Gazer

If I stare pointedly at the sky, will I see heaven?

If I stare at the stars, will I see God looking back at me?

No... I won't. So, if I stare deep into your eyes, will I see you? The real you, that hides behind that smoky gaze like a frightened gazelle?

I won't... will I?

You told me once that love is based upon trust, that we must believe before we leap, that there must be true faith for a miracle to happen. Actually, you were talking to me about loving God, but that doesn't matter any longer, does it? You were still alive when you said those words... the woman that I thought I knew still smiled back at me behind your gaze. I am no less faithful now, don't misunderstand me, I just see that my belief in you was not strong enough to hold you up, just like your faith in me was not true enough to understand why I did what I did, and why I still do it. It's meaningless in the end, you don't care about my reasons, as long as I believe in you. As long as I fight.

As long as I love you, I am yours; and that is all you need. Never mind what I might want or think of, dream of, for you are lost to me. You gave me the fantasy and took away all reality and as I hold you in my arms I know that you were more my own when I didn't know what the taste of your skin was.

I used to think that there was nothing holier in the universe than the stars, I dedicated my youth to stargazing and charting the movements of the constellations and the moon, in those few nights in which we did not have a permeating wall of clouds to keep us out of the heavens. My father thought it to be a mere fancy and I let him remain that way, if my mother had been alive she would have probably seen what lay behind it. Every night I asked the same question.

Why?

But no one, or nothing, ever deigned to answer. Except you, years later.

When I was dragged out of my bed one night and left to be thoroughly inspected by your father I was afraid, more than I had been in my few years of life. Blue eyes assessed me coldly, looking through me and into my soul.

"He'll do just fine," was all he said, and stormed out of the room. My father knelt before me once the man was gone and hugged me, shivering.

"I had hoped..." hoped that I wouldn't be chosen. He had hoped - against all reasoning- that our blood was watered down enough, and that I was not what your father needed. But the blood of the high caste doesn't grow weaker through the centuries, if anything, it grows. Or so you used to say too, sometimes, with a grim sense of humour that I couldn't quite puzzle.

"Father?" I had whispered, reaching out to touch his beard questioningly. He shook one last time and pushed me away from him, dark brown eyes sinking their claws into mine. Tears still glistened in his gaze, but a cold determination had replaced all emotion. A terrible and frightening.... acceptance.

"Siegfried, you have been given a great honour today." He squeezed my arms painfully. "Live up to it."

A few days later a group of tall haggard men came for me. I didn't understand what was going on, but my father understood it perfectly. He had already packed my belongings.

Though I cried and protested loudly I was not allowed to take my starmaps with me, or the books I had inherited from my mother, that had gotten me into stargazing.

"You will be far too occupied for that," one of the men growled lowly, pulling on my arms as the others took the pack from my father and, having bowed slightly, dragged my out of my home. They hefted me up onto a horse and rode quietly beside me, flanking me to make sure I would not turn back and go home. My father's words still rang in my ears, his sadness and defeat, and still he had used the word "honour"...

"There's nothing to be afraid of child, you have been chosen for a great duty," one of the men told me, his eyes glinting coldly in the pale moonlight. "And we will train you to fulfil it."

"I don't understand," I had whispered, drawing a crooked smile from him, his skin wrinkling like worn leather as the grin widened.

"No, of course you wouldn't...."

It became a little clearer a few days later when I was taken out of the small room where they had held me captive and dragged me once again, this time into a lavishly ornamented quarter where a warm fire burned and the scent of perfume clung to the air. At the centre of the room, in a large bed covered in overhanging draperies a woman lay breathing faintly. I was nudged forward, and found myself standing before a jewelled crib. A soft gurgling sound could be heard coming from it, and I recoiled visibly when a chubby little hand shot out playfully to grab my braided hair.

The woman sighed and opened her eyes, pale lambent sapphires, incredibly tired and sad. "So... you are the one? You are younger than I thought...."

"He'll be six next year, and we can begin training him then, Lady. That way he will get used to protecting her from the start." The tall man who had smiled at me bowed deeply. The woman give him a sour look and sighed again.

"And for what? Why do you insist on making them grow up together when you know that will only make things worse?"

"We don't make traditions lady, we just follow them. No one forced you to do what you did," he answered politely, but the anger on the woman's face made me doubt the politeness of what his words implied.

"Damn you! Did I have a choice? He was all I had ever known... I don't choose who to fall in love with, no one does."

"Nevertheless, he will grow up protecting her, it is the way it goes." I looked at them both, trying to divine the reasons why they seemed to hate each other so much. But the soft laughter of the baby broke the spell of hatred between them. I leaned forward and stared at the pink little creature oddly.

"What's its name?" I asked finally, into the silence. It was the woman who answered, her voice laconic.

"Hilda. Short and simple, isn't it? Hopefully, it will also prove to be wholly unromantic for you."

The men in the room shifted uncomfortably and cleared their throats warningly. She just rolled her eyes and flopped back into the bed, closing her eyes.

"Is she the reason I was brought here?" I asked to no one in particular, still staring at the baby's soft milky features.

