~Chapter Thirty Five~ Trials and Tribulation
Káta had walked out of Valhalla, and then run back through the city to Mærsalr tears streaming down her face once more. Her torn dress and tears had attracted a good deal of attention, but she had brushed past them all. She had been tempted to go back to her room, but instead she rode. Her mare, Sólfríðr, seemed to sense her distress, and they sped out of the city together as Káta cried her heart out over the galloping mare's neck.
Eventually they stopped, where Káta didn't know, somewhere in the middle of the great grassy expanse of the Plain of Iða, and Káta half fell, half flopped off Sólfríðr's back, dragging herself into a sitting position as she continued to sob, hunched and bent over herself, hugging her knees to her chest.
The mare attempted to comfort her, nuzzling at her shoulders and whickering gently, but when Káta merely stretched out on the ground, her tears only increasing in number and her sobs in volume, Sólfríðr when down on her knees, lying beside her mistress, who rolled in against her warm side.
At last Káta seemed to have cried herself dry, for although dry sobs continued to shudder her body and her eyes pricked, no more tears came. Her throat was so dry that the only sound she could make was a hoarse rasping. Eventually, even her sobs stopped, and she lay, silent and aching against Sólfríðr's belly. The sun began to wane, falling slowly down towards the west, and still Káta did not move. She watched the sky, the clouds slowly massing and growing into a great grey blanket above her, comfortless to her misery.
It was not until the very end of dusk as night was looming in that the great bank of clouds released their burden. The rain fell on the plains, neither heavy nor light, and Káta felt the sting of her split lip for the first time even as she savoured the sweetness of the drops on her parched lips, the cooling touch soothing to the puffy, aching skin of her eyelids. The grass she lay on turned to sandy mud, the water pattering and running through her hair, mixing with the grainy silt, and at long last she was able to draw a clean breath.
Her heart still ached, but it was no longer needless. She had a direction to go in; a purpose to achieve, and her pain was her drive. Cleansed, she struggled drunkenly into a sitting position, Sólfríðr waking at her movement with a soft whinny of welcome, sensing the slowly returning spirits of her mistress as Káta threw an arm over the mare's wet neck.
Refreshed as her soul was, her body ached from the strength of her tearful convulsions, stiff from remaining curled in a single attitude for so long, and it seemed an impossibility that she would be able to get her leg over the mare's back. Sólfríðr turned her head around, pushing and nosing Káta up and over her back, before she got up and trotted for home, Káta slumped over her neck, her fingers wound in the mare's wet mane.
Loki had let Káta leave. He knew enough of her stubbornness to know that trying to change her mind would be no easy feat, and she had been in such a state that it would have been pointless to try and convince her. Her refutations of the motives for Odin's behaviour had only served to strengthen his own resolutions about the Allfather, and he had spent the greater part of the rest of the day repeating to himself that his father was of good intentions, even as he struggled with the returning darkness of his heart. Fragments of Odin's words kept returning to him – dissolute, lazy, arrogant, not equal to Thor's worth – circling his mind like vultures, pecking determinedly at the new fabric of himself that he and Káta had been creating, and by the nightfall his mind was a confused mess.
The next day he came down to Mærsalr to see Káta as usual, the troubles of the previous evening stowed firmly away, a smile on his face. There was less spring in his step than usual, however, and his manner was tentative in case something started another outburst from her. Káta's tears the previous day had astonished him, and for all that he wanted to help her understand his father better – the way he did – he did not want to cause her more tears. It pained him to see her hurt like that, even more so because he neither understood their cause, nor knew their cure.
He had thought that he would be able to hold his position with ease, ready to defend his father if she brought up the subject, but the mere sight of her, sitting on her bed, reading, looking up at him with a smile as he appeared, struck him with a blow to the chest that not even the most brutal or eloquent of attacks could have achieved. All the mess of the previous night spilled back into his mind and he shuddered, trapped between the force of the two mountains crashing against each other within him. Everything that the confrontation with his father had reminded him of, all that his time with Káta had slowly begun to repress, returned in a torrid flurry, burning through him with a vengeance as it rushed to meet the half of him that he had begun to believe he was; the half of him that he had learnt about by being with Káta, that the sight of her had reminded him of.
