“I will break the chains
I will slay the betrayers
One last time
The laughter shall resound”
-Enslaved, “Entroper”
“Wake up, ‘Son of Coul.’ It’s not your time yet.”
Agent Coulson blinked open his eyes and saw a strange woman. Long, slightly wavy light golden blonde hair flowed from beneath her spangenhelm-style helmet. She wore a shirt of chain mail armor over an authentically Viking-looking forest-green tunic, tied below her waist with a black leather belt, and black leather pants with a familiar-looking chevron pattern. Her gaze from her greenish-brown eyes pierced him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She ignored the question. She removed her hand from over his heart, where she had healed his would.
“Am I dead?” he asked.
“No, I’ve healed you. We have these things called healing stones. Your buddy Thor seems to have forgotten about them. He was never the brightest,” she replied.
“Are you a Valkyrie? Wait, aren’t you supposed to take dead warriors to Valhalla?”
“Sometimes we interfere…. You saw me because you were dying, and you are one of a limited number of humans who still believes in us. I suppose you would since you’ve met Thor and-“ She abruptly stopped, got up, and prodded him with a leather boot. “You’ll be fine now, but don’t worry, your Avengers don’t know. They are already assembling. They will stop this. As was the plan.” She picked up her magically-reinforced, round, wooden shield and the sword with which she was supposed to have stabbed him to send him to Valhalla.
“You know Thor?” he asked. She was turning to walk away. “What’s your name?”
“Sigyn.” She smirked and disappeared as he slipped into sleep.
~
Sigyn suddenly found herself standing in front of Odin in the throne room. She laughed. Her plan to get back to Asgard had actually worked. She knew that this was the one that would anger Odin enough to bring her back. Unfortunately, it would most likely only go downhill from here.
Odin glared at her. “Why did you save him? He was fated to die!”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired of doing your dirty work, bringing all these humans, who’ve died in your wars, here to you,” she stated. “Besides, it has been a while since we’ve seen each other, Allfather. Can’t I at least take a break here in Asgard for a while?”
“You know why I exiled you! Taking a lover! You could have just given me his name! I would have rather killed him than exiled you.”
“Oh, I know…. Have you ever thought that maybe everything would be better if you had just let me have a job and a life?”
“You don’t get to make the rules! I shall give you the same punishment as I gave to your idol Brynhild.”
Shit, she thought just before passing out under his magical sleep spell.
~
She dreamed. Some dreams were of the past…. Her life in Midgard. Her adventures as a shield maiden…. It wasn’t that she really enjoyed fighting and killing, but it was better than marrying some village oaf and popping out a bunch of little brats. Of course, such a life wasn’t likely to last long, and she was soon one of Odin’s Valkyries, plucking warriors for him by day and serving mead to the Einherjar by night. It became rather boring.
There was one inhabitant of Asgard though who actually had a brain. They befriended each other, and he would sneak her away from her duties. He taught her the runes and how to use their magic, and it wasn’t long before they were doing more than that. They always had to shield themselves with magic because there were prying eyes in Asgard, and everything they were doing was against the rules.
Things began to rapidly decline in Asgard. In Midgard, the Viking Age had ended. In many places, things, the governing assemblies, were dissolved, and kings forced conversion on their people as a way of gaining political favor with the other, already converted kings and strengthening their power. Kingships were made hereditary, rather than won by merit. Even in Iceland, where their tales were finally written, although the monarchy was not adopted, the people still abandoned their old gods. Odin saw the changes, and in spite of, or perhaps because of, his fury that they had been usurped, he started emulating their monarchies in Asgard, fancying himself an absolute ruler, weakening the roles of the other gods and imposing more stupidrules.
Odin was no longer the same god as Sigyn had once worshipped as a young girl in Midgard. He had been the God of Wisdom, Poetry, and Death; the Wanderer, and the Shaman, who had sacrificed himself to himself to gain knowledge and shared the runes with the Midgardian folk. Now power corrupted him more day by day. Asgard became more and more patriarchal. Frigga, the queen, did not even have any power when he was away (or sleeping). Tyr had once been the pre-eminent war god of the mainland Germanic Midgardian folk and leader of the thing, but now he was merely Odin’s general. Other gods, like Freyja and Freyr, were practically forgotten, never invited to the palace. Only Heimdall retained his post as Watchman, constantly reminding Odin of the usefulness of his special powers.
One day Odin summoned Sigyn before him.
“Sigyn, you are away from your duties more and more. Did you think I would not notice? Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg say that you never serve mead to the warriors in the feasting hall anymore. Sif says that she sees you sneaking off, she knows not where,” he stated.
