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"We need to stop this," Sif hissed as soon as she and Loki stepped through their chamber doors, not even waiting for the guards to be out of the way.
The doors shut behind them and a shimmer of green magic swept along the cracks, re-affirming the sound-proofing Loki had placed years ago. While it had initially been placed to ensure privacy for their more amorous activities, these days it worked just as well for tactical discussions or unreasonably loud scheming.
They walked through the front hall of their opulent quarters, past the twinkling mage lights, past the paintings of their military successes, past tomes upon tomes of magic spells. The walls were littered with memoranda, ranging from the first flower Loki had given Sif, to the first bow that Ullr had learnt on, to the blade Hela had won from a cocky dwarf on her first quest to Nidvallir...
They pushed past all of their memories, into their bedchamber which had been meticulously prepared by maids, and would undoubtedly fall into severe chaos soon.
"I do not think there is much we can do to sway the Allfather," Loki remarked, glowering at his reflection in his vanity. It was bad enough being the brother of the king, but to be his chief adviser and still be outside the decision-making process was an extra slap. Particularly regarding this topic.
Allfather or not, Thor should not have the right to rule over him and Sif on this particular matter.
"I do not accept that," Sif growled, sharply tugging daggers out of their various holsters, which she had hidden in her maroon ceremonial armour, and slammed them down onto her vanity. "We cannot let them go through with this. We have to intervene. We must, we must, we must!" She struck down a dagger so hard that it wedged vertically into the wood.
Loki raised an eyebrow. He opened his mouth and shut it again, moving instead to set his gleaming golden helmet down. It was a beautiful contraption with very many uses, but even without a crown, on this day he could feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. Why was it that nothing could ever be simple? Everything always had to be complicated for them.
"While I do commend your consistently treasonous spirit," Loki remarked, eyes drawn to the golden flecks reflected onto the wall from his helm, like a precious gem sparkling in sunlight, "entreating Thor is only going to solve part of the problem."
Sif sat down slowly, transfixed by the stuck dagger. It had an onyx blade and a red hilt, which by itself was utterly meaningless, if it had not been a mothering day gift from their children. Her fingers stroked gently over their names, engraved on either side, and carefully pried it out of the wood. She set it down gingerly, the word 'Hela' shimmering under the lights.
"Do you really think this was her idea?" She asked softly, with a modicum of pain seeping into her voice. The roaring dismay from before gave way to flickering doubts. There were countless situations she could fight her way out of, but this? After all these years, diplomacy was still not a battlefield she felt entirely comfortable in.
"She is our daughter," Loki said softly. "Coming up with schemes is in her blood."
"But surely we can convince her to give up this reckless scheme-"
He shook his head.
"I fear any attempts to intervene would be rather fruitless," he said, gently resting his hand on her shoulder. "I'm afraid Hela has the best of our traits but also the very worst. She is sly and cunning, but also fiercely loyal and wilful-"
"I am not wilful" Sif said, turning her head just enough to glare up at him.
He wisely removed his hand as he was rather fond of having ten fingers, and clasped them behind his back.
"As you say, beloved."
Her glare softened into a mildly irritated glower.
"Do not sass me Odinson. I have grown up with you, married you and raised two truly chaotic children with you. I know better than any how stubborn you can be in the face of things you do not care for."
"That is true," he acknowledged, allowing a small smile to shine through. "We are both stubborn old bilgesnipes."
She ignored the tiniest twinge of satisfaction from that minor victory though there were seemingly insurmountable other battles awaiting.
"Whatever may be, now is not the time to tear into each other. We need to find a solution," she said, eyes hard as flint.
"I know, " he murmured as he took a step back and sat at the edge of their bed. Deep creases formed around his lips as he picked absentmindedly at the inside of his palm, tracing the edges of slabs of marble with his eyes. "Believe me, I want all of this to happen just about as much as you do..."
"There must be something we can say to convince her," she exhaled. Deep lines formed between her brows as her eyes unfocused.
"Have you met our daughter?" He asked, his lips quirking up infinitesimally into a sardonic smile. "The last time we convinced her to not do something she was yet a child..."
"She is still a child," Sif said.
Loki glanced up at Sif, a raw hollowness carving his gut at the sound of her voice thick with an emotion she rarely allowed to rear its head: fear. The dangers of a battlefield were nothing compared to a parent's worry over their children.
"She is our child," Sif said, hands clawing uselessly at her vambraces. "Even when she is a millennium of age, she will always be our second born."
"I know," Loki whispered. He held out a hand to her, palm open, an invitation to share the confusion and the burden. But Sif barely registered the gesture, mere taking his hand with the habit of millennia. Only when he squeezed it, did she feel the knot in her stomach ease a little.
