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Chapter Text

The trek up the vertical cliffs of Hrimthur’s would’ve been a pleasant affair if the wights were absent. A woman grunted, tugging the silk rope tied around her waist. Her brother decided he knew better on climbing, ascending quickly to the next break in the wall, abandoning his kinfolk. She could tell he was excited, since he was panting between each word. Excitement unburdened to the high winds channeling down the intrepid climbers. Tempest weight could whip and beat down her brother, his vigor never eliminated. Only spurred on to this ascension, a moment so corollary it was prophetic, and it was to Atreus’ blood. How could their father be so insensible to this simple truth? A child will wander, even if it hurts. 

Ọba considered how their father was doing, had Atreus hurt him? Having his own son bare down claws in trepidation, a torrent, an unspoken one, was broken. Consolidation nil became of Atreus’ mouth and mind when they trudged on to Freya’s abode, the abandoned Chaurli. Slumbering tortoise frozen to die in place, the creature had rumbled with a broken heart. Everywhere in Midgard hung the opaque veil of dismal apathy. A whisper of warmth instantly snuffed out in a distressed realm. Dredges of life hung scarcely, Fimbulwinter’s girdlings would soon strangle those surviving outcroppings. Survivors Ọba and Atreus took care to avoid them, sneaking by in the dead of night, to uninspire a spar with men. 

Asgard was conspicuously quiet to Midgard’s cryotic orchestra. The Aesir realm had a lyricality in absence, she savored this rhythm. Grass shivers softly by the afternoon breeze. Mountains here do not scream in moulin, bleeding frigid water into the Lake of Nine. Frost an unfathomed sight to a realm sweltering with comfort. To her, Asgard flowed dreamy outside the turmoils the other realms were concurrently facing. An unfair paradise to the hells the Aesir had so forth, been lucky to avoid. 

Ọba hissed when a rock snapped at her index.

“You know you can slow down? I don’t think we’re in a rush.” She yelled at him. 

“Oh, I know - but you can climb faster!” Atreus retorted, tugging the rope so she’d catch up. 

Ọba hummed, her fingers feeling numb against the chalky stone. How long had they been climbing? Latching onto every little obtrusion, stuffing fingers into barely existent crevices. Then you get to the part of hoisting your body up. She couldn’t remember the last time she hugged a wall so closely. By now she was long past the stage of initial shyness to blatant intimacy. Even kissed the stone a few times when a toehold gave out. 

Climbing, oh to glide on this great wall. A dream, Ọba muttered bemusedly. How entertaining it was, this sojourn in the arms of uncertainty. You never distinguish a climb’s end, not until one leap over the threshold and into gratitude of safe flooring. How she desired to lay on her back, that great luxury Atreus squandered time again, too energetic to breathe in the wall, to pause. One day that energy would tame, all children pale with time into slower, thoughtful creatures. Ọba’s amusement settled on the relief a matured Atreus would bring. Presently, her wish remained mythical. He nearly ripped the silk cord connecting them both in his boyish celerity. 

Unlike Atreus, Ọba took her time. Sure, rock climbing was fun, flicking one's head up a never-ending cliff face. Sheer anxiety fills your lungs, travels delicately in the vessels, your heart beats fast against your sternum, then you mount the next barely protruding rock with jittering hands. 

Nauseating to her heart, compelled to relax against her better conscious, her voices urging another seizing. One more step to the top refuge. Her brother scampered across the craggy rock face. Possessed by a single-minded need. His hands scented out every viable nook a pair of fingers can use. Ọba strained to keep her eyes concentrated on the yon between herself and Atreus. For every swing and side swivel he did to complete another scarp, Ọba succeeded a quarter of what he completed in one breath. The virtue of an unheeded mind and springy body. Envy would be appropriate to direct at the tyke, but Ọba found youth to be unenviable in the age Atreus had been sired in. Pity to spend adolescence fending frostbitten raiders, to a prophecy Laufey dripped on the yellow paint, then her ashes in the great stone masoned walls. If Atreus went any faster, she would yank the rope like a collar. He would let out a sharp yelp, she would laugh. 

The woman discovered, again, why she didn’t enjoy this. Her shoulders occasionally slipped out the socket, or her fingers bent the other way instead of hooking on. Maybe her legs trembled a little too much pushing on, well, nothing. 

“Damn it…” she muttered. 

“You okay? " Atreus teased, stopping to let her match his pace. 

“Well - my muscles are screaming at you; I’m screaming at you.”

He laughed and let himself dangle above with just one hand. His fingers clenching around a nice, bulbous stone face just asking to be climbed on. Ọba gawks at him, jerk. 

They reached another recess of the great wall, much to her relief. 

“Oh, my goodness-” Ọba exhales the traction as she sits on the rough ground. 

Atreus, like their father, scampered around eyeing for targets to shoot or pottery to break. If he was lucky his coin bag would become a little heavier. He finished breaking the last pots, and his presence squatted down. The teenager plopping down next to her on a neighboring rock. It was quite nice, sitting in silence watching the vast greens of Asgard stretch on. Wind rustled against scandent flora, the clouds above bored onward calmly. Nice not to have the shudder of Fimbulwinter in her bones, less so her loose joints. 

“How are you doing my darling? " Ọba said softly, her gaze not breaking from the view. 

“I… what do you mean? " Atreus said.

She looked at him, knowingly. The fact they were even in Asgard was telling enough. 

“Oh… I…”

“He means well, they all do, you know.”

Atreus sighed, not desiring this topic to fester idle conversation. He blinked up at the midday sun. Cool rays bouncing back at him.

Innocence washed his pallid cheeks. Cold rosy tints wiped clean by Asgard’s warm fingers; weariness ingrained behind the boy’s face had softened. A face Ọba assumed would fit handsomely in a world where Ragnarök's presence was made obsolete, or a minor happenstance worth little to fret the color animating a being. She had witnessed her father and brother become duller as the three years passed. Atreus had grown taller than her now, Ọba did not prefer that arrangement and never would. That sheltered little child dusted away his mother’s ashes, a sign, a rite to move forward. It made her nostalgic for the rites of matron head long before her ways in the nine realms. 

“Why did you chase me? Follow me back to Midgard? You didn’t go against me like everyone else.” 

“Why should I? " 

Atreus just looked at her, a calm smile on her face as she turned to answer him. Ọba rarely, if ever delved into what drove her to do things. It was something of hers that resembled father. Always vague summations that would’ve communicated as half hearted if not the look in the eye. Ọba’s eyes were so eloquent, they’d convinced Kratos to let her continue wandering Midgard as Fimbulwinter rolled in. And to her tall tales, when she returned past dusk to sleep along them on well-loved furs. So, to Midgardians of all stations, of ones with four feet, covered by hair, starved by endless cold, they too agreed, to let in a stranger of uncommon tools, unusual inflections to help them. 

“I’m not here to get in your way, I’m here to look after you. Make sure… the Aesir don’t do anything, okay? "

“But you don’t have to.” Atreus felt guilty. 

Ọba shook her head at him, “Don’t feel bad, besides, you’re not the only one who got an invitation.” 

Atreus paused, “Wait, what do you mean? From Odin? "

Ọba nodded back and smiled.

“H-How? When? How did me and father not-”

“Atreus, I’m quite older than you. I don’t need to answer to our father like you do.”

“That’s not… fair.” Atreus said, glum. 

“Well, I’ve lived on my own far longer than you have,” she leaned toward the side, booping his nose. Atreus flinched.

“Hey!” He swatted her hand, before another question appeared in his mind, “Did Odin, did he come to you? "

That day’s coldness still seeped into her memories. A chill rattled her spine. Fur-clad nomads hosted Ọba for a week when she completed a series of burr holing on an upstanding brother. As she drained the poor man of pressure, an oddity appeared. An unkindness flocked the shabby camp, black claws scritching the wind strained tents Ọba treated within. The people were mystified; an envoy sent by no other than by the All-Father’s will had invaded their encampment. Squaws requesting the , currently harboring next to a beloved member she delicately treated. Ọba refused the avian council. Snapping at the birds to edge back lest her focus become frazzled. 

She looked skyward, her expression thoughtful. “No, ravens came for me. Bearing platitudes I ignored… till now, obviously .” Ọba’s gaze met his once more, “I’m just hoping that invitation hasn’t expired.”

“Hm, I… honestly, I don’t think even the Aesir would throw you out. You’re too pleasant.” Atreus said with a small smile. 

“Really? I think I’m a little soft.” 

He shook his head. “If they do, I’ll drop everything, and we can find a way back to Brok’s and Sindri’s.”

“Promise? " Ọba looked at him, in trust.

“Promise.” 

And they sat there, breathing in the sharp winds cascading down Hrimthur’s wall. Jostling around Ọba’s head scarf. She snapped her hands on the silky fabric, on the verge of completely unknotting itself. 

Plunging down to back to where they started was a horrific idea to ponder on. Her heart nearly clamped up her esophagus and into her mouth when she shivered, the briefest winds brushing her scalp. A coldness branching in between the roots to clinching on skin this scarf was meant to bind. She just had to tie it tighter this time, under the ears too, yes it was an odd trade off but one Ọba dealt with the same finesse as she did to breathing, a natural fixture to herself, unthinkable to a world wherein the absence felt unerring. No one ever questioned the oddities she wore, for these people of the nine, wore their oddities proud and embroiled in esoterica seeping the land’s ichor. 

Some flimsy headscarf hardly entertained prolonging staring. But anxiety prickled under her breast and ribs, whenever the silken braid untethered to the invisible hands of Njord’s descendants. Mocking Ọba’s nimble efforts to her modesty.  Dreadful was it, an adolescent Atreus drawn by curiosity about unseen realities, his sister’s head wrapping enraptured the little child then, not so anymore. Years of father’s sternness and a harkening self-awareness did wonders to a handsy child. 

“What’s left to climb? " Ọba asked just as the winds calmed. 

“Ahh….” Atreus leaned forward, just about teetering off the stone edge. 

“Well? "

“Not much, I think we're almost there.” 

Ọba sprung up, delighted to hear that. “Wonderful.”

Atreus could only see a pink blur - Ọba already mounting the wall with fervor he only saw when she was chasing furry animals. Like when she was chasing Fenrir, when the wolf was still kicking and affable. 

“Slow down!” 

Atreus struggled easing back to climbing. His fingers couldn’t seem to find a good crag. It didn’t help that Ọba was practically yanking him up. He nearly slipped off a few times making his grip jittery. Ọba, meanwhile, was clawing her way upbound. Grasping any knob or shriveled root turned an invigorated handle. Surprisingly, she was a good climber, at least when the end was in sight. 

His hands, in a sudden state of unreadiness, slapped the wall desperately. Cringe birthed painfully across the boy’s face. Dirt rummaged, piled into fingernails then inundating him coarse dryness, cutting to the quick. He expired some of the anxiety in short, pinched huffs, cold winds dragged into his throat’s raw halls. Atreus sputtered some saliva at another give out. Two seconds, every rock he reached for crumbled. Now, he found himself trailing Ọba’s corybantic scratchings. Committing her being to lift, higher and higher. Up and away, off the certainty of fruitless endeavoring that so haunted the woman’s mind. 

“Almost there - I can feel the downwind!” Ọba said. 

Atreus managed to clumsily hoist himself closer, grazing her feet. She kicked him in the face a few times. 

“Hey- I see the ledge Tray-”

“Grab it-” He wheezed, holding onto a slim stone neighboring Ọba. Feeling as though it was going to give out any second. 

Atreus yelped, the outcropping giving out, but his deft hands caught one of Ọba’s belts. She winced reaching upwards, Ọba’s hand barely grazing over the final rock, the last hurdle. Her tired fingers snagged it tightly, and just as she was going to inhale and lift - it broke.

Then, a hand grasped her own. 

“ Hello.” 

Ọba looked up slowly to the stranger. An uppish man peered down, apple clasped in his other hand, with an even worse grin as she suspended by his grip alone. 

A confounding weight depressed her very soul. The upturned lips would make a lesser man curl inside, flesh aquiver by the eyes so terrible a shudder would paralyze their courage into a newborn whimper. Of her voices, the disputant mouthed their end’s announcements. Screeching furiously, the annulments a heighted death assured. 

“Oh…! Hi-” Ọba uttered until Atreus slung onto, his arms gripping her waist taut. Squeezing the oxygen from Ọba’s lungs. 

“Sorry-” Atreus muttered on her back.

Ọba cringed, the tendons in the arm stretching beyond the norm. The man barely tightened his grip, watching amusedly at their predicament. 

“So…” He looked down at them again, “What part of the enormous wall made you think, ‘Oh, visitors must be welcome!’”

Atreus clawed at another chalky protrusion to lessen the burden on Ọba. He strained out some words for them both, “We were sent for, actually. By Odin.” 

“ We ? " he sneered, “The All-Father sent for you? Ha! Great.”

He takes a bite of the crisp fruit, then resuming his bemused soliloquy. Atreus is eager to listen, to plead their case even as his supportive grip barely suffices. The weight squarely on Ọba again. She mutely expresses her pain, training her eyes on the calm clouds. Resigned to ignoring the abraded sinews porrecting up her snagged arm. Cold breath tainted the air. Ọba suffered the agonies stretching her body tender in both directions, her mind raw with the worries the stranger stirred and to the voices an irate dialogue happened high in tone, muting out the words this man would speak above her. 

