Chapter 8 – What is love

Anyone with eyes in their head – even Odin with his one eye – could see immediately that something was up between Loki and Sigyn. Sif gave a satisfied smile, Frigg a slow nod as if an event she had been waiting for had finally taken place to her satisfaction, even Odin seemed rather pleased – perhaps mostly because this likely meant that Sigyn would not be likely to come to Loki’s aid ever again. Out of everyone assembled on the field, only two people seemed to really care. Max and Ian had shared one look once they saw the defeated hunch of Loki’s shoulders and the determination with which Sigyn avoided looking at him. As soon as Odin had given his promises and Sigyn was satisfied, Loki had taken off, Max close on his tail. Ian had hung back to walk with Sigyn. This is how we find them now, the whole party split up and ripped apart.

“Freya could take you back to Midgard,” Sigyn says, her voice broken, and her gaze turned downwards.

“I am good right here,” Ian replies simply and takes her hand firmly in his own. She doesn’t look up, she doesn’t acknowledge his friendly gesture in any way, but she also doesn’t pull her hand away.

“You are a good woman, Sigyn,” Hel tells her. “My mother would despise the words out of my mouth, but they are true, and Loki is not worth your tears.” Fenrir gives her a loving nudge, but doesn’t speak.

“You guys go ahead,” Sigyn replies, she doesn’t want an audience right now. Hel nods.

“I will send your sons to meet you on the way,” she agrees. “I did not think you could do it, but you held up your end of the bargain, and more too. Your sons are free to return to the living.”

Fenrir lies down on the plain to allow his sister a piggy bag ride. She climbs up, but only a few steps along the path Fenrir stops and turns.

“She’s right you know, he isn’t worth your tears.” Sigyn nods her understanding at the ground. Logically speaking, they might be right. She closes her eyes and forces back the tears. She will under no circumstance bow under and cry right here in the open where all of Asgard can see her. Fenrir turns back and sets off at full speed, stretching his legs, making full use of his muscles for the first time in a thousand years. Ian gives Sigyn’s hand a reassuring squeeze, but he waits until they are in the cover of a forest before he speaks again.

“They are right, those two, no man is worth your tears, not ever.” He pauses briefly to let the statement sink in. “But you don’t cry for their sake, you do it for yourself.” With that small permission from a virtual stranger, Sigyn breaks down. Ian wraps an arm around her and lets her cry into his shoulder, never once trying to shush her or telling her to get over it. A part of him wishes he had a tub of ice cream to offer her, maybe an old movie or a greasy pizza, but those things don’t exist in Asgard, so he simply lets her cry until she runs out of tears.

“Do you wanna tell me what happened?” he asks softly, sitting down on the forest floor. She follows him down. Somehow, she doesn’t mind telling him, not Ian. Ian is somehow both safe, a friend, and yet a stranger with a clear, unbiased view. So she tells him everything. Part of him wants to freak out at the mention of cold blooded murder, but Sigyn doesn’t seem as obsessed about that part as the whole “he tried to manipulate me” thing.

“I don’t know what to do,” she finally admits. “It’s been… I can barely remember my life before him, I was so young when I first saw him… He has been my whole life for so long, I don’t know who I would be without him.”

“Well,” Ian says, almost smiling. “I wouldn’t say Loki exactly did a lot on this whole quest. I mean, sure, he went and fetched the apples from Idun, but that was about it. You got him free, you walked all the way to Helheim, you recruited Hel, you freed Fenrir. You caught Mjolnir, you defeated Odin. You did all that.”

“He plucked Odin from the field before anyone got hurt,” Sigyn argues.

“Well, after you got hurt,” Ian corrects. Sigyn looks down at her torn-up arm as if she had forgotten all about it. She shrugs, as if a wolf bite is nothing to cry over. “Without Loki you are still you, he doesn’t define you. You are fierce, strong, loyal, intelligent, brave. I have known you for only a short while in your long life, but I know those things about you. Anyone who meets you will know those things about you. They didn’t come from Loki, they came from you, and you still have them.” She pulls her legs up and rests her chin on her knees, her arms wrapping around her legs as if to hold herself together.

“He made me smile,” she whispers. Made. She tastes the word on her tongue. There hasn’t been much to laugh about these past thousand years. “He believed in me,” she says, her voice a little stronger, little more sure. “Believes in me. Even when no one else would dare.”

