Night settled in across the expanse unknown land, the rain clouds swallowing the hills in darkness. Faye sat down on the lip of one of the escarpment and dangled her legs over the edge. She tapped her axe against the side, dropped it, and watched it plummet fifty feet down to the next landing. It landed with a satisfying thunk. She summoned it back, hefted its reassuring weight, and then dropped it again. She kept the steady rhythm of drop-summon-catch-drop-summon as she thought.
I am lost, the part of her that was Faye mused.
You are not lost, she admonished herself. She tried to summon the stronger, wiser woman that she had once been. The version of herself when she had the knowledge and companionship of her people. You have triggered a trap and become ensnared. Recall the Knowledge. Who has this power?
Faye muddled through fragmented memories, keeping the beat of her thoughts attuned to the drop-summon-catch-release rhythm to avoid losing herself. The people living on the Midgard frontier spoke whispers of the Witch of the Wildwoods, an enchantress who lived deep in the forest and practiced the Old Magic. Faye gave those stories little credence. Midgardians held suspicion and fear over any woman who had the knowledge and fortitude of spirit to live independently in the wood. Some of the stories, though, were probably true. There were creatures and monsters in Midgard who might capture young girls and make them sort piles of grain by candlelight, demanding their souls in payment if they failed. There were sprites and fae who would intercept travelers and make them hopelessly lost, fated to wander in circles in until the collapsed from exhaustion or froze to death.
It was one thing to befuddle and enchant mortal men and women trying to carve a life for themselves in the hostile lands of roaming beasts and magic. It was a completely different thing for a spell to ensnare her.
Faye warded herself against spying eyes and maleficent spells every day, and she warded Kratos every chance she could get. The wards made them appear unremarkable and easily forgettable to people, animals, and monsters alike. It was not a an outright disguise, but gave them both a cloak of anonymity. The forests that Faye had been traveling before she stumbled into this trap were laced with dozens of her own protection glyphs that she patrolled and renewed constantly. She was outside of the perimeter of blessed trees which formed a near- impenetrable protection stave around her house and surrounding woods, but some of its protective effects extended outwards for miles and miles. There were very few creatures in all the Nine Realms that could breach all those defenses and entrap Faye so close to her own home.
Faye caught her axe and held it across her lap. A Witch of the Wildwoods of Midgard. A sorcerer powerful enough to crack through a fortress of glyphs. A hidden Giant caught in the trap. The soft sound of wingbeats mixing with the rain, and the cry of a raven.
Oh for fuck's sake, she realized with dawning horror. Odin's wife was cast down to Midgard.
Faye pushed off the escarpment, plummeted along the rockface, and landed on the edge of another bluff overlooking the leeward side of the gathering wind. She pressed herself into the darkness of the overhanging rocks, hiding herself from prying eyes that searched by the wing and along the ground. A chorus of harsh cries split the night as a dozen ravens passed her hiding spot among the rocks in a flurry of wings. They dived and soared, alighted on tree branches and then launched back toward sky. They darted about the cliff face and surrounding forests like swarming gnats, their passage marked by the trails light glowing from their eyes as they searched the small clump of juniper trees where Faye had emerged to find the cliff face. One of them landed ten paces away from her, its eyes glinting with an otherworldly light as it pecked and scratched at the ground, before taking to wing again.
Her heart hammered up her chest and into her throat, ears roaring with the rush of her own blood as she pressed herself tight and tighter into the rocks, willing them to not see her. First, she blundered into a magical forest belonging to a god, and then she had hauled herself to the top of the tallest hill she could find, and then she had started flinging her very distinctive Leviathan axe off a cliff face like a game of wallball. She cursed herself for her own idiocy of straying straight into the lair of her enemy.
She had grown so careless in last few decades, so soft.
If Odin found her, the only possible path left was war. Would she just vanish, and Kratos never know what happened to her? Or worse, would he be dragged into it, into her bloodbath, after so many years trying to escape his own?
After what seemed like an eternity of searching, but was probably only ten minutes, the ravens abruptly dispersed. They did not search much beyond the few acres of woods she had traveled, and they did not stop to investigate anything else as they flew on and dissolved into the night. It was odd they had given up so easily, like they were uncertain that there was anything to find. Like her blunder into the enchanted forest had set off an alarm, but that their investigation revealed nothing of interest.
Faye waited for the sound of their wingbeats to recede from her imagination, for the rain to scrub out their foul stench and sweeten the air once again. She was drenched down to the bone, the chilled stone of her hiding place sapping the heat from her body. She slinked out of her hiding place and climbed down through the terraces of cliff face, loose mud, and sloughing vegetation.
