fallen out of favor and fallen from grace

by Perspeculi

Those who are other in Asgard will never be accepted. Freyja, Sigyn, Frigga, Loki, OCs.

i.

Freyja is there when Sigyn Iwaldidottir is born. She comes into the Nine Realms quietly and Freyja, for a moment, fears that the difficult birth may have harmed her in some way. Then she opens her mouth and wails, high voice echoing throughout the bedroom. Freyja breathes a sigh of relief and cleans her off before handing her to Eydis.

"She is beautiful," Freyja says. Eydis smiles and brushes back some of the dark hair on the girl's head. Freyja leaves the two to their bonding as she begins the after birth process, her two maidservants helping. The difficulty of the pregnancy and birth gives Freyja pause, but she must wait to look over Eydis later to be certain. Once she is done cleaning everything up, Freyja returns to the bedside. "What will you name her?"

Eydis is quiet, staring down at her daughter's face. The baby had fallen silent again shortly after being placed in her mother's arms, and Eydis had not looked away from her even for a second. Finally the goddess says, "Sigyn. Her name is Sigyn."

Maiden who brings victory. Freyja wonders at the name before smiling. "A beautiful name for a beautiful child." She leaves again to bring in Iwaldi, who glances over her briefly, his usual stoic expression in place. But Freyja isn't blind to the small look of judgment she sees in his eyes. He will never forget the time she casually invited him into her bed before he married Eydis.

She gives him a smile in return, unashamed, and goes to announce the birth to Frigga and Odin.

"Sigyn," Frigga says, as if tasting the name on her tongue. She falls silent for a while, her gaze far off, and Freyja wonders briefly what the Aesir Queen sees. Loki plays by himself not far off from his mother, small hands fumbling with his toys. Frigga's eyes drift down to him and her expression becomes somber. Then the goddess turns to Freyja, a secretive smile tinged with sadness on her face. "Thank you, Freyja. I will be by later to see the child."

Freyja bows her head, wishing to ask what she saw, but knows it would be futile. The Queen never revealed what she saw, merely let the visions come to pass as they may. Freyja does not envy her this power; if she could see such things, she isn't entirely certain she would be able to keep them to herself or stand by idly and let fate do what it will.

As she leaves, Freyja turns to look back at Frigga one last time as the Queen picks Loki up and murmurs something to him, her grip tight and protective.

Unfortunately a few days later her suspicions are confirmed, as she and Eir share a look over Eydis after looking her over. Once Eir leaves, Freyja calls Iwaldi back in to give them the news that Eydis will not be able to carry another child. "Any other baby you have will likely not survive to be birthed," Freyja says, her voice quiet and sympathetic. "Or if it does, it will be too dangerous for you to do so."

They take the news in silence, looking at Sigyn's crib where the baby sleeps peacefully. Then Eydis says, "We have Sigyn. She is more than enough. And she will bring us victory."

Freyja glances over at the crib and feels sorry that such an expectation has been made of a newborn baby.

ii.

Asgard, Freyja finds, has far too many rules. Too many constrictions on how a certain person should be. She still remembers Vanaheim, can remember the feel of its land underneath her feet, remembers her people's beliefs. Open, free. Without much judgment. Peaceful. Beautiful.

In contrast, Asgard is closed, always teetering on the edge of shaky peace, and while it is beautiful in its own way, it is full of judgment. Freyja sees this when she joins the other gods and goddesses in Gladsheim, the men who look away from her in shame from the night they spent with her, sometimes behind the backs of their wives, sometimes when they were unfettered. A few women envy her, hate her for her beauty and her outspoken and shameless ways. A few hate her because they want her, and Asgard frowns upon such a practice.

Freyja does not understand it, much as she does not understand a lot about Asgard.

Being seen as other to them comes with its advantages, however. Freyja still takes any lover she chooses, and when word spreads about it, people merely shake their head and think, "She is of Vanaheim and so we cannot expect much else from her." It is still insulting, but if it allows her to spend her days as she chooses with whomever she chooses, Freyja will bite her tongue and stay silent. Even Odin, who at first expected her to adhere to Asgard's cultural and societal rules, now turns a blind eye to her pursuits, not expecting anything else from a Vanir woman.

