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bookishwenchBack to Part 4
A month passed. Loki watched carefully, noting Sif’s fighting technique improving almost to its previous sterling ability, even going so far as not only beating nearly all of their coterie, but even severely trying Thor’s skills. After asking her permission, Loki had spoken to Thor discretely about the problem she had with being touched, and Thor had understood at once, but his face had darkened.
“Their treachery still makes me feel ill,” he said. “Wherever they are now, it is not Valhalla.”
For once, Loki was in total agreement with him.
Granted, that didn’t keep him from following through with the idea of burning Thor’s cloaks one rainy day when Loki became dangerously bored, but that was the low price one paid for the honor of having Loki as a brother.
After training, Sif and Loki no longer went to the same tavern. There were too many bad memories associated with it. Instead, they began taking long walks together, exploring different areas of the city and countryside, stopping at little wayside inns to eat. Eventually they happened upon one small farm that sold the most delicious cider either had ever tasted, and they visited it often. Some things changed, healed, became better, and some things remained the same. Every morning, without fail, a single flower rested on the windowsill of Sif’s bedroom window until the crowd of flowers threatened to overflow out of the room, the perfume a scent connected with safety and trust.
One morning, as she and Loki were walking to training together, he once more back to his usual time of being at least twenty minutes late, she seemed quieter than usual.
“Is there something on your mind?” he asked as they half-jogged towards the training field.
“Yes,” she said. “My parents are going to visit my aunt again tomorrow for a few days.”
This brought him up short.
“Are you accompanying them?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Aunt Gerd’s home is surrounded by goldthistle this time of year.”
“And you’re allergic,” he finished. “So they’re leaving you home?”
“Yes,” she said. “I really don’t want to stay there alone.”
He was troubled by the scenario himself. It hadn’t been that long since the attack, and while Sif was doing much better, he knew there were still moments when she would unexpectedly be pulled into panic. He wondered bitterly if this was her parents’ way of trying to undermine her desire to train again, by increasing her fear.
“Would you like to stay with me?” Loki found himself asking without thinking.
“Oh,” she said, obviously surprised. “I… that would be a solution.”
“You would be most welcome,” Loki said gently, but he did realize that the invitation could be taken several ways.
“I would need to consider that,” she said, blushing a little.
“Of course,” he said.
They walked further down the road before she turned to him and said in a rush, “I’m not ready to bed you. Or have you bed me.”
He walked right into a tree.
“Pardon,” he said, automatically apologizing to the maple. “Sif, I’m… that wasn’t exactly... alright, I admit my thoughts have drifted there more than once… actually, more than once in the last five minutes.”
“Really?” she said, lifting her eyebrow at him.
“Are you mad? Yes, of course I’ve thought of it,” he said. “What, you haven’t?”
“That’s beside the point,” she said in what he recognized as an evasive tactic that wouldn’t have done much on a battlefield. “I don’t want you to misunderstand, though. If things had been different—but they weren’t. I’m still learning not to feel paralyzing fear when someone bumps into me while I’m out buying apples.”
“It wasn’t meant as that sort of invitation,” he said more seriously. “The palace is large. You will have your choice of any room you wish, and you will be perfectly safe.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I think… I think I will take you up on that offer, if you don’t mind.”
Training that day was difficult, and not just because Loki was nearly knocked unconscious five times by Thor, who was still angry over the conflagration of his capes. Petty, Loki thought as he saw stars erupting before his eyes while Thor stood over him in victory. His thoughts kept returning to Sif, who would be coming to his home the night after this one.
Dinner that evening was a very small affair at the palace. Odin was once again out, who knew for how long, and Frigga was attending a diplomatic party in Vanaheim for the next week. Only Thor and Loki sat at the massive dinner table for forty-eight.
“Ehm, Thor?” Loki asked tentatively.
“What?” Thor yelled. “I can’t hear you all the way down there!”
Loki sighed, picked up his plate and goblet, and walked the length of the table to sit next to his brother.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” he said.
“You’re joking!” Thor said. “Well, unless you want me to find some firewood so we can burn half your wardrobe to cinders, in which case, count me in!”
Petty, Loki thought again, then said, “No, really. It’s about Sif.”
“What about her?” he said, considerably less loudly.
“Her family is leaving her alone starting tomorrow for several days, and I’ve invited her to come here as she’s not feeling up to being by herself for that long yet,” he said.
Thor gave him a suspicious smile before saying, “And where exactly will she be staying?”
“Wherever she chooses,” Loki said firmly. “There are no strings on the invitation.”
