Official Summary:
Long ago, when the Vikings still roamed Scandinavia, a loyal goddess stood beside the trickster god, Loki. Her name was Sigyn, the Goddess of Fidelity. After a terrible enemy threatened to take her away, Loki resolved to do the impossible, to shatter the unparalleled power that rested in her heart, and he succeeded. Afterward, her presence was lost to society, forgotten by all who had ever seen or heard of the goddess of loyalty. It was a thousand years later that she awoke on Midgard, in an ignorant mortal shell better known as Jane Foster. Lokane. Loki and Jane. Post Thor: The Dark World
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The Heart of Infinity
Prologue
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He was everything, everything that I wanted,
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it,
And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away,
All this time you were pretending,
So much for my happy ending . . .
-Avril Lavigne, My Happy Ending lyrics
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The stars gleamed and winked at her, shining down on Earth with near-eternal light. They formed grand constellations that cascaded across the twilit horizon and above. They enticed her, excited her, and most of all, captivated her. Her heart was in the stars. It always had been. It may have been irrational to believe in such concepts, but to Jane... That was her one belief that didn't involve quantum physics and hard facts. It was her illogical side, the side that held her faith and compassion. It was what drove her life through every milestone and heartache. It was the reason that she followed her dreams into science, that odd, strange faith that her heart was in the stars.
A heart of infinite lengths.
"Jane!" a voice shouted, shattering her perfect little fantasy of the sky and stars. Darcy always had a knack of bringing her back to reality. "Jane, c'mon! Get over here, I think I found something!"
With a retreating sigh, she made her way back into her lab. "Alright, alright. I'm coming."
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Her life, like all princesses, began with 'once upon a time', but the ending was left to the ancient authorse to decide her fate, and there was a question that appeared while writing her story. It was a question of loyalty, the very virtue that would define her very being for the rest of eternity.
Sigyn of Asgard, the Goddess of Fidelity.
The ancient authors knew how to create her beginnings. They knew how to orchestrate her life until the day she fell in love for the first time. After that... They were left to decide the rest of the possibilities her life could take.
It was a decision that would change the worlds forevermore.
Fidelity would transform into something the worlds had never really seen before. Glances and thoughts, perhaps, but never quite like this. Never so grand. Never so magnificent. Never so unyielding. It would never allow death the ability to hinder its eternal light.
It was a power beyond all imagining.
Throughout her life, the authors knew she would never truly be a warrior, nor would she ever really be a master of magic like her true love. She would never even be a scholar, at least, not in her first life. She would be something else entirely. She would be a beholder. Of what, however, was perhaps the most complicated and intricate question of them all. It had an elaborate answer, as well, one that required secrecy and infallible protection.
It required lies and mischief to hide its essence from the universe, or in some cases, the multiverse.
By mischief's side she would be considered the light in the dark, but in reality, an even more brilliant presence would be obscured because of this deceptive illusion. An unstoppable power, incomparable and unparalleled, would be hidden deep inside Sigyn of Asgard, and not even she would know of its existence for many centuries after her creation. Not even the Great All-Father would know of it until the many worlds begin to descend into the hands of discord. Only one man would ever know of its emergence within her, and that man was also her true love.
Loki Laufeyson, the Frost Giant, the Asgardian Prince, the Trickster... All names he would take upon himself, some less willingly than others, but they would all have the same concept bestilled inside them. And he was every single of them, with or without question.
He would also be burdened with glorious purpose.
As for what that purpose was... It was simple... One day, he would shatter his true love's power into an infinite number of fragmented pieces.
He would betray her trust.
He would deny her his compassion.
He would leave her on another world.
He would shatter her heart.
He would love every form she would ever take.
But, he would, without a doubt, always love her; everything that she would be, and everything she would never even think of being.
But remember, dear reader, that everything has a reason.
Therein lies the simple question: why?
This story explains that... But alas, we have passed the point of saying 'once upon a time', for where we start is the end of one story, but the beginning of another.
