Sif (soturi) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-02-21 20:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, loki odinson (mcu), sif (mcu) |
Who: Sif And Loki
What: Sif is worried, and tries to mend bridges
Where: The ship, Loki's quarters
When: Monday, after dropping Loki off at a libraryand letting him sober up
Rating: Mentions of drinking, PTSD, some mentions of memory loss and spoilers for Agents Of Shield (specifically EP 2.12), mentions of violence, mentions of the events of Thor: Ragnarok
Whenever Sif saw a problem, she tackled it the best she could. There could be an argument made she could be a little aggressive about it, which was probably true. She faced things head on, and treated most things like a battle. But she knew well enough when to do that, and how to do that. No one could always predict consequences, but she gave it her best and still dealt with them as they came.
Which is why she was now facing the second Prince of Asgard, trying to find a way to help. She could see how poorly he was doing. She wasn’t always sure where she stood with Loki, but she knew where he stood for her. He was her friend and brother-in-arms, just like The Warriors Three and Thor were. Like the rest of her found family, he occupied a place in her heart and with the knowledge of Ragnarok, she was glad enough to have gotten it back. Such gifts were rare and precious, although in light of their new situation probably less of the former.
Subtlety had never been her strength. She could manage when it was needed, a battle that could be won in silence was as valuable as any other battle, but she tended to speak what was on her mind. Still she watched and waited, trying to find good words. In the end she passed a glass of water to Loki and gave him her attention. “Tis not my place,” and it really wasn’t. Despite wherever she stood she wasn’t family, nor was she of any rank. Her title was an earned thing, not a formal one. He had all rights to toss her out, but maybe then he’d go to those close to his own heart. “But you have been different. I have seen enough wounds to know when others carry them.” She’d seen this sort of look before, in warriors who had seen and done too much. “There are times, speaking of matters eases those wounds. And I would listen, and would not let them leave this room. But know I worry for you. This is not something you can carry alone.”
---
Fighting with Thor had made Loki feel better for a full ten minutes. He would tell grand tales of his glorious victory in years to come, though in truth he couldn’t remember if he’d landed a single blow against his brother. It was possible that at least one strike had felled an innocent, not-talking tree. Loki, however, would never admit as much.
What rankled most at the moment was that everyone was right. Once again, for all of his cleverness, Loki had dug himself deeply, inexorably, into a place where he was in the wrong. He hadn’t decided yet if he cared. For Frigga, he might pretend, but he did so loathe lying to his mother. She’d never fall for it anyway. After all, hadn’t he learned the art of illusion at her knee?
Sif was different. She wasn’t family. She wasn’t an enemy - or at least not at the moment. She’d known Loki since they were children, though that hadn’t stopped her from suspecting him of malice when he’d been granted the throne after Odin’s unexpected lapse into the Odinsleep. He’d describe their relationship as untethered. She could grasp at their old history if she chose, and he could choose to accept that hold … or not.
“Are you truly so concerned for my welfare, Lady Sif?” he asked, one eyebrow raised, as he accepted the proffered water. He didn’t waste his time checking to see if it were poisoned. Sif wasn’t the type. She’d hauled him away from the Elves and their wine with Thor, shoved him in amongst the books of a library - he’d no idea which one - until he became something resembling sober again, and then accompanied him to the ship. Loki downed the water and then went to his room to collapse on his bed. Frigga and Einar both gave him reproachful looks from where they’d monopolized the pillows.
--
It wasn’t an unfair question. She’d never been without suspicion towards Loki. It was a matter where she knew she’d done wrong and was on a path to try and make amends for, but one she traveled knowing that the one she’d caused harm to had every right to accept or deny her apologies. Such was the way of life. But he hadn’t told her to leave, so she followed.
The animals made her smile. She had a fondness for them, and was sad there was no chance to acquire one of the Elven horses, and knew them to be far more intuitive than most gave them credit for. Animals had a sense of things, and people. “If I was not concerned, I would not be here.” Sif was not good at lying. She had secrets, and kept them well, but if people asked about it she never had enough words to dissuade them of pressing, and people tended to know when she did lie. So she was mostly honest, and wasn’t one to pretend one thing while meaning another.