“Then why are you out there and not in here? " He said, his grip fastening a tad. 

“Why don’t we ask him together? " Atreus said, promising to apologize to Ọba, he could feel tremors down her torso as he hung for life. 

The man looked up in thought, considering his choices. Ọba squinted her eyes shut, biding the seconds to be relieved of her role as a lifebelt. Atreus continued to return his gaze back to the stranger, still optimistic. The man hummed, carelessly dropping the partially bitten fruit on the teenager. Atreus yelps, pendulating onto his sister. Both sensed something pop in her body.

“Are you finished? Now. What could Odin, All-Father, King of the Aesir, possibly want with the likes of you ? " He said, his freed hand airily gesturing at the two. 

“That’s between us and Odin-” Atreus said.

He frowned at that; the pretense of faux politeness melts away. His eyes, those strange eyes, Ọba briefly saw, peers within her brother. 

“You don’t even know, do you? " He laughs at Atreus.

“Think you could pull us up or…? " 

The man checked his nails, casually replying, “No, I don’t think I will.”

He looks at them briefly and resumes, “I think, maybe I’ll drop you.”

Ọba hitches her breath as Atreus panics around her.

“No, no no no no. Stop. Stop-” his fingers dig in Ọba’s waist, she felt her waist belts squeeze under her ribs from his hug-hold. 

 “Yes, I think I’m going to drop you. Good-Bye.” 

Ọba’s eyes widened, feeling the briefest slackening until Atreus’s hand shot up, gripping onto the man. He returned to him a look of distaste, offended as though Atreus broke some mores on contact. 

“Wait, wait! Think how mad the All-Father’s gonna be when he, when he finds out you killed his guests- Loki of the Jötnar and-”

He interrupts, gifts Atreus a toothy grin, “Heh.” 

“The Jötnar ? He repeats, “Enemy of my people? " 

He was frowning now; Atreus shook his head trying to disarm any prejudice. 

“I, we, are not your enemy.” Atreus states, retreating his hand from the stranger.  

The man gives him a sidelong glance, a pensive look on his face. Scanning down the boy and woman, his fingers wrapped tight on her skin. Her hand, all velvety, and loose , like it would slip out at any second. And he would rather there not be a mess on the wall though it’d be perfect in dissuading future intruders. He sighs, feeling a little merciful this high noon. Brushing a thumb against her tense knuckle. With a roll of his eyes, he towed them over the precipice, safely albeit in a rakish manner.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He spoke. 

Ọba gasped, first her knees scraping the stone ground as the man dragging them both ways from the edge. Atreus rolled off her back, detangling himself off the beads and belts adorning her dress, “Sorry- sorry-” He muttered, watching her body jitter.

The man, Asgardian? Or Aesir? Kept a good grip on her, a moment too long for relinquishing his grasp. He gave Ọba a passing glance, his eyes crinkling at her foreignness and propensity for… pink. Atreus flocked to her side; his hands careful to avoid her ribs. She was probably bruised, all burgundy streaks. He didn’t want to think of her shoulder, it hadn’t popped back in yet. 

Atreus stood upright, being a sturdy edge for Ọba to hold on. His fingers deftly untied the bungee-like silk, freeing himself. She yanked the fluttering material back, entwining it around her shoulders. Tugging it and braiding it behind her nape. Ọba inhaled, then harshly jerked a free end till her shoulder relocated back into the socket. Atreus winced hearing the fibrous snapping. Now re-socketed, she exhaled deeply with the chill of an articulating pain. It was a familiar sound to him, almost nostalgic. 

He would have to have been a child, a very young one, never straying far from Laufey’s hip nor her warm regards. His head not even reaching to Ọba’s mid-thigh when they glided through a meadow, in midsummer's bloom captured Atreus’ mind. Wildflowers tucked beneath rooty verandas, perennial ponds bled the tall grasses, obscuring the deepened mud and neophyte frogs croaking at his eager, chubby little hands struggling to snatch at the curiosities. And he would run at the flutterbies painting the breeze, even down the rocky creeks. Ọba kept up easily. In haste, she slipped, capturing him to prevent a dive to the pond water. Her arm bent like a wilted rose. He never ran again. 

 “This way, “Loki of the Jötnar and… whatever else ,” the man announced, sauntering off, not intending to wait on them or their bearings. 

They both followed, Atreus bared more enthusiasm in his gait, “Wait… is that Gjallarhorn? Are you Heimdall? " 

“Obviously,” he sneers back. 

Atreus unfettered, but Ọba frowns. Doesn’t seem like the pleasant type. Merely recalling what happened a few short minutes ago, playing the idea to let them drop to their deaths. To not consider how far they have gone, and for what? Sure, he was likely a guard, well, he was. He was an Aesir, Atreus a Jötnar, and she was a total stranger to this cultural conflict. Of course there was tension, the convenience of Odin to fling them far outside the great walls. Per adventure he enjoyed watching the siblings struggle, perhaps a trial. Still, it baffled her that one of his sons was absolutely clueless to their arrival at the wall’s top. 

Her mind palace gets befogged by these thoughts, mostly her emotions and her company, the voices. Ọba stood close to Atreus, unsure of Heimdall. He was handsome in a pretty way, as tall as their father, broad but not brawnier, quite lean. Having the usual masculine inflections she was accustomed to noticing. Exaggerated sway of broader shoulders to narrow waist, limiting the lower stride. His blond tresses were nicely braided, indicating he had the forethought or dexterity to add such detail onto his person. Then again, he was also wearing gold adornments everywhere else. 

His eyes - they were odd, mesmerizing at the initial instant. Ọba held those in antipathy. They looked on, they saw things that should remain private. Flitting off her brother before every snark was enough for Ọba to suggest clairvoyance. She knew those types, but like everything in life, their range was not absolute to all. Ọba swallowed the seedling of animosity down her throat, with it too unbidden thoughts. Uncluttering the mind palace, organizing the memories in discrete rows. Coiling up the tangents into manageable piles. Hushing the voices to lay low, lay calm, lay out of sight of this Watchman. No doubt he’d go looking through her, to rip open another satchel full of insecurities and lies. Ọba was careful, she always was. She had to be. 

Heimdall approaches the elevator sill leading to Gladsheim. Eyeing lowly the two trespassers, “Now feel free to drink in the splendour of Asgard. This is a rare sight outsiders… Especially Giants.” The end tinged in a flavor of contempt. 

Atreus reaches down in wont of scavenging abandoned coin bags. Something Ọba herself never partook in; she wasn’t that neurotic about loose change.

“Yes, why not steal anything that is not nailed down? That is sure to impress your hosts.” Heimdall said, sarcasm latent.

Ọba refrained, her pupils twitching to roll. Why would he care? Just abandoned currency on the ground, or whatever it may be. Better in the hands of warm flesh than forgotten somewhere. Seemed every word from his mouth held the predestined slant to annoy, inspire enmity, to be as uncomforting as possible.  

“Now join me on the platform, won’t you? The All-Father doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Heimdall was already scaling the wooden steps. 

Atreus hopped up behind, Ọba took her time. Feeling the cool winds caress the silks bound across her form as fascia. The loose ends near her hands flutter. It felt good, until Heimdall spoke. 

“Oh. Done drinking it in already? " 

She wanted to cringe at his grated words. Or even push him over the rocky margin. 

“Cornerstone of Civilization in the Nine Realms not really your cup of tea? I see…” 

Atreus, the eager people pleaser he was, “Oh, uh.. no, it’s amazing!” 

Heimdall regarded her brother, interrupting his last appeals. 

“Ugh, just ask your questions already.” He sighed expectantly. 

“How’d you know I had questions? " 

“It is my job. Next question.” Heimdall spoke, rehearsing a tired script.

Ọba unheeded this conversion, doubtful Heimdall would be enlightening as Atreus hoped. She stood by the admittedly flimsy bulwark. The wood surely kept everyone safe, not by structural virtue, just the primal fear of heights. Her skirts flapped in the winds, not licking her skin into bruises thankfully. 

Asgard was quaint, small but finiteness didn’t equate to lack of stratagem. Odin certainly was not lacking, here was the prime military power of all the Nine Realms. Nestled safely in the embrace of stark stone slabs. Ọba let herself skim the culture below. Farms, longhouses, pit houses, many gates, dirt roads, stairs. Quite bustling for such a compact capital. 

“And.. What might you be? Jötnar? "

Ọba flinched, she didn’t immediately satisfy Heimdall’s query. Though, Ọba had a healthy guess he was straining toward her, itching to know her forethought and do his sneering. 

Ego would not be satisfied, for her mind knew no generosity in feasting his arrogant hunger. He could squirm in his fine, white tunic, pierce his lips together in an unsuiting snarl that insulted the soft visage he carried as the whitest of the Aesir. Ọba could starve Heimdall herself, she did not concern his needs as the Watchman. She argued if a congregation between them would ever occur outside the bindings of this, if specific, scenario. 

“Oh, no. I’m not.” Ọba said, glimpsing past her shoulder to him.

Heimdall, ever so glowered at “Loki’s” companion. Her attire by no means resembled the austere textiles of Asgard. To even suggest she was heralded from another realm, how incredibly laughable. Too pink, too garish for his liking. Her dress was a dense hide festooned by a beaded garment, the way it ruched around her bust to then hang in flat aprons over her wrapped legs. Deep black splotches surrounded the fuschia leather, with an unnecessary amount of waist belts hanging parallel. He assumed the pinkish beads were coastal - contingent with sanded down ivory to equally gaudy pink shells, softly clinking much to his chagrin. 

He didn’t even want to consider what the bizarre silk she tied across her shoulders or arms were, another effeminate trifle. That, to the tightly bound headwrap holding captive the assumed hair, or maybe not. Foreigners usually had strange customs he did not entertain. 

“Then what are you then? " Heimdall said. 

Ọba smiled softly to herself, it vanished as her head tilted to him. 

“Nothing notable to you I’m afraid.” 

Nice and vague. She could even see his eye twitch. 

The Aesir glared at the woman more, clawing his foresight to her soul. Underneath all those ornaments there had to be another vulnerable, base-inclined mass he could prod for intention. He stared at her and found nothing. Perchance a ripple to start, then silence. His frown deepened further than it had. All he had of her was the superficial look, her smug face. 

Flaunting endowments, a loose impudent willfully ignorant to his station. He wanted an answer, instead this thing swayed a half reply in his direction. Her voice barely registered, far lilting even to his profound hearing. To his eyes a curvaceous obelisk curtained in the brightly putrid hues. Better she might be another conquest his father uses, then retire among the stalls of other concubines. 

The elevator braced into the wooden dock. Atreus sighed in relief, happy the escapade up Hrimthur’s was a chapter behind them. 

Atreus scooted next to Ọba as they gawked at Gladsheim, “It’s…”

“Not a lot.” Ọba uttered quietly. 

Heimdall scoffed at the hushed conversation, “Whispering? Are you children? " 

Ọba perked up, and gave him a stately beam, “No, m’lord I was addressing my brother. He’s never been to a city like this.” 

Heimdall grunted, she was sucking up and he couldn’t ascertain if it truly was leaning toward authenticity. He glared at the skinny half breed. Atreus flinched, a hare under the gaze of a rueful dog.

Sulfur emanated from the Jötunn child, a disaster in the horizon's edge pierced his vision, a biting sight. A streak of white fire, a heat of Muspell, the great calamities that would tear apart his great love, Asgard, his duty. All by this child, a little boy who speaks in ash, and his intentions he sees as the bright portents that set aflame the Aesir. Heimdall hears screaming after every word from Atreus’ mouth. He hears the roaring of house woods, the sintering to the generations of Asgardian culture, by the little Jötunn snake who acts his sincere innocence. What a farce to the Watchman, he knew better.

“That said…” Heimdall turned to walk off. “If you are here to aid the All-Father, and have no treacherous intent.”

He paused and gave Ọba a passing glare. 

“I guess that makes us allies.” 

Atreus swallowed, sparing Ọba a nervous grin. She returned one in warm affirmation. Her soft hand gently ensnared his clammy one. They step down, wood creaking beneath their soles. 

A wyvern croaked above, preening feathers atop a stone carved perch. The departing courtyard is cobblestoned, framed by a wooden gate leading to the inner sanctum of Gladsheim. It is mercifully devoid of life, save, the presence of a distant, laborious babel. An avid retching cut the high air, the wyvern was clearly energetic, but frenetic with symptomatic fever. 

Ọba observed the shuddering wyvern, the fauna shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t be gliding in the temperate realm of Asgard. It was a warm, tropical drake beholden to Vanaheim. 

“Gulltopper… Who loves me the most? " The Aesir’s call nabbed Ọba’s attention. 

Ahead of them was another one of those proud Graðungr. Bound and saddled, the beast’s hide speckled in raised keloids. She frowned. 

“Whoooo loves me the most-“ Heimdall chanted to the eager Graðungr. 

Gulltopper trilled low, feeling his master scale his furry side. Sitting atop behind armored withers. Ọba would’ve assumed a friendly history, but given the shoulder scarification, it was too organized to be accidental. The more she looked; it bore brands no animal should carry. Seems like wild beasts in the realms lacked reverence, if it was any indication of what became of the Hafgufa and Lyngbakr.

