Part One: Asgard

The Warriors' Arena

The first time Loki lays eyes on Sigyn, she's getting her ass kicked.

Or so it seems.

Thor had woken him up before dawn to show him some stupid new move with Mjolnir, dragging him to the Warriors' Arena as soon as he'd been dressed for the day. They arrive only to find that it is occupied.

As they step outside the Mead Hall on the far side of the palace, they notice Haldana, a friend of theirs since childhood. She stands against the wall encircling the steps leading into the arena, nervously tapping her foot as she watches the two fighters in the large, sunken, gladiator-style pit.

With the colorful rays of light from the sunrise raining over the ring, Loki sees Sif and a woman around their age exchanging vicious blows. Sif continuously knocks the other woman onto the ground, but can never seem to pin her opponent down long enough to end the spar.

Inspecting Sif's adversary closer, he wonders who she is. She must be a warrior, he's tempted to conclude. The Warriors' Arena is a training grounds designated only for warriors, a position to which only nobility can rise. Yet, knowing all the Lords and Ladies of Asgard, he doesn't recognize her. She's awfully pretty, too. He can't imagine he'd simply never noticed her before.

His brother's booming voice pulls him away from his musings. "What do we have here," Thor inquires, addressing Haldana as he regards the display before them.

Haldana turns to look at him and Loki, apprehensively twisting a lock of her long, golden hair around one finger. Her lips turn down in an anxious frown. "I brought my sister here for a spar because I thought no one would be around so early, but then Sif showed up, flew into a rage, and challenged her to a duel."

"Ah, so this is the bastard sibling, then," Thor remarks, chuckling. "I have heard many a complaint from Sif about her."

Loki raises an eyebrow at the revelation of the woman's identity, a bit confused. He had heard Haldana's father, the Lord Andor, had a bastard child, but that the child was a soldier. From there, he'd assumed the child was a man and thought no further of it. There are very few female soldiers, after all—less than a dozen in the entire army.

It would be awfully impressive if this woman is indeed a soldier. Likewise, it could explain why she has been able to keep up with Sif for so long. Usually Sif finishes off her opponents in a matter of a few short minutes, but from what Loki can tell, the two of them have been engaged in this skirmish for quite some time.

"Yes," Haldana sighs, confirming Thor's supposition. "Sif has loathed her ever since we were little. I believe my mother spoke so ill of her that Sif grew to hate her before they even met."

Both Loki and Thor nod in understanding, knowing well how stubborn Sif can be, but Haldana isn't looking at them anymore, too engrossed in the fight between her half-sister and her closest friend. The brothers follow suit, turning their attention back to the arena.

Sif delivers a series of harsh, overhanded blows with her spear. The smaller woman manages to block all of them with her blade, but the force behind the final strike sends her to the ground. Her longsword slips from her grasp, flying across the ring.

With a victorious cry, Sif beams and spins around to give an extravagant finishing blow. However, as her back is turned, Haldana's sister duplicates herself and leaves behind her doppelgänger as she darts away.

Suffice it to say, Loki is floored. He certainly hadn't expected to share the skill of illusionary magic with an illegitimate peasant girl. From what he understood, there were an astounding few people in Asgard with the propensity for magic, and even fewer who could wield a great amount of it.

From what he can tell from such a simple trick, she must have bounds of magical power at her disposal. Most people could never conjure such an accurate image of themselves. Watching her further, he's even more impressed at how crude the trick is. Rather than blending into her surroundings as she dashes away from her duplicate, she instead makes care to stay just outside of Sif's peripheral vision, likely unable to transform or cast illusions over herself. It's a wonder she has the power to maintain the illusion she's producing with such a level of skill, and he imagines her doing so must be credited to innate talent and sheer power.

More impressively, the trick works. Sif brings her spear down on the woman's copy, but by the time the illusion dispels, Haldana's sister is standing behind Sif with a dagger to her back.

"Ha," she shouts, a grin of victory across her face. "I've got you! Now, yield, you s—"

The woman's voice breaks off with a howl of pain as Sif's elbow snaps back and slams into her face. She stumbles back, raising her arm to deflect a stroke from Sif's weapon. Once again, they begin trading blows.

Loudly, Thor exclaims, "That was quite impressive! I almost thought she'd had her."

