The advent of spring was wont to invite each bird to cachinnate happily amidst the reviving boughs, twittering and flouncing in orgiastic delight. Aila could not help grinning at their antics despite the worriment leavening her heart.

She sat brooding on a precipice, her legs dangling precariously over the edge as she stared down the ravine at the tarn glistening below where the vestiges of sunlight disappeared from the gorge. It was indeed a beautiful evening and she was determined to enjoy it; quite adamant that none of her strife should blind her to the rhythmic peace of nature. In the distance, the jagged line of misty, blue peaks were silhouetted dramatically across an inflamed, vivid mantle — gold, crimson, and violet hues disposed over a cloudless heaven and fleeing sun.

Though the gloaming had set in, she was compelled to stay a moment longer and breathe the balmy night air. There was, after all, no reason to hasten home and she was not desirous of company just now. Harald rarely questioned her behavior these days, too wary of her dour looks or solemn apathy. He might be a fearless warrior, but he is ever at a loss with how to deal with me. And the copestone to an otherwise adverse season was the shocking treachery of her deranged grandmother. Who should she now rely on but her father, brothers and Epona?

Harald was not to be trusted, philanderer that he was, and nor was Elfa. But am I not also an adulterer? What a difference a year made; she held far fewer kin in high regard than she had last spring. What of Loki? The thought came unbidden suddenly and warmed her in spite of the chill that had now settled in with the twilight.

Laying her hand hesitantly on her distended midriff, she studied it warily. She was only two months into her pregnancy, but her abdomen suggested she was far further along than that. She supposed that to be a godsend — had there been any question as to the babe's pedigree, Harald could have no doubts now, despite that it had been well over two months since they had lain together. That was all well and good, but what manner of child was burgeoning so rapidly within her womb?

Epona's many severe homilies and clamant warnings had taken their toll; she now questioned whether or not she carried an aberration. Closing her lids, she sat as the cool night breeze wrung tears from her eyes, whether from the brisk air or her morbid thoughts, it did not signify either way since her cheeks seemed latterly always sodden with woe.

"You will find no solace at the bottom of that gorge."

With a gasp, Aila whipped her head around to see Loki regarding her shrewdly. She had not seen him in so long and had almost forgotten how acutely he affected her. "I was not contemplating my death, Loki," she said peevishly. "I am not my sister."

"That I know." His voice seemed to spread across her flesh like warm hands as he approached her leisurely. "You are unlike any other; it is why I lo—" But he bit the word off midway as though it burned his tongue and she watched as his brow lowered in consternation. "Why I esteem you," he chose to finish instead.

Aila licked the dryness from her lips and wondered at his words. She was almost convinced that he had wanted to say love, but had stopped himself betimes. He loved her then? Notwithstanding his obvious surprise and aversion to the fact. And she? Did one dare love a god? Was that not a tragic and doomed endeavor?

Now that the light had all but disappeared from the valley, she gingerly pulled herself up, intending to move away from the ledge, but caught the hem of her heavy mantle with clumsy footing and lost her balance therewith. Ere her scream had chance to rend the quiet, Loki pulled her from the edge with preternatural speed and iron fingers, slamming her against his chest as he coiled his arms about her.

As she trembled within his fierce embrace, he walked her a safe distance from the crag and then eased her from his torso — the better to glare down at her. The blue of his eyes were almost pale with lambent ire as he fixed them to hers.

Finally he spoke through clenched teeth. "Not contemplating death, aye?!" He closed his eyes a moment to regain a semblance of the calm he had exhibited before she'd nearly fallen from the cliff. "I cannot always be near you, Aila; though I watch you far more than I ought to. Have a care for my peace of mind, or at the very least for the safety of your child if not your own life."

However, only one portion of his diatribe had caught her attention. "You watch me often?"

"I do."

"But I never see you," she repined. "I feel as though I am always looking for you, and yet you are never there!"

"Aila," he soothed quietly, "rest assured that when you need me, I shall always come to you."

"Well, I need you now, Loki!"

Loki swept his eyes from her to the ledge she'd nearly tumbled from. "Evidently," he murmured ironically.

"No," she muttered impatiently. "I do not need you to rescue me! I need you to love me!"

He stilled at her confession and stepped away, his smirk evaporating from his face. After far too long a pause he said, "Tis true, you were unexpected, Aila, but I cannot love you as you deserve. I told you as much that night you came to me."

"I don't need empty declarations of love or honied words, but I do want to feel that I am more to you than...a conquest!" And, more than anything, I no longer want to feel so alone!

