This is another one of beautiful shots of Thor 1 that conveys a genius symbolism. Here’s Odin who pitted his children against each other for the throne and his unfair treatment of them set the brothers apart. And he is standing on a broken bridge. The bridge that was broken as the result of the brother’s conflict over the throne, over gaining Odin’s approval, over being worthy. The broken bridge of the brother’s relationship. The conflict that he fueled drove his children, literally and also figuratively on the verge of falling down into an abyss. The brothers are holding to the Gungnir, the symbol of the throne. Their hands are close to each other but the Gungnir, the throne has kept them apart. A symbol of how the throne and their rivalry for it, came between them and set them apart. And Odin, the real reason for the destruction of his family, is standing safely on the broken bridge, and he is holding Thor, his favorite son, by the ankle, while Loki is the farthest to him in this chain. A symbol of how his lies and his treatment of Loki, drove away Loki more than Thor and how in the end, they pushed Loki away, just like Odin’s “No Loki”. And as Odin had favored Thor and alienated Loki in all the years, here he held on to Thor and pushed Loki away and left him to fall in the abyss.
Be honest, if your son, even if adopted, tried to commit mass genocide of an entire planet all in the name of approval, would you say “Yes Loki” to them? Yes I’m aware that Odin fucked up when it came to raising them and was so evident in his favor for Thor, but I feel like the “No Loki” has been made into some twisted lame “I don’t love you Loki”.
When Thor went to Jotunhiem and nearly started a war, Odin punished him to teach him a lesson, sending him to live among mortals so he would humble himself. This was to show that he did not approve of Thor’s actions to seek war and bloodshed. Just the same, when Loki attempt to not only seek war but murder an entire fucking planet, Odin told him no.
“I could have done it! For you! For all of us…”
Odin’s response of “No Loki” is far from “I don’t love you.” Or “Your such a fucking disappointment.” His response was of a parent trying to correct the mistake their child made.
Did Odin fuck up in the end? Yes. Was he not the best at parenting? Absolutely. But he was far from heartless towards his son. Just go back and watch that scene, look at Odin’s expression and tell me that he was not saddened when Loki let go. Because that was pure regret if I ever saw it.
Honestly? In a situation like this, the first thing I would do, is using both of my hands to pull my children to safety first, rather than staying there and staring down at them when they are both hanging on the edge of an abyss and about to falling to their deaths. And if I see my child is in so much distress, and it seems like they are not mentally stable at the moment that the first thing they say when they are so much close to death, is desperately seeking my approval, I would say sth to calm them down, not a refusal, and not an approval, sth neutral like “I know”, because that’s not the right time to correct their mistakes. Also if my child, actually both of my children, think that committing genocide is what I want them to do and earns my approval, then I think that’s definitely because I as a parent made huge mistakes in teaching them what is right and what is wrong. Their mistake is on me.
Thor, before his banishment had no problem with committing genocide. He screamed
“We’ll finish them together father!”and killed so many Jotuns just because he was called a princess and would murder them all if Odin agreed with him. He didn’t nearly start a war. He started the war. Odin asked Laufey to ignore Thor’s actions and Laufey didn’t accept and stated that they are going to get what they seek, war. Loki wanted to finish that war. Why Loki thought committing genocide would gain him Odin’s approval? Why Thor thought Odin would help him finish Jotuns? Because Asgardians are racist toward Jotuns. Because Thor and Loki were taught their entire life that Jotuns are nothing more than monsters. Loki’s heritage was such a huge deal that according to Odin he had to be protected from the truth! Then Loki learned that he was supposed to be used as a political pawn to bring permanent peace with Jotunheim, a permanent peace that would nullify Jotunheim’s danger forever. So since Odin’s plans for him no longer mattered, he wanted to show that he is not useless. That he can do what Odin wanted to use him for, and eliminate Jotunheim’s danger. So yes, he though using a way to kill all the monster without any casualty to Asgardians would make Odin happy. Because Odin never actually condemned Thor for killing Jotuns. And by killing Jotuns Loki could also prove that he is loyal to Asgard and he is an Odinson. To Loki who thought he wasn’t worthy and less loved and ignored because of his race, that “No Loki” was the last straw. That “No” meant no matter what he did, he could never be worthy in the eye of Odin, no matter how he tried, what he was going to see was only disappointment from Odin. To Loki that “No” meant “I don’t love you”, “You are not worthy”, “You are not enough and you are never going to enough”. If it wasn’t it wouldn’t drove Loki to commit suicide. I never said Odin was heartless but he was a terrible parent. A terrible parent who pitted his children against each other for the throne since they were very young, who favored one son, lied to his adopted son about his heritage and raised him with racist beliefs about his own race and made him feel unloved and unworthy. He was saddened and regretted that his actions drove his son to commit suicide? He sure showed it next time by “Your birthright was to die” and “Frigga is the only reason you are still alive.”
Tag: thor: mcu
“I love you, my sons”
My real issue with this(apart from the fact that it’s not a fix for all the pain that Odin caused) is that it’s too damn late. Yes, Loki needed to hear it and it’s good that he finally did. But he needed it much sooner.
He needed to hear “I love you too, brother” from Thor before the coronation instead of “Thank you”.
He needed to hear “I love you” from Odin instead of “You are my son”. Because they aren’t the same thing. He needed to be sure of his place and his father’s love for him instead of feeling like a useless relic: “Bring about permanent peace through you. But those plans no longer matter”.
I was waiting the whole time that somebody tells Loki that he is loved but it didn’t happen.
Next time he sees Odin, he is told that “Your birthright was to die!” and he is sentenced to solitary confinement for life. Thor doesn’t visit. He only sees his mother by illusions. None of his family sees it fit to tell him that his mother died. He isn’t even given a chance to say goodbye.
This “I love you” is too late. These words don’t match the actions. They are too little, too late.
Odin, you used that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means.
I can’t help but think that must have felt like the worst gaslighting to Loki.
Also, it truly is interesting to note that until that moment, the only person in that entire fucked up family to verbally express love…was Loki.
That read to me as the worst kind of gaslighting too, and my reactions were mostly on the line of poor Loki that gets those words when they not only mean nothing, but actually are a hurt and an insult. Though I can very well see Odin meaning them. I understand that some fans are upset that there was not satisfactory resolution (and some are upset, and IMO kinda rightly-ish about that others have decided that this throwaway bone of gaslighting from an old dad not very clear in their mind WAS enough and should feel enough to Loki, to us), but it actually fits extremely well with the history and MO of that fucked up family, and quite realistically parallels a lot of RL shit. Odin in all likelihood thinks/thought he loved his sons (nobody is a villain in their own mind), and he was still a shit dad. And he died a shit dad, to all his MCU-acknowledged kids. Not that he’s much better dad in comics – and honestly, anyone at least partly familiar with northern mythos would not think Odin would be a ‘good dad’ the way we nowadays think one should be. Odin just… isn’t. Odin is a mean clever tricksy darkish vengeful smart fickle fascinating fear-inducing petty god of the battlefield, wisdom and death. None of those things, except maybe death, are really ever kind to children.
I told you about how we need someone to write us some ‘Jack O’Neill becomes the new head of the Avengers after Fury’ fic right? cause we neeeeeed it.
HAH! Oh that is TERRIFYING and amusing as all get out. 😀
Not it, but I am happy to spread the notion out there!
I typed this all out somewhere before but I can’t remember where but can you imagine the Avengers trying to read Jack in? with Sam, Teal’c and Daniel there for shits and giggles?
Cap: well, I died and came back to life
Daniel looks up at the ceiling
Tony: I am incredibly smart and could probably blow up the Sun
Sam blushes
Thor: I’m actually not a god, I’m an alien
Teal’c suddenly develops an intense cough
Tony: why do I get the feeling you’re not too impressed with all this?
Jack: yeah, well, you see, it’s like this…
HAAAH! ::APPLAUDS::
*blinks* Fuck you both, I already had enough plot bunnies. *adds to things that sound like a lot of fun to play with*
@elegantmess-southernbelle and I were throwing around thoughts on who we’d like to see better as Clint Barton/Hawkeye than Jeremy Renner, and we thought well, if we’re recasting one, why not recast them all, and racebend them while we’re at it.
Lupita Nyong’o as Natasha Romanov/Black Widow
John Boyega as Steve Rogers/Captain America
Jason Mamoa as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
Daveed Diggs as Bruce Banner/Hulk
Idris Elba as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Djimon Hounsou as Thor
No I refuse
Refuse what? Because there’s a lot of things in there that could be applied to, and right now, I have to tell you, I’m imagining you’re refusing to accept the idea of a recast where the Avengers aren’t white.
Or, as the case has been more than once already, refusing to accept the idea that Steve Rogers, Captain America, could ever be black, or indeed, anything but white.
I really hope not. I would be gravely disappointed if that’s the case.
I like most of these casting choices. I can see them being able to pull them off. I really love the casting for Nick Fury in one of the other sections of this.
The only two and a half that I’m having trouble seeing are the one for Coulson, he doesn’t look very every man and suspiciously bland but not. That’s based on how the character has been built so far. As a semi-covert agent who doesn’t give a lot away in any manner until he has to. I find that guy too expressive in the other pictures I’ve seen of him so far.
