April 10, 2008
The Well.
If Mimir hadn’t been expecting him to come by, Vidar’s sudden appearance at the well would have taken him completely off-guard. Never let it be said that Odin’s son isn’t silent, the seer thought.
Out loud, he asked, “What do you want?”
“The same thing my father wanted, when he visited you,” Vidar answered in his slow, deep voice.
Mimir’s laugh was harsh and scornful. “Give me an eye, then, son of Odin.”
Vidar raised his head; his silver-etched eyes caught Mimir’s. “That’s not what you really want.”
The seer sat back. “If you can see that, you don’t need the well water,” Mimir said, watching the reflections in said water’s surface.
Vidar simply waited until Mimir looked at him again; again, it was Mimir who looked away.
“Then again, maybe you do.” He paused and poked at the water. “Come here, then, boy.”
Vidar glided over, silent like nothing else, and knelt next to the seer. Mimir grasped the back of his neck, fighting back a flinch as he touched the icy metal in Vidar’s skin, and kissed him – and then inhaled.
A moment later, Mimir sat back. “Let me draw some water,” he said, and his voice was deep and resonant in a way it had never been before.
Vidar stayed where he was, once more looking at his hands.
December 30, 2007
Two Scenes.
Heimdall
I don’t trust him. I don’t think anyone in Asgard does, really. Not anymore.
Not since the war with the vanir.
I mean, the war’s over now, and those vanir that don’t live inside our walls are our staunch (and scattered) allies. And my mother, whichever one of the nine sisters she was, was vana, so I can’t hold a grudge.
But I wasn’t the only one who noticed that Loki was missing for the entire war. Sure, he showed up later, and pretty much singlehandedly tricked that giant into rebuilding our wall, but that war lasted twenty years, and no one saw hide nor hair of him until it was over.
He returned from Jotunheim – from the direction of Utgard.
From here on the gate, on a clear day, I can just barely see Utgard in the distance, a thin, too-steady line of darkness on the horizon. If the wind is right, I can pick up the voices of the jotnar that live just outside Utgard’s walls.
No one lives in Utgard except its king. No one travels to Utgard, except the jotnar on those rare occasions that their king summons them – and, apparently, Loki.
The gate clangs faintly, inaudible to all but me, and a slim, red-haired figure slips through. Speak of the devil.
Loki pulls the gate shut, ignoring me like he always does, and skulks away down the bridge. Away from Asgard.
Towards Jotunheim.
I watch him until he disappears into the gloom. Then I watch the horizon.
As overcast as it is this evening, I still fancy that I can see Utgard in the distance.
————-
Vidar
My father and I do not get along. At all. There’s no particular reason for it; some people simply baffle each other. I find it funny. He doesn’t.
Well, I usually find it funny. It’s not so funny when he kicks me out of the house. Fortunately, it’s not that far to my brother’s house – and I have a standing invitation. Thor thinks the whole thing between Father and me is vastly amusing.
He’s laughing in the other room right now.
Sif, bless her, is too polite to laugh. She’s not too polite to smirk, though.
“So what happened this time?” Thor asks just before he goes back to laughing.
It’s hard to glare at someone through a wooden wall. “I told you. He kicked me out. He said something about how if I was going to be such an impertinent brat, I could go skulk about somewhere else.”
“What did you do, though?”
I can’t stop a frustrated growl from escaping. “Nothing. I was just walking around.”
“Let me guess,” Sif interrupts. “Your father, then, comes out of some room – probably the room leading to his tower – and, probably preoccupied by some foresight, he doesn’t notice you, and you startle him. Badly.”
“Again,” Thor adds, sticking his head through the door. He meets my eyes. (It’s one of the reasons he’s my favorite brother.) “You know no one hears you unless you’re speaking. You’ve startled me a time or two.”
“I know, Thor. I do. I can’t hear my own footsteps. But what am I supposed to do – carry a pouch of pebbles with me? No one would hear them clicking, not when they’re that close to me. You remember the experiment with the rattle.” By the look on Thor’s face, he certainly does. I press on before he can crack a joke. “I’d have to fling them down the hallway – and how much do you want to bet that if I try that, I’ll hit Father with one?”
Thor gives me one of his crooked smiles. “You probably would; you have terrible luck. You could always try talking to yourself as you walk, though.”
My glare comes back. “And then Father would just have something else to complain about.” I close my mouth before I say anything stupid.
Thor, damn him, notices. “What?” Neither he nor his wife are smiling now.
I shake my head. I’m just being stupid, I tell myself.
Thor straightens up and looks at Sif. “You think he’s trying to get rid of you,” she says, and it is too flat to be a question.
I just look at her.
“Father doesn’t deal well with people he can’t predict,” Thor says. “He never has. You, by whatever twist of fate, are one of those people.” He smiles. “He ranted about that quite a bit when you were small.”
I’d never heard that before.
“He could see that you would be born, and he could see that you are destined to avenge him at Ragnarok, but he couldn’t see anything about you in between all that. He couldn’t even see when you’d be born, just that you would be. When your mother walked into the city with you one day, Father was quite surprised.”
I can’t think of a thing to say.
“You already know you’re welcome to stay here,” Sif says after a moment. She turns me until I’m facing her. “If you’re right and your father really does want you out of his house, consider this your new one.”
Both of them are stubborn people; they would not let me refuse if I wanted to. I nod, and Sif smiles.
“Let’s get you settled in,” she says.