So here we are... Long ago in the palace of Asgard, mere days past an adventure where Loki had been believed to have descended into Hel. Instead, however, he would convince them of his life in the nights following this one, but after this night, a presence would be shattered and forgotten by all but one. We enter a place where a trickster waits quietly in the shadows, while his love walks down its grandurized halls, lost and alone and beyond consoling.
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To Sigyn, it felt like a lifetime had passed since the day she had heard. Everything was so long, so tedious, so miserably horrendous, terribly meticulous, and never ending. Her despair would never end. It never would.
He was gone.
"I'm so sorry, Sigyn," Thor had said upon arrival.
She remembered her eyes widening, unable to comprehend the words, unable to believe the concept he had dared to tell her. She had shaken her head, her voice hoarse as her heart plummeted and the cold hearth of dread, capturing her in its vile flames, relentless. Her throat had constricted, unable to speak.
Her emerald eyes, so like the one she loved, burned like frozen fire, so hot that they were freezing.
She was shaking uncontrollably as she had barely whispered, "What?"
She felt cold, as if Death himself was raking his phantom hands over her entire body. Her hands had been trembling with the horrible revelation, like puppet strings controlling her movements, even despite how she resisted their pull.
She had run at Thor screaming, shrieking and volatile. Her tears had been streaming down her cheeks, like magma rivers on her chilled skin. She had hit and pounded him with all her might, uncaring of any laws that forayed her from striking a prince of Asgard. To her, he was the reason, he had been the one that had killed him, he had been the one she would center her animosity on, even if the evidence stated otherwise.
"H-How dare you allow for this!" she had cried, beating the words into him with her fists and amplifying grief. "You are his brother, and you allowed him entrance to that place of death?! Hel has no need for him! How could you?!" her nails had dug into his biceps as she had squeezed them with all her strength. She could have sworn he had grunted in pain by it.
Then a choked sob, so filled with grievous longing that it had probably broke the prince's heart, had spilled from her lips. Uncontrollable sobs had racked her body, screams of horror and lost love tearing from her mouth as new tears trailed on already charted territory. It had gone on like this for hours, and Thor had held her upright, even as he legs had given out from under her, and her cheeks dry as desert sand.
The world had seemed so empty after that, and she had felt hollow.
The several days following had been intervals of intense rage, anguish, and afterward, emptiness. Every emotion had came and went on their tyrannical way, but anything else was a trek of impossibility. All hope was lost.
When they had sent his body over the edge, into the infinite stars, she had never been so hopeless, so lost. She had felt the very first crack in her heart.
Her dreams were filled with devious profile, and when she awoke, the wet pellets that descended down her cheeks only began the interval once more. She had also sent her servants away, banishing them from her chambers until the day when light would beckon the darkness away. Until she knew that she would live on.
Then one night, she awoke to a flickering of light behind her lids, and the faint aroma of burning wax flowed through her petite nose, uplifting her senses. Her eyes fluttered, her vision blurred from the previous onslaught of tears, and her head swam in circles as harsh ache brewed in the back of her head. Had it not been for the sight she was met with, the interval would've began, but the scene before her took her breath away. She threw back the covers of her duvet, and choked back a sob. Her heart was captivated by it, every fiber of her being buzzing with amazement, and for one very important reason.
"Loki..." she whispered into the air, and this time, tears began to form as a single hope enraptured her heart.
She breathed in the aroma of wax, and instantly she felt like herself. All physical signs of grief, were lost into the magic that the wax swirled around her. It was a beautiful scenery, for it was one she had witnessed periodically throughout her lifetime. Even more specifically, on evenings where everything became forgotten besides each other and the love that they shared.
Hundreds, upon hundreds of brightly lit candles circled and hovered across her bedchamber. The flames embraced the darkness it surrounded, and the shadows waltzed along the walls in flourishes of movement, graceful and flurgerating. Her entire world was alight with gold and black, and the flames themselves were like gleaming stars in the night sky, almost twinkling as they roamed by a magical levitation spell alone. Wispy smoke swirled in random lines and curves, sweeping upward and rotating around its creator flame until it ascended high above.
She gently brushed her fingers against the bottom of one candle, and it slowly ascended into the air.
