AWOWADD 3
Chapter 3: The River's Flow
When the Queen's duties were lax, she'd rather lounge around her vanity chambers. Draped in lavish fabrics across the room, it's colorful presence soothed her as chambermaids attended to her beauty ritual. The finest silks weaved by talented Light elves decorated the plush seats. Designs of golden thread and artistic eye for beautiful things were specifically made for the Queen and her ladies. They fawned over new materials and set to work to find a place in the vast collection of pretty things.
It was early but not late enough to rise for the midmorning meal. So her ladies took it upon their flimsy natures to bathe their Queen in oils and scented waters in her hair. They dressed her hair intricately; sending deep waves that made any sea-siren envious to have. Next, they clothed her in five sets of linen dresses- all different sizes and shapes that expressed the voluptuous curves she barely worked hard for to attain. Without word, she flitted a hand to a light tannish colored one, with a slit opening up the chest and leather strappings across the flat of her stomach. They added jewels of arm bracelets, dripping like melted stars from afar and kohl lining accenting her hooded eyes.
When Freyja felt confident in her ladies' work, she dismissed them to prepare their own beauty treatment, leaving her to gaze in wonder at her reflection. She grabbed a bejeweled hand across the oak wood surface. Her hand curved around the fabric of a scarf barely holding onto the furniture. She waved it around herself, adorning it lovingly across her neck and forehead. She giggled passively before allowing it to drop to the floor.
In her solitaire she played with coronets made of gold leaves and smoky perfumes exotic to their lands. It all amused her in the morning-time: perfecting herself.
After all, she had to remodel her whole look with the water weight she retained from her pregnancy. Though her vain nature kept her to looking glowing and the envy of all other women slaving in their labor, she managed to double the curves of her hips with her daughter. Motherhood suited her and her precious gift only Fólkvangr could have granted her.
And what a mysterious gift she was presented. It was without a doubt in her careless brain whether her child would obtain the good genes of her parents. But seeing her for the first time- all pink and wet from her flesh melted her more than any beauty routine. She dove into her daughter, priming her and propping her into the girl she once was. It brought new purpose to Freyja. Alongside her dubious chore as Queen and presenting herself like a proper one, she had a tiny creature all that belonged to her to dote upon.
But my, the years do take hold. Already time began to wane on the days she played with Sigyn. Closer were the watchful nights.
Oh how she dreaded those nights. Cold and dark, unappreciated. Nothing came good from the dark. There was no beauty, only dankness and decay. Freyja thought nothing else of it.
When it came to surface of her daughter's fate, there was a deeper hatred to the night. Darkness always stole the light away from others. It rooted people's fears and shrank gods into mere mortals. How could something so unfathomable, so horrid steal something as pure and wonderful from the womb of the most beautiful of the goddesses? It must have been jealousy. Something lurked in the darkness that must have wanted her, a relic to model off, a prize to be won. There was no other explanation. Or at least that was brought to Freyja's mind.
She had her share of jealousies thrown at her. To the extent of near execution even. But that never stopped her from achieving what she wanted. She worked too hard and too long to go back to the lowest pedestal and receive all their mockeries.
Freyja's mind drifted. She nearly crushed the glass containing lucrative waters from the Sirens as a wedding gift. Though she hated the thing, yet another reminder of her ugly past, she kept it as a token of how far she had climbed.
Years later, here she was - dazzling at her radiant self with a kingly husband and a child beyond perfection. She sheltered away those frightful nights for the warmth of a hearth in the niche she liked to sew in. She liked to thank the goodness of her life at these few times when she was alone, far from the dark halls. In her own Hall of Fólkvanngr, she spent time reflecting over her tapestries she created. Depictions of love scenes, battalions, questings each sewn by the thread and thimble of the Queen. It was a gift of hers. Besides her unnatural gift of beauty, she was bestowed the gift of beautiful artisan crafts.
Once a day, she sent away her ladies and serfs out of the Hall to work on her current masterpiece. At the end of the year, she presented all of Vanaheim at the grandest festivals to display the year's progress.
