The bedroom in which the two women had ensconced themselves was both luxurious and bare of personal touches. The wooden bedframe had elegant patterns engraved across its surface. Upon the walls hung real life portraits from a time when the Vanaheim had been a vast and ruling empire, before the Asgardians and Odin had conquered them. The chest of drawers stood empty beneath the window that was half open to allow the night breeze to waft in. In the middle of the room there was a white fur rug that one of the dark haired, lithely built female was using to confine her pacing. The other, golden haired and of a similar build as her sister, sat reclined on the bed watching the other pace.
"She was supposed to choose Thor," Angrboda, second heir to the Vanir throne, muttered.
Amora threw her head back and laughed. "She also wasn't supposed to find out she was one of the Vanaheim heirs or marry a prince of Asgard or return or start curing the poison we've fed the stubborn bastard. You must face it, Angrboda, we need to approach her differently. Whether she is aware of it or not, she will continue to thwart you."
There was a gleam in Amora's eyes the made Angrboda shift uncomfortably and look away. It was the same gleam her sister usually wore just before she did something incredibly insane and of late that insanity had been leaning towards darker tendencies. "What did you have in mind?" she asked slowly. "I don't want her dead, just out of the way long enough for the ascension."
"Taking the memories of her childhood and dropping her in the middle of Asgard was supposed to ensure she had no idea she was a Vanir princess. That was your idea. Poisoning our father was your idea. My idea is a little more hands on," Amora said. "I've…acquired…assets that will allow me to completely disappear from the realm and stay hidden for a long as I wish it. Loki is gone, that much good has come of your plan. What I need of you, darling sister, is to turn away and allow me to become disinherited. You won't pursue me and you will not fight me if it comes to it. This way, you can honestly say that you had no idea what I was planning."
Angrboda's stomach tightened at the implications, but she didn't ask. She didn't want to know what the plan was. Any affection she had felt for Sigyn once was overruled by her ambition and she had come too far to turn back now.
Sigyn was sitting beside the plain bed the Vanir king occupied, watching his breathing slowly even out as the last of her spell sank into his skin and, briefly, illuminated the course the poison had taken through his body. It was, she noted, a little less than it had been the day before. Progress, in her opinion, was progress no matter how slow. Weeks had passed since her presence had been frantically requested through Odin and the first time she had cast the spell there had been a heavy spiderweb of the poison slipping through his blood and rotting him from the inside out.
She could almost taste the smell that the memory called to mind and remembered the way she had almost been ill. It had been the work of frantic, ceaseless casting and sleepless nights to discover the concoction and spell combination she used to ease the work of the poison and restore what health she could. Seeing him now, resting somewhat peacefully, made something uncurl that had been wound far too tightly. A touch on her shoulder had her glancing up at a face that mirrored hers so well she'd touched her cheek the first time they'd seen each other.
"Mother," she said warmly. Despite the lack of memories, she still retained the emotional attachments. Returning had allowed her to put a face to the feeling.
"His color is better, today," her mother said. "You've done…far more than I expected you to, daughter. When I asked Odin to send you, I…never expected him to agree."
Sigyn stifled a snort of annoyance. "I only heard of your request because Thor frequents the local taverns and confronted his father over rumors of my father's illness." She tried to stifle the resentment that had been festering in her since she had realized how long ago her mother had tried to ask for her abilities, but it didn't feel possible. Carefully, she extracted herself from her mother's touch and rose from her father's side. Her mother followed her from the bedroom to the privacy of the living room where there was no risk of disturbing her father's rest. "Loki adores him, but for the eternity of me, I can't see why. He is passively cruel and ignores Loki to the point of forgetting his existence. Then this! Odin had no right to deny your visit and not even mention it to me. It's like he expects the nine realms to fall at his feet! If I'd been only a few days sooner, I could have done more and he wouldn't be at death's door."
Her mother reached a hand to her face and cradled her cheek, wiping gently at the tears she hadn't realized were streaming. Sigyn gave a hiccupping sob and allowed her mother to draw her into a hug. It wasn't until much later that her tears had dried that she made her farewells with the intention of collecting more of the blessed water for the tonic. Loki, after all, wouldn't have had time to collect much before returning to Asgard.
The pool spread out before her and shimmered beneath the rays of sunlight that streamed ever clear from above. She was kneeling at its side filling the waterskin when the first blow struck her from behind and the waterskin dropped limply from her fingers. Power rushed to her call, but it was already too late. The spell released before she was conscious of what it was and darkness closed around her before she had time to panic.
They watched the threads of fate shiver and twist and twine around themselves, watched as the lives of all shorten to a span of years as a choice was made to trap the Healer. Before the eyes of the three Fates, Ragnarok unfolded itself in the form of the Liesmith upon the death of the Healer. Deft fingers and muttered curses were whispered into the darkness around them as they tried to unweave the path that had been woven, but it was for naught. A secondary path was laid, points that would determine the course of all their lives. First, though, a second choice was to be offered and an unholy bargain struck.
Within the shining, golden halls of Asgard's palace, there was only silence and terse whispers as the news was passed along. Poisoned. The Heir had been poisoned and the Healer had refused to come to his aide. She had sent her husband, the Liesmith, the Trickster. Who were they to question the decision, but some murmured to each other that the Healer should have headed their king's call and returned to Asgard to do her duty.
She, they felt, should have abandoned the Vanir king to his inevitable death. What was a lesser king to their golden Thor? Perhaps then she would not have fallen as she had.
The words withered away beneath the cool glare that Loki cast on those he heard talking. There were shadows beneath his eyes and he hadn't changed in the two days since he had arrived home again, but his power was still strong and his temper was closer to the surface than was usual. Thor, he knew, was resting easier now than when he had arrived, but he didn't appreciate the third summons in two days. The guards in the golden finery and shining armor glanced disdainfully at him even as they allowed him entry into his father's study.
His father was, for once, not reviewing old treaties and the other assorted paperwork that came with ruling a realm. Odin stood at the edge of the terrace that overlooked the training grounds where warriors new and old honed their skills and the sound of metal clashing against metal distantly arose. There was a heaviness to him that had not been there two days before, even with Thor's poisoning. He knew Thor was going to be fine, oaf that he was he was too stupid to die to something as cowardly as poison and a poison which Sigyn had been treating in her own father for weeks now.
He opened his mouth to say as much, but the words died when Odin turned his head to look at him. It was in the way his father studied him, the stiff set of his shoulders, the deepening lines around his eyes.
"How long?" he asked, his voice more of a hoarse croak.
"A few hours after you arrived home." Honesty was the only thing Odin could give him. Soldiers from both realms had been unable to find any trace of her or her attacker outside of the half formed spell that had lingered around the pool.
"And you did not think to tell me before this?" Loki returned, shock mixing with fear and outrage.
Silence was his only answer. Loki closed his eyes for a moment, letting cold terror settle in his stomach before he swept it away. Sigyn was gone. Gone and taken from him for almost two days while he fought the poison that had plagued her father. Her father who was likely already dead for lack of her skill. Thor. Ever brilliant, golden Thor had taken precedence in his father's sight. Fear would not help him. Not here. Not now. Now he could only focus on what needed to be done and what had already been done, but that did not stop the festering of resentment and anger towards his father for keeping the knowledge from him. If Odin would hide this for two days for the sake of Thor's health then what-
Those thoughts wouldn't help. Not here, not now. Sigyn was gone. Magically and physically overpowered, most likely. He opened his eyes and fixed his father with a cool look. "Now that you have deemed fit to tell me, impart upon me the knowledge you do have." The hurt was there and gone in Odin's features and a small part of him took savage pleasure in it.