These candles were enchanted, she knew. They burned as bright as the sun, but were really only an illusion meant to illuminate the area around it without the external heat to radiate from its outer layer. It was a wonderful ability. To be fearful of the heat, only to quickly realize it was harmless.
And it was possibly the most ideal way to upset the balance of her steady heart, for she knew where the end of these candles would lead.
Wrapped in a merely nightgown, and auburn tresses loose upon her shoulders, her bare feet settled on the floor beneath her. The cool surface was an unwelcome one, but soon... Soon she would be in the arms of her beloved trickster.
She could only hope that this wasn't a dream. She couldn't imagine waking up from this without bursting into tears. Her gut tightened at the thought.
After all, only Loki did this for her. It was a secret of theirs, a sign of his arrival, and an invitation that she happily accepted. It hadn't appeared in her dreams recently, but she knew she couldn't trust her mind until she felt him. Only tangibility would revive her from the painful misery she had been left to rot within.
Her steps were soundless as they pressed against the tile, and she maneuvered her way around the candles without disrupting their set course. The fumes encircling her were sweet and sensual, like perfume, only healthy for both the mind and body. Loki had always said that the scent the candles emitted was what she gave off. She remembered she had blushed a deep scarlet as he had whispered such heavenly things into her ears, afterwards inhaling her scent and burying his face in her hair.
Her pulse accelerated.
Was this really all a dream?
She clutched the pendant at her neck, the green emerald he had given her after his first adventure on Midgard, centuries ago.
Her door swung open as she neared it, and sure enough, a candle trail led down the hallways, lighting up the area in a dim, seductive scenery. The candles were assembled in a single, straight line, unwavering in their course, and kept their exact distance from one another as they hovered at shoulder-height. They went into an indiscernible distance from what she could tell.
The world around her was silent, and suddenly she could hear her footfalls as they rose and fell, but nothing more.
The corridor she was in, happened to be a main passage within the palace that overlooked the back gardens. The starlit canvas of a sky beyond held a plethora of winking constellations and unforeseen worlds for her to map out in her mind. A stone railing, crested with runes and old depictions, seemed to glow with power, and she wondered why it suddenly felt like it was important for her to read their writings for herself. She felt drawn to their glow, as if an ancient force drew her forward, but she pressed onward to her original goal. Nothing would come between Sigyn and her love, nothing, especially something so unnecessary. She was quite appalled with herself, actually. Why would she even consider staying there when he was so close?
With only a wary glance behind her, she made her way down the corridor even faster than before, quickly striding along the passage without breaking out into a run. She didn't have a desire to wake someone from their slumber, if only so she didn't get caught in a deserted hall without a reliable reason in mind.
In truth, when Loki had left with Thor, Sif, and the Warrior's Three on their most recent adventure, he had told her that if, and only if he returned with an unchanged mind, that he would finally utter the words she had waited centuries for. Those three words that could speak a thousand and more. But now...
How wrong had she been?
The thought brought a rush of adrenaline through her immortal veins, love and loss still newly engraved into her mind, and suddenly she forgot all about the possibility of being caught. Her footsteps echoed in her ears, and her breathing resounded along the tiles beneath her feet.
And Sigyn ran.
The candles traveled down hall after hall, but they didn't end. They continued around secret-passageways, through vacant rooms, even through the tallest towers in the palace. Her breathing was heavy, sputtering and harsh. Her lungs were burning, but she didn't stop.
She roamed through every known location within the palace, and finally she was met with a single hall, grand and golden, even in the gloom of the night. Throughout her trek, she didn't spot any sentries, or even servants. The entire palace seemed to be devoid of populace. It was disturbing, and it only furthered her distress that everything she had gone through from the moment of her supposed awakening, that everything she had done might have all been apart of some grand illusion of the night.
It was only as her palms pressed against the broad double-doors that she noticed just where she was. She pushed them open slowly, her arms straining against the weight, until they slammed open. She nearly tumbled to granite flooring due to the power of inertia, but she held her ground with only a slight stumble in her step.
Her heart was racing in her chest.