"We must accept these things, Freyja," her brother Freyr says as she lays her head upon his bare chest. "Asgard is our home now, and we must keep the peace."

"It is hard to keep one's mind turned towards peace when one is a hostage, brother."

Freyr sighs, having been over this particular conversation with Freyja many times. Though he is her twin, they differ in their thinking. Freyr believes the union between the Aesir and the Vanir is good. And Freyja agrees with him on that; peace between the two is a welcome thing indeed. But it came with a heavy price.

Freyja remains silent, memories of her home burning and the far off sounds of war coming back to her. And she knows, secretly, that Freyr is not entirely happy with how things ended for them either.

"Asgard has been good to us," Freyr says at length. "Better than any of us expected. And we can do good here."

Yes, Freyja thinks. But I would rather do good freely, not imprisoned. It is with this in mind that she looks upon the Aesir's hatred of the Jotnar with a more critical eye than she had before. She had not thought to question it before, simply leaving the Aesir to their wars and the Jotnar to their far off planet. But that, like many other things, changed when Asgard declared war on Vanaheim.

Now she cannot help but ponder the Casket as it sits below the palace in the relics chamber-how the Jotnar needed it to build their cities and homes and who knew what else-and is not entirely certain it was a fair price to pay for peace. She listens to the tales the Aesir speak of the Jotnar and it occurs to her that they sound exaggerated, much like the stories of herself and Freyr. And yet they were told as truths instead of simple stories, created from centuries old hate and distrust.

Freyja merely smiles and nods whenever someone brings them up, feeling a little ashamed of herself for not saying anything. But she has learned that she cannot change Asgard's ways, and so she does not try anymore.

iii.

Eydis brings Sigyn to Vingolf one day, months after she is born, for her official welcoming as an Asynjur. Everyone cooes over the baby, who stares up at them with wide, fascinated blue eyes. Gifts for the baby pile around Eydis's feet. Freyja is the next one to gift her, after Frigga, and Sigyn blinks as she holds up the necklace to sparkle in the sunlight.

"For when you are grown," Freyja says, the silver and light purple necklace cool against her fingers. "You will be a beautiful woman, Sigyn."

"Thank you, Freyja," Eydis says. She takes the necklace and fingers the smoothness of the metal briefly before setting it down. She says nothing more. Eydis is less subtle than her husband about her dislike of Freyja, and she almost misses the brief closeness they shared when she helped birth Sigyn.

But no matter. Freyja has learned not to expect many friends in Asgard.

"May I hold her, Eydis?" Frigga asks, and Eydis laughs and nods.

"Of course, my Queen." Sigyn makes a few unhappy noises as she is moved from one woman to another, but then settles back down. Frigga is silent as she brushes back some of Sigyn's dark hair, her gaze thoughtful. "Is something the matter, my Queen?" Eydis asks after a moment, her expression concerned.

"No, forgive me," Frigga says. "I was merely remembering when my own were this small." Freyja remembers the look on Frigga's face when she learned of Sigyn's name and does not entirely believe the Queen.

"It was not all that long ago," Volla, Frigga's handmaiden, says with a laugh.

"No, of course not," Frigga says, smiling. "But some days it feels like it." She holds Sigyn close to her face, smiling. Sigyn sneezes-likely from Frigga's perfume-and, before anyone can react, a mirror on the other wall shatters. The goddesses jump and exclaim in surprise and Sigyn begins wailing, frightened. No one moves or speaks a word, all eyes turned towards the broken shards on the floor, until finally Frigga hands Sigyn back to her mother.

Eydis does not meet their gazes. "That happens sometimes," she says quietly, almost ashamed. Or perhaps, Freyja muses, fearful. "She sneezes or coughs and something shatters. We suspect she may have a small talent with magic."

Frigga stays silent, keeping her face impassive, while the other goddesses share looks with each other. Freyja looks back to the mirror and, not for the first time, feels sorry for Sigyn.

