transemacabre (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
transemacabre) wrote2011-09-14 12:27 am
transemacabre) wrote2011-09-14 12:27 am
A Myth of Devotion (WIP)
Just sticking this here in case it gets ganked at NK. Will edit/revise later.
"He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you
but he thinks
this is a lie, so he says in the end
you're dead, nothing can hurt you
which seems to him
a more promising beginning, more true."
-- 'A Myth of Devotion' by Louise Glück
When mankind was yet new to the northlands, and cast their eyes to the skies and prayed, they sent their prayers to Herfodr Bor, Father of Hosts, king of the aesir, who dwelled in the land of Asaheim. And in Asaheim was found Bor's stronhold, Asgard, and in Asgard was found the silver-thatched valaskjalf, the hall where Bor himself did dwell, along with the aesir and many others of diverse races besides.
Within this hall, in the dark of night, a child slept, forgotten. The shouts of men and the growl of thunder and the cracking of wood woke him; little Odin sat up fearfully, peering into a darkness so absolute that for a moment he thought he might be blind. But he turned his head, and saw a sliver of light slipping through the crack between his door and the wall. The light flickered; his father's warriors stomped past, walking by torchlight, their heavy feet shaking the walls and floors of Bor's valaskjalf. Odin waited until the light was nearly gone, then slipped from his bed and fled down the hall on bare and silent feet.
Odin could hear the roar of men boasting, then the sound of metal-on-metal; there was fighting in Valholl. Above the din, there boomed a loud and powerful laugh, the laughter of King Bor himself. Perhaps his sword had drank of heart's blood, the mead of weapons. Odin ran away from Valholl, hugging the walls and keeping to the shadows, and made his way to his mother's chambers. No torches lit his path, and Odin went by memory and feeling. He crept into Bestla's chambers, standing on tip-toes to pluck at the furs hanging from her bed. Bestla herself slept atop the furs, naked. She stirred, and in the darkness Odin saw her eyes glow red like coals, and then she reached down and picked him up one-handed.
Odin rested his head in the curve between her breast and her shoulder. Her hand, tipped with wicked black nails, tenderly cupped his skull. The lady Bestla was immense, a head taller than her husband, and that was because she was a giant and no lady at all.
"My broodling," she murmured, "did the noise wake you?"
Odin nodded into her shoulder. Bestla sighed, and her breath frosted against Odin's skin. His mother's magicks gave her the form of a woman, and without those enchantments her touch would blacken the skin even of the child she had borne, but the only indication of this was Bestla's icy breath.
"What did I tell you to do, when you are frightened?"
"To study my runes," Odin said, but added, "But it is too dark, mother!"
"Dam," Bestla reminded him gently. "Jotnar have no mothers, we have dams."
"But I'm an Asgardian," Odin said stubbornly.
"And I am not," said Bestla. Her hands closed over his, and Odin remembered the many lessons she had given him in rune-magicks, her hands guiding his much smaller ones as he learned the shapes of the runes, just as his father's hands guided Odin's hands as he learned to shape wood. "Charms to guard you in battle," Bestla said, and Odin mouthed the runes' names silently. "Charms to blunt the weapons of your foes. Charms to break chains. Charms to quiet the ocean's storms, and charms so that a lover will scorn you not." She clutched Odin tight to her. "Twas the last charm that bound your sire to me."
Bestla had told Odin the story many times, so that Odin thought he had always known it, had it whispered in his ear as he lay in his cradle, had it sang into his marrow even as he grew beneath Bestla's beating heart. Of how Bestla, born genderless, of the blood of ancient Ymir, had forsaken her home to follow Bor Burisson here to Asgard, had forsaken her Jotun form for that of an ásynjur woman, and sat faithfully at Bor's feet ever since. And from them was born Odin, the first of a new breed, for this was before the vanir had deigned to mix their proud blood with Jotuns and aesir alike, before Heimdall's nine mothers had brought him forth. Never had there been a child born such as Odin.
"Nothing loves as a Jotun loves," Bestla promised her son. "For our love is more eternal than the sun and the moon, which may be devoured by wolves and die, but a Jotun's love is never devoured and dies not; and more eternal than the aesir themselves, for it is Idun's apples which give them life eternal, and without them they would starve, but a Jotun's love never starves and dies not. Bestla loves Bor so long as there is a Bestla."
In her grip, Odin shivered.
The door flew open, and slammed against the wall. Odin shook in his mother's grip, but Bestla herself did not flinch. Silhouetted against the doorway, backlit by a flickering torch held by drunken servants, stood Bor. Bor Burisson, Bor Asgard's-king, Bor Father-of-Hosts. He stumbled forward into the bedchambers, groaning, "Blast it, help me shuck these boots."
Bestla abandoned Odin on the bed, and knelt before her husband, pulling the boots from his feet. Bor leaned upon her shoulder, swaying slightly. He looked up and only then did he see Odin, and his eyes went wide. "What in all the hells is the boy doing here!" Bor cried.
"Odin was frightened by the din," Bestla told him, pushing the boots aside. "Our broodling sought me here. Let Odin stay the night, and sleep between us."
Bor pulled off his shirt, revealing a muscular torso crisscrossed with scars and streaked with soot; Asgard's king must've fallen into the fireplace while brawling in Valholl. "I came to your chambers tonight to lie with you," he told Bestla. "The boy was not part of it. Send him back to his room. I don't like the way you coddle him anyway, you'll make him strange, filling his head with that Frost Giant nonsense."
Bestla regarded him reproachfully. "If you would have me, then have me," she told him. "But you are Odin's sire, speak to Odin himself. Speak not through me."
Bor groaned but kicked at the bed, shouting, "Out, out with you!", sending Odin tumbling from the bed and running for the door. At the threshold Odin stopped, peeking back in, hoping to see his mother upbraiding his father for his cruelty, but all he saw was Bor already pushing Bestla back onto the bed. So he fled back down the hall, back the way he'd come.
The night was darker still, and somewhere on the slippery path to his chambers Odin stumbled and went sprawling. He landed on his belly, his hands scraping the stones, his foot twisting painfully. He lay frozen for a moment until dull pain seeped into his consciousness, and Odin whimpered and curled in on himself. His whimper echoed down the hall, but no one came to find him, and that made him sob, for he felt very small and very alone. He wanted Bestla to come and fuss over him; he wanted Bor to come and sweep him up in his strong arms.
Footsteps behind him, and Odin's sob hitched in his throat, and relief flooded his body. Had his parents heard him after all? But the footsteps were much too light to belong to either Bor or Bestla, and Odin's joy burned away like morning's dew when he realized it was just some stranger. Some court lady or guard or even some elf or monster come to stare at the princeling's scraped knees and palms.
But it was none of these. Odin looked up to see a girl, golden as a sovereign, younger even than he. She came and sat beside him, and rubbed his back. "Are you hurt bad?" she asked. "Should I go fetch my father?"
Odin sniffed. "What is your father going to do to help me?"
"My father is a great healer," the girl assured him. "If your ankle is broken, he can fix it." Her hand hovered over his ankle. "May I touch?"
Odin was afraid he'd howl from pain, but he didn't want her to know that. "If you wish," he said.
She rested her hand on the ankle, and there was a little pain, but when Odin didn't flinch or cry out she began to rub gently. They sat there for some minutes as the girl rubbed sensation back into Odin's aching ankle, and he wiped at his face and said, "I think I can walk now."
"Let me help," she said, and put his arm about her shoulder and walked with him to his chambers. When they made it to his door, Odin turned to tell her goodnight, but she dropped a curtsey before he could say a word.
He flushed. "You knew all along I was the prince?"
The girl smiled. "Of course I knew." And from far down the hall came a cry, a woman's voice calling for Frigga! Frigga! and she quickly said, "I have to be going. Farewell!"
"Thank you," Odin said, but she was already gone.
***
Odin sought after her for some days, without success. There were not so many children in Asgard; there were many warriors in gleaming helms, many beautiful women clad in furs or silks or sometimes even belts made of coins, but few children. All he knew was that the girl's name was Frigga, and that her father was a healer, but that helped him but little. At last, Odin went to King Bor, who was sitting at the head of his table, devouring a boar with a host of warriors to his left and a host of warriors to his right.
Odin approached respectfully, waiting to be acknowledged. Bor was in a good mood tonight, and when he saw his son he pulled him into his lap and favored him with a bite from the succulent meat he held. "That's a good lad! Eat hearty! You'll grow into a great warrior yet... perhaps a king one day!"
Odin twisted in his father's lap and peered up at him. "Father-King," he said, "may I ask you a question?"
Bor drank deeply of his mead and slammed the empty tankard on the table, demanding more from the serving wenches. "Go ahead," he said.
"Do you know of a girl named Frigga?" Odin chewed at his lip. "Her father is a healer--"
"A girl!" Laughter bubbled from Bor's throat. "You hear that?" he asked, turning to the nearest of his warriors. "Already asking after a girl. He's my son, that's for sure!" His warriors roared with laughter.
Odin despaired, but then a tall figure draped himself over Bor's shoulder and whispered into Odin's ear, "Fear not, my prince. I know of whom you speak, she is Fjorgyn's daughter." Odin looked up to see the god Od, his father's oldest friend, the god of comings and goings. It had been Od who had given Odin his tooth-gift when Odin grew his first tooth; it had been Od who'd given Odin his name.
