Faye dragged the dismembered bear carcass on its travois of branches back down to her house beneath sheets of pouring rain. She grunted and cursed as she tried stuff the unwieldy load into the shed, scrambling for footing in the muddy yard. The door to her house swung open. Kratos stood in the doorway, a black and looming silhouette cast against the glow of firelight yet again mimicking the image of the Destroyer from her visions.
Faye shuddered involuntarily and lost hold of the bear, the carcass tumbling backwards and on top of her as she slipped in the mud. The vision of the Destroyer dispersed as Kratos rushed to her side and steadied her by the elbow. He began to open the door for her, but she waved him off, heaving the game bags back over her shoulder.
"No, no," she said. "I have it, no need."
"The door is going to hit you in the face," he said. "It is unbalanced."
"I balanced it the way I like it," she insisted.
She remounted the narrow porch, and unhooked the door. It swung outwards hard, faster than she remembered, and hit her square in the nose. She groaned and shuffled around it, using her forehead to keep it from swinging out further while she stuffed the game bags inside. Faye slammed the door shut and quickly latched it. With her back still turned, she wagged a finger at her husband.
"Say nothing," she warned.
"I can rebalance it tomorrow."
"Nothing," she groaned. They had repeated this exact conversation at least five times. Damn door.
He smirked and stretched out one arm. She ducked against him, welcoming his warmth. They looped arms around each other's waists and walked back towards the cabin. Back to the version of her life where there were no gods hunting for her, no prophesies to follow, no unfulfilled oaths nagging at the back of her mind. As they stepped across the threshold of their home, Faye gladly left the visage of golden-eyed ravens and the Witch of the Wildwoods behind her.
Fire crackled in the hearth, and her enormous tea kettle was simmering on the stove top. Kratos brewed her a mug while she shucked off her layers of soaked clothing, stripping down until she was completely naked. He brought her a mug of tea, which she accepted, and offered her a heavy robe, which she declined. She liked the feeling of water steaming off her bare skin in the searing heat near the hearth, and she also liked how he looked at her.
"What do you intend of the bear hide?" he asked, settling back in his seat.
His questions were always simple, always constrained to the needs of a husband and wife living in the wilderness. He avoided the more complicated questions, such asking why she felt the need to stay out in the middle of the night collecting mushrooms.
"Blankets in our Western outpost shelter," she said. "It would be nice if we could have a warm night of sleep without needing to come back all the way here."
"Blankets," he repeated, skeptically.
"Well, I would like to have a warm night of sleep while I am out," she said. "You are welcome to sleep in a pile of leaves in a ditch. What news of the south rim?"
She untied her braid and wrung her hair out into the fur rug, taking care to swing her hips as she moved, and turn her body in just the right way to have the firelight cast shadows and highlights across her body.
"New colony of settlers," he said, tracking her every movement. "About forty of them. Not enough fighters. They will not survive long."
"Setting up just before winter? They must be very desperate to come now. Driven off from somewhere else, maybe. We could help them a little bit," she suggested. "Pass by every now and then this winter, kill off the Draugr, destroy any nests. It is no big trouble to us."
"Even if we do, we could not kill them all," he countered. "A few will always get through. We cannot protect those foolish enough who try to live here are not ready to fight."
"I suppose not," she said reluctantly. "Maybe the next one. It would be useful to have more people nearby to trade with."
If the group of settlers were larger, more established, with more fighters, then she and Kratos could possibly make a difference with patrols to keep the numbers of enemies thinned out. With a group so small and weak, though, it would only take a handful of Draugr to devastate the colony.
Behold Laufey, last prophet of the surviving Jotnar, who will not even protect her immediate neighbors from dying in fear and agony, she thought acridly.
Faye combed her fingers through her hair. The pending demise of the colony was too reminiscent of the desolation of Jötunheim. She did not want to think about that, now. Fortunately, she had a few ways to keep her mind on the present.
"Would you like to come over here?" she asked, twisting a strand of hair around her finger and raising an eyebrow to her husband.
Kratos stood and crossed the room towards her. He offered her the heavy robe again, eyes locked with hers. Faye put her hand on it as if to take it, but let it fall to the ground in a heap.
"I will not be needing that," she said, taking his hand and leading him to their bed.