Those bastards! “It’s not true!” she lied.
“Heimdall reports that he cannot see into your hall,” Odin continued.
“Creepy Heimdall has no right to be spying on me!” she shouted.
“You have a lover, don’t you? Did you think I would not notice that you seem… happy? You know I’ve forbidden that. I cannot have my Valkyries distracted. Your job is not love; it’s war! Who is it? One of the Einherjar? Tell me! I will kill him! Give him up, and I will spare you!”
“No!” She shouted. She looked at Frigga, trying to will her to understand. Unfortunately, telepathy was not actually one of the abilities provided by their magic.
“Very well,” he sighed. “I will exile you to Midgard! You will still serve as my Valkyrie but you will not get to come back here.”
She started to protest. “What? No! I really don’t think that’s-“
“Silence!” He cut her off. With that, he cast the magic that sent her on her long patrol of Midgard, unseen by humans until she captured them in death and sent them to Valhalla.
This incident and the following centuries weren’t the best of memories. There were other not-so-pleasant memories too. There was that time when his own family (or so, they thought) had tried to kill him. Well, they were going to let that damn dwarf kill him anyway. He saved himself, of course. She never ceased to be shocked by their betrayal. He had given them their most powerful weapons and greatest treasures, and that was how they repaid him! Odin even made up some lies about “uru” and a “dying star” and told tales about how he had obtained Mjølnir himself. Over time, most forgot the truth about how Thor came to have Mjølnir.
Other dreams were bits of visions she had had. A whore. A wolf, a serpent, and a half-dead girl. The revelation about his true parentage. Odin sleeping. Gungnir being handed to him. An abyss. Unheard of realms and creatures.
Of course, he had managed to piss off these aliens but came up with a plan to avoid death. He found out what they wanted and promised to get it for them, but he threw in a ridiculous plan that was sure to be foiled. He would get that blue cube away from the fools who played with it in Midgard and get it to Asgard, not give it to the aliens, as he promised. He put on a fine show for the aliens and got himself back to Asgard along with the Tesseract, which was added to the Allfather’s collection of weapons and treasures. Everyone took his plan at face value. How stupid. He wasn’t called the Trickster for nothing. She was glad at least that his instinct for self-preservation had kicked back in.
Then new visions started coming. A prison cell. Frigga dead. Journeying to Svartalfheim. “It’s a heartbeat. You’ll never be ready.” Then he was lying on the ground…. No!
She suddenly sat up, fully awake. She was in a glass cell, but the glass was shattered. She still had her armor and weapons and drawstring bag of useful items. She magicked away her armor and weapons, and quickly pulled a falcon skin out of her bag (Freyja had “misplaced” it long ago). Using the falcon skin rather than shapeshifting would allow her to save all of her energy for flying. She put it on and flew through the ruins of the dungeons and headed for the passage in the mountain.
~~~~~
“Loki! No!” Sigyn was kneeling beside him, her left hand on his cheek. Some wounds were too severe even for a god to heal themselves, as had been the case with Frigga. Sigyn pulled the healing stones out of her bag and pressed them to Loki’s wound. Fearing she was too late, she started sobbing. Finally, he stirred.
“Are we dead?” he asked softly.
“No.” She wiped her eyes and leaned over and kissed him, and he caressed her. When she pulled away and looked at him, she saw his eyes darken.
“How are you here then?” he asked coldly. “I thought you to be dead or to have run off with some idiot warrior.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Odin knew.” She filled him in briefly on her banishment, return, and subsequent long nap. She watched his expression alter between shock, anger, and sadness as he mulled over it all.
Finally, he spoke. He took her pale white hands in his. “I’m sorry. I’ve done some things….”
“I know.”
“You do? How?” he asked.
“I’ve seen it all in dreams,” she replied.
“You came anyway.”
“Yes.”
That was all that needed to be said. She sat behind him, and he rested his head on her lap as he continued to recover and regain his strength.
“Odin should pay for what he’s done,” Loki said.
“He will,” Sigyn replied.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s been prophesied. I read books when I was in Midgard. Long ago, their seers told tales of us. Some things have already happened, and some are yet to happen. The tales were eventually written down, but after the people no longer believed in us. They became even more corrupted over the centuries. Some versions are more right than others, but they generally get the gist of things…. It’s been foretold that Fenrir will kill Odin.”
Loki laughed. “I knew that they shouldn’t have chained him. Odin and his self-fulfilling prophecies. He was told of that tale by the Norns, so he had Fenrir chained. Shall we free the wolf?”
“There may be a problem with that,” Sigyn said.
“What?”