When Bestla brought the newly born child to Bor, Bor had been unsure of what to do with him. To feed and clothe and name him was to accept him as his heir, but how could a half-breed Jotun rule Asgard? And yet Odin was his first-born son and no man wishes to cast out a healthy boy to die. So Bor turned to his oldest friend, Od, who advocated for the mewling, helpless child.
"Let him live," urged Od. "I know the boy has a grand fate."
"Very well," said Bor. "But though Bestla and I may have given him life, so have you, and so he shall bear your name. As you are Od, he shall be Odin."
And so it was that Odin came to bear his name, which like Od's meant something between poetry and frenzy.
Od and Odin agreed to meet the next evening. It was a propitious decision, for Bestla chose that morning to go into one of her trances, and when she was lost to the spirit world no one might reach her, not even her son; nor did he wish to, for the first time he had seen his mother go into her trance, Odin had been filled with a sort of horror unlike anything he knew. It was like watching ice break off a glacier and crash into the sea, or the cry a deer makes when its heart's blood stains its breast, and it gives itself up for lost.
The vanir women who lived in Asgard practiced seid, but the art had been taught to them by the jotnar, who had perfected a raw and frightening form of magic, the purest form of which was practiced by none but themselves. Their ancestors had divined the future with runes long before the vanir or aesir had sat in silver-thatched halls and supped on good meat. While Bestla was in her trances, it was not unknown for fire to be sighted in the skies above Asgard, or for ancient trees to crack and groan, and blood pour from their limbs. When she was in her trances, Bestla would turn away even King Bor from her door. This was the only time she saved to herself.
Odin obediantly met up with Od at the bottom of the long flight of stairs. Od awaited him, whittling something from a block of wood with his knife. When he saw Odin, he pocketeted both knife and wood and swept the boy up into his arms. "Ah, look at you, you scamp! Doesn't the queen dress you more warmly than this?"
Odin flushed. The truth was he had dressed himself; he had slept beside Bestla in her big bed, and woke to find her burning wood in her grate. Knowing what this meant, Odin had put on his wrinkled tunic from the day before, clumsily wound his leg wrappings around his legs, and snuck from her chambers to scrounge up some food for himself. The maidservants had fled in terror hours before -- it was said anyone struck by the queen's gaze while she practiced seid would be accursed. King Bor's halls were mostly empty, and Odin assumed the king was gone boar-hunting. He half-thought Od would have gone with him, forgotten his promise from yesterday, and was pleased to be proven wrong.
Seeing the boy's embarassment, Od quickly shucked his own cap and sat in on Odin's head, a favor that made the boy smile, then sat him down and draped his own cloak over Odin's shoulders for warmth. "Come along," Od said, "and follow after, and be quiet."
Odin followed him down to the sacred grove, walking quickly to remain in-step with Od, and remain hidden in the dark folds of his cloak. The cool air whirled about them, playing with their hair and tweaking their noses, and it seemed to Odin that other, stranger, things danced just out of sight, on the fringes of perception, in the encroaching darkness.
Once inside the grove, Od went to lay beneath the gaping roots of a tree so long dead it had petrified into stone, and gestured for Odin to join him. There they laid for some minutes, until dusk's dark veil covered them completely. In the distance came a glow; and Odin watched as the glow came closer, and coalesced into torches, torches held by the uplifted hands of a small group of womenfolk. Vanir, distinguished by their surreally blue eyes and surreally blonde hair, even in the dim light; all but for the youngest, an Asgardian girl whom Odin recognized as Frigga, Fjorgyn's daughter. She carried a basket and went barefoot, despite the cold. The women stopped before an ancient apple tree, and the tallest and most beautiful of the women, Idunn by name, stepped forward and cupped one of the fruit with her hand. Odin watched as her lips moved, as she chanted or, as he liked to imagine, coaxed the tree to give up its fruit. The apple came loose in her hand, and Idunn dropped it into the basket that Frigga held aloft for her.
Odin tilted his head to peer up at Od. The elder god watched Idunn rapturously. With the innocence and wisdom of a child, Odin understood that Od loved her, had perhaps come here and watched her gather the sacred apples on many occasions.
The basket of sacred apples seemed to give off its own light, and as Frigga leaned over them, the soft glow illuminated her features, revealing the soft curve of her cheek, the benificent curve of her lips. Odin had known it was her at once; he had not needed his eyes to see, but he was glad of them, nonetheless.
In her chambers in Asgard, Bestla's black nail scratched across a plank of blackened wood in three jagged motions. They moved of their own accord, and she gazed in wonder at the rune she had cast. As she did in all her trances, she sought time and again for scraps of Odin's fate. In the fire-charred wood was etched the first rune of Futhark, a secret to Odin's fate. Bestla sealed this knowledge within her secret self, and cast the wood and its rune back into the grate. Some things were too sacred to be known by others.
Nights and days passed, and a great feast was held. It was Odin's name-day; he was a year nearer to manhood. The hall of Bor Father-of-Hosts was filled with guests and dignitaries, fierce warriors clad in bear-skins, beauteous maidens dancing in coined belts and beaded veils. At this feast, King Bor gave Odin the seat of honor at his right hand, and they ate from the same plate. From Od, Odin received his first dagger, the first true weapon he'd ever owned, made small for a boy's hand. Odin wore it proudly on his belt.
Everyone was getting well and truly drunk when the doors flew open, and a handful of new guests joined the festivities, blown in from the cold in a gust of snow and ice. "Bah!" cried King Bor, and he let fly a string of curses, but Bestla lept from her place at his side and flew into the arms of a strange figure: a Jotun two-heads-taller than an Asgardian, clad only in an animal's skin. As Bestla's arms wound around this stranger, her Asgardian form bled away, and Odin noticed the courtiers cringing away, repelled by the sight of their queen's skin burning blue, her eyes shining red.
But as Bestla pulled back, the enchantment took hold, and only her hand, which firmly clasped the Jotun's own, remained its true color. "Odin," she said, urging him to come forward, "come and meet my broodmate."
King Bor merely glowered, and did not forbid him to move, so Odin left the table and approached his mother and her -- her sibling, he realized. The Jotuns had no gender, and consequently had no brothers or sisters, but siblings, born of the same sire and dam, whom they loved full well as much as an Asgardian might love his or her brother or sister. Perhaps more, for Odin had never heard of Jotuns slaying their brothers, and that happened often enough at King Bor's court.
"Odin," rumbled Bestla's sibling in a voice that deeper and darker than the most perilous ravine. A brother, Odin decided immediately. "So you are Bestla's youngling. Have you earned your honor-name yet?"
"O Mimir," Bestla sighed, curling an arm around Odin to pull him close, "Asgardians do not change their names through their lifetime. Bor gave Odin his name at birth, and Odin he will remain all his days."
"Passing strange," said Mimir, narrowing his eyes. "But the ways of Asgardians are oft strange. Come, Odin; I have journeyed from afar, and bring you a guest-friend."
At that, a small face peered out from behind Mimir. All arms and legs hands too big for his body, this was Nal, Mimir explained, the heir of Jotunheim's allsherjargodi, whom the Asgardians called a king. Nal was perhaps half-a-head taller than Odin, and so Odin guessed he must be quite young. They sized one another up for a moment before Nal cautiously reached out and pinched Odin's shoulder between thumb and forefinger.
Odin snorted softly. "Wanted to get a-hold of me and see if I'm real?"
Nal's mouth fell open in a friendly grin. "Aye!" he said, so cheerfully that Odin knew at once he'd meant no offense. Nal was, after all, even younger than himself, and had likely never encountered another prince before (Odin had, on rare state ocassions, seen princes from Alfheim, but Bor had told him that the ljosalfar, the Light Elves, had more self-proclaimed 'princes' than a dog has fleas). Odin took out his new dagger and showed it to him, and Nal was properly awed. Soon enough, they were tumbling in the rushes like puppies.
Bestla looked on fondly as Mimir went forth to meet with King Bor. He made proper obeisance, neither groveling nor showing any sign of disrespect. Bor was not known for his temperance, and Mimir knew full well he was not counted amongst Bor's brethren. "Bor Father-of-Hosts, I bring glad-tidings from the allsherjargodi Hauk. May we share bread and mead with you?"
Bor grumbled under his breath. To share bread and mead would be to take the Jotuns as guest-friends -- something he was wroth to do since that humiliating row years ago which had resulted in Bestla fleeing to his court to throw herself on his mercy. But it had not been Hauk who cast her out, he reminded himself, but Afa, Hauk's brother, now moldering in his grave. Afa, who had sought Bestla for himself, Afa who had claimed Odin for his own even after Bor had consented to acknowledge the boy. Afa, who dared march to the gates of Asgard itself. Had anyone in all the realms ever been so deluded as King Afa?
The wooden tankard in Bor's hand splintered under his grip. "Share the mead. Share the bread." Let it never be said Bor Burason could forget not old grudges. "Who is the Jotunling my son plays with?"
Mimir inclined his head gracefully. "That is Hauk's heir, young Nal, whom Hauk has sent with me in hopes you would consent to foster the child."
