A/N: TRIGGER WARNINGS ALL AROUND –I am not joking here; torture, murder, beheading, sexual abuse, body-shaming, slut-shaming, victim self-blaming, genocide, war, mental health deterioration –all of it and more. Do not say I did not warn you.
Chapter 20 –She Says No
Sigyn expects them. She plans a speech, an appeal she's sure will convince them to give her a chance. Sigyn doesn't want to be her parents, crushing rebellion underfoot. Ljúfvina expects her brother will come soon.
They don't expect the bomb.
Her open-topped carriage flies into the air. Sigyn crunches back to the ground, ears ringing.
Hands grab her, pin her to the ground, press on what feels like a broken arm. Pain cuts through her, a collar is wrapped around her neck –her seiðr dies inside her and she screams.
They drag her over a pair of shoulders. A fist collides with her temple, the pain ripples against the ringing in her head. Dazed, she sees the Svana being grabbed, the Ey trying to fight, they are reaching for her.
"RUN!"
Only three get away.
Yggdrasil, a tall, lean man, leads them. He sneers and smirks like Sif the Bitch. What an unfortunate similarity.
They hide away underground, out of sight of Vanaheim's satellites. It stinks and sticks, dark and humid –it's hard to breathe.
Sigyn's separated from her maids, thrown into a white room, her collar chained to the floor.
"Surrender your throne, and we will let you all go," says Yggdrasil.
Sigyn says, "No. Where are my Maids?"
Yggdrasil's underlings come at her with razors and knives. Sigyn kicks and struggles as they rip her clothes, the ones Svana Þrír selected for her, and strip her naked. She burns with humiliation and anger as they pinch her nipples, slap her breasts and laugh. She refuses to cry when one woman grabs her long, white hair and hacks it away, biting into her lip as the woman drags a razor over her scalp and scrap it clean. It's just hair.
She snarls and struggles when they pull her legs open and shave the hair between them –they cut her and she howls with pain.
"Flesh wound," sneers the woman with the razor. "Hold still little girl."
They laugh when they finish, throwing all the hair they've taken from her on the fire.
Yggdrasil comes back,
"Surrender your throne," he says.
Sigyn says, "No. Where are my Maids?"
They keep her in a bright, white room, with flickering lights that buzz and hum, the heat turned up high to make her thirsty, to keep her awake. The chain connecting her neck to the floor is so short she can't stand up.
After the third day she knows they want her to lie in her own filth. Even crusts and dribbles of water eventually find their way out. The smell is awful and she wants to cry, but she's too dehydrated. She hugs herself and pretends it's Loki holding her. Where is he?
On the seventh day, she's brought before Yggdrasil, a king in his shit-house. He stands above her, clean and confident, lip curling.
"Surrender your throne," he says.
Sigyn says, "No. Where are my Maids?"
They whip her, cutting to bone on her back. Then, just to be clever, they pour salt water.
Sigyn's screams rip her throat, and she spits blood at Yggdrasil's feet. At his finger click, they cover her head with a black bag that smells like bile and dirt, then hang her by the wrists, toes scrapping helplessly on the ground. They laugh at her struggles, call her weak, call her ugly, call her stupid.
Shoulders burn, blood drips down her back, over her buttocks and down her legs. It's hard to breathe and Sigyn is not strong enough to fight against this. She's not Loki.
Yggdrasil rips the bag off,
"Surrender your throne," he snarls.
Sigyn says, "No. Where are my Maids?"
Growling, Yggdrasil punches her. Blood fills her mouth as her nose breaks against his fist. She swings by her arms, the bones straining to stay inside the sockets.
"You want your maids? Surrender your throne, and you can see them!"
Sigyn says, "No. Where are my Maids?"
They are the only words she will say. She never begs for mercy, never pleads to be let alone. These people will never show her compassion. They hate her. They blame her for everything that goes wrong, they blame her for continuing a monarchy they loathe.
What they actually want is harder to figure out –they don't seem to know themselves. Sigyn listens to many arguments between them when they think she's unconscious. Yggdrasil has quite a time keeping them under control.
Sigyn might have felt sorry for him if he weren't such a despicable shit.
