Chapter Text
As she shut the door behind them her smile quickly faded, a long-held exhale quickly escapes her mouth.
Freya brought a trembling hand up to her lips and pressed down with her palm until she could feel the pressure in her front teeth.
That was her axe.
Those two were on a journey to spread her ashes. But...- that was almost a hundred years ago? Who was that god? It couldn’t have been his father. That would mean...
She kneels down over her student, wheezing in pain while he slept. The nightmare was over, the boar will live. Her only friend left in the world wouldn’t die today.
The door flung open, it started her for a moment until she saw bright blue eyes slowly walk up to her.
“How is he?” the boy asked.
His eyes still stung a bit when she looked into them.
They were so kind and pure.
He trusted her, she did nothing to deserve it but he trusted her.
Just as his mother once did.
She avoided them, she had to. Keeping her focus instead on her student.
“He needs rest... but, I think he is out of danger.”
“Does he have a name?” Faye's son asks.
“Hildisvini.” She says finally looking up to the boy.
“He’s been a good friend for a long time.” She was letting her emotions slip through, she needed to mask herself until she fully understood what was going on.
The jotunn boy kept asking her questions about her student. It was a good way of changing the subject and calming her down. He was so easy to talk to. So eager to listen to what she had to say. She remembered what mothering felt like when they were this young and innocent. But before the sting of Baldur crept into her mind the large foreign god walked out the door.
“Guess we’re leaving...” The boy says annoyingly.
Freya looks at the back of the old white and red god. The axe on his back. It was definitely the same one.
As the door shuts behind them again she dips her arms down across the now sound asleep boar. She crosses her arms tightly together and burrowed her head inside them. Rising slowly up and down from Hildisvini's breaths.
Faye, she succeeded. Of course she would.
She survived Hel and lived on, without ever...
Freya smiles bitterly while biting her lower lip to quickly stop the thought. Instead remembering the woman dancing in a ring on mushrooms. The delicate woman that adorned her with her presence. Reminding her of the beauty still to be found in this world. And how pure a mother’s love can be. 'Was I ever, at a time, as she was?' Freya thinks to herself. 'Or did I just want to absorb her and chain her to my cell, keep her light for myself?'
She grips her arms tightly and painfully with her fingers. Embarrassed, disappointed, and enraged with herself. She was a fool for pushing herself onto the jotnar. She wasn’t a Valkyrie, nor was she a queen, she grew used to her power and beauty getting her whatever she desired. But everything was slipping away with time. Back then when she first met Faye she was lonely, emotionally exhausted, and, completely smitten with her.
Her mind drifted deeper into her misery. How long had it been since she was told no? How many men and women wanted to tell her no but feared her powers over the years while still queen?
She lifted her head up from her arms. She should let her student rest.
She stood up and walked towards the window, picking up the Bifrost crystal.
Faye’s crystal.
Not long after Baldur left, before the water rose back up. She rushed to temple room and see if Faye was anywhere to be found. She would have happily waited for her, no matter how long it took. But once she reached the table she realized she had disappeared forever.
Faye left the Bifrost behind.
Freya assumed she never made it back from Hel to retrieve it from the table.
She leans over to the window and picks up the crystal. No longer did she need it to keep the image of Vanaheim up. She had figured out how to replicate that spell long ago. But nonetheless, she kept the blue stone. Blue, just like the eyes of the two most important people in her life were.
The boy had her eyes.
He looked almost identical to her.
Nothing like the man he was with.
The foreign god.
Freya sat down by the window and held the Bifrost in her hands.
Who was he?
Did he capture Faye?
Did he save her from Hel? Did she save him?
Was he trapped in Hel and abducted her in order to escape? But to where?
Did both of them have a hand in killing one of the last giants left in Midgard?
They were gods after all.
She did not trust the man. He was old and scarred and had an unpleasant gaunt about his face.
He didn’t tell the boy of his heritage, he was a giant and a god, just like Thor. Was he similar to Odin? Hoarding knowledge for himself in order to retain power over others? Why else would he hide this from him?
He was strong and deadly she could tell.
