Here's chapter two!
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The Troll
Sigyn wakes to Norell shaking her gently. She peels her eyes open, looking past her lover to see the sunset gleaming through the open window. The light dances over the room, making the brown, wooden furniture appear nearly red.
"No," she groans, pushing her face farther into the plush, cream-colored pillows of Norell's bed. After being thoroughly beaten by one of the most powerful warriors in all of Asgard—an event she will later refer to as Incident Number One—she had gone to her girlfriend's house to sleep off the pain.
"Yes," Norell sighs. "Your shift starts in an hour."
Groaning again, Sigyn pushes herself up and rolls out of bed. "Why did I have to switch to the night shift?"
As she lurches into the adjoining washroom to freshen up, she hears Norell say, "Because it pays more?"
Almost mindlessly, Sigyn nods in agreement as she scrubs her teeth clean. She lives with her mother in a house owned by her father in a middle class neighborhood. For whatever reason, he'd decided to up the rent on his former mistress and love child recently, so they've been scrambling to make ends meet.
In truth, Sigyn and her mother make enough money to keep up with the higher rent. However, Sigyn has been making steady deposits into a savings account in order to eventually purchase the house. As such, she's been making extra money so as to not disrupt her progress.
"You know," Norell chimes as Sigyn returns to the bedroom. "You could simply ask your father not to raise the rent. It's not as though he needs the money."
It's true. Lord Andor is a wealthy noble. He has no reason to press his daughter for extra cash.
"Yes, I already tried that," Sigyn tells her. "Unfortunately, he and the Lady Magnhildr were not to be persuaded."
"Oh, sorry, dear," Norell sighs, arms crossed in displeasure.
"It's fine. Part of me expected it," Sigyn admits. "I may not be one of those affluent snakes, but I share their blood. I know how they operate."
Norell shakes her head, but doesn't respond.
Sigyn steps up to give her girlfriend a quick peck on the lips. "I'll see you before my shift tomorrow."
She heads out, stopping by a food stand for a quick bite. As she approaches the military headquarters, she toys with the fringe of her new trim. She's bound to incur some abuse for having a short haircut. Of course, that won't be anything thing new. As one of the very, very, very few women in the military, she gets crap for everything she does. She looks weird? She should put more effort into her appearance. She looks good? She's vain. She does her job poorly? That's why women shouldn't be soldiers. She does her job well? She's a show-off. So on and so forth.
There's no winning.
The garrison is a large, sturdy and made of stone. It sits beside the palace, and contains the entirety of Asgard's military resources. There are countless storage rooms for weaponry, a commissary, barracks for on-call personnel, offices for those of high command, and the grounds are littered with training arena for drills.
Reservations aside and head held high, she strides into the building and makes her way to the women's changing room. It's rather small. There are twenty compartments, only eight of which are in use.
She nods to the women getting off work as she opens her locker, attempting to ignore the strange stares coming from them. For the hundredth time, she tries to put her hair up so it won't look like she cut it off in an anger-fueled lapse in judgment. Unfortunately, it isn't even long enough for a ponytail, which means it'll hang past the bottom of her helmet and she'll look like a man.
After a quick shower, she throws on her armor and heads to the prisons for her shift.
Twelve hours later, she's ready to call it quits.
"Hey, girl," one of the men in her unit calls as Sigyn walks past the commissary. "Why the long face, or wait—does it just seem that way because your hair is so short?"
She stops and turns her head to see Corporal Yvor, a giant of man that's as keen as he is short. He stands against a tall pillar with some of their colleagues, smirking at her from across the hall.
"Ha-ha," she replies, utterly unimpressed. "You're hilarious." All night, she'd been working as a guard in the prisons. Other guards and prisoners alike had been poking fun at her.
"Now, what I don't understand, witch," Yvor drawls as he takes slow steps toward her. "Is why you don't simply use your magic to grow your hair out again." His lips quirk in an annoying, condescending smirk.
"I'm not a witch," Sigyn snaps. She doesn't address the part about her magic. Unfortunately, she'd never received formal training for her gifts. Thus, her set of skills are relatively limited. All she can really do is a little telekinesis and manufacture specific illusions.