They bring out the Svana and Ey. Sigyn nearly breaks. They're flithy, hands bloodied, tear tracked cheeks, hair gone and collars on their necks. They cry out to her, fear and desperation in their eyes. Yggdrasil grabs the back of her collar and forces her to kneel up, showing off her broken, hairless body to the women who had devoted their lives to caring for it.
Svana Ein sobs, reaching for Sigyn.
"My baby," she wails, as a mother would. Sigyn's heart aches. She wants to crawl into Ein's arms and never move again.
"Surrender your throne," says Yggdrasil.
Sigyn says, "No. Release my Maids."
Yggdrasil jerks the collar, choking her. A rebel grabs Svana Ein, dragging her forward and holding a dagger to her throat. Sigyn throws herself forward, but Yggdrasil wrenches her back.
"Do it!"
Svana Ein screams, animalistic bellows as she scrambles to avoid the dagger, terror of death making her eyes bulge and roll in her head. Sigyn howls as the dagger cuts into Svana Ein's throat.
It's not a quick slice across the throat, it's a slow, protracted beheading. Sigyn can't look away as the blood flows, the bone and sinew crunches, Svana Ein gurgling her final pained breath, her body twitching and spasming in death throes.
The body collapses in a heap. They force her to kiss the slack, bloody lips. The head drops into her lap, warm and soft, the tongue slipping out and brushing her thigh. Sigyn retches. Yggdrasil crouches next to her, a hand on her shoulder, hot breath on her ear.
"Surrender your throne, or they die too."
Sigyn sobs, cradling Ein's head and looking at the others. No matter how she might have felt of their roles, she never wanted this. They tremble and weep, clinging to each other, terrified. She can't let them suffer for her. Sigyn opens her mouth to surrender. Her eyes catch Svana Tveir's and the woman gives a determined shake of her head, even as she trembles. Ey Fyrstr lurches forward.
"Don't do it Sigyn! You can't let them send Vanaheim back to civil war, it's what they want!" She's backhanded into silence. Sigyn's sobs quieten as she looks from Svana Tveir, to Svana Þrír, Ey Fjórdi, Ey Sétti and finally Ey Fyrstr. They all tremble with fear, but as they look at her, the fear hardens to something more like resigned determination.
Sigyn shakes her head. She can't let them die for her.
"We gave our lives in service to a Vanaheim we believe in. You're that Vanaheim's future, don't throw our sacrifice away now," whimpers Svana Þrír. She's punched into silence.
"Surrender your throne, or they die!" shouts Yggdrasil. He sounds frustrated, as if it never occurred to him that the other side might be just as stubborn and determined as his. Sigyn looks up at him, hate such as she has never felt before boiling inside her, then looks at the other women. She imagines Vanaheim if she surrenders. The factions that her parents had held together would have no reason to cooperate, these rebels would try to take over, they would probably try to attack Asgard. It would be anarchy and devastation, so many deaths… no.
Sigyn inhales and looks up at Yggdrasil.
"If you want to stop me from being queen, you'll have to kill me."
Yggdrasil growls down at her, "You know we can't –you've too much of Vanaheim's magic tied into yours. If you die without giving up the throne, it will be lost. You have to relinquish your claim yourself."
"Then let my maids and I go," she says, heart hammering. Yggdrasil sneers down at her.
"Take their heads."
Sigyn screams, fights and begs as each one of her maids –her sisters, her mothers- are dragged forward and screams as the dagger digs into their flesh. Yggdrasil holds her back, he makes her kiss each of their lips as the blood drips from their necks to her thighs.
"Surrender your throne," hisses Yggdrasil, "Or are you this heartless?"
Shaking, Sigyn looks up into his grey eyes.
Sigyn says, "No."
They spike the heads and leave them to rot in her cell. Accusing eyes stare out at her.
Sigyn hugs her legs to her chest. She sobs and shakes against the floor. Every part of her aches, burns and throbs.
She wants to die. She wants Loki.
They come for her again.
They hold her head under water.
"Surrender your throne!"
Sigyn says, "No!"
They break her feet.
"Surrender your throne!"
Sigyn says, "No!"
They starve her. They piss on her. They taunt her. One of them pierces her mind with seiðr, exposing all her secrets.
Still Sigyn says, "No!"
Yggdrasil comes to her.
"Why do you cling to a throne you do not deserve?"
