The Lighthouse

“I’ll tell Father what you did here today.”

“I didn’t do it for him.”

There’s a light haloing his brother’s face, growing brighter and brighter until his silhouette has been washed away with the barren landscape as his own vision turns white behind his eyelids and even still it grows brighter, so bright it sears his retinas, so bright it hurts–

Loki gasps for air without realizing, breaking through the bitter cold of the water—water? There’s no chance to process it—another wave crashes over his head and thrusts him beneath the inky black of the sea. He thrashes against the current, fighting his way back to the surface even as the piercing pain in his chest explodes throughout his torso. It takes everything to keep himself from going under again. The light has moved—no longer on his face, it cuts through the starless void of the night sky, a glowing beacon in the dark, moving slowly across the horizon. Loki can’t breathe.

This isn’t Valhalla.

That much is clear, and the realization numbs him more than the cold. He died in battle. He died fighting for Asgard, for Thor, for her.She was supposed to be there to greet him. His eyes burn with salt and tears. It’s supposed to be over—he fought and died, why can’t he rest? Why is it not over? Norns, he just wants it to be over!

If not Valhalla, where am I?

He can’t think of any story that told of an ocean waiting beyond death, but he doesn’t have much time to try to remember either because yet another wave is cresting, and he barely has a moment to gulp a mouthful of air before he goes under yet again.

He must get out of this water. He can’t last like this. The light swoops across the ocean once more in the same steady movement. A lighthouse, he realizes suddenly, and curses himself for not making the connection sooner. A lighthouse means land, and people to tend to it. A lighthouse means safety. In this moment, nothing else could matter more.

Loki gasps a great heaving breath and begins kicking towards the light.

It’s a slow process. He has no way of knowing how long he’s been there, thrashing along the surface as best he can with what feeling he has left in his extremities. Between the waves slapping him back and the current tugging him every which way, it’s hard to believe he’s made any progress. The wound in his chest burns with every movement of his arms, a searing pain that zips up his spine and streaks all along his torso. His mouth is dry with blood. And all the while, the light flashes before him, soft and mocking as ever. Perhaps the lighthouse isn’t real, he wonders hazily; perhaps it exists only in his mind, and he’s condemned to suffer these waves until Ragnarok comes as penance for his failings in life.

He’s barely conscious enough to register when his feet scrape against sharp rock, his fingers almost too numb to grasp the stony shoreline. He collapses in a heap where the waves deposit him on the coast, his labored breathing drowning out all other sound. He knows he should crawl up, at least get his lower half out of the water, but his body is leaden and heavy, and Loki can feel himself drifting away.

I’m dead. Above him, the light flickers around a shape, a dark silhouette, a woman’s form. As weary as he is, his heart leaps in relief.

“Mother?” he calls out weakly.

There’s no response. The light is fading around him, and he’s fading with it. I’m dead, he thinks again. What an odd way to be dead…

…

He wakes gradually—so gradually that he doesn’t quite realize what it is he’s doing even as he blinks the sleep from his eyes. There’s the plush of mattress beneath his back, cotton blanket bunched around his waist. He’s in bed. For a brief moment it’s his bed, the one in his palace bedroom just down the hall from Thor’s, and he’s a child stirring awake after having fallen asleep atop the book he stayed up too late reading. But Loki blinks again, and the memory fades back into its place in a past life.

The room in which he wakes is no palatial chamber. It’s small, and quite barren—aside from the bed (which is more of a cot, now that he’s looking at it properly) there’s nothing more than a modest nightstand and a faded rug for furnishing. The stone walls are gray and dusted with age. A lantern flickers on its hook next to the door. The window to his right is draped with thick black fabric, with not the slightest hint of daylight peaking through.

Loki shivers, and it’s then that he realizes his chest is bare. Both his armor and his tunic have vanished, and his torso is wrapped in white cloth bandages. He presses his hand to the spot where the dark elf’s sword pierced his body. The pain is still there, but it’s muted ache rather than a biting hurt—the ache of a wound attended to briefly by a healer’s magic. Loki’s head is spinning. He presses harder and winces.

Is he dead? Alive? Surely a deceased soul would no longer require a healer’s touch, but in the same vein, if he had somehow been rescued from Svartalfheim, would he not have awoken in his Asgardian cell rather than … whatever this place is? And the ocean—had he dreamt that? Or had someone pulled him out? Who healed him? Where is he?

Loki pulls himself up with a groan. His body feels stiff, out of use, and he wonders how long he’s been laying here. Beneath the blanket, he finds that his boots have also been removed, although thankfully his mysterious guardian deigned to leave him his trousers. He sighs, bracing himself against the chill in the air, and staggers towards the door.

It leads him out into a cramped hallway, the right side ending in a wall and another covered window, the left twisting around what appeared to be the base of a staircase and disappearing into another room. Loki’s chest aches with a new vigor, and he leans against the doorframe to catch his breath, glaring daggers at his bandaged torso. It’s ridiculous that such a short distance would demand so much effort, he barely walked his own length—

But he’s distracted from his frustration by the sound that cuts through the silence—a lilting, feminine hum from somewhere down the corridor. Loki freezes.

He knows that melody. It’s a lullaby—a soft, gentle little tune that Frigga would sing to them as children to soothe them at night. The thought brings a lump to his throat. How long has it been since those days? All at once he remembers the woman on the beach.

Could it be?

Loki is too afraid to let himself hope. Instead, he rushes down the hallway with a new urgency.

The space he finds himself in is not much bigger than the room in which he awoke. It’s a small kitchen area, lined with cupboards and shelves and a meager counter space. A simple stovetop rests in the corner, a looming grandfather clock in the other. A table and a pair of chairs sit across from the large window on the left wall, a window covered, just as the ones that came before. On the right, a narrow staircase ascends into darkness.

