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Angrboda sits in front of the mirror on the bed she has shared with her sister all her life. Her mother is doing her hair. She yanks strands of it into too-tight elaborate Jotun braids. Later, in the Poetic Edda, her hair is described as blood red, but it seems more ginger in the dim morning light. Not quite the blood red everyone tells her it is. Her own bright eyes gaze back at her as she studies herself. The mirror is broken. It has been for years. Mother always claimed it was Angrboda who broke it. She was playing too recklessly when it smashed. Her older sister claimed that Angrboda’s mother broke it. Angrboda doesn’t know who to believe. She studied the fragmented mirror, half wondering why they even bothered to keep the old thing. It would be so much more useful if they just threw it out. They could use it for starting fires or for weapons, or even-
“Well?” Angrboda’s mother asked, yanking so hard that she pulled Angrboda back to reality.
Angrboda was silent.
“Of course, you weren’t listening.” Angrboda’s mother scowled. Her glare stared back at Angrboda in the mirror. “You’re just like him. Right down to the roots.” She tugged again at Angrboda’s hair.
It’s like a game, these moments with her mother. Except there is never any winning. Emotional chicken, where she says the most hurtful things she can think of, and Angrboda-
All she can do is try to keep herself from sobbing. Crying would only invite more jabs. More taunts. More ‘you’re weak, just like him. How could anyone love you? I knew I should have snapped your neck when you were a baby. Put you out of your misery-’
“He’s the closest to godly you’ll ever get.” Angrboda’s mother continued. “That Loki. He’s a good catch. I’m surprised he settled for you, but there’s no accounting for taste, is there?”
Angrboda hated it when her mother talked about Loki. He’d wandered into the Ironwood a few years back, returning occasionally. He always visited Angrboda. She thought she loved him. He was so pretty, and he had such clever fingers-
But Angrboda’s mother didn’t need to know about that.
“Don’t fuck this up.” Angrboda’s mother said, giving one final pull at her hair. When Angrboda studied the elaborate wedding braids in the broken mirror.
As soon as her mother died, Angrboda swore to herself that she would smash that thing with her hammer and break it into a million pieces.
Years later, they were lying in bed. Angrboda and Loki, their legs tangled as they pressed together in the icy winter. He was talking about her again. Sigyn. The pretty wife the gods, had picked out for him. She shouldn’t be jealous. Polyamory was normal for the women who lived in the Iron Woods. Most of them were single, despite that- Most had escaped cruel husbands, brothers, and fathers- why would they go and seek out more men? Sigyn was one of the only women in the woods with a consort.
But Loki only ever seemed to want to talk about her. Sigyn. Pretty, godly Sigyn. Loki’s good, loyal wife. The wife who bore him two sons. The wife who sat with him in the hall of the gods, pitiful as their table was. Angrboda wasn’t even sure he knew he was doing it. It was always just some strange, offhand comments. Sometimes, she’d even ask about Sigyn. She didn’t know why- self-flagellation, maybe? She was never pretty, not by Jotun or godly standards. Jotun were coldly beautiful. The kind of pretty that usually came with an edge. Godly women were like sunbeams, ethereal and warm. Angrboda was neither of those. Her mother never failed to remind Angrboda how much she looked like her traitorous human father. She wouldn’t have been a particularly good wife, either, if Loki had decided to marry her properly and show her off to the gods. She was terrible at cleaning anything but weapons, and where most women were clever with numbers and finances, Angrboda always seemed to fall short. Her mother never failed to point out those wifely failings either.
Angrboda wondered why she had never seen the halls of the gods. Why Loki didn’t tell her how pretty she looked. She loved him, didn’t she? Her mother had always cautioned her- ‘men always think of women as frigid, traitorous bitches or sweet, stupid wives.’ Which did Loki think of her?
Angrboda stared at herself in the mirror. It was a gift from her mother- a cracked thing that had once been beautiful. The same thing she’d done Angrboda’s hair in front of for years and years.
Did Loki ever talk about Angrboda to Sigyn? Did he ever sing her praises in the halls of the gods the same way he talked about Sigyn? Was Angrboda a bitch or a lover to him? Was there even a difference?
Angrboda sat in front of the mirror, staring down at her daughter. She was such a very tiny, pale thing. Half of her was beautiful in the way most Jotun maidens were. An icy cold sort of beauty. But the other half…
The midwife had nearly fainted when the girl was born. She’d thought that the child was dead. That she’d died in Angrboda’s belly, and the rot would eat away at Angrboda, too. But then, Angrboda’s daughter let out a terrific shriek, and Angrboda started to cry herself while her sister gripped her hand.
She was perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, and such fine little features. She looked every bit like Loki, and all Angrboda could feel was a deep, never-ending sorrow. It felt like a piece of her was missing. Like the little girl in front of her, so absolutely perfect in every way, was just a piece of Angrboda that fell out one day. Angrboda was half afraid to hold her after she was born. The midwife had handed her over shakily, pressing wet newborn skin to skin.
Angrboda’s mother always told her that she had ruined everything she touched. Angrboda knew she was a monster. A witch. A traitorous, evil bitch. Just like her mother said. There was no escaping the look in Loki’s eyes when he spoke to her. No escaping the fundamental truth that Angrboda was a monster.
It made sense that Angrboda would give birth to a monster, too.