Loki and Sigyn, His Glorious Purpose

Chapter 39

I still remember that day. It haunts me in my dreams no matter how hard I have tried to forget. It was a hefty weight on my conscience that never quite left. But I suppose that's how life is with blood on your hands.

I was only a child then. Small and innocent but so incredibly unhappy. It was a marvel how I made it through my adolescence. I hate to cast blame on any one person but if I had to, it certainly would be my mother.

Runa Gunnarsdottir. My mother. I remember her clearly. She was much taller than I am now, she always towered over me. I suppose all the stress she bestowed upon me stunted my growth. Nevertheless, she was pretty. My mother was always as pale as milk and her hair hung in loose scraggly blonde curls down her back. Her eyes were sunken and so dark they almost seemed black. My mother was no doubt a woman who appeared to be very beautiful but her soul told a different story.

She had had me when she was no more than twenty. She and my father had been the project of an arranged marriage. My father claimed to have loved her and I believe he did. He was always more than kind to her, provided her with anything she ever asked for. But I questioned whether my mother had not an ounce of love in her heart for Iwald. My poor father truly deserved better than the vast array of infidelity that she portrayed. She was quite heartless towards all of her children. It's a wonder as to why she had so many.

I only remember her in bouts of terror. The way she would yell at me with a blood-curdling voice is so deeply ingrained in my memory. The slam of a door in my face upon finding her with another man haunts my dreams. I can still feel her hand gripped too tightly around my wrist begging me to never tell. When she was alive, I walked on eggshells doing anything and everything to make her happy. I hoped that if I just did as told and kept my head down, she might just leave me alone.

So often I wished my father had been around more. In my mind, I had believed that if only papa were home, she would never be able to hurt me. I'd look into the night sky and wish on every single star before I fell asleep, just wishing that she would leave me be. Unfortunately, I learned very quickly that wishes don't come true. If you wanted something, you had to do it yourself.

Ever the seeker of men's attention, she would constantly have soldiers and travelers at our house. It didn't matter if she was pregnant or had a nursing infant in the room over, there were always men. I did my best to escape it by apprenticing at the infirmary but I could only be gone for so long before returning home. 

As a child, I didn't really have a true sense that what was being done to me was wrong. I suppose I suspected it in some way. I used to wonder why I would feel "sick" or why it always had to be a secret. But I didn't fully realize the actual weight of the situation until I was older and was finally extricated from my mother. Truly, I don't remember many of the nights in which my mother would host men. I could remember snippets of that aspect of my childhood but they were clouded over by other memories. I could only really recall dark rooms and hushed voices telling me if I just stayed quiet, I would be okay. I mindlessly obeyed, always too scared to know what would happen if I said no. Besides, I didn't want to go waking my sisters up with cries or screams and I certainly didn't want them to be in my position. I was the oldest, I had to take care of the hard stuff. My mother told me this was just another aspect of my responsibility as the eldest sister.

I remember making my decision one night after a party. I couldn't have been any older than 10. I had come home from the infirmary and made quick work of putting the wee ones to bed. Like most nights when father was gone, men were over. I knew my duty, I understood I just had to do as told and get through it all. I knew at the end of it all, I would be allowed to go to bed and that's just I wanted. I thought it would be like any other time that my mother entertained these men. But, early into the night, I saw my mother bring out Hertha. I so vividly recall the horror I felt upon seeing my mother hand my sister off to a man. I remember wanting to scream and shield Hertha from it all. I could stand my mistreatment but I couldn't stand Hertha's.

Staring into the dark ceiling, I knew I had to do something. Everything within me was screaming at me to put an end to it all. Carefully, I slipped out of bed and into the garden that night. In the moonlight, the pale yellow flower seemed to be calling my name. Gelsemium. Typically, it is used as a painkiller for migraines and for pain caused by certain facial nerves. It was quite useful if you only used the flower's roots, but the petals themselves were deadly. I knew this as I had been scolded at the infirmary for almost dosing a patient with the yellow flowers. Plucking a few of the blooms, I hurried inside to make a tea. I knew my mother was still awake and I could just give her the tea before she fell asleep. It seemed foolproof, and it was.

The next morning, all of my problems were gone. I didn't feel happy. But I was most certainly felt relieved. My hands weren't necessarily bloody but they certainly had poison on them.

Perhaps this was the reason I found myself so willing to overlook Loki's ledger. I knew I had no capability to judge. My conscience was far from clean. For years, I had tried to atone my ledger through my work in healing. However, I soon found out though that no matter how many lives you save you can never have a clean slate. Even if no one knows, the fact that you know is punishment enough.

-

"How do you have blood on your hands?" Thor asked me.

"I've lost patients over the course of my career," I said softly, giving a somber smile.

He nodded. Thor may be able to sniff out Loki's lies but he was certainly unable to see through mine.