What a cruelty to witness, animals had the sufficiencies she contemplated and treated. They were not more, nor less to man. Stringing upon these souls, as to have the same worth to an allotted pile of earth. Stepped on, raised harshly by imperious hands who slaughter wanton, using brutish tools. Blunted tine snaps the neck, the arms into painful stubs. A forward, desperate practice eliciting raucous screaming. Every so often, the great creature is kept around after the abuses, no longer wild but tamed to a deadened stupor, assigned to saddles and headstalls as to this creature, who Heimdall had claimed his steed. 

“Wow, that’s almost as impressive as Baldur taming a dragon.” Atreus blurted, Ọba stifled a sigh at his unintentional backhandness. 

“ Baldur had the luxury of not caring how badly he got burned.” Heimdall replied, yanking the reins of his mount forward. 

“I out-think them, dominate them fair and square.” He finished; a drip of conviction followed. 

Gulltopper circled the siblings, halting aside to let them climb aboard. Atreus scampered the armored flank. Lending a much-appreciated hand to Ọba, her muscles gummy and numb now. She slotted in behind her brother who oriented her arms around his waist. 

The charger lumbered forth; the gates heaved open at their arrival. Atreus and Ọba basked in Gladsheim, the arbiter of culture it seemed. People of green, blue, brown, carrying on tools of everyday wear; smiths, craftsmen, fishers, builders, draftsmen, none were fighters yet nonetheless important to keeping the lifeblood of Asgard still warm and churning. 

Few slowed their treading, gawking as the Aesir Prince leading the two charges. A boy, still a few seasons till adulthood, and a woman following him, a strangely delicate being. To what reason two emigrants of the outside had been left in, inspired gossip amongst the husfreyja. Curtailing the rowdy broods off the highroad out of the way for Gulltopper. Stepping in front of an Aesir god’s steed, or even themselves, was a high transgression. Little children knew not of the passing and stared on eagerly. Rustling in callow glee. Heimdall gave scant attention to the Aesir citizenry. His sharp glare relieved the stern forelock once he met the adolescents. 

A peoples who were his total commitment, his responsibility as the Watchman. A betrayal to his function, how heteroclite this arrangement. Heimdall found it, not the strength, but the comprehensibility to what the All-Father wanted with these foreigners. Unwarranted this was, and he, all too impatient to have these presumed guests slip up. Insulted his great father. Draw their armaments, and the Watchman would respond.  

“Whoa… are these all Aesir gods? " 

For a brief note, Heimdall sounded bewildered, “What? You think all Aesir are gods? "

Atreus interjected, “But Skjoldr told me that only-“ 

“Oh! Well, if Skjoldr told you. Clearly whoever that is must be the authority on Aesir gods, not the Aesir god you are currently talking to.” 

There was an awkward pause, Atreus felt Ọba hug him from behind. She rested her head on his shoulder and gave him a look. Saying with just a bat of her eyelashes he’s quite lovely company? Atreus gave a hesitant smile. 

“You literally know nothing of our culture, do you? " Heimdall said, peering back. 

“I know lots of things! I know a Giant built that wall!” Atreus replied, hoping to impress. 

“A Giant? Built the wall that keeps out, the Giants ? " 

Atreus faltered, but Ọba squeezed him surely to continue.

“Hrimthur, son of Thamur. I know the whole story.” 

“Really? I truly cannot wait for you to regale me with the revisionist tales of Asgard’s architectural history.” Heimdall implored, callous and without the intent of hearing anymore. 

Immodesty, how dare this child, a mutt he carried behind on his faithful steed. Heimdall simmered, beside himself. Galled by this ‘Loki’ who recommenced this conversation, he wanted nothing yet, the boy could not take a hint, could he? Perhaps all Giants were as obtuse as the one blabbering on. Indignancy poisoned his afternoon, Heimdall would seek a purgative to rid himself of residuals the Jötunn rubbed off to his foresight. A visit to the night stalls to become his evening assignment. Odin’s ravens knew not to flutter the grounds Heimdall trotted to alot his frustrations turned libidinous vigor.  

Ọba pursed her lips and nuzzled her brother a nonverbal sorry , he grew a little defeated. Gulltopper proceeded onward. Before them, a triangular lodge at the capital apex. 

Foggy aether back gated Odin’s Hall. Pitched wooden roof, dormer roofs projected forward, wherein rooms laid. A comfortable fortress for a deified family. Here was to be their calling, Odin was in there, awaiting their council. Gentle winds fanned the long garlands, warping and snapping to the breeze originating past the mists. Ọba wondered if an ocean sat past that curtain. A great sea yawning endlessly West, to there, the sun rests and so to the moon. She yearned to ask the Aesir what went past those obfuscated margins. His head twitched momentarily at her inward consideration. Ọba went aplomb. 

“Is that Odin’s palace? " Atreus said, Ọba wasn’t alone in expecting a little more. Potentially a self-aggrandizing gold statue or some intensification. 

Father’s pantheon is self-described as monumental. Horses big enough to draw whole continents, he knew, he crossed the chains binding the saddled landmass to the equines. The primordial entities who can reach the high firmament. So many he had told Ọba in darkest nights, when she could find no sleep. She would listen to his gruff voice; regret cornered every tale he mustered. Never once did Ọba ask why. 

Here, the realms certainly did not lack the transcendent scales. Thamur’s corpse or the World serpent appeased the grandstanding a pantheon demanded. No god was without a level of promotion, not even Odin. 

“Palace? Do you think the All-Father needs to puff himself up like some mortal chieftain?" Heimdall spat. 

“I… guess not.” 

“ That is the Great Lodge, which the All-Father built with his own hands.” The Aesir stifled out, “I’m sorry if that is a letdown for you.”

Ọba hugged Atreus a little tighter. Her brother quietly sighed back into her. Glad his sibling was there; she knew how to keep him present. 

“Real power, you see, does not need to flaunt.” Heimdall started and pushed off Gulltopper. 

Landing on the stony floor. He stared at how the woman in pink clutched onto the Jötnarr. Like some soft mother to an unweaned child. The sight upset him, stirring in his chest walking near Gulltopper’s hind. 

“It emerges when the time is right. Don’t you agree? " 

Atreus snapped his head back, mouth open to speak when Heimdall smacked the mount’s flank. The beast trashed about, violently kicking up its hinds. Both siblings clutched onto the plate armor, fingers hurting the constant up and down. A second later Atreus and Ọba found themselves introduced to a higher altitude. Gulltopper thrashing them off like two bloated mites. And just like mites it was not graceful. 

Ọba kept her hug tight on her brother. Her hand pressed on his tummy, and her back was the first to impact the stony floor, then her recently reducted shoulder. She was nigh able to bite her tongue off when the cracked pop was made audible. Atreus ungracefully used his sister’s body as a cushion for his side, the talon bow smacking her square in the jaw. He immediately rolled off her in a shocked haze. Frantically checking over Ọba who was splayed out, flattening onto her undone shoulder. 

Weak, weak little thing, the disputor claimed as Ọba sucked in her tears. Too frail to last a single graceless fall, fear the hereafter it taunted. No mending company of her father could help carry her quaking body. Sindri and Brok’s chatter could not be a numbing distraction in these fraught moments. Freyja rejoining her family’s life added another set of hands. The goddess had been a great company in Ọba’s spasms, helping her to abide pain in deference. Now it was just her faculties and Atreus. Heimdall had proven one thing she agreed on. They were self-assumed hostages. 

She whimpered; ebbs of pain rioted mostly from the shoulder joint. Her back fared better; it was a spread-out impact. The shoulder was more directed and centralized the sufferance there. Atreus rolled Ọba to her good side, she winced as the unsocketed shoulder brushed the ground. He looped one hand around her waist, using her good arm as a lever to set Ọba back on her feet. 

“Sorry- you alright? “ Atreus whispered.

“It’s fine- I’m fine.” Ọba released an unconvincing wince. 

The boy nodded. Worriedly eyeing over his battered kin. Atreus patted her shoulders down, seeing a rich burgundy advance from the shoulder blade, ending on a cervical laceration bordering her collarbone. 

“Get me up, please. Please.” She stifles him, grasping his arm. 

Nodding to her plea, Atreus tottered his sister the grace of a newborn lamb. Ọba without her common elegance had the inertia of oil, slippery in his archer’s grasp. Attraction tugged her around out of his arms to the exposed floor. Cattle leather soles scraped the ground, she cried squeezed his arm, afraid to fall, just as they inched up from the floor. 

“I-I’m- I’m sorry-”

“No, no no- It’s okay…”

One final wrest, Atreus heaved Ọba against his chest. Her heart was awash in delirious beating. He could feel the thump vibrating through his tunic. 

“Hey. Helmets! I brought you some practice dummies!” Heimdall announced, lounging atop Gulltopper’s saddle. 

Atreus’ fretful expression turned exasperated, “I thought we were going to Odin!”

He hurried Ọba against the rocky parameter. Determined to prevent Ọba from any more pain. The young brother couldn’t begin to imagine how she felt. Delicate muscles tenderized into an inflamed, unsatisfying pain. She hobbled down on the mossy grass. Shivering at all the sensations befelling her skin, to those festering far beneath. 

She ought to cry hot tears. Sullying the Aesir soil by disparate helplessness, that was to bring great entertainment to Heimdall. Or it might annoy him. Poisoning the Aesir dirt with her essence. What did they do to the bodies of enemies? Ọba rejected the chance of an in-city burial, no, Mimir may well say that end would not be gratifying to Odin or his ilk. Death to them will not spare the tortures a slow extinguishing. People will watch, laugh and judge as the guardsman harang them with scratchy ropes, until justice is satisfied. Try, and Ọba did, her body refused to budge. Out of fear, out of the pain, it made little difference. She was invalid. 

Atreus swung around to advancing Einherjar soldiers. Blades out, Bifrost amassing on their hands. 

“You see, the thing is— you do have treacherous intent.” Heimdall retorted, “So, I am not letting you both anywhere near the All-Father.”

Ọba watched quietly, bodkin heads flying off the bow string. Leaving trails of purple illuminance or stunning green, piercing worn armor and pale flesh. She flinched, every Einherjar fell to a leaden thump. Atreus jumped around, skittering zig zag, taking each undead soldier down. Using the bow backing to pummel stunned opponents. He finished, summoning a ram or shapeshifting into a tawny canine. Savaging the resurrected souls a distance away. Refusing them the minute to notice a downed Ọba, to make her an easy victim. 

“Well. That was boring. Guess who’s next!” 

Atreus, panting, clenched the bow belly tight. Regarding Ọba once over, she gifted him a trusting nod. 

“You sure you wanna keep All-Father waiting? ” replied Atreus, bowstring rashing his finger creases. 

“Funny thing. I am sure about that. Yes, I am feeling very sure, matter of fact.” Heimdall mosied over, cruelly smiling. As if Atreus were a small animal defending its wounded dam. 

“You’re not going gonna stop us from seeing Odin!”

Atreus dove back, welcoming Heimdall with enchanted arrowheads. Foreseeing all, Heimdall swatted the projectile flints and sticks. 

Dodge, catch, swipe all the actions immediately aroused his braced arms. Nothing stood close to even bend the air off his face’s edge. Exhilarating to stomp the Jötunn’s fighting chances. Everyone hoped to defeat his foresight, that hope drove Heimdall. It gave fuel to the hearth of his chest, never did he worry about a loss, all he had to do, abide by the choreo the opponent’s imminence painted so clearly. He laughed at every arrow wasted. Shattering into pathetic splinters, what a fearsome little warrior before him. Heimdall surely worried about his loss for how should a thousand-year-old god defeat a half-bred youth?

“You’ll be seeing him from your graves.” Heimdall promised, unsheathing Hǫfuð to deflect. 

“ What ? That doesn’t even make sense!” yelled Atreus, by this point, immensely flustered.

Horrid feelings filled Atreus, dragging Ọba practically in the mud. In fact, her delicate sensibilities were coated in it. This wasn’t how their excursion to Asgard was to be spent. Atreus defended them both, with Ọba stranded by injuries he, himself , inflicted. Somehow stinging more, he unknowingly hurt her. Atreus knew her physical limits, but in the rush, he just forgot to handle them appropriately. 

“Is that it? Is this all you have to show me, Jötunn? " Heimdall said amusedly.  

Ọba huddled onto her toes, steadying the throbbing arm around her torso. Atreus attacked aggressively, compensating for his growing fatigue with frustration. Shooting one arrow after another, again and again. 

“Sure! Completely ineffective, so… keep doing it!” 

The boy lunged, attempting a full-on bow throttle. Heimdall was not generous, uppercutting the Giant with the blunt handle of Hǫfuð. Atreus’ teeth chattered, his chin seared, and jaw muscles pinched. For a second, he nearly retched bile. Instead of expelling, a foot slammed Atreus’ midsection. He swallowed that day’s breakfast. Then stumbled back, gaining a comfortable distance to respire. Heimdall rushed him, proceeding to meet his foot in the teen’s hip. Knocking him down to the level of dirt. 

Where every single opponent ended, face down to the soil, the bed by which many spent their next moments, and forevermore. Heimdall could slam his foot again, plunge his leathered heel into the boy’s throat, hear the strained music as he drowned in blood and air, the windpipe whistling the final breath. Maybe the prince should aim lower, to the trunk he could find a hollow easily. Countless dwarves met their end under his boot, he doubted a scrawny teenager had the same sturdy ribs. This would be as easy as crushing a ripe elderberry, messy but so satisfying. Nothing was as pleasing as making those screeching minds go silent. It spared him the headaches of hearing their guilty declamations when death slowly collected the souls. 

