Loki found himself quickly covered in sweat and dirt as he dug the grave beside Silas's cairn. He shed his tunic though it was a cold day, the sun peeking through thick clouds, burning off a heavy frost. He was glad of Fen who kept him from dwelling too much with his thoughts, even as he asked the hard question on occasion.
"Why do we die?"
Loki handed Fen a large rock he'd dislodged from the ground, "Toss it into the woods." He resumed digging. "Our bodies wear out."
"Will mine?"
"Such questions. Not for many, many seasons. Do not stand where I am throwing the dirt."
Fen moved to the side, "How deep will the hole be?"
"Deep enough." He felt the muscles in his arm starting to burn, thankful the ground was still unfrozen. He stopped digging for a few minutes, leaning on the handle of the spade to catch his breath. Fen sat down, dangling his feet over the edge of the hole where Loki joined him.
"I will miss him."
Loki gathered Fen to his side, "As shall we all."
"It is not fair."
"Indeed." He dropped back into the hole, continued to dig a bit longer. He wanted to be done before sunset. He looked up at Fen after a time, torn between keeping him here in heavy silence and sending him back to the cottage, instead he pointed to the tree line before them. "Fen, while I finish this hole, gather kindling but do not go far. The box by the hearth has grown low."
Fen, seeming relieved to have something to do, raced for the edge of the woods and Loki was left to his thoughts, recalling how unsettled he'd been when Chris had brought up the subject of his own grave. They had been hunting, it had been long before he'd taken ill, in fact.
"That is simply the way we take care of our dead where I come from, my boy." Chris had rested his musket on his knees, opening the satchel for the bread and cheese Sally had packed him. "I have heard tell of the Vikings setting their dead out to sea on a funeral pyre."
Loki glanced around the tree trunk at him. "As I expect to be."
"There were tales that the natives in the Colonies would set their dead on biers high in the woods. To trespass on those sacred burial grounds meant certain death."
Loki took the piece of cheese Chris offered him and nodded, "Good."
Chris smiled, "Happy cows make good milk, thus good butter and cheese. Now, my boy, I wish to stay here as I suspect my dear Sally will be wont to do. After all, she adores Eidra and the children. I wouldn't ask her to uproot herself just to tend my grave. Not in the world you have described, we have clearly been left behind. No this is our world now."
"Such talk of graves and death, whyfor must you tempt fate?"
Chris waved a finger at him, "And when would you have me discuss it? When I am dead? It must be now when I am of sound mind."
"Have you ever been possessed of such a thing?" Loki had teased him.
"Cad," Chris poked him, "Now would you afford me a place beside your dear boy, Silas? I feel the babe must be lonely out there in the clearing."
Loki shuddered at the thought, "You know you need not ask. I will see to it you are buried in the custom of your Midgardian ancestors."
Chris seemed content with this, "I envision a shroud seeing as there be not one decent coffin maker in this province. Pray send me off with my musket as no one knows what to do with the old girl save use her as a doorstop."
"Chris, all this chatter shall scare away the game."
He had seen Chris lean around the tree trunk, a look in his eye and Loki pushed him away though he didn't move, "Do not fret, my son. We have many good hunts ahead of us, but it gladdens my heart so to have you know my last wishes that I will sleep like a baby this evening."
Loki had chuckled, "No baby ever rattled the rafters with such snoring as yours."
He had to stop, glancing up at the tree line to see Fen some distance away before he allowed his tears to come, and he finished the remainder of the hole in that way. Fen was still picking up small branches when Loki called to him. He had filled the front of his shirt, holding it like a pouch. "Let us return home."
"You finished?"
Loki nodded and Fen bumped his head against his side. Loki ruffled his hair gently then they started off back to the cottage.
The women were in the bedchamber when they returned. Fen dropped the wood into the kindling box then ran to peer inside where Helgi shooed him from the door. Eidra came out, Cait in her arms whom she handed to Loki. "We were attending to a few things, getting him ready. We will tend to the meal soon."
Loki rubbed Cait's back, leaning his cheek atop her head, "I ken, you continue on. I will sit with the baby."
Before long the women had left the bedchamber. Loki could see two candles on the bedstand, Chris's body partially covered with the shroud, hands clasped on his chest so he could swear his old friend was just resting and would jump from the bed at the slightest clink of pewter to plate.
