A loud noise woke her. She was aware of the cold first, followed closely by the sensation that she was leaning against something both from the back and to her left. Her cheek was pressed against the wall, and she had to have been like that for a while because the wall under her cheek felt warm, not cold like the air around her.
She wasn't dead. She had hoped that she had fallen asleep for the last time, that it had been the end of her suffering. It wasn't, obviously. She felt bitter about it. She didn't really want to die, she wanted to keep living her life, do all the things on the list she had created once she realized she was going to be alive for a long time. But the way they had made her life, waiting for each meal, finding relief in small items that should otherwise have been easy to get, wasn't how she wanted to spend the rest of her days. She would rather die than stay trapped.
From far away, as if it was at the end of a tunnel, she could hear footsteps, the sound of clanging, and deep rumbling voices she didn't understand. She didn't try to comprehend what the sounds meant, only thinking of ways to hurry her death along, to not allow them to make her suffer more.
She had already tried not eating, but her instincts couldn't ignore the beep that signaled food was in her compartment. No, that would take much too long. She would need to find a faster way, one that was painless.
Her mind slowed, all thoughts disappearing as she slowly slipped back toward unconsciousness. Faintly there was a voice. She didn't hear the words, just the low rumbling of a man's voice.
A soft touch on her hand suddenly brought her focus back from the black that had almost completely taken over her mind. It spread warmth through her body, and her breath became deeper, her heart rate more steady. She hadn't even realized that her breathing and heart rate had been so erratic.
Sigyn groaned as she started to move, her body stiff and so, so hard to move. The warmth that had come from the small touch on her hand intensified. A hand gripped hers, a hand that she had held between both of hers over two months ago. She gripped it, holding it as tightly as she could, afraid that she would lose the contact that had now, abruptly, become her lifeline.
As her body thawed, her joints popping and creaking as she stretched them, tears silently ran down her face. She had let the darkness take control. It had completely broken her and she had let it take her, consume her. So she cried, for the person she had been before, for the family she now remembered but would never see again, for the man who now held her hand, though she wasn't exactly sure why.
The tears stopped some time later. The man was there, his hand still gripping hers, and she could feel him next to her, leaning on the wall her back was pressed against. She opened her eyes, turning her head until she was looking at his face.
He was so pale, his blue eyes standing out from his skin. He looked unwell, sick, tortured. His hair, still long, was much more tangled than before. But he stared at her with eyes that said he was grateful. There was a happy glint there, small, but real. But his face expressed worry.
He gripped her hand tighter before speaking softly. "You were close to death. I didn't know if you were going to come back."
Sigyn shivered, both at his words and at the always present chill in the air. She grabbed his hand with both of hers, pulling it to her chest before dragging her knees up. The man shifted closer to her, his arm pressing into her shoulder, letting her know that he was there beside her.
He didn't say a word as the cell grew darker, only removing himself from Sigyn's grip for a few moments to gather his pile of blankets and wrap the two of them as well as he could.
She didn't understand why, but she felt a connection with him. Not in the usual way she had through her powers, but an actual real emotional bond, emotions that were only hers. Maybe it was just because this man was the first one she had friendly contact with in more than fifty years.
But she could tell he needed the interaction, the contact, just as she did. They had both been through such trauma, had been through their own personal hell. They were still going through it, still suffering as they tried to find a way out.
"What happened to you?" He whispered to her in the darkness as if he was afraid of both question and answer.
She didn't reply, not able to gather her strength enough to open her mouth to ask the same question to him, and she didn't feel like sharing her story anyway. But he didn't seem hurt that she didn't answer. It was almost as if he wasn't expecting an answer at all.
Minutes passed, and eventually, his breath deepened, his head lolling and his grip on her hand loosening as he fell into a light sleep. She didn't need much nudging as she followed his example, her head leaning against the wall next to her left.
Two boys walked through the streets of a city that was both modern, old, and beautiful. The entire city seemed to be made of gold, each building rising out of the ground as if painted by an artist. People were walking about unhurriedly, greeting both the older and young boy with smiles.
The boys were talking, running through the streets, playing with some of the other children that came to say hello, before slowing to talk again. They were just children, brothers by their interactions, enjoying the day of beautiful weather.
The dream skipped, showing the same two children, the elder now a young adult and the younger in teenage years fighting each other with different weapons. The bigger one, with blond hair and broad shoulders, held an ax in one hand and a shield in another. The smaller one, slimmer yet more agile, held two daggers.
The bigger one moved with large bold movements and use his weapons with strength. The smaller boy was much quicker, dancing around his brother's blows and searching for openings for his own weapons. But there were suddenly two of the small boy, then a third joining the pair. The bigger boy fought each one off for several moments before the two illusions started to dissipate. The two boys stopped fighting when the small one angled a dagger at the bigger one's throat.
