Sif remained silent for an uncomfortably long time, the voice patiently awaiting her answer to its question: "How do you know the defendant?" Thor watched her carefully, anticipating some variety of outburst as was so common in the lady – the only woman in the realm to assert her independence in the form of war against the conventions of her own gender. As long as Thor had known her, she had had a fiery personality, prone to be passionate about the littlest things and just as ardent about everything else. She had always been prepared with a battle cry on her lips and a retort to follow.
So for Thor to witness her complete motionlessness, coupled with a deadly sort of quiet that echoed – reeked – of war, was something entirely new and less than welcome.
His nerves stood on edge, muscles tense, breaths coming faster as just before a fight. He could see the same symptoms in Hogun, Volstagg, and Fandral alike – the priming and fine-tuning that centuries of training and countless experiences had drilled into their minds. The promise of attack, but only if provoked, and the waiting until provocation occurred.
Loki stood in the room opposite, eyes focused on the floor with a gaze so hard that it was a wonder it didn't drill a hole right where he stared. When he blinked, the corners of his eyes crunched as he pressed his lids together for a moment, stretching his time in the darkness that he controlled. His hands had coiled themselves in the chains, gripping them tightly like a lifeline.
The Lady Sif hadn't taken her eyes from Loki since she had been brought into the room by Fandral minutes before the start of the trial. She had scarcely moved at all, even to relieve tension in her own body. As Thor watched her, a thousand thoughts ran through his mind – ways to comfort his friend, ways to help her, things to say in her stead.
But all those thoughts scattered like dust when Sif opened her mouth and drew a breath.
"I know him."
That was all she said. Three simple words that, much to Thor's surprise, harbored no bottled fury or hatred at all. She had stated them casually – dispassionately – as she might have commented upon a new sword as she tested it in the training ring.
"The question asked how you knew him," the voice reminded coolly.
Sif lifted her head, pushing away from the glass, her fist unfurling so that only the tips of her fingers pressed against the window. "I know him," she said again, more body to her voice. "I know him as I know myself."
Thor could hear the emotion pushing the words forth – see it in her subtly trembling hand at her side.
"Loki has a warrior's heart," she continued, tone and emphases swelling like the ocean at the onset of a storm. "He always has, though few have seen it as such because he prefers not to fight with sword and shield; he'd rather not live as a warrior, just as I prefer not to live as a lady. He has never been truly accepted by his people but has had to try every day to fit into the culture without betraying himself. As the only female Warrior of the Realm, such burdens have been as much mine as they have been his. Like Loki, I have been ridiculed for my gifts. I have borne the weight of confusion, uncertainty, and loneliness. I have longed for recognition – praise for a job well done. In fact, the only difference between the pair of us lies in the fact that you laud me as a hero yet label him 'fallen.' I am celebrated while he was imprisoned. And I cannot help but wonder: had my past circumstances been different, would not our positions be switched?"
She flattened her palm against the glass, sliding it smoothly down until her arm rested at her side once more. "I decline any further questions," she said, voice ringing hollowly after the conviction she had just displayed, and she turned on heel, leaving the room, balled fists revealing her truest sentiments on the topic.
Thor and the Warriors Three watched her go, the silence that followed laying heavy over them like a smothering blanket. The door noiselessly swung shut after her, and the four of them exchanged nervous glances. They had all undoubtedly hoped that the tension in the room would decline with Sif's exit, but they had all been wrong; the air hung thick around them, and, as much as they tried to set each other at ease, nothing could undo the words that the lady had said – words that had made all of them look and feel like children with their one-dimensional answers to the questions put forth.
To break the feeling that he had just been shoved underwater to drown by a woman with more reckless courage than she was due, Thor became the first to look into the adjoining room through the massive window.
Loki's face was turned away, angled toward the ground, but Thor could still see the slow, silent tears that dripped from Loki's eyes, tracking down his face mercilessly. His hands gripped the bar to which he was chained, knuckles white and unyielding as his shoulders rose and fell irregularly but not violently. His knees looked as though they might buckle, like those of a lashing victim at the post, back streaked with blood and beaten within an inch of his life.
Somehow, Sif's words had touched him.