He smelt of blood, and shit, and rosemary, and ash, and...
Ashes, she remembered.
Faye’s last wish. She looks down to the Bifrost again and sees her eyes, then the boy’s eyes.
She closes her own eyes inside her dark home, her prison.
They didn’t kill her, they were doing exactly what she set out for them to do.
That man wasn’t a threat to her life, nor was he ever one. He was her lover.
She sighed heavily. Embarrassed by her sudden juvenile feelings towards the strange man.
Faye fell in love with a god after all, just, not the one she wanted her to.
She holds the crystal up to the window. “Show me.” She says out loud.
The two were climbing a cliff, the boy clinging to his father’s back.
They were following yellow marks painted on the walls.
Faye’s marks. She recognized them immediately.
But, how did they get there? When the water rose from the lake of the nine it blocked the pathway she thought?
Did the serpent wake up? How?
Before she had a moment to think she could hear the boy laughing while on his father’s back.
“...It’s just funny to think of mother teaching you something.” The boy says happily.
The white and red god’s face softened lovingly for a moment. “Yes...” She hears him rasp.
She pulled the crystal away from the mirror. It felt wrong to watch them, or it hurt to do so. She couldn’t decide.
But the serpent, he was truly awake once again. Did he sense another giant? How long until Odin sends her son and stepson to try and figure out why? She was happy they agreed to allow her to hide them from Odin. She is amazed they weren’t already captured.
Baldur, she remembered Baldur wanting to take Faye to Odin all those years ago. Her ex-husband always had a way of bribing her son away from her.
This was no different, he lied and told him he could restore his feelings in Jotunheim. And Faye knew the way into the realm, and she was the key to prevent Ragnarok.
It was bull shit. He just wanted to kill another giant.
Right?
She wasn’t even as powerful as the others, how could she be a threat to the gods at all?
She just happened to survive the last slaughtering by Thor.
She was scrawny like a twig, or a pine needle, or a sprig of rosemary.
Freya sighed angrily at herself.
What was wrong with her?
It's been 80 years since she had seen the woman.
Why did she leave such an impact on her? They only spent the better part of two months together.
Freya thinks back to those two months.
How she would wake up before Faye every morning. Readying tea for the both of them to drink while the giant slept in her bed peacefully. The breakfasts that lasted well into lunch. Sitting at the table exchanging stories and dreams over fruit and crusty bread from the night before.
Freya didn’t speak much of her depressing past, instead, she listened to Faye go on and on about her journey.
Her travels through the mountain, lightning paper lanterns for her dead son she never got to meet. Painting a pathway for him to follow after her own death.
It was so long ago, but, the boy seemed so young still? He was a god so he should age up just as Baldur did. Then again, he was also a jotunn.
She looked at the bowl with the sparkling yellow liquid in it. She was happy she convinced the god to allow him to place the spell on them.
Her son was probably already after them. She recoils at the thought of her own son hurting Faye's.
She needed to figure out why Odin wanted Faye in the first place? She stepped away from the table and over to her cauldron. She would have to use several spells she hadn’t used in ages to start tracing Odin’s plans. She should also try and learn more about the foreign god himself, who was he and where did he come from?
Thor killed all the Giants, Ragnarok was still years away...
Wait.
Those papers lanterns.
They were in the mountain. The black breath had corrupted the entrance into it long after Faye disappeared.
They won’t be able to finish their journey.
She holds up the Bifrost crystal. The light was almost depleted within it.
Her brother!
Maybe he could help them? Or maybe they could help him? He was with the light elves protecting the light of Alfheim inside the ring temple last she remembered. She rushes over to Hildisvini and checks to see if his wound was doing any better. The boar grunting in his sleep as she drags her hand across his back.
She walks back over to her bow and drapes it across her back. “Heimili“ she shouts as Chaurli stood up. She walked outside and took a deep breath. The overground rosemary filled her sense of smell.
Faye.
She would help the boy finish this journey. Set out by her dear friend.
She springs into the air and transformed into an eagle.
She flew towards the direction of the black breath high in the mountain.