Hawkeye’s, I still see him as Ronon from SGA. I can’t see him using a bow. When he becomes Ronin maybe I can see that because it’s swords and other hand weapons plus fighting abilities. Actually I could see him being Banner in many weird ways. I just can’t see him as the human disaster that is Clint Barton in the comics.
My half is the guy you cast for Thor. I have no idea about any of his other roles and if he can pull off prince of Asgard and warrior. He looks like he can do warrior pretty well. Can he pull off spoiled prince and yet god of Thunder who is still growing up and into himself? I think part of my thing about him is the lack of hair because I expect to see hair on Thor.
Overall, a really interesting casting. I’d watch that. Any others you’ve got ideas to recast in? I’d love to see them.
I used Courtney Vance for Coulson because I’m familiar with his work with Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and I could easily see him doing the bland-but-not thing with Coulson, which for me was the most important aspect of Coulson. Yes, he can be expressive, but he can also do blandly polite very well.
Jason Mamoa was the first recast, and honestly, we mostly agreed on him because the shoulders. The lovely wide muscled shoulders that reminded both myself and my partner in this of MCU Hawkeye, and also of our mental image of a professional archer. I know I’m not terribly familiar with most of the comics – and honestly, the only thing I’d love to be do even more with Clint is find a deaf actor of color to be able to cast as Clint (which, I know that aspect of comics-canon from tumblr).
As for Djimon Hounsou and playing Thor – while I’m not familiar with his filmography, there’s no reason that he couldn’t step into that role and make it work. It wouldn’t be the same, but that’s part of the point.
I have a list of things to do, and I have half of the next set of character blocks (sets like these), and I have a messy beginning to doing the movie blocks for Thor, which is the next one I have on my list for posting, once it’s done. Part of the delay on that is having enough motivation, time, and energy all at the same time to sit down and get the screen caps I want for each of the characters.
Avengers (2012)/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: Sparring Circles and Ice
Originally Posted: 23 February 2013
AO3 | DW
Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Loki and Sif
Word Count: 3622
Characters: Loki (MCU), Sif (MCU), Helblindi, Thor (MCU)
“Does my brother ask you to take on another quest?” Thor at least doesn’t speak loudly, though Sif glares at him nonetheless. It is not a question she wants spoken aloud.
“I do not know. He has not said.” Sif shoulders her glaive, stalking through the scattering warriors toward the palace. “I will tell you later if he asks me to do such a thing, and does not insist that it is a quest that must be carried out alone.”
Loki has not provided any further tasks for her since her return from Jotunheim, and Sif is beginning to worry what he might be thinking to have her do. She’s almost tempted to stand guard outside his door once more, save that she can already hear Fandral’s insinuations and not-so-friendly gibes about doing so. She doesn’t care to hear them, nor to see the annoyance cross Thor’s face when he hears them – or hears of them.
And hear of them, he would, because she wouldn’t allow the insult to her honor pass – nor would she allow it to be quietly dealt with by some token payment or sparring session.
Scowling, Sif binds her hair back before heading for the training grounds, which have once again become a haunt of hers, as they had been when she and Thor and the Warriors Three were between adventures. The usual assortment of practicing warriors are present, and Sif looks for someone who has no sparring partner, settling easily into the rhythm of practice, with its contradiction of heightened attention and easier dismissing of the extraneous.
So she’s aware of the stir in spectators, and their clearing of space for Loki to stand just clear of the ring, in a circle of space all his own, but ignores it as unimportant until she’s defeated her opponent. Only then, while the other warrior exits the circle, does she turn to meet his gaze, raising an eyebrow without speaking. Waiting for him to either indicate she should follow him, or to reveal what she’s done by giving her a command in front of others.
He watches her for a long moment before he smiles, sharp and dangerous, stepping into the ring with a deliberateness that makes her wonder what he’s up to now. Weaponless and challenging her to spar while she still holds her glave.
Snorting, she settles into a ready crouch, watching him to see what he might do. Circling the perimeter of the ring as he does the same, waiting for him to make the first move, peripherally aware of the thickening crowd. Someone, no doubt, has gone to tell Thor and in the doing, spread word that will reach the ears of the Warriors Three. No matter the outcome of the sparring bout itself, Loki has opened the door to more speculation and gossip.
A flicker of movement makes her react, shifting the glave to meet an unexpected weapon, ice shattering and spraying her with shards. A knife or magic, that she’d expect from Loki, but not ice, though perhaps she ought to have. The Jotun had to be right, in one thing, at least, that Loki was born of Jotunheim rather than Asgard.
“Do you regret your decisions now, Sif?” Loki’s voice is entirely too close to her ear, and Sif drives an elbow backward to try to catch him, and strikes nothing but air.
“No.” She hisses as she feels something score across her thigh where her guard had opened up a little. A knife this time, and not one made of ice.
Loki laughs, cold and cutting as the wind on Jotunheim, and moves toward her, ducking under her strike at his shoulder. Fast as a striking snake, his hand wrapping around her wrist, cold seeping through the leather guard there for a moment, and numbing her hand enough that she has to take a one-handed grip on her glave. She stomps down on his foot in return, shoving away to break his grip on her.
She can hear the crowd murmuring, thinks perhaps she can hear the louder call of questions in familiar voices, but Sif ignores them in favor of pressing forward, forcing sluggish fingers to wrap around the handle of her glave, and putting her weight behind a strike that Loki slides away from like water.
“You need to do better than that,” Loki taunts, his voice seemingly right next to her ear again, and Sif snarls, whirling to sweep her glave through where Loki’s head would be if he were behind her. She focuses, listening and watching for any flicker of movement that would give away where Loki actually was – she doesn’t trust what she sees being anything other than an illusion now. It’s how he fights.
What had begun as a strange sparring session is, she knows, rapidly becoming a real fight, a desire to prove she can out-fight Loki, even if she doesn’t have his cunning or deviousness. Even if it’s mostly her getting tagged with scratches and taunts as Loki proves he can evade her and wear her down. Waiting until she’s panting, with muscles trembling faintly under sweat-sheened skin before he does anything more, striking hard and fast.
Her glave is in his hands before she can properly register he’s taken it from her, and Sif snarls again, launching herself at him with bare hands. Forcing herself to move at her limits despite her exhaustion, managing to wrap her fingers around his throat, and shoving him to the ground. Her knees hit the packed earth to either side of Loki’s ribs, and Sif can feel her glave trapped between them.
The gleam in his eyes makes her wonder if he’d allowed her this victory, but she banishes that thought from her mind. She’ll take the victory, no matter where it came from, and she smiles ferally down at him, waiting until he spreads his hands in a gesture of surrender – though she’s unsurprised he does not give her the satisfaction of saying he yields.
Shifting, Sif stands, reaching down to take her glave before she lets her attention widen to the audience once more. The Warriors Three and Thor are indeed in the crowd, watching her and Loki with varying expressions – Hogun is unreadable, Thor looking torn between pride and concern, Volstagg strangely subdued, and Fandral frowning with suspicion.
Loki steps close to her, crowding her toward the edge of the circle – to leave it to others, which Sif is willing to do, and perhaps some other reason for keeping close. A reason that is revealed in words spoken barely above a whisper. “You will require your weapons and your warmest clothing, warrior mine. Return to the door I showed you when you’ve fetched such.”
With that, he leaves as Thor and the Warriors Three come to surround Sif, questions clear in their expressions, though they at least have the sense not to ask them here.
“I will tell you later.” If she has the chance, because there’s something off about what Loki had said. Last time, she’d been to Jotunheim on a diplomatic mission, as poorly as she still thinks she’s suited to such a task, and had left her weapons behind. Now, he wishes her to take weapons? It makes little sense.
“Does my brother ask you to take on another quest?” Thor at least doesn’t speak loudly, though Sif glares at him nonetheless. It is not a question she wants spoken aloud.
“I do not know. He has not said.” Sif shoulders her glave, stalking through the scattering warriors toward the palace. “I will tell you later if he asks me to do such a thing, and does not insist that it is a quest that must be carried out alone.” She can see Fandral open his mouth out of the corner of her eyes, and adds, “I shall join you later; I wish to bathe alone.”
Thor claps her on the shoulder, a smile on his face that is bright and hopeful. Sif isn’t sure if she can make good on what she has said, and his open expression causes a brief twist of guilt, though she can’t know yet what will happen. “We shall await you, then.”
Loki is somewhat surprised to see Sif arriving without Thor or the Traitors Three in tow, but it is strangely reassuring to know she had shaken her favored companions when he had not explicitly told her to keep them away from this journey. Particularly since he doubts they’d be willing to allow her to travel with him, or for him to leave at all – not that they could truly stop him. Better that there is some time between their leave-taking and the discovery of it.
She watches him as she approaches, and says quietly, “They wished only to know if it were another quest which you would send me upon, and I told them that if it were, I would tell them so long as you did not forbid company.”
The offer of information that he did not ask for is more of a surprise, but again a pleasant one for the most part. Perhaps Sif truly will hold to her oath, and not betray it, though Loki still does not trust that when she has broken an oath already.
“We will not need their company.” Loki dismisses the idea with a small curl of his lip. “Nor shall you be returning to speak with them, save if I should have need of an envoy to the All-Father.”
