Part 2

Sigyn stood apart from the gathering, peering out through a slit in the thick cloak shielding her from the sun. She would not be included in the others' farewells.

She thought to take something with her, and bent to pluck a flower from its bed. She extended her hand, and flinched as her sleeve slipped back. But she felt no singe of searing pain, only soft warmth. Trembling with fear, she held her hand there, eyes widening in wonder to observe no smoke rise from her flesh.

Emitting a gasp, Sigyn pushed the hood back off her head. She turned her face to the sun, lifting her trembling hands before her. It had been three hundred years since the sun had touched her skin without charring it. Tears flooded her eyes.

Thor's mail shimmered at her side. 'Sigyn. I believed the cloak necessary for your safety,' he questioned with confusion.

'I need it no longer,' she rasped, staring in awe at her untarnished hands. 'Your brother has given me the sun.'

'Come to take my measure again, thief?' greeted Loki tersely, eyes fixed upon two serpents slithering hypnotically at his feet. He hadn't seen her since arriving in Asgard, being occupied for weeks by exhaustive interrogations and trials in which he always remained reticent. Her whereabouts had crossed his mind more than once.

Sigyn approached the ensorcelled glass. The failed conqueror languished sullenly in his cell, shoulders bent with broken pride. Since returning to his homeworld the hollows of his cheeks had begun to fill, and his wild hair had been trimmed, restoring a more boyish appearance to the prince. Deep shadows still lingered beneath his eyes, but they were no longer lit with the influence of the Tesseract. He was very slender without his armour.

'Will I ever see you outside of a cell?' the vampire mused. He glanced up at her with a scowl. Loki would not rise to spar with her as he had on Midgard; his arrogant determination having reduced to seething resignation.

With a wave of his hand the conjurations vanished. 'You look like one of them now,' he noted neutrally as he eyed the Asgardian robe in which she was swathed; sheer emerald fabric accented with silver. Whom had chosen the colour for her?

'When in Rome …' Sigyn shrugged – the comment flew past him. She noticed his scrutiny move past her shoulders to where her hair now curled at her waist. 'I'm frozen in the form I was when I turned,' she explained. 'I hack it off for assignments but it doesn't last long.'

''Turned'?' he asked, eyes adjusting to the sorcerous maiden who now stood in place of the sleek creature he had encountered on Midgard.

'Mortals who survive the vampire's bite become vampires.'

His brows lifted in surprise. 'You were once mortal?'

A shadow passed over her face. 'Once upon a time. Loki, my power is dwindling. I need to feed.'

He could sense it, glowing faintly now like dying embers. She looked ashen, and he could make out a blue tinge upon her lips. He straightened. 'And what favour will I receive in return for my donation?' he challenged, even as the hair stood on the back of his neck.

Slender fingers pressed against the glass as she drew closer. Her hunger for his memories almost matched her thirst for his blood. She wanted to feel the pain behind his snide remarks. 'Anything,' she vowed softly. Her voice, honeyed with sincerity, took him by surprise.

Calculation stirred in his eyes. 'Guard!' he called. The clinking of armour carried down the corridor. 'Let her in,' he bid the heavily armoured figure who approached.

Sigyn was directed to an antechamber carved into the rock of the catacombs which housed Loki's prison. At the touch of the guard's fingertip to a crimson gemstone set in the wall it dissolved into a veil and vanished. He motioned her inside the chamber. 'Touch the gem to enter,' he instructed her, and the wall rematerialised between them, sealing her inside. Before her an identical wall awaited, with the fallen god beyond it.

She reached for the gem to banish the wall and stepped into his space, not failing to detect a slight tensing in his posture as she entered.

'So, name your price.'

'Silence,' Loki stated. 'You stole my memories and if you want blood from me you won't whore them out.'

She approached him. 'It doesn't have to be like last time,' she promised and reached for his hand; he submitted to the foreign contact. Lifting his wrist to her lips, she sank her fangs into his artery as gently as she could manage in spite of her thirst. He let out a hiss.

