[story] venom
author: mellish (scratchmist)
email: scratchmist [at] yahoo.com
A/N: This is based on the legend of Loki and Balder in Norse mythology. The main source used was Edith Hamilton's Mythology, and the resources on Loki, Sigyn, and Balder in wikipedia.
I do not know why I agreed to be his wife. Anyone who asks me now will receive no answer - if I say that I had been tricked, I will be confessing to my own foolishness and naivety; if I say that I had no choice, people will scoff at my rights as a goddess; if I say that I believed he loved me, I would be lying. I knew he did not love me. He did gaze upon me with some degree of want, his bright eyes filled with passion. His smile was twisted but still, somehow, endearing. He promised me beautiful things, none of which I dared believe. I knew him already, then, though I never used his real name - trickster, I called him silently. The sly one. The troublemaker.
Why he was attracted to me, I did not know. I was beautiful, but not more than any other goddess. I was not born from a giant, so my blood could not possibly matter to him; I had no discriminating qualities except that I was gentle enough, that I always did my duty. Whenever he approached my home, all creation around me buzzed with warnings, and I comforted them with the fact that his visits amused me, and they would never amount to anything more.
You will suffer, the flowers warned. I stilled their voices with one outstretched palm, and received him graciously, as any other woman of my stature would. He was a kinsman of Odin, tied to our king by a blood oath. I did not believe that he would have any interest in me, beyond these brief visits. I refused to think that I could be swayed by his gentle words. I told myself that I would be careful, that I knew too well how he had the most cunning lips in all the lands.
"Sigyn," he whispered, and my name on his tongue sounded so sweet, like freshly-picked summer fruits. "Do you wish to fly?" And I looked into his mouth and saw that his tongue was not cleft in two, that he spoke the truth. He had also been named sky traveller, hadn’t he? The idea was so tempting that before I knew it, I had taken his hand and we were soaring in the swift windcurrents, our backs to the sun, my hair whipping about my face as I laughed and forgot to be wary. In some of my memories of those moments, he kissed me. In others, he merely looked on in amusement, his fingers curled around my wrist. If he let go, I would have fallen to my death. For the first time I realized that he had power over me, although I knew not how or why.
I already knew what my answer would be when he finally asked. I ignored the cries of the flowers, the frantic buzzing of the insects, as I slapped them away from my shins to hide the blush that had suddenly sprung to my cheeks. I told myself, I can save this man. There is good in him. I can teach him goodness.
"You are kind, Sigyn," he said. "That is why I need you." With more force than affection he tugged me into his arms and kissed me, and in my mouth I felt his tongue splitting in two, and I had to swallow a scream.
Loki had many lovers besides myself, and neither of us pretended ignorance regarding this matter. I told myself it was below my stature to be envious of them. They were creatures, giants, beasts. Of all those he made love to, I was the only goddess. Surely that amounted to something.
I tried not to be too upset when I thought of my husband covered in feathers, covered in scales, covered in all manner of furs and skins, a different form each time he sought to woo another. It became routine, his silly habit of copulating with everything that breathed under the sun; it meant nothing to me. I found my initial anger melting into curt disapproval. I am the one he married, I reminded myself, attempting to salvage the last vestiges of pride within my broken body. The idea did nothing to comfort me.
One day he came home in the form of a horse, his mouth foaming with spittle, his sides heaving with unnatural weight. I carried cool water to him and wiped his sweating, fuzzy brow, while he kicked out his legs and neighed, whinnied, vomited. Only then did I realize he was a mare.
"You are pregnant," I told him, too shocked to be properly disgusted.
The foal he bore had eight legs. He offered it to Odin as a gift, declaring with confidence that it would grow to be faster than any other animal in Aasgard.
"Where did you find such a wondrous creature?" The god of gods smiled warmly at my husband, who merely turned his cheek, in a half-hearted imitation of humility.
Angrboda once visited when Loki was not there. I kept her at the doorway for as long as I could, wondering what business such an old and powerful giantess had with me. "My husband is not home," I told her.