Sigyn, lying on the floor in her own excrement, past hunger, past thirst, does not speak.
"You think you have somehow earned that throne simply by existing? Perhaps once upon a time there was a chance, but you spread your legs and surrendered your maidenhead, betraying everything that they tried to teach you." He waves a hand at the heads.
Sigyn does not react right away. Her exhausted mind does not understand what he just said… and then it clunks into place. She blinks and looks at Yggdrasil, who leans over her, leering.
"You can't deny it. You whored yourself to Asgard."
Sigyn lowers her head and closes her eyes.
They put her in a box.
In that box is a nail.
Sigyn curls her fingers around the nail, and sees a chance.
Scratching the runes into the collar is almost beyond her –what's the point? Yet something pushes her on, and finally she has the runes carved into the collar.
Her parents dead before her.
Yggdrasil beside her.
Malekith above her.
As the collar snaps and Sigyn's seiðr returns to her, she loses all sense of fear and pain. Her power cuts through the enemy, knocking them aside as she flees.
She ought to stay and fight, but that is not her first instinct. It's never been. Always she runs rather than stand.
When she comes back to herself, she's in a forest. Her broken body draped over a huge tree root.
It takes her several long minutes to clamber off it. It takes even longer to move somewhere else, her seiðr forcing bones back into place.
At the edge of the forest, she sees her home and everything looks so peaceful she thinks she must have dreamed it all –what an imagination she has!
That's when Malekith's ship breaks the clouds and blows up the palace.
In the chaos that follows, Sigyn retreats into the forest and curls up in a ball, wishing she were dead.
After a time (Sigyn has no more sense of what month it is than a dog) she staggers through the forest – away from her home –and happens upon some people huddled together around a campfire.
There's a lot of screaming.
Sigyn can only imagine what she must look like, bald, covered in blood and very, very naked. Still, the people calm down when she drops to her knees and keels over –again.
Luckily they don't expect her to say much, instead they talk about what was going on.
Alien Invasions.
Military crippled.
Royal Family suspected dead.
Everyone absolutely fucked.
Sigyn listens as if from a great distance. Existing hurts right now, and that's all she can focus on. Anything else is beyond her.
That only lasts about a day and a half.
The universe has a funny way of making things happen. Sheer chance is not the only culprit, Sigyn is sure, as her three surviving Ey come upon the small group of terrified people and recognise her at once. (No one else has and Sigyn has not bothered to illuminate them.)
The Ey cluck around her in the same way they would if she had gotten a dress dirty. Sigyn's not about to put down their coping methods. If it makes it easier to avoid looking at them, telling them what happened to the others, all the better.
Ljúfvina, dishevelled and trembling, explains they were stalked for weeks, driven away from towns and cities that they could have sought help at. Only with the assault from above had their pursuers given up.
They drag Sigyn to the nearest stream and cleaned her up. They weep over her broken bones, the scars across her flesh, her bald head.
It's just a body, thinks Sigyn dully, a worthless body.
They find some clothes and dress her. They're men's clothes, so they don't fit well. Oh well?
When they come back to the camp, the others look to Sigyn, wide eyed and hopeful.
"What now princess?"
"Save us princess!"
"What do we do princess?"
Sigyn has absolutely no idea, but she doesn't want to stay so close to the capital. They move through the forest, hearing distance rumbles of ships overhead and armies on the ground. When it all stops more than a year later, Sigyn feels half deaf, unable to sleep without noise. Silence is so much worse.
They happen upon other groups, equally scared, equally shaken.
Other nobles have been trying to sort the situation out. The ones who said no to Malekith are dead. The ones who said yes… no one is sure.
Sigyn say nothing. Dazed and distant, she barely understands the words around her.
Ljúfvina, Ey Annarr and Ey Þridi form a triangle around her, one of them always holding her hand.
A man, former mayor of a large city that's been levelled, strides to her and demands she fix this.
"Can't you tell she's been hurt?" demands Ljúfvina.
"I don't care. She's the princess, she's got to fix this!"
Ey Annarr shoves him away and the three of them pull Sigyn aside.
"Mikilfengleg Kona," one starts.
"Don't call me that," says Sigyn faintly. "I don't deserve that title."
