Havoc and Retribution

Conglomerate Consciousness

It has been a long time since Loki thought about what happened to Sigyn.

When she first disappeared from Asgard on that damned wedding day, when he watched her explode into rainbow light, it was all he could think about. He had to control every word, every expression, to hide his complicit-ness and involvement with the princess of Vanaheim. Normally so placid in his facial expressions, his rage, because he would not admit it was grief, was a physical thing he couldn't keep from manifesting. Only Frigga ever saw it and her eyes went so kind he thought he would choke on the unknown feeling swamping his throat.

In the hunt for her, Thor thought Loki's rage was Asgardian rage, the pompous anger of a conqueror who has lost one of his baubles. But Loki was most angry at Sigyn, not because she ruined a peace treaty and plunged Vanaheim into decades of Aesir occupation. No, he is angry at Sigyn because she couldn't trust him enough to tell him where she went.

He refused to believe that she was dead. Many Asgardians whispered that her spectacle was a release from her physical body and her soul was free among the stars. Once he thought that sheer fancy.

Now, stupid hope has him repeating the same thought over and over. Some would call that prayer. He calls it a spell, come to life through force of will and memory.

A piece of Sigyn's soul is here, on Midgard.

He knew deep down that in order for Jay to be Sigyn's great-granddaughter, Sigyn would have had to have had children. The thought of her leaving him and meeting another man has him both jealous and confused. What could have possibly motivated Sigyn to be with another man? Her defiance to Tyr, even her distance from him all spoke of a desire not to commit to a man. He can even remember her that very first day on Vanaheim.

The memory hits him clear and cold, as if Jace herself pulled it up deep from within his psyche.

Here is Sigyn, not as a defeated bride, defying Asgardian rule in the only way she could, but as she was when he first saw her.

It wasn't romantic in any sense of the word. She is like Jace in that way. She was smeared with dirt and blood, shoulder guard rent, quiver empty. Her brother was fighting at her side and the two of them moved so fluidly together that he thought they were lovers until Thor pointed them out on the battlefield. He remembers his brother being so condescending, gesturing to the Vanir royalty as if they were no more than roadside filth.

He remembers noticing her because she fought smart. Every move was choreography. Perhaps that is why Jace can control her telekinesis best through movement and dance. Sigyn fought as if she was on a stage, performing ballet, never seeing the audience, lost in her art. He won't admit that it hurts him to remember Jace the same way, eyes elsewhere the day he first saw her in the courtyard on Asgard. It reminds him of the ages he has lived.

That day, the day he joined the invasion of Vanaheim at Thor's side, Loki remembers watching Sigyn wound Sif in battle and thinking that perhaps Asgard had finally found its matching shieldmaiden on Vanaheim.

But then came Odin on his horse with reinforcements.

Then came a plague that rippled through the Vanir lines at Odin's commands.

Then came the Vanir king's sue for peace that rapidly dissolved into war again when he realized how the clairvoyants would be subjugated under Asgardian rule.

They met at those peace talks.

He was so young and naïve. She was so broken over her people's suffering.

It started when he snuck her medicine for her brother, suffering from the Aesir manufactured plague.

It started when she didn't skewer him with her sword when he offered her said medicine.