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The Mirrorskin stays pretty quiet on the way back to Downtime -- not that this is surprising when they have something on their mind. They have learned to actually talk about their feelings, but they still keep it pretty buttoned up around outsiders.
When they get to a door outside the Hedge, Teagan gives this week's knock, spends their Glamour, and steps inside. Once Sigrun has done the same, she finds Teagan shucking off their boots, hanging up their coat, and hanging up Baby on her hook inside the Hollow's entrance. "That was a hell of a thing. Thank you for trusting us with it," Teagan begins, offering Sigrun a sort of lopsided little smile.
"I know it wasn't easy for any of us. But that's the dream I've been dealing with, almost every night, ever since Sturm turned up. I've tried to resolve it myself a dozen times or more, and it keeps coming back. So I'm hoping finding the shield-- and my icon, if that's really what Glitch saw --will help quiet my mind down. I've put off approaching the crown for assignments and more responsibility, because I don't trust myself right now. I wouldn't feel right assuming that mantle of responsibility with this hanging over my head." Sigrun unbuckles the breastplate and backplate of her brigandine, slipping it off her shoulders with a sigh.
"Well." Teagan wanders over to sit down in the pillows, having shucked off their jeans and t-shirt, and grabbed a tank top. There's a brief moment of Teagan-boobs, but only in passing, and they realize that Sig isn't undone, and roll back to their feet to come and help her get out of all of her stuff. "No, that makes sense. A lot of sense, really. But... uh. I think it's -- I know you never looked behind you, but. I think there's a reason why Sturm being here has tripped that all up, and not just because you are both escapees from old One-Eyed Fuckface."
"The Jotunn always misses. I'd sort of stopped paying attention to it. It just freaks me out again. After a dozen times waking up in a cold sweat and panicky, I learned how to ride it out pretty good. Once, I managed to make the dream something nice, but I woke up feeling guilty for some reason. So I stopped." Sigrun unfastens the jacket under her brigandine and slides out of that next, leaving her in her armored britches and her chemise. A very clingy chemise. "What do you mean?"
A deep breath, and then Teagan leans in to kiss Sigrun's cheek, taking the brigandine and hanging it up. They're not her squire, but they might as well be for as practiced as they are in helping her get into and out of all this stuff, hanging it up properly and making sure it's all taken care of. It's a testament to how focused they are on the moment that they're barely -- barely -- distracted by the very clingy chemise that's basically just a lampshade on a brilliant Valkyrie. Barely distracted, only one boob-grab. Only one.
"I mean that -- I turned and looked back at the Jotunn. I got a really good look at what she did, and her markings." Of course, the Jotunn Sigrun saw looked like a guy, but Teagan says 'she', reaching to help her with her armored britches, as if this is all very normal. "She missed on purpose. She wasn't aiming at you. She was aiming at the collapsing hole in the Thorns."
"Why would a Jotunn be helping a Valkyrie escape? We're natural enemies. I'm from Asgard, they're from Jotunnheim." Sigrun unbuckles her weapon belt and passes that off, then works on unfastening the front of her britches. She has to sit down and peel out of her boots before stripping off her britches and handing them on over to Teagan likewise. "Wait. She? Are you saying-- Sturm?"
"Because she knew you were a person? Because she wanted to get out, too? Because she saw her moment and took it? I don't know, but we're going to try to find out." Teagan takes the britches as handed over, and hangs them up, too. "Her. Yes. Sturm. The markings are... "
"It's her. It was her. Yes."
"I thought they all had those markings," Sigrun remarks, sitting herself back into the chair again with a heavy thud. Last night was a lot. This is a lot more. It's never fun wracking your brain for memories that were stolen from you by trauma, time, and thorns. Especially memories as unpleasant as facing off against towering Jotunnar. She blinks her eyes rapidly and rubs at her eyes a bit with the heels of her hands. "Are all my memories... is it all her?"
A slow breath out, and Teagan leans over to kiss the top of her head. "I don't think so. And ... she seems to remember some of it," Teagan adds on quietly, sliding their fingers through the Fairest's hair. "I don't know, babe. I don't know if they're all her. I mean, we can go look, if you want to, but I don't know if that's necessary if you don't want to put yourself through that again. I'm -- gonna go look into her memories, with her, because... I ... have a theory."
"And if I'm right, it would explain a lot about why you two reacted so strongly to each other."
Sigrun just slowly deflates in her chair, her shoulders slouching and her head tilting forward. She rests her hands on her lap and contents herself with no longer having the foggiest idea what's going on in her head any longer. What a difference two months can make. She lets out a weary sigh before asking, "What's your theory?" She speaks with a bit of a flat affect, but seems determined to get through this conversation at this point.