She watched Loki then, “You are my friend too, despite how I have acted in the past. I was unkind and unjust, and now I must make amends. That is my own fault to bear and correct. In doing so, I see a wound, and thus I feel it only right to see if there’s anything I can do. Even if it is simply listening.”
---
“Oh I doubt there is any salvation left for me. Have you not heard? I am the villain of the piece. Cast out by two fathers, a plague upon Midgard - indeed, upon all the realms - and doomed to sow destruction and ruin wherever I go. Odin made quite the speech at my sentencing. It’s a pity you weren't invited to witness it. He laid out all of my copious failings, down to Laufey’s opinion of my usefulness.” The fact that Loki said these words with his face buried in the down comforter made them no less maudlin. Frigga glanced at him and sneezed.
“Thor seems quite eager to have his brother back, but you … ” Loki turned his head to watch Sif. He looked utterly ridiculous with his booted feet hanging off the end of the bed, and his arms still down by his sides. “You I cannot divine. You didn’t trust me before Jotunheim, let alone after my little jaunt to Midgard. Why bother to be a friend now? Is it for Thor’s sake? My mother’s?”
Though Loki could be subtle in comparison to Thor, he’d always been prone to dramatics of his own sort. He suspected the two of them had driven their parents to exhaustion many times over the centuries. He might just do the same to Sif in thanks for her renewed interest in his well-being.
--
She was in agreement with the cat there, but he had a right to his words. She could not put herself in his shoes, because she didn't really understand it. Her parents had always been a strength at her back, the foundation upon which she built everything. She had trouble even imagining what he'd gone through, so she couldn't really voice anything in that aspect. There wasn't very much to say, except "I disagree. Salvation, and kindness, is well within reach. If you wish it."
She sighed and then nodded, "aye, I did not trust you once you were brought back from Midgard. But I trusted you before. Not enough, true. But enough to watch my back and to fight with you. Before, I did not truly understand nor sought to understand. I thought you the younger brother, jealous of the elder. I did not know the details nor sought to know them. I should have extended my hand mayhaps but I felt it wrong to compare. You are royalty, a Prince of Asgard, mine own situation felt different.” She crossed her arms and shrugged. “Mayhaps for your own sake? For my sake? I told you, I treated you unkindly before and did not seek to grow as close as I did with the others. Knowing now that I have lost so much.” She took a breath and let her arms drop. “Thor mourned you the greatest, but we all mourned you too. Even me. Tis not a chance I seek to throw aside. That is why I am trying to be a friend now. Because I failed, before.”
---
Frigga was usually right, whether one meant the cat or Asgard’s queen. Loki had given the small bundle of black fur her name for a reason beyond sentiment. She was a nuisance, of course, but she also rarely allowed him to sulk for too long, and against all reason, made him feel better by her mere presence. He resisted that comfort now, quite determined to feel sorry for himself.
“So am I a stray dog, then, to be brought indoors and bathed and fed?” Einar coughed at that, as though he were about to bring up his dinner. Loki glared. Like the cat, Einar appeared entirely unaffected. “Bathed, maybe,” Loki admitted, raising a hand and sniffing at his sleeve. He had only two sets of Asgardian wear on this ship, and both needed to be washed. Loki pushed himself up and began to strip out of his tunic. Beneath, he was lean as ever, with a few new scars perhaps, but Frost Giants, even the runts, healed nearly as well as Aesir.
“What story would you hear?” he invited, crossing the room to the wardrobe to retrieve a fresh shirt. “I can’t recall. Were you at court for the plays? They were true, if embellished somewhat. Or did Thor tell you his version of events?” He glanced over his shoulder, dark hair sweeping against pale skin. “I wonder if my actions that day are made less noble by the fact that I survived.”
