Going North.
Odin showed up a couple days ago.
So I'm getting ready for class, and a man in a hat with an eye-patch shows up and says, "So you are the bear's wife."
Naturally I freak out and go "HOLY SHIT, ODIN?"
And he tells me, "Look to the north for your answers, bear-wife. The west is green and your home, but you will not find them here because you are not of their people."
Which is referring to how I probably can't learn all the answers from Native American shamanism, because even my medicine-woman can't teach the full rituals to people who aren't Native.
And then fucking LOKI showed up. Waxy-skinned, slender, black-haired man with stitch scars around his mouth? Definitely Loki. Hanschen high-fived Loki and went, "Loki is daaaaaamn fun!" But seeing as Hanschen is the gay shaman fox, their idea of fun heavily implies cocaine, sex, and explosions.
According to Odin, once Spirit-Me heals up completely and I'm back with the Spring Awakening troupe, we will need Loki's help because "The bear-wives practice a wild art."
I really hope this isn't because I asked a Dionysian oracle for help.
And it turns out that Odin and the Morrigan work together a lot, because she wasn't surprised that he'd come, or that he was advising me to "go north" for answers about bear-worship. However, I noticed that Loki and Odin didn't call the Tuatha De or the ancestors by their names--Morrigan was "(the) Crow-Woman," Brighid was "Hearth-Girl," Melchior is "Frey's boy," Hanschen is "the fox" and Moritz is "the bear's son."
Obviously, he calls me either "the bear's wife/bear-wife" or "the bear-son's wife." Sometimes "the poet."
It's not that they don't KNOW anyone's names, it's just that they don't choose to use them.
-----
So then, Loki was hanging around because he felt like it. (Odin is here as well, because he does not want to leave me alone with a chaotic trickster god). And I asked Loki to leave because I'm not even going to start the bear-wife thing right now, so there's no reason he should even be here. He just went "Ha, SHOULD. Wrong word to use, sea-bird."
I asked him while I was heading home, "So... Loki, are you real?"
He laughed and asked, "Are YOU real, little patchwork-cyborg-girl?"
"...Huh?"
"I see a girl with a bird's eyes, a wreck of a womb, and skin scars like little bits of shrapnel. Broken mind, broken legs, broken back, broken heart, broken family, broken home--"
"OKAY OKAY I GET IT. MY LIFE SUCKS."
"And forsooth, she speaks!"
So he chuckles a bit and Hanschen just goes, "DUDE. Don't do that shit, she just gets hurt right now."
And Loki sighs and says, "That wasn't the point. And it wasn't what you meant to ask, was it, little incoherent poet?"
"No; I meant to ask are you actually Loki, and are you actually here?"
"Odin called me Loki, didn't he? And I am as here as anyone can be."
"I don't get it."
"You do. You're just afraid that you do. It's why the bears came."
---
And then he continues staying and forcing Odin to stay as well, which isn't nice when I have to take a shower and Loki just makes a point of staring at me while I try to undress. Not the lustful kind of staring, he did it solely because he knew it made me uncomfortable and it pissed Moritz off.
So Moritz is growling at him and I'm constantly asking him to leave or at least turn around, but we can't do anything because we REALLY don't want to piss Loki off, and then Manannan heads over and says, "DUDE. You can't do that to someone with her baggage."
"Look, she has to learn that not everyone's going to be nice and polite like her husband--"
"NONONO, man, she's awkward AND she has a fuckton of baggage. FROM HER DAD."
And Loki just blinks and goes, "...Oh. Shit."
So yay, he stopped staring, but Hanschen still kept an eye on me. He said to me, "Look, little sister, Loki's not completely bad; it's just that he likes picking on people like you. Toughening them up and all. Also, sometimes he just likes being a dick."
And while I'm doing my homework, at some point Aine hears about the staring-at-me thing and she naturally doesn't like it. By the time I get to the Otherworld because she's gotten to her FUCK-ALL MAD YELLING stage, but Loki is very calm. It's only when Aine manages to get her knife out that he laughs at her and says, "Oh, Summer-Girl, you're only this bold because it's your time of year. Come winter, you'd be as soft and quiet as the bear-wife."
"Summer is when I'm STRONGEST, bastard! I'm still a god!"
And then everyone goes "OH SHIT" because you do not call Loki a bastard lightly, and Manannan just grabs her and holds her back because "AINE, YOU DO NOT PISS OFF LOKI."
