And we're almost done with Part Three! This chapter is a little different from other chapters, jumping around from different scenes more, but I tried to make it fun! Finally, we have the DarcyxSigynxJane friendship trio, which I've been planning since I started writing this! I hope you all like it!
Please read, review, and enjoy!
Lottery
"Hey there, superstar," Darcy whispers, tentatively treading around the sofa. "Why're you just sitting here in the dark?"
Sigyn had drawn the curtains on all of the windows as soon as Darcy and Jane had left for work, desperate for the quietness that the darkness would bring to her mind. Lately, there had been too much noise: the loud colors on the screen of the television set whenever they broadcast her defeat by the Aether, the blinding brightness whenever she's forced by her new human companions to venture into the world beyond Jane's apartment, and the sharp, throbbing absence of the voices of all those she had used to know, lost to her now as she had gone from Asgard.
She glares up at Darcy as the younger woman brings back the some of the noise ailing her by turning on the television. Darcy stares wide-eyed at her in response, her eyes dropping to Sigyn's mouth once her glare lessens. "Did you eat all the Nutella again," she asks, her voice colored with suspicion.
Surreptitiously, Sigyn wipes at her mouth. "No," she answers, tactfully refraining from looking at the empty jar on the coffee table.
Darcy notices it anyway. "Aww, man. It was one of the big containers, too. The ones that come in two-packs at Tesco."
"I apologize," Sigyn grits out.
"I don't even understand how you can stand to each so much of it," ponders Darcy. "Up until last week, you were crying hard enough to throw up every day."
Dejectedly, Sigyn snaps, "I said I was sorry."
Thankfully, Darcy is distracted from her tirade about the Nutella when Jane makes her entrance. "Dude, what took you so long?"
Happy for the distraction, Sigyn suggests, "Perhaps she hit someone with her car again." Darcy chortles beside her.
Jane throws up her hands in frustration. "How many times do I have to apologize for that?"
Looking over her shoulder at Jane, Sigyn reminds her, "You let your boyfriend cut my hair, and then you hit me with your car."
Jane points at her. "To be fair, we thought you were dead when he took a little, teeny-tiny snippet of your hair." Sigyn rolls her eyes to convey how feeble she finds Jane's excuses. "And yes, I accidently hit you with my car, but you were totally fine."
"Yeah," Darcy agrees, her voice strained as though to suggest Jane is being a little too blasé about the effects of her poor driving skills. "Minor bumps and bruises. Woke up, like, twenty minutes later. No biggie."
Darcy unmutes the television, diverting Sigyn's attention from the conversation. Once more, the local news station is replaying the footage of what everyone on Earth assumes to have been her death. The clip starts out with her drawing up behind Malekith and stabbing him in the back, and she wishes it would stop there. Unfortunately, it plays on, showing her brief exchange with Thor—cut so short that he hadn't the time to inform her of Loki's demise—and the Aether, slowly leaking out of Malekith's limp body. The relic floats over to her, slithering along in the air until it reaches her back and sinks into her body.
She's quickly overwhelmed, losing control of her body as she is cast into the air. The remaining tendrils of the relic wind around her, finding purchase on her wrists and pouring in through her mouth. It's at this point that Thor, who had been trying to reach her but had been reticent to touch her lest the Aether react badly, reaches his breaking point and takes hold of her wrist. As might have been expected, the Aether does not take kindly to his interference and bursts apart within Sigyn's head. She falls to the ground in a heap, and the Aether pulls itself back, loitering between her and Malekith's bodies thereafter.
At the end of the reel, the screen switches to a still shot of Thor holding her limp body in his arms. A bland voice emerges from the speakers set on either side of the television. "As the viewers following this story know, it was after the Avenger Sigyn's tragic demise as just shown that she was confirmed dead on the scene by paramedics and transferred to the morgue at Royal London Hospital." At this point, the sight of her slack face, painted with blood, and Thor's distraught expression disappears, an image of the front of the hospital in which she had later awoken taking its place.
"Two days later," the disembodied voice goes on, "the Avenger Thor returned from Asgard to retrieve her body for her funeral, only for hospital officials to discover that it had gone missing. Eighty-six different terrorist groups and criminal cells have taken credit for her body's disappearance since, but investigators have not been able to confirm who the true culprit is. We'll have more on this during our evening news hour, when we'll have an agent from MI5 to tell us more about the ongoing investigation."
Biting at the inside of her cheek, Sigyn finds herself glad and yet frustrated at the humans' partly accurate understanding of what had truly happened. As Jane and Darcy had recalled to her, Thor had left her body to the humans with assurances that he could collect it a few days later once a funeral had been arranged for her and Loki. At such a time, Jane and Darcy had met Thor outside of the London metropolitan area so as to avoid attention. From there, they had driven to the hospital, and upon arriving, had been informed that her body had gone missing. From what Sigyn understands, she had absconded five minutes prior to their arrival without anyone the wiser and had already been down the block when Thor had shown up asking for her.
As she had been told next, Thor had been very upset at what appeared to be human error and had returned to Asgard straight away, leaving Jane and Darcy with little else to do but drive home. On that same drive, Jane had taken her eyes off the road at the same time that Sigyn had wondered into traffic.
Jane and Darcy had leapt from the car, Darcy shouting about Jane about having struck a doctor only to discover Sigyn lying on the ground, her disguise having dissipated as soon as she had fallen unconscious. Somehow, they had managed to get her into the backseat without any onlookers stopping them—an occurrence which made Sigyn question the ethics of the people of Earth—and taken her back to Jane's apartment. She had woken up a few minutes later, disoriented but put at ease by Jane's familiar presence.