The source of the humming stands at the stovetop, tending to a whistling kettle. Loki’s heart falls—it’s not his mother. No, this woman is much younger—a slender, almost ghostlike form in her creamy white dress, frayed hem brushing against the floor as she sways gently to the sound of her own voice. Her dark hair rests in a long braid down the length of her back. She wraps the kettle’s handle in a stained cloth as she moves it from the stove with the practiced motion of someone who’s done so a hundred times before. It’s then that she turns to see him standing at the room’s entrance and freezes with a gasp.

“Oh!” Her brown eyes wide, she stares at him as if he’s risen from the dead. Perhaps he has. Her expression turns hard. “What are you doing up?”

Loki stiffens. “Who are you?”

The woman ignores the question, dropping the kettle on the counter with a clang as she rushes towards him. Loki tenses, half expecting a struggle, but before she even reaches his side he finds himself whisked into one of the chairs, landing with a thud against the wood, head spinning.

He grunts. Seidr. It shouldn’t be a surprise—after all, he had known that his injuries must have been treated with magic—but he finds himself caught off guard just the same.

Loki moves to stand up, but the woman is in front of him now, gently but firmly pressing him back into the seat. Her hands are clammy on his bare shoulders.

“You’re not supposed to be up yet,” she frets. “You’ll hurt yourself—” She tips his chin up to peer at his eyes before pressing two fingers to his pulse. Loki flinches away instinctively. Her skin is cold, but it’s not just that—there’s something about her, the ease, the familiarity with which she touches him, that he finds disquieting.

“Who are you?” he demands again. “Why did you rescue me?”

She glances back at him, as if the question caught her off guard. “I-I’m Sigyn. I tend to the lighthouse.” She bites her lip. “You washed up on the beach.”

The lighthouse. Loki remembers the beam of light he had so frantically kicked through the waves towards. So that had been real after all. This ramshackle building must be it. Still, it explains very little of his predicament.

His eyes narrow at his rescuer. “You’re Asgardian.” Sigyn looks as though she is going to argue, but there’s no denying her accent. He continues without giving her the chance. “What is this place? It’s not Asgard.”

She hesitates. “It’s … it’s a kind of in-between.” Her gaze drifts to the covered window. “Not many find their way here.”

“In between what?” Loki asks. “The realms?”

Sigyn huffs a dry laugh, straightening to her feet. “The realms don’t exist here.” She returns to the kettle on the counter to pour a cup of steaming tea, a cup she then presses into his hands. “You should drink this. It will help with your healing.”

Loki eyes the tea suspiciously. The color is normal enough, but it has a medicinal stench about it that makes his eyes water. He has no intention of drinking it.

Instead, he glares back at her. “You didn’t answer my question.”

She sighs, collapsing into the chair across from him. “This is a place in between life and death. Somewhere neither living nor dead.”

Loki frowns. “That’s impossible. There’s no such place.”

Sigyn laughs again, but the sound has a far more bitter edge than before. “I thought so too,” she says. “Then I woke up here. It’s not so bad, though. A bit lonely, but …” Her voice goes quiet. After a moment she smiles, but it seems more of a pained act than anything else. “It could be worse.”

His frown deepens. None of this makes any sense. “But … then … if that’s the case, how did I come to be here?” he asks. “Why am I not simply dead?” He strains to remember his last moments on Svartalfheim, strains to recall anything out of the ordinary that could have happened to cast him here, but there’s nothing. He fell to an Elven sword in battle. There’s no reason why he should be anything but dead.

Sigyn only shrugs. “I don’t know. I just found you.” She’s not looking at him, picking at a splinter on the side of the table. Loki’s gaze darkens, but he doesn’t show it in his voice.

“How did you come to be here, then?” he asks.

His hostess doesn’t answer. Instead, she shakes her head, closing her eyes and motioning towards the tea. “Please drink it.” Her voice is thick. “I promise it will help.”

Loki raises his eyebrows. “And I’m to trust the promise of a strange woman who claims to be neither living nor dead and won’t give a straight answer?”

Sigyn looks back at him, eyes wide. “I couldn’t kill you if I wanted to.” There’s a desperate tinge to her voice as she leans forward. “Death doesn’t exist here.”

“If that’s the case, why bother healing me?”

“I …” She stops, and Loki is stunned to realize there’s tears pooling in her eyes.

“I don’t like to see you in pain,” she whispers at last.

There’s a heaviness in the air that sends a shiver down his back. Loki opens his mouth to question further—who are you really?—but he’s cut off by the sudden ringing of the grandfather clock, a sinister, resonant tolling that seems to echo in his chest. Sigyn trembles, closing her eyes with a shaky inhale. A stray teardrop drips down her cheek. After a moment, she lets out a breath.

“Excuse me, I must tend to the light.” She stands and turns to start up the stairs. “Please stay here. This place—it’s quite a labyrinth, and you’re still injured. I’ll be back soon.”

He watches her disappear up into the darkness, the creaking of her steps echoing throughout the building for several minutes after she vanishes. Loki sets the tea down on the table. This place—it’s quite a labyrinth, and you’re still injured. Was it a threat? Maybe, maybe not, but Loki takes it as a challenge.

The first thing he examines are the many cabinets and drawers lining the walls of the kitchen. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to find—evidence of spellwork, perhaps? Weapons?— but the contents turn out to be fairly ordinary. Really, there isn’t much at all. He’s surprised to find most of the cabinets are bare. It seems she’s prepared to serve a party of two—he finds two plates, two forks, two butter knives, two spoons, the matching teacup to the one he left on the table. Loki frowns. Sigyn had given the impression that she lived alone prior to his arrival. Had she expected him, he wonders?

The grandfather clock reveals little as well. It appears to be of Midgard, and it’s easily the most ornate item he has yet to see in the lighthouse—an intricately carved overlay of mahogany rests above the glimmering gold pendulum encased in glass. The pendulum swings with a soft tick, just as any normal clock would, but Loki is surprised to realize that the clock’s face is completely barren. There’s no numbers, no hands, no way to tell the time—just his own face reflected back at him in the pale slab of metal.

Odd.

Loki supposes that in a world beyond the bounds of life and death, the time would be irrelevant, but the clock’s rings had clearly signaled something for his strange rescuer. Perhaps it served as more of a timer? Regardless, it’s confusing.

