This is my first story on Fanfiction, though I have an in-progress one on Wattpad (Huntress, another story that includes characters from the Norse Myths, but also the Avengers and Marvel. My username there is LadyVillainess.) In the past, I've always wondered about the romance between Loki and Sigyn, God of Trickery and Goddess of Fidelity, Silvertongue and Incantation-Fetterer, Lord of Chaos and Bringer of Victory; because it's unclear of their mutual feelings. Neil Gaiman's audiobook speaks of Loki's affair with a frost giantess, Angrboda, but some other sources say he married Sigyn afterwards, making her his second wife. Loki would leave Sigyn, but he would always return, and Sigyn would always have hope that he would come back. Sigyn isn't stupid, she wouldn't be blindly devoted to Loki without a reason, she wouldn't love him unless there was something in him to love. Besides, he was the one to court and marry her in the first place, and as we all know, Reindeer Games doesn't do anything without a reason. (Shout-out to Tony Stark for that nickname, as well as Rock of Ages, because honestly, that's just staggeringly worthy of a standing ovation.) So either he was greedy and only wanted a wife so he could point at her and say, "That beautiful, intelligent woman over there? Yeah, she's mine," or he really did love her, at least then. Maybe his love for her faded over time, as his trickery grew more and more cruel; so my story is how their love strengthened after Sigyn made the super-heroic choice to stay with him and catch acid in a bowl from the jaws of a venomous snake. Talk about a female role model.

Because no matter how strong the power of Ragnarok and chaos runs in his veins, it's downright impossible not to have some level of respect for a woman who threw away her life for his own. But Sigyn didn't do that. Incantation-Fetterer means Magic-Chainer, and Bringer of Victory (her name means Victory-Friend) means that she's probably triumphed so many times that Odin gave her a name for it. People talk about her strength, but nobody realizes that staying at your husband's side for eternity and just disregarding the potential of a new and better life is the weakest thing imaginable. Because "Oh, but I love him!" isn't strong; it's blind devotion and brainless loyalty - armies didn't pledge their fealty to kings because they cared about them, they did so because they knew that the outcome would be best for the king and themselves. Maybe Sigyn had a glimpse of the future, a future where bad things would come about if she didn't stay, maybe the hastened start of Ragnarok; or she knows Loki well enough to believe Ragnarok would be in better hands if she was at his side - who knows?

So this story about their times of pain and angst and burning passion and the looming, monstrous shadow of Ragnarok coming ever closer encompasses those truths, delves deep into the twisted labyrinth that is Loki's heart, and the unfathomable depth that s Sigyn's. Because I don't think Sigyn wouldn't entirely want the gods' deaths or Ragnarok's arrival. She may be loving and patient and subtle, but Odin drove one of her sons insane and led him to kill the other as a wolf, and seeing how the Chief of the Gods didn't even look back at the body of Narvi or the trail of bloody footprints Vali left as he loped towards Jotunheim. She may still sorrow over Loki's fate, she may still want things to be as they were, but I don't think she would be docile at the murder of two innocent souls, two souls who she loved. Not for Loki, but for Narvi and Vali, her children who would have wanted her to embrace the fire that was the Victory-Bringer.

I think she would want revenge.

So this is also the story of the Victory-Bringer, the Wife of Loki and his sanctuary, and the Incantation-Fetterer, the Lady of Staying Power, and the Lady of Mourning, the woman who Loki was a burden to but stayed with him despite it. This is not a story of 'How could he do those things?' or 'How could she stay with him after all that?'

This is a story of why.

And like all good stories, it starts with a proper douse of pain.

Sigyn heard two screams of pain as she saw her family taken from her, in no less time than the casting of a spell that even a master of seidr could not undo, and the gleam of silver fangs that even a child whose veins ran with the blood of the wolves could not hold back.