VII
Sigyn didn't remember falling asleep, and she certainly didn't remember how she ended up sprawling out face first on their little couch, her face smothered in the cushion and her hand brushing the floor. The bright, mid-morning sunlight nearly blinded her as she peeked one eye open. Everyone muscle throbbed with a dull ache as she pushed herself upright.
"Morning, sleeping beauty." Darcy and Jane were sitting at one of the tables, a laptop open in front of them. "There's still coffee if you want some."
Her gaze darted around the room, looking for her bag. "Thank you, but I really should be on my way."
"Leaving so soon?" Darcy asked, not looking up from the laptop and Sigyn felt something like a doe during one of the great hunts, about to be cornered by the hounds.
"Yes, I still have a long way to go."
"Who did you say you were working with again?" Jane looked up at her and she felt a brief twinge of panic. They hadn't asked for anything specific the night before.
"Dr. Williams, in the Anthropology department." It was a name she had heard in passing in Boulder and she hoped it would carry over to Santa Fe.
"See, the thing is there is no Dr. Williams in the Anthropology department. Not according to their website."
Every nerve was alive and on alert and she would have bolted if she could. "Where is my bag?" She snarled when Darcy pulled it up from under the table. "Give that back."
Darcy just smiled. "Tell us where you're from and I will."
"I already told you I'm from Boulder."
"Except that you're not," Jane said. "When I opened your book, half of it didn't even look human, and the rest-"
"You dared to open my book?" For the moment, she was tempted to reach across the table and crush Jane's throat, Thor's wrath be damned. "What gives you the right to look through my findings?"
"Who even talks like that?" Darcy asked almost whimsically to herself. "I mean really."
"Where do you think I'm from, exactly?" Sigyn interrupted, folding her arms across her chest as though she could shield the truth from them. "Is there a point to any of this?"
Jane and Darcy exchanged glances, but it was Jane who spoke. "We think you're from Asgard."
The dread that had been swelling inside of her popped with a laugh that seemed to bounce off the windows and rattle the room. "You're delusional."
That was when Darcy reached into her bag and pulled out the bowl. Sigyn's fingers curled into a fist and the feeling of dread coiled in her stomach again. "That's it? Some wooden bowl I bought at an antique shop is your proof that I'm from Asgard?"
Jane turned the computer around and Sigyn froze. In big letters at the top of the page was her name: Sigyn. Beside it was a small article summarizing what she had read in the mythology books, as well as several pictures of what she assumed was her mythological counterpart holding a bowl over...Loki...while a serpent dripped venom over him. Her chest tightened and her tongue felt like lead. She opened her mouth to deny it, to throw some caustic barb about how Jane was so deluded in her search for 'Thor' she'd lost her senses, but no sound came out.
"You're Sigyn, aren't you?" Jane asked.
She could always lie, spin another tale that would throw them off her scent, but all the little details needed to make it real slipped through her mind and were lost. She cast a quick, furtive glance upwards. Her cloaking spell would stay intact, as would her glamour, and perhaps Heimdall wasn't looking in this direction at this precise moment. Surely Thor would not have the great gatekeeper of Asgard watching his mortal all the time. And besides, she was tired of hiding, of chasing one clue after another like a dog after its own tail. She needed the moment to ground herself again.
"Thor was right; you are clever." She paused. "Much too clever for your own good, I might add."
Caught between excitement and surprise, Jane just stared, her mouth agape, at Sigyn's confession. "Wow, so um, Sigyn..."
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't use my real name so much. Don't want to draw too much attention to myself."
"What, are you like the Asgardian Bloody Mary?" Darcy asked. Jane could see her fidgeting with her taser beneath the table. She'd been against her bringing it; if Sigyn was still immortal a taser would just piss her off. But Darcy agreed to keep it hidden so the taser stayed. "Say your name three times and some ghost shows up?"
"I don't know who that is, but the consequences would be worse than that." Sigyn showed no emotion as she touched the screen in front of her. She couldn't see it, but she imagined that she had touched one of the pictures of Loki bound beneath the serpent.
"If you're...you know," Jane asked, "Then you know Thor?"
She didn't look up, though from the tone of her voice the room felt about twenty degrees cooler. "Fear not. Thor still lives." A pause, and then Sigyn swallowed hard and her voice shook just slightly. "My Loki is dead, though." Sigyn's eyes hadn't left the computer screen until she finally closed the laptop hard enough that both Jane and Darcy flinched. "The Bifrost was destroyed and he fell from it into an abyss."
"Oh God...I'm sorry," Darcy said quietly. The hard lines in Sigyn's face softened for just a moment before she turned away and marched into the kitchenette area.
Jane's stomach tightened into knots. The Bifrost was destroyed, Thor was alive but stranded in Asgard and they were separated by billions of miles with no way to bridge the distance.