“You will set off Ragnarok, the end of the worlds,” she said. “Maybe you already have. You were chained and imprisoned, but now you’re free. And I’m here with you. It’s sort of like the tales.”
“I still don’t see the problem.”
“We’ve just gotten back together. Maybe we should try to not die right away.”
“Right,” he said. “So, what should we do? We can’t just go back to Asgard. Odin will put us back in prison. Even after all I’ve done today. Or maybe he’ll just kill us both now that Frigga is dead,” he said.
“I don’t know. We need to think. There’s no time though. Odin’s ravens will find us.”
“We should disguise ourselves as guards. I say we get the wolf and figure the rest out later.”
They got up, and she looked up at him, as he was quite taller than her. He pressed her to him and hugged her. She rested her head against his chest. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “We were a good team.”
“We still are,” she said.
They walked to the ship that Loki and Thor had abandoned and disguised themselves as guards. They flew back to the portal, back to Asgard, and to the island of Lyngvi.
~
Sigyn put the little gray mouse into a pouch of her bag. “He’s so adorable like this. Why didn’t anyone think of this back then?” They had used their rune magic to break Gleipnir, Fenrir’s chain, and cast new magic to change his form.
“Because they’re not as smart as you. Odin really should have kept you around.” Loki smirked. “Of course, then we wouldn’t be here,” he added bitterly, and she nodded.
Still disguised as guards, they returned to the ship and flew to the palace. It was largely destroyed and seemed to be deserted.
“The guards must still be searching for Thor and me,” said Loki. “But where are the Imbeciles Three and the Whore Sif?”
“At the pub, knowing them,” Sigyn sneered.
Loki laughed and then said, “Maybe they were sent off to look too and went along with it to hide their treason.”
“That would make sense too,” she conceded.
From the main hall, Sigyn wandered out to the terrace while Loki headed for the throne room. There she saw one of the ravens. The bird was in a state of distress, pacing back and forth and squawking. He seemed oblivious to her.
“Where is your friend?” she asked.
“Dead,” squawked the bird.
Like the legendary Sigurd, with their magic, Sigyn, Loki, Frigga, and Odin could understand the speech of birds. She tried to hide her shock and mumbled “I wish I could understand you.” She quickly went back inside.
Loki returned from the throne room. “I just talked to Odin. I told him we found my body.” He laughed. “He may even be suspicious and worried now. Come on, bring Fenrir.”
“No,” she said slowly. “It’s not necessary. He is already half dead.” She told him about the raven.
“We could finish him off.”
“Maybe it’s better if we don’t. If Fenrir doesn’t kill him, we’re not giving in to the prophecy. Maybe our own fate will be better,” she said. Then she wondered aloud, “Maybe that’s why I woke up; he could no longer hold the spell.”
Loki sighed. “It was a better story when you woke up to save me.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Forget I said that. We can bide our time here. It won’t be long.”
~
They spent the night in his old chambers, in their normal forms, of course. Loki had cast concealment magic over the room. Their clothes were strewn across the floor. Fenrir the mouse was nestled in the drawer of a dresser. Sigyn awoke to find Loki already awake. She turned toward him. He was staring at the ceiling and looking thoughtful.
“I would like to read those books of prophecy about us,” he said.
“No. You wouldn’t,” she replied. “Besides, as I said, it’s not always accurate.”
“For example?” he asked.
“They say you are Odin’s blood brother instead of his adopted son.”
“What’s the difference? I was always only someone to be used to suit his purposes.”
“Yeah. And, uh, they say we have sons.”
He looked alarmed.
“Don’t worry, my magic still prevents that.” She had never felt any maternal urgings. Fortunately, however, she did like animals. “Good thing,” she continued. “It doesn’t end well for them in the stories. Sometimes the humans’ imaginations are sicker than ours. Anyway, they are just plot devices,” she said.
“Anything else of note?” he asked.
“They say that you kill a son of Odin named Baldur,” she replied.
“Who?”
“Exactly.”
“Has Odin hidden a son from us?” he wondered.
She shrugged. “Just because the humans worship a god doesn’t mean he exists. Likewise, demonizing a god doesn’t wish away chaos or darkness or change.” She booped him on the nose with her finger.
He grabbed her hand and pinned her arm back behind her head as he rolled over on top of her.
~
Later, disguised as guards again, they knocked on Odin’s chamber door. Sigyn had Fenrir the Mouse back in the pouch of her bag, just in case. They had decided to search the living quarters first. There was no response. Loki slowly opened the door, and they looked in.
