Reboot

Sif

Author's Note

I wrote this reflection a couple years ago at a time when I related to Lady Sif's character far more than logic allowed. I always felt she had the strength and potential to be infinitely more important than for what she was given credit.

But there is also a deep sadness to her. She does everything in her power to assist Thor, yet she remains overlooked by the God of Thunder - while she simultaneously overlooks the person who may have been her perfect match.

The following mini-story is her origin, as it makes sense in my mind.

~ Mar

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The notion that battlefields smell of blood is a fallacy.

The vermilion elixir leaking from the fallen and pulsing from the wounded does not seep into the earth, then evaporate unaided into the air as a boundless red mist, soaking all it touches in its metallic, gruesome scent.

That is folklore.

In all actuality, the pungent and choking odors of smoke, ash, heated steel, and sweat overpower the stench of old blood.

A present battlefield smells of destruction.

A past battlefield smells of death.

For that is the fate that befalls a battlefield: to become a graveyard. The ground that once supported the valor, bravery, and often savagery of countless warriors is reduced to nothing more than a mass grave of rotting corpses, abandoned swords, and blood.

From this very chimera, Lady Sif was born.

The Goddess of War, courageous and formidable rather than gentle and kind, was far more Warrior than she was Lady. She emerged from the ashen battlefields of the Nine Realms - a hardened but noble leader, ready to defend Asgard to her dying breath. Her unwavering heart pounded in her chest for the sake of function rather than sentiment, and a life beyond the exaltation of her sword and the intoxication of victory never crossed her very strategic and cerebral mind.

She would defend, attack, and triumph.

Alone, if need be.

It made no difference.

Forged from the same unbreakable material as the blade she was never seen without, Sif did not realize or understand the true meaning of camaraderie until she was befriended by a pair of brothers. These Asgardian royals, the sons of Odin, were the first to make her see that victory was meaningless unless the victor had loved ones and companions with which to share it.

Without friendship, there were only enemies.

Without kindness, there was only violence.

Without love, there was only the next battle.

And the next.

And the next.

These two men - one, brazen and unrelenting as the midday sun, the other, secretive and arcane as the dark side of the moon - were siblings, yet impossible foils. Perhaps because of their opposing views, they were successful in coaxing open the iron fist that was Lady Sif's heart. Each touched a part of her deepest self that she had not previously known existed. Each became beholden and beloved of her in ways her battle-hardened tongue was ill-suited to express.

Under the pair's tutelage and through their friendship, Sif learned care, vulnerability, and forgiveness. Her evolutionary road was long, trying, and not without tribulation, but they remained steadfast, by her side despite any and all hardships, and Sif loved them all the more for their pains - a deep, steadfast love, never to be confessed beyond the borders of her mind.

It was because of these two brothers that the Goddess of War found her humanity. Found her balance. Found her heart.

For what could melt and reshape steel finer than lightning and ice?

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