Happy Endings
When Sigyn was old enough, she began helping her mother with the more important chores for the queen. She began to spend even more time around the other ladies in waiting, still a child but old enough to understand. Usually she would end up being sent off on some meaningless mission to complete some pointless task. For example: filling a glass vase with flowers and water for the Queen’s sitting room.
She was carrying it back when she noticed a large green and black bug crawling over the curve of the pitcher and then onto her fingers. She watched it nervously, shuddering and close to tears but she couldn’t shake it off without dropping the vase. Suddenly, the bug flew at her face with horrible whirring wings. She shrieked and the vase slipped from her fingers, forgotten in her terror. It shattered on the marble floor while she shook herself, swatting at the bug. Loki let the illusion fade in a gentle flash of green light. She stopped, realizing what had happened and whirled around. He grinned at her from where he leaned against a pillar.
Her face colored and she opened her mouth to tell him off, but a woman’s voice interrupted, and good that it did or else she would have been in even bigger trouble for breaking the rule around shouting at princes.
“Sigyn! You useless girl!” her mother scolded. She whirled around, the color leaving her face at once.“You broke the vase!” When her mother yelled she didn’t use her story voice, instead it was all hard and sharp, with underlying disappointment. She hated it. It scared her and made her feel worthless. She wanted to apologize for disappointing her. She wanted to run just as much. She could already feel the blow to come. It was just a vase, her inner voice whispered rebelliously. It was just a vase and it wasn’t my fault!
Sigyn fumbled for her words, fearing the beating to come and keenly aware of their audience, “I’m sorry, Mother! It was an accident-” her head snapped to the side, her cheek stinging and throbbing.
Still facing away, she opened her eyes which clashed with Loki’s green gaze. Shame burned her face, she hated the thought of him watching. He was probably enjoying it. Embarrassment and anger burned in her stomach and tears stung her eyes. She looked away again.
“Of course it was! You clumsy, idiot girl-” her mother raised her hand again and Sigyn squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head to ready herself for the blow. But it didn’t come, “Do better next time.” Her mother said tightly and stalked away, “Clean it up,” she ordered over her shoulder.
“Yes mother,” Sigyn said. She turned back towards where Loki still stood watching, face white and eyes wide. “Enjoy the show?” she asked cruelly, tears pricked her eyes but she wouldn't cry.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“Save it!” Sigyn hissed, “Leave me alone.”
He stayed a moment more as though he wanted to say something else, as though he wanted to stay, but then he turned and left her alone. She wasn’t sure why she was disappointed, they weren’t friends and she didn’t want him there.
Sigyn turned and began to clean the glass and the water and the flowers. Her whole body shook with suppressed anger and sadness. Anger and hatred at Loki and at her mother and at the unfairness of it all. She slammed her bundle into the trash when she reached it. Her hands were cut and bloodied. She dragged a tip of a finger across the walls as she stalked back through the marble halls of the palace to the set of rooms she shared with her mother. She pretended a fairytale knight followed the streaks of red right to her door to steal her away to a life where she wasn’t doomed to be a servant to those deemed above her. A life without bruises and handprints soothed by gentle words or a small paycheck. A life where stories and daydreams weren’t her only comfort.
“Sigyn,” her mother called from the sitting room as she eased her way into their home. No doubt she was going to apologize and excuse her actions, but Sigyn walked right past her and into her bedroom. She locked herself in the bathroom. A pale faced, red eyed girl stared back at her in the mirror. A pink handprint stood out stark on her cheek. She ran hands through hair, trying to calm herself as her breathing escalated with her shaking. She gasped desperate and ugly, trying to contain the tears that wanted so badly to spill, but she would not embarrass herself even more. She stared at the handprint through her internal struggle and finally the sobs won and worked their way out.
She was so tired.
“Sigyn let me in,” her mother requested at the door.
She wrenched it open.
Her mothers hands were gentle as they tilted her face and inspected the mark they had left, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m just so tired. I never want to hurt you, I just don’t know how… I hate this court and I hate my job and I’m not happy here, but I can’t leave and that means neither can you. And then you do something like break a vase and all I can see is myself getting punished for my own small offenses. I don’t want them to hurt you and so I do. It’s not an excuse, but that’s why.”
“It’s okay Mama,” Sigyn sniffled, “I know you love me.”
“I do, I love you. I want better for you than what I had.”
“I know.” she whispered, “Why don’t you paint anymore?”
Her mother smiled sadly. Sigyn shared her dark eyes, she shared her pale, freckled skin, her nose, but their hair was different. Her mother was blonde. Sigyn had her father’s hair, but Sigyn didn’t know who he was, nor did she ask. First she was too young to wonder, now she was old enough to recognize a sad story before it was told. “I don’t have any more paint.”
“Do you have more stories?”
“I’m tired, Sigyn.”
“So that’s a no,” Sigyn said flatly. She was allowed to be disappointed. She was allowed to recognize the fading of her childhood and the innocence she tried to grasp so tightly.
“None with happy endings.”
Even little Sigyn knew not every story was a happy one. She understood now that maybe her mother’s wasn’t. She understood that her mother wanted a happy story for her daughter. Sigyn wanted a happy ending. It seemed her mother had given up on hers.