Within his blood Sigyn saw a stray prince beset with embarrassment and failure. He was raised in the shadow of a foolhardy oaf just to serve as a pawn in a tenuous scheme. Thor's reckless attack on Jotunheim had spoiled Odin's plans for Loki to be installed as ruler there. He had striven to please Odin by swiftly disabling the threat from Laufey, but his efforts had been rejected. The Chitauri had guaranteed him the opportunity to prove his worth on a throne, only to be defeated by a single weapon.

She relived his anxious anticipation of the Other's vengeance, for whom he had failed to provide the Tesseract ... She heard the royal family's endless questions, blazing with condemnation and betrayal … She felt the jolt of hope in his chest when he set eyes on her.

Sigyn released his hand and ran a delicate tongue around her lips, now flush with his blood. 'Thank you,' she expressed graciously. Her brows knitted as she digested his memories. 'You won't speak to them,' she observed. 'They didn't care for you enough to tell you what you needed to know as a child so you won't care to tell them what they want to know from you now.'

Loki stared, unsettled. Not Odin, nor Frigga, nor Thor could convince him to break his silence – but she did not have to ask a single question. He could trick and lie to anyone he wished but for Sigyn. There was nothing he could hide from her. He was utterly disarmed.

'Loki,' she appealed gently, 'you were abandoned. Don't you realise your fortune in having a family at all?'

His face broke into a mocking grimace. 'Did Thor script these words?' he sneered.

She dismissed his accusation with a sharp sigh, continuing, 'I should be so lucky; I watched my family die one by one – from a distance, because I was one of the monsters they warned my sisters about at night.'

He looked at her intently for a moment. Then his mouth drew into a stern line, and he turned away. 'You have what you came for. Trouble me no longer.'

'The Court calls Sigyn of Midgard to the Chair.'

Trepidation struck the vampire as the Allfather's booming voice addressed her. Steeling herself, she emerged from the whispering audience to cross the vast court room, her robe sweeping over the polished floor as she made her way to the marble chair positioned on a dais before the council. Hearing the crowd's discerning murmurs, she set her jaw and perched on the chair with elegant poise.

Frigga spoke. 'We understand that your particular method of sorcery has acquainted you with Prince Loki's memories?'

'In a manner of speaking,' Sigyn admitted dourly, and dropped her eyes as scornful glares skewered her from every angle of the court room.

'The Court requests that you testify to Prince Loki's motivations in his attempted conquest upon Midgard.'

'The memories are not mine to share.'

The expressions of the council members soured at her defiance. It seemed they had expected Sigyn to answer all of their questions on Loki's behalf. All pairs of eyes swept to Thor, who appeared strained. The Crown Prince leaned forward.

'I have granted you unrestricted access to Loki so that you may sustain yourself in exchange for the information you retrieve. We simply want to understand Loki's reasons for his actions, to judge if there might be a chance for rehabilitation,' he implored her.

Sigyn wanted nothing more than to help Loki and the royal family reach an understanding, but the prince was cunning and if she wanted to live here with him, she was bound to guard his memories like treasure. 'I'll not betray his confidence,' she asserted.

'Can you give us your opinion then, on his state of mind?' pressed Frigga, exasperation rising in her voice.

Sigyn drew a steady breath. 'I think the Chitauri preyed on his vulnerability and ambition. The Tesseract was exerting some influence over him through the sceptre … it amplified his anger into blind hate, his spite into malevolence. I also think he had been driven from his home by a gross betrayal,' she added coldly, directing the comment to Odin. Then she stood. 'Will that be all?'

'That will be all, Sigyn of Midgard,' Odin dismissed brusquely.

'Wait,' interrupted Frigga, halting her. 'Why did you ally yourself with my son?'

She still thought of him as her own, Sigyn realised. 'I read his life's memory in his blood,' she revealed. 'I hoped to temper his heart, and his rule.'

The Allmother's eyes fell closed.

