How could anything so cold be so wonderful? After all the dust in the armoury – boy did they need to get some cleaning maids down there before the bugs got niffleheim sized – twisting some manky old statues nose and falling through a hole opening up beneath her feet before depositing her in a snow heap, wet and cold was certainly welcome. Well, until the wind really started hammering her with ice and the midgardian came to recall her asgardian summer attire.
"Ssssshit its cccccold..." Kari stammered her way into a hands under armpit scuttle of teeth chattering.
Jotunheim had so not been this nasty last time she was here. Then again her memories of the realm had mainly been in a forest around a fire at her aunties hut. This was so not a forest or her aunties hut. Nope definitely not, more like the beginning of a circus crazy mirror booth made out of ice. Also a lot of dead bodies in differing stages of partially eaten and frozen solid corpsicles.
"Oh my god..." The curly haired woman grimaced at all the gore.
Did this place not used to be the old Jotunheim palace or something? Definitely needed to get their cleaning maids down here stat too. Well, at least if this was the palace, she vaguely knew a bit of direction to go in, to get back home. Among her studies back in the day, geography had been involved and even if she failed hard at earth science Jotunheim had been somewhat more interesting and worthy of paying attention to for life preserving reasons. The icy blue realm was not a place for children to get lost and live in, despite all the fight happy giants there was an abundance of wildlife lurking somewhere in the white horizon and it was big, hungry and had something else big and hungry hunting it too.
"HALT!" A voice loud like thunder and earthy as gravel boomed and echoed around her.
"S-s-sshit..." The midgardian woman momentarily lost her knees and fingered at the ground to right herself once more.
"Who are you puny one?" The voice of doom was now above her.
"Why trespass here?" Followed by a second less loud yet somehow deeper speaker.
"Can we eat it?" And finally a third excitable male.
"No you damn well can't!" Kari rounded towards the third voices owner, having managed to surreptitiously turn herself into an almost forgotten magical interpretation of a red eyed blue skinned Jotun.
"Ah, little she-giant!" The first Jotun cooed down at the bundle of furious child sized curly hair.
"I say we still eat it!" Number three was practically drooling nonetheless.
"We are not cannibals!" First snapped at his men before succumbing to their dubious gazes. "We are not cannibals today!"
"There is still plenty of roots and goat." The second Jotun sighed.
"I am sick of goat!" Third belly ached still eyeing the little blue skinned girl with hungry intent.
"Then eat the roots and be quiet!"
"Hey!" Kari, though not necessarily wanting to get involved in rowdy male giants banter, called up to the hulking masses of muscle. "Uh, so... what happened here?"
"Battle!" First answered in weary pride.
"You say battle I say slaying!" Third grouched.
"Damn asgardians!" Second sighed.
"So Odin attacked the palace?" She queried if only to find out what else ole one eye had been bothering other people with.
"What foolish mother is raising you little she-giant?"
"One that won't tell me what's going on so I have to ask stupid he-giants that answer questions with questions!"
"Hahaha!" First hollerred laughter that reverberated around them in a moment of ringing ice shards. "This little one is funny. Come eat goat with us and hear the tales of your people."
"My mother was this way too." Second mused as he moved between the girl and hungry third like a protective wall. "Father would speak of war at the dinner table and she would throw him outside with his bowl."
"Did he not discipline her?" Third bulged with wife beating desire. "This is not how a she-giant should act towards her mate!"
"Have you never met his mother?"
"No."
"Be thankful. She is a giantess of great... prowess." First began doing a bit of drooling of his own.
"I am sad to say I take after my fathers stature." Second sniffed as they all settled in around a fire more burning tree than log burner.
"You're not too bad." Kari gave the second Jotun's trunk thick arm a reassuring pat. "I've seen way smaller than you or whatever. You're huge in comparison to the guys in my village."
"Perhaps we should visit this village."
"Show the she-giants a real Jotun!" Third grinned a little too excitably; like a virgin in a strip bar.
"Where is it you hail little she-giant?" First gently deposited a large stick with a huge slab of meat on the end on the Jotun girls lap.
"North of Sinamin. Along the river." She eyed the child sized portion bigger than her mass of curls and head combined with ravenous terror; this was so better than that bacon sandwich she had been thinking about but way more meat than she thought she could handle.