"I am not here to see Loki," she answered, simply. I let her enter after a few moments, my etiquette getting the better of me. For all her bulk and savagery, she was not entirely disagreeable, and even pretended to be satisfied with the bowl of soup I laid out for her. She spoke in deep, halting notes about her children: the giant wolf, the serpent, the shadow-lady who ruled the world of the dead. I knew their names, and I knew their destinies. I knew the man who slept beside me on nights when he could bother to be home was their father. I knew that the union of the giantess who sat across from me, and my husband, had produced the beings which would bring the world to an inevitable end.
"Why do you speak to me of your children?" I kept my tone neutral. "It does not matter to me what my foolish husband has done before, as long as he returns every once in a while and does not harm me."
She took a great sip from her empty bowl, and stared at me with her bulging eyes. I refused to flinch. "At the end of the world, the giants and the Aesir will fight each other to the death."
I nodded. That had been predicted since before time had existed.
"You are a goddess, but you are married to Loki, a giant."
I nodded again. Then I realized the meaning behind her visit, and smiled sweetly. I saw her shoulders move the slightest bit, in the flinch that I had not allowed myself to make. "I do not plan to partake in any wars," I replied, and it was the truth.
When I learned I was with child, I prayed day and night that it would not turn out to be anything frightening. He does not have to be handsome, I whispered into my closed fists, balled up against my mouth. She does not have to be beautiful. But let my child be ordinary. Let it breathe with life and not destruction. Let it have no other fate than to enjoy its days upon earth, where I can watch over it.
"You worry too much," Loki muttered, although in a rare display of charity he placed a cool towel on my forehead and sat beside me. It had been years since that one exhilarating moment in the sky, but every so often he could still charm me, and in those moments I did not feel so upset that the earth had stopped speaking to me since then. "I was myself when we were united, wasn’t I? And you, you are no creature of the damned. Stop sweating and praying like that, woman. It can’t possibly hurt so much. I have borne a child myself. I know."
"Yes," I whispered, but still I shivered when his lips touched my cheek. I continued to pray in silence, fiercely begging Odin to keep me from a curse I did not deserve. When Narfi was born in the form of a human child, I could not help weeping with relief.
Loki mistook it for joy, and patted my shoulder, laughing as he said "I told you so."
"What is so good about him?"
It was morning, and Loki was in a rage. I ignored him, and continued to sew new trousers for my son Vali, who was growing too quickly for a boy his age. Outside the humble house I had never left, despite my marriage, our two boys played, oblivious to their father’s ranting. I had heard all about Odin’s son, the god of light, the handsome one. I had heard about the way he sparkled even without the sun, and how his smile could stifle weeping, or soften a criminal’s heart. He was the hope of all gods. He would rescue the world from destruction.
It did not surprise me that my husband hated him so.
"I will crush him, that shining man, that disgusting boy, who thinks he is better than everyone. I will slay him," Loki spat. Only at those words did I lift my head and address him directly.
"It is impossible. Lady Frigga has demanded his safety from everything. No one will harm him. Nothing can."
"We shall see about that," he seethed, pulling on his coat and stalking out.
My fingers stiffened over their work. I stood, hardly able to contain my fear. "Do not bring danger into this house, husband. I beg you. If not for my sake, then at least for Narfi and Vali." It was the only request I had made in a long time, and I could not let any hesitation show.
He looked back at me, staring as if he could not quite see me properly. I did not lower my eyes from him. If he denies me this, I thought to myself, then I can leave him, without any guilt.
"You are so kind, Sigyn." His tone was the softest it had been in ages, and his expression was one of tenderness. "I know you will never leave me." The way he said those words with so much trust made me want to curl up and die, and in that moment I hated him, and I hated myself.
There were no words for the terror that filled me that night, when Loki came home, singing and laughing loudly and drunkenly, still wearing a woman’s dress and half speaking in a woman’s voice, as he called for me to greet him, addressing me as love, the word losing all meaning.