Ọba soared on her feet, her light footfalls background. Atreus twirled inelegantly at the second Aesir’s strike. Unable to lie stationary as her brother faced abuses by the Aesir’s foot. Firmly planting the sole above Atreus’ stomach again. Laying prone, he saw his sister struggle to amble across the courtyard. Heimdall stepped over to the mud-soaked boy. Crouching down, but not to meet eye level. No, he wouldn’t stoop that low. The boy had been such an easy defeat, he considered it not even a fight at all. Not even a warm up to his standard duel. 

“Wow, I do have to say, Loki— I am profoundly unimpressed.” Heimdall stated, “You should probably stay down.”

Heimdall rose to his feet, looking over the pink woman. She was trying to skulk in his periphery. He might not comprehend this foreigner’s intent, a sealed tome compared to her brother’s poorly stitched booklet, but she wasn’t clever. Offering an ill-favoring smirk, Ọba withdrew a step. Cradling her impacted arm. 

Men were beasts all on their own, the one standing before her wrought an injurious rattle. Ọba’s heartbeat hard enough to bruise itself purple and blue, she would sooner pass out of constricted vessels than to lay by this man’s hand. His fingers were smooth, well-manicured articulators, not the thickened cutaneous feelers Midgardian men or her father carried. It frightened the voices, dexterous hands meant the pain they were to orchestrate would be direct, capable of causing lasting harm, a self-snuffing brutish approach only scared, his would alter the seams into unfixable straits. For every step, he followed, not gratifying an escape. 

“Ah! There you are . I was getting worried there-” 

An arrow grazed the tip of his delicate cartilage. Heimdall catched it before the inevitable ear maim. He snapped back, intent on fully squashing the downed Jötunn. Thunder rumbled the clear skies; his brother was nearby. Heimdall rolled his eyes, they landed on the pale blubber of Thor. 

“Great…”

Ọba became rigid at the scene, observing the God of Thunder. He was as Atreus had described him, tall and… wide. 

“Knock it off,” his voice came out as a deep rumble, “Like it or not, they’re both All-Father’s guests.” 

Her eyes roved over the exquisite particulars of Thor. Leathery pauldrons, navy fabrics, serving not to hide his burly physique but to enhance forthright. His red hair was a mess, unkempt and matted by what she assumed were Odin’s other matters. One of them was plastered across his generous fluff. Ọba’s mind honed in to the sight. Tense words flew over her concentrated mind. 

“And how do you intend to stop me? " 

Thor loomed over. 

“Look into my eyes. You tell me.” 

A pause befell the two Aesir. Atreus managed back on his feet. His body startled, but the mind relaxed with Ọba close by.

Safe, she was safe and all that mattered to him Ọba carried no wounds. She suffered enough of his foolishness into this realm, up the Giant’s wall, and suffered by the hand of this uncharitable host. His stomach gnawed a tight knot, wrongness boiled in his gut, he could not find the words to apologize to Ọba, she had every reservation to be mad at him. Atreus could make mistakes with father, it is what children do, but not her, his sister. Her warm eyes rested on him; no blame wreathed her brow. Simply relieved he was sound.

“You are a sick man.” Heimdall said, clearly disturbed. 

Ọba inched back to her brother’s periphery. Atreus had his bow pulled back, ready and willing for combat. A feathery whirlwind produced Odin, swarmed by a raven flock. 

“Loki! Ọba ! You made it, I am so honored.” He warmly greeted them; arms open despite Atreus practically aiming. 

His sister scrutinized the head of Aesir. A kindly old man, one missing eye, dressed finely in thick cottons. It has all the ringerike stitching wrought in gold. Odin emitted quiet authority. He seemed nice, he seemed like a lot of things. 

“I… I see you both met Heimdall. He reads minds for me,” Odin said.

A loving approximation by a father. She held back her pity to Heimdall, just slightly, it hurt to be dwindled by the sire. Yet she vaguely discriminated the slightest flex in his eye, ache? Rejection? A yearning to be noticed by authority, those eyes were everywhere. More common than the blue and green irises she regularly observed. Hurt he was, the eyes slanted away between the All-Father and Atreus. Briefly the sharp tongue of the prince was blunted as was his mind too. Bitterness will trickle into an ugly grudge.

Ateus lowered his aim to the ground, Ọba stood straighter at the Aesir King. Neither willing to have an unbecoming start. Heimdall overlooked the effort. 

“The boy is false, All-Father. And… whatever that is, a walking travesty.” 

Odin pivoted his attention off Atreus and Ọba, to Heimdall. 

“This young man and this lady, who are my guests, are covered in mud. Care to explain?" 

Heimdall halted, the response clearly not expectant.

Almost pathetic in the delivery. Atreus inhaled, sharp at the informal moment. The grandstanding had vanished like a clear sheet, revealing the truth from illusion. Ironic was it, the Watchman, the seeker of lucidity, had made this attraction of humility. No less by the father’s word. No sense of amusement bloomed in Ọba’s belly, ruth steadily dropped down, and down some more to a rising pond. He beckoned consideration from Odin, the lordly one ignored his son’s concern. Only sufficed by his terms, the reality that mattered to the All-Father, his own and to the matters of anything else, simply did not exist. 

“He means to betray you.” He reasoned, bowing to appease. 

Odin hummed in surprise, “Is that true, Loki? You a little trickster? " 

“Uh…”

A smile etched across Odin’s beard, “I’m just messing around. Of course they, he, means to betray me, Hei-“

Ọba noticed the younger Aesir edged to Odin’s right side. The king awkwardly reoriented himself into facing his blind spot. 

“Heimdall, why else would they have come? " 

The Watchman’s grin faded. His earlier tries at thwarting his father’s guests are now completely wasted, a humiliative effort.  

Heat rose off the white Aesir. Light would warble the intensity as did any virile fire. Another dismissal by Odin breathed into this flame he kept under a cool facade. He could not snap at his father, his king, his All-Father, no it was unbefitting his sensibilities. The two worms less worth the dirt he generously let them walk, let them breathe the same fine air his people breathed. Less than that, he would argue down, down to lesser lives and still would not suffice his detestment to the charges. Less than the worms, less than the dead roots, less than… 

“I’ve given them no reason to trust me, the two of them… not yet.” 

His son was bewildered, Odin couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen his second youngest so perplexed. It was amusing. 

“But he’s got some very big questions. And I have so many answers to give.” 

Odin returned to Atreus that warm timber. Ọba wasn’t spared favored inclinations. 

“And you, I’ve got a fantastic offer for you. I think you’ll like it.” 

Thor’s belly eased back in. 

“What are you up to? " Odin dimmed to annoyance, Dismissed! Go!”

“Gladly.” Thor grunted. 

Ọba’s eyes never left Thor. He lumbered off elsewhere, likely to drown in more mead. He not only oozed raw power, but also days spent fermenting near alcohol. 

Not even a goodbye to his own blood. Father never answered in passive, always a terse grunt or a reminder. Odin waved Thor off, a cool lord waving off a farmhand, no longer a tool to his lordship. To be forgotten till he needed to swing it next. Heimdall was a polished instrument, faithful to his handler who could chuck him to the sea. The prince would gladly learn to fly just to make the toss easier, and farther. 

“And you — clean yourself up.” Odin dismissed his other son. 

“But… Allfather…”

“ Sja hvat … Heimdall, will you just relax? " 

Odin faced Atreus. “Were you intending on killing me, first thing? See? " 

Atreus awkwardly shrugged. 

“What? That’s not good enough for you? Get outta here.” 

After Odin’s bid, Heimdall’s last respect was rather gauche. Truly, the Aesir of foresight had not predicted this outcome, or the embarrassment of annoying Odin. His eyes checked Atreus once more. Skinny, weak, barely put up a fight worth enough leaving Gulltopper’s back. Then, this woman, this ‘Ọba,’ what did his father need this eye-bleed for? He glimpsed back to the spot the woman had laid; the stony site was covered in moss and flowers. Asgard just passed the flowering season.

“He’s a lot. I know. Very perceptive, but sometimes he just forgets to think , you know? " Odin shook his head. 

“But… I have a feeling you , young lady, are quite the opposite. I appreciate that.” Odin chatted. 

Ọba cautioned the older man with a kindly smile. Added with an understanding nod, willing to accept the predicament that, Heimdall, was. His eyes lingered on her right as he hurried away. She discerned a cold violet wisp at the rim of her vision. 

Odin, in all manner of disappointment, was apologetic. Assessing the sister’s bruising shoulder. Gently touching her now numbed elbow.

“Oh look at that, are you hurt? My deepest apologies, Heimdall lacks tact I know-” the All-Father stepped closer, shifting his overcoat

“Thank you for the concern. It’s nothing, it’ll be fine.” 

He scoffed, “My dear, you are my guest. Let me give back-“

Recoiling from his touch. He was concerned, for that, Ọba was grateful for the All-Father’s sympathy. But she did not yearn for his company. Like his son, Ọba’s skin prickled into goosebumps. Odin was cordial, more candid than his offspring who consistently wished them harm every step of the way here. Something in the way Odin performed resembled Heimdall, a script, one he had done before and perfected into naturalism, but the younger did away with smoke and mirrors.  

“Please, All-Father, I am completely fine. I promise you I’m in neither pain nor grievance toward your son.” Rebuffed Ọba. 

“No pain? No will to hurt my son? Surprising.” Odin crossed his arms, a look of amused contemplation in his eye as he scratched his chin.

She shook her head, the tensity fading. Atreus delicately grabbed onto her other arm to steady. Vague fidgeting in her shoulders. She was lying, Atreus felt it was not his place to enlighten Odin. Ọba’s condition was of her dealing, she made that abundantly clear years ago. 

The untold schisms he threw at her still kept him up at night. Getting her stuck in a ditch for one dislocated her foot, partly since a child Atreus slipped the idea of telling her how deep it was or even if there was a ditch. Some reason he devised that denial somehow made things nonexistent. No, they did not. Every lesion Atreus caused she scathed into his soul. Never to speak about why it did so, the barest injury bloomed into a violent floret. Hushing his worried questions and mind to silence, Ọba told father years before he was born. It was father’s concern, not his to fret over her flesh. 

“Before you galavant my dear brother, please tell me what is your offer? And then, I promise, I will rest.” 

Odin, satisfied with her decision, obliged Ọba the offer, “Well, Asgard’s been seeing a lot of new faces now. “

So glib he sounded, recounting the heads of wheat instead of battered peoples, though wheat had its own need of respect. Odin streamed those average words out to an old friend, one who agreed with him, two demographics she fit in poorly. His impression murmured a faint power hiding under a man who had seen lifetimes of war and peace, whichever he preferred even Mimir did not know, what was assured Odin wanted something, but he never said directly what it was. His next few words strung in truths yes, but opalesce beads rarely hid rather they reflected, it took a trained eye to notice them.

Ọba stiffened when Odin’s hand met her shoulder. Heaving his onerous attention onto her form. His one eye more than made up for the hard stare. 

“We’re in need of healers; can’t just give out all the stones and runes for the Einherjar, can we? "

Ọba nodded along, casting Atreus a glance. He returned with a lopsided smile. 

“And you, you have a particular set of skills. I see it, even with my one eye. Ragnarök has displaced so many. And so many are in need of a lækni of your caliber.” 

Ọba measured her response, “I see. I would’ve thought, Asgard, of all realms, might have been spared the discomforts.” 

Odin shook his head, “Unfortunately no, we may be advanced economically, militarily, but it all crumbles if you can’t balance the humors. Or the common cold.”

His grip felt tighter as he jested, digits fully clamped on her skin. Unwilling to let this offer be passed. She didn’t hesitate to consider rejection. Hearing of what the Aesir had done to those who had crossed them, the Vanir, the Dwarves, to their own kin, Ọba knew she was safer playing the fawn. 

 “I accept. Wherever my services are needed, I will assist to the best of my abilities.”

“That’s great!”

“But Atreus and I are rooming together. I refuse to be separated from my family.”

Odin, ever the understanding host, agreed, “Of course, anything else you need? Take it as an apology for earlier.”

“No. I will take my rest.”

“Please, please do. This bruise here, how hard did you fall exactly? "

Harder than need be, the shock still permeated her nerves into a fray. Tingling between her soft bones, eels springing against wet stone irritated and afraid. Singing alongside the voices, a choir to her pain. She bit her cheek to quiet them, focusing on this local sensation to reach her bearings. Difficult as it was, she never delighted to be fretted over, especially by strangers who mingling with, was a tricky field. Atreus squeezed her arm to snatch her mind away before it floated to the nebulous clouds. He smiled again, she returned one, but a corner strained. Both were dirtied by Heimdall, her mood frothed to acrimony to his actions staining their clothes. 

The contusion across her warm brown skin had completely deepened to maroon. An occasional tingle interrupted the absolute numbness. Ọba knew herself accustomed, barely bemused at the discoloration. A clarity to an emptied socket with shredded vascular tissue. Not bad enough to need a sling, just a few nights of no side sleeping. 

“My brother was wise to use me as a cushion. And made it painfully aware how much ‘more’ of him there is.” 

“Hey!”

“Shoosh Atreus.” 

All-Father chuckled, retracting his hand at the sibling’s light quibble. Atreus tugged her arm and lightly stepped on her foot. She retaliated by fake elbowing him.

“That’s settled, I’ll let you rest while I show Atreus around.” Odin clasped his hands together. 