"You are far for such short legs."
"I'm surprisingly fast at, er, running."
"A good trick until you grow."
"Uh... thanks." Kari nodded before taking a tearing bite out of her meat stick much to the giants proud chuckles. "So the palace?"
"Bah, asgardians!" Third fiddled with a bowl of roots much like a child moving his broccoli around a plate in the hopes it will morph into chocolate.
"I spit on Odins remaining eye!" Second growled.
"It is too short a tale." First rumbled his disapproval. "The kings son returned with gifts. A way to kill Odin whilst he lay in dreamless sleep but it was a trick of a trick!"
"That traitorous runt turned on his own father for the asgardian king and slew him." Second concluded. "Now we lack the leadership and all would-be kings spring from every village to take the palace."
"So... you're like... palace guards minding an empty palace from other people that want to be king?" She peered up between mouthfuls despite the way her hungover stomach now requested a little less goat.
"That is it little she-giant."
"So... how do we get a new king?"
"When one arises." First stared off towards the frozen throne in longing wonder for some magnificent leader to materialise.
"But... you said loads have been like arising?"
"Yes." First shrugged at the child's question.
"So when do you know which one is the real arisen king or whatever?"
"Uh..."
"This is a good question." Second paused his eating and began scratching the back of his head with a large goat leg.
"I told you we should discuss this more!" Third tsked now attempting to toast a root to change the flavour.
"Hush you say too much always!" Second groaned with a threatening goat leg pointing.
"Isn't there like a council or something that could decide?" The she-giant interrupted, turning her head between the three males in curious unison.
"Like the council of elders?" First tilted his head towards the heavens whilst picking at his teeth with a twig.
"Um, yeah?"
"Oh, we had to slay them weeks ago." He shook off the thought of such elderly minds arguing around a table.
"What, why?"
"They tried to make a she-giant king!"
"A she-giant... king!" Second mouth gaped at the memory. "Of all things!"
"Only sons of jotunheim may be king!" First shook his head with heartbreaking confusion. "She-giants are queens!"
"As I said!" Third exclaimed.
"Hush you say too much!" Second began threatening with his mostly devoured goat leg once more.
"And you hush me too often!"
"Be quiet you two both!" First stood in a show of paternal dominance. "You are setting bad examples for the little one."
"What is this?" A fourth giant bustled into the open air dinning hall. "A new pet or something other than goat for dinner?"
"We are not eating the child!" First began pointing viciously at each of his men in turn. "That is final!"
"I was only asking..." Fourth trailed off disappointingly. "...sick of goat..."
"Hey, so, what happened to the queen?" Kari cleared her throat now everyone was sitting once more; half a stick of goat on her lap and not enough queasy room in her twirling pit of a stomach to continue eating.
"What queen?"
"The one they wanted to be king?"
"Oh..." First waved off the thought of such a creatures tolerated existence. "She is around here somewhere."
"Every few days or so she assaults the palace with her men and we drive her back!" Second chest pounded their triumph.
"Back to her kitchen!" Third cackled.
"Hush!" Fourth and second quickly towered over third.
"Do not hush me!" He was hardly put off.
"If my mother were here she would hush you permanently for your crude joke!" Second arm folded his disdain. "And in front of small ears!"
"Apologise to the she-giant!" First commanded.
"I will no-ow!" Third was swiftly walloped in the ear with a goats leg and stuttered into manners. "I am sorry..."
"Uh, okay." Kari nodded her acceptance whilst fighting the urge to laugh.
Well, now she felt a little more clued into the grand scheme of Jotunheim politics, kind of. A future queen sounded promising; bet that tiresome old man would be annoyed about a woman, or she-giant in this case, having one over on him. Though she doubted the diplomacy between asgard and jotunheim would get any better regardless. If Asgard was not warring against giants and monsters it was wrestling pigs and trying to slit each others throats after all. Stupid men, stupid Odin and stupid oddly sweet Jotun palace guards fighting what was so going to be good for them in the long run. At least they had given her a sweet goat pelt jacket and some roots for the long walk home; even if the jacket barely curbed the edge of iciness. Was the weather seriously this bad before or was this some sort of global warming thing happening on another planet or something. This was, Karian Motter's, life so anything was an option, right?
