Chapter Text
It was always difficult, being the only woman on the battlefield. In a way, the aftermath was always especially so. When the adrenaline died down and everyone looked around for the wounded. The lingering concern always remained longer, even after reassuring everyone that you’re hale.
Always waiting for you to fall apart.
Even after all this time.
The Healers of Asgard’s Healing Halls were no different. They eyed Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun for any sign of distress. Their gazes almost skating over Sif’s friends in favour of her. Even as Fandral’s insensate body was knit together inside the Soulforge.
At least that irritation served as a distraction. She hated seeing it. They all did. It seemed so clinical and dire. Sif didn’t understand why the Healers didn’t simply perform the healing workings in a bed. While Fandral was conscious. Even Loki allowed them that comfort in the aftermath of a great battle. It was also a rare time he ceased the cutting commentary as well, which offered dual relief.
“Do you suppose I will have to endure the Soulforge as well?” Volstagg asked, attempting a lighthearted tone, but not quite managing it. The Healers had wreathed his blackened arm in a working to slowly bleed away the bitter cold of the Frost Giant’s touch before they could heal it further. Sif could even make out the monstrously large handprint enveloping her friend’s forearm. The borders around the blackened flesh were clearly defined by fat blisters, swelling like leeches suckling on Volstagg’s blood. It was enough to do away with even Volstagg’s appetite. Although with how angry the Allfather had been, she would be very surprised if there was a feast in their honour this time.
Afterall, she didn’t think even Loki’s silver tongue could spin that disastrous result into a victory. They had slain many Frost Giants, at least that much was true. But it had very nearly cost them their lives. And they had escaped only because the Allfather had intervened.
“If you did, they likely would have ushered you away by now.” Sif finally found the words to answer Volstagg. “But you know wounds inflicted by Frost Giants are tricky. They infect the tissues with their foul magic and make it difficult to heal.”
“That is not why it is difficult to treat, Lady Sif.” Lady Eir said as she swept into the room, her hands already covered in a nimbus of honeyed seidr. She ignored all else as she deftly took Volstagg’s arm in her grip, murmuring arcane words to melt the pain from her patient’s grimace.
“You are all spoiled by Prince Loki’s exceptional talent as a combat medic. It makes you reckless.” Lady Eir declared without much preamble. “What occupies him so? It is not his wont to hand you off to me in such dire straits.”
“The Allfather was angry.” Volstagg said with a sigh of relief. “You’ll see Loki skulking in here soon enough, I suspect.”
“Odin’s wrath has never stopped him before.” Sif muttered bitterly, trying not to watch Fandral’s body twitch and spasm as his muscles were reconstructed and knit back together.
“He was distracted.” Hogun said, staring at Volstagg’s arm with singular intensity.
It sounded like idle commentary, which made Sif pause. For Hogun rarely lended himself to such.
“We’re all distracted.” Lady Eir muttered. “To see such a wound is rare enough. But it’s not every day the Jotnar interrupts the coronation of a new King. And certainly not every day the would-be-king invades an enemy Realm without due support.”
Sif opened her mouth to defend Thor’s decision, but then shut it with a click. That was indeed exactly what happened, even if the result had been… unforeseen. By everyone but Loki, their resident craven. She could just about see Loki’s self-satisfied smirk. He was going to be insufferable with his teasing.
You make it too easy. He would chide.
And he would be right, the bastard.
The doors to the healing halls burst open, but instead of blood and panic flooding through, there was only the pale face of a young page.
“The Prince has been banished!” he cried, blue eyes wild with fright. That should’ve been her first indication that something was wrong.
“Ha! Allfather must have finally tired of Loki’s gilded lies.” Volstagg snorted in amusement. “I wonder what trick did it this time. Do you–”
“Prince Thor was banished!” the page corrected, face crumpling with distress. “To Midgard.”
For a moment, Sif wondered if she might indeed have been wounded. Her entire body prickled. Sound grew distant as her vision momentarily narrowed. Then a hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her out of her shock. It was Hogun, his face grave even as the Healing hall erupted into outrage and shock around them.
She felt shame flush through her as her shieldbrother dragged her to a quiet corner to collect herself.