--
"You are missing my point deliberately." That much was familiar, oddly so. "For that is not what I said. My words have no second meanings. I say what I mean." She didn't shy when he removed his shirt. She'd been the only woman in a band of men too long to have any more reservations. "No, I was not. Heimdall heard of a Kree in Midgard, and you gave me orders to go investigate. That seemed important enough, and I was soon occupied with delivering the Kree back home before returning to Midgard to find their weapons. Terrigenesis was a success on Midgard, Loki. I saw it in action. A mortal made into a weapon." She would not, out of respect, say who or where she'd found that but it had been important enough to not go home, and she'd been secure in her knowledge her brother could see her. "Plus it gave me time to think. Once Thor chose Midgard, I wanted mine own distance and reflections."
"So I heard no tales, save the one Thor spoke of when he returned to tell us he was choosing Midgard, and then only that you'd died. So tell me then your own tale Loki. You say yourself you did not wish to return to chains, and that much I can understand. But that tale is hardly the one that burdens you, I think. But speak of what you like if it lightens your soul. If you have no wish to speak to me, I cannot fault you. I have not earned your trust. I did threaten to hit you. But I am far from the only one who is worried. Thor will soon press, if he has not already, and Her Highness will soon follow. You are cared for, and if that is a burden tis hardly a bad burden. Should you wish to speak to me I swear I will not hold judgment." She let out a long breath, not sure if she was helping or not. She couldn't blame him for his reluctance. If he'd come to her and pressed her for this sort of thing she'd hardly be opening up herself.
“Nor was my desire for introspection nor the hunt for Kree the only reason I stayed away. The Kree had a weapon that had me lose mine memories. Those have come back, but I needed time to sort it out. I still lose track some days.” It was hardly the same but she was sharing something she hadn’t yet shared with anyone else. “Not of big matters, I am still as capable as ever, but small things slip me.”
---
Deflect, misdirect, confuse and confound … these were Loki’s favored tactics. He’d never been strong in the way of most warriors of Asgard, so he had made up for it with tricks. The mostly harmless ones had given way over the years to mischief that bordered on malice. Somewhere along the line, he’d forgotten the difference, and he was slow still in remembering it.
Loki left Sif’s words unanswered as he pulled a dark t-shirt over his head. What the Midgardians lacked in taste, they made up for in simple comforts. He reached into a drawer and pulled out fresh blue jeans and undergarments. These, at least, he put on out of sight, behind the closed door of his bathroom. Frigga, in typical feline fashion, bolted through it at the last moment to supervise Loki and play in the sink while he attempted to rinse the aftertaste of drunkenness from his tongue. When he emerged, his hair was damp from a cursory rinse, and the kitten was balanced in the crook of his elbow to keep her from attacking his bare feet.
“Mortals make fine weapons,” he observed. “They served my purposes well enough. And they’re more pleasant than the Chitauri.” He set Frigga on the bed and fell back into it, his head cradled by the pillows. He would not confess that he felt the first stirrings of a raging headache. Wistfully, he added, “What was forgetting like?”
--
She could, easily, leave him to it. but beyond being worried it would also prove his point. And she was stubbornly determined now, to show him what it meant to be cared for. Even if it meant he would continue to badger her, or try and dissuade her. She owed him her life several times over, they'd traveled together long enough, and even beyond that through his actions she had been able to put Lorelei and Haldor behind her. There was a debt there she couldn't ignore, even outside of the boundaries of friendship and brothers-in-arms.
She could not resist smiling at the image he made with the little feline. The creature was already ruling Loki, and seemingly very pleased about itself in doing so. "The Kree share your opinion. They genetically altered humans through Diviner Crystals, making them capable of destructive powers. The one I met who'd attained powers, could control the earth. I thought it better to stop her, but her companions and she herself proved me wrong. But they have their own opinions." Still he was giving her hints. Enough to make a string that might make sense.
“Odd. Disturbing. I remembered what I was, where I was from. That I was on Midgard for a reason. But not who I was. I had forgotten Thor, you, the Warriors three. Mine own name. The SHIELD found me, and they helped me in my search. Remembering was painful and yet not. Tis still not something I would recommend. Besides the Kree weapon that did it is back to it’s home.”