Several miles, two monster sized scares and countless drops into snow drifts – but thankfully no broken limbs – later and she was there. A forest covered in white, almost camouflaged perfectly against the rest of the landscape. A winding river teeming with fish and the foot quickening thought of a warm fire and tight clasped hugs. Everything really was going to be alright now. Not fine or okay but truly alright. No stupid men or stupid weddings or stupid unreasonable expectations of litters of warriors. Nobody would give a damn here, they just thought she was some permanent little she-giant child rather than a walking vagina bound to spend her life fussing over some too-high-an-opinion of himself man expecting dinner and a bedtime show. It was all alright or maybe it was okay or fine or...
"Fuck." Kari paused her brisk pace and stared like a person hallucinating something bigger on the inside than out. "Fuck!" Her mind grappled for new words to describe whatever this was but seemed threadbare of vocabulary. "FUCK!"
Bouncing between trees and up into the atmosphere like a choir of echoes, her summary of events dissipated much like that warm feeling she had been holding on to in her heart. There really was not anything left. She had thought Frigga's well padded news had been the last clawing of the blackboard, there was hardly anything more in her life she had to hold on to but as was always the events surrounding a certain curly haired woman's existence, there was always one more pawn on the chessboard for extraction.
It was pitiful really, it did not even seem like there was much of a story to tell about the scene before her, much like the downfall of Jotunheim's monarchy; the end coming as a whimper rather than a big bang. The hut lay in shambles, a tree having collapsed its full weight on the left side of the structure causing the wall to crumble and the roof to fall in. The door was hanging off its hinges, wood rotting from lack of care. Plant life had sprung up beyond the portal, creating the appearance of ancient ruin. How long ago had all this happened? Somewhere in the last eight or nine years obviously. Idling closer, goat coat pulled tighter, she began her exploration of the new frontier. What secrets lay inside? What horrors?
A cold hearth filled with debris, a bookshelf toppled and tomes disintegrating across a once spotless floor. She could almost see it as it once was. Warm, inviting, an aunt humming as she repaired some garment in her chair by the fire. Now only cold, dark and everything beyond a salvageable state. What had happened? Well that answer came all too swiftly. Frozen in the wasteland of a home, a body left sleeping in an old chair. Deeper still beneath the fallen tree a hand sprawled into view atop a broken bed and matted fur on a cot she once called her own. It was something she supposed; they had died peacefully and not from some pointless infighting among the rest of the Jotuns. At least she could hope so much. Karma could not be that much of a bitch or whatever? And why had no one come to bury them? They had raised other children. Where were they? She could not be the only one to ever return; to ever care.
"This is... fuck." Kari growled, her hands besides her ears though not touching as she paced her way out of the decrepit building.
A deep breath was needed, she needed to think, to reason, without thinking; if such a thing were possible. Escape and go somewhere safe and reassuring without expectations had been her only goal and now she was here, escaped without expectation, but lacking reassurance and had no idea what to do. What did you do when you find your aunts dead on an alien world? It was not as if they had a directory in the yellow pages for this, even if she had a phone book to consult, let alone a phone that worked this far off the stupid grid. Oh god would the service charges for that call be heart stopping. The bodies needed a funeral and burying. Though burying dead bodies in a frozen landscape without a shovel seemed a bit far-fetched. What would the asgardians do? Have a big ass bonfire and get wasted. Right, yes, that sounded good; especially that last part. Cremation was fine, her aunts would not be spiritually enraged by cremation right? She could put the ash in a vase or something. Maybe scatter it somewhere nice; somewhere like Odin's remaining eye. Seriously, why was she mad at the stupid old man all of a sudden? Oh right, the whole dragging back and mind rape. Yep, yeah, Odin's eye sounded like a good final resting place. Now she just needed some dry wood and a lighter.
"Fuck." The curly haired woman paused her pacing long enough to shuffle back into the old hut and have a rummage for a rusty axe.