He moves to the window, peering beneath the heavy black curtain. It doesn’t make much of a difference. The world outside is just as dark, the whole place smothered in the inky black of night. Even the sky is starless.

The only reprieve is the glowing beam of light from somewhere in the tower above him, slowly passing across the horizon with a steadfast resolve. Only through its reflection can Loki make out the choppy waves in the ocean below. He shivers despite himself and moves away from the window.

There’s not much else in the kitchen, so he goes back down the corridor through which he first came, returning to the little bedroom he awoke in to see if there was anything there he missed. There isn’t—the tiny room is just as barren as he remembers it. The ache in his chest is beginning to grow once more, and Loki sits down on the bed to rest a moment as he catches his breath and decides what to do next. He shivers again. Goodness, these old stone walls are so drafty, and here he is in nothing but his trousers. He had forgotten to ask Sigyn what she had done with his clothes. They certainly weren’t down here.

Come to think of it, there were several things that were missing from this level. There was no washroom anywhere to be found, and unless she had tucked him into her own bed to sleep off his injuries (a thought he finds too unsettling to accept as reality), she too must have a bedroom somewhere else in this tower. His thoughts return to the staircase—he had assumed it only went up to the light at the top of the spire, but perhaps it also led to a second level before that. It was a thought worth exploring. With a groan (his body seems reluctant to rise from the mattress), Loki pulls himself to his feet and hobbles back to the kitchen.

The spiraling staircase is steeper than he would have preferred, but Loki forces himself to ignore it. If he (seemingly) survived a sword to the chest, he can manage a few steps. By the time he comes to the second level he’s panting and out of breath, leaning against the wall for support, but he’s pleased to find that he was in fact correct in his assertion.

There’s a long hallway stretching before him, lit only by a flickering lantern dangling on the wall at its end. He can make out the outline of closed doors resting on either side. This is what he had intended to explore, but there’s another, far brighter light flickering above him, and Loki glances back up the spiraling staircase. Was it just his imagination, or did he hear a voice? His brow furrows. That hadn’t been Sigyn speaking—no, that had been a masculine sound. He thinks back to the pair of dishes in the cupboard, the pair of chairs resting on either side of the table.

There’s someone else here.

He can’t hear the voice anymore. Had he even heard it at all? Loki starts up the staircase again—perhaps if he gets closer, he’ll be able to better make out what is happening in this tower. The pain in his chest is almost masked by the rapid pounding of his heart.

To his horror, once he passes the second level, the spiral widens to be the full circumference of the tower. So many stairs. Loki peers up at the lantern room above him—the bright light makes it difficult to tell how high it is, but the staircase stretches nearly beyond his vision. He can make out the shadow of a person moving about the balcony, but if it’s Sigyn’s or another’s, he can’t tell. Loki gulps a breath and continues on.

Just a little farther, he tells himself, just so you can see better.

His head aches—it’s the flickering of the light, it’s straining his eyes and making his vision all spotty. He tries to ignore it, but then his chest sears in pain, so potent that for a moment everything goes white. With a soft cry, Loki leans against the stone wall. His hands are trembling.

It’s alright. It’s alright. He presses his back against the wall, trying to keep his legs from buckling under his weight. It’s alright. He just needs a moment to rest. His legs give out anyway, and he slides to the floor with a hard thump. The stairs are spinning. The whole tower is spinning. His chest is beyond just pain now, it burns, stinging with every heaving inhale he gasps. He gulps, but he can’t seem to find a breath.

“Loki?” The sound is one of shock and terror, and for a moment it pulls him free of his dizziness. Sigyn is standing a few steps above him; even silhouetted by the glow of the lighthouse, the look of horror on her face is clear as day. He’s barely processed the realization that she said his name before she does it again.

“Loki– oh Norns—” She rushes down the stairs to kneel in front of him, hands fluttering to his chest. He follows her frightened eyes and realizes dimly that his bandages have soaked through with blood. “Loki, I told you to stay—”

Loki tries to respond, but his tongue doesn’t seem to be working, and the words turn to mush in his mouth. Sigyn doesn’t seem to be looking for a reply anyways. She presses a hand to where his shoulder meets his neck, and for once the coolness of her skin feels pleasant against his—when did this tower become so unbearably hot? She’s murmuring something, words he can’t quite hear, but the pain in his chest is slowly melting to a dull ache, the fuzziness in his vision fading away. When she looks up at him again, he’s struck by how her brown eyes sparkle in the eerie light.

“Can you walk if you hold me?” she asks, and he can only nod, gripping her shoulder as she guides him with an arm around his torso back down the staircase. It’s slow work, but she’s gentle and steady, her earlier admonishments replaced with soft words of encouragement as he stumbles along.

He’s expecting her to take him back to his original room, but instead Sigyn leads him to the unexplored second level, and he’s grateful to not have to walk as far. The door on the right opens to a bedroom almost as threadbare as the first, although Loki does catch a glimpse of his tunic hanging on a clothesline to the side along with other various articles of laundry. He huffs a laugh to himself as she lays him down on the bed. At least that’s one mystery solved.

Sigyn wastes no time getting to work on his wound, cutting away the soiled bandages with a surgical precision and dabbing the blood with a damp rag. Loki watches in silence as she begins to redress the injury. He’s skilled enough in emergency care—after all, knowing such can mean life or death on the battlefield— but these are the movements of someone who’s been trained with far more proficiency.

She’s a healer.

Loki had already suspected as much, but this seems to be confirmation. However, that doesn’t explain everything.

“You know my name,” he says at last.

Sigyn jerks her head up. “What?”

“You called me Loki. I never told you my name.” He studies her with an exhausted sort of suspicion. She confuses him. There’s clearly much that she’s not divulging, but she seems so sincere in her actions. “Who are you, really?”

She inhales, her gaze planted firmly on his bandages. “I told you already. I’m Sigyn.”

Loki huffs. This woman is a terrible liar. “You also told me that you didn’t know me, and yet here we are.”

