Son of No One IV
Sigyn decided to take an initiative, driven by hunger, and explore the place. Wrapping the green sheets around her felt comforting, although they did nothing for the cold they at least preserved her modesty-for she had realised that she wore only her underthings and light chemise. Her clothes and cloak were nowhere to be found inside the green room.
The past few hours had been terrible-she had lain in bed feeling as if her very bones may snap with the cold. She still felt it now, but now it was dull and less…forceful. It had felt as though ice was forming in the core of her bone trying to shatter and tear its way out of her body. It had ascended on her with suddenness, and just as suddenly it had dimmed.
She pulled the heavy door-which frame was bolted into the solid ice wall-and made her way through the corridor until she finally reached another door. Feeling brave she pushed it open, only to nearly flee when Loki looked up at her from behind a large wooden desk.
"Lady Sigyn," he said with his charming honey voice,
"Please, come in and make yourself comfortable."
Despite the little voice in her head that told her to flee, she entered the large room, in awe at the shelves upon shelves of books, all lined against the walls within heavy wooden shelves.
"Is it to your liking?" he asked, his voice making the cold in her insides diminish, replacing it slowly with a tiny-almost not there glow-ironic how this ice-man should invoke heat...
Sigyn seated herself in from of him, feeling safe behind the cluttered desk and wrapped sheets.
"I have never seen the likes of it." Sigyn spoke honestly and looked intently into his red eyes to try and guess what he would do or say next, when Mistress did it to her, Mistress could always guess, but it was to no avail for Sigyn. She thought perhaps that it was because his eyes were not like regular eyes-a bath of red and no discernible iris, his were, the red standing out against the blue of his skin in an alarming manner.
"I am glad that it pleases you Lady Sigyn, now tell me why you are not resting." As if to respond her stomach gave a loud rumble...Sigyn blushed deeply-not red, but a deep rosy-brown. Loki realised that she was rather pretty when she blushed, taking himself by surprise...pleasant surprise.
"Ah...the painful bite of hunger. We should remedy that-come." He stood-alarmingly tall to her, and in three paces covered the distance round the desk to take her hand and lead her away to parts unknown.
Morgana was not one to let herself dispair for too long, even though she bemoaned the failure of her plan, that should have been ingenious in its simplicity, she willed herself into action, and set out of her obsidian palace, to the ruby palace of Sitaan.
When she arrived she was greeted by Kit, Sitaan's personal steward.
"My master has been expecting you, Lady Morgana...please follow me." Silently Morgana followed kit through the chasmal, completely empty halls of the palace. It was pitch black, the only light coming from the small torch that Kit held within his hands.
They walked through the emptiness until they reached a long, winding staircase, each step ruby red like the rest of the castle.
Finally she was at Sitaan's impressive presence. The beastly man stood over eight feet tall with skin black as jet, blending in with the looming darkness and eyes an ashen, soulless grey that were difficult to look into. They made even Morgana flinch.
"Is it done? Have you failed? Have I not told you that such a plan would fail?"
"I schooled her, I watched her every step. I burned the mission into her soul!"
Sitaan laughed long and hard and emptily, making Morgana anger, "You yourself chose her. You yourself said that she is the only one that would survive the magic of the casket-lest of Laufey, that would not be consumed by it!"
Sitaan placed his hands on Morgana and gently stroked her arms-his touch burning through the fabric of her dress.
"Sigyn lacked the right conviction. You were always too soft on that little girl."
"I was not!" Morgana retaliated.
"The girl always lacked the proper conviction…" Sitaan slipped the dress off Morgana's shoulders, exposing her lithe, creamy-skinned body, "The only thing that Sigyn truly ever wanted was freedom…to see the world beyond Muspelheim…how very…poetic…"
The kitchen, in Loki's palace was surprisingly small compared to the other enormous rooms, and was hewn out of solid grey stone. There was even a burning green heart-fire in the centre of the room that cast a soft green glow against the walls. It felt comfortable.
"Please be seated. I will see what I can find…I'm afraid that I am not one for cooking…I'll see if I can find any fruit…" she let him speak as she warmed her hands with the flames.
"That is magical fire-the same fire that burns within the very forges of Hephaestus."
"The blacksmith, you mean?" Sigyn watched the flames dance as she warmed her fingers, listening to him clutter behind her.
"Is there any other Hephaestus?" she giggled softly, the low sound filling the room.
"And how have you come by the fires of Hephaestus, the blacksmith, son of no one?"
Loki set the bowl of fruits on the table.
"I am a seasoned traveller, you see," his voice becoming animated, as he gestured for Sigyn to be seated at the oaken table, "I have travelled through every realm; every dimension…met a hundred-thousand people and experienced ten-thousand cultures."
Sigyn laughed out loud-how could she have though him evil? Perhaps he was just unused to company…unused to having to share his dwellings with another;
"Have you indeed Loki?" she became bolder, more confident in her speech. Perhaps it was the sight of the food in front of her.
"Yes…the fire was given to me as the return of a favour. I'd retrieved the anvil that was stolen from him by the trickster Hermes." Sigyn sat but did not touch the fruit.
"I will miss you, when I leave this place." She spoke the words suddenly without being able to help herself. The sly look he gave her made her regret her words immediately. He grabbed one of the fruits from the bowl and split it open with his thumbs.
"This," he began, "is a pomegranate…do you know…I finds its appearance when it is split rather…suggestive,"
Sigyn swallowed hard not certain where he was leading to with his story,
"the Lord Hades of the Olympian underworld gave Kore Persephone four seeds from a fruit such as this…he had taken her to the underworld to make her his queen and yet she refused him…she fought him, refusing to spend eternity in such a desolate place…"
With an outstretched hand he inserted a seed into Sigyn's mouth. She reflexively, completely drawn to him, sucked on his finger, the cold flavour of him and the colourful taste of the pomegranate swirling in her mouth,
"Hades…seduced Persephone into eating the seeds-unbeknownst to her they bound her to the underworld and to Hades himself…for they are one and the same…so she should return to him every year for six months."
He ran a thumb across her lower lip, colouring her face with a honeyed blush. He gave her the fruit, clasping her small hands into his around the pomegranate,
"Are you Hades? Are you death?" she asked when their lips almost brushed against each other's.
"No…but I will keep you here…"