Faestrid Friday drabble! Have some pre-wedding jitters!
The sounds of her mother’s vast garden twittered and fluttered around her. It was a quiet night, by all accounts a normal night for Alfheim. There were no battles and no invasions, no extravagant parties and no armies on the move. Yet, to Astrid, it felt as if it were the end of the world. The edge of a cliff, the edge of the world.
It was, in a way. And perhaps, she was lying to herself. There was an army, ready to go, but it wasn’t of soldiers. There was a party going, but it was a sombre one. And she had escaped, begging that she needed to rest.
Because she was on the edge of a cliff, the edge of the world. Sitting in her mother’s garden, she almost couldn’t hear the night birds and the tittering pixies that jumped from flower to flower, glowing gently.
Tomorrow, Astrid was getting married. And every time she thought about it, her stomach swooped down in an uncomfortable jolt, like missing a step. She felt ill, her body tense and weak at once. There just wasn’t anything she could do, and no way to wriggle out of it. She’d thought she’d resigned herself to her fate a long time ago - when years ago, her father had been forbidden from finding ways to release her by the higher gods. The journeys between Alfheim and Vanaheim had increased, Freya giving her gifts of armour and weapons, Thor coming to visit occasionally, chuckling about something that had to do with a pet he wanted. Frigga herself had come to Vanaheim, brought her a gown so beautiful Astrid had flushed at the sight of it. Then the two goddesses had chuckled and handed her another gown which had Astrid flushing again - for different reasons. That other dress had filled her with a mixed sort of trepidation; she’d heard from all her brothers and sisters, what it was like to lay with a human. Some of them were like bears, her sisters would laugh, grunting and twitching. Those were funny. Others though, others were proper lovers, and her sisters had always had enough fun to return to those; sometimes, they’d even stayed, at least long enough to bring children back with them.
An icy hand clutched Astrid’s chest when she thought about it. She’d be wearing both those dresses tomorrow. First she’d be wearing the blue one, with writhing silver tendrils all over it, signifying the branches of Yggdrasil. Her shoulders would be bare, but covered in her hair and the matching starlight veil that was to cover her face from her husband until she was married. And then later, when she was married, she’d wear the other one. And she wouldn’t be allowed, at any moment, to defend herself. She’d been told that on no account could she raise a hand against the Viking she was going to marry. In no moment could she stick him with a sword or bash his head in with her axe.
She couldn’t do anything, because the gods had taken some sort of interest in him, something to do with a talent he had in relation to dragons. Because of that, her Father hadn’t been able to keep trying to free her, and she had resigned herself to being married off to this boy, and being approached at odd moments by the higher gods.
But now, it left her to this. To tonight, toes clutching the edge of a sharp, long drop she was looking down into, even as she set on a stone bench in her mother’s garden. She was to be married, tomorrow. She was going to be married, to a boy she did not know in a land she had never visited but once, briefly. She would leave Alfheim, Vanaheim behind; leave her brothers and sisters and her mother and Father, leave everything she was familiar with and join....
Once again her stomach swooped and bounced, feeling like someone was going to wrench her chest out from her mouth. She bent over, clutching her chest when the feeling became almost painful. It was panic, a feeling she’d barely ever felt. The first time she had felt it was in that glen, on Midgard, her finger bleeding; the next few times had been when she’d thought her Father was in danger on their journeys between one realm and the next.
Astrid breathed steadily, staring at her slippered feet and the stone slabs beneath them. She’d thought she was over this. She’d thought she’d accepted it. But the panic didn’t abate, the worry didn’t subside, and the fear almost took over her brain. Now that she was faced with it, now that she was face-to-face with the prospect, pressed up against it happening tomorrow, she found she was no more resigned or acceptant of it than she could be a blade at her throat.
She stood abruptly up, pacing up and down the paths, trying to work off her agitation. She really did need to rest - crossing into another realm was always fatiguing and she was going to do that tomorrow. Not to mention she would be up before the sun lit the pink sky, to be washed and combed and dressed and prepared. She’d be someone’s wife by this time tomorrow - if time even moved in the same way in Midgard - and she needed to deal with it. It was her lot. It was decided. There was nothing she could do.
These thoughts only spiralled into another agitated bout of heavy breathing and stomach heaves, which she could ill-disguise from the pixies even if she was trying very hard. She tried to busy herself, plucking flowers she loved, making a bunch of them and holding them before her, trying to feel like a bride. All she could feel were her calloused palms from her weapon wielding, her clean, short nails. She was a warrior; she had always been a warrior. She didn’t know how to be anything but a warrior, but now she was expected to be a wife, a human wife, and perhaps a mother, too.