She bites her lip. “I never said that …”

“So you do know me?”

“It’s …” The bed creaks as she shifts her weight against it. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“How? It’s a yes or no question.” Loki jerks himself up into a sitting position with a grunt. She lets out a soft cry, but when she moves to push him back down he grabs her wrists and holds them still. He’s had enough of this.

“I don’t know you,” he growls. “Before today, I have never once seen your face. And yet you know me by name. Who are you?”

She’s squirming, still avoiding his gaze. “You’re going to hurt yourself again—”

“Tell me what’s going on here!”

A tense beat of silence passes, but then she sighs, her arms going limp. When she tries to pull away, Loki doesn’t stop her. There’s a shift in the air that tells him he’s won.

Sigyn walks over to the window, runs her hand down the dark fabric of the curtain as if in a trance. She stands there for several moments, immobile and silent. He’s wondering if she’s going to say anything at all when she turns back towards him, an anxious look on her face. “Do you … are you familiar with the concept of … alternate lives?

“The concept of – what?” Loki’s thoughts stutter – he’s not sure what he had been preparing for her to say, but that’s definitely not it.

“I mean – goodness, I’ve never explained this out loud before.” She lets out a nervous laugh and comes back to sit beside him on the bed. “I mean … you’re you,” she says, gesturing towards him, “as you are here today, because you made a series of specific choices, and the people in your life made a series of specific choices, and all the generations of people who came before you made a series of specific choices, and that all lead to you, with your specific set of experiences and feelings and beliefs. Yes?”

She’s looking directly at him, her gaze as intense as it is apprehensive, and Loki swallows. He almost wishes she would go back to being afraid to make eye contact. But he nods.

She studies him a moment, as if deciding whether to believe him. “But if any one of those choices were different,” she says finally, “If you did something different, or your parents did something different, or a person in the distant past you don’t even realize you’re connected to did something different—if anything changed—your life would look different to how it is now. Perhaps it would be a small change, or perhaps it would be such a drastic alteration that it doesn’t look remotely the same. Are you still following me?”

“I believe so …” Loki says, although his voice sounds less certain. He pauses for a moment. “It sounds like Skuld’s Net.”

He’s not sure if it’s a fair connection to make— the matrix-esque symbol is meant to represent the web of fate’s possibilities past, present, and future, but he is very aware that he’s grasping for something familiar to cling on to in this sea of strangeness.

But Sigyn’s eyes light up. “Yes, that’s a good way of thinking about it!” she exclaims. “So now, imagine if every different choice, every variation, every individual thread, exists in its own separate reality.” She interlocks her fingers together, then slowly pulls her hands apart to demonstrate.

Loki’s frowns. “But if that were true – if every infinitesimal difference created a different universe—” Norns, his head is spinning “—that would be impossible to quantify. There would be infinite possibilities.”

She gives a wane smile. “Precisely.”

He’s lost in thought for a while, grappling with her words. A separate reality for every individual thread. It’s too fantastic, too absolutely ridiculous, to be believed. And yet …

“And you mean to tell me that you knew me in an alternate universe?” he asks finally. “That’s what you’re trying to get at?”

“Oh!” Sigyn is clearly caught off guard by the question. She swallows, glancing up at the ceiling. It seems her eyes are misting over again. “A … a version of you, yes.”

Loki is quiet. Does he believe her? Can he believe her? He’s not sure himself.

“How?” His voice feels thick.

“What?”

“How did you know me? What was I to you?”

“You—” She’s definitely fighting tears now, furiously trying to blink them away. Her words come out strained. “My husband. You were my husband.”

Loki feels as though he’s been doused in cold water.

“What?” He can barely dislodge the sound from his throat.

Sigyn gives a jittery nod. “Yes. I, uh –” She reaches under her collar to pull out an oval locket on a gold chain—it’s an Asgardian style, a trinket he remembers as being a popular gift between courting lovers after their first solstice together. Sigyn unlatches the mechanism to open it. It projects a holographic image in her hand, soft and warm in the dismal shadows of the candlelit room. Loki’s heart stops.

It’s him, unmistakably him, gentle curls resting against his shoulders as he beams down at the woman he’s cradling against his chest—Sigyn, he realizes dimly, although it takes a moment to recognize her smiling visage, lively and joyful in a way that seems lost to the haggard woman who sits across from him. Loki stares, unable to take his eyes off of it. It’s me. His chest feels empty. His hologram’s face is crinkled with a jubilance that Loki’s not sure he’s ever experienced in his life. Sigyn watches the projection in silence for a moment before clicking the locket closed once more. She looks over at him, waiting for him to speak. His mouth has gone quite dry.

Loki doesn’t know what to say. He can’t meet her gaze. He swallows. “How did we meet?” he croaks at last. “Or … you and him, how did you meet?”

She lets out a soft little breath—surprise, perhaps? Or was she upset? “I was a novice, in the healing ward. You – him – he was always getting into trouble, always needing something patched up … we just got to talking a lot.” Her voice is drifting away, into something lighter, dreamier, and she lets out a small giggle. “There was this one time, on Alfheim, you took an arrow to the shoulder—it had been dipped in something, so healing spells didn’t work properly, and we had to give you a sedative for the pain, and you completely out of it, just saying the most ridiculous things—”

“Hold on—” Loki reaches out without knowing what he’s reaching for. Alfheim … shoulder … poisoned arrow … Words and images click together in his mind, leaving behind only confusion. Is this what it’s like to go insane? “I remember that – happening to me, I mean.” He gulps a breath. “Thor had gotten into a row with an Elven militia … you weren’t there, though. Eir handled it …”

Sigyn hums—it’s a soft noise, with only just a hint of sadness. “That makes sense. I … I don’t think I exist in your universe.”

He furrows his brow. “How’s that?”

“I don’t know. The circumstances necessary for my birth just didn’t happen.” She shrugs. Her smile seems tired. “Infinite possibilities, remember.”

Infinite possibilities … He’s struck by a sudden thought. “Is my mother alive in your universe?”

