Entry 7: Bonded

CONTENT WARNING:

Grooming

I cannot say how long I fell. In death, time seems infinite no matter how briefly it holds you, and for all I knew I could have spent years plummeting through quiet, endless nothing. My throat grew sore from crying out, but it made no sound. I flailed my limbs to grab at something that would halt or alter my course, but all I found was empty air rushing through my fingers.

Closing my eyes did nothing to lessen the mounting confusion. Behind shuttered lids I was bombarded by a stampede of memories, all passing in such a blur that I could hardly distinguish one from the next. My first journey into the wilderness. Erecting our shelter after a lengthy trek through the ice fields. Blood drying on my lip after tussling with Hrókr. Dyri and Leifur’s first appearance. My mother, petrified in the snow. Our tribe’s betrayal. The forest. The red moon. Every memory brought a jolt of blistering, indefinable emotion before whisking away, and I noticed if I tried to recall them, they were gone. Fragments of my childhood were replaced with blank spaces, stories I had heard one thousand times became murky, senseless dreams - even Bjorn and Sigrid’s faces lost definition as I dove further into the unknown. I tumbled faster and faster, end over end, feeling the slow creep of bitter resignation. Was this to be my eternal fate?

“Bjooolf,” a woman’s voice broke the silence, wrapping me in a river of silk and standing every hair on end. I was coherent enough to recognize its familiarity in both tone and cadence, spoken in the hissing lilt of a language I had never learned but could suddenly understand. “No more sleeping, sweet boy.” I strained to hear more of her lovely tones, digging through my tattered remembrances to find its owner. I could almost picture her. Elegant, mysterious, red lips smiling below the hood of a long black robe…

The fall came to a standstill. I hovered in negative space, caught in the enormous palm of an unseen entity. Within my ribcage, there was a clench like someone squeezing my heart in their fist. Once. Twice. Three times and it was again beating on its own. Stagnant blood resumed its flow, moving with all the haste of muddied sludge. It crept through my veins and returned the warmth of vitality, but when I took my first full breath, I knew I was changed. In the same way memories were missing, so too were sentiments I had once carried. Fear meant nothing, compassion even less. Doctrines learned about patience and empathy were faraway and dull, like the monotonous warnings of an unimportant elder. I could no longer remember who Bjolf once was, but as the thawing lifeblood gained momentum, it didn’t matter. Gone were childish insecurities and anxieties. Concern towards my future and family vanished, blanketed over by anhedonia so absolute I couldn't help but sigh in relief. My knotted back and shoulders unwound, and I sagged into my rescuer's grasp. It was easier now. Infinitely easier.

Not for long.

The moment of peace was cut short by fresh, delicious agony that seared through the wound in my chest. Waves of adrenaline began at my heart and spread with each accelerating beat. Wrath and rancor, astronomical in their barbarity, took root in my bones. My veins swelled and twisted beneath layers of skin, shifting from shades of blue to black as my muscles clenched and pulsed. But, all other sensations paled in comparison to a sinister, ravenous hunger for something I could not define. Desire jettisoned through my flesh, driving me nearly mad with aimless yearning. What was it? I had to find it. Whatever it took to slake this unknown obsession, I would pursue it into eternity. I thrashed and roared in my invisible captor’s grasp, no longer content to remain motionless. Just as I thought I might burst, a dulcet balm cooled the inferno. Her voice.

“Enough. It's time to wake.”

☽☾

It was cold again. I could smell winter in the gusts of air flooding my nostrils, and frozen droplets were tingling against my cheeks. Snow. I seemed to be lying in it. My arms shifted through it in disbelief, swooshing over my head and coming back to my sides several times before I convinced myself it was really there. I struggled to wrench my eyes open, first bringing pine boughs into view, a clouded sky soon after. The pain in my chest had faded to a dull ache, and I sat up with little difficulty to take stock of my position.

I was on the edge of a small clearing, just to the right of a palisade that dropped several hundred feet into a wooded valley below. Encircling it were the slopes and peaks of looming mountains, their more intricate details obscured by heavy snowfall that poured from the clouds above. The forest on my other side was quiet, but not unnaturally so, which was a welcome change from where I had been. Tree limbs creaked against the gentle wind, bushes rustled as small animals skittered past to unearth their hidden stores, and the falling snow accompanied both with its hushed hum. Was I in The Spine?

Perhaps it was a dream, though where memories ended and dream began I was unsure. My head pounded as I tried to retrace where I started and how I could have gotten here. There were the occasional images of glaciers, timberland, mountains, and vast expanses of untouched tundra. There was knowledge that I had parents and a clan, but nothing more of the life I had lead before falling through the void. Except…

I was nearly sick as I looked to where the gash should have been. More blood than I had ever seen covered me from throat to ankles, soaking my clothing and the snow in which I sat. Glistening crimson stood out like a beacon against the surrounding white, and I wondered that I hadn’t noticed immediately. Lifting my hands, I watched as it slithered from my palms, down my wrists, and disappeared beneath my sleeve cuffs. This was too much to all be mine. It couldn’t all be mine. Numbly, I tried to scrub it away with snow, but it clung to me, hugging skin and leather in a gruesome reminder that the ritual had not, in fact, been a dream.

“Bjolf.”

The sudden intrusion of speech startled me out of my fixation. I turned on instinct, and my mouth fell agape as I beheld a figure on the clearing’s opposite end. Leaning against an oak stood a woman, her hair loose and twisting around her waist like living midnight. She wore only a thin, gossamer, black robe, but did not shiver or appear uncomfortable in the chill. I stared at the sleek, well-toned form it shrouded, neck growing hot in the face of her almost-nakedness. A pale, sculpted visage regarded my fluster with amusement: amethyst eyes bright and focused, red lips curved gently into a secretive smile.

