death mother

‘You and I are far from the harbor of youth, my love.’

And the affection is lost from the words that fall hard in punctuation, the end  of a sentence finite and true. She was never one for lies, the Hagia. Never one to bear lilting words but to hear their honeyed sound.

Knowingly broken; Empty. Safety was not the Hagia’s to bespeak. All effort to keep her daughter free of the cursed fate, planned for Aeons before she walked in the waking worlds, was for not.

But that was not for Hel to know. A child was not tasked with foresight. Hel never had been. Her fear came not from the threat of abduction, isolation and tyranny in wait of a moment that would ensure death’s embodiment know of a prophecy spoken around her in hushed tones and heartbroken whispers. It was a softness of words and the covenant of safety, as if it was no longer guaranteed. 

Hues of ashen grey and burnt ochre fell upon the mouth spewing things violent as the child had never heard. On  their own, she understood the words, but still there was no meaning to them without the reason for them. Vast  and limitless imagination, but the girl etinn could never  hope to concoct an explanation, a wherefore. Danger  had never saught her out. To that point, hers had been A life of privilege. One that would soon become unravelled and lost. 

Why.

Do not ask such things of me, child. Do not wonder at the world that defies explanation,  that rejects understanding with all the  ease of oil upon water. 

Do not stare at the chaos that has befallen our ilk for the whole of knowing, do not marvel at the shadows promised upon the horizon. 

Do not ask why, for none can know.

Do not ask why, for your mother cannot voice what meager explanation hovers upon her lips.

Lips that tighten, flat and flush. 

“I’ve not yet come to decide what I would like to find in you, but comfort is not something I seek. Not from you, not from any. Oðinn supplies my comfort as brother and ring-giver, and he is the All-Father.”

His words made it seem as if he did not take the title serious, but he acknowledged the weight of it nonetheless.

‘You were never a man, sonur  jotunheimr. You may have fled from your roots, you may have  flayed them to ruin and left them with naught but the meanest of sinews. 

But they are yours, bound to  those hollow bones that so easily take flight.’ And though those false fair lips

settle in the lean of a half smirk, the Hag’s eyes know no grace. There is but the iron of her  pride here.

There is but the bite of her heritage.

‘Oh’

And the sound is long and  it is drawn. It is savage and  it basks in its beasthood, a growl before the gilded laurels of this creature false and hollow. In those naked ribs empty of heart or harrow it found its stage, reverberating unto generations,  each as strong as that first  utterance.

‘But you are, you are. And for that you should count yourself  lucky. The greatest sin you bear is the sin of indifference, the  sin of resting upon your divine arse whilst my children were  torn from the breast that bore  them. 

But it was better that she know the bruise  of her mother’s grasp, better she grow  calloused and strong, laced with the scars of prepartion gifted by love. Better she be ready for the true hurts that  lingered with a sick promise just upon the horizon.

Better. Fingers rise to the dead locks that cascade beautiful, they trace against a scalp forever aching.

Born in pain.

“I do not speak so freely of things I do not have intimate knowledge of.”

He knew it was a risky statement, but he smiled to himself even so.

She dons a half smirk, for he  is playing with the flame that  lingers between those open lips. She might as well let the heat of it linger between them, the air  pregnant with its smoke.

‘You would not have survived to speak of your reputation were you not a creature of fear.’

And now the fire has a bite, it has a purpose, the embers  flaming crimson upon the belly of her tongue.

She did not swoon like Vanir ladies, nor roll her eyes like so many Aesir.

She didn’t want hollow words, and he hadn’t the foresight to give her what she did want.

“I could not compete with roaring, I’m afraid.”

He ventured a little closer, smirking just slightly, his voice lulling to a whisper.

The Great Hag looses a low  whistle, her lips pursing in a  mirror of her inner surety. 

‘So it is my fire that so stokes your eye, Laufeyson, not my breasts?’  She imagines the great giantess

rolling her head on a limp neck, admonishing her son from afar for his attempt that the sheer  cliff face of Angrboda. 

No small part of this giant queen smiles at the words that roll from  an infamous tongue. 

This creature is named spineless by her kin and fellows, he is spat as coward and fool.  And perhaps he is. 

But there is a novelty in matching wits with the stuff of legends.