Revamped!
Chapter 125: What Happened in Asgard Part Thirteen
Months Ago - Hel
"You're so weak and pathetic," Hela spits in Sigyn's face. "You're not convincing me of the power Fate allowed you to possess. I still see a fighter and an unlucky one at that and from such a young age, you've been fighting alone. You need to show your power and only serve to yourself."
"I can't…" Sigyn mutters.
"You're more than powerful enough. You can fight alongside Apollo and win…"
Sigyn shakes her head. "I'm going to die and you can't manipulate me."
Hela wrinkles her brows. "You're a strange one, Lokisdottir. You don't understand the full extent of your power and refuse that there's a way around it."
"No!" Sigyn exclaims as Apollo yells, "Yes!"
The two of them look at each other, forgetting that Hela was manipulating them. Now, it was if every argument they've had for the past seven years were coming back to the surface. The issue that has been omnipresent for them was that they were both stubborn. Apollo and Sigyn refused to listen and only accepted their own beliefs as the right way.
"You won't defeat The Midgard Serpent with your axe," Sigyn tells him. Her voice hardens as if her conversation with Hela never happened.
"Watch me," Apollo replies. "It'll be okay, we'll get through this."
"It won't be okay! If you keep telling yourself that, then you'll aim your axe at The Midgard Serpent and it'll slither away. You're wrong. You can't even face the monster in a dream. You're wrong about thinking we could escape it. You're wrong about everything! Hela doesn't care about us. She wins either way! She takes our souls or her pet eats Midgard while Asgard burns to a crisp."
"You wanted to come here for months now! You're making this worse."
"I'm saying what I have to." Her shoulders drop and her voice loses its desperation. "I understand that you want to feel like you're ready - like we're both ready. But, Apollo, we're never going to feel that way."
As they continue a variation of the same conversation/argument they've had for years, Freya stands back and watches. None of this is new to her. She wears a neutral face and doesn't notice Hela standing next to her. When she does, Freya scoots over, turning the upper half of her body to look at Hela who keeps her eyes on Sigyn and Apollo.
"Even with the two of them and their respective situations, I pity you the most," Hela says, finally looking at Freya.
"You do?" Freya asks.
"Yes, you're friends with her and in love with him. Ragnarök pains you."
Freya says nothing. Her expression loosens a little.
"They wanted you here which feels nice, right?" Hela asks rhetorically. "Feeling like people want you around is powerful on its own but at least you're not in their positions because having someone who knows you better than you know yourself is wonderfully dangerous. Let's focus on him since the Lokisdottir gives me a migraine."
"What about him?" Freya asks.
"Have you ever wondered what love feels like? Another person's hand in yours, another person's mouth pressed to yours, another person who has permission to touch you -"
Freya tenses. "What are you getting at?"
"You'll go unappreciated by people who don't deserve you. They'll die. You and I both know that. Ragnarök is making itself happen. Sigyn and Apollo's contrasting motives are what will get the fight started only to end."
Freya's grip on her sword tightens. "Stop."
"At least he talks to you because I can't blame him. No man in any realm can keep secrets from a woman like you."
The metal on Freya's sword slices against its carrier on her waist. "You will gain nothing from trying to play with my mind."
Hela scoffs. "I don't have to. I'm glad you came to my realm."
Hela grins as she turns back to face Sigyn and Apollo. Freya keeps her grip on her sword, preparing herself to use it because she has a gut feeling that she'll need it soon. Her eyes turn back to Sigyn and Apollo, keeping Hela in her peripheral vision.
"Think about it," Sigyn says to Apollo, "your father wants Ragnarök to happen. Why else would he spend your entire life searching for me and have me get the crown? He's willing to take your place and you would never even think of doing the same for him or maybe even your own child. You're too much of a coward! You're not worthy of being his son."
"You want to talk about parents?!" Apollo screams.
"Please, throw whatever you want about my parents! Nothing can be less painful than that."
"No matter how much pain I'm in if I give up now, everyone who ever stood in my way wins!" Apollo yells.
