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Her laugh, triggered as it was by Fandral’s admittedly poor-taste joke, was suddenly cut short.
“Oh no,” Sif muttered as the source of her dread drew near. Her friends, still walking in that ominous direction, turned their heads toward her, confused as to why the Lady Steward of the Palace should incite such a reaction.
“What’s the matter?” Thor asked, but before he could get a response, she had stopped in her tracks, desperately searching for an escape route that wouldn’t be so blatantly obvious. Taking the first option available to her, she grabbed the arm of the person standing to her right and started leading him in the opposite direction. Much to her surprise, he didn’t say a word and simply played along. As it turned out, he didn’t need to say anything at all — his expression, clearly taking pleasure in her misfortune, more than made up for his uncharacteristic lack of targeted witticisms. It wasn’t long before Loki’s bemused, smug look became intolerable, and an exasperated explanation was teased out of Sif.
“She gave me three dresses to choose from for my förvandling ceremony three weeks ago and I still haven’t chosen,” she revealed with a sigh.
Loki raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
“Your förvandling? You mean the one we’re having in literally three days?”
Sif grumbled and rolled her eyes, “Yeah, that one. A trifling matter, no?”
“You do realize that the whole point of you being involved at all is so that they can make alterations to it and make it actually, uh, fit you?” he said, not without a hint of mockery.
“It’s hardly my fault the choices they gave me were so bad,” she retorted, letting go of his arm to defensively raise her hands. “And you have to give me some credit, I at least tried them on.” At that confession from Sif, Loki’s expression contorted into an almost lustful curiosity.
“Can it really be true,” he said with a smirk, “the great Warrior Sif parading around her chambers trying on different dresses?”
“Ugh,” she groaned while making a half-hearted swipe at his chest, “get that image out of your head. I only had to see them for a second to know they weren’t right.”
“Well, what about them specifically wasn’t ‘right’?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she bemoaned, searching for words. “I suppose I felt like I was portraying a character in a play…and I am not a very good actor, to say the least.”
He was quiet for a few seconds, before narrowing his eyes and saying, “I have an idea.”
Sif did not like the sound of that. But out of options as she was, with a sigh of resignation, she gave in.
“Alright, Loki,” she said, sarcastically adding, “do enlighten me as to what your grand idea entails.”
He shook his head, claiming, “I have to see them first,” and sparing her for the moment of whatever inane and probably humiliating idea she was sure he had in mind.
Rolling her eyes, she replied “Fine, we’re almost at my chambers anyway.”
Indeed, they had arrived at one of the side entrances of the palace. The gold and silver doors, delicately carved with runic inscriptions from times past, were kept open in these warm summer months, though two Einherjar remained posted on either side of the doors. Loki and Sif passed the stone-faced guards in silence, each engrossed in their own thoughts, and entered into a long and narrow hallway whose upper walls were lined with the names of the wives of each King.
Her chambers, which she had only recently been allowed to move into, were only a five-minute walk away. She hardly cared that they were located in the harder-to-access, lesser-known area of the palace, because it meant that she was finally a full-fledged member of the King’s Royal Militia (and besides, living in this wing of the palace was considered a rite of passage). While she had long sought out membership, the privilege of joining was reserved only for those who had come of age, as defined by Asgardian customs. And though she wasn’t the first woman in history to join—that honour went to women of much greater character, women who were now Valkyries sitting in the halls of Valhalla—she was the only active female member in the service, which gave her as much pride as it did frustration.
They arrived at her chambers, whereupon Sif drew out her key and unlocked the door, an action that still seemed so novel, seemed to brim with significance. Soon, however, a different emotion came to the fore, as she realized that she was alone in her embarrassingly small and empty quarters with Loki. An unexpected—and unwelcome—self-consciousness threatened to drive defensive apologies out of her. Perhaps a “Sorry, I haven’t had time to decorate yet,” or “Apologies, I’m still rearranging everything,” couldn’t hurt? But before the words could escape her lips, she thought better of it. This was Loki, someone she had known since childhood and besides, someone who had never been overly kind to her, why should she have to apologize for an ordinary circumstance when she would never do so for anyone else? Yet the sight of him inspecting her living room with a scouring curiosity while she unburdened herself of her training equipment proved strong enough to overpower the thread of rationality in her head, and she felt the need to say something to bring the focus back to the task at hand and away from his evaluation of her new home. Before she could, however, he spoke first, and she immediately regretted her failure to act.