Later that night, as they lay together in the dark, Faye could not sleep. They were resting in piles of fur on the floor because the bed, while sturdily built, was not indestructible and had been in eminent danger of collapse. She felt flushed, giddy, exhausted, satiated, exhilarated, lustful, and sleepy all at the same time. Her muscles trembled in all the right places, and she was still seeing starbursts. Overlaid on top of it all, almost as an afterthought, there was a sharp pain digging somewhere deep in her chest. Nagging. Insistent. Damn enchanted spear shard. Probably sawing around her lung somewhere.
Exuberance billowed up inside her, too much to be contained, too much for her to just lay quietly on the floor. She stood up and crossed into the adjacent room, back to the hearth, and dug through her discarded clothing. Her fingers closed around the blessing pendant, and she pulled it out of her pocket. As she suspected, the image of the hawk blazed inside of the pendant, strong enough to cast a fire-red glow across the room where before it had been only a dim outline.
Faye shook her head and chuckled. The exact nature of the blessing, of course, was not explicitly set when the spell was cast. Well, the last few hours had been one hell of a blessing. Based on how the inscription of the hawk glowed, it looked like it was still active. Faye grinned, tempted to rouse her husband from sleep, again, and keep going, but she had sensed she was reaching even the end of his endurance.
A jolt of pain shot through her chest and sobered her. For some reason, the shard seemed particularly intent on killing her at the moment. Normally she had plenty of warning that it was awakening again. She went back into her clothing, and dug out the vial of elixir she had distilled the day before. She had put off the chore of taking her elixir long enough.
She pinched her nose and downed the elixir in one gulp, chasing it quickly with an entire mug of lukewarm tea mixed with congealed honey. The acrid aftertaste coated her throat, drowning out the pleasant scents of cedar wood and fire. It took all her willpower to not retch it back up. That was the worst of it. She would have a splitting headache for a few days, maybe a few incoherent visions, but that would be it.
Except something did not feel quite right. Faye sank back onto her haunches. A buzzing started in her ears, faint at first, and then roaring into a crescendo that clattered back and forth in her skull, amplifying with each echo. The view of her hearth vanished and she plunged into a vision like diving into cold water.
A house stands alone amidst a sea of timbers, tiny and small against the expanse of wilderness. A child plays in the yard. The Mountain towers above the landscape as a sentinel, swallowing the horizon. Seasons churn by like a disc of clay on the potter's wheel. Cycles of life, decay, growth, swirling in repeating fractals of the seasons and movement of game. The child morphs into an adolescent with the winds of time, and then begins to run toward the Mountain. The faces of the Aesir flash in succession as the child runs, filling up the remainder of sky in the space between stars. Magni. Modi. Thor. Baldur. Odin. Nowhere is safe from their eyes.
Tyr and Laufey stand together at the Lake of Nine. Together they hold up a shield, the Lake of Nine rippling around as the World Serpent emerges and the waters sink. The child runs behind the cover of the shield, followed by a shadow of a hulking figure. The shadow alternates forms, shifting constantly. In one moment the shadow is a cloak and spear. In the next, the shadow is a menace, a danger, a muscular black silhouette rising from a haze of red, dual blades raised overhead. The Destroyer. The shifting futures weave together in a cacophony of noise and light. The faces of the Aeir crack and dissolve from the sky. The child casts open the gates of Jotenheim, bells and horns tolling. At the same time, in another strand of date, The Destroyer rises above the landscape and casts all of existence in chaos and bloodshed.
The vision dissolves into black, leaving only the glowing form of a child. The child shrinks to an infant, and then to a single seed of light against a gathering storm. The inscribed hawk from the Witch's pendant stands before the wind, wings outstretched in a fiery shield, guarding the seed as inky black clouds roll in. The black clouds dissolve into mist against the flames of the hawk's wings. The storm grows. The hawk struggles in the wind, buffeted by the strengthening clouds, the black tar eroding away at her wings. The clouds morph into a churning torrent of black tendrils. The hawk pounces on the seed, encircling it in her wings, tucking around it as the onslaught of darkness consumes her.
"Loki," Faye whispered in astonishment as the vision dispersed. He hand went to her belly, where she now sensed a golden seed of light forming in her womb. Now? Why?
