by Poppet
He bows slightly, giving me a half-smile, taking his hand out from behind his back and offering me a wig.
This is a weird custom indeed. What's wrong with my hair?
Leug bursts out laughing, still eavesdropping in my mind, explaining, “It's not a wig. Fenrir, tell her.”
Still proffering the ugly cap of bleached hair dyed witch red, reminding me of my evil foster-mother, he says in a very deep rumbling voice, “You never wanted to see her face again, so I did not bring her head, I brought you her scalp instead.”
Recoiling from the item, I wilt against Leug, “What?”
“They are dead. Let your will always be done,” says Leug.
If I was a god then Steven and Marcy would be dead.
My own words ricochet through the caverns of my mind, the labyrinth familiar to the minotaur.
I nod my thanks, understanding it's an enormous gesture, but still unwilling to touch the item previously belonging to Marcy's body, mumbling, “Thanks, er, that was very thoughtful of you. Mind incinerating it for me? I don't need a trophy. But thank you, very much.” I keep it polite, still grossed out, diabolically.
He nods, looking at me as if I am family and he's about to tease me for being a total sissy.
I like this lot, they're a motley nest of individuals, but they are kind. That's all that matters to me.
Leug turns me to face him, saying softly, “Please do not be afraid. He will never harm you.”
Then without any further preparation he turns me back to face the biggest snake head ever. It fills the whole space, which is epic in proportion, the caves we're in high as an underground city with cathedrals, and superstructures tall. He fills it all.
Leug says, “He can't speak in this language, so I will translate.” Then he holds my head, looking into me as if filling my head with secret wishes and a chronicle of alchemy, the words coming into my mind without him speaking them, “Sorry I terrified you. I hold the world together, I can't be a worm to complete such a feat. Good to greet you Lara, mother womb.”
Blinking, I give him an empty smile, not knowing how to respond to being called the effing mother womb. Eek!
With introductions now properly behind us, Leug captures my waist in his strong hold, pulling me tightly to his side, saying to all of us, “Right, who's up for a spot of fairy juice in the starroom?”
Cricking my neck to look up at the king of this domain, I frown, “Fairy juice?”
“Absinthe darling. It's something of a tradition around here.”
Oh yeah, I could totally use a stiff drink, ten of them in fact. As I like to now say, it's never too early for a spot of vodka. Especially when in the company of a cluster of shapeshifters.
Maybe I've lost my mind?
Entering the sunken lounge with the black ceiling peppered with glowing stars, shining nebulae floating and spinning midair, I walk with my lusty lover to a huge couch, needing help to get up on it, feeling again like a child. This place is made for men so large they challenge my imagination.
The walls are still corded and knotted roots, but in here they glisten in metallic blue the shade of a summer's night.
Reclining back, accepting my drink from Hel, noting the twins have somehow vanished into thin air, I ask, “Why are the walls made of roots?”
She answers, “They are not roots, they are Níðhöggr.”
“What is Níðhöggr?”
Leug answers this time, saying, “A venomous snake, weakening the worldtree's roots in preparation for Ragnarök. Níðhöggr is the twin brethren of Jörmungandr. And yes, I am aware that your legends call them the male and female pair of Leviathan.”
Sitting down, crossing his legs and reclining back in his chair, he smiles at me, enjoying being the tutor, saying, “Did you know that back in the beginning, all ice and frost was considered the snake's venom? All rime is Élivágar, and is the source of the giant Ymir. And it is that giant from whom Odin acquired his gift of foresight and primordial wisdom. Ymir was formed of the poison, the frozen venom, and that is why ever since Odin has been toxic to our kind and humankind.”
Shaking my head, I don't really understand the logic in that. “What?”
