Chapter Text
What burden is heavier than duty? Subservience to others’ desires and aspirations by the mere fact of birth. To a will that is foreign, contrary to one’s own.
To be permitted to exist is not the same as to be permitted to be oneself.
“Does it grieve the stars that their cycle is ever the same and unchanging?” Baldur asks. “Would the fact of predestination grieve them... were they capable of grief?”
Who could know of this better than the Watcher of Worlds?
Heimdall remains silent.
Baldur draws a deep breath and lets out a heavy exhale. He longs to tear the heart from his chest and—holding it in palms cupped like a drakkar, flooded to the brim with blood—slowly sink to one knee and leave his heart upon the floor as an offering. As cats bring dead birds and mice to their masters, he would bring himself. He would leave it—and forget. He could leave a part of himself—the part that concerns life—in the throne room, but he would rather leave himself here. In the golden observatory, he would swear his loyalty to the cold of the cosmos, to belong to it alone. His only master is Being itself.
He wishes to follow Heimdall’s gaze, but he cannot. Himinbjörg is lined with gold from within; whenever he is here, the sting in his eyes is impossible to ignore. No matter how impenetrable the darkness of the cosmos framed by the observatory window may be, the sun’s rays invariably find their way inside, wandering along the rounded walls, blinding. The palace gold is wickeder still.
He reaches out a hand—to shield himself from the light. No, not quite. He attempts to shield himself, only to jerk back, folding his fingers into a magical pass and pretending it was intended all along. Protection is unneeded by one who is always ready for defense; and so, the gold of the rounded walls fades as he subdues the waywardness of the celestial bodies. The tense line of Heimdall’s shoulders betrays his displeasure at the display.
“Is the world you behold so beautiful, Guardian of the Bifrost? Perhaps it would be a pleasure to touch that which has moved your sight and hearing. Standing here, I cannot appreciate the beauty of Vanaheim, nor hear the birdsong, nor feel the caress of the wind upon my skin. I cannot admire the lace of shadows or the clarity of Alfheim’s rivers.”
The constellations whisper that Jotunheim lies ahead. Heimdall remarks that the Eldest Prince would be received with far greater hospitality in any of the Upper Realms. Baldur does not believe him: no one has shown sincere joy at seeing him for a long time.
“Then,” with another wave of his hand—the sun blinds his eyes once more—“open the bridge to Alfheim.”
In Asgard, the wine has tasted of bitterness for a thousand years now. In the palace, alcohol settles on the tongue like lies and omissions. The mead in the taverns is viscous and sticky, much like the uninvited stares.
The water alone in Alfheim is a sweet dream. The spring-like clarity of her eyes speaks of things gone by; truth settles on the lips like pollen from days past. One cannot touch either: ripples will hide everything, should one try to interfere. Shaking off floral dust is easier than anything, yet catching it afterwards is impossible, as is gathering it back. One can see and know that it all exists, but no more. The possibility is ephemeral, and it is painful to know that it all lies on the boundary, somewhere in between—existing only as long as one does not wish to be convinced of it.
In Alfheim, Vár always awaits Baldur. Her skin is touched by the sun and dark as last year’s leaves; behind the transparency of her gaze lies the ambiguity of intentions. To her alone can Baldur entrust the shadow of his thoughts, but nothing more. Knowledge of his designs must belong to no one. Perhaps, not even to himself.
Vár remembers the times when he was as gentle as the dawn. She preserves the truth, forgotten by many—not as something precious, but as something she will not renounce simply because she can. And that is enough.
Now he is as destructive as solar flares, and it is ill to be near him—a magnetic storm costs less of a headache. Whose whim is this? A tangle of cause and effect too long and convoluted; Baldur no longer knows, no longer remembers what was his choice and what turned out to be another's caprice, or when he began to choose for himself what to do and how. When he became a player. He placed his pieces on someone else's board and decided it was time to begin.
“A pillar of salt has more resolve than the Eldest Prince of Asgard,” the Ljosalf says. “Do you wish to enter, or should I lock the door and pretend nothing happened?”
