for: agile

[treachery]

[ Where the seeress Gullveig, thrice-burned by Odin's flame and thrice-reborn by Vanir seiðr, first infiltrated the Æsir borders and precipitated the Æsir-Vanir War, a great golden statue now resides. Protected by Æsir and Vanir spellwork alike, it stands eternal vigil before the ancient defensive walls, proud and untouched by time.

As a child, Loki had been drawn to the statue. Not only did his teachers and his peers alike treat the memory of Gullveig with both revulsion and respect (a duality to which Loki had been acclimating, even then), the site itself is girdled with spells cast by the finest magicians of the realms. He had spent hours testing the potency of his seiðr against the magics protecting Gullveig's statue from harm.

The night that Thor had received Mjölnir, Loki succeeded in blasting the statue to pieces. He'd been punished severely for it; even so, Loki had taken a disproportionate amount of pride in the destruction.

Time has passed, the statue has been reconstructed, but Loki continues to haunt the clearing about the statue. This morn, he stews in a dark mood. Sif's shorn hair has been scattered to the winds over Ægir's seas, only a thin plait of it left amongst his spell-things, and yet his mind will not quiet. The sun has already risen into the sky; by now, the silver shears left at Sif's bedside must have been identified as Loki's. Thor will be looking for him, perhaps flanked by the Warriors Three and the Lady herself. Or perhaps she will choose to come alone to defend her lost honor, per the mandate of her defiant self-reliance.

And she will find him here, as all of Asgard knows of Loki's fondness for this spot.

It would require only a thought to disappear from Heimdall's sight into the magewoods of Álfheim or the caves of Svartálfaheim for a time, and yet Loki remains as he is. He cannot stand victorious over Thor nor Sif if it devolves to blows, but the Silvertongue has ever yet been more than the sum of his flesh and blood and bones.

The sun climbs higher in the sky. Loki stands at Gullveig's feet, his shadow indiscernible from hers. ]

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[treachery]

[ She makes no attempts to hide her approach, and thus Loki watches as she grows steadily from a speck in the distance to the vision of ill-mastered rage that he has wrought.

He dons a mild smile when she is close enough to see it, long years of playing second-best having taught him the value of yielding under impending force until further vulnerabilities are bared. He has waited through the night for this; not by anticipation nor nerves does he stand her before her, but for the knowledge that this confrontation has been building for centuries. He likes her in his own complicated way, but now — now, he feels only triumph at the sight of her.

To the shears, he offers but a second of his attention, an eyebrow raising with more eloquence than even a word from the Silvertongue could have managed. He doesn't reach to take them from her. ]

You could have asked the servants to leave them in my quarters, you realize. [ His tone is as mild as his smile. ]

[agile]

[ she really wants to stab him with his own shears, preferably in the back, but she imagines that would be a tad predictable of her. ]

I have never asked anyone to do a task I was perfectly capable of performing. [ and she never will let someone do something for her when she is perfectly capable of doing it. whether it be fighting, speaking, or simply delivering a pair of shears that evoke a suffocating swell of anger within her to its rightful owner.

loki may smile but sif only seethes. her brows are pulled together tightly just as her jaw clenches. the desire to beat him to a bloody pulp is one she has to ignore for the sake of herself, for the sake of him, and for the sake of what is to fall on her if he were to return to his home proclaiming she almost beat him to death. she's already walking such a fine line that one step out of place and she knows she's going to fall. ]

If I had done that, you would not have been able to see what you have done. None of the servants have cut hair, unless you make it something of a pasttime for yourself.

[ she'd raise her eyebrows or smile at the end of it, but her anger keeps her face looking as though she's sucked a lemon. her hair meant more to her than she initially realised and she hates that loki stole it from her. ]

[treachery]

[ Loki lets her stew in her anger for a while more, tasting the shape of his words with careful attention before delivering them. Not because he thinks that her handling requires a subtle touch, but simply because he knows that the wait will line the hallways of her anger with new flame. ]

If the opinion of Asgard's second prince is of any interest to you, mighty warrior that you are, know that I think your looks much improved by the intervention.