Sipping his huge glass of green absinthe, he waves his hand, explaining, “Ice filled the void between Niflheim and Muspelheim. The opposites are fire and ice. Ice from Niflheim, fire from Muspelheim. It created Ymir, who is the progenitor of both the rime and frost giants. He came first, he existed long before the gods did, which is why Odin sought his knowledge. But to gain this knowledge from Ymir's original well of primordial water, of melted venom, Odin had to exchange an eye for a drink. He did it, after cunning and trickery didn't work against one as old and wise as Ymir. Ymir was clever indeed, he took what was holy and pure, ergo Odin, corrupting him with poison, making Odin blind to himself when he lost his eye, blind to suffering, blind to anything other than his ego. Before then the ego didn't exist. It came to replace Odin's spirit with a counterfeit version of it, one which has no empathy or love.”
I'm beginning to wonder if this is the source of the god Poseidon. Sometimes it feels like pantheons overlap and all history is the same story.
Sitting next to her dad, Hel says to me, “Élivágar are ice waves, which solidified the bridge between all creation and the realm of the gods, it's the original term for the bifröst bridge. Do you not see? It made men and gods equal, which is why Odin no longer allows anyone to cross it. Or anyone could just waltz on into the god's realm, the heavenly realm of everlasting life where the golden orchard is. Then everything could live forever, even the animals should they feast on the dropped Læraðr apples. If there is one thing the ego, as in Odin, cannot abide, it's equality.”
And then suddenly the epiphany hits me. The snake, the apple, and the tree. How did the world's most dominant religion stem from Norse mythology? Why did we forget that they are the source of all our tales?
Sitting forward, smiling broadly, Leug laughs, “Yes my perceptive sváss, you finally have found the root of all your woes. Your world worships Odin, still.”
The twins interrupt, bursting in, falling over each other, tumbling in a tangle of limbs and playful punches, one of them finally holding his brother down to yell at Leug, “Ewan is closing in. He's almost here!”
Leug stands, looking serious, “Then best I do not keep my guest waiting. I have anticipated this meeting for eons.”
He stops next to me, cupping my face, mashing my lips with his, softly sucking my bottom lip into his mouth and seductively running his tongue across it, breaking contact after he's checked my tonsils are still intact since the last time he checked to whisper, “Niflheim will keep you safe. Stay indoors. We'll be together again soon.”
I still feel really weird, like I'm splintered and empty, floating and dissipating.
I can't seem to summon alarm, simply accepting his words, listening to an odd chorus riding on the celestial winds.
Chapter 16
when Óðinn goes to fight with the wolf...
...Then shall Frigg's sweet friend fall.
~ Vafþrúðnismál
Deliah:
I see him! I'm just about to shout to Ewan up ahead in a world so black and white it looks alien, when Emma falls right out of the sky, becoming a mist and smothering me with the fog. Hissing at me, “Shut up! He mustn't know we're here! We can sneak in the back entrance using my mist. Hurry, if Ewan is at the front door no one will be watching the back.”
Getting more pissed off with miss know-it-all by the second, I nod, intending to ditch her the second we get inside. I'll find Lara on my own. I don't need Emma's interference another god damn second.
*
Lara:
I sound looney every time I think of how I've been given the qualities of fire and ice, making me immune to the lava and chills of this planet, of this plane, of Hel, of the underworld.
Invincible, the closer I walk to the exit, the brighter my skin glows. It's bizarre.
But that sound, the strains of an esoteric melody, calling to my soul, coaxing me closer to the source, I'm fascinated and compelled to locate the minstrel scrying subliminally for my spirit. I can't resist, pulled instinctively the same way a mother responds to the cries of her baby. It's a part of me, a song reaching through the ether, tempting me out of safety, into the night.
Mindless, acting on impulse, I wander outside, following the call of Skadi. The sight in the night sky robs my limbs of strength and I sit abruptly, watching the aurora, the merry dancers, prancing lambent brilliance to me, engulfing me, sucking me onward, back onto my feet and forcing me forward where I become the specter of fluorescence, summoned to the cosmic dark glittering with constellations, running over snow, the brittle powder wedging between my toes, the harmony urging me to the horizon where petals of magenta confetti the sky in a wild streak of purifying radiance.
Beneath it runs a bow of aquamarine haze, the two flirting and twirling, the sound violent against the atmosphere, but I reach up regardless, my skin on fire, paler than its ever been, but so bright internally I'm a female nightlight, touching the barreling rays of vivid hue, becoming the mist, becoming the light, melting my soul and mind into this bright.
