Open Log: The Two Faced Forest

[brosif]

Characters: Sif and anyone interested in ~*~Quests~*~ and rewards!
Open? Yes, to those who want to join the ~*~Quest~*~
Where: Outskirts of the forest.
When: Noon
What: A research trip: checking out reports of the thorns that grow overnight and the beast that lives there. When the sun goes down, so does Shit.
Warnings: It is completely possible to have your character attend both this thread AND the ball, so long as they cut out before dusk. If it seems like your character can't hold their own against a threat, Sif may encourage them to leave (but whether they listen or not is up to you). Relatively open format: Thread hopping and mingling highly encouraged!



Sif waited on the edge of the forest, near the stables. It looked lovely in daylight, but she had heard tales enough of the land’s danger when the sun went down.

She wasn’t in full armor, only chain mail. It was something that she might have come to regret, but the weight of the armor they had to offer here was too restricting. Better fast than untouchable, as she suspect the thorns didn’t care about a few extra inches to eat through.

Comments

[sorcerous]

"I would rather it be blind," returns Loki, "to spare me from your blunders."

He releases a breath.

"I will go, tomorrow," he tells her, "to see the thorns' front for myself. A snake may proceed where a man may not."

He only rarely shapeshifted in Asgard. There is a danger to it, a risk of losing one's identity. But here he does it recklessly, and often. Too often.

[brosif]

“So I am awful to hear and terrible to look upon. It looks like you’re running out of senses, in my presence.”

Another surprise, then. She looks at him, skeptical.

“And a snake’s back may be snapped far easier than a man’s. What if the thorns know this as well?”

[sorcerous]

"The thorns react only to attack." He lifts his eyes to her. "And I have not decided whether to be their enemy." And this statement is deeply telling, revealing much about his state of mind: he has not decided, because part of him truly wants to be the hero. But next to Sif, next to someone who knows him and who expects the worst of him (because, don't they all?) means that being a hero is impossible. And the call of chaos is keen, and sweet, and it would do him well to be a villain.

[brosif]

Sif does not do well words. She lives in action, and that is what she understands above all else. It’s why she could get along with Loki for so long – his words meant little when compared to his actions, which were on their side more often than not.

She does not have a great speech to help guide Loki along the right path. Such decisions are rarely made on the backs of such speeches, anyway. Truly, she doesn’t mean to say anything. But as she looks down, and thinks of fighting with him yet again:

“I would rather fight beside you.”

She doesn’t realize she’s said it until the last word, and looks around for fellow travelers rather than gauge his reaction to it. He's been crueler, lately, and she would rather her mind remain on the task at hand.

[sorcerous]

The words jolt through him -- as though his heart skips a beat.

A soft breath.

"Of course," he murmurs. "Because, in the end, each shining, golden god of Asgard would send a snake to do their dirtiest work. When needs must, Loki is there to wrong our enemies, and that is right enough, isn't it?" -- All the times that he has saved Asgard through betrayal and pettiness and trickery, and never been thanked.

[brosif]

Sif's back goes straight and without thinking (he is exceedingly good at getting her not to do that) she rounds in on Loki and shoves him, hard.

"Why must you twist everything I say? Are you so desperate for cruelty that you'll find it even in places where it isn't meant?"

She does not often give voice to her feelings, outside of jests. She does not appreciate having them thrown back in her face.

[sorcerous]

A flinch back, even as she shoves him, has him falling against a tree, steadying himself with a hand on the bark. "And what am I to believe?" he snaps. "That you forgive so easily? I am not honorable, and I am not good; why, then, do you treat me as though I deserve treatment honorable or good?"

Any excuse. Any excuse, and he would go to join the thorns.

[brosif]

"When did I say I forgave you? I am so angry with you, Loki. I so incredibly--" she rushes up, twisting her hands in the strange fabric of his shirt, and pressing him further into the tree "--I have never been this angry! But you were dead. You were dead for months and you breathe now and that means something."

She takes a deep breath, exhaling shakily.

"That means something."

[sorcerous]

A startled inhale; his eyes fix wide on hers. His hands have flown up to defend himself, but he freezes, makes no move.