Bor blinked in surprise. "Foster him? Why?" No Jotun other than Bestla had ever lived in Asgard, much less requested to send their child -- a prince -- to be reared in his halls.
"My people believe younglings learn better manners in other people's homes," Mimir said. "It would not be for so long -- just until Nal earns an honor-name. The allsherjargodi Hauk hopes that Nal will learn to sport with spear and sword, and, of course, that Nal and young Odin, my own sibling's child, will become guest-friends."
Bor scratched at the dark stubble on his neck. "He entrusts me to raise his child?"
"To rear a king," Mimir said. He inhaled deeply, hoping that King Bor grasped the enormity of what was offered him. Mimir, alone of all the souls in this hall, had any idea of how dear Nal was to Jotunheim, and how dearly his life had been bought. Afa had died without an heir; when the second sibling, Hauk, took Afa's place, the jotnar despaired, for Hauk had mated a third sibling, and the royal family was known to be not bountiful. The collapsed bloodline seemed destined to be fruitless. Years passed, and Hauk's sibling-mate, Igda, became ever more desperate, resorting to seid unknown to all but the most freakish of practioners. What it had cost Igda to finally bring forth Nal might never be known; Mimir feared it might cost Igda's very soul. The youngling had been born so weak that it was thought all in vain, but somehow it had survived to be given a milk-name: Nal, needle, for his stick-like limbs.
The care of Nal, the jewel of Hauk's court, had been entrusted to Mimir. And now Mimir had been sent to King Bor, who had taken Bestla as consort. Life was, indeed, full of wonders.
King Bor studied the two princes as they wrestled, trying to see who could break the other's hold. "Much will be said about this," he told Mimir. "They will say that I love monsters. That I am allowing my son to be reared as a Jotun. You know what will be said."
"I will trust your judgment."
Bor cursed again, striking his fist on the table before him. "It will not be for long! Swear it, Mimir. The boy will earn his name and then return to Jotunheim, where he belongs. And you, you will hold no honors at this court. I will not have it be said I favor Bestla's kin over mine own."
Mimir bowed again. "It is sworn."
***
The news that Nal was to stay on as his foster brother left Odin thunderstruck. Bestla clapped her hands joyfully as King Bor made the announcement, but Odin was beyond speaking.
"I'm staying!" Nal cried happily. He grasped Odin by the shoulders and shook him.
"F-forever?" asked Odin in his littlest voice. He had never dared imagine a playmate, much less one of like age and rank, staying with him in Asgard.
His uncle Mimir cleared his throat. "Nal will, of course, have duties of his own to attend to one day in Jotunheim," he told Odin. "But he will be raised in the halls of Asgard, and I will remain with him, as his kennari."
Bestla knelt at the foot of Bors throne, her cheek resting against his knee. Her eyes were soft, and she wore the secret smile Odin loved to see on her. She was pleased, he saw at once; her kin were honored, and the Jotun princeling would grow alongside her son, to be close as brothers.
King Bor favored her by stroking his hands through her hair. He felt at once his decision was the right one. Yes, Mimir was to stay here as well, but that was no shame to him, for a man's brother-in-law ought to have a seat of honor at his table. As for Nal, Bor would see to it they made an Asgardian out of him, and perhaps he and Odin together could undo some of the bad blood between Asgard and Jotunheim. The boys themselves were rapturous at the news; Bor had not noticed how lonely Odin had seemed until he had Nal to romp about with.
Shortly thereafter, Nal and his things were moved into Odin's room, and Mimir slept nearby. No longer did Odin awake in fright to a darkened, empty room. Now Nal's own deep breathing lulled him to sleep at night, and Odin spent no more nights sleeping in Bestla's bed. Mimir took over their studies, and Odin soon discovered how little he had known of Jotun magic. Bestla had taught him what she knew, but Mimir was a master of seid, and he had journeyed to many realms, and knew many kings by name. He knew how to skin-walk, and the secret names of things, and Odin felt sure that if he sat at Mimir's feet for a thousand years, he would not learn all Mimir knew.
Two days after Nal's arrival, Odin took him deep within the bowels of Asgard, following mossy steps so deep underground that the walls became cold to the touch, and the air smelled curiously of something that had been burnt long ago. The boys peeped around a corner to see a guard standing before an arched entryway and a heavy wooden door.
"What are you two doing here?"
Odin whirled around, his finger already at his lips, and startled so at the sight of her that he nearly tumbled backward and into the guard's full view. Frigga stood at the base of the steps, a satchel in hand.
"Eh? Hush, you!" Nal hissed at her, and the guard momentarily forgotten, he scampered to get a closer look. "Odin!" he said in a whisper that he thought was much softer than it was. "Look at it! What's wrong with it?"
Before Frigga could respond in outrage, Odin ran over and pulled Nal back, saying, "There's naught wrong with her, she's just a girl. Like my mother, only smaller."
"Bestla isn't a girl, Bestla is a Jotun," Nal told him, as though explaining something obvious to a very thick-headed person. "And she is nothing like Bestla. She smells strange."
"Strange!" Frigga jutted her chin out.
Odin shushed them as he pushed them further down the hall, out of the guard's hearing. "What are you doing down here, you're not supposed to be here," said Frigga.
"What are you doing here?" Odin turned the question back on her.
Frigga showed him the satchel in her hands. "I'm fetching and carrying for my father," she told him. Narrowing her eyes, she went on. "Don't you have lessons or something to be getting to?"
Odin shushed her once more, then looked about to make sure no one but themselves and Nal were about. "I'm taking Nal to see the royal treasure vault," he said.
Frigga's mouth fell open in shock. "You can't do that! The king will have you whipped!"
"Don't tell us what we can't do--" Nal began, but Odin pushed him back, bidding him keep quiet. Frigga looked from Odin to Nal, and then back to Odin.
"One day," Odin said confidently, "all Asgard will be mine to rule. If I want to show my friend the treasure vault, that's up to me."
"The guard will never let you by," Frigga pointed out, but even as she spoke, they heard approaching footsteps. The three children ducked into the sheltering shadows, and the young ásynjur woman who walked by was so intent on where she was going that she did not notice the small dark forms huddled in the darkness. She rounded the corner, and the next moment they heard her talking to the guard.
Instinctively knowing this was his chance, Odin crept closer and peeped back out. The woman obviously knew the guard, as she stepped forward and spoke to him in low, sensual tones. Odin motioned to Nal to join him by his side.
"Even if you get past the guard, how will you get through the doors?" whispered Frigga. Odin opened his palm to reveal runes drawn on his hand in red ocher. This spell, said to unlock any door barred to him, had been taught to him and Nal only this morning by Mimir. He hoped to put it to good use today.
Reluctantly, Frigga followed after the boys as they slipped by the guard and his woman. Odin touched the discolored metal lock on the door, and a moment later the door swung open with a creak. Frigga flinched and glanced guitily over at the guard, but the guard had backed his lover against the wall and had his hand until her skirt. Leaving them, Frigga followed Odin and Nal into the treasure vault. The door slid shut behind them, almost catching the hem of Frigga's dress as it closed.
Once within the vault, Frigga's teeth began chattering and she pulled her cloak tightly about her. Nal gave her a sidelong glance she misliked. Not all of us are icy-blooded Frost Giants, she wanted to tell him, but did not dare. Odin trotted on ahead, looking to the right and left as he went, Nal's long legs bringing him into step with Odin in moments.
"Look! The spear Gungnir!" Odin marveled at the legendary weapon. If it stood here as just another spoil of war, he could not imagine what else might lie within. He looked over to see Nal gaping at the huge axe which King Bor had, in ages past, taken from the crazed Titan Typhon.
Ahead of them, they found many more treasures: a strange tablet writ with words they could not read, a mounted orb that curiously seemed to gaze on them as though it were an eye, and then a polished mirrored surface that Odin almost passed by until he noticed something odd about it. The mirrored surface, if viewed from the front, appeared to be a mirror standing at the height of a man, but when one stepped to the side, it seemed to disappear, as though it possessed no width.
"It's -- it's lacking a dimension," said Nal wonderingly. "What do you think it does?" He reached out to tap the surface with a black nail.
"Isn't everything in here a weapon?" asked Frigga, looking about fearfully. Then she gasped aloud as she watched Nal's finger sink into the mirrored surface, as though it were not a mirror at all, but rather a doorway.
"Hold still!" Odin commanded, and he stepped to the side. Sure enough -- although from the front one could see Nal's nail simply pass through the mirror, from the side one could see nothing at all. Nal's finger seemed to disappear into thin air.
Frigga clasped her hands over her mouth. "There's something terrible about that thing," she mumbled through her fingers. "Leave it alone! Please!"
"Oh, don't be such a --" Nal began to say, but in that moment a hand reached out and caught the tip of his finger, and in shock he jerked back so hard that he tumbled over onto his bottom. A cackling voice seemed to emanate from the mirror.
"What was that?!" cried Nal, red eyes a-glow in the dim light. Odin leaped forward and peered into the mirror, and to his amazement, a curious face peered back.