This year, she wanted to sew in array of colors the years she spent with her child. In her mind's eye she imagined the fabric to hold pictures of her still in the womb, her birth, the ages following, and a grandiose model of what Freyja could only hope she would turn out to be.
It was proven to be difficult as she took up the thread and tapestry fabrics. The last piece of the puzzled was the image of a fully grown Sigyn at the bloom of womanhood. Freyja thought and thought again. The Mother in her couldn't understand why she can't see the face skin pulled back, the muscles corded under skin, or even the full shaped lips of Sigyn she would no doubt inherit from her mother.
Time was running short. The festival would be held for the first time without Sigyn. Her departure brought weariness, an unknown fatigue for the Queen. She set down her unfinished work and once more looked in the mirror for some recognition of her child. Would she mirror her when she was away? Would her curls flatten like her father's? Would her body become lean or curvy? Would her smile remain the same?
The Queen in the mirror shivered at the racing questions. She slammed a jeweled hand down as her eyes narrowed at herself. She gripped the vanity tightly. Her gaze poured over her features before closing them.
She saw her child the first time the princess could see all her firsts. Word, ball, run, dress, fall, and giggle. But whenever the past encroached, she was blocked from the future. It frustrated the Queen. So easily she had given up progressing her year's progress. She was stumped.
She had gotten off track. Perhaps another face cream would relieve her. Forget the tapestry until later. The line on her forehead deepened.
"Mistress! Mistress!" A frazzled voice was heard from behind the doorway. The Queen sighed, smoothed back her face and skirts before waving a hand for the doors to open.
At the entry, a rounded woman with thick peppered hair pulled back into a short white linen cloth, plain charcoal cloth with a white apron fidgeted. Her platform sandals shuffled in nervously like a sketchy mouse on the lookout for a cat.
The governess, Frajonora, served the royal family for years. She was first held onto the position of wet nurse, as the Queen was too focused on the shape of her figure and duties of a monarch than to juggle a baby as well. She was a loyal woman to the end but with a stubborn nerve of a trait that allowed the little tyke to pull rank on her to get her own way.
Frajonora had aged well in advance after the first years of managing her. It was evident with the bustling line of sweat upon her brow and the weariness of her aching bones. Tethering back and forth racing after her young mistress put a number to her age.
Her breathing hitched as she coughed out a side stitch. The Queen rolled her shoulders back, moved her bust line and settled the woman down on a seat mat. When the woman's heaviness lifted, she bowed her head to the Great Lady. Her frazzled state left her mutterings to ramble underneath her breath, going faster than Honir in a chase.
She braced the woman. "Calm yourself, Frajonora," The sudden order silenced the aging governess. Her pudgy fingers trailed over her flushed cheeks, reminding herself of her place.
"It's the Little Princess!" she started. Her exasperation took most of her breath away a second time. "She's at it again!" she bemoaned.
Freyja sighed heavily, taking the brunt of the hit immediately. The line on her forehead furrowed.
Once more, Sigyn disappeared from sight. She neglected her duties so as to play and wander like any other child. Though Frajonora deserved the scolding for losing the princess for the umpteenth time, Freyja stood up. The billowing skirts trailed behind her. She floated towards the knob of the door.
Without turning back, she already knew the woman serf was dry sobbing her failures and kneeling for penitence. She said, with a bored inflection, "Take me to her. I shall deal with her myself,"
The woman picked herself up and wobbled to lead the beautiful lady through the door. The airy lights from the Hall of Fólkvangr dimmed upon the closing. Freyja internally shivered at the sudden shades of darkness. Though never showing it, her inner self she buried deep within scurried frantically for a door to shine upon the smirking shadows.
Frajonora never acknowledged her Queen's persistence to move along, she was too worried about the current status of her position.
The tide was coming. Outside the palace walls, where safety lied heavily in numbers and scores inside, the Queen fidgeted across the dirty sand. She spotted a lone girl, wild and common, hunched over in the pools too close for comfort to the rocky shallows. Her bare feet resounded across the wet stones as she hopped to and fro until she balanced herself on a smaller boulder.
