may the gods of asgard guide

in the distance, thunder cracks, gradually creeping further away as it's passed over the shrouded vale where he, as asriel awakens. it's with a crack of thunder and a burst of lightening that splits the darkening sky that his eyes open; at first unable to make sense of the grey, shadow painted landscape. his head lifts; heavy, and he looks around, finding that nothing is familiar to him. not the jagged peaks that rise 'round the vale like a protective cradle; nor the foliage crushed beneath the weight of his body, damp with the recent rainfall ( he and the grasses around him ).

he draws in a breath, and the another, trying to calm the rapid fury thrum of his heart within his chest; the lingering taste of ichor and something else he could not place fading from his mouth.

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[narrow width=800]where darling helcaraxë had gone, his denmother did not know; even with the northron winds at her back, and the burnished leaves guiding the reaching, anxious skip in her stride, she could not find her like-tongued rimeling. her graymane changeling. yes, she did indeed have her little bruise-ivory owlet ... but in the wake of his indescribable evanescence, her heart broke once more.

so she ran with the late rains.

the sun hung low, and though autumn had not yet gone so far as to wither the world, its prior storm was still felt in every facet of her jaded self.

despite her followers few, she was sotaherra: it was no mistake that cloudrest leapt at the power that she held so surely, so reverentially, so gingerly to her breast the way a shrike is wont to do with some rare and remarkable jewel. but it was what  ( no, who )  she saw and her fresh-hurt heart knew that had her stumbling to a marvelous stop; sending up a rushing conflagration of leaves that then sifted and curled on their descent and return to moss-crept earth and stone. she was sotaherra, and kuunhekku, too; as much the evenstar of her people as she was their witchking.

but he might as well have clapped her in irons;
and she was all but a patron to the tithes of him;
heavied and helpless to her true heart's desire.

"...sinikello?" — bluebell?

here, it's little more than a whisper.[/narrow]

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bluebell?

a nickname that resonates within the very marrow of his bones; as familiar to him as the ever-present wardrum beat of his heart. though the nickname within itself was flowering; soft and delicate while the foreshadowing of the kind of man asriel'd become felt starkly different in contrast, he relishes in it all the same. he is awash with comfort; with silken down of fur and warm, ambrosia-sweet mothers' milk. though circumstances of how he came to be in this place, this other world leaves him with a threading mystery that he suspects he will never solve he knows her.

sweet moonbeam gaze, frostbound pelage. he is her bluebell and she is his äiti; his mother. “äiti? — mama” he rasps; blinking lingering droplets from the rain out of his eyes ( or perhaps those were tears ). “äiti! — mama” and he rushes toward her, seeking her familiar embrace.

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[narrow width=800]she can't remember if she'd once held him or had at all;
but she knew that he had not been at her cold belly on that stonebed. no — like his brothers, his sisters, he had been sung into being with everything that had been below and above her and on a shadow and thought of who she had been fated for. but even though her children had been flung so faraway, asriel falls into her graceless heart like a star and her arms mindlessly crescent around the frostback child's young, young shoulders.

it's their shared tundrian tongue of mother that has a growl unfurling from somewhere between her throat and lungs; gentled into a cherishing croon as she tucks his temple into the notch of her pale jaw; fangs preening delicate, affirmingly through the pup's down between his heavy and nodding ears.

the sotaherra couldn't help her unseeing hesitation — how his spirit might be recalled if she dared say his name.

if she dared voice what he was to her;
if she dared believe she deserved it. this.

so for the present, his mother remains silent; but holds him closer, and closer still; for once fighting the tears that trembled at the cusp of fell gray eyes, cradling the first of few babes that should have been born in some other land. he was here now, was he not? were they all not in some part fragments of him? ...dark lashes press closed, even if she cannot shut out that formless, faceless dawn of her star entirely.

( ever — )

riannon shudders, tremoring;
only brings her bairn nearer.[/narrow]

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within her silent embrace, asriel feels the confusion of his not-birth into this strange land ebb. in the sea of his tears that blur even with his eyes closed as he presses the crown of his head against her chest, he watches it draw away like a conquered sea. he is part of her and part of the would-be, should've-been father of a different land; a titan that remained ever faceless to him as well ...but known in the language they shared; a firmly rooted knowledge.

silence cannot hold asriel for long; not as curiosity began its bid for attention. endless questions all coming to the forefront of his mind; demanding answers that asriel didn't have but thought that his mother might.

“missä tämä on, äiti? — where is this, mom?” he asks first, attempting to sort the questions buzzing around his mind like a nest of unsettled bees into some sort of priority list.