Faye jumped off the last bluff, throwing herself towards the cover of the treeline. She landed amid the junipers and landed on a bed of pine needles near a dense thicket. As she crept forward, towards where she had first come, she heard a rustling from the bushes and froze. There was a soft grunt, a shuffling of brush, and a boar emerged for the thicket. He was dark and large as a Direwolf, four sets of ivory tusks curved above his head. He tossed his head in the air, squealed, and charged.
Faye raised her axe for a killing blow, but something in his eyes made her hesitate causing her to pull her axe into a crosswise guard against her face.
As he barreled into her Faye rammed the broadside of the axe into the beast's tusks. Her heels tore tracks through the dirt as he shoved her back, both of them straining against each other, locked in place. Streaks of gold encircled his eyes and traced snaking paths down his body. His sides heaved with bellows of breath, his eyes agleam with intelligence, surprise, and fear. He had not come to attack her, she realized. She had frightened him, and he had panicked and charged.
She suddenly realized what had happened, why she was in Freya's forest. It was just an accident, a misunderstanding.
The boar snorted and heave sideways, forcing Faye to one knee. He shoved passed her and began to run into the forest, squealing in alarm.
Faye cursed as he galloped away. She muttered a spell over her axe to blunt the edge, then hurled it at his legs. He tripped and crashed, rolling in a tangle of brush and pine needles. His bellows pierced the night. Faye charged towards him and caught him in a choke hold, wrenching his head sideways to keep him off balance and unable to rise. She grabbed her axe and used it to extend the reach of her arms, encircling his neck and squeezing hard along the sides until his wails quieted to breathless gasps.
"I am going to wait until you almost faint," she whispered into his ear as he thrashed. "And then I am going to let you go without hurting you. And then you are going to be quiet, or I will start squeezing again. Do you understand?"
He tossed his head with renewed strength, and she lost a grip on him for a moment. The broadside of her ask slammed against his face, chipping off a piece of his tusk before she wrestled him back under control.
"I do not want the ravens to come back," she growled at him. "And I do not think you want them back, either."
He suddenly stopped fighting, his gold-encircled eye meeting hers for a moment.
Faye slowly released him, then rolled away to a defensive crouch, axe raised crosswise before her. He rose shakily to his feet and glowered at her.
"I am not here to cause trouble," she promised. "I mean you no harm. Watch." She tossed her axe off into the woods, and carefully watched his reaction.
He still glared at her, but he visibly relaxed, more willing to listen.
Good. It meant he did not realize she could summon her axe back, which meant that he did not recognize her, and had not seen her throwing it and retrieving it. It was another reason to not kill him, and she liked that.
"I am here by accident," she explained, hands out in a placating gesture. "I was walking in my own woods. I was looking for something. I used a spell of seeking, and I accidentally breached a border that our territories share. I was able to break it because we have been living next to each other for years, and I am attuned to your defenses without realizing it. I did not mean to intrude, I promise. The breach is nearby. I can find it. I can leave the same way I came in."
The boar snorted and slowly rounded on her, his eyes glinting with thought and suspicion. He turned and slowly walked into the woods the way she had originally come. While his back was turned, Faye quickly pocketed the chip of broken tusk lying on the ground. It would be powerful for scrying or binding if she wanted to track him again. He paused at mouth of the trail, eying her warily. Faye nodded to him, walked over to collect her axe, and followed him at a respectful distance.
They walked along the trail, climbing back up the slopes where Faye had first lost the way. Her mind raced as they walked. She was terrified and exhilarated, wanting to flee and lusting for battle all at the same time. This was Freya's forest, she was almost certain of it. No one else had sorcerery powerful enough to live with an intersecting territory so close to her own without Faye realizing it. She was living border-to-border with the wife of her most bitter, her most hated enemy. Freya was cast down from Odin, in no good favor with him, but that did not make Faye hate her any less. These forests were under the constant gaze of Odin's eye, and here she was walking through the forest with one of Freya's consorts. It was dangerous. It was an opportunity to gain leverage, to gain information. It was a curiosity.
The boar suddenly stopped. He stamped and snorted, weaving his tusks in agitation.
Faye reached into her waistband and fetched a carved bear tooth. It was inscribed with runes from her people, and it could detect the edge of some magical effects. She muttered an enchantment, and held it up to the darkness. It burst with glowing violet light in staccato pulses. Around her, a shimmering wall of violet light pulsed in reply. The wall was long, stretching out before her in either side like a palisade. It stretched through the forest as far as he could see, echoing in reply to the pulse of her own relic.
