of shadows in darkness that i used to own

vii. wash the echoes

Loki watched one blustery morning as Sif traded blows with his brother. Like a viper he lay, coiled under cover of an ancient cypress, dissolved by its great shadow. The sun looked on without prejudice at each of its children.

Sif transformed in Thor's presence, all her haught discarded to reveal that same boisterous, heedless girl-child who had once descended upon soldiers with sticks. Loki thought then that the girl's determination had been leagues more foolish than fierce; yet even as he doubted and mocked and smothered down faith that rose like bile in his throat, ferocity had emerged the victor.

Loki looked on as swords struck in furious time, as hard-soled feet laid an assault upon the earth: a war-dance cast in incandescent light. Whether armed by the sun's splendor, or cloaked in its shadows, they wielded that power strong; and if either of the two would only put aside their childish whims for a moment, they would realize what Loki already knew for true.

(They had each of them become divine.)

Thor and Sif clashed like a candescent storm, blade and boot and clamorous cry, enough to make all of Asgard quake. No warrior dared disrupt their skirmishes, and this day was no different. At one moment an animal happened by: small, verminlike, with course thatches of agouti fur; frozen, it twitched its tiny nose in fear, finally jumping a good distance and scurrying away no sooner than Thor had swung his blade with a thunderous bellow. An omen, cracked down from the sky.

When they finally tired, Thor shot his arms-partner a toothy smile. "Your might continues to impress, Sif," he chuckled approvingly (having abandoned the 'Lady' long ago at her behest). "Have you devised some special strategy to anticipate my every movement?"

She grinned, a cunning, slivered thing, but only shook her head. "I've, ah, become the beneficiary of a wise teacher."

"A most worthy charge this tutor must be!" Thor clapped her back. Storm clouds—his?—began to form overhead. "Shall we make our way? I've heard whispers from Fandral of a fine new brewed ale to be served later this evening..."

In the lightswept wind, dark-gold and fulgent, she might have been worshipped a deity in earnest.

As Sif returned with Thor to the palace, that whipping wind struck Loki's cheeks in the shape of their laughter. Thor's hand held steadfast to her shoulder all the while.

- x -

Sif's tunic lies crumpled somewhere beneath them; a battle-flag, colored white.

As she's stripped bare before him, empyrean in the lowlight, Loki can hardly discern her fingers at his wrists, or listen for the click of the unbolted bracers. With no finesse she discards them, then moves impishly for his fettered mouth; as though by decree of his darkest impulse, the torches bewitch her form alight. Her hair, released from its tie, becomes the spirit of flame; her black eyes grant him the pleasure they would suck up inside. Even as he is freed, her symmetry lays him to waste.

She descends upon him a she-beast in heat, and he in kind upon those still-flowing locks—uprooting as his fingers plead, yanking hard enough to maim her, though Sif only purls.

She subdues and mounts him with a finger to his mouth, shredding open his trousers as if they are made of sand. Loki's shadows storm her, brewing; her breath chasing his scent, his hands chasing her sighs. Like a wanting wind those hands ravage her body, ruin the hips that would pin him with force. The dark hair he so covets wreaths her with wings, shakes with the discordant drum-beat of hearts. He aches to steal hers from her mouth.

His cock in her hand points a warpath to Valhalla. As the battle-drums pound, Sif impales herself onto it like a sacrifice. Loki dispenses the pain she craves, bearing up and again, knife-hands to cold flesh; and Sif gives back, tearing filament from fiber, sunken ship to hurling tide. In their lust, they make war. They steal ground indiscernibly.

She billows and bends, curse to naked thigh. The beat, the pain is not enough. She fucks him sacrilegiously, her salt and wetness a roiling sea. These waves so exquisitely give her away that Loki is flooded with noxious adoration. Sif drives him in deeper; he corrodes her inside. The hammer of her heart is an animal call. Loki's magic drowns the sound.

Shadows wink; metal gleams. The crystal wall projects their faces. Sif's reflection on his is Loki's most sacred deception. It makes him yearn to rend her body; it makes him yearn for her embrace.

She is poison.

He kisses her, cold blood to cracked jaw; slothful and dripping, drinking from her open mouth. He kisses because he cannot claim her, cannot charm her, cannot cast her from his thoughts—fire ignited and fire snuffed, suffocating with the smoke. The rush. The drums. The flood. Sif is a high and churning river, washing the words from his wicked mouth. Sif is filling Loki now.

(She cannot resist his violence; he cannot refuse her tide.)

Before his broken sloven mind can fathom, she is fucking that mouth with fingers. Languid; languorous. So displaced, he lets her water take him: detritus to sacred shore.

"Sif," he keens. Muffled, just before she seals his throat.

She allows him to come, this time and this night. Through her, for her, he sends a deluge. Thick in the undertow of his own elation, Loki yearns for Sif's release. She gives him nothing, save the drums.

(He ascends, higher and higher, each time they do battle. The ocean and the fury carry him home.)