The Golden Shadow:
A Missing Scene From Fallen Star by Alydia Rackham
Background: Scene takes place behind-the-scenes during the end of Chapter 24. Loki failed to attend dinner. Jane has been informed by Frigg to expect a marriage proposal from Thor. She goes to her room, thoughts heavy, and finds a flower waiting for her within. This is Sif's POV of events that evening.
OOOO
Sif crept slowly and miserably back towards her chambers; her queasy stomach still mostly empty. Despite how delicious the dinner smelled, she only managed to push it around her plate. She sighed deeply and paused to lean against a pillar in the long hallway leading to her chambers.
It would be tomorrow then. All her hopes and dreams would finally die, buried in an engagement announcement and joyous feast. She felt sick with not only her own desperate anticipation but with the weight of a millennium of self-denial.
As long as he remained unmarried, she could pretend his heart would one day be hers, as hers had long belonged to him. She could attempt to dismiss any number of flirtations and dalliances, despite their sting and bitter taste, and continue to walk with her hope uncrushed.
Until tomorrow. Then he could no longer be hers, even in her dreams and self-delusions. She would have to finally admit what she had long been loath to - he did not and would not and could not love her. She was not enough. Her fierce loyalty and even fiercer love, her warrior's heart and great beauty all failed to gain the heart of her beloved golden prince.
What more could she have done? How more deadly should her sword stroke have been? How many more times should she have followed him into battle and saved his life? Why could a frail mortal accomplish, in a mere handful of days, what she failed to accomplish in a thousand years?
And to add insult to injury, the mortal's hair hung in light brown curls, not fair golden tresses, yet still Thor's heart was hers.
She felt a single hot tear roll down her powdered cheek and splash upon the breast of her blue gown, unbidden and unwanted, the same as the lady from which it had sprung. A movement through the shadows momentarily caught her eye. As silent as a spirit, she saw a black-clad figure walk towards a door ahead of her, steps slow and shoulders hunched in heavy cares, as if walking toward an execution and not a sleeping chamber.
Prince Loki, she thought to herself, when she recognized his bearing.
His quick, careful eyes scanned the halls before he slipped into a door without making a sound. In his hands, he carried a single flower.
It was her room. The mortal's. The tiny woman who did not look as if she could carry a sword and yet still managed to fell both of the sons of Asgard in a single stroke.
It was the fodder of all the palace gossip now. Why would a banished prince exchange humiliation for the life of a mortal woman? And not just any mortal woman - his rival brother's chosen and esteemed mortal consort. As if that alone did not lift eyes, the second prince's behavior since then only stirred assumptions further.
The healers spoke of how he watched her. Every moment Thor left her side, the other prince took his place and did not take his eyes from her, as if they were held by the gravity of Mjolnir itself. The housecleaners spoke of how his blood-stained helmet also remained in her possession, from the healing rooms and even into her bedchambers, it did not leave her side. The Warriors Three spoke of his changed behavior: his lack of mischief, his tamed tongue, his distracted thoughts, his melancholy air. And even Sif could see he looked as a man who neither slept nor eat, a man plagued from within who could not find rest.
A man who looked as she felt.
Here, at least, she could be assured that one other would mourn tomorrow alongside herself. It was a small comfort to know she would not be entirely alone in her desolation. She determined, then, that shared misery was preferable to drowning in her solitary tears. She stood upright again and quickly cleared the traitorous tears from her cheeks and waited for the other prince to emerge.
When his footsteps fell silently on the marble floor of the hall again, his hands were now empty. The flower he must have left within the mortal's chambers to stay in the company of his abandoned helmet. The action was a greater pronouncement of truth than any of the longest of speeches to fall from his eloquent tongue.
He paused outside the door, as if lost in the halls he had spent a millennium crossing. His pale face seemed even paler now, drawn and pulled thin. His tall shoulders slumped inward. His green eyes sparkled darkly, but Sif would not suffer to believe he had shed tears. She would not injure his pride with the conjecture, even if a part of her whispered it was true.
"Prince Loki," she called.
He swung around as if she had struck him with a blow instead of with her voice.
"Lady Sif," he said with a polite nod in her direction. She could already feel him pushing her away, plotting how he could escape into the fortress of his isolation. She would not allow it. Not tonight, at least.
"My prince, will you accompany me into the gardens?" she asked and placed a hand on the crook of his arm.
His eyes grew wide in momentary surprise before he nodded in assent. She watched as he struggled through a myriad of emotions, pulling them ever deeper inward, and burying his true feelings beneath the ordinary shroud of indifference that he wore closer than his skin.