And that's when Teagan comes around to kneel next to the chair, wrapping their arms around her and pressing kisses onto her scalp. They're still fuzzy, their Clarity not the best, but they are powering through this, too, trying to read off of Sigrun as best they can. "I think... and this is what we're going to go spelunking into her memories to try to figure out... that the two of you escaped together -- or rather -- I don't know. One right after each other? At the same time?"
"She threw the rock that made it possible for you to escape. The hole in the Thorns would have closed before you got there. I -- have a feeling -- that she followed you out." Their arms tighten around her, holding the Bright One with that sort of firm delicateness that someone uses on very fine china that one doesn't want to drop. "I love you, Sig."
"I stole the horn from old one-eye. I used it to put him and the Einherjar into a stupor. I went to my horse, grabbed my gear. I fled. I had help. There was another that didn't make it out. I was sure it was another Valkyrie." Sigrun rests her head against Teagan's and lets her eyes shut. Sigrun has never really looked defeated, even when she's been face down in the dirt. She certainly reads as thoroughly trounced at this point. "I love you, too. I just need this to be over."
Now that's a surprise, one that makes Teagan rock back onto their heels, one hand resting on her back still, sitting and staring at Sigrun for a moment. "... wait." This is something that Sig didn't tell anyone, obviously, and it makes the pieces of Teagan's theory both much more solid and much more what the fuck. "Oh, babe." And then they rock forward again, hugging her tightly. No more delicateness, just all the strength that their wiry arms can muster. "Do you want me to tell you what we find? Or would you rather I didn't?" More kisses for her scalp.
Sigrun was honest to a point. And honest when she told them all she'd been lying to herself for years. With her Wyrd growing in power and her memories returning, the elaborate story she'd concocted for herself is falling apart, replaced with the unflattering truths. Which leaves Sigrun in a puddle of her own self-loathing, as her prior ignorance is replaced with shameful recognition of all that she'd done, and all that she'd left behind her when she made it out by the literal slimmest of margins. "I need to know," Sigrun admits reluctantly. "And we need to go after my shield. I'm not going to be any use to anyone if I keep going like this. I'm barely sleeping. I just keep myself occupied to avoid thinking about it all. It's eating my insides out."
Their arms cradle her, and they hug on the Bright One tightly. It does start to be hard on one's knees, though, kneeling on the smooth stone floor, so Teagan looses one arm to scoop underneath Sigrun's knees, rising to their full height with more ease than one might think, given their lanky build. There are muscles there, just, not, you know, muscles like Sturm's. It's too bad no one can see this, though, because there's lots of flexing involved. Oh well. Such is the life of a mirror.
They shift her weight and carry her over toward the sleeping area. "So I'll tell you once I know. I'm going to help her with some basic Oneiromancy. She's -- she's been avoiding doing anything like this. She doesn't know how to Hedgespin very well, or any Oneiromancy. Just avoiding what would make her ... deal with any of this, I don't know." Step into sleeping area, slowly kneel down again, Fairest in arms. "We're gonna get your shield, babe. We'll sort out the truth. For both of you." So Sigrun didn't turn out to be the shining hero she thought she was, and Sturm isn't the unredeemable villain.
There's a moment there, when Sigrun is laid out upon the furs and pillows of the sleeping pit, when her mien washes over in pale silver. Perhaps a trick of the light. Perhaps a taste of what's in store for her should she stay on this particular path. She curls into her usual fetal ball, wrapping both of her arms around one of Teagan's, holding on to it tightly. Her hair, still in war braids, clings close to her head and curls behind her head in folded braids. A contrast of martial severity with bedroom vulnerability. "I want to get back to doing good again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't who I told you I was. I'll do better."
"Oh, baby," Teagan sighs, and they curl around her protectively. "No, baby. Don't do that. Don't do that." They kiss the back of her neck, the spot where one of those braids terminates, the side of her throat, and while she clings to one of the arms around her, the other one reaches out to grab a blanket and drape it over both of them. The Mirrorskin wraps her up in their arms. "Oh, my love. No. You are who you made yourself to be after you got free. Please don't blame yourself for who you were in your most desperate moments."
"We all wanted to survive, and we all did terrible, terrible things to survive. All of us." Even me, comes the curling thought in the back of their brain. "You will do better, but not because you're terrible, my love. Because you are getting better every day, and because you are facing this. You have built yourself up from what he tore you down to be, and who you are is good, and strong, and works hard, and takes such good care of us." Slow pets over her arms, her shoulder, intermittent kisses like soft rain. "Baby, I would have died a long time ago if you didn't believe in me, if you hadn't taken care of me. You are good. You do good. That's how that works in your faith, right? You do good, therefore you are good? How can you be anything but good with all the work you've done?"
