Fragmented

~~~

"Tomorrow. It is very soon."

Sigyn sighed, but did not turn around. She was sitting, leaning in front of her mirror, staring, exhausted, as one of the innumerable ladies of Asgard plaited her hair, merely a practice before tomorrow's ceremony. Thoroughly worn out by the day’s activities, Sigyn was toying with the edge of her sleeve, twisting it through her fingers nimbly, allowing her mind to wander. Sif was sitting, restlessly, behind her, perched on the edge of her bed, meeting the reflection of Sigyn's eyes, and her voice recalled Sigyn’s thoughts. Clothed in the remnants of her guard uniform, Sif had peeled off the outer armored layers, leaving behind her soft deerskin leggings, and loose undershirt, and was working slowly to untwist her own hair from its coiled bun.

"It is a joyful occasion Sif, do try to smile."

"It holds no joy for me, I am losing you!" Sif threw herself dramatically back onto Sigyn's bed, huffing a ridiculously loud sigh to match. The mock despair in Sif's voice was enough to make Sigyn smile, and Sif matched her grin.

"I am not going very far! Such dramatics for a change of room?" Sigyn's room would in fact remain for her use, but she would move tomorrow officially into shared chambers with the prince. Sigyn laughed as she responded, affection rushing through her chest.

The lady braiding her hair remained silent through the exchange, the same bland, blank look of all the ladies that served in Asgard. They were taught to never appear as though they were listening to a conversation Sigyn knew, but she also knew that they most of all held the most gossip behind their passive stares. Sigyn allowed but a moment more before she dismissed the lady for the night, tiring of the conversation she and Sif were almost having, careful never to say more than they would favor to be repeated in the halls of Asgard.

Once Sif was sure the door was firmly sealed, the light smile drained off her features, the way the shadows drop suddenly at sunset.

"Tomorrow Sigyn."

"I am aware." Sigyn kept her voice light, refusing to match Sif's edgy tone.

Silence reigned for a moment.

"Tomorrow." Sif repeated.

Tomorrow she would be a married woman, to the second son, a prince of Asgard, Loki Odinson.

Sif stood slowly, meeting Sigyn's eyes again in the mirror, and held her gaze as she crossed the room slowly. Green into brown, Sigyn thought. She shivered, but the room was stifling, a banked fire crackling merrily in the corner.

Sigyn told herself to remember always the way Sif's lips fit into hers, told herself to remember the taste of her, steel and leather, and something sweeter than Sigyn could ever imagine.

Sigyn told herself to remember this moment.

Sigyn told herself many things. She could not say whose lips she imagined when her own met the prince's on the next eve, but sweetness prevailed she supposed.

Or so she told herself.

~~~

She watched the muscles in his back writhe and sinuate like some ancient underwater creature. Each movement of his arms and fingers procured a call and response of his ligaments, contorting to match the deftness of his work. Sigyn watched from her perch on the window sill, contemplating the deliberate movement of his strokes across his medium, bending light and reflection to his will, as though they were strands of reeds. How simply he moved light, though Sigyn knew the unusual casualness of his work, it was not a trade shared by many, and served to add to both the awe and the wariness surrounding the younger prince.

“Sigyn? Are you alright?”

Sigyn focused her eyes back in, drawing back her gaze to find him staring fondly at her.

“Hmm?”

He laughed softly, a gentle chuckle. “I’ve been speaking to you for some time, I take it you did not hear?”

Sigyn looked gracefully ashamed, “No, love. I am sorry, what were you saying?”

He watched her face for a moment, a smirk toying at the crease of his lips. “What were you thinking?”

“Oh? Nothing I suppose, just allowing my thoughts to wander.”

“Must have been riveting,” He said with another soft laugh, “I asked you a question three times.”

She searched his face this time, trying to confirm the lightness of his tone in the blue flash of his eyes.

“I am sorry,” she said sincerely, “Just tired I suppose.”

“Yes, it has been quite a long day.”

Sigyn was never sure when either of them began accepting that as an excuse.

He turned back to his work, “What do you think, love?”

