Chapter Text
Princess Sigyn; Eldest child of King Eiran Oddmundson and heir to the throne of Vanaheim, is traveling the countryside of her realm with a few of her handmaidens when she spots something out on the horizon.
Or rather, some one .
It’s a man, though that’s all she can see from this distance. He is stumbling and appears injured and Sigyn knows that she cannot stand by and watch him suffer without hurrying to his aid.
She rides her horse over, stopping a few feet from him to give him space, in case he’s confused or afraid, before dismounting with a few of the palace guards following behind.
She can see the man closer now and she knows she’s never seen him before. His long black hair is wild, tangled, and his skin is ashen gray. He is dressed in blacks and greens and gold and clutching his chest.
He looks like he’s standing at the gates of Valhalla.
“Sir?” Sigyn calls out as he stumbles closer, lifting his head to squint towards her. “Are you alright?”
“I-” Is all the man is able to say before he coughs, stumbles, and begins to fall. Her guards are fast and don’t need her command to know what she wants to do and they’re there to catch the man before he falls into the field, one of them already hurrying off to his horse to return to the palace and retrieve healers.
Sigyn, against the advice of both the guards and her handmaidens, crept closer to the man who seems to be just barely clinging to life, gasping and moaning in agony, eyes fluttering.
They’re green, like his clothing, Sigyn notes as she kneels next to his hand and strokes his hair off his too cold face.
“You’re going to be just fine,” she soothes him when his eyes latch on her. “I am Princess Sigyn. We’re going to get you healed. You’ll be well, just stay with us.”
“Your highness, you should step back,” one of the guards advises. But Sigyn ignores him and instead replied,
“Does he look capable of anything?” Sigyn gestured to the injured man. “He can hardly breathe, let alone strike me.”
The guards clearly don’t like this, but Sigyn instead ignores them and turns as the galloping of horse hooves, followed close by the rattle of the healers’ carriage, sounds near.
“He is gravely injured,” she tells them, only then standing and stepping back, smoothing out her skirt on instinct as the healers swarm the man who no longer seems to be aware of his surroundings.
“We will stabilize him here, Princess,” the main healer tells her. “And then we will hurry him to the palace.”
Sigyn nods in agreement. She hopes the man will live. Not just because she is a kind soul and no one deserves to die afraid and in pain, but because there is just...something about the man.
As though he’s a puzzle or a mystery, waiting to be solved.
And Sigyn has every intention of doing so.
……………………………….
Sigyn is seated by the man’s side, tenderly wiping his brow with a cold, wet cloth. His temperature has spiked, from the seidr the healers’ used to cure him, and he has begun shifting and mumbling under his breath, lost in the throws of fever that Sigyn hopes to rid him of come nightfall.
It is sunset now. She is beginning to lose hope.
She has turned her gaze to a book, leaving the cloth on the man’s head, when the doors to the healing wing open and her father, King Einar, enters.
“I had heard you found an injured man in the fields today,” he remarked as he approached, keeping his voice down as he looked the man over. “Who is he?”
“I am not sure,” Sigyn replied, marking her page before setting her book aside and following her father’s gaze, adjusting the cloth on the pale - no longer gray, thank goodness - forehead for something to do with her hand. “He was in no shape to speak, when we found him.”
Her father hummed. “I would like to place two guards in here, if you insist on remaining at his side,” he finally said. “For your safety. We know not who he is, where he hails from, or how he was injured.” He turns his gaze to her at last. “I think only of your safety.”
“If he is our people-” But her father is already shaking his head.
“I do not know who this man is,” King Einar began. “But I know he is not Vanir.”
………………………………
The man comes to consciousness silently and swiftly and Sigyn is so buried in her book that she does not even realize he has woken until a soft voice speaks from her side, startling here,
“I thank you.”
She jumped, gasping, as she whirled around to find the man watching her, though he seems to have at least half a brain in that he hasn’t tried to sit up with a drastic wound in his abdomen.
