fel dreams

 

 

“You know, they say hate is just the other side of love,” he says, voice smug.

 

“And heroes are only idiots who live to tell the tale,” Steve returns, trying not to bristle. He doesn’t look up, instead continuing to fill in the details of his sketch.

 

“You must be the biggest idiot of them all, then.”

 

“What do you want, Tony?” Steve asks.

 

“Nothing, can’t a guy just talk? I’m just here to talk. But now that you–”

 

“Cut the crap,” Steve says, putting his pencil down and looking up at the engineer.

 

“Right, right, I forget, you want it simple and to the point,” and Steve can hear the implication behind it. His eyes narrow, but Tony is either oblivious or getting exactly what he wants. It’s hard to be sure when he’s wearing his sun glasses.

 

“Wow, look at you, you’re pretty pissed off about this situation, aren’t you?” Tony asks, leaning forward, peering over the sun glasses to look at Steve. Steve meets his gaze levelly. “Right, fine, since you want to the point, there was an anomoly over the Himalayas giving off gamma radiation that ceased at roughly oh-three hundred hours. Readings suggest it was an Einstein-Rosen bridge, rainbows, special effects, but there’s no footage of it. It lasted approximately three minutes and forty seconds. Which is to say–”

 

“You think someone or something that shouldn’t be from Asgard is kicking around the Himalayas,” Steve says, cutting Tony off. “We need someone to go look because there are SHIELD agents missing, and possibly civilain casualties. We need me because if it’s Asgardian, it might be Loki and if it’s Loki that might be nasty. I’m not stupid.”

 

Tony frowns, as if he wasn’t trying to imply that at all. Steve doesn’t feel bad.

 

If there’s one thing he hates, more than anything, it’s how everyone has been treating him like he’s stupid since he woke up. He’s never been stupid–he might not be a genius like Tony and Bruce, but he can think fast and he can remember things given only a short time. He has no idea how he works with these people and creates the plans he does and yet they all miss that he’s not actually stupid, only working on a culture gap near seventy years wide.

 

“Where’s Thor?” Steve asks.

 

“Asgard. Haven’t heard from him. He never did tell us what they did to Loki. Presuming it is Loki, and not some other crazy space viking out for blood. No telling, with space vikings.” Tony still looks confused, as confused as he can with his eyes hidden.

 

Steve nods.

 

This would happen in the same verse as L and N, though you really don’t need to know anything about those other than the Vanir being related to the Greek Olympians and Sigyn being a Vanir.

 

 

He’s somewhat expecting to see him when he arrives, though the fact he was invited has absolutely nothing to do with that. Loki has been known, on more than one occasion, to refuse invitation, or accept and then refuse, or accept and then not arrive at all. A fickle creature, but he supposes that is what makes the match with Sigyn all the better.

 

“Hades,” Loki greets with a flash of a smile. Charming.

 

Hades has ever had little use for the charm of the living.

 

“Loki,” he greets, a bit flatly. He is aware what it is Loki comes to him for, and is half-tempted to direct him to Hecate and let her sort out the entire mess.

 

But the souls of the dead are his domain, and the dead are divided into their realms irrespective of where they die and, in Atlantis’ case, how death arrives. He understands that it is different on Asgard, but leave it to that kingdom to over-complicate the matter.

 

Dead is dead, except when it isn’t.

 

They talk, aimless pleasantries. Loki refuses offers of food and drink–of course he would, but there are whispers that Loki is half-fae, fae whose food and promises are much more binding. Hades refuses Loki’s offers of gifts–everyone knows there’s a string attached, or a prank, except when there isn’t. Eventually, they arrive to the heart of the matter at hand.

 

“Sigyn is pregnant,” Loki says, and though he smiles his eyes tighten at the edges.

 

“My congratulations,” Hades says, as warm as he ever gets. “I had heard, but you know how rumour can be. There had not been an official announcement.”

 

“Indeed, and thank you,” Loki says, with an incline of his head. “It is a delicate matter, and difficult pregnancy. We would keep it quiet until we are more certain of the results.”

