Author's note: English is not my native language. Please bear with any mistakes!
King and queen for eternity
Valhalla is shining with the gold of a thousand shields overlapped like dragon scales under the sun rays. Unfair would be a comparison between what is now in front of him and the life that he left behind. Asgard's gold comes to Odin's mind with the dull and oxidized tint of a four-year absence.
The golden red of his queen, that one is not. Nothing of her hair is corrupt, nor color nor curves. She is wearing it in soft locks that flow down along her back. She is standing, protected on her sides by the massive jambs of the ash door, two monoliths carved with valknut symbols and runic characters dating back to Borr's age. A gentle breeze is seeping in through the open frame, whispering against her ankles and caressing the hem of her blue gown. The torches lined on the walls flicker lightly.
Odin focuses his only eye in the distance, beyond the threshold – one of the thousand thresholds! – on the rue carpet bending down under the wind's prongs. Further on the horizon, rows and brushes of evergreens endlessly jag the bottom of the sky.
In his mind and heart, Frigga is like one of those trees: blooming, untarnished, unbreakable.
Can he expect to be just as pure? To receive the indulgence of a forgiveness he always denied, to receive the unconditional love he never expressed?
With the hindsight that comes with old age, Odin asks himself if the duty to a crown is really more important than the duty to the family; if a father's mercy cannot be favored over a king's impartial justice; if emotions may, sometimes, prove to be more rational than reason itself.
With the hindsight of an old man with sagging knees, indeed. But still...
He attempts a step forward. The boot squeaks. Was it really the boot? Maybe it was the wooden plank of the floor, or maybe his old bones, or maybe it was his heart swelling with the long wait, pacing up and down, straining at the leash like a plow horse.
But she hears the sound, whatever its source, and is attracted by it, and she turns, and yes – the wildflowers are enclosing the very same face in his memories: hers are the blue eyes, hers are the lashes framing them. Hers is the outline of the mouth, which does not smile, but opens ever so slightly. Two red petals in the spring.
Odin takes a couple of steps forward, covering the distance. Something is pushing and gathering under his eye, like waves charging at the shore. Then, with the prudence of a man who fears he is about to uncover an illusion, he raises an arm and brushes the back of his fingers against her cheek.
She does not suffuse with any flashes of light: the contact is smooth, it gives off warmth. It is real.
Odin has not even time to wipe her new-born tears away. She throws her arms around him, weighing on him with her dress and armor plates. As he returns the embrace, to the point of lifting her up, he barely takes notice of the added weight. The yoke has broken: she welcomes him, and always will.
«I missed you,» he says, breathing in through her strawberry hair.
Hands grab at his cape and grasp fistfuls of the fabric, creasing it: I missed you too. Frigga has always chosen deeds over words. Another reason why he loves her.
Their silence smells like home, as the field is now budding with the red and violet tones of amaranth flowers.
~fin~