"And I'm off shift," she adds. "So fuck off." As she stomps away, the sound of the other soldiers' laughter follows her down corridor.
"Unbelievable," she mutters under her breath as she enters the women's locker room and goes about changing into her street clothes. The men always give her trouble, and while it's not too different from when they pick on the other women, she is a lieutenant. Besides Captain Kettil and Major Erling, she outranks every man in her unit. As such, they are way out of line whenever they open their stupid mouths, and if she ever makes captain, she is so going to punish them with the most revolting, tedious tasks of which she can think.
She's on her way home once she's outside of the garrison again, but the sight of her half-sister waiting for her causes her to halt.
"No, no," she shouts as soon as Haldana notices her, bringing her arms up as though to shield herself. "I am not going anywhere with you ever again. I have been humiliated enough for one lifetime."
"Oh, come now," Haldana chides, smiling cheekily. "You know I didn't expect Sif to be there so early in the day."
"That's quite the apology," Sigyn retorts, resuming her walk home.
Her sister frowns and falls into step beside her. "Oh, very well. I'm sorry. Better?"
"Completely," she counters, voice laced with pointed sarcasm.
Having Sif beat the stuffing out of her was hard enough, but unluckily for her, she managed to get her ass kicked in front of royalty. The worst part of the entire ordeal was the way Prince Loki had been appraising her after the fight was over. As though her skills were impressive for a peasant.
It's not to say she's upset with her station in life. Like most peasants, she cares very little for what the nobles think of her brood. However, as the illegitimate daughter of a lord, she in particular is frequently compared to those superior to her. She can't say it doesn't sting from time to time.
"What do you want anyway," she asks her sister, mouth drawn into a tense grimace.
Haldana's lips turn up in a jesting smile. "Can I not visit my little sister simply because I want to?"
Sigyn gives her a blank stare. "I'm older than you."
"Yes," Haldana grants. "But you're so small." She punctuates her statement by patting Sigyn on the head.
Sigyn bats the younger woman's hand away and quickens her stride.
"Oh, come now. I was just kidding," the golden-haired goddess exclaims, laughing. She runs ahead of her sister and blocks her path. "I did come here with actual news, you know."
The darker woman raises an eyebrow expectantly.
Finally, Haldana divulges, "I'll be leaving on a quest in a few hours, so we won't see each other for a few days."
"Oh, no," Sigyn groans dramatically, shoving past Haldana and continuing on her way on the tan cobblestone road. "How will I get by without you?"
Her sister doesn't follow her, but she can hear the stomping of a foot behind her. "Rude!"
Truthfully, Sigyn didn't mean to be curt with Haldana, but she's been having a bad day. As much as she loves serving and protecting Asgard, it's difficult to enjoy sometimes. Not to mention, Haldana is a warrior, which means she gets to go on fantastic quests and explore other realms. For centuries, she's been revered as the goddess of battle and caution. In contrast, the most adventure Sigyn gets is tamping down an uprising in Vanaheim or chasing fugitives through the foothills beyond the metropolis.
She winds her way through the posh, aristocratic communities clustered on the far side of the castle until she reaches the busier, louder streets that characterize her neighborhood. Even so early in the morning, people are bustling about as businesses open their doors for the day. She waves at a few acquaintances as she goes, a serene smile finding its way onto her face. This part of town has always been where she feels most comfortable. She fits in easily. No one cares who her parents are. Hardly anyone bothers her about her profession. It's a calm, simple place.
Once she arrives at the two-story slate house that she shares with her mother, she carefully opens the door and tiptoes inside. Her mother, Walentyna, doesn't know that she's chopped off most of her hair, and Sigyn doesn't want a lecture.
She walks through the kitchen and passes the contiguous living room. She gets all the way up the stairs and halfway down the hall to her room before a woman with dark olive skin and long, black hair suddenly opens her door. Sigyn startles and jumps a foot into the air. This draws her mother's attention.
Walentyna's dark eyes widen to the size of saucers. "What happened to you?"
Sorting her features into an expression of befuddlement, she wonders, "Whatever do you mean?"
