by Lentz, P. K.
A thought slips dart-like past my guard. What would Gaeira do if I leaned down and tried to kiss her unsuspecting lips? Break my fingers? Force my head underwater and hold it there until I went still?
I do not mean to think that thought. I have no right to think it. Yet before I can banish it, another takes its place: what if I were to ask her permission first? Were she not vowed to silence, the worst she could do would be to say no. But as she cannot do that, she must communicate her answer in some other way, which may or may not involve the inflicting of physical harm upon my person.
Yet... even asking her would constitute a betrayal of the great trust and hospitality she and her foster parents have shown me. I could find myself cast out of her house, and worse, bereft of her guidance.
I realize suddenly that I have forgotten my task and am instead just staring at the nape of Gaeira's neck. I resume without her appearing to have noticed, but surely she has. Not much, if anything, escapes her notice.
Even as my actions become once more goal-oriented, my thoughts persist in tormenting me. I cannot stop wondering: What would she do? She is beautiful and magnificent, while I barely even know what I am. Certainly I am much less than she.
I greatly relish this task she has given me and want to do right by it... but suddenly I also want just to be done, for my own good and hers. And so must it be. Setting down the pitcher, I pick up the folded towel Dalla has left on the floor and carefully extract Gaeira's long, sopping locks from the basin. She leans forward to facilitate my wrapping the towel around her hair. When her hands also rise to help, or take over, her fingers brush mine. I pull mine away... but not too quickly. I do not wish her to know that I have become afraid of her, or that there is any cause for us not to touch.
I think then that my part must be done, the task discharged, and so I put palms to floor and raise myself upright. But before I can retreat, which I truly do not wish to do, Gaeira thrusts an open hand toward me. I am to help her rise. It is laughable to think she needs such help, but I do not laugh. I give her my hand and help her to stand, as she did once for me this day.
As our hands part, the towel tumbles from her hair, and I catch it. While we stand there face-to-face, our gazes meet for the first time since I entered the hall. Although I try, I cannot tear mine away. Hers, too, lingers.
I lift the towel to restore it to its place. Words fill my mouth, but then just sit there, a weight on my tongue. I wish to kiss you. Such words would be a betrayal. I cannot let them pass.
The question hammers at my mind. What would she do? I dare not learn the answer.
But I must know. I must... Burning need sends me forward, just a fraction.
I stop myself short of learning the answer.
To my astonishment, Gaeira gives it. Not with her voice, of course, and neither with her eyes. It is her breath that tells me. In that same instant of my advance on her, slight as it is, her breath catches, even more slightly—and I know. I know that she will not break anything or try to drown me in the basin. I know I will not be cast out of her house. I know that I have not just her permission, but more. It is as much her wish as it is mine.
I do not just stand there, knowing those things. As quickly I halted it, I resume my advance, and the space I must cover is halved as Gaeira moves her own head up and forward to meet mine. Our lips come together, and this world, one I barely know, both ends and begins. I cease to know where the floor is, or the roof, or my own feet. There is only me and magnificent, beautiful she, and this shared moment that I wish did not have to end.
But end it must, and it does. Or rather it ebbs, as natural forces do, like the tides of the sea that once I crossed in a long-ago life, as a prince or a monster. It runs its course, and we step apart, staring. Gaeira's lips quickly shut. Mine hang open a short while. The exhilaration in her eyes is but a faint flicker, such that I wonder whether only someone who knows her well could perceive it, while any nameless other who happened to be present would find her impassive. I cannot know that, but I know that I see in her face the faint echo of what I surely wear much more plainly on mine. It is lust.
Her towel lies on the floor. Since I must eventually move, I decide a reasonable thing to do is retrieve it. I stoop, finally breaking Gaeira's gaze, which is simultaneously a disappointment and a relief. I pick up the towel and hand it to her.
She takes it and steps back. She drapes the towel over one shoulder and then with one hand she grasps her wet hair behind her neck and moves it in front so that it rests on the towel, all the time watching me. The flicker I glimpsed has faded, leaving her looking the same Gaeira I have known since meeting her in giant country. But I know now what lies inside. She cannot hide it from me. I do not think she wants to. Not anymore.