And the last image… the hawk from the pendant... she glanced down. In one hand she held the elixir, a small drop inky black drop remaining in the bottom. In the other, she held the pendant, the image of the hawk was beginning to shatter, cracks of light seeping between the engraved image, the clay growing brittle beneath her fingers
Oh. That. Really? For fuck's sake.
Induce vomiting. Now. Fast. Fast, fast, fast. Fingers down the throat. Now. Harder. Gagging, coughing, no vomiting yet. Not enough. HARDER. Finally she retched, coughing up the tar-like healing elixir onto the wooden floor, mixed with the contents of her last meal. She shoved her fingers down her throat again, heaving until she was sure there as nothing left. She focused on the feel of the elixir moving within her body. The elixir pulsed through her veins, bringing her life, and threatening to kill the new one inside of her. The blessing of the Witch was neutralizing it, but would not last much longer.
Vomiting was not good enough.
Faye clawed through the remnants of the fire, digging out charcoal with her bare hands. The flames seared her fingers but she carried on, heedless to them. She crushed the burning coals in her hand to cool them, and then shoved them into her mouth. She swallowed charcoal by handfuls, until she could not take the blazing pain any more, and knelt on the floor, panting, waiting for the agonizing minutes it took her throat and hands to heal.
She slipped in and out of visions. In one moment, she was at her hearth, and in the next, she was staring at a sky filled with stars, or standing by a the edge of a lake, or immersed in flashing scenes of future battles. By her knee, the pendant crumbled to dust.
"Faye? Are you alright? I heard you choking."
Kratos emerged from the sleeping quarters, and knelt down by her side. He gathered her hair back out of her face. She focused on the sensation of touch, and leaned against him, letting his solidity bring the cabin back into focus, letting the visions go dormant.
"I'm pregnant," she said. It did not really explain why she had vomited on the floor and smeared ash all over her face.
He went rigid next to her, hand coming off her back. "Are you… sure? How… did that happen?"
"I am sure," she said, wiping her face. "And I could tell you exactly how this happened, but I think you can make a pretty good guess."
"Why now, after so long," he rumbled, making it clear he knew she was being intentionally obtuse. He pulled away from her.
She needed to explain everything to him. She needed him as full ally now, not someone she only allowed into a small part of her life. She always thought he might come into the story this way, and then it was so many decades without anything happening, and now this. He deserved to know. And then he deserved to choose if he was going to become part of the story, or not. The same way she found it increasingly hard to ask someone what their name was the longer she knew them but could not remember their name, the more lies she told to Kratos, the harder it was to stop. She had no idea how to begin untangling them, so she started picking at the outermost threads, starting with the easiest truths.
"Ever since I met you, I have been taking this tonic," she nodded at the elixir vial. He had seen it before. "I stopped very recently. I think it was acting as a contraceptive." D
"Could you stop it?" he asked.
"Stop what? Being pregnant?" She looked at the last drop left of the elixir. In most circumstances, it was a reasonable question. She needed the elixir for to prolong her own life. She was going to have to do something very clever if she wanted to survive past tomorrow without it. But this was Loki she was dealing with now. Drink it, and the prophesy would be over. She would cast off her last duty to her people entirely. Fail them.
"I could," she said. She narrowed her eyes at him. "But I will not. Do not ask me this again."
He stood up and began to stalk the room like a caged predator. She watched him, waiting to see if he was building to a response and just needed time, but he did not speak and his movements got faster, more frantic as he paced.
Without anything to anchor her, she began to slip in and out of visions again. The view of the hearth faded and turned to a slate of solid stone. The World Serpent, as he would appear painted on a shrine, towered over her. Faye shook her head quickly, and drummed her fingers against the floor to the rhythm of a chant. Damn it, she was not used to negotiating such strong visions outside of the protection of a shrine, without a communal ceremony to help guide her, keep her tethered. Rhythm. Touch. Focus. Back to the present. The room snapped back into view.
"Kratos," she said, catching with her gaze and bringing him to a halt. "Talk to me. What is on your mind?"
He held up his forearm, covered in bandages from the long centuries of use. He ran his hand over the bandages, and then across his skin, examining the pale color of ash in the firelight.
