Chapter 28

Darkness had fallen in Asgard outside the tavern. Sif, stifling a yawn, nursed her ale, taking far longer to finish than usual after an exhausting day of drill and instructing the youngest of those choosing the path of a warrior who had recently reached the age of advancement beyond what was in Asgard considered rudimentary skills. Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral had initially joined her, the four arriving together, but they had all since taken their leave, Sif the last of the group remaining, as she had intended.

Glancing over to the far corner of the room, Sif viewed Loki as he sat alone, having extinguished all but one of the candles in the middle of the table, his head bowed, a drink in front of him that he appeared to be imbibing as slowly as she did her own. It was the same scene she had witnessed each night for the last week. He had made only a brief appearance at the Yule festivities in the palace recently before excusing himself, failing to return. Though in the past he had personally delivered gifts to their recipients, this year he had sent them via messengers. When she had delivered his to his chambers, an einherjar stationed outside the doors had taken possession of it in his stead, informing her that the prince had requested that he remain undisturbed.

Loki had seemed to recover fairly quickly from Arvid, Boda, and Vanar's loss nine months earlier after his period of mourning in solitude at the cottage, though upon his return he looked as if he had lost a bit of weight and was paler than usual for a time. Though Sif would never wish such grief on anyone, she had found herself enjoying the break from his antics which had elicited a pang of guilt. It came as no surprise to Sif that he was soon back to his old mischievous self, though somewhat subdued…until recently. Sif was well aware from personal experience how the pain of a loss, even those years in the past, which in the case of Asgardians may have occurred centuries or millennia ago, could flood back during special occasions, especially Yuletide.

Finishing her drink, she left the table she had recently shared with the Warriors Three, walking to the bar with her empty tankard. Refilling it and procuring another, she carried one in each hand as she passed between tables to seat herself across from Loki, wordlessly sliding the second tankard towards him.

Finishing what remained of the drink in front of him, Loki put it aside, taking the one Sif had delivered and drinking from it before setting it down in the previous tankard's place.

"Thank you," Loki said in an uncharacteristically quiet, flat voice, "Is there something I can do for you, Lady Sif?"

"I thought you might like some company."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Loki said, taking another long drink.

"I haven't had the opportunity to thank you for your gift. It's lovely."

"I'm pleased that you liked it. I thought you could use something other than additional armor or yet another weapon," Loki said, still failing to look up from his drink at Sif.

"I wore it to the feast. I don't know if you noticed."

"I failed to take note of how those present had adorned themselves," Loki said, pausing for another drink, "You claim no prior opportunity to express your appreciation, yet I've occupied this table as you've been seated at that one for the last week," Loki finished, pointing across the room.

"I…I was waiting for the right time," Sif replied.

"I wasn't aware expressing gratitude necessitated such careful scheduling," Loki replied, "I believe it would be more truthful to say that you didn't wish your compatriots to witness you exhibiting any sort of behavior toward me that differs from your usual disdain."

"I'm sorry," Sif replied to Loki's accusation after an uncomfortable silence as she couldn't think of more to say knowing that, as occurred quite often, he was right on the money.

"I received yours. I have yet to open it…or any others, but thank you."

"There's something I've wanted to tell you. I should have long before now. When Boda and Van–" Sif began before Loki interrupted.

"I would appreciate their names remaining unspoken in my presence," Loki said, Sif looking across the table at him with sympathy and concern.

"Their place in Valhalla was well earned. My behavior during their time here was shameful. I made disparaging remarks that I regret. I apologize."

"I'm afraid I can't accept your apology on their behalf, only on my own," Loki responded.

After a few seconds of silence, Sif reached out, placing her hand atop Loki's that rested on the table beside his tankard.

"How are you?" Sif asked.

"Rarely am I asked that question," Loki replied.

"I refused to celebrate the first Yuletide after Haldor's death…I know it's difficult, it feels…safer not to do so, but had I spoken with another during that time–"

"She believed in such bunkum as well. What is there to say? It would change nothing," Loki interrupted cantankerously.

"I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry to have disturbed you," Sif said, beginning to stand.

"You wish to know how I am…" Loki spoke, Sif returning to her seat, "I am...alone."

"You are not alone," Sif insisted.

"My brother is off who knows where, doing who knows what with who knows who, perhaps another chambermaid. Others, including yourself until this evening, enter and leave without so much as acknowledging my presence....If I did wish to speak of it, I would be loath to do so in a public place," Loki replied, Sif taking his last words as a hint.

"Hogun gifted me a cask of wine from Vanaheim. I suppose he believed I had no need of more weapons as well…I thought I might enjoy some before retiring for the night. Would you care to join me?" Sif asked.