"Of course you do-"
"No, it was given to me because of my birth, because I exist." Sigyn holds up her hands in front of her face. They were covered in scrapes, broken nails, bruises, so weak and delicate. She curls them into fists. "Don't call me princess or anything at all… just the name I was given by two people who hated each other."
The others are quiet for a moment, then Ljúfvina says,
"Sigyn, you can still fight, even if you don't feel like a princess –you have the education and the influence because of it. Use it, use it to save Vanaheim."
Sigyn doesn't know what to say, any answer she thinks of seemed selfish. She does not want this but it was up to her. But how can she ever hope to solve the problem?
The answer comes a few days later.
They are low on food, there are dying people everywhere they turned, and a man comes to them out of the darkness. Ragged, scared, exhausted, he collapses to the ground.
"They're attacking the temples!" he gasps.
People haul him up, bringing him close to the fire, and Sigyn's whole body goes ridged.
Yggdrasil recognises her at the same moment and rears up.
"Hold him!" Sigyn commands and, to her shock, she's obeyed. The men hold Yggdrasil down, looking to her for further instruction.
They still have confidence in her.
It's a terrifying moment.
She approaches Yggdrasil, seiðr sparking at her fingertips. Standing over him, she wants to wrap her fingers, her cracked, broken fingers, around his neck and squeeze. Yggdrasil looks up at her, hateful and arrogant. He expects her to hurt him.
So she does not.
"This man is responsible for the invasion of Malekith."
"Lies!" he spits.
"You made a deal with him, he said he would help you overthrow the ruling family, my family. In exchange you would supply the army to help him destroy Asgard. I wasn't deaf when you tortured me."
The people around her shudder and snarl, they want to kill him. Sigyn holds a hand up to stop them.
"I want to use him."
Everyone stares at her. Sigyn wonders for a moment how she looks to them, but the thought vanishes in an instant.
"You probably have all sorts of little cells from that terrorist group you had."
"It was a freedom fighting organisation!"
"I want you to find as many as you can. I want you to gather information. I want to know where Malekith is, and what his plans are. You're going to find it for me."
Yggdrasil stares at her, then laughs,
"As if I'd help you!"
Sigyn stares at him, her seiðr sparking more violently. Yggdrasil eyes it nervously and then up at her with more defiance. He's expecting her to use magic to make him obey.
Sigyn lets the seiðr fade away and she lowers her hand,
"You made your choice to rebel against my family, for why, you never made clear. It seems rather pointless now, doesn't it? You did it for Vanaheim, because you believed it was best for Vanaheim, didn't you?"
"… yes," replies Yggdrasil, watching her nervously.
"Well then, it should be no hardship for you to do this, because it's clear Malekith is not what is best for Vanaheim, is he?"
"You think it's that simple to make me obey you?"
"No, but you're obviously not stupid-" Sigyn doesn't really believe that considering how he had been swayed by Malekith. "-since you managed to organise such a sophisticated system of cells that my parents knew nothing about. So don't make the stupid decision for your pride, when you're as responsible for this destruction as my parents and I are."
"You're not responsible," starts Ljúfvina, but Sigyn waves a hand for silence.
"We both want to save Vanaheim, right? So we will work together."
Yggdrasil doesn't reply for a long time, but Sigyn feels nothing but detached emptiness. This was expected of her, this is what princesses did. So she would do it.
"Fine, but when we win I want a full pardon," says Yggdrasil with a confidence he does not carry.
Sigyn nods without hesitation. She'll just rescind on that agreement when she needs to.
The others insist on binding Yggdrasil for the night. Sigyn does not stop them. She never wished to be a micro-managing sort of queen.
Huh, with her parents dead she is now queen. That'll take some getting used to.
Sigyn lies between her maids that night and wonders why Asgard has not appeared. She would try to contact Loki in the morning.
Ey Annarr and Ey Þridi take on new names. Their institute was gone, Sigyn does not want them to keep them –although she gives them final say.
Annarr becomes Magnhildr and Þridi becomes Dýrfinna. Sigyn sends them, and Ljúfvina, out to gather information. They are reluctant to leave her, but she insists on it. She needs them working for her, not coddling her. Besides, what she needs to do is best done when they aren't with her.
