A Lullaby For Gods Chapter 53

LIII. Oh Be Careful Little Eyes What You See

The sky is red again, today. The mass funeral in Veðrborg isn’t done yet, then. They’ve been burning their dead for about two days, now.

Most of the unrest has been quelled. Some weird-looking people had arrived with entire armies that had quickly crushed whatever rebellion was going on, and then they’d found them, assumed that they were rebelling too, but Lady Ylva had met with them to explain the situation, and luckily they’d been spared.

Not that there’s even much they can do if the Condesce herself is coming. Sigurd had been screaming in his sleep again.

Overhead, a flock of birds shoot past, spooked, although Tavros hasn’t heard anything in the distance that could have spooked them. No loud noise or scream or anything. Maybe they feel it too, the way the völur feel it. Maybe they know something is coming and they need to get off-planet as soon as possible.

“Tavros?”

“The animals are leaving,” Tavros says, still staring at the sky. The birds are already gone. “I think they know too.”

Jake English stands beside him, pulling the blanket he’s wrapped himself in closer. It’s a cold morning and humans are rather sensitive to temperature.

“We don’t exactly have spaceships around here so it’s not like we can leave this place,” Jake says. “We just...” He trails off. Shrugs helplessly.

“Run,” Tavros says.

“Let’s hope the Batterbitch never finds us.”

“It’s one planet,” Tavros says. “It’s just one, small planet. She’s gonna find us.”

Jake says nothing. After a minute, he clicks his tongue. “Maybe those chaps from Asgard will help.”

“Ingrid says they’re never to be trusted,” Tavros says.

“I mean, they seem like perfectly respectable folk,” Jake says, shifting his weight on his left foot. “Although I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

Tavros laughs. “I don’t know, I think I’ll take the Vanir’s word for it,” he says.

Jake laughs lightly too, and then sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “There’s not much we can go on.” He pauses. “What if we go to Asgard? I’ve heard it’s another ‘realm’, yeah? Probably a whole ‘nother planet, then.”

“I asked Ingrid, she said that’s like walking into a butcher shop.”

Jake winces. “Ah. Now I see the picture. Not pretty.”

“I don’t even want to see it.” Tavros points to the sky. “They’re still burning their war dead.”

Another silence falls over them again.

“Ah,” Jake says, eventually. “We’re going to have to choose then.”

“Yeah,” Tavros says. “But, I don’t know, maybe Ylva will find something.”

“I hope so,” Jake says. In the distance, a horn sounds. Another row of bodies are going to be burned. “I really do.”

-

Thor leans back in his seat, arms crossed and fingers tapping the table surface lightly. Around the table, Sif and the Warriors Three sit, the king at the head of one end and the queen at the other. To the king’s right, the royal advisor; to his left, the captain of the Asgardian Guard. Beside Thor sit Equius and Nepeta.

They’re the only children here.

“Most of the rebels weren’t trained warriors, so the mess was taken care of quickly,” Sif explains. “Plenty quickly surrendered and confessed to the locations of the rest of their movement, under the condition that they would be apprehended without bloodshed.”

“There’s always still a few stragglers, unfortunately,” Fandral says.

“Still, the Vanir are naturally a peaceful people. It wasn’t a problem,” Sif says. “We moved from Gnóttborg first, moving south, until we reached the plains of Skyn. There was a settlement there, we assumed that it was a rebel camp. We approached it with the intent of negotiation.”

“It wasn’t,” Volstagg says. “It was people from mountains who’d fled.”

“From the rebels?” Thor asks.

“No,” Sif says. “From whatever it is that’s causing the völur to ail.” She draws in a breath and lets it out, fist clenching slowly. “Not that it seemed to help. Many of them are still plagued by terrible visions.”

“Of what?” Nepeta asks, leaning forward. The table hushes, turning to her.

Equius, beside her, puts a hand on her arm, but slowly looks at everyone around them like he’s calculating how to break their necks should the need arise.

“Something awful,” Sif says, breaking the silence. “We don’t know what exactly, but we know, from what they’ve told us, that it doesn’t belong in their realm.”

“After we found the encampment, we sent soldiers to look for similar evacuations,” Hogun says. He stands from his seat so he can point to the map painted onto the table, pointing at locations as he lists out their names. “There was the one we found in Skyn. Another one all the way in the Friðr Pass.” He walks around Sif and Fandral’s chairs to reach a spot where a thin pathway is drawn. “Several in the outskirts of Vanaheim Capital itself.” The wide space outside of a circular city. “One in Jarmr Gorge.”

“By the Allfather,” Thor says under his breath, running a hand over his face.

“What’s wrong with the gorge?” Nepeta asks him, keeping her voice low.