The face belonged to a creature about his size, its features monkey-like but hairless. It blinked its mismatched eyes, one and then the other, and said, "Oh, did I gives ye a fright?" Its voice bubbled with humor, as though it did not so much speak as giggle. Odin's mouth moved but he was unable to speak. Then not one, not two, but three faces appeared, one a little snub-nosed, the second with peculiar curling whiskers, the third delicately feminine. As one, they all chattered in identical voices, reaching out hands that could not pass through the mirrored surface.
"Do they live in there?" Nal asked, wiggling Odin aside so he could get a look. The four creatures trilled at this, their tongues lolling out as a dog's might, their curious but cheerful faces lighting up at the sight of him.
"Do we lives in here!" cried one.
"It's ye who lives out there!" said another, giggling as though this were a great joke at Nal's expense.
"We would loves to join ye," said a third, thrusting out its bottom lip in mimicry of a pout. "But we cannot passes over to your side!"
Odin tried to sound authoritative. "Are there princes of your race who would speak to us?"
That brought on renewed laughter. "All of we is princes," said the snub-nosed creature. "Except on the twenty-fifth hour of every day, when we be not."
Odin wasted precious moments trying to make sense of this. Nal forged on right ahead. "I am Nal, and this is my friend, Odin," he told the entrapped creatures. "We are great princes of our people. Have you come to greet us and bring us tribute, as befits our rank?"
"Oh yes! Oh yes!" the creature with the mismatched eyes spoke above all the rest, although their mouths brimmed with positives, too. "You must be joinings us! We have such merries to make, oh, you'll forgets all your troubles."
Odin sank a hand into the mirrored surface; his hand sank through, and the creatures grasped at it in friendship, but when he drew back, they remained trapped on the other side. "It looks like you and I can pass through this gate, but they can't," he told Nal.
"Let's go and meet them!" Nal said eagerly.
"No!" Frigga ran forward and tugged at their shirts, trying to pull them back. "Please don't go in there! You don't know what's on the other side."
Nal scoffed at her. "And you do? Think, Odin, it's our chance to explore a new world, a world even Mimir has never been to!"
Odin studied the creatures in the mirror as they waved their hands at them in greeting. They seemed harmless enough, and he and Nal could just climb back through the portal to their world whenever they cared to. "All right, let's go!"
Frigga made a wordless cry of dismay when he said that. Odin sighed. "You don't have to go if you don't want to," he told her, not wanting to seem like he was sweet on her in front of Nal. He did like Frigga, but it seemed like all she'd done today was follow him about and scold him. He was ready for adventure.
"It's not safe!" she cried, but Odin was already climbing through the mirror. The creatures grasped him by his hands and shoulders and head, pulling him the rest of the way, and Nal caught hold of his leg and was pulled in after him.
The first thing Odin felt upon entry to this new world was a strange rush of blood to his head. Gravity! I'm the wrongside-up! He almost plummeted forward, but one of the creatures caught him under the arms and fixed him solidly to the craggy ground on which it stood. Nal howled as he came through, just as disoriented as Odin, but this time two of the creatures caught him and swung him between them.
"What -- what --" Odin's head swam. Although his feet were afixed to the craggy ground, below him he saw yet more ground, and felt the odd tug of gravity on the top of his head, making his hair stand on end. When he looked to the right and left he saw reality twisting about him in peculiar ways; here there was empty air, there pools of water suspended in midair, there a cleft of earth leading up or down or both ways at once.
The creatures capered about this odd landscape joyously; they had no fear. And when Odin took a cautious step, he did not fall to his doom on the rocks below. It was as though every surface in this world possessed its own gravity, and one might, with a little effort, climb from one surface to another. This world utterly lacked a true up or down.
When Odin stuck his head between his knees, he saw behind him the polished surface behind him, like a trapdoor in a floor. Looking through it, as though through a window, he saw Frigga's face, white with fright.
"Follow we! Follow we!" urged their hosts, and the creatures ran forward and pulled at his sleeves and tunic until Odin was stumbling after them. Nal, still reeling from disorientation, crawled more slowly. Reaching a cliff, the creatures simply stepped over, and following them, Odin found that the opposing face of the cliff also possessed its own gravity, holding him fast. Aways ahead, he spied a tent of foreign make, and as he neared it, Odin saw that it held a table piled high with food and drink.
The creatures gestured for him and Nal to take seats. "You likes us?" asked the creature with the mismatched eyes, climbing right up into Odin's lap.
"Your world is... amazing!" That was all Odin could think to say. The creature forced handfuls of food on him, and somehow Odin found a cup balanced precariously in his lap.
"So long since we hads distinguished guests!" said the creature with the feminine features, slapping her hands together.
"Distinguished guests!" echoed her friends. The mismatched eyed creature lept from Odin's lap and perched upon the table, watching him expectantly. When he turned, Odin saw a line of buttons up his back, and with a start, Odin saw that the buttons did not hold any clothing, but appeared to be sewn into the creature's skin.
"Nal!" he said, sitting upright. "Wait!"
Nal paused with a bit of bread halfway to his mouth. Neither he nor Odin had yet partaken of their hosts' goods. "What's wrong?"
"Look closer, Nal. Closer." Odin lifted his cup in his hand, but as he applied a little pressure, it cracked and revealed rotting wood. Nal, stunned, fisted his own bread and opened his hand to find it crumbled to dust. Around them, the creatures began tittering excitedly.
"It pleases not?" asked the creature with the curly whiskers in a disapproving tone. For the first time, Odin noticed the stitches that laced its head to its neck.
"It's trash," said Odin, standing up and pushing away his chair. "Your whole world, it's all made of trash."
Nal likewise stood, and flung the handful of dust upon the ground. "What is the meaning of this!"
The creatures lolled their tongues at them again, and Odin saw how the saliva glinted on their mouthful of small, pointy teeth. "Stay back," he commanded, pulling his little dagger from his place on his belt. "Don't touch us." Nal iced up his hand, creating a blue-white dagger that was brittle but sharp as knives.
At that the creatures made a sound not of fear, but of glee, and then Odin knew they had come for a fight. He pressed his back to Nal's so that both faced the creatures head on. "I don't want to die like this," Nal muttered.
The mismatched eyed creature pounced on them from above. Odin thrust his dagger upward, into its gut, and sand spilled out. "They're not alive!" Odin gagged in horror. "They're just walking dolls!"
Nal's ice flechettes caught two of the others full in the face, and they skittered backwards; caught off guard, they had not anticipated a ranged attack. The whiskered creature wisely flung a chair at Nal instead, the chair absorbing the impact of his flechettes. Odin kicked the mismatched eyed creature away from him, but in a moment it had found its feet and was springing for him.
"YOU DARE!"
The tent caved in around them all. Entrapped in the folds of fabric, Odin fought to rip his way clear. Nal was a bit faster, and he drug Odin out of the remains of the tent a moment later. As they tumbled away, Odin looked up and saw his father, King Bor, kick over the last pole of the tent. In the fabric wriggled four small forms as they scrambled to free themselves. King Bor brought down his axe upon one, cleaving it neatly in twain. Another he crushed underfoot, and the last two, he pulled from the wreckage and held them aloft.
Though Bor clutched them by the necks, the creatures had no need of air, and so spoke. "O mighty lord!" said the one held in his right fist, and the creature held in his left fist said, "O mercy!"
"You wretches," said Bor as he hefted them up to look him in the eye. "You near to killed my only son and my fosterling!"
"O king," said the creature caught in his right fist, "we cannot help it! It is in our natures."
King Bor flung them upon the ground, and before they could crawl away, or before Nal and Odin could avert their eyes, he stepped one foot on each of them, and then reached down with his powerful hands and pulled the creatures limb from limb. Sand and dust spilled from their guts, and their heads fell back, their mouths wide open as though in silent scream.
This being done, Bor turned his attention back to the boys. Snatching Nal and Odin up by the nape of the neck, he stomped back the way they'd came, to the portal. He tossed them through effortlessly, and then a moment later clambered through himself.
Skidding across the cool floor of the treasure vault, Odin gasped for breath. Before he could get his feet under him, big hands swept him up and sat him upright. His father's face, purple with fury, glowered at him.
"What in all the nine realms were you DOING?" roared Bor, and Odin would almost rather have been facing all four creatures on his lonesome. He cringed before Bor while he ranted. "If this girl --" and here Bor pointed to Frigga, who stood to the side, shaking with fear -- "hadn't come at once and told me what foolishness you'd gotten up to, you'd be dead now. Do you hear? DEAD!"
Odin tried to stammer an apology, but Bor threw him over his knee and thrashed him with a fury Odin had never known before. Odin's clothes protected him somewhat, and as it was when Bor was finished, Odin's skin was welted red from the back of his neck to his buttocks. Nal, weeping, flung himself prostrate before Bor.
"It was my fault," Nal told him. "I wanted to go! Don't beat Odin!"
"You -- you!" Bor was at a loss for words. "Did you not think they were locked away for a reason!?" He smacked Nal in the ear, sending the boy to the floor.
Nal curled into a ball, one hand clutching his ear. Frigga crawled across the floor to Odin, gathering him in her arms, as though to shelter him. Odin trembled. His skin felt as though it were blistered. He looked over to Nal and almost began crying. He had not thought Nal would try to take all the blame and save him from his thrashing.
King Bor slumped against the wall, sinking down into a slump. He buried his face in his hands, and even in the dim light, Odin could see the grief etched on his features. When Bor lifted his head, something wet glistened in his eyes, and even through his own pain, Odin knew that his father had been in fear for his life.
