Nine
Iza has always been fascinated by the parables told by the Elders during feast times. It is, she thinks, one of their only useful purposes. The ability to pass down the knowledge and myths of their people is invaluable – certainly something that Iza strives to do in writing her Eddas to record the tales of her people so that they might be remembered far into the future.
And while Iza has always been suitably impressed by the stories about Odin and Frigg and Thor, she has also been guiltily entertained by the stories about Loki. In many ways, the antics of the half-Jotunn god are the kind of forbidden fruit that children feast upon.
Loki is the mischievous spirit of childhood. Loki is a changeling, a shapeshifter, a trickster. Loki is a wheel of change, a catalyst of progress, the chaos that is driven by idle hands. Good and bad things follow Loki and in every tale he is the pure essence of neutrality.
Loki does not look like Iza imagined, though.
The stories sometimes say he is as blue and tall as a true frost giant; others claim he is an old man with a twirled mustache and sharpened teeth and twinkling eyes. But the legends are only right about the spark of humor hiding in his cat-green eyes. Loki as he presents himself to Iza is a man in his prime, with snow-pale skin and long glossy black hair. While handsome, Loki's features are all sharp and narrow, just like his long limbs and pointed black leather armor. He is certainly an arresting sight and emits an otherworldly glow that makes Iza's head spin.
He looks at her like one might look at a particularly cute sheep. Dumb and innocent and ready to be led to slaughter without knowing it.
Iza wants to take a step back, to flee, to forget Loki ever saw fit to show himself to her mortal eyes. But she resists that cowardly urge, a splint of iron in her spin making her stand tall and meet Loki's ethereal green eyes as gamely as possible.
At this, Loki's already too-wide smile grows, the thin curve of his lips cutting into his cheeks with a glee almost grotesque. "Oh, you are a fun one, child. If only all Halflings were half as brave as you…Although, I should not be surprised knowing whose blood runs through your feeble mortal veins. I wonder, can your tiny mind even comprehend what I say to you or what you are? Perhaps you are struck dumb and mute by me – many have been before, you know."
Loki is baiting her, as Loki is wont to do. There are many things he says that beckons her attention, but it would be foolish to let herself be distracted by the God of Lies, the embodiment of cunning, the Silvertongue himself. Curiosity led by Loki, as she knows from the tales, is a path that leads to peril.
So Iza bites back the questions burning on her tongue and swallows them down, tucking them away to think about later. Instead, she asks, "Why have you chosen to speak with me?" Unasked and unspoken, she also wonders why the trickster is trying to trick her – unless he is telling the truth and masking it as a lie, that is.
Loki laughs again, too long and too loud. The sound hurts her ears. "You are a marvelous plaything for a mortal," he tells her, moving to walk around her in a wide circle.
Iza is careful to keep Loki in her line of sight at all times, though she isn't arrogant enough to think that doing so ensures any protection. Loki uses seidr, the only other god aside from the Allfather to do so, and at a much grander scale than any of the women blessed with seidr in the village. If he wanted to, Loki could kill her for his own amusement before she could so much as blink an eye.
She is very aware of the danger she finds herself in and it does not escape her notice that Loki is cleverly using her own aversion to his nearness to herd her into the center of the earth scarred by Thor's lightning. She feels like she is on a precipice and silently vows to tread as carefully as she dares.
"I do not pray to you," she says to Loki, a frown deepening on her face. "And I do not think you would answer the prayers of your kin for any good reason. Yet here you are."
"Yet here I am," Loki agrees. He tilts his head at her, chuckling to himself. "Look at you – a Halfling keeping your wits in the face of my glory. Yes, both surprising and not surprising at all."
Iza says nothing. She keeps her eyes on Loki.
"You ask why I choose to speak to you…Do you not think I would be intrigued by the child who hatched a dragon?"
In truth, it had not even occurred to Iza that the gods themselves might have been paying attention to every oath she has sent to them over the last few weeks. She does not know whether to be flattered or concerned – mortals who draw godly attention do not always fare well in the stories and she has found herself of being in the unenviable position of drawing the attention of the most whimsical god.
Her confusion must be palpable, because Loki adds, "I am familiar with birthing unusual creatures."
And of course Iza knows this – Loki had born a wraith goddess, a wolf, a serpent, and a horse of his own body and blood. He certainly has more experience than the other gods, Frigg included.