 

Hades nods and stays quiet, half-intrigued to see how Loki will spin this to make it seem less important; it is not as if he cannot guess what the trickster desires.

 

“I want both the child and mother to survive this,” Loki says, blunt. He is not smiling, eyes serious, and he has stopped walking. “Until the child is born, his death would be under your care, and hers will always belong to you.”

 

“You speak as if you expect them to die at any moment,” Hades says, genuinely surprised.

 

Loki’s mouth tightens, but he does not speak.

 

“You do, then.” Hades considers this. Already, Loki has tipped his hand.. If not for how serious Loki is and how commonly known it is he adores his wife, he might consider this a trick with no clear sight of what the end goal is. As is, Loki’s actions have ever given away what his words would not.

 

“You will invite me to the child’s christening,” Hades says, decisively. “And I would have your aid–your aid, not your mockery of jest that undoes what work a man does–in a more personal matter.”

 

Loki considers a moment.

 

“Persephone,” he says, looking mildly surprised himself.

 

Hades allows for it with a casual nod.

 

“You could,” Loki points out, with a sly smile, “simply steal her.”

 

Hades rolls his eyes.

 

“And have her resent the match for the rest of eternity? I wish a wife, Trickster, not a prize and prisoner.”

 

Loki shrugs.

 

“You didn’t say that,” Loki mocks, but Hades can already see his mind churning, sorting through different situations and scenarios, weighing. Loki is not Cupid, to cause a maid to fall blindly in love, but he is yet a trickster and love certainly has made fools of greater beings than they two.

 

Just look at Zeus.

 

“I believe,” Loki finally says, “that something could be arranged.”

 

Hades smiles.

 

“Then I believe,” Hades says, “that we have a deal.”

 

Loki smiles, sharp and bright, and not for the first time Hades finds himself grateful that Loki belongs to another realm. He can only imagine the headache Hel will have when the trickster dies.

 

Provided he stays dead. There is that.

 

“Most excellent,” Loki says. “I will need a pomegranate–one of yours, from your garden–and to borrow sweet Narkissos’ soul.”

 

 

He falls.

 

A hand lashes out instinctively, grasping for something, anything to hold to, and pain–ice cold agony–sinks into his skin but he forces his hand to keep clutching.

 

Finding the ground beneath his feet is a relief. He has to force his other hand to let go, to pull his fingers out of the Weave one at a time, tears stinging his eyes and spilling down his face. He tries to stay quiet, glancing around in the dark.

 

The mere idea of trying to make a light near makes him vomit.

 

(He’s never let himself pull so hard on the Weave it became a physical presence, and his hand pulses with dull, icey ache that won’t stop, fluttering as fast as his heart.)

 

He hears something stir in the dark and tries to hold his breath. Easy enough other than not being easy at all.

 

(Lucas reminds himself he has no idea what is moving, and that he has no weapon other than his ability to use and bend the Weave, and it causes him to spasm, the idea of shoving his hands back into the thread so shortly after it tearing into his hand.)

 

To think he has to trust Gavyn to get him back out of this.

 

He takes a step forward, slow, quiet the way Natalya taught him.

 

Relying on people is for fools.

 

She does not speak, and this frightens you more than anything else.

 

Frightens is the wrong word, but you don’t know another. It aches though, how she does not speak, how she sits and stares, hands in her lap, a shawl over her shoulders. Her blue-gray eyes are distant, unseeing, and where before she was nothing but sound–a careful rhythm to her steps, the soft brush of fabric, soft laughter and gentle praise–now she is naught but quiet.

 

It burns and aches and twists you apart more than anything else.

 

And despite what you know, that this was not your fault, that there was more at stake and more at play than you, her silence allows your mind to make the blame wholly yours.

 

You should have been able to keep them safe. You should have been able to do more. You should have–have–

 

You do not know, and it infuriates you, twists anger in your chest and makes you want to lash out at everything.

 

Guilt.

