Overdue visits. (Sif, Loki, Friday night)

[thelady_sif]

Sif had, perhaps, been avoiding him. It wasn't in her nature not to confront people, but most times, she knew exactly how she wanted to proceed. With Loki it was more difficult to figure that part out. 'Rehabilitation' was such a vague concept, so she didn't know how to help with it--or even if she wanted to when all he seemed to want to do was make her angry and make Thor sad. It was like dealing with a child, and Sif had never fancied herself motherly.

Still, the idea of helping S.H.I.E.L.D. made Sif think of the main reason she'd come to Midgard, and how she'd been sorely neglecting that purpose. It would not hurt to look in on Loki and try talking to him, hopefully without striking him. And it certainly wouldn't hurt her to see the puppies she'd heard about, if any were left. Something from home.

She'd brought books, having visited some massive library today while she'd been out, but felt silly holding them under her arm as she knocked on the door to his chambers. She would shove them at him as soon as the opportunity presented itself and be done with it. "Are you there, trickster?"

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[isitmadness]

He had found some movie on the television involving violence, crime, and complex family politics - an interesting mix when he didn't have Thor around to remind him of uncomfortable parallels. The remaining four pups napped in a pile on the floor, oblivious to his comings and goings as he rearranged the items on his mother's altar and then settled down with a block of wood Thor had fetched from Germany for him and a short knife.

Until the knock. He set his tools aside.

He heard her voice just as he came to the door and smirked. "Where else would I be, my L--" The moment he saw her she dumped some books into his arms, and he awkwardly juggled them for a moment, even while he grinned. "Ah, Sif, have you finally decided to court me? One book would have been enough; now I'm afraid we must be married and have," he paused to count, "three children."

[thelady_sif]

"You wouldn't like me when I'm courtly," Sif drolled as she stepped into the room, unable to help a shove as her shoulder drew even with his. He would, of course, try and make her feel as silly a possible for bringing him gifts. Not that they were gifts, really. She'd been told they needed to be returned. "I'm far less violent."

Despite herself, her face lit up when she saw the puppies. Just looking at them and knowing where they'd come from made her feel lighter, warmer. She tried to school her face back to indifference as she turned back to Loki, though. "I thought since you're not permitted to leave, you may have run out of things to read. Or something."

[isitmadness]

"Such concern." He was practically glowing with smugness as he laid out the books on the kitchen table, examining each cover and the inside front pages. "Stark has devised ways around it, but there is nothing quite like real pages."

He watched her from across the table, catching the small change in her expression. "I believe I would like you very much if you were courtly," he said, his voice softer, though not warmer. "I would enjoy it much more than Thor does."

[thelady_sif]

"Yes, well, it does pay to keep you occupied, does it not?" Sif took the opposite side of the kitchen table. She spread her hands on the surface and resisted the horrific impulse to chew on her bottom lip as she watched him examine the books. Well, and so what if he didn't like them. "Harry Potter," she supplied. "They're about a sad little boy who discovers he's a mage. Perhaps if you'd gone to a school as he did, you'd have better control over your magic."

She caught the shift in his tone, the meaning behind his words, and glanced up from the books as something flared in her chest, an anger she could not afford to rise to. "And do you know much about courting Thor?" she asked quietly.

[isitmadness]

"And what school would have kept me bound?" he asked, feigning a polite curiosity as he picked up that book and flicked through its pages. "You know I outstripped my tutors the first chance I had. Conventional education is for peasants."

Loki smiled at her, almost daring, even if the width of the table wasn't quite enough to give him any sort of comfort or protection. "I know nothing at all," he said sweetly, "since I don't need to. His love is rather foolishly unconditional, if you haven't noticed."

[thelady_sif]

"I hear school is supposed to be good for other things," she said, "like wisdom, control, good judgment. Perhaps you wouldn't have made such a mess and wound up here." She moved a shoulder. "But I'm just a soldier--what would I know about it."

