Lost and Found Heart

(Laeviss' note: This is a story that Laeviss wrote about a very young, Earthbound manifestation of  Loki and his encounter with the goddess Gullveig. I entered this story in a contest recently. It's a small part of the much longer, novel-length story that will eventually be finished. Laeviss is pleased to add that the story won in its category.)

Lost and Found Heart

by Laeviss Falki

There is a knowing in my heart, and I go to where I see them slithering, I feel their calling, their winding, their rejoicing. My snake brethren call to me. I choose not to hear when the elders advise me, "Wait until one of us can go with you, Loki! Do not enter the unexplored caves." I can feel the serpents calling me, and everyone is very busy, not noticing as I creep away.

Up through the scrubby, rocky ground, towards the sunlit peaks, I follow the barest hint of trail, listening with my mind's ear. I pass through dark trees, leafy and greening, and changing daily in shape and color. I find new trees, then old trees, then onward and upward, near to where there are no trees at all. I look up, vast grey-black-white-blue rock, these bones of the earth rising far above me. I creep silently, touching the warm walls with my trailing fingers. A vine-like, draping cascade of growth is falling like a waterfall along the ridge. I feel a cool breeze.

Then, I hear a serpent calling in my mind. A small, gentle snake-friend approaches. I wait, and she glides into view along the faint trail by the hillside. I have brought a pouch in which to carry her, if she will consent to come home with me.

She pauses, to look at me with her shining eye of wonder. "Hello," she says, "My friend, I have been waiting for you!" Then, "Follow me!" and she is off. I scramble to keep up, she forgets I am larger and more cumbersome among the rocks. In my mind, I make myself smaller, and more agile in order to keep up.

She follows the scent of air. It is a small, hidden opening, underneath a veil of vines. She disappears, into the rocky earth. I will have to make myself smaller still to follow her. I can feel her departing, and desperately claw away dirt and loose rocks from the cave mouth. "Wait!" I call. But I can feel her spirit gliding away.

I can squeeze my head inside. It is black, but I am unafraid. I push one shoulder through. I feel air cold on my face. I push the other shoulder through, then wriggle my middle past the opening. All of a sudden, I am falling, blindly, flailing forever in the darkness.

Thump.

Can't breathe. A cloud of dust and loose rock surrounds me. I lay, gasping, stunned. I count heartbeats. Tumtum. Tumtum. Tumtum.

They slow, and my breath returns, with coughing. I try to sit up. Pain. I cannot move my hip. I lay back, thinking. I cannot see through the blackness to the opening far above me.

I send my mind out to my snake friend. I hear no response.

I wait.

In the darkness, eventually, my eyes see more clearly than ever before. I lose track of my mind in the sound of my heartbeats, but I find the track of my heart. Tumtum. Tumtum. Tumtum.

My snake friend returns, with a companion. She slithers over me and into my shirt as her companion raises her head over mine. My snake friend slides across my chest and out the neck hole and whispers in my ear. "Listen," she says.

Her companion grows, and changes. From a serpent, she becomes a hawk, with vast wings, reaching out to encompass the world. She leans over me, shielding me, and the darkness of the cave recedes. Her beak opens, and she changes again, into an old, old woman. I can see her bright eyes through a mist of smoke, and flames spark upwards around her face, framing it with hair red and orange and yellow. I know her name to be Gullveig, I have seen her before, in dreams. She is like the oldest of grandmothers, wrinkled with vast age, wise and strong and frightening. "Hlaut-her," she says, adding meaning to my name, "you will come to me when the time is right. You will use this gift that I give to you now for the benefit of the Earth." She holds an enormous, cavernous bowl. It is made of stone, ancient and worn, with carved serpents gliding and weaving around the sides. It is waiting for me to fill it.

"What is this gift?" I whisper. It is cold now, in the cave, though the image of Gullveig burns with brightness unsurpassing. I am not frightened. I have my snake friend with me.

She cackles, as old women do. "The gift is that which you most desire. But it is a gift that has a sharp bite. A venomous gift. It is a love potion, the most poisonous and yet the most precious of all of my gifts, for it pains not only the heart, but the very soul of you...yet you will long for it above all things. I will unlock this gift for you. It is already within."

She becomes again a gigantic snake, rearing over me, fangs bared. The venom drips coldly onto my face, each icy drop drawing forth blazing heat from within my heart, along with memory. I hear a voice inside my head, laughing. Then I feel his warmth beside me. "An-su," I whisper. I feel feathers fanning my face, see one shining eye. I feel the wind rushing as if I am flying, high...higher. I will die for this! I am convulsing with the furious desire of all of the powers of the Earth.

There are people behind the old woman now, staring up at me as Ansu and I fly amid the red-gold flames. I don't want to come back to the still, clay form on the floor of the cave. Down below me I see a small, dark figure, black and with a red beard. "He will need a new heart," the Dwarf says. "This one is already lost. He gave it away long ago."

"Start forging!" Gullveig commands. She is once again an old woman.

"Crystal is fragile until it solidifies," he responds. "It won't do at all to hurry it." The Dwarf retreats into darkness.

"We will make for you a new, unbreakable heart. One which you cannot give away." The old woman tells me firmly.

"But I like my heart," I say, protesting, trying to fly farther upwards. I don't want Ansu to leave without me. I can hear his laughter receding. I see the trail we make together, like a waterfall, colorless, eternal, a thing of beauty. It hovers in the air above me just out of reach.

"Nevertheless, you shall have another," she says. "This one we will affix in such a way that you cannot possibly lose it."

Thump. They pull me back down, into the darkness. I fight to get back to Ansu. I am screaming for him.

"Hush, child!" Gullveig scolds. "You will be with him soon enough."

I am held down in the darkness by the Dwarves. They have my body, but they cannot catch my heart. I send my old heart flying away after the Eagle, to remind him of me. I will not need it now. Ansu will have two of them, both his own and mine. I can hear them, beating, in the darkness, receding into the sky far above. I fight blindly, lashing out, heedless of the pain it causes me. But they are too strong. Ansu disappears into the sky far, far above. When I can feel his presence no longer, I stop fighting. I resolve patience. If my body is held here, I will follow later, when I can.

I watch curiously as they turn me inside out, looking for the missing heart. "It's already gone," they say. The old woman cackles again. "Well, give him the crystal heart. It is strong enough to do its job alone." They squeeze my body back through itself, then bring out the shining, clear heart. This, they push down my throat, making sure I swallow it entirely.

When I am finally back together, I lay there painfully, gasping. My new heart beats strongly in my chest. I desire above all things to get back to my tree, my home with Ansu. But it is lost to me. Lost! Ansu has flown away, into another life.

"Listen!" my snake friend says again in my ear, and I turn my ear towards the old woman, reluctantly.

"Do you want to find your Eagle?" she asks.

I am speechless. I have no words, I can only nod. Desire fills me like a poison liquid, running through my veins. I am on fire with it.

"Then, you must use your Serpent abilities. You must slither through the cavern like a snake, and use the wings the Eagle shared with you to fly back out the hole you came in. And you will need this, when the time comes. Your heart is not the only part of you that must be pruned." I feel a sharp, stone blade under my hand. I place it within my pouch. I roll over, gasping, and begin to crawl. I think only of reuniting with Ansu. I feel like an earthworm. I am surrounded by dirt, rock, and darkness. But I remember the wings of flight, and keep moving. I can only use my arms, my hip is useless. When I see the light from the cave mouth above me, I will my wings to open, and I fly towards the sky.