"You killed Balder." I held my breath, silently pleading him to deny it, although already I knew that his crime was just as I had spoken. With painful clarity I recalled the eerie silence of that afternoon, the rumbling of the sky that suggested the unrest of the gods; but I had ignored it, and had foolishly hoped that everything was well. Lady Frigga had assured all creation that her son was safe from death. I had trusted her judgement, ignoring the fact that if he thought it worth his amusement, my husband was capable of anything.
I took in the lopsided smile on his face, and my heart broke. Trembling, I moved in front of him, as if to shield him from our children, while he was in this shameful state. My hand was shaking at my side, begging to be lifted so that it could deliver the blow he deserved.
"I didn’t kill him," he answered, voice disdainful except for the slur that thickened it. "It was that blind idiot Hoor that did. I merely encouraged him to join the game - the game Frigga proposed." And he grabbed at his throat and laughed, crossing his eyes, sticking his tongue out and letting it flick from either end of his mouth. I watched this display and felt cold wells spring up everywhere inside me, but I pressed my lips together and kept from crying. He continued with this theatrics for more moments than I thought I could bear, then he moved in close and wrapped his arms around me.
"Do not be frightened, Sigyn," he breathed. "When all is lost, we can take to the skies." Then, still laughing, he turned and disappeared. I ran back into my home and woke my children, telling them that their father had committed an unspeakable crime, that we had to flee or lose our lives before dawn.
We packed up all our belongings and ran into the forest, and I ignored the sound of my beating heart, and the distant echoes of Loki shouting his fury, when he returned home the next morning and found nothing.
In the days that followed I lived halfway between fear and freedom. Loki did not seek us out, which was a relief; but every time the sky darkened I felt certain that Odin, or perhaps Thor, had come to strike me down dead. It was difficult to ignore what had happened when every day, the sorrowful cries grew louder and louder. Balder, wept the trees. Balder, wept the river. Balder, Balder, moaned the grass beneath Narfi and Vali’s feet, as they wrestled with each other and laughed with a joy I had lost long ago. Balder, our hope, all creation lamented, and I found that the name had suddenly sprung into my own mouth - that it tasted bitter, that it made me want to cry.
The messenger spared no words when he arrived at our makeshift home with his head bowed and the seal of the gods on his forehead. "My master and mistress request that you weep for their son, Balder, who had done no wrong in all his life, and yet was slain by the trickster Loki. The lady of the dead has promised that he shall be returned, if every living creature sheds tears for him. Please, weep."
I thought about Balder, who had done no wrong, and I thought of myself, who had done no wrong. I thought about Loki, who I did not love, and I thought about all the wrong he did, and I thought about how I had been wrong to think I could change him.
I wept. The messenger left, satisfied.
It was foolish to think that the gods had forgiven me whatever association I had with Loki. They came when I had long stopped holding my breath, and before my eyes I watched Vali writhe in pain, dark fur sprouting all over him until his cries of mother melted into the howls of a beast. With a wolf’s paws he fell upon his own brother, whom I could not help, because the gods had frozen me to the ground with their wicked spells. With a wolf’s jaw he tore open his brother’s throat, ripped the flesh all the way down to the innocent boy’s stomach, so that Narfi’s entrails were strewn upon the forest floor. When at last the carnage had stopped, one of the gods struck the wolf, and it fled into a patch of trees, spittle flying from its bloodied jaws.
I watched all this, unable to move, my eyes burning with hot tears as they scooped up the remains of my other son and forced me to follow them, an all-powerful presence shoving insistently at my feet, my bound hands.
The cavern was dark when they finally led me inside. In the dim light I could see the outline of Loki, only half recognizable, because his face had been bruised and eaten away by poison. His eyes were wide with fear - something I had thought him incapable of possessing, until that day. They removed his rough bindings, and I wondered why they would let him go; then I realized they were only moving him into a deeper space along the rock wall, where they fastened him using the innards of our son. From over his head came a deadly hissing, and when I looked up, I saw a snake so large and menacing, it seemed more deadly than even Jormungandr.