The Queen gathered her skirts in her hand as she maneuvered around the wetter dunes. Her head snapped to her child as she heard a small noise. Familiar and almost welcoming, the dubious sound of magic bounced in colors and light over the crash of waves. As if she were a magi performing street tricks for peasants, she concentrated her efforts on something the Queen couldn't see.
"Sigyn, it's not proper to display your magic unsupervised," Freyja's figure shadowed her child.
In the middle of her crouching state, Sigyn's pale finers skimmed over a smooth, rounded sand dollar. She clutched the treasure over the surface of the water; the prickle of magic doused over the white shell to a hue of pink. Her doe-like eyes widened at the grace of the Queen.
It was uncharacteristic for a woman donned in the finest silks on her creme skin to walk through wet sand near the tumultuous shoreline. Though a trained woman of a regak house, Sigyn could easily point out her mother's insecurities as her sandals fidgeted in the sinking sand and her fingers ached as the sea breeze was blowing her golden trestles carelessly.
The little princess held the shell closer to her, acting as a guardian. She was a curious creature - closer to the edges of the wild imagination than the pillars that towered over her. But that didn't mean she was immune to a scolding back to reality. The strands of her hair flew out of her braids Frajonora slaved over.
Her hair didn't bother her; she knew her Mother's skin would be crawling if the same were said for her.
Acting the picture of innocence, Sigyn stood up, fixed the wrinkles in her skirts, and held the drying shell in the palms of her hands. The Queen stepped back, afraid of the harmless gift. Sigyn saw the small part of her Mother that use to adore the sea's waves and run her toes across the hot sand. Then it shrunk back inside and left the diamond studded skin of a Queen.
After all, she had a duty to her subjects and husband. She couldn't be caught; not with the changing of the seasons so soon. With the sun's rays moving everyday closer to the moon's pull, Freyja would find the single worry line on her forehead deepen further. No matter how much lotions or home remedies her ladies sought out for, nothing could vanquish the one flaw. Frajonora believed it to be the line every young mother is gifted with - a symbolic care of one's child. The Queen loved her beautiful little girl, but that didn't qualify to burden her with a line in the middle of her forehead.
Sigyn looked down fondly at the object in her small hands. "Oh Mother, it's just a sea shell," She showed off those pretty teeth. Every oyster would swim backwards to have the pearly white wonders in either girl or woman on that beach. The Vanir princess sat promptly on her bottom, stowing it with the other collections she found earlier much to her Mother's dismay.
Her Mother's lip quivered into a small smile. Rarely she had anything left to smile as the watchful nights closed in. She looked once back and twice around the shoreline. Once she was reassured none of the guards or any of the Council were near, she lifted some of her skirts and readied herself to sit by drier sand banks. She sat a considerable distance away. She bundled the lengthy fabrics behind her as her bare legs felt the scratch of hot grains rub together. She winced and gave herself a moment to relax wit the sand.
Sigyn's youthful eyes widened as the lack of posture her Mother had. Her back curved for possibly the first time in front of her and the position she sat in was no one a noble woman would have done. It simply astonished the child. Feeling jovial, young Sigyn moved closer to her, dragging along the many coral rocks, shells, and sunken tokens with her.
Tide was coming in. Minutes ago that would have edged the Queen to run inside the secured palace walls so as to not let the clothes to stain. Slowly, she readjusted those nerves to welcome the sea breeze that wafted the hot sand from beneath her. All the while she played with Sigyn's natural curls. SHe untied the bonds from the bottom and let the wind to form their own style. Sigyn, content, showed each treasure to her mother before setting it in a separate pile and moving to the next one.
But she always kept going back to the shell. It was faded pink and grew lighter around the outline. Inside the pale pink was reflected through opaque light. With the help of her magic, she practiced different colors like the sea green pigments and an exaggerated mix of red and sky blue. The shell was large enough to thread it on sting and make a necklace, Sigyn revealed to her how she wished to do so and keep it as a remembrance of the last good day before autumn came.