 

(They were your children, only children, hardly a threat, no threat at all, prophecy or not, and what does it matter, they could have done nothing, and you should have been able to keep them safe, should have been able to stay his hand, and you could not could not could not, and how could you possibly ever be worthy after failing so.)

 

A reason. You tell yourself there was a reason, and yet for all you tell yourself that it does not make it right, does not make it well, and it does not make her speak.

 

Prior, sometimes you very nearly grasped her disdain for your kingdom; never before have you understood so intimately.

 

She is silent, shattered apart, and you do not dare leave her side despite the grief it causes you in turn.

 

Grief upon grief, because you yet turn sometimes to call for them and realize the silence is absence, nothingness, so loud it nearly crushes you and you need place a hand out to steady yourself. One of you must be strong and she, always order and foundation and home, cannot be.

 

And so you force your grief and guilt down, drink deep of anger and hate (hate so strong it hazes the edges of your vision), and hold her in your arms, allow her to break apart the rest of the way, every tear and hitch of breath another brand you will never heal from.

 

(You will find her a gifts, something worth more than anything else you have ever given; though it will never soothe this pain, you need something to wrap her in, some physical sign that when she needs, you will be there to offer whatever comfort you may.

 

An himation, she calls her cloak. It is a start.)

 

You did not expect there to be, other than perhaps the celebration of your defeat, but there is not even that. Those that see you avert their gaze. Embarrassment, shame, pity.

 

No disgust. You wonder some at that, and what has been said. If they gave you a proper funeral, though they lacked a body.

 

There will be repercussions. There always are.

 

XXXXXX

 

While it is debated what is to be done to you, you are kept in solitude. A tower, one that you knew in theory though had never been inside. It is said no one can escape it, and that once Ymir was held here for his crimes and never found a way to twist free of its magics.

 

You do not try.

 

There is food and water. There are books, hallways to wander, and the topmost floor has no ceiling–open to the air, there is a garden there. You examine it one afternoon.

 

(You note what it lacks: narcissus, figs, pomegranate; hemlock, crocuses, mulberries.)

 

Time passes.

 

Some days, the bitter fury that you first arrived with burns and twists inside of you. Others, there is the cold-sweat of fear and threats from titans slighted; those are few and far between. You are on the Realm Eternal, and even Thanos’ reach does not reach here. Not yet.

 

Most days, you feel nothing. Caught between moored and adrift, thoughts silent, you have time plenty to reflect.

 

You have visitors, on occasion. Thor most frequent of all, clinging to thoughts and hopes and dreams that you’ve long since realized lie, unwilling to let go of a childhood fancy. Brother, he still calls you, no matter how you protest, until eventually you have no further words for him. Frigga, who says little and does not question, and in her you see a thousand reflections of questions you are quick to bury as deeply as you can–where did I go wrong? what have I done? Her guilt is heavy, suffocating, nearly so much as her love. Odin is rarest of those who tried to claim a cuckoo for their own, but he questions most.

 

You tell him of Thanos, but little more when he tries to ask motivations. Your motivations are your own, and you do not care what fate it brings you that you will not share them.

 

You do not owe him anything.

 

After near strangling Odin in a fit of temper, there tend to also be guards who arrive with the visitors. Thor scoffs at it, and Frigga clearly is displeased, but neither do anything. Odin does not visit again.

 

(Good, you think. Good that he recognizes the wolf he has allowed as part of his flock. The knowledge you have now leaves no point to try and justify the slights and ills down you and your house.)

 

You have visitors, and you mark them and how they break up your day.

 

She does not visit.

 

You wonder, sometimes, what they’ve told her. Thor tells you without being asked about her–her silence, her distance, her reserve. He does not mention where she lives, if she stays in the rooms you shared or the home in the countryside you gifted her with its goats and cellars for cheese and wine.

 

(She does not visit and you do not let yourself think of it.)

 

XXXXXX

 

Eventually, they decide upon hanging you on Yggdrasil, with an eagle to come and feast on you.

 

It is announced, it receives no fanfare, and then there is only the waiting. Two weeks before what they intend.