"Your plight is one that intrigues me," Loki continues airily with an eerie smile. "A mother to a dragon and a mortal touched by Thor all in one. Yes, yes, very interesting."
Iza does not know why a God would find her life interesting and is bold enough to say so.
At that, Loki's visage melts into one of severe solemnity. "My kin and I have been watching you for a long while. The other Halflings are not as entertaining or as challenging. Whereas they know their true natures, you remain ignorant of yours. How could we not marvel at your very existence?"
Iza bristles. "You speak as though I blunder along with all the intent of a toddler."
Loki offers her a pitying look. "Is that not the case? In our ancient eyes, you are nothing more than an infant – a child that desperately needs guidance. That is why I show myself to you."
"The guidance of a trickster is fraught with peril," Iza is compelled to point out.
"So bold," Loki muses, his mood shifting once again. Now, he is almost playful as he prances a half-step closer to where Iza stands. He reaches behind his back, digging into the shadows of his heavy cloak, and presents to Iza a quiver and bow of the like she has never seen before.
Larger than her own, the bow Loki gifts to her is tall and carved with runes that sink into the grain of the rowan wood, the heft half as light as it seems; likewise, the quiver is narrower and more delicate than her own, the supple black leather filled with arrows made of yew and holly and blackthorn and fletched with feathers in bold colors that she has never seen on birds. There are only two of each arrow, but Loki is quick to demonstrate that the quiver is able to replenish itself due to a spell cast by the trickster himself. Loki tells her that each arrow has a purpose, so she should be careful and certain when drawing her bowstring lest she loose an arrow that was meant for another moment. He lazily assures her that she will figure it out and then shoves the bow and quiver at her until she has no choice but to accept them.
"Why?" Iza asks numbly as she holds the god-gifted weapon in her hands.
"The Norns watch over you," Loki replies. "And my kin are invested in your continued survival."
"But…why?" Iza asks again, this time helplessly. "I am just mortal, as you said. I am…nothing. I…I do not understand-"
"You are not just anything, child," Loki interrupts with a strange glint in his eye. "None of us are. We are all at the mercy of the Norns – and you had better learn that sooner rather than later."
Iza's fingers tighten around the bow and her jaw clenches – because that sounded like a warning. Or a threat. Both, maybe, considering who she was speaking with. Trust Loki to give her advice that sounds foreboding enough to make her doubt his intentions.
Seeming to sense her continued confusion, Loki heaves out a bored sigh. "Oh by the Allfather! Mortals are so slow and I am bored now," he grouches. He reaches back to flip his hood over his face again, leaving two shining, glowing green eyes staring at her from the shadows. Although she cannot see his face, based on his tone, Iza imagines that he is once again sporting that unnatural too-wide smirk. "I will be seeing your later."
And just like that, the God of Mischief and Lies disappears – he vanishes between one heartbeat and the next as if he had never been in the first place, leaving Iza to dizzily doubt that he'd ever been there. The only saving grace for her sanity is the bow and quiver in her hand, the God-given gifts she has received.
Iza's mouth is dry, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, her pulse loud in her eardrums.
Had that truly just happened?
It had.
Loki visited her – spoke with her in riddles and gave her gifts and had seemed almost helpful.
Loki…
Oh.
Iza's two-toned wide eyes drop down to the bow and quiver and her stomach drops. Loki had given her gifts. Obvious gifts. Obvious, exceptionally noticeable gifts, because no one in the village has anything as elegant as this. And the weapon is elegant, finely carved and smooth to the touch and clearly something that isn't common to Forks.
Iza feels a little faint. First she has to hide a dragon, and now she has to hide God-given weapons. A high, incredulous sound escapes her throat as she fumbles with the feather-light bow and the slender quiver. She casts her eye to the sky looming beyond the thicket of trees and feels more than a little relieved that the sun has already begun to set. Spring makes for longer days, but if Iza has stayed out this long, then by the time she reaches the edge of the village, she will at least have darkness working in her favor. She can use the cover of shadows to smuggle Loki's presents into her home.
And then, once she was safe from view, she could figure out what in Odin's name she's going to do with the surreal, rapid turn her life seems to be taking.
For a moment, the immense weight of her responsibilities makes Iza's shoulders slump forward. There is…so much.
