“Not long now, my darling,” Loki murmurs into the coursing stream of Seidhr, his form flickering in and out of solidity projected so far across realms to his wife. “Thor remains obstinate but he will be persuaded or … dealt with, much as it pains me. Sigyn. It may be best that you and the boys join me here.”
“Why, My Lady Sigyn, it would be my very great pleasure. Nothing churns a Seidhr Master’s blood quite like the mysterious hallows of the night. All those shapes and forms conjured by the bright flames, shadows cast just like the ever-shifting illusions magic itself creates. Just like the shifting nature of identity, for those of us who feel dispossessed.”
Loki smiles down at Sigyn, and it is a warm smile, lacking force or pretense.
“Yes. I love fellowshipping with the ancient woodlands, in an obliging clearing beneath the stars. The shadows and embers speak to me often.”
His words awaken a wish Sigyn sometimes has, a wish to go beyond the warm simplicity of her usual life and way of thinking, and see and analyze and feel the greatness of the realm, of history and magic and the universe–the same wish that she harbors when awake reading sagas hours after midnight or when knitting protective runes into ordinary garments–making a certain admiring wistfulness cross her face. Fire has no words for her; beauty, yes, and feelings of its fragile power, but they never become distinct.
But his smile seems to bridge the gap of wisdom she perceived between them, and she smiles up at him, pleased that he wants to come. “And while you’re engaging in mystic communion with the night…I’ll roast some apples. And perhaps you can tell me what the embers have to say.”
“I believe that those are agreeable terms, yes.”
He can feel the keening within her, the yearning for greater comprehension of a vaster world, because it was, and ever has been, in him.
“So long as I get to sample an apple.”
Jade eyes intentionally linger on the quiet and kindly girl’s face.
“I do not know that I believe you anymore. But neither do I blame you for how you truly feel. It is alright, sweet friend.”
“No, it’s not ‘alright.’”
Sigyn pulls away, her husband’s words stinging like shards of ice upon her skin.
“What do you know of how I truly feel, if you have notrustin me when I tell you?”
More castigation from a good soul. More “if, then” scenarios which leave no room to barter or comprehend the world in shades of gray and tones of survival. No compromise, no confidence that his words might be taken as benevolent.
It reminds Loki of when his mother Frigga cornered him in his own cell beneath Asgard and, unintentionally, but deeply, cut Loki with her equivalency “if Odin is not your father, then am I not your mother?”
This grows wearisome; the notion that he is a lost cause in the narrative of his beloved pantheon grows all the more likely with every confrontation.
Yet he could never raise his voice to his tender and steadfast wife.
“ … . I do not mistrust you,” he begins as evenly as he is able, though he sounds breathlessly tired. “I conceive of you as an endlessly compassionate soul, who perhaps feels an unconscious obligation to an unsalvageable person. You see, Sigyn, my lack of faith is not, has never been, in you. It is in myself. For you see, I have great experience,” and he thinks on Odin, and on Thor, “with adoring someone who does not live up to your hopes.”
He meets her eyes in earnest.
“I will not be your undoing, for I love you dearly. I have gotten out of the way of the welfare of loved ones before, and I can do it again. You may call it mistrust, but it is my attempt to be brave.”
And selfless.
“These arguments have happened with more and more frequency, and it is plain on your face that I cause you constant pain. If you wish to be released from this marriage, I shall release you, and I shall continue to protect you in every way possible for the rest of my life.”
“By the Norns, Loki!“
Sigyn sighed softly, her head dropping into her hands. Covered, her eyes began to well with tears of frustration. She sat there for several minutes, choosing her words with the utmost care, but they seemed to whirl around in her head in a fog. When her mind felt clear enough to speak, she raised her head.
"Just because I am angry or frustrated with you, it doesn’t mean I want to end our marriage. Please do not draw such drastic conclusions. The love I have for you and the life we’ve built is far greater than any lapse in my temper.”
She drew another breath, feeling like she was treading on shards of glass, fearful of breaking them further. Nevertheless, she continued, careful to speak as clearly and earnestly as she could.
“I understand your intentions, … at least I think I do. I’m trying to… Is it that you are afraid that you won’t live up to my hopes … or that I won’t live up to yours? Darling, I may be endlessly compassionate, but that does not mean that I am limitless. I have my own faults and weakness, try as I may to overcome them. And I know you seek to protect me from further pain by distancing yourself, but I need you here with me more than any physical or emotional protection your absence may offer. The more you drive yourself away, the less I feel that you truly love me, even though I know in my mind that you do.”
She bit her lip, hoping that her words might bridge the gap growing between them.
“Does that make sense?”
