I.
I wake in the darkness and there he is once again, my winter child whose skin I have never seen.
"Alone," he sometimes whimpers, eyes bright with unshed tears, standing forlorn and tiny on the vast floor, backlit by the endless night sky beyond my windows.
I always cradle him to me, and run my fingers through his unruly mop of black hair to soothe him. "Alone," he sometimes whispers as he clutches me tightly as if he thinks I will vanish away and leave him behind forever. And I sometimes see it then, though it is a thing my eyes have never beheld - endless walls of ice around me, sheets of ice beneath me, indigo blue in the near darkness. And I hear the silence that fell when everyone walked away, their voices fading, their footsteps vanishing, with nothing left but an infant's voice crying for comfort.
I did not realize, then, how you always eluded your nursemaids when you wanted to come to me. But only a handful of years passed before I understood. How great your talent, even then. How great your burden.
"They were at the window," he sometimes cries, shaking in my arms. "The monsters. They were clawing at the window."
I have forbidden this, these tales to frighten children, but I may as well try to command the wind. These tales seep through walls, sometimes in the voice of my older son, repeating stories meant to caution children and frighten them into right action. Tales meant to define who we are. And who we are not.
Sometimes he settles right away. Other times, longer times, he trembles helplessly before he finds comfort in my arms.
My hands become still upon his cool skin, which warms to my touch, as some distant light strikes a note of crimson in his wide far-seeing eyes. Is it a reflection striking something deep in his eyes, some ruby glint, gone when I look again? And in the dim light from the starry sky outside, is his skin tinged blue?
I gather him to my arms and sing to him, embracing the tiny body cuddled next to mine. He is shaking slightly, his small voice still whispering of the monsters in the night.
Did I ever look to see it? The winter child inside my pale son? Yes, of course I did. I wondered then, whether he could ever revert to his frozen scarlet-eyed form.
I know the answer now.
II.
Loki runs ahead of me in my garden, laughing as he chases butterflies, his small child's legs carrying him into every corner as he darts and leaps and runs wild. I settle on a stone bench and whisper magic into the thread I will use for embroidering a gift I am creating for the Queen of Alfheim's Thrice-Millennium Celebration. I look up from my work occasionally as he tumbles in the grass and explores the shaded corners and ancient stone walls which enclose my sanctuary.
Just a few weeks before, Odin took Thor with him, and left Loki behind, and now there is a gap between the brothers that Odin finds natural, and I reluctantly agree. Even as I acknowledge the truth of the passage of time I regret its necessity. On that day, though, Odin did not see the expression on Loki's face. His back was already turned, as was Thor's, so neither saw Loki's large eyes hinting at unshed tears as he watched his father and his brother head out to the courtyard where the chosen nobles waited with their steeds. Nor, I admit, would my husband have cared about what Loki felt, for my husband does things in the time and way he deems proper. Acknowledging, much less understanding, what his youngest son felt would have seemed to him like coddling.
Nor did I try to stop Loki when he climbed the furniture to get onto the windowsill nearest the ceiling so he could have a good view of them as they rode off, though I should have chided him for his unprincely behavior in a public place.
He finally came back down, his little face serious as he returned to me, and though he did not throw his arms around my skirts as he had when he was even younger, I could see by his face that he wanted to. I rested one hand against his shoulders and he relaxed against me, mouth still downturned in disappointment.
Such a small gap of age between them, but large enough to be a chasm. Thor's latest name day is past, and now he is of the age where he can be taken on his first hunt. I have often watched my sons playing together, with their secret games, their laughter ringing through the halls. The way they wrestle and plot and tell each other tales. Always together. Until now. When Thor left with Odin, and they both left him behind.
I have explained it to Loki, that it is simply a matter of a decade or two, and soon he, too, can go on his first hunt. But nothing erased the look of abandonment in his eyes, though he went with me gladly enough when I invited him to my chambers. There, he settled himself on the floor and watched quietly as I instructed the five chosen girls who had shown the most talent: five who, I was certain, would take their places among the best of the völur. Five I had chosen to train in the ways of magic personally.
"It will be for us alone," I told him then, and his face brightened and sharpened with a type of glee, that he could have something his brother would not.
I rest my hands against my embroidery thread and put power into them, then look out again at my garden. There's a soft wind blowing, and the leaves and grasses stir and tremble in their own type of dance. Colors of a thousand types of flowers create a kaleidoscope of shades of amethyst and copper and crimson apple and butter and poppy and lime and blue, the same shade as Jötunn skin…
Loki dances among the flowers, flashing me a grin as he turns and wheels, his smile a bright flash that makes me set my needlework safely down and give him my full attention. He gives me a sly look and darts back into the cool dim places near the stone walls, where the ancient trees rise up into the sky, their gnarled trunks forming a twisting labyrinth. He disappears behind one tree, and then I get a quick glimpse of his pale face peering at me between two leaf-laden branches, his green eyes the shade of the lighter leaves on those trees. He sees I've spotted him and gives me a mischievous smile. Then he is gone again, though I hear him giggling. Another glimpse, and he is up on a sturdy branch, and then another, higher, standing precariously as it sways, fingers reaching for a golden butterfly as it flutters past.
His fingers brush past the fluttering wings and he overbalances. I'm on my feet.
The branch sways wildly. He grabs for another branch, which is instantly torn from his grip. He wobbles dangerously and I'm there, a spike of fear in my gut, reaching up as he falls –
- insubstantial through my hands, vanishing into the ground.
Oh.
Oh!
My heart is pounding wildly as thoughts flash through my mind. I have never taught you this.
But of course you have watched as I have taught my students how to cast illusions. You have sat quietly and absorbed everything during our times in the shadows of my meeting chambers, with the gold light from the windows painting bright bars across the floors of the various rooms, separate from the cool dimness between, defining the space of what is and is not. My chambers, which are separate from the ones where I meet Odin as his wife. My chambers, where I meet the young völur and train them in cantrips and glamours and misdirections.
Their first lessons. And yours.
You are too young to have this power.
Something huge rises up in me, something composed of terror and elation and ferocious pride. My son. My precious son.
I look around, every sense alert, but I see him nowhere.
His giggling betrays him. I look up.