Rest and fear, the disruptor crooned. Rest and let the arm fall back into place lest you this All-Father plunges you to a curse no death can retire, no blade can break, fear this man who comes to you as a friend. They hide their blades as gifts. Their smiles steal your arms, till you are left bare and then they sweep. The Aesir have strange eyes, containing pleas, she should be careful to avoid their glare. Thor’s drowned in lame acceptance, a bull tempered by hardship and brutal labor. Odin’s piercing but expecting a transaction she’d be wise to fulfill the minimum and escape further favor. The Watchman’s eyes, the voices screeched forswear, make him blind of herself. Whisper troubles to ǀKaggen, they will flutter home for help. 

Odin promised her something, but she wasn’t paying attention. 

“When you’re ready, I’ll be waiting. ”

Chapter Text

A feasting hall doused in warm light greeted all that passed the doorsill. High ceilings divvied up by skylights, inside, the blue aether could be gazed at longingly beside interior confines. Raw wood and hide of harvested forest composed the humble epicenter of the Aesir pantheon. Standing proud, unpainted, a needless addition to the whittled trunk pillars and gold bordered tympanum. Robust ceiling joists served both function and flourish, to hold emerald banners of the All-father’s Raven companions, and as the ribs to the end of the central table. Staffing and servile thralls added life to the honeyed inner sanctum. 

Housekeepers carried forth clean linen sheets, to both wear and be weary upon when nightfall curses the sky. Scullery girls rushing aside wicker baskets of fresh produce, smoked meats, salts and flavored meads distilled to the individual wants of the Aesir. Valet workmen lounged on storage crates and long benches, shining at tedium footwear, pendants; the large, blood dried Hringr of Thor’s fingers, bejeweled fibulae beholden to Lady Sif. Odin’s fine bracteates served to the most attention and polish. 

Sconces burned heads above, metal cressets suspended on chains by the varnished beaks of timber Ravens. Shelves lined aplenty, barren till need be. 

Ọba eyed the hewing, touching exposed wood. Still rough skin smoothed by carpenter tools long seasons past. Roughness not a detraction to the fine estate she found herself accommodated. This was to be home for the foreseeable days, the yawning table where she and Atreus would dine at or regale their time. Back halls escorted onto more doors, private quarters to Aesir men and women. An oblong layout, an even set of bedrooms terminating at the master room.There couldn’t have been enough to house all the Aesir, and then some, such as herself and Atreus. Gods were no less human in behavior, cooped up together would’ve made Ragnarök occur much sooner. Living apart from the royal abode unto their own intramurals was the obvious solution. 

Two charwomen took Ọba further in. Both fair with light eyes, quiet voices and modest dresses. Not to be seen nor heard by master or guest. Aldrif and Braido. Former woman being the sole child of a widowed Farrier, Odin’s personal stablehand, Ari. Ọba would have assumed Aldrif’s responsibilities were inherited by proximity. Aldrif herself was curt, kind but ultimately held back by her station. The latter, a lovechild between an Aesir citizen and Midgardian, a thrall since childhood. Braido was louder, brasher, more boyish and ultimately belonged to young Thrúd as a handmaiden, Aldrif was Lady Sif’s. Together, their shared responsibilities lay overviewing the domesticities of Odin’s female relatives. Readying the wardrobe, carrying patens of fresh food, then the most important; being eyes and ears to gossip. 

“We do our best on the upkeep.” Aldrif smoothed out her apron dress. 

“And we’re quite proud too,” Braido puffed up.

“I see, and where will my brother and I be staying?” Ọba wrapped her bruising arm snug in silk fascia. 

“Come hither,” Adrif motioned Ọba to follow. 

The ørlendr found herself on the far right side to the lodge’s quarters area. Modi’s death just three years ago, ergo, a room fit for her and Atreus. A wide doorway leads into the space, just as rustic. Liberal amounts of exposed wood entwined by runic motifs, animals and warriors knotting together in a tandem. Ornate, and terribly difficult to gather when an animal begins to where the beast ends, spiral tails overlap densely. Furnishing is less obscurant, modest crates sit in the corners beside woodworked armchairs. Candleholders infest the walls; books are dusty and untouched by a forgone owner. 

Modi was not a scholar; icons of battle were obvious on the racks. Shield rönds, pelts of past games hung nailed to the wooden walls. Ghostly effigies of the former occupant’s hobby, that of death and heraldry of the hunt. Now stood as they were to the last day of his occupation, unused for years, worn by the inherent entropy, inching toward full disintegration.

Oba gained, at once, a feeling of comfort in the room. Warmth transplanted into her bones and blood. The last time she had a bedroom, at least one with insulated walls had been, well, lifetimes. She almost wanted to smile but stopped, this was as much a sunny gravesite and a guest room. It would feel odd to smile like an idiot over something simple, when she lodged with the family of murdered sons, no less the ones her brother had slain himself. She swallowed down the distaste, loss was a disgusting flavor. She detested the bitterness no drink could coat over, company in a sense, made even more glaring of what was missing. 

That hole, a cavity life’s pleasures could fill, and fill for years, yet one will never see to it, those pleasures never reach the fullness of what had been taken by fate's clever hands. The preoccupation was another thing Ọba knew bewilderment toward. All who were born down the womb’s threshold, had no say into what they would be. Her father, her brother, were quite taken by this odd, she would not dare to say, illusion, but an obstacle so grand, so pervasive it did not need for chthonic tangibility to hold hostage its fervent believers. 

Odin too, seemed to have befallen to this odd force. She had not felt such a man be so… enamored by it. Embracing the intangible winds in his embrace, held tightly with equal amounts of fear, revulsion, and perhaps dread, to an amity he enforced it across his very blood. Stamped down onto their very beings, a decision to demarcate their purpose, their titles, their very itemage that dressed their personalities until the day they die. And they will die accepting this predetermination, after all, to live in a cave forever, not to see the sun licking your face, to see trees swaying evergreen, wind whispering the great hymns of the summit, no, because when you only know the cave, the darkness is the sun, it is love, it is the father who gently request you to lay down your life, for who is to deny love?

“We spiffed it up, Lady Sif hasn’t let anyone touch this room in a while.” Braido rushed by, throwing an extra pelt across a bed. 

“There, nice and cozy. Can’t let the pets of the All-Father freeze, eh?” The younger muttered, Aldrif gave her a pointed stare.

“Braido, don’t.”

“I don’t see why not, Aldrif. I don’t see why not Odin should just keep strangers at the stables.”

“Braido-” Aldrif squeezed her apron tight, nearly ripping the linens. Anxiety hued the vex in her eyes. 

“I just don’t see why we would trust this girl.” 

“All-Father doesn’t just let anyone in. She’s not a Midgardian refugee. If she was, she’d be outside the wall.” Aldrif’s hard glare pivoted off her companion to Ọba.

Certainly, Braido and Aldrif had the essence of a sheltered world. Gladsheim rarely let in outsiders, let alone immigrants or the emigrating sort unless they served some greater function. Opening the proverbial gates, sky high like Hrimthur’s walls, to peoples holding a fine function, and one that suited whatever the All-Father or by what the Aesir requested. Of those who arrived, steeped in ambiguity hiding their gifts, may it be. Their eyes hid questions, but mostly animus to her. She understood the causation, Ọba hardly fit cleanly into this equation. A healer, ordained in bizarre, fallaleries like a walking mockery. She worried, and her voices reminded this.

An older crone whispered, clement fingers across her cheek. Do not trust these two xenic faces. For they speak behind centuries of pre-written history. They carry imperial blood, a lifetime of thoughts fertilized by Aesir literature, a demagogue civilization reaping the countless toils and materials of realms past their ages. Out of the two, Braido made this clear, she did not trust easily, kindness as the Aesir conceived it, did not naturalize with foreigners. For all Ọba could be, an enemy was one ingrained possibility. 

“My Lady, forgive Braido, out of the two of us she’s more pig-headed.”

“I am not! And, I’m saying exactly what the rest of Aesir are thinking.”

“And you are not an Aesir. We’re char, Braido, we serve and keep our heads down to our guests,” Aldrif seconded another regard, a forgiving look, “Again, my lady, forgive her words.”

How quaint, she pitied their station. Aldrif, in the name of posterity, tried to prevent her companion’s unsung prejudice. Sooner or later, it would make itself obvious. The staring the Aesir citizenry had given naught, but an hour earlier, hid a fog of disdain beneath their urban culture. The chars little different to the mystified sea, both she and her Atreus, had been swept in. But time spent wandering the other channels of life yielded little.

Amusement, a codger’s murmur interrupted the crone. He beguiled her mind old cherishes, all the welcomes collected. The hellos of warm feasts and arms never ramified as vividly, the rare stirring of an intimate moment or odd palate lasted. A strained instrument to the hand-mastered melody, a poor reception inspired in her soul. She could spend nights dreaming the codger’s words, and not once lose the vigor it inspired in her diaphragm. 

“To be honest I’m used to this.”

“What?” Briedo’s rude tone dropped. 

“Braido, you do have a point in not trusting me. I am a stranger to this realm.”

“So, but you should be at least mad, right?” She sputtered, unexpectant.

“I have not proven to either of you. Or Odin, I wasn’t planning on being here at all.”

Both blinked at that, perplexed.

“Why not?”

“My brother, he’s of an age where judgement is questionable.”

Braido snorted, “Yeah, very.”

Aldrif pinched Braido’s shoulder, the younger shaking her off. Like a mutt angered by water spritzes. 

“Since I am a guest, I’ll be charitable as much as I can. My brother and I are not exactly welcome, so I will be courteous and stay out of the way.”

“ No , my lady, please. That is our job.” Aldrif pleaded desperately to salvage the status quo of guest and servant. 

“You’re fine, Aldrif. Braido though, I might not be charitable to your Lady Sif.” Ọba sideyed her with a squint. 

Braido immediately paled, straightened up, “Please don’t, I-I can’t take thralldom again. I get mouthy yes, but our Lady is generous with what we speak and I-”

Ọba shook her head, a smile breaking creases across her cheeks.

“Calm down. I’m not a hardass about servants. Least you didn’t try to throw hot oil at me.”

By and large, costing days at a Midgardian encampment offshore in Veithurgard, she did expect molten grease flung at her face. It bit her cheek and lip; her dress suffered the most. Ọba’s beloved shawl and skirt had to be dunked in the Lake of Nine, it burned terribly. Fimbulwinter provided a ready solution, the few items of gratitude she spared the winter. Her skin blistered a few days and fabrics could be stonewashed with the right clay. 

She lingered there, surely festering the bylines with her services. When the flu had befallen a small child, a little frail bird bundled in his mother’s shivering arms, then she got their graces to help. Irrigating the gleimous sickness after pots of boiled, salinated water she poached off the icicles. That child struggled, crying hot tears and trails of snot, Ọba had to practically hold him upside down. Flushing the sinuses clear, pushing out the infective particulates ravaging the infant’s life. After two saltwater pots, all was well and clear, he inspired clear and strong. 

Then, the rest, the mother, her family, and an entanglement of strangers begged her to do the same. Of course, she could not reject the need even of those who did her a terrible deed. She had not the heart to allow pestilence to thrive in these haggard communities. Not even a price to her talent in soothing the fever, Ọba simply asked to eat by their side, rest her head by the fire and to administer her herbs if they wished to keep flu or ulcers nix. Money, the goldworks had little value, not when the farming died three years ago, and food waned as did day. She knew hunger, the friend you would wake up to and sleep with. 

Yet, it brought a vague grin to see Braido immediately melt away. She abhorred rudeness, but the char servant was a flighty thing. Yes, Braido in her clumsy gall worded the unsaid tensions, intruding a fine moment for once in the day. Ọba observed the slight flinch, and her heart curled in nostalgic ache. Still, she pitied their stations, for no doubt hard hands had graced Braido’s pale skin. A bruise faded at the corner of the servant’s jaw. She discerned sadness, to frown at this mirror. Their puzzlement made her want to guffaw instead of cry. She would enjoy these two, that was assured.   

“What…?” Aldrif’s face flushed warm again. Braido regarded the woman in pink with an incredulous stare, not entirely disbelieving. Ọba laughed at the two.

“My, you two are such stiffs. Calm down.”

Aldrif exhaled slowly, Braido drifted to a more cordial tone. 

“Why would they even throw at you, throw oil ? But you’re barely our height.”

“I question that too.”

Aldrif released a soft chortle. The strange lady before her and Braido didn’t seem all that bad. She at least knew how to humor others and elucidate the uppity ones. 

“Sorry.”

“For what?’

“For-” Braido cringed, she never apologized much. A habit Aldrif told her to break anytime her words brought trouble. Little appreciation for the fine art of jabbing. Fearing again when an Aesir god or Einherjar would remind of her flimsy status. Strike her down, by her skull, and she would curl in pain and cry. Ọba glowed amiability, and it unsettled the servant to the degree of how authentic it beamed. The woman in name, just smiled. Unbothered, slightly miffed, had she not the life experience, Ọba would have obliged that threat, but she would not relish it. Pain opposed her philosophy, even as a disciplinary measure. There was always a solution beyond that, ruination had no place, she refused to believe that scars made you strong. You do not heal from condensed pain, it makes the person less flexible, burdensome to the mind. 

She finished her hesitancy, “-being loose-lipped? A gabby?”

“Oh, ah, yes.”

Ọba laughed at her again, “I already forgave you.”

