Loki watched on as Sigyn grew bigger every day. His heart leapt when he saw her take her first steps, and speak her first words. He watched her learn from her mother how to cook and sew and watched as she sometimes helped her father in his blacksmith shop. Her brothers sometimes had her come and help their children gather food from the fields.

He was terrified when Sigyn was about ten years old; a sudden and violent illness swept over their village and her entire family fell ill. His heart broke for her when her mother died. He hated seeing her sob as they placed Brigitte into the wooden boats on the lake, and the sound of her wailing stayed with him as they lit the boats.

As Sigyn reached her teen years, Loki noticed the day when she looked more and more like she had on Asgard. Her long black hair was almost always tied back with a small strip of leather, and her dresses showed off her curves. It wasn't surprising when the other boys began to follow after her, causing Loki to tremble with jealousy. But Sigyn didn't pay much attention to them; between helping her older brother with his five-year-old child after his wife died the same time as their mother and spending time with her best friend Luzia, she just couldn't be bothered

It was a happy day when her brother Viktor remarried; the woman's husband had left her because of her inability to have children, and she was excited to be wanted and needed, and to mother a child.

"So what are you doing to do with all of your free time?" Luzia asked as they swam lazily in the river just south of their village.

"Oh, I don't know, what do people even do with free time?"

"There are the boys," Luzia said laying her head back into the water, letting her blonde hair bloom in the water.

At sixteen, most girls were getting married and starting to have babies of their own, but Sigyn and Luzia weren't in any hurry.

"I am not exactly ready to be having babies."

"Me neither," the blonde haired girl agreed.

They swam for a few more hours, then shivered and giggled as they slipped their dresses on over their wet bodies. Sigyn fiddled with the clasp of her necklace, the snake pendant now joined by her mother's wedding band and headed back to the village.

Sigyn could hear her father's booming voice as he approached the house, and she hurried to ladle soup into the bowls sitting on the table. She was surprised when the door swung open that he wasn't alone.

"Sigyn! I hope you made enough food for tonight, we have a guest," Arne said happily, pointing to a boy who followed him into their home. He was only a hair shorter than her father, with a mop of curly blond hair, with blue eyes that matched the color of the river on clear days. She was surprised that her heart sped up.

"This is Xaver. He is from the village at the coast, and their blacksmith already has an apprentice. Seeing as how I don't, I offered him to come and learn from me," Arne explained while Sigyn laid out another bowl. She was well aware of Xaver's eyes on her, which she found she didn't mind as much as she had the other boys.

"Welcome to our home, Xaver," Sigyn said warmly.

Xaver smiled in return. "I am glad to be in the company of such a pretty young lady."

Arne's eyes twinkled as he watched the chemistry spark. "As am I!"

Loki stood horrified as Heimdal kept his hand on his shoulder. He tried to convince himself that Sigyn's face didn't flush when she looked at the big blonde oaf... Very much the same way she had when they first met at his name day on Asgard.

But there was nothing as he could do, as the days, months, and years continued relentlessly.

"You had a group of people at your house last night." Sigyn and Luzia walked down to the market stalls together, baskets swinging in their hands.

"Yeah…that would be the family of my soon to be husband," Luzia replied grimly.

"What?" Sigyn stopped dead in her tracks.

"Oh, I don't know, Sigyn. Maybe it's a good thing. I'm almost 21 now…I can't live with my parents forever…and I am just a burden staying with them. And don't think I don't know what they say about us for that matter. That we are going to die, old maids, that there must be something wrong with us that no man wants us."

"But that's not fair."

"It's not, but that's how it is."

Sigyn thought of Xaver, and their stolen kisses when no one was looking. Part of her hoped that he would ask her father to marry her. When he first came to live with them, he had told her he wanted to wait to be properly trained in a skill before taking a wife, to be sure he could support her. Maybe he just wasn't ready?

"You will still be here right?" Sigyn asked, afraid of the answer.

"My father and brother are helping him build a house on the edge of the village…as part of my dowry."

"Well…that is one good thing."

