"all our winters to pass"

Genre: Angst, Romance
Rating: PG
Time Frame: Future-fic
Characters: Sif/Loki, Thor/Jane Foster, Ullr, Ocs

Summary: When Thor Allfather pays for a mistake of old with seemingly his life, it is left to Sif to put the balance to right again – with the help of an unwilling Loki, who, as always, bears an agenda of his own.

Notes: Hello, dear readers! I know, it has been too long since I last wrote for these two crazy kids. My Sif/Loki muse hit a wall something fierce, and I am trying to jar it back into place with this short story. And, that said, to all of you waiting for the next chapter of my Steel!verse: I thank you for your patience, you guys are the best! I do intend to get back to that story eventually - it is by no mean complete. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy my latest offering to this unexpected and ridiculous ship. Sail on, my friends, sail on. :)

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, but for the words.

Part I

In her mind, she had planned this moment a thousand times.

Though he thought himself clever with his cloaks; with his enchantments designed to conceal and his spells of misdirection, she had always been able to peel his magicks away like a scab to reveal the wound beneath. She did so now, bowing her head before her shield and thinking: north, as far north as you may as the vast everything and nothing of the cosmos rose before her.

Her shield pulsed with golden light in reply. It listened to her command; it answered her will. It shuddered once, hesitating, before felt a flush of cold pulsed from the steel – cold enough to render flesh from bone, to still blood within veins - but she only set her mouth into a grim line against the wards seeking to hold her back. She insisted.

And the spells of old listened to her. They yielded.

Once, not long after the final battle that at last put Thor to the throne he had long struggled to avoid, he had sent two dozen of Asgard's best seiðrmanðr's to do this very task. None succeeded, and those who returned were different for that which they had seen – for what which their spells had struggled and failed to subdue. In a rare show of mercy, each mage was returned to their own minds some turns of the moon after their attempt at seeking the Worldslayer out, but only just.

Thor, as tender at his heart was, had seen his brother's leniency and hoped. Sif had merely set her jaw.

Yet, it was that open, bruised look on Thor's face that set her path now. It was that memory that opened the way before her, that made her determination unmovable, her will unbendable.

The room shifted around her, and instead of bronze walls and the gentle bellow of the fire in the hearth, her open eyes – for she refused to close them – revealed the iridescent limbs of the Mother in all of her glory. Yggdrasil's branches, stretching through infinity, showed her both stars and far off worlds, each hung on the myriads of celestial strands that made up the universe they all inhabited. The colours of the cosmos shifted – pressing – protesting – angrily for her presence, but she merely bowed her head and pushed on.

"The wards are bound by blood," the head mage had explained to Thor the reason for his failure. "We cannot breach so powerful a magic."

Yet, set upon the weapon she bore were Loki's own spells . . . Loki's own wards of protection and runes of power, and now she called upon a force she had not touched since before his fall – his first fall – and asked them to aid her once more.

The wards protecting his hiding place dropped her without warning, letting her through as if miffed they had to do so. The colours and starlight simply vanished, and she was left in that same kneeling position she had begun in. A heartbeat passed, and she looked up, taking in her surroundings. Instead of the gilded halls of Glaðshemir underneath her feet, she was now kneeling upon the cold ground. Underneath her, there was a fresh layer of virgin snow, clean and cold and white to her senses. Around her rose tall evergreens – and the scent of cedar was thick and spicy in her nose alongside the towering shapes of the fir and spruce. Snow and ice frosted over their dark green limbs, turning them to icy specters upon a land that slept in want for spring.

Sif peered through the trees to where a wide river ran through the landscape – frozen for the season, though water still rushed underneath a great waterfall just to the west of her vision. Only the surface of the fall had frozen over, and the mighty cascade still rumbled as thunder, calling her senses back from where they still walked the byways beyond.

She looked, and saw a clearing where a simple structure of wooden logs stood - the small dwelling not unlike those they would use to break their hunt in the north of Asgard's wild. She felt a pang in her side, wondering if he had unconsciously recreated the memory . . . before remembering that Loki had never cared for the hunt. Her joy had not been his own.

At the thought, her mouth turned down, and a part of her (Sif the woman, not Sif who was and called to War) whispered that she could still turn back – run - flee – and leave this place before she was found. But that part of her was one she had long struggled to silence, and she would not heed that voice now.

Besides, she thought darkly. He already knows I am here.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, a dagger embedded itself in the wood of the tree closest to her head, glittering green and verdant against the icy blue tones of the winter-land around her. She heard no telling step in the snow. There was no indrawn breath or hiss of drawn steel giving his place away - only the dagger and the flare of green. Instinctively, she held herself still against another blow.

"That was a warning," a cold voice said from behind her. His voice was as dry as dead leaves - from disuse, she thought, rather than anything else. "The next one shall not be."