The candles led the extent of the throneroom, until the edge of gleaming steps surmounting up to the throne itself. The room was empty, silent, and despondent, and she felt a shot of fear. Had it all been for not?
She found herself before the abandoned throne when her knees gave out beneath her, whatever reserves for hope, lost.
Her breathing quickened, and the sound reverberated along the walls, swallowing every ounce of hope that she had left. Sigyn's tears prickled at her eyes and she shook her head. He was not here...
Hope.
What a demented word.
How she longed to wake.
But then, something positively extraordinary happened.
"Dear Sigyn..."
His voice! It echoed along the throne room, repeating its smooth and mysterious tones, getting quieter after each mention. The girl in question snapped her head up, her eyes wide.
Her heart fluttered with expectant butterflies.
"L-Loki..." she breathed into the air. Could it really be you?
Then he was suddenly before her; materialized out of the dark and into a living, breathing man. He was kneeling down to her distraught level, and caressed her cheek with his deft fingers, placing a lock behind her ear with such care and grace that she was in a state of shell-shock, unmoving from her position. It was only as his digits left a trail of heat in their wake that she gasped, a lone tear descending down her flushed skin. He was smiling at her lovingly, a look so unlike what she had seen in the recent years.
Her heart ached with a passion of love and longing that she couldn't stand.
Within seconds she lunged for him, capturing him in an such a strong embrace that could have rivaled Thor's. She buried her face in his chest, and he was forced onto his back. She was on top of him, latching onto him like a lifeline, and sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder. Every emotion spilled from her like a waterfall; her anger, her rage, her depression, her happiness, her loyalty... Everything she had ever felt came and went in exotic waves of passion and anger.
Loki was only stunned for a moment by her fast-acting embrace, before he resolved to wrap her in his arms just as tightly. He sighed contently, and shushed away her sobs once he felt his own heart constrict by the sound.
"Sigyn, please," he whispered into her hair. He was quite dismayed by her reaction, it pained him. "I'm here, so please."
He was begging her, she knew, but her emotions were wild and had been released like a floodgate. She had thought she had lost him. It was such a grave meaning, and she couldn't bear it! Instead of helping, she only worsened, her wails became heart-wrenching and just unbearable. They told stories of grief unlike ever before, of the horror death, and of every emotion in between, until she was left exhausted and drained of energy in Loki's arms.
Time passed, and her sobs slowly transformed into sniffles and attempts at catching her breath. She hadn't been so broken in front of him in centuries, but he always knew how to console her. Just his presence was enough to calm the trembling ripples of fear instilled in her heart.
He was alive.
The mere revelation brought in relief and warmth, and her arms encircled his neck as she was held at his side, until once more she could speak normally. Her face was still streaked from the tears, and her cheeks were puffy and red. She probably wasn't a very pretty sight to behold, she knew, but when she spoke she sounded something akin to tranquil, "What happened to you, Loki?"
He shifted onto his side, an elbow propped up to hold his head up, and her arms left him to retreat back to her sides. He searched her gaze, as if determining something in his resourceful mind. Then he spoke, "It's simple really, love. I faked my death. Does such a prospect perplex you?"
His eyes remained on her face, until he took his other hand and traced the outline of her face, his fingers warm with healing magic.
Well, she understood his unsaid reason because it was just so simple: he didn't want to opposed by those who had probably forced him away. Whatever force he had faced with the others must've been dreadfully powerful to cause him to react in such a way. But another problem tugged at her.
"But what am I to do?" Sigyn's brows creased after he finished the healing spell. "You know me, Loki... I can't lie to save my own life, let alone protect yours." It wasn't that she wouldn't try, but anyone would be able to tell of her falsities. Despite all her time with the trickster of lies and deceit, she had never learned how to correctly lie without sounding meek and terribly false. There were all kinds of signs she gave off, and while the were certainly unintentional, they appeared nonetheless. It was one of her failures, but that was what Loki had always been there for, to complete her.
"I know," was all he said, and his eyes closed discontentedly, as if exasperated by this. When he opened them again, his eyes changed, his entire demeanor changed, and suddenly he looked like predator. "But that is why what happens next is simply unavoidable."