And yet this girl, this Sigyn, had come to Earth after the it had been destroyed...
"How did you get here, then?"
"Pardon?"
"If there's no more Bifrost, how did you get here?"
Sigyn was pouring herself a cup of coffee, her back turned towards them. "That is my secret to know."
Erik's warning, be careful with her, came back to her but the question came tumbling out before she had a chance to change her mind, "What would it take for you to tell me this secret of yours?"
"You mean like a price? You want to know the price for my secret?" Jane nodded, edging forward eagerly in her seat. She waited for a few, long moments, before she turned around and answered. "Jane, not for all the gold and silver and gems in all the nine realms would I tell you how I got here."
And just like that all the hope that had been rising in her chest fell like a brick.
"You sure you're not Freyja?" Darcy muttered under her breath.
"Why not? Is there some Asgardian law about not telling humans about your magic?"
Sigyn drummed her fingers against her cup. "One, I'm an Asgardian, and the journey nearly killed me. It would probably kill you and I would prefer not to incur Thor's wrath for putting you in harm's way."
Jane's eyes went wide in shock. "He wouldn't really hurt you, would he?"
Sigyn shrugged, staring into her cup. "He would be angry, which in and of itself is a terrible thing to behold if you're on the receiving end of it. Maybe he would, or maybe he wouldn't; either way I'm not anxious to test that theory."
The awkward silence that followed was suffocating. How could she even respond to that? She'd seen the lengths Thor had gone to to save her and Puente Antiquo -both dying and destroying that machine- and how he had single handedly broke into a S.H.I.E.L.D. parameter, but the thought of him in a blind rage...
Darcy, thankfully, broke the silence. "What's number two, then?"
"What?" She asked, looking up sharply.
"Well, when you started your whole rant you started with one, implying that there was more than reason. So what's reason number two?"
Sigyn stared at Darcy, absently taking another sip of coffee. "Thor never mentioned that you were clever as well. Perhaps he should have." There was a pause as Sigyn seemed to mull the question around in her head. "Number two is that I have no intention of returning to Asgard. At least not for a long while."
"Why not?"
Sigyn arched an eyebrow at them, as though the answer should be obvious.
Jane put it together, though. "You're Loki's wife. If he lost the battle, then that makes you-"
"A highly undesired figure in Asgard. And I wasn't his wife, not yet."
"But you were close to him. Close enough to know what he was planning?"
Sigyn shrugged, the barest hint of a smile on her lips. "In Asgard they believed I was."
"But were you?"
Again, she shrugged. "The truth didn't matter there; why should it here?"
"So what are you doing here?"
That hint of a smile turned into a full serpentine grin, and suddenly Jane was glad that Darcy had her taser. "Why, I've come to destroy your pathetic realm in revenge for my Loki's death," she hadn't even finished the word deathbefore Darcy had her taser pointed at her and Sigyn was doubled over laughing. "It was merely a jest!"
"That's your idea of a joke?" Jane had her phone in her hand, ready to call S.H.I.E.L.D. should Darcy tase her.
"Well, to court the god of mischief, I suppose one would have to have a slightly...different...sense of humor. Please don't shoot me with the...the...whatever that is. I'm assuming that's what you shot Thor with?" Darcy glanced sideways at Jane, not lowering her taser, and nodded. "Well, you need not worry. I'm merely a refugee."
"Or a fugitive." Darcy said, lowering her taser slightly.
"Semantics," Sigyn corrected with a flippant hand wave. "My point is I'm here to lay low for a while."
"And I suppose it's only a coincidence that you came to Puente Antiguo, where your boyfriend just so happened to drop some sort of robot that damn near leveled the town and killed Thor?" The memory of Thor lying in the dirt, bloodied and dying, was still too fresh and raw in her mind, and Jane wasn't going to cover her anger.
Part of her expected Sigyn to lash out and was surprised when she didn't. She just stayed in the kitchenette, leaning against counter. "That...thing...malfunctioned. It was never supposed to come to Midgard, much less attack Thor." She folded her arms over her chest. "As for why I'm in Pointe Aguio or however you say it, I'm only passing through. I don't stay in one place for too long."
"Puente Antiguo," Darcy corrected. "Spanish for 'old bridge'."
The only way Jane could describe what happened was that it was as though someone had flipped on a light switch within Sigyn. Or rather switched off. The walls came crumbling down; she was pale and her eyes were wide, mouth parted slightly as whatever witty retort she had died on her tongue. It was unnerving, to see her change so fast. She and Darcy exchanged worried glances, while Darcy held up her taser again.
"What did you say?" she asked, her voice was different, softer and trembling. Not the voice of a goddess but of a girl.
"Puente Antiguo is Spanish for 'old bridge'. Why? Does that mean something to you?"