“You look better. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever wake.” She shrugged one shoulder to push off the trunk and stepped towards me, bare feet gliding across the snow’s surface without making a mark.

Angels could not have created more divine tones than those that came from her throat, but something in the way she said “wake” sent a needlelike pang through my temple. I knew her. She was the voice in the darkness. The voice from the hilltop. The voice that chanted when my life spilled onto a metal altar. She was the Malar priestess, towering and beautiful and deadly as she closed the distance between us.

She stopped beside me and crouched, folding her arms on her knees and cocking her head to one side. “How do you feel?”

“I was dead,” I croaked.

"An unfortunate necessity, my love. I could not have otherwise broken those vile bonds Selune placed upon you.” She swept her fingers across my brow, moving a few locks of hair and sending a quiver down my back.

“Selune?” I shook my head, “What about Malar? And the other priests? And…and…why can’t I remember? I can’t remember anything from before—”

I started to tremble, air filling my lungs in short, shallow gasps. It was like my mind was trying to navigate through heavy fog. I saw flashes of her standing over me, white knife raised, felt muscle and sinew tearing as she struck. I heard the whispered words as clearly as if she spoke them in that moment, “…and join us, Blooded.” In spite of it, I was not afraid of her. I was perplexed, certainly, even somewhat suspicious, but afraid, I was not. Alarm danced out of reach, defying the logic that told me it should ring in the presence of my murderer. At the very least, I should have been angry or wished her some ill-will; instead, I was elated. Blissful. Her presence drowned me in euphoria, and I found myself longing for more of her closeness, her touch, her smile. I knew if she asked anything of me, I would do it without question. Her will was mine. She was what I had been hungry for. I didn’t understand. Why?

Tears of frustration blurred the trees and I was in her embrace before I could protest, pressed against the heat of her body as she gently rocked me. “Oh, Bjolf,” she murmured, “I’m so sorry…it is easy for me to forget you’re just a boy. I should have known this transition would not be a simple one for you.” We stayed like that for a long while, entangled with one another until daylight began to fade. When my breathing calmed and the shudders subsided, she withdrew, holding me at arm’s length with both hands on my shoulders.

“I’ll explain as much as I can. Some of it, I think, had better wait until you’re older, but I’ll do my best to make everything clear, alright?”

I nodded, relieved that this might all begin to make sense. She regarded me with a gaze more ancient than time and ensured I was ready to listen before she continued. “Centuries ago, I read in the stars that I would be granted a champion. I had long walked this world alone: misunderstood, hunted, fighting for every scrap with no hope of rising from the shadows. This champion would mark the end of my suffering. We would form an everlasting bond, united in singular will and purpose so that we might ascend beyond obscurity.

You are the champion I was promised. I knew once you were born, my duty would be to raise and teach you, guiding you in proper use of the unique, immeasurable power instilled upon your birth.”

Her expression darkened, “My sister, however, was none too thrilled at this prophecy. She thought me undeserving of such a companion and vowed she would do everything to prevent our meeting. I never imagined Selune would go to such lengths, but she corrupted your parents and poisoned them against me, saying I would come to bring you harm. They allowed her to suppress your gifts and ruin our connection with cloaking magic so you would be hidden from my sight; then they made their home among her followers.”

“Selune is…your sister?” I asked.

“We are twins.”

Much of what I learned about Selune had departed from my recollection. I knew the moon was her symbol, that she had three forms, and little else. Only, at the mention of “twins”, a series of titles sprang to my mind unbidden: Mistress of Night, The Nightbringer, and Greater Power of the Gray Waste.

“You’re Shar.”

The goddess beamed, pleased that I had puzzled it out, and gathered me into her lap without any sign of disgust for the bloody mess now coating us both. A satisfied sigh ruffled my hair as she rested her chin atop my head.

“Yes.”

“Then…who is Malar?”

She chuckled, “A name I borrowed to throw the Nanoq off my scent. They wouldn’t have accepted conduits of their sworn enemy walking into their midst. Once I knew you were in The Icewind Dale, I told my followers to disguise my name and sent them to fetch you for the ritual.”

Worries left my mind as she spoke, soothed by her conviction and the tightness with which she held me. There was a newfound appreciation for the patience she had shown in waiting for my arrival, the lengths she had gone to bring us together. There was just one more question yet unanswered, but I was so beguiled by her mendacities that I arrived at my own rationalization.

“And you used the ritual to break Selune's magic. That’s why I had to die, right?” I looked up at her, eyes wide and hopeful as I silently begged for her approval.

A look of surprise crossed Shar’s face before it gave way to delight, “That is exactly right, child. How intelligent you are…I would expect nothing less of my champion.” She leaned down to press her lips against the corner of my mouth, and I melted at the pulse-quickening perfection of her kiss. In that moment, all was forgiven. I accepted my sacrifice as a necessity; I was even grateful now that I knew it had been done in the interest of my deliverance. The overwhelming ecstasy was no longer unnerving and confusing: I was joyous because I was finally where I belonged. I was hers. I had always been hers.

☽☾

It is not difficult for a goddess to delude a young boy. Less so for one who made her name by ways of deceit and subterfuge, but I still find fault in how freely I let myself be swept into this new reality. I do not know if there was some inner voice warning me against her, and if there was it made no difference. I let it be swallowed by the gratification of accepting her truth, and once I did I saw no reason to turn back. In this new world I was more than just a boy: I was champion to a goddess, held powers yet untapped, and had a destiny fit for song.

What a fool I was.