Revamped!
[A while ago, I had a dream with Iqadi in it and it was wonderful]. [2020: Out of all the PNG kids, Iqadi appears in most of my PNG dreams].
Chapter 118: What Happened in Asgard Part Six
Four Years Ago - Asgard
Coiled around his chandelier above his bed is a massive serpent with its jaws open and fangs dripping into Apollo's eyes, burning them. He turns to his side and sees Sigyn's body lying lifeless in the spot next to him. They're suddenly transported to a land where the ground has turned to ash, the smell of blood and burnt flesh fills the air, and that hideous monster with its beady eyes stares right at him.
"Soon enough, Apollo!" The Midgard Serpent screams at him, oddly having Sigyn's voice. "Soon enough!"
"Stop!" Apollo yells back. "Get away from me!"
He rustles around the spot, his limbs tangled in his bedsheets. His panic escalates and stops when Sigyn's corpse wakes up and grabs his arm, stopping him.
"Apollo, wake up!" She spits in his face. "You're having a nightmare!"
Apollo wakes up, hoping that this isn't another nightmare. He looks beside him and sees Freya asleep next to him. He watches her as if they were husband and wife when they weren't even dating. He leans on his elbow, listening to her deep-drawn breaths as he runs her tangled hair through his fingers. She's done her best to put him at ease. He doesn't recall her saying very much about Ragnarök, but she was always near him when he needed a stable presence. Sometimes, she would hold his hand, rub his back or lie next to him.
The horrors didn't go away, but when Freya was there, they felt shorter.
He gets up to free himself from his suffocating bedsheets. He walks across his room and leans against the wall. Its cool feeling helps calm him down but not completely. He inhales and exhales a little too loud, sounding as if he was trying to hold back a scream or a panic attack which, in hindsight, he was.
"Apollo…" Freya mutters, sitting up in the bed. She holds the bedsheets up to her chest in fists full of fabric. Her face, despite the room being dark, is readable. She's concerned for him which is a look he's familiar with from everyone except Sigyn. Have people been showing concern for her? All he sees is her dead in his visions or being yelled at in reality.
"I hate these nightmares," Apollo confesses to her. "I need something to keep me from falling asleep so I can never have them again."
Freya identifies the double meaning to that and her posture straightens. Apollo catches on and stops himself from talking. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have at all let alone now with the girl he's in love with.
"Alright, I'll go to sleep now," Apollo states.
He doesn't move from where he's standing.
"Apollo," Freya says calmly. "To sleep, you need to come back here and close your eyes."
"I can't…" he mutters with a shaky voice. "When I close my eyes, I see the Midgard Serpent or something related to Ragnarök and I fear that I'll never wake up again."
-o-
Sigyn slouches, her head spinning and eyelids falling due to the lack of sleep. To nobody else's knowledge, she's been getting nightmares about Ragnarök but, unlike Apollo, she hasn't been screaming about them. She would just shoot up awake, recognize that she had a nightmare and stay awake until morning. Her nightmares were more centred around Midgard, specifically the people she left behind and hasn't seen in years. She would see The Midgard Serpent poisoning them, burning them, and Sigyn would always try to help to the best of her ability but she couldn't do much because only Apollo could truly defeat The Midgard Serpent.
If she couldn't stop Ragnarök, then was she really the most powerful in all the Realms? If she was destined to be killed by Apollo and he was the only champion for Ragnarök, then maybe he was the most powerful. She was the most powerful sorceress, but he's the embodiment of power.
Sigyn wakes back up, lifting her head from Loki's cell wall. For a moment, she almost forgot that she was here. It's not like she remembered coming here.
"You're not tired but homesick," Loki says to her, standing in front of her from the inside of his cell. "Go and visit Midgard. I'll cover for you."
"I got banned, remember?" She tells him.
Like the first time Sigyn told Loki that Apollo banned her from Midgard, he laughs. It isn't just another laugh, it's a hearty and menacing cackle like there was nothing else in the world funnier and, to Loki, there wasn't. To him, it was refreshing to hear the mess his daughter got herself into over again. From his perspective, her problems just kept on worsening when he didn't think that was possible.
Sigyn rolls her eyes.
"Just go," Loki tells her.
"I can't."
"Apollo will never know. He's too busy drowning in delusions."
"And when he comes to the surface, he will chop my head off." She takes a breath. "Little did I know that Apollo's complete destiny was written possibly long before mine and we're just on different pages. I should've never told him that he was written to kill me all those years ago."
"So you think it'd be better for him to find out about everything in one go?"
"...maybe."
Loki raises an eyebrow. "You've barely shown one act of rebellion towards Ragnarök. You want it to happen."
"I never said I wanted it to happen," Sigyn argues. She looks up at him. "Trust me, I don't like it but I don't like the other ending even more."