He's standing on the sturdiest branch of the nearest tree, a grin of purest delight on his lips. I catch his eye and he shouts, "Mother!" and launches himself from the tree. I lift up my arms and catch him and hold him to me tightly, his sturdy solid weight so very very real in my arms. He laughs at my expression, delighted with his game. I'm laughing too. I grab him beneath his arms and swoop him high up over my head. He keeps laughing as I fly him through the air, and stretches out his arms as if they were wings. He's gasping for breath when I settle him on the ground again and sit beside him. His hands go into my hair, and he pulls and tugs and loosens the ribbons and combs there, then tangles his hands in the hair by my temples and tugs hard, so the tears come to my eyes. My hair, now unbound, tumbles down to my waist, and I'm laughing too, but something cold with fear inside me says, I can't always protect you, my dear.
Then he's off and running again. He glances over one shoulder as he runs and shouts, "Look Mother!"
A blue-and-yellow-and-red spotted butterfly appears, unlike anything in the garden, fluttering madly around my son. Then another. And another. A few, then many, then a cloud around him, wildly colored wings fluttering madly, the air so thick with them I can barely see the boy beyond the illusion. He runs and twists and turns and they follow all his moves, until he slows, with the sudden tiredness of young boys, and they all vanish into the air.
He stumbles the last few steps back to me, looking exhausted. I hold out my arms.
He climbs into my lap and throws his arms around me. I hug him back, my pale green-eyed child, with the comforting scent of small boy in my nostrils and the heat of the skin he chose to wear warm against my arms, and the crushable texture of his curly hair soft against my face as I lean and rest my cheek against his head. And wonder as I have not done in some time, about this unaware glamour he cast as an infant that is palpable to touch as well as sight, and how the feel and heat and scent of skin and hair is so very real, and how the strange green of his eyes is unlike those of any on Asgard or Jotunheim alike; something for himself alone. How deep this glamour goes, how perfect the shift in shape.
Since that day in the garden I have seen you shift to many forms but never the one you were born to, and I think now your very soul must have forgotten and let go of that knowledge.
I cannot deny you my magic, I thought then and think now. Because I am now aware he was too young then to know how it would mark him, and I too unthinking of the damage it could cause.
It makes no difference anyway. That wild talent he possesses would have manifest whether or not I had trained him in magic, encouraged him to explore his gift. Better, I thought then, and I think now, despite everything, that he at least have the training. Better he have the knowledge instead of just wild uncontrolled power.
Best, if I had been a better mother; Odin a better father.
Best, if we'd weaned ourselves away from tradition.
But that would break the wheel of things, of the fates we are destined for.
Or perhaps the Norns only watch as we play the roles we pre-ordained for ourselves.
III.
"What think you of Queen Anameleth's eldest daughter?" I ask my son.
We stand on my balcony, side by side. I glance at Loki's sharp profile, the amused smile on his lips, his keen eyes focused on his brother as Thor walks along the curving pathways of the royal garden below, arm in arm with the Queen of Alfheimr's eldest daughter Naerwyn. They have come to the stone bench I had caused to have set among a bower of golden flowers, and they take their seats there, turning toward each other. The glory of the flowers, however, is no match for the way the sunlight shines bright on the gold of my son's hair and the silver of hers. She lowers her eyes coquettishly, lids half-shadowing her violet irises, then raises them again. He is smiling at her, his body huge beside her willowy form. He says something, and her pale pink lips curve into a seductive smile.
"She thinks she can rule his mind," Loki says. I turn back to him and incline my head in agreement. "Princess Sidhiel shares no such illusions about mine."
I could not repress my laugh. We grin at each other for a moment, and I think of the previous days.
The Queen of Alfheimr has sent her two eldest daughters to be considered for marriage to our sons. They have been here for days now, and to my eye each is as subtle and heartless as their dam. Queen Anameleth has other, younger daughters, and all of them have been presented here at court in previous years at certain specific times. Not – yet - as potential brides for our sons, but simply to be displayed as future options.
The royalty of Alfheimer are sticklers for protocol, making a game of following every possible ritual to the last letter when it suits their purposes. So their daughters have been on display here, as have those of the King of Vanaheim. Thus is the game played: the presentation of eldest to eldest first, and the next eldest to our younger son. Further meetings will be arranged with each of my sons and each of their daughters until each potential couple has spent carefully orchestrated time together.
When Thor does make his choice he will be guided, of course, by my husband's perception of which match will be the most advantageous according to the politics of the moment.
Then, and only then, will Loki be allowed to choose from those who are left.
It is yet, however, early days of this game.
All the formalities are being observed. I have watched you walking with Queen Anameleth's second daughter Princess Sidhiel, her silver hair sparkling in the sunlight, pulled back slightly from her pointed ears, her tilted violet eyes cool even as she smiled and listened attentively to what you had to say, or offered innocuous comments of her own. And you, courteous, took her arm and led her to the high table, or to walk in the gardens, or to stroll along the wild cliffshore.
I like her not. She has been scrupulously correct in her manner to me, but there is a sly intelligence in her face, a calculating manner which is natural, of course, in these matters to have, but which I feel would bring out the worst in you. Traits she shares with her elder sister.
I keep my face clear of my thoughts as I watch Thor laugh and reply to some pretty comment Naerwyn has made. Her hand has crept over and now rests on the back of his and she has tilted her head back and is looking earnestly into his eyes.
Loki's face is carefully blank, but I see the way one hand clenches at his side.
"I thought perhaps you might favor Estelwen," I say to distract him. He hums noncommittally at my mention of Queen Anameleth's fourth daughter, who seems less given to deceitful seductive smiles as the rest, less ruled by carefully concealed ambition, doubtless because she feels herself not in consideration. Loki's gaze is still upon Thor and Naerwen. Their heads are almost touching now, and I see it: the flare of jealousy in Loki's eyes, quickly dampened.
I keep my tone light. I know full well of the feelings you and your brother share. I have seen you by accident when you were sharing lust together; you overly confident your seiðr could mask from all eyes what the two of you do in private. All eyes, save mine, for I am she who taught you your seiðr, and you have not as yet surpassed what I can do.
I do not speak of what I know. Of what I saw. Of what you and Thor do when you believe none can see. To all eyes, thrice forbidden. As brothers. As men. As those who will be pledged to others, despite their personal choice.
What you do in private is yours alone.
I do not interfere. I will not take this from you. I have thought hard of all my hopes and fears of what the future may bring. I do not speak of what I know because my husband would then be forced to act, and I fear ruination from what he might choose to do.
I turned my eyes away after that first revelation. I have not looked again.
I am confident, however, that you will both do what is required of you. These decisions take time, decades of time. I have long explained to both of you the importance of these ties, of arranged marriages and the alliances of courts, just as mine was arranged all those centuries ago.