The following seconds were possibly the most disastrous in the life.
A whirlwind of magic emerged into the space around them, swirling around Loki a vivid green smoke that told her he was not to be trifled with. And the smirk that adorned his lips was one she would never soon forget, sly and sinister, and dare she admit, effortlessly nefarious. She had never been subjected to this version of him.
Was this the look his enemies received after he had them in his clutches?
Sigyn eyes widened in a feeling he had never caused her before: fear. They flashed along her features, and she cried out when a burst of cold magic latched onto her wrists, leaving her kneeling before him, her knees slamming down onto the ground hard enough to bruise. Chains appeared from the cloud of green magic, and they were an icy emerald color, just like his eyes, and she couldn't contemplate just what he was thinking.
"L-Loki," she whimpered, struggling against his magic. "What is this?"
His smile became a devious grin, and he paced before her patiently, as if they had all the time in the world to justify the reasons of why he was doing this to her.
When he chuckled, she felt her heart drop, and she winced as physical pain emerged in her chest. "It's all so simple, dear Sigyn," he told her, abruptly ending his strides to face her, amusement darkening his features in a villainous aura. "It's always been so simple, yet you never saw this coming. Really." He breathed a laugh. "I honestly didn't expect you to be quite his pathetic, goddess of loyalty."
She sucked in a panicked breath, her heart aching with a force she had never once anticipated in her life. "Y-You... You can't be serious, Loki. I mean... You... You love me. You always have!"
He tisked playfully at her argument, shaking his head. "No, no, I never once said such thing. You may have believed it so, considering how I acted so while in your presence, dear Sigyn, but really, you should know why I do things. For myself."
Her heart cracked once more, only this time it felt like a stab wound, and she yelped, her vision blurring. "But I..." she needed to breathe. "I... I know better, Loki. I've seen all the power that your command, and yet you never once hurt me."
"True," he admitted, quirking a brow and sparing her a nod. "But for a reason, dear Sigyn. I needed you to believe. After all, belief brings about faith, and in turn, loyalty. That is what you command, is it not? You know it better than anyone else, and yet that is the very reason for today's purpose. I need that loyalty of yours."
"Then you need me!" she argued, hardly believing a thing of what she was hearing. "I'll follow you anywhere, Loki! My fidelity..." her voice cracked. "Is only for you..."
His hand flashed to her chin, gripping it and jerking her head up. "You think that that is all I want?" he sneered. "Your loyalty to me? I want so much more than something so utterly meaningless. You have always been a constant in my life, but the truth behind that?" He smiled. "All I ever wanted from you was what you wield everyday. The entity inside that you, nor anyone else has ever noticed before."
"What are you talking about?" she fearfully inquired, her eyes wide with the unforetold peril of her future grinding into her senses. But she refused to believe, refused to even think, that Loki would ever do this to her. This wasn't her Loki, the one she had grown to love, the one she had laughed with, the one she had enjoyed tricks with. This wasn't him!
He pointed to her breast, where her heart beat with such erratic paces that she vaguely wondered if it was going to explode. "That heart of yours holds something far more precious than you could ever possibly imagine."
Her heart?
Precious?
She did not understand.
"Loki," she breathed, her face scrunched up as new-found tears cascaded downward and onto his chilling hand. "Please... I don't understand... Wh-Why are you even doing this? A-All... All I've ever done is love you!"
His smile faded, and he became grim. "That shall forever be your most tragic mistake."
Time stopped, and she screamed in agony.
Her heart tore, splintering, and fracturing. She felt her entire body being encased in ice, yet it burned she like the flames of Hel. Everything was splitting, slicing and being cut in pieces.
"I knew of the implications of this day," he told her, and suddenly his voice was so far away. Her mind was black, her vision blurring in and out of consciousness. "I knew that once I began, I couldn't stop. This needs to end, now."
Why? Why was he doing this? Why?!