They finished their shopping in silence. Sigyn needed new bolts of cloth to make a few new shirts for her father, and the dress she was wearing now was beyond mending. Luzia needed to place an order for more meat and bread that her family's ovens and larders could not support for the upcoming wedding.

"You will be my maid of honor right?" Luzia asked on their way back.

"Of course!" Sigyn tried to sound happy.

"Good. My mother will make your dress; she will need you for the fittings as soon as possible. The wedding is next week."

"Next week? You didn't tell me that!"

"I keep trying to forget it's that soon."

Sigyn hugged her friend tightly before she continued on her way home.

It seemed like Sigyn had only slept one night before she found herself standing with her best friend as she was married to her new husband. The following days were a blur as the village celebrated with what seemed like a continuous feast that had an endless flow of ale.

She was relieved when she was able to go to bed one night and know when she woke up the next morning things would be back to normal.

"You don't look very good, Father." Sigyn thought her father looked rather pale as he took his place at the table for breakfast.

"We have had a few wild days. It just takes me a bit longer to recover is all," he smiled warmly at her.

Sigyn only nodded, trying to ignore the worry that was gnawing at her gut.

"Xaver is almost done with this training I think," Arne said between bits of egg.

"Really?" she wondered why he hadn't mentioned it.

"I am thinking of giving the shop over to him."

"Really?" Sigyn was surprised.

"I am not getting any younger, and he needs a place in the world. Why not?"

"I think it's a good idea."

They finished their breakfast. As he left, Arne kissed the top on Sigyn's head, promising to be home for dinner.

Sigyn went through her day, cleaning the dishes from breakfast and bringing in wood for the fire. She went out to feed their small coup of chickens and tended to their garden that lay behind their home. Scrubbing the dirt from her fingers in the wash basin, Sigyn nearly jumped out of her skin when Xaver burst into the main room of the house.

"It's your father, you have to come now." He was breathless and his face was very red. Sigyn felt her heart jump into her throat as she grabbed his hand and ran with him down the dirt path.

When they reached the blacksmith furnace where her father worked, most of the villagers had already turned up in such a grouping Sigyn couldn't see her father. She and Xaver pushed their way through to see the healer kneeling next to her father, who lay limp on the ground.

"Sigyn," the healer began when he saw her.

"What happened?" She knew already; as she stared at the body on the ground, she couldn't see the rise and fall of his chest. But her mind refused to accept it.

"He complained of not feeling well. I offered to go and get the cart to take him home, but…but I hardly got the words out before he just…dropped," Xaver said, his voice breaking.

Sigyn could barely hold herself together as her father's body was prepared and laid out in the funeral boat; thankfully, Xaver was close by when her legs buckled when the fire was lit.

It seemed amazing to her that the next thing she remembered was sitting at her table with her eldest brother. She wasn't listening until her mind was focused on a knot in the pine of the back wall until she realized her brother was looking at her expectantly.

"Did you hear me?" he asked.

"No, sorry."

"I said Xaver came to me…he asked if I would give my blessing for you and him to be married."

"What do you think?"

"I think it would be a good match. Not that I don't mind at all if you were to come and stay with us, " he added hastily, "But as he is taking over father's blacksmith shop, and then this way we can pass this house down to him…you would like to stay here, right?"

Sigyn nodded; she thought her voice would betray her. She knew she should be happy, but it didn't seem right without her father being gone.

"Well then, you have my blessing. You should still come and stay with us until everything is settled."

Loki stopped listening but kept his eyes focused on Sigyn, not believing that she had agreed to marry the blonde haired boy. But of course, she didn't remember him and only thought of Loki as an untouchable God, not the man she was once married too.

"Something the matter?" Odin's smug voice came from behind him.

"Sigyn is getting married," Loki's voice lacked emotion.

"How nice for her," the old man sounded almost gleeful.

To avoid choking the life out of Odin's body, he brushed passed him, knocking a shoulder into the old son of a bitch as hard as he could. Loki was sure his heavy footfalls vibrated all of Asgard as he stormed to his chambers.

He couldn't let Sigyn marry that blonde oaf he had to do something. And he had to do it now.