“Frigga?” Sigyn sounds surprised. “Yes, of course – or at least she was when I was there.” She lets out an awkward laugh. “I’ve not exactly kept up with current events since landing here.”

Loki stares into space. He feels rather like he’s falling again. There’s a world where she’s alive. Where I’m happily married. Where everything is different. What is reality anymore? Does any of it matter? Is any of this real?

Sigyn reaches forward, resting a cautious hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry – I know this is a lot to take in, all at once. I really didn’t want to just drop it on you—”

“How do you know all this?” he interrupts. “With the different universes, and all the rest? Is this common knowledge in your world?”

“Oh …”  she stutters, glancing away again. “Well … no, not exactly. I … I sort of stumbled into that knowledge on my own.”

His suspicions are roused again instantly. “What does that mean?”

“I was …” Sigyn gulps. “I was studying. I was looking for something else, a different kind of magic, and I … I inadvertently discovered all this.” She motions distractedly to the air, and it reminds Loki of their surroundings.

“Is that how you ended up here?” he asks. “Because of your studies?”

“Essentially …” her smile seems anxious, uncomfortable. “I … I disrupted things.”

“What things?”

Sigyn stands abruptly. “It’s … it’s probably better if we don’t talk about it.”

“Why?” Loki stands too, perhaps a bit too fast given the ache in his temples, but he ignores it in favor of maintaining his questioning glare. “Don’t I deserve to know? As your husband?”

She flinches, and he can’t help but feel a bit guilty—he didn’t mean to sound so mocking. But he pushes the thought from his mind. Remember the voice in the lighthouse tower. There are things she’s not telling you.

“What if you get dressed first?” she asks finally. “Get dressed and eat something? Then we can talk more.”

It’s tempting to refuse, to insist that he will not be moved until every secret has been revealed to him, but her words make it difficult to ignore the chill running down his spine.

“Very well,” he relents.

…

Loki never would have expected dinner in a land between life and death to be so delicious.

“What did you call this again?” he asks as he scrapes the last bits of tartly sweet scarlet sauce from the plate. When they had sat down to eat, he had insisted that Sigyn eat a bit from both plates first, to alleviate his instinct to expect poisoning (she had done so without arguing, a slight amusement on her lips, and he found himself wondering if his interdimensional counterpart was similarly prone to suspicion), but now he was almost sorry that he had given up even the smallest portion.

“Kompe with lingonberry compote.” Sigyn grins at him from across the table—it’s the first time he’s seen her truly smile, and he has to admit, there’s something endearing to the sight. “Have you not had it before?”

“I don’t think so.” He licks his lips, chasing a final taste of compote. “I feel I’d remember if I had.”

“In my universe, it was your favorite.” She’s still smiling, but it’s fading into something dreamier, more reflective. “I actually learned to make it because you liked it so much. I surprised you with it once.”

Loki sits back in his seat, gaze drifting to the covered window. It’s strange—how she knows him without actually knowing him, how she has all this history with him, and yet simultaneously not with him. It’s a bit like talking to an omniscient being. He wonders what his interdimensional counterpart is doing right now.

“So we’re very similar, I presume?” he says. “Him and I?”

Sigyn is quiet as she clears the table of dishes. “Yes. It’s … it’s a bit uncanny, to be honest.” She huffs a fond laugh to herself. “He was about as terrible at following my medical advice as you are—never wanted to stay still.” Smirking, she adds, “I threatened to tie him to the bed once.”

“Oh.” How am I supposed to respond to that? “… did you?”

She seems to realize all at once what it was she just said, and her cheeks flush crimson red. “Oh goodness, no, not – no, definitely not.”

He chuckles at her awkwardness, but this train of thought leads another sudden station, and he goes quiet for a moment. “Did … did you and him, did you have children?”

Goodness, what a strange thought. Somehow Loki has never been able to picture himself as a father—even when he was younger, before he knew the truth of his existence, when he thought he would have to produce heirs like any normal prince might, the idea felt like something that would happen to a faceless stranger in some sterile future that didn’t belong to him. Knowing what he knows now, it’s a relief he never had the chance to pass his biological baggage on to an unsuspecting child.

Sigyn places the dishes into the washbasin with a soft sigh. “No … we had been talking about it though.” She pauses. “You—he was nervous. Which was fair—I was nervous too. But I think it would have worked out.” She smiles fondly. “Your poor mother—she never wanted to push, but she was so eager for grandchildren, and with Thor off traveling most of the time she had basically given up on any from him—”

“Thor traveling?” Loki interrupts, frowning. “How’s that?” He can’t imagine a world where Odin would take lightly to his firstborn spending most of the time away from the realm.

“Oh yes, he had a huge falling out with your father several years back.” She leans back with a huff as she recounts the tale. “Odin banished him to Midgard, then changed his mind and said he could come back but Thor was too stubborn to return unless Odin said that Thor had been right all along, and Odin was too stubborn to ever do that, and it just turned into a whole mess.” Sigyn turns back towards him, her brow furrowed slightly at the memory. “It was hard. You got caught up in the middle of it all, trying to be the mediator, and it was just overwhelming.”

 “Huh.” Loki’s head feels a bit odd. “Something similar happened in my world but … but that’s not how it ended at all.” He shivers, but for once it has nothing to with the cold. He can feel Sigyn’s quizzical eyes on him, and so he clears his throat before she has the chance to question him further. “If Thor’s not there, then does that make me the crown prince?”

“Oh no, that’s Hela. The crown princess, I mean.” She’s turned back to the washbasin, so she doesn’t see the look of utter confusion on Loki’s face.

“Who?”

“Hela. Odin’s firstborn.” Sigyn glances back, eyes widening. “Does she not exist for you either?”

“I—” Loki’s voice doesn’t seem to be working properly. “She – he – Odin has another child?”

Sigyn nods, leaning against the counter. “At least for us. She was his first wife’s daughter. She’s quite a bit older than you and Thor – I don’t think you and her were ever particularly close.” She lets out an anxious huff of a laugh. “She always rather frightened me, to be honest.”