Yggdrasil is still bound up, like a toy waiting to be brought out. They've fed and watered him more than he did her. It claws at her hate, but Sigyn needs him. She approaches him, summoning every bit of confidence she can scrape up. She pulls the gag out but holds a hand up before Yggdrasil can speak,
"Yes, yes, I'm certain you have some charming, choice words for me. I'm a whore, I'm scum, I'm worthless –we have been over this haven't we?"
Yggdrasil blinks, but says nothing, staring at her with a new, more cautious expression.
"Look, we hate each other, but right now, we're on the same side, so let's actually work together. Do you think you can do that?"
Yggdrasil tugs on his restraints, raising his eyebrows sardonically.
Sigyn matches his expression, waiting. It's like dealing with Loki in an un-talkative mood. Yggdrasil loves the sound of his own voice. She needs to let him do the work. Deliberately she sways on the spot and sags sideways, letting her exhaustion overcome her for a moment.
"Malekith wants the army, he won't kill everyone," says Yggdrasil. Sigyn lifts her head like it weighs oh so much and blinks slowly, doe-like and sweet. Yggdrasil's eyes rake over her face and she can see a way to control him. It's disgusting, but what does that matter?
"He wanted to marry me so he could have access to that army. I said no."
"He said he wanted to destroy Asgard so that the other realms would be allowed to flourish," says Yggdrasil. Sigyn wonders how stooping to Asgard's methods would help the other realms flourish, but she says,
"So he will try to acquire control of the army? How can he expect to succeed like this?" She already guesses, but playing stupid will work on Yggdrasil, he's a small man who wants to feel important.
"He's undercutting the army's structure, and then he'll just turn every able bodied person into a soldier –they have technology that will allow it if he can't use your magic to do it."
"How do you know?"
"He offered it to me for you, but my seiðr experts said it would negate the magic that binds you to the planet."
Sigyn looks away and automatically reaches up to push hair behind her ear, only to find nothing. It throws her for a moment, and she can see the pleasure in Yggdrasil's eyes. Bastard.
They talk more about the avenues open to them, until people come to her and ask for her blessing. What exactly they hope to get from it Sigyn neither knows, nor cares, but if it makes them feel safe she'll do it. Afterwards she goes away from the group and tries to send a message to Loki. Her magic rebounds against something and she knows Malekith has done something to keep Vanaheim isolated.
They're on their own.
That night there's a blinding flash in the sky and Sigyn watches pieces of Bifrost tumble down to the ground like meteors. She can hear the booms from a distance as they hit, and she hopes they landed on Malekith's ships, which are starting to land.
Vanaheim has numbers, but Malekith has highly advanced technology, probably built in the greatest secrecy so Heimdall could not see.
Heimdall had not been as useful as she might have expected him to be –like so much of Asgard and its lofty ideals.
Yggdrasil stays near her, Sigyn knows he wants to help, but he also wants to watch her struggle. It gives him a sense of power and satisfaction in this terrifying time.
The small group moves from place to place, trying to gather information, but more importantly they have to reassure as many people as they can that Sigyn is still alive. She is the focus of all hope and need across the planet.
No pressure then.
Sigyn has the idea after four days of walking. They have more followers, and there are fires all around. They might be seen, but they are cold and hungry, so they risk it. Abruptly Sigyn stands and pulls her clothes off.
"Sigyn?" asked Ljúfvina. Sigyn ignores her, her focus on the fire, which twitches and twists as if coming to life. She inhales and pulls seiðr from her surroundings, her gaze turned inward. She steps into the fire, amid cries of alarm, but the fire does not hurt, it's like stepping into a bath. She pulls the flames higher and wraps them around her body, concentrating with all her might. It's the same principle as casting multiple illusions, something she did over and over until she was sick, just to prove she could keep up with Loki.
Around the rag-tag camp the other fires all start to morph and Sigyn can see everything, everywhere. Her head aches with overload, and she wants to vomit.
No, stay on point idiot!
Opening her eyes, she can see flashes of shocked, dirty, frightened faces, her people all across her planet, looking into their fires with awe. Among all of them she can see the white, tattooed face of Malekith staring in disbelief.
"I am Queen Sigyn of Vanaheim, I am alive, and I will fight. Malekith, you have signed your own death warrant, and I swear you will never profit from what you have done here. My people are strong, they are loyal, and they are proud. We shall never become your army of slaves."
