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Drip. Drip. Drip.
Her arms tremble and her body aches, but she holds the bowl steady. The rocks on the cave floor cut into her bare feet, but she holds the bowl steady. The poison falls on her hands instead of the bowl and she cringes as the skin burns with a faint hiss, but she holds the bowl steady. The dried blood of her sons stains the hem of her dress and in the dim light she can see the chains made from Narvi’s entrails binding her husband, but she holds the bowl steady, even when grief threatens to overtake her.
Some will ask why do she does not simply kill the snake. Why she does not free her husband from his torment, instead of simply standing above him and holding a bowl.
They do not know that Odin’s will is not so easy to beat as all that. It will take time. Fortunately, she has plenty of it now. They do not know that she did this to protect her husband as much as she could, until she finds a way to break his bindings and free him—free them both—from the cave. They disregard her love for her husband and think her nothing but a loyal wife, doing what she perceives as her duty.
Eventually they forget her, as they always have.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Loki speaks to her sometimes, begs her to leave, but she does not give in. She has made her choice, and she made it willingly. With the blood still warm underneath her feet and on her hands, she turned her back on Odin and Asgard itself, told the All-Father no when he ordered her to come away from her husband. She chose to stay with her husband instead of the people who stood by and watched as Odin murdered her sons and bound their father with their own insides.
They call Loki the monster, the traitor of Asgard, and turn a blind eye to the traitors in their own midst.
It was an easy choice to make, in the end. And one day, Odin All-Father and the rest will regret the choices they’ve made.
But for now, she holds the bowl steady, as the venom drips, drips, drips.