"Nobody's in your way!" Sigyn replies. "I'm not in your way. You could do whatever you want! Do you want to prove that we can work our ways around our fates? Then prove it to me. Prove it!"
Apollo's hesitant as he steps back from her. He turns around and his back faces them. Apollo looks down and sees Hela's destroyed fleet from when they arrived, scattered all over the ground. He sees a dagger amid the bones and kneels to pick it up. He flips the handle around and doesn't feel anything. What better way to prove Sigyn wrong than doing this? Also, if it works, it will get him out of Ragnarök. What a win-win situation. Why has he never thought of this before?
"Ragnarök can't happen if I'm not here to start it," Apollo mutters.
"What are you talking about?" Sigyn asks, suddenly feeling wary.
Apollo turns around and casually shrugs at Freya. He looks at Sigyn and mutters an apology. His hand tightens around the dagger and what happens next was too fast for any of them to stop him: Apollo stabs himself with the dagger right in his heart. He did it with so much strength and power that it pierced through his armour and his body. He falls to his knees as the armour around the stab wound as it starts reddening quickly, his hand still firm on the dagger's handle.
Freya screams as she runs over to Apollo, passing Sigyn and dropping to her knees in front of Apollo. She cries as she tries to stop the bleeding, yelling for help from Sigyn and even Hela for help. Freya turns and sees Sigyn standing there, trying to move but her body is frozen. Freya returns her gaze on Apollo, holding down on his wound with one hand and her other now-bloodied hand on his face.
"I love you, okay?" Apollo tells her so softly that only Freya can hear him. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
"What was that for?" Freya asks, her tears falling on him.
"To get Sigyn to see what she wants."
Freya shakes her head. "You went too far."
Apollo grins a little from the corner of his mouth. "I said trust me."
Freya doesn't respond. Apollo uses his free hand and runs a lock of her hair through his fingers, one where the ends graze his face. He subtly pushes it to the side and sees Sigyn staring at him blankly, catatonic. Then, the pain from what he did catches up with him and Apollo lets go of Freya's hair.
Sigyn's mind feels like a clock ticking so slow that it bothers her. She witnessed Apollo do the worst to get himself out of Ragnarök. It isn't until this moment that Sigyn sees how far he would go. She fears her death at his hand more than anything but seeing this brings a pain to her that she doesn't understand.
In what reality does seeing this make sense?
Sigyn takes one step forward and suddenly can't breathe. Her insides want to scream, shout, and cry. She stares at Freya applying pressure to Apollo's stab wound, seeing if she can bring him back. She watches him try to say something to her but then, his head falls back and his hand lets go of the dagger before falling to the ground. Freya lets go and she constantly shakes her head muttering "no" repeatedly.
Apollo's still not moving. Did she just watch him kill himself? Did she make him kill himself? And she thought he was bluffing…
"Do something…" Sigyn pleads to Hela although her eyes are still on Freya sobbing above Apollo. "That death wasn't honourable but cowardly so his soul should be here. Get it and give it back to him. I can never look at Thor, Jane or Freya the same way again if you do nothing. I can never return to Asgard or Midgard knowing that I made him do this. Hela, please."
"Your eyes and your spells are bright green," Hela says over her shoulder, looming above Sigyn.
"So?" Sigyn still stares at Apollo's body. "Did you hear nothing I said?"
"A colour meaning life. Does that mean nothing to you?"
"The irony is that you are the one telling me about life, Goddess of Death." Sigyn takes a shaky breath, still looking at Apollo and Freya. "Help him, please, I'll do anything…"
"Anything?" Hela asks as her voice curls up a little.
Hela cackles until Sigyn can no longer hear her anymore. Hela didn't stop her laugh. Sigyn stopped being able to hear it. All she hears is the uncontrolled heartbeats rumbling in her ears. She takes deep breaths to try to calm herself down but the events of the past few moments keep playing in her mind, making her heart beat faster the longer she stares at Freya crying and becoming more drenched in Apollo's blood.
"Anything…" Sigyn exhales in a whisper.
[*coughs* so much unintentional foreshadowing *coughs*]