Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise } for Chinathor

[bornandforged]

He has not been the easiest man to find of late, though Sif has not really been one to talk on that score. Avoiding the embassy in New York for the palace at home, and then the palace for her own retreat, and then that for her family's estate on a different distant patch of coastline has left her out of pocket for a week before her appearance today, now, here. She steps out of a neat tear in the world, blade returned to its sheath as the rift's smooth edges seal shut behind her.

"Thor," she greets him, a hand clapped on his arm to aid in announcing her presence in case his name wasn't called heartily enough to do the trick. Her smile is as friendly as ever, the threat of nerves well-buried beneath cheer. "How goes it here with you?" she asks. She looks to survey their surroundings, his hide-out here away from the court. While faced away her shoulders find a way to straighten one last fraction of a degree, and when she turns back it is with hands caught before her, knuckles interwoven and left to rest on shining plate.

"There is a thing I would speak with you about," she says, not because she wasn't really interested in discussing his recuperation after all, but because finding the gauzy corner of the bandage here now in her fingers and the delicate new skin beneath already stuck and pulling it is too much to resist the urge to rip it off. She finds his eyes, "To do with Loki, and with me."

Comments

[bornandforged]

"Were I any good at doing what I am told when it comes to my personal life, you and I would find ourselves in very different straits today," Sif replies to that brief moment of mild dickishness, amused rather than reproachful. She swirls her wine, an escaping droplet finding the back of her thumb and dripping a blood-dark trail that fills the grooves in her knuckle before she wipes it clean.

She listens in silence, attention keenly fixed on her friend across the table. "I know not what we shall find," she says when he is through, "I cannot promise we will return unscathed. But I can promise you that if you have need of me here I will return at once. If he should turn again, I will return. I will visit and I will tell you my tales and you can tell me if you think I grow more mad than I must already be to consider this at all. It is not really so different to our own explorations here within the realms," she suggests with less than complete confidence in the truth of her statement, "Except that we go further afield. Someone must, why not we two?"

Her shoulders are lifted to an arch and dropped, her smile dipping uneven beneath the weight of the conversation. "If you could take this out of me perhaps I would welcome that. I surely did not ask to love your infuriating mess of a brother, nor to be-- unsatisfied with my present lot. But Thor," she reaches across to set a hand on his, gaze and tone laden with the sort of gravity that comes easier to all of them these days, "If you truly wish me to stay.... I don't want to divide us and poison our friendship either. I have thought on this at length and I believe it is a chance to serve Asgard and suit myself at once, but if you disagree...." She spreads both hands, callused palms opened to the ornate ceiling. If he disagrees, then what? Forced to choose between the sons of Odin yet again? That he does not seem inclined to outright forbid her going has eased her nerves but slightly.

Wine is recaptured, nearly polished off before she sits back, the shining bowl of the goblet dimmed as she cups it in both hands. "What did he say, when you two spoke of it?" she wonders, "What did you tell him?"

[erud_ther_buin]

"He said--" Thor falls silent for a moment, brow in a knit, trying to remember his brother's choice of words. It's important to do them justice. Even he knows that, and he's never really had to get involved with the elaborate dramas of courtly love, himself. "He said he wished for you and he to see each other as you truly are, and not as shieldmaiden and prince. A little odd, considering you've declared your journey as a shieldmaiden might her mission.

"Odder, considering his Hel-bent ambition for the crown and how that has defined him for the past few years," Thor opens his hands, makes a shrug out of them that doesn't quite channel all the way up to his enormous shoulders. "But perhaps that is the point, for him." Or maybe Loki was just selling him a line, but what's the point of that? Of thinking about it, anyway? If Thor is at all equipped to explore the labyrinthine darkness of Loki's mind, it's not going to be because he's worries about whether or not he's lying in casual conversation.

But that's not to say Thor is in the habit of letting people get away with things without confrontation. "If I disagree, then what?" Thor asks the lady warrior, looking at her expectantly. There's a light in his eye, a twinkle, but he isn't laughing preemptively at her answer; maybe at the idea that she wasn't going to finish that thought. He wants to hear it, clearly, however awkward or painful it might be.