Sorceresses are not taken kindly in Asgard, like so many things.

iv.

When Sigyn is named the Goddess of Constancy, Freyja muses that it just so happens to make her the opposite of Loki, the God of Chaos. And she is not alone in this thought; murmurs spread once the other Aesir learn of how she has been titled. They think it means the two will hate each other.

Freyja is the only one of the opinion that it will bring them together. You cannot have one without the other, after all. She is the only one unsurprised when Sigyn, grown into an adorable and happy child, strikes up a friendship with Loki. She often finds them in the gardens, books sprawled open around them, as they practice magic together. This starts another round of whispered rumours, decades after the first ones had finally died. Two children with the talent for magic, studying together, one of them being Loki. The Aesir did not entirely approve.

"They are children," Freyja says, feeling protective of the boy who is already beginning to be cast as other, just like herself. "And magic can do them no harm. Let them do as they please."

It only quiets the whispers a little. Freyja soon learns to stay out of the matter, for most do not agree with her, and worse, she is causing judgment to be cast on the two children for her defense of them. For if she thought it was fine, then it was most certainly not by the Aesir's way of thinking. She fears for them, knowing one day they would begin to hear the words spoken about them behind their backs, words that, as they grew older, would not be spoken so quietly or so discreetly.

She almost hopes they give up on their magic. It would be easier for them.

Sigyn, she comes to find, is a peculiar child. Happy and easy to laugh, yes, but generally quiet and shy, preferring a book to the company of people. Except for Loki, of course, and the Queen, and-as Freyja discovers one day-Freyr. She finds her twin with the girl up on his shoulders, her gleeful laugh bubbling throughout the air. "I'm so tall!" she laughs. "I'm taller than Heimdall!"

"So you are," Freyr says with a laugh. "And can you see what he sees?"

"Hmm," Sigyn says, scrunching up her face as she looks out at the horizon. Then she points to a random direction in the sky and exclaims, "I can see Jotunheim."

Freyr falters, just a bit, and then sees Freyja watching them. She gives him an amused smile and simply stands back, wanting to see where this goes. "Do you, now?" Freyr finally says.

"Yes," Sigyn says with a decisive nod. "Laufey sits high up in his throne, looking out over his city, while snow falls. I've never seen snow," Sigyn adds. "I wonder what it's like."

"Cold," Freyr says and Sigyn laughs again, leaning over his head to look him in the face.

"I know that, silly!" Then she looks back up at the sky and falls silent, gaze wandering. "Freyr, why did we take the Casket?"

Freyja stills and she can see Freyr do the same. "You know why, child," Freyr says at length. "You've heard the stories."

"I've heard a story," Sigyn points out. "It didn't make any sense to me. The Jotuns need the Casket to build their cities. Without it, everything falls apart. So why did we take it? It's mean."

Freyr is silent for a long while, likely trying to think of a way to explain it to her without getting into trouble, when Freyja finally steps forward. "It is the price one must pay for peace, little one," Freyja says.

Sigyn looks up in surprise, then shyly lowers her gaze to the top of Freyr's fair head and mumbles, "But it's mean." The girl is often shy around Freyja, ducking her head shyly and bunching up her skirts in her fists. Freyja finds it adorable, because it does not come from hate or dislike or being taught to, but from admiration and respect.

"It would have been worse to let them seize control over the Nine Realms," Freyja says simply. "As I said, it was the price to pay."

Sigyn thinks this over and Freyja doesn't entirely expect her to understand. She is a child, after all. The Nine Realms still exist as black and white to her, with no thought given to the shades of grey that sit between. Then Sigyn nods slowly and says, "Well... I guess I understand. But it was still wrong. I feel sorry for them."

This frank admission from an Aesir child causes Freyja to share a look with her brother. Then Freyr takes her by the waist and lifts her easily off his shoulders. "You're far too serious, little one," Freyr says, tapping her nose with a finger. "Let's go back to snow. Did you know it's also wet when it melts?"

