An excellent fic. You did a great job of portraying Loki's ability to get under someone's skin as well as Sif battle-ready badassness. Also, I love the way you have implied a past fling/relationship between them with subtle hints throughout the story:

"Length of her stride...No amount of years will throw that knowing away."
"The look that made her want to tug on his hair."
"Silver Tongue...I named you true then...It had always been so between them..."
"Ghostly pantomime of intimacy, touch..."
"The Lady lies as well as I."
"His flesh sat tender and unprotected."
"What you were is dead already to me."
"Her vows...resting...memories of old."
It's the mark of a good writing that so much can be conveyed with so little.
Well done ;)

Nice one! I love me some Sif!

Oh my goodness, this was so good. I just love what you did with this. Amazing work!

Ahh! I am SO happy to see you back, writing for these two. I seriously missed it, big time.

And this was just pure delight to read, and you never cease to astound me with your awesome talent.

I can never get enough of the way you write Loki and Sif, and the interaction and interplay between them. You just handle it with such subtly and natural feel, and because of that, everything just jumps off the page with perfect clarity and emotion.

Part of what makes Loki and Sif such a joy to read under your pen is the constant back and forth pull between them, the amazing chemistry they share, and how they each dance around one another in a kind of familiar war. They're so different from each other, and yet share so much in common. Sif is all blunt force and strength and power, and Loki is all wily subtlety and shadow and cleverness. And because of this, their clashes are ridiculously intense and have such a feel of danger and high stakes to them.

Beyond that even though, is just the intensity of their emotions towards one another. They love each other, I think that's fairly obvious. And they're both dancing around the issue, both deflecting and turning away from that fact. Again, Sif more bluntly, flat out denying she cares about Loki at all anymore, and Loki more vaguely, making a joke out of that love between them, treating it with flippancy.

I also just have to comment on how brilliant your characterization of both of them are, and how thoroughly you've managed to capture their voices. Sif's intensity and intelligence and bravery, and Loki's incredible eloquence and refinement and mockery. It's just so easy to read their dialog and hear Jamie Alexander and Tom Hiddleston. I don't think I'm alone in saying I hope we get to see some interaction between the two of them in the upcoming film.

I also love how familiar Sif is with Loki here, and how where others wouldn't understand the strength and danger he possesses, she knows it completely. There's a respect she has for him, even in her dismissal and overt contempt for him. She knows he isn't some weakling or some non-threat, as others might make the mistake of thinking based off of his appearance. It gives the reader such a vivid picture of what their lives once were together. How many times they've fought for each other, and saved each others lives, and spilled blood for one another.

Anyway, this was just brilliantly written, and I'm seriously looking forward to reading more from you with these two. There's just so much depth in your stories, and so much to explore between Sif and Loki, and their relationship.

Amazingly done and thank you so much for sharing!

"I have been leaving you guys hanging for too long." YES YOU HAVE... but we forgive you, because you're the best. /3

Your Steel!verse is, to me, the pinnacle of Loki/Sif fic. It is what Off the Record is to Frostiron, except set firmly in a base of (fantasy myth legend) Thor feels rather than (modern clever Stark) Avengers feels, and the allure and mystique of it is just so perfect. Your style is so great that, while other great fics make me never want to write, your fics make me WANT to. Rather than saying "my fic could never be that good," for some reason yours make me ask "...but what if it was?"

Anyway, I digress.

This fic. Oh, god, the tension. I stopped breathing about half-way through. Your dark-edged Sif, goddess of war and all its foul things—and the way she described Thor, with her the shield protecting him from being sullied—holy crap she's the best! Such a fierce warrior. And Loki with his twisted-ness, who wouldn't show a sign of weakness under any circumstances (but you have to wonder what he's thinking). She 'would' kill him, I think, and she'd ignore how it tore her to pieces afterwards. Thor wouldn't, but Sif... oh yes, Sif would.

Is it wrong that I kind of want to read a fic where she kills him now?

Things have gone so south. Good lord.

This seems AU from the Steel!verse (since her shield broke), which I kind of like, because HOLY CRAP this is SO DARK! I've always kind of hoped for an Avengers-era redemption fic with badass!Sif, and WOW this is the opposite of that. Still not sure whether or not I'm breathing. This is what a relationship looks like when it's shattered beyond all belief, and reading this is like cutting yourself on the shards.

You never cease to be one of my favorites, even when your writing is giving me heart palpitations. So... kudos for that.

Great! I love it!

Yesss. I knew you'd have something great written up for the new Thor trailer and this definitely did not disappoint. I'm really interested to see how Sif and Loki interact in the new movie, and if there's more subtle implications that we shippers can latch onto :)

Firstly, great to see you writing Loki/Sif again! I hope your awakened muse keeps you writing even more.