He closed his eyes, shaking his head as he backed up, striving to fight against the war that had begun to rage inside him, to suppress it, unaware of his surroundings. Káta leapt up from her bed, rushing to seize Loki by the arms before he walked backwards into the windowsill and fell out. He flinched at her touch, his eyes flying open, unseeing, gazing at her with a fearful lack of recognition.
"It's me, Loki! It's Káta," she said with soft urgency, holding him gently, watching as he slowly returned to her, the terror of his mind easing until he could see her properly again.
"Káta," he murmured slowly, his eyes running over her familiar features, one hand unthinkingly coming up to cup the edge of her jaw.
Káta nodded and smiled. "I'm here."
Loki heaved in a heavy breath, closing his eyes for a moment as he collected himself. When he opened them again, the shadow no longer lingered in them. "Let's go somewhere we've never been."
Over the coming days Káta watched Loki closely. Despite the fact that all appeared to be set to rights with him, he still laughed and smiled and joked with her, she could not banish the memory of the look in his eyes the day he had returned. It scared her as much as his acceptance of Odin's abuse did. He seemed desperate for things to return to the way they had been before, but Káta could see the shadow that sometimes passed over his eyes, the stricken silences that would overtake him at times as he turned his gaze inwards to what she felt sure was the pitched battle sacking his insides.
She knew he was lying to himself, desperately trying to put back together the shattered glass ornament that had been formed within him, even as he held on to that which had broken it. She knew now that Loki could never be what she could see him being while he still clung to the idealised notions he entertained of his father. She was hesitant to push him, however, the very fact of his continued struggles evidence enough that such a move would be foolhardy in the extreme. It pained her to wait, however. Gods and goddesses passing them in the city looked at him with the same aversion she had seen in their expressions a thousand times, but now Loki seemed to accept their disgust, when before he had ignored it with the superiority of a Prince.
Káta's heart languished in the memories of such incidences, and frustration at her powerlessness grew with every occurrence. The very idea of what was going on inside Loki's mind terrified her, and with each passing day of inaction her fear grew, dreading that she would wait too long, and that when she finally acted, it would be too little too late.
"Stop it, Loki!" Káta grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into a deserted side street. Loki blinked, gazing at her confusedly.
"Stop what?"
"That!" Káta gestured angrily towards the street they had been walking along where a pair of gods had just passed them, revulsion in their eyes as they inclined their heads to Loki. "Every time! Every time any of them looks at you like that, you-you just accept it!" Loki's expression became shuttered, and his eyes darkened. Káta spoke on, heedless; if she didn't speak now, she never would. "This isn't you. Who cares what they all think? You might have cared before, but you never accepted it. You're worth more than they think. More than you think!"
Loki shook his head, raising a hand briskly to halt Káta. "You don't understand," he said firmly.
Káta stamped her foot in frustration. "I do, Loki! Believe me, I do!"
"You can't!" Loki snarled. "No one can!"
Káta sighed, sadness in her eyes. "Not even you."
The frown on Loki's face deepened, and acknowledgment flashed into his eyes for the briefest of moments.
Káta sighed again. "You don't have to believe Odin. He's wrong. How can anyone who behaves like that to their son be right? No father behaves like that."
"How would you know?"
The quiet words were like a slap in the face. Káta stared at Loki for a second in pure shock, the breath knocked out of her.
Loki regretted them the moment he uttered them, but it was too late; even he could not render words unspoken.
"I have eyes and a heart," Káta said quietly, collecting herself quickly although her tone had hardened.
"I have duties to be about," Loki muttered, his gaze fixed on the ground.
Káta nodded slightly, her expression set, her eyes brimming with emotions. "Fine…I won't keep you. The last thing I would want is to cause you more trouble than I already have." She turned, and left, unable to see the anguished regret that momentarily flickered across Loki's expression as he looked up to watch her receding back.
Káta walked on until she knew she would be out of sight, and then turned into a side alley, and stood with her back pressed against the wall, letting the tears she had fought to keep back finally flow. She knew Loki hadn't meant what he said, but she was horribly aware that he was nearing the point of no return – the point where she wouldn't be able to bring him back again, and the intransience of it filled her with terror. She sighed, screwing her eyes shut and wishing she could scream, and beat the back of her head against the stone of the wall, trying to think of a solution. She needed advice. She needed it badly. But no one she knew who might be of help knew Loki as she did.