“That doesn’t give him a right to you, or a right to treat you like this.” She opens her mouth to argue, but closes it again. What is she gonna say? It’s not like as if Loki has been a model husband, Hel alone is proof of that. But he was her husband. Angrboda never had that, at least. Loki chose her, out of everyone, he chose her, and he loved her. He loves her. And she loves him, she can’t get around that. No matter what logic wants to dictate, or how many flaws Ian can name, Loki is still… well, he’s Loki. She knew who he was when she married him. She knew he was impulsive, but that had been the great adventure about him. He was selfish, yes, but more often than not that selfishness had been extended to include her, the two of them being more important to Loki than all of Asgard. He is still the man who, without asking questions, without fearing the consequences, snug in and cut of Sif’s hair in her sleep because Sigyn had requested it. His is still the man who’s home she had snuck into in the middle of the night, the man who had seen her clad only in moon light, and rather than laugh or ask what she was thinking, he had smiled, like she was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen, and he had held out a hand to her, an invitation. He is Loki, simple as that, and he is etched into her heart, and he will never leave it. Not even if he leaves her.

But he was also the man who had showed her how to think for herself, who had indulged her, nurtured her, showed her a whole new world, a world free of judgment from others, free from worry about what Sif or Freya might be saying about her. Loki was her freedom, her right to choose whatever path she wanted, regardless of what others wanted or expected from her. It was why she had fallen in love with him in the first place. And he had broken that. He had given her the option to choose, and then he had taken it away when he saw fit. She had chosen him, and she had chosen to stay with him, and he had decided that was the wrong choice. He had decided, and he hadn’t consulted her.

Is love enough to make a marriage work? Or is there no way to get the broken trust back?

***

In the opposite direction, about a day’s journey away, Max is halfway running to keep up with Loki.

“Come on man,” he pants. Usually, he would consider himself fairly fit, if not more than fairly, but today that old, skinny god is giving him a proper race.

“I don’t need your advice or whatever it is you are here to give me, you should go back to your husband, enjoy every minute your small human lives will afford you.” It is tempting, to just let the trickster god alone, but he is still in human form, and that, despite his rapid pace, means he does want to talk. Max takes two running steps and wraps a hand around Loki’s bicep. The trickster god stops up and looks at him.

“Come on man, you don’t just walk away from a woman like that. Talk to me, what happened?”

“For the last time, it doesn’t concern you,” Loki assures him and makes a half-hearted attempt to pull his arm free. Max tilts his head in disbelief. “Look, she’s better off without me,” Loki says stubbornly.

“Oh really?” Max interjects. “She didn’t look too happy to me when you walked away.”

“She will be, trust me. In a month she will be happy to be free of me.” Max shakes his head in disbelief.

“She loves you, man. She stood by your side for a thousand years, that is not casual, that is not a relationship you just get over like that. She loves you. Are you really gonna force her to live out the rest of her days, how ever long those might be, without her one true love?” Something flashes in Loki’s eyes, it almost looks like… anger.

“At least she will get to live that way,” he hisses and pulls his arm free before marching off with determined steps. Max laughs.

“Did you and I witness the same thing just now? Dude, your wife legitimately beat all of Asgard today, she can do just fine on her own, she doesn’t need your fake protection.” Loki turns on his heels and storms back. He’s not a short guy, but neither is Max, and right now, Max is towering half a head above Loki who is looking smaller and smaller with each angry breath.

“And do you know what happened last time she faced up against those guys?” Loki shouts, his hair and spit flying wild.

“Yeah, I think I’ve gotten the gist of it by now,” Max assures him. “A thousand years in a cave, holding a bowl, your sons killed and fashioned into chains to bind you. Did I miss anything?” Loki breathes in deeply.

“Then how can you possibly say she isn’t better off without me?” he demands, his demeanor slightly calmer, but the ferocity still bubbling just under the surface, reminding Max that he is in fact arguing with a very angry god. Loki is by no means harmless, but somehow, Max feels quite certain that he won’t harm him.

“Because that is an old fear,” Max replies with the patience of a kinder garden teacher. “That all happened a thousand years ago. What happened today is that your wife, your amazingly fierce, incredibly strong, unbelievably loyal wife, beat all of Asgard. She took them on, and she came out on top. That is today, that is what matters, not some thousand-year-old fear.” Loki clenches his jaw. Even if he were to go back, he betrayed her, she would never take him back now.

