Corner
Back to Reality
The first thing I notice is the headache; a real good. solid pounding behind my eyeballs, drills and jackhammers and all kinds of things. The works.
I hate waking up with a headache.
Opening my eyes does not prove to be a good move either; they have a kind of raw curried feeling, and the sudden influx of light sets my head off again, so I moan piteously and roll them shut.
The first thing I notice is that my voice doesn't sound right. The second, and perhaps more urgent, thing I notice is that I feel suspiciously hung over. I haven't been drunk since Eljiah sent me to those AA meetings back in the mid '90s and I managed to break an aeon worth of habit. Don't get me wrong, I still drink, but not as much as it currently feels like I have been.
Something cold lands gently on my forehead and I realise it's my own hand. My hair is smooth and undreaded -- not the state I left it in, but that doesn't really mean much and...
... what state did I leave it in? Come to think of it; where the hell am I and what the hell am I doing here? I was just in Nifelhel, looking for Sigmund and Baldr and a whole bunch of answers, except everything is getting sort of fuzzy, dream-fading out and I...
My foot -- my bare, unfurred foot -- is resting in something cold and slimy, and there's a noise, kind of a grating, huffing; like someone slowly strangling a pig. Come to think of it, this whole place doesn't smell unlike pig. Old pig and sour, spilt mead.
Mead? Who the shit drinks mead anymore?
This time when my eyes open I ignore the burst of pain and look straight up at old, carved, sooty rafters. Huge wooden ones.
The pig-noise, I realise, is someone snoring. Not just one person, either. I hear a groan, and this one doesn't come from me. The groaner mumbles something in a language I haven't heard in... well, not that long, really. Except the last time I heard it the speaker was trying to kill me.
I sit bolt upright, and my world is suddenly filled with light and pain and then sidewards motion and more pain, the sound of splintering wood, and finally something that feels and smells a lot like well-used rushes.
I've just fallen off a table.
"Ow."
The voice isn't mine, either, except it is, because it's coming out of my mouth.
There's a worn-smooth stone wall not too far away from where I've landed and I manage to pull myself up against it. Blink my eyes a few times to clear them, and look. I'm... exact where I thought I was. Except it's impossible, because I haven't actually been here for at least a thousand years. I don't even know if it still exists.
Valhall; the hall of the slain.
I see the groaner a short distance away down the long wooden table that rings the great hall. A great big unwashed brute of an einherjar decked out in fur and leather, face bisected by an angry-looking death-scar. Not far beyond him is yet another sleeping mound I'd swear up and down Jotunheim was Njörd, which is all well and good except for that fact that he is really, really supposed to be dead.
Addmitedly I was just in Nifelhel, and I suppose dead gods have to go somewhere... but this doesn't feel like Nifelhel. In fact, it feels an awful lot like...
"Holy shit!"
I scramble to my feet -- which somehow don't feel as far away as the usually do -- and manage to tumble my way to the huge open doors, crashing through discarded plats and goblets as I do so. I wake several people, and cursing -- and one axe -- follws me out.
Outside is obnoxiously bright, warm and sunny but with a gentle breeze that stops the heat ecoming too stifling. It smells fresh and clean in a way my post-industial lungs are no longer used to, and birds chirp and caw overhead. A deer watches me, curious and unafraid, from the edge of a wooded area a little off to the left of the great hall.
I feel like the proverbial man at the oasis. Asgard; I mean, it really, really is. Somewhere I thought I'd never see again, and good riddance I'd thought but oh gods; you really don't realise how much you can miss a place until you come back. The place is alive in a way the twenty-first century echo of Midgard could never be, and I just kneel there, arms out and head back in rapture, as I just soak up the incredible power in this place. I think I'm crying. Or laughing. Or both.
I don't know how long I'm like that for, but despite everything, this is still my life. Something always spoils it.
"Are... you alright, uncle?"
The words take a little while to process, since I'm a thousand years rusty on my godstongue -- two screaming matches with Bladr don't count -- but when they do, I look up and...
"Aargh! Fuck!"
I'm on my feet in a second, one leap backwards and my back hits the wall of Valhall and I can't get back any further.
"Uncle?"
Baldr looks at me with those big, round, gold puppy-dog eyes that just ooze vapid good-natured confusion in a way I remember I used to really loathe. He's younger and slighter and a lot more sappy-looking than that last time I saw him, but he's also not trying to kill me, which is an improvement. He's wearing a kind of shining white-robe thing which, coupled with his blonder than blonde hair and sappy expression make him look not unlike those little pictures of Jesus you can buy from those church groups to whom the word 'ethnicity' is synonymous with 'enemy'.
I think my face is frozen into an expression of terrified horror, and my posture isn't mych better, so I school myself into something more neutral while I slowly form the next words in my head.
"Yes, I'm--"
The voice is still wrong; too rough and gravelly, like I've got permanent laryngitis. I cough, trying to clear my throat, and start again but it makes no difference.