Káta's eyes flew open. She bolted out of the alley like a fox pursued by hounds and rushed through the city, making for the Library. Fróði. Fróði would know. Unable to understand why she hadn't thought of him before she ducked and wove between the people she met on the streets, a host of exclamations of alarm and annoyance let in her wake, determined not to lose more time than she already had.
By the time she burst through the great double doors of the library, she was panting and sweaty.
"Fróði?!" she cried hoarsely, bending over with her hands on her knees as she panted.
"Káta?" Fróði appeared with his usual uncanny speed, his expression concerned as he gazed at her breathless form. "Is everything all right?"
Káta shook her head wordlessly as she continued to catch her breath, looking up. "It's Loki," she panted.
Fróði's expression became suddenly serious, and taking her by the arm, he led her to his back room. There he provided her with a chair and a goblet of water, and waited patiently until she had breath enough to relate the events that had passed.
As Káta spoke Fróði's countenance grew ever graver, his eyes sorrowful, until at last he simply closed his eyes and simply listened, his expression pained.
When Káta had finished, he sighed.
"I had hoped that with your help Loki would have been able to fight such thoughts. But how he is is the work of a lifetime, and I was foolish to think it could be so easily overturned." He looked a lot older than Káta had ever seen. Fróði, for all his centuries, somehow always contrived to look sprightly; now, however, he seemed a little old man weighed down with cares. "I should never have laid such a burden upon your shoulders, Káta. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry – help me," Káta exclaimed, her concern for Loki paramount, even as she realised that she did not regret her involvement for a single moment. "What should I do, Fróði? How am I supposed to help him when he's so determined not to help himself?"
Fróði smiled sadly. "I'm afraid you might not think it very helpful advice…" he said slowly, "but follow your heart. Be true to it."
Káta frowned, perplexed.
Fróði laughed a little. "Not what you were hoping to hear?"
"I don't see how that can help, Fróði," Káta said, endeavouring to keep her anxiety and annoyance in check.
Fróði smiled, and patted her hands with his wrinkly ones. "Don't worry. In time you will. Trust me; you learn a few things when you get to my age."
Káta couldn't help but smile at that. "I thought you always said you were young," she said wryly. She thought of how Loki would chuckle if he were there, and pain lanced through her heart once more.
"And so I am!" Fróði asserted stridently, puffing out his scrawny chest. "But compared to me you're not even a stripling."
They laughed together.
"Look," Fróði gazed at her seriously again. "Talk to Loki. I've watched him struggle with this for years, and I've tried to help him. He's aware of it; of that you can be sure."
Káta sighed, and nodded. "I've tried, believe me, I've tried – and I'm not about to give up on him, it's just…I'm afraid," she murmured. "What if I can't help him? What if he stays stuck like that? It'll destroy him, Fróði. I want him…I want him safe."
Fróði smiled kindly. "If there's one thing you've proved in all this, Káta, it's that you can help him. Trust me."
Somewhat reassured by Fróði, Káta returned to Mærsalr, deep in thought. She had hoped that she might find Loki in her room, but the wish was in vain, and on reflection, perhaps for the best.
In the following weeks she tried to take the matter up with Loki, decided upon a more direct approach than she had previously tried, and driven by desperation, redoubling her attempts to help him see his own worth, but every time the topic of Odin was broached arguments erupted between them. Káta had finally reached the point where she was no longer able to make excuses for the Allfather – something she had been able to do before she came into possession of the full, stomach-turning truth; but now she refused to point blank. It did not make for happy conversation. Loki would not hear the slightest word of criticism against his father, even when she worded it as gently as she could contrive, and the very idea of Odin being the cause of his problems ignited his fury as nothing else did. With their stubbornness so equally matched, progress on the matter became not merely difficult, but a laughable impossibility.
With every failed attempt, Káta's despair mounted, but so too did her determination. She would not lose Loki; she refused to.
After their eleventh argument however, Loki stopped coming to see her. Káta waited several days, doing her best to be patient, trying to convince herself that Loki merely needed a break – some time apart from their constant loggerheads – even as anxieties gnawed at her like starving dogs. She had to admit, even at their worst moments in the past, they had never fought each other like this, and she had begun to feel the strain of it, and was sure that Loki would be too.
Such thoughts did little to assuage her concerns, however, and she spent the chief part of her time pacing her rooms, snapping at anyone who disturbed her, wringing her hands as she attempted to reassure herself that things would get better.