That causes surprise to spread across Sif’s face, and Loki does not give her time to react before he steps through onto the branches of Yggdrasil, the paths among them familiar and welcome. Sif follows him swiftly enough, and there is no talking in the pressing dark between Asgard and Jotunheim. Loki knows there is no returning, and while he is uncertain he wishes to claim the kingship of Jotunheim, it is better than remaining in Asgard where he has little more than unpleasant memories and pretense he does not care to play at right now.
Jotunheim is dark and cold as he recalls, and Loki draws in a deep breath, letting the cold seep into him, knowing his skin is taking on the blue shade of his Jotun blood, his eyes shifting from green to a bloody red. At least they are not blue as he recalls them being too often in the mirror of late.
Sif steps onto the ice behind him, taking up a position behind and to his right, as if she is a trusted companion guarding his back from treachery. It makes him quirk one corner of his mouth in a wry smile before he shrugs, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. She is paler than usual, and her expression is almost blank.
“You said the Jotun called Helblindi Laufeyson waited for you at this end of the path?” Loki doesn’t wait for her nod to look over the landscape, searching for a sign of someone among the crags of ice, the darker shadows and paler swathes where it looked as if fresh snow had fallen.
“I still watch this place.” The voice comes from a shadow cast by a spire of ice shattered partway to where it might have once reached. “I had not thought you would so swiftly respond to such a message as I gave your bondwoman.”
Loki lifts his chin slightly, his eyes narrowing at the buried insinuation that perhaps he might not have come at all, even given an answer to his offer. “I made the offer in good faith, and held it as an oath once accepted, even if only by one of the Jotnar.”
There’s silence a moment, and a shifting in the shadow, before the Jotun stepped out where he could be seen. Helblindi is not terribly much taller than Loki, indeed, far less than he was entirely expecting. He watches Loki for a long moment with a contemplative expression, before he shrugs. “I will show you what remains of our battered realm, so you might see how great a task it is you have undertaken.” He glances at Loki’s armor, a small smirk curling one corner of his mouth. “You would do better if you were not in Aesir armor, little prince, or keep to your Aesir-pale mask.”
That much is likely true, after all that has happened after Thor’s interrupted coronation, yet Loki hesitates to leave his skin as bare as Helblindi clearly is, only a kilt wrapped about his hips that reaches to his knees.
“Your bondwoman will be hard-pressed to keep you alive otherwise.” Helblindi turns to lead the way, shrugging his shoulders as he speaks. Loki narrows his eyes, glaring a long moment before he draws back on the mask of Aesir skin. He will leave dressing as a Jotun for another time, if ever he does such a thing.
“It is ill-done to mock a people, and we would react rather badly to the idea of an Aesir princeling daring to wear a mask of Jotun skin.” There’s another shrug of Helblindi’s shoulders once Loki falls in beside him, refusing to simply follow. “Better to think you Aesir until it is proved you are not, if indeed you can.”
Loki does not point out that Helblindi has apparently accepted him, at least to some extent. Perhaps it is because he is Laufeyson, perhaps there is some other reason. Why, after all, was he waiting just where this particular path emerged on Jotunheim? There are few who know of the paths along the branches of Yggdrasil, and Loki has not heard of any Jotun walking those paths alone, as Helblindi would have had to do to find the right path and the right door to know this path leads to Asgard.
They walk in silence until they reach the broken spires where Thor had initiated battle only a single long year before. Where Loki had negotiated with Laufey to bring him to Asgard where Loki could kill him. There had been beauty here, once, but it’s all gone to powder and shards.
“It was the temple before the All-Father shattered it, or so I’ve been told.” Helblindi looks at Loki out of the corner of his eye. “It was where the Casket was kept, and where the kings of Jotunheim were consecrated and crowned. My elder brother was consecrated here, but none have seen him since the All-Father destroyed the temple.”
And this is where Loki will have to begin, if he’s to achieve the recompense for his assult upon Jotunheim, as he’s already made payment for the deaths upon Asgard. It will leave only Midgard to call for his blood, and he will concern himself with that later, after he has settled accounts here, though it might call for greater a price than he’d anticipated needing to pay.
“Are there any who recall it as it once stood, or shall I build as I desire?”
Helblindi chuckles, a grin spreading across his face. “If you are who you claim to be, than the ice will flow at your command, and however you should make it will be how the temple should look now. It is ice, not stone.”
Ice that answers only to a king, and then, only a king who is of Jotun heritage – and perhaps something more. Loki doesn’t enjoy the niggling sense that he is not being told all, that there is something hidden at work, trying to manipulate him to its own ends.
“Why should the Casket only answer to a king of Jotun blood?” He will use it, but not yet. Not until he has some better sense of why it responded to him, even though he had not been king of Jotunheim, and Laufey had yet lived.
There is silence for a long moment, Helblindi watching him with a hooded expression. “Not of Jotun blood. Of Jotunheim.”
“Then why could I make use of it while Laufey yet lived?” Loki challenges, shifting his weight slightly in case there is violence offered. “I was king of Asgard, then. Not of Jotunheim.”
“A prince is consecrated, and a king acknowledged. Yet I would have no claim upon the throne, even acknowledged as a king. The temple was destroyed, and the Casket taken before I was born.”
And both temple and Casket were needed to consecrate a prince, a consecration necessary for a valid claim to the throne of Jotunheim or the use of the Casket. An initiation, likely, to whatever secrets the Casket held, but why would they initiate an infant as Loki had been, and one who was small for a Jotun beside? Unless it were because he was born during their war with Asgard, perhaps as a safe measure should Laufey be killed in the fighting.
“And who is acknowedged king on Jotunheim?”
Helblindi smirks, and shakes his head. “There are none who could make claim to the throne, save my elder brother.” He looks over at Loki with the smirk still on his face. “If it could be proved he had found his way home, and that he were capable of the acts of a king, there are those who would acknowledge him as such.”
Loki remains silent for a long moment, contemplating the ruins of the temple, and what he information he had coaxed from Helblindi. The temple, his to rebuild in what image he desired, and Jotunheim his for the ruling if he wished it. He smiles to himself, summoning the Casket from the pocket dimension it has resided in since he froze Heimdall on the Bifrost. That his skin is bleeding pale from it like blood, turning to Jotun blue as he directs the energies of the Casket, he ignores, as he does Helblindi and Sif alike. There is only himself and the ice, and rebuilding what was destroyed.
Sif struggles not to shiver in the cold, standing outside the room Loki had carved for himself out of ice, his skin Jotun-blue and ridged with patterns she could not read. For now, he slept, the glittering evidence of his labors rising from the ruins where it could be seen as he stepped from his room in the second shattered building that had stood close by. A palace, likely, and all of it enough to chill her to the bone without a fire to warm her.
She refuses to think it is more than the cold that makes her shiver, refuses to allow herself to fear even though she is surrounded by Jotnar and only left alive and unharmed because they see her as thrall to Loki. It is a sting to her pride that it is that, and not respect for her skill as a warrior, that keeps her alive.
“No one will test themselves against you while you are bondwoman to our king, unless they are also given such an honor.” Helblindi is sitting in the shadows of the ice once more, leaning against the wall of Loki’s room. “If ever he releases you from his service, they will not give you such consideration.”
“Then I will be without anyone to spar with, for I doubt he will take others into his service, nor shall he release me from the same.” Sif is very certain of the latter, at least, if not as certain of the former.
Helblindi chuckles. “A king should not have so few bondmen as he has now. There will be others, though perhaps not other bondwomen.” He glances sideways at Sif. “They will test themselves against you, but it will not change that you are the chief among them, being bondwoman to our king before any other.”
“Is there no woman of Jotunheim who is a warrior, then? Or is that no woman would wish to be a warrior in service of the king?” Sif is both angry and smug that she will still be the only woman warrior among men, if the answer to the first is no.
“There are women who were once warriors, but they wish to raise their children rather than to leave their raising to a woman.” Helblindi’s words make no sense to Sif, and she frowns. He smirks at her irritation, but adds, “A warrior does not bear children, but any Jotun may be either the father or the mother of a child. So one who wishes to bear and raise a child will not be a warrior until the child is grown or dead.”
Sif stares, knowing her innate disgust for the mingling of roles in such a way – for one person to take on both the roles of a woman and of a man, even if not at the same time. “And this is normal?”
“Can you doubt that even your king might do such a thing?” Helblindi’s smirk is gone, but he watches her with an expression that makes Sif suppress a shiver. “I know of each of his children, those he fathered and the one he mothered, though I’ve not met any of his sons.”
Another shiver runs through Sif, and she cannot repress this one. She had deliberately forgotten the long-ago incident, when Loki’s distraction had given Thor the chance to get close enough to a cheating mason to destroy him. A distraction that had resulted in a terrible shame, a dishonor that Odin had hidden from most of Asgard, but could not have hidden from those companions closest to Thor and thus to Loki.
“The monster Odin bound as his steed.” Sif can hear the undisguised disgust in her voice, and from the hardening of Helblindi’s voice, he didn’t miss it either.
“The boy who never was given a chance to learn he might have another shape, and now never shall.” Helblindi’s voice is cold and sharp as the wind. “That is a dishonor on the All-Father’s head, not his own nor upon his mother’s. Do not think it otherwise, daughter of Asgard.”
Helblindi rose before Sif could form another reply, and moved away, toward the rebuilt temple. Leaving her to think on the conversation, and to her own conflicted emotions.
