It was daybreak, so early, the sky was tinged dawn pink, the snow seals froliced on icebergs out our tiny glass window, and a morning dawn chill had set into the berth.
Yolanda fluttered her hazelwood eyes open. They always change, from hazel to bark to black. Her cinnamon skin smelled like frankincense and violets.
"Ten more minutes, my queen," I stirred, half awake, drunk off moonlight and her firm belly and middle sized breasts like a broodmare wolf that swell like a psalm under my nightshift.
Yolanda drabbled awake, murmuring, cuddling - wanting.
A violet flame lit in her eye, and she mussed my hair. "Little shieldmaiden... you just called me your queen," she teased, pecking my cheek.
I looked deep into her eye. "You have always been queen of my heart..." I said sleepily, eyes fluttering closed as I listened to her heartbeat, reawakened by the amethyst godstone. "Oh Yola, stay with me all your days. Once this terrible war is over, and we have b
Yolanda and I sipped Shamayim coffee sweetened from the sugar mills of the South as Jarngrimr whistled a skaldic lay of Freida and Ottar the Boar. She seemed to fancy Hyndla, the dwarven giant crone who helped Freida and Ottar, once her human champion, now in her service immortally like Adonis in Meditteranea to Cybele. Jarnja sang of how Ottar and Freida met:Freida Rides OutTo be like the Great Sow, Mother of Battle.they say I have gold tears that hide smiles,my teeth are bright as tusks, my breasts bemountains, little one, my thighs crush menand as I strangle their necks, they grin,pour wine into my lap, and drink down blood.See me on the battlefied, bright armor shining,See me in the bedroom, resplendent as a pearl,See me High Seated, prophesying Valraven’s fall,Wotan may be Frenzy, but I am the Blade, see mecut the Norn’s hair and spin it on my fingers.
Jarngrimr sang us away:Freida and Ingvi rode out into the sun-dappled woods,bows and falcon-fletched arrows ahand, aback boars,the twins wore cloaks of wolf, fall was at its apex,the smell of loam and Nerthus’ autumnal perfume rosein mist like an intoxicating oracle past oak and ash.The Golden Twins were hunting the white hart, dashingthrough Vanaheim aback war sow and hog, spilling rubyblood of Ingvi’s sacred antlered stags, Freida saw aspiderweb woven of gold, and as Ingvi roasted the hartshe strayed in her feather cloak and moonlight dress toa dwarven hollow, where a soot-rough duergar smithed abeautiful bracelet shaped like the sun, Freida swelledwith gold-lust, for Gullveig is her witch-name, and themetal of morning and dawn is her domain. Freida spokewords of want to the blackened dwarf: “Lay with me thisharvest tide, and you shall mine gems and fin
A Winter’s TaleMei moves with her family to the hinterlands,where cold gods reign, and colder climes drawhoarfrost on her coal black hair.This is the first time the girl, barely a young woman, Has seen snow. The peaks of the mountains are likeicicles piercing the sky, and at night, the moonis the brightest she has ever seen, like a brightsilver coin, nestled at the crest of the ridges.One night, the Bear that Swallowed the Moon comesand bids her “Ride my back, Mei. I am Bei Ling,the Moon Incarnate, and I shall show you themajesty of my frozen kingdom.” It is a wooing of love, and Mei climbs aback Bear -they rush through pine and red panda up theslope, in his throat is the lunar disc, shiningevery time he growls or opens his mouth to speakin a tongue not human, but bestial. That night, Bei Ling digs her a bed of snow and mos
Yolanda and I alighted on the light elf terrain:Alien glimmers of the whitewashed, satin blue, finely featured elves, who towered over us in silken, slender forms, held out pearl gray mushrooms and glowing yellow fruits, circling us in a whirlwind as their crystal palaces and strange, arcane stone temples blurred as they fractaled.The tribe of Ljossalfar splintered like ice.Terrified, I looked up into Yola's arms. She put her plush eagle wings in a vice around me, the cinnamon and cloves of her skin darkening my vision. She cried out, as if a stabbing pain from the light of the dead - as the dark elves and light elves had spirits of the disir and alfar, our ancestors... transformed into something forbidden - was crushing her lungs and spine.Her flesh grew hot, and we both screamed.Suddenly, silence, and eldritch cold."Is this an initiation into the Land of the Dead, Helheim? Are we trespassing?"I kept my eyes shut, shrouded by