"I mean," Walentyna snaps. "Why do you have the hair of a prepubescent boy?" Her eyes somehow widen further as she approaches Sigyn. "And your nose is horribly bruised!"
"I'm fine," Sigyn assures the woman, pushing her mother's hands away when they go for her face. "I merely got whacked in the face by a goddess."
Walentyna groans, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. "How many times have I told you not to fight with your sister? She has had formal training. Your skills simply don't compare—"
"I had formal training when I entered the military," Sigyn interrupts, voice louder than she'd intended. "And while I do best Haldana occasionally, that's beside the point. She and I did not fight."
Crossing her arms, Walentyna queries, "Then pray tell, who punched you in the face?"
"She elbowed me," the younger woman deflects, mumbling.
"Sigyn!"
Sighing, she admits, "The Lady Sif."
"What?"
"She started it," Sigyn defends as though she's still a child. "I was minding my own business, and she just challenged me to a duel out of nowhere!"
Her mother glowers up at her, silently seething. After a moment, she lets out a long, angry breath. "I don't have time for this right now. I have to be at the hospital in fifteen minutes."
Since before Sigyn was born, Walentyna has been a healer at Asgard's military hospital. When she was young, her mother used to take her to work because childcare was too expensive for the young woman. It was there that Sigyn's desire to become a soldier originated, much to her mother's chagrin.
Walentyna strides down the hall to the stairs. As she begins her descent, she calls, "Don't fight any other deities while I'm at work."
"No promises," Sigyn grumbles before stalking the rest of the way to her room, slamming the door, and promptly collapsing onto her bed.
The next few days fly by in a blur for Sigyn. Friends and associates alike recoil in reaction to her haircut, which they follow up with giving her a hard time. The most irritating reactions came from her best friends, Quimby and Pontus.
She'd been waiting for them in the commissary for midnight-lunch. Upon seeing her, the two of them had collapsed into laughing fits, Pontus dropping his tray of food in the process. It was only when Major Hagen had walked by and told them to pick themselves off the floor that they'd stopped. Of course, once they'd actually sat down, they'd made snide remarks until she had just gotten up and left.
Now, serving as a sentry at the Bifrӧst, she refrains from rolling her eyes at the memory.
She's at the end of her shift, but no one has come to relieve her, so she stays put on the shining Rainbow Bridge.
The sound of Heimdall's sword scraping against metal draws her attention to the golden dais. She watches as the god actuates the Bifrӧst. In turn, the far end of the chamber glows with an otherworldly light as her sister's hunting party arrives.
Alarmed, Sigyn turns her eyes forward again and stands stock-still, trying her best to blend in with the wall. Nothing good can come of Sif noticing her.
Haldana, Prince Thor and the Warriors Three walk past her without ever sparing her a glance. She's almost in the clear.
"Oh, who do we have here," Sif drawls, coming to stand in front of Sigyn.
Damn it.
Sigyn meets the goddess's gaze, trying her very best to keep her expression neutral.
Sif has hated her since they were young girls. Despite there being no evidence, she thinks that Sigyn is an opportunist who will ultimately screw over Haldana, her best friend. As such, she's always made it her business to treat Sigyn like crap.
Fingering the ends of Sigyn's hair, she taunts, "Enjoying your new trim?"
Sigyn grits her teeth to hold back the expletives threatening to get out. After another few seconds of annoying smirking, Sif continues on her way.
Once the warrior's back is turned, Sigyn drops her composed façade to childishly stick out her tongue.
Just as she's straightened her posture and resumed her vigil, another figure leans in close to her. She almost reels back in surprise, eyes wide and breath shallow.
"I saw that," Prince Loki whispers to her, smiling almost conspiratorially. With that, he strides away, rejoining his party.
For fuck's sake, she thinks, cheeks hot, how many times am I going to embarrass myself in front of him?
Decades from now, Sigyn will regard this as Incident Number Two.
Incident Number Three is a real fucking doozy.
It takes place several weeks after the second Incident. The time between the two events had passed with relatively few problematic occurrences. Sigyn made enough money to keep up with the rent and her savings timeline, people got used to her new haircut, her mother let the fight with Sif go, and she didn't embarrass herself in front of anymore deities. Essentially, life had returned to normal.
