His Queen | Book 1

Ten: Bleeding Hearts

There was yet another flower to be found. This time it didn't bring a sense of comfort from home, it brought a strange feeling. (Guilt?) Sigyn sat on a bench in Frigga's gardens shrouded by shrubbery and large trees, the flower in her hands. It was a peaceful morning after the engagement feast. Most of Asgard was still slumbering. When Sigyn touched her lips, she could still feel the ghost of Loki's lips on hers. At one point she questioned if it was a wild dream that felt too real.

But she knows it was real and it happened.

Sigyn felt like disguising herself and taking a ship back to Vanaheim to get away from this place, from this horrible feeling, to forget the memory. What a stupid mistake. She put the realms at risk all for a kiss she has been dying for. Sigyn looked up, squinting her eyes against Asgard's suns. She had been dying for it. By the Norns. Sigyn had a revelation. From the moment she went to bed, to the moment she woke up, Loki has been plaguing her mind like a disease.

She crushed the flower in her hand and it burst with green hugr.

Valhalla, take me now! pleaded Sigyn. Take me away from this place.

It went on for days like this. Sigyn avoided Loki, and he avoided her. Even when they were made to be in the same room for a tedious meeting of ceremonies, neither could look at each other. But when Sigyn dared turn her eyes, Loki looked away pretending to be invoked in what the council man had to say. She tore her eyes away, tending them to Thor at her side instead.

Thor, who is her betrothed, she reminded herself for days now. Gods, how awkward. It was like Loki and Sigyn were the only ones who could feel the tension between them and it was killing them. That kiss should never have happened and these feelings in Sigyn... she shook the thought away and buried them. That is what she did anytime they tried to resurface. That is what she did when Loki came to the front of her mind. She pushed him back and buried the thought with worries about her wedding.

Preparations were well deep begun as the days went past. Banners with the valknut at the centre and two vines cupping the valknut either side; to represent Asgard and Vanaheim where already strung up. Everybody in Asgard had a role to play in the wedding. The stables, the blacksmiths, the tailors, even common folk. Nearly everyday, there was thousands of workers in the hall of Asgard setting up preparations. It was going to be a busy two weeks.

But lately, Sigyn has been seeing less of Loki. He didn't attend meetings or hearings and occasionally would sit for dinner. But today, he was nowhere to be seen. And Sigyn didn't ask. She felt it would better help herself get over this feeling she had every time she saw him.

But, every morning without skipping a beat she found a flower.

"I don't know how you do it." Sigyn said, to her sister Nanna.

"Do what?" she asked, absentmindedly as she dressed Forseti into his attire for the wedding. She fixed his coat, noting that it was a tad too big.

"Be a wife and a mother and love Baldur as much as you do."

Nanna told Forseti to get into his shoes and he refused. Nanna huffed, on her knees, "Siggy, the first step - Forseti, but your foot in. Like that... straighten your toe and it will fit. The first step to love, it's not something you can see or force... now the other foot... Its just a feeling that grows... do they fit, Forseti?"

"Yes, mother." he wiggled his toes inside his new red shoes.

"Run around in them." Nanna commanded her son. Forseti broke into a gallop, neighing like a horse as he galloped around his mothers dress. Nanna turned her eyes to Sigyn. "Being a mother cannot be taught, Siggy. You can learn to be one, but when you bare a child you will understand. Even if you don't love Thor, you will love your children no matter what. It's unconditional and undying love. You would die for them in a heartbeat."