The next morning, after a long night of no sleep, the guards come to the dungeon to collect Loki and Sigyn. The other prisoners are yelling in incomprehensible languages, cursing at the guards for release. Loki's previously undeniable strength has been reduced to being dragged like a child's toy out of the dungeon. Sigyn walks upright behind him. Her hands are behind her back. She looks nothing if not noble, and is ready to face her fate. Sigyn was wise enough to tuck up her green skirt so that it was her little secret, perhaps the last secret she'll ever get to keep.
Odin the Allfather leads the guards in a grand, hyper-powered ship to a waterfall deep in the mountains of Asgard. Thor stands beside him, unmoving throughout the entire spectacle. Odin gestures to two large soldiers, and they grasp Loki by the arms again, pulling him off the ship, resting the man's limp body face up beneath a wide cliff. They tie his arms to a nearby branch, with feet together as well. Sigyn is handcuffed and forced to the front of the ship, angled so she cannot turn to look away. She looks around the waterfall, peers down from the ship to gauge the height, and cannot see how this could possibly be the setting for Loki's demise. What danger could exist in this beautiful place?
Odin stands on a pedestal in the center of the ship; once the guards who secured Loki return to safety, the Allfather strikes his sceptre in the boat. The clang echoes through the valley, resounding off every cliff and boulder. For a few minutes, nothing happens.
When Sigyn finally looks up amidst the waterfall, she is horrified at the creature that appears.
Emerging from a cave behind the water, a giant, iridescent serpent is twisting its body around the rocks that line each side of the cascade. Its head is shaped like a large shield, triangular, and thick. The eyes are akin to black whirlpools: deep, terrifying, and without end. The pattern upon its skin is unlike anything Sigyn has ever seen before; diamond-shaped iridescent scales create the illusion of skulls wrapping around the creature's body. Logic says the snake would run out of body after slithering out for more than a few minutes, but the scales keep appearing. The water makes the serpent appear slippery and terribly menacing. Sigyn cannot catch her breath as she watches the snake coil its body on the cliff above Loki. The creature looks at his victim, and rears back its huge head.
"Great Serpent, this traitor has failed to accept punishment admissible by men. His crimes are great. He knows his fate. Go forth with your will upon him." Odin commands the snake with authority, controlling it. The animal peers into Sigyn's eyes, reading her just as Heimdall would. But instead of feasting upon Loki, as Sigyn expected, the snake opens its mouth slowly, hisses terribly at the ship, and drips a yellow, thick venom upon its victim.
Loki screams out in a searing call, taking all his strength not to retch from the pain. Sigyn cannot watch in silence; she bellows out to him, "No, no, no!" She prays aloud for it to stop, begging for his life. Sigyn turns to face Odin, constantly being pushed by the guards to keep watching.
"Please, please Allfather, have mercy upon him!" Sigyn's tears are clouding her vision. Even if she could bear to watch, she wouldn't be able to truly see it. Loki's cries are deafening, echoing through the canals and caves like the clash of Odin's sceptre. His body writhes beneath each drip of the venom, pulling so hard at his arms to escape that his shoulder appears sickeningly twisted out of place. Loki's feet, already scraped and bloodied from the day before, are raw with kicking at the stone. He is trying to roll his body off the cliff to end his misery, but the soldiers that tied him up left too little slack in his bindings.
"Let him go Please let him go! I cannot stand to watch this horror!" Sigyn's desperation and hoarse cries to Odin are heartbreaking to watch. He considers her pleas. The Allfather cannot change his sentence, but he can offer satisfaction to Sigyn.
"You are quite brave, Sigyn, willing to be so bold for Loki." Odin considers what he could do to offer her some semblance of control. "You are released to grant him mercy, if you can." He gestures to the soldiers to remove her handcuffs.
At first, she stands at the front of boat, still frozen; now she has a chance to help Loki, but does not know what to do. Sigyn searches the boat for a knife, a balm, anything to ease the venom or release him, but is still empty-handed after several minutes of ransacking the ship.
A familiar looking guard sits at the back picking his fingernails, clearly disturbed enough by Loki's torture that he cannot watch either. Sigyn takes notice of him, and sees that there is a small bowl at his feet, left there no doubt by a gluttonous guard with an insatiable appetite even during short missions. Sigyn pushes past another man to reach the bowl, and she jumps from the ship to the cliff below.