When Fate Allows - A Sifki Oneshot

"When Fate Allows" by armyofasgard

He's not the boy you grew to love as a child. He isn't mischief, he's chaos. He's destruction. He is death.

It's these thoughts that Sif forces to tell her mind again and again as she leads him to the dungeons. A wicked grin lays on his thin lips, his hair wildly unruly and a feral glint in his eyes, this is not the man she loved.

The fallen prince walks in chains, bound by the ankles, wrists and neck like a rabid animal. He's lead down the winding halls, past hundreds of inmates as they pace back and forth in their cells, snarling nonsense and practically foaming at the mouth. This is what prison has done to them, this is what a life sentence to confinement does to people. They slowly lose their grip on sanity. This is what the man you loved is to become; she tells herself again.

After what seems like an eternity, they reach his cell. The cell that he will spend wasting away time in until the last beat of his heart.

One of the guards to Sif's right deactivates the energy surge that acts as a perimeter; the golden, almost transparent wall that keeps inmates in, and humanity out. One touch to it's tempting surface will leave one with permanent scars and a lot of discouragement.

Roughly, they shove him- the war criminal- inside and just as quick, they rush out and activate the walls. It's over for him.

As they begin to march back down the path and towards the prison's exit, Sif hesitates. Loki stands behind the golden wall, yet his emerald gaze seems to leave her as the captive one. Thousands of memories rush by in a blur, and they almost leave the warrioress out of breath.

As a boy, Loki had been mischievous. He had a love for pranks and a habit for getting into trouble, all of which had caught Sif's attention. Of course, she was always busy planning for her future- a bright one. She was to be the greatest warrior in Asgard, and not even the war god himself could have discouraged her.

There had been, however, one day when the young prince really caught her attention.

Sif seemed not to be standing in front of the war criminal, but the playful young boy in the courtyard. She quickly lost herself in the vivid memory as she stared into his alluring eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

There she was, young Sif, practicing her swordsmanship skills with a sharpened stick and a bale of hay she had managed to sneak away with from the stables. The hay was propped upright, and looking utterly defeated. The young girl had been at it for hours, slashing the stick into the hay with impressive flicks of her wrist. Even for her age, she showed great potential.

Loki sat propped up against a tree, cutting bits from an apple with a knife he had stolen from the kitchens and popping them into his mouth; throwing the slices into the air and catching them with ease. Out of the corner of his eye, he found entertainment in watching the young maiden feistily attack a harmless bale of golden hay. After finishing his apple and hurling the core into a nearby stream, he stood and wiped the knife off on his pants, sticking it firmly in one of his pant loops.

In Loki's eyes, the young woman seemed quite intriguing. Most of the girls sat around, chatting, and over all being boring. The prince found no interest in them whatsoever. However, this one. This one /really/ caught his eye!

She had dark waves of hair that were pulled back in a ponytail- not the traditional Asgardian braid that girls so often wore. Her body was petite, even shorter than many of the maidens her age, yet she shone with clear strength. She glistened with a light sweat from her many hours of practice, and from the looks of the stick, this was a regular occurrence. All Loki knew was that he wanted to speak with her.