Havoc and Retribution

Duel of the Fates

Sigyn surveys the space. Hands on her hips, curls bundled up on the top of her head. It's a cheap space, in need of some serious renovation but she is already seeing where they may be able to locate the equipment and do their studies. She feels her magic buzzing in her hands, her desire to shift the space to the image she sees in her mind's eye. She clenches her fists and tamps down the light under her skin. No magic here, just hard work.

"It's serviceable," her companion says, coming to stand at her side. This is Eric Warren, a friend of Noor's that they have decided to trust. Both women have high standards when it comes to who they reveal their pasts too and while Eric understands they are refugees, he does not yet know that Sigyn is otherworldly. He is a quiet man with dark, curly hair, a whip smart intelligence and a fascination with her abilities, which he thinks are a mutation. He also has a wicked, sardonic sense of humor she finds reminiscent of ...well, yes, him. She has tried to learn to love him, but even Eric knows that he is a substitute. She has tried, but she cannot unlove that treacherous man from her past. Eric has always assured her that it doesn't bother him, that he understands, but she feels guilty anyways.

"Needs work," Sigyn says. Eric doesn't say anything, just lets her think. He's strangely good at that. He doesn't yet know everything about her, only that she's really different, but he can intuit that difference is something greater than her telepathy. He thinks she is Victoria Strong, human anomaly. He thinks she is searching for a way to understand her powers, thinks that with her, he'll be at the cutting edge of the study of metaphysical powers in the human body. She lets him believe that because it is simple and part of the larger, more complex truth.

She needs to understand Vanir powers in human bodies.

It's not something she ever anticipated needing to know but since arriving in America, the dreams have been relentless.

First it was a dream of a woman with her grey eyes but dark-brown hair and a different facial structure. Then it was visions of the Yggdrasil, burning rainbow branches entwined with the dead and the shadows. She dreams of the goddess of the dead, begins to remember who she was, dreams of dragons and mountains and the feel of wind under her wings as she flies over Vanaheim.

It has been so long since she knew who she used to be and something about being on Earth has reawakened her memories. At first, she thinks it is fate chiding her for forsaking Vanaheim, that these dreams are punishment.

But then she starts to dream of her daughters.

Having left behind the only man she ever let herself love, Sigyn thought she would never have children, would never pass on her heritage. But as the dreams come more frequently, she starts to realize that the women she sees are not from the past, but in her future. It unsettles her at first to realize the woman with dark brown hair is her daughter. It unsettles her further to dream of her grand-daughter and all the misfortunes of life she will endure. She swears to herself not to birth these women descendants because they inherit her magic and it tears her granddaughter apart.

But then she dreams of her great-granddaughter.

The features are so similar to her own. Only because she knows her own face, can Sigyn see the small differences. Her great-granddaughter has bigger yes, small lips and a shorter frame, making her a smaller version of Sigyn with a bigger soul. Sigyn dreams of this future child for days, trying to decipher why this woman is different from her other descendants.

She has her answer one day when she wakes at dawn, crying.

So now, she is here because maybe, well certainly, she will not live long enough to meet her granddaughter. She will not be there when the Vanir magic in her granddaughter's blood twists into telepathy. She will be gone before her granddaughter develops into a woman.