"Months?" he breathes. "Six days, Sif." Six days, here, with the tumult of his emotions locked inside. Only six days, and the spirit-broken sensation of falling from the Bifrost is still so fresh. "It has been six days."

[brosif]

"What?"

Her grip goes slack. "No, it's--" Three months. Three months of fighting as five when they were meant to be six. Three months of pretending that Thor didn't walk as if he was expecting someone beside him, of Odin pausing before he talked of his son. Of Frigga looking like a piece of her was gone.

"It's been three months, Loki."

[sorcerous]

"Three months," he echoes, a whisper, a voice soft as a leaf's brush. "And you mourned me." The concept sits uneasy with him, settling strange and out-of-place in his stomach.

[brosif]

"Yes," comes out, quietly. She steps back, looking down. "Of course we did."

We. As a group, they mourned him. As one person, as the Lady Sif...it seems better that she include herself in the group, right now.

[sorcerous]

There is no 'of course'; there is no guarantee. His hand grips her shoulder -- it is wrapped with a slim bandage, done himself. The same hand he injured the day prior.

"And you," he persists. "What did you do?"

[brosif]

What does she matter, in all of this? Sif shakes her head, trying to keep her voice level.

"I offered my condolences to your family. I spent a great deal of time with your mother. I went hunting, a lot."

What is she supposed to say, here? She wants to shove him, again, but her arms feel heavy.

"I was sad." Quietly, still, and under her breath. Lost words, etched in her deeds, that she had not yet let out into the world.

[sorcerous]

He struggles. He struggles, but he cannot understand. The reality -- I was sad -- no, she must have been sad for Thor, sad for Frigga, sad for the assistance she no longer had. She must have been angry and betrayed. She must have misread it all.

He struggles.

"I don't," he says, softly, "believe you." He can't. He can't make himself believe. His fingers hook into her tunic; he cannot let her go, either.

[brosif]

He has been pushing at her since her arrival. Calling her oathbreaker, calling her false, calling her weak, calling her a thousand other names for liar.

Sif is no liar. And she does not do well with being pushed.

“I can see that,” she says, roughly, pushing at his hands. “I see your opinion of me, and you have mine of you. I am done giving my thoughts away so freely. You only throw them back at me.”

Sif spent enough of her time fending off weapons. It would be foolish to provide ammunition she would too soon have to dodge.

[sorcerous]

No. No. He will not let her go.

"And why shouldn't I?" he asks, his voice hushed. "You see, there are those I would have called friend, whom I have fought beside and who have fought beside me. They shine. They are the Aesir. And I am the one who has always fit ill. I find that there is a reason for it, that I am a monster, and that the terrible things I've done have reason.

"And I find myself here, where they greet me as a hero, and I embrace it, for it is all I have ever wanted. But you follow. You follow, and against such honor, what chance do I have? Against such courage, I am but a mote of dust."

His voice is even, smooth, tinted with an emotion he cannot name.

"Why should I believe any such as you have regard for any such as me?"

[brosif]

"Because I speak it," she growls, features contorting. "And I am not false. You call yourself monster. I do not. You call yourself dust, I do not."

She draws in closer, face inches from his. Her hand darts out and grabs his jaw, caring not about being gentle. If he will hold her to this conversation then he will look her in eye.

"Look at me. I am not false, Loki. And you know this."

[sorcerous]

He does meet her eye; strangely, now, he is unafraid.

"Then, for the sake of truth, perhaps I will be a villain for you," he says. "You alone."

The spectre of Thor looms over him, over them both. But Thor is not here, and Loki's evil, his mischief, his taint may be constrained to one alone.

[brosif]

She has no need of a villain, here. This strange place is villain enough. She opens her mouth to say as much, but something in Loki’s words – she isn’t sure if they can be called threats or compromises, or an unmarked distance in between – compels her to take a moment.

Sif’s hold relaxes. Her alone. It’s something. It feels like untying a particularly complicated knot when she smoothes down the front of his shirt and says:

“All right.”

[sorcerous]

It feels as though something between them has settled, though Loki is hard-pressed to pinpoint just what it is. He lets out a long breath, and folds his hands.

"I will go with you," he says. "To the forest."