Avengers/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: The Power of Kings
Originally Posted: 8 January 2013
AO3 | DW
Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Loki and Sif
Word Count: 4804
Characters: Loki (MCU), Sif (MCU), Frigga (MCU), Thor (MCU), Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg
“You said this would repay my debt!” Sif visibly reins in her temper, though she still glares at him.
“Did I?” Loki stands, stalking toward her. “Are you so naive as to think one little message delivered – and without telling me the reply in full – would clear you of that debt which you owe me? Would absolve you of the taint of treason, for which the punishment is death should it be brought before the court?”
The knock on his door is entirely expected, and Loki smiles to himself where he sits in front of the fire. He hadn’t been entirely certain Sif would return, but he had been certain, at least, that if she returned, she would come first to him. Seeking to provide him with information, to repay a debt he has no intention of letting her settle so easily. Allow her to think it might be settled with this, but he can find more uses for her than to simply deliver one message.
“You may enter, Sif.” He doesn’t move from his chair, watching as Sif opens the door just enough for her to enter, a frown on her face as she looks over toward him. She moves to take the other seat, and he shakes his head. “I did not invite you to sit.”
A scowl is his response, and Sif shifts her stance, the better to spend time on her feet for an unknown time yet. “There was a Jotun waiting near the other end of that path you sent me on.”
Loki smiles, though he’s somewhat surprised that there had been anyone. He hadn’t seen anyone there in all the times he’d gone to Jotunheim – not that he had gone often, with the lack of anything interesting there. It makes him wonder who had been there, and why they had been there. If whoever it was had some contact with the one whose actions he had taken credit for.
“And why would I care if the Jotun with whom you spoke was waiting where you arrived, or if you had to walk across half the realm to find one?” Loki raises an eyebrow, still smiling, and watches as Sif’s scowl deepens. “Who was he, and what was said?”
“He called himself Helblindi Laufeyson, and he said to bring you to Jotunheim if you have the will to use the Casket of Ancient Winters to help.” Sif meets his gaze, holding it steadily as if she were trying to convince him that she has told him all he needs hear.
“What else?” Loki draws out the last word slightly, his eyes narrowing. “What else did he tell you, Sif?”
Her response is silence, watching him with a stubborn expression, before she reluctantly adds, “He claims that you cannot be Aesir if you would wield the Casket, but a Jotun. That you would have to be Laufeyson, and his brother.”
There is still something missing, but Loki doesn’t demand the rest immediately, remaining silent until Sif shifts on her feet, just the movement of weight toward the balls of her feet. Hoping to leave soon, he’s certain.
“You leave when I dismiss you, Sif.” Loki meets her glare, and doesn’t flinch. “Your debt is not nearly paid, yet.”
“You said this would repay my debt!” Sif visibly reins in her temper, though she still glares at him.
“Did I?” Loki stands, stalking toward her. “Are you so naive as to think one little message delivered – and without telling me the reply in full – would clear you of that debt which you owe me? Would absolve you of the taint of treason, for which the punishment is death should it be brought before the court?”
Sif is silent, and he can hear her grinding her teeth as she continued to meet his gaze. “If you would have my life in recompense for my actions, then you may have it.” Her voice is harsh, anger and humiliation underlying the words.
“I do not want your death, Sif.” Loki reaches out, tilting her chin up. “But I will accept your life for your treason. You need make no oath.” The last is spoken airily, with a smirk on his face that’s cold and vicious.
He can feel her grinding her teeth once more beneath his fingers, her glare heated and furious. Silent in her anger for a long moment before she takes a deep breath, drawing back, one fist across her chest as she drops to one knee. “I, Sif Tyrsdottir, offer my service as a warrior to Loki Odinson…”
“No.” Loki looks down at her, his expression cold and sharp. “Laufeyson, if you must use a patronymic.”
Sif scowls a moment, closing her eyes a moment before she looks up at him again. “I, Sif Tyrsdottir, offer my service as a warrior to Loki Laufeyson, to go where he shall send me, to defend him with my life, and to do all that I might be commanded by my lord.”
Loki doesn’t let his expression change, continuing to look down at her, waiting for a long moment before he speaks. “Should I accept your oath, you who has already proven willing to break an oath you have given?”
“The Jotun Helblindi said the power of the Casket is one only wielded by the king of Jotunheim.” Sif does not move. “He said you would owe nothing for those who died if you were to claim and hold the throne of Jotunheim, that he would claim you as brother and as king if you were to bring the others under your sway.”
Her words have the ring of truth, and there is no sense now that she is holding back information from him. It does not wipe clean her betrayals, but it tells him what he needs to know to go forward once all the wergild that he owes has been paid.
“I, Loki Laufeyson, do accept your oath, and shall return loyalty with consideration and betrayal with death.” He reached out a hand to rest on her head, weaving magic into a coil that unwinds like a striking serpent, and wraps around Sif as tightly as his own son will about a meal. Assurance that she will not betray this oath without more immediate and severe consequences than she suffers for her treason.
Beneath his hand, he can hear her draw in a sharp breath, and shiver violently as even she feels the spell sink in. Sif does not speak, not even to protest, and Loki raises a mental eyebrow at her silence. Restraint isn’t one of the traits he expects of Sif, and that she is managing to achieve such a thing is odd.
Walking back to his chair, Loki settles into it, watching as Sif rises from her kneeling position to stand once more. He contemplates dismissing her immediately, but there is something in her expression that stays him. A myriad of questions she holds back, likely stemming from what the Jotun had said to her. The claim that the Jotun was Loki’s brother by birth, that Loki was Laufeyson – though he knows that the latter, at least, is likely true. Whether there are Jotuns who are his brothers, he is less certain of, but he also knows of no reason for the Jotun to lie about such a thing.
“Ask your questions, Sif.” Loki’s words are quiet, and not the ones that Sif is expecting. Dismissal, yes, but an offer to answer the questions that are a tumolt in her mind, no. Though even with such, she is uncertain that Loki will give her any true answers save those he wishes her to know, and which of them will be truth might be hard to tell from those which will be lies.
He’s watching her as she turns over the risks in her mind and weighs which questions she thinks he might answer true. “Was the Jotun right to call you Laufeyson?” It is the question whose answer will generate the most questions in turn, but perhaps the one she wants to know the answer to the most.
“So I was told when I asked for the truth.” Loki shrugs, his expression blank – not one she is accustomed to seeing on his face. “I cannot be certain it is true, anymore than I can trust anything else the All-Father says.”
If there is a lie in that, Sif cannot see it, and she’s quiet a moment while she tries to decide if she wants to believe what she is being told. “How could you have hidden that you were a Jotun for so long? I cannot think even such an accomplished liar as you would have had the skill to hide such a thing as an infant.”
Loki’s grin is sharp and vicious, making Sif straighten further, the same thrill as in battle stirring in her veins. “How, indeed, would a Jotun infant be able to pass unknown into Asgard, hidden from all the Aesir in the wake of a war against those same?”
He’s not going to answer her, then, but there is something there that Sif thinks is perhaps ugly and dark, that she shies away from for now. She may perhaps have to face the truth he is not saying, but not immediately. Not yet. Already she has too many possible truths swirling in her head, along with the oath she had not been quite sure she wanted to make, but had felt she needed to make. Something to anchor her in the whirl of changes, of truths she cannot tell from the lies, something she can trust – and for all that Loki is a master of lies, he has never broken an oath made, and the oath is as much his with his acceptance as it is hers.
She draws in a slow, deep breath, watching Loki for a long moment. “Might I take my leave, my lord?” That she can sort some of what she has been told, and decide which she will trust to be truth, and which she will dismiss as lies or too uncertain to rely upon.
After a brief moment of silence, Loki nods, gesturing in dismissal. “I will send for you when I have something more for you to do.”
Bringing her fist to her chest in the gesture of a warrior doing homage, she bows briefly before turning to leave the room. Drawing her cloak closer about her as she walks along the halls toward her own rooms in the palace.
Dawn finds Sif at the training grounds, stretching and studying the warriors who come to spar, searching for one which she is willing to challenge. Willing to use to work out her frustration with the changes that are dragging her away from the comfortable familiarity of her life. A smile crosses her face when she spots Thor coming from the palace, though it fades when she does not see Mjolnir at his side. Even when he does not use it, Thor is rarely without his hammer, and she cannot help but wonder if this latest adventure to Earth is to blame.
“Thor!” She raises a hand to signal him to come over, watching his expression as he grins and changes direction to join her at the edge of the practice ring she has all but claimed for her use this morning. There’s something shadowed about his face, something that dims the usual open joy his grin signifies. Another change, though this one is perhaps a bit older, as old as his banishment, and the battle upon the Bifrost that she still knows of none of the details.
“Sif. It is good to see you out in the sun again.” Thor clasps her arm in greeting a moment, glancing over her choice of weapon – not her usual glave, but a short sword and the accompanying shield. “You practice with the sword today?”
“It would be a poor warrior who does not keep in practice with all weapons she has learned.” Sif shrugs, not voicing the real reason for her choice. The greater the exhaustion when she returns to her room at the end of the day, the greater her chances of sleeping without troubling dreams or thoughts plaguing her. “Will you spar with me?”
She should perhaps not take her frustrations with Loki out upon Thor, but she wonders if he does not have his own demons plaguing him about his brother, from the shadows in his eyes.