Sif's fingers tensed against the wooden table. "That makes you feel good, does it, to call him foolish, knowing he'll never leave you no matter how badly you hurt him?" she asked, giving voice to what she'd theorized on the roof with Thor. "I wouldn't be so smug about it. Obligation might be a better word for it than 'unconditional'."

It wasn't, she was reasonably sure, but that hardly mattered.

[isitmadness]

"Perhaps you should hold your tongue," he said calmly, beginning to stack the books in a neat row at the center of the table, balanced one by one. "Until, at least, you realize that I have exercised the best judgment when it comes to my own life and security.

"Which includes counting on Thor's loyalty, as you expect. But I'm not ungrateful." He placed his hands on the table surface, leaning towards her just a bit, evening their height. "Obligation, my dear Sif, is playing prince and regent to Asgard, or crafting a smile for the Aesir to see and be comforted by. I keep him here by no chains of blood and no promise of good deeds. He's shackled by his own endless hope, and he has dragged you and this realm into his wishful thinking. What would you call that - devotion? Love? Insanity? A pathetic attempt to revive a past already false to begin with?"

[thelady_sif]

"You...the best judgement," she echoed softly, disbelieving, "if you felt threatened by these people, trickster, then you should have given those tutors a chance after all. The idea." She shook her head slightly. "If I were waiting to be convinced this was necessary, I'd be holding my tongue forever."

It was an opening, but hopefully one too easy for him to be tempted by.

"What would I call it?" When he leaned toward her she put the slightest bit of pressure on the table, enough so that its legs scraped against the floor, back toward him. "It's who he is, Loki, who he's always been. And you would make him suffer for it. Is that what this is?" she asked, hopelessly confused and angry for it. "And why? Why should it be wishful thinking to expect you not to be a monster? What happened to you?"

[isitmadness]

"If I felt threatened I would have destroyed them, like with Jotunheim, and we wouldn't have such a pleasant setting for conversation." He smiled, entirely half-hearted and grim.

"What happened?" And he laughed, cold and humorless, and walked away from the table towards the windows, casting a look over the sky to make sure Thor would not return before turning to face her again. "Have I not always been this way? Do you not recall the night I stole your soft blond hair, or when I bargained Freyja to strangers, or the countless times I have led Thor to massacre? I have loved this chaos since I was a boy! And yet now the rest of you worry only because I had the power to match it to my wishes, after so many years of cowering against your might.

"What is it you fear I will do? Destroy this place?" His arms swept in a broad circle around him. "Asgard? Let Thor ascend to the throne and adopt the Odinforce with my puppet strings at his thoughts?"

[thelady_sif]

Sif turned and followed Loki to the window, stopping just short of joining him there. "I remember," she said quietly, glancing down to her own long, loose braid where it rested, dark as ink, over her shoulder. "But children grow up. Boys become men who don't feel the need to have anyone cower before them in order to feel strong. Men take love when it's offered and don't repay it with cruelty."

"I don't fear you at all." She tossed her head. "You forget how long we've known each other--long enough for me to know you better than most. More than anything I feel sorry for you." And she did--perhaps that made her just as foolish as Thor.

[isitmadness]

"Don't," he snapped at her, his fist tightening at his side, his anger searching for an outlet besides words. "I hated your pity then and I hate it now, along with your ignorance. You forget that boys can also become scoundrels, thieves, and monsters, and in all your shining nobility you can't comprehend a reality where it would be preferred.

"And while you may have known me as a child," he said, cold and quiet as he stepped towards her, "while you may have found me in the shadows or beaten me across the yard or whatever satisfying memories you hold that keep you calm at night, I will let you know my dear Sif, Valkyrie of my younger heart, I have killed more bold and powerful beings than you to get where I am."

[thelady_sif]

"I'm not ignorant. Some men are just better than others," she said.

Her pride flared where he'd stung it, and she stepped forward. "Oh and just where are you, Loki? Remind me--remind yourself where all your might has landed you. All your cleverness. Trapped in here, under the thumb of a mortal, literally. Is it everything you dreamed it would be? All going as planned? Tell me, and maybe one day I can be as bold and powerful as you.