Baldr's carefully concerned expression is starting to look more and more forced; the kind people get just before they call the psych ward. Fortunatley, as far as I can tell, neither telephones nor psychology have yet been invented. Unfortunatley that probably means Baldr is thinking of getting his father, who is really the last person I want to see right now.
"Do you want me to go and get--"
Mind-reading bastard!
"No!" Another gravelly rasp, and then; "Does my voice sound strange to you?"
"Er, no?"
"Okay..." I roll the syllable out, and Baldr looks confused again. Probably because 'okay' is yet another entry on the list of things that have not yet been invented.
"Uncle?"
"What!"
"Where are your pants?"
I hate my life.
I find my pants back inside Valhall; some einherjar bastard thought they'd make a good pillow, so now I have dead Viking drool on my breeches. Great. Not to mention clothes here aren't quite the Armani suits I'm used to, and I think I've got lice -- how the hell do you get lice in godshome? I think I'm going to get a great big bucket of water, a great big bar of soap and teach this entire place to wash. Starting with myself.
I head home.
I know I have one -- I have to, everyone does -- but for the life of me I can't remember where the hell it is. Memories of the last time I was here are hazy at best and, well, to tell the truth I never spent much time there. There's one other thing that slowly dawns on me -- terrifying and joyous at the same time. If this really is Asgard, and I really do have a home somewhere around here, it also means...
Wow. Just fucking... wow.
"What are you looking so happy about?"
A double-take and I'm staring right at the last two people I expect to see; Wayne and Dee.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" They should have been back at the house with Elijah, where it was safe. Except...
"Cleaning up your fucking mess, as usual."
... except it was neither Wayne nor Dee. The hair was wrong -- long and blonde -- and so where the clothes; I simply couldn't imagine Dee agreeing to wear such an overtly revealing leather bikini thing. Wayne either, really. Especially not in that unflattering brown colour.
"Hlökk! Hrist!" My voice sounds syrupy even to me and I lean in towards the two Valkyries conspiratorially -- they lean back almost unconsciously and it suddenly dawns on me how much these two women utterly loathe me. To be fair, probably not without good reason.
"This is sort of embarrassing, but... where the hell do I live?" The last is a kind of frantic hissing whisper.
Hlökk gives a kind of condescending grin, Hrist just looks disgusted. "Why, forgotten whose bed you're supposed to be sharing today?"
Ouch, okay. Somehow I think the line but I've changed, I swear! isn't going to cut it with these two. I go for the directly unapologetic approach.
"Something like that." I grin hopefully.
Hrist sighs, points off in a general direction.
"Cheers, doll," I say -- in good ol' modern English, since I'm not entierly convinced they won't get violent on me if given the chance -- give a sloppy salute and begin to walk off.
"Wait," Hlökk snaps, and I turn back. "I swear if you do anything to upset her..." she lets the threat hang.
"I really, really would not worry about that." I tell them, in my best sincere voice. They seem genuinley shocked, so I add, "Really."
They nod. I leave.
Memories fade with time. Memories really fade when that 'time' includes a thousand years of perpetual torment, so wandering through Asgard I feel like I'm seeing the place for the first time; rolling hills of soft green, cool shaded woods. There are animals everywhere, too, all unafraid and curious and far too intelligent seeming. A pack of wolves watch me from the mouth of a secluded den. Wolves... I wonder...
People aren't dead, and I find myself being greeted by a bunches of woozy men and giggling women I have only dim recollections of. It's sort of like a highschool reunion; I know I should know these people, but I'm not sure where from. By the looks most of the women -- and some of the men -- are giving me, I think I probably don't want to know. It's one thing to admit to yourself you're a crap father and a worse husband, but quite another to have it thrown back in your face. Not to mention my conscience is now turned to that pesky modern wavelength that insists that "But everyone did it back then!" is no longer an excuse. In the 70's I started going to a local church as a bit of a laugh and something to do to keep me from going crazy. Reverend Seder was one of the few people to ever know who I really was. He was understandably quite surprised -- it's one thing to believe in saints and devils and quite another to meet one -- but took it all in stride. Poor old bastard died of cancer in '98, but his ghost still haunts my memory sometimes. Such as now. I hate religion.
Hrist's directions were a bit vague, but fortunatley the closer I get to home to more I remember where it should be. Past the collection of carved stones that very unsubtly suggest various parts of anatomy, then follow the river upstream through the trees and...
I really know how to pick a good spot. I should've been a realtor, I swear.
The stream opens out to a quiet pool in a clearing just wide enough to let the sun stream through. A small waterfall cascades down at the far end where the clearing buttresses up against a shallow clifface. There's a wooden footbridge over the river just before it opens out -- half rotted and in deperate need of repair -- beyond that a sad, untended herb garded and beyond that...