She shakes her hair and squints: the visual transmitter showed the image of the Aesir loitering at her door at least four minutes ago, doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. She only deigned to open the door to hear:
“Be so kind... Yes.”
Vár huffs—and closes the door.
Baldur presses his hot forehead against the cold wood, slippery with lacquer, and exhales heavily. He forgot something important and, briefly wondering what it was, became submerged in thoughts so distant and distinct from those he ought to be thinking here and now—he made a fool of himself. It would be vexing were this a date, but he arrived on business. What happened is a catastrophe.
Half an hour later, he knocks on the door, clutching a bouquet. Hydrangeas as blue as Jotunheim—today Baldur will tell of it without words.
Jotunheim is blue, Muspelheim is red. Asgard shines with the gold and self-indulgence of daffodils; Vanaheim is the sharpness of a briar rose. The first voice of his and Vár’s meetings always belongs to flowers. And on the color depends how many themes are destined to be lived: hydrangeas with crumpled petals will find themselves in a vase only in a couple of hours.
Because the second voice is that of the flesh. Fingers glide over the smoothness of skin in sync with the movements of the tongue—he traces a message in the intervals between the woman’s moans, the trembling of a tense body, and an “again” when the letters cannot be deciphered, no matter how many times he draws them. No matter how long he kneels, it is not enough; half the message is lost. Afterwards—a confusion of thoughts, the sweet captivity of thighs, the moist heat of the body, and a single breath for two, heating the lips.
Every time they intertwine their fingers while lying in bed, Baldur catches himself thinking that he does not know which of the countless touches are truthful, except for those that remained as silent signs upon the skin.
And then Vár, with the pad of her thumb, traces words on the back of his hand that do not lie: it was he who had first brought them to life upon the skin. And they are repeated on palms, on thighs, on the chest, remaining as warm touches on the cheeks. Foreign names, names of worlds, titles and ranks, secrets for which one burns on funeral pyres.
Baldur’s fingers wrap around Vár’s wrist—gently, but insistently. He brings her palm to his face, and the tip of his tongue follows the pattern of the life line, mirroring it symmetrically, tracing the letter “H,” and he grimaces: an unbearable bitterness, a desire to spit it out.
Vár giggles, hugging herself across the stomach—clutching herself as if to fold in two with laughter:
“I was holding the flowers, dear Prince. What is more bitter: their taste, or the memory of how many gold coins had to be given for them?”
“The slamming of the door in my face,” Baldur says, the corner of his mouth twitching as he unsuccessfully tries to rid himself of the unpleasant aftertaste on his tongue.
“My Prince insisted!”
“I was a fool.”
“Music to my ears...”
As if flicking invisible keys of a musical instrument, Vár moves the fingers of the captured hand: will there be a continuation? This question is in the impatient roll onto her side, the mischief in the transparency of her eyes, and the formality of her address. Her "My Prince" is always nothing other than a taunt.
Baldur presses the tip of his nose to her palm to continue with the second letter. It turns out exceedingly awkward and highly inconvenient. By the fifth letter, they both give up: the name is obvious anyway.
“Heimdall.”
“Jotunheim.”
And the number of days. Ten. For ten days, the gaze of the Guardian of the Bifrost has been turned toward Jotunheim; for ten days, the dark ice has spoken of silence. Ten days and ten decades—not a single reason to behold Jotunheim, yet everything is as it is.
Once, in the mountains of Jotunheim, the rivers sang merrily, carelessly; their voice was ringing crystal. The snow sparkled more colorfully than the finest stained glass. The forest smelled of tart resin that glued fingers together if one rubbed a few needles between them; the wind caught the cries of birds of prey and carried them across the icy wastes. Hands went numb in the cold; one could hide their face from the frost in a fur collar, and the Jotnar were not monsters—they were simply different. Baldur remembers this as a life that will never happen again.
In that life, he had a sister. In this one, he wears mourning for the past, dyeing his golden hair black in her memory. In her memory, his light does not burn.