“It is too late,” he tells Max. “Go, find your husband, get back home, and don’t make the same mistakes I did.” His voice is almost calm now, as if he’s forcing himself to find peace in the status quo.

“And what exactly were those?” Max asks softly as Loki once again walks away from him. The trickster stops in his tracks, but this time he doesn’t turn around.

“I betrayed her,” he mumbles.

“I think she’s known that for a while man,” Max reminds him. “She seemed well aware of your illegitimate children.”

“No, that’s not… Well, I did that too, I can’t deny that either. I was freaking out, I didn’t know how I could have possibly imagined I could do marriage, so I went out to let of some steam.” Max looks down. It’s not like he doesn’t know the feeling, the panic when looking at the rest of your life tied to one person, the momentary panic, but that is not an excuse for infidelity.

“How about next time you try to just talk to your wife? She’s a very understanding woman, I mean, she stood by you even after you killed that Baldur guy.” Loki almost smiles. “That Baldur guy,” what a refreshing description.

“I did,” he whispers. “Just now, I told her everything.” He looks down at the grass at his feet. He should just change into the eagle and fly away, never come back here. He should just stay in Jotunheim until Ragnarök. “She’s not coming back, there is no returning from this.” Max steps forward, closing the distance between them one hesitant step at a time.

“What did you do to her?” he asks, his voice quite and low.

“The one thing that even she can’t forgive,” Loki mumbles at his feet. “I tried to take her choice from her.” There, he said it, he admitted it – and no excuses, no explanations. He did what he did, and his reasons didn’t make it any less horrible. He did the worst thing he could possibly do to Sigyn, and he hadn’t even realized it at the same. He had thought his plan so smart, almost fool proof. It just hadn’t been Loki proof. Max stops up, still a few steps behind Loki. What choice had he tried to take from her? What choice could those two possibly have a differing opinion on, and to such a degree that Loki would go to such extreme lengths to get his way?

“Have you tried asking her?” Max asks instead. Loki turns slowly around to face the human.

“Asking her what?”

“Asking her forgiveness, of course. Admitting you were wrong, saying you’re sorry.” Something flashes over Loki’s face, just for a second, but it was anger. “You do admit that you were wrong, don’t you? I mean, if it caused her this much pain, surely you can’t still think you acted in her best interest, whatever it was that you did.” Loki shakes his head angrily.

“What’s the point?” he demands. “It is over, she won’t ever see my face again.” Max bites his lip. Loki is too stubborn for his own good, and seems determined not to communicate in any healthy or significant way.

“Well, that might be true,” Mas says, ponderingly. “But you still hurt her. Don’t you think you should apologize for that, let her know that you didn’t mean for her to get hurt, that you are sorry.”

“Of course I didn’t mean for her to get hurt!”

“I know, and she likely knows as well, but there’s a healing power in hearing someone admit they did wrong by you, and ask for your forgiveness.” Loki looks utterly lost, uncomprehending. “Honestly man, have you two ever communicated? You don’t tell her you love her, you don’t tell her when you screw up, you don’t ask for forgiveness… What kind of husband are you?”

“She knew who I was when she married me,” Loki defends himself. Max throws his head back and laughs up at the sky.

“That doesn’t mean you have to stay that way,” he says loudly. “People evolve, they learn from past mistakes, and they try to do better next time. That is life, and that is regardless of whether you are a god of Asgard or a human from Midgard.”

“I’m a Jotun, actually,” Loki corrects.

“Jotun, sure,” Max accepts, not sure what else to do. “Look, man, you can either give up on a thousand year old marriage, give up on the perfect woman who somehow is crazy enough to care about you, or you can go back to her, tail between your legs, admit you were wrong in what you did, and hope that she can find it in her heart to forgive you. Which one is it, are you gonna give it a try, or are you gonna resign the both of you to a life alone?”

***

They have almost reached the halfway mark to Helheim by the time Loki and Max catch up with them. Sigyn swallows and hardens her face, willing herself to be ready for whatever he else he could throw at her. Loki just stares at her. It would be so much easier if he could just pull her close and kiss her and that would make everything alright.