They placed a wooden bowl in my hands and had me stand beside the man I so despised. Long strings of venom dripped from the snake’s jaws into the curved surface of the bowl. Until the end of the world. The voice was Odin’s and Frigga’s all at once, every single god’s, and Nanna’s, even the dead Balder’s. They left, and the only sound that remained was the ceaseless hissing of the serpent.
"Do not hate me, wife." Loki’s voice was ragged and desperate. "Do not spoil yourself with hate."
I made no reply.
"I need you, Sigyn." My name could still sound like fruit on his tongue, but I already knew it was only because it meant him his salvation. Blinded by rage, I moved my hands away, and a trickle of poison fell on his face. He screamed in agony. All around us the rocks shook; his cry echoed throughout the boulders, split only by newer screams, each one more anguished than the one before. I listened to his wails, to the sound of his skin hissing as it melted away, I listened to it all without feeling. I looked at the dark and angry world outside the cavern, and I remembered the sky, the sweet feeling of the wind, the foolish hope that swelled in my heart as I held onto his fingers and told myself I had no sins and nothing to be sorry for.
I had done nothing to deserve this. It was fate, and it was inescapable. My fingers trembled as I brought the bowl above his head, watching with impassive eyes as his face crumpled in relief.
"You are kind," he managed to say through his infected lips, addled with poison.
"No," I said, and my voice was filled with venom. "I am not kind. But you will live, Loki. You will live until Ragnarok. I will make certain of that. Then you will defeat the gods, and make them pay for what they have done to our sons. Can you do that?" I made sure he was looking me in the eyes as I demanded a reply. "Can you do that one thing for me?"
"I can," he answered. I was gratified by the terror in his voice.
"Then I will save you." And I did. I held the bowl above his head, and forgot about goodness, forgot about pity.
Someday, the world would have to end. I was no stranger to patience. I could wait.
the end
email: scratchmist [at] yahoo.com
A/N: This is based on the legend of Loki and Balder in Norse mythology. The main source used was Edith Hamilton's Mythology, and the resources on Loki, Sigyn, and Balder in wikipedia.
I do not know why I agreed to be his wife. Anyone who asks me now will receive no answer - if I say that I had been tricked, I will be confessing to my own foolishness and naivety; if I say that I had no choice, people will scoff at my rights as a goddess; if I say that I believed he loved me, I would be lying. I knew he did not love me. He did gaze upon me with some degree of want, his bright eyes filled with passion. His smile was twisted but still, somehow, endearing. He promised me beautiful things, none of which I dared believe. I knew him already, then, though I never used his real name - trickster, I called him silently. The sly one. The troublemaker.
Why he was attracted to me, I did not know. I was beautiful, but not more than any other goddess. I was not born from a giant, so my blood could not possibly matter to him; I had no discriminating qualities except that I was gentle enough, that I always did my duty. Whenever he approached my home, all creation around me buzzed with warnings, and I comforted them with the fact that his visits amused me, and they would never amount to anything more.
You will suffer, the flowers warned. I stilled their voices with one outstretched palm, and received him graciously, as any other woman of my stature would. He was a kinsman of Odin, tied to our king by a blood oath. I did not believe that he would have any interest in me, beyond these brief visits. I refused to think that I could be swayed by his gentle words. I told myself that I would be careful, that I knew too well how he had the most cunning lips in all the lands.
"Sigyn," he whispered, and my name on his tongue sounded so sweet, like freshly-picked summer fruits. "Do you wish to fly?" And I looked into his mouth and saw that his tongue was not cleft in two, that he spoke the truth. He had also been named sky traveller, hadn’t he? The idea was so tempting that before I knew it, I had taken his hand and we were soaring in the swift windcurrents, our backs to the sun, my hair whipping about my face as I laughed and forgot to be wary. In some of my memories of those moments, he kissed me. In others, he merely looked on in amusement, his fingers curled around my wrist. If he let go, I would have fallen to my death. For the first time I realized that he had power over me, although I knew not how or why.
