Freedom #2
We had to pretend a few things to not arouse suspicions from our neighbors.
To visitors, Oli Freedman and Lady Dagny , a name that meant “new day” and seemed more than fitting for my feminine persona, we were indeed husband and wife, but when it came to arousing each other, we never pretended a thing.
We had married, technically, but privately, with magic doing the binding of our hands, and no witnesses of friends or family.
Most of whom were outside this realm. I could have invited them, but the presence of so many gods on Midgard might have trembled the earth and upset the new balance.
We’d wed again when we could be in their company.
Outside, enjoying the morn while threshing our harvest of grain, lively growls and muffled yips drew our attention to Fenrir. He was playing nearby with something very oddly shaped.
“What is that, boy?” Oli moved toward him to get a better look at the—
Hand. Ha! He was playing with Tyr’s hand!
“Loki!” Oli spun to accuse me, apparently having guessed whose hand that must be.
“Oh my! Where on Midgard did that come from?”
“ Loki ,” he chided. “You should return it to Tyr. It’s not even rotted. Somehow.” He dropped his tools so he could wrestle the hand from Fenrir’s maw, much as the pup whined in protest.
“Of course it’s not rotted. It’s a god’s hand. He might not even want the thing.” I took the hand from Oli once he’d claimed it. “He certainly didn’t need it, as I recall from your trio .”
I teased Oli occasionally about his romps with my brethren, but it was mostly in jest, for I knew his allegiances, his desires, his affections, were solely for me from here on out.
“We could send it as a thank you gift!” I proclaimed. “And quickly, before the bridge fades too much. Wouldn’t want anyone to feel left out though! What could we send the others…?” I wondered aloud as I traipsed back to the house.
“Ever the trickster, eh?” Oli asked, following close behind me.
“They’ll be nice gestures! Mostly.”
We had an altar, really just a tree stump that doubled for chopping wood, which we had carved the gods’ names into as a sort of remembrance of how we met. But if we ever fucked outside or on top of it, only my name was ever smeared.
“Tyr can decide if he wants his hand reattached,” I continued. “If not, maybe it will make a handsome trophy for his wall!”
I placed the hand atop the stump, and then signed some runic magic that formed like physical totems in the air. They flashed, and when the light faded, the hand was gone.
Each time I sent something to the realms or summoned something from them, the magic was a little less stable.
Bifrost was being severed from Midgard. For us to return someday, the way back would be a one-way trip.
For me, a mere willing of my essence to return home.
But for Oli… when he died and left his mortal life behind.
“Is that parchment?” Oli asked.
I looked down. “Oh! A note!” I snatched up the newly appeared message, which must have been sent back in exchange for the hand.
I crumpled it into a ball as soon as I read it.
“The nerve .”
“What? What did it say?”
“Never you mind.”
As if Heimdall needed to be as childish as writing:
Told you so .
He had been right. And yet, sometimes, I wondered if I was enough for Oli.
“Are you sure you’re all right spending so much time away from your family and friends?” Oli asked.
But that was when I decided I must be enough, because Oli worried he wasn’t enough for me. “I visited them all before leaving.” I shrugged, staring at the empty stump. “And yes, I apologized to all of them too. Even the children I’d been avoiding.”
And the ones I never avoided, like my sweet Hel, who’d kissed my cheek and said she was happy for me, like she’d known all along how things would end. She likely had.
I saw Odin and clasped his arm in friendship.
Mimir, who’d been busy with his tree but was more comfortable in his skin now.
Tyr, who I’d ribbed about the hand and might have made some barking noises in his direction, but he’d earned that!
Thor, who’d hooked me around the waist with one arm, lifted me off my feet, and said, “Just you wait for our next adventure!”
Balder, who’d forced me to more openly enter Asgard, much to the surprise of many lesser gods, because he was back in the throng of the people and letting them love him again. Perfectly, imperfect Balder.
Freyr, who I’d caught with his pants down—and that raven-haired elf’s pants down beneath him—so I’d left it to a sorry and fare thee well, friend!