Enriched, welcomed, serenity flattens my pulse, I'm still me, but now... now I've become something else. The visceral frisson releases me from a mortal prison, euphoria my only reality, my only being. Blowing hot and cold I run through the heavens of the underworld, for the first time in my existence experiencing the gleam of my creator's sigh. I fly with the wings of the wind, spirit hunting, aura soaring.
*
Leug:
Where is he? Slapping my hand against the tektite wall of the ancient tunnel I up the ante, filling the empty pockets behind the stone glass with the heat of a volcano's kernel. I'll flush him out because he can't handle heat, none of the frost giants can.
Rage surges through my veins, a scourge of suffering, a portent that the winter of swords will cut deep indeed. He fights for Odin when that old man isn't worthy of another's blood, another's life. There is no honor in war. What fools are the warriors and legions who fall in the fight only to join another army in their afterlife. That is why there truly is no rest for the wicked, they will die again and again until they turn from his system, from their allegiance. If god is all he claims to be you have to ask yourself why he'd feel the need to have a heavenly army?
Coward, hiding behind the many who never knew any different, who were never free, not in life, not in death. They don't realize their liege is afraid of his own death, yet he expects them to suffer it in order to protect him. If they only knew they have more bravery and courage than their god ever had, they'd not worship him if they knew the truth.
Running now, sprinting around the next bend, eager to meet Ewan and force feed the little prick some humble pie, I slam to a halt.
She runs to me, her hair flowing behind her, the scent of my lover of old, the tension immediate, the intention irrepressible.
Skadi?
Her hair is all wrong, but she morphs, first to mist, then to owl. The whitest snow owl with female black spots in her plumage, she is the bird of night and light, wearing camouflage of snow and ash. Polarities. Now! I must hamask!
Skadi! I come. I'm here!
Launching, hamasking midair, I become the falcon, flying flat out, the two of us colliding, talons locked, beaks knocked, tumbling and falling, rolling bent wings across the dusty floor, morphing to limb and leg, kisses and clenches, ripping and shredding, unable to abstain, unable to refrain.
*
Emma:
The shadow man enters my thoughts, fills up my heart with lascivious palpitations, engorging my logic with paralyzing heat, smothering and gutting my ability to function, the intense lust crushing my logic and purpose underfoot.
I can't explain it but it's shocking, as if I have no control, as if I've loved him like a wildcat in every dream since puberty, and now I am here, smelling him, seeing his ice cold eyes and the bitter frost of angelic hair. Lifted in a strong embrace, I clench my legs around his hips, unwilling to release, clinging to wide shoulders, licking the vein etching the skin from the curve of his chest over the top of his arm, fighting for dominance with the extended vein lining his neck. He's tense, strong, ripping my clothes off, ramming into me, using the wall at my back for stability, sweet sweat glistening his brow, prurience scything through my senses, inhaling a man locked into the subliminal psyche of every woman on earth and in heaven.
We all crave this, him, the knowledge, the refuge, the tame in the wild, the wild in the tame, the burn of his flame, the penance for speaking his name.
Your name? Who are you? Oh my fucking god! Yes!
Vesicant lips leave a trail of welts down my neck, his bite enough to blast alchemy from my womb to my tomb, smashing my soul to ash, the eruption of pleasure beyond insufferable, my scream an accolade, applause, begging for more, for mercy, a battle cry for conquer, a white flag of surrender. I am dichotomous, a paradox, a hypocrite. I am undone.
First me, then he, cresting the apex of passion, leaving me gasping, clutching, broken, elated, on the cusp of shame. His cuspid teeth surprise me and it's reflex to touch my neck, feeling the mark he's left there. A vampire? Did Valhalla, or Asgard, have vamps? Briefly he allows me a glimpse of a wolf, explaining away the teeth exposed in a susceptible moment.
He releases me, stepping back, his breathing erratic, zipping his jeans closed, splaying his trembling hands in a helpless gesture, regret branding his expression.