She takes a few more backward steps and spins and strides to the stairs, ascends them, and is gone.
I am staring at the empty space where Gaeira was when I hear a sound behind me, and I turn in time to witness Dalla entering. She looks at me, at the basin, at the wet floor, and back at me. I sense that she means to ask a question, but none comes. She makes a sound with her tongue that my still-reeling mind cannot interpret and gives a look nearly as opaque to me as her foster daughter's were a few days prior.
42. Hunger
An hour later, the four of us sit together at a table in Gaeira's hall for our evening meal. It is quiet, by which I mean that I am quiet. I can think of naught but Gaeira, yet I cannot look at her. And I can think of nothing to say to Dalla or Afi apart from, I kissed the woman you hold as dear as a daughter, and I desire to do more with her. By the way, is it true what the All-Father told me—is she a maiden?
Of course it is true, they would tell me calmly. Do you think Odinn a liar?
Or... Dalla could hold my wrist fast to the table as Afi fetches an ax with which to sever offending hand.
Afi converses with me, and I manage to answer him while focusing on the food I am barely eating. I might drink, since my mouth at the moment feels like sand, but the drink is mead, and I surely need my wits about me. Fortunately, Afi, hungry and thirsty after the day's work, is intent on his own food and drink. I notice, while looking at her hands and her plate, that Gaeira is eating less than usual. Although she never appears to relish eating, she always does so in a methodical way. Nourishment is, after all, a long-term requirement of revenge-seeking.
Dalla, on the other hand, eats more swiftly than usual. When she is done, she plants her hands on the table, upraises herself, and addresses her husband, "Afi, dear, my side is paining me. Would you walk me home and rub it for me?"
Afi's greasy mouth adopts a likewise pained look. "Could you not sit a bit longer? I'd like some more—"
"Take it with you," Dalla says.
"That's a bit rude," Afi protests. "Our guest's plate is yet—"
"Afi," she says firmly, and nothing more, but it ends the dispute. Afi sighs, stands, refills his plate and cup and hoists them, one in either hand.
Dalla puts her hand on her side, cocks her head and smiles at me. "You two don't mind finishing without us... do you, Highness?"
"No," I answer, barely looking at her. I am worried she might see in my eye the mix of excitement and alarm that comes from knowing I am to momentarily be alone again with Gaeira.
"Tomorrow is a rest day," Dalla says. "You need pay the crowing cock no heed."
Then they are off, out the door of Gaeira's home and moving away in the direction of the little cottage in which they dwell. Despite his grumbling, Afi seems hardly put out, even less so when Dalla pulls his head down so that she might give his cheek a peck.
When the pair is gone from sight, I meet Gaeira's eyes. I look for the earlier spark there and do not find it. I look back at my plate. There is no chance I can eat and therefore no reason to sit here poking at it and pretending. Trying my best to meet Gaeira's even stare, I stand.
She matches the move. She steps to her right, past the table's corner. I mirror her move. Nothing separates us now
. No table. No Dalla. No Afi. It remains thus for approximately a heartbeat, and after that, there is not even air between us, for we have flown to each other. My hands find her waist, hers the sides of my head, and our mouths that for which they have truly hungered, each other. We kiss with more fervor and ferocity than we did an hour ago. Where that was soft and tender and tentative, this shares something in common with our sparring sessions: we attack each other. Rarely ever have I heard Gaeira's breath, but I do now: it is fast and heavy, and the sound of it excites me.
Like the last, this kiss ebbs, as did even the great wave which swept away Atlantis. When it has finished, we stand panting, I through slack jaw, she through clenched teeth, looking at one another as we sometimes did when we stood as mock opponents. Her hand finds the collar of my shirt, but this time it is not to throw me into mud. She marches toward the stairs, pulling me along after her. In truth, she only pulls me one step, for after that, I run. We ascend together and race to her bed, where we partake of an activity that neither of us has been party to in this lifetime, in these bodies.