"He can't do that to one of OUR people! And what's he gonna do, attack me in OUR home?"
And Loki just laughs again, walks over, and... smacks her upside the head. Very lightly, so he's clearly not taking her anger seriously.
Which gets Aine even more mad and then she starts going, "Bitch, all you did was tap me on the head?! You can't even ACTUALLY hit me!"
"AINE, YOU DON'T WANT LOKI TO ACTUALLY HIT YOU!"
So yay, Macha comes in to drag Aine out and by the time we get fed up with Loki, I realize that I never actually invited him in, so I've been spending hours with a spirit who constantly pisses off my ancestors and the Tuatha De. I tell him, "Loki, I never actually said you could stay, so I can technically get you thrown out without a problem."
He chuckles, realizes I'm right, and goes, "Ooh, a slow-burner. I'm going to like you." And before he leaves, he asks me, "When you get wasted for the first time, remember me."
"Wasted as in... drugs?"
"Smashed. Trashed. Baked. Blackout-drunk. Higher-than-fuck. Whichever you pick, as long as you have potential to wake up in a strange place with stranger memories."
"Dude, I've been drunk before."
"And I am all for trying out whiskey or pairing so-so mead with a shitty zombie soap-opera marathon, but have you ever gotten WASTED?"
"...WHY?"
"You're a bard AND a college student! If you haven't gotten wasted at least once, you're REALLY missing out. And when you do, little patchwork bear-wife, remember me."
So he leaves, and Hanschen promptly goes, "Yeeeeah, you can't get blackout drunk with Loki. Call me, too."
-----
And then Loki came in AGAIN last night and he says, "Okay, little cyborg, I'm sorry for making you put up with my shit before you even have to deal with me. Here, take this."
And I'm like, "...Thanks?" So I look at it and notice it's a round hand-sized stone, but something feels weird--not that I'm saying Loki can't be nice at all, but Loki is being NICE-nice, not just "nice considering it's Loki." And why the hell is he giving me a gift? It just feels WEIRD. So I ask him, "Loki? Did you steal this from someone?"
And he cackles, and Odin bursts in screaming "LOKI!" And an angry Odin is a Gigantic, Blinding, Red/Purple/Black Odin.
At which Loki cackles and goes "She took it!" before vanishing, and I'm like "OHGODOHGODOHGOD HERE ODIN TAKE IT BACK I'M SORRY!"
Odin calms down and resumes humanoid size, thank god, and he says, "No, bear-wife, that's all right."
"I'm sorry about--"
"Loki? I am well used to his tricks."
"So you're not mad at me?"
And he scoffs and goes, "You? You were standing there petrified and you offered to give it back. You can't STEAL things, you're a tiny little poet. Besides, LOKI said you took it. And I was going to give it to you anyway."
That's a little counterintuitive of Loki, and I'm like, "Why would Loki steal something you were going to give me, and then give it to me? That's not usually the point of stealing."
"Restless is he who watches stolen goods."
So I look at the stone again and realize it has a rune on it, and I go, "But what would I do with this? I don't know the Norse runes--I can barely remember to study the Ogham right now."
"You are hanging from your tree, bear's wife. When you fall back down, you'll know what to do with it."
I bought a runebook today from my bookstore and it turns out the rune (like an uppercase, pointed P) is Wynn, symbolizing joy.
I asked Ogma why Odin would give me "joy" (metaphorical or otherwise), and what would I even do with it? Ogma asked, "What do you think is in there?"
So I looked at the rune for a moment, and I heard someone biting into an apple. "...It's an apple tree?"
"Exactly."
-----
Today things went well, aside from me getting overwhelmed by everything again, and after a visit to the Alder, I went to the Female Oak and sat in her branches for a while. After wondering if I should try hanging from her like Odin from Yggdrasil (no, I really shouldn't), I noticed Wendla was flitting to and from both of the Oaks, eating little stringy/knobby things. And I'm like, "What's that?"
"Catkins! Here, honey, try some!"
I did, but I threw up because that shit was bitter. Good thing that it wasn't the bad kind of throwing up--it was just the purging kind. I thought what I threw up was vomit since it was yellow and thick, but Wendla called it bile.
Then Moritz came over and reminded me that I can't stay up in the tree all the time, but unfortunately Gregor showed up again and RIPPED OFF MORITZ'S HEAD.