---
“Perhaps you do not have enough you wish erased to see the appeal of such a weapon.” Frigga climbed onto Loki’s chest and got to work tormenting him with her tiny claws while she made herself a comfortable bed. “I should like to forget all of it, you see. Become no one and nothing. Not to die, mind you. I’m too stubborn for that. But it would a fine thing to become someone else.” A self-deprecating smile teased at his lips while he idly stroked the cat’s back.
“I almost envy you. And Barton, come to think of it. You for forgetting, he for being able to declare, ‘Another pulled my strings,’ and be forgiven. Perhaps I ought not to have sent you to deal with the Kree. It may have been a waste of time.” Thanos was coming for all of them, so why bother saving anyone? Then again, Loki had bothered saving Asgard. That did throw a wrench into his excuse for leaving New York to burn when he’d had the chance to stop it.
“If the humans somehow manage not to destroy themselves, I will consider it one of their so-called miracles, and applaud their ingenuity. Their lives are so short under even the best of circumstances. It is remarkable they manage to learn anything at all. Or maybe that is why they learn so quickly. They haven’t any time to tarry, and they know it. One can accomplish the most unlikely things when put to the fire.”
--
That seemed to be the crux of it all, and she was glad to see that he was more willing to show it, if not tell about it. She only knew the tales, but she doubted that anyone who'd truly wanted the destruction Loki had caused would want to forget. Even if it meant all of it, forgetting his past and his actions. She'd not mention he'd be the only one who would, and would drift through life not knowing why people looked at him oddly.
"That would be your choice," she offered with no hard edges to the words. "This wasn't mine. Tis that that bothers me more. I do not like anyone making choices for me." She tilted her head, not knowing. "Why would it be a waste of time? The Kree have long been a people to be cautious of. Their success means that soon or later, they will try and involve Midgard in whatever squabbles they feel right. They did leave a weapon there. The Kree I met forgot, which is good, but that hardly closes the book. Things like that are always found out, and then Midgard has that problem to consider. We are still their allies. Aiding them if the Kree decide to take the people they've crafted in a weapon is only right."
"You should not speak so ill of them," she added and found a chair to sit in. "They are remarkable. You are right in that they know the limit of their time, and that their youth makes them squabble easily. But I see their promise. One day, Midgard will rival Asgard As It Was, and even surpass it in many ways. Even in just speaking with the Lady Jane or the SHIELD I saw that." She added with a smile. "I do not agree that they are put to the fire. I think it is simply their drive you see. Their joy for life and what it means. They have an honor and devotion to their comrades I do not often see."
---
Loki scoffed, an action he soon regretted when he found himself with a mouthful of dog fur. Einar had chosen that moment to move closer to his odd keeper and swat Loki in the face with his tail in the process of circling to lie back down again. The dog’s head wound up on Loki’s chest, beside the cat.
“Honor and devotion have rarely done me any favors,” Loki went on, as though he had never been interrupted at all. “They certainly won’t stop what’s coming, or did you truly think I woke up one day and suddenly decided, ‘Why don’t I mount an invasion of a backwater realm just to spite Thor?’ I will confess that I envy him, but I no more want to rule Midgard than I want the throne of Jotunheim. So ask yourself, Lady Sif, what could be so terrible that Prince Loki, the god of mischief and lies, began proselytizing about subjugation and order, of all things, to creatures whose lives last hardly the measure of an insect’s when compared to our own?”
Einar stretched his neck to sniff at Loki just then, and the prince engaged in a miniature shoving game to keep the beast from doing something odious. “Would you desist?” he muttered after the fourth time his dog made a bid to lick his nose.
--
To that, she did give a laugh. The animals ruled the sulky Prince, and it showed. They seemed very instant that he behave, or at least give them his full attention. They hadn't reacted adversely to a stranger's presence but they were letting her know who belonged to who. "I hardly try and put my thoughts to your actions." She offered honestly. But he was right too, and it made her think. "There are many things that I would find justifies actions like that, even when reversing our roles. A greater threat, to be sure, and not how I would have approached such a thing. But I am not you. So tell me then, god of mischief, what is so terrible that you acted as you did?"