"Very well, then," the voice chimed, and Thor could have sworn that there was at least a touch of emotion in that neutral, bipartisan attempt to rekindle the flame that had been both staunched and stirred by the lady. "I now summon forth Thor Odinson, first prince of Asgard."
At this request, Loki's head snapped up, revealing eyes that burned, alert and attentive as Thor answered the questions put to him in a fashion that he didn't even remember, for, as he spoke, the energy in those eyes dwindled; by the time he had finished describing the battles on Midgard, both New Mexico and New York, Loki's face had lost any color that it had retained, and his eyes had gone glassy and lifeless.
"Thank you, witnesses," the voice said. "You shall be escorted out of the box so that a decision can be reached."
At that cue, the door opened, revealing two attendants who beckoned them to leave, holding the door and nodding politely to each witness as they passed.
Thor paused, one foot over the threshold, and looked back to find his brother. Loki now stood rigid, upright and capable, though his expression hardly conveyed the same message, his face painted over with dead resignation instead. He held his hands slightly in front of him, as if he had considered pleading for mercy but had thought better of it.
Thor swallowed – an unusually difficult action – and left the witness room, knowing full well that, the second the door swung shut again, Loki would be condemned to listen to the voice and the court rule out his fate. He would be powerless to save himself, the choice completely removed from his capacity.
Some would argue that Loki had abdicated that right when he had acted in such a manner as to become imprisoned in the first place.
Sif's words still dug at Thor, though, and he knew that she was right. Under the wrong circumstances, she might have very well been chained up in the dark room, awaiting judgment. What was a villain but a hero who had been given a reason to hate and the wrong vessel to channel it?
He hoped that Loki had understood this too, for Thor was far from believing that his little brother was beyond saving.
She had very intentionally avoided her private quarters, as there was not much left to destroy within those walls. Instead, she had fled all the way out of the courthouse, through the same woods that had concealed her sprint to the courthouse from the prison. This time, however, she took a different and much more familiar path – one that led up through the hills, skirting many a village, passing waterfalls from which she had dived in years gone by, weaving its way dangerously close to the spots she had once shared with her dearest friend.
Those spots were sacred to her. Sometimes, she was convinced that the memories became entirely real whenever she set foot into those quiet places – the nooks in the forest that had been her retreat. There had never been any prying eyes, condemnation, or judgment. Only a boy with his books who would shoot her a smile that could melt the heavens when he'd look up and find her there.
She shook her head, trying to coerce the memories that had started trickling into her consciousness back into their proper place. The last thing she needed was to remember how welcome she had felt when she was alone with him under the generous shade of the trees.
So she took many a detour to grant these places a wide berth.
As she approached the palace, it did not escape her notice that the ground grew more and more well-trodden the closer she got; long, twisting footpaths carved out over the years by two pairs of boots that always traveled the same ways trailed off in different directions, each leading away from the palace and toward one of those crevices in reality – crevices in which they could be as they liked, no formalities to bind them.
Eventually, when she was almost at the edge of the forest, she saw the paths divide. One fork led to the building itself while the other led straight to the training area. She chose the latter, tromping her way toward the practice ring.
Each step felt like she wore sandbags tethered to her ankles, their weight hampering her every movement. She slogged through the grass as if it were deep mud, her conditioned and muscular legs growing weary the closer she dragged herself to her chosen destination.
Finally, the dusty arena came into her line of vision, and she exerted more energy to reach it faster; she only wanted to collapse in the all-too-friendly dirt that had always been hers – the place she could go to burn off her anger when it came upon her like a gale-force wind.
She told herself that now was one of those times.
She also knew better.
She certainly felt angry. She had every right to, after all. But there was a myriad of other things tossed in with the anger, shaken around, and inverted until she couldn't tell one emotion from the others. And she knew that she had always sifted through her head with the greatest efficiency and thoroughness while swinging a sword through a variety of formations.
When she reached the large, sandy circle, she tore her sword from its scabbard and held it at attention. The sunlight winked off of the polished metal, and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She could almost hear the steel sing to her, feel it pulsing cool and heavy in her hands as she drew it through the air, slowly peeling the molecules apart.
It whistled as she brought it down, hard, fast, unforgiving, and she suddenly felt awash in the most inexplicable sensation. She felt rage. She felt fear. She felt regret, and she felt none whatsoever. She felt a sea of hatred – resentment, callousness, ire, ice – eating at her like vultures, picking the flesh from her heart and flying away.