"Or perhaps Princess Sigyn is more to your favor?" I suggest, thinking of the King of Vanaheim's second daughter.
He turns to look at me at that remark, and I see the considering look in his eyes. "She is a refreshing change from the rest as she has interests of her own and is not afraid to speak of them. She is willing to converse in matters other than the usual accepted trite topics that pass for conversation," he allows, and I give him a gentle, approving smile and pat his hand. I have sensed a good connection between him and the dark-haired Sigyn of Vanaheim – her warm intelligent eyes and her reserved but not cold manner seemed a suitable counterweight to your moods and darkness, and you showed genuine smiles while in her company.
I allow myself to hope. By the time the choices are made, by the time you and Thor are both become men perhaps you will have burned away your youthful lust for each other, that what hungers between you now will, in the future, have been but a simple dalliance. I know you both have been seeking out women in the taverns and on visits to other realms. Thor does brag of this far more often than you, from what those gossiping ravens have told me, and wouldn't my husband be surprised to find they do not speak to him alone?
I would like to think the passions you share will flame out quickly. But it has been many many years since I first saw what I quickly turned my eyes from. Now I am wholly aware of the glances between you when you think none see, the touches that seem brotherly, but are just that one shade more. I am sure, however, you will both do your duties to the realm. After all, the ties between you are wholly separate from those required by matters of state.
"It will be your choice," I say.
His lips form a sneer. "After Thor has his. Then I pick through his leavings?"
"These are fine ladies you speak of," I tut and he has the grace to look abashed. "And think on this," I add. "If Thor chooses not the eldest daughter of either Alfheim or Vanaheim, there will be discord. Whereas you have the choice of the other eldest daughter, and all the other daughters besides, as well as high-born völur and other noble ladies. You shall have a much wider choice than he."
He grins. "Amora is of good parentage," he says slyly.
"Amora is…" - a slut who would never be faithful to you or any - but I do not say it, "quite taken with herself and believes herself to be the best in all things. Marriage to her would be endless combat."
"Perhaps I would prefer that," he muses, narrowing his eyes as he looks back on Thor, who has leaned even closer to Naerwyn and is speaking to her earnestly. "It would not be boring."
"Ah, my son," I say, resting my hand on his fist, which is clenched at his side. "You may have the good fortune to love who you wed."
He turns to me, and I catch a quick glimpse of a startled look. He shifts his glance to the palace towering behind us. "And is that a consideration in these things?"
"If you are fortunate love can come in these marriages. Sometimes quickly. Sometimes less so."
"I have given no thought to it," he said, his voice remote as he turns his attention back to Thor and Naerwyn.
"There is much time for these things to be decided," I say but he doesn't turn his attention back to me. Naerwyn has moved even closer to Thor and tilted her head back, inviting a kiss, their mouths bare inches apart. Thor leans slightly toward her.
Misliking the hard set to Loki's mouth I touch his arm to distract him. "What think you of King Freyr?"
Loki looks at me consideringly, and I see a thousand thoughts race through his mind. "He is much given to his pleasures and thinks little of matters of state, leaving such to his uncle Njörðr and his wife Gerðr, who are both far more clever than he."
"And what think you of his uncle? I have seen you speaking with him when he is at court." I have seen you with many others as well when the royalty, their functionaries and their retinue arrive for court visits. I have seen you speaking with all those in power, and all those in favor with those in power - and those who are not. I have seen you seek out all who know politics and seiðr, and especially all who love knowledge for its own sake.
Something dark and amused creeps into his smile. "I think King Freyr should best give his uncle the crown, as he has no mind for rule."
"As he will not, what think you of one who reigns by proxy?" I asked this casually, hiding the unease in my voice, for I have been thinking of the future, of what your role shall be when Thor becomes King.
Loki glances for a minute toward the shimmering expanse of the Bifrost where it arrows through the city beneath us. "He has contented himself to allow one who remains in the shadows to rule Vanaheim while he carouses and goes on quests. Who shall deny him his pleasures? Or even question them?" His lips twist in an ironic smirk. His eyes turn back to Thor, in time to see him pull back slightly from Naerwyn. Her lips are still parted, as if from a kiss, and she is blushing prettily. Her mouth widens in a delighted smile. Loki's fingers curl back into a fist.
I quickly change the subject. "I do hope for better for Thor than that cunning little harpy yon. Or her sister."
He barks a laugh and allows his hand to fall open. Some of the dark aspect of his face fades away. He turns toward me and I impulsively take him into my arms. He hugs me back, and I rest my head briefly on his shoulder. I revel in his embraces, for they have become so very rare, for a moment seeing him smaller, and smaller still, a child thin as the trunk of sapling trees but strong for all of that, a small child racing to embrace me at every triumph or seeking comfort for every time someone made a hurtful comment. But those years passed quickly, and now he is already pulling away from his mother's touch.
He steps back, but his expression is clear and he gives me a genuine smile. "I shall be tethered to none I dislike," he says, "for you are correct; there are better choices. Depending, of course," an ironic smile briefly touches his lips, "on who is in favor with father at that time."
But a long-held, long-repressed fear flares anew. My husband has said, in recent years, that his Jötunn heritage is likely never to manifest, that his shift into Aesir shape is unbreakable.But what if my husband is wrong?
Once married, if there is a child… what shall it be? Will my grandchild's birth betray the secret I too have kept? Neither my husband, nor I, nor any seiðmaðr or völva of my knowledge cancast a glamour so powerful it could conceal a babe and last his or her lifetime. Only Loki has ever done that.
It would throw the realms into political chaos, and many would take advantage. Whoever the parents of Loki's future bride will be, whether Alfheimr or Vanir, they will take grave offence at having their child bound to a Jötunn changeling. And if Loki himself were to find out in such a way…
A chill shudders across my skin at the thought. I determine I must speak to my husband about this matter again. It is foolhardy to stay silent in the face of the possible consequences.
I look at Loki's face, so bright, so intelligent, so willing to question accepted truths, so quick and eager to learn. I remember when my husband first held him out to me and, hesitating, I reached out for the tiny body, expecting the touch of his skin to chill me to the bone, instead finding a child as warm as my own son. All those plans my husband told me about all those centuries ago when he presented me with the child of a Frost Giant and asked me to raise him as our son. A babe I had accepted with such trepidation into my arms and now love almost more than the child I bore of my own womb.