“So, do you have any intention of making this place actually livable at some point?”
Just the last thing she wanted to hear, though entirely expected and met with an equally expected eye roll from her.
“Do you want to help or not?” she asked with justified exasperation.
“Alright, alright, it certainly could be worse,” he said, somewhat surprising Sif with this faintest hint of a retraction.
She led him into the bedroom, his wandering eyes betraying a similar fascination with the mundanity of her daily life that she couldn’t quite seem to understand, and gestured at the pile of fabric lazily hung over the dressing screen.
“Heidrun is not going to be happy about this,” he said, chuckling, before delicately removing the first from the pile and laying it out on the bed. The satin dress, carmine red in colour, began at the left shoulder, leaving the other bare, and descended diagonally across the bodice to wrap around the back. The full-length skirt followed a similar pattern, bunching at the right side of the waist and becoming fuller diagonally across. Loki inspected it with discerning eyes, though she knew not what he was seeking, or by what criteria he was evaluating something that appeared so inscrutable to her.
He then asked for the next one, which was of a form-fitting, lightweight satin that made the bottom fall neatly against the curves of the body. The top was made up of several layers draping horizontally across the chest, while the off-shoulder long sleeves tightly traced the arms. The colour was mostly uniform, with a few touches of white and silver here and there. That colour, of course, was green.
“Oh, I think I do like this one best,” he laughed, before steadfastly returning to his process, whatever that entailed. The same was done to the third dress, which was pale violet and sleeveless, save for two thin straps connecting the square back to the sweetheart neckline. It had a weighty skirt that fell uniformly from her waist.
“Are you just going to look at them or are you going to tell me what this idea of yours—if it actually exists—is?” she asked, breaking through his train of thought.
“In time,” he grinned, “try a little patience, Sif.”
She was certain—and his air of smugness bore out—that he was purposefully making her wait just to annoy her.
“Oh, and you would know all about that, being the epitome of patience and all,” she retorted sarcastically.
“I have absolutely no idea what you are referring to,” he said coyly.
“In the meantime,” he said, handing her the first dress, “could you please put this one on?”
She grabbed the red fabric from his hands, but stuck one finger out to point at him while glaring into his eyes. “Okay, but this had better be good. No tricks.”
“Dear Lady Sif, do you truly not trust me to help you with something in which I literally have no vested interest?” he said snidely while taking a seat on the edge of her bed.
“You seem to claim that with some frequency, and yet you somehow always seem to have a hand in everything.”
He shrugged off the remark, saying, “Well, I can hardly complain about you having an outsized perception of how influential I am.”
Retreating behind the screen, she called out, “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“No need to shoot the messenger, I’m only repeating your own words back to you.”
“What I meant to say was how you, opportunistic little snake that you are, somehow always find a way to extract something of value for your own self out of the problems of others.”
“You wound me, Sif,” Loki said, faking pain and putting his hand on his heart. “I’ll admit, there is always a coherent motive behind my actions, but that does not necessarily-”
The string of words that were to come next in that sentence suddenly evaporated. Sif had emerged from the partition.
That same feeling of self-consciousness bubbled up inside her again as his eyes moved from her face to the floor and back up again. It made her want to bring her palm to her neck to rub an ache that wasn’t actually there, but an instinct that had been deeply drilled into her from her first training lessons—to never let your uncertainty show—prevented her from doing so.
“Sif…” he started, before losing his words again. No matter, for it was enough to incite a succession of chemical reactions in her brain: the blood rushing to her face, the rapid beating of her heart, the feeling that some dusty, forgotten part of life had suddenly sprung into being.
“You look beautiful,” he finally mustered out in a low voice.
Now it was her turn to be stunned into silence.
“Truly?” she eventually said, looking her own self over, “this isn’t some sort of flattery trick?”
For once, his expression was serious. For once, he almost seemed genuine.
Emphatically shaking his head, he reiterated his opinion. “No, I mean it…it’s not everyone who gets to steal words from me.”
Their eyes met, and though she didn’t know how or why, she understood that he was telling the truth. But she could not hold his gaze for long, so unfamiliar was the feeling of being able to see through Loki’s ever-present facade, to see the burning intensity that most had never—would never—have access to.