The faces swirl around her, billions of faces, but she keeps her focus on Malekith, because he's the one who has to hear this.
"Hear me Malekith, you are weak and you are a coward –and I shall hold your heart in my hand before you will ever come close to conquering this realm."
And because she can't resist it, she blows a kiss at Malekith and twirls out of the fire, knowing Malekith will see that image burned on the insides of his eyes until he can take her.
"What are you doing drawing his attention to you?" bellows Yggdrasil.
"If he thinks he can still take over through me, his attention will be fixed. That gives us a better chance of doing things in other places, and protects the people. And now the people know I'm alive."
"Idiot! There had to have been a better way-"
Ljúfvina, Magnhildr and Dýrfinna all jump to their feet.
"No, don't come between us," orders Sigyn. They part and Sigyn faces Yggdrasil, refusing to tremble before his anger. That anger had resulted in her covered in her ladies' blood. "If you think that, then you'll help me ensure that it doesn't happen."
Everyone looks to her. Yggdrasil's mouth hangs open.
Good.
"And how am I to do that?"
Sigyn throws a punch at his face. He catches it and throws her to the ground. Sigyn laughs as everyone else cries out.
"You're going to teach me to fight your way. Dirty."
They keep moving, and gather intelligence and supplies. Malekith does just what Sigyn hoped, he chases her, and she sends vulnerable people away so they can't be hurt in this game of predator and prey. When she's not gathering information and trying to plan a way to defeat Malekith, she trains with Yggdrasil. Her muscle memory comes back and Yggdrasil is a terrible teacher, but Sigyn wants to show him she can be strong.
Somehow proving herself to Yggdrasil becomes tied with saving her people. If she can do one, she will achieve the other.
She knows she's falling into a bad mindset, but it doesn't stop her cartwheeling down it like a fool.
The other cells of Yggdrasil's group come out of the woodwork. Tethered as he is now to her, Yggdrasil talks them to Sigyn's side.
Such a sweetheart.
After countless days, Sigyn knocks him down and pins him, knife at his throat. Yggdrasil's eyes widen as he looks up into her face. She can feel his cock rise against her –and she knows she has him. She shoves him hard and flees back to her tent. She knows what will happen next.
It doesn't happen the first night, or the second, and each day she trains with Yggdrasil, letting him get close, but pretending she doesn't notice.
It's more than ten days, when Ljúfvina, Magnhildr and Dýrfinna are all elsewhere, that he enters her tent. She feigns sleep as his hand reaches under her top and palms her breast, only stirring when he puts his weight on her.
The panicked struggling isn't feigned.
She kicks him out, but she knows he'll come back. She has something he wants, and with his old cause gone, it will become his fixation. She needs that. The shame and disgust she feels is inconsequential compared to what's at stake.
Yggdrasil trains her harder than ever as punishment for her rejection, but he also tells her more, and she listens. She learns.
She learns what his rough fingertips feel like squeezing her nipple. She learns the length and breadth of his hard cock against her thigh. She learns he hates tears, and they protect her. Again, she doesn't need to feign them.
She cries no, but never stop. Stop would break this terrible dance they're doing. Each time she forces herself to weaken her struggles, lets him think he is getting closer to what he wants, lets him imagine that she is falling for him and it is only her honour, her feelings for Loki, that hold her back. Let him see Loki as a rival.
The bodies are everywhere, the stench of burning in the air.
Dýrfinna is killed by a bombing. Ljúfvina sobs and Sigyn holds her, stroking her hair as Magnhildr goes behind a tree with one of the women. Yggdrasil watches them hungrily and Sigyn knows as soon as she's alone he will try again. Her grief makes her wonder if it's worth fighting, after all, what does it matter if he does get what he wants?
No, if he gets it, she'll lose him, and she needs him.
She needs him, she tells herself as she fights him off, crying desperately.
"What's he worth?" Yggdrasil demands, "Tell me what makes him so special that you seal your legs together?"
Sigyn's tired, her head aches and she's still bald. Her hair, all of her hair, refuses to grow back. It's annoying her now.
"What?" she mumbles, trying to make sense of Malekith's fleet movements through her headache.
"That Aesir king, why show him such loyalty? He's abandoned you to your fate."
"The Bifrost is gone in case you missed the pieces falling from the sky."