Sigyn laughs and taps his nose in return. "Of course I do, Freyr!" He carries her off and Sigyn glances back at Freyja once, then manages a small wave in goodbye. Freyja smiles and waves in return.

It comes as no surprise to her when, decades later, Sigyn is given another trait to symbolize: Compassion. She feels sorry for the girl to be stuck with such a role. She feels sorry for Sigyn often, it seems.

v.

Rumours never truly die out. They merely go through periods of activity and quietness, much like how a wave slides across a beach before returning to the sea. Tales of Freyja never die down, especially when, as the centuries pass, her husband Odr never makes an appearance in Asgard. She merely sips her mead and lets the Aesir talk, only deigning to reassure them of his existence sporadically. They will believe what they will; nothing she says can change that. She cries for him in public at times, sits at windows and gazes at the horizon longingly, the perfect painting of a wife missing her husband dearly.

The theories they have of Odr only existing in her mind and in her words to hide her relationship with Freyr sometimes strike too close to the truth for comfort. Of course he existed, Freyja thought. Until the war. It is another price she must pay for peace, and she is beginning to resent it.

Sometimes Asgard becomes too much for her, and under the guise of looking for her lost husband, Freyja leaves the Realm Eternal. She takes on many names during these times, more than she can count, as she travels amongst strange peoples. She even ventures into Jotunheim briefly in one travel, takes in the crumbling buildings of ice and rock in silence, etching the destruction caused by the Aesir in her mind. It looks much like Vanaheim did, in the end.

Upon returning from one such travel, she finds Sigyn near Sessrúmnir, her hall in Asgard. Sigyn is kneeling and has her hand held out, pieces of meat in her palm, and she cooes to a white haired cat that stands in front of her. She is a gangly child now, almost upon the age of womanhood, and her growth has left her with long limbs that she sometimes seems to have difficulty using properly. She will be tall, like her father, like most Aesir. And already Freyja can see the beautiful woman she will grow into, with long brown hair and kind, bright blue-green eyes.

"Hello, little one," Freyja says as she approaches the girl. Sigyn jumps up, nearly falling over, and the white haired cat runs over to greet Freyja. "I had heard tales of you visiting the stables at Gladsheim to watch kittens being born, and the little family you have near your Father's hall who you so kindly feed each day. I did not, however, realize you came over here to visit my own."

Sigyn ducks her head for a moment, then raises it to look up at Freyja. "Are you angry with me, Lady Freyja?"

"Angry?" Freyja repeats, blinking in surprise. "Of course not, child. Why would I be angry? I think it is sweet of you. Come," Freyja says, offering the girl her hand. "I will introduce you to the rest."

Sigyn hesitates for the briefest of moments before smiling slightly and taking the hand offered to her. Freyja leads her into her hall as cats begin to come out of their hiding places to greet their mistress. Sigyn smiles in delight and sits down on her knees, soon surrounded by curious cats that sniff at the stranger and then allow themselves to be pet. Freyja watches from afar, smiling.

Sigyn looks up at her again briefly, then slowly says, "I'm not supposed to be talking to you."

"Oh?" Freyja says, her tone almost bored. She could guess why, but instead she asks, "And why is that?"

"Mother says you might be a bad influence on me," Sigyn says. She tilts her head to the side, considering. "But she says the same about Loki, too."

Freyja smirks and even laughs a little, causing Sigyn to look at her in confusion. "You know why your Mother thinks I'd be a bad influence on you, yes?"

Sigyn blushes a little and ducks her head in embarrassment. "She's made hints."

"And what do you think?" Freyja asks. "Do you think I'd teach you in my ways and corrupt your mind?"

"No," Sigyn answers immediately with a certainty that surprises Freyja. "Not unless I asked. And maybe even then, you wouldn't. But who says I need to be taught? It's natural, isn't it?"

Freyja stares at her in surprise, then laughs, a laugh that shakes her entire body and forces her to lean on a wall for support. "You'd best be careful who you say that around, Sigyn," she says once she catches her breath. Her cheeks ache but her smile doesn't fade. "Yours is not a view many hold in high regard."