“Just remember,” Max whispers. “Don’t explain, don’t justify, just tell her you are sorry for what you did.” He gives Loki a gentle nudge in the back and the trickster god takes a stumbling, unwilling step forward, his long, slim limbs making him look like an uncoordinated teenager after a growth spurt. Sigyn raises an eyebrow at him. Loki swallows hard. She doesn’t want him here, that much is clear. Why did he ever let Max talk him into this? She is better off hating him, this is just being selfish again. Loki turns on his heels to walk away, but is stopped by the insistent hands of Max grabbing a hold of his arms and blocking his way. Loki hesitates, looking at the human who dares order him around, but then he, slowly and timidly, turns back around and faces his wife. He raises his eyes off the ground and find hers. She is angry, and closed off, not a new look for her, Loki has seen her this way often enough, but never directed at him – most often, in fact, directed at whoever disrespected him. He can feel his knees weaken under that stare, like he’s being reduced to a whimpering mess unable to stand on his own legs. He swallows hard. Two little words, he owes her that, two little words and then he can go, then he can leave her alone forever. Two words.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice broken and barely audible. Sigyn just stares at him, as if expecting more, but he doesn’t know what else to say. Max told him not at explain, not to justify – so what more is there to say?

“What?” she asks, raising her eyebrow. She has never known Loki to mumble like that, nor look so timid. He looks more like a child than her husband. She watches him glance away, swallow hard, force himself to stand straight, and when his eyes find hers again he is almost recognizable.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, forcing his voice to be strong – for her. She needs to know he means it. “For what I did, all of it, for killing Baldur, for getting our sons killed, for never being there when they were alive…” he pauses, letting the sentence trail off, not hesitating, not searching for words, but allowing what he says next to be it’s own, to be separate. “I’m sorry I went behind your back, that I tried to force your hand.” He keeps eye contract with her, even when she blinks in bewilderment, even when she leans back on her heels, even when her mouth opens as if she lost the strength to keep her jaw closed. Loki keeps eye contact, and Sigyn can’t force herself to look away. “I should never have assumed my way was the only way. I am sorry.”

This can’t be real. Loki doesn’t admit fault. Loki doesn’t apologize. Loki doesn’t open up like this, he tells stories and makes your heart laugh with him, but he doesn’t… he’s never… Loki, trickster god, man-whore, untrustworthy, two faced, selfish Loki, apologizing? And it is no trick. He is standing in front of her, flesh and blood, no tricks, no second wave witty words to undo the first, nothing asked for, nothing on the line, nothing in it for him. Except Sigyn.

She takes a step back. Loki automatically reaches out a hand, as if to catch her, to pull her close, but he doesn’t touch her, he lets her leave him. Her choice. She stares back at him, his hand slowly falling back to his side. He isn’t the Loki she knows, and yet he is Loki. But is he her Loki? Her eyes dart to the humans standing together a little removed from them, watching, but not intruding. What did Max say to Loki? What prompted this change?

Loki keeps looking at his wife, not sure what he is waiting for – he doesn’t expect anything from her, not an acceptance of his apology, not forgiveness, not a second chance. He turned on her, tried to manipulate her, and it didn’t even occur to him that that was what he was doing, taking away her choice, until it was too late. He knows he doesn’t deserve anything from her – never have. Pure, loyal, loving Sigyn, she owes nothing to the lying, scheming, cheating Loki. But he can’t just walk away. Maybe he should. He said what he came to say, what Max told him he owed to Sigyn to tell her, he should be done here now. But he can’t walk away. No, if anyone turns their back and walks away, it will be Sigyn this time. Her choice. Plus, she is the strong one, Loki would much rather pull her close and forget any of it ever happened than actually walk away again.

“What are you doing?” is the only, softly murmured, thing she can think to say. Loki looks down and shuffles his foot on the forest floor, unable to bear the look in her eyes, confused and uncertain of him.

“I… I was told I should… that I owed…” he abandons the sentence and looks up at her again. “Max said I needed to tell you, to speak the words out loud.” Is that a human thing? Does she think he’s a freak now? No, unlikely, she forced an apology out of Odin.

“Sigyn?” Ian asks softly when the silence gets too awkward even for him to bear.

“I…” she starts out, but falters and falls back to simply staring.

“Just say whatever is on your mind,” Ian encourages simply. “You two can’t end up worse than you are right now.” There is truth in that.