“You’re awake,” she remarks, then berates herself for her stupidity. “I will have my guards fetch you water.”
She gestures to one of the guards her father placed at the door and though neither seem keen to disobey the King’s orders, one finally slips away to do as the Princess has requested.
“You informed me of your name earlier,” the man murmured. “I’m afraid I cannot recall it now.”
Sigyn smiled. “That’s alright,” she replied. “I am Princess Sigyn.”
“Princess,” the man replied. “Thank you, your highness. I do believe you saved my life.”
“If I had not been riding by when I was, you would not have made it,” Sigyn remarked. “The Norns had you deep in their clutches when I found you.”
The man hummed. “I thank you, Princess Sigyn,” he repeated.
“And you?”
The man blinked, frowning up at her. “I beg your pardon?”
Sigyn smiled. “Your name,” she repeated patiently. “May I have it?”
“Of course,” the man replied. “I am…” he seems to hesitate then, but only for a moment, before easily replying. “Loki.”
“Loki,” Sigyn repeated with a smile. “It is an honor to meet you.”
Loki nodded. “Might I ask,” he began lightly. “Upon which realm have I stumbled?”
“Vanaheim.”
“Vanaheim,” Loki repeated. “I see. Thank you, your highness.”
“And from which realm do you hail from?”
Loki seems to hesitate, something that has the guard on the other side of the room stiffening, his hand moving steadily towards the sword strapped upon his hip.
“I will not deny, the temptation to lie is…” Loki laughs softly. “But you deserve better than that. You saved my life, after all.”
“I did.”
Loki takes a breath and seems to steel himself for...something, before he finally replied,
“I come from Asgard.”
Sigyn blinked. Logically, she knows she should be terrified of this man. Logically she knows she should call the guards to either send him back or throw him in the dungeons. And yet he came here injured and Aesir or not, she cannot imagine throwing him to the wolves in his condition.
“Did you receive this wound upon Asgard?” she asked gently, after a few moments, holding up a hand to indicate for the guard to stand down, though she doubts he will.
“I did not,” Loki replied. “I was...on a royal mission, sent by the Allfather himself.”
“And you were injured on this?” Loki hummed in reply. “Are you a diplomat? A council member?”
“I was a prisoner,” Loki replied. “I...committed crimes on Midgard, though not of my own volition. I had been in the dungeons of Asgard for some time, before I was approached with an offer.”
“Which was?”
“Accompany Thor and his Midgardian Lady Jane to Svartalfheim in order to prevent the Dark Elves from retrieving the Aether which Lady Jane was in possession of at the time.”
Sigyn shifted. “And you were injured?”
“Protecting Thor.”
That had Sigyn frowning now. “You refer to King Odin as the Allfather,” she began. “But you speak of the Crown Prince with a tongue of familiarity. Why?”
“It matters not.”
“It does,” Sigyn objected. “If you are to stay within my palace until you heal, I think I have a right to know why you speak so fondly of royalty.”
Loki was silent for a moment. “You are...you are right, your highness,” he finally agreed. “Forgive me.”
“If you explain, I shall.”
Loki nods with some difficulty, and then he seems to have lost whatever half-brain he woke up with because he then pushes himself into a seated position, wincing all the while.
“You are hardly healed, you should not-”
“I am fine.” Loki brushes her off, slumping against the headboard of the bed and breathing heavily. When he has regained himself, he turns to her - though avoids her gaze by watching the floor, she notes - and begins speaking. “I am...Prince Loki of Asgard. Youngest son of...King Odin and Queen Frigga.” He seems to wince at those words but moves on before Sigyn can be certain. “Thor is my brother. This is why I speak with the...the fondness that I do.”
Sigyn frowned now, even harder. “But you said you were a prisoner.”
“I was.”
“And yet you are a prince.”