"He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you
but he thinks
this is a lie, so he says in the end
you're dead, nothing can hurt you
which seems to him
a more promising beginning, more true."
-- 'A Myth of Devotion' by Louise Glück
When mankind was yet new to the northlands, and cast their eyes to the skies and prayed, they sent their prayers to Herfodr Bor, Father of Hosts, king of the aesir, who dwelled in the land of Asaheim. And in Asaheim was found Bor's stronhold, Asgard, and in Asgard was found the silver-thatched valaskjalf, the hall where Bor himself did dwell, along with the aesir and many others of diverse races besides.
Within this hall, in the dark of night, a child slept, forgotten. The shouts of men and the growl of thunder and the cracking of wood woke him; little Odin sat up fearfully, peering into a darkness so absolute that for a moment he thought he might be blind. But he turned his head, and saw a sliver of light slipping through the crack between his door and the wall. The light flickered; his father's warriors stomped past, walking by torchlight, their heavy feet shaking the walls and floors of Bor's valaskjalf. Odin waited until the light was nearly gone, then slipped from his bed and fled down the hall on bare and silent feet.
Odin could hear the roar of men boasting, then the sound of metal-on-metal; there was fighting in Valholl. Above the din, there boomed a loud and powerful laugh, the laughter of King Bor himself. Perhaps his sword had drank of heart's blood, the mead of weapons. Odin ran away from Valholl, hugging the walls and keeping to the shadows, and made his way to his mother's chambers. No torches lit his path, and Odin went by memory and feeling. He crept into Bestla's chambers, standing on tip-toes to pluck at the furs hanging from her bed. Bestla herself slept atop the furs, naked. She stirred, and in the darkness Odin saw her eyes glow red like coals, and then she reached down and picked him up one-handed.
Odin rested his head in the curve between her breast and her shoulder. Her hand, tipped with wicked black nails, tenderly cupped his skull. The lady Bestla was immense, a head taller than her husband, and that was because she was a giant and no lady at all.
"My broodling," she murmured, "did the noise wake you?"
Odin nodded into her shoulder. Bestla sighed, and her breath frosted against Odin's skin. His mother's magicks gave her the form of a woman, and without those enchantments her touch would blacken the skin even of the child she had borne, but the only indication of this was Bestla's icy breath.
"What did I tell you to do, when you are frightened?"
"To study my runes," Odin said, but added, "But it is too dark, mother!"
"Dam," Bestla reminded him gently. "Jotnar have no mothers, we have dams."
"But I'm an Asgardian," Odin said stubbornly.
"And I am not," said Bestla. Her hands closed over his, and Odin remembered the many lessons she had given him in rune-magicks, her hands guiding his much smaller ones as he learned the shapes of the runes, just as his father's hands guided Odin's hands as he learned to shape wood. "Charms to guard you in battle," Bestla said, and Odin mouthed the runes' names silently. "Charms to blunt the weapons of your foes. Charms to break chains. Charms to quiet the ocean's storms, and charms so that a lover will scorn you not." She clutched Odin tight to her. "Twas the last charm that bound your sire to me."
Bestla had told Odin the story many times, so that Odin thought he had always known it, had it whispered in his ear as he lay in his cradle, had it sang into his marrow even as he grew beneath Bestla's beating heart. Of how Bestla, born genderless, of the blood of ancient Ymir, had forsaken her home to follow Bor Burisson here to Asgard, had forsaken her Jotun form for that of an ásynjur woman, and sat faithfully at Bor's feet ever since. And from them was born Odin, the first of a new breed, for this was before the vanir had deigned to mix their proud blood with Jotuns and aesir alike, before Heimdall's nine mothers had brought him forth. Never had there been a child born such as Odin.
"Nothing loves as a Jotun loves," Bestla promised her son. "For our love is more eternal than the sun and the moon, which may be devoured by wolves and die, but a Jotun's love is never devoured and dies not; and more eternal than the aesir themselves, for it is Idun's apples which give them life eternal, and without them they would starve, but a Jotun's love never starves and dies not. Bestla loves Bor so long as there is a Bestla."
In her grip, Odin shivered.
The door flew open, and slammed against the wall. Odin shook in his mother's grip, but Bestla herself did not flinch. Silhouetted against the doorway, backlit by a flickering torch held by drunken servants, stood Bor. Bor Burisson, Bor Asgard's-king, Bor Father-of-Hosts. He stumbled forward into the bedchambers, groaning, "Blast it, help me shuck these boots."
Bestla abandoned Odin on the bed, and knelt before her husband, pulling the boots from his feet. Bor leaned upon her shoulder, swaying slightly. He looked up and only then did he see Odin, and his eyes went wide. "What in all the hells is the boy doing here!" Bor cried.
"Odin was frightened by the din," Bestla told him, pushing the boots aside. "Our broodling sought me here. Let Odin stay the night, and sleep between us."
Bor pulled off his shirt, revealing a muscular torso crisscrossed with scars and streaked with soot; Asgard's king must've fallen into the fireplace while brawling in Valholl. "I came to your chambers tonight to lie with you," he told Bestla. "The boy was not part of it. Send him back to his room. I don't like the way you coddle him anyway, you'll make him strange, filling his head with that Frost Giant nonsense."
Bestla regarded him reproachfully. "If you would have me, then have me," she told him. "But you are Odin's sire, speak to Odin himself. Speak not through me."
Bor groaned but kicked at the bed, shouting, "Out, out with you!", sending Odin tumbling from the bed and running for the door. At the threshold Odin stopped, peeking back in, hoping to see his mother upbraiding his father for his cruelty, but all he saw was Bor already pushing Bestla back onto the bed. So he fled back down the hall, back the way he'd come.
The night was darker still, and somewhere on the slippery path to his chambers Odin stumbled and went sprawling. He landed on his belly, his hands scraping the stones, his foot twisting painfully. He lay frozen for a moment until dull pain seeped into his consciousness, and Odin whimpered and curled in on himself. His whimper echoed down the hall, but no one came to find him, and that made him sob, for he felt very small and very alone. He wanted Bestla to come and fuss over him; he wanted Bor to come and sweep him up in his strong arms.
Footsteps behind him, and Odin's sob hitched in his throat, and relief flooded his body. Had his parents heard him after all? But the footsteps were much too light to belong to either Bor or Bestla, and Odin's joy burned away like morning's dew when he realized it was just some stranger. Some court lady or guard or even some elf or monster come to stare at the princeling's scraped knees and palms.
But it was none of these. Odin looked up to see a girl, golden as a sovereign, younger even than he. She came and sat beside him, and rubbed his back. "Are you hurt bad?" she asked. "Should I go fetch my father?"
Odin sniffed. "What is your father going to do to help me?"
"My father is a great healer," the girl assured him. "If your ankle is broken, he can fix it." Her hand hovered over his ankle. "May I touch?"
Odin was afraid he'd howl from pain, but he didn't want her to know that. "If you wish," he said.
She rested her hand on the ankle, and there was a little pain, but when Odin didn't flinch or cry out she began to rub gently. They sat there for some minutes as the girl rubbed sensation back into Odin's aching ankle, and he wiped at his face and said, "I think I can walk now."
"Let me help," she said, and put his arm about her shoulder and walked with him to his chambers. When they made it to his door, Odin turned to tell her goodnight, but she dropped a curtsey before he could say a word.
He flushed. "You knew all along I was the prince?"
The girl smiled. "Of course I knew." And from far down the hall came a cry, a woman's voice calling for Frigga! Frigga! and she quickly said, "I have to be going. Farewell!"
"Thank you," Odin said, but she was already gone.
***
Odin sought after her for some days, without success. There were not so many children in Asgard; there were many warriors in gleaming helms, many beautiful women clad in furs or silks or sometimes even belts made of coins, but few children. All he knew was that the girl's name was Frigga, and that her father was a healer, but that helped him but little. At last, Odin went to King Bor, who was sitting at the head of his table, devouring a boar with a host of warriors to his left and a host of warriors to his right.
Odin approached respectfully, waiting to be acknowledged. Bor was in a good mood tonight, and when he saw his son he pulled him into his lap and favored him with a bite from the succulent meat he held. "That's a good lad! Eat hearty! You'll grow into a great warrior yet... perhaps a king one day!"
Odin twisted in his father's lap and peered up at him. "Father-King," he said, "may I ask you a question?"
Bor drank deeply of his mead and slammed the empty tankard on the table, demanding more from the serving wenches. "Go ahead," he said.
"Do you know of a girl named Frigga?" Odin chewed at his lip. "Her father is a healer--"
"A girl!" Laughter bubbled from Bor's throat. "You hear that?" he asked, turning to the nearest of his warriors. "Already asking after a girl. He's my son, that's for sure!" His warriors roared with laughter.
Odin despaired, but then a tall figure draped himself over Bor's shoulder and whispered into Odin's ear, "Fear not, my prince. I know of whom you speak, she is Fjorgyn's daughter." Odin looked up to see the god Od, his father's oldest friend, the god of comings and goings. It had been Od who had given Odin his tooth-gift when Odin grew his first tooth; it had been Od who'd given Odin his name.