"And you're wrong. I never pitied you then, as I do now. But go on, cling to your excuses and tell yourself that none of us ever cared about you for your own sake."

[isitmadness]

Distantly, Loki was aware of what this conversation was doing to him, how it affected him like he was a boy before his fall, because he hated her like he hated Thor and all of Asgard. Her words drove as deep as her blade would and cut through all he had seen and learned, as if his hard-earned knowledge didn't matter. It was a bittersweet, familiar conclusion, though he was often sitting in a window, or a tree, or the high balconies of the main hall, eyes set on her from afar, when he made it: It doesn't matter. It's futile.

His throat felt painfully tight (again, like always, like before) and his chest burned with loathing. "You think me clever," he whispered, and he laughed under his breath.

Loki pulled the necklace over his head and threw it to the side where it slammed through the glass panel of the television, its plasma chambers, and out the other side until the stone hit the wall and clattered on the floor. The puppies on the rug woke, barking, and he hissed a word at them that sent them scampering down the hall to the spare room.

"You don't need my advice." A ghost of a smile came across his lips as he stepped close to her, so close to touch but keeping a thin layer of space between them. "When the time is right and Asgard asks it of you, you need only spread your legs for Thor, and he will give you more than he will ever grant me. Asgard will place on your head a crown of white stars in exchange for your womb, no matter how ugly your children might be."

[thelady_sif]

Sif barely noticed the damage to the television, though a small part of her wondered what consequences there were for his removing the necklace. It was his harsh words for the dogs that made her eyes go wide. "Bullying puppies," she said, "oh please, continue, I can barely breathe for how impressed I am by you."

This wasn't what she'd intended by coming here, as unrealistic as that had been in hindsight. She had never shared Thor's patience with Loki.

Her hands balled at her sides as she allowed him to step into her space. She knew where he was headed before he finished talking, but she let him finish, because there was a dullness in her ears, a buzzing that made it difficult to speak, to do anything. She would have expected him to toss any show of feeling back in her face. But she hadn't expected him to use this. It was only the fate she'd been most afraid of, a current she'd fought against her whole life despite any feelings she had for Thor.

Her hand shot up from her side and caught him around the throat before she was even conscious of it, and she pivoted and rammed him against the window. Her other forearm pressed hard against his collarbone, unrelenting. "If you hadn't already done enough damage to this building," she snarled, "I would send you through this glass."

[isitmadness]

By the time he felt his head slam against the glass, Loki felt drunk with power, however ill-gotten it was. He had expected a punch at the least, something to hurt, but this was better than simple pain. This gave him the exhilaration of something better, something more permanent, and the means of saving himself from it lay out of reach. It was like hanging above the void all over again. A real prospect for change.

Would it work, if he tried? How immortal was he now, more than a year removed from tasting Idunn's apples? Would it be the simplest of all his plans, the easiest way to eliminate the chance of finding himself kneeling before Him once more? His hands pressed flat against the cool glass at his sides.

"One window won't matter to Stark's fortune," he said in a low voice, as dark as he could manage against her bruising grips. "Go on, you heartless wench. Push. I can hear the glass cracking already."

[thelady_sif]

It was too easy to imagine it. With rage pumping through her blood, Sif couldn't bring herself to care about how beautifully she'd risen to his bait. She held his gaze as her breathing slowed, neither releasing him nor pushing, despite how he taunted. Begged.

As she watched him, something furtive and urgent in his expression nearly made her gasp. She stepped back and took her hands off him in one swift motion, unsure who she was more appalled by.

"I--" Sif faltered, at a complete loss for the first time since they'd begun this conversation. Her fingers flexed at her sides, nearly cramping from gripping his throat tightly enough to leave marks. "It would be easier for you, if I hated you enough to do it," she managed. "I'm sorry to disappoint."