The cool air of the outside world proved a blessed relief to her flushed face. The scent of the sea intermingled with jasmine and trumpet vines, reminding her of pleasant times and past evenings when her heart had felt lighter than it did now. They could hear crickets, distant laughter, and the gurgling of a fountain as their light footsteps followed a cobbled path into the dimly lit gardens.
"You have not been at meals," she remarked, failing to piece together a better preamble into her desired topic of conversation.
"And since when has the Lady Sif been concerned with my eating habits?" he retorted, with a convincing attempt at disdain.
She sighed. He would not make this easy. He would maintain his armor, using his tongue as a weapon to push away anyone who walked too close to the truth - anyone who came too close to the turbulent fragility that he sought to pretend did not exist beneath.
"You are wise," she said. "Would that I made similar decisions this week."
He turned to face her then, taken slightly aback with her uncharacteristic vulnerability. She knew something of maintaining armor, but she also knew sometimes she must be the first to let down her guard, if she wished to forge on with declaring a truce rather than battle.
"What do you wish of me?" he asked, his eyes searching hers warily.
"Your company," she said. "I wish, for tonight at least, that we lay down our weapons and walk together."
He snorted in derision. "You despise my company on the best of nights. I am fit as companion for none but myself tonight, and even I would avoid my own presence if it were possible. If you are hoping I can lighten your spirits, I am afraid I will disappoint."
"And that is what makes you my chosen companion tonight," she said. "You are the one other person in Asgard who might possibly be as miserable or even, dare I say it, more miserable than I tonight. The only other kindred spirit who will not sleep a wink and dreads tomorrow worse than any eve of battle."
She watched as he warred within himself. He was too weary to fight back or to feign indifference and his emotions played too clearly across his face for him to deny the truth of her words. He sank onto a bench and into silence. She followed his lead.
"I suppose there are some paths we both share," he finally said, staring into the night sky instead of towards her. She swallowed and it felt as if she were setting her own insides in flames as she decided to trample upon the remaining shards of her pride and speak openly of what she never dared speak out loud before.
"Prince Loki, I need to apologize to you. I…I have not been kind…," she began. She glared at him as he gave a surprised, choking laugh in response. "Shhh, let me speak for I will never be in a mood to speak so again."
He quieted and chose to mirror her solemnity again.
She continued. "I blamed you - for Thor's indifference, for my wounded heart. It made my own misery easier for me to accept. I could pretend that it was all your fault that Thor lost interest instead of facing the truth of my own inadequacies and the role I played in my rejection. It was wrong of me. I should not have disdained you as I did. You were wounded by Thor's behavior as much as I and I…I did not see it, at least, I chose not to see it, then."
"I knew," he said. "I understood. Not that I enjoyed it, but your motivation was transparent to me at the time. I, also, am sorry for how I spoke of you and to you after, well, everything. We were two wounded animals who sought to scratch out each other's eyes instead of seeking to share our common woes."
"What commonalities do you speak - of love and loss?"
"Yes…in different ways. We both sought the admiration of another who proved indifferent. We both knew only too well our own inadequacies in comparison with the Golden Prince. But even more so, we both knew the glorious feeling of being in the center of Thor's love and we both felt, even more acutely, our own isolated pain when it was lost and we found ourselves cast out from the locus of his attentions."
"You speak truth, though, for once, I wish I could hear lies instead. Yet, here we are again," she said. "How will you deign to make peace with your brother if you continue to court the same woman's affections?"
He sighed. "Is it that plainly seen?"
"You have not exactly been discrete."
He dropped his eyes to his hands and ran his fingers over each other. It was a nervous gesture she used to see him perform when they first became acquainted, but she had failed to see him exhibit for many years.
"At least this time, his interest preceded my own. I am not the cause of his interest and so I can harbor no ill-will towards him for my predicament. That he deserves the love of two such women, I will decry, but in this instance, he has done nothing to garner my anger except to reveal, once again, my inability to compete with his glorious presence. His shadow crushes with a weight stronger than Mjolnir and is one that I will never escape, no matter the millennia I live."
"Here we both are, struggling to escape from under his shadow once again…Prince, I need to know…" Sif said, changing her tone and staring intently into his face. "Why my hair?"
He scoffed and the familiar coldness filled his features.
"No, not what you told before in the midst of both your anger and my own. What's done is done. I simply wish to know why."
