#warlikelady

                                  “Skrull.”

  Corrected with blunt forwardness, but there was no disapproval in her tone.   Sif let her head lean slightly towards the reptilian creature on the other side   of the holding cell’s thick glass.

                                         “And yes. You will need to if you wish to obtain                                           the information you seek regarding the Kree.”

     “If you don’t mind, explain to me exactly why the Skrulls look like lizards this time around? Last I knew of them, they could alter their shape and appearance. It made a huge problem for us when they started taking on the figures of our companions.” Co-workers, friends, tore people apart by being someone else, gave people hope and snatched it away. 

     A low snarl caught betwixt tooth and snarling maw, rattling as a madman’s grasping hands upon cruel, cold, cell doors between ravenous sinew and blackened bone. No hand of Justice stood before he, no ill-regarded Lawbringer curtailed with a bloody haunch of unpoisoned meat; nay, a known face was she, branded upon hatred and memory as foulest Æsir. Bared teeth, shown in the bloody rictus of an eternal promise ( there are no bargains between wolves and men ), gnashed against the dull warm air, hot breath spilling as a viscous plume upon a lashing silver tongue. No Asgardian had won a right to parlance, to calm acceptance hoisted in the burned and blackened veins of vitriolic hatred, and Fenrir would not play the companionable mutt to poisoned, gold, desires. 

                    There was a note in Thor’s voice which ran the gamut, tripped its       way across the spectrum of old familiar and new injury, and for a precious       tensed-jawed breath, Sif felt like herself again when she rounded on him.       The resulting sweep of irritation played across her face, stung openly and       made itself plain rather than hiding behind skittish hurt. For that moment,       she gratefully shrugged off reserve and nerves, letting frustration do as it       pleased.

                                    “Aye, you did and oft there are times I wonder if I                                       know at all the man who came back from death.”

     And there, that was that. She was left standing with palmful of ash & breathing      just a shade too fast, wholly uncertain   unwilling to throw herself against him      the way she might have, once, until everything was same and sane again. Sif      wasn’t sure she wanted to think past now and reach for ephemeral future, to      consider what had been, or what might be – if she made herself stay grounded      in this present absurd moment of fanned-flames indignation, then she could      forget worry, deny however foreign and incomprehensible this all was, and it’d      just be Sif-&-Thor, the usual campfire flaring up at the usual sun star. She shut      her eyes instead, closest thing she could offer to surrender or apology in a deep      breaths slow count to three.

           “Can you keep doing this?” One. “This, what we’ve been doing             since you came back. Whatever we’re doing now. Can you keep             at it?” Two. “Because I can’t.“

      Three and she boxed it all away. Everything: the war goddess’ temper and the       woman’s nerves, the fingernails-in-palm reach for calm, tics and shivers which       left her halfway between feeling like poorly-strung puppet & someone walking on       eggshells.  It was force it all down in desperate need for it-has-to-be-better.

                                              "I miss you but am uncomfortable around you,                                                  and looking at you hurts.”

---- Countenance no doubt carries the distinct signs of broken and beaten, his weariness dotted in thick shadows under the eyes and sharp lines framing tense mouth. A wretched and paled well of remarks that should have stayed closed for a while longer, at the very least should have formed the words differently. In hindsight everything appeared worse these days, he certainly felt the weight of it , thick discomfort ( an unwanted and unfamiliar companion that joined them some time ago) reminding him everything had changed. 

‘ I would have been able to, if I knew what awaited me after the battle was done.’

Apathy, how he longed to have it blanket him at this moment, a shield of indifference young prince and this new, older yet not much wiser one wished he could conjure. That or a thicker skin, tan-colored armor that would not prickle and strain too tightly around the tension in his muscles.

SEND ME A ✿ AND MY MUSE WILL REACT TO YOUR MUSE PUTTING A FLOWER IN THEIR HAIR