Moving her gaze to the ground, she muttered a thank you. Several more moments passed before he pointedly cleared his throat and began speaking again.
“So, uh, my idea…it’s to put your armour on top of the dress. That way, you know, it might make you feel more comfortable, more like yourself,” he stammered, still not having quite recovered his usual confidence. “Instead of being a celebration of what people expect you to be, it could be a celebration of how you really are…”
He cleared his throat, taking a moment to steady himself again.
“That’s a…legitimately good idea, Loki, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier.”
Vibrant green swirls disturbed the air around her. When they had faded, she looked down at herself to see a silver-plated piece of armour wrapped around her abdomen, stopping just under her breasts and curving slightly under each. No, in fact, it was not just any piece; Sif soon recognized it as an ornamental one that she had worn some time ago at the culminating feast of the decennial warrior’s festival. He remembered that? she thought, the image of him in her mind’s eye now seeming to glow with affection.
“I like it,” she smiled, trying to convince herself that there was no other reason for the blossoming warmth in her chest. “What do you think?”
Trying not to give himself away again, Loki toned down his enthusiasm and said plainly, “Yes, that should do well.”
Briefly, he saw what could only be described as disappointment darken her face, for his sudden ambivalence had not gone unnoticed.
Quickly changing the subject, he added “That one didn’t get lost in the move, did it?”
“No, I think I still have it, but…Loki, do you think Heidrun would really allow this? She’s already incensed with me as it is.”
“If she doesn’t, she’ll have me to answer to, and it’s not quite so easy to say no to a Prince of Asgard.”
She couldn’t help but be taken aback by the sincerity and protectiveness in his voice, but once the momentary shock passed, a shy smile crept onto her face.
“What are we going to do about the straps though? They would be visible from the back,” she asked.
“You could use a cloak, I suppose,” he offered. “A full-length one might go well with the dress, in fact. Do you already have one?”
“I can’t say I do…all my cloaks are for hunting trips and the like, not exactly fit for a formal occasion, and I somehow doubt that they could make me a new one in this little time,” she sheepishly added.
He waved his hand to dissolve the illusion of her armour. “Yes, well, I’m afraid the extent of my knowledge stops here, so on that point, we’d have to ask Heidrun.”
At that, she gave a frustrated sigh.
“Sif, you’re going to have to interact with her eventually,” he said with a brief chuckle.
“I know, I just…”
She looked down at her clasped hands, then let them settle on her waist with another sigh.
“To put it bluntly, there is not one thing about me that she doesn’t find worthy of criticism.”
“And you’re one to care about what other people think?” he scoffed.
“No, of course not,” she countered, before hesitatingly adding, “but…listen, I’m not perfectly impervious to what others think about me. Most of the time, yes, I truly could not care less, water off a duck’s back and all, but every so often…”
Loki brought his averted gaze back to her eyes. She didn’t need to finish that sentence for him to understand, for he saw his own pain reflected in her eyes. A feeling of comfort filled the air between them, the comfort of knowing that someone else had experienced the very feeling that they had once thought to be unique. But then she drew in a breath, and he could tell she was about to say something to try to qualify her previous statement, to hide the open wound she had just uncovered and pretend it was just a scratch. Before she could, and before he knew what he was doing, he spoke.
“Sif, I get it.”
If it had been anyone else, she would have assumed that they said so out of politeness, or perhaps pity, but she had witnessed too many disparaging remarks directed towards Loki when they thought he was out of earshot, too many snide comparisons to Thor, to know that if there was anyone who could relate to her, it was him. She swallowed whatever words of defence she had been planning to say.
“In any case…” Loki began, interrupting the silence, “given that there’s so little time left, I think you should probably inform Heidrun of our plan as soon as possible, which is to say, today.”
“Oh alright, I’ll send for her,” she relented, leaving the room once again to send a message of summonings. With that done, she took the opportunity to locate the armour Loki had conjured up. In short order, she succeeded in finding it, a task made nearly effortless by the pitiful size of the one closet in the room.
She returned to her bedroom, armour in hand, to find Loki perusing her as-yet lacking bookshelf. The six books she had arranged on the shelf were mostly about the philosophy of war, the history of different types of weapons, and the psychology of a warrior. She had other interests, to be sure, but anything short of total dedication to her craft felt almost dishonourable, made her unworthy of her new title, which meant that what little free time she had was spent honing soft skills related to, what else, the art of war.
