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Onni had been a bird before. Sure, it had been a bigger bird, but the mechanics were the same. Almost like swimming. Still, he seemed like a fledgling next to the Swan. He glanced at them, and they glanced back. There was no malice in the beady eyes, but rather a deep sense of caring. He wished the feeling was mutual.
The night sky had turned black a few minutes ago, and the Icelandic sea had dried into an expanse of flat gravel. Ahead of them, he saw a band of deep red water that looped around a large, mountainous island. Crags of white rock poked up from the river, their bases stained by the liquid. It reminded him uncomfortably of pulled teeth. The swan took the lead again, and flared their wings to glide down onto the opposite shore. He landed less gracefully, claws slipping on the slick rock and causing him to fall beak-first onto it.
The swan looked down at him, impassive, and waved a wing over his prone form. In a blink, he was man-shaped again. He stumbled to his feet, noticing that the aches and weakness he'd been plagued with for the last few years were gone. His hand seemed to flicker as he caught a glimpse of it. Examining it closely, it seemed to be leaving afterimages behind as it moved, the
"skin" taking a moment to catch up with the matter underneath. With some concern, he noted that the muscles of his arm had turned a pale gray, like over-boiled meat.
Onni started as the swan whirled around and launched itself back into the air, a streak of red zipping off to the horizon. He was alone now. The air was silent, the sky was black, and the rocks seemed to still be lit by the absent evening sun. The faint sounds of speech began to creep through the air towards him. His heart skipped a beat.
Looking towards the voices--deeper into Tuonela--he saw a long, dark line filling up the space between the craggy hills that rounded the island, curling back on itself to fit in tighter. He began to walk towards it, curious, and squinted. A look at the near end, at least a hundred meters from him, showed that the line was composed of people. Well, people's souls, but still. There must have been millions of them here. And the line seemed to be totally still. He watched for a minute or two, and then in synchrony the souls took one step forward. The combined sound echoed between the hills until it was a nearly deafening roar.
With a sigh, Onni joined the massive queue. A soul about twenty spaces in front of him looked back. She was, or at least appeared to be, a well-aged woman, about his height, wearing a long grey fisherman's coat. There was a clacking noise as she walked, and Onni glimpsed a metal prosthetic under her coat. She squinted at Onni, sniffing him a few times. "Do I know you?" the stranger asked.
He leaned back, somewhat surprised by her forwardness. "Probably not, unless you visited Hvolsvöllur in the last few years."
"Where's that? No, no, I've seen you somewhere before." The soul began to rustle through her pockets, which seemed to be full of crumpled documents. After a moment, she pulled out a fresh-looking sheet of parchment and showed it to him. The ink was smudged, but printed on the sheet was a sketch of his own face, perhaps ten years younger than he had been before he left. "Yeah, that's it! You're Onni Hotakainen, yeah?"
"Where'd you get that?" He examined the page closer. There was a line under his face that said his name, as well as the instructions "Look out for this soul, please!" There was a signature below that which seemed familiar, but he couldn't make it out.
"Huh. It doesn't say what to do after that." The woman glanced around, confused. "Hey! I've got an Onni Hotakainen over here!" They stood there for a moment. The soul just behind the space the woman had left appeared to be tapping his foot impatiently. Suddenly, there was a sound like flapping wings, and a small gust of wind blew from behind him. He turned around and saw another old woman.
She was taller than him by a few centimeters, and wearing an odd sort of tailored coat with a hood. Her face was shaded, but a pair of silver-grey braids poked out of the hood. When she spoke, her voice was husky, and at least an octave deeper than the other woman's. "Onni. You've grown." He gaped at her as she extended a hand. "You'll come with me now." He reached out to grab her hand and she snagged him in her vice-like grasp first.
The woman with the prosthetic grabbed his other hand and gave it a quick shake. "Well, nice to meet you, er, Onni. My name's Seija Jokinen." The hooded woman stared impassively at the two of them for a moment.
"Thank you."
Onni felt a tug on his other hand. There was a sound like a gyring flock of birds, and his vision went white for a moment. When he could see again, he was standing somewhere else. There was a rough wall of white-painted brick in front of him, with a wide grey stripe placed parallel to the ground about two feet up. He turned around, looking to see the hooded woman's reaction to this strange turn, and saw that he was actually standing in a long hallway. There were doors set into the walls every five or ten meters, but other than that it was quite barren.
The hooded woman threw off her hood, revealing a face that felt familiar to him. She looked at him, a little concern mixing with sadness in her eyes. "I should not have expected it, but I did hope you'd recognize me." She bent down a little, examining him in return. Onni could feel her eyes creeping over every wrinkle, and he had to fight the urge to cover his face.
"Who-"
"I am your grandmother, Ensi. There is a lot that you need to know, but for now I believe there are several people who'd like to see you." Questions began to whirl through his mind, but before he could speak Ensi put a hand on his shoulder and began to lead him down the hallway. They passed at least six doors, and he nearly tripped as he read one of the nameplates. He hadn't seen her in so long--never even gotten a chance to say goodbye. He wouldn't cry, though. Ensi would definitely see that.
There was a set of double doors at the end of the hallway, which she opened onto a wider room. Onni didn't get a chance to see much of it, though, because his eyes were glued on the people in the middle of the room. There she was, right in the middle. He ran to her, and the tears came hot and fast.
"Tuuri!" The others took a step back, grinning, as he wrapped his sister in a tight embrace. She looked the same as she ever had, maybe a bit thinner. Her fingers were stained with ink, and her smile still melted his heart. She was crying too, if only a little. After a moment, they separated again, and she spoke.
“Wh-What took you so long?” Her voice was quavering, but she still laughed, just a bit. He took the moment to look around as she examined him. Lalli was here too, looking a bit more spry than he had 3 years ago when they’d last met. The tears flowed a little faster as he saw their parents standing around the three of them. Dad and Uncle Jukka were both grinning ear-to-ear, Aunt Tuuliki was smiling slightly, and his mother was trying to suppress a giggle.
His voice caught in his throat as he began to reply. How could he fit forty years into a single statement? Instead of something clever, Onni ended up just crying his eyes out for a few moments, embracing the others one by one. He had forgotten how warm his mother’s hugs could be. “I never thought..” He took a long breath, his smile streaked with tears. “I never thought I’d see any of you again.”
Tuuri spoke first, as the others mulled over their replies. “Hey! I promised! Didn’t expect to be awake for it, though.” The others’ expressions darkened a degree, and a heavy silence settled over the room for a moment.
He giggled weakly before replying, “Yeah, I do actually have a few questions. For one thing, I’ve never heard about an office block in Tuonela. Or a big... line of souls.”
Jukka elucidated. “Well, when everyone, er, died, there was a bit of an, umm…” He trailed off for a moment, snapping his fingers. Juha raised his hand to interject, but then adopted an expression of consternation to match his brother’s. Finally, Tuuliki chimed in quietly.
“A clerical error?”
“Yes! A clerical error--all the souls were sorted by where they lived instead of what religion they followed, so like fifteen million ended up here, and the Swan had to sort through them all.” Juha nodded confidently as his brother spoke.
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
Juha kept explaining where Jukka had left off, “So, they wanted to hire some help. Only problem is, the Swan doesn’t exactly have any money to hand out. Pretty much the only thing they can do is guide souls here.”
“So you were, what, hired to work for them instead of just going to sleep?”
Onni jumped as Ensi spoke from behind him. She’d been standing so still he’d forgotten she was there. “I was not strong enough, and they offered me a deal. Perhaps it was not the best deal.”
Tuuri stepped forward and hugged Onni again, her eyes still wet. “Seems pretty good to me.”