She had cut her hair once she'd noticed that a large snippet of it was gone, Thor having sheared it off to take back for Haldana to wear before he'd passed her off to the paramedics. Despite her annoyance, with the knowledge that the proper mourning rituals had been performed, she had decided to remain on Earth. Considering that she knows she must die soon, she sees no reason to force everyone in her life to mourn her twice. She has her regrets—being unable to live her life as she otherwise would have, as well as missing Loki's funeral—but they pale in comparison to the threat of leading Thanos to Asgard.
Having somehow sensed her thought pattern, Darcy moves to stand in front of the television set, switching it back to mute as she does. "Dude, it's been a month. You have gotta move on."
"You expect me to get over—" Sigyn begins to bluster.
Darcy holds up her hands before Sigyn can proceed any further. "I'm not saying you have to get over everything," she clarifies. "Just that you have to move forward. Keep putting one foot in front of the other."
"I am entirely unfit to achieve such a feat," Sigyn complains. "Never have I been so—" She frowns, grasping for the right word to complete her thoughts. "—sad."
"I have an idea," Jane chirps. Looking at her phone, she raises her free hand over her head and points at the front door. "Everyone in the car."
Sigyn grouses, "With you at its helm? Pass." Darcy snickers anew.
Jane puts her hands on her hips and speaks in her most authoritative voice, "Get in the car." Sigyn raises a single eyebrow, unimpressed. In a conciliatory tone, Jane offers, "I'll buy you a milkshake." Sigyn gets up without any further protest.
Half an hour later, Sigyn finds herself having been cajoled into sitting quietly in a circle with unfamiliar mortals, disguised as the woman whose likeness she had appropriated on her first day in London. Jane had described the gathering as a women's grief group, asserting that she believed Sigyn could benefit from sharing her sorrows with a group of strangers. Sigyn is less than convinced, but she listens respectfully all the same as each of the other women tell their melancholic stories.
After the woman on Jane's other side has finished with the tearful recounting of her hardships, Jane excuses herself from contributing, explaining that she's here only for moral support and pointing to Sigyn.
Sighing, Sigyn figures that she may as well say her part so as to finish with this ordeal. She tries to make the details of her story as vague as possible. "I have recently lost my mother and my, ah, boyfriend. You see, these elves attacked—the very same as those who showed up in Greenwich—and they, as you mortals say, kamikaze-ed into the hospital wherein my mother worked, thereby killing her. Then, I helped the crown prince commit treason—during which my lover died—was nearly killed myself, and have since fallen into a self-imposed exile here on Earth. That about brings things up to date."
Amanda, who had identified herself as the group's organizer, leans forward in her chair to ask, confused, "I'm sorry. Are you saying that you're an alien?"
Refraining from scoffing, Sigyn chuckles and reassures her, "No, though I see why you might think that." For a moment, the other women appear partially assuaged. Their relieved smiles are wiped from their faces as she gestures to them and clarifies, "No, no. You see, you all are the aliens."
"And we're leaving," Jane says, getting up from her chair to pull Sigyn from her own. Sigyn lets her drag her from the room.
Trailing behind them, Darcy offers up an errant excuse, "She's off her meds."
Once outside, Jane relinquishes her grip on Sigyn, trusting that she'll follow her to the car. She does, if only to ensure that she receives the treat she was promised. "I believe there remains the matter of the milkshake you promised me."
"Oh, my God," grumbles Jane, pulling out of their parking spot once Darcy has tumbled into the backseat and starting down the road. She drives for no more than a few minutes, pulling into a small diner off the road. As she puts the car back into park, she firmly informs Sigyn, "You get one milkshake."
"No fries," Sigyn teases, pushing open the passenger door and climbing out of the vehicle.
Jane shouts back at her as she enters the establishment, Darcy at her heels: "You can't even taste the fries!"
As a result of the incident with the Aether, Sigyn lost her sense of smell. She gathers that some essential nerve had been severed when the relic had all but exploded whilst inside her head, and the loss had resulted. With it had gone most of her sense of taste, as well. This left her to opt for the super-sweet and the extra-spicy, hence her newfound love for Earth's icy treats.
The first time she had tried a milkshake, having been dragged to a sandwich shop named McDonald's on a day when Darcy had simply insisted that she get out of the apartment, she had been immediately won over by the deep, roasted, and slightly bitter flavor, which had been accentuated by the coldness of the beverage. She had held up her empty cup within a few short minutes, requesting another, and had been eminently confused when Darcy had suddenly shouted at her not to throw the cup onto the ground. Why Darcy had thought she would do such a thing remains unclear.
As soon as a waitress has come by their table to take their orders, Darcy begins regaling them once again with her dilemma over changing her tract of study from political science to astrophysics. Jane suggests, as she always does, that Darcy make the switch already, prompting Darcy to remind her, as she always does, that she has invested too much time in political science to simply throw away all her credit hours, whatever those are.
They're spared from Darcy getting onto the topic of student debt when Phil Coulson slides into the seat next to her. "Dr. Foster, Ms. Lewis," he says by way of greeting, nodding to each of them. He pauses meaningfully before turning to Sigyn, adding, "Major Sigyn."
Thrown by his sudden appearance though she may be, Sigyn remains silent, not wanting to give away her disguise. However, she suspects her silence is enough confirmation for Coulson notwithstanding. Jane leans forward, trying to ward suspicion off of her. "Agent Coulson, what are you doing here?"
"I'm here on S.H.I.E.L.D. business," he perfunctorily tells her. Folding his hands on top of the table, he elaborates, "When the Avenger Sigyn went missing a few weeks ago, Tony Stark contacted us, wondering if we could locate her body."
"What did you tell him," Sigyn asks carefully, the human accent—Scottish, Darcy calls it—she had adopted still in place.
He turns to her. "We told him that we lost your trail. Stolen goods, including bodies, on the black market are sometimes hard to trace. Even for us."