I have urged my husband many times to stop hiding this secret from his son, to face Loki and to tell him the truth. He always gives me many reasons for why he does not do so, but I believe the truth of it is he does not have the courage to face Loki's reaction.
Odin does not heed my words and I feel all his plans will come to ruin. I remember now those fleeting thoughts I had then; those worries, those hopes.
The fear that whenever he chooses to tell you, it will be too late.
Odin would not take it well if I were to say such, and so I do not. I have given him all my reasons for Loki to know the truth. And he has rejected them all. He no longer speaks of his original plan, to somehow use Loki in a pawn in a political game. That plan never seemed possible to me. If indeed Loki were left to die Laufey King would be angered at Odin's interference with his son's fate and enraged if Odin were to attempt to use him. And thus the war that has simmered beneath the surface for so long might flare anew, despite their lack of resources and the heaviness of the yoke Odin has laid upon the Jötnar for their presumption.
And if my husband still thinks he can somehow slay Laufey King and make Loki king of a people he knows not, the Jötnar will not accept him and his living brothers will attempt to slay their previously unknown rival without qualm. And should Loki prove victorious and be even willing to rule the Jötnar, what is there in that dark cold world to engage his mind, to welcome him into a frozen exile, for I have no doubt he would see it as such.But out of that complicated snarl of worry and concern, there is one thing that I fear the most – how Loki will feel at this revelation. How he will feel, when the falsehood is revealed.
For a minute I let my mind wander, to the weavings of fate and the cycles of time and for a moment I see another reality. Where Laufey's child is Laufeydottir, not Laufeyson, still small for a Jötunn, still of a height near to the son of my body, and the war is ended in a traditional way with a royal wedding and the alliance of two great houses. And I imagine further: their great love for each other becoming the stuff of legends; celebrated by the peoples of both our worlds. With Loki's intelligence and Thor's great abilities, they could achieve much. Peace at last.
My imagined future shimmers away into the still air, and I am touched with a melancholy over the
things we can have and the things we cannot.
For Loki is son, not daughter, and Laufey King knows not that he lives and if he did he would deny him. Or kill him.
The Norns can be cruel, weaving fates that tear asunder rather than knit together, condemning my sons to secrecy lest they be called argr.
Naerwyn is laughing at something Thor has said, the crystalline tinkle of her voice rings clear to our ears. She is looking at Thor as if he is the only man who has ever existed. Loki's lips curl into an amused smile. "They call me Liesmith, yet I fear I will never achieve her mastery of the craft."
Once again, I cannot resist a laugh. I pat his hand, and he smiles at me again.
There is time. I will speak to Odin again. I will convince him now is the time to tell you the truth.
As for your future bride, no marriage contract can be made for you before your brother's coronation and engagement to whoever will be his Queen. There are many more years before these decisions must be made.
Loki is still watching Thor. The slightest smile touches his lips as Thor rises and steps slightly back from Naerwyn.
Thrice forbidden. Yet, I suddenly feel hope.
I do not speak of what I know because perhaps it is for the best that you and Thor still lie together. Because when my husband decides to tell you the truth of who you are, you will still have a tie other than blood to bind you to us.
IV
Crack! The door – gold shatters into white and races in all directions in a deadly tracery of frost.
I leap to my feet. Heart racing, mind calm, trained, ready for the enemy.
I stride toward the sword at the foot of my husband's bed.
The door flies opens.
I grab the sword, pull, whirl, strike at the massive, nearly naked blue body of the enemy looming before me.
The Frost Giant falls. How are they here, in Asgard's heart? The other enemy, too close! Scarlet eyes meet mine. Enormous hands strike, hurling me to the floor. Stunned, breathless, pain! I can't see – and when my vision clears the huge figure is looming over my husband where he lies in the Odinsleep.
Laufey! Panicked, I struggle for breath, struggle to move! I hear his threats and then I take in a breath, another, push to my feet, gaze sweeping the room searching for the sword.
You are suddenly there! You aim Gungnir – a searing bolt of power strikes Laufey to the floor. Another destroys him.
You, so kingly, so strong, so splendid in your armor, Gungnir held proudly in your hand. I run to you joyously.
We throw our arms around each other. I draw you close, my son, your warm reassuring arms around me. You have just killed your father, says the tiniest voice in my mind, but my heart is still pounding with the heat of battle and the fear that other enemies are present and might burst in at any time.
You swear to me our enemies will pay for their deeds. Enclosed in your arms, my arms tight around you, I tell you, Loki, I have never felt so proud. I knew in that moment – though I had never doubted it – that I had made the right decision. You will be a worthy king.
Then Thor is there – I saw instantly he has been restored to himself, that he is no longer a vulnerable mortal. I run to him, filled with joy, for now I have him back. Now both my sons are here and ready to defend Asgard – to defend their father – from all enemies. How can we not prevail?
Both sons, here. With me.
And then –
Thor's words – speaking of your betrayal, your attempt on his life and the lives of his friends. I hear his words but do not understand. You raise Gungnir. Aim. Blast Thor through the wall of the palace.
And then you are gone and I stand numb and uncomprehending of anything either of you said.
Distantly I hear storm and the unnatural roar of power. I move to the broken wall. Outside a chaos of light and energy streaks the sky.
Huginn and Muninn shriek and I turn. And rush to my husband's side.
Odin takes a shuddering breath. A long silence. Another breath, more even. Another.
And opens his eyes.
"Husband," I say, but he does not need my words. He knows already, and is on his feet and gone an instant later.
I go back to the broken wall and watch. But you are all too far away for my eyes to see you. And my mind. My mind is full of broken pieces and I need answers now. I order the ravens to fly, to watch, to tell me.
I wait, and it is as if the Norns themselves are watching me, with their dispassionate gaze and their cryptic pronouncements. The air itself is heavy in my lungs. Waves of light explode into the sky and the rainbow colors shudder and war in the Bifrost. Great and terrifying sounds fill the air.
Something beyond dread has seized me with cold fingers. What fate approaches us now?
V
I sit in my garden and watch the light caress each flower, each fruited tree. The thick trunks and gnarled roots keep their secrets where my winter child no longer plays. The pathways he so enjoyed strolling in the cooler air of evening, abandoned, empty from his absence.
I try to think of nothing, but thoughts intrude anyway, some knife sharp, some heavy as earth pressed against twisted buried roots. My eyes feel clogged with that dirt, my unshed tears a burden I do not know if I can bear.