For the first time since their arrival, Loki speaks up. "What are the stipulations of this duel," he asks, interested to see if the stakes are high enough to encourage the woman to perform any more magic.

"If my sister wins, Sif has to allow her to finish training here for the day," Haldana discloses. "If she loses, however, she must never return to the Warriors' Arena and cut off her hair."

Sif must truly despise this girl, Loki thinks.

Short hair often recognized as a symbol of servitude and low-birth for both men and women. While noble men tend to keep their hair around chin- or shoulder-length, women of all backgrounds prefer to keep their hair long. For Sif to make Haldana's sister cut her hair is to rub her nose in her loss in a surprisingly cruel fashion for a mere sparring duel. Besides, such terms seem very disproportionate.

Thor looks as though he, too, believes it's a bit harsh of a punishment, but says nothing.

At this point in the match, the soldier has had not one but two daggers knocked out of her hands, and she's scrambling to avoid the swipes of Sif's blades. Eventually, her inferior speed gets the better of her, and Sif manages to land a kick square in her chest. The strength behind the punt is enough to send her crashing into the wall in the space between Thor and her sister.

Loki notices that never mind how hard she hit the wall, she would have flown into it at a much faster pace had she not slowed down ever so slightly just before making contact, somewhat lessening the impact of her collision. He's almost certain she'd been using telekinesis, but he hasn't any time to process what he'd seen before Thor steps in front of her, asking, "Are you alright? I know the Lady Sif can—"

Sif shoves him out of her way before he can finish whatever he'd been about to say. She raises the pointed end of her spear to the other woman's neck and yells, "Yield!"

The woman merely smiles with surreptitious satisfaction, prompting Sif to snarl in outrage. Just as she parts her lips to bark out something else, Haldana's sister shimmers in a flash of pink and disappears before coming up behind Sif and placing a shortsword at her throat.

Again, Loki is struck by the woman's capabilities. Just a few minutes prior, he hadn't thought she could conceal herself in any fashion, but just now she'd done it with even him not taking notice. Either she purposefully downplays her level of skill, he thinks, or she's powerful enough to make her seem more skillful.

"No," she puffs out, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face. "You first."

It looks as though she's won, and Loki can't help but feel oddly pleased with the outcome.

Not one to lose a fight, however, Sif suddenly bends and twists her body with the grace only a seasoned fighter could possess, once again turning on her opponent. Without any time-wasting flourish or pomp, she pushes the other woman down onto the declining steps that lead to the arena below and holds the blade of her metal lance to the woman's neck once more, gritting out, "Yield."

The woman's chest heaves with effort for a few seconds before she finally hangs her head, softly muttering, "I yield."

Momentarily appeased, Sif smirks and deactivates her weapon. "About time, peasant. You could have saved yourself a lot of pain if you had only surrendered earlier."

"My name is Sigyn," the woman declares viciously as she gets to her feet.

"Whatever," Sif sneers.

Now that she's so close, Loki takes a moment to examine her more closely. She has dark, mud-colored hair and eyes to match. Some of her features match her sister's—her nose and brow, for instance—but for the most part, they're more ordinary than refined.

She's not quite short, most likely due to her mixed parentage as Asgardian nobility stand at roughly a foot above the lower classes, though she's not exactly tall either. She dons a worn chest plate and a short dress typical of female fighters, but the dress is noticeably threadbare, betraying her station in life.

Loki thinks she is utterly unremarkable, like any peasant he has ever seen.

He watches as Sigyn grasps her long braid at the base of her neck and brings her dagger behind her head to cut it off from the roots. Her freshly-cut chocolate locks spill past her ears, coming to rest above her shoulders in disarray. Eyes hard, she tosses the thick plait at Sif's feet and brazenly lifts her chin, face set in defiance and covered in drying blood.

Loki thinks she is utterly gorgeous, like no goddess he has ever seen.

As if she can hear his thoughts, her eyes suddenly snap to meet his, losing their fury all at once. Instead, they shine with surprise, as though she's only just noticed that the two sons of the Allfather had watched her lose a fight in a place she didn't belong.

He's practically certain she can hear his thoughts when those same sepia-brown eyes widen in overt embarrassment. Before he can even think to say anything, she lets out an inscrutable squawk, turns tail, and promptly runs away at full speed, her uneven mane fluttering in the wind as she goes.

Sigyn, he thinks, is a rather lovely name.