Loki shakes his head with his signature grin. "Only I can catch your lies, dear Sigyn, you're not as good as you believe. I know what's behind your front. Sure, Apollo banned you but if this happened before you knew about Ragnarök, you would've left for Midgard before Apollo could finish screaming. The truth is that you don't want to go back to Midgard knowing that you'll die when the monster underneath emerges. Why see them again when you could die at any moment - or better yet, have them watch you get cut open by your own cousin and their best friend. What a reunion that would be, am I right?"
Sigyn's speechless. She can't believe her father just said that to her but, at the same time, she should've seen that coming. He never seemed to take Ragnarök seriously.
"What would you do if you were written in Ragnarök?" Sigyn asks.
Loki shrugs a little. "Make it something for the history books. If the Norns prophesied it a long time ago, give them more than the final battle they want."
-o-
Apollo walks down the palace hallways in the middle of the night. Freya went back to sleep and he pretended to do the same. When she was under, he snuck out. The lights are dimmed but still bright enough to walk around and not crash into anything. There's less staff on site during these hours, but those still working always nodded at him as a sign of respect. Apollo knows he doesn't deserve those gestures because he was only awake at this hour since he couldn't sleep, like a child. He's a child scared of the monster hiding underneath his bed, not the prince or champion everyone else sees.
"Hey. We need to talk."
Apollo doesn't argue because he remembers who's behind him. Sigyn. A real person with a voice and opinions. She isn't some character at Ragnarök but his cousin. She's the person who sees him as an arrogant child who wants to get his way. She'll do anything to prevent that wish because she wants to. Sigyn grabs his arm and drags him through the hallway until they're at the end, right in front of a window to have access to a bit more light. She stares up at him with a cross look in her eyes, looking past his beyond-terrified expression to get her point across. Maybe this is why she needed more light - to get a better look at him.
"Let's get this straight," Sigyn says, "I'm not fighting against Ragnarök."
"I know," Apollo replies calmly. "I've always known."
Sigyn nods. "I think I was confirming it with myself."
"Are you scared?"
Sigyn looks at him as if he just asked a stupid question. "Of course I am. I'm just not whining about it like you."
Apollo isn't convinced by the attitude in her voice. However, her still being awake and looking exhausted show that she isn't sleeping either.
"True terror isn't being scared, Sigyn, it's not having a choice in the matter," Apollo tells her. "I may never be half the hero my parents are but I owe it to them - and to everyone - at least to try to save the day. When I dare to be powerful, then it becomes less and less important whether I'm afraid. What's the point of being a weapon if you can't use that might to try and do something more than sacrificing?"
That last word sends a shiver up and down her spine. "Actions have consequences."
"So does inaction. Foreseeing the future means nothing if there's nothing we can do to prevent it. There's a reason why the Norns told us, a reason why my father sent you and Freya to get The Serpent Crown. This is all a part of the prophecy." He exaggerates a shrug. "I might be breaking, I might be losing my mind, but I won't be defeated. I may not be able to change the past but I'll be damned if I can't even try to save the future."
Sigyn shakes her head. "There's no perfect solution. Fate will find us wherever we go. Some must die so that others might have a life. It's a tragedy but it's also the truth."
"I know. I have nightmares containing -"
Sigyn entire face sharpens. "Don't tell me."
"Who am I to share them if not you?"
"Let them remain private. I have no nightmares and I don't want to start having them."
That's partially true. She can't have nightmares if she doesn't sleep. They trade glances but there's no optimism, only coldness.
Sigyn sighs. "Maybe it'd be better if we parted."
"You wouldn't go far," he replies.
"I never said I'd be the one leaving. Besides, I have nowhere in mind to go. I got banned from my other option." She looks up at him and his face doesn't budge. "You can't live in fear, Apollo, you either get over it or it overwhelms you. The more you resist, the more the fear persists. Trust me, it'll be fine. You'll adjust like me. You'll accept it."
Apollo won't and they know that. What scares him more than Ragnarök - what scared him the most about Ragnarök, was Sigyn's passiveness towards it.
"You can't defeat the Midgard Serpent with your fists or your axe alone," Sigyn tells him with conviction in her voice. "Your weapon is the only thing that makes you powerful now and you're useless without it."
Apollo tenses. "Stop provoking me. The Norns don't deserve my trust."
Sigyn can't help but grin because he's wrong. "Neither do I."
His emotions continue to fluctuate. Furious and burning one moment and devastated and full of tears the next. This is his fate. This has always been his fate even if he only found out a few years ago. He's destined to kill Sigyn and sacrifice himself. He thought Sigyn would be his ally but she won't. He thought that she would be as furious as him in this. Britney Braun would've but he doesn't dare mention her name. She was gone when Sigyn killed Amora.
So he left. Through the doorway. Sigyn's left alone. She stands at the window and her heart aches for Apollo and herself. At a certain point, brains stop trying to rationalize things because they give up, shut off, and shut down. Hers did that a long time ago.
There's such a thing as a nonviolent fist. She thought Apollo would roar and rage but he didn't because his sadness and fear are worse than his anger.