"And why would you tell him such a thing," she wonders.
"Because we'd like to know why you're in hiding on Earth," he inquires, his tone deceptively conversational and polite.
After another beat of silence, during which Sigyn figures she may as well cut to the chase, she admits, "Because I am to die—"
" Maybe," Jane interjects, fidgeting at her side.
Sigyn rolls her eyes and amends her statement. "—though Jane is of the belief that my upcoming demise is debatable."
On her third day here, having stopped crying and retching long enough to hold a conversation, Sigyn had regaled Jane, Darcy, and Erik Selvig—who seems to follow her wherever she goes on this planet, as well as Coulson now—of the prophecy which first brought her to Earth. Jane had expressed some doubt as to her death being midway through the prophecy, finding it odd that the second half wouldn't involve her as such. Sigyn has tried repeatedly to disabuse her of the notion that one could work around prophecies, but she has been stubborn and difficult to convince.
"It says 'when next they meet' twice," she always insists, emphatic in her conviction.
"That is in reference to the same instance," Sigyn always replies, scowling at her. Darcy and Erik usually cast each other concerned looks during these spats, wishing to take the side of neither bullheaded woman.
"I don't understand," Coulson admits, looking between Sigyn and Jane.
"Someone wants to kill me, and a very powerful sorcerer has assured me that they will succeed. That is all you need to know," she tells him. Leveling him with an austere look, which he returns, she adds, "I have chosen Earth as my retirement home, so to speak."
Coulson leans back. "Alright," he says after a moment, still looking a bit lost. He recovers quickly, however, pulling something out of his breast pocket. "In that case, consider this a housewarming gift. S.H.I.E.L.D. hopes that it will make your time on Earth a little easier."
He places on the table between them a slip of paper and a small booklet that calls itself a "British Passport." Leaning in to inspect them, she determines that the slip of paper is a birth certificate chock-full of lies, including her name, date of birth, place of birth, and parents. The small booklet is similarly deceitful, hosting much of the same information.
"Zafirah Jalal," she reads from the line next to the picture of her. The small portrait of her must be from her last trip to Earth if the braid that hangs over her shoulder in it is any indication. It's evidently been edited in some manner, however, as there are a pair of spectacles over the bridge of her nose in it.
"Your new name," Coulson tells her, getting up. He places his sunglasses over his eyes in spite of the gloomy weather outside. "Don't wear it out."
After Coulson has left, the three of them spend another five minutes at the diner, Darcy and Jane looking out for anymore hidden S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, before they call it quits and head back to Jane's apartment. Sigyn spends the car ride over with her nose in her new passport, inspecting every speck of ink on it. She's still occupied with it as they walk through the apartment's front door, so thankfully, she is too distracted to drop her disguise.
"Ladies," Erik shouts, drawing everyone's attention to him. Sigyn looks up and barely stops herself from shrieking when she spies Thor at his side. "Look who decided to join us," he goes on, his voice somehow sounding far less nervous than he looks.
Thor is standing with his shoulders drooped and his hair hanging haphazardly about his face. He looks haggard, as though he hasn't slept well in weeks. Sigyn recognizes the dark, dreary look in his eyes, having been hosting it herself since the day of Malekith's attack.
Her shock wearing off, Jane darts forward to embrace Thor. "I'm so glad you're here," she says, leaning forward to give him a peck on the lips. She leans over Thor's torso to greet Erik, as well.
"Yes, well," stammers Erik as he conspicuously glances over at Sigyn every few seconds regardless of how hard she glares at him. "I finally figured out why we thought Sigyn and Loki were married, like S—like you asked me to."
Sigyn straightens, her interest piqued. Thor reacts similarly. "Do tell," he gruffly requests.
Still looking between Thor and Sigyn, Erik assents, "Yeah, uh, alright." He fishes an aged book out of the bag hanging from his shoulder and flips to a page about halfway through it. "It appears as though the Norsemen were confused by Haldana's meagre description of her sister, so they just assumed that there was some reason she had to stay in Asgard. Some thought that as the Goddess of Victory, it was her staying at Asgard's hearth that allowed Asgard to prevail in battle, and others attributed it to her marriage with Loki, saying it was part of her being faithful to him."
Sigyn snorts in derision before she has the mind to hold herself back. "Ridiculous."
Eyes finally landing on her, Thor gazes at her with something alarmingly close to suspicion. "Who are you?"
Nervous, she stumbles over a plausible answer, "I am, ah—"
"Sarah Newman," Darcy supplies, an anxious energy about her. "Our new roommate."
Satisfied, he grumbles, "Nice to meet you." Awkwardly, she dips her head in acknowledgement, too struck to say anything else lest he figure her out.
"Anyway," Jane says, thankfully stealing back Thor's attention. She gestures to Erik. "Is there anything about why they're married, not just that they are?"
"Oh, right," Erik says as though he has just remembered the specific task Sigyn had given him. He flips to another page. "Ah, no. All I could find was that all three of Asgard's sorcerers were in the same family. Frigga and Loki were obviously related, so I believe they surmised that Loki and Sigyn were married because there was no blood relation."
Darcy wonders, "And the Vikings just assumed all the magical people had to be in the same family?"
Erik shrugs. "It appears so."
"At least, we can lay that mystery to rest," Thor sums up, clapping Erik on the back. "Well done, Erik."
Jane uses the end of the conversation as a transition, drawing him away. Once they're headed over to the sofa, Sigyn whispers to Darcy, "I thought my name was supposed to be Zafirah now."
"That's only for when you're you-with-glasses," she whispers back. "Right now, you're a white lady. Your name can't be Zafirah."
"What is a white lady," Sigyn asks, but Darcy doesn't answer her. She chooses instead to roll her eyes and head into her room.