Sigyn said nothing. She wasn't even looking at them, but rather past them into the desert.
"Magpies," She whispered, then broke the silence with a short, sharp laugh that made them jump. Jane was surprised Darcy didn't taze her then.
"Tell me Jane, how is your search for Thor going? I can imagine not very well if you're asking to know how I got here."
Darcy was shaking her head, and Jane contemplated giving her some half-assed, dodgy answer. In the end, she figured lying to her might not be the best idea. "You're right. I...seem to have hit a dead end in my research." Beside her, Darcy's head drooped in disappointment.
Sigyn walked around to each piece of equipment, each telescope, each computer, inspecting them without actually touching any of them. "What if I told you I'd reconsider telling you how I came here?"
"I thought you said it was dangerous, that it nearly killed you?" Jane asked, wary.
"And you said you didn't want to test your 'Thor's wrath' theory," Darcy added.
Sigyn frowned, her rant from earlier seemingly forgotten. "I said I'd tell you, not show you. Who knows, maybe you'll even figure out where I went wrong."
"In exchange for what?" Tempting as the offer was, Jane knew better than to accept it without at least asking. "There's always a price."
She was fixated on a particular telescope, the largest one she had. "My price...will be the shared use of your equipment. Mutual cooperation. I help you with your research, you help me with mine."
"Jane..." Darcy yanked her by the sleeve so that they were close. "I'm getting a reallyweird vibe off of her. Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"What choice do I really have? I mean, yes she's strange but..." Jane peeked up at Sigyn, who wasn't looking at them probably out of courtesy, though she could probably still hear everything anyway. "She could help fix all the holes in my research."
Darcy's look told her she still wasn't comfortable with the idea but was letting it go. Jane turned back towards Sigyn, who was waiting patiently, her hands clasped neatly in front of her. She knew should have been more uncomfortable with all of this than she was. They knew very little about Sigyn, her relationship with Loki, or with Thor, or what really drove her out of Asgard. She shouldn't even be contemplating any of this; she should have let Darcy tase her a couple of times before calling in a squadron of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
Except that S.H.I.E.L.D. would probably lock her up in a government facility in the middle of nowhere. Then all information she had to offer would be lost. And something told her that if Sigyn could survive whatever brought her to Earth, a couple of federal agents wouldn't be much of a threat to her, either.
If there was a chance that she could help her find Thor, help her open a portal to Asgard, then Jane was willing to risk whatever she needed to with this strange alliance. "Before I agree...what are you looking for?
Siygyn looked out towards the desert again, and her voice was distant. "A way home."
"I thought you said you weren't wanted in Asgard?" Darcy asked.
"Asgard is not my only home. And even if I don't plan to return there for some time, I don't want to be stranded on this one forever, either."
Jane stepped forward, still not entirely sure of who or what she was dealing with, and extended her hand. "Then we have a deal?"
Sigyn stared at her hand for a moment, and for a moment before taking it. "You have yourself a deal, Jane Foster."
"Wonderful," Darcy muttered in a deadpan voice behind them. "I'll go make up a bed for her."
Your answers may still be at the old bridge, if the winds have not yet changed.
Sigyn decided once and for all that the Norns really did have a twisted sense of humor. As did the magpies.
They had set a up a little room for her with just enough space for her to have privacy. Yet sleep did not come easily to her. She tossed all over air mattress, her legs tangling in the flimsy blanket they provided. She was uneasy about her decision to tell Jane the truth -well, her version of it- and the agreement to help her. But all options had risks and this one, she figured, would at least have risks she could control.
But something else was keeping her awake. It pressed at the back of her mind, yet it would dissipate like smoke whenever she tried to grasp it. Familiar whispers just at the edge of her hearing that alternated warm and cold, soothing and urgent, but she couldn't hear exactly what they were saying.
It was her exhaustion, she reasoned. She was on the verge of sleep at last, the edges of reality fuzzy and blurred in the place between dreams and waking. Yes, that was it; she was exhausted.
Sigyn. Loki's voice was fractured, like light refracted through a prism. Sigyn, what are you doing?
She bolted upright, her breath coming in ragged trembling gasps. Her eyes adjusted to the dark quickly as she looked around the room, trying to determine if every shadow was just that, a shadow, or if Loki was hiding in them. The sound of his voice was already fading and Sigyn clung to it desperately. Losing it, after so long without hearing it, was like having him ripped away from her again.
"Loki," she mouthed, praying it would somehow summon him and he would emerge from the shadows. When he didn't-
"Just a dream," she whispered.
Sigyn pulled his cloak out of her bag. The green fabric was still relatively clean; she hadn't the heart to pull it out and actually use it. She held it close to her chest, the way a child would with her blanket, and curled back up on the mattress.
