Chapter Text
Incarnation Fetter.
Retellings have reduced her to a shadow, a footnote, a name.
They forget she has victory in her name.
Ironic, really. Given what happened to her.
But once, she had a spark.
A fire burned inside of her, her hunger for recognition insatiable.
She wanted more of a legacy than being an invisible housewife.
But her spirit was shattered, the iron-hard shards reforged into something colder.
A hunger for recognition became a quest for vengeance.
She seeks to destroy those who tore her family apart.
Who refused to recognise her for what she was.
Refused to see the snake before their eyes hidden in the undergrowth.
Her name was Sigyn (redacted)dottir.
And even the gods themselves forgot that the Nornir announced her to become the Goddess of Victory.
Hello? Hello? Are you listening? Why aren't you listening?
The fire is warm, the smell of cooking meat reminding me of home. Of feasts, of celebrations. There won't be many of those in the future.
They denied me the right to even stay with him! Oh, the mortals, the pathetic, weak mortals, they think old One-Eye is so merciful. Bah! He is little more than a grasping tyrant for all his famed 'wisdom'.
Ragnarök is nearing, the cold winds of Fimbulwinter howling around me even now. The worlds reduced to ash, to dust. Fitting, since that's what mine is now.
They took my sons, they took my husband, what else can they take from me besides my life? The jest's on them if they do, for I care nothing for it. I would go to Valhalla if they killed me, for I would not roll over on my back and let them do what they see fit. I would rather go to Hel, for that's where the rest of my family will end up.
Sometimes I see myself and wonder what others think when they glimpse the same. Do they only see a madwoman, with twigs in her tangled raven hair, smudges of dirt upon her face and a wild look in her fevered blue eyes, clad like a man and carrying a sword with a wolf at my side? Or do they think me noble despite it, an avenging spirit? Probably the former if One-Eye had any say in it. Yes, he probably warned the villages not to accept me. Even with the hospitality laws, doors are slammed in my face wherever I stray. I am forced to sleep out in the wilds like an animal, only Váli offering me warmth.
Oh Váli, my sweet, beautiful son, I will personally make One-Eye pay for his crimes against you. You are blameless, he forced you.
The rabbit is almost cooked, the meat sizzling with fat that drips down onto the fire. I know I am eyeing it hungrily, becoming more like a wolf with each passing day. After all, I am avenging my pack, my family. I can barely wait two seconds after taking the meat off the fire before biting into it, tearing away chunks of flesh like a starved dog. The sizzling fat burns the roof of my mouth, but I am so hungry that I find myself not caring, the food is too delicious and well-needed after two days without.
There was a time when I would have cared for decorum, felt I would have been cast out of the halls for eating not even like a man but like some wild thing. There was a time when I would have only eaten a few small bites and toyed with the rest for the evening, concerned with my looks and Sif's scathing comments. Those days are past. This new me does not care for such things.
Váli eyes me from where he is chewing his raw rabbit, the second of the two caught today. I finish eating the first and stare back, daring him to silently judge me. I would have been killed were he an ordinary wolf. But because he had the mind of an Midgardian-Jötun, he went back to eating.
He will never be human again, I will never hear his voice again, hear his laughter, hear him decide which runes would be required of a spell, never ruffle that red hair of his, unmistakably his father's contribution. Oh One-Eye, if only you realised what an enemy you have made, you would be shaking in your boots, quivering in your golden halls. I will enjoy watching you choke upon your own spittle, blood and bile...
Most do not know my name. Even now, One-Eye is going around Midgard, ordering their historians and bards to strike my name from their work, erase my existence. He believes he can forget me that easily? Oh, how wrong he is. And they call him wise. A woman's grief is colder than any winter, sharper than any sword and more deadly than any creature to walk the Nine. They took my husband, my sons, everything I have but the clothes on my back, the sword at my side and the life I would so readily discard for the chance to see my family whole and happy again.
Váli has One-Eye's hooks buried deep in him, and he will never recover from what that monster made him do. Narfi is Hel's guest, the one beside her at the banquet table. Loki... I cannot think of him. My one and only love, and they tear him from me. It will not be Flame-Hair who burns Asgard to ash at the End, it with be I.
My name is Sigyn, and I shall never again deign myself to the title of Odindottir. I am myself, only myself, and I wish to walk free of his poisonous shadow, of the man who took me in and denied me everything I craved, whether for best or worst. This is my saga, the one historians will never write of, that the bards will never sing because One-Eye has crossed out all mention of me. I know I shall end up forgotten, but I care about it so little that it seems irrelevant. This is how I viewed things. This is not some tale One-Eye has spun to make himself and the Gods the heroes while every other species is a slave at best and a villain at worst. This is my tale. My telling. My story. My saga.
Ragnarök is coming, and I only can only wish that the future inhabitants of the Nine find this, realise that, as every coin has two sides, so does every story. And that most of history is dictated by the winners. I can only grasp my own point of view back from those gaping jaws, and it is a losing battle.
This is my saga.