At a complete loss for what to do, Sigyn follows after her to wait out Thor. They spend the next several hours locked in Darcy's room, Darcy teaching Sigyn various human card games and showing her a television show about six friends living in New York, the city Loki had tried to destroy. They even take supper in her room, Erik dropping off a dish called tacos at Darcy's behest.
Long after dusk, Darcy finally shoos her from the room, assuring her that it is safe for her to sleep on the couch as Thor is certainly holed up in Jane's room by now and will remain there until morning. Darcy is only half right. Thor is indeed absent from the living room when Sigyn arrives, permitting her to fall into a light slumber on the sofa. In the dead of night, however, he escapes from Jane's room, waking Sigyn as he unintentionally sits on her feet.
She jolts awake, frozen by the sight of his silhouette on the other end of the sofa. The room is too dark for her to see much of anything, and she hopes that the same is true for him. It is too late for her to put up a disguise as the shine of her magic would be a dead giveaway.
"My apologies," he grunts, settling back down on the sofa once she's pulled her feet under her thighs. "I did not see you there, ah, Sarah."
"S'alright," she murmurs, her voice husky from sleep.
"I needed a moment to myself," he goes on as though to explain himself. She thinks she sees his arm wave in the direction of Jane's room. After a moment, he adds, "I am recently bereaved."
She gives a jerky nod, scarcely believing that they are about to have this conversation. "Your mother and brother, correct?"
He grunts again, this time clearing his throat. "Yes, as well as a friend."
"A friend," she ponders, scouring her mind who else Thor could have recently lost. As far as she knows, all of Thor's friends had come out the other side of their treason unscathed, Odin having granted each of them clemency.
"Yes," he says again. "Sigyn, the Avenger."
She blanches, astounded to learn Thor's true opinion of her and trying to not let it show in her voice. As guilt begins to overwhelm her, she scrambles for something a human might say in this situation. "Oh, I, uh—They were married, were they not? She and Lo—er, your brother."
"No," sighs Thor. "They were never allowed to be together in life." Sigyn clenches her eyes shut so as to stave off the tears that threaten to spill from them. She remains silent, too distraught to say anything without fear of bawling. "In a terrible way," he goes on, her turmoil unbeknownst to him. "I find myself glad that she died so soon after him. Neither of them knew, at the time of their deaths, that the other was gone, and now, they are together in Valhalla."
Almost unable to keep it together, she presses a hand to her mouth as she fights off the abrupt urge to hurl. Thor's morbid, singular comfort isn't true, and she doesn't have the heart to tell him. Swallowing roughly, she remains silent.
Despite her efforts, he seems to finally notice her state of upset. "That is not to say I am glad for her death, of course. I feel terrible, really. 'Twas my fault she died."
"No," she quickly rebuts, horrified as to how he could have come to such a conclusion.
"No, it was," he insists, sounding so pitiful and forlorn that Sigyn simply cannot let this lie.
"It was not," she all but shouts. Through the darkness, she can see the whites of his eyes gleaming as he stares over at her in shock. "It was no fault of yours. She made her own choices." To cover her ass, she quickly adds, "As do we all."
Thor continues gazing at her in reproach for another few seconds before he deflates, sinking back against the cushions and facing forwards again. "Fine," he grumbles.
They stew in silence for several minutes, Sigyn wondering all the while how to make a break for it. It would be too conspicuous for her to turn into a mouse and skitter away, she suspects, but she can't very well sit here all night. This near-confrontation is making her far too restless.
Jittery as she's become, she lets an errant, nagging thoughts slip from her mouth. "Did you have a funeral for your brother?"
Thor does not answer for a long moment. Just before she would have asked again for fear that he had not heard her the first time, he speaks up. "It was a grand affair. For he and Sigyn both," he expresses. Absentmindedly, he adds, "My father cried."
Surprised in part—having known already that Asgard had given her a sendoff, though amazed to learn that Odin had any heart left in him—she hesitates only briefly before clarifying, "I meant from the time he faked his death." He turns to her, and she fibs, "Jane told me about it."
He makes a noise to convey his comprehension. "There was a small one, just for family."
She nods, pleased to hear that they had honored him in some way—albeit unnecessarily—though dismayed to have her suspicions confirmed that she had been denied an invitation. "That's nice. I'm sure he would have appreciated it." Thor looks at her curiously again, or so she imagines. She expands, "After he found out he was adopted, he probably felt as though he was no longer a part of the family. Or rather, he thought that was how the rest of you felt."
He absorbs her words over the course of a quiet moment. "You are very wise for a mortal." His teeth glint in the dim light as he cringes. "No offense."
"It's alright. I've been told I am an old soul," she assures him. She gets up, not quite sure how much more of this she can bear before her cover is blown. "Excuse me," she says, walking around the sofa and making her way out of the apartment altogether.
She ends up all the way outside, briskly striding down a vacant avenue. She doesn't much care that she's wound up in an unfamiliar neighborhood. All she knows is she needs to get away, get some air, and clear her head.
Eventually, she stumbles upon an open square, illuminated by streetlamps. Most of the houses lining the area have gone dark for the night, though that appears to matter little to the only other occupants of the square: a group of young people who have clearly drunk themselves beyond coherency. They dawdle in the square's center, which also hosts a small monument of some sort. As she gets closer, she takes it in.
Emanating from the ground, there is a large slab of carefully carved stone, each side of which is in the shape of a trapezoid. Around the structure are a myriad of objects, many of which seem out of place. There are candles, plush children's toys, letters, and flowers littered at its base. Stepping around the statue and kneeling down, Sigyn picks up one of the letters to read.
Dear Missus Sigyn,
I want to thank you for saving the whole world. You are very brave. I am sorry you dead.