"Sigyn," Her Mother interrupted the girl who went off a tangent. She cupped a hand around a clump of sand. "Everything has a life force," Wind carried off the sand. "Changing something defers the ways of things,"
Sigyn's head dipped down, feeling the guilt in her Mother's throat. She used a finger like a brush and painted magical traced across the shell. Swirls of blue and white embedded the shell.
"But I liked it better when it's blue," she whispered, eyes narrowed.
The Queen waved a hand. Instantly the deep splatters of young magic left and the original pinky coral returned. Sigyn surrendered the plain shell to her. Her Mother sighed. It was never her intention to take away a plaything, but it was a lesson that needed to be taught.
Magic was highly unpredictable - especially in the early stages. It was ordered by the King for the princess's studied to be strictly under core curriculum. For her protection, her instructor prohibited the use of magic outside of instructional time. Sigyn learned the hard way that her rebellious streak, like a sea stallion, needed to be broken in.
How cruel she thought of it. Freyja was never forced such terms. It was in their customs. So it only brought more misery in the House of her child, gifted with the graces of the gods without freedom to express them. The Mother in her relentlessly wanted to push the Queen in her aside. But priorities were made and protecting her only child came first. At least, that much was made clear all those years ago by her Father-King.
"Sigyn," she tried once more. "You should never change an appearance for your own purposes. If it was meant to be coral, it was meant to be coral,"
Mechanically, Sigyn nodded. Her small frown widened those large cerulean eyes. They crystalized over with a loss of their usual sparkle.
She murmured, "You're right, mother,"
She shrugged away from the Queen's side. Sigyn hunched her shoulders over her knees, chin dipped down. The waters churned as tide began. The sound crashed like percussion, loud and present. It filled the void when the Queen gazed down for several minutes studying her daughter.
While she remained poised and attempted dignity, her daughter slouched and seemed feeble. If she didn't know better she would have guessed the child was like a burrowed clam. Her cold skin looked pale and dotted with wet sand. The sea wafted air to tangle in her hair. She wasn't in the presence of a princess. She looked nothing better than a child in the dirt roads.
Feeling uneasy she summoned some maternal feeling to soothe the sorrowed child. Sigyn looked to her Mother, but she faced a Queen. In some sorry attempt, she caressed the strings of hair flying above her.
"What's set you into a mood, little one?" She smoothed them back. The child cradled herself further in. She eased her tone. "You're suppose to be at your lessons,"
The word struck the girl in recognition. It curdled in her mouth. Lessons. It boiled underneath her skin. She remembered the long haul of instructional time reading practical theories and only using the modules for magic. Her hands ached from the writing when they should be tingling from the sparks illuminating from her fingertips.
Sigyn flicked a pebble crawling towards her big toe. "All I do is lessons and work. I never get the chance to see my friends," Her finger pointed to the water. It maneuvered like a trail of snakes. Then the trail ended as it was soaked into the earth.
With nimble legs, she hopped to the shallows. Pods of small fish swam routinely across the many shoals, corals, and the grainy bottom. She poked a finger down to stroke one of her friends. It prodded her finger, sucking for any bit of food, then swam itself off to the near school of fish.
She giggled as one flapped its dorsal fin intricately. "The animals are lonely sometimes,"
Freyja inched forward. She graced a smile. Playing in the tide pools reminded the Queen how being a child was the best beauty remedy. Every child, at least the ones she encountered, owned a beautiful-like quality. They were all peaceful, carefree. Free of judgment...
Freyja never enjoyed those qualities. Not until her gift was given eons ago. Before then she wasn't given the privilege to enjoy others company as the children of Midgard were of a brutish nature. Never to play pretend or wander the plain lands so easily like the others.
And now history repeated itself through her daughter, the prize of Vanaheim, the jewel of all daughters. What hope was there left? Empathy flooded through her veins. For the moment, she forgot the skirts, forgot the ornaments, forgot the black markings on her skin as the water lapped at her feet.
"I always admired your spirit," she whispered closely. "But these friends of yours must understand that you are a young princess-in-training," she said pointedly.
Sigyn's eyes looked up. They sparkled as her mother touched the youthful pad of skin on her cheekbones. "They have responsibilities just as you do,"
She moved her hand to corral the separated fish and then set it free. Small trickles of bubbles floated to the surface.