[bornandforged]

"I think it might be," Sif says of 'the point', for Loki. Hopes it is, anyway. She sets the disc of wine remaining in her cup to spinning and looks up at the prompt, mouth opening to answer.

But that twinkle in his eye draws down her brows and pushes out her jaw and instead of whatever she had been going to say she says, "This isn't funny, Thor. Having over and over again to choose between the two of you, the thought that whatever choice I make I may lose one of you? It is--." She jerks her head in a shake and blows a breath out her nose, one hand lifted to press fingers to temples and then slide them back through her hair, now long enough to at least mostly lie flat instead of sticking up every which way.

"If you disagreed I would try to convince you. And then I don't know. In all honesty," she says, with a lift and a slump of her shoulders, "I really do not know. I think that I might go. I believe this is how I can best serve Asgard, truly. And my duty is to Asgard, above everything else. If I can discover new worlds and bring back new treasures and perhaps help to bring Loki back to Asgard's side, all at once? Then that is what I need to be doing instead of sitting on Midgard bickering with your friends." She looks back up then, shaking her head as she meets his eyes, "I am sorry. You have my friendship and my loyalty, always, you know that. But I need to try this. It is for the best. Please understand."

[erud_ther_buin]

Thor's silence could sink this floating villa of firelight, were its weight given corporeality. There's a thoughtful blankness to his face, considering; his expression doesn't change when she juts her jaw, nor when she begins to speak. It's subtle, that the twinkle in his eye fades away. No marked twitch or shift of muscle or bone, no particular movement. But he's paying attention, and certainly taking her seriously.

"I understand," Thor says at last. Finally, he leans forward, stretching an arm out to touch her upper-arm. He gives it a squeeze, his grip familiar; hundreds of thousands of salutations and congratulations over hundreds of thousands of days. The gesture has a funny sameness on this one night of farewell.

"Go, then, with my blessing. My hope that you will find happiness -- or at least fulfillment," they don't write songs about the ones that come easy, whether the musicians are Aesir or human, "and adventure plenty. And in hope, also, that you will return to us soon." Thor is already rising, boots thunking solidly underneath him. A swiveled knee suggests that Mjolnir sits under there, hidden by the table, ever close to Thor's hand-- but he's being subtle about it, with the politics afoot, and touchy trolls and elves often enough visiting his room.

And he has no wish to fight Sif on any level, clearly. "I will come to Earth to see you off, when it is time. The others will come, too."

[bornandforged]

Sif's nerves have been on plainer display than she realized already tonight, but never moreso than now when Thor clasps her arm and the tension ebbs out of her in such a rush he'll be able to feel the moment her shoulder goes slack in release.

She doesn't really trouble to hide it, head dropping forward into a bow that's more relief than respect, and she stretches out a hand to grip his arm in return. Silent until he rises and she shoves back the chair to get feet beneath her, stepping around the table to capture Thor in a hug. One arm is up over his shoulder and one wrapped beneath the other before he has time to avoid it should he have wished to, her grip tight. "Thank you," she says, lifting her head to repeat the words less muffled by his shoulder, "Thank you."

She'll set a hand to his face before she really draws back, palm to jaw, fingers catching at ear and neck like he does to her sometimes though she lacks his ability to literally palm her friend's head. "I will return," she swears, eyes bright and serious, "Before too long, and sooner if ever you have need of me." She presses a kiss to Thor's cheek and leans her forehead against his temple for a moment, and while she has always been more affectionate with her friends than most would credit, this is perhaps edging into effusive.

But they have not really ever said farewell before, not like this, and so any joy at his agreement is tinged with melancholy, longing for the home and friends she hasn't even really left yet. And tamped down beneath it the constant awareness that things might so easily go wrong, of the possibility that the lives ruined and blood shed might continue to be theirs and not some nameless aliens' from far off continents. That this might all end in disaster and she will have practically begged him to let her bring it. It's a darkness that sits within her, relentlessly flooded in the light of hope and excitement that animates her now as she kisses Thor again and pulls back with a grin to thump his shoulder extra hard.