By the fifth day, however, she knew he was not going to return.
Loki had shut himself in his room. Every time he saw Káta the war raging inside him was scaled up a notch, and their constant arguing did little to lessen the confusion that had overtaken his mind.
There was no single battle within him. He was simultaneously fighting and defending his love for his father, and his childhood impression of Odin as infallible in all things, rejecting his own sense of worthlessness even as he embraced it, defending and attacking the same position, even as he defended and attacked Káta's position on the matter every time she brought it or Odin up. Then there was the fight to see her; half of him spurring him on to see her, craving the next visit, half of him dragging him back, pushing her away, the darker side of him doing so because it rebelled against the warmth that she made blossom in his heart, and the new part of him because she was worth more than he could ever be. He could not see her, and yet he could not not see her. Debates raged within his mind day and night, and he alternated with no fixed pattern between insomnia and extended periods of sleep, one day diurnal, the next nocturnal. He ate and rejected food at turns, and knotted himself into countless tangles. Away from Káta, thinking simultaneously became easier and yet infinitely more difficult, and he had no way of solving the problem it presented.
It was the sixth day that he had been alone when a gentle knock came at his door. He had barred them with seiðr, and by now he had expected the handmaidens have gotten the message. One, it seemed, had not however.
"Loki? Loki please…open up."
Loki stiffened where he sat on his bed surrounded by a sea of crumpled parchment on which he had attempted to set out his thoughts and distract himself by turns, all to no avail. It was Káta.
Káta clenched her teeth ferociously to stop her teeth from chattering. She had dragged her way up the tor of Valhalla, knowing that she hadn't the slightest chance of getting past any of the einherjar or Valkyries guarding the causeways. She had been spurred on by her need to see Loki, to know how he was, and had not halted in her ascent until she toppled, frozen, through the window and into the corridor.
It had taken a little while before the shivers subsided enough for her to stand, and she had remained locked, curled sideways on the floor trying to rub her arms with her hands and get some heat back into her body. She had come prepared this time, wearing slender doeskin gloves and a thick winter fur coat, despite the extra weight, but even then with no Loki to warm her this time it took her a while before she was able to move once more. Even when she had been able to walk, it was with little grace, and there had been several moments when she had nearly been discovered.
"Loki, open the door," Káta whispered.
Silence returned in answer, and shaking she held onto the carvings of the frame in an attempt to remain on her feet.
"Loki! Open…your…doors!" Káta shouted as loudly as she could, her voice muffled and hoarse with cold, pounding her fist on the door, all concern about being discovered abandoned, and sliding agonisingly to the floor for her pains.
Doggedly, she pulled herself along the polished floor, and pressed her mouth to the crack at the bottom of the doors.
"Please…please…"
On the other side of the door, pressed against the wall, Loki stood, arrested. He was desperate to see Káta again, but he couldn't. In their time apart he had begun thinking over things, and reminded of his own worthlessness he could not understand why she wanted to spend time with him. Why was it now, after he had managed to half convince himself that she would not return – that he would never see her again – that she had come back and thrown him back into the whirling vortex of his confused emotions for her? Why had she returned? He battled fiercely with himself, desperate to see her, even if it was just one more time, but knowing that if he did it would be infinitely harder to let go of her again.
Káta remained where she lay, her strength sapped. Tears slid silently from her eyes and dripped down onto the floor. A weak sob escaped her lips, and she curled up tighter, her heart aching for what Loki was doing to himself.
Eventually she shook herself, sniffing deeply, and scrabbled up, pushing herself into a sitting position against the frame, and panting for a few moments, rubbing at her still freezing limbs.
"Fine…if you won't open the doors, then I'll stay here." She coughed as a rough tickle settled in her throat, sliding back down the wall a little, and laboriously pushed her way back up once more. "Tell me you're ok, Loki…" she whispered softly to herself, wishing rather than believing that he would hear her.
The doors gently swung open without the slightest creak.
Káta sensed their movement, and dragged herself upright with more speed than she had energy for, fuelled by a firework of hope. She edged around the frame, still clinging to it for support, and took in Loki.
He stood facing her, his eyes fixed on the floor between them. His clothes were rumpled and mismatched, and his hair was an untidy mess, wild and tangled, and pushed back from his forehead from times that she knew he had run his hands through it with frustration. Broken quill tips and the ends of feathers were caught in a few straggling strands, and the sight of him so utterly dishevelled and woebegone wrung her heart, even as the ridiculousness of the feathers made her want to smile.