In her hands, her shield pulsed – warning her about the build of seiðr upon the air. For a moment she reflected on the irony of his spells protecting her from himself, before brushing the thought aside. The enchantments whispered that she could still turn back, that she could still return as she had came . . . Yet, she was not here for herself.

So, Sif stuck the hilt of her glaive in the ground, and leaned her weight on the weapon in order to stand. She squared her shoulders with the ground, and proudly tilted up her chin. The leather covering her fingers made a strained sound in the cold as she clenched them. The fur from the collar of her cloak tickled her throat, and it was such a discordant sensation in that moment that she fought the urge to smile. She instead focused on the set of her armor over her shoulders, on the Ivaldi-forged wings of her helm as they caught the winter-light, and -

She turned, and met his eyes.

"I would not doubt your aim if you wished to try," her voice too was a strained sound, forced and unnatural to her ears. "Yet, I fear that you would not find it to be that easy."

Loki's reply was swift. "You," he gave on a hiss, and Sif raised a brow in reply.

"Me," her voice was dry – purposely so, this time. She gestured to the small cabin in the clearing beyond, and raised a brow. "Are you going to play the gracious host and let me in? It is quite chilly outside."

His look, she thought with some satisfaction, had a bit of incredibility to it. The pupils of his eyes were blown wide, showing his surprise openly. Yet, she took no comfort in his confusion, ever knowing him at his worst when he was as an animal ready to bite in order to cover over a wound. She forced herself to meet his eyes, and found them more green than she had remembered, lit with the natural enchantments of the land around him. He was thinner than she had last know him to be; the lines of his face were harsh and sharp, sharp enough to cut if she but reached out to touch him. He wore no armor – not here, where he thought none could reach him - only simple hunter's leathers and a heavy white fur about his shoulders for warmth. His hair was long now, very long, hanging down his back in a simple, messy queue. No doubt he had tied it away out of annoyance for its hanging in his face, she imagined, and it was so very different from what she had long known that she stared, unwillingly taken aback.

Next she noticed the cord about his neck and the various trinkets hanging there – talismans and tokens, which he would not have dared to wear openly in Asgard. This she forced herself not to think of with a pang. The tips of his fingers were stained with ink from whatever project had his attention before she interrupted, and that was so very familiar that, for a moment . . .

"I do not believe that the rules of etiquette require me to give shelter to an assassin," Loki remarked. This time, she could hear his boots crunch in the snow when he stepped closer to her. "I thought that Thor would order forth more than the incompetent lackeys he first sent – but I never thought that he would send his sharpest blade."

"If I was here with death in mind," Sif promised in a low voice, "you would not have been able to throw your first dagger." War whispered through her words, and he tilted his head to the sound.

When he smiled, she could see his teeth. "Perhaps," he gave, but his eyes glittered. "Yet, for now, I have already tired of your visit, and would politely ask that you go back from whence you came."

"I cannot do that," she shook her head.

"I am sorry for my first implying a choice," his mouth turned unkind. "Leave. Now. Before I force you to."

Sif settled the end of her glaive in the ground. She met his eyes. "No."

"I," his words were hissed from between his teeth, as if he were something wild to match the land around him, "have served my exile well here. None have suffered by my hand, and none -"

" - none have benefited, either" she interrupted. "You serve a sentence of your own writing, but within it there is no penance, no effort to redress the wounds you have inflicted."

"I just ask to be left in peace. After what I have done – which can indeed be counted as payment enough for my great wrongs - it is not so much to ask."

"Then, you would let this pass without seeing that blood is paid for blood?" she let her voice drip with scorn. It was not difficult to do so. "Of everything I had thought to know about you – even the you of these past years . . . You would not let this go unaddressed."

Sif saw where his eyes narrowed. Curiosity flickered through his gaze before he shoved the emotion away with a scowl of annoyance, yet it was too late. The damage was done.

"Of what do you refer to?" his voice was low. Everything steel-sharp about her could hear the deadly line in his voice – a more true warning than any snarled word or thrown blade.

"You have not heard?" she asked. She widened her eyes in exaggerated surprise, a part of her viciously enjoying the annoyance that flickered across his features.

"If you have not noticed," Loki retorted dryly, "This is not a place that word reaches quickly."

And so, she braced herself. She tilted her head and met his eyes – she refused to look away.

"Thor . . . " your brother, she almost said before seeing the way his gaze narrowed with a look that was colder than the wild land around them. "Thor . . ." for all of her strength, she could not force the simple syllables to pass from her mouth. Her tongue was full of words, yet she could not speak.

And so, like pressing a knife into flesh, she forced her thoughts to shape quickly and cleanly.

"Thor is dead," she let the words fall between them. "Thor is dead, and his murderer still walks free."