego and his bruised body might suggest otherwise."

Thor gave a grim smile at the analogy, remembering the scenes all too well; he himself had even been involved on more than one occasion. Almost immediately, though, his shadow of a smile faded, and he asked, "What did he tell you?"

She thought for a long moment, recalling his words clear as day in her mind. Finally, she settled with saying, "Nothing."

"He would not speak?"

Sif shook her head. "No, he spoke," she said, "but he told me very little. Instead, he made queries." Confusion muddled her face as she thought over his questions. "I think he has lived for so long on the foundation of his own answers that, when they began to crumble, he sought those of another."

Thor nodded, but she could see the concern in his eyes. "Will you go to him again?" he asked, his voice small when compared to his body.

"I don't know," she returned. "If you think he wishes it."

"I think he will always wish for a familiar face," Thor said, giving her shoulder a kind squeeze before rising and leaving her alone once more.