"If you were a conquest," he seethed," I would have already derived my pleasure and you would not have seen me again."

"Yet here you are."

"As you see." He inclined his head mockingly, though he could not conceal the chary tightness at his eyes.

"What do you want, Loki? Why show your face again; and again; and again-"

"Because I cannot stay away!" The eerie glow of his stare had intensified the while she'd spoken, but now they were a veritable conflagration. "Because you are a fever in my immortal veins; and I would gladly die than live to see any harm befall you!"

There now. Her chest heaved with the power his words incited. He may well have loathed the word itself, but there was no mistaking what he felt for her. Unequivocal Love.

"Bah!" He turned his back to her and raked harsh fingers through his wind tousled hair. "This is perilous talk!"

"No!" She rushed at his back and wrapped her arms tight about his waist.

Releasing a wearied breath, he covered her hands warmly with his. "Yes, Aila, for I would not give you false hope." He turned in her arms and cupped her face gently, tilting her chin up so that he could plant a kiss as soft as thistledown atop her lips. Thereafter, he brushed his mouth reverently at her forehead before searching her eyes. "Here," he said, stroking her belly gently, "is my promise. This is my indelible fealty to you."

"I want more!"

He gave a mirthless snort. "What a human thing to say."

"And the gods? Do not they seek what we do? Do not they yearn as we do?"

Two deep clefts appeared between his brows. "Had you asked me that last summer I would have told you no."

"And now?" she adjured, finding his half answer provoking. "What will you tell me now?"

"This—" his voice gruff as he gestured between them "—was never meant to be more. More is dangerous, Aila."

Her underlip began to tremble mortally. "Why did you choose me to dally with? Why was it I that drew your notice?"

"Because you have a finer spirit than any Vanir or Aesir I know! And your empathy and candor humble me greatly. You see me as I am; and yet you choose to love me despite what I am. So I chose to ... dally—" the word clearly repugnant to him "—because I sensed in you a kindred: a soul adrift and searching ... as I searched." His jaws clenched solemnly. "And because none were moved by me ere now, or cared what might befall me, till the day a slip of a girl risked her young life to attend a wretched creature's festering wounds..."

"You...!" Of course it had been him! The dying wolf. She understood that now.

"Yes. You might have run away, but you didn't. You might have called your father to dispatch me, but you didn't." His eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you?"

"Because I was in pain too." She laid her hand on his chest over his tunic where she knew his twin scarsto be — his bite marks —  and shook her head incredulously. "A serpent laid you low?!" How could a piddling serpent have felled a mighty god.

"Not just any serpent — Jormungand."

"But the wounds were not so big as to-"

"Do you think a son of giants comes to you as himself, in his true form, or as something less ... threatening. I look like a man because I choose to do so, Aila. The wounds were relative to my size; and when I faced Jormungand, I was as great as he."

Now she would always wonder just how large he truly was in his natural state. "Why did he bite you?"

"Odin is ever sending me on useless errands," he said, turning his head away, his voice cold and acerbic.

"So you sought me out because I-"

"Because you touched more than my wounds when you cared for me. I found myself seeking you out at every opportunity; I found myself ... caring." His face hardened with displeasure. "And that is not an emotion I am comfortable with."

She released him then, but laid her hands over his his, keeping his fingers pressed to her abdomen. "I am so afeared of the future," she admitted quietly.

"Why? I will not allow harm to come to you or the child."

"But Epona says-"

He silenced her immediately with a click of his derisive tongue. "I have no patience for Epona's oppressive conjecture. I tolerate her merely because she loves you so well, but if she does aught to harm my child ... she will taste the full force of my vengeance."

Aila bit her lip, her brow puckering as she watched his pale hand splayed over her swollen belly. "Why has it grown so quickly then? Tis unnatural, Loki! Are you sure it is not..." Although, her words died off as she watched his nostrils flare ominously.

"What?" His lips compressed subtly as he dropped his hand. "A horror? Do you think I have defiled you with my evil seed?"

"I...no, you misconstrue my meaning. I did not wish to imply..." Yet what could she say. Her thoughts had been plainly writ athwart her lineaments; and he had interpreted them accurately.

"Aila, you are an inimitable woman of great strength, predisposed to be kind and gentle. Do not you think that any child quickening beneath your heart would betoken your love and careful parenting?"