Sigyn popped some of the larger ones. "I doubt it," she said depressed.
Freyja wrinkled her brow. She scoured for something to lighten both of their spirits. Using impromptu, the mother searched hard at the ocean- praying for an answer.
Though tide was in, the movement of the waves still crescendoed against the damp rocks. Some heaved over, spilling its waters on the already soaked boulders whilst others remained as sea foam. Its spray leapt into the air only to dissipate into the air.
Her trained eye glowered at a particular pod of waves. They bent backwards, going against the flow of water. Freyja set a hand forth into the sand, ever leaning forward with bated breath. Her mind's eye delved deep into the horizon, glazing each particle into a macroscopic view.
"Watch," She entranced the child's attention. Her manicured nails, primed and polished, pointed vertically to the pod. "See how the hval fish move. Their tails bend and shape the currents underneath," Sprays of foam hoisted into the air to backflip and recede. "Without their movements, there would be no tide,"
Her cat-like eyes spotted something closer to home. She dipped a forefinger into the water and a dark blue ink formed. It trailed and curled over and under shells and fish. Then it wrapped itself around a stem of a coral bed.
"And flyndre pods sweep away the old corals to allow new growth to form for new families. You see," She demonstrated the inky trail to break a piece off, releasing small air bubbles. A baby flyndre watched the dead end sink before it made use of its hollowed cave for its own personal use.
Sigyn grew red around the collar, cheek for embarrassment and guilt. "I guess," she sighed. "It seems much fun then learning about Mimir," She waved her hand into the water to play with her mother's magic ink.
The maternal mother returned as she caressed her child's soft curls. HEr whispers floated down to her, soft like a feather. "One day you might find knowing about the things you learn be useful later,"
Sigyn puckered her face up as though a thought had struck inside her head. "Mother, why can't I go to the villages outside the gates? I hear they have wonderful festivals. Once there was a fairy performing the Ring! A real fairy!: Her excitement no longer caught in her throat. She exuded every inch of a carefree child.
But her Mother saw the sudden switch of her mood rather odd and slightly welcoming. Many before there were fairies from other worlds on progress. They flit and flutter to merchants and towns filled with the sea brine and air (for that is a fairies' second nature). They sell their fare goods and entertain the masses with swirled orbs and the sweetest nectar drinks on this side of the Bifröst. It only brought fond memories to the Queen, when she too played with the Fairies' Ring.
Freyja opened her eyes in sheer surprise. "A fairy? She must have been preparing for the new season," She curled her fingers in her air, letting then ring around and spill out her dainty hand.
Her child bobbed her head up and down, hoping to strike a positive with the Vanir Queen. "Oh yes, but I wish I could have seen her and ask her questions about Alfheim," Her eyes glazed over in her dizziest daydreams. Thoughts of their vitae wands or their magic cloaks they weave from magic silkworms native to the rarest meadows. Or she could ask about the Fairy Five or the Elder Council the ways they transformed the mountains on shore into striking fjords.
While she amassed new questions, new theories, and all the wonders of the annual festivities, Freyja looked beyond the shoreline, to the sea wall. A thousand mighty warriors atop couldn't have surpassed those walls. They were built to surround and protect the treasures within. Even the eons of age still haven't managed a single crack into its frame. Not even against Asgardian warriors.
She lowered her voice, cradling her child's right shoulder. "Sigyn, you know why you can't leave the gates. There are many things in the world you aren't prepared for. They can hurt little princesses like you,"
Her face crackled like a dying wisp of flame. All wanderlust vanished. She straightened her tunic and straps as the breeze made gooseflesh. She shielded Sigyn. "We are protecting you because your Father and I love you. You're our little leaf,"
"I've only been outside a handful of times and that's when we have summer progress,"
Freyja wished to distract the depressed girl. But nothing popped in her mind. Then she spotted the princess' sea collection. Amidst the many trivial toys, there was a conch shell. Pretty in pink with a sprinkle of fairy gold yellow, it coiled around perfectly. The shell looked smooth like polished glass.
