Notes: If you've read my other Sigyn fics, this one is technically the prequel to all of them. Takes place immediately after Loki's trickery obtains the treasures of the gods, and he has his mouth sewn shut after losing his wager. As such, there's a trigger warning for potential body horror.
Many thanks to starsinyourwake for the beta.
Vartari
The first time Sigyn really talks to Loki, he's not in much of a position to talk back.
She finds him in a grove of ash south of Fensalir, hunched low against an old stump, shoulders drawn in and almost childlike. It's a quiet wood, very little visited, and doesn't seem the sort of place Loki would go to lick his wounds. But Sigyn has heard that Laufey was a tree goddess, and it seems her hunch has paid off. It's early autumn, but already a few golden leaves are drifting down, dancing in sharp stabs of sunlight. She watches as one lands on Loki's shoulder and stays resting there, gleaming and unnoticed.
Sigyn hesitates just at the edge of the clearing, her eyes caught on that leaf. She fingers the needle and thread in her apron pocket and twists her hands. It isn't her affair. He lost the dwarf's wager, and paid with far less than he had promised. She knows she shouldn't be here.
She shifts her feet and bites her lip, an unthinking gesture that takes on sharp new significance and steels her nerves. Clasping the needle tightly in her palm, feeling the shape of it pressing into her flesh, she steps forward into the clearing.
Loki doesn't look up at her approach. He's still sitting curled into himself, knees drawn up, elbows resting on them, and his fingers at his bloodied mouth. It's eerily quiet. He's tugging at the slim, splintered ends of the cord that threads his lips, and little flakes of brown leather cling to his fingers where they've rubbed the thong raw. Lines of soundless pain are etched across his brow. It's strange to think of anything to do with Loki as silent.
She's never spoken to him before, though she's listened eagerly to all of his tales in the mead hall. But there she's always been in the background, serving the mead and minding the hall, and she's never found an excuse to talk with him after the tales are all told. She's not even certain he knows who she is.
But none of that is really important right now. Her foot lands on a dry twig with a sharp, deliberate crack, and she coughs to catch his attention, and then coughs again, louder.
Loki looks up with a visible start, the lines of his body tensing and his fingers stiffening against his mouth like claws. Blood spots his lips and speckles his hands.
Sigyn shifts uneasily, holding up her hands in a gesture of truce, and the needle glints between her fingers. She knows the exact moment he's seen it, because his eyes widen briefly before narrowing pointedly on her face.
"Will you let me?" she asks in a hushed whisper, flourishing the needle. Loki blinks slowly at her like a day-blind owl, and Sigyn takes it for a yes.
"Here," she says, crouching down beside him and reaching for his hands where they still clutch at his mouth. Loki holds himself taut and still as a bowstring, but something sparks in his eyes as he looks at her. Sigyn blinks, startled. Surely he's not laughing at her?
Slowly she pulls his hands away. There are new blood-stains, still livid dark red, scattered over browned flecks of a drier hue, and she wonders how long he has been here, picking at himself. The stitches are stretched raw and red between his lips.
"Don't touch it," she says, pushing his hands toward his lap. "Let me see."
Loki quirks a brow at her, and again she can see laughter in his brown eyes. Unthinkingly, she scowls at him.
"Don't tell me I sound like a mother. You're the one who ought to know better than to pick at it."
Loki's shoulders are shaking in silent laughter, and Sigyn tries for a smile, but she doesn't think her attempt is very good. Her eyes are caught on his mouth, dark with blood.
Boldly, she takes his face in her hands and holds him still, ignoring his laughing eyes and studying the wound. The stitches are clean, at least, but the leather is flecked and peeling from his efforts to tear it, and she can see some specks too near the raw puncture wounds. The cord itself isn't thick; it looks as though it could easily be sliced through by even a small knife, and yet it holds. It must be charmed. Her needle won't be any good.
Sigyn frowns, narrowing her eyes on the slim leather thread, her tongue peeking out between her teeth as she stares at it. The charm isn't obvious, but it has the marks of a galdr-song. She traces the thread with her left index finger, slowly up and down the stitches, and Loki holds perfectly still. His mouth is fever-warm, and when she pulls her hand away her finger is dappled with red.
"It's charmed, you know," she says, meeting his eyes again and trying not to think about her hands on his lips. "You won't get anywhere, pulling at it."
Loki blinks slowly at her, and then the corner of his mouth quirks slightly, fresh blood seeping from the stitches as he tries to smile.
"Stop that!" she snaps. The tiny smile disappears, but now he makes a strange muffled hacking sound deep in his chest, punctuated by harsh puffs of breath through his nose. It's the most horrible laugh she's ever heard.
"Oh, hold still," she all but growls. "Let me try—" But then she stops, peering closely at him, studying the slight motions of his face. "Will you trust me?" she asks softly.
The laughter dies in his eyes and they rove over her face, searching. At last his brow goes up again, but this time Sigyn can't guess what he means, and she only shrugs awkwardly.
Loki's eyes roll, but he nods once, sharply, and then is still.
"All right," Sigyn murmurs, nodding in turn. Her finger traces over the stitches again, back and then forward, back and forward. She sucks in a breath that's definitely not nerves, and closes her eyes.
Sigyn's mother is a master of all kinds of charms and incantations. Her father is wiser still, Odin the rune-finder. But Sigyn herself is no seidkona, and most of the spells she knows are the simple household kind, meant to protect and preserve.
This, though, is quite the opposite. She can feel the power of the binding charm running through her hands and tingling against her bones. Almost she can hear the song that made it, strange and insistent, beating with Loki's pulse. It calls to something in her, something dark and deep that she's never known in herself before, and almost without thought the words are on her lips.
