AN: No profit being made, all standard disclaimers apply, etc etc. This one-shot is based on one of the assigned themes from the GlanceReviver VP community; this particular one was "Lost Memories of a Former Life." The title is yet another one of my Latin bastardizations which should theoretically translate to "The Memory and the Forgetting." I love Latin so much. I really should learn it properly one of these days. Also, the change in tense at the end of this story is fully intentional.
MEMORIA ET OBLIVIO
He felt it when her soul returned to Midgard; felt it like a beacon in the dark. Perhaps it was from his newfound godhood, or his connection to the Valkyries. Either way, he knew in his heart that she had returned, just a much as he knew that the sky was blue, or his hair was green. He kept his growing excitement to himself; mostly, to throw Freya off the scent. She had felt the rebirth of her Valkyries as well; who only knew what she was thinking of his "disgustingly mortal" reaction to the return of their souls.
By the time he allowed himself to seek her, to set foot in Midgard once again by way of weak excuse - the Dragon Orb, he had told Freya, to ensure its safety - years had passed. He hadn't even realized how quickly the seasons turned, for Asgard - and he - were both timeless, ageless, just as he had always been. Coriander, too, was much unchanged - still a beautiful, quiet farming village, blanketed by a lazy sense of lethargy and the summer's wildflowers.
She didn't recognize him when she barreled into his long legs. She was so small! He had a difficult time keeping the shock from his face; those blue eyes, the soft brush of her flaxen hair.
Too long, but not long enough, was what he thought, staring into the childish innocence of her young face. She couldn't have been more than seven years old, perhaps eight; he'd never been good with children. Perhaps because he never could remember his own childhood. He wasn't even entirely sure if elves
had a childhood; often it seemed to him that they were born into the world fully grown.
When he recovered himself, she'd already scampered off after her friends - he was left staring wistfully at a dream that he had no part in. Her name was not Alicia, of course;
she was not Alicia. She was a quiet, happy little girl leading a quiet, happy little life - the sort of life which his Alicia never had the opportunity to experience. But her face stirred the waters of memory, and he found himself too weak to leave well enough alone. He watched her, constantly; the Water Mirror was fast becoming known as the new lord of Asgard's favorite haunt. Freya, of course, disapproved.
"You still cannot divest yourself of your mortal trappings," she observed. Hers was a cool hostility; she'd never truly forgiven him for rebelling against Odin. He often thought that she might have loved the other half-elf; or come as close to the concept of love as a goddess such as herself could. It dulled the sharpness of her retorts in his ears; after all, he knew exactly how she felt, albeit ten-fold. It was just as she said, only that his own feelings of loss were painfully amplified by his
mortal trappings.
She approached him silently one day, while he was engaging in his favorite pastime: watching, of course. Watching the girl grow, discover friendship and love - without him. "Stop this foolishness," she commanded. He wondered why she'd come; they'd developed comfortable boundaries, perhaps even a grudging respect for one another, but nothing like friendship. This interruption, the temporary disruption of their carefully choreographed relationship, puzzled him. He might have thought it concern, if not for the coldness of her eyes and the severity of her face. Freya no longer remembered how to smile, had forgotten ever since Odin had passed. He stood unmoving before the Mirror, watching as intently as before, as though she hadn't spoken. He didn't even blink. "You will never have her," she told him before she left, and her tone was bitter.
He didn't care much for Freya, at that.
When the girl reached a more familiar age, the first flush of womanhood beginning to appear on her face, his visits to the Mirror became more and more frequent. He found himself wishing for an excuse to travel to Midgard, but he'd already exhausted his trump card. Visiting Arngrim to check on the Dragon Orb
again would be a thin excuse at best; in the roll of time in Asgard, a scant decade was hardly enough to warrant yet another trip to the realm of mortals. He knew better than to make good on his desire in any regard - the years that had passed since Odin's fall were long only in a mortal's reckoning. He hadn't taken up Gungnir, saved Asgard from destruction, only to have it fall - or stolen from him - simply because of a personal moment of weakness. No, Alicia had wished for the world - all of it - to be healed. Here he would stay, watcher, guardian. Oh, but when she smiled -!
