Steam rises in slow, pearled curtains the moment the bronze doors of the Asgardian bathhouse open. Warmth rolls over you like a living thing, scented with pine. Your boots hesitate on the threshold. Earth doesn’t prepare you for this. Not for halls carved from glowing rock, not for water that remembers every warrior who ever entered it.

Lady Sif pauses beside you, her presence steady and grounding. Without armor she seems no less formidable. Still tall, still broad-shouldered. She wears a simple linen wrap meant for bathing, practical and unadorned. Her expression softens when she notices your uncertainty.

“Asgard is more than battlefields and feasts. Come. This, too, is part of knowing us.”

You nod, heart thudding with the odd mix of excitement and nerves that has followed you since the Bifrost dropped you here. Thor’s laughter still echoes in your memory, how he clapped your shoulder and declared Sif would “show you the proper way of things.” You hadn’t expected this.

The stone beneath your feet is warm. Channels of glowing runes guide water from natural springs, each pool a different temperature. Warriors, women and men alike, move through the space with quiet familiarity, respectful, focused. No one stares. No one treats you like a spectacle. That alone eases something tight in your chest.

Sif gestures for you to sit on a stone bench. “On Earth, you cleanse to remove dirt,” she explains, handing you a folded cloth. “Here, we cleanse to remember ourselves. Warrior, friend, guest. All are equal in these waters.”

You follow her lead, movements careful, mirroring what you were taught during training. Observe first, act second.

The water is hotter than you expect, a sharp inhale escaping you before the heat settles into something soothing, deep, like it’s reaching muscles you didn’t realize were aching. Training with Thor had been intense. Your body remembers every spar, every fall, every correction barked with a grin.

Sif kneels beside the pool, rolling her shoulders before stepping in with practiced ease. She exhales slowly, eyes closing for a moment. For the first time since you met her, the warrior allows herself stillness.