We set your funeral boat alight yesterday, filled as it was with all your favorite things: your armor and mantles, your daggers, your stones and feathers and herbs and carvings, and all your books, as well; everything I gave to you and everything you found for yourself; all the things that you had touched and wielded and studied and worn.
The boat was full.
And empty, of you.
I do not know how I endured it, watching your boat as it fell off the end of the world.
As you had fallen. Off the end of the world, with nothing to bear you up to Valhalla.
Fallen down into infinity. Still alive.
For how long? In the void where you could not even scream out your last breath?
I cannot sleep.
In my mind, I see it all. I cannot believe you dead. But dread seizes my bones at the thought of you alive, frozen, surviving where no Aesir could live, still falling forever with no one to find and rescue you. Heimdall cannot see you. I cannot scry you. You have vanished beyond our knowing.
Do you live?
Tears clog my eyes. I cannot sleep.
My husband tries to embrace me; I shrink from his touch. Thor told me what he said when our younger child was hanging from one end of Gungnir, Thor's hand on the other end, and how my husband's words swung the balance from life to death.
Thor comes to me here. The first time he sat beside me he said nothing, his face grim, lines etched where none had been before, and I realized, finally, he is a man now, not my young boy.
The next day there were tears in his eyes. And questions, which he put to me, which I answered, time and again. Of how Odin, returned from the war with the Jötnar, had brought a babe, Aesir in appearance, so that I first thought he had found a kidnapped hostage. But then he told me of Laufey's son, which he knew from your markings, and how you had shifted at his touch.
And never shifted back.
With all my magic I never determined the workings of it; the shapeshifter magic inborn into you. I said to Thor, I had never seen you as you truly are.
But that was a lie. The skin you presented to me was your true self. For what were mere days compared to centuries of a life lived?
I took you into my arms, I told Thor. You were my son, always. We should have told you early, I said to Thor. Early and often and made everyone understand.
Thor does not understand. He asks his questions again and again, each slightly different, still trying to understand. I gave him my answers, but none that satisfy him.
What we have never spoken of remains unsaid between us. Of how the two of you were far more than brothers. Of how you both sometimes raged against each other and did not speak for long stretches of time. Of how you both sometimes walked as if you were linked together. As if nothing could ever part you.
I have known of what you were to each other for many years now. There is no need, now, to tell you of my knowledge.
Thor asked me what he had done. What he had failed to do.
My throat closed against the enormity of my own failure, and I had no words to give him.
Did you know how much I loved to watch you and Thor as children tumble and roll in the garden, his gold hair a bright flash in the sun, yours the complementary darkness? Your limbs tangled around each other as you played and wrestled and hit each other, then laughed and raced and climbed up the trees and swung from the branches and leapt back down to the ground. And I watched and listened, as I ensorcelled my needlework and read spellbooks and breathed in the fresh scented air.
You had both played at war, as children, as do all sons. Your fights could be so rough, and early, sometimes there were tears at your hurts. Tears faded in time as you both grew older and harder, one bending to the sun and all that is open and simple, and the other to the moon, where all is complex and what is worth knowing is the hardest to find. Thor, always better at everything the sun touched, while you bore the gifts of darkness and starlight.
You drank in knowledge like a babe drinks in milk, and soon you far surpassed my skills. Sooner than I would have thought possible you grew and grew, then shunned my touch, as sons do with their mothers when there are others around to see. But when alone you still gave me the smile you reserved for me alone, and we would talk of things other than war and battle.
Because war and battle had become real. I longed to keep you both close and safe. You went away, on battles and quests and hunts, and I wished you glory and smiled with pride as mothers of warriors do, in the full knowledge that their sons may die before them. My hand too has known a sword, and I knew that if it befell me that I must watch as your boats burn and the smoke carries you to Valhalla, so be it. And I prayed that day would be eons hence.
I sit in my garden. The day has become night, and still I will not leave. My husband intrudes, standing behind me, then in front, then offering his hands. I take them numbly, then remember the words he said to our son. I let my hands slide back into my lap and my gaze refocus on the ground. Presently, Odin leaves.
I thought, then, of the dragon you both slew. Not the first, nor the fifth, nor even the fiercest of the dozens of Midgardian dragons you slew over the centuries. From Heimdall's report, the dragon was mid-sized, crimson-scaled, amber-eyed, with great plates upon her back. A fire-breather, true, but you all had slain others and taken little injury, bringing back huge fangs and talons as trophies. I felt no trepidation upon your departure.
The dragon had been laying waste to Midgardian northern villages, slaughtering and eating all she encountered, whether men or kine. When the people called upon their gods for succor, the gods they had given our names, Heimdall reported this to the Allfather and he saw fit to intervene once more in mortal affairs.
He said that his sons and warriors needed sport to take them away from their gaming and drinking. And whoring, though he did not say that aloud to me. And though he said it not, I knew he meant to take you away from your books and seiðr, though he was perfectly pleased with the attention you paid to policies and politics and your deep knowledge of the histories of other realms.
And so you went, with Thor and Sif and the Warriors Three, to the tall-treed mountains of near-polar Midgard, and there was laughing and boasting of your coming triumphs, of the trophies you would bring home. All except you, for as I recall you still looked vaguely irritated at having your studies interrupted for something as trivial as a dragon hunt.
And so you returned, the dragon dead. But luck was not with Thor; he came back burned, broken and insensible, borne on your strong shoulders, your arms holding your brother's arms and legs tightly to hold him fast to your back. Fandral, looking singed but otherwise hale, helped steady him, while Sif, Hogun and Volstaff staggered after, all bearing injuries.
Heimdall had alerted me and I arrived at the Bifrost just as all of you stepped off onto Asgardian land. You stopped in front of me, your green eyes fierce in your soot-blackened face. My heart was hammering in my chest as I looked at Thor's limp body wrapped in your green cape, his singed and blackened hair concealing his face and dangling toward the ground.
And every bit of skin visible on his hands and arms hideous with burns. I gasped and reached out my hand, reaching inward to sense for life.
"He lives," you confirmed, your voice hoarse and smoke-thickened, barely recognizable.
Sif and the Warriors Three crowded around you as you eased him gently to the ground. I dropped to my knees, leveling my hand an inch above Thor's face, which was angry red and black with fearsome burns, his eyes seared shut.
Then the healers were there, lifting him onto their carrier. They took him back to Eir's chambers, all of us following, and at some point I took your hand and squeezed it and your grip was strong in mine.