"There is only one reason, why, dear Sigyn," his voice answered, and it vibrated in her mind, cold and fearsome. Then he uttered the words she couldn't bear to hear, "I no longer have use for you, dear Sigyn, and I will take what was rightfully mine to begin with."
She screamed.
"I have never loved you," he continued, and another crack erupted from her chest. "All I ever wanted from you was that power of yours."
That power of yours.
That power of yours.
That power of yours.
Had her entire life been a lie? She... She didn't believe it. No... No!
"What..." she was barely able to manage it. "... Power?"
He chuckled once more. "Fidelity," he told her. "There are many names for it, I suppose. Loyalty, honor, compassion, understanding. The list goes on, but I need it, Sigyn, surely you understand? You'd do anything for me, wouldn't you? I need your power, more than anything else."
She... She caught herself. Why wouldn't she give it to him? She had give him all she ever was. What was possibly holding her back now?
But her hesitation wouldn't matter.
That sugary seductive tone transformed into vile ambition, "Despite the fact that you waver in this very moment, Sigyn, I will always remember your loyalty to me until now. But I will take what I want. Your reluctance hardly decimates the reality."
He kicked her limp form, and she groaned. He wouldn't stop, but she let him. She kept her eyes shut tight and out-waited the pain, even with the agony that steadily grew in her heart. She'd shoulder everything for him. Anything. Everything.
A bittersweet smile tugged at her lips even as her heart broke.
But then, he repeated the one thing that finally made her crack, "I have never loved you, Sigyn. I have never, ever loved you."
Sigyn's heart shattered.
Her world was lost in a void of obsidian, and the light once locked deep inside the dense dimensions of her heart faded into nothing but cinders.
Sigyn of Asgard was no more.
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When her shell of a body became lifeless, he watched with sorrow as it refused to move any longer. His mask fell, revealing the truth. The light in her chest was depleting, retreating, lost into nothing but ash. The remnants of a bright star as it cooled and froze with decay's ghostly hands. And she... His dear Sigyn, was gone.
His battle in the days before had decided her fate. He had not accepted what fate had in store for her if that man had found her. Her heart was far too precious to be used for such vile purposes... She was, or had been, far too pure, too full of life, to descend into such darkness.
He crashed to his knees.
He pulled her limp body into his arms, holding it with a tenderness he had only ever expressed with her. His Sigyn. His fingers wove through her lengthy auburn tendrils of hair, even though he knew that she had passed on.
With the dismal feelings inside him, a spell was cast over the universe. It was one of shattered sight, where any who had ever witnessed or heard of the marvelous beauty that was Sigyn, would forget. The memory of her existence would forgotten by all, including those who had sought after her, but with this spell, her essence would live on as cinders, until the day when everything would reunite in a single moment of colossal collision. It was a spell that would cost him dearly, for once she was truly gone, his path would divide into sections of perilous unknown.
Her physical form began to fade, until all that was left were pinches of dimming light, scattered around him in sand-like particles that were akin to stardust.
He wept.
Shattered remains.
But she would be reborn, that he knew.
It was all a matter of time, for she was the holder of the most powerful essance in the universe: The Heart of Infinity.
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A thousand years past until she was reborn into a mortal shell, better known as Jane Foster, an seemingly unsuccessful astrophysicist whose greatest dreams were of the stars, and whose heart belonged to nothing but infinity and beyond.
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The Heart of Infinity
Added: January 3, 2015
Author's Note:
Well there you have it. The prologue for this story. Trust me when I say it'll be long. Sigyn is relatively similar to Jane as you'll soon figure out, in terms of personality. Sigyn was just really heartbroken in this chapter, but don't worry, we'll get to see a very stronger version of Jane Foster than ever before. And Jane won't be nearly as loyal to Loki for quite some time! Haha, I suppose you can imagine why, dear reader? Trying to invade and conquer Earth, and well you know, kinda replacing the All-Father, and taking the throne for himself... As for the hidden enemy mentioned, can you guess who it is, dear reader? Haha! If you're clueless, you'll just have to wait and see!
Also, if there are any errors that need editing, tell me, please!
Reviews are (unimaginably) appreciated!
-Cassandra