Loki scoffed before immediately sobering and offering Sigyn an apologetic look. “I apologize, your highness. That was...disrespectful.”
“You laughed when I remarked that you were a prince,” Sigyn pointed out. “Why?”
“I lost that title the moment I dared to invade Midgard.”
“And why did you do that?” Sigyn looked him over. “Forgive me, but you don’t look capable of taking over an entire realm on your own.”
Loki winced. “I...had help.”
Sigyn was silent for a moment. “Why did you do it?” Loki opened his mouth to reply but something in him seemed to surrender because he slouched before quietly replying,
“I had fallen into the void where I was tortured for eons. My mind was shattered and reshaped into something else, so that I could be used as nothing more than a puppet for a monster who intends to rule the nine realms and beyond with the Infinity Gauntlet.”
“So you were not in control of your own actions.”
“No.”
“So why were you punished?” Loki looked at her, confused. “It was not your own control, nor your fault, why were you punished?”
“Because I led the army,” Loki replied softly. “It matters not to the Allfather whether or not I was...in control of my own mind. All that matters was that I was too weak and allowed myself to be broken.”
Alright, so Sigyn had already hated King Odin since she was a little girl, ever since the Aesir-Vanir wars, but she was definitely hating him more, hearing how he treated his own son.
“He does not sound like he was a good father.”
Loki laughed and this time, he did not apologize. “He was, to Thor,” he replied. “To me…” he sighed. “I was nothing more than...a mistake.” He shook his head miserably. “I was no son to him.”
There’s so much there, so much to unload, but Sigyn lets it go. She will not force Loki to share something that he so clearly does not wish to and so instead, she reaches over and places her hand on his, ignoring the way the guard at the door readies for an attack and instead keeping her gaze on Loki; on his wide, surprised eyes as he turns his head to meet her gaze.
“You are more than welcome to stay here as long as you like,” she promised him. As an afterthought, she softly replied, “Prince Loki.”
Sigyn thinks she likes Loki’s smile very much.
…………………………
Sigyn waits until later that night, when she has bid Loki goodbyes on the insistence from the healers that he needs to rest - the two of them had spent the day talking and had discovered that they have much in common - to find her father in the throne room.
“I hear that our guest is from Asgard,” King Einar remarked, skeptical and on guard for good reason.
“He does not strike me as the other Aesir, father,” Sigyn told him as she took a seat in what had once been her mother’s throne at her father’s side and will, one day, be her own. “He is different. How so, I cannot place.”
“You have invited him to remain in the palace.”
“If you heard what he told me, of how his own father treated him,” Sigyn murmured, knowing better than to tell him that Loki is King Odin’s unknown second son. “You would not be so swift to return him to the Realm Eternal.”
King Einar settles a calm look at her. “You have always had a soft heart,” he tells her, as though she isn’t already aware of this. “I only hope that it is not blinding you to this boy’s truth.”
“Then speak with him yourself,” Sigyn pleaded. “He is not like the other Aesir, father.”
King Einar still seems skeptical but he sighs instead and reaches over to brush a lock of her long, red hair behind her ear.
“You have your mother’s heart,” he finally remarked. “She too always thought the best of everyone.” he lowered his gaze. “Right up until the very end.”
“Father,” Sigyn began, taking his hand between her own. “Loki speaks poorly of King Odin. Something I do not believe any Aesir would dare to do, if they were to return to their king and realm, after manipulating us.”
“If desperate enough.” Einar lets the sentence hang in the air.
“Give me a week with him,” Sigyn pleads. “Talk to him as often as you like. Believe me, father, I tell the truth.”
“I know you do,” Einar assured. “But does he?”
………………………………
Loki is on his feet, having changed out of his trousers and boots he arrived in the day before, though now he is wearing a long, silken green top with a v-neck and loose bell sleeves, a long tail behind it that it tucked into the back of his trousers though some still falls gracefully along his sides.
His hair is combed and washed and he looks so much like the Prince he claims to be.