"Sif, I am guilty of many things. It was my admiration of your beauty that first forced you into Thor's gaze. It was my jealous admissions in the aftermath of his pursuit that caused your hair. You did not deserve to be torn between brothers and a discarded casualty of princes, and yet you were. For that, I am sorry."
"What mean you that your jealous admissions caused my hair?"
He sighed and remained silent.
"Tell me," she pressed.
"Baldur," he said, pain in his voice. She winced at the name. His hands, unbidden, flew to the scars on his shoulders before he dropped them into his lap again. "Baldur could see my troubles written on my face and he pried a confession out of me. In jest, we wondered if Thor would cease his affections if your hair was a color other than gold. I meant only to suggest the frailty and shallowness of his pursuit. I gave the matter no other thought until you appeared at my door with fire in your eyes and hair the color of a raven's wing."
"You…you…you did not change the color of my hair?" she said, mouth agape, her face flaming in sudden heat.
"Yes and no. I do not have the capacity to permanently alter the appearance of an Aesir. But it was my words that set events in motion, even if unwittingly done. Therefore, I am both guilty and innocent."
"Loki, do not twist your words in cleverness. Speak truth. Who cast the spell that changed my hair?"
"Baldur…or so I believe. I never could pry a confession from him, but he was the only other who I spoke of the matter with and shortly thereafter, your hair was enchanted."
"But none would have suspected him and so you could not say at the time…," she said, her mouth falling open as she thought through the implications of the act at the time of its occurrence.
"And I was already guilty of too many other misdeeds to be able to convince anyone of my innocence."
"You didn't….Ah! Loki, I have wronged you in more ways than I ever suspected! You were ever only justified in your anger and bitterness towards me and I deserve it still!"
Tears streamed down her cheeks, unbidden by her warrior's heart. The shame and mortification only caused them to flow stronger.
"No, I was not," he answered firmly. "I felt ill-used by both my brothers and woefully inadequate in comparison with my elder. I, too, used you as an outlet for some of those faults which were not yours to bear."
She blinked back her tears before taking his hand in hers for a moment and pressing it tightly. "Let us both put the past behind us, then, and seek to think better of the other," she said.
"Aye, but only if the other is better."
She laughed and dropped his hand. Her heart felt simultaneously relieved and burdened from their exchange, but she could not regret her decision to pursue him that night or the rare confessions it contained.
"What will you do, then, after this?" she asked.
"I know not, Lady Sif. I love my brother but I am not certain I can bear a daily observance of his marital bliss with his choice of bride."
"If given the option, I would rather pitch my tent among a herd of stampeding bilgesnipes over that fate," she answered wryly.
"Lady Sif, after they wed, if we fail to find an appropriately infuriated herd of beasts for you to dwell among, what say you to exploring some of the Nine for a time? Perhaps we may set ourselves to seek out some treasure in need of finding or stumble upon a dragon to best or some unnecessary and very dangerous quest to embark on that will give Volstaadt's stories competition at feasts? Then, after a century or so, when the newlyweds have settled, we can return to our duties here," he said and his eyes sparkled with some of the old mischief she was so much more familiar with.
"I believe, sir, that is the wisest thing I have heard you spoken yet."
He laughed. A genuine, light, full-bellied laugh. It was a sound she had not heard since…since…she did not want to think back far enough through the haze of tragedies that stood between that lapse of time to remember when she last heard it.
"Well, now that we are both assured of truly miserable, sleepless nights full of tossing and turning and cursing our ancestors, I propose we take another turn or two around the garden," he said, a half-smile tugging on the corners of his lips as he stood and extended his arm for her to take.
"I will follow your lead, my prince," she said, accepting his invitation.
And somehow, for a few more moments, the night felt a little lighter for the pair as they ambled aimlessly through the gardens, far from the palace with its noise and lights and far from weight of the shadows it cast upon both of them.
Author's notes: I've been cleaning out my document folder this week and stumbling on pieces I have long forgotten about. This was written years ago after my second time reading through Fallen Star and I couldn't sleep because I was convinced something was missing. So, I sat down to write what I wanted to read. This came out. Yep. This is a fanfic of a fanfic... A fanfic of a very old fanfic, but here we are.
This was probably my first piece in the Thor universe. I think it's fair to blame my appreciation of and fascination with the character of Loki entirely on Alydia Rackham's works. Her stories captured my imagination and sent me into entirely different interpretations of the character. I am indebted to her for her beautiful works. Thus, rather than leave this forever forgotten in my doc box, I'll post it in honor of this story and in case anyone else would like to read it.
I have not received author approval for this one.