He picked up a book, flipped through the pages, then put it back, and picked up another.
“You know that just because being a warrior is your day job doesn’t mean you have to read only about that,” he commented, seeming to have almost read her mind.
“I know,” she insisted, setting down her armour on the bed and then plucking a book out of his hands and putting it back on the shelf. “I want to read about other stuff too, I just haven’t had the time to find the right books.”
He laughed, clearly in disbelief of her excuse, and said, “Right, well, I’ll lend you some of mine then.”
At that moment, they heard a knock at the door.
“Must be Heidrun,” Sif sighed. They exchanged a glance, communicating a sense of unity and shared fate, as if the outcome was as much his as it was her own, before walking towards the door together. She couldn’t help but feel appreciative for Loki’s presence; he could have left at any point—she was sure that this was not how he would have wanted to spend his evening—but he had stayed.
She opened the door. Heidrun was standing with her arms crossed and a notebook open to an empty page in her hand.
“So, you have finally chosen?” Heidrun questioned, looking Sif over in her dress and not waiting to be invited in before brusquely entering. She noticed Loki milling about, but did not acknowledge him, opting instead to give him a brief quizzical look.
“Dress number one it is,” she added while noting it down in her notepad.
“Yes, but we—I mean, I—was thinking that perhaps I could wear a small piece of my armour over top,” Sif gently proposed. She hadn’t noticed when he had taken it, but Loki had brought the piece with them into the main room. He started placing it around her. Trying to ignore the electrifying feeling of his body so close behind her, of his hands deftly working to tie the straps at her back, she turned back to Heidrun to see displeasure on her face.
“Sif, please, we’re already so late-” Heidrun started, but was interrupted by Loki.
“It would hardly require any additional work,” he confidently declared while finishing tying the last strap, “all you would have to do is find something to hide the straps.”
Heidrun now turned her judgmental glare on Loki, who returned it with an equal amount of steely resolution. To Sif’s relief, Loki held his ground, and Heidrun blinked first.
“We could make it work, I suppose,” she reluctantly admitted, mollified by the Prince’s presence, “but no more surprises like this again, is that understood?”
“Understood,” Sif assented. Heidrun then began circling her, pulling and prodding the dress to see where it had to be altered, scribbling down notes all the while. Loki awkwardly stood off to the side, occasionally meeting Sif’s eyes, though she tried to avoid it and focus on what Heidrun was doing. She could still feel his phantom touch on her back, the tension that had arisen from the closeness of their bodies; she had to admit to herself that all she had wanted in that moment was for him to press his body against hers and wrap his arms around her waist. Sif tried to chase the image out of her head, but with him standing a mere two metres away, with his tall, lithe body in full view, her efforts proved to be in vain.
Worried about what might happen when Heidrun left the two of them alone, she decided to diplomatically entreat him to leave.
“Loki, I think we’re practically done here, you can probably go now.”
Her “diplomacy” clearly did not have the intended effect. His face fell, and his eyes were sent scrambling for anywhere to look but her.
“Oh, right. Um, I’ll see you at the förvandling then,” he said with disappointment, sparing one last glance at her before walking out the door.
Sif had been abuzz with anticipation since she had woken up that morning. Of course, she had attended other förvandlings before, so she theoretically knew what to expect, yet the specificities of how the day would go remained agonizingly uncertain. For one, Heidrun and her team were still working on her dress, and she didn’t know at what point during the day she would receive it, or more worryingly, at what degree of completion. As a result, she had spent the morning coping in the only way she knew how: drilling in the training yards.
As a general rule, the stronger her emotions were, the harder she trained, and today was no exception. By the time afternoon rolled around, her body was thoroughly exhausted, a collection of dull, but pleasing, aches, and thankfully, so was the worst of the anxiety. Her parents came to dine with her at lunch, and to her glad surprise, they managed to not make a single reference to her getting married, nor any allusions as to how badly they wanted grandchildren. Perhaps, Sif mused, the acceptance of her role as a warrior by none other than Odin himself had softened their more traditional views on her life’s path. An encouraging turn of events, for the older she had gotten, and the more evident it became that this was not a phase, the tenser their relationship had become.
