Siblings, Part 1
Royal wing at the palace in Utgarð, Ýmirheim
Earth’s time unknown; Ýmirheim’s time unknown
The living quarters for the Royal Family – and that does include one for the spouse of a monarch plus their monarch-sired children, however reluctant Amma sounded when she lectured me about that during our tour of the palace – are located in a kind of bubble, removed from the main area of the palace, just as the kitchens are. This, Amma said, was arranged a long time ago, after the palace had been built, after a series of attempts on the Royal Family’s life – and therefore the throne’s continuity – through both the indirect way of food stocks and preparations and the direct way of aiming at the place where the family members would be the most vulnerable. Only select people can enter these places, and they must also know the secret, convoluted way there before they can enter.
At first, it was a bit of novelty that amused and intrigued me. And then, after I noticed more than a few people regarding me and my newfound family less than amiably, albeit covertly, the rather paranoid safeguard became a comfort. But now, as I must conceal a hamper of food and beverage while carrying it from the kitchens to the royal wing, as I’m also trying to keep my baby sibling – who is clinging to my front in a sling I’ve fashioned from a strip of fur – from attracting attention to us by babbling and squealing, this quirk becomes a hassle.
I plod on, though, with the mantra of “For family” running over and over again in my mind.
It may be excused, then, that I don’t – can’t – really pay attention to my surroundings, past any possible hostile or tattling people or things, and also past my attempt to juggle the hamper and my little sibling. But still, it’s terribly embarrassing – and humiliating, to boot – that I end up crashing against the very person I’ve been wanting to meet, that I’ve planned to soften up by way of food and a cuddle with little siblings (since it always worked among the Weasleys, according to Ron and Ginny, and the Weasleys are my only pointer to a healthy, more-than-three-member family). It’s even more humiliating when the said person, who is my eldest sibling Helblindi according to the crystal-cast formal picture album Amma used to – rather reluctantly – show me about her spouse and their two first children, sniffs my admitedly pathetic plot at once, even as I’m scrambling to my feet – after crumpling at theirs, accidentally like a desperate supplicant – and trying mightily to shush Belaumir, formerly Ðirona, my now-yowling little sibling. The tone is pretty disappointed and sarcastically contemptuous, at that.
“Trying to bribe me with food and a screaming baby, little Loki? Could you be less obvious about it? Maybe with some elaborate threat or even little nicks with those tiny claws of yours? Or maybe – even better – with your entire absence from my life? Or am I mistaken that the food is actually poisoned and the baby is here to deafen me before I die? Or is this pathetic tackle your failed attempt to topple me back onto a sharp blade?”
My ears burn; my face burn; and, the most humiliating of all, my eyes burn, as well.
And now I prove that my temper is just as short as it has always been, even in my other, adult human form, especially when the thought of `They gave me up to die for the sake of somebody else` flashes traitorously in my mind: “I never meant you harm, you know, and I never do, even now. I know what you did, though, so are you terribly disappointed that I’ve somehow found my way back to the living? Are you disappointed that I’m here and trying to reconnect with my murderer? Don’t mistake me; I want Amma to live at least as much as you did; but you won’t win The Best Sibling of the Year Award any time soon.”
I stand figuratively toe to toe with them in the middle of the hallway that runs meanderingly down the wing, splitting it into two and allowing smaller branches to run elsewhere, even though they’re lots and lots taller than I am – and I’m not speaking about just one or two feet taller, here. I feel like a child having a tantrum after an adult said something they don’t like, though, and it shames me, and I resent the stupid shame and the source of it, and–.
I gag, flail, try to push away, but there’s no floor to stand on and there’s no perch for my hands to grasp and ‘Laumir is positively howling now against my front and Helblindi’s hand is so tight round my neck.
“Do not presume about what I think and feel, little brat,” is what they growl right on my face, before sensations flood me, blank my own awareness out, sweep my sense of self away.
I become younger and taller at the same time, while the chaos and agony of battle impinge from outside and despair licks with tongues of hot, throbbing heat from inside. The pitiful whimpers of someone whom I consider my second mother waft towards me from behind, sounding like they have been stifled as much as possible; maybe by instinct of not projecting any kind of weakness in a time of war; maybe for some consideration remaining in their last shred of awareness for my worries, the only child left after Leí went away with Loptr to try to secure themself and their charge somewhere, away from the battles. I know, if I turn round, I’ll see Abý laid out in a pathetic, weak, vulnerably open, wounded, sweaty, bloody sprawl on what should have been a discarded banquet table, on what has been a birthing table instead; not at all a birthing pool, at that, since the way there was both too long and too treacherous to attempt, after they have been dealt such a blow right on their distended belly, right on their first womb-children, whom they have promised will love me and Leí as womb-siblings. Those wombless, honourless, cowardly Asgardian worms–!
But the tromping feet who approach this hidden, out-of-the-way storeroom do not belong to the Asgardians. I know this sound well, from growing up here and watching for footsteps when raiding the pantry for treats and, occasionally, sadly, hiding from Amma when she was in a dangerous mood.
Milaðen.
Milaðen in armour, or maybe too tired to tread lightly.
But Abý is supposed to be safe and hidden here! The only people who know where we are are Leí and Naðyé Anga, and I believe wholeheartedly that they will never tell anybody where Abý is.