Sigrun squints her eyes shut as Teagan performs the mother of all pep talks. Whether or not the presently self-loathing Fairest wants to admit it or not, Teagan has the right of the matter on more or less all counts. They have been paying attention to Sigrun's Special Interest. "I suppose I never. Never really looked at it that way. That I'm not who I was before I escaped. And certainly not before I was taken. That I'm something new with a jumble of memories of who those two other people were. But. That's not who I am anymore. It can't ever be."
It's almost like Teagan has some considerable level in a skill that would allow them to know how people are feeling, and they use it, frequently! They hug tightly around Sigrun, all protecc. "I kind of had to, in order to come to grips with what I did and where it landed me," they admit, and the arm that she's hanging on has the proof of that: silver wire wrapped solidly around that chunk of marble that the motley harvested from the house they burned down. "And that I'm not -- " A pause. "I'm not who I was. Not a housewife, not someone parceled off, not a teenage bride. Not property. And not a -- " Not relevant. Their arms curl tight around Sigrun. "No. It's not who you are. And you get to decide who you are, going forward."
At this, Sigrun's eyes flutter back open. Not that Teagan can see them, beyond the cast of blue light her eyes always bring to the spectrum. "I had my story. And it worked for me. It worked for me so well that I believed and everyone else believed it, too. I didn't know I never-- I didn't know this was here. Waiting. That I had to deal with this." Slowly, she begins to extricate herself from the mirrorskin's arms. Just so that she might sit herself back up again and look down on their face while she keeps talking. "I decided who I was going to be years ago. I am Sigrún Ljósdóttir, shieldmaiden of Freyja. And I do great deeds in her name."
"I know," Teagan answers, and then they stay quiet through all of the explanation; when she starts to extricate herself from their arms, they let their grip go slack. Rolling onto their back, they grab a pillow and stuff it underneath their head. Absently, they play with their bracelet, as if it grounds them (it does). "I know. I didn't mean to imply that you hadn't already decided that. What I meant was that nothing that he did, or that you did when you were trying to get away from him? None of that changes the you that you decided to be. It just means the scope of the work has changed a little, maybe."
"She kinda can't cope with the idea of a world where she isn't the villain, I think. Where maybe she gets to be a good person, too. I dunno where that comes from." But they're gonna find out, sooner or later. "I'm sorry that one of the great deeds you're gonna have to do is coping with the shit you did that wasn't so great, babe. But that's all this is. It's just another set of deeds you're going to do, and when it's over, we'll have another set of amazing stories about the things we have beaten together."
It's only at this point that Sigrun starts tearing up and getting snuffly. Only once the worst is behind them and she's certain she's not going to need her calm and rationality does she let her emotions out. "Actually, I wouldn't mind if this particular string of deeds were to be forgotten on the cutting room floor of my stint in the Eddas II." Her voice is tight even as she jokes, wiping at her eyes with her hands, "Awh, fuck." A big snuffle in and then a gusty sigh out. "Get a grip, woman."
A snort from Teagan, and they turn their broken-mirror eyes from their bracelet to Sigrun. "Oh no, how dare you have some sort of feelings about the most traumatic shit you've ever been through coming to confront you in the Freehold hollow and then being part of your life on a regular basis," the Mirrorskin laughs softly. They sit up and loop their arms around her shoulders again, raining small kisses on her cheek, her jawline, the side of her throat. "You are patently ridiculous in all the best ways, my love. You're allowed to cry over this. Even in front of people. If it helps, I'm just like crying in front of the mirror in the bathroom, you wonderful, capable, strong human." They never call Sigrun beautiful. She knows she is, and that part isn't something she had much to do with. All their compliments are about her capability and strength.
"It's not ridiculous!" Sigrun protests whinily, but without much conviction. She's being ridiculous. She accepts the squishing and the kisses to her cheek with aplomb. Her pouting and huffing subsides considerably when Teagan strokes her ego in the only way that matters. Everyone calls her beautiful to her face. Not many bother calling her competent. A smile creeps out of the frowning. "I'm okay. I'm pretty good."
Laughter rolls out from Teagan, low and soft, unlike their usual bright light-on-broken-glass laughter. It's a gentler sound, that. "You are the best kind of ridiculous, my love," the Mirror reassures, squeezing her tightly before loosening their arms and bringing their thumbs up to slide along her cheeks, wiping away stray tears. "You're fucking phenomenal. Don't forget it," they murmur, leaning forward again to kiss between her eyebrows. "I love you so fucking much, you wonderful, hypercompetent, hard-working, badass."
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