When Bestla brought the newly born child to Bor, Bor had been unsure of what to do with him. To feed and clothe and name him was to accept him as his heir, but how could a half-breed Jotun rule Asgard? And yet Odin was his first-born son and no man wishes to cast out a healthy boy to die. So Bor turned to his oldest friend, Od, who advocated for the mewling, helpless child.
"Let him live," urged Od. "I know the boy has a grand fate."
"Very well," said Bor. "But though Bestla and I may have given him life, so have you, and so he shall bear your name. As you are Od, he shall be Odin."
And so it was that Odin came to bear his name, which like Od's meant something between poetry and frenzy.
Od and Odin agreed to meet the next evening. It was a propitious decision, for Bestla chose that morning to go into one of her trances, and when she was lost to the spirit world no one might reach her, not even her son; nor did he wish to, for the first time he had seen his mother go into her trance, Odin had been filled with a sort of horror unlike anything he knew. It was like watching ice break off a glacier and crash into the sea, or the cry a deer makes when its heart's blood stains its breast, and it gives itself up for lost.
The vanir women who lived in Asgard practiced seid, but the art had been taught to them by the jotnar, who had perfected a raw and frightening form of magic, the purest form of which was practiced by none but themselves. Their ancestors had divined the future with runes long before the vanir or aesir had sat in silver-thatched halls and supped on good meat. While Bestla was in her trances, it was not unknown for fire to be sighted in the skies above Asgard, or for ancient trees to crack and groan, and blood pour from their limbs. When she was in her trances, Bestla would turn away even King Bor from her door. This was the only time she saved to herself.
Odin obediantly met up with Od at the bottom of the long flight of stairs. Od awaited him, whittling something from a block of wood with his knife. When he saw Odin, he pocketeted both knife and wood and swept the boy up into his arms. "Ah, look at you, you scamp! Doesn't the queen dress you more warmly than this?"
Odin flushed. The truth was he had dressed himself; he had slept beside Bestla in her big bed, and woke to find her burning wood in her grate. Knowing what this meant, Odin had put on his wrinkled tunic from the day before, clumsily wound his leg wrappings around his legs, and snuck from her chambers to scrounge up some food for himself. The maidservants had fled in terror hours before -- it was said anyone struck by the queen's gaze while she practiced seid would be accursed. King Bor's halls were mostly empty, and Odin assumed the king was gone boar-hunting. He half-thought Od would have gone with him, forgotten his promise from yesterday, and was pleased to be proven wrong.
Seeing the boy's embarassment, Od quickly shucked his own cap and sat in on Odin's head, a favor that made the boy smile, then sat him down and draped his own cloak over Odin's shoulders for warmth. "Come along," Od said, "and follow after, and be quiet."
Odin followed him down to the sacred grove, walking quickly to remain in-step with Od, and remain hidden in the dark folds of his cloak. The cool air whirled about them, playing with their hair and tweaking their noses, and it seemed to Odin that other, stranger, things danced just out of sight, on the fringes of perception, in the encroaching darkness.
Once inside the grove, Od went to lay beneath the gaping roots of a tree so long dead it had petrified into stone, and gestured for Odin to join him. There they laid for some minutes, until dusk's dark veil covered them completely. In the distance came a glow; and Odin watched as the glow came closer, and coalesced into torches, torches held by the uplifted hands of a small group of womenfolk. Vanir, distinguished by their surreally blue eyes and surreally blonde hair, even in the dim light; all but for the youngest, an Asgardian girl whom Odin recognized as Frigga, Fjorgyn's daughter. She carried a basket and went barefoot, despite the cold. The women stopped before an ancient apple tree, and the tallest and most beautiful of the women, Idunn by name, stepped forward and cupped one of the fruit with her hand. Odin watched as her lips moved, as she chanted or, as he liked to imagine, coaxed the tree to give up its fruit. The apple came loose in her hand, and Idunn dropped it into the basket that Frigga held aloft for her.
Odin tilted his head to peer up at Od. The elder god watched Idunn rapturously. With the innocence and wisdom of a child, Odin understood that Od loved her, had perhaps come here and watched her gather the sacred apples on many occasions.
The basket of sacred apples seemed to give off its own light, and as Frigga leaned over them, the soft glow illuminated her features, revealing the soft curve of her cheek, the benificent curve of her lips. Odin had known it was her at once; he had not needed his eyes to see, but he was glad of them, nonetheless.
In her chambers in Asgard, Bestla's black nail scratched across a plank of blackened wood in three jagged motions. They moved of their own accord, and she gazed in wonder at the rune she had cast. As she did in all her trances, she sought time and again for scraps of Odin's fate. In the fire-charred wood was etched the first rune of Futhark, a secret to Odin's fate. Bestla sealed this knowledge within her secret self, and cast the wood and its rune back into the grate. Some things were too sacred to be known by others.
Nights and days passed, and a great feast was held. It was Odin's name-day; he was a year nearer to manhood. The hall of Bor Father-of-Hosts was filled with guests and dignitaries, fierce warriors clad in bear-skins, beauteous maidens dancing in coined belts and beaded veils. At this feast, King Bor gave Odin the seat of honor at his right hand, and they ate from the same plate. From Od, Odin received his first dagger, the first true weapon he'd ever owned, made small for a boy's hand. Odin wore it proudly on his belt.
Everyone was getting well and truly drunk when the doors flew open, and a handful of new guests joined the festivities, blown in from the cold in a gust of snow and ice. "Bah!" cried King Bor, and he let fly a string of curses, but Bestla lept from her place at his side and flew into the arms of a strange figure: a Jotun two-heads-taller than an Asgardian, clad only in an animal's skin. As Bestla's arms wound around this stranger, her Asgardian form bled away, and Odin noticed the courtiers cringing away, repelled by the sight of their queen's skin burning blue, her eyes shining red.
But as Bestla pulled back, the enchantment took hold, and only her hand, which firmly clasped the Jotun's own, remained its true color. "Odin," she said, urging him to come forward, "come and meet my broodmate."
King Bor merely glowered, and did not forbid him to move, so Odin left the table and approached his mother and her -- her sibling, he realized. The Jotuns had no gender, and consequently had no brothers or sisters, but siblings, born of the same sire and dam, whom they loved full well as much as an Asgardian might love his or her brother or sister. Perhaps more, for Odin had never heard of Jotuns slaying their brothers, and that happened often enough at King Bor's court.
"Odin," rumbled Bestla's sibling in a voice that deeper and darker than the most perilous ravine. A brother, Odin decided immediately. "So you are Bestla's youngling. Have you earned your honor-name yet?"
"O Mimir," Bestla sighed, curling an arm around Odin to pull him close, "Asgardians do not change their names through their lifetime. Bor gave Odin his name at birth, and Odin he will remain all his days."
"Passing strange," said Mimir, narrowing his eyes. "But the ways of Asgardians are oft strange. Come, Odin; I have journeyed from afar, and bring you a guest-friend."
At that, a small face peered out from behind Mimir. All arms and legs hands too big for his body, this was Nal, Mimir explained, the heir of Jotunheim's allsherjargodi, whom the Asgardians called a king. Nal was perhaps half-a-head taller than Odin, and so Odin guessed he must be quite young. They sized one another up for a moment before Nal cautiously reached out and pinched Odin's shoulder between thumb and forefinger.
Odin snorted softly. "Wanted to get a-hold of me and see if I'm real?"
Nal's mouth fell open in a friendly grin. "Aye!" he said, so cheerfully that Odin knew at once he'd meant no offense. Nal was, after all, even younger than himself, and had likely never encountered another prince before (Odin had, on rare state ocassions, seen princes from Alfheim, but Bor had told him that the ljosalfar, the Light Elves, had more self-proclaimed 'princes' than a dog has fleas). Odin took out his new dagger and showed it to him, and Nal was properly awed. Soon enough, they were tumbling in the rushes like puppies.
Bestla looked on fondly as Mimir went forth to meet with King Bor. He made proper obeisance, neither groveling nor showing any sign of disrespect. Bor was not known for his temperance, and Mimir knew full well he was not counted amongst Bor's brethren. "Bor Father-of-Hosts, I bring glad-tidings from the allsherjargodi Hauk. May we share bread and mead with you?"
Bor grumbled under his breath. To share bread and mead would be to take the Jotuns as guest-friends -- something he was wroth to do since that humiliating row years ago which had resulted in Bestla fleeing to his court to throw herself on his mercy. But it had not been Hauk who cast her out, he reminded himself, but Afa, Hauk's brother, now moldering in his grave. Afa, who had sought Bestla for himself, Afa who had claimed Odin for his own even after Bor had consented to acknowledge the boy. Afa, who dared march to the gates of Asgard itself. Had anyone in all the realms ever been so deluded as King Afa?
The wooden tankard in Bor's hand splintered under his grip. "Share the mead. Share the bread." Let it never be said Bor Burason could forget not old grudges. "Who is the Jotunling my son plays with?"
Mimir inclined his head gracefully. "That is Hauk's heir, young Nal, whom Hauk has sent with me in hopes you would consent to foster the child."
Bor blinked in surprise. "Foster him? Why?" No Jotun other than Bestla had ever lived in Asgard, much less requested to send their child -- a prince -- to be reared in his halls.