"You have been chosen to protect her," one of the men informed me, a hint of envy in his voice.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because your family has been doing so for centuries, though another of the Seven has also been chosen from time to time."

"To protect this girl?" I demanded, turning to face them in angry confusion.

"To protect the Priestess of Odin."

And so it was. They trained me early in the morning and late in the afternoon, the rest of the day I was left to watch over you carefully. To be your playmate, your bodyguard and your confidante. Your mother rarely came out of her room, and when she did and she saw us playing she would often cry and run back into her quarters.

"Think of her as your sister, always!" She would often tell me that, gripping both my hands in hers in a most desperate fashion. "For both of you!"

I didn't really understand what she meant, or why, but I would nod quietly and pretend to know what she meant. You just went around laughing like the little girl you were.

"Sieg! Sieg!" I would answer each time you called me, had dinners with you, helped you mend your dolls and read fairytales out loud if you had trouble sleeping. Your mother never bothered herself with any of this, when I asked her about it once she just shrugged and replied calmly.

"Neither did my sister's mother."

The castle was a puzzle itself, with it's silent and diligent servants and war-bred inhabitants. We were the only children around, and they made us feel it. But you never cared about it, it was the world you had been born into.

"Read it to me again!" was the last I heard from you at night, when you begged for me to read the tragic tales of warriors pitted against dragons and giants over and over again. You often fell asleep halfway through the second reading. But by morning you were up and running already, chasing me into the training grounds with the faithful dedication that, in fact, I was supposed to express towards you.

"But she's like a sister to you, right? Right?" Your mother was obsessed with that, and I would always nod and say yes.

On your fourth birthday it was announced that she was going to have another child, a girl to "carry on the line", was what my teachers said lowly when she wasn't in the vicinity. I didn't really worry over it, you had long since become my primary concern.

I guess back then you were like a sister to me; you were all I had in the whole world and I adored you, from your sprightly smiles to your untameable temper. The people loved you too, you know? Servants would stop on their tasks whenever you ran passed them, braids flying in the air. Your were the light and sunshine of our people; messengers and pilgrims came from far off lands just to get one peek at the Priestess of Odin, while I was blessed to be with you all the time. Always.

And then another boy was brought to the palace, this once younger and blond, with the sculpted features of a little angel.

"I'm Hagen," he informed us mildly before following my teachers. You looked at me questioningly, and I shrugged. I had no idea why the child had been brought, though thinking about it now I realise it was rather obvious. That night I was called before your mother and my teachers once again. It was the first time we were all together since the day I had been introduced to you, almost four years earlier. They looked at me sadly and spoke:

"We won't be your teachers any longer, Siegfried. From now on you must learn to discover your own powers, alone." The looked at Hagen and then back at me. "Hagen will need your help in getting used to the castle too."

I looked at him, feeling chilled by the eerily familiar vision he presented as he was, leaning over the crib where you were born in abject curiosity. "He will stay too?"

"He will protect the second child of our Lady," I was informed. My gaze snapped back at your mother then, who had remained silent all along.

"There will be two priestesses?" I asked, confused by the sudden turn of the developments. But my former teachers shook their heads ceremoniously, as everything they did.

"No, only Hilda will be Priestess, she is the chosen one. Freya will be... different."

"Be what?" I pressed on, trying hard not to stare at Hagen and the crib, whose jewels glinted in the firelight. Your mother broke out laughing then, a sick sour laugh that made my blood curl.

"She'll be a whore... just like me."

Whore wasn't really a word that would fit Freya, she was too innocent and childish, but I never forgot your mother's words. Not even when she died and become nothing more than ashes in a funeral pyre, not even when you didn't shed a single tear for her. For that woman, that gave birth to you and your sister... and that never even told you she loved you. I'm still not sure if she actually did.

Time flew by anyway, and while Hagen and Freya still were content with running around chasing each other, I had stopped chasing you long ago, with the hopes that you might one day start chasing me. Our games were left behind as you learned to perform your rituals and I devoted myself to your protection, but we didn't drift apart. I would stand behind you at all times, cold and loyal despite the fact that you would smile and wink at me at every given chance. I would watch over you as you braided flowers into your hair, when you visited the villages and even when you were invited to dine here or there. I would spend the day at your feet, basking in the warmth of your eyes and your smile, chasing after the perfume in your hair like an intoxicated lover.

I was in love, after all. But...were you?

I like to think you were, despite all that happened later. I like to think that back then, when it was just you and me and the forests... I like to think that you loved me. That you brushed your hair so carefully so I would admire its gloss, that you perfumed your skin with oils so devoutly so I would go mad with your scent each time you leaned forward to whisper something in my ear. So I would ache to hold you and kiss your neck even though by the time I had regained my senses you were already leaning away with a mischievous smile playing across your lips.

How I loved you back then... when we were old enough to be in love and young enough to forget the world existed. I wish I knew if you loved me like that too.