The house is small, decrepit and falling apart like the rest of this place, but I don't care right now, really really don't care because I know -- I know -- that she's in there, and I can feel the pull in my very soul that's stepped with the absolute certainty that I am home, and that nothing is every going to be the same.
I run, over the river, through the garden, to the sad little door banging on its hinges. Hesitate,
(what if...)
realise I don't care, and push.
Inside is...
"My lord?"
Nothing was right, and everything was wonderful, and that thought disturbed her. Distrubed her in a way she simply couldn't describe.
It had started before the thing that was not her husband had come through the door, but not long before as she had only risen for the day a few hours earlier. Married to the gods of lies, Sigyn's curse was the always see the truth, and this morning she had risen to the knowledge that she herself was not true. Nor was anything around her, and yet she could find no reason for this to be so. It was the day after the spring festival, and when she had lain herself to sleep last night in her lonely bed everything had been right. Except that memory, too, was false; though she could see no fault with it. Certainly she had slept alone last night -- as nearly every night -- and certainly it had been the night of the festivities. So why was the memory false?
She had ignored the feeling -- there was nothing she could do about it, so it was no use fussing -- this morning and had gone about her duties as best she could, though her swollen belly had soon stilled her and she had been forced to sit for a while. The child would be due in a little over a month, she knew; her third, and this time a girl. This afternoon her sons would visit -- they had inherited their father's wild looks but their mother's gentle personality -- and help her with dinner, but they both had young families too, and could only be gone for so long. She had hours to fill in the meantime, though this was not unusual. Hrist and Hlökk would be occupied with cleaning the halls after the feast; though in her condition she would not be able to spar with them or the others even if they were not busy.
And then the thing that was not her husband had burst in. He confused her even more. He looked like her husband, and she felt this was true -- or as true as he ever was in his appearance -- but he was simply... not himself. Worse still, she realised, was that dispite his discrepancies he was real in a way that she herself and everything around them were not.
His entrance was loud, bursting through the door with the fires of Muspel in his eyes. It had startled her from her sleepy revere and she had risen, uncertain, never having seen him look so close to his true nature as he did. It was no secret he was jotun-born, of a type older and deeper than the other giantkin of Asgard; he bore tattoos on his back, magic wards left there by Odin to rein in his true nature. Sometimes it bled through, though never so much as now, she thought. She could almost see the shimmery outlines of--
Abruptly it had left, like a puppet with strings cut he had fallen to his knees and said something in a language she didn't understand. It was neither the godstongue, nor any of the tongues of men or giants.
Alarmed, she had risen, "My lord?" Had begun to walk towards him; he didn't look injured, she thought, but he rarely came back here for any other reason.
Her words had startled him and he shook his head violently, as if trying to clear something, then barked another sentence in the strange language. It sounded more surprised than hostile, so she took another step, saw him pause and deliberatley rethink, and when he next spoke she understood, though his accent was... strange.
"Er, no. Don't get up, it's alright." He himself had risen then, had moved towards her, placed his hands gently against her back and arm. She had looked away, unsure of herself as she always was in his presence. He was rarely gentle with her; knew sly seduction would not work made up as if was of lies, so was forthright in his desires. He was far from a bad lover, and did not use force or pain, but he was distant and cold, and she had long thought emotions like love were either lost to him or he never knew them to begin with. She knew little of his people; perhaps they were simply like that, though when she thought on it she realised most marriages here seemed similar, so she did not think of herself as unlucky. But she was still no goddess, merely a pesant girl who had caught the right eye at the right time, and the true Asynjur resented her for it. She was not one of them, but not without friends, either. Still, it was lonely sometimes.
"Sigyn, I..." the husband who was not her husband had said, breathing her name with a kind of raw, reverential honesty that made her look up sharply. His expression was strange, though she only saw it for a moment before she was swept into a desperate, passionate kiss.
The rest of the morning and most of the afternoon had passed in a blur; her not-husband had lead her to their bed, hushing her protests and simply lay there, holding her. His hands had caressed her everywhere, resting on her swollen belly as he felt the life within her. He had said the strangest thing then; "I never knew, I'm so sorry, I..."
Which he thought was true; strange since she had told him of her pregnancy several months earlier. It was no secret.
He had told her other things, too; things that had made her blush and laugh and smile despite herself. True things and silly things, things she often heard him say to others but never honestly or warmly. An afternoon of warmth and gentle hands and soft words and at the end she wondered to herself was this what it was like to take another's bed? For though the man she lay with looked like her husband, and honestly thought himself to be such, she knew he wasn't.
And something was very wrong, because everything was so very right. But fixing it meant losing this afternoon, this gentle husband who told her she was beautiful and looked at her with a deep loving sorrow she couldn't even begin to understand.
She would think about it, she swore, but tomrrow. Besides, perhaps this was a dream. Perhaps she had simply fallen asleep in her chair and imagined the whole thing, and by the time she woke up everything would be back to normal, and no decisions would be hers to make.