Today, she's working the day shift in the prisons. There's an influx of inmates, so the guards have been working to arrange them into cellblocks. It's a bit of a difficult process as the cell walls take so long to open and close. The guards have to keep a close eye on all the prisoners at all times so that no one makes an attempt at escape.
Of course, they still try.
"Get back in line," Sigyn shouts, shoving at a large troll as he tries to dart away from his cellmates. She brandishes her spear when he snarls at her, and the threat is enough to quell him.
Stepping into a cellblock, she directs the prisoners inside. Once all five of them have filed in, she nods at one of the men outside to initiate the generation of the cell wall. In accordance with standard protocol, one soldier has to wait inside the cell until the shield is halfway up to ensure that none of the prisoners make a run for it, so Sigyn waits as the glowing orange segments climb through the air. When the generation of the cell wall is halfway done, she turns and steps forward to leave, but stumbles as her cape catches on something.
She looks behind her to find the troll stepping on her cape. He and the rest of his cellmates begin to rowdily fidget. She swings her spear to get him off her cape, but the ogre on his left catches it. As Sigyn wasn't expecting such a move, he's able to tug it from her grasp.
Shit, the wall is too high for me to get over now, she realizes, adrenalin beginning to course through her system. They're trying to trap me in here with them.
"Bring down the wall," she shouts at her men, struggling to keep the panic out of her voice.
Frantic, one of them darts forward to follow her orders, but the cell wall keeps rising. "I can't," the soldier yells. "It won't stop!"
"You can't stop the generation once it's started," Captain Kettil relays, having come over to see what the fuss was about. "And there's a five minute waiting period until we can bring the wall down again."
"Are you fucking kidding me," Sigyn shrieks as she unsheathes her sword. The prisoners she's locked in with begin to make a semi-circle around her. "There's no override switch?"
"There is," Kettil confirms as the wall locks into place, whirring and shimmering in it finality. "However, every wall in the prison would go down, and we don't have the manpower to handle such a predicament."
Vexed, Sigyn grumbles. She focuses on the inmates, and knowing they only have five minutes to kill or maim her, she charges forward first to give herself the upper hand. She goes for the ogre first, knocking the spear out of his hands. Once it hits the ground, she creates dozens of copies of it. Unable to discern which spear is real, the prisoners scrabble for the fakes, coming up with nothing as their hands pass through them. Sigyn manages to knock out two of them before they give up.
Her now-torn yellow cape lets her down yet again as the troll grabs it and tugs, sweeping her off her feet. She goes down, lying prone on top of her sword so none of the prisoners can use it against her. They kick and stomp on her, likely taking out all their anger from being locked up. Her golden armor begins to cave in, bruising her flesh. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming.
She isn't sure how long she lies there, absorbing blows. Surely, it's only a few minutes, but the pain disorients her.
After a small eternity, she feels someone pulling her up and dragging her with them outside of the cell. She stands, shaking from the pain and adrenalin. She follows Captain Kettil outside of the prisons at his urging, her armor pinching her as she goes and her feet sounding against the marble floor.
"You understand," Captain Kettil mutters, standing close to her once they're past the wide entrance to the prisons. "How this is going to look, yes? That this incident occurred because you, a woman, handled the situation poorly?" A bitter twist to her lips, she nods, and he continues. "As such, I can't give you time off to recuperate."
She nods again, disappointed but not surprised. If I were a man, she thinks, looking at the ground, I'd get a month off with pay. Instead, she'll have to continue working, battered and bruised as she is.
"However," Captain Kettil says. "You can't work without armor, and it may take a while for the order to go through, especially if I forget about it for a few days."
Stunned, she looks up at her captain. He has a slight smile on his face, but quickly wipes it away.
"You'll be on desk duty until further notice," he tells her, turning to head back into the prisons. "You're dismissed for the day."
Any relief she may have gotten from her captain's words is obliterated as she makes her way up the stairs, her damaged armor making such movement nearly impossible. She knows she won't be able to make it to the garrison without first removing her armor, so she settles in a vacant army arena to do just that.
