For Asgard!

"I am no shrinking violet, Loki, we have both lived long enough not to let serious matters upset us. Or not to let it get in the way." This was not about her. Not entirely. Sif shook her head, looking down at their hands. It was difficult, it was all a mess. Sif did not know whether to fully disclose Loki's future as she had lived it, or leave it off entirely. She did not know whether to simply cherish him while she could, or try to make it not such a finite amount of time. And when she heard him plead after a fashion that she try to understand, that she was hurting him, Sif felt ashamed. Her voice was faint, throatier than usual. "I do not wish to pour salt on your wounds, that is not what this is about."

She finally looked up at him, a pleading look on her face. "I understand, and I am sorry for making it more difficult. But I can't...I don't know what I should and should not say, I only know I cannot pretend nothing happened, Loki. I cannot pretend three years did not go by and that in those three years a decade's worth of events did not take place. Life-changing events. So I tried to give you my view of things, as you said perhaps your past weaves into your future." She loosened the grip around his hand, not removing her hand completely from his. "I apologize. I am sorry for reiterating what I am sure others have been more than forthcoming about. Repeatedly. Though I had to try, the best way I knew how. From the second I realized you were real I got it into my head that I had to try. I am scared your conclusions will always be bitter. Always lead you further away into revenge, madness, isolation. I spoke to Thor, he believes as I do that there is hope. Perhaps your fate is not sealed despite what we have seen and lived."

There was a wetness in her eyes again, the kind that never quite formed tears, and Sif id her best to look dignified while it manifested itself as she was looking Loki squarely in the face. It was the stark and final acceptance of a realization that had been lurking in the back of her mind a while now. As Loki said, and as Thor had said earlier, he had to be the one to make up his own mind. Sif could not presume to lead him towards a more agreeable path by sheer force of will, or indeed any other type of force. "I am truly done with this subject, I swear to you. You will not hear any more pleading from me. I shall remain your friend, as good a friend as I can, and make up for the times when I simply wasn't that. And when you do choose to meet your destiny, at least we won't part ways abruptly. Will we?"

In the back of her mind, some part of Sif was screaming, wanting to grab him by the head and repeat Why won't you understand you will be dead to me long before you are dead at all and that a tiny part of me dies with you? until he understood. But things were never, ever that simple. Nor was it to simply admit out loud how much she truly cared. It wasn't just a friend she might be losing, it was a whole separate notion, most of it fantasized, where they could have been more than that to each other and happy for it. It never left the recesses of Sif's mind, and never would, but it would become decrepit and half-dead like everything else. Not a fond memory that never came to pass, but a bitter, hurtful one.