Curious, Faye walked along the perimeter, until she found a gap in the wall. A spot of ordinary forest, that showed a view of endless trees instead of responding to the pulse of her bear tooth. She tried passing through the violet wall, and nothing happened. She felt nothing, sensed nothing. She was in the Witch's forest on one side of the wall, and still in the Witch's forest when she stepped through to the other side. When she stepped through the gap, however, she slipped back into her own her forest, right where she first lost the game trail and used the seeking spell. If she walked around the opening of the portal, passing through the violet shimmering light, she stayed in her own woods. If she walked through the gap in the wall, she was back in the Witch's woods. Interesting indeed.
"Thank you," she said to the boar, who still eyed her suspiciously. "I am going to go into my woods. I will start healing the damage to your border that I caused. I might have to step back through to complete the spell. I will repair it so no one else can come through by accident like I did."
Faye stepped back into her own woods, and made the short hike up the game trail to the Glowcrest mushrooms. She found them exactly where she expected to. They glowed with a pale blue-white light, their caps broad as the palm of her hand and releasing lazy bursts of glowing spores that danced in the forest like fireflies. Faye took out her knife and harvested four of the six stalks growing out of the side of the fallen tree. Two stalks for herself. Two stalks to stay in the tree and renew the spores in the forest.
Two stalks as parley for the Witch. They were valuable.
She wrapped up the stalks in a pair of oiled pouches as she walked, wrapping them tightly to protect them against the falling rain now that they were severed from their source.
As she promised, Faye held up her hand and sang a mending song, holding up her inscribed bear tooth to monitor which chants and intonations had the best effect at closing the gap. She was able to reduce the breach between her land and the Witch of the Woods to the size of her own fist, but intentionally stopped before it sealed completely.
As an experiment, she tried walking straight through it. Nothing. She stayed in her own forest, not crossing over to the other side. Then, she went slowly, pausing at the exact spot where the breach lay. There was nothing at first, but if she focused carefully, eyes half-closed, she could see the Witch's forest swing back into view. She could smell, and feel the absence of rain on her skin, but the forest ended abruptly at the edge of the first few trees in a void blacker than the deepest night. She was standing in an alcove, a portal, a threshold adjoining her territory with Freya's.
The boar was there. He grunted at her and swatted his tail as she stepped through, but she held out the oilskin pouch in a gesture of peace. Perched in the branches above him was a hawk who stared at her, head cocked sideways.
Faye nodded the boar, and bowed to the hawk.
"I am sorry to cause you such a disturbance. I have healed the damage. I was not able to close the final gap, but no one can come through by accident."
The hawk stared at her.
"I have brought you two stalks of Glowcrest mushrooms. An apology. I think you will recognize them, but if you do not, they will let you speak to people you see in your dreams. Eat one quarter of a stem, raw, before you sleep. You must be very careful to only let good spirits speak with you. You will be more vulnerable in your dreams to bad suggestions, but they might sweeten your sleep or bring you insight."
The hawk tilted her head the other way, stared at her some more, then defecated.
Well, this would certainly not be the first time Faye had long one-way conversation with a completely ordinary forest animal who she had mistaken for a god. She tried one last tactic.
"I understand the language of hawks, if you would like to speak to me in this form, without revealing yourself," Faye offered.
The language of hawks, while elegant, was limited in complexity and vocabulary. It was based on eye contact, body posture, feather and movement. It was beautiful to watch, but communicated impressions and feelings, rather than specifics. But it was still more useful than a staring contest.
The hawk launched off the tree and alighted on the ground.
You are strange and unknown, the Witch replied, communicating in the silent language of the hawks. You are strong with magic. You intrude. You invade. You trespass. What are you?
"I am woman living in the woods. I accidentally came to your woods. Nothing else." Freya had not been in Odin's favor. She might genuinely not know who Faye was, and it was better to keep it that way.
I mistrust. You lie. You are deception! the Witch said, flaring her feathers.
"If you let me stay as an unusual woman in the woods, I will let you stay as a clever hawk."
Thinking about her as Witch, as a hawk, was better. Thinking about her as Freya, the wife of her enemy, made Faye want to wring her neck, however undeserved. She knew this woman had no choice, had been forced to go with Odin, but Faye carried too much rage, too much hatred, to feel any regrets about her.
You hide. You flee, the Witch said.