Everyday, all the time, she must swallow her pride and pretend to stay in her place – and she'd grown used to that, had found comfort in the farce and the fact that she could hide her ambitions behind a careful dance of mediocracy. It hadn't been great and she frequently chafed against the shackles of her gender. It had always helped – somewhat – to know that Vikings treated their women with more equality than the men of other lands. But there is still always that lingering expectation that Iza must listen to her father and to the elders and, one day, to her husband; and despite whatever she might desire, she and all the other girls in the village know that it is their duty to bear sons. And she loathes it. Resents it. Abhors all the implications of it.
Because Iza knows – she knows – she is just as capable as any man. Perhaps not as a hunter, perhaps not as a leader in the typical sense, but she knows her mind is nimble. And knowing that has given Iza a streak of independence that she always struggles to counterbalance against the general restrictions of her life – whether by skill or by birth, Iza has always found herself somehow lacking.
And so she strives and perseveres and takes on duty after duty after endless duty – possibly in an attempt at defiance, even if it is never recognized.
But…
But this…This situation with her dragon and living Gods speaking face-to-face with her and the lurking suspicion that she is walking down a path untraveled…
This is more than a little difference from the weight she usually carries.
By the Gods, but why have the Norns chosen her of all people? Surely there is someone better suited. Off the top of her head, Iza can name a dozen from the village that are better prepared to dally with their deities.
And yet, it is Iza who is being tested. It is Iza who is being challenged. It is Iza and Iza alone.
A deep frown mars her pale face as her mind spins in whirlwind circles.
She is driving herself crazy trying to figure this out – and in the end, does it truly matter why she has been singled out by the Norns? First Thor and now Loki, with a gift from each of them. She might even consider Eko a gift from Frigg – or from Hel, all things considered.
Why Iza?
Well. What had Loki called her? A Halfling?
Iza's mind churns. Half of what? Half crazy? I certainly feel that way.
Heaving a sigh so heavy she can feel her lungs protesting against the sudden expansion, Iza shakes her head. For the moment, none of this is important. She is tired from the long day and hungry in spite of the salty, pungent smell emanating from her old quiver. She can also feel Eko's curiosity and impatience scratching along the back of her mind and, at that, feels a tender pinch of guilt for leaving the dragon alone all day.
She needs to go home. She wants to go home. And so she does, slinking along the shadows of the trees and then darting to the longhouse on the highest hill. She ducks inside after a would-be casual glance over her shoulder, breathing a sigh of relief once it is clear that it is late enough that she has likely gone unseen.
Which is a very good thing, since Eko barely waits for Iza to close the door before circling her legs with quivering wings and a high-pitched trill that almost feels like a greeting. The surge of affection and happiness that thrums through her bond with Eko almost makes Iza cry – she does not think that any creature alive has ever been so happy to see her.
But Iza is not prone to crying and she ignores the tingling burn behind her eyes in favor of kneeling down to pick Eko up so that she can hold the dragon to her chest. After a few minutes, Eko begins to wriggle around; Iza is quick to release her hold, but somehow is not the least bit surprised when Eko manages to scale her way up to Iza's shoulders. Eko lays across her shoulders, warm belly against her neck, her tail wrapped loosely around her neck.
Eko's weight is a welcome change from the other kind of weight that is usually on her shoulders.
Iza suppresses a smile. Instead, she works both bows off her torso and unbuckles the quivers from her waist. "I hope you like pheasant," she says to Eko as she unloads the quiver, separating the gleaming leather and wood of Loki's gifts from the meat. She pauses as she unwraps the pheasant, glancing at Eko out of the corner of her eye. "Would you prefer it cooked, I wonder?"
Eko, for her part, doesn't seem to have a preference. But Iza has seen dragons eat before when they attack the livestock of the village and knows that raw is not the way they usually eat. Not wanting to make either of them ill, Iza cooks both the fish and the pheasant until they are evenly charred on both sides. Iza is decidedly not a cook, however, and charred is a generous term for what she has done to their dinner. But, she reflects as she takes a hearty bite, at least the meat is edible and not likely to poison either of them.
It isn't until after Iza has carefully eaten around fishbones and watched Eko munch unphased on the pheasant bones that Iza turns her attention to Loki's gifts. Her shift of focus is echoed in Eko, who abandons the bones in favor of sniffing and pawing at the glossy wood of the bow.
Much to Iza's amazement, Eko radiates a strange sense of recognition and wariness at the bow and quiver. Eko's body language shifts, her head hunkering down between her wings, her two-toned eyes shining with the same trepidation as Iza's.