“It’s not enough.” Aldrif interjected, “She crossed you, and I should’ve been better.”

“Alright, since you two don’t take verbal apologies. Here’s how to earn my forgiveness…”

Braido seethed at Aldrif, who fell into worry at this foreigner’s unspoken request. Her heart did stutter a beat, and she possessed nausea. Cursing her mind, but mostly her loose mouth to the All-Father’s guest. 

“I demand utmost loyalty and companionship, Y’know ‘friends,’ friendly relations, the works...”

Aldrif stumbled back, baffled by how homely the ‘punishment’ was. Expecting a form of penance. Her shoulders relaxed, the anxious tremble diffused down, and she could think clearly again. Braido, likewise, sighed out a heavy breath. Worried about the prospect of dinner being a cruel dream. Worse, was Aldrif’s silent treatment stinging worse than a lashing or hunger cramps. Even the dismissal rendered the day worse. 

“That’s it?”

“Yes? I need to show I’m not your enemy. That I’m a guest with benefits .” She winked. 

The chars broke into amused grins, bought over by this eccentric foreigner. Ọba serviced them with no malignancy, being blessed in good will, solely to work under the request of the All-Father. An easing presence, calming back to how they would be on any other day. As if regarded by a familiar, warm face that would swear them no harm. To hold words shared in amused intimate moments, close to the heart and in a loving hold. 

Neither spoke but shared a momentary look. Entrusting this stranger, but a pleasant one who seemed to see them. The younger one almost shuddered under her gaze, her glinting eyes knowing. Not stripping her bare to some meat, Ọba saw a name before her. A loud-mouthed servant trying to hide herself. An almost kinship, she wore that sensation presently, sympathized to a deep degree. 

Braido, still repentant, swept off a dusty desk for the guest. Shoving off the old journals and apologizing for the deep knife marks ruining the wood. Ọba shrugged, parting her skirt belts. The bright pink omakipa caught the curious eyes of both handmaidens. Her uninjured hand undid the pocket belt, then her carryall. Dropping both unceremoniously atop the desk, metal chime filled the dust born air. 

“What exactly do you do? And why did All-Father have you come?”

Ọba pulled out her most prized arm, a polypus knife, “I’m a lækni.” 

What a grand thing, the servants seemed to taste momentary awe. It was sweet, from what she could guess. She wanted to join the moment, enjoy a pleasant surprise as they were. But she was content basking in the reaction. Entertained further as she twirled her fine blade. A satisfying cutter, Ọba enjoyed the eased lances a knife of this caliber gifted. She nearly broke into a wider grin as the edge warbled a sharp slice in the air. 

Aldrif looks over her shoulder, seeing the stocky woman’s wares unsheathed. Long metal tools, slender pieces of intimidating length and sharpness. Her silk cast arm hung limply, and with just one hand, articulated her instruments to the desired alignment. They glinted in afternoon light, fine pieces of glass hiding the true purpose in vivisection. 

“What is that?” 

Aldrif tapped the cruciform trephine. The heaviest of the items, a blunter member of this taxonomy. 

“This?” Ọba picked up the boring drill, “It makes holes for me.”

“Holes? On what?”

“The head. So, you can spill out all your thoughts, obviously.”

Braido paled the most, squeamish at the mere implication of the body being open and exposed. Oozing the viscous humors or just spewing it, coating the environment. Ọba’s light tone did little to take away. Disquieting compared to the bloodlust of the Einherjar, the casualness at which she spoke. Braido continued sweeping the floors, kicking hay and dirt away from the more trodden areas. Her nails chipped at her reed broom; the arch of her foot cramped.

Otherwise, Ọba finished setting down the rest. An accoutrement consisting of duo wax tablet and stylus, dried herb muslin pouches, then a neti pot. The last piece was comical compared to the leather rollup of sharp apparati. A rounded piece of ceramic, lacking angles to serrate. The unused desk before the handmaidens had been transformed to some armamentarium. Elaborate pieceware, paradoxically threatening yet so delicate one would assume a slight bend, it’d snap. 

“Our Lady Sif seeks you.” Announced Aldrif, returning to the room. 

Clothes in hand; a silvery armor set adorning tyrian cloth, lithe and agile. A gift for Atreus waiting in the closet.  

“All-Father wants his guests to be comfortable. Asgard is a different climate, less cold.”  

“Thanks, that’s generous.” 

Aldrif sets down a second fold, a pale blush hangerok with wool kirtle. 

“Here’s a change, but first, our Lady wishes to see you.” 

Ọba re-tied her sling, Braido led forth to the main hall. There, an Aesir woman befitting the title of the wheat goddess stood. A sturdy figure, hair like wheat and bundled as such, hung over her shoulder. Pale skin endowed the trails of blue ink, akin to her spouse, Thor. She had a warm maternal smile; all goddesses belonging to earthly ventures held that look, a finest adornment.  

“Ah, there you are. I see my maidens have settled you in?”

Ọba bowed, then nodded. Regarding Aldrif and Braido in friendlier terms. Shutting the door, and to themselves this encounter. 

“Good. I’m glad you’re here.”

Lady Sif gently motions Ọba to her chambers, a private conversation. Like everywhere else, the triangular motif is ever present. Centered is a wide bed, headed by a faded tapestry, Thor and Sif. Wrinkled across an overhanging banner, a tapis dullened by time. Of moisture breathed by kin, memories long past this chamber’s eyes.

Like in Modi’s quarters, something remained off, absent in the room. A sadness Ọba understood, haunting the space. Mothers rarely forget what they lose. How could you? For nurturing growth, that could speak to you and had a name you gave and referred to. All the more painful to have the little being wretched from your reality. Gone, even as someone as violent as Modi and Magni as described by Atreus, incurred a tristful spark. She had scolded the young boy when he insulted them. Saying their names lightly, jesting their memory in a flattened recollection. Ọba got upset at his confusion. But he was young, she had reasoned, to fairly ascribe to him his due ignorance. 

She set Atreus early to bed that night. Their father was out, who would have the boy train in the cold after talking. Ọba let him off instead, a little sadder. 

“I assume you were the one who requested a healer?” 

Lady Sif seated by a long table; scrolls lay close to a wooden davenport. Decreed requests to aid, needs tabulate outlined ailments found in New Midgard. 

“Yes, every day we find more. And more who are wounded, sick, in need, or barely alive. As the sole diplomat I… I need help.”

She sounded tired. 

“All-Father has permitted me some aid. I don’t have access to talismans, so I expect you’ll be getting gritty.” 

Lady Sif’s usual resolve solidified back in place. Expectant of the ørlendr before her. A true specimen with roots not of the nine realms. However, Lady Sif was in no position to rebuff labor where it mattered most. And many in New Midgard were in desperate need. Her only hope lies in the All-Father’s keen eye in coursing finer talents.

Here, one holding a gift to ameliorate the aches of the years long winter, would bring such relief. Not a random nostrum giver, a true practitioner. Eyes unclouded to the symptoms and maladies mortal bodies housed. Steady hands to hold, to wield the toolage in order to operate and mend the fleshier anatomy. Lady Sif had seen enough to know many riddled by resource conflicts. Midgardians with arrowheads lodged in neck fat, the piercing ends stopping short of some jugular or a voice box, scratching the delicates anytime they speak or swallow. Metal splintering eye corners, free floating debris puncturing swollen lids. Oozing a pus, a blend of the vitreous and rheum. Worse the blades, shoved far past recovery. Knives stuck between the ribs, fracturing fine bone. If they pierced a lung, a quiet whistle emanated with breath, metal warbling to warm air. 

She didn’t want to imagine again the rampant infections blossoming. Midgardians who arrived healthy, suddenly unable to breathe, heat rashes appearing, inflammation across the elderly members, a lack of midwives toward pregnancies. Lady Sif was a wheat goddess, not some healer with placative Vanir magic. With Eir absent, Asgard’s medical aptitudes left much to be desired. Magic, as it were, was one path, another was the practical approaches not adherent to the realm spells.

To her, Ọba looked kind, it made her wonder how this little thing survived Midgard’s ruggedness. All soft in her shell beads and downy hides. Whatever the All-Father saw in this newcomer, was substantial enough to warrant invitation. The only downside to Ọba’s presence, the Jötunn, Loki had too, answered the call. A child when he and his father murdered her eldest boys, Magni and Modi just three years ago. Now an adolescent with Aesir blood still fresh on his hands, the All-Father conveniently ignored the stain. Always to complete some machinations he kept in his office. 

That sour taste never left Lady Sif’s mouth when her father-in-law announced this intrigue a month ago. Inviting a murderer into their home, their family, it all felt so incredulous. So inconsiderate of what had been lost not many summers ago in that cold realm. She cared little for what came of Baldur, that was an inevitability even she assumed long ago. The only blind eye to that was Frigg. 

“Well, my Lady-” 

“Sif.” The Aesir interjected, assuaging formalities. They were equals in the endeavor of New Midgard; Sif held little patience for honoring an arbitrary title. 

“Oh, Sif.”

Ọba was unsure about the casual waving. Thinking it odd, a member of the Aesir preferred informal regards. She wasn’t complaining, however. Sif seemed genuinely concerned over the wellbeing of the refugees. Not an attempt to obfuscate hardship at hand, her sharp blue eyes held that conviction. 

“We’ll be working together.”

“I know that. What is the… outlook?” Ọba asked, though knowing in her experience, almost a childish question to ask. 

Sif pauses, “I’ve seen a rise in fever and skin tetters.”

“That should be easy.” 

Ọba joked yet, she’d be remiss to deny in her heart she wanted it to be so, but her logical mind tranced that possibility. Especially the look in Sif’s eye, the outlook was far, far worse than quotidian fever. 

“Let me finish. There’s a longhouse brimming with Midgardians who’ve received attacks,” Sif closed the scroll before her, handing off the document for the healer to skim, “Then, broken bones sustained by labor, children getting sick from the realm shift, pregnant mothers without adequate aid, many are with snow blindness.”

Ọba frowned, not surprised to hear the listed afflictions. Yet one inquiry never escaped her mind. 

“And Odin didn’t think of letting anyone over the wall to help you?”

It was such a glaring question, if the All-Father was a caring figure, why would he be so hasty to those who worship him? Or paid respects to live under his realm. Borderline neglectful, a king should look after his kingdom, of all those who breathed the realm. To care for them as his own children. For they all lived in the same land, the same lifeblood. How ignorant, she thought again, Odin played facets of himself like theater. A kind statesman to herself and Atreus who would wait until the stagehands appeared, to leer his truth. 

“No, All-Father wishes the two not to mingle.” Sif calmly stated, but her tight lips hid a frown. 

“Lovely.”

Sif’s stark expression warmed, hopeful but reserved till she saw Ọba fully working at New Midgard. 

“Yes, and you start tomorrow. Make a list of what you need, I’ll have Aldrif and Braido fetch it for you.” 

Aldrif and Braido stepped in, footfalls quiet across the rough stone. Bowing with arms tucked before them.

“Girls, you don’t need to hunch.”

Braido visibly sighed in relief while Aldrif quietly thanked their mistress. The handmaidens ease by, awaiting any order. Lady Sif’s great relievers, her dependables of the past ten years. How they had grown into their service. Modi had a fondness for Braido, bringing her a to braid on every Þórsdagr. Now, every lavender incites tears. The servant girl never once braided flowers again. Sif kept the two to herself, granting them a pointed job to her presence. A moment of greed she would clearly repudiate but her eyes spelled out the truth. Denying her remaining Aesir family to lay a hand upon them, 

An earnest protection Ọba determined, a tenderness rarely afforded mortal servants. Sif was lucid, present to her moment and people. 

“Thank you, I’ll be sure to get my things ready for tomorrow.”

“You’re very welcome.” Sif’s gaze trailed down Ọba, the bruise not escaping her maternalistic concern. 

“And how are you?” 

She gently referred to Ọba’s dislocated arm. Entwined by gauzy fabric, an incredibly ramshackle sling. The bruise on her shoulder twitched a sudden needle of pain. 

“Nope! Perfectly okay.”Ọba winced.

“Well, then. Girls, please assist…?”

“It’s Ọba, Ọba Nani.” She smiled, “I assumed Odin mentioned my name?”

Sif and her handmaidens stared awkwardly at Ọba. The silence makes it obvious. Communication between the family was a rather sordid experience. First, Heimdall being completely oblivious to their arrival. Then the very woman who needed her services, who had requested months ago, did not know what to call her. A dry laugh would be appropriate. Followed by a frustrated inquiry. Ọba bit her tongue.

“Never mind.”

“Indeed, here.” 

Sif held out her scroll to Ọba, “A list of maladies, I had it done earlier today. Hopefully provides a roadmap to prepare.”

Braido steps in and catches the scroll, seeing Ọba’s struggle with just one hand to hold the parchment, “Here, I’ll hold this. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know.”

The mistress sighed, “Now that’s sorted, please make your list and freshen up. I heard Heimdall welcomed you.” She glanced at Ọba’s muddied attire, disappointed the brilliant fuschia had been sullied. 

“Yes, he was delightful.” 

“Of course he was. Unfortunately, you will be working with him.”

“What.”

Oba’s stomach dropped, flat to the floor and burst on watery impact. Sif gave a pitied look behind her serious gaze. Emanating a preemptive sorries to the petite woman. 

“Yes, the All-Father promised that… Heimdall, would carry out transporting you. All you must do is find him or meet him at Himinbjörg.”

