“Here, your turn.” His words pulled me from my daydream back to the game at hand. I look at the wood cup blankly. He shakes it to focus my attention. I can hear something rattling inside. “Take it, girl! Your turn! Let’s see you roll better than me!”
I take the dice cup from him. Idly shaking the cup I look around at my surroundings. It’s a pleasant day. Winter is trying to hold on but Spring is gently pulling us into warmth. Flowers abound in the rolling meadow while the fresh scent of warmed resin floats gently from the nearby trees. It must have rained recently, puffy clouds of fleeing moisture dance above us on the slightly chilly wind.
“Hey, that cup don’t have mead in it, you don’t need to churn the pieces!” The boy is squatting not far from where I am reclining on the fast growing grass. His long reddish blond hair was rimmed with a crude circlet. From his ruddy face glinted sparkling eyes that hinted at the hidden strength unseen to naked eyes. He seemed to be growing taller even as I looked him over. Long tunic draped over his squatting knees and leather boots. A pair of thick leather gloves tucked into his belt. His face gleams all of fifteen years, his body the awkward lankiness of adolescence.
“Leave her be, she’s still waking up!” I feel a soft body press into my back. Thin arms encircle me from behind as the girl’s flaming red hair drapes over my left shoulder. “You weren’t entertaining enough and she drifted away. But now she’s back, but not completely yet.” The girl laughs in my ear, a lilting voice. She reminds me of someone, but the name escapes me. I look over my shoulder at her. Deep green eyes, the color of mature fir sprigs look back at me. Somehow, I know they hide a fierce fire. Impossibly smooth skin rubs against my cheek, and she steals a rough kiss from me with her surprisingly chapped lips.
“Hey! Quit distracting her!” The boy pushes the girl away from me. She falls back with a laugh. I turn towards him, wanting to berate him for being a bully to her. But I see him smiling, not in aggression, but in shared mirth. These two play rough with each other, I realize. “Roll, girl, or I’ll take the turn!” His voice squeaks in mid voice. I hear a hint of a deep bass maturing.
I raise the dice up to my face. I say to him, “I’ll roll, I’ll roll! I was just… not here.”. The girl lays completely on the ground in laughter. “Quiet you!” I yell over my shoulder at her. She only laughs more. I’m completely at peace with these two. I know them well enough to know I am with friends and I am safe.
There is a large round shield laying on the grass, with a piece of marked leather draped over it. Triangles, circles, and squares are drawn on the piece, all encircled with a large intertwined border design. I know that this is more than just a game of chance, there is something magic being done here. I cover the cup with my left hand, shake it with my right, and from about two feet above the shield, pour the cup’s contents onto the marked leather.
The pieces are crude rounds cut from a fresh branch. Marks have been carved into them, some rubbed with ash to make them stand out, some rubbed with what I know to be blood. I recognize some of the marks to be of the futhark, but there are many others that I do not know.
The girl rolls over and crawls quickly to the shield. The three of us inspect where and how the marks have fallen. The game makes no sense to me. I do not know the rules that govern it. But I know the girl had pushed the boy into allowing me to play with them. My two playmates point at various marks and argue over the meaning of it.
I turn my attention to the girl. She is dressed in boy’s clothing that almost fit her. If she were a boy with the same stature as she has now, the clothing would be a perfect fit. Her long hair moves like the flames of a heated fire, but she has the scent of delicate flowers. The combination teases at my memory but before I can place the pieces together I am distracted again.
The boy has spied something of import and is slamming the ground in excitement. I realize how strong the youth is as each pound on the ground shakes the earth throughout the meadow. The trees twitch from the rumbling, forcing birds to take flight. He points to me and to the shield, then shakes his fist at the girl.
The girl in turn laughs at him. They are speaking a language I do not understand. It sounds somewhat Germanic, yet I know it is an ancient tongue. She is mocking him now. Hands on her hips, bouncing her handfuls of womanhood to accentuate her needling words. I would place her age at about sixteen.
He ceases pounding the ground and raises a fist against her. I fear he would actually strike her, but after staring at her for a few moments, he lowers his fist and starts laughing with her. He says more in their shared language, then looks over at me.
I’m looking at them in fear and wonder. I’m realizing I’m not in my world, but in theirs. I know these two youths to be more than they appear. But I don’t know where I am just yet, and I am afraid. He looks at me, and sees the emotions written plainly on my face.
“I would call you by your name, girl, but you bear so many of them, I do not want to call you out of turn.” He roughly crawls on his knees over to me and sits down beside me. “I thought the roll would tell me more, but you are a mystery to me. You’re not of mine, that is for sure.”
“Then why do you sit next to me?” Sitting so close to him now, I smell faint whiffs of ion heavy air. The sky around us is clear and stable, yet he reminds me of the air after a Georgia thunderstorm.
“Why do you sit next to me?” He returns the challenge as the girl now snuggles up to my other side, intertwining her arms in mine.
I feel the question has more import than just a child’s curiosity. I allow the first answer that comes to my heart be the words I speak. If only because it is a precise summary of so much in my life. “Because I dare.”
The ruddy teenage boy just looks over his shoulder at me. He is so much taller and larger than me. I look up in response to his movement, expecting to see a challenge in his eyes. Instead, he is looking at me with steel delight. “I like you. You’re fun to play with. I see why he picked you.”
