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He sprints.
Not as fast as he wants to. The shops of the Artists Quarter rush by him on either side, but they don't blur like they used to, when he had magic to help his feet. Loki grabs a light pole as he rounds the corner, slingshotting himself down another boulevard. He hears the skid of boots against the pavement, and then the heavy canter of footsteps continues after him.
It's not his fault. He had been minding his own business, picking out a new green shirt at the tailor's shop (following Hogun's advice to reclaim his style), when the group had walked in: younger men with more privilege than brains and not enough strength (yet) to honor their own family. If Loki had had his magic, they would have been pests to be brushed off—except he doesn't have it, which lent itself to the whole incident.
The Artist Quarters turns into the Central Market. Food stalls and carts and thick crowds get in his way, and the footsteps sound closer behind him. He stumbles over a small box but catches his footing again, jumping over apples that roll across the sidewalk.
"It's Thor's new servant," they had jested (loudly) behind his back. "His weak little sorcerer."
Loki leaps over a stall of lemons and barely clears it. His pursuers have to run around, buying him extra time.
Their epithets had become more creative as they edged nearer and nearer to wear he shopped. One of them bumped into him. "Sorry," the man said in mock-civility, "Didn't mean to hurt His Highness's pet jötunn."
Loki backhanded him across the face. It wasn't with magic like he wanted or strength like he needed, but it had caught his attention, and Loki savored those few moments of wordless gaping. It lasted until they both realized the tailor was in the back and all the man's lackies stood nearby.
"How dare you strike me!" he bellowed. His cheek barely flushed. "You barely have the honor to show your face, let alone touch me, you thrall!"
Thrall. The word still tastes bitter in Loki's thoughts.
The crowd in the streets thickens as Loki nears the market center. His lungs hurt. The metal at his wrists and his neck feels heavier, dragging his pace.
A hand snatches him by the arm and throws him to the ground behind a lettuce cart. Loki flails, tries to push himself up, and freezes when a boot on his chest pushes him back down into the pavement. He knows this boot.
"Lady Sif!" says muffled voices from the other side of the cart. From where he lies, Loki sees several pairs of shiny boots on the other side of the wheels. "Have you seen the Liesmith run through here?"
"I have not, Alvarsson." Sif answers. Loki feels the heel of her boot dig into his chest. "You might wish to check the palace."
Loki holds his breath through the long, tense silence, until one of them respond, "Good day, Lady Sif." The boots walk off, and Loki turns his gaze up at Sif.
There's a part of him that's still a teenage boy, which admits this is one of the better views to see her from, until she looks down at him with narrowed eyes and a frown. "Are you all right?" she asks, taking the boot off his chest.
"Yes," he says. She offers her hand and he takes it, getting to his feet and ignoring the passive amusement of the people around them. Her scrutinizing gaze doesn't soften; Loki straightens his shirt and feels the brush of the hammer-shaped patch at his arm. He feels so plain standing next to her, now more than ever in clothes that say nothing of his rank and more the lack of it. Sif only wears an embroidered tunic and a skirt with a short sword at her side, but she still radiates a warm sense of power that can only be overshadowed by Thor. "Thank you for that...misdirection."
"You're welcome." Sif leans down to pick up a basket, already laden with fruits and vegetables. "I admit I'm surprised by your propensity to get into trouble, Loki, even without your magic. What did those men want with you?"
"An easy target." Loki watches her peruse the lettuce selection, and he feels awkward to stand there without purpose. He offers his hands. "Allow me to hold that."
Sif raises an eyebrow at him, skeptical. "It's not heavy—I don't need your help."
"I know," Loki answers quickly. "But I am in your debt, Sif; don't dismiss my chance to clear it."
She laughs. Once upon a time that would have sent Loki's heart a-flutter, back when her hair was still blond and Loki thought anything was possible. Now, that all seems as distant as becoming Asgard's king again. "If you think that will be enough for saving your skin, you're welcome to it." Sif pushes the basket into Loki's arms. She continues shopping, and Loki follows. He has nothing else planned for this week's day of rest.
Since his punishment in court, Loki has never spent this much time in public. The time he had road Sleipnir through the streets had been brief and early in the morning; when he works, he avoids busy streets when he walks to and from the Bifröst. Following Sif around while she grocery shops lends the crowd so much time to stare and gawk and whisper amongst themselves that Loki ends up wishing he had checked his pride and continued running to the lonely safety of the palace.
He doesn't, of course. He has some honor, despite what others might say.
