Written to: Six Weeks - Of Monsters and Men
Tarantism: Overcoming melancholy by dancing; the uncontrollable urge to dance.
"We cannot keep Henry," Helblindi decrees as he stretches out on Darcy's bed, rumpling the satin covers. Were all Midgardian beds so small? Helblindi wonders to himself. According to Darcy, this is a bed fit for a Californian king, although he was under the impression that this particular Midgardian country did not have monarchs. Darcy had told him not to worry about it.
The frost chick had managed to hitch a ride, latching on to the fringes of Helblindi's scarf as he travelled to Midgard. Darcy had told Helblindi that there was really no need to go about wearing a scarf all the time, unless for whatever reason his head was detached, like a certain old lady in a certain Midgardian horror story. Helblindi had assured her that his head was quite firmly attached to his body.
The chick cheeps angrily at him from its position above him. Helblindi had tied the chick securely around the middle to the ceiling fan cord, and was now watching it spinning around in lazy circles, chirping angrily the whole way.
"Why can't we keep Henry?" Darcy wants to know, coming out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel, her face slathered with cool green cream that reminds Helblindi of avocadoes. Darcy had taken him to the market recently, where he'd been coerced into eating an astonishing amount of avocado dip and crackers at an Italian bruschetta stall. Truth be told, he hadn't needed much convincing, not after he'd taken the first creamy bite. "And don't do that, he doesn't like that," she tells him, wagging her finger at him admonishingly as she reaches up on tiptoes to free the baby chick from its confines. Henry snuggles up to Darcy's cheek, smudging its blue downy feathers with streaks of green. Traitor, Helblindi thinks affectionately as the chick gives him the smuggest of beady looks over Darcy's shoulder. Filthy bloodthirsty poultry that you are.
"It's either me or the chicken, Darcy," he tells her. "Frost chicks are horrendously territorial. That thing will kill me just as soon as you turn your back."
Darcy scoffs, rolls her eyes at him, and Helblindi has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at how ridiculous she looks. "Oh, is the big bad jötunn prince afraid of a little chicken?"
"So I take it you're choosing Henry," he says.
Darcy pauses for a moment, looking at the chick in her hands. Purses her lips, thinking about it before sighing heavily.
"I guess I'll have to choose you," she mutters, but not loudly enough to inspire confidence. "At least you're toilet trained." Henry's highly acidic, highly corrosive droppings had almost eaten all the way through a corner of Darcy's hardwood floors in her living room.
She sets Henry down on her dresser, and even from this distance Helblindi can see the chicken pouting at her, giving her its best impression of puppy dog eyes.
"But look at how cute he is!" she protests, and Helblindi snorts and watches the chick seemingly tap dance a jig across the top of Darcy's dresser. All that it needs is a cane and a top hat. "Hello, my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal," she coos, and the chick cheeps in time with her. Helblindi rolls his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs as Darcy takes the chick's wings in her hands and dances with it.
"Don't encourage it. Please," he beseeches her, but then Darcy is reaching for him, and tugging him up off the bed to dance with him, the chick stuffed securely in the small hollow of space between the top of her head and his neck. Helblindi resists the urge to squash his head down and take the chick's life, even as a sharp, tiny beak digs into his flesh and draws blood.
Darcy refuses to watch as Helblindi picks up the chick, stuffs it unceremoniously into his shirt pocket, and leaves the apartment building to deposit it in an unknown area, where it would be completely disoriented and wouldn't know how to get back to Darcy's flat.
Helblindi passes by Central Park, considers letting Henry loose inside the park's boundaries, snickers at the thought of how many small children he might be able to injure.
He briefly considers dropping Henry off the Brooklyn Bridge, decides against it. Henry hasn't yet demonstrated if his wings work or not, but Helblindi is not willing to encourage premature discovery of that particular ability.
His footsteps take him to an abandoned part of the Bronx. He sets Henry down on the cracked, dusty pavement, glares at the little chick, who, seemingly subdued, hangs its head and begins to hop away, glancing back over its shoulder every few steps. Once it reaches the edge of the kerb and looks back to find Helblindi watching it, it begins to dance, a one-two step, pouting at him, and against his better judgment, Helblindi sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, and bends down to reach out a hand to it. Henry jumps eagerly into his hand.
The next morning, Darcy wakes up to the smell of coffee and bacon, and, yawning, walks into the kitchen to find Helblindi, wrapping scarred and cut hands around a mug of coffee and glaring pointedly at the frost chick in its brand new litter box.