 

It is, you think, fitting; give a gift, cause too much trouble, and be chained to have parts of you ripped out over and over and over, unable to escape your fate. They mimic Prometheus; the difference between you and your in-law is it took more push to receive the fate. Thor disagrees, of course, but what can he do? It seems to cause far more stir among those who claim concern than it does to you.

 

You can escape. You have always been able to do so. It is only a matter of time.

 

(After all, you escaped Thanos, did you not?)

 

Two weeks.

 

XXXXXX

 

You notice the guard before you notice her.

 

It is the last night before. Your skin hums with energy, and you cannot sleep, bracing already for pain. You raise an eyebrow at the guard, and your eyes slide a little to his left and you notice her.

 

Her eyes are still the storm-grey you remember, shocking against the dark of her skin, and they watch you without giving anything away. She does not speak, only examines you unblinking. No words, no questions. Silence.

 

(It is near as if she has not come to visit at all, and you deny the part of you that aches.)

 

“You may leave,” she tells the guard.

 

“I–”

 

The look she levels at the guard would draw wolves short for fear.

 

“You would deny a wife a final night?”

 

Ah, and there you see how Asgard has been forced to tread around her since your absence. She is yet a token of peace, even if it is easy for you to forget. From widow to wife of a condemned man, but it is her happiness that must be ensured, and so the whole of a kingdom bends on one knee as it ever has since that night so long ago.

 

(Not for the first time, you wish she had not been in Vanaheim when Thor fell; she would have made a marvelous queen, and you dare think that perhaps events would have gone differently.)

 

(Yet you know she would have refused to wear a crown. Too Aesir, she would have scoffed, ever unwilling to take an Aesir custom when there was a Vanir one available.)

 

The guard would rather face Odin’s displeasure than her’s, and there is some amusement in that as he casts one last glance at you before leaving.

 

She does not speak as she turns her attention to you once more; you do not break the silence, but wait.

 

You drink in the sight of her; you had nearly forgotten what beauty she is despite being so very much not of Asgard. Short, black curls, dark skinned. Only her eyes stand in sharp contrast, remind you of the sky over a stormy sea. She is lovely, still lovely, will ever be lovely, but now, as you relearn the lines of her face, you realize with the suddeness of a knife to the gut that there are lines that were not there before. Worry and grief etched deeper than they were before, untold stories that you have not shared with her.

 

This–this is grief. More grief than any you have felt since your return, more guilt and loss and regret than any single word from anyone else could stir.

 

She must see something of it on your face, or sense it, for she moves towards you. You catch glimmer of starlight–the himation you paid far more for than any other gift you have ever given, crafted by the elves from captured starlight of Vanaheim and the finest unicorn’s down in the darkest green that looks near black.

 

(No one tells stories of this gift, because it is not one that needed to be proclaimed from the mountain tops; it is hers, and hers alone, and it will never be enough to begin to soothe the hurt it covers.)

 

She touches your cheek; you do not lean into the touch. You stare at her, search over her face for what she wishes, but she remains silent. There is a scent to her that you struggle to place; it seems familiar, but you’ve forgotten much in your time away.

 

(The feel of her skin, the sound of her voice, but not her image, never that, this woman who is more than any you have ever met and ever will meet, who is some blending of fae and neriad and erinyes.)

 

Her hand smooths along your cheek to your neck, then your shoulder; a slight pressure, and you kneel before her. You know this language, and finally the strange and earthy scent takes a name: blood.

 

(A thousand rituals she has never explained but always done, for safe-keeping and safe return, love in every beat and step and pulse. Ritual she did not preform that fateful span of days because she was not there, but instead with her own, grieving for the loss of her aunt.)

 

The himation slips from her skin to the floor; beneath she wears nothing but a woven belt. The knife she has never explained to you hangs from it. Her skin is painted in blood–you think goat’s though the scent is not quite right–but it does not hide the marks beneath, history written in flesh of children born.

 

(History yet in her eyes of children gone.)

 

There is nothing to indicate the rules you must abide now; you lean forward, running your hands over her hips and then sliding around to her spine. She allows it, a hand twining in your overlong hair as you lean forward to press kisses to the skin, running your nose along her stomach, and you breath in her smell.