“Where would that be?”

“Himinbjörg? Atop the wall, a little way from the elevator. Have him show you the way tomorrow, and you can ignore him the rest until you need to leave.”

“Leave early I assume?”

“More or less, don’t leave too early. Today is a feasting day, drunkards will be out until the early morning. Please avoid them.”

“Noted, then.”

With that, Sif waved the three off. Mentioning Odin and the boy, Loki, would be back any minute from the excursion across Asgardian fineness. Her tone dampened at the word ‘Loki.’ Ọba considered mentioning their relation, as Odin cared little to even say her name to Sif. She wondered what else he cared little to mention, but then again, if Mimir were here, that could last for days. 

She missed the horned head, the fae knew how to entertain for hours. Her ears would never numb to his rambling about some obscure fact, branching off the most indirect icebreakers. Usually to the annoyance of her father, but the stalwart man never voiced this. Not when she and Atreus would be enthralled to silence. Remembering the times on the boat, passing time on the lake of nine. Fimbulwinter took that away slowly, the ice sheets fusing together, Mimir’s tales getting shorter. Till there was no water, and no tales to speak of. 

It was the few times she stayed with her family, when she could. Easier for Atreus and father to be stationary. Hunters don’t need to wander their territory. They track their purpose, hunting down with whatever they can carry, kill, then drag the bloody carcass back. Skin it outdoors, hooked by some tree, entrails yanked out of a belly slit, fur kept on the bed with the skin stretched out to a fine parchment. All could be done safely at home. 

The life of a lækni did not afford a fixed station. Traveling in dire times of Fimbulwinter beckoned her healing hands to wander. Not even the puppy eyes of her young brother dissuaded professional responsibility. 

Ironic, now that was, to then be that same healer, yet bound to one spot. Ọba, itched thinking it over. Tapping her stylus at the wooden edge of her tablet. She hadn't changed out of her ondhelela garb. Her mind set on creating that list foremost, comfort and rest could wait another ten minutes. 

Sif’s handwriting was lovely to read, the contents it estimated excited Ọba. A challenge to her practice, as she phrased it. Insensitive, in a way she supposed, but managing the thresholds of life came with burdens. Her voices eager to converse all the failings by the dredges of her waking mind. Hard to argue against them, they were usually right in noticing all the little symptoms she had skipped in favor of quick treatment. Reiterating to slow down, heed their advice the next day. Not to repeat costly habits on the next soul she turned to. 

Her arm had fully fallen asleep, luckily a non-dominant hand. Undisturbing the listmaking, the contents are not especially onerous. Sif probably assumed more, some assemblage of cure-alls, bottled curiosities, pickled glands or useless toys parading medical instrumentation. Humorous until those who willingly sought the bait ended a little poorer, or worse, hurt by the made up, greedy lies.

“Just aprons?” Aldrif held up the wax tablet, breezing the items. 

“I need gloves and gauze too.” 

“Seems underwhelming, I thought you’d want potions?”

“I have my dried herbs. If I needed any more, I would’ve written it down.”

Sif’s scroll roughed out the current. A kind gesture she appreciated. The wheat goddess was a diplomat, not the infirmarian who had given them a sloppy headcount. She could feel frustrated, but where would that get her? Ọba would remind herself to amend the scroll herself. Marching into New Midgard into the sickbay to truly gauge the ravages. 

Aldrif noticed Ọba’s gripe. Gifting her a platonic pat on the shoulder. Ọba making a little moue rolling the scroll closed. 

“Very well. Braido, let's go.”

Braido nodded, grabbing them both feldurs. Evening was dawning, so too the cool mists lowered in Gladsheim. 

“Oh! Don’t forget, puttees!” Ọba yelled, out of all the items, those she could not live without. Rather dying a horrible death than to live a life of unprotected calves. Ọba dreaded that reality, such a cruelty. 

“We’ll get you a whole bucket of them. We promise.” Braido called back, both chars leaving for the market. Chuckling into the dry cool air.

The door to the great lodge quietly locked in place. Ọba, in her lonesome, marinated in the silence. Wood creaked all around with the sconces crunching, new kindling Aldrif threw in before they left. Fires would last well into the night, and she would last well into the night until Atreus came back. She barely missed her brother once he returned with Odin, struggling with a stack of books. He left them on the ground, and nearly tripped when he came out again to the All-Father’s study. Dork. 

Once he had fled, Ọba picked up the stack, depositing them on the side desk. Her tools are still sitting there. Reflecting a beautiful, clean shine. Atreus, the cheeky sort, arranged her cannula wire into a cordate shape. A tiny Sparkthorn there, a pallid bloom. Swiped from Svartalfheim, she smiled, pricking her finger upon a spike. 

She turned her focus to another matter, that of her arm. The right hand barely twitched any sign of conscious connection. Just a vestigial outcropping hanging dumb by her shoulder. Starting now, it would not do. She unwound her body braid, releasing both arm and sling; Tying a strategic knot, around the upper arm, against the axillary, forearm reaching in pure extension. The seconds before the snap back were the most painful, not somatically, but the anticipation she would get it wrong this time. Get this simple procedure slightly off. 

It hurt, but it popped back as usual. Well, it hurt more than usual, you can snap bones back into place, bruises however, are stubborn guests. 

The body braid was wound up, she dropped it on an open chair. Ọba felt it in her lax bones, sitting was in order and she was all too eager. One of the books of Atreus’ pile had caught her eye, a short compendium on all matters Asgard. The appendix was sure enough reason to dive in, an herbarium in section IX.  

“Hi!”

Ọba jumped, startled out of her skin. 

“Ọba is it?”

A friendly girl rounded the door. Fiery hair with a distinct red forelock. She had Sif’s face, but soft, lacking the sternness of adulthood. 

“Yes! Wait, I, how?” She fumbled, still flustered and in a sore ache.

“Atreus told me a bit about you, I’m Thrúd. You cut people open right?”

A little naive, but Ọba couldn’t deny she wasn’t far off. Her job didn’t entitle her a terrible distance to a common butcher. To the untrained eye Ọba was that, a butcher of men. 

“Well, yes. I don’t just do that.”

“So how do people survive being cut open?”

“You do it carefully.” She answered, amused until she saw Thrúd priming another routine question. Quick to clear up her words “...and no, I don’t do it often.”

“You’re a lækni? Grandfather said you’re really good at what you do.”

“I suppose I must be, if I caught his one eye.”

Thrúd smiled, crossing her built arms. Tattooed just like her mother and father. 

“C’mon, tell me more.”

The compendium had been left forgotten on the long table. Ọba retired the effort of reaching for the leather cover, because as soon as the idea to read popped back in her mind, Thrúd had yet another question. She couldn’t find the detestment to be irate to this innocent mind, prodding question after question. Ever curious of the stranger before them, Ọba’s ways being so clearly unorthodox, her very gait was slinky-like promenade, the floor served akin to the swaying platform of a deck, her balance not central but fleeting. She exhaled selcouth, unsaid blood in a river not her own.

Every query, Ọba’s amusement never ceased. It grew on steadily, vines across white-washed walls of some fine manor. Sinking by, stretching the noble mosaic in tangles, curiosity grows seeds into steady stolons, reaching even further, tangling and entwining together. Overlapping accusations form realization, a new thought family is gardened. Being a sower was a joy, few and far she had almost forgone the sensation entirely. Eye’s glittering in jejune glory, the petals are nice when thawed innocently. 

Thrúd was kind in her words, gentle was her modus. Her well used arms were leaned against the wooden bench, heavy and made of blunted metal. Clumsy tools that she wielded in defense, heaviness seemed a preferred choice amongst Thor’s clan. A choice for sure, all brutish creatures save for Thrúd and Sif. 

“What’s the head scarf for?” Thrúd said, her voice dry from the conversation. 

“This silly thing?” 

Ọba adjusted the aso-oke fabric tight, a modest braid flipped onto her shoulder. A less saturated pink on her ensemble. 

“Oh it just-“

Her words were dashed by the fairest Aesir. She wanted to sigh a deep valley into existence. The man enjoyed torment with glee. What a displeasing fellow to consider company, he wasn’t unique. A frustrating sort of man who fully knew all of what occurred around him. And carved his impudence deeper to Ọba’s patience. 

“Yes, let’s see what you're hiding under there, hm?” Heimdall, as usual, cocksure near others younger than him. Heightened by his niece’s presence. 

“Heimdall.” Thrúd strained a polite grimace of a smile. 

His fair face is decorated by beads of haughty contempt. Sparing the woman and girl the gift of a discomfited moment. Thrúd already shifted in her seat, aggravated by his unwanted commentary and presence. 

“Cozying up to strangers I see? And one that’s so tacky. Then again Thrúd, just like dear old dad, you’re rather blind to taste.” He patted her bare shoulder, an uncle chiding a child rather than the preteen she is.

Thrúd immediately slapped his hand away, yet he dodged it. A toothy snarl appeared across her lips. 

“We were having a talk.” 

“A talk? Really? I could’ve sworn I heard pigs squealing over here. I had to check.”

The girl blinked back at Ọba, a nebbish look, hinting at apology.  

“Ọba, my Uncle, sorry…”

“No, don’t apologize.” The woman in pink waved it off. 

“Yes Thrúd, don’t apologize. The only one to blame here is your mother, who bit off more than she could chew, or swallow -.”

Incensed, Thrúd was to interject but Ọba’s melodious giggle glittered the air. For a second, Heimdall’s sight on his niece shattered.

“What’s so funny?” He snarked, staring down at the seated lady. 

“We say so little, and you say so much. It fascinates me.” 

Her dusky cheeks turned rotund in amusement. Fine line dimples folded beside her lips. The Watchman squinted at the woman, the eyesore before him, he sneered.

“I suppose you’re simpler than I thought you were. But not by much.”

She stared at him head on. Heimdall tried once again to tunnel into her mind. To rip open between her eyes, bash into that thin skull and see all her degenerate secrets. He refused to believe this little pink trollop was anywhere near capable of what Odin hinted at. Just the look of her irritated him to no end, Gulltopper could easily rip her little arm, or one kick, she’d crumble like a pathetic rag doll. 

But her mind manifests as a just void. A well to peer down, stony cavernous maw that stretched on humming warm echoes, reverbing the afterthoughts of true intention. There were colors, not bright flashes nor dark unsaturated mind trains that’d whisper straight into his ears all he ought to know of the warm body beside him. No, Ọba, refused his advance within the precinct of her thoughts and dreams, left him knocking by the glazed window of her eyes, he could peer in but only guess to the interiors wherein her soul immured the fine architecture of her mind palace. He stared once more, and for a moment, he smelled rainwater.

“What’s wrong with simple? At least you’re at ease.”

He wanted to bite off that soft face. 

“Ease? And is that what they call lounging around taking up space? I see you’re already taking up the whole lodge.”

“Am I? That’s unfortunate, you’ve been gifted both foresight and spatial blindness, a tragedy…”

The man forced down the baser instinct, and that was to throttle the foreigner. Mocking him, a prince of Asgard, the All-Father’s scion, the audacity. He hated her more, every word of her lips mocked his power, his birthright to perceive all. 

“Watch it, you might be here on invitation, but your runt brother is what the All-Father cares about.”

Heimdall stomped away, agitated beyond belief and a few shades pinker than he had been when he arrived. Þórsdagr would reign outside, meaning free drink and debauchery in the market streets. He resented his fat oaf of a brother; today was the only good thing he brought to the realm. Wanting nothing more than to drink a few tankards of mead and stomp in the head of some Einherjar, always one willing to duel him. It would do him some good to vent for a couple of hours, save face over his earlier embarrassment. 

At once, a darkness choking out the fires, blinding the evening sun’s orange rays had been lifted, a curse of bad company gone the way downstream. A stifled laugh caught Ọba's throat, caring less if the Aesir heard her taking his tantrum lightly. His sort, a childish type who would crumble at the hint of brevity. It, the great thief of ego’s virility. She became relieved he no longer existed in the immediate vicinity. Tickling her even more to notice he jumped as she struggled to hold back. What a strange creature he was. 

Thrúd finally breathed, weary, Heimdall made her feel old and inconsiderate of patience. Mocking her appearance, how she barely measured her mother in beauty or grace. Insulting her father and dead brothers, needling her heart till she burst into anger. Throwing her hands at him, failing every attempt. Dodging and swaying just outside contact, with a derisive smirk begging a bruise to mar his perfect cheek. How she despised his gloating foresight. 

She should be patient or attempt to ignore his pressings. Easier said than done when he can hear and judge everything going on in your mind. Her mother, the paragon of endless public virtue, could somehow stand her uncle, even as he labeled the matriarch an opportunistic leech of feminine assets, her only true value it seemed.

“I hate him, he hurt you, didn't he? Your shoulder?” Thrúd sniffled, frustration welling her eyes. 

“Yes.”

Her voice was calm, unassuaged by her uncle’s acidity. No tone of distaste, just pure, milquetoast apathy. Thrúd wanted to believe something, anything was simmering behind those placative eyes. Yet herein nothing she could grasp onto. As if Heimdall barely registered on Ọba’s mind. What a wonderful feeling to have to ignore her uncle, and his obnoxious voice. Jealousy snaked into Thrúd’s gut of the woman’s mindfulness.

“Aren’t you angry?” 