“You are being released?” Sigyn questioned from the doorway. She’s dressed in a gold and blue gown with heels, her long red hair braided back, arms and neck adorned with golden jewels and yet in comparison to Loki, she feels sloppy.
She cannot place why.
“I am a mage and an expert with Seidr,” Loki explained, adjusting the golden cuffs of his sleeves. “Once my magic was fully restored, thanks to a bit of rest, I was able to heal myself fully.”
“That is…” Sigyn looks him over as she seeks out the word. “Impressive,” she finally settles on.
Loki shifted. “Thank you.” He doesn’t look used to compliments. From what he had told her about King Odin, the night before, she cannot imagine he could be.
“Come with me,” Sigyn said suddenly. “I said you were welcome to remain and it would be cruel of you to not stay for at least a week.”
Loki seems unsure. “I...suppose,” he finally agreed. “But...only a week. Then I must...it is only right that I return.”
There’s something about that that Sigyn doesn’t like. “Do you think you will be punished on your return?”
“Perhaps if I had returned with Thor, as intended, they would not,” Loki replied. “But now…” He didn’t finish the sentence, shaking his head. “It matters not. We’re on this path and there is no going back.”
Sigyn can’t decide if she likes that or not. Instead she asks, “Would you like to take a stroll through the gardens with me? It’s a lovely day and I wouldn’t mind your company.”
Loki doesn’t hesitate in the slightest as he smiles and approaches her, giving a low bow before offering her his elbow and replying,
“I would be delighted, Princess.”
Sigyn forces herself to ignore the flutter in her chest and instead laces her elbow with his - he’s taller than her, she notes, as her head only comes to his shoulder - before leading him out of the healing wing and into the palace gardens.
………………………..
“Have you any gardens like this back home?” Sigyn asks to fill the silence as they roam through the beautiful green. “On Asgard, I mean?” she gives him an apologetic look. “Forgive my thoughtless words. I...suppose it would be hard to imagine Asgard as home, after what was done to you.”
Loki doesn’t say anything to that, doesn’t even react - she’s not sure how to feel about that - and instead replies,
“Mother’s gardens.” He gives a small, wistful smile at the memory. “They react to Seidr and shine so brightly in the night that it’s as though they glow stronger than even the palace itself.”
“They sound beautiful.”
“They are,” Loki replied. “When I was a child and couldn’t sleep, I would often slip out there to watch the trees light up in my presence.”
“Because of Seidr.”
“Yes.” He gives a quiet laugh. “Mother always seemed to know when I had ventured out and I always knew she was coming, for the garden seemed to sing when she arrived.”
Sigyn nodded. She did not know much about the Allmother, about Queen Frigga, but she does recall her mother telling her that you could always tell when she was on the throne rather than her husband, because it was as though there was peace across the realms that had not been there before.
“Do you miss her?” She asked Loki softly.
He closed his eyes. “Yes,” he softly replied. “She visited me once, in my cell upon Asgard.” He avoided Sigyn’s gaze as he added, “I was...not kind to her.”
Sigyn gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “In what way, if I may ask?”
Loki sighed. “I told her she was not my mother.”
“Did you mean it?”
“In that moment, yes.”
“But not anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does.” When Loki didn’t reply, Sigyn went on. “I think you want so badly for her to forgive you because you did not truly mean it, not even in that moment, but you fear that you have come too far and that even now, even if you were to return and apologize, she would never forgive you.”
Loki stared at her. “I would like to return to the palace now.”
Sigyn nodded. “Very well.” As they made their way back through the gardens to the grand Vanir palace, Sigyn felt the need to murmur, “I’m sorry for pushing.”
“Do not be,” Loki told her. “You merely...put words to thoughts I had refused to shed light upon.”
“Still-”
Loki cut her off then with an ease and grace that Sigyn could not help but envy, even despite the disrespect.
“Tell me, do you have a library?”