It happened one day that she lost her smile. He didn't know exactly when, but he saw how. The slow-building power of Crell Monferaigne had finally caught stride of the vacuum left in the wake of Dipan's fall. The aftershocks from the ensuing skirmishes for domination were felt everywhere - even in the quiet outskirts of sleepy little villages like Coriander. Villages which no longer had the luxury of truly sleeping. The girl was woken from her own pleasant dream in a rain of fire and iron. She, like so many others, lost everything. Parents, brothers, even her innocence. She lost her voice, and the light in her eyes that had defined her as happiness embodied. When he saw her, lying amidst the ruins of her former life, beaten and broken, he nearly shattered the Water Mirror. What good was it? What was it all for, if he couldn't even prevent this from happening to her? He watched closely in the days that followed; watched as she picked herself up from the ruins of her former life and painstakingly rebuilt herself, step by step, piece by piece. She took up the sword, clumsy and unused to warfare as she was; her will was strong, even if her skill left much to be desired. She was motivated; how could she not be? For she had nothing else.
He watched her grow, and a small, terrible part of himself wept with relief.
She looks more like Alicia now, he thought, glad for the change while at the same time cursing himself for finding the guilty comfort of a completely selfish happiness in her own mortal misery. She didn't cry, despite the heaviness that sorrow had etched onto her youthful face much too early; she joined the resistance and held back her tears until her first skirmish. It was only when she ran the soldier through - more an accident of luck than ability with the blade, really - that she allowed her tears to fall. Only after her hands and her face and her beautiful golden hair had become matted with the blood of another, a
human - then she learned that all the tears in the world would never wash away the stain.
He turned away from the Mirror, unable to bear her misery and pain; they struck at his own heart, bringing back memories that had almost threatened to be forgotten. She reminded him, then - reminded him of what it meant to be mortal, to live among humans - of why he was different from the other gods of Asgard. Why he dared not forget, why it was necessary for her tears to burn with a humiliation worse than fire through his very blood. He was not Odin. He would
never be.
Still, so great was his shame of what he'd nearly lost that he found himself unable to visit the Water Mirror, to see her, for a span of years. When he finally did gather the courage to look for her once again, she was already in her twenties. Older than his Alicia had ever been allowed to develop; and yet, age suited her. Battle had hardened her; the light sword she wielded now felled her opponents in a measure of skill, rather than luck. Though tears no longer fell from her eyes, they retained a measure of the softness that defined her as human; he was relieved, that she had somehow managed to survive without his aid. The thought made him smile; never, not even once, had he aided this girl; why it had occurred to him that she might suddenly need him now was a mystery born of his own desires. For in the end, not even Alicia had needed him.
She was a revolutionary now; no longer fighting among the scattered remains of rebellious villagers and transients, but a soldier. She was no leader, at least not by choice, but her manner set her aside from others in her company. There was a memory, perhaps; an imprint of her former life; the hint of a regal bearing, the quiet strength hiding behind her silence. Others around her looked to her for hope, no matter who led them to battle. She was a fine warrior, a force to be reckoned with. And she stood against the pious nation of Crell Monferaigne; she stood against the gods of Asgard and all that they represented.
The irony would have made him smile, had it not birthed the unexpected ache in his chest; no, not for her, not for this proud woman she had become, no matter how much she resembled his Alicia. No; his ache now was for the misery she endured; a work of purely human engineering. Crell Monferaigne had cast its eyes across the continent, and misery followed in its wake. The girl, this warrior-woman, was just one of its many victims, forged in the fires of a needless war. She would never bow to Odin, never welcome the coming of the Valkyries, not after what had been forced upon her, upon Coriander, upon all the countless villages too small to claim power for themselves but too large to be ignored by greedy eyes. She was beautiful, in her own harsh, broken way - a brave, but damaged spirit. Was his Alicia forever destined to be damaged? And yet he could he still do nothing.
Gods do not interfere in the affairs of mortals, Freya would remind him sharply. Odin had tried, and it had brought him to ruin. The warning was clear. It hurt him to watch. This was the price he paid for memory, for retaining his "weak mortal compassion" - he suffered with them; he suffered with
her.
He took some small comfort in the thought that perhaps it brought them closer.