There lay Odin on the floor, fat and bloated, a leg of roasted boar still clutched in one hand. Loki felt for a pulse. “He is dead.”
“Done in by too much meat and mead,” she said. “Let’s get out of here. We shouldn’t be the ones who find him.”
“First, I need to borrow this.” Loki grabbed Gungnir.
“Why do you need that?” Sigyn asked.
“I have unfinished business. I promised someone a Tesseract.”
~
They went to the throne room on the way to the main hall. Holding Gungnir, Loki changed into the form of Odin. He walked up the steps to the throne and sat on it.
“Change back into your own form,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow at him but did so. She was standing off to one side, beside one of the remaining pillars.
“Sigyn, you have broken the Valkyrie code,” he said in mock sternness. “Come here for a spanking.” He snickered.
“Get out!” She threw a pebble-sized piece of rubble at him, and he flicked it away.
She froze as she heard someone approaching from the main hall. She nodded toward the entrance. It was too late for Loki to change forms again or disguise Gungnir. It was Thor. Sigyn hid behind the pillar while Thor started talking.
“Father, I have defeated Malekith and put the Aether in the weapons vault!” Thor announced.
“Well done, son!” said Loki.
Sigyn barely succeeded in not laughing out loud.
“Where is Heimdall? I had to fly all the way to the old Bifrost,” whined Thor.
“Heimdall was temporarily relieved of his duties for committing treason. You know you can always use the old Bifrost even if it is less convenient,” replied Loki.
Thor continued to ramble, saying that he did not want to be king. When Thor left, Loki changed to his own form, and Sigyn came out from behind the pillar.
“That was amusing, but how did you know what Thor said about Odin being wise?” she asked. “He didn’t deny it.”
“Just a guess. It seemed like the sort of ass-kissing thing he would say in his new so-called maturity. Which, by the way, I brought about.”
“You’re forgetting something now though,” she said.
“What?”
“Your helmet!” she exclaimed.
He magicked on his helmet and also his green cape. She smiled and clapped.
“Now come here,” he said.
Still smiling, she walked up the steps.
~
From the main hall, and disguised as guards again for the sake of caution, they made their way to the weapons vault. Loki retrieved the Tesseract. Sigyn carried it since Loki already held Gungnir. Now they had to figure out how to make contact with The Other now that Loki no longer possessed the mind-controlling scepter.
“If we had Heimdall’s power, we could find The Other and use the Bifrost to get to him,” Loki said.
“Speaking of Heimdall, maybe we should have thought of him earlier. He could be spying on us,” Sigyn stated.
“Our magic should be blocking him. But still, let’s take care of him, just in case.”
“You can’t kill him!” she exclaimed.
“Why not?”
“It is foretold that you will kill each other. I can’t have him killing you!” She paused and then said, “I’ll take care of him.”
“That’s my girl.” He smiled.
“Let’s check his post at the Bifrost and see if he really isn’t there,” she said.
~
They went to the observatory and found it deserted. Loki stood on Heimdall’s podium. After a moment, he smirked and said, “Well, well, well. Stand here and think of Heimdall.” He dropped his guard disguise, and said “Go on, it’s safe to be yourself.”
She dropped her disguise too as he stepped down from the podium. She took his place and gasped. She had a vision of Heimdall in a prison cell, without his armor, and looking concerned. His power did not come from within; it came from the source of the Bifrost, where he always stood. Anyone could do it.
“You know,” she said. “This is why we haven’t seen any guards. Odin, in full Fury and declining Thought, sent them all off to find Thor, but imprisoned Heimdall. No one is here to open the portal to bring them back.”
“And they didn’t want me to be king.” Loki rolled his eyes.
“I know, right? Well, anyway, we know where Heimdall is now.”
“Let’s go then.”
~
They went to the dungeons to deal with Heimdall. A cold draft filled the passages, so Loki magicked on their furs.
“Oh, I forgot about these!” exclaimed Sigyn. “They seem so politically incorrect now.”
“What?” asked Loki.
“In Midgard the humans wear cheap, synthetic fabrics now. Like they really care about the animals. In my day we had to use fur. Now they keep their livestock locked up and packed together in factory farms. They are all sick and mistreated.” She was getting annoyed thinking about it.
Loki looked at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to start Ragnarok?”
She just half-smiled in reply as they proceeded through the halls.
They found Heimdall in one of the few unbroken cells. Without their disguises, he knew what was coming. Sigyn walked ahead grimly and took the mouse out of her bag.
“This is one of the ones who chained you,” she said to Fenrir.