"That depends," said Loki after a moment of silence as he pondered her invitation.

"Depends on what?" Sif questioned, Loki closing his eyes before raising his head.

"What color are my eyes?" Loki asked, Sif caught off guard by the question.

"They're blue."

"Is that only a guess or are you certain?"

"I'm certain," Sif answered.

"They're green," Loki said, opening his eyes to reveal emerald irises.

"But…I was…" Sif stammered.

"I'm joking," Loki replied with a slight grin, a green flash of magical light converting his eyes to their natural color before standing from the table and stepping around it, offering Sif his hand, "Shall we go?"

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Mired in the muck on the floor of one of Earth's oceans so far below the surface no light could penetrate, the creatures capable of surviving in such a hostile environment all blind as that sense would be of no use to them, lay two stones roughly the size of shoe boxes meters from each other where they had come to rest. Encased within one, the true Goblet of the Gods, the other the cursed replica.

The darkness in which Erebus now existed was more than darkness, an inky sea of nothingness, devoid of light, color or shape, empty of anything tangible, stretching without end in all directions and dimensions. Erebus was unsure where he himself ended and it began. He knew there would be no freeing himself even partially this time. He wondered if it had cost Asgard's aging king, who he was certain had cast the spell, his life as Erebus had not sensed another in Asgard who possessed the power necessary to entrap him, as he had also sensed Odin's weariness, especially after removing the curse Erebus had placed upon Vanar. Both acts could easily have drained him of his life force to the point that the Odinsleep would not be enough to restore him. There was no way for him to know, Erebus dismayed he was denied even that small measure of satisfaction.

"You have failed me for the final time," a deep voice echoed in the darkness seemingly from all directions.

"Father!" Erebus called out, "Free me...or be merciful and end me!" Erebus cried.

"If mercy were a trait I possessed, I could not do so. I have no power in this dimension. It must be granted to me," Dormammu replied.

"How then will you obtain that which you sssseek?" asked Erebus.

"There are others whose hearts are or will be darkened by the pain of loss. Eventually, one will hear my summons within that darkness and seek me."

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Loki stood before the mirror in his bath, a glass of wine in his hand, the open bottle on a stand beside the stone tub that also held the box of cassettes and portable stereo, now playing one of Boda's tapes, a catchy tune he vaguely recalled her mentioning in the past.

"Seems it never rains in southern California. Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before. It never rains in California, but girl, don't they warn ya? It pours, man it pours…"

Examining the left side of his face where the swift and powerful palm of Lady Sif's hand had landed, he noticed no bruising and only a lingering hint of red. She could have done worse. She had in the past. As angry as she had been, she had chosen to wound him far more with her words.

"I hope you know you deserve to be alone and you always will be," she had said with particular vehemence.

Loki stared into his own eyes, recalling how he had felt as if he was doing the same nine months previously while conversing with his doppelganger.

Why had he done it? Of course the simplest answer, which happened to be true, was that he thought it would be funny. It had been, for a few moments anyway as he'd looked down at his handiwork with the scissors he had conjured, Sif's hair lying in a neat lock over the arm of the chaise beside where she had laid her head after yielding to exhaustion and inebriation after he had left her to refill their goblets. It would be the first thing she would see upon opening them after she awakened. Yet it had failed to instill in him quite the level of hilarity and glee he had expected when the idea had first sprouted in his mind.

"Out of work, I'm out of my head, out of self respect, I'm out of bread, I'm underloved, I'm underfed, I wanna go home…" Albert Hammond continued singing.

He hadn't been sure what he intended to do when he had accepted Sif's invitation, he only knew it was an opportunity for mischief. He had skillfully maneuvered Sif into speaking at length about her own losses, especially that of Haldor six centuries earlier, the only man that had ever equaled Thor in her affections. Her own past emotional wounds leading her to drink more of the wine than she had intended and her sympathy for him causing her to let her guard down had played right into his hands. Though his melancholic state was legitimate and what he had told her in Asgard's tavern was true, describing his honest thoughts and feelings, he never had any intention of unloading the full measure of his angst regarding Boda and Vanar or even Arvid, who was truly dead, or about anything else for that matter to her or anyone.

At times he was unsure whether it may have been easier if Boda and Vanar had in fact been killed. Though Boda and Vanar were alive and well, as well as one could be as a mortal far more vulnerable than Asgardians to injury and illness and subject to such a limited lifespan, they were as lost to him now as if they were in Valhalla.

