Unexpected

Chapter 12

            In the forest Sif wandered through the trees, mind blank but feelings of uncertainty welling up in her throat over and again. Walking didn't seem to be helping her mood improve and she eventually resorted to taking rest at a river's edge. She gazed out over the water, examining the pools that formed around the bank and the hurried rush of water that flowed effortlessly around rocks and logs.

When she was much younger and had made her first rank in the royal guard, Sif recalled the mental training sessions every warrior was to go through. It taught basic breath work to be used to calm oneself in the middle of battle as well as coping skills to be used to help deal with the traumas caused by battle and death.

All warriors had to take the basic course but could choose to go further and excel in the material if they wanted. Sif had chosen to go through the length of the program and learned everything she could about maintaining a healthy mental state amongst the chaos of her occupation. She'd become quite good at managing her moods and emotions, knowing now when and how to channel them to her advantage. The losses she'd experienced over the centuries could have crushed her as they had many of her friends, the bloodshed she'd seen and partook in could have driven her mad like many others, but she'd survived and even flourished.

And so, as she sat at the water's edge, watching twigs and leaves float past her, she did what she knew best for herself and released all holds on her mind and observed her thoughts and emotions as they flowed through her.

Sif laid on the bank for nearly an hour, untangling her feelings piece by piece as they washed over her until the sun shone on her face through the trees stirring her from her trance. With a deep breath she sat back up stretching her limbs with a yawn. She'd not slept but felt rested all the same. Her mind was now quiet having said all it needed to say and having been thoroughly heard. A small smile of satisfaction pulled at her mouth at having cleansed her mind and she finally rose to venture back into the palace. It was probably near lunch time, and she found that she was quite hungry.

-

Things with Loki had not gone as smoothly, though he tried best as he could to manage his own jumbled thoughts. He, like Sif, had found that the otherwise calm lake of his mind had turned over in the night, drudging up old memories and feelings that had been long since forgotten, and while Sif had gone through rigorous training to avoid being consumed by such things, Loki never had and was in turn left to trudge through the filth and try to make sense of these things on his own. And like every time before this, it was painful and left him feeling utterly helpless and confused.

The mountaintop that he'd ventured to had not shown him the answers he was looking for. As he looked inward all he kept facing was the crippling fear of following in his brother's footsteps paired with the burning desire for his love to be reciprocated by another. And somewhere in between these feelings he was pinned in place by fear. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear of failure. Fear of loss, of humiliation. Fear of emotional pain. He paced back and forth under the rising sun like a beautiful, caged thing, hands going numb at the prospect of having to come to a decision. His breath began to come out in shaky, uneven gasps and his vision grew black around the edges. His hands turned to claws, contracting without control into tight, gnarled fists. The corners of his eyes and mouth tightened as his breath turned to sharp hyperventilation. Norns, this hasn't happened in decades. Loki stopped pacing and moved from the cliff's edge. He found a spot to fall up against a wall and slank down to his knees in defeat. Mangled hands pressed shakily to his eyes as he fought to control his breathing. He did his best, breathing deeply through his nose time and again until after several minutes he regained control of his hands as the muscles across his body relaxed again. He rubbed his eyes and laid back on against the towering rock behind him. He felt exhausted. There was only a handful of times his body had so viciously revolted against him: once after learning his heritage and another after learning of Frigga's death.