"I agree," Iza says in response to Eko's abrupt shift. "It is strange. But…it is also useful, right? I suppose there must be a reason these were gifted to me. I should probably use them."
Eko blinks at her, her frills halfway between lying flat and standing straight up.
"I will have to do something to them, though. There isn't anything near as nice in the village," she muses, leaning her elbows on the table and stifling a yawn into her palm.
Eko's mouth opens wide – a clear mimicry of Iza's very human action.
Iza laughs mirthfully at her dragon.
Excited, Eko's claws scratch against the table as she skitters around, her long tail sweeping across the surface and sending the remnants of their dinner crashing against the floor. Surprised at the sound, Eko's frills perk forward and her claws begin to glow as brightly as the white flame at the center of the hearth – and where the claws touch the table, the wood begins to crumble away in gouges the size of Eko's feet.
"Eko!" Iza cries out in alarm, watching in horrified fascination as Eko tries to dance out of her own destruction, claws still glowing as the table alternately crumbles to pieces and begins to catch on fire. Thinking quickly, Iza snatches Eko up, holding the dragon beneath her arms with her feet facing away from Iza's body.
Both girl and dragon watch half of the table smolder – stunned for a long moment in which Iza can only dumbly recall that Eko had done much the same to her own shell. She sincerely hopes that the table is the only casualty of Eko's unique gift, but she suspects that the table is only the first in a long line of baby dragon mishaps.
It isn't until Eko calms down – no longer startled and panicking – and her claws fade back to glossy black that Iza is able to dump water onto the table and clean up the resulting mess. By the time she finishes mopping up the water, the length of the day catches up to her. It's all she can do to change into her shift and feed the hearth for Eko's slumber before she collapses onto the flat of her mattress, almost asleep before she can even cover herself with a blanket.
But in that brief moment between being awake and asleep, Iza's fatigued mind lights up with solutions to all of her concerns – and she rests easy, finding comfort in the reconciliation of her clarified thoughts.
Tomorrow will be a new day, the first of a new, terrifyingly exciting era.
And not just for Iza.
A/N: Man, raising a baby dragon who has spontaneous combustion/destruction feet cannot be easy! Hope Eko gets that shit under control pretty quick!
Alright, the main Norse deity in this chapter is Loki. What to say about Loki? He's a pretty ambiguous figure in traditional Norse mythology. As indicated in the chapter, he's a trickster God with shapeshifting powers and is frequently the catalyst to many Norse parables and tales. He's also more mystic than a lot of other Norse figures, which is saying something because Norse mythology is, in general, pretty trippy. For example, Loki gave birth to the goddess of Hel (Hel or Hela, depending on your source), gave birth to the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr that basically holds the mortal world together by squeezing it really tight, as well as giving birth as a mare (female horse) to the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, who Odin restrains/rides as punishment for Loki pissing him off (or something?). Like, Loki is one of the very few male mythological figures who give birth across all of the old pagan religions - Zeus is another figure that comes to mind with the birth of Athena, but all of Loki's births are pretty literal. It's interesting if you consider the Norse attitude toward gender equality, which is at times both impressively progressive and extremely convoluted. Anyway, Loki also sees some pretty fucked up punishments by Odin in traditional myths, such as being force-fed poison from his own snake-son by his wife Sigyn, which basically starts Ragnarok in some tales. But Loki also once turned Thor into a woman to teach some mortals (and Thor) a lesson and he played a really mean trick on Thor's wife Sif, the goddess of the harvest, that involves her hair. And as Iza mentioned, Loki is the only other Norse God other than Odin who practices "woman's magic", as all the other Norse deities are gifted but not magic. So. Loki as a Norse figure takes up about as much of a chunk of importance in the Eddas as Odin himself. I would even argue that Loki plays a larger part than the All-Father, but that's just my opinion. The point is that Loki is traditionally a polarizing figure - a true neutral character who is neither wholly evil or wholly good. He's very interesting.
Now. Should we trust this Loki? Who the Hel knows?! He's Loki!
As to my personal life - thank you all for your kind words! For those wondering, I'm still adjusting to my meds but I have definitely noticed a distinct difference, which is promising and kind of a relief. I'm feeling both more myself and more unbalanced at the same time, so...Nothing more to do than keep going forward, I guess.
Anyway, as always, be brutally honest. I can take it.
~Rae