Thor is quiet a moment, an unexpectedly thoughtful expression on his face as he looks over the others gathering, before he nods. “I shall, Sif, though I shall hope I am a worthy opponent for you when I am not wielding a hammer as is my usual wont.”
It is surprising that Thor would not even use one of the practice hammers, though Sif choses to think it is perhaps her explanation as to why she isn’t using her glave that drives Thor to the decision. Both of them with sword and shield, circling each other in the ring and focused on each other more than those who gather to watch them.
Only after they both are panting, with sweat stinging eyes and shallow cuts, do they yield the circle to others, and take note of those watching. The Warriors Three wait to one side, with expressions of mixed wonder and worry on their faces. The wonder is likely at seeing both of their friends working with weapons other than their favorites, and the worry perhaps at the same.
Sif pushes past them without speaking, and she can see them shift to allow Thor to follow her out of the corner of her eye, all four men trailing after her like a pack of lost puppies as she returns to the palace. Thor parts way with her, the Warriors Three following him, when the way to his rooms and hers take them in different directions. It allows her to relax somewhat, though only for a brief while – long enough to clean her weapons and herself – before someone comes knocking on her door.
“Enter!” she calls as she reaches for a belt to hold her tunic close at her waist. Sif’s not certain who she would prefer least at her door, but it is easy to say the Warriors Three and Thor when they are who come inside at her call. Perhaps it would have been Loki if he had been there – or if he had sent some thrall to summon her, which would be even greater a humiliation than she’s already allowed in her quest to rid herself of a debt.
She raises an eyebrow at Thor, who shrugs, settling on one of the couches that decorate the outer chamber of her rooms, Fandral and Volstagg taking other seats nearby without asking. Hogun at least has the sense to wait for her invitation to pick a seat, though the others have taken the best of them.
“You have not before sought me out in my own chambers in such a solemn mood, Thor.” Sif includes the Warriors Three in that with a glance, though they have never sought her out here, save when in the company of Thor and in search of adventure. Too, they have been present on Asgard for her vigil while Thor searched for Loki on Midgard.
Thor is quiet a moment, watching her with a mix of worry, affection, and what she thinks might be a hint of pride. The affection is long familiar, both as they are companions in arms, and because of promises made long past they have yet to either of them fulfill. The worry, too, is familiar, though she’s not sure what might have caused it now. It is the hint of pride that puzzles her, as she can think of nothing she has done to warrent such, unless it is because she has made plain her debt to Loki in his presence. Thor has always put his brother before much else in his life save his own love of adventure.
“The Warriors Three tell me you had waited with my mother while I was gone to Earth to seek out my brother.” Thor smiles, the pride showing through more now, and Sif rolls her eyes at him. “And I know what you said then – and it is something I, too, perhaps ought to have said to him.”
“I do not think he would accept it of you, as certainly he has barely accepted that I would acknowledge my debt to him, for actions poorly done. No matter that worse would have happened had I not done as I did.” Sif looks away a moment, her brows furrowing. She had acknowledged the debt, but none of the Warriors Three had done such a thing, despite their own part in the whole tangle of plot and counter-plot. “I do not know if he would accept any other as owing him a debt for that treason.”
“We owe him nothing.” Volstagg shrugged, no sign of discomfort on his ruddy face. “We did what needed to be done, and he had already done worse that has gone unpunished.”
Sif clenches her jaw against speaking for a moment, then gives Volstagg a brief smile. “You may chose to see it as you see fit, but I will do what I must to wipe clean that dishonor.”
“It is that which worries us, Sif.” Fandral shifts when she looks over at him, almost flinching away from her raised eyebrow. “You didn’t eat while you were sitting that vigil, and you weren’t waiting for Thor. And then last night, no one knew where you went after dinner, nor could find you until nearly dawn.”
At least now she has an idea how long she spent in her journey to Jotunheim. Not nearly as long as she feared, though perhaps longer than she’d hoped. Sif leans back, crossing her arms over her chest as she looks around at the other three. Hogun is unreadable as ever, Volstagg looks uncomfortable, and Thor… Thor looks pained, and no little confused. As if he’s not quite sure what to think, or if he’s not sure who to be more worried about, Sif or Loki.
“And you think that I spent that time where, Fandral?” Sif is glad she manages to sound amused rather than outraged, though none of them can miss what Fandral is thinking. He is always thinking of such things, and Sif has always dismissed his musings as to what she does in the quiet hours of the night, no matter how elaborate or far-fetched they become.
“You were seen coming from Loki’s rooms.” Thor sounds the same as he looks, and Sif spares a moment to think about how it would look to him before she laughes, rolling her eyes at their fantasies.
“I spent more of my time elsewhere, and alone. I only was in there for a brief time.” She could tell them of the trip to Jotunheim, and Helblindi and the exchange of words she carried between Loki and that Jotun. But something about Loki’s earlier answers to her questions, and his desire to keep the information from Odin, stills the words before she can even truly form them. “I would not lay with him, and betray that promise made between us and between our mothers, Thor.”
Thor relaxes, his smile returning and his worry fading entirely, though he is the only one. Fandral looks unconvinced and Volstagg still worried, if somewhat relieved. Hogun she still cannot read, and for once, Sif wishes he weren’t so stoic. It would ease her own concerns if he would voice his.
“Then there is naught to worry for, though I am injured that you would go on an adventure without inviting us to travel with you.” There is something else in Thor’s face other than the cheerful mocking of a warrior who has missed out on some adventure with his shield-mate, but Sif doesn’t want to think about what it might be. If he’s wishing she hadn’t given the answer she had, or if he’s trying to grapple with some jealousy that has no foundation upon which to stand.
“It was no great adventure, merely a short journey.” Sif shrugs, though she wonders how long the path along Yggdrasil’s branches is that she was gone the night through – and yet, not more than a night. “I did not think I needed company for it.”
“But why go to Loki after you returned?” Fandral will not let that bit of knowledge go, and Sif glares at him, wondering if he’s truly as dense as he appears right now.
“The journey was at his behest and for his benefit. I merely returned to him what he wished to have – something which I could not have done had I not gone to his chambers, as he has not been seen anywhere else since Thor brought him home.”
Fandral opened his mouth as if to ask another question, and snapped it shut when Hogun spoke before he could get a word out.
“What Sif does to restore her honor, so long as she breaks no promises and commits no treason in whatever tasks Loki sets her to repay her debt, is no matter to us.” Hogun nods when she looks over at him with surprise, but doesn’t add anything else. She wonders if he doesn’t think he – and the other two of the Warriors Three – owes some debt, for all that he has given no sign that he would approach Loki to repay it. Unless he believes his debt owed elsewhere.
“Indeed, Hogun is right.” Thor reaches out to clap a hand on Fandral’s shoulder a moment. “We would be good to leave off further questions of Sif regarding her repayment of a debt.”
Fandral looks as if he would like to ask something more, but he subsides regardless, and soon conversation turns to the sparring in the practice ring today, and other bouts in the past. Easy conversation, a warrior’s conversation, one far less fraught with unseen dangers she could not fight with a weapon in hand.
Loki watches the fire in his room, his attention turned mostly inward as he contemplates the message – as disjointed as it had no doubt been delivered – Sif had brought back from Jotunheim. He had been honest when he’d told Thor he’d never wanted the throne, but only to be seen as a worthy son, though he’d never realized just how impossible that would be until he’d discovered his heritage and Odin’s lies. Even then, Odin hadn’t been entirely truthful, for how could he know Loki was Laufeyson if he had found him abandoned? Indeed, why would anyone have abandoned an infant inside of a temple, no matter that it might have been ruined?
He shook his head minutely, refocusing on the question that he most wishes to tease apart the answer to. How could he have wielded the Casket while Laufey lived if the power belonged only to the kings of Jotunheim? It should have denied him the use of it, if not harmed him when he tried to use it, if that were truly how it worked.
A knock on his door interrupts his thoughts, and Loki grimaces a moment before he sets aside the mental puzzle, rising to open it rather than calling his guest in. Sif would not come to him until he sends for her, and he thinks Thor would have barged in on the heels of knocking if he’d bothered to knock at all. Odin would have summoned him, and most of Asgard no doubt either wishes him gone or does not yet know he has been brought home.
Which leaves only Frigga to visit him, and Loki meets her gaze with a calm he does not entirely feel when he opens the door. “Queen Frigga.”
She sighs, a sad smile crossing her face at his address. “Might I enter, my son?” She will not let go of that lie, though Loki is unsurprised at that. A mother, no matter that she had lied and never actually bore him, does not readily let go of her children. He wishes only that he could forgive her that lie, or let go of the love he still holds for her, but he has not yet figured out how to do either.
He nods without speaking, stepping aside to allow her into his rooms, and closing the door behind her. Frigga does not speak, even after they are both settled next to his hearth, and he has poured mead from the pitcher he’d fetched from the kitchens with his breakfast. The silence does not feel as strained as Loki had thought it would, though there is a sadness lingering in the air.
“What brings you to my chambers, Queen Frigga?” Loki cannot allow himself to fall into the familiar address, no matter that he wants nothing more than to call her simply mother. Cannot allow the lie to hide the truth now that he is aware of it.
“Can a mother not wish to simply see her son, and be reassured that he is well in body, if not in spirit?” Frigga reaches out a hand as if to touch his, and withdraws it when Loki flinches.