She gave another laugh then, "I think either he knows you let him, or knows how to rule you oh Prince of Asgard." She grinned at the dog. "I think he likes it not you take attention from him. Be firm, and let him not rule you. Dogs need that. Cats, well," she shrugged, "good luck?" She leaned back against the chair, "but however much you put up your shackles animals have a sense of things. He knows you feel off, and he does what he thinks will solve the problem. What are their names?” She hadn’t asked yet, and it offered a bit of a change. Maybe it would continue to show her honesty in being friends.
---
“You’ve never met this dog,” Loki protested. “He will not be ruled.” In an instant, the dog slobber Loki had been avoiding founds its way to his chin in the form of a quick lick from the animal. “Einar, honestly.” The god’s mouth twisted in disgust, and he wiped his face on his sleeve. “The other one is Frigga,” he added, as casually as possible, for Sif’s benefit. The cat didn’t offer her so much as a glance, though Einar’s tongue lolled with delight.
“There are things in the void.” One hand resting on Einar’s back, Loki thought over what he wished to say. “The void itself claws at you. And then when someone finds you … ” He offered Sif a bitter smile. “You will wish you had never been found.” Loki turned onto his side, carrying Frigga with him and setting her on top of Einar. Her black fur stood out sharply against the dog’s russet coat.
“Thanos is a madman, and he will sunder every branch from Yggdrasil to achieve his aim. He intends to collect all of the Infinity Stones. I’ve no doubt that he is fully capable of wielding them. So you see, he is not someone to whom you simply say no.”
--
She grinned. Whatever else, Loki had these animals. They were always more than what people thought they could be. "I have not, may I?" She would not push it, but she did like animals. She missed those of home. She tilted her head and looked to the animals. "Well met Frigga and Einar. I am Sif." She was sure they understood far, far more than they let on. All animals tended to.
She straightened as she listened. No one had known where Loki had gone when he'd fallen. Dead, had been the assumption. But even she knew there could be worse fates. Far worse, at times. "All of them? Then he is truly mad." she did not know the name, or had any reference to it. But she could guess he was behind Loki's own sudden turn in ambitions. "I am sorry for that." It was probably not enough, but it needed to be said.
“If your actions were under duress, you share that fate with the other one you named. You still committed them, and in truth should have spoken what you knew but those are words of someone who has not experienced what you did, but if as you said you had a fire behind you.” she spread her hands. “No one knows how one will react when they have a blade to their neck. We can say what we like, but until it occurs we know nothing, only what we perceive to know.” She shrugged, “I do not know the words to speak that will aid. But I am glad you shared them. And I think you should share them further. Despite your views on mortals they do have ways of mending and aiding where others fail. What you experienced should not be something to let fester.”
---
“Do you mean join their little group?” He carefully avoided looking at Sif. “My presence would not be welcome, even if I wished to be there. No. I don’t think I’ll be asking the mortals for help.” Frigga leapt off of Einar and padded over to Sif, perhaps having had enough of Loki’s dour attitude. The little cat twined between the warrior’s legs and meowed softly.
“None of them will pardon me for acting to save my own skin when the price was their world. I suppose I could spare each of them from death, one by one, as I did Barton. Thor would be beside himself, but it seemed to work with the good archer. Only he wishes me to be genuinely sorry for what I’ve done, and that is not an apology I am prepared to give. I did what I did because no option was left to me. You all say you are pleased that I live, yet none of you wishes to accept the path I was forced to take to survive.” Loki shrugged. “Then again, it’s easy to condemn the monster of childhood stories. Odin never hesitated. Just another lie to keep the Frost Giant hidden and complacent.”
--
"No," she added and leaned down to let the cat sniff at her fingers before going to, gently, pet her. Softly she offered gentle words to it, knowing that any feline always liked to hear praises. "Find one mortal who is specialized if you have no wish to be with the others. I would suggest another, but they are the majority upon this place. I offer mine own companionship, but I have not the knowledges you might need nor know the best words to say. All I have is mine own experiences, and they are different." She glanced up and shrugged, "you say that without knowing. Have you asked? I know I can blame you not, not truly. I cannot say I would have done differently were our places reversed. Put such a blade to mine neck and what I would not do is a much shorter list.”