“It’s dangerous terrain. Very unstable land on either side, prone to breaking apart. Mountain beasts everywhere,” Thor says. “Strategically a clever place to hide, but also a very dangerous place to attempt to be safe in.”

Nepeta lets out a little fascinated ‘ah’ and turns back to the map on the table, memorizing the names and the structures.

“We haven’t made contact with the settlement from Jarmr yet, only that two soldiers caught sight of it,” Hogun says. “It’s possible it’s a rebel base, but highly unlikely considering children were spotted in the camp.”

“We had our men speak to those they could,” Sif says. “And most of what they’ve said match. Those gifted with sight have started having terrible visions, and warned them to flee. To where, they are still unable to say, but they have at least tried to begin moving, if only to avoid whatever terrible fate is about to come upon them.”

“We have noticed a pattern,” Hogun says, stepping back and folding his arms behind him. “Lady Ylva from Skyn said that their völur have been having too many visions. A thing to note, too many.”

“As if this was unnatural despite the gift of sight being present since birth,” Fandral says.

“With this knowledge, we sent our men out and told them to remember to ask this question. All encampments that have been approached said that if they had to say if these visions were in excess, the answer would be yes.”

“The fugues are uncontrolled, obviously, but we know that fugues are rare,” Sif says. “To deliberately search for the future and consult it is a daily practice, but fugues from the Norns themselves do not come in these numbers. Especially not to these many seers.”

“Lady Sif,” the Captain of the Guard – Captain Hallr, Thor thinks – says, “Is there a possibility that these camps are a part of the rebels’ strategies?”

Thor almost smacks the man’s head, but he refrains himself from doing so. There is a point to the question, and Thor can’t hear any malice in his tone, just genuine inquiry.

“I don’t think so,” Sif says. “If they are, I think it’s dishonourable to endanger their own children.”

“The camps are also not equipped for battle,” Volstagg says. “For travel and self-sustenance, yes, but not for any sort of violence.”

Captain Hallr nods and says nothing more.

“I would suggest we bring the camps to Asgard,” Sif says, “We hadn’t offered as we hadn’t consulted the Allfather at the time, but I believe it would be best to bring them here for their own safety.”

“Lady Ylva can tell us more about the völur herself here as well,” Fandral says. “All that we know so far is that something is causing them to have all these terrible visions that plague even their nightmares, and the way they give their prophecies is almost - almost viscerally violent.” The man leans forward a little. “One of them fell to their knees in the middle of trying to gather firewood, and he’d started clutching his head and screaming about something coming in a battleship that looked like a bloodstain on the sky.”

From the corner of his eye, Thor sees Nepeta share a look with Equius.

“And the reckoning,” Volstagg reminds.

“Lady Ylva said that things that did not belong to the realm were starting to bleed in, as well,” Sif says, “And with those exact words. That whatever it is, it’s bleeding in.” She pauses again, and then turns to Nepeta, an apologetic look in her eyes. “We’d…remembered how you’d ended up at the temple and thought of you at that.”

“I don’t remember anything before I woke up at the temple,” Nepeta says. She turns to Equius.

He shakes his head. “I barely remember anything after – ” He motions to his neck. Nepeta winces.

There’s a story there, but Thor will ask that for later.

“I see,” Sif says. “But it remains. You do not belong in Asgard, and the Vanir have had these visions.”

“Sif,” Thor starts, but Sif holds up her hand.

“Your Highness, with all due respect, I am not saying that Nepeta and Equius are responsible for this,” she says. “What we have right now is circumstantial. I am, however, saying that it still could be linked.” She motions to Nepeta. “You do not remember where you were before here, correct?”

“Yep,” Nepeta says.

“And did you plan to come here?”

“No,” she says. “I uh, a lot of my memory is foggy too. But I didn’t even know about Asgard until I woke up in the temple.”

“Neither have I,” Equius says.

“Then you could simply be collateral damage, in a way,” Sif says. “Unplanned, but here anyway. Merely a byproduct of whatever is plaguing the Vanir.”

Thor nods, the tension in his posture leaving. Thank the Norns for Sif’s common sense, really.

The Allfather moves. Everyone in the room turns to him, alert.

“Send for the völur,” he says. “Before we make any further plans, I would like to consult with them. If this plague has been taking Vanaheim this fatally, then I want to know if it has been taking the völur of Asgard the same.”

He slams Gungnir on the ground once. The decree is done.

“That will be all.”

Thor lets out a breath, relieved. When everyone else stands to bow to the king, he pats Nepeta and Equius’ shoulders, and they hurriedly and awkwardly follow suit.

“Yes, Allfather,” they all recite.

Thor stares at the floor just a little while longer. Something in the air feels very wrong.

-

“Okay, so the völur people are seers,” Nepeta says.