[isitmadness]

As she stepped back, Loki slowly brought one hand to his neck, feeling the sore points that would bruise later if he kept the pendant off. He swallowed to soothe the frustration and disappointment rising in his chest. "There's no need to apologize," he murmured, his gaze steady on some point off to the side, not looking at her. "You've never made anything easy for me - why should I expect it of you now?"

Loki pushed himself off the window and brushed past her on the way to the kitchen, asking, "Do you want a drink?"

Even as he tried to ignore his own analysis, he couldn't help but wonder at the situation: he had wanted that, with all its terrible consequences. He wasn't surprised; worst yet, he suspected he would accept such sweet promises again.

[thelady_sif]

Loki wouldn't look at her, and Sif didn't push the matter. It made it easier to hide the fact that she couldn't stop looking at him, trying to process what had happened. The most she'd hoped for was for something honest to pass between them, without his bluster and mockery and without her own quick temper to muddle things. Something that would begin to help her understand.

As she watched him she couldn't help but think she'd gotten her wish, and it was more than she knew how to handle.

When he brushed past her, she swallowed the half-formed questions on her tongue and followed him into the kitchen. She felt tired, suddenly, and so unfathomably old. "I can't help but wonder if that's wise," she said, even as she moved to the cupboard and pulled down two tumblers.

[isitmadness]

While she picked out the glasses, Loki pulled out the decanter from the shelf, three-quarters filled with a dark red wine from his efforts the day before. "We won't get drunk off of a few glasses," he said, taking the decanter to the table and sitting, waiting for her to join him. "Even if it were of Asgardian strength, which it's not."

It had been a while since he had shared a glass with her, longer still since he had shared one without the comfort of the loud dinner crowd around them or the press of a city tavern. It had been so long, in fact, and he had done so much in the mean time that his memory of it felt foggier than the very beginnings of his childhood, but it might have involved an apple harvest and a set of twin full moons. Or not.

[thelady_sif]

"Well, and it's not as if we could cause any more damage than we've done while sober." She eyed the decanter as she placed the glasses in front of him to fill. "Would that Frigga had sent some real wine down along with those puppies."

It was odd to be sitting alone with him, too quiet. When they drank, it was usually at banquets. She wouldn't dwell too long on how much more comfortable it was for her to be throttling him, or at the very least, yelling at him. It was strange--she and Thor never lacked for peaceful moments.

[isitmadness]

"Perhaps that's why she doesn't send it." He filled the glasses with his usual steady hand, topped the decanter, and then handed her one of the glasses before taking one for himself. A long sip made his throat feel better, if nothing else.

"Well," he said finally, turning the glass in circles between his fingers, while he propped his elbow against the table, pressing his temple against his other hand. "I could ask you not to tell Thor about this evening, though I have a feeling you would feel obligated to."

[thelady_sif]

She took the glass and drank deeply, then took the liberty of topping off both their glasses while she thought about his request.

"You assume I would want Thor to know about it any more than you do." She stared into her glass. She and Thor were perhaps too much alike, except that she hadn't been through the ordeal of a cleansing banishment and a tryst with a mortal girl. She couldn't imagine he'd be anything other than exasperated with the two of them; it was only for love of Thor that she wasn't more constantly at Loki's throat.

"I would never lie to him, if he asked me about it. And it's not as if we don't discuss you already," she added with a wry glance up at him. "Anyway I don't imagine the marks on your neck will escape his notice, to say nothing of the state of the television."

As for the rest of it, at the window...she knew Thor would want to know, but if it came to that, she didn't even know how to explain what she'd seen in Loki's eyes that had rattled her.

[isitmadness]

"I can heal my neck and repair the television before Thor returns, if I so choose," he said with a small gesture towards the living room and the discarded pendant. "But your words are not so easily controlled. Not that I could do so, of course," and he flashed her a grim smile before taking another drink.

"If you don't want Thor to know, then you agree with me on how well he would take it." Here his voice took a more pondering tone, as if they were talking about fall harvests and festivals - completely expected and with few possibilities for variation. "I'd rather not be anymore of a prisoner than I am now."