Loki used Gungnir to smash the glass, and Sigyn released the shapeshifting magic she had cast on Fenrir, letting him resume wolf form. He lunged at Heimdall, and Sigyn watched the wolf maul her husband’s would-be killer. When it was over, she transformed Fenrir back to mouse form. He hopped into her hand, and she put him back in the pouch. Loki cast magic to burn the body and to arrange the glass to look like it had been broken from the inside. Then he held her hand as they walked back to the Bifrost.
~
“This should work,” said Loki.
“Now that we know that we don’t need to be Heimdall,” said Sigyn.
Loki searched the star map and located the alien realm into which he had fallen from the abyss. He thought of The Other and located him. He aimed the portal at the spot.
“It’s ready,” he said and stepped down. Sigyn stepped onto the podium and opened the Bifrost for him. She still carried the Tesseract, and he still carried Gungnir. He disguised it as an ordinary spear and stepped into the portal. From the podium, Sigyn watched him in her thoughts.
Loki appeared before The Other. “I have what you wanted,” he announced. “If you still want it, meet me here with Thanos. Just the two of you. I ask only one thing in return: a good seat from which to watch Midgard burn.”
“Very well, Asgardian. You shall have your childish vengeance against Midgard if you give us the Tesseract.”
“Then get Thanos. I will know when you are both here and will return with it.”
He stepped back into the portal, which Sigyn had left open, churning into the rock of the planet, providing both a quick exit and motive for The Other to agree quickly.
~
They waited until they saw that Thanos had joined the other.
“Are you ready?” Loki asked Sigyn.
“Of course,” she replied. “Are you?”
“Of course.”
They exchanged weapons. Loki stepped onto the podium, holding the Tesseract in its handy cylindrical carrying case. Sigyn stood in front of the portal and disguised herself as a guard. Gungrir once again was made to look like an ordinary spear. Loki pushed down Heimdall’s sword to open the Bifrost, and Sigyn stepped into the portal.
She was transported to the realm of the aliens. Loki appeared in front of her. The Other and Thanos stood waiting, as promised. They saw Loki holding the Tesseract and began to approach. Not wasting a second, Sigyn aimed Gungnir through the illusion of Loki and blasted the two aliens. They burst into gold sparks, completely destroyed. She stepped back through the portal. Loki closed the Bifrost behind her. She resumed her own form.
“It’s done,” she stated.
He smiled at her with admiration. “Well done.”
“They should have known the tale of Thiazi and what ultimately happened to him.” She smirked. “Let’s put these back,” she said, nodding toward the weapons.
~
The next morning, they sat in the dining hall, eating some bread and fruit that they had found in the kitchen. Loki leaned back in a chair with his feet on the table. Sigyn sat next to him on the table with her feet dangling above the floor. Fenrir the Mouse was chewing on a carrot. After finishing a bowl of berries, Sigyn said, “This feasting, it makes me think of someone.”
“Oh, no….”
“We should get Thor to come back, at least to escort us back on our official return and to bring back the guards. He knows that you ‘died’ with honor and will tell everyone. No one else knows.”
“No,” Loki said flatly.
“Also, the people like him. And trust him,” she continued.
He sighed, “Very well.”
~
They went to the Bifrost, and Sigyn searched for Thor. She saw him alone in a room, reclining on a couch, in a building in New York that had an “A” on it. He looked mopey. “I found him,” she said. Loki opened the Bifrost for her. She stepped out of the portal onto the roof of the building. She magicked on her chainmail armor and sword, just because she felt like it, and snuck inside through a sliding glass door.
“Sigyn! I have not seen you for ages! What brings you here? Where have you been?” Thor exclaimed happily and obliviously.
“Oh, you know…. I was away on business for your father,” she began. “I’ve come here because I have news. But, why did you look so sad? What troubles you?”
“It is Jane Foster. My girlfriend… ex-girlfriend. The day after we bedded each other, she announced that she realized that we have nothing in common and that it was just lust. Those are her words.”
Thankfully! “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Thor, maybe you would be happier if you would just forgive Sif. You weren’t exactly faithful yourself during that time. Remember Jarnsaxa?” When Thor had dumped her, Sif stopped wearing the wig of gold that Loki had obtained for her. She started dying her natural hair, which was growing back, black and trained as a warrior. That was all fine, but she still pined for Thor. She became especially petulant toward Loki, as though everything had been his fault; all he had done was cut her hair. Sigyn somewhat sympathized, as she too valued her own long locks, but everyone had grown tired of Sif boasting about her spectacular hair, which looked the same as that of a good majority of the women in Asgard.
“I am not sure if she would still have me back after all of this. Anyway, what is your news?” Thor asked.
“Loki is alive!” Sigyn said excitedly and smiled.