Sincerely,
Maisie
Reeling in mild horror at the realization that this is some sort of memorial for herself, she hardly notices when one of the drunken people comes over to her and shoves their phone in her face, demanding she take a photograph of their group. Numbly, she takes the device, stepping back to do as requested. Only when she holds up the phone to take the picture, she sees that which is on this side of the statue: a mural of her face.
So struck by the incredibility of the situation is she that she takes no notice of the people posing in front of her likeness and certainly does not take a picture of them. Instead, she stands there as her horror continues to grow. She wonders how it could be that such a garish display has been set up in her honor.
She scarcely recognizes herself in the painting, the artist doubtlessly having taken artistic license a little too far. She appears to be portrayed as a Viking: her hair done up in a plethora of braids rather than only one, some sort of markings smeared across her face, a pelt draped across her shoulders, and her armor consisting of several small, laced-together scales of metal rather than a singular, molded plate. She wears a fierce expression, as though taking on some sort of adversary, and a halo of light blue pigment is painted around her head.
"You know—You know what," the woman who had given Sigyn the phone asks her friends, breaking apart from their embrace after she believes the picture to have been taken. Sigyn turns her attention to her. "I was actually there."
"Oh, my God," one of her friends moans as the others chorus their discontent. "We've heard this story, like, a bajillion times."
"I was there," she goes on, shakily pointing at Sigyn. "When this lady," she cuts herself off, moving to point at the mural. "Killed the alien bugger."
"How remarkable," Sigyn blandly comments, trying to hand the woman's phone back to her.
She doesn't take back the phone, stumbling a little as she tries to remain upright. "I was in the library, and we were all watching once that big ship tore through the courtyard. An' she snuck up behind 'im and stabbed 'im right through the back! Oh, it was wicked, yeah."
"So I heard," Sigyn says, trying instead to hand off the phone to one of her friends. None of them take it either.
The woman lets out a loud breath. "But then, oh, then that red shite came out of the alien, and it got all up in 'er, and she was writhin' an' all—"
"Yes, alright," blusters Sigyn as she steps forward to shove the woman's phone into her hand, having heard enough. She goes to make her exit on shaky feet, having not been prepared to hear a graphic description of her defeat and needing a reprieve.
The sole man of the group makes a gesture at her as she tries to step away. "Hey, y'know, y'kinda look like her."
"Peter," another of the women hisses, slapping his arm. "You can't just say that! Not all brown people look like each other."
Shaking her head, Sigyn chooses this moment to take her leave of this strange, intoxicated group. She stumbles away, turning back every few seconds to make sure she hadn't dreamt up the horribly tacky memorial. She wanders around for a few hours, walking up and down various avenues and into a few parks to make certain that there are no more shrines to her anywhere.
Eventually, she ends up in much the same place as where she had started. She settles down on the steps in front of the convenience store sits across the street from Jane's apartment, remaining there for hours as the Midgardian sun slowly crawls across the sky.
Once the Sun is at the halfway-point between resting on the horizon and being directly overhead, Darcy emerges from the front door of the apartment building. She looks up and down the street, trailing a little bit in either direction before her gaze settles on Sigyn. In spotting her, her course of direction changes, and she bolts across the roadway.
"Hey, pretty lady. We were wondering where you got off to," she says, standing beside Sigyn on the steps.
Gesturing with her arms wide, Sigyn replies, "Here I am."
Darcy stays silent for a moment, as though wondering if it is wise to speak. "Whatcha thinkin' about?"
Sigyn sighs. "Everyone believes me dead."
Humming, Darcy asks, "Yeah, I mean, wasn't that, like, your whole plan?"
Sigyn nods, agreeing well enough. While it is true that she wanted to hide the truth of her miraculous recovery and remain on Earth with anonymity, she hadn't quite thought through everything such a course of action would entail. "I hardly thought about all the humans," she admits. She points down the road. "There is a memorial shrine to me over yonder."
Darcy bursts out laughing. "Oh, my God. I can't believe you just said 'yonder' unironically." Sigyn shoots her a glare. Darcy clears her throat. "Sorry. But yeah, there are a bunch all over the world. I've seen them on Instagram."
"On what," asks Sigyn, puzzled.
"It's an app. Never mind," dismisses Darcy as she sits down next to Sigyn. "What I mean is you're an Avenger. You saved the world. People really appreciated that. And then you saved the universe and everyone thought you died. Of course, they're gonna try and honor you in some way."
Sigyn considers her next words quietly before speaking. "I used to fear that when I died none but those who knew me would care. That I would go unnoticed. But it appears as though I was both wrong and right. This whole world is mourning my passing, Asgard held a memorial befitting a royal in my honor, and yet here I am, still very much alive." Feeling a bit pent up, she throws up her hands before dramatically flopping back onto the pavement. "By the time I die, all will have finished mourning, and none will truly care for my passing."
"Well, Jane and Erik and me will know," Darcy reminds her. After a beat, she adds, "And Thanos, too, I guess, since he'll have, y'know, killed you and everything."
A somewhat hysterical laugh bubbles out of Sigyn. "So he shall." She sits back up. "The four of you must toast my death."
"You got it, dude," Darcy promises. Sigyn smiles at her, feeling a little lighter for the first time in weeks. "You wanna come inside with me? I'm buying mine and Jane's lottery tickets for the week."
"You and your lottery," Sigyn scoffs, shaking her head. "You realize the odds of you winning are less than one percent by a factor of ten million?"
"Ooh, math," Darcy scoffs back, wiggling her fingers at Sigyn. She shrugs. "Somebody has to win."
"And if no one purchases the winning ticket," counters Sigyn as Darcy opens the door to the shop.
As the door slams behind her, Darcy calls back, "Shut up!"
