Resistance and Steps

This is a flash piece drafted as part of a prequel adventure with my co-author as she participates in a writing challenge and we work on our shared universe. The flash pieces posted here are part of rough draft scenes that may make it into our future novels or may just be used to help flush out our shared universe.

Here are the shorts we've written so far for the prequel, in chronological order:

• Birthright
• Ice Queen
• Brother's Keeper
• Final Hour
• Resistance and Steps (this story)
• Forsaken
• Goodbye, Good Friend
• Inheritance
• A Winter's Bargain
• Death Finds All
• Homecoming
• Reconnection
• The Hour of the Wolf

Hotel Fen, the first published book of the series, follows after this point.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Hodr listened to someone move about his room, the shuffle of the feet telling him it was a servant of some kind. A hesitance in the movements told him whoever it was, they were likely afraid to get too close but were also ordered to come in and clean the Prince’s space. Untouched plates of food, were mostly what sat waiting for clean up.

His mother had already been in to try and get him to get out of bed, to get up and walk around, to do anything but lay with his head buried among the pillows like a half-dead lump. Her words. The one time he’d let her drag him out of his room in the last month, he’d ended up walking into a table in the hallway, not used to the loss of his sight and Baldr had made a joking comment about needing a seeing assistant.

From what he’d heard from the servants, it had taken almost two weeks for the hallway to thaw from the ice that had practically exploded out of him.

Though, their mother was lucky he hadn’t found and drawn a sword on his brother for even getting close enough to see him walk into the table, let alone make a comment about it.

“My boy, you need to eat, to live again. I know coming out of the spell has been hard,” Frigg’s voice came from where he knew the door was in the room. He’d heard it open and close enough times while he lay in bed wishing his father had just erased them together, sent them together wherever his wife had gone. All he had to cling to was that their future was tucked safely in a corner of a realm his father would never find.

Hodr didn’t answer her, tired of arguing with everyone that there was no spell. Tired of everyone arguing that he had no wife, that the woman he thought he remembered was a spell, a dream from the fae that had turned him against his family. He knew desperately in his heart that she had existed. That he had loved her. Married her. That they had shared everything.

Her fingers brushed his matted hair off his forehead to bare half his face. The other half was resting, hiding, against the pillow. He didn’t know what his face looked like anymore, but people went silent when they saw him so he knew it was bad.. “My son, it hurts to see you so, what can I do?” Frigg’s voice sounded almost pleading.

With a huff, he turned his head a little. “There is nothing to be done.” His voice sounded harsh, almost a croak from ill use. “I have nothing to live for anymore. He has taken everything from me. They both have.”

“Hodr, they have done nothing of the sort,” Frigg sighed when her words caused him to hide his face back into the pillow. The pillow felt cold, a little wet and he wasn’t sure if he was crying or if it was frost. “You need to come out at some point. You really will waste away if you don’t, and I do not wish that for you.”

He didn’t answer her this time. Odin and his brother were war heros, bringing him home after the fae used him to take Jotenheim and march on Asgard. People saw him as a trader, spell or none. Yet he couldn’t argue that either, not completely. He had turned his back on Asgard, on his father in favor of his wife, his Queen, his heart. A heart that beat too slowly, a heart that ached with every breath because it was missing its other half.

No, no matter what Odin spun, Hodr held onto the feel of her lips on his, her hand resting over his heart on his chest, her words murmured and whispered in his ear, and her laughter on the wind.

“My Queen, there’s more in the corner.” The servant sounded hesitant to address his mother, to have to tell her that they’d found something in his room.

Frigg’s weight lifted from the bed and he heard her steps take her to a small corner near the window. A sigh and a shift of her weight that made the floor creak with it. “I don’t understand why the flowers are growing in here. Get someone to remo-”

Before she could finish the order a lattice of ice grew from the floor, caging off the silverfrost flowers without him even needing to see where they were. “Don’t.” The one word was snarled from the hidden prince, not even having sat up to use his magic to seek out and protect their shared symbol of love.

“Hodr.” Her tone was sharp now, starting to get aggravated with him. Without another word, she left and the servant left shortly after her, leaving him with his ice and his flowers.

~~ * * * ~~ * * * ~~

He’s not sure how long his mother left him alone. Servants brought drinks, food, sweets, anything to try and lure him to eat. The only thing that settled was some of the fruit occasionally, eaten after he knew he was alone. But time itself held almost no meaning to him anymore.

A groan left him as the bedding was stripped from the bed and him at some point and his mother clicked her tongue, a sound he knew was just completely her. Before he could groan or question what she was doing, small but strong hands pulled him up out of the bed and over a shoulder. The woman was tall enough that even with him half over her shoulder, he didn’t reach the floor.

It’s the slap to his ass that tells him who it is and earns a low growl from him but doesn’t draw any frost or ice. “Put me down Yrsa.”