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[narrow width=800]"en tiedä, sinikello,"  — i do not know, bluebellwas the thing that leapt over not where we must be! and wherever he is not! and lands onto her lips; lips she bit to forget that blue, heartbreakingly blue phantom kiss of his until she almost tasted blood and instead of going on at length the sotaherra hides away her own anguish in the plush arch of her  ( and his – o, his, too, damn it all — )  child's neck as he had with her. would he grow a titan as well? "mutta nämä maat, tämä pilvisiini, on minun.  harvat, jotka seuraavat minua, no ... me olemme pakkanen,"  — but these lands, this cloudrest, is my own. the few that follow me, well ...we are the peoples of frostchantfeels as if she could not taste these words or touch even a wisp upon asriel's head or look into his eyes without him being somewhere but continues to share in this tongue nonetheless.

and the gods she cannot help but resent.

but her mouth petals gingerly at his own salt-sorrow dried upon powdered cheeks, before pressing her moonshed brow to his basalt-blue to gaze with further quiet into his eyes. then:  "tässä toivon johtavani sotaherrana ihmisten kanssa, jotka eivät pelkää ... sattumaa.  löytää se, mitä et voi nimetä, ja nousta riskin yläpuolelle nähdäksesi oman kirkkautesi."  — here is where i hope to lead as warlord, with people who are not fearful of ... chance, i suppose. finding what you cannot name, and rise above risk to see to your own glory...well, whatever glory meant to that wolf, of course; whether it was scaling the throat's ridges to its very peak, or even simple shepherding  ( which was not as simple as she once believed, really );  if one knew their path in life, or wished to diverge from what had been set, then she hopes they would find it here.

but it would not be easy.

regardless, she lets the pink of her nose trace along the edge of one dark, wilted ear; nibbling with a tenderness long lost to the drowned mausoleum of what she'd been but now dredged up in the wake of asriel's arrival. and yet ...

"... toivon, ettemme koskaan eroa, mutta jos on muita, joiden kanssa haluaisit mieluummin kotiin, minä ... jos ..."  — ...i wish that may we never part, but, if there are others you would rather home with, i... if ...trying, testing what she meant to say on a hesitant tongue, for she was still ensnared in disbelief; doubting her luck, and whether or not he had found a family in her stead and therefore preferred their company: "... no, minä ... en pidä sinua heiltä.  ei voi, jos ... ne ovat sinun toiveesi." — ... well, i ...will not keep you from them. cannot, if ... they are your wish.[/narrow]

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she tells him that she knows not where this place is, either. though the lack of answers initially fills asriel with a soft wave of disappointment, he is quick to chase it away. regardless of how or why or where they have ended up: they are here and they are together. there are parts of them still missing ...but perhaps they would wake to find themselves here, as well. knowing that it is a mystery he is not meant to solve, asriel tries his best to let it go and be carried away by the soft breeze that is everpresent this high up.

she speaks of followers and that she has created a pack called frostchant, and details out her plans to him. as she speaks, asriel is silent but nevertheless contemplative... feeling a familiar warmth and want to support and help in any and every way that he was capable of take root within his broadening chest. everything about it sounds and feels right; and like some unseen magick he can feel himself tethering here. this was where he is meant to be.

thus, his brow furrows in unbridled confusion as she stutters over herself, speaking of others and if he'd rather home elsewhere she would not stop him. her words sound absurd to him and he tries his very best not to scoff and earn a chiding. the idea that he'd want to make a home somewhere she wasn't was ...was ... silly. quick, asriel speaks, hoping to set her fears? worries? to rest. “äiti, minä jään tänne. kanssasi. pakkaslaululla. — mama, i'm staying here. with you. with frostchant”

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[narrow width=800]aíti. mère. for so long she had thought that the day she might find one of her children, she would shatter with a touch and fall in glittering fragments to the loam. for so long she had not allowed herself to feel ... the way it felt to hold one to her breast and know that she belonged to it as much as it did her. she felt ridiculously close to tears; but they were likewise at length spent. even so, and although it shouldn't have come as a surprise in the least, his admission of staying with frostchant and with her elicited a dry, silent cough of wonder that had her pitching against the bearcublike figure of her– her son, because of course he would be born with all the things that her formless, nameless shadowlove had been. he had become so much in so little moons; but still she holds him, murmuring soft tundrian nothings as though she feared him afraid of the dark  ( even if he had never been. )

she opens her mouth, tries to say something while she looks down into those lovely blue eyes  —  but clamps it shut with thick-throated decision. he was to stay, just as he wished; and through her great trembling she was able to press her unmarred snout to his basalt brow and hold him close once more.  "olet hänen kuten minun. meidän. mutta hänen jumalansa eivät enää kehrä kumpaakaan kohtalostamme,"  — you are his as you are mine. ours. but his gods will no longer spin either of our fates....and had she been a fanatic, she might have gone on to say that fate had died with her on that dawn. surely this moment here said otherwise  —  but who was to say? even the god-braver knew that when one thread went unstrung, another would be woven in its place; and it is why she passes her furrowed, dark arch of brows into her child's temple now.

"elämäni kuu,"  — moon of my lifemurmuring soft, making herself look into the eyes that rent her from within, "olen sinun." — i am yours[/narrow]

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and so, asriel would stay. he would train and help her build the kingdom she desired and deserved brick by brick. though he still has not entirely shaken off the thick fog of disorientation at waking up in this strange land ...his roots already run as deep as yggdrasil's; tethering him to frostchant, to her. and if those missing pieces of him and her and ...of the every mysterious him whose seed bore him into fruition ...found their way to frostchant then all the better.

but for now, he is content having his aïtï, selfishly, all to himself.

he preens beneath her words, offering her an affectionate lick under her chin. “anna minulle kiertue? — give me the tour?” he asks; beseeching. though his limbs still feel stiff with slumber and uncertain beneath him, he does not want to waste any time. first, before he can set his sights on border patrols or anything of that sort he had to become familiar with frostchant's claim.

asriel would keep his steps slow; giving her berth to lead the way, eager eyes taking in the sights and places of particular note on the tour, providing his mother agrees to giving him a tour.

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