 

If you must suffer, you would the memory of her to tide you through the pain until you escape.

 

Her hand grips your hair, and you hear the sound of the knife sliding free. You do not move, and shortly after, there is the soft brush of your hair slipping to the floor, cut free. It is not gentle, but it is not rough either. You keep your eyes closed and face pressed to her stomach as she works. When she is done, she steps away, and you reluctantly let her go.

 

She examines you, knife still in hand.

 

“You are a fool,” she says.

 

You do not reply.

 

“You shall be my ruin,” she says, and then she leans down, grabbing your chin and kissing you.

 

You have only seen the seas of Vanaheim a few times. Once, you saw it in a storm, dark and angry and claiming any who erred on its surface; this is how your wife-princess-lover kisses, dark and angry and claiming, teeth pressing sharp into your skin and drawing blood, unfanthomable depths beneath threatening to drag you down.

 

She cuts your clothes from you, tearing them away, eyes calm. You can sense power twisting inside of her, and with a little effort can hear the rhythm she is creating in the methodical disrobing. Rip, rip, slide, tear, all to the slow and steady pulse of what she calls Asgard’s heart and you only know as the sound of magic.

 

Except not; there is something off to her beat, something unfamiliar, and there is intention behind it as there ever is when she works this way.

 

She pushes you to your back when you are unclothed and rides you with a hand around your throat, her teeth biting into your flesh. For every kindness and worship you pay her flesh, you are left dizzy with the pain and unkindness she repays you with. There is anger, depths of anger and rage that roil beneath the surface, that when you can focus you can see it in her eyes, and she gives you no mercy.

 

She kisses your forehead when she eventually stands, drapped once more in her starlight himation, a hand smoothing your hair down.

 

“Orycheío,” she says.

 

Mine.

 

“Yours,” you agree. For all the stiff ache settling into your bones, you feel, for the first time, like you are home, where you belong. You feel peace instead of nothing; you do not deserve such a gift from her, and yet she has given it all the same.

 

“Do not wash,” she says, and you nod. The traces of blood and more; a final ritual then, and you would not deny her anything now.

 

She leaves.

 

XXXXXX

 

It is Thor who offers you a drink to numb, that leaves your head dizzy and a laugh half on your lips. You wonder idly when the bird is meant to come, if it shall always arrive at the same time punctually, or if it shall instead come when it desires. If only you had thought to ask Prometheus, but it is too late now, strung up.

 

The sound of wings beating the air answers at least when the bird will arrive this day, and in a drunken haze you note that is quite a lovely eagle–large, with a vicious beak and wicked claws, steel gray shadowing its feathers and eyes that remind you, amusingly, of your wife-princess-lover’s.

 

The only pain is the prick of claws in your skin, there and gone again, and you hear a sharp crack, and then you are falling.

 

You have no magic at your finger tips, no cloak to shift yourself to bird, and you twist, disoriented, before the bird has caught you upon it’s back and is winging its way higher.

 

Skywalker indeed, it screeches, and you stare in confusion at the back of it, at the way it is laughing and the pleased tone of its voice, recognizing the sound of her voice

 

XXXXXX

 

“Your brother is an idiot,” she says later, bird form shed and nude, the patterns of blood smeared on her skin and a feather yet caught in her hair. You reach and tug it free clumsily, trying to push through the fog in your head.

 

“He tends to be,” you say, tongue still numb at the edges. “You should not have–”

 

“I will burn Asgard and all the realms to ash before I let them touch anything else that is mine,” she says, voice calm, even, matter-of-fact, and beneath the words churn the dark deeps of a stormy sea, of a woman tired of loss and grief. She looks at you, eyes the heart of a tempest. “You are mine, and you have returned.”

 

“Yes,” you agree, “I have.”

 

You like to dance, when you think no one is watching. Bend and sway, a low hum that fills your chest, a sweet thing. Mostly sweet, at least when there’s a chance your husband or a servant might walk in.