Hostiles, then.
An ice sword extends from my right hand from my will and power alone, and a shield of the same make likewise on my left. I know I am young; I know I am unready; I know there are too many to defend against and too many for me to defend; and yet I must.
Noðrangr – my eldest mother-sibling’s best henchperson – stands at the doorway after kicking the door down. They sneer at a point past my shoulder, and my heart falls into the bottom of my belly, it feels.
Amma’s side of the war has found Abý.
A little tremblingly, I move my sword and shield into a guarding position when they step in, and I can feel at least five others half shrouded, loitering outside. “Go away,” I say, my voice wavering just a tiny bit.
But a tiny bit that they notice.
They laugh, and I feel stupid for trying to order them, for trying to fight against them. And yet I do not waver – cannot waver – my second mother and sire and nurser is lying helpless behind me! – I am the only barrier between death or worse and them and I cannot waver and–.
“You take their side, then?” Noðrangr’s sneer widens and turns from contemptuous into hateful, even as they advance with deliberate slowness into this long-abandoned storeroom. “You heard about your own dam’s death, didn’t you? In the hand of this pathetic king-boy’s family? And you still take their side?”
My heart pounds in my chest as though it would love to flee, just like I do – but I can’t! Noðrangr is thousands of years my elder and has been studying battlefield fighting under Ýmirheim’s most competent and ruthless warriors, while I am still two thirds of the way to my age of majority and have only studied duelling this last millennium. And Noðrangr is also far, far taller than I am, than even Abý when they could still stand tall, before the burden of the pregnancy and the war put in one bows their back a little.
Abý…. I cannot hear any sound from them! What is wrong with Abý now? Where is Naðyé Anga? Where is Leí?
A sound – a sound – a sound! But it is only the weak, hiccuppy cries of Loki, my littlest kin-sibling, born the younger of the twins, both four months too early and not in birthing water at that. This one must be wondering why their dam hasn’t picked them up yet for their first nursing, even though the said dam has been conscious enough not too long ago to at least put their hand on that too-little, too-pale chest and name its owner “Loki Laufey-childe.”
I’m wondering about the same thing. But I can’t let my eyes stray from these hostiles, or–.
“Give that little brat to me, little blind one, and I shall spare your sire’s body for you to cuddle,” Noðrangr growls, and there’s malicious green in their lowered voice, and my hair – cut short now, almost warrior-bald, so that I can flee better from any battle should I need to – stands on end.
My little sibling or my parent?
The still-living one or the nearly dead one?
Abý entrusted Loki to me, when they could yet speak, when they were yet aware. But both will most likely be dead if I refuse this offer.
Maybe Noðrangr just wants to influence Loki – one of the two real first heirs to the throne by kidnapping the latter? Maybe I could steal Loki back when everything has calmed down?
Noðrangr always, always keeps their promises, although those have always been at least a little harsh. So, maybe…?
“Do not hurt them?” I mean to say firmly, authoritatively. (They are still a henchperson of my dam’s younger womb-sibling!) But what comes out is a squeaked whisper of a question instead.
No wonder, then, that Noðrangr laughs – a loud, grating, mocking, gleeful cackle.
“Pathetic,” they comment in a drawl, as they airily motion with a hand – a bare hand, now I notice – for the weeping newborn. “Ner Farbauti would be so disappointed in you, little blind one.”
“Promise me,” I insist in a stronger voice, even as they advance further and I point my sword at them. A twinge disturbs my still-pounding heart on the knowledge that Amma would not be impressed indeed with this show of weakness; but I have never been good enough for them, all the same, and I have long suspected that Leí has been marginally better in their eyes only because that younger womb-sibling of mine may be the last child they might be able or have the chance to bear. Their regard would not dip down severely should they have ever known about this.
So, after Noðrangr has resited their oath, witnessed by the five other milaðen that have just stepped into the room behind them, I half turn round, evaporate my shield, pluck Loki up with one hand and a dash of elða from between my sire’s bloody legs where they have still been lying, and pass their tiny, weakly wriggling, crying form to that hated, hateful beast.
And, before I can prevent it, right before my eyes, done so quickly as if it had indeed been intended this way (or maybe it indeed has!), that beast speaks a spell to encase my still-living little, newborn sibling in burial ice.
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt them!” I howl, even as the chunk of ice that contains my formerly living little sibling is thrown aside like some filthy rubbish.
And that beastlaughs, although there’s some tiredness in it, after killing my sibling.
“I did not hurt them, little blind one. It was instantaneous, as you yourself saw,” they say, half-drawling and half-wheezing, and fire reaches up high and hot in me, resulting from that bit of painful, painful kindling.
Especially when their cohorts use the macabre distraction to rush towards Abý, and I realise that Noðrangr was the only one who promised that Abý would be spared.
It is a blood-bathe, afterwards, but none of it is my own. I do not stop to worry about my youth and inexperience. I do not stop to worry about Abý or myself, or what may wait for me when Abý and the others inevitably know about this horrifying lack of judgement and forethought that killed an heir to the throne.
But at the end of it, Loki is still dead almost by my own hand, Abý is still nearly dead and will be dead soon if there’s no help coming, and both Leí and Loptr are gone and maybe dead, too.
And then, everything turns into black void.