The girl on my right arm is really annoying the hell out of me. I keep swatting at her free hand that keeps trying to play with my breast. She is leaning quite heavily on me, and I struggle not to lean on the boy on my left. I’m not surprised at her actions, surprisingly. Somehow, I expect her to act like this.
“Why ‘who’ picked me?” At my question, the boy and girl lean forward and look at each other in shock and surprise. He then returns his gaze to me in mirth while she releases her hold on my and falls back onto the tall grass, overcome in more laughter.
The boy points at the chuckling girl and loudly exclaims, “HIM!”.
I turn and look at the girl, whose hair was now dancing upward like great licks of vibrant red fire. Her eyes glowed an intense spring green and her chapped lips cracked even more as she grinned an impossibly fanged smile that chilled me to my core.
The boy grips me my the shoulder with a inhumanly strong weight. I did not expect his action, nor saw him reaching. It surprises me and I yelp in sudden fear. He turns me to face him and stares me intently in my eyes. Studying my face, he asks me, “Tell me girl, how do you see yourself, right now?”
Such a strange question, such a good question, I look down to answer. I realize I am in the form of my sixteen year old self, dressed in layers of heavy cloth. Tunics, skirts, and leather boots. Without looking up, I say, “I’m half the age I should be.” I realize that what I see is not the truth of things. I look back up to him. “I see you as a boy, also of sixteen years.” He raises an eyebrow in humor.
Spinning me around, he turns me to face the strange girl. Her hair is now truly fire, twisting and curling in the slight breeze. “And… this person… what do you see?”
“A girl, of the same age as you and I. But while you have eyes the glint like struck flint, her hair IS fire!”
“A girl!” He takes a great breath and releases it in a drawn out sigh. He mutters to himself, “Well, he can be a whiny little bitch at times, so I guess you would.” The firey girl crawls across the grass back to me, and clamps herself securely about my waist. For a moment, I am afraid of her fire locks, worried they will set me alight. She lays her head on my lap, and while I feel the warmth of flame, I am not burned nor harmed by her hair. It is then I realize, who I have rolled this game of chance with.
“Loki.” At my sounding of his name, the girl morphs in gender and age. A tall, slim man now holds me about the waist. He has kept the fire hair, however, it twists and curls about my torso and arms. “Did you intentionally portray yourself as a girl to me? Or am I just not fully here?”
Loki looks up from the comfort of my lap. “Well, at least you’re learning which questions to ask.” He reaches up and caresses my face with such a soft and tender hand.
Behind me, a voice devoid of adolescent cracking spoke in thundering booms. “You little shit, what if she saw other things?” The sudden maturity of the boy’s voice filled me with more fear than the bass that rattled my bones. I did not have to turn my head to know who else I had been playing games with. To be truthful, I was very afraid to do so. Because Loki had such a tight grip about my waist, I could not turn my head. I followed my instinct, and looked directly above me.
His great locks of hair and great length of beard was that strange mix of red and blond. His eyes had darkened, yet the light within them was like looking at a welder’s torch. Thor looked down on me with a stern glare. As I continued to dare to look him in the face, he broke into a wide smile and friendly guffaw. He nudged me in his laughter with such force I thought I would be cleft in two.
“Hey, I have a question for you?” I swallowed my fear and addressed him directly. “What was that game you and she were playing?” Loki cried, “Hey now!” from his grip on my waist while Thor only laughed again.
“You don’t know? And she said you were a studious one!” Thor took pleasure in referring to Loki as female. He chuckled more. “You should find out. Then when next we play, you won’t be at a disadvantage.”
Loki released me only to push me prone onto the grass. Leaning over me, he challenged his friend. “She wasn’t at a disadvantage in the first place! You know she takes much after me!” He continues his challenge in their native tongue. When he finishes, he lays his head on my chest and resumes what he did while I saw him as a girl, playing with my breasts. I sigh in annoyance.
I look up at Thor. He is picking up the pieces and placing them in the cup. He then wrapped the filled cup with the marked leather and tucked the bundle under his arm. In the distance, I heard the rumbling of an approaching thunderstorm.
Thor turns his head towards the sound. “Let the girl up, Loki. She needs to be off before the storm arrives.” I look down at Loki and swat at his wandering hands with my own. He laughs and lifts off me.
Loki bounds to his feet with agile quickness. He bends down and grabs me as I slowly ascend to my knees. He pulls me up to full attention and releases me about a foot into the air. I surprise myself by landing on my feet without stumbling.
The three of us stand in the meadow as the air around us began to noticeably chill. In the rolling thunder, I hear something like a voice. I make out Thor’s name, and tones that can only come from a mocking dare. Thor has heard it as well, and pulls his gauntlets from his belt. “Take the girl and go, my friend. She should not be here for this.”
I wrap my arms around Loki’s waist. I ask the tall man, “A hostile wight?” Loki looks down at me and says quietly, “Something like that. I agree, you should go now. You’re not ready to participate in these games.” Thor has his gauntlets on, and I see him striding away from Loki and me, Mjollnir in hand, ready for the throw.
“Trust me?” I look at him, surprised at the question.
“Of course not, you fiery bastard. But I’m game anyway.”
He laughs at my reply. “Oh you’re game alright.” He suddenly reaches down and kisses me with his scarred lips. I feel his magic washing over me and I crumple into his arms. Soon even my awareness succumbs to his magic and all becomes black and dark.
I wake in my bed, a faint scent of spring flowers fading from my memory.
The dream demanded to be written so others may read. So, here it is.
Make of it, what you may.