“Hmm,” Thor hummed thoughtfully. “Very well. What help would you have from me, brother?”
“I’d like her to have privacy while she’s here,” Loki said. “While things have improved in training, she’s still the object of gossip, and the social taboos of Asgard are both backward and ridiculously nosy. It would be better if no one else knew she were here.”
“True on both counts,” Thor said. “I will not speak of her presence here to anyone, but the servants—”
“—will be paid well to hold their tongues,” Loki said.
Thor took another huge bite of venison, followed it with a large swallow of ale that drained half his goblet, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then belched so loudly that shock waves were visible in Loki’s soup.
If possible, Loki noted, he would try to have her miss dinner with Thor. Perhaps they could dine somewhere with less disgusting company. Like a pigsty.
After training the next day, Loki, Sif, and Thor returned to the palace together. Sif had a small traveling bag with her, but it was discrete enough to be almost indistinguishable from a typical market bag. He noted she looked a little uncomfortable, but then he assumed he did as well. Thor, on the other hand, was his usual oblivious self. Currently, he was boasting animatedly about the latest brawl he had won.
“I do not think he knew what it was that struck him!” Thor said, laughing. “When my sword found its mark, he was so dizzy from those ridiculous turns he was trying to use that he tripped over his own feet!”
“It was a good victory,” Sif agreed.
“As was yours!” he said with equal enthusiasm. “That move you made with your shield mid-way through the fight, the one that knocked his own shield out of his hands and sent it flying across the field? That was magnificent!”
Loki agreed, but he couldn’t help wondering how Thor had even seen it since he had been fighting his opponent at the same time. Having been eliminated in the previous round, Loki had been sitting to the side and watching. He also may have performed a small charm that knotted together the ties of Thor’s opponent’s sandals, the actual cause of that idiot tripping. He supposed the only real explanation was Thor was simply that good, which irked him.
Once they arrived home, Loki’s concerns about Thor’s dinner manners turned out to be no problem at all.
“I beg your pardon,” Thor said, “but my father has left me an intimidatingly large pile of documents he has told me to read regarding a trade agreement with a distant realm. I fear the only time I have available to look at it is now, so I have asked the servants if they would be so kind as to bring a tray to my room for dinner. I hope you will excuse my absence as I mean no offense.”
“No offense taken, Thor,” Sif said. “Good luck with your reading, and we will see you tomorrow.”
Thor was not a good liar, and Loki saw through the story in a moment. Odin would be gone for days yet, if not weeks, and the idea of Thor choosing reading over food was laughable. As Thor left, he gave Loki a subtle wink.
In the dining room, dinner was already on the table, a fine stew of roast boar with potatoes, the scent mouth-wateringly good. It was simple fare, the sort of thing that could be found in any Asgardian home, and the simplicity of it was comforting. Even better, unlike some of the delicacies that might appear at a high state dinner, it was also delicious. Neither of them stood on formality, and within what felt like moments conversation began to flow without pressure as they talked of this and that, and sometimes fell into companionable and easy silence, the only sound their spoons against the bowls. At length, the last bit of bread had been used to collect the last drop of stew, the goblets were empty of wine, and the meal was over, but they lingered for hours, talking and laughing, simply enjoying one another’s company.
“It’s getting late,” Sif eventually said with a yawn. “I’ve chosen the room across from yours.”
“Then we may as well go up together,” Loki said, pushing back from the table and feeling contented as a well-fed cat.
They went up the stairs and along one of the corridors. To Loki’s surprise, it really was late. Passing by the very large door to Thor’s apartments, they could both hear his snoring filling the air.
“The man could bring the whole palace down if he keeps that up,” Loki said in disgust. “At least neither of us is right next to him.”
“Good. I have enough nightmares as it is without adding in ones about snarling bilgesnipes,” Sif said.
“I remember you mentioning nightmares before. You’re still having them?”
Sif looked embarrassed, but nodded, adding, “I thought I’d better say something ahead of time to forewarn you. It’s not every night, but I can’t seem to keep them from happening.”
Loki frowned. He’d had his own nightmares about that night, most of them involving him showing up too late. Other times he dreamed of looking for her in darkness, hearing her call out for him, but he couldn’t find her. Often, he woke drenched in sweat. He shuddered at the thought of what her nightmares might be like.
“You are safe here,” he said. “No one will disturb you.”
“I hate this feeling.”
He wanted to put a reassuring hand on her arm, but he held back. She knew he was there. That would be enough.
“Call for me if you have need of anything,” he said, opening the door for her. “Good night, milady, and sweet dreams.”