 

(You’ve told him, again and again, that there’s no need for servants, but on this point he will not change. Just because you feel a need to do everything, he tells you, does not mean that you should. You allow he may be right, and that a prince’s household is far larger than the one you grew up in.)

 

You know your husband is interested in your dancing, enjoys it the way he enjoys burying his hands in your curls and running his nose along the top of your ear, bent over and around you. Sometimes, when he is quiet enough, he manages to dance a few steps with you, arms around your middle; when he does, you allow it to continue a spell.

 

I love you, he will murmur in your ear, and you smile.

 

There is another sort of dancing though, and you do not speak of it, do not do it where there is a risk of someone finding you. It is none of their concern, and it is a thing of Vanaheim you have no reason to bring here. Not yet.

 

Not until there the dwarves need help and come to Asgard for it. Not until your husband-prince-lover is meant to ride off to a fight not his to help a people not his.

 

(Your uncle, you know, is already sending a group of men. You know how they will appear, and what their women will do.)

 

What Asgard calls seidr is the domain of men. Asgard does not think so, but Asgard is wrong. Seidr is fire and air, and it is men’s magic. It is what brings them home, when they are away at sea, what they use to burn things when there are fights.

 

Come, you tell him, when he returns to your chambers, and you take him by the hand. You do not get horses, but you do get a goat, and you lead them far from the palace and its light and its warmth, until there are plains and soft grasses beneath your feet. You pause, remove your sandles, and then continue. He is curious, as he always is, but he does not ask.

 

Not yet.

 

When you strip and draw the knife ever present at your waist, his eyebrows raise.

 

That is what you use it for then? he asks, as he has always asked, and you smile darkly.

 

Sometimes, you tell him, then slit the throat of the goat and hold it, petting its head in your lap as the light goes out of its eyes, staining your front red in blood. Be still, and sit, and watch. You are careful to gather some of the blood up, mixing it with the skin of wine you brought–rich and heady wine, the strongest Vanaheim makes, sent to you by your aunt when she heard that Asgard would send its princes to aid Svartleheim.

 

Drink, you tell him, handing him the wineskin.

 

His eyebrows raise, but he sips at it, skin flushing at the potency.

 

How much? he asks as you begin loosen your hair from its ties.

 

All of it, you say. Nude but for the knife in your hand, you reach for the wineskin, and drink deeply.

 

(At home, in Vanaheim, you know this is a scene happening repeatedly, wives and lovers who wish to ensure their men return from war and battle. Asgard’s rites, though, are different. They are not binding, but Asgard knows nothing of magic. After all, they make women use men’s magic and the men use no magic at all.)

 

He watches with interest as you lay the goat open, sorting through its insides. Each, you know, has a use, but for this you need the heart; in your hand, it is not so large. You cut a sliver of it, and chew it thoughtfully, and then do the same for him.

 

The two of you pass the wineskin between you, until your skin is flush and the world goes soft at the edges. Sometimes, you daub cooling blood across his features. Sometimes, he tries to speak, but you put a finger to his lips until he finally does not try anymore, his eyes unfocused. He may drink long and often, but this is proper ritual wine and Asgard has nothing so potent as it. Even the dwarves are careful in its drinking.

 

He watches as you stand.

 

You dance. You begin slowly, stamping bare feet on the ground, setting a low pulse to match the turn of the realm, finding your way because you do not know Asgard’s beat so well as Vanaheim’s and the chain you make need be binding.

 

(Women’s magic–earth and sea, dark and calm and hearth.)

 

Even with only you to create sound and weave bonds, it is intoxicating.

 

Magic, he murmurs against your lips when you straddle his lap, face flush and words slurred. Your hands dip into the wine and you paint across his brow and nose before you kiss his lips, roughly, biting until he hisses as your teeth draw blood. You lick it from him, savoring the taste of him in your mouth, and listen to the earth groan as Asgard grips tight to its prince.

 

Finish drinking, you tell him, and he drinks while your fingers undo the ties and laces of his clothing to expose flesh, a hand at your hip possessively. He is already hard as you wrap your hand around his cock, and you smirk a little into the line of his neck as he tries not to choke on the last of the wine.