“Again, you misjudge. Am I not here to listen? If you wish me to accept that the path you took is one you were forced on then I say that I am. I do not know what else you wish me to say or do Loki, for I cannot be happy that death occurred. But it did, and if it was how you survived then that is what happened.” Again she shrugged before going back to pet the tiny cat. “Nor do I condemn or think you a monster.”
She raised her eyes to Loki, but kept petting the animal. It was a soothing thing. “There I have no words. Tis not my place nor do I know much. I try to think of it in what is presented to me by Torunn’s presence in this realm, and even though she is not of mine blood I love her like she is and would never keep that I am, yet am not, her mother.” She shrugged. “Tis different though, I imagine.”
---
“It is different.” Loki sat up despite the ache still building behind his eyes. “Torunn is, in some sense, your child. She is also Aesir.” He paused, pursed his lips in thought, and then, after a deep breath, released the glamor that made him appear as though he belonged in Asgard as much as anyone. He restored it a moment later, but that moment was long enough for Sif to clearly view the pale blue skin and blood red eyes.
Loki shrugged, as though the difference didn’t matter, when it in fact had been enough to unbalance him in the aftermath of Thor’s ruined coronation. “I suppose you have no intention of allowing me near the wine again to stave off the hangover.” Misdirection again, but Loki had offered Sif more truth than was his habit. He blamed the wine, even as he considered how best to get back at the potent drink.
--
Again, he was not hearing her words. But she pressed on regardless. “Mayhaps it is different. But I did not bear her to term, nor give her life. Nor did I ever think that in this life she would exist. Yet she does. Were she not Aesir, it would still be the same. She would still be my daughter, and I would tear any who harmed her to shreds with my teeth if I had to. Or I had cause enough to do it.” It was odd to see him, truly, but she never wavered and her gaze never darkened. “I still see you, Loki. Not a monster, nor a villain. You. Your blood does not change anything. Not to me. Nor does it, I think, to your brother or your mother. Family is more than that”
She smiled, “you are most correct. And I am not telling Thor I helped you acquire more of the Elven wine, for I too enjoyed it and would wish to truly partake of such things, but if I see you go too often to it I will let him know. There is a difference in enjoying drink, and doing nothing else. Which is why we put you with books. The first idea was Mordor. Thor thought it better to ensure your well being.” She wouldn’t press. Maybe she should, but she was no expert at soothing matters like this. “Drink water, eat food. Go see the healers if it gets truly atrocious. Or endure.” She shrugged, “all valued alternatives. Not enjoyable ones, mind.” Carefully she leaned down to try and pick the little kitten up and set it on her lap.
---
“That,” Loki pressed, “is a mother’s prerogative. Not a father’s. I do not doubt my mother.” He still wanted to rage at Odin, furious that the old man had had the temerity to die before explaining how he could possibly love the son he’d locked away and declared he would have killed had Frigga not stayed his hand. Loki’s deception of putting Odin in a human rest home had been far kinder than Odin’s deeds had warranted. He wanted to lord that over his father. He wanted to demand the truth, but there was no one to answer him.
He might also feel a little guilty about Odin’s death. That was not something he was prepared to discuss with Sif.
“Neither do I doubt Thor. The oaf is too stubborn by half. I could turn into a bilgesnipe and trample him ten times over, and he’d still demand a hug.”
At Sif’s feet, Frigga arched up into the warrior’s touch and condescended to be lifted to the lap that was rightfully hers. Loki watched the creature settle down, and thought back on what his alternate self had said. He sighed, sketched an arcane gesture in the air, and motioned Sif to the crate of wine that appeared in the middle of the room. “When you are done worshiping the true god in this room, you can take that lot, and you can take Frigga and Einar to see my other self while I decide how best to remove the Hulk from my skull.” He shuddered at the idea of the green beast, though at least the creature had been useful against Hela. “If my skull is to be split open from the inside, I’ve no wish for witnesses.”