Weeks more pass as Sigyn settles on Earth. Thor comes and goes as he pleases, startling her with each and every arrival he makes. She learns the ins and outs of human culture and etiquette, mostly from television shows that Darcy shows her. She also receives one of Jane's old cell phones, which she uses primarily for listening to Toni Braxton on an application called Spotify.
"Un-cry these tears, I cried so many, many nights," her phone warbles out, filling up the room with a somber melody.
Just as Toni is finishing the second chorus, Jane storms into the room and turns off the music, much to her fervent protests. "Can't you listen to something a little less depressing," Jane requests.
"I'm listening to Ne-Yo right now," volunteers Darcy as she unplugs her earbuds. She taps on her phone, and out comes: "Girl, let me love you, and I will love you until you learn to love yourself," as she discordantly sings along.
Sigyn makes a face. "What is this bilge?"
Darcy defends her dreadful taste. "This is one of the biggest hits of twenty-twelve."
Sigyn shakes her head. "This is why I cannot enjoy Terran music. The repetitive lyrics are mind-numbing."
Gesturing to Sigyn's phone, Darcy points out, "You were just listening to a song with lyrics."
"Toni Braxton is a rhythm and blues superstar, as well as a gay icon," she defends.
Mystified, Darcy asks, "How do you even know that?"
"It is clearly detailed on her Wikipedia page," Sigyn informs her.
"Excuse me," shouts Jane, reclaiming their attention. "I came in here for a reason."
"Other than to extinguish the soulful ambience I had established," ponders Sigyn, her tone resentful.
Jane looks at her as though she is insane. "Yes." Miffed, Sigyn gestures for her to proceed. "Thor is coming over."
In a flash, Sigyn is disguised as Sarah Newman. "So, what," asks Darcy.
"So, I'd like you two to leave, please," Jane tells them.
"Whyever so," Sigyn inquires.
A frustrated noise tears its way out of Jane's throat. "It's just hard for us to go out together because everyone always wants a selfie with him—"
"What is a 'selfie,'" interrupts Sigyn.
Darcy explains, "It's a photo you take of yourself."
Sigyn's confusion only grows. "And how is it that you can take one of another person?"
"You're missing the point," Darcy says.
"You're both missing the point," Jane interjects. She waves her hand towards the front door. "Please leave so Thor and I can have date night."
"Fine," Darcy sighs, getting up from her seat. She trails past Sigyn, telling her, "Come on, I'll buy you dinner so Jane can get laid." Shrugging, Sigyn figures she may as well abide by Jane's request and follows after Darcy.
Darcy takes her to a chippy a few blocks away, and they walk to a nearby park to enjoy their food. Sigyn discreetly conjures them a picnic blanket, and they spread out on it. Darcy teaches her the art of people-watching, miming the conversation of a nearby couple having a picnic of their own. An hour or so after they finish their food, Darcy mentions her desire for a snack, so they head back to the convenience store they frequent.
On the way, Sigyn finds a coin on the ground. She picks it up and shows it to Darcy. Darcy grins at her. "Oh, hey! You found a two-pound coin. Nice."
Sigyn snorts. "This hardly weighs two pounds."
Darcy clarifies, "No, it's worth two pounds."
"Two pounds of what," asks Sigyn.
"Oh, my God," Darcy exclaims, laughing. "You are so clueless."
Bristling, Sigyn reminds her, "I am not from this planet, Darcy."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Darcy kicks at a pebble as they continue to walk.
Eventually, they make it to the convenience store across from their building. She's quick to dart inside, and Sigyn follows after her. They peruse the few aisles it has, inspecting the various products available. After a while, Darcy heads over to the clerk with a bag of Hot Cheetos in hand.
"Anything else," he asks her.
Darcy nods, finishing some bills from her pocket. "Yeah, two lotto tickets, please. Ooh, wait," she exclaims, taking by surprise both the clerk and Sigyn, to whom she turns. Her eyes alight with excitement, she suggests, "You've got two pounds! You can buy a ticket!"
Sigyn rolls her eyes. "I am not going to spend all the money I have on something I am not going to win. I would rather buy a Cheeto," she says, nudging Darcy's snack with her elbow.
"Come on, it'll be fun," Darcy insists, bouncing lightly on her feet. "I promise to buy you Cheetos if you don't win."
Sigyn shakes her head, but slides her coin over to the clerk all the same. "You, my friend, have a gambling problem."
"No, I have an I-gotta-pay-for-college-somehow problem," Darcy insists as the clerk hands Sigyn her ticket, which she immediately vanishes with a twist of her fingers.
He stares at her, his eyes blown wide. "How the devil did you do that?"
"Uh, that was a slight-of-hand trick. She's an amateur magician," supplies Darcy, pushing Sigyn out of shop.
Outraged, Sigyn shouts, "An amateur?"
Teeth gritted, Darcy shoves harder at her back. "Move it or lose it, lady."
Despite her recent uptick in disposition, Sigyn's mood goes downhill over the next week. She misses her sister and friends dearly, her mind consumed with thoughts of what they must be doing in her absence. Thor comes by more and more often, forcing her to masquerade as Sarah or flee the apartment altogether. Worst of all, every news station has taken to playing her fight with Malekith on repeat again. It's nearing the three-month point since the incident, and for whatever reason, that means everyone on the planet needs to be reminded of it.
One morning, Darcy, Jane and Sigyn sit around the television, flipping through channels and watching random bits of different morning talk shows. Sigyn finds herself growing more agitated as the day goes on, and after the third time they skip over a video clip of her dropping to the ground like a stone, blood pouring from her eyes, nose, and mouth—this one having featured photos of her and Loki side-by-side at its end—she starts on a full-blown meltdown. She snarls, vaults up from the sofa, steps over the coffee table, and kicks the television set squarely in its center. Her foot goes all the way through it, and when she has trouble pulling her leg back out, she grips the device at its top and tears it in two.
