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When he woke up, he was back in the cave again. Some part of him always was, the pain ever-present and burning, but occasionally he would be pulled back entirely, unable to project any part of himself outward until he recovered his strength. It was an unavoidable price to pay for being able to leave at all. Unfortunately, the timing was typically less than ideal.
He squinted into the darkness through eyes ravaged by venom. Sigyn was there above him like she always was, silent and steady. She met his gaze unblinkingly, tears still running down her face.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered, feeling a flash of unpleasant emotion. His voice, his real voice, was hoarse from screaming and lack of use, but the pain in his vocal cords was nothing compared to the agony of his face or even the burn of his ankles and wrists from centuries of straining at his bonds.
Sigyn’s expression didn’t change. The only sound in the cave was the steady drip of poison falling from the snake’s fangs into Sigyn’s waiting bowl. It was less than halfway full, suggesting she’d emptied it shortly before he’d been pulled back. That increase in pain as he was temporarily unshielded could have been what snapped him back to the cave in the first place.
He’d been having such a lovely time in Midgard, too. What had he been doing again? The transition from his illusion self to his real self always disoriented him, like waking from a dream to a nightmare.
He looked away from Sigyn, flicking his ruined eyes down at himself.
Ah.
The cave would hardly be an effective prison if Loki were able to escape by shapeshifting, but whether intentional or merely an oversight, not all forms were barred. Where usually Loki appeared as a once-handsome emaciated man, presently she found herself in the form of a rail-thin and scarred woman with long red hair. Her lips curled in distaste as she noted the curves she had been so pleased with earlier had all but disappeared, replaced with much the same gaunt and filthy flesh as her male form. Her hair, while much longer, was still tangled and singed beyond saving, as if it had been this long the whole time and endured centuries of venom burns.
She could escape the prison of being tied to one gender, but she couldn’t escape who she was. Loki. A trickster, a murderer, and a prisoner.
She felt that flash of emotional discomfort again as her gaze drifted back toward Sigyn. In addition to being the only thing to look at in the cave, the way Loki was restrained all but forced her to look straight up at Sigyn the majority of the time she was conscious. Moments ago, if her sense of time could be trusted, which she knew it couldn’t, she had been with someone else. Fierro, she recalled. She had been gorgeous, and he’d been rather handsome too, and they’d made quite the pair.
Not like her and her wife. Not anymore.
She felt Sigyn’s gaze upon her again. Bloodshot eyes in a sunken face stained with tears and burns. Loki huffed an infuriated sigh through ruined lips.
“I said don’t look at me like that,” she grumbled, something uncomfortable gnawing behind her ribcage. “Leave, then, if you want. Nobody’s making you stay.”
Sigyn’s gaze continued to bore into her. Venom slowly fell drop by drop into the bowl. Sigyn’s arms never wavered even as the weight of the bowl increased.
Loki looked away first.
“Yes, fine, I know,” she snapped, eyes closed in anticipation of pain. “Yes, I know, you’ve told me before.”
Loki flinched as something touched her head before realizing it didn’t hurt any more than usual. She blinked up at Sigyn and saw it was her wife’s narrow chest pressed against the crown of her head, both hands still holding the bowl aloft. A lump rose in Loki’s throat, and she swallowed painfully.
“I’m doing this for both of us,” she said. “One way or another, if I get out, you’ll be rid of me. Of all this. And this plan is the only way out under the circumstances.”
The bowl was almost full. She could tell by the sound of the droplets and the way Sigyn held it and around a thousand years or so of practice measuring exactly how long this bowl took to fill with venom. Dread and anger flared in Loki’s stomach.
“Be quick,” she said selfishly, squeezing her eyes closed. The reassuring press of Sigyn’s worn form against her disappeared.
In its place was pain. An old familiar pain, full of anger and bitterness. Loki screamed as the venom tore into her eyelids and cheeks, straining against the bonds at her ankles and wrists. The reminder of her children, of Vali and Nari, turned her scream into a howl of grief, and nausea churned in her gut despite the centuries that had passed since this body had eaten. Her vision swam, turning the ceiling of the cavern and the looming snake into a tangle of incoherent shapes as she tried and failed to blink the venom away.
Eventually, she looked up and the bowl was back. Sigyn stood a few inches from her, new burns riddling her hands and arms. Loki tried to remember any emotion that wasn’t blind rage.