Tell me, I said to you some time later, when the Healers had done their work and Thor, skin still an angry red but now more like the hue of a newborn babe, rested unconscious in the healing energies of the Soul Forge. We sat beside where Thor lay, while the healers came and went, their voices soft murmurs in the herbal-scented air.
You were exhausted and trying to hide it, jaw set, face still filthy with soot, and your hands were trembling though you thought you hid it from me. You did not look at me. Instead, you sat next to me, your gaze fixed in a thousand-league stare, not on me nor Thor nor anywhere in the chamber, but rather in the most recent past.
"I thought him dead," you said, your voice a hoarse rasp. I put my hand on yours, felt it shake. You grasped my hand tightly, though kept your gaze away. "He breathed in fire." I gasped as if the searing flames had entered my own lungs and looked at Thor to reassure myself that he slept and was not even now being prepared for his final voyage. The slow rise and fall of Thor's chest, safe within the healing energies of the Forge, reassured me.
"The dragon's breath – directly in his face," you continued, still not seeing me but the recent past. "We did not know - "
You paused to swallow against a coughing fit, and suddenly fearful for my other son, I gestured for a healer to approach you. You looked up as she approached and waved her away. "I am fine, Mother."
"No, you are not," I said, for I could still see the fine tremors shaking your body and the way your shoulders, your entire body, slumped in utter exhaustion.
"It is nothing," you said, finally looking at me, and then to my skeptical face you added, "It will pass." You squeezed your eyes shut, opened them again, stared back out at nothing.
Your words, always so vivid. I could see, hear, smell it all as you told it to me. Your voice, still so heavy with numb exhaustion, almost whispering at times, pausing to cough again and again, as you continued your tale. Your eyes, now seeing only what lay inside your mind, unfocused, red-rimmed, tear tracks in the sooted skin near your eyes.
The Bifrost left you at the base of a cliff at the end of a fjord. There was snow everywhere, still waiting for the first thaw, and ice crunched beneath your feet. Fog was heavy in the air, and the air was thick with damp from the nearby sea. All of you wrapped their cloaks around yourselves, and Fandral muttered, Cold as a Jötunn whore's quim.
I jerked back in shock at those words, spilled so carelessly from your mouth.
You looked at me, suddenly shocked back to the present. Embarrassed, you apologized for using crude language. Unsettled, I pretended you repeating Fandral's words was the reason for my reaction. I smiled and offered a word of forgiveness, though my lips were stiff and felt false in my face, mourning we had all taught you so well to hate your own people.
I wondered then as I wonder now, sitting here in my garden, why you even thought to mention what Fandral said, careful as you usually were with what you said and how you said it. But I remembered the exhaustion on your face, the tremor in your hands you tried to hide, the emptiness in the place inside you where your seiðr dwells, drained to save your brother's life, and the blank sameness of your words as you repeated your tale, and feel guilt again. Thor nearly died. You could have died, as well.
Now, I think now of a thousand things I should have said or done.
Then, I said nothing, those crude words quickly forgotten as I pressed you to resume your story. Now, I know I missed yet one more lost opportunity to speak to my husband, to once again beg him to tell you the truth.
You continued, your voice stronger now, less smoke-damaged. You had already begun to heal, and I took joy in that fact, that you were not lying and concealing deeper injury while Thor was tended to.
You had all scrutinized the silver fjord, and the cliffs arising around it, thick with trees, for any signs of life, but though there were brief stirrings and scurrying among the leaves and branches, nothing showed itself, and the air itself, free of seabirds, was too silent and still.
Thor had raised Mjolnir and taken to the skies, returning presently to report he had found the dragon's lair. From there, it was only a matter of climbing up the mountain to a pass and then a short way down the other side to a high valley. The dragon had blasted a rocky hollow flat with her fiery breath, denuding it of every tree and plant. There was not even a trace of snow, though elsewhere this high on the mountain snow clung to every evergreen and outcropping of stone. There was no sound, nor smell of active flame, though the odor of ashes and recently roasted flesh still clung to the air.
You all agreed the dragon was doubtless elsewhere and quickly climbed down into the hollow. The bare ground was littered with the bones of mortals and cattle, and there was an enormous gash slashed into the rocky wall on the further side. She had not even sought a cave, as her kind do, but made her own, clawed out from a cliffside, a big empty space, roomy enough for a large dragon to stretch out full length in the warm months, deep enough so she might curl up and protect herself from rain and snow.
The cave was empty when you arrived, and while you and the others waited in the hollow Thor took to the skies to scout the land. He returned quickly, saying he had not seen the dragon herself, but clear marks of her passage in the lower valley where a small mortal settlement lay surrounded by pastures for their sheep and their cattle.
And so you all descended the mountain, everyone alert, everyone filled with high energy, anticipating the glory of the hunt.
It was warmer on this side of the mountain, away from the sea fog, though snow still hung on tree branches and littered the ground. You followed her trail, Thor taking to the air to scout her out. Then dropped down with a shout because -
There she was. The sun gleamed on her crimson scales as she took to the air, half again as large as a bilgesnipe, with talons and fangs as long as a double-sword and great amber eyes seeking prey. The mortal village, half a league beyond. She, flying fast towards it. Her roar shaking the trees, sending the mortals screaming and fleeing. You, throwing illusions of stampeding cattle in front of her to lure her away from the village. Sif and the Warriors Three, attacking from the rear. You, luring her to the ground with an image of fat and vulnerable cattle awaiting her fangs and claws.
Sif, leaping to her back and driving a sword into her neck. Thor, dealing a mighty blow with his hammer to her spine. The Warriors Three, at her flanks, aiming their swords and ax in the vulnerable points between her scales. You, throwing the illusion of a rocky cavern ceiling overhead so she dared not take wing. The dragon swerving and crashing through the trees, heavy tail lashing, shaking Volstagg free, while Hogun fell beneath her trampling feet, missing being crushed by an inch, thrusting his sword deep inside her belly. Volstagg returning to the attack, driving a ferocious slice of his ax against one of the dragon's clawed feet, cutting deep into the ankle joint. Shrieking and howling, she flailed, with Fandral clambering to her back and slicing through the edge of one of her great wings. Shrieking, her mouth wide as she raked fire over all in her path, every tree around igniting in a great rush of flame. Sif, hanging on, thrusting her sword through the back of her neck. Thor, leaping up, bringing Mjolnir down on her skull. The death blow. The earth shaking as the dragon crashed to the ground. The conflagration as it spread around you.