"What about your precious secret paths?"
Sigyn does not know. She wants to think it's the Bifrost but she does not know and it's letting in trickles of doubt.
"Why do you care?"
Yggdrasil does not answer. He will never tell her that he's in love with her (as much as a creature like him can love) and is bitterly jealous of Loki. He wants to know why Sigyn can love Loki and not him.
"Malekith's not assaulting the cities anymore. He's more focused on control than fear now," she tells him.
"He needs to be drawn out."
"Then let's draw him out."
The plan fails and Magnhildr is dead because Sigyn is a failure.
She stares into the flames of the campfire and sees face after face of all the people she has lost.
She feels numb, detached from herself. When Ljúfvina comes and holds her, she feels nothing but the sense of dangling over a gaping maw –and she wants to let go.
She can't let go, she has to make this stop.
She just hopes that when it does stop, she doesn't survive.
It's been so long she cannot recall a better life, save in dreams.
She dreams of Loki, his hands on her flesh, but he quickly turns into Yggdrasil and she wakes in fear.
The days go by and the more she broods on things, the worse things seem to be. She remembers Loki's tantrums, his constant rebuttals of her sexual desires –whenever he agreed to something new it was with the air that he was doing her a great favour. She thinks about Fenrir and Jörmungandr, about how Loki had never stood up for them. What father doesn't stand up for his children?
She thinks about her parents, how they had let her be taken from them to be raised by women who kept her wrapped up in ritual and traditions that had nothing to do with how real Vanir lived. Who ever heard of preserving virginity –it had all been a way to keep her from forming attachments that would be unpolitical. With so much uncertainty about how the new monarchy would work, they had not wanted to risk anything with the heir.
And look how well that turned out. They had driven her so deep into isolation that she had thrown herself into Loki's arms without hesitation and now… now look where they were.
"If I'd never been in love with Loki, do you think this would have happened?" she asks Ljúfvina and Yggdrasil in a moment of wild, horrible understanding.
"No," says Yggdrasil, cutting across Ljúfvina. "If you'd actually bothered to look around and see what was happening here instead of spreading your legs-"
"You don't know what would have been different," says Ljúfvina, which is not a denial of the question. "Your parents should have-"
"Don't!" hisses Sigyn. She cannot bear to think about her parents, about how they could have let this happen –and whether they had even missed her when she had been Yggdrasil's prisoner.
"This world, the other worlds, they don't revolve around just you and your actions," says Ljúfvina, and she's entirely too rational for the mood Sigyn is in. "He's the one who gave Malekith a way in."
"I wouldn't have needed to if she and her parents were decent rulers!" snaps Yggdrasil and Sigyn wants to scream for years. She wants to scream through time and tell herself to grow up and stop running around with Loki and focusing on Loki's misery and Loki's life, his problems with his parents, with his brother, with the whole of Asgard. She wants to tell herself that her world needs her and if she could only act like a real princess then none of this would have happened.
Sometimes she thinks that is a flawed way of thinking.
Yet if she hadn't been so useless she wouldn't need to let Yggdrasil grope her and pull at her clothes just to keep him with her. He would follow her because he believed in her –but if he had believed in her, none of this would have happened.
There are battles against Malekith's army. They have technology, the Vanir have magic and familiarity with the land. Sigyn learns she has good aim with a stolen gun, and she finds it cathartic to stab these things to death like a maniac. She never understood the appeal of berserker rage before, but now… now she would happily feel it for the rest of her life.
They draw enough attention over and over that Malekith loses patience and decides he must deal with Sigyn directly. She makes him angry by constantly dancing and singing in the fire, picking a song she knows will strengthen her people and irritate Malekith. Sometimes she fancies she can hear the whole realm sing as one when she does this. It gives her hope for a few minutes.
Malekith is coming.
Sigyn lets Yggdrasil tie her up, a fake collar on her neck. He throws her at Malekith's feet in the temple they have let him corner them in.
Ljúfvina does not need to act her hatred for him as she fights some of the others, who hold her back at a safe distance.
Malekith looks down at Sigyn with cold indifference. It's a world away from Yggdrasil's burning, hateful desire but they both want the same thing from her.
Malekith bends down and lifts her by the throat. Her feet dangle and she whimpers.