The next swoop of panic and pain in her stomach made her fling the bunch of flowers across the garden with an angry roar. Some of the pixies squeaked and ran. The sprites and dryads ducked, then peeked at her timidly.
Astrid stood there, breathing deeply, glaring into the half-light of the twinkling garden. She wanted to weep, she wanted to yell and stamp her feet. She wanted to be terribly angry and terribly frightened and cry, cry so hard, because she may never even see this garden and all her loved ones again, and she didn’t even have enough mind left to enjoy or appreciate this last night she had with them and this garden. Blinking hard at tears of mixed anger and fear she walked deeper into the maze of green and colourful vegetation, flagstones shining a moonglow white under her feet. She didn’t care where she went or how long she took. Didn’t care that it was probably late and she should be sleeping. The deeper she got into the garden, the better she felt, as if the greenery was sucking her anxiety, giving her the illusion that if she went in deep enough, no one would be able to find her and drag her to Midgard tomorrow. It was untrue, of course, but she did not care, clinging gladly to the illusion as her insides seemed to settle.
Astrid bumped into stone before she stop herself, her forward momentum making her unable to halt before she rammed right into it. She’d gone around the garden, coming right back towards the patio in the middle of it. The milk-white stone also glowed softly, a warm shine that illuminated the open space around the column. Her mother’s scrying basin was seated on top, seemingly quiet and innocuous. The shallow stone basin, surrounded in carvings and standing on the sleek marble column, seemed to beckon her. Astrid took a deep breath, coming closer. The curious calm that had settled over her as she navigated her mother’s garden held on. Quietly, almost calmly, she approached the basin until she was level with it. The basin was full of water, but only a few fingers of it, clear liquid that made the jade coloured basin flecked in many colours shine even brighter, the slightly translucent stone humming with power and quiet comfort.
Without thinking to, without even wanting to or even consciously acknowledging it, Astrid reached out and ran her fingers over the outer rim of the basin, the downturned lip warm and soft as stone should not be. The humming power reached out and caressed her lovingly, her mother’s magic recognising her and greeting her with care and affection. She’d almost pulled her arm away, moving back, before she noticed that the surface of the water was no longer clear.
The water inside was smokey now, strange and milky as the stone around the green basin. Astrid swallowed, stepping slightly backwards with a new surge of nerves in her chest. But strangely … it was anticipation, this time. She stepped forward again, her heart beating hard and fast. The water’s surface was clearing now, not quite transparent, but not quite opaque and dirty as it had looked a moment ago either. Astrid bent forward, her entire body stiff and waiting.
Finally the water cleared again, but she wasn’t looking at the bottom of the basin. Starkly, clearly, the water now shone into a black, inky night sky. Not really understanding what it was showing her, she bent forward even more, almost touching the water with her nose.
‘You think she’s looking at the sky, bud?’ a voice suddenly said.
Astrid gasped, straightening up and turning around sharply. There was no one there, and her heart beat harder than ever.
‘Don’t lose yourself in dreams, boy,’ said a gruffer voice. She realised that the voice was coming from the pedestal. Her throat clogged, her heart thumping even harder against her chest. Slowly she stepped close again until she could see the scene within the water, and then she swallowed hard.
There was a bushy face, more hair than skin. There were green eyes - she remembered those eyes - and for a delirious moment the panic returned. She remember that boy, that kind boy who’d given her 16 years to try to get out of marrying him. He couldn’t have grown into that man, surely? Her chest roiled again, a new onset of nerves and revulsion making her want to look away. She was marrying a viking, she knew, but that boy she met, he couldn’t have become - there was no way, could there be?
But then the scene shifted, moving like rapidly darting eyes. She knew the way her mother’s magic worked, and knew the way the basin’s magic worked. She’d seen it used a thousand times; the basin had seen within her, latched onto what she wanted to see most. It had sought it out, crept through Yggdrasil’s branches and leaves and searched until it connected - or perhaps, this time, had sought, and found, the connection between them. The magical link that she shared with the boy who was her future husband. And then the basin had found the closest reflective surface and latched onto it. Astrid was looking out of that surface, her own face clearly visible to him if he cared to look, and whatever it was had just been shifted to show her more of whoever was speaking.
Astrid’s mouth fell open as she greedily took him in. She had not seen him in years. Right away she realised she had been foolish to think the other man was him; foolish and stupid because this was him. Of course it was she’d know him anywhere. The eyes were the same as the other man, green and deep. The hair was darker, though, and in moonlight and starlight they shone brightly, gleaming strands falling here and there. He had small marks on his skin she remembered from when he was a boy, and they were all over his face.