She was so going to teach the stupid tree that decided to collapse on the roof a lesson. Grunting, swearing and hacking at it for a few good hours would certainly calm her nerves and produce a bit of firewood or whatever. Add to the growing pile some kindling from the woods, a sweaty huffing sit down with some roots for dinner and who had time to feel the cold weather or think about stuff?
It was the early hours before she finally managed to scratch a fire together by rubbing sticks and hoping this time it would take and not be snuffed out by wind or wet. Like many a small thing, with a lot of work and smoke the midgardians flicker soon became a strong orange glow on the horizon. Her breath hitching in the air, as condensation, as she huffed at the sight. This was her doing, she was really burning it all down herself. Maybe she should have fixed the hut, buried the bodies and lived there forever alone in solitude where nobody else could get caught up or catch her up in pain and failure. But no, she had to get herself all worked up and set fire to the whole thing. She was seriously losing her shit if she had progressed to this level of crazy. Was it crazy though? Whatever. Whatever it was... just, whatever. It was done like so many other things. So many choices and pathways. It was just done. It was not okay or fine or alright, it was just done. Like a fire burning itself out of fuel she had nothing more to give, destroy, eat up. At least it was warm, though her insides felt cold and barren, the dance of colours transfixing as she folded her arms tight across her chest and waited for it to be over.
"Kari?"
Blinking in the sound of her own name, she turned her head slowly to meet his voice. The shift from firelight to the darkness he dwelt within caused her breath to hitch once again, as if seeing a ghost, until pupils adjusted. The flicker of orange besides her reflected dangerously off the surface of her eyes, as he warily dismounted his pebble coloured horse, the beast unwilling to trek any further towards the fire. Why was he here? Why him? Could history stop repeating for once.
"I'm not a little kid this time." She warned.
"You never were."
"Balder..." Kari sighed her vision back to the funeral pyre as something big in purple fell in line besides her; and yet her tongue was still without continuation.
"Heimdall wonders how you slipped past him as only Loki can."
"Some people really like hammers and some people really want away from those people."
"You speak of Thor?" He frowned down at the sweaty mess of curls besides him. "And Loki."
"Did you know Loki killed the king of Jotunheim?" She pivoted the subject matter, really not interested in partaking in the way he ended his last question as a statement.
"I had... heard." Their dance did not go unnoticed.
"The Jotun council of elders want a giantess as queen."
"There will be civil war for years." He sounded almost relieved. "Jotun men will never willingly follow a giantess without great struggle."
"Yeah, right, because all women are worthy of nothing but being baby factories." She fought against the desire to spit on the ground; at least she still had some class. "Aren't they?"
"You say this as if that is not an important matter." Perhaps it was the way the firelight illuminated his skin or maybe the purple mountain had forgotten his morning golden apple. "Raising the future of a nation is beyond simple kingship."
"So that's it is it?" Kari rounded on him, a finger jabbing in between his armour and causing an uncomfortable squint in the otherwise unaffected asgardians stoic nature. "Just put in our place. Don't dare come out of the basement kitchen without a trail of kids at our feet?"
"I did not say such." He forced her hand away though the merest touch on skin had her recoiling.
"Didn't you?" She turned away, hunched shoulders, hands tucked under armpits and eyes roaming the fallen snow below her.
"I am not-"
"In the mood for my games."
"I am not sure what you are trying to say." He corrected. "I wish you would simply say it."
"Like you say everything." Her lips were left parted to allow the passage of a sigh hanging in the frozen air.
"What I can."
"There always seems to be a great lack of what you can." Her gaze resurfaced, body turning back towards his heat though her tone seemed more admonishing of herself than her sort of could-have-been husband.
"I am only here to take you home."
"I am home." Well that had stung; his words, her words all biting like vipers filled with a slow acting poison.
"This is a wasteland." He demanded for reason.
"I. Am. Home." She gave it to him whether he liked the logic or not.
"Be reasonable." Balder attempted to placate, his hands resting on either side of her arms but only seeming to make her squirm away with an added step back. "Your home is with... Fandral."
"Is it?" She had almost wished he had finished that sentence in the way he had first meant to. "Because he didn't so try to get rid of me on to you not even a week ago." Kari fisted her hands all the better not to punch the larger male square in his armoured chest; though her lips did a magnificent curl of rage. "Because I so needed to be put in my stupid place or whatever." She began pacing in a half moon shape around the warrior all too aware he was near threat. "Spend the rest of my life in your kitchen!"