The brothers laughed, backing away from each other.
"Very good Loki, I could not tell which one of you was real!" The older one exclaimed, slapping a hand down on his brother's shoulder.
"And you, dear brother, survived longer than the last time we fought."
They both laughed again, walking away, towards the towers that had served as a backdrop for their fight.
The scene changed again, showing the two boys now completely grown. They were in a throne room, both standing in front of the dais that held a man sitting on a throne. He was old, white-haired, aged, and a golden eyepatch on his right eye. To his left was a woman, more gracefully aged and beautiful with curled blond hair. Both of them watched their children.
"My sons," the man said. "As you know, the time has come for me to announce the heir of Asgard. As tradition requires, the oldest child is to be the one that replaces me. I have decided that the time for me to allow the next generation to ascend the throne has come. Thor, I believe you are ready."
The image dissipated and a new one took its place.
Loki paced in front of his mother, his face pained as she watched him. It was a long time later when Loki finally said, "I don't think he is ready mother."
The dream changed, turning into something familiar to Sigyn, something she feared. They were just flashes of memory, nothing solid. But, faces that haunted her were there. Lives that had ended because of her actions one way or another, and the lives she had taken by her hand.
Though Doctor Barret's face loomed the closest, and with the most detail, it was the one death she felt no guilt or remorse about. That man had tortured her in more ways than one, but still, he was here, haunting her memories, her dreams.
Everything that flitted across her mind, bits and pieces still trying to find their way back to where they belonged, was clouded in a thick layer of smoke. Nothing was clear, everything muddled. Voices were distorted as fragments came to her, images only partially seen. But his face remained constant.
Something, a hand, dragged her down, deeper and deeper into her mind, her memories. The darkest places of her mind contained her worse memories. Those were the things she didn't want to ever remember. The face of her brother, aged, pale, tinged slightly with blue as he lay in a coffin. The same coffin lowered into the ground, dirt piled on top of it.
The faces of the people she cared about, her sister, her nieces and nephews, all looking out at her from their own coffins, followed her, just as doctor Barret's did.
Her mind took her into her most terrifying memory. It wasn't damaged like the others had been, but twisted because of the feelings associated with it.
Blood dripped down her arms, running from her wrist to fingertips, then dripping onto the floor. She watched, fascinated, as the blood started to gather on the ground, forming puddles. But this wasn't right, this wasn't how it was supposed to go. She wasn't supposed to die.
But then the world turned black, and the girl, both in memory and dream, knew nothing else.
The hands that held her own were the only things that kept her anchored to the world. She could feel herself, her mind and soul, hovering just at the edges of a darkness that was strangely full of light. But the hands, both so large around her small one, kept her from passing just over the edge. It kept her from answering the call of voices she would never forget.
But there was another voice from a different direction. It was still in her mind, and it was less a voice and more of a ball of tumbling and rolling thoughts. She turned her back to that darkness that held the voices of everyone she had loved, and focused her attention on the other thoughts that were so close to her own.
She couldn't understand them. Never had she encountered a mass of feelings, a mind so tangled that there was no actual thoughts to them. But there was something else unusual to it. The feelings, naturally tinted with green the same way hers had always been coated in turquoise were now covered in a different color.
Just like hers had been only hours ago, there was something else invading it. Yellow coated, smothered, and confused every thought and feeling it touched. It had almost completely taken over the mind, leaving very little of what it was before.
Sigyn acted on complete instinct reaching out forcefully with the small amount of energy she had left. She set a lasting protection around the remaining undamaged parts of the mind. It wouldn't do much against the rapidly expanding yellow mass, but she could only hope that it would be enough to help the person fight for themselves.
And her hope for that was the last thing to run through her mind, followed closely by the comfort the hand holding hers emitted.
She was still so cold. She was lying down this time, her back pressing against the cold ground, but she could feel a slight heat hovering above her face.
Sigyn opened her eyes, blinking to clear the haze from her vision, looking to see the shape that hovered over her. Blue eyes met hers, and the face she saw was an emotionless mask. She could see that he was worried. The slight wrinkle around his eyes gave away the emotion he seemed desperate to hide.
She saw a glimmer of something in his eyes, an unnatural blue flicker, brighter and more electric than his real eye color. She stared, watching as it danced across, and almost completely take over. Sigyn let out a gasp as his face suddenly took on a cruel look, a terrible grin taking over his face.
Thinking quickly, she reached her hand forward, brushing her fingertips against his cheek. The effect was instantaneous. That electric blue in his eyes disappeared, and the grin turned from frightening to soft, genuine. She took her hand from his cheek, but he gently took hold of it grasping it tightly, the warmth of his hand soaking into hers.