Loki swallows sharper words at the sight of Sigyn’s head falling between her fingers. He licks his lips and presses,
“Aye, but it is not the issue of a single argument, but incessant miscommunication, and though all whom I love would have me instantly recognize my error in it, I do not see … it does not feel as if the effort of self-examination is mutual. I do not mean to say that you are as myopic as Thor is, but … ”
His features are crumpled, strained with apology, yet if they are to close all misunderstandings, regardless of the outcome, he too must be honest.
“Yes. What you say makes sense.”
He continues to speak gently.
“But there is more to my offer than our… our quarrel. Asgard is dangerous; there is no scrutable way to defeat Hela. The wiser course is … Sigyn, I have established myself with the Grandmaster and I believe that, in time, I can overtake and eliminate him. I’m staying here, on Sakar. You and our son … nothing would give me more joy than to be with you, but until I have secured power here, you would be safer going through one of the many intergalactic doorways from this planet, into a realm protected from the forces here, on Asgard, and …”
Loki might be offended under other circumstances that his wife has undertaken his emotional ailments as a cause, as if it is somehow… demeaning, or condescending. But the look of steely determination on Sigyn’s features robs him of wrath and renders him, instead, fondly affectionate.
He squeezes her hand in return.
“You needn’t,” is all he murmurs, nodding at the formidable column of knowledge.
“I do not know that I believe you anymore. But neither do I blame you for how you truly feel. It is alright, sweet friend.”
“No, it’s not ‘alright.’”
Sigyn pulls away, her husband’s words stinging like shards of ice upon her skin.
“What do you know of how I truly feel, if you have notrustin me when I tell you?”
More castigation from a good soul. More “if, then” scenarios which leave no room to barter or comprehend the world in shades of gray and tones of survival. No compromise, no confidence that his words might be taken as benevolent.
It reminds Loki of when his mother Frigga cornered him in his own cell beneath Asgard and, unintentionally, but deeply, cut Loki with her equivalency “if Odin is not your father, then am I not your mother?”
This grows wearisome; the notion that he is a lost cause in the narrative of his beloved pantheon grows all the more likely with every confrontation.
Yet he could never raise his voice to his tender and steadfast wife.
“ … . I do not mistrust you,” he begins as evenly as he is able, though he sounds breathlessly tired. “I conceive of you as an endlessly compassionate soul, who perhaps feels an unconscious obligation to an unsalvageable person. You see, Sigyn, my lack of faith is not, has never been, in you. It is in myself. For you see, I have great experience,” and he thinks on Odin, and on Thor, “with adoring someone who does not live up to your hopes.”
He meets her eyes in earnest.
“I will not be your undoing, for I love you dearly. I have gotten out of the way of the welfare of loved ones before, and I can do it again. You may call it mistrust, but it is my attempt to be brave.”
And selfless.
“These arguments have happened with more and more frequency, and it is plain on your face that I cause you constant pain. If you wish to be released from this marriage, I shall release you, and I shall continue to protect you in every way possible for the rest of my life.”
Sigyn slowly eased herself onto the open seat by her husband’s side. Fatigue was slowly starting to creep upon her in her quickly advancing condition. She wrapped her heavy wool cloak and her’s and Loki’s shoulders, bringing his hands into hers to warm them from the increasing chill.
“Darling,” she said softly. “Your brother and you have endured so much, been tested in different ways. Yet, your paths continue to cross, your threads constantly intertwined. What makes you believe this is the end?”
Loki’s answer, in this case, is quite simple:
“His indifference. That is what has changed, this time.”
“I would think it one of his bluffs borne of wounded pride, but perhaps I have grown dull and rusty, like an unused blade, from spending so many periods in his absence. And I fear I am unable to … differentiate, between bluster and truth. Or more likely, I am so afraid of truth that I place hope before clear examination.”
He gnaws on his lip, and then exhales a hapless breath of laughter.
“As a result, I’m … too craven to ask him outright.”
“Tell me, if your brother is indifferent, why would he seek your help in this mission? He clearly values your insights, your experience, your bond with him, in order to defeat Hela.”
Sigyn’s gentle questioning, she feared, would fall on deaf ears. She straightened her form and faced her husband directly, taking an slow inhale before speaking again.
“In truth, your brother’s words sound like they come not from indifference, but rather avoidance. Yours do too.”
Although she feared her words to be harsh, she knew that Loki would value their honesty.
“Thor has been avoiding his whole past self, ever since returning from Midgard. Now that he’s abdicated, he’s avoiding his future responsibilities as well. Contrary to his aim, he’s become more childish than he was before. I believe he does it out of shame and fear. Shame for what he’s done, and fear for what he might do if he accepts such power again.