“Does this mean you want to come back?” she asks desperately. The world is crumbling around her, everything she knew suddenly shifting, and she has nothing to hold on to.

“I…” It is Loki’s turn to falter now. Max sighs and shakes his head at the ground.

“Of course, he wants to come back,” he translates, hoping to move this along, get past the awkwardness before it kills them all. “He loves you, of course he doesn’t want to be without you. He only ever wanted to keep you safe, that’s the only reason he ever thought about leaving. Just…” but here Loki cuts him short.

“It is your choice. If you want me to go, I’ll go, you can be free.” Ian reaches out and gives Max’s hand a squeeze. She won’t leave. They are crazy and dysfunctional, and logically speaking there is nothing that should glue them together like this, they are as opposite as it is possible to be, but Loki worships the ground Sigyn walks on, and Sigyn is mesmerized by every word that passes over Loki’s lips. Perhaps she deserves to be treated better than this, but no one could ever love her more than Loki does. Somehow, they both make each other better people.

“Leave Asgard?” she whispers, her voice uncertain and weak, as if sure she is asking too much of him, that her “choice” has limits. Loki’s head drops and he closes his eyes firmly, forcing himself to not let her know how much that hurt, his pain isn’t her burden. He gave her the choice, and she made the right one. He nods slowly, still not able to look up.

“You won’t see me here again,” he agrees. Now all that’s left is to walk away, it is what she wants.

“With me,” she whispers. His head snaps up. What? “Leave with me. Leave Asgard, leave Odin behind, let them clean up their own messes from now on, just… just come away with me, start over, without any of them to interfere.” A soft, single laugh of relief escapes Loki’s throat as his face drops into a smile. Leave with her? That… His face cracks open with an uncontainable smile. She smiles nervously at him. He laughs, like bubbles of happiness are forming in his chest and rising up, transforming into laughter as they reach the air.

“Where?” he asks, excitement in his voice. He really wants to stay with her, Sigyn has no trouble reading that in his face. He hasn’t grown tired of her, he doesn’t think she is too weak to make her own choices or that he should somehow be in charge of or responsible for her. Her face cracks into a complete and giddy smile.

“Midgard?” she asks. He shakes his head lightly.

“I’d live in Niflheim if it meant being with you,” he laughs. Max and Ian send each other a half worried, half excited look. The trickster god living among humans in Midgard? That could either go very, very wrong, or it could be one hell of a ride. Max is the first to crack a smile, and not a second later Ian is softly laughing, leaning against his husband to keep from falling over. Max lets go of his hand to throw his arm around him instead, and Ian buries his head in Max’s should to muffle his laugh. Loki has his arms around Sigyn and his head buried in her hair, just holding her, breathing her in, assuring himself this is real. A little further back stands a young man and a small looking wolf (small compared to his half-brother at any rate). Nari doesn’t speak to interrupt the scene, but rather waits for it to be over. Loki is the first to spot him, looking up from Sigyn for a moment and finding his son’s eyes. For a long time, the two men just look at each other, neither of them moving. Then Nari gives Loki a short nod. Not forgiveness, per say, but acceptance, and at this point Loki can ask for nothing more from the son he got killed. He looks at the wolf, and it too nods. He loosens his grip on Sigyn and gently turns her around. She spots her sons, and she doesn’t miss a beat but runs straight to them, falling to her knees and stroking back the fur on Vali’s face. Nari puts a hand on his mother’s shoulder and kneels down next to her.

“Thank you,” he whispers softly, and she wraps her free arm around him, pulling both her sons into a tight hug. “I didn’t think you could do it,” he admits with a nervous laugh. Sigyn smiles. She knew she was gonna be with her sons again, either she would get them back to the living, or she would die trying – either way, they would be reunited at last. She pulls him closer, her arm almost crushing him, her face buried in Vali’s shoulder. Nari throws his arms around his brother and mother. Loki watches them, a soft pang of some emotion in his heart, but whether it is guilt for his sons, or pride in his wife, he can’t quite tell. Perhaps it is both. Perhaps, he will get a chance to change things from now on – after all, Ragnarök is a long way off, it won’t happen until the day he realigns with the Jotun’s and invades Asgard. He has time, and this time, he will do better, he will do right by them. All of them.