Rescue?
My kidnapper squeaks in fear and distress when, answering to my loud but undirected call, various combatants converge on our location. “Loptr!” they whimper whingingly.
And yet they do not let me go to save themself.
Not until I have been stowed on a corner deep in a frantically bustling building, at any rate, and only after they – foolishly, perhaps, if I were truly a newborn – shush me with both sound and a finger on my lips.
And then, not long after, I hear them scream in utter terror, before their presence fade away – in unconsciousness? In death? I do not know.
Worse yet, the bustling noises that we waded amidst when coming here have stopped.
I feel so, so alone, and cold, and lonely, and hemmed in.
I scream again.
And afar, unbelievably, someone responds to it – another person, another relative, coming closer fast with fear-worry-hope-fear-pain-worry-grief-exhaustion-fear swirling in their presence, muddying it to the point of near-unrecognisability
The presence gets even more distressed as they draw closer, and soon they burst into the room in which I am held, in a blind panic that fades only when they… or he, rather… at last beholds my pitiful form laid on the floor and touches me – one of my flailing arms, to be exact.
It is Odin.
Looking so young, and so freshly one-eyed, with the remaining eye red-rimmed and swollen as if having wept copiously not long ago.
And all he says – or whimpers – at first is, “Oh, Ýmir,” before he gathers me up into his arms – his cuddling arms – unhesitatingly.
But why Ýmir? Why not the Norns? Asgardians do not swear by Ýmir. Ýmir is the patron – no, matron – deity of the frost giants! And Odin is an ás – the King of Asgard, in fact!
And why is he looking round frantically now? What is he searching for? The Casket of Ancient Winters? But the Casket is not here – I can feel it. Surely he can feel it as well – better than I can do in this weak, helpless form, even?
And then, “Where…. Oh, child, where is your twin? Where is the other one? There were two of you!”
For some reason, he even holds up one of my arms by the wrist and seems to check something on it, gingerly moving it here and there. And then, after confirming whatever he wished confirmed, he leaps to his feet with renewed vigor and rushes out of the room with me still cradled close to his chest, listening to yet another set of pattering heartbeats and panting breaths.
It is a déjà vu moment that I wish would never occur again to me, especially so soon.
And where is Odin bringing me? To Asgard? Surely not to my… mother? But if to Asgard, why so frantic? Why in such a rush?
Why did he lie to me, even about this, that lifetime ago? Why did he say that he had ever meant me as a tool, when now I experience the evidence that his first response to my presence is frenzied worry for me and my twin?
Then again, if he does love me, why would he part me from my family now?