She let out a long, slow breath, at ease now that she saw him, and allowed herself to sag against the doorframe that she still clutched.
Loki lurched forwards at her sudden movement, his hands outstretched to steady her, but he baulked as he came closer to her, shying away as though he had broken some unspoken rule. He gazed into her eyes for the most fleeting of moments, his glance furtive and greedy for the connection that sprung between them as their eyes met, and then quickly turned and hastened deeper into his chambers.
Bewildered and perplexed, Káta shuffled over the threshold, the doors closing soundlessly behind her the moment she passed them, and made her way slowly further in towards Loki's bedchamber, where she knew he would have headed.
She was tempted to pause by the huge open hearth fires burning on either side of his dining hall, her fingers numbed dowels of ice in her gloves, but pushed herself onwards to his rooms, her desire to see him again greater than the ache for warmth filling her chilled bones and flesh.
Eventually, she reached his private chambers. Loki was seated in a far corner on the floor, his back to her, hunched over himself and surrounded by scraps of crumpled paper. On the table near the entrance a steaming bowl of soup sat ready for consumption, a chair drawn up before it covered in deliciously thick furs, warmed by the fire crackling in a huge iron bowl beside it as though it had been burning for hours.
At the sight of it, Káta's expression softened, her heart warmed by the gesture more effectively than any amount of flames could achieve. She pulled off all her clothes with difficulty, any scruples about propriety or modesty long gone – fled with the warmth of her body, and the fretting concern of not knowing how Loki was – and quickly wrapped the warm furs close about her, huddling into them as she sat and began to drink the soup.
When she had finished, warmed from the inside out as thoroughly as though there was a fire burning pleasantly in her belly, she stood and crossed quietly over to Loki where he had remained throughout her meal, holding the furs close about her, and knelt behind him.
One of the preposterous quill feathers dangled from his hair before her, and she reached out, carefully extricating it, and moving on to every one of its fellows throughout the knotted mane of Loki's hair. Loki did not move throughout all her ministrations, sitting with such perfect stillness that Káta was not sure whether he still breathed.
As the last piece fluttered to the ground, Káta lightly placed her hands on Loki's shoulders. She felt him tense further, more tightly wound than a spring, and slowly let her arms slide around to encircle him, hugging him from behind about his shoulders, resting her head on one.
She could feel the tension thudding in him with his heart beat beneath her skin, until all of a sudden his shoulders fell, relaxing as a long breath streamed out from him.
"I'm sorry," Káta whispered.
Well done, Odin. Look what your meddling has started. *smashes the Allfather's face through the back of his head with a barge pole*
So yes, Loki's begun disintegrating again thanks to Odin's wonderful parenting skills, and poor Káta's doing her best to stop it. The chapter title says it all really. Lots of tears and arguments and frustration and destruction.
Poor Loki, though, he's so confused, he honestly does not know which way is up anymore.
Oh, and I finally named Káta's mare! :D
Sólfríðr means "the sun, sun-coloured, yellow" and "beautiful, beloved, to love"
I feel like they have a pretty special connection and it was about time she was given a name. I picture her as a buckskin Akhal Teke (they are frankly GORGEOUS horses - they are literally gold. They're the only breed of horse that when their coat is buckskin it's actually metallic. And I thought that was a nice parallel to Kata's eyes :D.) I imagine Sólfríðr to be a cross of the horses in these two images.
The beautiful sweet face and spirit of this one
with the golden coat of this one
And yes, I am aware that Fróði's advice to Káta is a bit trite and hackneyed. But it's sort of what Káta really needs to hear then, because she's losing confidence in herself and her ability to save Loki because of her fear that she'll lose him, and Fróði just gives her that little pep up.
I hope you enjoyed it :D (the next chapter shall be similarly angst, and faaar more destructive).
Please do review and/or favourite :) Tell me what you like or don't like :) Questions and speculations are always welcome :D As is incomprehensible flailing if that's what you go in for :)
If you want to get access to sneak previews to chapters before they're posted, you can like me on Facebook (JZJ Tomkins), or follow on Twitter ( jtomkinsauthor) or Tumblr (jzj-tomkins) :)