Villnore's rebellion was put down years later, and with such brutality that Asgard witnessed the return of a Valkyrie. It was Silmeria who came to them; who else could it be? She was less contrary than anyone admitted to remembering, though perhaps it was due to his presence on the throne. She trusted him implicitly, and he her; that much was understood. But she was cold, colder than he ever remembered; colder even than when they had first met in Solde. He didn't understand why; he'd thought that with Silmeria's return, his pain would ease. That they could share the burden of loss, and perhaps one day the joy of remembering. But never did a smile pass the valkyrie's lips, nor warm her eyes when he saw her. She was as focused and precise in her manners as she was with her bow.
He didn't understand her distance or her behavior until he caught her standing before the Water Mirror one day, staring into its depths. She was watching the girl - this would-be Alicia - hungrily, desperately, with
emotions that should have been foreign to any denizen of Asgard. She hadn't acknowledged him when she felt his presence; she ignored him just as thoroughly as he had once ignored Freya. But that wasn't important; he could never forget how it had felt to lose Alicia, even had he wanted to. Silmeria now knew the sting of this burning mortal pain too; he could see it in the haunted way her eyes tracked the girl's movements.
Once, he'd thought he'd lost to the valkyrie; when Alicia had told him that it was
Silmeria she needed to feel completion, not himself. Now, as he watched her, he knew the truth: that they had both lost something which had never been rightfully theirs to own. He joined her side at the Water Mirror and observed the mortal girl silently.
The girl was fighting; fighting alongside the rest of Villnore's scattered resistance; a hopeless, futile cause, and yet still she fought with all her heart and the full fire of her passion, the spark of which her human mind could not fully understand. She fought for her decimated home, her shattered pride, her lost innocence. Her memory was constrained to her mortal life, but her soul burned brightly with the fire of conviction; her soul, it
remembered.
"She would make a worthy einherjar," Silmeria finally said, breaking the long silence between them with a note of longing.
"But she can never be Alicia," he answered her. Alicia was gone forever. Just like Brahms, and Dylan, and yes, even Lezard. Alicia was a soul who would never know true reincarnation because her very substance was changed, affected by her transformation into the Fate Goddess Valkyrie. He looked at his ring, shining in the pale white light of the Water Mirror, and thought how it mocked him with the memory of what could never be. His anger grew; Silmeria, she too, was mocking him, even if she did not understand.
"Should we just let her go, then?" Silmeria asked. His heart was frozen, her question buzzed in his ears as he watched the mortal girl fight her last, desperate battle. He watched as the pike was plunged through this not-Alicia's heart, watched as she gasped, her face white and contorted with pain. He watched the slow trail of crimson as it painted a colorful path against her too-pale skin. He watched her body crumple, her breath escaping her in one last rattling gasp as her mortal body died.
She isn't Alicia, she's not, he repeated again, this time trying to convince himself.
But he could never let her go; that is what he wanted to tell Silmeria as she watched him, tense. He reached out to touch the Mirror; whether through its power, or perhaps his own godhood, he felt that he could almost feel her. That he could grasp her outstretched fingertips splayed across the bloody earth and grant her at least that much comfort, the knowledge that she would not die alone, that she would be missed. His own fingers trembled - oh, but that a mortal had the power to make a god show such weakness! But he could not hold himself strong as Silmeria, could not even pretend. His mortal heart wouldn't allow him that distance.
He sensed Silmeria's displeasure, but ignored her and continued to reach for the girl. Silmeria was Alicia's final wish. This time, she was his to hoard, to watch over, even if only for the fleeting final moments of her life. Silmeria could bear this unspoken reprimand; she must. This time Alicia would be his alone.
... but it was not Alicia.
He withdrew his hand, and was surprised when Silmeria strode past him. He had forgotten; she was always the rebellious one. Freya had warned him that she could be filled with spite. He watched with dull fascination as she passed through the Mirror; watched the soldiers fall and cower before her divine presence. Silmeria ignored them all. She stopped before the fallen girl and summoned her soul, performing the materialization; horrified, he couldn't look away. The girl knelt before her; words were spoken, a pledge was exchanged. And then it was over; Silmeria was returning, and the girl who was not Alicia came with her, not even having the decency to look the least bit phased by her death or her transformation.