“You call that quick?” she hissed, unable to stop herself. Sigyn looked down at her blankly.
Guilt. That was the emotional discomfort she had been feeling. No wonder she hadn’t recognized it. Loki did not experience guilt often, and now that she was, she didn’t know what to do with it.
“Quick enough, I suppose,” she amended through clenched teeth. The cruelty of the Aesir was not Sigyn’s fault, and Loki knew it, but it was hard to keep this in mind with all the different types of hatred and rage flowing through her being. But she had a plan, and needlessly harassing the one person in all the Nine Realms who was helping her with no ulterior motive was not part of that plan.
Sigyn continued to look at her, and almost imperceptibly, her eyes moved up and down Loki’s form, lingering on her hair and her abdomen. Loki grimaced, only partly from the lingering pain.
“You’ve seen me before,” she quipped halfheartedly. “You’ve seen me more than anyone.”
As a matter of fact, the single article of clothing she’d been given to wear while imprisoned did very little to cover her in her current form, so Sigyn was currently seeing much more of Loki than was generally considered acceptable, although it was far from the first time. They were married after all.
That was, Loki reflected, rather part of the issue. She sighed, finding herself stuck with the cave and her choices and her wife for the moment. That feeling, that guilt, continued to eat at her insides, like an itch that needed scratching.
“It’s the plan,” she said at last. Her voice, still hoarse, was the only sound in the darkness other than the sickening drip of venom. “You know the plan, surely.”
Silence, almost reproachful.
“Yes, of course you know the plan—you want an update on the plan.” Loki bit back her frustration. “I may have gotten a bit carried away manifesting so near the center of the Tree. It was quite unpleasant, but I met a lovely doctor who was very helpful. Our daughter Samirah was born a month or so ago, er, depending on how long I was out just now. I have high hopes for little Sam.”
Loki hesitated before continuing, searching Sigyn’s face despite herself. Sigyn was still looking at her with what Loki was convinced was a pointed expression.
“Right, and so since I was already in the area, I thought, well, it’s good to have backups, and what if we tried something different? What if this one had a little more of me in them? And I met this businessman who I knew was interested, although I do believe he’s married, and well…”
Loki closed her eyes as if trying to sleep, although she knew Sigyn was still watching her. “We’ll see if it’s worked soon enough.”
In truth, she was all but certain that it had. For better or for worse, she had a highly successful track record with these things. In nine months or so, she would have to track down Fierro and give him and his wife the child to raise. She did enjoy the prospect of showing up unannounced with a newborn demigod—the sheer panic and confusion this tended to cause mortals brought her briefly back to a version of herself that had been more concerned with trickery than vengeance. Once, she had preferred to cause laughter over fear, but those days were long gone.
It would likely take a few days before she was strong enough to manifest outside the cave again, especially if she was diverting part of her life force to a new demigod. There was nothing to be done but wait.
And wait. And wait. And wait.
Loki had had a lot of practice waiting. So, she reflected, had Sigyn. Her wife emptied the bowl of venom several more times as they waited in silence, Loki spread eagle on her slab of stone, Sigyn standing near her head with her arms outstretched. Loki hissed and thrashed whenever the venom hit her, but Sigyn remained as outwardly silent and unmoved as the stone of the cave. Somehow, this always made Loki feel worse.
“I wish you would yell at me,” she said after a while. “Complain or threaten to leave me, why don’t you? Anyone else would. Everyone else has. Our children, my children, my mother… All gone or in prisons of their own. Those who aren’t don’t care.”
Sigyn adjusted the angle of the bowl to better stare blankly at Loki. Loki sighed.
“Yes, maybe the new ones will be different,” she said, although she doubted it. Already she had plans for how to use her new children whether they wished to help her or not. She had plans upon plans upon plans. But something still nagged at her. That feeling of long-buried guilt, still lurking just below the surface. It seemed to rear its head most frequently when she caught Sigyn’s gaze.
“I…” For once, Loki was at a loss for words. The steady drip of venom into the bowl counted out the seconds. One. Two. Three. She tried again.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the words foreign on her parched tongue. “Sigyn. You know who I am. You know I won’t change. But nonetheless…I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Loki licked her lips and tasted blood and venom. Sigyn brushed against Loki’s head with her side.
“That’s all,” Loki murmured. “I’m sure you know.”