I already knew what my answer would be when he finally asked. I ignored the cries of the flowers, the frantic buzzing of the insects, as I slapped them away from my shins to hide the blush that had suddenly sprung to my cheeks. I told myself, I can save this man. There is good in him. I can teach him goodness.
"You are kind, Sigyn," he said. "That is why I need you." With more force than affection he tugged me into his arms and kissed me, and in my mouth I felt his tongue splitting in two, and I had to swallow a scream.
Loki had many lovers besides myself, and neither of us pretended ignorance regarding this matter. I told myself it was below my stature to be envious of them. They were creatures, giants, beasts. Of all those he made love to, I was the only goddess. Surely that amounted to something.
I tried not to be too upset when I thought of my husband covered in feathers, covered in scales, covered in all manner of furs and skins, a different form each time he sought to woo another. It became routine, his silly habit of copulating with everything that breathed under the sun; it meant nothing to me. I found my initial anger melting into curt disapproval. I am the one he married, I reminded myself, attempting to salvage the last vestiges of pride within my broken body. The idea did nothing to comfort me.
One day he came home in the form of a horse, his mouth foaming with spittle, his sides heaving with unnatural weight. I carried cool water to him and wiped his sweating, fuzzy brow, while he kicked out his legs and neighed, whinnied, vomited. Only then did I realize he was a mare.
"You are pregnant," I told him, too shocked to be properly disgusted.
The foal he bore had eight legs. He offered it to Odin as a gift, declaring with confidence that it would grow to be faster than any other animal in Aasgard.
"Where did you find such a wondrous creature?" The god of gods smiled warmly at my husband, who merely turned his cheek, in a half-hearted imitation of humility.
Angrboda once visited when Loki was not there. I kept her at the doorway for as long as I could, wondering what business such an old and powerful giantess had with me. "My husband is not home," I told her.
"I am not here to see Loki," she answered, simply. I let her enter after a few moments, my etiquette getting the better of me. For all her bulk and savagery, she was not entirely disagreeable, and even pretended to be satisfied with the bowl of soup I laid out for her. She spoke in deep, halting notes about her children: the giant wolf, the serpent, the shadow-lady who ruled the world of the dead. I knew their names, and I knew their destinies. I knew the man who slept beside me on nights when he could bother to be home was their father. I knew that the union of the giantess who sat across from me, and my husband, had produced the beings which would bring the world to an inevitable end.
"Why do you speak to me of your children?" I kept my tone neutral. "It does not matter to me what my foolish husband has done before, as long as he returns every once in a while and does not harm me."
She took a great sip from her empty bowl, and stared at me with her bulging eyes. I refused to flinch. "At the end of the world, the giants and the Aesir will fight each other to the death."
I nodded. That had been predicted since before time had existed.
"You are a goddess, but you are married to Loki, a giant."
I nodded again. Then I realized the meaning behind her visit, and smiled sweetly. I saw her shoulders move the slightest bit, in the flinch that I had not allowed myself to make. "I do not plan to partake in any wars," I replied, and it was the truth.
When I learned I was with child, I prayed day and night that it would not turn out to be anything frightening. He does not have to be handsome, I whispered into my closed fists, balled up against my mouth. She does not have to be beautiful. But let my child be ordinary. Let it breathe with life and not destruction. Let it have no other fate than to enjoy its days upon earth, where I can watch over it.
"You worry too much," Loki muttered, although in a rare display of charity he placed a cool towel on my forehead and sat beside me. It had been years since that one exhilarating moment in the sky, but every so often he could still charm me, and in those moments I did not feel so upset that the earth had stopped speaking to me since then. "I was myself when we were united, wasn’t I? And you, you are no creature of the damned. Stop sweating and praying like that, woman. It can’t possibly hurt so much. I have borne a child myself. I know."