"She is still our little chaos dancer," Loki said, gently coaxing Sif to sit beside him. He wrapped his arm about her shoulders, and she moulded herself against him.
He gently kissed the edge of her forehead, careful to avoid smacking his nose against her ceremonial diadem.
"I just don't understand," Sif exhaled raggedly. "There are so many ways that we can forge alliances with the Alfar. We could send provisions and aid. Our weapons, or even station Einherjar on their lands for additional protection!"
"We could," Loki agreed.
"But a political marriage? Of all things, that was the one thing I did not want for her."
Loki sighed, a weariness settling deep into his bones. He had been here before, many years ago, fearing that he was to be bound to the altar of political sacrifice. As a prince of the realm eternal, everything he did was always supposed to consolidate or aid the realm. He had known that ever since his earliest days even if the words had been unspoken. Odin's marriage to Frigga, though loving, had initially been to consolidate alliances with Vanaheim during a time of great turbulence, and even Bor had married a Niflheimr noblewoman for the sake of peace and stability. Being a Jotnar prince of Asgard, any marriage with a third realm would have been an enormous political boon, and Loki had been exceptionally aware of this, especially once Thor had thrown all protocol out of the window to marry Jane. Brilliant though she may be, a marriage to Jane did not ensure the political allegiance of Midgard.
Ever since Loki verged on manhood, every visiting delegation came with some halfwit nobleman trying to foist some frankly insipid daughters at him. It had been a matter both exhausting and infuriating, especially as his heart had been set on another.
Sif turned to him then, and the golden flecks drew him in once more, as they had done since the moment he met her. Beguiling, beautiful and beloved.
"I must do something," she insisted.
"We must," he corrected, earning him a glimmer of adoration as the corners of her eyes creased with love lines.
"We must find out her motives," Sif said, determination hardening her anew. She extricated herself from Loki and squared her shoulders, the mantel of a warrior on her shoulders once more.
"Hela must most certainly have a reason," Loki agreed. "Of this I am sure."
"Me too," Sif said firmly. "But I fear I do not know what it is." Sif paused and looked over Loki briefly, with the smallest smile. "All I know is that she is too much like you to just be doing this just out of loyalty to Asgard."
"You are not wrong," Loki chuckled. "She has always been a smart one. She must have an ulterior motive."
"Maybe Ullr knows," Sif said, rising to her feet. "If Heimdall can contact him in Niflheim, maybe he can divulge what Hela is up to..."
Loki nodded.
"Perhaps we can just-"
A loud knock resounded through their chambers, causing their heads to snap towards the sound.
"Are we expecting anyone?" Loki asked, shifting to get a better view out of their bedchambers.
"Not that I know of," Sif said slowly, glancing towards the hallway warily. She walked towards the hall while picking up a pair of daggers from her vanity along the way. Loki followed suit.
Another persistent knock reverberated through the hall.
Loki dispersed the silencing seal with a flick of his hand and eyed the chamber door. A touch of green seidr began to swirl around his fingertips.
"Who disturbs us?"
There was no response from the Einheljar. A flicker of dread thickened the air. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
The doorknob turned slowly, and both shifted into a battle-ready stance, taut as bowstrings about to launch. The door creaked open and dark haired figured popped her head through the door.
"Mama? Papa? Are you decent? Can I talk to you-"
Hela's hazel eyes went wide as she took in the scene before her.
The seidr around Loki collapsed with a pop and Sif's daggers lowered as their tension dissipated into thin air.
Hela stepped into the room and glanced behind her, eyes lingering on something concealed by the door. She paused for a moment, gave a minute nod, and left it ajar.
"Is everything alright-?"
Sif's eyes never left Hela's frame, her limbs growing heavier with the second, as if they were no longer of flesh-and-blood, but lead-and-stone. Her silent breaths deepened at the sight of her grown little one as a sea of emotion thrashed within her, whipping at her vessel, trying to submerge it in turmoil.
Of course everything was not alright. This was her child. Their fierce, independent, brilliant daughter. The child that by the time she was Sif's waist-height, knew how to replicate weapons and skewer teddy-bears and sparring dummies alike. She was the girl who had insisted that with the art of war she would learn the gifts of healing to an ability beyond even Eir's by scouring endless libraries whenever her father took her places on state visits. She was the young woman who had, without even a drop of blood being spilled, convinced a group of mercenary dwarves to hand over old treasures stolen from Asgard with merely a handful of mercurial promises. She was her father's daughter, she was her mother's daughter, she was truly their child. And yet, despite all of these gifts and talents and skills, she decided she should be sold off as a prize. A pawn to be possessed by some political match.
This was not the life Sif had envisioned for her daughter.
"Mama, it's not what you think-" Hela started, reading her mother’s expression. She began to move towards her parents, but quickly stopped herself. She took a steadying breath like she might before an exceedingly complicated spell.