“Goodness …” is all Loki can manage.

Sigyn looks thoughtful as she dries the plates and puts them away. “I’m really surprised she’s not in your timeline,” she says. “I would have thought – because I don’t think yours is that different to mine? – but I suppose so.”

“Yes …” Despite everything—the overwhelming, mindboggling cascade of sudden information—Loki finds himself chuckling. “It seems my version received the short end of the stick. I don’t have you, I don’t have Hela, and I don’t have kompe.”

Leaning back against the counter, Sigyn cackles. “The most painful loss of them all!” She cocks her head to the side, still laughing. “Norns, do you not have harvest festivals? That’s always one of the main dishes for us!”

“Oh, we do—in fact I think we may serve every possible dish at them except for kompe.” He shakes his head, grinning. It feels good to laugh. “Although usually the food comes second to the mead. I remember once I was dancing with a young lady who had had far too much to drink, and she ended up losing the contents of her stomach all down my front.”

He’s not sure where the memory comes from, why it’s bubbling to his mind now. He hadn’t thought of it in years but … Norns, that seems a lifetime ago. He had been so young, a boy still, his hand trembling as he held his hand out to her—it had been the first time he had found the courage to ask a girl to dance. Funny how he can’t remember her name now, or even her face. No, when he thinks of her, all he can remember is standing frozen on the dance floor, dripping in vomit, as somewhere to the side Thor howled with such laughter that he nearly made himself sick as well.

Sigyn looks absolutely horrified. “Oh goodness, that’s terrible!” she cries with wide eyes. “Was she alright? Were you?”

Her concern is a baffling thing. “Oh yes, we were both fine,” Loki says slowly. “She was very embarrassed, if I remember correctly. And I was uninjured—I just needed to change.” He chuckles dryly. “Needless to say, it put me off dancing for a bit.”

“Not permanently, I hope?” There’s a sadness to her that he doesn’t quite understand. “Do you not care for it still?”

“I’m not sure I would say that.” Loki shrugs. “I never had any particular talent for it to begin with. And I was never a very coveted partner.”

“Really?” Sigyn bites her lip, crestfallen. “I remember you dancing so beautifully in my universe. The first time you asked – I felt so unworthy of your hand. I remember the other ladies were quite jealous.”

Jealous. He snorts at the very idea. “I’m afraid we’ve stumbled on to another interdimensional difference.”

“I’m sure you’re better than you say …” Her hesitation is a palpable thing, hovering by the counter as she gazes back at him with unsure eyes. “I’d love to dance with you.”

“What?”

“I’d love to dance with you.” As if to emphasize, she crosses the room and offers him her hand. “Now, even, if you’d like.”

He stares at her hand, unsure how to respond. Is she joking? She must be …

“I appreciate it, but …” he glances up at her. “I’m not your husband.”

Sigyn inhales softly but doesn’t move. “I know,” she says. “I’m not asking my husband.”

Loki raises his eyebrows. Norns, she’s serious. “There’s no music,” he says cautiously.

“We don’t need music.” Her smile is affectionate. “I want to give you a nice dance.”

He huffs. This is absolutely ridiculous, and yet … there’s something almost comforting about the way her fingers close around his when he takes her hand. Sigyn grins as she pulls him to his feet.

“You know how to waltz, don’t you?”

Loki smirks. “I did at one point, at least.” His free hand comes to rest on her hip, some long dormant instinct flickering back to life. She’s the right size to dance with, he thinks suddenly. She fits perfectly into his arms. It’s an odd feeling.

Sigyn reaches out to stroke a loose bit of hair from his face, her fingers lingering on his cheek for a moment before placing her hand on his shoulder. “Think you can follow my lead?”

He inhales. “I’ll do my best.”

It’s hardly a proper waltz—there’s not enough room in the small kitchen for a full dance floor, it’s hard to keep a rhythm without any sort of music, and besides, he’s woefully out of practice, but … there’s something freeing about it. They stumble about the room, Sigyn giggling as she tries to count out the beats as he bumps into the chair again, chuckling through his apologies – “You’re doing fine, just keep going, just like this—”

He smirks. “Still think you’d be jealous of my partner?”

She laughs. “Immensely so.”

He bumps her arm as he tries to twirl her and makes a face. “See, I told you—”

“No, no, you’re doing wonderfully, just like this—” Sigyn tries to spin around, but trips and nearly loses her balance. Loki grabs at her in an attempt to hold her steady, but any semblance of balance has been lost and they both go stumbling into the counter, giggling hysterically.

“Oh goodness!” She manages to gasp between fits of laughter, reaching for his chest. “Are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

He shakes his head, bracing himself against the countertop as he tries to catch his breath. “Are you sure all the ladies wanted to dance with me, darling?” he teases. “Perhaps it was you they coveted, with your unique dancing techniques.”

Sigyn collapses into giggles again. “No, I swear, I—”

But she’s cut off by a somber tolling from the corner, rattling the window beneath its cover. Through the course of the after-dinner pleasantries, Loki had forgotten the faceless grandfather clock, forgotten the flickering tower room above them, forgotten everything he had aimed to uncover. How had he let himself become so thoroughly distracted? He glances at his dance partner, who has gone very still beside the counter. The room seems to have dropped in temperature.

“What does that indicate?”

“It …” Sigyn inhales. She looks quite pale. “It means I have to tend to the light.”

“And that means?” When she doesn’t answer, he huffs in irritation. “I want to go with you.”

She shakes her head. “No … no, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Again, she’s silent, staring up at the heavy darkness of the staircase. Loki grips her arm, and she flinches. “You promised to tell me everything, remember?”

“I … it’s too many steps. You’ll reopen your wound again.” She won’t look directly at him, not even to try to free herself from his grasp.

“What is up there that you don’t want me to see?”

She shakes her head. “It’s not that, it’s just – it’s best if you stay down here.” There’s a desperate tinge to her voice. “Please, just believe me—”

“Why should I?” he snaps. “What are you hiding from me?”