And you know how the Giant Hole In Moritz's Chest made me freak out? This time it was even worse, because the sound of someone's head being torn off their neck is a sort of ripping-grinding-squelching noise. And I was also thinking "IT'S NOT PERMANENT, IT'S NOT PERMANENT, OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD," but that doesn't really help when the ancestors are also screaming and horrified, and Moritz's head is about five feet away from his body.
So the Morrigan comes up with her spear and says, "NO." She stabs Gregor through the throat, and then a heartbeat/drumbeat sounds out three times before Gregor's body vanishes.
And yay, I'm too busy crying and screaming to realize that the embodiment of hatred/destruction is gone, and I don't even know what I'm thinking, but I get Odin's runestone and try to heal Moritz with it. I'm just going "OKAY, SO APPLES SYMBOLIZE JOY AND MORITZ IS MY HAPPY SHINY BEAR-HUSBAND. You can totally do this, Apple Tree. Please? Oh, god!"
But it's just rolling off his neck and that just makes me feel worse, so Brighid comes up and says, "Honey, we can take him to the Lower World and get him fixed there. We're gods! It's easy! ...Honey? Please stop trying to grow a tree on Moritz. Come on, we can help!"
Hanschen tells me, "His head, little sister. Just put his head back, that's all."
Miach comes over and says to me, "Joint to joint. Sinew to sinew. He will be whole again."
I finally calm down, stop trying to use the runestone, and put Moritz's head back on. He wakes up and says, "I'm here. I'm here--don't worry." And yeah, I don't let him out of my sight for the next five hours.
He has a thick white scar all around his neck now, and sometimes his speech gets slurred. The slurring isn't permanent, just a side-effect of the healing process. The Tuatha are giving vibes that Moritz's scar is a good thing. Because it... balances him out? Especially when he's with me.
I realized over the year that Moritz barely has any scars, aside from the knife scar I gave him in one life, and he said a few months ago that he just doesn't scar easily. Which is a problem for me because as Loki mentioned, I am a patchwork-cyborg girl where almost everything's broken or scarred over.
Ogma doesn't blame me for trying to use the runestone for a completely irrelevant purpose, since I was pretty much going crazy.
God, that noise. I will hear it for YEARS.
So I'm getting ready for class, and a man in a hat with an eye-patch shows up and says, "So you are the bear's wife."
Naturally I freak out and go "HOLY SHIT, ODIN?"
And he tells me, "Look to the north for your answers, bear-wife. The west is green and your home, but you will not find them here because you are not of their people."
Which is referring to how I probably can't learn all the answers from Native American shamanism, because even my medicine-woman can't teach the full rituals to people who aren't Native.
And then fucking LOKI showed up. Waxy-skinned, slender, black-haired man with stitch scars around his mouth? Definitely Loki. Hanschen high-fived Loki and went, "Loki is daaaaaamn fun!" But seeing as Hanschen is the gay shaman fox, their idea of fun heavily implies cocaine, sex, and explosions.
According to Odin, once Spirit-Me heals up completely and I'm back with the Spring Awakening troupe, we will need Loki's help because "The bear-wives practice a wild art."
I really hope this isn't because I asked a Dionysian oracle for help.
And it turns out that Odin and the Morrigan work together a lot, because she wasn't surprised that he'd come, or that he was advising me to "go north" for answers about bear-worship. However, I noticed that Loki and Odin didn't call the Tuatha De or the ancestors by their names--Morrigan was "(the) Crow-Woman," Brighid was "Hearth-Girl," Melchior is "Frey's boy," Hanschen is "the fox" and Moritz is "the bear's son."
Obviously, he calls me either "the bear's wife/bear-wife" or "the bear-son's wife." Sometimes "the poet."
It's not that they don't KNOW anyone's names, it's just that they don't choose to use them.
-----
So then, Loki was hanging around because he felt like it. (Odin is here as well, because he does not want to leave me alone with a chaotic trickster god). And I asked Loki to leave because I'm not even going to start the bear-wife thing right now, so there's no reason he should even be here. He just went "Ha, SHOULD. Wrong word to use, sea-bird."
I asked him while I was heading home, "So... Loki, are you real?"
He laughed and asked, "Are YOU real, little patchwork-cyborg-girl?"
"...Huh?"
