Sometimes, she feels them near her.
Vestigial, like the phantom thrum of an amputated heartbeat. She can feel him by her side, towering and beautiful in all his brokenness. More beautiful because of it. Her cynosure, that thing that first dawned in her darkness like an inchoate star, marking itself on the uncharted maps of her unmoored mind. He had been her first landmark, and she had kept him as her compass rose all these years, following and followed by him—tethered to the redemption they had sown into one another. They had been, time and time again, drawn through strange veils of separation, weaving in and out of time for each other. Sometimes, she feels the warmth of him, the touch like a reminder of her newly independent spirit and how he vowed to watch over it. Just as she’d fight his wolves if she could.
And sometimes, she feels him, too. Tiny and perfect, the boy that came to her like a brilliant galaxy, and then left her like a graveyard of disparate, star-shed, all too quickly. He remains, still, slipping through her grasp like a shade, a silhouetted tattoo against that dying, colourless world. Against her burdened soul, like newly inked and tender skin. He is her fire. He is her dream come alive and repeated across the strange, black cartography she must create for herself in her mind. He is the shadow of himself splayed across the bulging, rough bark of trees; he is reflected back in the muddy water she treads knee-deep through.
She doesn’t need to see, to see him.
To see both of them, as indelible as her gods’ brand.
Edda, too, had considered what it might be like had she never strayed from her Path. Had she remained beholden to the ancient and foretold duty—the endless, purposeful march through time, from boneyard, ruin and ancestral tomb. Alone; left small gifts and offerings at family shrines, but watched through cracked shutters and doorways. She was never meant for any of this. For love, for motherhood—and maybe that is why it keeps rebuking her. Maybe it is punishment, for the purloined pleasures and for defying an order higher than even her gods.
She hears the sucking give of mud and murky water, her ear tilting in the direction, followed wearily by her senseless, clouded gaze. ‘Hello.’ It occurs to her that she could continue on without a word. That she could make off as a ghost in the bog and continue upon her tireless search without having to engage. And it is tempting. As tempting as it is to consign herself to the earth. But she shifts from the tree, taking her weight back into her sore legs and faces the woman.
‘Are you lost?’
Desperately.
The once-skald inclines her head, mud speckled up to her chin amongst her dark freckled markings. She would smile, laugh even, if she had it in her. Instead, her brows crease together and she sighs softly, her voice eking out, hoarse and dry—and she hadn’t even realized how hungry and thirsty she has become. “Not ‒ exactly.” There is a mighty weight on her tongue, exhaustion and frustration. She could never stop looking for him. Could never stop trying.
But she was so deeply sick of having to.
“I am looking for someone ‒ I’m afraid it is true, I do not know where I am…” she had come to learn that it didn’t matter. Every single step is a link, a gesture of faith.
Vestigial, like the phantom thrum of an amputated heartbeat. She can feel him by her side, towering and beautiful in all his brokenness. More beautiful because of it. Her cynosure, that thing that first dawned in her darkness like an inchoate star, marking itself on the uncharted maps of her unmoored mind. He had been her first landmark, and she had kept him as her compass rose all these years, following and followed by him—tethered to the redemption they had sown into one another. They had been, time and time again, drawn through strange veils of separation, weaving in and out of time for each other. Sometimes, she feels the warmth of him, the touch like a reminder of her newly independent spirit and how he vowed to watch over it. Just as she’d fight his wolves if she could.
And sometimes, she feels him, too. Tiny and perfect, the boy that came to her like a brilliant galaxy, and then left her like a graveyard of disparate, star-shed, all too quickly. He remains, still, slipping through her grasp like a shade, a silhouetted tattoo against that dying, colourless world. Against her burdened soul, like newly inked and tender skin. He is her fire. He is her dream come alive and repeated across the strange, black cartography she must create for herself in her mind. He is the shadow of himself splayed across the bulging, rough bark of trees; he is reflected back in the muddy water she treads knee-deep through.
She doesn’t need to see, to see him.
To see both of them, as indelible as her gods’ brand.
Edda, too, had considered what it might be like had she never strayed from her Path. Had she remained beholden to the ancient and foretold duty—the endless, purposeful march through time, from boneyard, ruin and ancestral tomb. Alone; left small gifts and offerings at family shrines, but watched through cracked shutters and doorways. She was never meant for any of this. For love, for motherhood—and maybe that is why it keeps rebuking her. Maybe it is punishment, for the purloined pleasures and for defying an order higher than even her gods.
She hears the sucking give of mud and murky water, her ear tilting in the direction, followed wearily by her senseless, clouded gaze. ‘Hello.’ It occurs to her that she could continue on without a word. That she could make off as a ghost in the bog and continue upon her tireless search without having to engage. And it is tempting. As tempting as it is to consign herself to the earth. But she shifts from the tree, taking her weight back into her sore legs and faces the woman.
‘Are you lost?’
Desperately.
The once-skald inclines her head, mud speckled up to her chin amongst her dark freckled markings. She would smile, laugh even, if she had it in her. Instead, her brows crease together and she sighs softly, her voice eking out, hoarse and dry—and she hadn’t even realized how hungry and thirsty she has become. “Not ‒ exactly.” There is a mighty weight on her tongue, exhaustion and frustration. She could never stop looking for him. Could never stop trying.
But she was so deeply sick of having to.
“I am looking for someone ‒ I’m afraid it is true, I do not know where I am…” she had come to learn that it didn’t matter. Every single step is a link, a gesture of faith.
Voice | @Elena
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