The first thing she does is yank off her helmet, which is dented in about a million places. She tosses it on the ground.
Sitting on the steps surrounding the arena, she moves on to her busted up greaves. They've come apart at the sides, so she wedges her fingers beneath the warped metal and tries to tear them from her shins. Unfortunately, they're so bent out of shape that she can't pull them off without in turn ripping into her own skin, leaving her to furiously and fruitlessly grapple with them.
She hears footsteps around her, but disregards them and focuses on her task. She's far too frustrated to speak civilly with another person at the present time. When the owner of the footsteps stops at the bottom of the stairs in front of her, she elects to ignore them.
Removing her hands from the greave on her right leg, she attempts to use telekinesis to remove it. Brow furrowed in concentration, she silently urges the golden metal to curve away from her flesh. After about thirty seconds, all she gets is a tiny creak as the hardware shifts ever so slightly.
Dismayed with her failure, she goes back to angrily tugging at the greave.
The individual attached to the feet below her clears their throat, and her control snaps.
"You know what, whoever the fuck you are," Sigyn barks, not even bothering to glance up. "I am not in the fucking mood. My entire body hurts, and I am very upset, so kindly fuck off."
"That's not very nice," they drawl, a smug edge to their voice.
Her eyes narrow at the audacity of whoever is disturbing her. "Motherfucker, yo—"
Sigyn's entire body seizes up as she stares up at Loki. Prince of Asgard. Odinson.
"Oh," she breathes anxiously as she slides into a kneeling position at the bottom of the stairs. "I-I am so sorry, Your Highness. I didn't realize. I-I—"
"It's quite alright," he assures her, smiling. He offers her a hand.
She takes the proffered hand, allowing herself to be pulled up. At her full height, she's about six inches shorter than him. From this close, she can't help but notice that his eyes are an enchanting shade of green.
Wait, her mind screams. Can I look at him in the eyes? Am I allowed to do that? I mean, he's directly addressing me, so surely it's okay.
Right?
In the time she spends pondering the ramifications of her involuntary behavior, the prince looks her over, taking in her damaged armor. When she notices where his attention lies, she quickly explains, "Oh, I—my armor—I was trampled—Well, not trampled, per se, more like pummeled. I was pummeled by these ogres because I got trapped in a cell with them because the cells—they're very slow—The system for generating the cell wall is slow, and then you have to wait five minutes, and I am rambling and I've been rambling for so long and I don't remember what it feels like to not be talking, so I'm going to shut up—be quiet—now, Your Highness, and I'm sorry."
At the end of her impromptu speech, it's all she can do to gulp nervously and direct her gaze to the ground.
Her armor suddenly shifts, causing her to jolt in surprise. She watches in wonderment as the metal she's clad in takes on the consistency of silk. It slithers to the floor where it then solidifies into individual pieces, leaving her wearing only the army's standard issue long-sleeve tee and slacks.
"Wow, that was amazing," she gushes, reaching down to pick up the ruined greave with which she'd been struggling. Perplexed, she wonders, "How come it's still damaged?"
"Why wouldn't it be," he coolly replies.
"Oh, well," she flounders, bashful. "I don't know. I just—I don't really know how magic works."
The prince raises an eyebrow. "And yet you practice it yourself," he enounces.
"Right." She hangs her head, and the shadows from the sunset obscure her face. "In truth, I'm not very good."
"Yes," he agrees, looking down at the scattered pieces of her armor. "That is evident."
Well, he's super harsh, Sigyn internally gripes.
"However," he says, reclaiming her attention. "If you were given proper instruction, you could improve."
The implication of his words causes her eyebrows to draw together.
Smiling graciously, he continues, "As such, I've decided to lend you my expertise."
Sigyn's eyes widen in explicit shock. An excited smile almost breaks out on her face, but one nagging thought holds it back.
Wringing her hands, she finds herself saying, "If I may ask, Your Highness—not that I'm not honored, of course—uh, why?"
He shrugs, smile turning sly. "Let's just say I'd love to see what the Lady Sif would look like with short hair."
At this, Sigyn can't help but match his grin.