"I see a girl with a bird's eyes, a wreck of a womb, and skin scars like little bits of shrapnel. Broken mind, broken legs, broken back, broken heart, broken family, broken home--"
"OKAY OKAY I GET IT. MY LIFE SUCKS."
"And forsooth, she speaks!"
So he chuckles a bit and Hanschen just goes, "DUDE. Don't do that shit, she just gets hurt right now."
And Loki sighs and says, "That wasn't the point. And it wasn't what you meant to ask, was it, little incoherent poet?"
"No; I meant to ask are you actually Loki, and are you actually here?"
"Odin called me Loki, didn't he? And I am as here as anyone can be."
"I don't get it."
"You do. You're just afraid that you do. It's why the bears came."
---
And then he continues staying and forcing Odin to stay as well, which isn't nice when I have to take a shower and Loki just makes a point of staring at me while I try to undress. Not the lustful kind of staring, he did it solely because he knew it made me uncomfortable and it pissed Moritz off.
So Moritz is growling at him and I'm constantly asking him to leave or at least turn around, but we can't do anything because we REALLY don't want to piss Loki off, and then Manannan heads over and says, "DUDE. You can't do that to someone with her baggage."
"Look, she has to learn that not everyone's going to be nice and polite like her husband--"
"NONONO, man, she's awkward AND she has a fuckton of baggage. FROM HER DAD."
And Loki just blinks and goes, "...Oh. Shit."
So yay, he stopped staring, but Hanschen still kept an eye on me. He said to me, "Look, little sister, Loki's not completely bad; it's just that he likes picking on people like you. Toughening them up and all. Also, sometimes he just likes being a dick."
And while I'm doing my homework, at some point Aine hears about the staring-at-me thing and she naturally doesn't like it. By the time I get to the Otherworld because she's gotten to her FUCK-ALL MAD YELLING stage, but Loki is very calm. It's only when Aine manages to get her knife out that he laughs at her and says, "Oh, Summer-Girl, you're only this bold because it's your time of year. Come winter, you'd be as soft and quiet as the bear-wife."
"Summer is when I'm STRONGEST, bastard! I'm still a god!"
And then everyone goes "OH SHIT" because you do not call Loki a bastard lightly, and Manannan just grabs her and holds her back because "AINE, YOU DO NOT PISS OFF LOKI."
"He can't do that to one of OUR people! And what's he gonna do, attack me in OUR home?"
And Loki just laughs again, walks over, and... smacks her upside the head. Very lightly, so he's clearly not taking her anger seriously.
Which gets Aine even more mad and then she starts going, "Bitch, all you did was tap me on the head?! You can't even ACTUALLY hit me!"
"AINE, YOU DON'T WANT LOKI TO ACTUALLY HIT YOU!"
So yay, Macha comes in to drag Aine out and by the time we get fed up with Loki, I realize that I never actually invited him in, so I've been spending hours with a spirit who constantly pisses off my ancestors and the Tuatha De. I tell him, "Loki, I never actually said you could stay, so I can technically get you thrown out without a problem."
He chuckles, realizes I'm right, and goes, "Ooh, a slow-burner. I'm going to like you." And before he leaves, he asks me, "When you get wasted for the first time, remember me."
"Wasted as in... drugs?"
"Smashed. Trashed. Baked. Blackout-drunk. Higher-than-fuck. Whichever you pick, as long as you have potential to wake up in a strange place with stranger memories."
"Dude, I've been drunk before."
"And I am all for trying out whiskey or pairing so-so mead with a shitty zombie soap-opera marathon, but have you ever gotten WASTED?"
"...WHY?"
"You're a bard AND a college student! If you haven't gotten wasted at least once, you're REALLY missing out. And when you do, little patchwork bear-wife, remember me."
So he leaves, and Hanschen promptly goes, "Yeeeeah, you can't get blackout drunk with Loki. Call me, too."
-----
And then Loki came in AGAIN last night and he says, "Okay, little cyborg, I'm sorry for making you put up with my shit before you even have to deal with me. Here, take this."
And I'm like, "...Thanks?" So I look at it and notice it's a round hand-sized stone, but something feels weird--not that I'm saying Loki can't be nice at all, but Loki is being NICE-nice, not just "nice considering it's Loki." And why the hell is he giving me a gift? It just feels WEIRD. So I ask him, "Loki? Did you steal this from someone?"
And he cackles, and Odin bursts in screaming "LOKI!" And an angry Odin is a Gigantic, Blinding, Red/Purple/Black Odin.