She nodded her contrition, feeling utterly wretched. That she should have had these qualms and odious doubts was completely unforgivable! He was right, it was her child as much as it was his. Therefore, half of her heart likely already beat in its little chest.

"Tell me you would not ascribe evil to an unborn child?" He shook his head, ostensibly embittered by her suspicions. "Are we, either of us, malefic?"

"No, of course not."

"Then think rationally. It is only a babe you carry, Aila — worthy of your love and not your abhorrence. Do not think to impute evils where none are deserved."

"You are right," she whispered, shamefaced.

"Come, I shall walk you home. Tis yet too cold for you to be out after dark." Loki threaded his fingers into hers and pulled her along behind him.

They picked their way over the shadowed terrain in silence: she to consider his words and he to... Well, she was unsure of where his thoughts lay, but it was no less a comfort to have him beside her, his warm hand enveloping hers. At length he ceased his steps and cocked his ear to listen.

"What is it-"

"Shhh," he bade her gently. "I thought I heard..."

"Loki?"

"You had better hurry," he said gravely, pointing toward the familiar longhouse perched beside the sheer, basaltic wall that groaned where the ocean beat at its talus-like base.

"What is it?" 

Though he had not sounded urgent, the air instantly kindled with presage.

"Your little slave has need of you," was all he answered.

"Epona!" Aila abruptly bolted down the incline, rushing towards her house. Then, realizing she had not bid Loki farewell, she halted and turned back to where she'd left him. She had never left him heretofore without a parting kiss.

"When will I see you...again..."

However, Loki had already vanished into the night as though the very wind had taken him from her. With a lump swelling at her chest, she hurried home and reached her door just as the moon crested the tree-line, basking the scene with the full measure of its silver potency. Aila curled her fingers at the door latch but made no move to enter, for she was at once startled by the pain lurching wildly through her abdomen.

"Oh!" The burn of her innards drew an agonized cry from her throat, rendering her instantly breathless and gasping.

With another ragged breath she collapsed to the ground, clutching her midriff and grinding her teeth, but the discomfit finally subsided, although, not as quickly as it had appeared. When she had sufficiently replaced the air she had been robbed of so unexpectedly, she struggled to her feet and clawed at the wood.

The door flew open then, unbalancing her just as she had gained her footing, and she once again fell forward, but was swiftly caught by her brother, Eirik.

"Thank the gods!" said he with salient gravity. "I searched for you." He shot his sister a troubled glare, anger furrowing his young brow. "Where have you been!"

"I am here now! What is the matter?" She did not wish him to worry and so smoothed the creases from her own brow lest he notice the vestiges of pain yet visible in her expression.

"Epona's babe wants out, but the other slaves are too leery of her to be of any help." He glanced askance at her. "Are you ill?" He had noticed her discomfit after all.

"I am only a little out of breath. Take me to her!"

Leaning against her brother, her arm resting heavily over his shoulders, she was soon at Epona's side. Her friend lay motionless except for the large gulps of air she was desperately sucking into her lungs. The furs and blankets looked to be as saturated as Epona's hair and skin.

"Bring her to my chamber," she commanded two of the male slaves watching discreetly from nearby. "Now!" Her growl of fury jolted them forthwith and they flew to Epona's side, lifting her easily from her pallet on the floor and transferring the groaning girl directly to their mistresses bed. "Leave us." That said, they were only too happy to comply and withdrew the moment she had spoken.

"What shall I do?" Eirik's hands were trembling at his side, but his voice was firm with resolve.

"Have the womenfolk fetch me a pot of water to set over the fire, some unsoiled rags and my herbs!"

"At once," he assured her, turning away to do his sister's bidding.

Aila's face fell when, at that very same instant, Epona released an obstreperous wail of heart-breaking torment that precipitated Eirik from the room like a boy fleeing a draugr.

"I am here, Epona!" she soothed the mother-to-be, stroking her sodden temples. "Breathe with me." And counting slowly, she guided her thrall by filling her own lungs deeply with each consecutive enumeration.

"I...I must confess...something to you." Epona struggled to her elbows once the last dregs of pain eased from her last bout of agony.

"No, take this moment to rest; the next round of spasms will soon be upon you."

"Nay! I must be...absolved ere I bring my daughter into the world." She clutched at Aila's hands and brought them to her lips. "I should have told you sooner!"

"Told me what, you silly woman?" Aila brushed a thumb tenderly over her friends brow.