As the women silently worked at the evening meal, Fen sat at Loki's feet, his wooden animals out of the box and lined up before him. Loki watched as the boy stared hard at them, not playing, not talking to them as he was wont to do, but giving them a sort of review.
"What is it, Fen?" he nudged the boy with his boot, "Have they been ordered to attention?"
"I am deciding which one I want Uncle Chris to take with him to that place he said he would go."
"Heaven?" Loki grinned, Chris had told Fen of his religion's idea of Heaven though he'd often speculated to Loki that he'd be headed the other way.
"I think I shall give him one of the horses. They were the first ones he carved for me."
Cait raised her head from Loki's shoulder and brought it down heavy, her mouth open, searching for her fist which he guided to her. "Cait is hungry."
"I know, my heart, almost finished." Eidra passed by him, stroking Cait's back. "Fen, wash your hands, 'tis time to eat."
A few moments later, she took Cait from him as he protested, "Eat first, she was not fussing yet."
"I would rather stave her off." She took the rocking chair opposite him and set Cait to nursing.
Loki rose and walked to her, putting his hand beneath her chin and leaning over to whisper, "I love you." before he made his way to the table with Helgi, Sally and Ren whom Helgi had ridden out to fetch earlier that afternoon. He found, however, that he had little appetite, instead sharing the haunch of rabbit with Fen, making a plate for Eidra and bringing it to her in exchange for a sleeping Cait whom he placed in her cradle by Eidra's chair.
"Thank you." Eidra looked up at Loki.
"You cannot nourish without eating." He sat in the rocker opposite, stared into the fire for a moment, leaped up and entered their bedchamber, returning and sitting back down with a length of rawhide string across his leg, he pulled his hair forward over his chest and began to braid it, slow, tightly.
Eidra watched him as she picked at her food and soon enough they were joined by Fen who pulled his little stool between them, looking back and forth until he settled on Loki.
"Will you braid my hair, Papa?"
"Afterwards,"
Fen leaned over onto Loki's leg, his chin resting on his hands. "You have long hair like me."
Loki nodded, his eyes met Fen's, "It is a source of pride as long as it is well kept." He winked at Fen who absently took a lock of his own in hand and twirled it. Eidra always had a time tending to his, trying to tie it back or comb it, grooming being the last thing on a young boy's mind.
"But tonight I am preparing it for another reason." he took up a rawhide strip and tied the braid midway, then continued to braid the rest. Eidra was surprised to see the very tips of his hair nearly touching his sash.
"I am going to cut it off." He heard Eidra gasp.
"Oh Loki."
Fen sat up straight, "Why, Papa?"
"I am in mourning for Uncle Chris. In cutting one's hair, it symbolizes humility, grief, anguish. I will send the braid with him so that he will remember our bond in the afterlife."
Eidra swallowed hard, staring at her half eaten meal. When she chanced to raise her gaze again, she met Loki's eyes.
After a time, Fen tapped Loki on the knee, "Papa? Will you braid mine so I can also send it with him?"
Eidra stood shakily from her rocker and brought the dish to the table where she felt Helgi's hand on her arm and a whisper in her ear as she bent forward, "Poppet, all will be well." She could hear Fen's small voice.
"Have you ever cut your hair before?"
He picked up the last piece of rawhide and tied it at the end. "Twice before. Once for a departed cousin, once for you mother."
Eidra whirled around to stare at Loki.
"But that is not a tale for the telling tonight. Someday when you are older." he took Fen by the shoulder, ignoring Eidra's stare, and began to braid Fen's hair though there wasn't as much. It still trailed to the middle of his back.
"Eidra, fetch me two more strips will you?"
She paused a moment before heading for the bedchamber watching Loki and Fen in the firelight, how like his father in looks Fen was becoming, how beautiful her husband continued to be with his braid draped over his shoulder. When they had been on Midgard, Lily had introduced her to a magical item called a camera which captured a moment in time and produced the image on a piece of paper like a painting. She had brought a small stack of them home with her from their time in the hospital and she would frequently take them out and admire them. Standing here now, watching the heart warming scene before her, she fervently wished that she had such a device now if only to capture this one instance.
"My heart, the rawhide." Loki urged her and she trotted off, returning a moment later with the strips.
He wrapped one strip around the base of the braid, tying it tight, then another at the top. Eidra reached out and fingered the interwoven tress. "Mama, now you will not have to comb my hair."