"Yes," I whispered, but still I shivered when his lips touched my cheek. I continued to pray in silence, fiercely begging Odin to keep me from a curse I did not deserve. When Narfi was born in the form of a human child, I could not help weeping with relief.
Loki mistook it for joy, and patted my shoulder, laughing as he said "I told you so."
"What is so good about him?"
It was morning, and Loki was in a rage. I ignored him, and continued to sew new trousers for my son Vali, who was growing too quickly for a boy his age. Outside the humble house I had never left, despite my marriage, our two boys played, oblivious to their father’s ranting. I had heard all about Odin’s son, the god of light, the handsome one. I had heard about the way he sparkled even without the sun, and how his smile could stifle weeping, or soften a criminal’s heart. He was the hope of all gods. He would rescue the world from destruction.
It did not surprise me that my husband hated him so.
"I will crush him, that shining man, that disgusting boy, who thinks he is better than everyone. I will slay him," Loki spat. Only at those words did I lift my head and address him directly.
"It is impossible. Lady Frigga has demanded his safety from everything. No one will harm him. Nothing can."
"We shall see about that," he seethed, pulling on his coat and stalking out.
My fingers stiffened over their work. I stood, hardly able to contain my fear. "Do not bring danger into this house, husband. I beg you. If not for my sake, then at least for Narfi and Vali." It was the only request I had made in a long time, and I could not let any hesitation show.
He looked back at me, staring as if he could not quite see me properly. I did not lower my eyes from him. If he denies me this, I thought to myself, then I can leave him, without any guilt.
"You are so kind, Sigyn." His tone was the softest it had been in ages, and his expression was one of tenderness. "I know you will never leave me." The way he said those words with so much trust made me want to curl up and die, and in that moment I hated him, and I hated myself.
There were no words for the terror that filled me that night, when Loki came home, singing and laughing loudly and drunkenly, still wearing a woman’s dress and half speaking in a woman’s voice, as he called for me to greet him, addressing me as love, the word losing all meaning.
"You killed Balder." I held my breath, silently pleading him to deny it, although already I knew that his crime was just as I had spoken. With painful clarity I recalled the eerie silence of that afternoon, the rumbling of the sky that suggested the unrest of the gods; but I had ignored it, and had foolishly hoped that everything was well. Lady Frigga had assured all creation that her son was safe from death. I had trusted her judgement, ignoring the fact that if he thought it worth his amusement, my husband was capable of anything.
I took in the lopsided smile on his face, and my heart broke. Trembling, I moved in front of him, as if to shield him from our children, while he was in this shameful state. My hand was shaking at my side, begging to be lifted so that it could deliver the blow he deserved.
"I didn’t kill him," he answered, voice disdainful except for the slur that thickened it. "It was that blind idiot Hoor that did. I merely encouraged him to join the game - the game Frigga proposed." And he grabbed at his throat and laughed, crossing his eyes, sticking his tongue out and letting it flick from either end of his mouth. I watched this display and felt cold wells spring up everywhere inside me, but I pressed my lips together and kept from crying. He continued with this theatrics for more moments than I thought I could bear, then he moved in close and wrapped his arms around me.
"Do not be frightened, Sigyn," he breathed. "When all is lost, we can take to the skies." Then, still laughing, he turned and disappeared. I ran back into my home and woke my children, telling them that their father had committed an unspeakable crime, that we had to flee or lose our lives before dawn.
We packed up all our belongings and ran into the forest, and I ignored the sound of my beating heart, and the distant echoes of Loki shouting his fury, when he returned home the next morning and found nothing.
In the days that followed I lived halfway between fear and freedom. Loki did not seek us out, which was a relief; but every time the sky darkened I felt certain that Odin, or perhaps Thor, had come to strike me down dead. It was difficult to ignore what had happened when every day, the sorrowful cries grew louder and louder. Balder, wept the trees. Balder, wept the river. Balder, Balder, moaned the grass beneath Narfi and Vali’s feet, as they wrestled with each other and laughed with a joy I had lost long ago. Balder, our hope, all creation lamented, and I found that the name had suddenly sprung into my own mouth - that it tasted bitter, that it made me want to cry.