"I know," Sigyn says, her gaze downwards. "Asgard looks down on a lot of things."

For the first time, Freyja fears for Sigyn. A girl with so unusual a mind and so outspoken an attitude would not be well liked in Asgard. Freyja muses that Eydis is wrong: Loki is not any kind of influence on Sigyn at all. The girl is all her own person, who is quite capable of thinking for herself. Freyja has no doubt that, even if Sigyn had never become friends with Loki, she would have taught herself magic anyway.

She hopes Sigyn goes through life without many troubles. But seeing so much of herself in the girl, Freyja knows she will not.

People become increasingly uncomfortable with Loki and Sigyn's friendship. Two sorcerers, one a well known trickster and the other most assumed to be easily led astray by him, unnerve the Aesir. Freyja snorts quite unladylike when when she hears of Sigyn being influenced and corrupted by Loki. Given the all too happy smile on her face whenever she was with him, Freyja highly doubts she needs any encouragement to cause mischief from Loki at all.

As usual, she keeps her thoughts to herself.

Sigyn soon enters the court as a woman, still gangly and awkward, but that mattered not to the boys in attendence. She received stares wherever she went and a few murmurs shared between boys, and Freyja supposes that beauty would rule out their fear of her magic. Or it would add to Sigyn's beauty in a way that made Freyja sick to her stomach and the mead sour on her tongue. As a mystical sort of treasure, not just a woman who happened to have a talent with magic.

Sigyn wears the necklace Freyja gifted her as a baby, still sparkling as brightly as it did that day, and it does not go unnoticed. She catches Freyja staring at her and smiles a little, putting a hand up to it. Freyja lifts her cup to the girl, a smile on her own face, and watches as Sigyn approaches Loki, who stares with wide eyes for a moment before recovering. They stay together most of the night, which doesn't go unnoticed as well, and Freyja would not be surprised if, in the future, Loki began courting her.

The day after, the rumours start anew of Loki and Sigyn's relationship. Freyja finds a bitter humour that it's a constant in the Goddess of Constancy's life.

vi.

Centuries pass and little changes in Asgard. The only thing to break up the monotony is Thor's approaching coronation, which, for all of Freyja's worries over how good a king he'll make, she welcomes. Anything to bring about a breath of fresh air to the Realm Eternal. Months pass in a flurry of activity, not only in Gladsheim but in Vingolf as well, as the goddesses prepare for the coronation. Frigga controls it all calmly with her usual Queenly grace, and Sigyn is most often absent as she spends time with Thor and Loki. As Freyja expected, she has grown into a beautiful and powerful woman. She's proud of Sigyn, strangely enough. She has stood tall and strong in the face of Asgard's judgments and has come away relatively unscathed, unwilling to let them tie her down.

As much as she is proud of her, however, Freyja still fears for her as well. How long would the Aesir allow a woman such as herself to stand so proud?

The day of the coronation arrives and, in hindsight, Freyja considers it to be the beginning of the end. Or perhaps, days later when the Bifrost is broken and Loki dies, that is the true beginning. It all winds down to her finding Sigyn crying in the garden, choking out between sobs, "You're a trickster, Loki, always getting out of messes. So get out of this one. Stop being dead. For me. Please, just... stop. Come back. Come back to me."

It is a few days after Loki's funeral, of which there was no body to burn, and the whole of Asgard mourns for him. A feast takes place in Gladsheim, but Freyja finds herself unable to go. Unable to face the laughter and the storytelling and the drinking, all supposedly in honour of the fallen prince.

She comes to stand beside Sigyn, then sits down beside her and puts an arm around her shoulder. Sigyn startles, looking at Freyja with wide, red eyes. "You loved him," Freyja says simply.

Tears well up in Sigyn's eyes again and she nods. "I did. From the moment I saw him. And I never told him."

