HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH BIRTHDAY!!! <333
The queen shooed away her favorite cat, a sleek silvery-grey sylph of a thing and with a gesture, cleared the plush upholstery of any fluff. The seat was a twin to her own, on a balcony overlooking her private garden. From here, the acoustics and the view gave a perfect sense of quiet and seclusion.
She sipped her tea and waited for her guest as the little cat wound its way between her legs, looking ironically like a swimming fish.
Shortly, her attendant Fulla announced the arrival of the Lady Sif.
Frigga smiled and waited, counting in her mind.
One, two, three, and:
Clatter of armor tossed onto a bench in the foyer.
Curses. A mocking, “The Lady Sif, Your Majesty.”A lot of huffing breaths.
And at last, a little sigh of air from the cushioned chair as Sif plopped down gracelessly and swept her hair up off her neck.
Frigga smiled with great affection. She had two regular visitors, and each of them came in and tied up black hair into messy knots. One removed her battle armor and one dropped most if not all of his mental armor.
Often they came to complain colorfully and at length about one another.
(The Queen of Asgard was well-versed in the holding of secrets.)
She poured Sif a cup of soothing tea made from herbs grown in the garden below. Their meetings were informal by design, perhaps radically so, and this suited them both well.
“How was training?” Frigga asked with a lopsided smile and shining eyes.
Sif made a noise that was half grunt and half exasperated sigh.
Frigga snorted. “Oh, yes. I remember.”
“Were you the only shieldmaiden training before you married Odin?”
“There was one other, who came with Fulla and me from Vanaheim. Gullveig. She was most skilled in runes but quite fierce on the battlefield. We spilled blood together in the earliest skirmishes against the Jotnar, after the Vanir and Aesir united.”
She gave a sly smile at the word “united,” and Sif replied with a sharp smirk of her own. She loved the queen—Frigga—like this. These visits couldn’t be arranged often but they were a balm for both of them. Frigga understood like no one else in the city could the subtle trials Sif endured training only with men.
The only other odd one out was Loki, and he was the worst one of all to Sif’s unending consternation. When their little group had finally been old enough to join Volstagg and train in the barracks, Sif had been bubbling over with excitement alongside Thor, Fandral, and Hogun. But she’d had to fight, argue, and beg her way into the troops.
Meanwhile Loki, a naturally skilled fighter, had balked at every lesson despite it being his assumed position as a prince. Because of his attitude he’d been insulted several times until the boys responsible were were punished—and too viciously even for Sif’s liking.
After that, Loki hurled the words ergi and argr about louder than the others. Sif had gritted her teeth and borne in silence the indignation about the implication that womanliness was the worst insult these stupid young men could invoke.
And then the invitation from the queen arrived and (after several tense and disbelieving visits sipping teas on Frigga’s balcony) Sif found a place where she could speak freely.
And so there they were, the queen of the Realm Eternal nibbling lemoncakes and tiny pastries filled with elderberries that melted in one’s mouth while a young warrior with a smudge of dirt across a cheekbone and a fine spray of dried blood (not her own) flecked her arm ate small cucumber and goat cheese sandwiches by the handful.
“Thor tries,” Sif was saying around a mouthful of food, maneuvering a pile of figs onto a plate. “He does. But it’s as if he tries too much. He barrels into situations when I’m more than capable of handling them myself!”
“Even today, I had bested Enar and he’d risen up—you should have seen how red his face was! It rivaled his hair! But he’d got up, and was explaining to me that how the moves I’d made were actually incorrect and he would have won had a cloud not moved and the sun not blinded him!”
Frigga was giggling uncontrollably. She could picture Enar, red to the roots of his hair and lecturing the warrior who’d beaten him.
“Honestly, Your Majesty! It was quite the laugh! But then Thor came swooping in to ‘rescue me,’ as always. I glared daggers through him but that damned fool was oblivious. I know he means well, so it is a difficult…”
“It is not!” Frigga sobered quickly. “You tell that young man he’s to allow you to wage your own wars as he would any other comrade-in-arms or he shall have his dread mother to answer to!”
They laughed together, and when the mood settled, the queen lifted Sif from her worries with tales of her own days as a sheildmaiden of Asgard. She began this time with the occasion upon which she and Fulla had donned men’s armor and snuck into the tavern on the outskirts of the West Town…
Um. Someone got tipsy on $5 wine & plum forgot to tag anyone. SO:
@angrymadsygin @philosopherking1887 @pinknoonicorn @ikoliholic @writernotwaiting @raven-brings-light @fourletterwordsstartingwithl @incredifishface @rynfinity @illwynd @ghostxforest @lunariagold @inkededucatednnerdy @sparklepoops @stmonkeys @msmynx @gutterfortunecookie @yazileona @taste-of-rain @wolfsmom1 @bubblebubble03 @viestadisaster @satanssyn-n-things @neveserene @angelsseb @sexualthorientation @lokidreamsinbw @adaringdrinkerofdreams @amandahuffleduck @oldmanjameson @vika-avey @foundlingmother @dwell-ondreams @fictions-stranger
I love the parallels between Sif and Loki – and the suggestion that Loki defensively uses the same insults that are thrown at him. And Asgardian manplaining.
Loki is the Philosopher King 