The messenger spared no words when he arrived at our makeshift home with his head bowed and the seal of the gods on his forehead. "My master and mistress request that you weep for their son, Balder, who had done no wrong in all his life, and yet was slain by the trickster Loki. The lady of the dead has promised that he shall be returned, if every living creature sheds tears for him. Please, weep."
I thought about Balder, who had done no wrong, and I thought of myself, who had done no wrong. I thought about Loki, who I did not love, and I thought about all the wrong he did, and I thought about how I had been wrong to think I could change him.
I wept. The messenger left, satisfied.
It was foolish to think that the gods had forgiven me whatever association I had with Loki. They came when I had long stopped holding my breath, and before my eyes I watched Vali writhe in pain, dark fur sprouting all over him until his cries of mother melted into the howls of a beast. With a wolf’s paws he fell upon his own brother, whom I could not help, because the gods had frozen me to the ground with their wicked spells. With a wolf’s jaw he tore open his brother’s throat, ripped the flesh all the way down to the innocent boy’s stomach, so that Narfi’s entrails were strewn upon the forest floor. When at last the carnage had stopped, one of the gods struck the wolf, and it fled into a patch of trees, spittle flying from its bloodied jaws.
I watched all this, unable to move, my eyes burning with hot tears as they scooped up the remains of my other son and forced me to follow them, an all-powerful presence shoving insistently at my feet, my bound hands.
The cavern was dark when they finally led me inside. In the dim light I could see the outline of Loki, only half recognizable, because his face had been bruised and eaten away by poison. His eyes were wide with fear - something I had thought him incapable of possessing, until that day. They removed his rough bindings, and I wondered why they would let him go; then I realized they were only moving him into a deeper space along the rock wall, where they fastened him using the innards of our son. From over his head came a deadly hissing, and when I looked up, I saw a snake so large and menacing, it seemed more deadly than even Jormungandr.
They placed a wooden bowl in my hands and had me stand beside the man I so despised. Long strings of venom dripped from the snake’s jaws into the curved surface of the bowl. Until the end of the world. The voice was Odin’s and Frigga’s all at once, every single god’s, and Nanna’s, even the dead Balder’s. They left, and the only sound that remained was the ceaseless hissing of the serpent.
"Do not hate me, wife." Loki’s voice was ragged and desperate. "Do not spoil yourself with hate."
I made no reply.
"I need you, Sigyn." My name could still sound like fruit on his tongue, but I already knew it was only because it meant him his salvation. Blinded by rage, I moved my hands away, and a trickle of poison fell on his face. He screamed in agony. All around us the rocks shook; his cry echoed throughout the boulders, split only by newer screams, each one more anguished than the one before. I listened to his wails, to the sound of his skin hissing as it melted away, I listened to it all without feeling. I looked at the dark and angry world outside the cavern, and I remembered the sky, the sweet feeling of the wind, the foolish hope that swelled in my heart as I held onto his fingers and told myself I had no sins and nothing to be sorry for.
I had done nothing to deserve this. It was fate, and it was inescapable. My fingers trembled as I brought the bowl above his head, watching with impassive eyes as his face crumpled in relief.
"You are kind," he managed to say through his infected lips, addled with poison.
"No," I said, and my voice was filled with venom. "I am not kind. But you will live, Loki. You will live until Ragnarok. I will make certain of that. Then you will defeat the gods, and make them pay for what they have done to our sons. Can you do that?" I made sure he was looking me in the eyes as I demanded a reply. "Can you do that one thing for me?"
"I can," he answered. I was gratified by the terror in his voice.
"Then I will save you." And I did. I held the bowl above his head, and forgot about goodness, forgot about pity.
Someday, the world would have to end. I was no stranger to patience. I could wait.
the end