Helgi and Sally giggled as Eidra shook her head, "Little fox."
"I wish Brenna were here." He pulled himself to her skirt and buried his face. Eidra glanced at Loki whose countenance seemed to falter then.
"So do I, hush now." She turned Fen and guided him back to Loki who had unsheathed the dagger at his hip. He took Fen's braid in one hand, claimed a spot just above the first rawhide set the dagger underneath the hair, drew it across and upward as Fen staggered forward and put his hand to his head. Loki stood then and handed the braid to him. "Hold it. I shall be finished shortly."
He took Eidra's hand and placed the dagger in her palm.
"My love.." She murmured, "I cannot."
"Yes you can." He took her hand and brought it up to the edge of the rawhide strip at the top of the braid, pressing the blade at the underside, "Now bring it upward sharply."
"I do not wish to cut you."
"You will do no such thing. Have faith."
She bit her lip hard enough to hurt as she moved around him, lifting the hair at his neck as far as she could and drew the blade upward, feeling the weight disappear as the braid dropped into Loki's hand and his hair swung free, resting just at his shoulders.
He pulled her around before him and kissed her, long and deep before he cupped her face and whispered, "I will tell you the tale later."
He slid the dagger back into its holster, took Fen by the shoulder and guided him into the bedchamber where Chris lay partially enclosed in the shroud. "Give me your braid." He held it up to Loki, amazed at the short length compared to that of his father's. Loki pulled back the shroud and put both coils at Chris's side.
"Oh Papa, wait." Fen raced out of the room and was soon back with one of his carved horses which he handed up to Loki. "I picked this one. Now he will have something to play with."
Loki let a shuddering sigh, reaching up to his clasped hands and fitting the horse against his fingers.
He lifted Fen up and carried him out of the bedchamber, "Tomorrow we will say our goodbyes. It is time you should be in bed."
"Did he go willingly?"
Loki shook his head, "He kept talking, no questions, just rambling until I had to turn down the lamp and start to walk away. Then he wailed until he received a hug and a kiss. I think he seeks to delay the morning." He pulled his nightshirt over his head, squatted down to look at Cait, asleep in her cradle, then slid beneath the covers to pull Eidra to him.
"Story time." She splayed her hand open at his chest.
"By my estimation it is bed time."
"A story then sleep." She crooked one leg over his and he smiled.
"What manner of story shall it be then?"
She hoisted herself above him, straddling his legs, rising above him. She reached up to draw her fingers through the hair that now lay at his neck as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
"Tell me what you meant when you said you had cut your hair for me."
His smile faded, "When I first lost you in Alfheim."
She tilted her head, "What happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well I was...gone. I knew nothing until I found myself in Tir Na Nog." She settled her weight on him, head on his chest.
"I do not wish to visit such memories." She felt him tense, shift as if trying to push her from him and she sat up, surprised.
"There are a great many memories you do not wish to visit and I have never pried before."
She lifted herself off him and sat back on the bed. "Nor would I continue to do so were it not for the fact of your statement. Why, with all we have been through, the life we share together, are you still unwilling to tell me what happened in the darkness of our separation?"
"Pain. Do you ken?" He was sitting up now and the ferocity of his answer shook her. "Anguish so great it cannot be spoken of!" Color was rising to his face and for a moment she was hard pressed to speak.
"Were it possible, I would bury all memory of that time beneath Hel itself. I do not talk of it out of fear. I will need to face my demons one day, to pay for my deeds and I do pray you are not there to bear witness to such a cost. Please do not ask me to burden you so, let me carry the weight that you do not suffer."
Eidra had already lain down again, her back to him.
"My heart."
But she pulled the bed covers to her, over her face, hiding her angry tears.
"Do not do this." He lay behind her, his arm pulling her tight to him but she only stiffened further. He lay his forehead against her back, sighed, withdrew his arm and turned away. The silence between them grew so heavy he was sure she had fallen asleep but her voice came then, small.
"When marriage unites a man and woman does not the burden of one become the burden of the other? Is it not easier to share the weight instead of bearing it alone?"
She looked over her shoulder at him as he turned to her. He could see the luminous blue of her eyes in the lamplight. He reached his hand to her cheek, raising himself up on one elbow. "It is, but what if one considers the other so very delicate, fragile that he fears she will break under the strain of such a thing?"