"My people believe younglings learn better manners in other people's homes," Mimir said. "It would not be for so long -- just until Nal earns an honor-name. The allsherjargodi Hauk hopes that Nal will learn to sport with spear and sword, and, of course, that Nal and young Odin, my own sibling's child, will become guest-friends."
Bor scratched at the dark stubble on his neck. "He entrusts me to raise his child?"
"To rear a king," Mimir said. He inhaled deeply, hoping that King Bor grasped the enormity of what was offered him. Mimir, alone of all the souls in this hall, had any idea of how dear Nal was to Jotunheim, and how dearly his life had been bought. Afa had died without an heir; when the second sibling, Hauk, took Afa's place, the jotnar despaired, for Hauk had mated a third sibling, and the royal family was known to be not bountiful. The collapsed bloodline seemed destined to be fruitless. Years passed, and Hauk's sibling-mate, Igda, became ever more desperate, resorting to seid unknown to all but the most freakish of practioners. What it had cost Igda to finally bring forth Nal might never be known; Mimir feared it might cost Igda's very soul. The youngling had been born so weak that it was thought all in vain, but somehow it had survived to be given a milk-name: Nal, needle, for his stick-like limbs.
The care of Nal, the jewel of Hauk's court, had been entrusted to Mimir. And now Mimir had been sent to King Bor, who had taken Bestla as consort. Life was, indeed, full of wonders.
King Bor studied the two princes as they wrestled, trying to see who could break the other's hold. "Much will be said about this," he told Mimir. "They will say that I love monsters. That I am allowing my son to be reared as a Jotun. You know what will be said."
"I will trust your judgment."
Bor cursed again, striking his fist on the table before him. "It will not be for long! Swear it, Mimir. The boy will earn his name and then return to Jotunheim, where he belongs. And you, you will hold no honors at this court. I will not have it be said I favor Bestla's kin over mine own."
Mimir bowed again. "It is sworn."
***
The news that Nal was to stay on as his foster brother left Odin thunderstruck. Bestla clapped her hands joyfully as King Bor made the announcement, but Odin was beyond speaking.
"I'm staying!" Nal cried happily. He grasped Odin by the shoulders and shook him.
"F-forever?" asked Odin in his littlest voice. He had never dared imagine a playmate, much less one of like age and rank, staying with him in Asgard.
His uncle Mimir cleared his throat. "Nal will, of course, have duties of his own to attend to one day in Jotunheim," he told Odin. "But he will be raised in the halls of Asgard, and I will remain with him, as his kennari."
Bestla knelt at the foot of Bors throne, her cheek resting against his knee. Her eyes were soft, and she wore the secret smile Odin loved to see on her. She was pleased, he saw at once; her kin were honored, and the Jotun princeling would grow alongside her son, to be close as brothers.
King Bor favored her by stroking his hands through her hair. He felt at once his decision was the right one. Yes, Mimir was to stay here as well, but that was no shame to him, for a man's brother-in-law ought to have a seat of honor at his table. As for Nal, Bor would see to it they made an Asgardian out of him, and perhaps he and Odin together could undo some of the bad blood between Asgard and Jotunheim. The boys themselves were rapturous at the news; Bor had not noticed how lonely Odin had seemed until he had Nal to romp about with.
Shortly thereafter, Nal and his things were moved into Odin's room, and Mimir slept nearby. No longer did Odin awake in fright to a darkened, empty room. Now Nal's own deep breathing lulled him to sleep at night, and Odin spent no more nights sleeping in Bestla's bed. Mimir took over their studies, and Odin soon discovered how little he had known of Jotun magic. Bestla had taught him what she knew, but Mimir was a master of seid, and he had journeyed to many realms, and knew many kings by name. He knew how to skin-walk, and the secret names of things, and Odin felt sure that if he sat at Mimir's feet for a thousand years, he would not learn all Mimir knew.
Two days after Nal's arrival, Odin took him deep within the bowels of Asgard, following mossy steps so deep underground that the walls became cold to the touch, and the air smelled curiously of something that had been burnt long ago. The boys peeped around a corner to see a guard standing before an arched entryway and a heavy wooden door.
"What are you two doing here?"
Odin whirled around, his finger already at his lips, and startled so at the sight of her that he nearly tumbled backward and into the guard's full view. Frigga stood at the base of the steps, a satchel in hand.
"Eh? Hush, you!" Nal hissed at her, and the guard momentarily forgotten, he scampered to get a closer look. "Odin!" he said in a whisper that he thought was much softer than it was. "Look at it! What's wrong with it?"
Before Frigga could respond in outrage, Odin ran over and pulled Nal back, saying, "There's naught wrong with her, she's just a girl. Like my mother, only smaller."
"Bestla isn't a girl, Bestla is a Jotun," Nal told him, as though explaining something obvious to a very thick-headed person. "And she is nothing like Bestla. She smells strange."
"Strange!" Frigga jutted her chin out.
Odin shushed them as he pushed them further down the hall, out of the guard's hearing. "What are you doing down here, you're not supposed to be here," said Frigga.
"What are you doing here?" Odin turned the question back on her.
Frigga showed him the satchel in her hands. "I'm fetching and carrying for my father," she told him. Narrowing her eyes, she went on. "Don't you have lessons or something to be getting to?"
Odin shushed her once more, then looked about to make sure no one but themselves and Nal were about. "I'm taking Nal to see the royal treasure vault," he said.
Frigga's mouth fell open in shock. "You can't do that! The king will have you whipped!"
"Don't tell us what we can't do--" Nal began, but Odin pushed him back, bidding him keep quiet. Frigga looked from Odin to Nal, and then back to Odin.
"One day," Odin said confidently, "all Asgard will be mine to rule. If I want to show my friend the treasure vault, that's up to me."
"The guard will never let you by," Frigga pointed out, but even as she spoke, they heard approaching footsteps. The three children ducked into the sheltering shadows, and the young ásynjur woman who walked by was so intent on where she was going that she did not notice the small dark forms huddled in the darkness. She rounded the corner, and the next moment they heard her talking to the guard.
Instinctively knowing this was his chance, Odin crept closer and peeped back out. The woman obviously knew the guard, as she stepped forward and spoke to him in low, sensual tones. Odin motioned to Nal to join him by his side.
"Even if you get past the guard, how will you get through the doors?" whispered Frigga. Odin opened his palm to reveal runes drawn on his hand in red ocher. This spell, said to unlock any door barred to him, had been taught to him and Nal only this morning by Mimir. He hoped to put it to good use today.
Reluctantly, Frigga followed after the boys as they slipped by the guard and his woman. Odin touched the discolored metal lock on the door, and a moment later the door swung open with a creak. Frigga flinched and glanced guitily over at the guard, but the guard had backed his lover against the wall and had his hand until her skirt. Leaving them, Frigga followed Odin and Nal into the treasure vault. The door slid shut behind them, almost catching the hem of Frigga's dress as it closed.
Once within the vault, Frigga's teeth began chattering and she pulled her cloak tightly about her. Nal gave her a sidelong glance she misliked. Not all of us are icy-blooded Frost Giants, she wanted to tell him, but did not dare. Odin trotted on ahead, looking to the right and left as he went, Nal's long legs bringing him into step with Odin in moments.
"Look! The spear Gungnir!" Odin marveled at the legendary weapon. If it stood here as just another spoil of war, he could not imagine what else might lie within. He looked over to see Nal gaping at the huge axe which King Bor had, in ages past, taken from the crazed Titan Typhon.
Ahead of them, they found many more treasures: a strange tablet writ with words they could not read, a mounted orb that curiously seemed to gaze on them as though it were an eye, and then a polished mirrored surface that Odin almost passed by until he noticed something odd about it. The mirrored surface, if viewed from the front, appeared to be a mirror standing at the height of a man, but when one stepped to the side, it seemed to disappear, as though it possessed no width.
"It's -- it's lacking a dimension," said Nal wonderingly. "What do you think it does?" He reached out to tap the surface with a black nail.
"Isn't everything in here a weapon?" asked Frigga, looking about fearfully. Then she gasped aloud as she watched Nal's finger sink into the mirrored surface, as though it were not a mirror at all, but rather a doorway.
"Hold still!" Odin commanded, and he stepped to the side. Sure enough -- although from the front one could see Nal's nail simply pass through the mirror, from the side one could see nothing at all. Nal's finger seemed to disappear into thin air.
Frigga clasped her hands over her mouth. "There's something terrible about that thing," she mumbled through her fingers. "Leave it alone! Please!"
"Oh, don't be such a --" Nal began to say, but in that moment a hand reached out and caught the tip of his finger, and in shock he jerked back so hard that he tumbled over onto his bottom. A cackling voice seemed to emanate from the mirror.
"What was that?!" cried Nal, red eyes a-glow in the dim light. Odin leaped forward and peered into the mirror, and to his amazement, a curious face peered back.
The face belonged to a creature about his size, its features monkey-like but hairless. It blinked its mismatched eyes, one and then the other, and said, "Oh, did I gives ye a fright?" Its voice bubbled with humor, as though it did not so much speak as giggle. Odin's mouth moved but he was unable to speak. Then not one, not two, but three faces appeared, one a little snub-nosed, the second with peculiar curling whiskers, the third delicately feminine. As one, they all chattered in identical voices, reaching out hands that could not pass through the mirrored surface.