“You could have done so when Thor brought me back.” Loki does not look at her, watching the flames instead. His hand tightens around his own cup of mead, the metal creaking faintly under his fingers. “You need not deign to come now, when all the palace might know their queen is visiting one who should be condemned as traitor.”
“Some actions were ill-done, but those were not treason. Nor, when your father was in the Odin-sleep, were any of those you took as king. Foolish, perhaps war-mongering, but not treason, for how can a king commit treason against himself?” Frigga takes a sip of her mead, her gaze focused on him. Loki can feel it against his skin like a warm pressure.
“Odin is not my father.” He would never again acknowledge that false bond, even when he cannot let go of the same with Frigga. It is just one more twist in the complicated web of his life. “And when all of Asgard would call all I did a treason, how can you think otherwise?”
“Because I am your mother, and I am a queen, and I know the burdens of a crown and a throne for all that I do not sit upon it myself.”
Loki frowns slightly, turning over her words in his head. There is a thread there, that if he can just tug it free, might be a piece to the puzzle he’s trying to put together. A crown, a throne. A king, rather than the king. Only a king might wield the power of the Casket, perhaps, and not need be the king of Jotunheim, though perhaps might also need be a Jotun. Or, perhaps, a Jotun of a particular line.
“Did Odin tell you the story of how he found me, when he brought me here?” he asks, looking at Frigga once more. He needs more information if he is to be certain of his thoughts, and there are few people on Asgard he might ask for such and trust will give him the truth.
Frigga frowns, nonplussed at his question. “He told me that you had been left in the temple on Jotunheim, abandoned. Perhaps because of your size, for you were a small infant for a Jotun, or perhaps because of the ability you showed even at so young an age to draw a cloak of seiðr over you to appear as those around you.”
“An infant cannot control seiðr, you know that.” Loki will not find the information he seeks through Frigga, which means he shall have to ask better questions of Sif regarding her conversation with the Jotun, or perhaps go to Jotunheim himself to speak with Helblindi regarding what is known there of him. And if he goes to Jotunheim, he will have to be prepared, he thinks, to make good on his offer, and to attempt what Helblindi had implied he must do. “If I appeared as an Aesir, it must have been at the hands of Odin.”
“I do not think it was, but perhaps it was not seiðr, either.” Frigga gives him a brief smile. “You change your shape easily, and even then, you showed such an ability to mimic those around you. Perhaps it was more that than it was seiðr. I cannot say with any certainty, not after all this time.”
No answers, and only more questions. Loki sighs, and turns away from Frigga to regard the fire again. He will send for Sif later, whether he draws his answers from her, or goes to Jotunheim in defiance of Odin’s commands. And if the latter, he will have to ensure that the wergild to the families of the Aesir dead are paid, for he will not be able to return to Asgard, save publically paraded before the people in chains before he is condemned for whatever crimes for which he has not settled debts.
MCU: ABMTW: Debts of Honor to Be Repaid In Service
Originally Posted: 15 December 2012
Fandom: Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Loki and Sif
Word Count: 5257
Characters: Loki (MCU), Sif (MCU), Thor (MCU), Odin (MCU), Frigga (MCU), Helblindi
Odin waits, his helm and Gungnir left aside, for here he is not in his role as king and All-Father, but merely as the father of a wayward son. He too owes a debt, though it is balanced by the debt which Loki owes to him, and may be regarded as filled.
Sif waits in the room where once private banquets for the royal family and their close confidents were held. Where once Thor had spoken of going to Jotunheim and repaying the frost giants for their invasion of Asgard, however small it had been. Where Thor had held the funeral feast for Loki, and where she had hoped he was wrong.
Where Thor is to return with Loki and the Tesseract when he captures his brother.
Frigga keeps her company in her vigil, silent as Sif, for no words need to be spoken for the other to know why they sit the long watch. The Warriors Three come and go, sometime with mead or food to share – that she refuses, and Frigga politely declines. Sometimes a thrall will come with the same, and the response is the same. Again, neither needs to know the other’s spoken reasons to know why they pass the vigil sober and hungry.
Only water to drink, and patient waiting in silence. Each with a debt acknowledged, that while some might pay it in gold or in blood, neither would feel it fulfilled by what so easily could be provided. So they wait.
When Odin joins them, Sif knows soon it will be time to offer what she might to pay her debt of disloyalty and doubt. Her treason – a treason that none know of save a handful, and none need know of if Loki might accept her offer in recompense, for it was against him she had turned when he held the throne in right.
That Loki is in chains when he and Thor appear in a blue flare of light from the Tesseract does not matter. His own actions that are outside of the bounds of both honor and law are not known to Asgard at large, and will not be, for those who have witnessed them are bound not to speak of them should Loki settle his debt to those who he has wronged.
Silence reigns as Thor brings both Tesseract and his brother from the balcony on which he has arrived to where Odin waits, his helm and Gungnir left aside, for here he is not in his role as king and All-Father, but merely as the father of a wayward son. He too owes a debt, though it is balanced by the debt which Loki owes to him, and may be regarded as filled.
Metal clatters to the ground at a touch from Odin, gag and chains alike unclasping from where they have bound Loki for his return. It is a mark, perhaps, of the weight and complex nature of the bonds between those present that he does not show any sign that he will flee and give himself over to cowerdice and outlawry.
“There are debts to be repaid.” The quiet words from Odin break the silence, and Sif can see Loki close his eyes against the words. “Both your own and those of others to you.”
She does not think Loki truly expects that, for he opens his eyes again, though his expression does not show the confusion she expects he feels. He is a master of masks and misdirection, and will not give them any more than he wishes them to see.
“And will Asgard accept any repayment save my blood upon the ground, and life sacrificed to those whose lifes were taken by the treachery I committed?” Loki’s voice, though low, holds a sharp edge that would draw blood if it were a physical blade.
“If those to who you owe your debts accept what recompense you provide, no other has standing to demand more, as is written in our laws.” Odin looks as though he wishes the words had been that blade Sif had compared them to in her mind. A physical wound heals faster than ones given to the heart and to the soul, which words cut deep.
“Only should the courts not hear witnesses to those crimes I have committed before such debts can be settled.” Loki knows as well as Odin those laws, for Sif knows he has skirted the edges of them – and gone beyond the bounds of honor and custom – often enough. “For all that I have been seen as your son, few enough have any love for me that they would keep such a secret.”
He looks to Sif, a hint of speculation flashing through his eyes as he is silent a moment in contemplation of his next words. “Indeed, you have one present I would think might be willing to speak of what she knows to others.”
Sif must chose her own words with as much care, that she does not wound Loki with them while trying to convey all she feels and thinks on what has passed. On the actions she has undertaken, and those she has seen in Loki. “I would not speak of them to those who do not already know. They are not matters to be known to all when there are yet accounts to be settled, for it is already a delicate thing.”
Words are not her tools, but she does not flinch at the awkwardness of them. She can only speak honestly and as carefully as she might, and if she still wounds, than she will count it added to her debt and seek to offer redress for that however she can.
Loki’s eyes narrow, studying her with a mix of calculation and curiosity. He did not expect her to say that, she thinks, but he’s nothing if not able to adapt to whatever he’s given to work with. He’s always been that way, ever since she met him when they were children.
“To tell others of what I have done would be to admit your own treason.” Loki smiles briefly, bright and bitter and self-depricating, as if he should have thought of that before. “You have more care for your own honor than to do such a thing.”
That reason is indeed one of the several she has for not talking about what had led up to the destruction of the Bifrost – an event for which Thor has taken responsibility, and been levied fines to pay for the rebuilding of. His own silent apology once made to a brother thought dead, now offered unspoken to a brother living.
But that is not the only reason, and she does not want Loki to think that. “That, in part, but not all the reason. I have a care for more than my own honor – and not just that of the Warriors Three, or of Thor.” The last she adds before he can speak to remind her of them. She is quiet for a long moment before she speaks again, holding his gaze and letting him see the shame she has tried to hide from others, and the honesty of her words, however poorly they might be chosen in her effort not to wound. “A care for the honor of the king I betrayed, no matter how well-intentioned I had thought myself at the time.”
Loki thinks he should have perhaps given Sif more credit for silence than he had, though he doesn’t know if her reasons are quite as altruistic as she would like him to think. That she believes them herself is clear, but she’d been quite certain, too, when she’d commited the treason that had brought back Thor before Loki had entirely carried out his intended plan.
He watches Sif for a long moment before turning his attention to the others in the room. The three who’d called themselves his family for centuries, for all of his memory, until the most recent ones. When he’d found the lie, discovered his heritage wasn’t of the Aesir, but of the Jotnar. He wonders if Odin and Frigga have told Thor what he is, or if his would-be brother is as clueless as he has ever been.
“And how much wergild shall I pay, that they be satisfied?” If there’s a note of bitterness underlying his words, there’s no reason any of them should be surprised. He is a master of lies, and still he’s been fooled and betrayed by the lies of others. Of those who he had thought to trust at least a little.
Odin meets his gaze easily, though his expression is as difficult for Loki to read as it has ever been. Calculation, careful thought, those are easily enough seen, because Odin wants him to see that. Of anything else, Loki can see no sign, and he’s never been quite sure if it’s because it is absent, or because it is well-hidden.