"Dude, what the fuck," Darcy exclaims, standing up from the sofa, too.
Jane joins in. "Sigyn, you just broke my TV!"
"Well, perhaps I wouldn't have if the humans would stop playing my fucking death over and over again for entertainment," she screeches.
Darcy holds up her hands. "Just chill out for a sec—"
"Chill out? Chill out," she repeats, rearing on Darcy, who stumbles back from her display of rage. "Fuck chilling out! I am sick of this planet! I hate it here," she screams.
"Hey, don't take this out on us," Jane tells her.
"I am not taking it out on you," she spits, taking a few more heaving breaths in an attempt to calm down before speaking again. "Do you want to know how I'd chosen to cope with my upcoming demise? It was with the thought that I would get to spend my last few years with Loki—to actually be with him rather than having to play up the farce of a purely platonic relationship." Her voice breaks, and she feels her eyes begin to water. "And now, I have to die alone on some miserable, backwater planet with a bunch of people who do not even live to be three-hundred and already think me dead!"
"That's enough," Darcy shouts, startling Sigyn with the ferocity in her voice. "I'm sick and tired of you bitching and moaning about Earth! Earth is great!"
Biting her lip, Sigyn waits until she's certain her voice will come out steady before speaking. "What would you know? You've no frame of reference."
Darcy scowls at her. "Yeah, well, you have nowhere else to go! You can't go back to your old life! So, are you just gonna keep feeling sorry for yourself, or are you gonna start living in the moment!"
Sigyn bites her lip to keep herself from crying again, but it doesn't work as it did the first time. Unsure of what else to do, she uses her hands to block the sight of her reddening face and the distraught sound that bursts forth from her mouth.
"Oh, no, no, wait, don't cry," Darcy says, her voice turning meek. Her hand comes down on Sigyn's shoulder, though it jumps away as Sigyn's back heaves with a sob. "I thought the whole angry-sergeant-yelling-at-the-new-private thing would work with you," she explains. When she speaks next, it must be to Jane. "Y'know, 'cause she's a soldier."
"Well, it didn't work," Jane retorts.
Sarcastic, Darcy replies, "Oh, really?"
Wiping her face, Sigyn decides that she has had enough. "Excuse me," she says, sounding surprisingly steady. Despite her friends' protests, she storms out, conjuring a pair of glasses over the bridge of her nose as she heads out the door.
Once outside, she hastens down the street, tears blurring her vision. She doesn't pay much mind to where she's going, driven blind by anger and grief. In her tumultuous state, she almost misses the illuminated spectacle of her memorial, but her own eyes, made up of broad swipes of acrylic paint, halt her in her tracks.
A little girl is placing a glossy picture in between a candle and a stuffed dragon, a man who must be her father at her back. Upon inspection, Sigyn gleans that it's a picture of Loki. She finds herself rooted to the spot, staring at it from afar. She doesn't move again until the picture itself is moved, snatched up from the ground by a wrinkly hand.
An old woman draws the photo under her nose, inspecting it with an air of distaste. She eyes the girl's father. "This is entirely inappropriate," she all but shouts at him.
Holding his daughter's hand, he pulls her into his side. "Oi, she just thought it'd be a nice gesture, alright," he explains. He points from the picture to the mural. "They were married and all, yeah?"
"You shouldn't go around encouraging her like this," she spits at the man, waving the photograph around in front of her. In a bit of a daze, Sigyn plucks it from her. The woman, perhaps believing Sigyn to be on her side, lets her take it. She continues on her rampage, "Don't you realize how disrespectful it is to put a photo of that devil—"
"Shut up," Sigyn tells her from the corner of her mouth, her eyes not leaving the photo. In it, Loki is walking down a grand staircase in what she assumes is Munich, dressed in Terran garb. His hair is slicked back, and there's a determined expression on his face. She knows that which he had been about to do—maim a man's eye for his own selfish gain—but for the life of her, all she can think about is how handsome he had looked in that moment.
The woman scoffs. "Sorry?" With her outrage concentrated on Sigyn, the man and his daughter take this as their chance to make a clean getaway.
Eyes lifting to meet those of the older woman, Sigyn coolly replies, "You should be sorry."
Gaping at Sigyn like a fish, the woman flounders. "I don't know how you were raised, young lady, but back in my day—"
"Back in your day, I was just the same as I am now," Sigyn informs her, enjoying the confusion and puce color that overtake her face.
Nonplussed, the woman appears to be at a complete loss for what to do. After a moment, she decides to make a grab for the photo. "Give that here," she orders.
"No," barks Sigyn, loud and firm.
She moves her arm back, and in a bout of reckless anger, allows some of her magic—it having been swirling inside of her all morning, restless and wrathful—to leak out. It bursts from her arm, knocking into various tributes left on the ground. Several of the candles topple over, their flames catching onto other items and spreading. In under a minute, the whole shrine is ablaze. The flowers turn black and curl in on themselves. The handwritten cards turn to ash. The fur of the stuffed animals chars.
As people run about, urging others back from the melee and calling for emergency services, Sigyn stands in the midst of it all, smiling as the stone on which her face is painted slowly turns black. After the firefighters arrive, she starts away, photo in hand. She looks down at it as she walks, an idea forming in her mind.
In under half an hour, she's stowed away on a train to Scotland. She stays on it for some four hours, staring out the window at roaming hills and choppy waters. She gets off the train at Eyemouth, stopping in town to make a few purchases—thefts, more like, as she still hasn't any human money—before heading out to the coast.
It takes her a few hours to find everything and get it set up, but after she's finished, she feels satisfied with her work. All that's left to do now is shoot an arrow, something she's done hundreds of thousands of times.