He thought perhaps he now understood to some degree how Boda had felt during the time her mother had been kept locked away from her following her mother's crazed attempt on Boda's life that had very nearly succeeded. He recalled the first time his eyes had viewed her nude body, noticing the faint but still perceptible scar on her abdomen. Uncustomary for him, he had never cracked a joke or uttered an unkind word regarding it.

The visions, particularly of his own mother which Boda had enchanted him to experience with his father's assistance, as her own knowledge of enchantments was as limited if not more so than his own, his mind too strong to fall victim to most, had given him a fuller understanding of the trauma she had endured as a child and carried with her ever after…not only the physical agony but the emotional and mental pain as well, the confusion and fear.

Loki surmised that his actions that evening were also rooted in the fact that Sif had allowed herself to be so easily duped by Dario, Loki quite certain he would never have fallen for such an amateurish scheme. Also a factor was the contempt Sif often exhibited towards him that he had called her out on in the tavern. Though she had apologized for her more recent behavior during Boda and Vanar's brief stay, it was far from the only example…though he'd probably repaid her for the majority of those instances already. It wasn't as if he kept a ledger.

Of course Loki was aware others would see it as even more of a betrayal considering her expression of empathy and invitation earlier that evening, but as Loki had pointed out, she had not only waited an entire week but until the others had gone. Even so, perhaps it could have proven to have been a fresh start in their relations, she eventually becoming comfortable expressing more positive vibes towards him in the presence of others, but in Loki's mind, though he hadn't doubted her sincerity, her olive branch had felt diseased, tainted.

The overarching explanation, however, was that when the opportunity presented itself, he simply could not help himself. He was the God of Mischief after all, what did she, or anyone, expect? He had done her no real harm. He could have done worse. It would grow back and as an Asgardian, far faster than a mortal's hair. It did cross his mind that though he had played many a prank on Boda, he had never done anything of that nature to her, though he now acknowledged to himself that he was guilty of causing her a great deal of pain through other actions. Cutting her hair would have been far less hurtful.

As Loki walked away from the mirror to the tub he pushed Sif's words to the very back of his brain, covering them with whatever detritus he found floating around his mind, much like a child who has broken something tossing a blanket over the remains, hoping somehow it wouldn't be noticed instead of confessing and clearing up the mess.

After setting his goblet on the stand beside the tub and refilling it from the bottle, Loki entered the steaming bath, reaching over and retrieving it, sliding himself down the smooth stone further into the soothing, relaxing warmth of the water as the song that had been playing ended, the second or two of familiar blank tape hiss that followed it now replaced with the intro of the next, Loki taking a drink from his goblet, sensing this piece was far different than that which had preceded it.

"Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night and wouldn't you love to love her? Takes to the sky like a bird in flight and who will be her lover? All your life you've never seen a woman taken by the wind. Would you stay if she promised you heaven? Will you ever win?..." Stevie Nicks sang in her husky voice, asking the same question Loki had frequently asked himself over the course of his life, now finding it even more poignant.

Loki slowly lowered the goblet from his lips as he processed what he was hearing, an expression of grief and dismay painting his features.

"She is like a cat in the dark and then she is the darkness. She rules her life like a fine skylark and when the sky is starless…"

Loki raised himself in the tub, setting his goblet on the stand once again before standing from the water, stepping out.

"All your life you've never seen a woman taken by the wind. Would you stay if she promised you heaven? Will you ever win? Will you ever win? Rhiannon….Rhiannon…" the words flowed through the attached speakers as Loki stood in front of it, reaching out and pushing the 'stop' button, silencing the music.

Opening the tape deck, Loki removed the cassette, looking down at it before crushing it in his palm, stepping over to the cauldron along the far wall and discarding its remains to be consumed by the flames.

Returning to the portable stereo, Loki searched through the box of tapes beside it, removing the one that Nathan had left in Boda's tavern and setting it aside, carrying the box containing the rest of the cassettes to the cauldron, placing it into the fire. Putting Nathan's tape into the machine he pressed play, a moment later the hard rock rhythm of AC/DC blared as Loki turned the volume up, returning to the tub and his goblet of wine.

"Back in black, I hit the sack, I've been too long, I'm glad to be back. Let loose from the noose that's kept me hanging about. I'm just looking at the sky 'cause it's getting me high. Forget the hearse 'cause I'll never die. I got nine lives, cat's eyes, abusing every one of them and running wild 'cause I'm back. Yes, I'm back…"

Loki closed his eyes, his body relaxing, a grin spreading over his face as he listened, imbibing more wine before lowering his goblet, speaking aloud amid the music amplified by the stone walls of the bath.

"No regrets…"