“No, it is not possible. I saw him dead.”
“No, Thor, he was near death but just unconscious. I found him in Svartalfheim. He has recovered.”
“That is great news!” exclaimed Thor.
“Thor, we need your help. You’re the only one who knows of Loki’s heroic deeds. Please come home at least to escort us back to the palace and make us welcome. I fear that Odin will put Loki back in the dungeons if we just enter ourselves, without you to tell his tale. Also, since we’ve been in Asgard, we have seen no sign of any guards. Or of Heimdall. We are concerned. We don’t know what is happening.”
“I would gladly lead you back, and you are right, I must find out what is happening.”
“Thank you, Thor,” she said sincerely.
They went out to the roof, and Sigyn held up her sword and shouted in mock dramatics, “Bifrost! I summon thee!”
~
Sigyn and Thor stepped through the portal and into the observatory.
“Loki! It is true, you are alive!” Thor grabbed Loki by the neck and hugged him. Thor had a weird habit of doing that.
“I’m glad that you seem happy about it,” said Loki smoothly. “And that you’re back. As you can see, we’ve had to find you and use the Bifrost ourselves. We think perhaps the guards and warriors were sent off to find you, but Heimdall seems to have abandoned his post, leaving the guards we know not where.”
“Can you find them like you found me?” asked Thor.
“I can try,” replied Sigyn. She stood on the podium and scanned Midgard. “I don’t see them in Midgard.” Then she tried Svartalfheim. They were nowhere near where Thor and Loki had been, so she searched further. “Ah, it appears that they were sent to the opposite side of Svartalfheim.”
Loki turned around so that Thor couldn’t see him snickering. Sigyn opened the portal to bring them back. The guards and warriors, led by Tyr, filed back in through the portal. Last to emerge were Thor’s buddies, Fandral, Volstagg, and Sif. They looked at Loki suspiciously.
“Go on, tell them,” Sigyn prodded Thor to tell them of how Loki had saved Jane and Thor and that he and Sigyn were welcome back in Asgard. He did so and then suggested that they all go to the palace.
Tyr led the guards and warriors in first. Sigyn grabbed Thor’s arm. “Remember Thor, you promised to tell Odin too,” she said.
“Of course!” he replied. They entered the main hall.
“The Svartálfar caused so much damage,” said Sigyn, feigning shock.
“Yes, I am afraid so,” replied Thor.
“We will wait here until you’ve made sure that it’s okay with Odin that we enter,” she said.
Sigyn and Loki stood in the hall and waited. Soon, they heard much commotion.
After a while, Thor came back. He looked shocked and sad. “Odin is dead,” he announced.
“What?” said Sigyn.
“How? He survived the attack by the Svartálfar,” said Loki.
“The guards found him,” replied Thor. “He seems to have died of natural causes.”
“Frigga’s death may have been too much for him. It is fortuitous that you have come home and will be here for the funeral,” Sigyn said pointedly.
“What am I to do now?” Thor continued obliviously. “I had told him that I do not want the throne…. Do you still want it, Loki?”
“Actually, no,” said Loki.
“You jest!” said Thor.
“Why don’t we discuss this tomorrow. This has been a great shock,” said Sigyn.
“You are right,” said Thor. “Join me for dinner later, and then we will hold Father’s funeral tonight. Loki, you may have your old chambers. Mother left them as they were. Sigyn, we will walk with you to your old hall in the Valkyrie quarters.”
“No, actually, I won’t be going there,” she said.
“Oh?” asked Thor.
“She’ll be staying with me,” said Loki. He put his arm around her.
“Oh!” exclaimed Thor. “Good for you, brother!” He slapped Loki on the shoulder.
Sigyn rolled her eyes.
~
When they were alone in their room, Sigyn took Fenrir the Mouse out of her bag.
“What will we do with him now? Keep him like this?” asked Loki.
“I have an idea,” said Sigyn. She transformed Fenrir into a cat. He was slender and gray and had green eyes. She had saved a small piece of Gleipnir and fastened it around his neck as a collar. It would hold the magic that kept him a cat without her having to expend any more energy.
“Are you sure? A cat might be more fierce than a wolf,” said Loki.
“No, he’ll be sweet and cuddly,” Sigyn assured him.
Fenrir bonked his head on her leg and rubbed against her. Then he plopped down on the floor and rolled around, and she petted him.
“OK, not more fierce…. Must we attend Odin’s funeral?” asked Loki.
“Maybe we should make an appearance,” Sigyn said.
Later, they went to the dining hall to meet Thor for dinner. They brought Fenrir.