That was the way of things with newly bound einherjar. He remembered Arngrim's loyalty to Hrist; the warmth and devotion felt when he himself was bonded to Alicia. Free will was often naught but a memory; the twin calls of duty and gratitude were much stronger in the newly dead than anything else. Time would change her, as it did all einherjar, but for now she was loyal, a mindless servant - a worthy einherjar.
"My lord," she who was
not Alicia said as she knelt before him.
It almost broke him to hear that. He wondered briefly if a god of Asgard had ever been physically sick before his subjects. Why, why did Silmeria do this, of all things? Hadn't it been enough to lose her once? He couldn't look away. He couldn't. "Alicia," he almost whispered, and his hand trembled as it reached for her bowed head. The einherjar did not even look up, unaware of the chaos her very presence had set loose within his soul. He could not look away. But he must.
Before he touched her, before he was lost, desperation forced him to look up. His eyes found Silmeria's - he expected her to be gloating, savoring the fruits of her vindictiveness or chastising him for being so pathetic. But instead he saw only shame, and it was enough to halt the movement of his hand. Silmeria's plan, her hasty revenge, had backfired - for now she, too, knew more intimately than he ever could, that this was Not Alicia. Already, this girl was tainted, tainted from their own expectations and their memories of Alicia; she had barely had the time to lead her own life, and now, as an einherjar surrounded by familiar gods, she would never have that chance. Even reborn, it seemed that Alicia's soul couldn't escape the curse of the gods; their jealous rivalry had destroyed the new beginning she worked so hard to bring about. He knew that Silmeria would free this einherjar quickly; she must not remain in Valhalla. It would destroy them both.
"I live to serve," the einherjar said. How right she was.
"Rufus," Silmeria spoke hesitantly, and it was the first time - the first time since they had met again - that she used his name.
"Just go," he said, and stared into his ring. He felt no victory here; the punishment Silmeria had wrought upon herself in her attempt to recapture what could not be was far worse than the lance which she drove through his heart in bringing the mortal girl here. He didn't envy her the duty which was hers to perform. But at the very least, she had managed to smash through the ice which had frosted over their friendship in her clumsy attempt to defy fate.
He paid them no heed as Silmeria commanded the einherjar to her feet; he briefly wondered if the girl would ever even know how lucky she was. Very few gods had been granted access to the Water Mirror since he learned of her presence on Midgard; even fewer einherjar had been allowed such privileges. He watched them retreat down the long, open corridor towards the palace. He wanted to scream in fury, to shout in despair, to behave shamefully -
just as a mortal would, as Freya might have said. He thought that perhaps, just perhaps, he understood how Lezard felt in his final moments, rejected by the woman he loved enough to create a new world for. Lezard, who in his greed and desire to have what could not be, forced Alicia to chose. His empathy abruptly evaporated like so much water spilled in the desert; Lezard, whom he would kill a thousand times over for leaving him - leaving all of them - in this broken, wounded state.
He turned his eyes to the doorway, wishing for one last glance at her, his Not-Alicia. He realized suddenly that he didn't even know her name. Shamed, he looked to his feet. She should have had the chance to be more than just a vessel. Alicia once gave him that very chance. It was the least he could do for her. And for Alicia.
She stopped as Silmeria pulled the massive doors open and looked over her shoulder.
He felt her eyes on him; felt the weight of memories which she no longer owned, and the pull of things which she did not understand. He grieved, but still he smiled as he lifted his hand to his lips and kissed the ring - then waved at her in dismissal.
Perhaps not in this life. Perhaps not in the next. Perhaps not ever. But in her look, this einherjar, this Not-Alicia, was such a simple and yet surprising truth. He understood now - he always did - what it was that Alicia wanted. He spared a moment to wish, just for once, that she could have been as selfish as himself and Silmeria. And then his back straightened, and he allowed the doors between them to fall closed.
He is the All-Father now, the Creator. Midgard will survive, just as Asgard did. He will see that it does; he will protect it, with his very life if he must. If just so that she will one day have the opportunity to have her own.
And he? He will no longer weep for lost memories of a former life.