“They were einherjar, worth twice the wergild of a commoner.” Odin’s voice is firm, his word the end of the discussion as it ever is. “When it is paid, they shall have no standing to ask for more than you have given them.”
They will not, but they are not the only ones he has wronged in his actions since his discovery of the lie, and he doubts either the Jotnar, or the people of Midgard, will be satisfied with mere gold. If, of course, Odin deigns to acknowledge their claims upon Loki, and their cries of injury and demands for justice. The All-Father has never been one to allow others to sway his decisions without a great deal of effort – Loki knows just too well how much effort it takes to divert Odin from his decisions.
However, he cannot help but ask after the first, at least. “What of the Jotnar?” he asks with care, watching Odin warily.
“They have yet to send any word that they wish redress for any damage done to their world or their people.” Though they might have made complaint, that Heimdall or Odin would have heard, but Odin need not acknowledge such when no one else holds that information. Loki will have to find out on his own what the Jotnar will wish in redress for the damages he had caused.
Which might be a task to which he could set Sif, if she seeks to amend her own debt to him – something he cannot imagine her not doing when she has admitted to wronging him. It amuses him, but he keeps the smile from his face, waiting patiently to find out if there is anything else that his would-be family wishes of him, or if he might begin to seek to pay the wergild so he might at least attempt to return to some semblence of his life before.
“You will not leave Asgard until the Bifrost is rebuilt.” Odin’s words make him wonder what the All-Father has discerned of his thoughts, and Loki raises an eyebrow at him. “I would have you help your brother oversee its repair.”
Loki barely bites back the retort that Thor is not his brother, and instead stiffly nods his head in acknowledgement of the order. He would prefer to seethe, to strike back, but it is not yet time for that. He must bide his time, and prepare his plans first. Odin All-Father will pay a price for his lies and his treachery eventually, but not today.
“Is there anything further which you wish of me, All-Father?” He takes care to keep his voice even and pleasent, though the desire for conflict wars with a bone-deep exhaustion that even his anger and his sense of betrayal can’t keep at bay for long.
“There is nothing else.” Frigga speaks before Odin can, and Loki turns his head to catch the looks that pass between them. “All else can wait until you have rested, and settled the wergild with the families of those who you must.” Those whose deaths he had caused by his actions.
Loki bows, to both Odin and to Frigga, before heading for the door. He hesitates before it, uncertainty flowing through him a moment. He pushes it aside, and pushes through the door. The hallways between the banquet hall and the rooms he’d once called his own – which still hold everything that is his when he enters – are strangely empty, and he wonders at that. If Odin had intended it, or if others have cleared the halls so no one need encounter the disgraced prince upon his return.
Sif waits a long moment after Loki leaves to follow, ignoring that she hasn’t asked if she might leave, and ignoring the looks passing between the others in the room. Whatever the royal family needs to discuss without Loki present is not for her to hear, and she still has yet to find what Loki would have of her for her debt of honor to him.
The corridors nearest the hall, and among the royal quarters, are entirely empty of people – the former no doubt from her and Frigga’s vigil and the work of the Warriors Three, the latter likely because of the royal family, only Odin had been present of late in the complex of rooms and corridors they inhabited. A few thralls briefly showed their faces in between the two places, though they quickly vanished again once they caught sight of her.
Stopping at the door of Loki’s rooms, Sif regards them for a moment before turning away, and settling into an easy stance next to them. Let any who came by draw their own conclusions, but now that she stands here, she finds she cannot bring herself to disturb him until he emerges from his rooms of his own voilition. Until then, she will keep watch, and not allow others to disturb him, either, no matter what reasons they might have for the attempt.
The day has passed into night and once more into day before the door opens, and Loki emerges, though he blinks at seeing her. “Guarding me from others, or my jailor?” His voice is light, though there’s a bitterness behind the words, and a cynical expression on his face. Sif isn’t certain he’ll believe her, no matter what she says.
“Waiting for you to have rested.” Sif meets his gaze readily, keeping her easy and ready stance. “I have still a debt to repay.”
Loki raises an eyebrow, studying her for a long moment. Weighing her sincerity once more, and perhaps contemplating what he might ask of her. Sif tells herself that whatever it is he asks, she will not tell him no, or at least not immediately.
“Join me for breakfast, and I will tell you what you may do to settle that debt.” There’s a devious light in his eyes that makes Sif wonder if she will regret her unspoken promise to do as he asks for redress.
She accompanies him, as he makes his way through the palace to the kitchens, collecting food enough for the both of them, the carrying of which he delegates to her as they return to his rooms. It is little surprise he does not wish to dine with others, but she wonders that he did not summon a thrall to fetch them food.
They are nearly halfway through the meal before Loki speaks, though he has been watching her since he had made his offer. It is disconcerting, and she wonders what he has been planning, or at least thinking, all this time.
“I would know what the Jotnar demand of me for the harm I inflicted on them.” Loki takes another bite of his meal, still watching her. “You may be my envoy to them, and ask if they would have anything of me, or of Asgard. Without speaking to Odin of this, nor to Heimdall.”
Sif is glad she has nothing of food or drink in her mouth, or she would have choked on it. “How can I do such a thing? There is no way I know of to go from Asgard to Jotunheim without either the assistance of the All-Father, or the rebuilding of the Bifrost!”
Loki chuckles, a dark sound that sends chills down Sif’s spine. She doesn’t know what has amused him, but it does not bode well for her, she thinks.
“I will show you where the path lies, and teach you what you need to know to walk it.” But he will not show her how to walk it, because he cannot leave Asgard, by command of the All-Father, as she had heard him make the order himself. Dread pulls at Sif’s heart, and she takes a deep breath, trying to push the feeling away. This is what is asked of her, and this task she will do, though her memories of the only time she has been to Jotunheim are more of battle than of anything else.
“And if they do not believe that I come as envoy, and attempt to kill me for the affront?” She watches him carefully, trying to decide if it matters to him. Though if her death will satisfy her debt, she will at least die with honor.
“Then I shall have my answer.” Loki shrugs, his expression not revealing anything she is looking for. No answers for her, save the words he choses to speak. “And I am not inclined to offer them my life in return.”
“Should there be any offer I make them on your behalf, if they do not have any particular wishes on how you should redress your actions before?” It is, too, a piece of information she needs, even if she cannot tell what Loki’s motives are behind it.
Loki turns his attention back to his meal for a moment, silence reigning while he eats more. “There is nothing that I can offer until I have more information, and more freedom of movement.”
It is all the answer Sif will get, and she grimaces a moment. She will have to return in one piece, though if whatever path Loki is speaking of ends closer to the structure the Jotnar were in the last time, she might have a better chance of leaving in one piece. It will have to be enough.
Do not take your eyes from the path beneath your feet, the twist and loop of Yggdrasil’s branches and roots. Nightmares wait in the dark to drag you through the void – you do not wish that.
This is what you look for, to find the path to Jotunheim, to find the twist of space that will flower into a door from the branches of Yggdrasil to the physical world. This is what you look for to find the path home.
A side-step, a twist, a shift of mind. This is how you open those doors. This is how you close them behind you. When you can open and close this one, then I will pronounce you ready to take the journey.
A month passes before Loki is satisfied Sif knows well enough how to walk the branches of Yggdrasil to at least arrive in Jotunheim in one piece. He’s not as certain of her ability to return in the same state, but if she slips onto the paths before the Jotnar kill her, she will do well enough. He smiles to himself when she comes to his door a last time in the dark of the night, a last seeking of any instruction he might give her – a matter which he has given some thought, even if his ability to deliver on any promise he might make is hampered by the dictates of Odin.
“If they will listen to you, tell them I will bring the Casket of Ancient Winters to Jotunheim to help rebuild what I have destroyed.” Loki will offer no more than that, though he has little expectation that even that offer will be accepted. That they will wish the Casket returned, he has no doubt, but that they might accept him along with it is unlikely. Not impossible, but he would be a fool to think they’d want his presence after the damage he had done.
Sif watches him for a long moment before she nods. “I will tell them, if they will listen. And I will return with an answer.” There is determination in her voice and expression, though he can see no sign she carries her usual weapons. Perhaps in a mistaken thought she might show she comes with no intention of bringing war with her.
Loki is not inclined to correct her mistake, if mistake it is. She will pay her debt to him either in her service or her death, although he feels some faint tug of regret at the thought she might die in this endeavor. A journey which, while not explicitedly forbidden by Odin, is unlikely to gain more than his ire. Loki will face that consequence when he must, though, and not before.
“Come straight to me when you do.” Loki does not let any of the variety of concerns and thoughts that have run through his mind show, giving Sif only a mischievous smile that is perhaps less sharp than it has been in some time. “I would not have Odin discover what you find before I do.”
He reaches out to clasp her shoulder, weaving a familiar spell as he does, to hide her from Heimdall’s gaze, and from Odin’s. It will keep those secrets he wants found out from the All-Father and Asgard’s gatekeeper alike until he can make use of them.
Sif gives him a puzzled look before she nods, and turns to leave, drawing up the hood of her cloak. It’s the same one she wore the last time she’d been to Jotunheim. This time, though, she is alone, and the Bifrost is broken. Loki watches her for a moment before he turns back to his room, closing the door silently behind him. Now he must wait.