She stood up, stretched her arms up to ease the tension in her back, and moved to peer over his shoulder. She rested her chin gently at the curve of his neck. Sigyn felt herself glued to the canvas once she looked, trying to search out every subtle change of color and follow each delicate shade as it morphed into something new. He had likened the Great Hall of Asgard to the untamed landscape outside the city limits. Vegetation and plants grew up between the cracks, blending seamlessly the regality of the hall with the wildness of the forest. Reds and golds, the colors of Asgard, mixed with every shade of green and blue and brown, forming new colors wherever they met, creating a blended background upon which he had imposed detail. She could see clearly the pillars of the hall, but they were murky, entwined with vines and thickets, reclaimed by the insistent force of nature’s will. The gilded ceiling gave way to a myriad of blues, and light poured in in delicate strands. Sigyn felt as though she were looking at Asgard eons into the future, as if the Realm Eternal had finally discovered its own mortality. It was not a sad scene however, Loki had instilled the silence and secrecy of ancient ruins. Shadows lapped at the edges, encouraging the idea that sunset was approaching, and all would dissolve into night.

Red and gold, the colors of Asgard, she thought, and green, the color of Loki.

With true sincerity, Sigyn complimented the work, and traced her fingers across the marks of his, matching him. Color weaving and the bending of light was a rare ability. Though realistically anyone could learn, Loki’s ability to make his works semi-permanent was unusual, and shared by no one else in Asgard. Sigyn knew of other light weavers across the realms, and Loki had contacted a few to exchange ideas now and again, but in Asgard, this gift alone was his. However, light is transient, and does not remain, and often, after a time, Loki’s works would fade, a washing of light back to their blank mediums. Sometimes they lasted longer. Loki beamed as Sigyn praised his work, noticing each detail and stroke in turn, allowing him a moment of recognition, even just between them. Frigga often hung some of Loki’s works in the halls of the castle, but it was a pale sort of praise compared to the type he hungered for. The last one she had hung however, an abstract grouping of color, had been mocked and destroyed by Thor and his drunken companions during one of their tirades. Loki had sulked for days, even after Thor’s sober apology.

Sigyn pointedly ignored the vague, golden shape at the back of the work, something akin to the Allfather’s great throne. She allowed herself to believe that perhaps it was something else, allowed Loki to believe she did not see it. But it stood proudly, at the center, the light forming a gentle halo around it. In the twisting shadows and woven colors of the portrait, it was possible for Sigyn to believe that she was merely imagining the gloomy, obscured form sitting upon the great chair, and drew her eyes elsewhere, up to meet the soft blue of Loki’s.

"It is captivating Loki," allowing a rush of tenderness to color her words.

His smile was reply enough, and he reached his arms up from where he was sitting, to pull her close. She settled in his lap, her face tucked against his neck, his arms circling around her back. He smelled deeply of paper and ink, a dusty, stale, though not unpleasant smell.

"Been in the library have you?" Her voice somewhat muffled by the cloth of his shirt.

"Mhmm, a bit of research for the guild."

They sat in comfortable silence, allowing the room to settle around them. Loki absentmindedly toyed with strands of her hair, and Sigyn felt herself drifting into unconsciousness, sleep pulling insistently at the edges of her thoughts.

Just as she was about to doze off, Loki's voice, though soft, pierced her awareness.

"Had I drawn you beside me, would you have noticed?" He was speaking in his half voice, and Sigyn knew he was talking to himself, believing her asleep. Her brain was too abstract, and confused to reply, drugged with exhaustion, she pretended she had not heard. Loki sighed gently.

The last thing Sigyn was aware of was Loki lifting her gently, and carrying her to their big shared bed, tucking her in and climbing in beside her. She finally floated to sleep on the fumes of ancient tomes and archaic scrolls, wrapped in Loki's arms.

~~~

Now, years past, Sigyn thinks often of that portrait. Loki had destroyed it later, the way he had destroyed many things in the end, a star imploding.

Sigyn thinks of the that forsaken throne, so clearly imposed in the center of the scene, glowing in a gilded highlight, drawing the eye toward it, the only shape in the work with definite form.

Sigyn thinks often of that portrait, willing herself to reach out, and speak softly of the things that had lain between them.

Now, Sigyn remembers, she had destroyed it, not Loki. She had pulled and ripped and shredded until her fingers bled, and still had not stopped. She had not been satisfied until the work was nothing but ribbons of color, washed and fading into obscurity, utterly unrecognizable.

~~~