The woman gave Thrúd a coy smile, still to the youth’s clear indignation. She had yet to live a full life, ire of men tainted the soils and fruit even as you are generous to them. A fine thing to be, burdened by misconstrued teleology, burdened more the blindness so many diseased seek not to extradite off their minds. No, they seek the matrix out to feed and nourish comforting habits, parasites of pure malignancy. 

“Yes, but he’s hardly worth knowing what I feel.”

In a perfect world, that Watchman would stay away and not speak to her again. Ọba could survive a passing glance, maybe a curt talk, but somehow, he was linked to her. Sif said it herself, using him as transport to and fro every day to proceed with her job. What a cruel convenience, climbing up and down the walls manually a preferable pain to his disagreeable personality. How could one so arrogant as he be held responsible for so many people? Had Odin not just the manipulations but an abysmal ability to raise his sons? Then again, one he had trapped eternally until recently, and one he carelessly got killed along with two grandsons. 

“You have a strange family.”

“I know.” Thrúd said.

Atreus returned not long after, sooty and black footed. His shadow suffused by plumes of primeval dusts, swaying and spiraling sandy veils coating a trail of whence he came and where he would follow. Ears and fine ends of hair gestured at the day past, smeared in charcoal, spotted by feathery ash patches of what he was brushing off his armor and newly gifted scabbard housing Ingrid. His new cognizant sword whistled, drawing near his sister and friend. 

“Ọba!”

“Hey you!”

Atreus flew arms over Ọba, tight and shameless to differed position. Awash in relief, holding an iconoclast of home in what was enemy territory. Her arms crossed over his back, ministrating a soothing balm touch. A calling to time and distance well spent far and away, subdued out by her experienced hands. If only he were still small, he would curl onto her lap and hibernate beneath aprons thick. Stroking his pre-adolescent scalp in the rare moments Ọba stayed home. 

The hug grew tighter, a snare locked in, the mechanism spurred on by tickling aromacy. Sweet as spring breath, punctual to every moment Ọba enthroned by the middle of his eye. 

“Gah, you smell… interesting.”

She stuck her nose mockingly into his cheek. Acting boarish, living up to the fair Aesir’s comment. Ọba smudged and ruffled her brother’s hair, pinching his ear to scold his squirming. 

“Yeah? I went to Muspelheim.”

“It hasn’t left you yet.”

He reeked of sulfur, soured up the nostrils and into the throat in scratchy quaffs, before settling heavy above the heart. Effusing dry into the pleura, roughling the chest curtain into a fit of coughs.  

Atreus sat down, joining Ọba's left on the bench. Self-consciously brushing down Muspelheim’s remembrance that snuck into every winding crevice. Cleaning the plates would be obtrusive to one’s fingers, his index already bled and scabbed once over sliding across a sharpened rerebrace edge. Odin had taken half notice, voicing that, in the morning, to seek out his valet Erlend. A fine man, if tired, always, all spent polishing the All-Father’s paragon finds into veritable reflectance. With both time and a fresh rag, his gifted armor would shine as it did the moment the armor polisher satisfied high market expectations.   

The divorced conversation returned in an amble; Atreus fished Ọba’s compendium for himself. Thrúd’s convivial attitude sprung as novel questions came. Ọba returned polite, if trained words satisfying enough to not spark a trail leading to a discussion she lacked the mood for. Not for, in any way, to keep back dispiritedness the late evening oft inspired. No, there were roots she buried, and she worried one day that topsoil would loosen, if by the rain of her tears or excavated by careful word choice. She refused, to Thrúd and to herself, that Watchman did anger her, not by his venom, but by his eyes. 

A sack load thwacked, a leathery hiss dragged on by a worn-out Braido. Disarray and shiny, carrying this netted bag, brimming with goods. She snapped open the wooden handles, pulling out parcels of thick white hemp. Folded by the dozen, an alms purse contains gauze. Waxed cloth gloves, inordinate length but perfect for her means, was the final offering. Braido nearly wept tears of joy as she finally rested her strained feet. 

With giddiness, Ọba thanked the two chars on retrieving the simple necessities. Upon further inspection, she grew more childish in her delight. Feeling up the waxed gloves with particular affection, Thrúd observed the woman’s enthusiasm, to her, these were simple fabrics. 

“Why the excitement?”

“Oh my dear, waxed gloves!”

Thrúd returned a pointed squint not understanding the elation. Ọba buzzed as she explained, animatedly. Describing water resistance with the same passionate ardor as a longing Earl to his betrothed. 

“It keeps you from getting wet?”

“Yes, and get rid of the issue of blood.”

Truly, the most prized technology was not the Bifrost powered fane built under Tyr, not even Sindri and Brok’s contraptions could compare to this marvel Ọba wore over her hands. 

“I think you’re a little too into these gloves.”

“Yeah, get used to it.”

Up to her elbows is how long the gloves reached. Ọba’s face ached, grinning so widely. She dug the pile of items, finding the other delights Braido and Aldrif had bought. Namely, those leg wraps. In all varieties, from thin breathable fabric to tougher, coarser weave. Valhalla was laid before her, Ọba could care less if she died, she would be so comfortable in the afterlife not to mind the fact. 

“Midgardians are so weird…” Thrud murmured.

“Hey, not all of us are made stable.”

“What do you mean?”

“ I mean .”

Oba peeled off the glove, waving her hand high. 

“Just watch.”

She bent all her fingers back at once. The distal phalanges sliding over the proximal. Resembling the strained claw of some animal. Thrúd flinched at the display, mortified but fascinated as she tried to hide a semblance of disgust.

“How did you-”

“I’m slacken.” Ọba said, shrugging. 

“Huh. You’re so creepy sometimes, but you make it work.”

“Really? I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“What else can you do?”

Oba entertained Thrúd, pulling her flexible fingers and bending her arms backward. Teeth grinding as she forgot the sore shoulder. Few other servants were keen on the display, even Braido watched but looked away, fearing she would lose that day’s .

Aldrif flitted by clear purpose bound her beyond tiredness. She disappeared past her companion, nodding in acknowledgement to Ọba and Thrúd, then a fleeting regard for Atreus. The boy, Loki, had swept in a mess. Sooty pyramids crowded his footwear. She does not utter a word, Braido hobbles back onto her feet, reaching the well-worn reed broom. Sweeping away, if not to ban the dirt, at best to hide it under the table. What could not be seen, not be thought of. Once her final chore was done, Braido disappeared for the night, eager to retire from her station. 

Dinner was hastily served, Aldrif assisted Jörgen the Andhrímnir, the main proprietor of the Aesir food stock. The served wasn’t anything spectacular, it did the job on filling up stomachs and being seasoned well enough to savor. A poached chicken broiled in a brine of turnip and garlic. A paten of bread rolls was also served, a day old, but softened immediately by the herby broth. Ọba was measured in her spoonfuls, her young company did away with manners, chatting with mouthfuls and flicking the sourdough crusts. Beyond the three, most of the servants had retired to their own lodging, with Aldrif being the only soul left to clean up after her lady and the All-Father’s guests. 

Oba stretched her legs, standing up from her seat and rounding to the other side of the long table. Being made an unwilling participant of Thrud and Atreus’ antics. Getting covered in even more mess. The mud she could barely stand, drying into coarse islands across her eteta. Edible stains were an unwanted accessory. Grimy enough in her own skin, having traveled the frozen Midgard, getting submerged in a freshwater lake somewhere in the Planes of Ida and one with an algae bloom, then hiking up the sheer wall only to be thrown shoulder first on some muddy ground. 

“Laugardagr is another day away. You can bathe then.” Aldrif said, leaning close to Ọba’s covered ear. 

“That sounds nice, I feel so disgusting.”

“I bet, leave your dress by the door. It’ll get cleaned.”

“Thank you.”

Aldrif shook her head, “It’s my job.”

Meanwhile, Thrúd tagged and played by Atreus who stuck his nose in the compendium, affixed to Asgard’s geography and nomenclature. Bickering back and forth, Thrúd interrogated Atreus over her father. He responded tersely, unsure how to handle the conversation, her father more than inspired fear. Atreus would be thankful to get an hour of sleep that night. Being so close to the Aesir who brutalized his own father. Thrúd sniffed out his hesitation, swerving the talk to a peachier topic.

Even the mead was filling, bochet cups completed the meal. A toffee finisher, savory as in most food Midgardians and Asgardians enjoyed. Perhaps a fine blink of vinegar or mountain salt, flavors settled rather than danced. Ọba was satisfied after a bowl and two rolls. She poured the rest of her mead in Atreus’ cup. He whined, the drink too sweet for him, she swatted him with the book and left with her new market garbs. Stacking aprons, upon gloves and gauze. Unsodden, how she pitied the fine threads in her embrace. After tomorrow, stains will paint them forever, as to the scent of breathing decay. 

Sleeping arrangements had been made on instinct. Ọba laid first, discarding her soiled ondhelela and etata aprons, head wrap ever affixed to her temple. Next to the door where Aldrif instructed her, to fold them neatly so her or Braido could swipe and clean them some time tomorrow. She rolled up her ekipa belts, stashing them in the closet atop her beaded ondjeva. The beads had bits of dried dirt flaking off, she’d have to seek out Braido to soak the silt off. 

Oba pulled over the pelt, exhaustion compressed her joints. Not realizing the pain until fully relaxing, she could barely move off her back. Mulling the day over, digesting the contents at a comfortable pace. Her mind was ever active, the audience of voices chattering, arguing what to do the next day. Some bring the valid point of continuing her brother’s plan, to absorb the sights of Asgard, to make this hasty excursion a worthy endeavor. A few argued about the semantics, worthiness enough that Ọba was servicing a greater good. Whether she contributed to aiding her family’s Ragnarök quibble did not matter, she did not matter. No visions by the Jötunn ever included a pink clad figure, Ọba had no place to concern herself. 

Finally, the few zephyrs mocked Ọba. Nudging her mind into a cloudier mood, of how betrayed father must feel, she ran away with Atreus. Abandoning her post by his side, she swore an oath to never leave. And he carried oaths as the heavy loads they were. Guilt overflowed her lower abdomen, then her heart where it hurt the most. What a horrid daughter she had been. A disgusting little thing, how could she? Leaving on the eve of an apocalypse, he trusted her his own burdens, with it, she crumpled them as rubbish. What a horrible thing she felt, what an ugly thing she was. 

Her voices muted as the door unhooked and kicked open. Atreus tip-toed in, struggling off his outer attire, to sooner dive into bed and sleep away. Throwing the armor away next to Ọba’s laundry. He planted himself at the bed’s edge, melting at an instant. Having peeled off the armor, he smelled of exertion and still, the sourness of Muspelheim, his tunic a pungent sponge. 

“You smell horrid.”

He slid under a furry blanket to hide that, “Why do you always point that out? Dad never does.”

“Dad doesn’t need to say anything. He judges.”

He kicked her foot and rolled over. Burying himself deeper, she was right. But a bath here in the realm made him uneasy. Communal hot springs certainly had the appeal for the gregarious type, but the truly Spartan means Atreus grew into, he’d much prefer a lone creek to wash up.

“Am I correct in assuming you won’t be free tomorrow?” She said, flipping a page or two in the compendium.

“Odin’s having me stick around, teaching me some seiðr spells.”

“Oh my, magic. What for, my love?”

Atreus shuffled on his opposite, “The future? And other things, it might help with Ragnarök.”

“ Might help?”

He didn’t say anything, faltering himself. Ọba nodded, gentle to his overwhelmed attitude. 

“My darling, I too have business now. We’re even” 

She smiled, closing the book and tossing it to the chest. A little too heedlessly, the drink muddying her deft flick. 

“You’re going to be stuck outside the wall.”

“Yes, quite horrific.”

He nested by her side, face awash in her own bed pelt. She could feel his upset.

“I don’t know what to make of this place. I feel anxious, the Aesir are so… odd. I know I shouldn’t trust Odin, but every time I’m with him, I feel like I’m missing out.”

“Missing out on what?”

“Y’know, Father, he doesn’t trust me-“

“And you don’t trust him.”

Atreus curled tighter into himself, nigh muting his voice behind knees and sheets. Feeling jabbed in by her truth. Ashamed father’s training, to guard the heart failing his resolve. Odin, he knew, a figure who could make rivers run red with his atrocities, resembled the paternal need Atreus had wanted. He was encouraging to his interests, willing to have an ear open to conversation and give him the output to channel his ideas. 

“I-I know. I… I’m worried I’m falling for it.”

Ọba laid down beside him, pulling her own blanket high to her chin.

“You’re in a hard place, what gives comfort, you’ll seek it. You’ll want it even if you shouldn’t.”

“Can you hold me? Sorry if this is childish.”

She slung over her arm, beneath his head with her bicep. The boy wormed closer to her warmth. Returning to countless childhood nights dozing off on Ọba. By the fire in the dead of night as she combed his hair, carrying him back home when he napped at sunlit glade, or staying by his side when the mares plagued his dreams. Ọba was there, keeping him whole. Every time he saw her leave, there was a heartbreak his child self-handled by shedding a flood of tears. Atreus knew Ọba’s calling, he admired her boundless need to help, even if it took her away weeks at a time. He just had to make the moments count. 

“Gladly, now sleep. Remember, Thrúd wants to show you the Valkyries.”

“I know, I know.” He yawned, relaxing against the furs. His clammy hands wrapped greedily across her warm skin. Finally getting to a preferred position to dream away the twilight.  

“Heimdall creeps me out.” 

She silently agreed.