Having trekked up from the Eyemouth's shores, she ends up on a plateau on the western cliffs. She spends some time prepping the arrow she's using, and by the time she's finished, she finds herself with guests.
She waits until they're close enough to hear, having noticed them when they were hundreds of metres back. "You've found me," she calls out, setting down her arrow and turning around.
"We tracked your phone," Jane says by way of explanation. She and Darcy look windswept and frazzled, as though they'd had quite a journey in getting here.
Trenchant, Sigyn smiles at her. "How convenient."
Jane holds up her hands and steps forward as though approaching a wild beast. "Listen, Sigyn. You don't have to do this, alright? We're here for you, okay? We support you."
"What the fuck are you talking about," Sigyn asks, narrowing her eyes. She glances at Darcy and notices her looking at the cliffside. "Do you think I am planning on throwing myself off this cliff? That wouldn't even kill me. At most, I would sprain my ankle."
Looking embarrassed, Darcy rushes to explain. "We just thought—"
Sigyn turns away before she can finish, striding closer to the cliff's edge and looking out at the sea. Before long, Darcy and Jane join her on either side. She points out at the choppy water, directing their gazes to a small ship bobbing along the waves. "That is why I am here."
"What is it," asks Darcy.
"A funeral," Jane answers, doubtlessly recognizing the ritual from her brief time on Asgard.
Watching as the boat continues to float away, she nudges Darcy. "You were right. I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. I need closure of some sort. I attended my mother's funeral, and though I don't feel quite settled on the matter of her death, I think I have at least accepted it. Loki, on the other hand—It's as though I am drowning in my own misery.
"I'll have to settle for this, I suppose," she sighs. "You're supposed to burn the body, but seeing as I didn't have it, I tacked a photograph to the keelson. It will have to do."
"Alright, well, what're you waiting for," Darcy shouts, clapping her hands. "Light it up!"
Sigyn snorts, moving to pick up the arrow she had set down. She summons a bow, as well as a Midgardian lighter that she had nicked from a store in town. After handing the lighter off to Jane, she nocks her arrow. Jane holds up the lighter, and once the arrow is aflame, Sigyn aims for the sea.
With the boat settled firmly in her sights, she looses the arrow, and it goes soaring through the sky. It makes it almost halfway to the boat before a strong gust of wind blows across the bay. The arrow turns in the air, moving just north of its target. The waves pick up, and the boat dips in the wrong direction as the arrow flies right past it. The arrow plunks into the sea, its flame extinguishing as it slices through the water's surface.
Sigyn's hands come away from the bow, numb as the wood slides along the pads of her fingertips. It disappears before it can drop to the ground at her feet. "I missed."
"That's okay," Darcy says, flippantly waving her hand. "Just make another arrow and shoot again."
Shaking her head, Sigyn says, "No, it's bad luck to shoot twice." She feels oddly distraught at having failed to hit the boat. It's not as though she's cost Loki his afterlife. He died in battle, so he's certainly in Valhalla. Besides, he's already had an actual funeral. Still, to have set this all up and failed to execute it makes her feel unsatisfied considering it had been for her own benefit.
Jane pulls her from her thoughts. "So, what do we do?"
"We wait for it to go over the end of the world." It's all she can do. Once the boat passes the horizon, at least, the ceremony will be over.
The three of them sit down. For quite some time, her gaze doesn't deviate from the boat as it sways with the movement of the waves. After a while, she speaks up, her thoughts from earlier in the day coming to her mind. "Do you want to know that which I hate most about being the Goddess of Victory? It's not the fact that I don't really believe myself a god, or that I'm destined to soon be murdered, or even that fate has played on me a cruel trick, permitting humankind to believe Loki and I to have been married for all these years. No, it is when I lose."
Jane looks over at her, confused, so she continues, "The Goddess of Victory is not supposed to lose. That is what Tony Stark said after we had won in New York—that our victory was never in doubt simply because I was there. But that is not true." She takes a deep breath. "I lose all the time. I lost my life in Asgard. I lost my mother; I never had the chance to save her. And Loki—"
Tears fills her vision as she returns to staring ahead at the sea. "If only I couldn't lose. If only."
Darcy gives an exaggerated, good-natured sigh from beside her. "Sigyn, no one thinks you're some infallible, immortal goddess. Hell, everyone thinks you're dead!"
Sigyn turns to her and gives her an acerbic smile. "Thank you, Darcy."
They stay until it grows dark. Sigyn keeps her eye on the boat for as long as she can, but dusk comes to a close before she sees it pass the horizon. Still, when Jane asks her if she'd seen the boat follow the Sun over the horizon, she says that she had simply to spare herself from having to discuss her disappointment.
In the car on the way back to London, she sits in the back seat. She mulls over the events from the day, deciding that even though the pseudo-ceremony had not been a perfect success, it had still been gratifying all the same.
Once they're past Leeds, Darcy suddenly turns up the radio. "Hey, shh! They're announcing the winning numbers! Sigyn, do you have your ticket?" Sigyn summons her ticket, holding it up between two fingers.
A grainy voice peters through the car's radio. "—best of British luck. Nineteen, thirty-two, forty-four, forty-five, fifty-two, fifty-three."
In the passenger's seat, Darcy frowns as she reads hers and Jane's tickets. "Aww, we didn't win."
"We never do," Jane comments.
Sigyn goes over the numbers on her ticket one last time before speaking. "I did."
With dual gasps, Darcy whips around as Jane swerves. In unison, they cry, "What?"
"Nineteen, thirty-two, forty-four, forty-five, fifty-two, and fifty-three, yes," she asks, handing her ticket over to Darcy, who grips it so hard she's worried it'll tear.
Darcy's eyes nearly bug out of her head. "Holy shit."