'The love of a good woman once cured me of my vanity and recklessness,' Thor intoned. 'Could you show Loki the error of his ways; use your knowledge of him to mend his madness?'

She hesitated, considering the gravity of Thor's request. Frigga gazed down at her expectantly, rapt with a renewed sense of hope for her adopted son.

'Any manipulation of Loki's values will be transparent to him. But I will love him,' Sigyn vowed.

Loki paced restlessly in his cell, pausing only to run a hand back through his tousled hair. A ghost of the Tesseract still corrupted his heart, leaving his thoughts volatile and vicious, and his confinement only further trapped him in his mind. His eyes narrowed in a seething glare as he heard the gate screech at the end of the corridor, and light footsteps echoed upon the stone floor. His only visitor was back for more blood.

She didn't have to feed on him. She could make a meal of anyone – Thor was the one to host her here – but Loki never said no. He cursed and cringed as she had her way with his veins but he couldn't say no. He knew that while she fed on him, as much as he was her prey she was his goddess, made with his power. He fulfilled her thirst every time to watch his essence take root inside of her, giving her life. Try as he might to threaten and bargain with her, Loki found that Sigyn wielded the power he held over her, over him. With Sigyn his mind was not his own. Today, this infuriated him.

She stood before him now, looking wan. 'Loki –'

'You need to feast on me again?' he snapped. 'Is this all I'm to become – a meal in a cage?'

'I'm sorry,' she said this time, her tone muted by guilt. He briefly sensed a change in her, all the sauntering assuredness she exuded on Midgard seemed to have vanished. It was pathetic.

Sigyn was suddenly thrust back as Loki reappeared in front of her, pinning her against the wall with his wrist turned against her face. 'Feed, you pitiful creature,' he snarled.

She gasped but gave no fight, irking him further. 'You don't need to tell me what I am,' she muttered. 'I'm well aware of my privilege in being here.'

'And have you enjoyed yourself in my stead?' growled Loki.

'No –'

'Seated at the royal table, drinking their wine, while I rot here –'

'No!' she choked, tears springing into her eyes. Her voice shook. 'I was paraded around as one of the spoils of victory on Mid– Earth, until the novelty wore off, and I was reduced to a barbaric parasite …'

Sigyn had found herself stranded between worlds. Thor had invited her to a place he thought she better belonged, but she found no warm welcome from the bronzed divinities of Asgard, who regarded her pallor and fangs with disdain.

'On Earth I was a demon among mortals, and here I'm a beast among gods, a leech dependent on your charity to live. I don't belong anywhere,' she wept bitterly.

He went still. Her words echoed his own inferiority growing up as a stolen outsider, only to learn that he had been a shameful runt to his real family. Loki stared down at her as she hung limply in his grip, all her raw weakness laid bare to him. His shoulders sagged. Sigyn was anything but his enemy. She was his only ally.

'Imagine a millennia of this,' he murmured, and his hand turned, to wipe one of her tear-stained cheeks with his thumb. Her eyes lifted to his.

'I don't need to imagine – I know,' whispered Sigyn, fangtips grazing her lip as she spoke.

Loki found himself struggling to hold her all-consuming gaze, his eyes strained by a deep uncertainty. She was luring him into a perilous abyss. He glanced away. 'I can't love you,' he stated plainly, his voice cracking.

'Are you above it?' she questioned. '… Or beneath it?'

Loki hesitated to answer. Which was it really?

'Well I think you need it.'

As Loki opened his mouth to debate Sigyn stretched up and sealed his lips with a feather-soft kiss. His heart lurched painfully in his cold chest, paralysing him. Whatever resistance to her wiles he had left crumbled at her touch, and he pressed against her mouth with a tortured sigh. The toxin that flooded his mind ebbed, releasing its grip as he surrendered to her bittersweet indulgence.

He moved from her lips and trailed breathless kisses across her cheek and down her neck. 'Feed, Sigyn,' he bid her tenderly, inviting her fangs to his throat. She drank deeply, leaving him giddy. 'I'll make you a queen,' he gasped. 'I swear it.'