That evening in Vanaheim, a maiden is unmade, willingly and in total silence, and a vision of the future edges closer to reality.
***
I awaken in a half-empty bed. Gaeira's. It was real, then, no dream.
She is gone. The cock crows. The sky outside her window is the pale yellow of Vanaheim's dawn. I rise, dress, leave Gaeira's room and poke my head into my own chamber, her late brother's. Finding no sign of her there, I pause and listen, not that I would be likely to hear any sound made by her, unless she so willed it. I hear nothing, and being reluctant to snoop behind other closed doors, I head down the stairs.
The first person I encounter, to my dismay, is Dalla. I cannot turn back now, and so continue my descent whilst scanning the hall for the one I hoped to see. But Gaeira is not here, only Dalla, who sits at a table peeling and dicing root vegetables. She looks up at me, and I smile as though there were no difference between this dawn and the ones preceding it.
"Good morning, Dalla," I say to her on the floor of the great hall.
"Highness," she greets me, peeling.
"I thought today was a rest day," I say.
"We still must eat."
I come to the table, standing across from her, feeling intently the need to maintain the illusion that I remain a proper guest. "You should let us fend for ourselves for a day," I say. "We would manage. If barely."
Dalla chuckles, but I sense it is for another reason. "Yes," she says distantly. She aims her knife at the seat across from her. "You might at least offer to help."
"Of course." I hide my dismay at being so waylaid by her, and I sit. Among the peels I find another small knife and begin doing as she does.
I have been at the task for but a few moments before Dalla says, without looking up, "I know what you've done."
I stop—both peeling and breathing. "What... what did I do?"
"What did you do?" she mocks, and chuckles once more. "You took something of Gaeira's. No, I shouldn't say that. I should say she gave it to you."
I cannot move, cannot speak. I know not what to do. Deny it, and make of myself an even poorer guest? Or show courage, at least, by admitting the transgression? I have not yet decided when Dalla snorts and mutters words which cut the unseen rope strangling me.
"It's about time," she says. "Pfft! 'Pain in my side,' indeed...!"
An immense wave of relief washes over me. I first resume breathing, then peeling. Speech takes a short while longer to return.
Dalla angles her bright eyes up at me and adds, "I approve of the recipient." Returning to her work, she snorts. "A prince, no less! Her father would not have approved, mind you. But then, he hardly met a man he didn't hate." She frowns, reflectively. "Harsh and unloving, that man was, with his own daughter above all. His death caused scant change in her, you know. Gaeira has ever been as you see her now. Even before her vow, it was a rare thing to hear her voice in this hall."
It greatly surprises me to hear this. I had just assumed that a daughter who would seek to avenge her father with such ferocity as Gaeira has must have dearly loved and been loved by him.
Curiosity restores my voice. "And her brother?" I ask.
"Quite unlike his father," Dalla answers, waggling her little knife. "Peel!" she orders me, for I have unthinkingly stopped. I resume. "I said Gigi never talked much. Except to him. They were close as any siblings ever have been. It pained them to be apart. When the war came, Gigi wanted to go off to it, with him and her father. She was a fierce fighter, to be sure, but young. Her father wouldn't hear of it. Nor her brother. Didn't want to be distracted by constantly watching out for her. And so the men went. And they never came back."
Dalla chuckles. "I tell you all this because she will not. And well, because it's nice to have some ears that aren't Afi's for a change. And besides, what's my job as a nursemaid if not to stick my nose where it doesn't belong? But now I've said enough." Shaking her head rapidly, she reaches over and plucks the peeling knife from my hand. "You had better get away. Off with you, before I start telling you things you really have no business knowing, like the time I caught her— Ah! No, Dalla, shut your mouth!" She points her knife at me. "And you'll regret ever calling her Gigi, so don't dare try it. Even I can't call her that to her face anymore. But it is ever how I think of her."
She shoos me away. I rise from the table and start to leave.
"Wait!" she calls after me. I turn. "I made you something. A feeble gift for His Highness, and of infinitely less value than the present already received, but still—" She points with her little blade. "It's on that table there."