She shivered, the warmth in her hand making her suddenly aware that the rest of her body was resting on a very cold floor. She moved, bringing the hand that he wasn't holding to prop herself up. She let out a small yelp of surprise as her body spiked with pain, completely protesting any movement. The man helped her up, pausing when she let out a gasp of pain, or stopped moving completely.
Eventually, the two of them made it to the corner of the cell where the pile of blankets had been left. The two sat side by side, the blankets covering them as best as they could, shoulders touching.
They were silent for some time, Sigyn happy that there was someone to be with, that she wasn't alone.
"Loki," the man said in a whisper. Sigyn startled, turning her head to look at him trying not to jostle the blankets. "My name is Loki."
Sigyn smiled, opened her mouth to tell him her name, but quickly snapped it shut after only a fraction of a second. She had only spoken one word in the last twenty years, the "no" when those people had come to take her out of her cell. That had been said out of complete desperation. But now, it was hard for her to form the words. She had been silent for so long except that one word, no one there to listen to her or to care what she said that she just couldn't bring herself to break her silence.
She took his hand and wrote her name on his palm one letter at a time. "S," he said once he realized what she was doing. "I. G. Y. N. Sigyn?" She nodded. "Nice to meet you."
There was more silence as the cell darkened though it was comfortable. Eventually, Sigyn drifted off to a doze, her head resting against Loki's shoulder.
"You died," he whispered to her gently, only willing to admit it when she couldn't hear. "I couldn't let you die."
But she did hear him. The words didn't register in her brain, but her mind filed them away to be analyzed at a later time, when she wasn't mostly asleep. But all thoughts of that disappeared when the door at the end of the hallway slammed open.
Loki, seeming otherwise unstartled, stood quickly. The blankets slipped from him, piling onto Sigyn instead. Quietly he said, "Please be here when I come back." And then the monsters came into view and took Loki by much less force than they had last time. Sigyn noticed that he didn't resist at all. And that, more than anything, told her how bad his situation was. He was past the point of fighting, just like she was.
She couldn't control the thoughts that ran through her head once he was gone. What had they been doing to him to make him go with them willingly? And then she thought back to when she had awoken, how he had looked so sickly, so pale. And the warmth of his hand when he held hers… It was so cold in this place. His body shouldn't have been able to produce that much heat unless he was sick and had a fever.
The sheen of sweat on his pale face, the heat that came off of him in waves, the flickering of that unnatural color in his eyes. She had thought she had been dreaming, but now that she thought about it and the bright darkness that had called to her she knew what she saw must be something real. The only mind that had been near enough for her to see in such detail would have been the man's. Loki's. And his mind had been almost completely consumed by that strange yellow invader.
But there was something familiar about the strange light that had taken over his mind. She had encountered something similar, something that had the same power radiating off of it. But before she could grasp what it was, before the thought that was just on the edge of her comprehension could be understood, her thoughts scattered. Instead, a memory took its place.
"You died. I couldn't let you die."
There were no images attached to the memory but she could feel her head against a warm shoulder, could feel the blankets that laid atop her body, and most of all, she could hear the quiver of fear in his voice as he said it.
And that brought her mind back to that darkness that called to her, the voices that beckoned for her to join them. That had been the call to death. She had been so close, so close to the end of her suffering, of the pain she had known most of her life, of the sacrifices that she had made for her family, to survive, and then just to be alive long enough to reach this point, to find Loki, who had saved her from that dark unknown place.
And then her thoughts snapped back to his mind, covered in the powerful yellow thing. But there had been that one spot left, just enough of him left for her to protect, for her to keep as himself so he may break free of the thing that was keeping him trapped.
She had given up on living after she had killed that doctor, that man who had hurt her so terribly. She hadn't had a reason to live. But Loki, the man who had pulled her back from death despite having been so consumed by the power, had given her a new reason.
And when that electric blue power had crossed his eyes, when that terrible cruel smile had taken over his face her touch had brought him back, had kept that power from completely taking over. Sigyn could save him, she knew that she only needed to be able to use her powers to help clear out the influence in his mind.
She would live for him, to save him. Because, even though he had shown her a rough and cold exterior at the beginning, he had also shown her a softer side, something that she doubted many people saw. So she would fight to survive, fight so she could grow stronger, fight so that she would be able to save him, to give him something worth living for, just as he had made her want to live and fight.
So she waited, listening for that door to bang open, for him to appear back in the cell so she could try to help him. She waited, listening to the sounds of a creature with claws scurrying over the ground. The cell got lighter, some form of sunrise allowing the odd blue light to filter into the cell little by little. And still, she waited.
But Loki never came back, the monsters that had taken him never returned.
And then she too was no longer there.