At which Loki cackles and goes "She took it!" before vanishing, and I'm like "OHGODOHGODOHGOD HERE ODIN TAKE IT BACK I'M SORRY!"
Odin calms down and resumes humanoid size, thank god, and he says, "No, bear-wife, that's all right."
"I'm sorry about--"
"Loki? I am well used to his tricks."
"So you're not mad at me?"
And he scoffs and goes, "You? You were standing there petrified and you offered to give it back. You can't STEAL things, you're a tiny little poet. Besides, LOKI said you took it. And I was going to give it to you anyway."
That's a little counterintuitive of Loki, and I'm like, "Why would Loki steal something you were going to give me, and then give it to me? That's not usually the point of stealing."
"Restless is he who watches stolen goods."
So I look at the stone again and realize it has a rune on it, and I go, "But what would I do with this? I don't know the Norse runes--I can barely remember to study the Ogham right now."
"You are hanging from your tree, bear's wife. When you fall back down, you'll know what to do with it."
I bought a runebook today from my bookstore and it turns out the rune (like an uppercase, pointed P) is Wynn, symbolizing joy.
I asked Ogma why Odin would give me "joy" (metaphorical or otherwise), and what would I even do with it? Ogma asked, "What do you think is in there?"
So I looked at the rune for a moment, and I heard someone biting into an apple. "...It's an apple tree?"
"Exactly."
-----
Today things went well, aside from me getting overwhelmed by everything again, and after a visit to the Alder, I went to the Female Oak and sat in her branches for a while. After wondering if I should try hanging from her like Odin from Yggdrasil (no, I really shouldn't), I noticed Wendla was flitting to and from both of the Oaks, eating little stringy/knobby things. And I'm like, "What's that?"
"Catkins! Here, honey, try some!"
I did, but I threw up because that shit was bitter. Good thing that it wasn't the bad kind of throwing up--it was just the purging kind. I thought what I threw up was vomit since it was yellow and thick, but Wendla called it bile.
Then Moritz came over and reminded me that I can't stay up in the tree all the time, but unfortunately Gregor showed up again and RIPPED OFF MORITZ'S HEAD.
And you know how the Giant Hole In Moritz's Chest made me freak out? This time it was even worse, because the sound of someone's head being torn off their neck is a sort of ripping-grinding-squelching noise. And I was also thinking "IT'S NOT PERMANENT, IT'S NOT PERMANENT, OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD," but that doesn't really help when the ancestors are also screaming and horrified, and Moritz's head is about five feet away from his body.
So the Morrigan comes up with her spear and says, "NO." She stabs Gregor through the throat, and then a heartbeat/drumbeat sounds out three times before Gregor's body vanishes.
And yay, I'm too busy crying and screaming to realize that the embodiment of hatred/destruction is gone, and I don't even know what I'm thinking, but I get Odin's runestone and try to heal Moritz with it. I'm just going "OKAY, SO APPLES SYMBOLIZE JOY AND MORITZ IS MY HAPPY SHINY BEAR-HUSBAND. You can totally do this, Apple Tree. Please? Oh, god!"
But it's just rolling off his neck and that just makes me feel worse, so Brighid comes up and says, "Honey, we can take him to the Lower World and get him fixed there. We're gods! It's easy! ...Honey? Please stop trying to grow a tree on Moritz. Come on, we can help!"
Hanschen tells me, "His head, little sister. Just put his head back, that's all."
Miach comes over and says to me, "Joint to joint. Sinew to sinew. He will be whole again."
I finally calm down, stop trying to use the runestone, and put Moritz's head back on. He wakes up and says, "I'm here. I'm here--don't worry." And yeah, I don't let him out of my sight for the next five hours.
He has a thick white scar all around his neck now, and sometimes his speech gets slurred. The slurring isn't permanent, just a side-effect of the healing process. The Tuatha are giving vibes that Moritz's scar is a good thing. Because it... balances him out? Especially when he's with me.
I realized over the year that Moritz barely has any scars, aside from the knife scar I gave him in one life, and he said a few months ago that he just doesn't scar easily. Which is a problem for me because as Loki mentioned, I am a patchwork-cyborg girl where almost everything's broken or scarred over.
Ogma doesn't blame me for trying to use the runestone for a completely irrelevant purpose, since I was pretty much going crazy.
God, that noise. I will hear it for YEARS.