Liesmith: Book 1 of the Wyrd

Twelve

The world still hadn't ended by Monday, which Sigmund decided to take as a good sign, even if it did mean that he had to get up for work. Sunday had been uneventful, minus a bit of ribbing from Em and Wayne about his date and the fact that their progression raid kept wiping on the last boss. But that was all regular, Really Real World stuff. No gods, no monsters—well, the ones on the computer, but pixels didn't count—and, most important, no apocalypse. Sigmund had considered messaging Lain on Sunday evening, but had decided against it, and Lain, for his part, seemed to be respecting Sigmund's tacit suggestion to leave him alone for the weekend. He did that a lot, Sigmund realized. Respected boundaries, at least when Sigmund set them. It was nice.

Sigmund spent the rest of the weekend sorting out his thoughts via the medium of mind mapping. By Sunday evening, he had a huge chart full of colorful bubbles and lines that seemed to boil the situation down to a few salient points.

Point the First: Lain was probably right about Sigmund's connection to Sigyn. It just felt true, for starters, and the fact that he could even sense that to begin with counted for something, even if only begging the question. Plus, he knew what Sigyn looked like and always had. He dreamed about her. He dreamed things that, in retrospect, must have been fragments of her memory. War and blood. Black feathers, and a taste of apples that lingered long into the day.

So, yeah. Probably Sigyn.

Point the Second: He really was okay with Lain being some kind of giant, feathered, anthropomorphic vulture thing. It was sexy, even, once he'd gotten over the weird. And it wasn't that far removed from the folder of Twi'lek porn Sigmund totally didn't have buried on his computer. Or that . . . other one with the—

Anyway. Giant monster, pretty sexy, what with the cut abs and smooth, burnt-dark skin. The stitches in the lips were a bit off-putting at first—the way they stretched when Lain spoke and stuff—but no scarier than an average lip ring, and Sigmund had seen way worse on 4chan (another one of those places he never went to ever and had absolutely no knowledge of).

Point the Third: He was mostly okay with Lain being Loki. Mostly. And, okay, he'd done some research, and Loki was apparently a bit of a jerk, but to be fair to the guy, that had seemed to be the Style at the Time. Also, he'd fucked a horse. Sigmund was kinda hoping that part of the story was allegorical, though he had a sinking feeling it totally wasn't. He wondered whether it would be considered rude to ask.

Point the Fourth: Sigmund had definitely picked the Red Team. The sources were unambiguous: Baldr was the God of Lawful Good, while Loki was well into Chaotic Evil territory, having slipped down a few notches from Chaotic Neutral back in the old days. Meaning Lain's assessment of the plot seemed to be the historically correct one.

And that? That left Sigmund with a moral dilemma. Because Lain being the Designated Villain, despite seeming sort of an okay guy most of the time in person, implied the existence of a kind of predestined, absolutist morality that Sigmund wasn't totally down with. Not to mention that Sigmund didn't see himself as being a card-carrying member of Team Evil. Would he still be okay with joining up just because that seemed to be where his friends were hanging out? And did that make him, like, the Misguided Love Interest in this story? Was Baldr going to come swooping through his window one night and try to have him join the Forces of Good through the power of persuasive argument and/or seduction? 'Cause Sigmund? Totally wasn't into Baldr in that way. He was just too . . . blond. He looked like he should be carrying a surfboard and saying dude a lot.

Did relating a cosmic battle of good and evil to his love life make Sigmund shallow?

There were an awful lot of rhetorical questions there.