--
She tilted her head in acknowledgment, although she was sure that if any would harm Torunn, there would be a line, and Thor would try and beat her for being first in it. But that was arguing semantics, and it wasn't the same. She had no real leg to stand on there, her parents had never done what the Allfather was said to have done. In his shoes she might have the exact same anger. Maybe more. She couldn't say, as it wasn't something she had experienced.
"Then do not doubt me either. I meant what I said, and that I am honest in seeking to mend things. I was unkind, so I extend my hand Loki. You can take it or leave it, but my loyalty and friendship remain. For your own sake." She smiled then, "we could all learn something of Thor's loyalty and big heart I think." She smiled to the feline, "right?" Happily she pet the animal. It was small but she could see how it might grow. And cats were fierce hunters, and easy to love.
“Tis hardly my fault she is far more adorable.” But she nodded to his words. She wasn’t sure how to feel about there being two of him but by all rights there were other realms that had counterparts. She had her own, and own that could easily appear. Gently she rose and carried the little feline with her. “Come then Einar.” With her free hand she gave Loki a a salute before picking up the wine. “Think on what I said, about aid. Now where might I find your other self?”
---
The line to defend Torunn would include Loki, though some might be surprised to hear it. He was fond of his niece. She approached him with none of the prejudice he perceived in others. Being raised by Tony Stark appeared to have worked in her favor. She was Asgardian, without the weight of an ancient society entrenched in its own ideas of what was best for all of the realms.
Frigga purred and butted her head against Sif’s hand. The little cat knew her own mind, and being raised by Loki seemed not to have done her any harm. Einar, meanwhile, had scooted down the bed to place most of his long, lean body in Loki’s lap. The prince of Asgard smoothed his dog’s fur while he considered Sif’s words.
“I am not my brother. I never will be. I might, however, become a different version of myself.” He shrugged, as though such a thing had little significance.
“Go to cabin 708. You will find the other Loki there, and if not him, then his mortal, Ben Reilly. You can leave the animals with either of them.”
--
She watched, hardly minding the presence of the feline. “I think Einar has a mind to stay.” comfort could be a great balm, even in the shape of animals. Maybe especially in the shape of animals. Animals knew only to love, not judge.
“I chose poor words, but good. I look forward to knowing.” And she would. She’d try her hardest to make sure that this time she gave Loki the chance she’d never really had. Otherwise claiming her desire for friendship elsewhere would sound hollow.
She nodded, then paused a moment, “is it odd? To have another who is by all means different but the same?” She wondered if there was a way to brace for it. She had no idea how she’d react if she found herself with someone who was her, but not.
---
“Loki has a mind to look after the dog and the cat until, and I quote, I ‘sound moderately more like a functional adult.’” Einar slapped his tail against the bed. “Let him handle them for a day or two.” The dog leapt down and went to Sif’s side at a gesture.
“You’ll find my other self charming, I think. He’s far more cheerful than I am. His path was far different. If you wish to know his story, then ask him. He may be inclined to tell it.”
--
She was saddened not to have any more hands to pet the dog, but she nodded to the words. Maybe she would ask. It was a bit of an odd situation. She paused a moment longer, considering. She wasn’t sure if what she knew would help, or do worse. But if roles were reversed, she’d want to know. Even if it brought up unpleasant things. “There was someone. Son of Coul, part of the SHIELD. He encountered you, attempted to stop you. I saw him again, when I was last on Midgard. He lives.”
She wasn’t sure of the details there, and she knew it might be another cut but she could only try. If she did wrong, then she did wrong. “Tell Thor. He can speak of it to his mortals. They have no cause to believe me, and I blame them not for it.” She let that hang before motioning the dog along.
---
He watched them go, his face a mask of placid disinterest. As soon as Sif had left the suite with his animals and the wine in tow, Loki hauled himself to the shower. He didn’t bother to get dressed again when he came out, simply rolled himself in his blankets and attempted to sleep off the hangover.