Loki, you both can’t continue in this way. You need to confront each other head on, not with animosity and accusations, but love and willingness to start anew. Thor will never know how you feel unless you tell him!”
It is a tribute to his love for Sigyn that Loki doesn’t immediately and acidly retaliate, against a raised voice and an obvious state of indignant exasperation. That seeming disgust with his deepest seated personal fears is caustic. It’s painful to his marrow. The implication, once more, this is your fault: you are not doing enough.
“ … I see.”
And he worries it is the product of her continued, one-sided resentment, more than it is candid counsel; honesty, no matter how harsh, is indeed agiftthathe values, but not when he believes that honesty to be biased by a soured bond.
That, and somehow, there is a cruelty in asking him what vexes him, and then passing judgment on his answer, no matter how foolish that answer may be.
It is what everyone has always done to him: punish him for his sincerity, and then be awestruck and offended that he has accepted the mantle ofGod of Lies, to protect himself.
He takes several breaths through his nose, tilting his jaw back, and forward again. He musters the composure to look at his …wife? His estranged wife, who continues to see his masquerade as Odin as a grievous offense.
“Sigyn. Please do not shout. I am … alarmed by sudden loud noise, ever since my time in Chitauri Space. It is shameful for a battle- seasoned adult such as myself to make this request, but I fear I must.”
He clears his throat, and takes a decisive step back, producing distance. Loki either craves touch, or recoils from it; it’s all in the trust he places in the other person.
His expression is measured, forcibly stiff and cool. He is disappointed.
“Had I known that Thor’s plight, and mine, were such a source of annoyance to you, I might have held my tongue altogether. I have been trying to open a dialogue with my brother since before I fell off the Bifrost Bridge. Since before I even knew that I was a Jotun. It is in Thor’s nature to be amiably dismissive, even rude and self- absorbed, and I fear being told the majority of your life to ‘know your place’ and ‘shut up,’ over and over and over, rather eliminates the palate for communication. If D Y I N G for my brother was not enough to communicate that I love him and ‘wish to start anew,’ then I must confess you have lost me as to the purpose of a cordial chat over tea.”
By now his lip is trembling and his eyes are moist. He blinks forcefully, and shakily exhales again, balled fists releasing at his sides.
“At least acknowledge, as my friend and advocate–if I have not at this juncture disgusted you into abdicating those titles–that I have striven to initiate these conversations, and mend the broken bond with my brother, at great personal cost, not least of which was throwing myself into a Dark Elf bayonet to protect him, losing your good regard in the process.”
The God of Mischief, or whatever passively congenial shell of himself he’s become, eases to a precarious seat in a deadened woodland full of decomposing autumn leaves. It is damp and it is cold, the way the child he once was likes it.
“Somehow, I expected more of him. Even if it was brutal or petulant. A spark, anything. But he smiled at me and it was so empty of concern, or care. He has … shed me, at last, I think.”
To him, I’m not worth the effort of his rage.
His smile used to be my greatest reward. Make a jest, Loki, to bring the Thunder God out of his sulk. Laugh, Loki, play a prank upon an impudent and overbearing aristocrat. Smile, smile, part the clouds and there is light. How strange and wonderful that the God of Storms is so like the sun. All that this ugly, scrawny, pale, dark haired thing wanted was to make the sun come out.
He doesn’t weep; it seems he’s past the energy required to grieve, too.
“This was always where I was headed, I think. A lukewarm, faded ending. An insignificant outsider who struggled from his first breath to his last.”
Sigyn slowly eased herself onto the open seat by her husband’s side. Fatigue was slowly starting to creep upon her in her quickly advancing condition. She wrapped her heavy wool cloak and her’s and Loki’s shoulders, bringing his hands into hers to warm them from the increasing chill.
“Darling,” she said softly. “Your brother and you have endured so much, been tested in different ways. Yet, your paths continue to cross, your threads constantly intertwined. What makes you believe this is the end?”
Loki’s answer, in this case, is quite simple:
“His indifference. That is what has changed, this time.”
“I would think it one of his bluffs borne of wounded pride, but perhaps I have grown dull and rusty, like an unused blade, from spending so many periods in his absence. And I fear I am unable to … differentiate, between bluster and truth. Or more likely, I am so afraid of truth that I place hope before clear examination.”
He gnaws on his lip, and then exhales a hapless breath of laughter.
“As a result, I’m … too craven to ask him outright.”
Loki lifts a long finger from the wondrously gooey orange pulp, scattering some gourd-bits and seeds in the process. The red line down to his knuckle is small and delicate.
“You see, it will take far more to discourage the God of Mischief from putting in his proper appearance on All Hallows Eve.”
icyxmischief 