Out of instinct, the mother picked it up and placed it in the child's small hands. It engulfed her palms and some of her fingers. The Queen placed a finger to her own ear, motioning for her to reciprocate. She nervously sheltered her ear next to the slit opening after checking for any crustaceans.
Softly, Freyja asked, "What do you hear?"
She huffed as her lip dipped down. "Nothing?"
The Queen shook her head. "Listen closely," Sigyn pressed the shell to her ear once more. "Can you hear that little whisper? Behind the waves?" She watched as Sigyn's eyebrows knitted together, not of frustration. She nodded after a few tense seconds. The Queen smiled. "That's the voice of Yggdrasil. The inner spirit that fills the universe. It's voice can be heard to those who listen intently for answers they don't know of yet. Take a moment and ask a question,"
Her eyes gleamed in anticipation at the thought of it. "Will I ever travel the universe?" Her excited whispers echoed in the tiny spaces. She pressed her little ear next to the slit of an opening.
It might have been hours or moments as she waited ever so patiently for a sound, a whisper, a gentle soul to her ear. The Queen exercised concern as she watched the bated breath rapidly quicken to anticipation, then satisfaction. She used no such magic this time. It was too late by the time the child's patience wore thin. But this... the Queen could not see how she might have heard anything but the rolling of waves unless...
"Yes!" she exclaimed. She reprimanded herself as she paused intently. "When?" she asked fervently. As she closed her eyes to return her back to the magic, she scrunched her nose. Freyja looked at the shell in curiosity than to the others her daughter had picked out. She wanted so badly to hear what was so special that she could actually hear the Voices of the past.
She tried her hand at luck and swirled two fingers on any of the shells. No hint of magic trace. Freyja began to panic. She darted her eyes back to her daughter to see her furrow her brow. Sigyn held the shell in her lap, delicately tracing the outer hole.
She glanced up. Her face turned melancholically. "That's funny, I don't hear it anymore,"
The Queen inserted a hand around the object. Her pulse reverberated around the porcelain. To her displeasure, it was just an ordinary shell.
"Maybe it's magic has been used up," She thought aloud. Her head cocked to the child, who seemed as sad as one grieving over the loss of a dear friend. "Not all questions are answered. Sometimes you have to listen to your heart as well," Her hand patted hers.
With practice she fabricated for years, she forged a smile. "Now, how about that lesson?"
Sigyn whined, "Mother," She fisted a hand deep in the sand, rooting herself to the beach. The Queen patted the wet sand clumps from her arm. Her maternal instincts was overpowered by her regal authority. Almost instantaneously she let her maternal touch to disappear. She stood up appalled at the lateness she dwelt.
"Come now, child," The sheer sleeves coiled her pale skin like a silkworm and its weave. Her back arched back as she looked down upon the sulking child. "Your Father will be brewing a storm if he finds out you have skipped your lessons," she said shrewdly before feeling the sting of her words bit back in her throat.
Sigyn's eyes cast away. She stood awkward, the bits of sand still clung to her as the tide rolled to her toes. The girl hollowed in comparison to the radiance of the Queen. Even with the tussled sea-brine hair, she held her head high and waist tucked in. She rubbed her nose as the cold nipped it. Rough sand speckled her nose and irritated dry skin.
The Queen held her hand out immediately. It wasn't an invitation; it was a demand. A summon to grip hands and remain at the Queen's side for the rest of the evening. Though the circumstances were unfavorable, Sigyn reminded herself how rare these opportunities had been in the past few weeks.
She loved her Mother as she was the only womanly role model to learn from. But when the Queen's deadly beauty slipped in, Sigyn shrank in size and weakened in child-like ability. Knowing she was under scope, Sigyn flattened stray hairs, brushed off the earth, and held the Queen's dainty hand.
"Fine," she said dejectedly.
The Queen offered a half smile. The Mother in her was pushed out for a moment as she reveled in the time to walk alongside her daughter in their natural environment. But the bitter sweet moment, like all symphonic chords, ended too soon as the darkly halls enveloped them like walking shadows.