"I do not have a kitchen." The ever calm voice of annoying rationality.
"I'm sure you would have built one like you build all that stupid stuff in your stupid place."
"Now you despise my furniture as well as I?" Balder shouted back taking his own step away, turning in a half circle as if spooked by his own voice.
"I don't-" The curly haired woman paused, some of that fight or flight mentality deflating much like the dying fire behind her. "Despise you."
"Is this not why we argue so?" He had grown quiet, barely audible above the pop and hiss of combustion.
"You're an idiot!"
"As you tell me, often it seems."
"Then maybe get smart enough to listen!"
"Enough!" Balder really did seem like a horrendous force of nature for all of a split second; something other than she had seen before. "I have had enough of this!"
"So have I!" But that was hardly going to put her off screaming back at a warrior on the edge, in the middle of a forest at night, on an alien world, filled with giants and monsters looking for a quick meal.
"What do you want of me?"
"NOTHING!" Every echo around them of her word seem to land a strike and yet it felt as if each rebound only crumbled at her own figurative armour until something smaller could speak again. "Everything."
"I can not give what I do not have." He sighed a response.
"Something." It felt as if gravity were both weighing down upon her tripled and neither there so she might float off into the black of space.
"You mean your question, that morning." When had he come closer?
"It doesn't matter." She shook her head away from his attempt to touch. "If you couldn't love me then you definitely can't now."
"Why?" Like a thief in the night, or perhaps an asgardian warrior claiming a war trophy, his lips became locked with the defenceless midgardians.
"I..." Though not entirely without weapons; a finger to be more precise smooshed between their kiss and forcing his advance back. "Balder..." It was like too many words wanted to escape but none were willing to go first as she shook her head; her body accepting the warriors arms of safety about her waist. "I lost our baby."
Much like the end of the universe, not a big bang but a whimper escaped her lips. That touch she had recoiled from not moments before now felt like the only life line she had to hold her steady in reality. For a time his arms grew unbearably tight as she cried into his chest about something that hardly matter and yet was more important than the nine realms combined. The fire besides them continued its course growing hushed and cooled to embers. A funeral pyre for more than two giantesses and a wolf named Tom. The future of a nation was ash caught in the wind and scattered ever upwards into the night.
"There will be more." He reassured with softly spoken words for her ears alone.
"No, there won't." Kari affirmed in the negative, taking a half step back as hands folded between them neatly together. "Not from lack of trying."
His hands loosened about hers before tightening as if catching himself; a movement she hoped her mind was playing tricks on her by assuming its meaning. Looking away towards the fire then back to his horse, Balder, struggled internally before an assured soldiers expression forced its way into the etching of his features.
"We should return to asgard before the hour grows any later."
"Sure." She nodded, led like a lamb to the slaughter despite her fear of horses.
At least arriving back so late to the palace meant nobody would bother her with questioning; especially with their beds so high on the agenda. Thankfully even Heimdall seemed to know better than to ask about her latest of escapes, though no doubt, he would want a report of yet another crack in the golden cities perfect defences at some point. She was filthy and stank of goat but even bed was all, Karian Motter, could content her mind with for now.
"Balder?" It was the first time she had spoken since the funeral pyre, the sound strange and foreign to both their ears. "Can you...?" She trailed turning phrases of meaning in her head as he eyed her outside her grandfather's door. "I really don't want to be alone tonight."
That gaze, blue eyes like melting steel, sharp in a soldiers rigid stance and yet he nodded his acquiescence and followed her nonetheless. Something of a chill seemed to hover in the dark room despite the contrast of asgardian summer from their previous Jotunheim perpetual winter. The last time they had lain together, in a bed, it had been too warm, she had wanted to escape to watch the sunrise; how suddenly the coin's spin could fall the other way. Now all she wanted was the night to remain, his warmth besides her and even his irritating snoring a little longer. Fighting against sleep was not an option in the end and though, like instinct she was aware, her fingers still searched out besides her come the morning only to find a cooling dent where kittens had infiltrated to claim the spot as their own.