Ordinarily, she would be grateful for the shift in attitude and the consequent de-emphasization of the topic of marriage, but today, it was all the more relieving; she couldn’t seem to prevent a certain man from popping into her head every time someone mentioned anything relating to romantic entanglements. In all honesty, she had entertained the thought of them together before—more times than she would care to admit—but never with such intensity or urgency.
Though it was not altogether an unpleasant feeling, the complications of such a relationship made the application of her feelings nigh unthinkable. The last thing she needed at this incipient stage of her warriorhood were rumours of how the fierce Lady Sif had been tamed by a manipulative sorcerer, or the displeasure of the Allfather that his designs for his first-born had been flouted in such a brazen manner, or perhaps most importantly of all, a distraction from her life’s work: her training. Cliché as it was to say, she was already married to Asgard. Of course, she reasoned, if these intensified feelings persisted, their irresolution might prove a stronger distraction than an actual relationship could ever be. All this was assuming her feelings were reciprocated, which she could hardly be certain of, given Loki’s penchant for dishonesty. She would do well to not misinterpret his help in too charitable a light, for he indubitably had a self-interested angle. She just had to find out what that was.
After lunch, Sif and her mother went back to her chambers to begin getting ready. Upon entering the bedroom, they were greeted with the welcome sight of her finished dress laid out on the bed, and a dark grey hoodless cloak lying next to it.
“Norns, is everyone in the entire realm here?” Sif asked no one in particular, peeking out from the hidden entrance from which she was supposed to emerge, which was located at the head of the Great Hall near the King and his family. She could see Loki, decked out in those golden ostentatious horns, in her periphery, engaged in conversation with one of his former instructors. Was it her imagination, or did he seem almost nervous? The way he was fidgeting with his hands seemed to indicate the latter, but she couldn’t understand why he would be riddled with anticipation, when all he had to do was stand around and be a spectator.
She retreated back behind the wall. It was up to her to decide when to enter the room; there would be no signal, no announcement, no orders to take from someone more well-versed in these kinds of things, just her own judgment on when the moment was right…which was awfully unfortunate, as she was starting to suspect that the “right moment” might never come.
Battle, she thought to herself, this is just another kind of battle, and if you can stare down an approaching army of raging marauders with steadiness, surely you can face this.
Taking another glance at the crowd, Sif noticed that the current of people coming in seemed to have slowed, or maybe even stopped. If there was any moment, any moment for the warhorns to sound, it was now. With one last deep breath, one last smoothing of her dress and adjusting of her armour, she stepped out into the Hall. At first, only those in her immediate vicinity noticed her. Their conversations stopped as they directed their full attention towards her, the resulting silence seeming to ripple throughout the room like a wave until no voice could be heard. Her eyes instinctively sought out Loki, hoping to see his gaze fixed upon her, but she had somehow lost him in the sea of faces, which appeared to melt together into one indistinguishable mass. After a few seconds, which Sif experienced as five long minutes, her parents stepped forth from the crowd to approach her with wide smiles on their faces.
“Sif, dear Sif, we are so proud,” her father said, beaming. Her parents' smiles proved infectious, for she could not keep one off her face after hearing such rarely spoken words. To her relief, these words also had the effect of breaking the silence and permitting others to start speaking again. The air in the enormous room began to fill with voices, and a small crowd formed around Sif, showering her with compliments.
After a good half-hour of niceties and dutifully endured small talk, she started to make her way through the crowd. She hadn’t consciously planned to find Loki, yet that is where her steps led her anyway. It didn’t take long to do so, now that the initial dread had worn off; his horns gave him away even from a distance. As soon as she was in view, he immediately turned towards her, somewhat abruptly ending the conversation he was having, and met her halfway.
“If you’ll allow me, I must say that my idea worked out quite nicely,” he remarked with a self-congratulating smirk.
Rolling her eyes, she afforded him at least part of the credit he was fishing for. “Yes, Loki, your idea, that I put in practice, worked out well.”
“Oh, I hadn’t realized you learned how to tailor in two days. Otherwise I don’t see how getting dressed counts as putting my idea into practice.”
She tried to think of a counter to that argument, but came up short.
“Fine,” she relented, raising her eyebrows, “we’ll agree to disagree.”
That drew a chuckle out of him, before he lowered both his voice and his gaze to say, “But seriously, Sif…”
He trailed off, not in the sense that he didn’t know what to say next, but that he wasn’t sure if he should.
“Well, I guess I don’t need to tell you, you’ve probably been hearing that all day,” he said with a soft laugh.