She sings cracking ice and devouring fire and stone crumbling beneath the ravenous torrents of early spring. With eyes closed to the world she sings the loosing of fetters and the breaking of bonds.
Something snaps under her fingers and Sigyn jerks back, returning to herself, eyes starting open and breath coming short and startled.
Loki laughs at her. The sound is hoarse and dark, but clearly a laugh this time. The leather thong dangles in bloody shreds from his lips.
Sigyn blinks. "What—" Her own voice feels rough and ill-used, and she swallows. "What happened?"
Loki watches her for a moment in stillness and then grins, sharp and bloody. "You have a talent for unbinding, Odin's daughter," he says, and she shivers at the low, dark sound of his voice.
"I didn't know," she whispers. Only later will she think how strange it is, that this should be her first conversation with him.
"Hmm," Loki says, and he raises a rust-specked hand and wipes it roughly across his raw mouth. It leaves a trail of blood streaked over his left cheek and the back of his hand.
"Stop that!" Sigyn huffs, shaken out of her surprise, and once more she grabs his hands to hold them still. "You'll only dirty your wounds."
She moves his two hands to rest on the ground and lays her own left hand over them, doing her best to ignore the warmth of them and the texture of his skin. But she can feel the blush bloom on her face.
"You're a terrible patient," she grumbles, and reaches one-handed for the flask of water she brought, tipping it over the corner of her apron and soaking the linen. "Now will you stay still?"
Loki smirks at her, but he doesn't move his hands when she lifts hers away.
Face burning, and looking anywhere but at his eyes, Sigyn raises her apron to his mouth and wipes the blood away. It's quite dried in places, and she has to scrub a bit. It's no good trying to be gentle. From the corner of her eye, she sees him wince.
"Sorry," she whispers, but she doesn't stop.
When at last his face is clean, she pulls her apron away, staring down at the red-brown stain and wondering how she will ever explain it to her mother.
"You look worse than I do," Loki says with a snort, and she snaps her gaze up to argue with him, except he's right.
There's no trace now of the marks of the awl on his mouth. Thin shreds of leather still dangle from his fingers, which is some comfort; without them, she might think the whole incident had been merely a strange and gruesome daydream.
"How?" she manages, gaping at him.
Loki grins, perfect lips stretching over white teeth, with no hint of a wound.
"Yes," he says, watching her with laughing eyes and stroking a hand over his mouth and chin as though deep in thought. "You're probably right. People will be surprised if I appear in Gladsheim looking like this." He sighs. "Oh well, we mustn't disappoint them."
With a shrug he lets his hand fall, and Sigyn can only stare once again. Where just a moment ago his mouth was smooth and unscarred, now there is a series of red-scabbed puncture marks, six dotting the upper lip and seven for the lower, just exactly where the leather had threaded them closed.
He waggles his eyebrows at her.
Sigyn blinks, and then in spite of herself she laughs. She knows this about him. Loki the story-teller is also Loki the shape-changer, though she's never before heard of him changing within his human shape.
"Well, Odin's daughter," he says, his eyes turning crafty. "It seems I'm in your debt. What would you ask, in payment for your aid?"
"My name is Sigyn, you know," she says, playing for time, and because she wants him to know.
"Of course I know that," Loki says, waving an airy hand, and she laughs and lets him have the lie. She hadn't really expected him to have any idea who she was.
But she also hadn't considered that her help might win her a prize of gratitude, either. She'd only really considered the horror of his bound mouth and the prospect of no more clever tales or wise, cutting taunts at feasts. She hadn't wanted to lose the stories.
For a moment, she thinks of asking why he did it, but she has already heard the story from Sif, who is certainly more truthful than he. And she's heard most of Loki's version, too, when he presented the two dwarves, and all their splendid gifts for the gods.
"Well," she says at last, drawing out the word in consideration. "You say you are in my debt. What do you think that debt is worth?"
Loki cocks his head at her in surprise, then gives her a quick, sharp grin. "Clever," he murmurs.
Sigyn shifts uncomfortably under the weight of his consideration.
"I've been told," Loki says, slow and wicked, "that my tongue is my best feature. So I suppose it must be worth rather a lot."
Sigyn's face flames and she ducks her head away from his teasing eyes.
"I suppose," she mumbles.
"So what is it that you want?" he presses. Sigyn doesn't miss the way he's once more turned the question back on her, but she lets it go this time.
"I suppose I could ask for another dwarven treasure," she says slowly, her eyes still trained on the ground as she plucks small blades of grass and twists them in her fingers. "But that seems a bit cruel."
Loki lets out a snort of laughter, and she risks a look at him again.
"I don't want that anyway," she says, smiling. "What I want is a story."
Loki's laughter fades into a smile of pleasant surprise. "A story?" he asks. "Such a little thing?"
Sigyn smirks at him. "You can't fool me," she says. "Words are your greatest treasure, and you owe me quite a lot."
For a brief moment, she thinks that Loki's eyes fill with open admiration, but then he blinks and his gaze is shuttered. She can't be sure if she imagined it or not, but it fills her with warmth all the same.
"What story, then?" he asks easily.
Sigyn bites her lip and takes a chance. "All of them," she says, every bit her father's daughter, proud and demanding. "From now on. You can speak or be silent in the halls of the Aesir, as you like, but all your words you owe to me. All the stories you bring back from your journeys."
"Ah," Loki says with a slow, lazy smile. "So you'll buy my friendship with your charm-craft, then?"
"Yes," she says, beaming, inordinately pleased that he's understood her, that he hasn't reproached her for her boldness.
"I can agree to that, Sigyn," Loki says with startling honesty, and offers his hand to seal the debt.
Sigyn grasps his elbow and feels his fingers clench around hers in turn. "Friends, then," she says, and Loki smiles.