When she is done with the food shopping he carries her bags, too, and follows her to the outside of a general store. She tells him to wait outside, and he does. Loki stares at the dresses in the shop window and lets his mind focus on how they might feel under his hands or around a smaller waist—anything to ignore the whispers of the people that walk behind him, whose faces he sees in the reflection of the glass. Eventually, Sif emerges with a bag she insists on carrying, and they walk towards the rich neighborhood where her family resides.
When the people start to thin out around them and the buildings begin to turn residential around him, she speaks to him in a quiet tone. "You are bothered by their words, Loki? Their eyes?"
"Who?" He pretends in order to gain more time for his answer.
"The people in the market," she says, slightly annoyed; she doesn't believe his ignorance anymore than he would. "I know you heard them just as well as I did, and you tense when you're annoyed. It is easier to see without your jacket."
Perhaps he needs to return to the tailor's sooner rather than later, Loki thinks, if being so naked reveals all of his mind's secrets. "...It is strange, being the subject of their gossip when I am visible to their eyes."
"Oh? So you are used to eavesdropping on them instead?"
"Invisibility has many uses, my lady."
She makes a short sound of amusement. "No doubt you would know them all, but the rest of us do not enjoy the luxury of being able to 'disapper.'" Loki looks over and meets her gaze. "You are not the only one the people whisper about."
Sif never looks away first, always willing to stare down her opponent, so Loki has to concede and break their gaze. He looks down at the lines of the pavement. "Surely they would only have positive words for you," and Loki means what he says, because in his eyes she is nearly as perfect as Thor, though she doesn't accept all that Loki is with the same blind faith. "As one that protects this realm, who serves with Thor—"
"—and as a woman who wears a sword," Sif points out, and Loki has nothing to say to that. He knows, of course, that there was resistance to the idea of her becoming a warrior, even when training had been harmless play among their group, but like everything else that stands in Thor's way, the opposition eventually fractured and fell.
"They do not speak as harshly as they once did," she admits, "and when you took their attention they did not speak at all—but there are still many who prefer me in silk than steel. Nonetheless, I do not tempt them into skirmishes."
Loki frowns. "I did not tempt anyone."
"Then why did those men seem so eager for your throat?"
"Shall I list the ways? Do they need more reason than my sorcery, my blood, my recent crimes—against you as well, might I add? Is there any stronger incentive than the All-father declaring my penance should be extended and public?" They stop at her family's townhouse at the corner of the city block. A tall building of white marble reaches towards the sky with large windows on each floor thrown open to the evening air. "I should bid you good-night, Sif, before I inflict any more of my ill-temper on you."
"Loki, it would not differ from your normal temperament." Sif stands in front of him and reaches a hand up to squeeze his shoulder— her hand's smaller than Thor's, but still frightfully strong. Her fingers dig into the muscle and keeps Loki from fidgeting under her gaze and her sly smile. "The next time you wander into the market, you should bring Thor with you."
"So that he can ward off over-grown children?"
"Or he can hold your packages, knowing how much you like to buy," she says, taking the grocery bags from his hands. "Thor would appreciate the time with you, and I think you would enjoy it, too, if you allowed yourself." Though how would she know? "While my brother appreciates your work on the Bifröst, we all know that is not your place."
"Where do you suppose my place is, then?" he asks as she takes the steps up to the doors, which part of their own volition.
"By Thor's side," she says, stopping at the top step, "and not stabbing him in the back—or the front. You were both happier when that was so." A manservant steps out of the hall to take Sif's bags, and with her free hand she waves at Loki. "Good evening, Loki."
"And you," Loki replies half-heartedly before walking on towards a street that will take him back to the palace. With Sif's words on his mind, he can better ignore the looks and murmurs of the people around him. One thing he'll taken from this day is that she seems to have forgiven him for the Destroyer incident, or else she brushes it off for some reason unknown to Loki. He wants to know, and that curiosity nags at him all the way to the palace, though he'll have to leave it for another day. Maybe he'll ask Heimdall about it while he works tomorrow.
As idyllic as it would be to have Thor by his side as he purchases scraps of his former lifestyle (on Thor's generosity), Loki doubts it will happen, even if he had the optimism to ask. It is one thing to get pieces of his armor back; it is another to request the next king of Asgard spare an afternoon in the company and service of a servant—a thrall.
No, it is better that he focus on his most immediate tasks: repairing the Bifröst and recovering his citizenship. Perhaps then he can have his royal luxuries again—and maybe share Thor's company as an equal.