"I knew your grandmother..." Epona paused to ride out another wave of pain before continuing. "I was aware of what Elfa was doing. But when I noticed..." She clenched her eyes shut with self-deprecation and when she opened them again, directed an apprehensive glance to Aila's rounded belly. "Forgive me," she sobbed, "I realized that you were pregnant; vitiated by the Dark One. I should have told you, but instead I allowed Elfa to administer her tainted brew."

"Yes." Aila's cheeks were florid with the heat of the room; and with her rising temper. "You should have told me, but what is done is done."

"Please, Aila. I love you! Tell me you forgive me!" Yet there was no time to hear her mistresses response, for the pain had once again crescendoed to the point of constraining her senses entirely — she was senseless to all but the affliction in her womb.

Aila waited for Epona's suffering to diminish somewhat ere she said, "I do forgive you, because no harm was done to my babe, but on one condition."

"Name it."

"There will be no more of this nocuous talk; my child is merely that — a child."

"And yet it will not always remain so."

"Do you want my forgiveness or shall we talk no more as sisters?" That notion was utterly repellent to her, for she could not abide the thought of there being any enmity subsisting between them.

They studied one another for what seemed an age, but at length Epona nodded her acquiescence and was thereafter beset by another procession of convulsive pangs. When the chamber grew quiet again save for the pot of water bubbling over the flame — and once the two slave women, having already come and gone, had deposited all the paraphernalia that Aila had summoned — Epona settled down to watch Aila's core silently.

Noticing the direction of the thrall's gaze, Aila shifted uncomfortably. "Is it a girl or a male child?" she asked the seer.

Epona shook her head resentfully. "I cannot see the child. I know nothing of its gender or the state of its health." She raised her eyes to Aila's. "It is, after all, not of this realm."

❅

In the aftermath of Brenna's birth, Aila sat quietly by the fire, humming to the infant as its mother rested in the master's chamber. The child had been born in the wee hours, keeping a disgusted Harald from his bed. When her husband had returned home from securing his ships for the morrow's departure to the south, he had been furious at discovering Epona in his bed. Aila, unconcerned by his vociferous outrage, had sent him to sleep on the benches in the hall with no more than narrowed glare and a finger pressed to her mutinous lips.

All was now quiet in these dark moments afore dawn arrived to take Harald and the other men on another seasonal quest of raiding and bartering. The babe lay studying her with awed quietude — an expression no doubt mirrored in her own gaze.

"What a sweet little thing you are, Brenna."

"Aila."

She looked up to see Harald already dressed and fastening his leather vambraces as he watched the babe darkly. 

"I want that slave gone when I return in the summer," he said harshly.

"She stays," was all Aila replied as she stood cradling the infant. "Moreover, you will not touch her again."

"And you would do well to take care how you speak to me!" He took a threatening step towards her.

"How should you like to be addressed?" Keeping her voice low, she met his eyes with heedless impassivity.

"Am I not the chief of these lands?! No man should tolerate these insults, the least of which is to suffer the presence of the insolent slave who has usurped his chamber; and his wife's affections to boot."

"The loss of my affections were your own doing, and when you begin to act the chief, instead of a callow boy, I shall treat you as such."

Before Harald thought to say more, Eirik roused himself from his pallet and sat up rubbing at his bleary eyes. "Is it time yet?" he asked Harald sleepily.

The boy was eager to see his elder brother and the other seafarers off at the beach. It would be Orvar's first sojourn abroad, having only accompanied the hunting party to the north a few weeks past.

"Aye," Harald sighed wearily. "Get dressed. The sky is already kindling in the east."

"Are you coming, Aila?" Eirik asked her as he slipped his boots on.

She shook her head, regret shadowing her tired smile. She hated farewells and things were as yet unsettled between herself and Harald. Orvar had kissed her goodbye yesterday, before she had set off for the cliffs to the north, and she could not bear waving him off again. Besides, she was still worried about Epona who had lost far too much blood during the birthing. No, she had much rather stay here.

"Take care of my brother, Harald; bring Orvar back to me," she whispered to him as he kissed her brow coldly.

"And myself?" He raised a surly eyebrow as he lifted a sack of belongings over his shoulder. "Shall I bring myself back in one piece?" Before she had chance to open her mouth in answer, he patted her belly and addressed the child therein. "See you when I return." After a last curt nod at her, he ushered Eirik out the door and closed it soundlessly behind them.

⭐️Sorry about the lack of updates! If I didn't love my job so much, I'd resent it for keeping me from writing! Thanks for reading and voting, my loves! You guys keep my motivated!⭐️