“I’m not hiding anything, I swear—”

He lets out a puff of air, lets go of her arm. This is getting him nowhere. “I suppose I’ll have to see for myself.”

Her eyes widen. “No—Loki—” She’s grabbing at him, but he brushes her off as easily as a fly and heads towards the staircase. Her pleas are frantic, wild behind him, but he doesn’t turn. She won’t look at him, why should he look at her? “Loki please, just listen to me—” All at once, her voice hardens. “Loki, STOP.”

And then the world goes black.

…

He comes to gradually, the flickering candlelight seeping back through the corners of his vision. Something doesn’t feel right – it’s as if he’s floating. His limbs are numb.

Where am I?

 Loki blinks groggily, taking in his surroundings. Stone walls, plush mattress, modest nightstand … didn’t this happen already? He blinks again. No, he’s not dreaming – he’s back in his original bedroom, the one he woke up in earlier. How did he get here? Images and words come trickling back through his mind, memories of the dance, the clock, the staircase …

She used seidr.

His gaze darkens. Of course she had—how could he have been such a fool to think she wouldn’t? He had known she was capable of it, known that she was hiding something, and yet somehow she had managed to bat her pretty little eyelashes and fill his head with stories of an alternate world – imbecile, he hisses under his breath as he rushes to the door. He knows better than this. He is better than this.

The door is locked tight. Of course it is. She isn’t pretending he’s anything but her prisoner anymore. He bangs with his fists, yelling at her to open it, but there’s no answer. Letting out a frustrated howl, he slams the door with his side. Pain explodes across his shoulder. The wood bends but doesn’t break. Loki huffs. So, she didn’t seal it with magic. An odd choice, but one that would work to his benefit. Still, there must be a better way to go about doing this. He glances around the room for something to use as a battering ram.

His eyes land on the nightstand.

A resounding crash later, and Loki is storming down the hall into the kitchen. He hasn’t much of a plan – finding Sigyn is the goal, but what is he going to do when he does? Force her to reveal her secrets to him? Yes, because that worked so well last time. He grimaces, digging his nails into the palms of his hands. At least this time he’s prepared for her tricks.

But it all comes to nothing, because the kitchen is empty – their dinner dishes still untouched on the counter where she had left them. The grandfather clock looms menacingly in the corner. Loki bites his lip, staring at its faceless visage.

How much time has passed since he lost consciousness? He has no way of knowing. Still, he thinks, his gaze drifting to the shrouded staircase, it’s no mystery as to where she’s gone.

The steps seem less steep this time – perhaps it’s the adrenaline pounding in his ears, or perhaps Sigyn’s talent for healing is really that incredible, but he passes the second level far more quickly this time, climbing into the tower without skipping a beat.

The lighthouse chamber is just as eerie as he remembers it, the flickering lantern casting shadows that dance on the stone walls like spindly spider creatures. There’s another shadow too, a figure moving methodically around the light at the top. Sigyn? Or perhaps someone else? Loki slows his pace as he nears the top to hide his approach.

There’s that voice again—Loki cranes his ears to try to make out what he’s saying, but the words escape him. There’s something familiar to it, something he can’t quite place. Is that … are there multiple voices? He frowns. Yes, there’s definitely more than one person speaking, and not in unison—they’re all talking over each other, yelling over each other, goodness, how had he not heard this before? How had he not heard this panic? It’s clearer and clearer as he climbs closer to the top. Someone, multiple someones, are being tortured. His heart jumps to his throat.

Some of them are breathless, gasping, shaky voices weak with injury as they struggle to gulp a last bit of air.

Some of them are calling out, begging, wailing, howling in pain and screaming for help, piercing shrieks that make his hair stand on end.

Some are just screaming.

What is she doing to them?

Sigyn is up there—he can barely make out the sound of her footsteps on the wooden platform through the sounds of agony. Loki kneels on the steps just beneath, hidden out of sight. His knees are shaking. Because there’s something else. Something lingering in the back of his mind, something that’s been there ever the first time he entered this chamber but that he hadn’t been able to recognize, didn’t want to recognize—he presses his palms to the step in front of him, as familiar words break through the cacophony

“I’ll tell Father what you did here today.”

“I didn’t do it for him.”

It’s him.

It’s all him.

All of the voices, all of the pain, all of the horror, it’s all him.

Loki feels as though he’s going to be sick.

He’s not what he’s expecting to see when he stands. The light burns his retinas but he doesn’t waver in his gaze. It’s white, whiter than anything he’s ever seen in his life, searing deep into his skull, but the more he looks, the more he sees the flashing images flickering past his vision. It’s him—they’re all him—different versions of himself that he’s never seen before, drowning, dying, bleeding out in a prison cell, chests crushed, limbs broken, lips shown shut, all strangers to him except one, a gray body on a gray planet, fading away in his brother’s arms …

He doesn’t see Sigyn until she’s practically upon him, grabbing his wrist and yanking him back down into the staircase. He’s too stunned to fight back.

“I didn’t want you to have to see it,” she whispers hoarsely. She’s crying, he realizes suddenly, her eyes puffy and red. “It’s bad enough for me, I didn’t – I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for you—”

Loki gulps, a great heaving gasp as he collapses against the wall. His cheeks are wet – it seems he’s been crying too. “Why – what is it? What are they?”

“Different timelines. Things that have happened, or are happening, or have yet to happen.” Another Loki shriek breaks through the air, and she shudders. “We should go back downstairs.”

“No—” Loki grabs her wrist. As desperately as he wants to leave this place and never come back, he can’t let her avoid her explanations any longer. “Why are they here? What is this place?”

Sigyn swallows, and another tear drips down her cheek. “They’re connected to the light,” she says at last. “You are too—every Loki is. I have to keep the light burning, or else—” her voice breaks. “Please, can we go downstairs?”

He doesn’t let go. “Or else what?”

She draws a shaky breath. Her voice is barely audible. “Or else you’re all erased.”