I cried, sinking to me knees amongst the graves of rune stones.Yolanda rocked me, cursing."I feel like something precious was stolen from me, at a terrible price," I moaned, Gullinkambi cooing as he preened my hair. He was the only one not shaken, my immortal cockerel.Yolanda hugged me so hard, she nearly crushed my back in like a caving glacier. "I'll sing you Hakkon's song on sweet Aslaugh's deathbed. He always sang that to you as a lullaby. One of his only acknowledgements of Wotan. Your father was a traitor, but he loved all five of us."I crumpled in her embrace: "Sing me with the song of days past, Yola - so that we may please the ancestors, whose sacred ground we have raped."Yolanda's brown eyes flashed amber: "Then I shall sing the dead."Her melody poured forth, eviscerating, yet quiet, like a tender morsel of perfumed, candied roses, baked with apple pie:Sanctuary of autumn, a cairn of stones.D
Yolanda and I woke up as dusk tinged the sky. Panicked, in her twisting wings, and soaked with gray sleet to the bone, I ruffled her muddy cheek, then pressed my ear to her godstone amethyst heart:The pulse had slowed to a crawl.The gravestones of runes danced with light elf ghosts, so transparent, they looked like fog. The arcane, alien figures did not look at us, eyes gutted and blind, salt in their mouth, for they were the dead.Skadhi's Bow was merciless above, and Mani's moon was a fingernail, scratching at the surface of the night. I sat and watched them, ageless, cast out - cursed. Yolanda stirred in my arms, and in silent remembrance, we watched the milky stars of Audhumla pour forth from the Great Mother Auroch's udders.We cross ourselves with Uhruz, rune of the ox.Yolanda had bitter grapes in her mouth. She spat out dirt and sand. Suddenly, I felt dry clay and earth on my own palate, and spat it out in repulsion."Look at our f
The hillocks, harrows, and fjords were coated in birch and ice, thick pine, fir, and frozen lakes forming bogs and ravines.The mounds of the dead echoed millennia old names. It was as if, everything was frozen in stasis, down in the belly of Jord.Finally, we came to a clearing in the glen. The anemic sun parted in the thick dark clouds above, letting in petering light.Yolanda clenched my hand in the strange, autumnal chill."The sunlight feels as if it burns my bones," I whispered in the lowest of tones.Yola looked as alert as a hawk. She gazed up at the sicksleep molten star, a crucible of power. Her face hairs stood on end, nostrils flaring, and her vibrant blue black locks coiled from wind and moisture."Quiet, wife," Yola murmured, pressing her sweet cinnamon finger to my lip, and smoothing ever so delicately my glassy damp blonde hair.We held each other like ghost wives, wedded to empty tombs. Wombs barren, worm-ridden - Jor
Yolanda and I followed the white harts through haunted, sicksleep glens, dales, and fjords. The birches moved like alfar, the ghosts of the light elves dancing. My pale Isa flesh was frozen to a dull green verdigris, like a copper pot left out in the rain. Yolanda and I walked hand in hand, guarding each other with her broadsword and my Isa dagger out, treacherous steps on autumnal frozen fall leaves crunching to release the spice of pine and wet soil.Yolanda hissed to the shadows, then her teeth chattered, her golden brown skin frosted to a light grimy blue. Freezing to death, after Jord’s heart.I watched the quicksilver white harts loose like darts in a tavern through the wends of woods. Their albino fur and gleaming red blue eyes reminded me of the prophesized god Lussi, who would overturn Eleleth. But that was such a tall tale, I could never imagine anyone but the might of Wotan overtoppling Eleleth’s reign!“Yolanda?” I gently aske