And Heimdall, who’d never quite resented me enough to need to forgive me, but who promised he’d have celebrations in his hall again soon and would miss that I wouldn’t be there. For now.
Time worked differently in the other realms, so while Oli had lost almost no time between when I snatched him away and then returned him to Midgard, I’d had plenty of time to say my goodbyes before I joined him.
“It was awful, by the way,” I said. “Balder hugged me. In front of people! Mortifying. But don’t you fret.
This will only be one mortal lifespan, and they could probably use a break from me while adjusting to their new lives.
You might need a break from me as well after a whole mortal marriage together. It’ll feel longer for you, you know.”
“I know.”
While Fenrir bounced around our feet, wondering where his toy had gone, and Jorm slithered out from inside my sleeve where he’d been napping, Oli held out a hand to me.
“But I don’t think I will need a break. You’ll have to accept me as part of your life in Hel too, or any other realms you whisk me off to once my soul leaves Midgard. Assuming you like the sound of that?”
“If this is a proposal, I already married you.”
“A pact . Do we have a deal?”
I eyed Oli’s hand, almost expecting a…
Trick.
“One condition,” I said.
“Oh?”
“When we do see the others again, they don't get to share you. Not unless mutually agreed upon with me involved. Assuming that’s okay with you… free man?”
He kept his hand suspended, waiting for mine. “They don’t get to share me. And I don't plan to share you. Or get sick of you. Or ever let you push me away. Even if you get sick of me.”
I laughed and clasped his forearm without wavering, prompting Jorm to become our wedding cords again. “Deal.”
I tried to pull my arm back, but Oli held on tight and said, “I love you, Loki.”
Oh.
Oh.
Now that was something I never could have imagined of my future, even if the Norns, Heimdall, and every other seer in the realms had told me to expect it. Because I couldn’t make it happen. I could only accept what was freely offered and offer the same in exchange.
OLI
“Sentimentalist,” Loki muttered, darting his eyes away. But when his gaze found mine again, he leaned up to kiss me and said, “I love you, too.”
It had yet to be said. We were married. We had a home together. But it had yet to be said, over all these weeks. Months? Time really ceased to matter when I was with Loki. But I knew, I knew it had needed to be said.
I once thought I only had power if I was wanted, watched, coveted, and claimed, but all that meant nothing if I didn't feel the same on equal terms with my partner. Now I had him, the great god Loki, and I could bring him to his knees just as often as he brought me to mine.
Loki, Jotun, trickster god, damnable imp, and parent of monsters. And all I’d had to do to get him was fuck my way through the other gods in almost every realm. Not a bad deal really.
I’d secretly been making a wedding gown for Loki.
It had begun as a joke, but I thought he might enjoy wearing it when the time came, proclaiming our fidelity once more, beneath the watchful eyes of the other gods.
I imagined them watching us now and hoped none were too jealous of how things had ended.
I didn’t think any of the others had wanted to keep me.
Some had their own partners to pursue, like Freyr with Ravnur.
Only Loki, the one who’d had so much trouble admitting he wanted me at all, had staked his claim.
“It’s a good thing you love me,” I said, “because you’re fertilizing the crops today.”
“What—”
“And in case any neighbors come calling, no magic.”
“ Prick .”
“Love you too,” I said again. And kissed him again . “Always.”
“Always,” Loki said and, despite feigning a scowl, headed for the horses with the twitch of a smile, where our best stallion, sometimes two-legged—though oftentimes eight-legged when Loki grew too lax with his magic—needed his stable mucked out for fertilizer.
I might have been the last thrall of Asgard, wed to the last god who’d needed to be saved from himself, but someday, as a free man, I would walk those realms again. Realms where I’d reminded two gods that failing does not mean failure.
Two to better live in the present.
Two to better love themselves.
One to open his heart to new love.
Well, maybe two. And for that last god to embrace all of the above.
Just like me.
THE END