"I do not wish to be bothered, and neither do you."
You flee, the Witch repeated, snaking her head low to the ground with wings outstretched. You hide. The ravens hunt.
"The ravens are confused by my lands. They lose the way. My wards repel them. They seem to know your woods well, though."
I hate, I anger, I hate, I fear, I anger, I mourn, the hawk said, growing agitated.
"They see past your wards," Faye pressed. "You have been marked by Odin and cannot hide from them. They will never stop watching you."
The hawk let out a screech of rage and anguish, puffing out her feathers and beating her wings in fury. It was not the language of hawks or Vanaheim, but a tone of pure grief and despair. Of loss. Of separation and loneliness, the mournful cry of a woman cast down and held beneath the thumb of an enemy, exiled from her people.
It was a tone Faye knew well, one that bound them together in kinship. It was what Faye felt every time she emerged from the protection, comfort, and companionship of the simple life she now lived with Kratos. Oh good grief, now she was crying. Faye quickly wiped the tears from her own eyes, but it took a while for them to stop.
"The falcons in my land know me," Faye said quietly, drying her eyes. "They listen to me."
Curiosity, Freya said, hopping a few paces forward.
"There are not enough hunting grounds for all of them," Faye continued. "I could convince them to hate the ravens, to see them as enemies, to hunt them. And they will teach their offspring to hunt them. They can never kill them all, but they might bring you some rest. Some privacy. Would you like that?"
I mistrust. You are deception, Freya repeated, emphasizing the message with a low hiss.
"You have every right to mistrust me. This will be only on your terms. Think about it. I can bring some young falcons here, to this alcove, next summer. I can bring just one at first, and then breeding pairs, if you are pleased. You can choose to accept them, or send them away."
Freya was still for several long moments, unreadable, then asked, Why?
"Because I want to stab out all of Odin's eyes. Because I want to hurt him and deny him anything he seeks. Because I know what it's like to have him watching."
There was another long pause. I acknowledge. I consider, Freya said at last.
She flew up to a branch chest level with Faye. She cocked her head and stared at Faye with one golden eye. I respect, Freya said. I give gift. Goodbye.
She took flight to the sky in flurry of wingbeats, dropping something beside the leather pouch of Glowcrest mushroom. The boar took Faye's pouch in his mouth, and Faye took the offering dropped by the hawk. They nodded curtly at each other, and withdrew to their respective forests.
Back on her own side, Faye held up her hand and sang a mending song, holding up her inscribed bear tooth to monitor which chants and intonations had the best effect at closing the gap. She was able to reduce the breach between her land and the Witch of the Woods to the size of her own fist. As an experiment, she tried walking straight through it. Nothing. She stayed in her own forest, not crossing over to the other side. Then, she went slowly, pausing at the exact spot where the breach lay. If she focused carefully, eyes half-closed, she could see the Witch's forest swing back into view. She could smell, and feel the absence of rain on her skin. It was a small alcove that she could access. Very interesting.
Faye pulled out the pouch the Freya had given her, and looked inside. There was a small clay pendant, the image of a hawk carved into it. Faye brought the pendant to her eyes to study it closer, and the image of the hawk lifted off the token and flew into her mouth with a puff of glowing golden light. Faye choked and jumped back in surprise, swatting at it, but felt a warm and pleasant glow settle into her stomach. The image of the hawk glowed from the pendant.
She knew this type of gift. It was a blessing, a simple pendant charged with a benevolent fortune bound to it. Friends would exchange it to wish each other to express good wishes and intent. The blessing was not specified by whoever engraved the token. It would be activated in a moment of need from the recipient, and would take the form of something useful. Normally it took the form of something small, like a sudden glow of gentle heat on a cold day, a small light to light the way in the darkness, or sweetening the water in a well. Once the blessing was used, the image on the pendant would fade. Sometimes, the stories said, a blessing token could bring a great boon. But the stories Faye had heard happened to friends of friends of distant relatives, and never seemed to be substantial.
Fayed turned the pendant between her fingers as she walked home in the rain. The blessing glowed warm in her stomach, a welcome comfort for the walk home. She hoped her gift to Freya could bring the woman some good dreams, and was already thinking about how she was going to convince the gyrfalcons in her forest to hunt the ravens of Odin and give Freya a respite from prying eyes. Maybe they could be friends, when the time was right.
At the same time, Faye was also thinking about how she was going to systematically test the boundaries of the other woman's territory, and figure out a way to scry by using the boar's broken tusk. One could never be too careful or too prepared.