"You should have submitted to me sooner. Fewer people need have died," he tells her.
Sigyn cannot pretend he's wrong.
Malekith drops her on the alter, his hands pulling down her trousers, and it's all the same, over and over again, and she won't – she can't ever be like Loki.
The knife materialises in her hand and she stabs Malekith in the neck.
Actually, it's less of a single dignified stabbing and more a frenzied hacking. There's blood and screaming and all she sees is red. By the time she's done Malekith's head is hanging by a bit of sinew. When she looks up the temple is a blood bath, all of Malekith's soldiers are dead. Ljúfvina runs to her, stunned but beaming.
"He's dead, he's actually-"
She stops, staggers, looks surprised, then drops to the floor. The knife Yggdrasil stuck in her back slides free and he whips around, slicing the neck of the only other survivor. Sigyn's knife is stuck in Malekith's spine and she cannot breathe.
Yggdrasil advances on her, drags her up onto the altar and resumes what Malekith started.
"Now Vanaheim can rebuild anew. With you and I-"
"SHUT UP!"
Sigyn launches herself at him, her thumbs pop his eyeballs and she sends raw seiðr through him like electricity, burning him with all her rage. He howls and writhes and she bites his face because if she doesn't she'll scream.
Then he is dead and she hates, hates, hates with all she is. She hates him, she hates Malekith, she hates her parents, she hates herself, she hates Loki. The air suffocates and she collapses.
The world twists and folds, she cannot accept, cannot forgive, she wants every Dark Elf to die, she wants every one of Yggdrasil's followers to burn –Asgard, where is great and glorious Asgard? Where are their warriors always spoiling for a fight? Where is their king who wails about proving himself but is nowhere to be found?
What is she but a wasted chance, a pathetic creature who cannot control her own body's whims enough to do the right thing? A weak, disgusting thing –does not deserve to live, does not –will not –cannot –
"The one time I really needed you and you weren't there!"
Who is she talking to –who is she? What is she?
She falls and falls and falls, but feels the hard ground, sticky blood, unmoving and unrelenting and she cannot stop falling. She screams in silence and pulls her seiðr inwards, wanting to cease to be, to never ever wake again and face what is and must be –let it scorch her, let it cleanse her whorish being into something of worth –let her die and something better come forth in its place. Let them all burn and scream as she cannot.
When she comes to some sort of sense, she finds Ljúfvina and Yggd(Rasil) kneeling down on either side of her, and she does not care that her body is malformed, she is so much better this way. She does not care that Yggd(Rasil) touches her when they are alone, because Ljúfvina dries her tears, and Sigyn can do this, because she has to, because if she does not more will suffer and she cannot let more suffer because of her.
So she will lock away her wants and needs, she will do whatever she must to restore Vanaheim to greatness. She will rule for the people and when they ask it of her she will lie back beneath whomever they choose and let them plant a child inside her –her malformation will not stop her from giving the starving families a reason to hope.
Maybe she can even love the child she gives them –though it doesn't really matter. It didn't matter that her parents did not love her, because she understands now what it means to be a leader, to be a queen. It doesn't matter that Loki looks at her with open longing, because Yggdrasil will remind her that everything that happened happened because she put Loki first. Loving Loki cost the lives of five billion people –not because of love, but because she, Sigyn was weak.
Ljúfvina toys with her hair at night, cold against her skin but there and real, and all she needs. And Ljúfvina asks,
"Can you not see this is not the way it should be? Can you not let yourself feel what is so natural to you and love once more? Love Loki, love his sons, love Berach and love yourself?"
And Sigyn looks up at her, her rock, her strength and her safe guard from Yggdrasil's hissing words. Sometimes she seems to dazzle, as if Ljúfvina were not quite… but she asks questions of Sigyn and Sigyn can only answer truthfully.
Sigyn says no.
As you can probably imagine, between the different style, the amount of information and sheer horror of the whole experience, this chapter was not easy to write. But I hope it explains enough of Sigyn's trauma to make clear why she's so messed up now.
Hope you… enjoyed it probably the wrong word for it, but you know what I mean.
For anyone who's interested, my Amazon page is attached to my profile now. I'm working on two more books to add up there which should be done soon. I'm also gonna set up with Smashwords, the link of which I'll add to my profile once it's done.