“When did you get a cat?” asked Thor.
“We found him wandering around the grounds and decided to keep him,” said Loki. He gave Fenrir a piece of chicken.
After dinner, all of the citizens of Asgard attended Odin’s funeral. Thor seemed to be the only one who was genuinely sad. Loki just stared ahead icily while Sigyn wished it would hurry up and end. Tyr, Freyja, Freyr, and the other gods seemed to just be there out of duty.
Afterward, when Loki and Sigyn were back in their chambers, she sat down on the bed and took off her raven necklace. “I should have burned this in the funeral fire.”
Loki sat down next to her. “No, you don’t need to.”
“How can you say that?” she asked.
“You don’t wear it for the old man,” he said. “You never did. You wear it for what it stands for: seeking knowledge and having strength in battle.”
“You’re right.” She put it back on and felt relieved to no longer be conflicted by it. She hugged him and said, “For being called the Father of Lies, you say a lot of things that are true.”
~
The next morning, there was a knock on their chamber door.
“Go away!” yelled Loki.
There was another knock. Fenrir the Cat growled and hid behind the dresser.
A woman called out, “Thor summons you to the dining hall.” Apparently, Thor had summoned back the household staff, who had all been evacuated during the attack.
“Always wanting to eat…,” mumbled Loki.
Sigyn got up and cracked opened the door. “OK, thanks,” she said.
“I’ve also been instructed to offer you the customary palace attire,” said the woman. “I can alter a gown to fit you, but I’m afraid Jane Foster took the only small breast plate…”
“No thanks!” Sigyn shut the door before the woman could finish then exclaimed, “Are you kidding me! Those things are ridiculous! What good is that so called ‘armor’ that only covers the breasts?”
“You shouldn’t have answered the door,” said Loki. “Come back to bed.”
She lied back down on the bed. “You know, Frigga should have owned proper, full-torso armor that she could have summoned. Maybe she would have had a chance to protect herself and counter-attack.”
Loki sighed. “You know what else…,” he said. “Even if Odin had found her in time, he would not have saved her because that would have required using the ‘unmanly’ practice of magic.”
“And they think we’re the fucked up ones,” she said.
She put her arm around him under the blankets. He stretched out his arm and wrapped it around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
~
Loki and Sigyn eventually joined Thor for breakfast. They brought Fenrir the Cat, and Loki grabbed some meat from the table and gave it to him. Thor looked mopey again.
“Who will rule Asgard?” Thor pondered, half to himself. “I just want to protect the realms but out in the field, fighting, not sitting on the throne.”
“Thor, do you remember when your father sat in counsel with Tyr, Njord, Aegir, Ran, Heimdall, Frigga, and his brothers Vili and Ve?” asked Sigyn.
“Ah, yes, that was a long time ago!” he replied. “We were just children,” he added to Loki.
“I propose that we abolish the monarchy and bring back the counsel,” continued Sigyn. “The burden of ruling would not fall on one person. Maybe you two could even be on the counsel together, as Odin and his brothers were.”
Thor thought for a moment. “I like this idea. I accept! Now let’s eat!”
~
After they ate, Sigyn approached Tyr and told him of the plan. Of course, he was thrilled to resume his place as head of the thing. They then assembled the other gods and goddesses and also the Einherjar and Valkyries. Tyr, Thor, Freyja, Freyr, Idunn, and, surprisingly, Loki and Sigyn, along with a representative of the Einherjar and a representative of the Valkyries, were elected to the nine-member counsel. It turned out that Heimdall was not the most popular god in Asgard. The others all assumed that he had escaped from the prison and fled. The first thing the counsel voted was to ban the use of the observatory for spying on each other’s personal lives. They all agreed to take turns using it to keep a general watch on the other realms, in case of trouble. The others also voted to elevate Sigyn to goddess status and named her Goddess of Fidelity for her loyalty to Loki. She would have preferred something cooler-sounding, like Goddess of Dark Desires, Fiery Vengeance, and Cats. Oh well.
Everything was going well. Odin was dead by his own doing, Heimdall was killed by Fenrir and was no longer a threat, Loki was alive and free, and Asgard was returning to its former glory. The council had voted to tear down the palace and replace it with a public meeting hall and park land. Loki and Sigyn had their own private hall, plus a stable for Sleipnir, built outside the city, near the spruce forest. Surely, they had beaten the prophecy. Hadn’t they?
When Sigyn took her watch in the observatory, she would look for signs of trouble in Midgard because there was just one thing left that had not been addressed: Surtr.