“No. My Queen has ordered you bathed, but also said any time one of your brothers tries to enter the room, the doorway freezes over. So I’m the next choice.” She walks with him over her shoulder to midway into the room before dumping him unceremoniously into the tub of hot water. She paid no care that it sloshed water over the edge of the tub and onto the floor, instead, her hand caught his head and she shoved him under the water for a moment, soaking him from head to foot.

“Ymir save you,” he growled. But still, there was no frost to back up his anger. Yrsa was likely the only person his mother could have gotten that he’d take this from other than his wife. But, he trusted Yrsa with his life, even though she didn’t believe him about his wife, she hadn’t pushed him to believe the rest of Asgard about being spelled either. Merely let him have his mind.

The scrape of a stool told him she was sitting next to the tub as light hands started to brush out his hair, which had grown considerably since his blinding. And constantly living in his bed had left the locks matted and dirty. “Growl all you want, but you’re getting clean at least. Servants are stripping the bedding and replacing it as we get you washed. Even if you go back to bed, your mother is trying to care for you.”

A huff left him, but he sat still and didn’t growl at the servant. They were just following orders. “How nice of her.”

“She said she had a present for you if you were good too,” Yrsa teased. “In all seriousness though, she is just worried about you. We all are, Hodr.” Her voice sobered and her hand came to rest on his arm where it was settled along the edge of the bathtub. “We’re here for you.”

His head dipped down a little as he sighed. “I’m not the same man I was before. Everything has changed, who I can trust has changed. Even if no one believes me, I know the truth.” Even Yrsa didn’t believe him, even if she followed him more faithfully than anyone else. He’s pretty sure it’s their years of training and the missions they’ve been on.

Yrsa’s hand squeezed his arm. “Right now, I think we need to just focus on how to get you out of bed a little more. Your mom doesn’t want to fight with you anymore.”

“So she sent you to peace keep.” He grumbled. Though he fell silent for the rest of the bath, even as Yrsa chatted a little about what was going on out on the training field, what she thought of the new recruits, how she hoped he’d get back out there and learn to fight despite the loss of his eyes eventually. Not that he answered anymore, but he eased into the warm water and the servant as she finished his hair and scrubbed his skin until it felt raw.

Yrsa helped him up and into a pair of linen pants before he was allowed to fall back into bed, stubbing his toe twice in the short walk back. The reason he trusted Yrsa over his brothers or mother, she made no comment about his inability to know where things were or lack of sight, just helped guide him around what he’d hit and back to bed.

“I’ll check back in after a few days. Maybe your surprise will cheer you up.” Yrsa squeezed his shoulder before she took her leave.

A few hours, if he had to guess, his mother came into his room. Her perfume told him it was her the second she opened the door but a whine had him turn his head curiously. “I see Yrsa was able to make some progress.”

“It’s hard to argue with her when she just picks you up and dumps you in a tub of water,” he countered. Did he feel better for his hair being washed, brushed, and braided? Yes. Did he want to admit it? No, he wanted to curl back up into his now clean pillows and continue to just sink into his memories of the past and his lost love. But his mother wasn’t going to let him, at least not yet.

Another whine and her mother made a frustrated sound and something heavy landed on the bed. It weighed more than his mother, that was for sure. And he felt it wiggle a little to feet before the weight moved up the bed to him. A hand reached out to find soft fur as a cool tongue caught his cheek and licked up with a happy sound. “What…”

Frigg’s weight settled on the bed across from him, though the furry creature never took his attention from Hodr. “We found him out in the forest and I thought since both of you were lost, maybe you could help each other find your ways.”

The creature gave a soft bark before wiggling against Hodr’s chest to settle on him. A happy sound left it as Hodr’s hand stroked through the fur slowly, gently. Something in Hodr’s chest eased and he wasn’t sure why. “I don’t,”

His mother’s hand settled over his own, stopping his words. “Just live with him for a few days, see how you feel first. He needs a good home, and I think you’d be good for him. He also seems already taken with you. And still needs a name.”

“Garmr,” he murmurs softly as his hand continues to pet his new friend. The beast barked happily, like it liked and accepted the name as he burrowed into Hodr and the bed. Though after a moment, it gave a large yawn.

“I’ll leave you two to get to know each other.” Before she left, she leaned and placed a kiss to Hodr’s forehead. “Just a small step, my son.”

He couldn’t argue her, not with the warm weight against him as he shifted to rest in bed and hug the creature to him. Dog, he thought, at least as best he could because Garmr felt huge against him, but soothingly warm.

It was later that Hodr really knew the two were going to be a pair. Even if it didn’t ease missing his wife, it gave him someone else to focus on. As Hodr got out of bed to take Garmr for a walk, as all pets needed, any time Hodr was about to run into something, Garmr would bark and stop his steps, and then the dog would nudge him this way or that to ensure he stepped around the obstacle. Helping him see carefully, to get around better. It was the first step, really, in at least moving forward and getting out of bed.