"How did all of this come to transpire?" Loki asked calmly, every movement carefully controlled as if afraid of spooking her like a scared little kitten.
Hela picked away at the inside of her palm. Convincing strangers was one thing, but her own parents was in a different realm of difficulty entirely.
"The truth is, I-"
"Whose idea was it?" Sif asked. She had to know. She needed to know. "Was it Thor's?" If it was, Sif didn’t care that she was sworn to protect the Allfather, she would lift Mjolnir with righteous anger and shoot him across the cosmos. She would apologise to Jane for the loss of her husband, of course. Jane was a woman of many virtues. Sif was certain she would understand.
Hela swallowed, eyes flitting back and forth between her parents, before looking at the space between them as she held her head up high.
"It was not."
Loki flinched. Sometimes (and this was truly rare) he hated being right. Blaming Thor would have been so easy. So comfortable even. There were ways around monarchs. But children were harder.
"-But it is also my duty to do right by the realm eternal," Hela said in an excellent impression of her mother.
Loki raised an eyebrow at that. So that's the official story, is it? He rested a hand on Sif's shoulder and squeezed.
It was his turn now.
"You do know all of this is wholly unnecessary," Loki remarked with the smoothness of a seasoned diplomat. "We have already established an alternate prospective bride to ensure a peace treaty-"
Her eyes flared in panic.
"No! Don't-"
Interesting.
"Why not?" Loki asked nonchalantly. "There is no reason for this Lord Taliesin of the Alfar to marry a princess of Asgard," Loki pointed out, giving Sif a meaningful look. One she was intimately familiar with.
"That is true," Sif added. "Any lady of noble birth would do."
"Exactly." Loki nodded. "He is not even of Queen Aelsa's kin-"
"But, Papa-"
"Not worthy of a princess," Sif interjected, "In fact, we were just discussing that your old friend Freya would probably make for a more suitable wife for one of that class-"
“Freya?” Hela gaped, her mouth going dry as she looked back and forth between her parents.
“She is considered quite a beauty, according to the new generation of warriors-in-training,” Sif remarked.
“And mages too,” Loki added, a glimmer of mischief dancing in his eyes, as he and Sif looped arms.
“Oh yes, of course,” Sif agreed, quite equanimous.
“I’m sure they will be exceedingly productive,” Loki said, pursing his lips in though. “I have no doubt that they will bear plenty of children-“
"Over my dead body they will!" Hela yelled, seidr wafting off of her in waves like heat off a roaring flame.
Loki smirked, exchanging a knowing look with Sif, just as a youthful elf burst through the doors. He rushed to Hela and caught her in a tight embrace.
“I would never do that,” said the tall, ice-blond elf, with steely grey eyes, and the tell-tale ears of the Alfar.
There he was. The source of all this trouble. On the grand-scale of Alfar and even Aesir beauty, he was nothing special. And yet the protective embrace and adoring gaze that he placed solely upon Hela rendered him beautiful in a way that conventional standards could not achieve.
"So then, Lord Taliesin,” Sif asked, eyeing them both with barely concealed amusement, “how long have you been sneaking around with our daughter?"
A bright burst of red coloured his high cheekbones, as he extricated himself from Hela, the impropriety of the situation dawning on him for the first time.
“We haven’t been- We- Well…” he stammered, trying hard not to make eye contact with either parent. Both were terrifying in their own right.
“You cannot fool us, children,” Loki remarked. “Anything you have done, we have probably done first.”
“Papa!” Hela gasped, utterly mortified, earning a laugh from Sif.
“Whatever may be,” Sif said, walking up to the young couple, “I take it that you two concocted this scheme with your Uncle to prevent the courts from trying to bind you to enterprising families?”
“Well…” Hela began, looking to Taliesin. As she looked up, he reached across and cupped her face gently, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Amongst other reasons,” she whispered with a gentle smile.
“And has our daughter captured your heart?” Loki asked the young elf.
He nodded, loathing to tear his gaze from her. He pressed his free fist over his heart and bowed to them.
“She has my heart, my mind, my soul, my body-“
“I think they understand your meaning!” Hela said, pressing a hand over his mouth, as her ears burned bright red. “Please Mama, Papa…don’t make another match. I don’t want another,” she pleaded. “Not since the day we met in the libraries of Nidvallir for the first time.”
“And you feel the same way?” Sif asked Taliesin, who nodded fervently, though his mouth was still covered by Hela’s hand.
“Well then…” Loki chuckled, gesturing towards the drawing room. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”
“An excellent idea,” Sif agreed, intertwining her fingers with Loki’s. “And maybe you’ll find that love grows even better in the sun than in the shadows.”
Loki smiled, tenderly gazing upon Sif like on the first day he had met her.
“We certainly did.”