"We should all get together here first, before I go," she says, "If you can spare the time from court. Or now," she proposes, because why not, "Come, leave your meetings for tomorrow if you can and drink with me. I want to hear of you now that we've both of us babbled about me for hours."

[erud_ther_buin]

Cuddling Thor is like squeezing and kissing a golden retriever. He holds up under it considerable dignity overall, cuts a handsome profile, very golden, very elegant, but secretly, off to the periphery, he's thumping his leg. Not literally in Thor's case, but there's a brutish guffaw all of a sudden, like a wheeze escaping from a balloon. He wraps his arms around the woman, brawny bulk folded tight around her waist, and he hoists her right off the floor. Squeezes Sif right back, a real laugh gusting warmly through her hair, his grip sure around the slick sheen of her armor.

Thor sets her on the floor again, a hand set to her shoulder. "We will drink," he says. "And speak of better times." There are graver matters he perhaps would have liked to speak of, but he wouldn't want her to worry or weigh her mood when she's about to be free of it all. There is the small matter that Death reached inside his head, took something-- important; and left him important messages about foreboding events. Such as that Loki carries an Infinity Gem, for instance.

There are other matters to talk about, and things to say. Volstagg's lady friend is due on the Bifrost in a few days, for the first time; Fandral imported ice cream into the capital; Hogun is liaising with the dwarves, and it near came to blows about the respective quality of their stonemasonry. "We will have to take turns riding our larger foes around the battlefield, in your honor."

[bornandforged]

Sif's laugh joins his when feet leave the floor and she's still grinning when Thor sets her back down, a hand lingering on his elbow as long as his remains on her shoulder. "We will," she agrees. She squeezes his arm and then laughs again at mention of battlefield antics, scoffing, "Please do! You could all use the practice."

One more thump and then she's pulling away, headed for the door to order more wine. That the prince is present means refills are close at hand, and in a minute or two she is setting flagons down before him and retaking her seat. She kicks her feet up onto an empty chair beside Thor and pours for them both.

"So," she says, leaning back with her cup, "Do you care to talk about this lunacy matter now, or later when we are drunk, or not at all?" She did not miss it nor his look when he said it, just postponed asking, selfishly preoccupied. Now that it is foremost she looks mildly concerned in the manner of someone who is actually at least moderately concerned but making the effort to downplay it, more than willing to listen but not about to force him to speak.

[erud_ther_buin]

"Later," Thor says emphatically, sort of in that register that that's a conversation for another day and time. Perhaps if they had a year left, or if things weren't going well enough between himself and Jane, and he still had a drove of secrets and memories Death had granted him to uncover yet. Any given sacrifice means more and is less of a problem, on average, when the cosmic significance of it and contribution to solving horrible future problems is uncovered in the course of fate. They'll both feel better when that comes about.

And he'll feel better when she comes home. Thor throws himself down on the broad furniture, and raises his cup in toast. "And it was not all wounds and ill result, you should know. I daresay, it was lunacy in part that has brought me to make this tenuous peace with my brother. What shall we toast to?"

[bornandforged]

Sif nods, granting Thor that reprieve without protest. Disinclined to let it go entirely, naturally worried when her friend begins tossing around words like that after his (and their) recent experiences, but willing to let it slide in favor of happier things on this occasion. She reaches across and pats his shoulder in friendly solidarity. "As you wish.

"To tenuous peaces?" Sif suggests at talk of toasts and manages to not even quite mean it as a joke, for all that she is war. But it is easier to be that little bit more serious about other things: "To the future? That things may yet be better than they have been? New adventures?"

She gives her head a toss, ruffling a hand through dark hair. "All of the above," she decides, lifting her cup to him, "And more beside. Plenty to drink to, for we've plenty of drinking to do."