“Good night,” she said, entering the room, then turning around quickly. “I’m truly grateful to be here. Truly.”
“I’m grateful you’re here as well,” he said, then crossing the corridor into his own room. He heard her door click shut only a second before he closed his own.
Loki spent the next several minutes trying very hard not to imagine Sif getting ready for bed. She was only across the hallway. The room she had chosen was a pleasant, airy one warmed by a large fireplace, the bed a canopied affair in shades of blue. The window looked out onto the sunrise. And she was in there right now.
“I’m not going to sleep tonight, am I,” he grumbled to himself.
Grabbing a particularly large book on transformation charms, he settled into his own bed and began to read, hoping he would drift off. Sometime after page 394, sleep finally claimed him.
He jolted awake not long afterwards to the sound of a blood curdling scream. Wild-eyed, he ran out of the room, across the hall, and into Sif’s chamber without stopping to think. Not two seconds behind him was Thor, hammer raised.
“What happened?” Thor asked quickly.
Sif was shaking, but her eyes were open, and she shook her head.
“Nightmare. I apologize. I didn’t mean to… don’t tell the others in training, please.”
Thor let out a breath and visibly relaxed.
“Your dreams are your own business and no one else’s, or so our honored mother would say,” Thor said. “I once had a nightmare that my sword melted in the middle of battle and I was left to fight off two legions of Jotunheim with only a sewing needle! I barely won!”
Loki rolled his eyes at his brother’s show of so-called humility.
“But you are well?” Loki asked Sif.
“I will be,” Sif said, and he noticed her hands clenched into the coverlet in fists. He knew she wished she could fight the nightmares, but the impossibility of it was straining her nerves to the breaking point.
“Good! I was afraid I was going to have to punish my brother for playing one of his ridiculous tricks on you! One time he set my bed on fire! With me in it!” Thor laughed. “It was all an illusion, of course, but I was so startled I automatically called down lightning and set the room on fire in earnest!”
Loki smiled weakly, explaining, “That was a long time ago.”
“That was last month!”
“At least I wasn’t the one who was idiotic enough to try putting out a fire with lightning.”
“I thought it would bring rain!” Thor said as though it were the most sensible idea in the world.
“Inside the palace?”
“It was the middle of the night and I was groggy!” Thor said. “I do not claim to have been at my best at that moment!”
Loki looked over at Sif during the squabble and realized she was stifling a laugh. At least one positive thing had come from all this.
“Well, as there is no need for me to throttle my brother and no danger is present, I bid you sleep well, Lady Sif, and I shall see you both on the morrow,” Thor said, leaving the room. “I am only a shout away if needed.”
“Thank you,” Sif called after him.
“How are you really?” Loki asked in his brother’s absence, taking a step closer to her.
She sighed deeply, looking towards the darkened window.
“I’m sick of all this,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I don’t know if this will be the only nightmare tonight or if I’m going to wake up in another hour or two shrieking again. It’s happened before.”
“Would you like me to sleep with you?”
Sif’s head snapped towards him so quickly that he was fairly sure he heard her vertebrae pop.
“Well, that came out exactly wrong,” he said, turning pink and mentally cursing his slip. “I meant only would you prefer me to sleep in your room. On the floor. Obviously.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just—"
“No, really, that did sound like something else entirely and—”
“And right now, no, but yes, and—”
“Yes, no, wait, yes and no to what--”
“I’m only saying that—”
“No, no, it’s all fine, all good, and my words got tangled and—”
“No, no, it’s, yes, fine, but—,” Sif threw her hands up in despair and let out a stifled groan of frustration.
“Is all well?” Thor called from down the hallway at the sound.
“Yes!” they both yelled back together.
They looked at one another, realized how ridiculous they sounded, and Sif chuckled quietly with Loki joining her a moment later. When she stopped, she looked up at him and then away guiltily.
“Would you mind terribly?” she asked.
“What, sleeping on the floor? Not at all.”
Looking down at her hands, which were once again wringing the blanket like an enemy’s throat, she nodded.
“I’ll return in a moment,” he said.
In less than a minute he came back with the coverlet and several pillows from his room, which he put on the floor next to her bed.
“There, I’ll be entirely comfortable,” he said.
“You’re sure?” she asked, peering down at him.
“Certain.”
She disappeared from view again, the sheets rustling, but he heard her say quietly, “Thank you.”
“Good night again,” he said.
In a short time, he heard her breathing become regular, and he knew she was asleep. He tried not to think too much. Or at all. He glanced at the window and willed the sun to come up soon, but eventually he too fell asleep.
On to Part 6
