12 days of Yule Mischief

Chapter 3 - The Yule Bog

The first floor of the house is split in two, the smaller part being the kitchen, which ends with the island counter, and the bigger part being the living room, which is centered by a giant, open fireplace in which the Yule Log burns brightly. The fireplace is built up from the floor in natural, uncut stones, with a wide rim serving as a coffee table, and is surrounded by leather arm chairs and couches. The floor, on this day, was strewn with hay and bits of red ribbon, and despite the comfy chairs, Sigyn was sitting crossed legged in the middle of it all on the floor.

"Well, at least straw doesn't stain like blood does," Max said in a hushed voice as he and Ian were walking down the stairs. Ian shrugged, as if to indicate that Sigyn could easily make straw worse than the blood from their first night, but he also took a step further down the staircase, braving whatever Viking tradition the goddess was engulfed in today.

By the time Loki got out of bed, Max and Ian were sitting on the floor too, trying their best to shape the straw the same way Sigyn did. Around them stood small bucks made out of bent straw and held together with red ribbon. Sigyn's stood nicely on all fours - the ones Max and Ian had made are slightly more... let's just say they never stood on all four legs at the same time, those of them capable of standing at all. The legs were uneven, the backs were bent, the heads were turned or crooked or disproportionate to the body. The ribbon holding the bucks together twisted and rippled where they should be straight and even, and all in all the bucks made by the two beginners looked either like they belong in a hospital or in Australia with the other freaky animals.

Loki took one look at the scene and burst out laughing. Sigyn sent him a disapproving look, but even she couldn't help smile a little bit at the sight of the poor Bogs.

"What the heck?" Ian called indignantly. "We did our best," he defended their wonky creations. Loki missed the last step on the staircase from laughing too hard and only just managed to catch himself before face planting on the floor. "Seriously, not all of us can just magically master any skill in the first try!" Sigyn bowed under too, bending over from laughter. Ian looked indignantly between the two of them, thinking they were being extraordinarily rude. Sigyn held up a hand as if to beg for a moment.

"It's not you," she managed to get out between choked laughs. Loki looked over at her still laughing softly. Sensing his stare she looked up, but the moment their eyes met they broke down in laughter again.

"Okay, what is it?" Max demanded unamused. Loki took a deep breath to steady himself, but then bent over double again, unable to contain the gleeful laughter bubbling inside him, bursting out every time he looked at the poor bogs. It took a full five minutes of thigh slapping laughter before either of them had gotten it out of their system enough to compose themselves again.

"I wanted to experience the Yule celebrations from a human perspective this year," Sigyn explained, a hand still on her stomach as if to sooth the laugh induced pain. "That's why I'm making these." Neither Ian nor Max understood what that had to do with anything.

"Let me tell you a story," Loki said and took a seat on the leather couch. And so began a very long explanation, by the end of which even Max and Ian were kind of amused by their failed attempts at Yule Bog making.

"It all started when Thor lost Mjolnir," Loki told the tale. "The Jotun Thrym had taken it, and as ransom for it's return he demanded Freya as his bride. Freya, of course..."

"Self centered as she is," Sigyn interrupted. "What?" she snapped at Loki's annoyed stare. "She is self centered, and selfish - thinks the whole world revolves around her just because she is pretty." Since her marriage to Loki, Sigyn hasn't really been on the best of terms with the other gods and goddesses, all of whom seem to constantly forget that it was Odin who first made Loki his blood brother. It had been particularly hurtful for Sigyn to see Freya, who isn't even an Aesir, to be given every concern, every gift, and every pamper session, when Sigyn herself has been all but forgotten by her family.