"Do they live in there?" Nal asked, wiggling Odin aside so he could get a look. The four creatures trilled at this, their tongues lolling out as a dog's might, their curious but cheerful faces lighting up at the sight of him.
"Do we lives in here!" cried one.
"It's ye who lives out there!" said another, giggling as though this were a great joke at Nal's expense.
"We would loves to join ye," said a third, thrusting out its bottom lip in mimicry of a pout. "But we cannot passes over to your side!"
Odin tried to sound authoritative. "Are there princes of your race who would speak to us?"
That brought on renewed laughter. "All of we is princes," said the snub-nosed creature. "Except on the twenty-fifth hour of every day, when we be not."
Odin wasted precious moments trying to make sense of this. Nal forged on right ahead. "I am Nal, and this is my friend, Odin," he told the entrapped creatures. "We are great princes of our people. Have you come to greet us and bring us tribute, as befits our rank?"
"Oh yes! Oh yes!" the creature with the mismatched eyes spoke above all the rest, although their mouths brimmed with positives, too. "You must be joinings us! We have such merries to make, oh, you'll forgets all your troubles."
Odin sank a hand into the mirrored surface; his hand sank through, and the creatures grasped at it in friendship, but when he drew back, they remained trapped on the other side. "It looks like you and I can pass through this gate, but they can't," he told Nal.
"Let's go and meet them!" Nal said eagerly.
"No!" Frigga ran forward and tugged at their shirts, trying to pull them back. "Please don't go in there! You don't know what's on the other side."
Nal scoffed at her. "And you do? Think, Odin, it's our chance to explore a new world, a world even Mimir has never been to!"
Odin studied the creatures in the mirror as they waved their hands at them in greeting. They seemed harmless enough, and he and Nal could just climb back through the portal to their world whenever they cared to. "All right, let's go!"
Frigga made a wordless cry of dismay when he said that. Odin sighed. "You don't have to go if you don't want to," he told her, not wanting to seem like he was sweet on her in front of Nal. He did like Frigga, but it seemed like all she'd done today was follow him about and scold him. He was ready for adventure.
"It's not safe!" she cried, but Odin was already climbing through the mirror. The creatures grasped him by his hands and shoulders and head, pulling him the rest of the way, and Nal caught hold of his leg and was pulled in after him.
The first thing Odin felt upon entry to this new world was a strange rush of blood to his head. Gravity! I'm the wrongside-up! He almost plummeted forward, but one of the creatures caught him under the arms and fixed him solidly to the craggy ground on which it stood. Nal howled as he came through, just as disoriented as Odin, but this time two of the creatures caught him and swung him between them.
"What -- what --" Odin's head swam. Although his feet were afixed to the craggy ground, below him he saw yet more ground, and felt the odd tug of gravity on the top of his head, making his hair stand on end. When he looked to the right and left he saw reality twisting about him in peculiar ways; here there was empty air, there pools of water suspended in midair, there a cleft of earth leading up or down or both ways at once.
The creatures capered about this odd landscape joyously; they had no fear. And when Odin took a cautious step, he did not fall to his doom on the rocks below. It was as though every surface in this world possessed its own gravity, and one might, with a little effort, climb from one surface to another. This world utterly lacked a true up or down.
When Odin stuck his head between his knees, he saw behind him the polished surface behind him, like a trapdoor in a floor. Looking through it, as though through a window, he saw Frigga's face, white with fright.
"Follow we! Follow we!" urged their hosts, and the creatures ran forward and pulled at his sleeves and tunic until Odin was stumbling after them. Nal, still reeling from disorientation, crawled more slowly. Reaching a cliff, the creatures simply stepped over, and following them, Odin found that the opposing face of the cliff also possessed its own gravity, holding him fast. Aways ahead, he spied a tent of foreign make, and as he neared it, Odin saw that it held a table piled high with food and drink.
The creatures gestured for him and Nal to take seats. "You likes us?" asked the creature with the mismatched eyes, climbing right up into Odin's lap.
"Your world is... amazing!" That was all Odin could think to say. The creature forced handfuls of food on him, and somehow Odin found a cup balanced precariously in his lap.
"So long since we hads distinguished guests!" said the creature with the feminine features, slapping her hands together.
"Distinguished guests!" echoed her friends. The mismatched eyed creature lept from Odin's lap and perched upon the table, watching him expectantly. When he turned, Odin saw a line of buttons up his back, and with a start, Odin saw that the buttons did not hold any clothing, but appeared to be sewn into the creature's skin.
"Nal!" he said, sitting upright. "Wait!"
Nal paused with a bit of bread halfway to his mouth. Neither he nor Odin had yet partaken of their hosts' goods. "What's wrong?"
"Look closer, Nal. Closer." Odin lifted his cup in his hand, but as he applied a little pressure, it cracked and revealed rotting wood. Nal, stunned, fisted his own bread and opened his hand to find it crumbled to dust. Around them, the creatures began tittering excitedly.
"It pleases not?" asked the creature with the curly whiskers in a disapproving tone. For the first time, Odin noticed the stitches that laced its head to its neck.
"It's trash," said Odin, standing up and pushing away his chair. "Your whole world, it's all made of trash."
Nal likewise stood, and flung the handful of dust upon the ground. "What is the meaning of this!"
The creatures lolled their tongues at them again, and Odin saw how the saliva glinted on their mouthful of small, pointy teeth. "Stay back," he commanded, pulling his little dagger from his place on his belt. "Don't touch us." Nal iced up his hand, creating a blue-white dagger that was brittle but sharp as knives.
At that the creatures made a sound not of fear, but of glee, and then Odin knew they had come for a fight. He pressed his back to Nal's so that both faced the creatures head on. "I don't want to die like this," Nal muttered.
The mismatched eyed creature pounced on them from above. Odin thrust his dagger upward, into its gut, and sand spilled out. "They're not alive!" Odin gagged in horror. "They're just walking dolls!"
Nal's ice flechettes caught two of the others full in the face, and they skittered backwards; caught off guard, they had not anticipated a ranged attack. The whiskered creature wisely flung a chair at Nal instead, the chair absorbing the impact of his flechettes. Odin kicked the mismatched eyed creature away from him, but in a moment it had found its feet and was springing for him.
"YOU DARE!"
The tent caved in around them all. Entrapped in the folds of fabric, Odin fought to rip his way clear. Nal was a bit faster, and he drug Odin out of the remains of the tent a moment later. As they tumbled away, Odin looked up and saw his father, King Bor, kick over the last pole of the tent. In the fabric wriggled four small forms as they scrambled to free themselves. King Bor brought down his axe upon one, cleaving it neatly in twain. Another he crushed underfoot, and the last two, he pulled from the wreckage and held them aloft.
Though Bor clutched them by the necks, the creatures had no need of air, and so spoke. "O mighty lord!" said the one held in his right fist, and the creature held in his left fist said, "O mercy!"
"You wretches," said Bor as he hefted them up to look him in the eye. "You near to killed my only son and my fosterling!"
"O king," said the creature caught in his right fist, "we cannot help it! It is in our natures."
King Bor flung them upon the ground, and before they could crawl away, or before Nal and Odin could avert their eyes, he stepped one foot on each of them, and then reached down with his powerful hands and pulled the creatures limb from limb. Sand and dust spilled from their guts, and their heads fell back, their mouths wide open as though in silent scream.
This being done, Bor turned his attention back to the boys. Snatching Nal and Odin up by the nape of the neck, he stomped back the way they'd came, to the portal. He tossed them through effortlessly, and then a moment later clambered through himself.
Skidding across the cool floor of the treasure vault, Odin gasped for breath. Before he could get his feet under him, big hands swept him up and sat him upright. His father's face, purple with fury, glowered at him.
"What in all the nine realms were you DOING?" roared Bor, and Odin would almost rather have been facing all four creatures on his lonesome. He cringed before Bor while he ranted. "If this girl --" and here Bor pointed to Frigga, who stood to the side, shaking with fear -- "hadn't come at once and told me what foolishness you'd gotten up to, you'd be dead now. Do you hear? DEAD!"
Odin tried to stammer an apology, but Bor threw him over his knee and thrashed him with a fury Odin had never known before. Odin's clothes protected him somewhat, and as it was when Bor was finished, Odin's skin was welted red from the back of his neck to his buttocks. Nal, weeping, flung himself prostrate before Bor.
"It was my fault," Nal told him. "I wanted to go! Don't beat Odin!"
"You -- you!" Bor was at a loss for words. "Did you not think they were locked away for a reason!?" He smacked Nal in the ear, sending the boy to the floor.
Nal curled into a ball, one hand clutching his ear. Frigga crawled across the floor to Odin, gathering him in her arms, as though to shelter him. Odin trembled. His skin felt as though it were blistered. He looked over to Nal and almost began crying. He had not thought Nal would try to take all the blame and save him from his thrashing.
King Bor slumped against the wall, sinking down into a slump. He buried his face in his hands, and even in the dim light, Odin could see the grief etched on his features. When Bor lifted his head, something wet glistened in his eyes, and even through his own pain, Odin knew that his father had been in fear for his life.