Thor, raising Mjolnir to the sky, bringing down rain to put out the fire. All of you, breathing heavily, grinning and shouting in victory. Laughing, triumphant, all of you going to the mortal village, to their tiny cramped, smelly huts to accept their tribute and worship. How they offered all of you the best of their mead, their ale, their meat, their bread, their choice young maidens, and young men also, for Sif if she should so desire them.
But when at dawn you left –
Walking back across the fields the way you came –
Drunk on their mead and replete with feasting and what comes after –
Not bothering with sleep –
There was another.
My hand tightened on yours as you described the way her massive head reared up as you lagged back to flyte with Fandral. Thor, ahead of everyone, singing loud disconnected verses of some drinking song, reworking some lines to describe defeating the dragon.
An infuriated roar set all your ears to ringing, and suddenly sober you looked up in time –
Another dragon, crimson-scaled, amber-eyed, as like to the first as a twin is to a twin.
Thor, directly in her path, his song stopping mid-verse, craning his head up as she –
Her fiery breath roaring out, engulfing Thor, his clothing and hair catching fire like a torch –
I could not help but let out a small cry as you described the conflagration –
You, doing a great casting, raising a sorcerous shield around all of you, finishing it a bare second before her breath roared out again, flame racing along the curve of your shield, now a dome protecting you and the others from the fire. Thor was down, clothes aflame. You pulling off your cape, the others grabbing it and blanketing Thor with it, stifling the flames. Thor now collapsed on the ground, his body smoking.
You, pushing your shield ahead to force the dragon further back. The dragon's great eyes confused and startled at the snap and sting and heat of your sorcery, and angry as your shield pushed her back and back and kept her at bay, her fire blowing across your shield and setting the field aflame.
You, shaping and reshaping your shield ahead and around so the others could race to her sides, swords at the ready –
Them, attacking the giant beast, her great wings beating against her invisible prison. Them, driving their swords into her belly and neck –
You, at your brother's side, maintaining the sorcerous shield past the time of needing it, taking Thor into your arms as he choked and struggled to breathe as the fire had seared away his lungs –
You, magicking away his melted armor, separating it atom by atom from the terribly burned skin beneath.
You, one hand on Thor's mouth and another on his chest, pushing your seiðr into his lungs so that he might heal and breathe again –
Hogun, striking a lethal blow so she fell hard and the ground shook.
The others, completing the second kill while you held Thor in your arms and bent over him. Thor, no longer breathing. You, putting your mouth to his, sending all the seiðr you had left to give to keep the spark of life alive within him. Thor, suddenly sucking in a ragged breath. And another.
I could not help tears falling as you described it; the way the others rushed back; the second dragon dead. Of how you lifted Thor to your back, Mjolnir at your feet, and called to Heimdall to retrieve you where you stood.
The Bifrost slamming down into the ground, extinguishing the flames. Some brave villagers peering at you through what remained of their crops. The Bifrost taking you all.
The rest I know.
I stood; you stood as well, and I threw my arms around you. You hugged me back, hard. I breathed in the smoke clinging to your clothing and hair, and thanked the Norns for his life and yours as well, and thanked you for all you did. Your eyes were closed, and perhaps I saw new tear tracks in the soot beneath your eyes.
When we stepped away from each other your smile was the smile of the child you had been, full and free and just for me. You reached out, brushed the soot off my face which had transferred from your skin to mine, and then we hugged again, and I held you for a long time until my tears had dried.
Then you looked past me, to Thor, and for one moment I saw the rawness of what you feel for him, the need, the sheer terror you had experienced when you thought him dead. You reached out and let your fingers hover over Thor's hand as if planning to reach through the field and reassure yourself by touch that he still lived.
"There are very few who could do such a great working as you did," I said to you. "Only the greatest mages can accomplish such a thing."
But then, suddenly, Fandral had entered the chamber, and Sif as well, then Hogun and Volstagg, all released from the ministrations of the healers. None of them looked hale, though all visible signs of their injuries were gone. They slowed as they approached us.
You stiffened in my arms and stepped back. I let my arms drop to my sides. I know full well men must fight their own battles, and it is now my place to step away.
They stood beside us at Thor's bedside, Sif pushing you slightly so she could get closer.
You walked out of the healing chamber. I did not follow, but stayed at Thor's bedside.
Should I have gone to you instead? I know not. But my thoughts then had turned to the son I almost lost, rather than the one who saved his life. How many regrets can a mother have?
Days later, in the great hall, the bards stood, one after the other, and sang their sagas of the glorious battles against the Midgard dragons, each one now ten times larger than her actual size, vying with each other to tell ever greater tales of the heroism of Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three.
And Sif and Volstagg and Fandral, braggarts all, told exaggerated tales of their prowess with ax and sword, with much mention of each slice and hack and stab of the beasts' bodies. Hogun remained silent, but accepted all the approbation that came his way with a brief nod and a pleased gleam in his eye.
When your name was mentioned in these ballads and tales, it was of the one who remained at the rear, using women's weapons of illusion and spellwork and precisely-thrown daggers to wage battle.
No mention was made of how you saved all of their lives.
No mention was made of how you saved Thor's life. My golden son, felled in battle at the start, and still healing in Eir's chambers, did not know how the battle had gone, though when he was finally aware I told him all. But the others knew.
You sat beside me, still as stone, chin lifted, face blank. Your hand, when my hand touched it briefly, was so like ice I lifted my hand quickly away without thinking. Then, just as quickly, replaced it.
You slid your hand away. You did not look at me. You did not give me the chance to let my hand warm through your ice.
When the singing was at its most loud and the laughter at its most boisterous I turned to you and said in a quiet tone, "Shall you not sing a song of your own deeds?"
"What have I to sing of, mother?" he spat in a voice so quiet none but I heard.
"You saved Thor's life. All should know."
"None care, mother. My tale is not one of heroism. I was not the one half-drowned in the beasts' blood when I sliced through its belly, after all; I used no ax, no sword, no hammer." The venom in his low tones stabbed through me like a dagger. He looked away, composed his face and sat in silence, shoulders rigid, hands tense in his lap.
I wished to proclaim your heroism myself. But I was not on Midgard, I did not witness the battles, and were I to speak of it on your behalf you would hate me for it.
I swallowed any further words and sat quietly and kept my face calm and regal while Odin, in his anger, declared all Midgardian dragons must die. And so it was done: My husband himself led the Wild Hunt which purged Midgard of these great beasts and so they then passed swiftly into legend.