She rose up to meet him, brushing her lips at the line of his jaw, putting her hand to his shoulder to press him back to the bed.
"Then the weight should be added slowly," She rose over him, resuming the position she'd left a short time ago, "Properly proportioned." She pressed her palms to his sides, raising the night shirt as she moved upward planting kisses upon the plane of his stomach, his sternum, "I am a strong woman"
He could only nod, his concern becoming entangled with his desire as he lifted his arms, allowing her to draw the shirt over his head.
"You have nothing to fear," she whispered in his ear, sitting back against his hips though he drew her forward again, leaving her with a particular weakness in her limbs as she let him manipulate her while he started to speak.
"My brother tried to stop me but I drew my sword," His voice was ragged, "wrapped my hair about my hand, and sheared it off before the entire High Court." His movements rough as he moved into her, felt her fingernails dig into his shoulders. "He begged me to leave your side but I would not." his hands slipped beneath the fabric of her gown, bearing it over her head to join his own in a pile by their side. He turned then, guiding her to her back. They had not coupled since Cait's birth and his lust threatened to overwhelm him, the emotions of the last few days finding vent in the touch of her skin, the taste as he bit her shoulder and she cried out, pulling him further into her. One hand strayed to her breast, rolling the nipple between thumb and forefinger, finding it wet. He rose up on his arms and locked eyes with her. She smiled, her hands entangled in his hair and he lowered himself to graze first one stiffened nub then the other with his tongue, nearly driving her off the mattress with a harsh whisper, "Gods, yes." She could feel the tingle as her milk started to let down and the rush of love as he smiled against her, " 'Tis sweet," She pressed the back of his head and arched upwards as he took one nipple into his mouth, tentatively at first, then she felt him began to lave the sensitive tip with his tongue.
When he raised his head to gaze into her eyes she met his lips with hers, her lust fit to match his own as she begged him to take her over and over, whispering hoarse encouragement as he lifted her from the bed with such savage intensity she was unable to lock her legs about his waist to the angle she so desired. He felt her efforts and lifted her legs with his hands to the underside of her knees where she felt the delicious friction she sought. He could see the transformation in her face as she neared her peak and he left all gentleness to abandon as he drove into her, worshiping the beauty of her body splayed beneath his gaze. When she tightened around him, her knuckle shoved to her mouth to stifle her cries, he could no longer bear it, spilling over the edge, joining her in his own release, in a union so beautiful, she felt her heart would fairly burst as he settled atop her, arms wrapped beneath her shoulders.
"I have missed you so." She cooed, their hearts thundering together, "My heart."
He was quiet for a bit, their bodies cooling in the cold night air as she stroked his hair, reveling in the weight of his body upon hers. She thought perhaps he had dozed off but finally he caught her hand in his and brought it to his lips. "I held your body for hours. It had started to rain as if nature itself was weeping at the injustice of your death. I..." he stopped, she felt his body tighten to her, "I knew I could not save you and so I helped you on your journey from this world. I spoke a spell to stop your heart, to take you from your suffering." he groaned then and she knew how painful the telling was for him.
"I would not leave your side. I was there to erect the scaffold where you lay. I knelt there praying to the gods to make you whole again, to heal you until Thor came to bring me back to Asgard. But who he brought back was not the man before you now. That man had died there on the high ground as surely as if he too had been run through with the sword. Will this suffice you for now, my love?"
He lifted himself from her lay at her side, cradled in her arm. "With each telling, I hope to lighten your heart, ease your burden. Rest now, we have a long day on the morrow." As if in answer, Cait shifted, started to fuss. Eidra sat up, smiling, "She must smell the milk, my little calf."
She lifted Cait from the cradle and returned to the bed where Loki lay watching. "She knows what is good." he ran a finger along one clenched fist, delighting as it opened and took the finger in a tight grip.
Eidra watched Cait start to suckle and she glanced over at Loki, "This night was beautiful."
Loki leaned back on the pillow, his hand resting on Eidra's thigh, "It was." he squeezed her thigh gently, "I love you, my heart."
"And I you."
Long after she had settled the baby back in her cradle and nestled into Loki's embrace, she lay thinking about what he had told her. He had not been the same man, and yet he had returned to her whole. She lay her arm across his. Perhaps it would be better indeed not to know and this was her last thought as exhaustion dropped her into the abyss of a dreamless slumber.