"My curse should have ended with me," he said. "No good can come of this. My legacy is marked with pain and death. It should never continue."
"This is my child you speaking about as well," she said, her voice growing low and dangerous. That was all she could trust herself to say.
He startled at that, lowering his arms as if coming out of a trance of his own.
Faye struggled to keep her stirring temper in check. The last thing they needed was a shouting match. When it came to explosive temper tantrums, she could dish it out as much as she could take it. The enchanted blade wriggling through her left lung did not help much either. She steadied herself, using the last few ounces of her waning patience, and tried to speak to the fears underlying the words, rather than the words themselves.
"You speak as though your legacy is locked by your past. You speak as if you are already dead, your story at an end. It is not over yet, Kratos. You have an immortal life ahead of you. Rise up, change, build yourself a new legacy to be proud of. Be better than before."
He paused, gazing into the fire, chewing on her words.
She was getting to him. What would work best now, more contact, or a little bit of space? Space, she decided. Push hard, then back the pressure off, then, ideally, let him be the one to reengage. It was a lot like working with a skittish falcon. Push too hard, without taking pauses, and you would get an explosion of anger.
Faye walked to the dining area, and started setting out her mortar, pestle, and incense. For a while, she actually worked, setting out the beginnings of a half-baked, hare-brained plan that might keep the enchanted spear blade from killing her, albeit at great risk to her sanity. Then after a few minutes she ran out of items she could prepare while staying relatively quiet and unobtrusive. The last thing she needed were the Glowcrest mushrooms, and they were tucked in an oilskin bag lying where Kratos brooded by the flames.
She could just go quietly retrieve them, keep her mysterious potions her own business as she normally did. Or she could tell him what she was doing, and why. Maybe it would break him out of his mood, and maybe he would help. There was always the chance he would be angry, possibly very angry, possibly let's-try-to-chop-each-other's-heads-off-again-angry, which could get interesting, but that was fine. It was nothing she had not navigated before, especially in their early days getting to know each other. With his back turned to her, it was hard to tell his mood. His shoulders were sloped, his arms unclenched at his sides. She took a gamble that he was ready to listen again.
"I need to tell you something important about the gods of this land," she said.
"I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GODS OF THIS LAND!" he roared, wheeling towards her.
Oh great, now with the yelling. This could be fun, she thought. But then she screamed in horror.
He was consumed in a backdrop of flames. The hearth, the dining area, all of it began to dissolve. The air stank of blood and sulfur, ash raining down from the sky and landing in her eye lashes. Kratos was deformed, monstrous, twisted beyond himself and into something much worse. He raised the blades of chaos raised high in each hand, the ceiling of their hut shattering open to reveal a sky choked out in fire.
Just a vision, she told herself, fighting the primordial panic. Strong one. Get a tether. Link yourself back. Send the vision away. Not real. Not here.
She scrambled backwards from the overwhelming sight, the twisted visage of her husband menacing on her as an embodiment of pure malevolence. In her panic she reached her hand out for the only thing she knew she could grab. Her axe swung into her hand and she held it out before her, not in a practiced fighting stance, but instead in a desperate and sloppy ward against the nightmare. She pressed her forehead against the metal, focusing on the familiar notches and cracks worn into the blade from dozens of fights. With a shaking breath, she forced the vision to fade, bringing the view of the hut back to her.
She was cowering in a corner, curled up on the ground, hiding her face behind her axe. Kratos was half way between the hearth and where she stood, an arm outstretched towards her. He slowly let it drop, a look of complete and utter defeat on his face. He backed away from her, staring at his hands. Then he turned and bolted, hitting the back door hard enough to split the wood open as he fled into the rain.
"Kratos, wait," Faye croaked after him. She did not sound very convincing. Her voice barely carried across the room, let alone into the night.
She rose shakily to her feet and leaned out through the shattered door, looking into the forest. She wanted to go after him. Explain that she was terrified because she was drinking knowledge from the enormity of space-time continuum without her usual safety nets and buffers. Explain that he could not scare her so easily by just stomping around and being a taciturn asshole.
But she was going to die very soon if she did not get started on her ill-advised plan to save herself without sacrificing Loki. He would just have to stay out there.