He was right. She had been receiving the same compliment over and over that night, and though she had begun to tire of the superficiality of it, she couldn’t shake the feeling of disappointment that he had shrunk from saying it.
“Indeed,” she smiled, “by the end of the night my ego will be so inflated that it might be able to compete with yours.”
Before Loki could avail himself of his famed silver-tongue to weave a crafty retort, Sif felt a hand clamping down on her shoulder and a bellowing voice calling her name. So engrossed had she been in her conversation with Loki, that she hadn’t even noticed Thor’s approach.
“Sif, the lady of the hour! How do you feel?!” Thor cried, gently—or as gently as Thor could muster—slapping his other hand on Loki’s shoulder.
“Not nearly as bad as I thought I was going to,” she laughed. “Dare I say I’ve even been having a good time,” she offered up, flashing a glance at Loki.
“Oh Sif, I don’t see how a party in your honour could ever be boring, there is so much to celebrate! You’ve now been accepted into Asgardian society as a true warrior!” Thor said with pride, adding “And to top it all off, you look stunning!”
His words, though directed towards her, struck a greater impact on Loki, whose face hardened into a jealousy that disappeared under his ever-present mask almost as soon as it had appeared. He must still be under the misconception that her and Thor were to be wed one day, an idea that had been conceived by others long before they had gotten to know each other and realized that their mutual admiration was platonic in nature. An idea that she had long since discarded.
She appreciated and reciprocated the high-esteem Thor held her in, to be sure, but ultimately, he saw only one aspect of her character, that of the steeled warrior. Doubtless a vital component of her identity, but Thor did not understand that there was another part of her that felt emotions with a ferocity that matched her battle cry, that secretly yearned for love; that was fatigued by the double standards she operated under on a day-to-day basis, that felt the heavy burden of having to represent not just her own self as an individual, but her entire sex. Under the intense scrutiny that comes as an occupational hazard of straying outside the narrow gender roles of Asgardian culture, the mistakes she inevitably made were regarded as not only her own failure, but that of the women who would follow in her footsteps. And as much as Thor valued her, he would never understand that. He would never understand what it was to have to construct an external identity that misrepresented the self because norms were not flexible enough to contain the conflicting multitudes, the masculine and feminine, that could exist within a single person.
“That’s kind of you to say, Thor,” she finally replied.
Loki muttered a barely audible “Excuse me,” and turned to leave. Trying to ignore the instinct in her that wanted to call out to him, she continued her response to Thor.
“It’s been a long time coming, though I suspect the battle is not over yet.”
“And I have no doubt that once that battle is over, you’ll find another to vanquish,” he boasted. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of gold moving out of the gargantuan doors of the Hall.
“I’ll be right back,” she abruptly said before making her way towards the doors that Loki exited from, hoping forlornly no one would notice her. A voice of opposition—or perhaps reason—emerged above the noise of the crowd, pleading with her to turn around: What exactly are you expecting to find? This is your own celebration, it is your obligation to be there, not chasing after a man who’s too blinded by his own hubris and envy to see where your affections truly lie. Those pleas fell on deaf ears; she had made up her mind, she knew what she wanted, and nothing was now going to get in her way.
She left the Great Hall. The doors led into an equally enormous corridor, whose typical traffic had been swallowed up by the events taking place beyond them. Along the right side of the corridor were several spacious balconies, spaced about five metres apart, that looked onto Frigga’s gardens. The entryway to each balcony was open to the corridor, save for a semi-opaque silk curtain. As she walked, she turned her head to give a cursory glance at each one that she passed, trying to maintain an air of discreteness. Arriving at the last balcony, she finally spotted Loki’s silhouette leaning against the balcony railing through the curtain, no less distinctive for having discarded his horns somewhere along the way. Slowly, she approached, glad that her heeled shoes gave her away and disposed of the need to initiate the conversation. He didn’t turn towards her immediately, though she could tell he was aware of her presence.
“If I recall correctly, I believe the event tonight just so happens to be your own ceremony,” he opened, still not facing her as she reached the balcony railing and leaned her forearms on it.
“And your attention seems to be in high demand,” he continued, “especially from certain people.” The bitterness in his voice left no doubt as to who exactly he was referring to by ‘certain people.’
“They can wait,” she resolutely asserted, seeming to surprise Loki, who now turned his head towards her.