And secondly, LOVE this story - the angst and tension were brilliant and I could completely see this scene happening in the film. In fact, I'm going to pretend it does!

Loki and Sif are such a complicated, angsty couple and you play them off each other so, so well. Love the words and emotions you give them.

Brilliant story and thanks a lot for sharing.

Awsome story! I'm glad that you're going to stick with your Steel fanfics, though they might not be canon. They're all really good stories, and deserve to be continued.

Well done:-)

Seriously (and how many times did my reviews for one of your stories start like that? ;)), I missed reading these characters when you write them. You’re doing it as wonderful as you always did and I really hope we’re going to see some sort of interaction between Loki and Sif. More than just an angry glare… But if not, I know whose fanfiction I’m going to read. ;)
I love what you’re writing about Sif’s thoughts and actions when she is going to Loki’s prison. How she is War in this moment and not herself, but how she can’t forget the Loki she knows no matter what she does or what he did.
“He was a pale shadow of the man in her memories, half-conjured and semi-solid before her eyes, as if she spoke to one of his shadows rather than to him. But his voice was the same as ever; rich and warm, seeking her as an arrow would seek its target.”
God, you’re describing him perfectly again.

“She fought the urge to take a step back. Instead she braced herself, keeping her feet a shoulders width apart as if she had roots. "I come, not out of my own wish, but for the sake of others," Sif started coldly – ignoring his implications, ignoring him.”
Perfect! Because she doesn’t give in and because she just has to act like that. D:
I can’t wait to get a flashback or something like that or at least the story of how Loki came back to Asgard, you just reminded me of that.
How they were talking at the same time and were ignoring what the other has to say, until Sif lost it, oh my… He really knows how to get her like that.
“His eyes glinted with his mirth at her apprisal, a cruel mirth, tugging at the corner of his mouth and tightening his eyes to chips of pale spring. She wanted nothing more than to claw the look from his skin in that moment. She wanted blood and flesh to gather underneath her nails as the scent of winter and metal rose from his skin”
I loved this so much!
God, and how she described him when he came home again. I can imagine this, how proudly he would walk, as if the words meant nothing to him, as if he knew it would end up like this all along and as if he wouldn’t care. And of course, the colour of his eyes, how it would still be blue because of the power he had.
“It had not been Loki then, but rather an imposter wearing his flesh and bones in an unfamiliar way.”
Yes, to see him like that, even more when you knew him before, before everything… God, this must have been hurtful.
I can also imagine Thor and his mother staying with Loki, talking to him and everything. :(

“"I felt nothing at your return," she finally said – her voice a match for his in coldness, in cruelty. "I was not there, because there was nothing there worth seeing. Another prisoner of war paraded before the gluttonous masses?" she snorted. "It was not worth my notice."
His mouth curved in delicate distaste. She remembered the shape of that look. She remembered how she would press her finger in the place where his frown met the curve of his cheek and push upwards until a true smile was rewarded for his efforts. He snorted, but his mirth did not quite reach his eyes . . . How easily he had always read her lies, she thought.”
And this, oh my.. :(

“How very desperate Asgard must be, if I am their only hope." And then there was a flicker in his eyes, sparking as a triumph even greater than that of throne and crown. To know need and desperation from a race that had scorned his affinity with the uncanny, the siren's song that Mother Yggdrasil sang in his veins? The idea was intoxicating to him. She could see the idea swim drunk in his eyes.”
And this.. god, how are you doing that?! I loved this, it sounded so in-character!
What she said about Thor and why he wants Loki to help them. God, no! This is.. this just IS Thor, he would really think like that, he would really want that, even though he maybe doesn’t know it himself. That is.. just amazing, I loved how you wrote this. How Loki reacted to that, how he didn’t show her anything because this is nothing he wants to hear and at the same time he does. Wow!
“There was danger in his stride then, a danger that most overlooked with his willow-like build and his too-clever words”
This was just brilliant.
I’d actually just love to quote everything Sif said about why she would have to kill Loki instead of Thor killing him, because.. God, I don’t know how you’re doing it but I love it so much. Because she is War. And War means more then strength or fighting itself. And HOW she is talking to Loki then, what she thinks and knows.. wow!

It really reminded me of the scene between Natasha and Loki but Sif actually knows Loki that’s the difference, she felt and feels so much for him. And well, this Loki here is a different one.. How he challenged her, how he laughed.. Sorry for repeating myself the whole review, I think it consists only of “this is so perfect” and “god, this is so in-character”, but you really leave me speechless again. I loved it. :)