From her time spent stuck in Midgard, reading the news and scientific journals in their libraries, she already knew that the planet was not in a good state. Human population was out of control, and the planet was being affected. She saw the signs. The humans were letting their ash trees, the descendants of Yggdrasil itself, be killed by an invasive species, the emerald ash borer. Before that, they had let their elm trees die of a blight called Dutch elm disease. According to Asgard’s legends, Ask (ash) had been the first man, and Embla (elm) had been the first woman, made from these trees. There were other troubling news reports: Surtr and the forces of Muspellheim were stirring.
Then one day she saw it. She approached Loki. “It’s coming,” she said.
“What?” he asked.
“Ragnarok,” she replied.
“But, we did everything differently.”
“Some things we can’t control.”
“Have you told the others?” he asked.
“No. What good would it do? This is not the sort of thing that the others know how to fight. Midgard will be destroyed from within. There is no stopping it,” she said.
“True. But, what of Asgard?” he asked.
“You tell me. What of Asgard?” she replied.
He thought for a moment. “Leave it to me,” he said.
~
Sigyn and Loki stood together at the podium in the observatory and watched the flames erupting in Midgard. The earth shook and lava and ash spewed forth. Muspellheim was the name of the interior of Midgard, and Surtr was the name of the magma, lava, and ash that erupted from it.
The sequence of events was cataclysmic, everything set in motion as if by chain reaction. The Katla and Grimsvötn volcanoes in Iceland were erupting, throwing off and melting the glacial ice that had covered them. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted. The Pacific “Ring of Fire” was wracked with earthquakes and more volcanoes.
This was just the beginning. The Chaos would soon find its way to Asgard. The lava fountains would reach so high that they would penetrate the Aurora Borealis, the original Rainbow Bridge, whose power the gods had harnessed to build the portal that they controlled.
In Midgard, the Chaos would be followed by Fimbulvetr, the long winter. Any humans that survived the eruptions would kill each other in the ensuing wars over scarce resources. With all of the ancient, sacred ash trees dead, there would be nowhere for any humans to hide to survive, as was the hope in the prophecies.
“The humans used to say that you caused earthquakes,” said Sigyn.
“I’m just standing here!” Loki said indignantly.
“I know, right?” she said. “I hope other species will survive,” she continued sadly.
“Maybe Jormungand will be safe since he’s at the bottom of the ocean,” said Loki.
“And since Thor isn’t there to kill him,” said Sigyn.
They looked toward the vast plain of Vigrid, which lay on the outskirts of Asgard, between the city and the Asgardian side of the old Rainbow Bridge. Orange and red started to glow at the very end of the space.
“It’s here,” Sigyn said grimly.
“I’m ready,” Loki stated.
~
They hurried out of the city to the edge of the plain. There a ship sat waiting. It was made of the nails of corpses.
“Was this really necessary?” asked Sigyn.
“Oh, yes!” said Loki. “The other ships aren’t fast enough. Hel made it for me. I told her that she can visit Asgard whenever she wants now that Odin is dead.”
“It’s lovely,” Sigyn replied.
“I knew that this day would come,” he said. “I dreamed of leading the Chaos into Asgard…. Let’s go. You need to steer.”
“Really? But I like it when you do it,” she said.
He smiled. “I need to do something else.”
They climbed aboard the ship. Sigyn took the helm and began flying the ship. Loki picked up a rectangular object. They met the flames, and Loki unleashed the power of the Casket of Ancient Winters. The flames and lava froze as they met with the cold and ice. Loki turned into blue Jotun form from holding the casket. Sigyn flew the ship along the entire line of lava. When the flames had all frozen, Loki put the casket down and turned back to normal form. Sigyn landed the ship back where they had started.
“I didn’t destroy Asgard after all,” Loki said and smiled.
Sigyn ran over to him and hugged him. “I knew that you could save us if you wanted to,” she said.
~~~~~
The downfalls of Odin and humanity had been parallel after all. They had both turned religion into an excuse to repress people with unnatural morality and politics, rather than a means of understanding the natural world, and had ruined their realms. Asgard still stood though, and other life would generate in Midgard.
When the other gods and goddesses saw the frozen lava and realized that Loki had actually saved Asgard, they were more appreciative than Odin had ever been. They finally treated Loki as an equal. Thor was saddened about his precious Midgard but looked forward to the new life that would follow.
Loki and Sigyn returned home. Fenrir the Cat was curled up in the middle of the couch, so they squeezed together on one side of him. Sigyn handed Loki a glass of wine and raised her own chalice.
“To us,” she said.
“To us,” he replied.
**********
“Fate is just the weight of circumstances”
- Rush, “Roll the Bones”