“Loki,” she started, moving her body to face him, “I want to thank you, for helping me.”
He mirrored her action, positioning himself face-to-face with her.
“Is that why you followed me here?”
“Yes, but…there’s something else.” She waited a beat, observing Loki’s face contour into anticipation, before continuing,
“Why did you help me? You didn’t get anything out of it, at least not as far as I can see, and I know you well enough to know that you don’t exactly relish the opportunity to be selfless,” she said, the last comment drawing a brief eyebrow raise and a grin out of him.
“Is not the very idea of selflessness nonsensical? If helping someone gives you something in return, which is almost universally the case, then can anything, even from the most noble-hearted among us, truly be called selfless?” he pondered.
“Loki, I’m not looking for a philosophy lesson, I just want to understand. And even if we did assume that this claim is true, which is debatable, then that implies you were receiving something. What was it?”
He was silent for a moment, appearing to be fighting a battle in his head over whether he should reveal himself to her or not, oscillating back and forth between yes and no. She stepped closer to him, tilting her head up to search his eyes for an honest response, hoping that she could find one there even if in the end he proved unwilling to speak it himself. The longer she looked up at him with those seeking eyes, the more Loki swayed towards the truth.
With a sigh, he gently spoke.
“In return for my efforts, Sif, I received your smile, and the brilliant light of your favour turned upon me, however temporary though it may be.”
Her body absorbed his words quicker than her mind, wasting no time to take the initiative and glide closer to him, leaving nothing but a sliver of air between their chests.
“Why don’t you show this side of yourself more often?” she asked in a breathy voice, her gaze flitting between his eyes and his lips.
“I…” he started, becoming flustered by her closeness. She brought her left hand up to his chest, gently passing it up and down a short piece of metal on his ceremonial armour, as he continued, “if I did that, do you know what they would say?”
“Then they don’t have to know.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. In an instant, she brought her other hand to his chest and pulled on the metal to bring his face down to hers, their lips joining together for one, two, three seconds, too quick to think, too decomposing to elicit a reaction from Loki.
She broke away. It was only then that the reality of what had just happened seemed to dawn on Loki, his expression morphing into resolute determination and desire. He placed his hands on Sif’s hips, sparing a moment to savour the feel of her body’s muscular curves under his fingertips, before wrapping his arms around her, under her cloak, bringing the two of them so close as to be able to feel the pounding of each other's eager heartbeats. Now working in sync, she responded by wrapping her own arms around his neck and meeting him halfway as he leaned down towards her to kiss her, longer and deeper this time. She had experienced similar bodily sensations—heart beating wildly, warmth dousing her skin—many times before in training and battle, but this, this was different. Rather than putting her in opposition to him, rather than emboldening her own sense of independence and dominance, it made her want to melt into him.
Both of their expressions widened into joyous smiles as they pulled away to catch their breath, their own elation reflected in the other’s face. Before they could reconnect, however, the sound of fast approaching voices and footsteps caused them to jump apart from each other, conscious of the lack of privacy afforded by the flimsy curtain. Fortunately, the two strangers that were the source of the voices did not so much as glance in Loki and Sif’s direction, and simply passed them by. Though the acute danger of being seen had now passed, the enthralling, totalizing moment they had just shared was gone, and Sif became aware again of her responsibilities.
“Um…I think I’d better be getting back,” she said, reluctance dripping from her voice.
“Yes, of course…” he agreed, “I, I enjoyed that, Sif.”
Not for the first time that night, her face lit up with an affectionate smile. “Me too.”
He responded in kind with a sheepish smile of his own, saying, “Alright, well, I’ll leave you to it then,” before turning back to the railing.
“You’re not coming with me?”
“No, I don’t think so, it’s a bit crowded in there.”
“Come on, I want you there,” she implored him, placing a hand on his upper back, “who else could I escape to when Fandral and Volstagg start retelling tall tales of their courageous exploits, conveniently leaving out the part where we save their hides?”
“Oh, alright,” he relented, gesturing at her with his index finger, “but I’m only coming for your sake.”
“Fine by me,” she laughed, “let’s go.”
With that, they left the balcony to walk side-by-side down the corridor, joking about what extravagances they might encounter from their friends as the night wore on and the mead flowed.
When she got back from training the next day, she found a stack of four books, held together by a thin green and gold ribbon, placed on her bed.