“Yes,” Thor says. “They are seers, but they are also, in a way, the holy people of the Norns. They are gifted with the ability to see, given visions to warn or to bring good news to people.”

“Okay, gotcha, but if that’s the case, why do some of them not live in the temple?” Nepeta asks.

“You mean the Vanir?”

She nods.

“It’s not their custom,” Thor says. “In Asgard, they are few and far between and so when the realm was young and growing, they were considered prophets of the Norns.”

“Ohhh,” Nepeta says. “That’s purr-rety cool.” She lets the r roll on her pun as she stops pacing and drops onto a chair beside Equius, who’s got a map of Vanaheim in hand.

“It is,” Thor says. He doesn’t really think it’s cool as he has no sentiment for Asgardian history, but Loki had been avid scholar of it. Loki would have had a field day explaining all of this to them, had he still been around.

Thor’s chest hurts. It hurts a little less than two years ago, at least.

“Seers are common in Vana, uh, Vanaheim,” Nepeta says, raising a finger as she recites the information. “They’re not in Asgard. And they’ve been getting awful visions.”

“Mass visions,” Equius mumbles.

“Mass visions,” Nepeta says, snapping her fingers. “What would cause that?”

“I wouldn’t know, I’m not Terezi,” Equius says.

Nepeta laughs, although it tapers off into something sadder. She’s quick to recover, though. “Something about things that don’t belong here falling in.” She moves, sinking down in the seat so that her legs are hanging off one armrest and her head is braced on the other. Equius gives her an exasperated, but fond look for not sitting properly, but says nothing.

It’d been Nepeta’s idea that they brainstorm in her and Equius’ shared quarters. Better to discuss ideas here than in the War Room, otherwise they’d probably be arrested if they said something that struck the others the wrong way.

Thor knows that this situation could easily escalate into a state of emergency and that they need to be careful, but – still. These are children.

Nepeta and Equius know something, obviously, but he’s not about to endanger them. Not if he can help it.

“There’s whatever happened to bring us here,” Equius says. He takes a pen out of his pocket to mark off something on the map. “If it could happen to us, what’s to say it’s not an isolated event?”

Nepeta nods. “True. It can’t have been an accident,” she says, hugging her arms around herself. Almost absentmindedly, Thor notes. There’s a far-off look in her eyes for a second.

She snaps out of it after a bit, taking off her right gauntlet and tracing the runes on it with a thumb.

“Do you know what happened?” Thor asks.

Nepeta shakes her head. “Not really,” she says. “One moment, it’s weird and I’m confused like I’m two people at once but not really, and then the next, I’m at the temple.”

She turns to Equius, who nods. “I don’t remember much either.”

“Yeah.” Nepeta gives Thor an apologetic look. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“I do know that the red battleship thing could be the Condesce,” she says. Thor pauses. “But it could also not be. There’s probably a ton of red battleships all over the universe.” She starts tapping her nails on the gauntlet. Clink, clink, clink. “Probably. Fur-robably.”

She’s nervous. Thor makes sure to be gentle when he says, “Can I ask what the Condesce is?”

Nepeta’s silent, hesitating.

It’s Equius who answers. “The Empress of our planet, back home,” he says.

“I see,” Thor says. He probably shouldn’t push further.

“If we got here, I don’t see why she couldn’t have,” Equius says. “Or is going to be here any moment.”

“Is she dangerous?”

Nepeta nods. “She’ll likely take over Vanaheim if she’s going there.”

Thor frowns. That’s definitely trouble, then. He’s going to have to keep an eye on the situation and discreetly put in suggestions if the need arises.

That’s what Loki would do. He’d do it better, but he’s not here.

Equius appears to have finished marking up the map. Nepeta leans forward towards it.

“Can I see?” she asks.

Equius offers her the map. She takes it.

“What’s it mean?” she asks.

“I don’t know yet,” Equius says. “We’ll see.”

Thor hopes they don’t have to, but he feels it, like the way he feels when the right time to strike or retreat in battle, that that’s not something he can hope for.

-

Sigurd is screaming again.

“Shit – Jake!”

Jake’s off like a shot before Tavros can say anything else, running out the tent to get Lady Ylva. Tavros, meanwhile, gathers the screaming boy in his arms, eyes alight with a fugue and unable to see him. Whatever he is seeing is making him thrash, and Tavros has to hold him up and hug him. Instinctively, the child latches onto him, wrapping his arms around Tavros’ back so hard that if he’d been human, something would have broken. He’s not, luckily.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Tavros says, even when he knows Sigurd won’t hear him. He can’t control his awareness while in a fugue yet. He’s too young. He’s seven summers old. “You’re okay, Sigurd, you’re alright. We’re home. We’re alright.”