Freyja hugs her tightly and lets Sigyn cry into her shoulder, sometimes petting her hair soothingly. She is not often good at comforting people, but there is nothing else she can say or do to make this better. Loki is dead. Sigyn is set adrift without her constant. And yet, somehow, Freyja knows she will survive. She will heal and move past this. She would not allow herself to wallow in grief for long. That would be a dishonour to Loki's memory and her love for him.

So for now, Freyja holds her and lets her cry. Later, she finds Frigga sitting at a window, a spindle in her hand.

"My Queen?" Freyja says, approaching her. "You are no longer at the feast?"

Frigga glances at her and manages a weak smile. "No, Freyja. I appeared for a short time, but left soon after." Freyja does not need to ask why. She considers it cruel, to require the mother of the dead son to appear at so happy a gathering. The reasons may have been for mourning; the result had been anything but. "How is Sigyn?" Frigga asks after a moment.

"Oh," Freyja says, somewhat in surprise. "She is... not well, my Queen. She mourns for Loki deeply." Freyja considers Frigga and says, "You knew she loved him."

"And he loved her," Frigga sighs, setting her spindle down. "I think he loved her before they'd even met. He once told me the Norns themselves had destined them to be together," Frigga smiles slightly at the memory and shakes her head. "That's when I knew he truly did love her. He rarely ever got so sentimental."

Perhaps not publicly, no. But Freyja suspects Loki often kept his softer side to himself. It wasn't normal in Asgard for a man to feel as a woman does. Another thing she would never understand. "It would have been nice," Freyja says, "to have seen them together. To see them married."

Frigga is silent again as she turns her gaze out to the horizon, the sunset colouring the sky golden and a red that looks uncomfortably like blood to Freyja. "Yes," Frigga says quietly. "It would have been."

Freyja, uncertain of what else to say, takes her leave then. She cannot shake the feeling that, whatever this is, it is not the end of it, and only Frigga may know how it will unfold.

Months pass and Freyja watches Theoric attempt to court Sigyn, unsuccessfully. The man is wrong for her, Freyja knows. He doesn't balance her in the least. Not like Loki did. Then, one night, months after Loki's death, Sigyn comes to Freyja at Sessrúmnir. She holds a bag over her shoulder and she is out of breath.

"Sigyn," Freyja says in surprise. "What are you doing here so late?"

"I came to say goodbye," Sigyn says. Freyja pauses and at her questioning look, Sigyn continues. "Loki's alive. I know he is. Please, don't ask me how." She hadn't intended to. She accepts it easily, this certainty of Sigyn's. If a needle in a haystack bore the label 'Loki', Freyja had no doubt Sigyn would be able to find it. "I'm going to find him. I don't know where he is but I will find him."

"You are running away," Freyja observes. "From Theoric."

Sigyn hesitates and then nods. "Yes. He wants me to give up my studies. I can't-I will not do that. But Mother is forcing it, so..." Sigyn shrugs helplessly. "I must go. But I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?"

"Yes. You were always so kind and accepting to me. I have always treasured that and I will never forget it," Sigyn says. Then she hugs Freyja tightly, surprising the older woman. "I have learned much from you, and I thank you for it. I will miss you."

Freyja returns the hug. "I will miss you too, child," she says, and it is the absolute truth. "You'd best go before someone comes looking for you." Freyja brushes a strand of hair back behind Sigyn's ear and smiles. "Safe travels and easy journeys, Victory-Bringer."

Sigyn smiles and then turns and runs. Freyja watches until her shadow disappears in the city, and does not wonder how she will travel out of Asgard. She is Loki's friend and a sorceress; if anyone knew a way to travel outside the Bifrost, it would be her.

lokun

Freyja does not see Sigyn again until the blood of her eldest son drips from a wolf's mouth. The red stains the light blue skin of her and Loki's eldest, his lighter red eyes gazing up lifelessly at the darkening sky. It is a stark and painful reminder that what is other in Asgard will never be accepted. As Sigyn is locked away with her husband, bowl held firmly in her hands, Freyja looks out over the other Aesir and hopes, just for a moment, ever so briefly, that the two burn Asgard and everyone in it.

She would not blame them in the least.