Her sword was fluid and flawless as she spun, swinging it overhead before thrusting it at an imagined enemy. Long, dark strands of hair fell in her face as she realized that she had neglected to tie it back. Even so, she loathed the idea of breaking stride to do it, so her hair remained down, a train of obsidian as she maneuvered within the ring, the dimensions of which had grown friendly after all the years.
She lunged.
She parried.
Had her opponent been real, he would have laid in recklessly-carved pieces, his blood sprinkled artfully through the dust of the arena like the first smatterings of sunset.
She imagined Loki standing before her as she raised her sword, preparing expertly for a strike.
The emotions coursed through her like adrenaline, burning her from the inside out. All those awful things tearing her heart to bits. She pretended that she could be rid of them, once and for all, if she just made this final cut.
She drew back, muscles bunched, eyes wild.
Yet something stayed her hand.
In the midst of all those horrible emotions, she felt something warmer radiating through the others, starting to methodically overpower them. Fighting had always helped her to clear her head, and she wondered if this new thing that gradually eclipsed everything else might be exactly what she had been searching for. She could hardly name it, but it had made her stop in the middle of her attack on the man who had caused so much confusion within her for far too long. Whatever it was, it was strong
"Sif."
She whirled around, the voice bringing her out of her own head and grounding her firmly. Behind her stood the Warriors Three, Fandral's lips still slightly parted from saying her name.
"Yes?" she replied, not truly wishing to speak with them, but indulging the strained looks on their faces.
Fandral cleared his throat, avoiding her eyes. "We were all talking about the trial. Your display was –"
"Deplorable?" she supplied, letting the tip of her sword lower into the dirt and raking hair out of her face. "Disrespectful?"
"No, we –"
"Because I have already reached such conclusions on my own."
Volstagg took a small step forward, shooting her sword a wary glance. She was obviously in poor spirits, and the sword in her hand took on a whole new purpose when this was the case. "Sif," he said gently, "we thought none of those things."
"We found your behavior to be . . . admirable," Hogun put in, not daring to get any closer to her, but instead offering her an esteemed dip of the head.
"Brave," interjected Fandral.
Volstagg simply nodded heartily in agreement.
Fandral continued, watching her closely for any sign of anger, which would in turn foreshadow danger to all involved. Yet his words were entirely sincere when he said, "You were the only one among us to act as a true warrior today. We wanted you to know that."
For a moment, Sif just stood still, staring at them, half expecting them to say more, half marveling that they had said so much already. Eventually, she looked pointedly at each of them in turn, saying, "Thank you, friends."
"But we are yet curious," Volstagg pressed. "What made you do such a thing?"
Sif considered briefly, before deciding that the truth was, in fact, the simplest option. "I had promised Loki that I would be honest," she stated. And honest, she had been.
The Three didn't move at first, but, once she had shifted to leave them and continue her exercises, Fandral caught her up in an embrace. It was quick and uncomfortable, considering how both parties knew that Sif tended to shy away from such close contact unless it was in the context of a fistfight or a wrestling match. When he released her, Volstagg seemed to think that Fandral had started a worthy trend, and he too hugged Sif before she could get away.
She was worried briefly that she would be passed along to Hogun next, but she relaxed quite a bit when the man offered his hand, a rare smile tugging at his lips. She took it, shaking his hand as she would a comrade-in-arms, which was precisely what the pair of them had always been. It suited them well, she thought.
"Thank you for fighting when none of us did," Hogun said in the second before they broke their grip.
It occurred to her that two of their party were missing. One, she knew was still likely chained in the courthouse – an image that drew forth a fresh wave of emotion that she squelched immediately. But the other's whereabouts were a mystery to her. "Where is Thor?" she asked, an attempt to assuage her confusion.
The Warriors Three exchanged a glance, none of their faces carrying the same expression, thusly impeding Sif's ability to read them. After an ominous hesitation, Fandral said, "He has gone to Odin and Frigga to ask assistance in finding a way to Midgard."
"Why would he want to do that when there's so much to rectify here?" she asked.
"He speaks of a coalition of mortals," Fandral explained to the best of his ability, "who might be able to help Loki. He calls them the Avengers."