Erased. The word hits him like a bucket of cold water. His whole existence, every version of his existence, dependent on the burning of this lantern … He stares at her with wide eyes. “Why?”

“It’s … it’s my fault.” Sigyn is trembling, pressing a hand to her eyes as if to block the tears from coming. “The Norns had to do it, to keep everything stable. They made the light show the worst parts of every timeline. They know—” she hiccups a sob “—they know with those stakes I’d never let it go out.”

There’s something in her eyes, something grey and dead that Loki hasn’t seen before. All at once, he realizes the truth.

“This is a punishment. It has nothing to do with me—it’s your own personal agony.” He’s confused – the Norns do not act as judge and jury, nor do they interfere with the lives of those beneath them. To earn their ire … “What did you do?”

“I … I messed with things I shouldn’t have. I wasn’t trying to, I just … I thought I could—” she inhales again, barely suppressing another sob. “I ripped through reality. Destroyed … several timelines. Once it started, I couldn’t stop it.” She lets out a sigh. “So they put me here. To control me. Connected all the universes to fix what I had done, and left me here to tend to it.”

“Oh …” He believes her – there’s a truth in her face that he hasn’t seen before – but he still doesn’t quite understand. “But … what of your universe? Surely it would be changed by the loss of you? Your Loki, is he not affected?”

“He isn’t. He can’t be.” Her tone is uncharacteristically short. It catches him off guard. “He – he’s gone. My Loki, he’s gone.”

“Gone—” Oh. Loki inhales. All at once, the pieces click into place. Her protective urges towards him, the soft air of sadness that always seems to follow her … Loki’s chest is aching, but it has nothing to do with his wound.

Sigyn continues in halting sentences. “That’s why … I thought – I thought I could save him. Reverse time, start it over again, stop it from happening … Because I couldn’t … without him, I couldn’t—” She gulps a shuddering breath, as if shaking away the memory. “But I couldn’t. I just ended up breaking everything. And the Norns put me here. They made it especially for me.” She laughs, but it’s a humorless sound, broken and bitter. “Keeps me out of trouble, and reminds me … reminds me of what I lost.”

“What you lost?” Loki’s voice is soft.

Sigyn laughs again, tears freely streaming down her face now. “There’s two of everything. They made sure of it—two plates, two chairs, two bedrooms. But it’s just me. It’s only ever just me …” she gulps, then nods in the direction of the great lantern. “Then there’s that … I see every version of you, every awful thing that’s happened to you, all of it, every time I come up these steps. I have to look—” her voice breaks. “I have to watch it all, I have to keep the light going, I can’t lose any more of you—”

She looks up at him, her eyes wide and desperate. “I wasn’t trying to pull you here.” Her voice is thick with emotion. “I really wasn’t. I didn’t think it was possible. I just saw you, on Svartalfheim, drifting away … you weren’t dead yet, but you were so close, and I, I just – I’m so lonely—”

And then she collapses in on herself, shaking with the weight of centuries-old sobs. Loki gingerly reaches towards her – this feels like something private, something not meant for his eyes, but once he touches her she melts into his arms, clinging to him like a life raft as she bawls into his chest. It’s a bit unnerving – he’s never been one skilled at providing comfort. But he holds her firmly, cradling her head against his tunic, and it must be right because she tightens her grip, and it’s just the two of them, two broken souls alone together in a broken world.

“It’s alright,” he hears himself whisper, so low he’s not sure she can even hear him. “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

…

The first thing he notices when he opens his eyes is the dust.

Svartalfheim is as dark and barren as he left it, the dirt like ash beneath his fingers as he stretches and twitches, feeling slowly returning to his extremities. His armor is still stained with blood, but the wound beneath has vanished. He’s alone – Sigyn had told him he’d be alone.

“Thor and Jane go off to find a way off world,” she had said. “They think you’re dead, and they can’t afford to take your body with them.” She didn’t know what happened to them after. The light only shows her him.

They had decided to spend one last meal together – she knew that if she didn’t send him back, it wouldn’t be long before someone came to force him to return, but they wanted to take their time with it. She made kompe once more, since he wouldn’t get to taste it again.

“What were you going to do if I hadn’t found out?” he asked her. “Surely you didn’t expect to keep me here forever.”

Sigyn had sighed. She seemed to have aged a century since their moment in the tower, but there was something beautiful to it – an invisible tension that had melted away. “No … I didn’t really have a plan. I just … I didn’t want to lose you again.”

She wasn’t sure what he would remember when he awoke in his own world once more. Would it be as though no time had passed? Would the lighthouse seem like a hazy dream? “That might be for the best, honestly,” she said with a slight smile. “You won’t have anything to grapple with.”

“Perhaps,” he had hummed, but secretly he hoped she was wrong. He didn’t want to forget.

Waking up on the dark planet’s blood splattered soil, Loki’s relieved to find he still can picture her sparkling brown eyes clear as day.

They had danced, too, one last time before he entered into the light. “We can’t let whatever happened with that first one be our dancing legacy,” he had teased. Sigyn laughed and took his hand.

He wondered about her, as they swept across the room in perfect harmony. Perhaps there’s a reason no one else had ever clicked, no one else fit into his arms like the final piece to his puzzle. Maybe she was right – maybe his Sigyn doesn’t exist, through some cruel twist of fate he had no say in. Or maybe she is out there, somewhere in the world, waiting for something she doesn’t realize she’s been waiting for, just as he’s been his whole life. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but perhaps not.

He had kissed her hand at the end, when they were saying goodbye – it was a gesture that might have seemed oddly formal, but he wasn’t sure how to put his cocktail of emotion into words. Her eyes misted up.

“Thank you,” he had whispered – for the food, for the healing, for keeping him alive in a way he couldn’t put into words. It was a meager thanks, but she seemed to understand. She stroked his cheek with cold fingertips.

“No … thank you,” she whispered back. “I’ll be thinking of you.”

And I you.

Loki sighs, sits up. There’s an emptiness in his chest, but he exhales it away. His stint at death has lasted long enough.

Now, it’s time to live.