[ It's not an admission of guilt, but neither of them require it. The shears are Loki's, the lack of remorse is thoroughly Loki's, and such blatant truths are untouchable even by the skill of the greatest Liesmith that the eternal realm may ever yet know.

(And yet it was not spite alone that guided the shears: it was jealousy, and an anger that burns as brightly as Sif's own. Asgard's greatness may be irrefutable, but that does not mean that it is always just.) ]

[agile]

[ for as long as sif remains in loki's presence, she'll continue to stew. her anger is only a mere flick of an ember, but by the end of their impromptu meeting, it'll be blazing. the second prince of asgard has always been reliable for one thing and that is eliciting the anger of others. sif, too blinded by her fury, falls right into the centre of his palm. ]

An intervention done by your request, not mine.

[ sif isn't one to dwell on her appearance, but now with her lack of hair, she's further from the lady she attempts to be. with her skill set belonging to a warrior, with a physique almost matching it, her long hair was the only thing that disguised that and reminded her family - and the rest of asgard - that she was a lady. she's bristling with anger at her exposure of being her family's black sheep; no father is ever proud when his daughter takes to a path that was never paved for her. she loathes that loki took that from her when she wasn't ready to face who she truly was in the mirror. ]

You cannot simply take from others, Loki. [ with every ounce of strength, she does try to calm herself. but sif has always been quick to action. strategising comes later, after she's been caught red-handed or deep in the thick of trouble. ] Prince or not, it was not yours to take.

[ as if loki will ever learn his lesson. ]

[treachery]

[ That goes without saying — Loki is not Thor, to believe that all of Asgard is simply a smorgasbord to feast upon. No, when Loki takes, when Loki steals: he does not have to believe himself deserving, because he has never needed justification to soothe his own mind. The mortals once called him the God of Chaos, after all. ]

If I had taken Fandral's hair instead, would you not have laughed? If it had been Volstagg, or Hogun, or even your beloved Thor himself?

[ Now Loki's placid manner slips, and there is the faintest promise of anger in his furrowed brow. Still, his voice is calm, and his hands very still. Let her think about her own many and varied failings, and let her repent for them — and only then will Loki regret hurting her so. ]

No. You would have laughed at the jest, named me again a mischief-maker and a trickster, and you would have forgotten it by the next morn.

[agile]

[ he has a point, and sif wishes to strike out against him for pushing her into a position where her hypocrisy will be revealed. ]

It is different. [ she manages it through gritted teeth. the one thing she always assumed loki would understand, the only thing they would have in common, was how hard it was to integrate themselves into a society where they felt they didn't belong. taking on the normal role of a female asgardian was not what sif was made for. ]

The loss of their hair would never incite the fury of their father. [ sif's furious loki quite possibly broke the thread binding her father's tolerance of her boyish adventures and her allowing to participate in such things. her hair held so much of herself, of what she was meant to be in asgard, that losing it only seemed to demonstrate how far she had fallen from the asgard norms. it's the only thing to be proud of, the one thing she's allowed to be proud of, that isn't her ability in quite possibly winning against thor, the big-headed, in a fight. ]

It is different for me, Loki.

[treachery]

[ That's precisely why he'd targeted her. That she would scorn him even though they faced the same adversity from those that supposedly loved them best; that the world would seek to change them both, and she could not see that he suffered the more for it. But she had everything that he did not, in Loki's mind — Thor's constant companionship, glory, honor, a life far and away from the nights spent burrowing into the earth with seid and mischief. That, in and of itself, is unforgivable.

So this, this is what Loki is becoming — cruel not for cruelty's sake alone, but no less harmful for it. ]

Why? [ Loki asks, softly, pushing off the statue. He begins to circle her, slowly, one measured step after another. ] Why would your father value the hair of a warrior, of all things? Why is it so very different for you?

[ He's silent for another moment, completing his lazy half-circle about her. ]

Answer my questions to my satisfaction, and perhaps then I will help restore what I have taken.