My good eye goes to the indicated spot, where I see what appears to be a handful of leather cord. I walk toward it and pick it up. It is an eyepatch, a simple one but tough and well-made from thick, scarred leather.
"You honor me, Dalla. Thank you."
"Put it on already," she orders absently.
Removing the cloth which has been covering my by-now bloodless eye socket, I tie on the patch and adjust it until it sits as comfortably as it will. It rubs a little on my cheekbone, but surely I am just not yet used to it, nor it to me.
"Thank you," I say again to Dalla, not only for the patch but for her acceptance of a stranger whom she would have every right to send packing. I hope she knows.
"'Tis nothing," she replies. "I suppose you want to know where Gaeira has gone. Well, if I'm not wrong, she went to borrow a horse from the neighbors. Or two horses, if you are fortunate enough that her plans, whatever they are, include you."
43. A Vision Revealed
I have barely stepped outside when Gaeira returns riding one horse and leading a second. A smile touches my lips on seeing her. I cannot prevent it. She does not likewise react to seeing me, not outwardly, anyway. Inwardly, I can hope. Dismounting, she hands me both horses' reins and throws a set of packed saddlebags onto the back of mine before remounting and riding away at a gentle pace. I mount and follow, though not before running back inside to grab my cloak.
"Fortune smiles again upon a fool?" Dalla asks as I pass her.
I answer with a laugh.
Gaeira and I ride slowly on a trail that traverses fields and meadows and hills of Vanaheim. I start out lagging behind her, then put on a burst of speed to come alongside. She gives me a glance that acknowledges my presence, and no more—except that from her it is more than that, for she might not have offered it at all. Her hair remains unbound from its washing the night before, and golden wisps of it rise and fall in the light breeze.
We ride for an hour, seeing no one except one or two farmhands from a great distance. Our leisurely pace implies we have no purpose, perhaps not even a destination, although a peek into the saddlebags gives me some clue as to the latter. They contain bread, cheese, fruits, and skins full of water or wine.
Eventually, we veer from the trail and ride through grass that reaches our ankles. At the base of a hill, Gaeira stops and
swings down from her horse. I do likewise, not sure what she has in mind—until I take a closer look at the hillside, and then I do know, for I have seen it happen already.
I feel contentment. I know I could dwell here in Vanaheim, if Gaeira would have me. And even if she would not, I could settle here on my own, for I vastly prefer this pleasant country over Neolympus, perched high on a windy crag, deep in giant country. Nothing remains for me there.
Yet whatever dreams I may conjure, any plans I might lay, are illusions. The Myriad have returned and will destroy all of this—unless Thor truly is the doer of impossible deeds that the Aesir believe him to be. I do not think he is. But the desire to believe can be a powerful thing, and I wish to believe. Here on a hillside under the blue skies of Vanaheim, in my present company, I wish dearly to believe that all will be well.
Having dismounted, Gaeira but stands there, waiting. Briefly I wonder whether I would know what she had in mind if Mimir had not told me, but I hardly care. In three great strides, I erase the five paces of hillside separating us and take her into my arms, as she does me, and once more we seek to devour one another. We undress, and in the tall grass we lie together in perfect fulfillment of my vision.
Afterward, we laze on our backs, gazing at the clouds, something which as recently as yesterday I could not have imagined Gaeira doing, whether alone, with me, or with some other. I had thought every fiber of her being, every twitch of her every muscle, devoted to her single-minded purpose. I could not be more pleased to be proved wrong.
Gaeira's fingers trace the eyepatch I wear, Dalla's gift, my only evidence that she has even noticed it, although she could hardly fail to. She likes it, I think, or want to think.
After a while, the breeze starts to chill. I drag my cloak over our bare flesh, and my palm happens to find Ayessa's etched tooth pendant which, days ago, I pinned to its inner face.
I still know not the truth of how it came into Gaeira's possession, but I think it likely that Ayessa gifted it to her as a token of thanks for seeing her safely to Asgard. Gaeira did me the same favor, and what have I given in return?