 

Tha érthei sto spíti mou, you whisper in his ear as you sink onto his length. Tha érthei sto spíti and you dig your nails into his shoulders, drawing more blood. He whines, dropping the wineskin, burying his head at your throat, one hand twisting possessively in your hair, other pulling you down, hips rocking up into yours. Orycheío you gasp, closing your eyes and head leaning back as his teeth dig into your skin, feeling the tug on your scalp.

 

Mine, he hisses into your skin, dark and possessive, and you whisper, yours.

 

It undoes what little coherence he has, his hands roaming your flesh, pushing you onto your back into the blood-wet grass, hooking your legs onto his arms so he can rut harder, deeper, desperate, and your encouragement is only a little for him, dizzy and heady from the energy still coiling inside you and the chains you yet bind him with.

 

Do not, you tell him in the morning before he rides out, wash your face.

 

He does not say anything, but then he nods. He is clever, your husband-prince-lover, and he can grasp well enough that not all magic is as Asgard says.

 

I love you, he says, and I will return soon.

 

A smile curls your lips, and you allow a hand to brush along his jaw before you kiss him.

 

Yes, you agree, you will.

 

“Don’t you ever get angry?”

 

He glanced down from where he sat on the edge of the cliff face, the red of the sunset bleeding around him and casting a bloody halo.

 

“Why?” he asked, plucking the apple she was holding out of her hands.

 

“Well, all the things that happen to you. Before, you seem pretty nice, and then after–”

 

“I am what I am,” he informed her, then took a bite of the apple. “What does it matter before or after?”

 

“You’re children, though–”

 

“Are what they are, and were treated as they were.” He licked scarred lips. “Good apple.”

 

“I think it makes sense, why you end everything,” she said after a few minutes.

 

“Oh?”

 

“I would be angry, if what was done to you had been done to me.”

 

She looked at him again, but he was still staring over the edge of the cliff, foot kicking and creating a low and slow drumbeat tempo.

 

“You misunderstand me,” he finally said. “Not to take that from you–all of you, because all of you tend towards this, when you’re young. You lack experience, and you’re angry at all the promises given to you in your youth you are learning are lies.” He took a last bite of the apple. “I’m not angry.”

 

“But how can you not be angry? They took your children, and killed the others, they always blame you for things–”

 

“Much of the blame rightly so.”

 

“–and then venom and the snake and… how can you not be angry? Why do you end things, then? What does it give you? What reason to end it all?”

 

“I am not an end,” he said, tossing the apple core in his hand a few times before throwing it out over the cliff. “I am a consequence. I am not who I was when we began, nor am I who I will be when things end.” He paused, leaf green eyes thoughtful. “You all speak of end–how I will end the world, how things will burn to ash on the wind–but it is not an end. It is a beginning. It seems, especially when you are young, that all you can remember is how I will end things, as if I am some divine recompense for the slights and pains and trials you have been put through.” He glanced side-long at her. “But you forget Baldr and Hoenir, Modi and Magni, Vidar and Vali. You forget Lif and Lifthraser. This world is a seed, and it will remain so until it has been surrounded in flame.”

 

“And that somehow makes it okay for all the other things that have been done?”

 

He laughed.

 

“No, but that person is long dead. Were you not listening? They killed his compassion, and what is left is me. Consequence–what happens when you remove the stones banking your fire and then keep feeding it? I am not as I was or as I will be.” He paused, then smiled–even with the scars it was kind and turned him lovely. Something unique, beautiful through that uniqueness. “I am fire–I will burn just the same, but what I burn has changed.”

 

Silence settled between them again, and she looked over the vista in front of them.

 

“I am sorry,” he said eventually, “that you were turned down for such a flimsy reason.”

 

“It’s okay, I think,” she said. “I’ll be stronger for it. Thank you for listening. And explaining.”

 

“And you for the apple.”

 

“You stole that,” she pointed out.

 

“You didn’t take it back,” he said with an impish grin, and vanished.