“I’m fine, Hogun.” she said breathlessly. Quickly directing her gaze out the window overlooking the Healing Hall’s moonlit garden. “Thor will be as well. We simply need to find out exactly why Odin has come to such madness and wait for his ire to cool before…”
“No, I need to speak with you.” Hogun said softly, pulling the drapes around the small examination alcove they found themselves in. The familiar energy of the privacy workings tingling over her awareness like an irksome gnat. But when Hogun turned to face Sif, all other thoughts were burned from her mind by the intensity of his dark gaze.
Dread dripped ice down her spine: “Speak then. You seem as though you’ve seen a draug, and your eyes rarely betray you.”
“I saw something on Jötunnheimr that I could find no explanation for.” Hogun’s voice was hushed. “When I thought Loki was the one banished, it suddenly became clear. But to hear that Thor was the one struck down by what has transpired cast the situation in a much more wicked light.”
Sif tried to stifle her frustration when Hogun suddenly hesitated. His eyes sliding away from her as he frowned to himself uncertainly.
“Speak plainly Hogun, before I mistake you for a raven of Odin.” Sif hissed, grabbing her friend by the shoulder. Fortunately, it seemed to shake the fog from his thoughts. He wrapped his hand around her shoulder in turn, pulling her close enough to taste the fading battle rage wafting from them both.
“If what I suspect is true, it changes everything. We will have to act and it may force us to treason.” Hogun’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, face almost pained. “On Jötunnheimr, I saw Loki be subdued by a Jötunn. It grabbed his arm, just as with Volstagg. His armour fell away under the cold, but his flesh did not blacken and burn with it. Instead, it turned the same hue as the Jotnar’s frigid skin. And when Loki pulled away, he was unscathed.”
Sif felt herself stiffen, everything in her telling her to pull away. To escape this dark corner of secrets and flee into the brighter world outside, where a moment ago the impossible hadn’t been spoken aloud. But yet, she stayed. For it made a sickening kind of sense.
“Loki is a shapeshifter.” she parried, even though her heart wasn’t in it.
“We both know that even Loki cannot shift that quickly. And never partially. He was caught by surprise. Staring at his arm as it changed back despite standing in the middle of battle.” Hogun sounded almost calm now that he’d spoken his theory into being. “It looked more like an enchantment being burned away, like one of Loki’s illusions, to reveal the skin of a Frost Giant underneath.”
Loki had been distracted, as Hogun said. Not even attempting to heal nor stabilise Fandral despite being the one to cut down the attacker. Sif had been annoyed by it at the time, but what if Loki knew his touch would give him away so soon after being exposed? Or worse…
“He is a Prince of Asgard.” Sif whispered furiously. And yet he’d never been like us. “How would that even be possible?”
“Loki was born on the eve of the end of the war.”
Sif closed her eyes, suddenly feeling faint again. Images of political prisoners dancing in front of her eyes. None of them fit the picture of the boy she'd watch grow up a step behind Thor. Nor the sharp witted man scowling at her as he wove her tissues back together after a particularly foolhardy quest.
She tried to imagine those once soft green eyes the colour of blood…
“He's not a giant.” Sif hissed, now just being stubborn.
“He's a shapeshifter.” Hogun threw her own argument back in her face. “Listen, Sif. Jötunns were somehow allowed into the Vaults of Asgard to steal the Casket of Ancient Winters. On the day of Thor's coronation. They failed, but the crown Prince has been banished. And now, I would not be surprised if Asgard is plunged into war against Jötunheimr.”
“But he's…” our friend.
But that wasn't true, was it?
Loki had always been a thorn in Thor's side. Constantly dragging at his coat tails instead of being grateful and simply riding them.
He was the one to mention going to Jötunheimr in the first place.
“To what end?” Sif breathed, looking up at where Hogun was watching her. His eyes burning, not with concern, but with something almost bordering on fear.
“That, I do not know.” Hogun admitted. “But Loki has always been envious of Thor. The sun will rise tomorrow, not with Thor on the throne, but banished. It is quite a way to fall, do you not think?”
The reminder was almost painful. All her carefully guarded thoughts around Thor’s Coronation day – on his new position as King – burning inside her. Until she felt strangely hollow and bereft.
She’d been dreading it, in truth, but this was so much worse.
“I fear you speak the truth, Hogun.” Sif’s voice trembled slightly, although she could not name with what, even as it swelled painfully in her chest. “We will put an end to this. All of it. Then Odin will bring Thor back and everything will be well.”