From then on, you became colder, quieter, more still, like a wily beast waiting for prey, able to wait for as long as it takes. You took many small revenges. There were whispers that the seiðr I taught you made you argr; that you were no fit man, much less a prince.
I can no more keep these tales from your ears than I could the tales of monsters when you were a babe.
There were more quests. More battles. More songs sung and tales told at feasts at the prowess of Asgard's bravest warriors.
Thor, basking in the admiration of all Asgard; you, sometimes secluded in your chambers or off on solitary quests of your own, affecting to care little of the opinions of others. Thor, foolish and reckless and loved by all. You, standing in his shadow, sometimes not bothering to hide your boredom and disdain for the quests and hunts and battles he and his friends so enjoyed, unable to let slights pass without some clever retaliation, whether by wit or by tricks. Myself, angered by the foolishness of both of my sons, yet indulgent as well. Angered by the heedless words and deeds of others.
But young warriors will do as they will.
I am filled with rage that I cannot say all that I know to any willing ears. I think often of all the things I taught you. All the things I never taught you; that you learned on your own, or simply knew from your inborn talent. You have far surpassed me. Were you woman, you would be counted the greatest völva in all the realms and all would seek your favor.
But you are son and as seiðmaðr you are argr. And, though I put you on that path, destiny tells me I could no more have prevented the steps you took than I could prevent the way the water flows off the edge of the world.
I became silent then with sorrow for I cannot change the minds of men.
I sit in my garden, and my golden son sits beside me. There are tears on his face now. Thor asks me what he had done to merit your rage. What he had failed to do.
I did not give Thor the answers he seeks, and I know he cannot understand this on his own. He is the prince who will be king; he has always known his place and never considered how it is to be the one lesser. He does not know how to stand in shadow, no more than Loki did, in the end. This is my failure, more so than his.
What purpose does it serve now, to explain to him in his terrible grief all the times he saw only himself and his friends, not his younger brother standing behind in the shadows? Explain all the times he covered himself in glory and did not give you your due share? Remind him of the times you saved his life and those of others, but it was as a trinket to him, trickery, not honor, something lesser, and so he made light of it and went back to drinking and boasting without you.
Because he was young and thoughtless, as boys that age are; not ready to be a man, much less a King.
Because he thought you would always be there, beside him or behind him, protecting his back.
I could not give him the answers he sought. What purpose would it serve? I alone know my eldest son lost someone more dear to him than a brother. Why give Thor this burden, when there is naught he can do to change it, and naught he can do to make amends?
I said instead you could not bear what Odin had told you. I said instead you wished to prove yourself to father by warring against the Jötnar; that with him not there you would have that chance.
But Thor knew that already and knew there was more. But he did not ask again, and I did not tell him.
I took him in my arms as he wept, my huge son, and felt he, too, seemed still a babe.
I am grateful that my husband showed mercy and told all that you fell and none that you let go of your own choice.
I hold my head up, because that is who I am, but grief bows me down until its crushing burden is all I know. For though I came to love my husband after our marriage, and love the son of my body, it is you I shared the truest part of my heart with. For I am more than queen, more than wife and more than mother, and as völva I could share with you, my brilliant changeable quicksilver child, what I could share with no other, such were the ties between us.
All I can think now is all the things I tried to say but never well enough for you to understand, for I cannot change the ways of men.
All the things I left undone, and all the things I never thought to do.
All the things I never said, and now never will.
All that is left to me is hope.
Please be alive.
Please be well.
Please come home.
And if you cannot…
I say this now as if you could hear me.
Please find a place in the wider universe to welcome you.
Plus One
My husband heeded my pleas and spared you the ax. Instead, he imprisoned you for life.
But my husband is old now, and getting older and more weary by the day. I see edging forward on the horizon the time when his ship, too, will be set afire and the Valkyries will come for him and take him to Valhalla. My day too shall come, but I am younger than he, and more hale, and perhaps I will live to see the day when your mind is healed and you can dwell again in the sun.
When my husband makes Thor king, all will change. If he does not, when he dies, all will change. I will speak at that time for your release from imprisonment.
And then?
Can there ever be forgiveness in your heart? In Thor's?
Thor is filled with anger against all that you wrought on Midgard. More anger than I have ever seen in him, for he feels your betrayal more keenly than that of any other. He has spoken to me with great sorrow of your deeds on Midgard, and they are fearsome and terrible indeed. But he has also said to me, and this is when his anger and his grief are the greatest, that you have twice tried to kill him. Yet I believe it not, for if that were truly your desire Thor would be dead. You are too great a mage to let one live whose life you have determined to end. I have said this to Thor, and he has not listened to me, but I persist in hope that he will remember he loved you once.
For now Thor remains facing one way, you another; and unless that changes, even if you are freed, though you may fight off enemies back to back, until you can truly face each other you will always be at odds.
This division between you is another regret I have. Sometimes it feels all I am is regret. But this, the largest: that I did not speak then. That I did not give Thor this burden he earned, when he came to me after you fell and asked me why you did what you did. Why you went mad. Why you…. let go.
I have tried since your return to make Thor understand how he took your love for him and regarded it lightly and set it to the side when it suited him to do other things. Of how, blinded by the sun, and the love and fealty of all he encountered he never realized how cold you grew in his shadow.
And I – I am equally to blame. I have the shame of my own cowardice as my burden.
Now he dwells above, and you dwell below. He is in the sun, and you are in an endless eternal light, surrounded by darkness, trapped and bound with all the other prisoners.
And Thor cannot bring himself to even speak your name.
If only my scrying had brought you to my vision earlier. Then we could have come to your aid. Now we will never know what you refuse to speak of: what happened after you fell. But beyond the realms our vision cannot go and when you fell it was utterly beyond our reach.
For now I visit you as often as I may. I have done all I can to make your imprisonment less grim. I do all I can to recall you to the son I remember; the son who delighted in intelligence and witticism and complex workings. The son I had before your descent into madness.
I despair that I will never see that son again.
We talk, and I try to make you see where you erred. But you will not listen.
My winter child. So proud, so lost, so full of rage, and still so very very young.
I hold my hands to you, and you hesitate, then reach to grasp them, an action which brings joy to my heart.
But you cannot touch me. I cannot enter your prison in physical form, only as a double.
And though I am the one who is insubstantial here, it is you who have slipped through my hands.