Andarin: The Mountains: oceantree; --

horse stock by colourize @ deviantArt ; photomanipulation by Lore

“ Death is the only god that comes when you call. ”
- Roger Zelazny

How does it feel. Well. That depends, doesn’t it?

Does she mean the actual conception? I remember that only in kaleidoscopic flashes. Lights. Mist. Pale bone-white. Impressions I can’t truly grasp but I know are always blending into the back of my mind, courting and flirting with thoughts that are not mine. Moments when white fades to black and to red (!).

It’s the red that frightens me more.

Does she mean the months of pregnancy? I remember that much better. I remember liking it, loving it even, the weight in my belly, the way it filled against my ribs. I was too young and stupid to realize then that something was wrong and I wasn’t exactly as big as natural. I was content with that, for all the wrong reasons; I was happy because I my plan worked and I had the weight in my belly, the mark of success. My heir.

Does she mean the birthing? Well, isn’t that special. Cloven in two like a tree after a lightning strike. The pain. Hours upon hours of helplessness and pain shooting through every nerve in my body, waiting, wanting, breaking, groaning through my bones.

I almost died then. I don’t miss it at all.

And then… two, rather than one.

I suppose… how can I tell her that? Mission accomplished, yeah. They were there, they were born, they were healthy. Jörmungandr almost like she belongs to someone else, someone whose voice still rings in my memory from time to time. Alkonost like a spitting image of him, but her eyes yellow as mine. I suppose it varies, see. Whether it’s a love-child or… something else.

Alkonost is my heir. Jörmungandr is the spare.

I conceived them in cold blood. I conceived them because the bloodline had to go on. I am my father’s heir.

Do I love them?

I don’t know. I don’t wish them ill, but I have seen other mothers. I am not like them; they don’t need me – they have each other – and I don’t need them. We are more like strangers – friends – partners – than mother and children.

And yet…

To be honest, I can’t know, Oceantree. My situation was a bit different than usual; I made them because I planned to. Not because I wanted to be a mother, but because I wanted a heir, in case… something happens to me, yeah? so the blood would live, my blood, even if I didn’t.

I remember the hounds, after all.

Ah, Joh, be careful, child. Be careful.

FENRISULFR
an axe age, a sword age, shields will be cloven;
a wind age, a wolf age, ere the world sinks.