Thankfully, miraculously, the boy seems to calm down. His screams dwindle down to whimpers, and after a few minutes, he stops squirming around altogether, just holding onto Tavros.

He’s still sobbing, staring off somewhere Tavros can’t see. If he’s being honest, he hopes he never has to see it. The Vanir are psychic, he’s been told. They can see the future, whether they want to or not. A whole planet of Seers.

He’d have thought they’d have answers, but life doesn’t work that way.

Jake pushes the front of the tent open as he steps in. Behind him, Lady Ylva. Tavros turns around, on his knees, as best as he can. He gives them both a smile that looks more like a wince.

Lady Ylva sighs softly. Tired. Defeated.

She kneels down beside Tavros and waits until Sigurd lets go.

Jake steps around them, heading for where they’ve kept the thermos and the tea box. They’re going to be here a while, obviously, so they might as well calm their nerves with some tea. Tavros listens to the ceramic of the teacups clinking on their saucers, and after a while, Jake sits by them, three cups and a teapot on the tray he has in hand.

Sigurd doesn’t stop sobbing for about ten minutes more, and then finally, his hold on Tavros slackens, loosening enough that Tavros realizes he’s been having some difficulty breathing earlier. After a few minutes more, the boy fully draws back, sniffling and wiping his eyes as he sits, head bowed.

“It’s okay, Sigurd,” Tavros says, gently patting the child’s shoulder. “It’s stopped now.”

The boy nods, wordlessly. Across him, Jake stands to grab one of the spare blankets stacked on a nearby chair. He hands it to Tavros when he returns, and Tavros takes it to wrap it around the boy.

No one says anything for a while. Sigurd never likes noises after the fugues. They’ve learned that a long time ago.

Lady Ylva is patient, taking her tea quietly, and Sigurd scoots back from Tavros, sitting a bit away, cocooned in the blanket. He stares at the ground, and then starts pinching a fold on the blanket, letting it go, pinching again.

“I saw her again,” he says, eventually.

“The tyrant?” Lady Ylva asks.

The boy nods. Jake and Tavros share a look.

“She was standing over a burning kingdom,” he says. “But not any of the ones I’ve seen before.”

There’s countless galaxies that the Condesce has taken over that Tavros isn’t even sure which one Sigurd could have seen.

The boy quiets again, whimpering. Jake’s quick to put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“S’alright,” he says. “You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to.”

“But I have to,” Sigurd says, helplessly. “It’s gonna happen if I don’t say it, right? If I don’t tell anyone, then we won’t know.”

Jake’s expression falls, tightening into something sad and quietly furious, but not at the boy. The future can hardly be changed if no one knows what to change about it, but still. This is a child. It feels a little unfair.

“You don’t have to, Sigurd,” Lady Ylva says, gentle. Sigurd hesitates.

He swallows, hands shaking as he pulls the blanket closer. “There was a strange city,” he says. “A lot of tall castles, taller than anything I’d seen before.”

“Asgard?” Lady Ylva asks.

“I don’t know,” Sigurd says. “I’ve never seen Asgard before, but maybe.” He pauses. “The city was burning and she was watching from her ship. That red thing.”

The Battleship Condescension.

“And e-everything – everything…” Sigurd falters, taking in a harsh breath.

“Easy,” Jake says. “Easy, Sig, you can stop.”

“I could smell everything burning,” the little boy says, gasping, screwing his eyes shut. “I could smell it – and it was just so, so quiet.”

Lady Ylva stills. Tavros turns to her, slowly. As does Jake.

Sigurd is crying now. “I couldn’t hear anything other than the fire,” he says, hands furiously wiping his tears away. “And I could smell the blood – so much blood. S-so much b-blood.”

The boy curls in on himself, bravado collapsing under the weight of his vision. Tavros moves closer, pulling the child to a side hug. Sigurd lists against him, sobbing into his blanket.

He only stops crying, hours later, after he’s cried himself to sleep. Tavros tucks him in, as his mother is still in Veðrborg, helping with the burial of the rest of her clan, while Jake cleans up their teacups. When they’re done, they both step out with Lady Ylva from the tent, watching the fire in the middle of the camp burning away, keeping everyone who’s huddled around it warm.

Tavros studies them, the tired but peaceful looks on their faces. A good portion of the camp might be having nightmarish visions, but they’re doing their best to make sure those won’t happen, and there’s a fragile sort of hope there. The sort that thinks that if they fight it enough, it’s just going to pass them by.

“Lady Ylva?” Jake asks, stepping closer to her. “What’s going to happen?”

The leader of the camp steels her jaw. She’s not looking at the fire, Tavros knows.

“Hopefully, nothing,” she says. “But I’m afraid we’re well past that point, Jake.”