The empty halls are almost eerie as Sif makes her way down toward the weapons’ vault, the place where Loki had shown her the weak point in the fabric of Asgard, where she could step onto paths that twist between the worlds, Yggdrasil’s branches that bind all the realms. The Bifrost is a far safer way to travel, but it is still damaged, not yet repaired enough to permit travel across it to other realms, not even Midgard.
Sif pauses in front of where the path is supposed to begin, drawing a deep breath, repeating to herself the lessons Loki had drilled into her head, merciless as any arms-instructor. The air shimmers with the effects of the spell, and Sif steps into the shimmer, a turn of her hips and almost sideways movement that takes her into a world of shadows. A path shimmers underfoot, grey and rough, and darkness surrounds her, soft as any blanket.
She isn’t certain why Loki says the darkness is full of nightmares, but she doesn’t look, keeping her focus on the path beneath her feet. There are subtle signs in the texture of the shimmer that Loki has said are the signposts of the realms. It soon doesn’t matter if there are nightmares in the comforting dark, because it takes all her focus to read those subtle changes of texture and gleam, and not become lost among the branches of Yggdrasil.
There’s another subtle change when she is at the weak point that she twists through and steps out into the dark and cold of Jotunheim. The sharp spires and broken blocks of icy architecture where once she supposes stood palaces and temples and homes. Wind howls, and snow stings against her face as she turns in a slow circle, looking for any sign of Jotnar. Her clandestine mission is for naught if she cannot find any.
All she sees is the ice, and some familiar landmarks that she recalls from the previous visit to this place. She is still a bit of distance from where they’d encountered the Jotnar before, and taking a deep breath of the bitterly cold air, she begins to walk in that direction.
“What brings a daughter of Asgard to Jotunheim, weaponless and by secret paths?”
After the lack of any sign of Jotnar, the words startle Sif, and she turns toward the voice. A pair of eyes glow like red coals where a stray hint of light hits them, a Jotun mostly hidden in the shadows of the ice. Watching her without moving, though Sif doubts she can trust him not to attack if she gives him the chance.
“What do you know of secret paths?” It’s not a good beginning to her mission, but Sif refuses to flinch, standing with her shoulders back and chin up. Daring the Jotun to attack her for the sharply-spoken words.
There’s the sense of a shrug. “Distant kin of mine followed a son of the Aesir through such a path, and never returned.” A shift in the shadow makes Sif tense, but the Jotun didn’t emerge, just settled once more, though the crimson eyes narrow a moment. “Why do you come here, warrior-daughter of Asgard?”
A Jotun who may have seen her on the previous trip, then, and recognizes her. Sif isn’t certain if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
“I bring a message from Loki Odinson, that he would know what recompense is asked of his actions that have brought sorrow to Jotunheim, and to offer that he might bring the Casket of Ancient Winters to repair what damages were done.”
There’s a grinding sound that it takes her a moment to realize is laughter. It sounds more like the shift of sea-ice in a fjord. “What need has Loki Laufeyson of recompense to the dead? They have no need of it, and the damage is done all by Aesir born and blooded.”
Sif frowns, the words making little sense to her. “Speak plainly. What mean you by that?”
The glow of eyes is hidden a moment, and she has the sense that the Jotun is trying to stifle some amusement. “He offers what only a king may, and if he might direct the power of the Casket, he is Laufeyson, not Odinson. If he would bring the Casket, he claims the power of the throne, and of Laufey who is dead. Let him prove he has that power, and he has no need to offer any recompense for the dead, as would an Aesir for Aesir dead.”
Her frown deepens, and Sif watches the Jotun – or the shadow where the Jotun is, at least – for a long moment before she speaks again. “Who are you, that you can speak of this with authority?”
“No authority but the truth.” Another sense of a shrug, ice shifting and cracking on a swift-running stream. “I am called Helblindi Laufeyson.”
A chill as cold as the wind here spreads through Sif, and she narrows her eyes as she stares at the Jotun in the shadows. A son of Laufey, who claimed Loki is, too, such a one. That Loki is of the Jotnar, not of the Aesir, if he were to wield the power of the Casket, as he’s offered. She doesn’t know if she should believe the Jotun, or if this is a lie that Loki has held onto all his life. Save how could he have done such a thing, when even a shapeshifter of such skill as Loki could not have hidden his true form as a small child?
“You claim Loki as a brother, then?” she asks, not certain where the question comes from, nor why it feels important. If this is something that Loki will welcome, or will reject as violently as she had rejected the life of a lady or Valkerie.
“I have two brothers, only one of which I have known.” Helblindi pauses, and there is a shifting-ice sound of movement, the Jotun emerging from the shadows, barely twice the height of Thor. “The younger still is under my protection. The older has been missing since the temple was destroyed by Odin One-Eye. Your Loki has claimed to be able to use the Casket, and only my older brother, of all of us, might hold that power.”
Sif holds her ground, though she dearly wishes she could retreat to the gateway onto the path. Wishes she had her sword or her glave. Any weapon that she might use to defend herself if Helblindi attacked her.
“So if your Loki has the power he claims, yes, I would claim him as brother, and as king, if he might bring the others under his sway, as well.” There’s a smile on Helblindi’s face that Sif isn’t certain she can read. “Tell your master all that, daughter of Asgard, and if he has the will to yet come, then bring him here to do as he would offer.”
Glaring at the Jotun for a long moment, Sif nods stiffly. She doesn’t give voice to the denial of being Loki’s thrall, to send wherever he will without thought for her own wishes. “I will so tell Loki.” Her word had already been given to carry out this task, and she would see it done before she let her own anger loose. The warriors on the practice grounds perhaps do not deserve her ire that would be directed at the Jotnar, but she had no other recourse with the Bifrost damaged.
Helblindi chuckles, and nods back toward where she had come through. “I shall watch, that no one stops you nor follows you, daughter of Asgard.”
“My name is Sif.” She doesn’t know why she tells the Jotun that, but perhaps it is only injured pride, or anger at his earlier insult.
Another chuckle, and Helblindi shrugs. “Until you return, Sif, with this would-be Laufeyson.” He settles against the ice in which shadow he had hidden before, and Sif can feel him watching her as she makes the twisting step back onto the paths of Yggdrasil. The dark is not as comforting on the return to Asgard, and Sif moves as swiftly as she might until she finds the ripple of the door from the shadows of Yggdrasil to the firm reality of Asgard.
Leaning against the wall, Sif closes her eyes, taking a deep breath to steady her racing heartbeat, and the rising tide of anger that has no target. She wants to be angry at Loki for his lies – more on top of those he’s already told – but she can’t help but wonder if those lies aren’t entirely his own. She wants to be angry at the Jotnar for the damage they’d done that drew Thor to Jotunheim and left her to incur the debt she’s trying to pay, but she could easier be angry at the Destroyer for attacking. They did only what they were led to do.
She could be angry at Thor for being foolish, save he was being only himself. Angry at herself for not thinking past the first, obvious reasons behind what had happened. Angry at the Warriors Three, or the wind, or even Odin All-Father, but none of it will do her any favors.
Another deep breath, and she shoves away from the wall, moving quietly down halls that are still as eerily empty as they were before. As if no one has noticed she’s gone, as if it’s been only minutes instead of what she thinks should have been hours. She moves with purpose, but not too quickly. No need to draw unneeded attention to herself until she returns to Loki’s rooms, and can tell him what Helblindi told her, and rid herself of some – if not all – of her debt.
MCU: Ofinn Börn: Art Concept
So, there is the idea of an image in my head, and I do not think I have the skill to do it justice, though I’m going to give it a try at some point.
AU: Ofinn Börn
Maria Hill in the middle, with Bucky on one side, and Loki on the other. Walking out of fog or mist, and behind them is visible the shadowy form of an absolutely gigantic snake, rising above their heads. Not sure if anyone else is going to be visible, but these three are making themselves targets – and if someone tries to target Jörmungandr directly, that snake is going to melt away as if he were never there.
As for the rest of the scene, visible or not:
Clint and Coulson are on one height, Nick and Natasha on another, snipers and spotters. Thor, Rhodey, Tony, and Sam are in the air already, and Thor is the source of the fog/mist, with whatever storm he’s brewing.
Steve, Melinda, and Bruce are waiting for a cue to come out swinging, hidden from whatever foe their facing. Steve is not in favor of the current plan, but whatever they’re facing, they need Hel and Loki – or rather, their magic – leading the attack. And Bucky is in full Winter Soldier/Tyr mode, rather than Fenrir, and that’s seriously uncomfortable for Steve.
(Hel rolls her eyes, and mutters about not bargining for two brothers in the body of one, and Loki would just like to kill Odin again for fucking up his weaving and accidentally incorporating an Asgardian idiot into it. He made a defender, not a war-monger, damnit. Jörmungandr is amused, and Fenrir is just glad to have sorted out that he’s not alone in his skull, even if he does have to share with Tyr, of all people.)
#IT’S HIS COPING MECHANISM LEAVE HIM BE ( @elektranhatcios)
He’s the Chandler Bing of the Marvel Universe
It’s my coping mechanism too and a lot of people get angry at me for that
It hurts because I’m making jokes so I don’t break down not because I want to be mean or inappropriate
I’m trying to laugh so I don’t cry that’s all“I’m the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral,
Can’t understand what I mean? You soon will.
I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve.
I have a history of losing my shirt.”Fun fact: The boss was at a private BNL concert right before they wrote this song.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 