For the Love of a Queen

Chapter 2

Sigyn sits quietly in her house wondering what all went so terribly wrong that the sweet young man she met so many years fell from the Bifrost, an intentional act. Suicide. She is one of the few outside the royal family who knows the prince was not simply a casualty of the incident that shattered the Bridge, but also its architect.

There is a feast at the palace. She has been invited. There was a victory in Midgard and the Frost Giants have once again been defeated in their troublemaking, or at least this is the public narrative. But her heart is far too heavy and there will be few there who would be willing to understand her mourning, even in his treason. His mother, perhaps, but not his friends. She heard the way they bickered outside her door about how they would tell her what he had done.

She wonders how Thor feels. If his heart is as crushed as hers. If he feels as though his chest is pressed under the weight of all worlds. If his head hurts, his stomach turns, and if there are obscenities he would like to scream over the edge of the Void to curse his brother for letting go.

She walks through her house, small as it is, looking for the things he gave her, or things he particularly loved. Everything brightly coloured, reflections of her soul's vibrance, seem offensive given the grief. She wishes her father were still alive. There are rituals and rites for times like this, ways to care for one another as a family. But she has no one left to perform them.

She rests her hand on her belly and feels the little fluttering movements within. Twins. She knows their names, but will not speak them or write them. There are dark things on their horizon, and possibly death by one another's hands, but she is determined to enjoy them while she can, to thwart the visions if at all possible. Fates are never set. They can be changed.

She takes off the long white wrapped dress she has lounged in so often since she discovered her pregnancy and hangs it on a peg. There are darker things to wear now, and she drapes herself in black silk lengths, tying a scarf in her hair and draping a long shawl over her head. Her stomach pushes through the draped strips of fabric, bump ever so slight. She does not bother to cover herself as she walks into the street, the silk shifting to expose her body. Her neighbours are her fellow wanderers, they will understand this is not strange, but traditional mourning, for she has lost her prince.

She had not seen him in months. The distance between them worried her, but she knew there were things demanded of him in preparation for Thor's coronation. He had written letters at first, but she had asked only to see him to tell him their good news. She would not write it. So it had waited. And now it was too late.

She walks to the communal fire in the middle of the square. They long ago closed off the streets with wagons and barrels, eventually building barricades to keep the traffic away. A circle of homes. The way their wagons, tents, carriages, and little cottages on wheels would have been around the fires out in the fields. At the fire, she says his name, draws back her veil, and spits. The old women who mind the fire and knit their days away telling stories set aside their yarn and draw drums from beneath their benches, placing them between their knees. They play and Sigyn dances.