It wasn’t round anymore, she noted, running her eyes along a square jaw. His teeth were a bit crooked and gapped. His eyebrows were thick and heavy-set, not like the elfen men she knew, or like her fellow changeling males, who all had fair features. His nose was long, and a bit large at the end. His lips were fleshy, but not succulent.
And yet altogether… either by comparison to the other man, who looked more like an ogre from Niflheim than a human male as she’d led to believe they should look, or because … she did not even have a reason why. His face, upturned towards the moon and stars, was striking and almost … beautiful.
What nonsense. Everyone knew human men could not be beautiful, not unless they’d been plucked as children and brought to the upper realms, fed appropriate food. But this boy she was going to marry tomorrow. He seemed oddly handsome nonetheless. Oddly, well, charming.
He was still looking up at the sky, sighing. Whoever else had spoken - the ogre man with the hairy face - grumbled a few more words, pet him on the shoulder and moved away, leaving the boy alone.
‘I know he’s right, Toothless,’ he boy said, and Astrid frowned, wondering who he was talking to. And … Toothless? What an odd name. Then again, she remembered that her husband’s name was Hiccup. ‘But I can’t help it. I’m marrying her tomorrow anyway. I may as well hope she’s nice. Or hope she’ll come.’
There was a strange note of sadness in the last part. The surface of the water shifted again and she could no longer see him. A rumble echoed out, the edges of the liquid vibrating with it. Whatever was rumbling was a powerful creature; Astrid realised with a jolt that Hiccup was talking to his dragon, and that whatever reflective surface the basin had chosen, it was to be found on the dragon’s body. Some more jolting and twisting of the image she could see clearly told her that the creature had not stopped twisting, and the purr-like growl intensified.
‘I’m alright, bud,’ the voice of the man she was spying on returned, and it was comforting and full of grateful affection. ‘At least, I hope I’ll be alright.’ More rumbling noises, and more shifting. At last, whatever surface had her basin attached to it came free of the shadows, and she could see the night sky again, and the edge of Hiccup’s face. He had lovely, very long lashes, she realised.
‘We’ll see tomorrow. No use mulling over it, then,’ he sighed. The images jolted some more, and then he was standing up, leaning over the creature with a smile of pure love and care. ‘Sorry for making you worry, Toothless. I’ll be alright. I promise. Let’s go get some sleep, shall we?’
The image vanished abruptly, the green and flecked bottom of the basin greeting her, her own reflection on the water’s calm surface looking back at her. For one single instance, his eyes had stood where hers now were, almost as if they were looking into one another, and Astrid jolted back, gasping.
She was shivering as if she was cold, and sweat had broken out on her body even as goosebumps pockmarked her skin. Yet she was oddly calm as she navigated her way out of the garden, cognizant enough to turn around and give it one last, long look, before returned to her room up the staircases. The garden still glowed at her through her balcony, but she no longer felt the urge to look at it. She went towards her bed, slipping between the sheets almost absently, her mind buzzing.
She’d seen her husband’s face. That was Hiccup, she was utterly, furiously certain of it. A small part of her relaxed, the looming unknown that awaited her tomorrow diminished as at last, at least, she could put a face to a name and a set of patchy details and behaviours the twins had reported back to her. A part of her almost felt guilty for trying so hard to escape this bond, wishing so hard she could be rid of it and him. Not when he spoke of her not coming tomorrow with so much worry, not when he seemed to want her to be there.
There had been something in his eyes. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there had been something there, something almost …. wistful, like everything he wanted was completely out of reach, and he’d resigned himself to looking at it all his life without ever attaining it. What could it be that put that look on his face? Certainly not her - he barely knew her. Barely met her for a few minutes, just as she had. She’d not thought about him at all, save to wish she could have never known him, or wonder how he’d gained the gods’ favour, or ponder whether he’d really been kind, or whether the twins were lying. He’d been thinking about her, though.
Inevitably, the cynical part of her complained. They were to be married tomorrow and he’d be a fool to be thinking of other things, unless he was distracting himself from the inescapable.
But it wasn’t that. If he was only thinking of her as she was - with fear and anxiety and agitation - why had there been that look on his face, in his eyes? Why had his tone struck a chord in her chest that made her heart speed up just to think about it? Astrid couldn’t understand, couldn’t fathom the connection between that sentiment and the bond they’d forcibly entered as children due to an unfortunate mistake.
Astrid fell asleep wondering, her head and chest a-buzz, but still oddly calm.