“Uh...” He clears his throat, his eyes eerily lustrous in the dim tunnel, standing straight and tall, squaring his shoulders, saying, “I beg your pardon. I... thought you were... her. Pray tell lady, just who are you?”
I'm standing here in nothing more than a sweat drenched t-shirt, my own jeans nothing more than tatters for mice to nest in. It makes me vulnerable, no longer of a mind to clash, my strength robbed, my limbs lethargic, an odd compassion lingering in my heart after the... that... what the fuck was that?
“Em... Emma. I er, fuck. Who are you?”
“Leug. I'm the master of rime and shade, of Skadi, and you, you wear her scent, her colors, her aura shines around you. I'm so sorry for the intrusion, for taking liberties... it's a long story that goes back... forever. It's a love so fierce it destroys from the inside.”
Oh my god, I just fucked the king of hel, or rather, he fucked me, and I liked it, a lot ... and I'm married, I'm damned.
Well at least when I'm condemned I know we started our eternity of suffering together, for our sins, on the right foot.
Mac is going to go apeshit.
Not that I have to tell him mind you, although I should, but then guilt never was my virtue. Staring at my morphine, I lick my lips, wondering what harm there could be in another ravaging kiss.
He flickers so fast, like staring at the faces of the arcana in a shuffling pack of tarot cards, snake, wolf, man, bird, woman, man, mouse, dragon, bear, salmon, more and more into a blur, whipping me into his whirlwind, twisting his serpentine scales around me, squeezing me so tight I can't breathe, licking a forked tongue in my nose, bright crystal eyes staring into mine, the shake of a rattle the only rhythm left to contain my sanity. We are every season, every wind, every raindrop, every age.... and he is the light by which god reads my soul.
Prepare the hearse, because I cannot slay this man. I will protect him because my marrow is filled with his wishes, my spinal fluid a vial of his tears, and I know he has suffered for too many years.
Injecting his grief and sorrow into the humanity within, I tremble and collapse, a torn page where the scribble runs off the parchment, where words no longer have meaning and all you require to know is the ink stains, it saturates, penetrates, and for this kind of agony there is no salve.
We have been manipulated.
Weak and nimble I clutch at his claw, mentally swearing a vow, to undo the damage, to prevent this fight, to locate Lara and p
rove to Ewan and Macala that all along Skadi was right.
Right about him, Lucifer, Logi, Leug, Loki... so many names, the outcome always the same. She holds all wolves and snakes sacred, now I know why. The effigy of her first love, the first man to show her compassion and real love, he's more precious than every galaxy of the universe.
Given one last searing kiss, I have tears in my eyes as I watch him stroll away to his doom, the Valhalla mark on my hand gone. Everything I had is ruptured, every vow incinerated, every promise nullified.
He leaves glowing footprints in the rock, like vivid autumn leaves waiting for the yuletide wind to kiss them goodnight.
This is a new beginning, absolution is found in the annals of Niflhell. Now I hope the lady of the manor will locate me, gifting me modesty to hide my new secret, so I can run onto the battlefield and take the spear for the saint.
*
Deliah:
Sneaking into the next passage, the walls a weird greeny black glass, warped and odd, my own reflection shadows me as I tiptoe, wishing I had the ability the harii have, to become shadows and sneak in and out undetected.
A woman appears out of nowhere, blocking my path, tall as a mature giant, smiling down at me, saying, “Kin. You are Lara's kin. You smell identical. She's safe, but your handfast is outside the main gate. Come with me, you will witness this.”
And before I can say fuck you, she's gripped me by the arm and popped me back into another tunnel where Emma sits, looking chagrined, her jeans shredded.
The strange lady laughs musically at her, waving her hand and redressing Em, as if the problem with the fish-moths eating through clothing is a common plague in this place.
So much for rescuing Lara, now I wish we'd told Gunn, or Mac, or someone with some might and skill.
Emma doesn't seem interested in fighting the blond giantess, and I can't. Resigned to fate, I pray that the gods are on our side in this.