The truth is, I never dared to touch you, to even breathe a word of how I felt towards you. I don't know it you knew, if my reticence angered you or not, or if you were suffering like me, caught in our duties as we were. I learned to respect you as the Priestess that you were, with you even judgement and concern for our people, with your devout prayers to Odin the Allfather and your careful balancing of allies and foes that kept us steadily out of war, ever prosperous.

"Even if it's cold and frozen, this is our land... we must love it!" you had told me once, looking at the stars as I helped you puzzle out each constellation other than the one that belonged to Asgard already.

"You really believe in it... don't you? In Odin and our land?"

"If I didn't, there would be no miracles and no healings... things happen because you surrender yourself to your faith in them, and take a leap." You turned around and stared deep into my eyes, one of your hands straying up to my arm making me shiver with desire. "If you truly believe."

You moved away after that, and I wasn't sure whether you had actually tried to get me to react, or you were simply stating your religious position. But I loved you, back then, more than ever.

And one day I side-stepped.

You tossed a pile of snow into my face and I couldn't resist the childish lure of the games we used to play. The servants ran to their windows when they heard your screams of laughter as I caught up to you and embraced you, melting against the warmth of your back and heady feeling of my crossed arms over your firm stomach. You laughed out loud, leaning into me like a tired lover and I... snapped. I couldn't resist you, never had in fact, so when you leaned backwards and tilted your head up to look at me I buried my face in your neck and tightened my hold on you.

I scared you, didn't I?

Scared you enough that - for the first time in your life- you went running to your father for advice, telling him of what happened and how affected you where. I don't know what he told you, but I know that after that things changed forever. You stopped being playful to me, you stopped touching my arms to call my attention and, to my horror, you stopped telling me your secrets. You retreated from me so thoroughly that before I knew what was going on I was stumbling through odd corners of the palace trying to find the memories of our closeness in dark crevices and old bearskin rugs where we had sat. You were impervious to my approaches, you refused to explain yourself to me.

I came to believe that you never loved me at all, and that all you ever felt for me was nothing compared to what I had grown to feel for you. I thought I would die, but I didn't.

And I couldn't stop loving you, no matter what. Trust me, Hilda, I tried.

I had lost you, all for a momentary loss of protocol that made you condemn me thereupon. But I was your bodyguard, and that would never change. I remained by you, ever faithful and trusting. Attending to you and your wishes, marvelling at your strength and integrity, your complete faith in the future and the love you held for everything and everyone. I consoled myself with being able to share your joys and be beside you every day for the rest of my life, it was enough. My passion for you never left me, but the burning desire gave way to a warm ache that was controllable, and my crazy adoration turned sober and informed. I adored you both as a woman and as a Priestess, and you became sacred to me, untouchable. I came to laugh and shake my head at my ridiculous notions of wanting to love you as a man, seeing the symbol of the Gods that you were, seeing that you were not to be trifled with. I often wondered if your mother had not known you would be this way, having been the one who conceived you.

Freya and Hagen were a different story, no problems were ever posed towards them having a relationship of any kind, and by the time he was fourteen they were already engaged. After all, Freya was only three years younger than him, a perfect distance according to everyone.

And you, my Lady, my Holy One, my Love... what was I to call you if not by your name? It was the last vestige of the intimacy we once shared, and it was enough to fill up my heart just to pronounce the smooth syllables and see you turn around smiling.

Hilda.

My Lady Hilda....

Things were perfect that way, even if a part of me never quite let go of the pain of loosing you as a woman, my life was perfect just by making sure that yours was in turn, perfect too. Your father died not long after leaving you as sole ruler of the lands, which was quite all right as far as the villagers went, everyone loved you. You were....

A Goddess.

So, what was it that changed? Why did this happen... Hilda?

Was it the weather? My company? Loneliness? Too much to take care of?

I don't know, I wish I did so I could help you, but you had long since stopped telling me what passed through your mind and I didn't dare to ask. But... you changed... you became cold and ruthless, daring the forces of the world to defy you as you boldly defied them. You broke the peace treaties that you yourself had carefully designed, you created war and sent our people out to die for nothing!

"We are the Chosen People of the Allfather, we must kill all those who defy us and seek more prosperous lands to thrive in!"

"But my Lady! Asgard is our holy land, this is our test and the proof our worthiness, we can't go out and kill others for their lands!" I had cried, aghast at your words.

"Our ancestors did it once already and won. It is time for us to being a new holy war to save our people and kill the unworthy ones!" you countered, brandishing your onyx lance at me threateningly.

"There are no unworthy ones! You said so yourself once, only people! Hilda!" But you just smiled and shrugged, your eyes burning with malice and defiance as you sat down on your throne.

"Nevertheless...."

I couldn't understand it, why you were doing it, why you had become this monster. All I had thought of you was torn to pieces, my faith and trust in you as our leader crumbled under each new show of dictatorial xenophobic murdering. Until all that remained were the dulled sparks of love -my first true love- and those where all the kept me beside you, even though you were steadily becoming a demon in my eyes. But I was faithful to you... I tried to be.

Freya and Hagen didn't understand you, but Hagen seemed even more certain of his belief in you than myself, terrifying his sweet little fiancée with his uncontested backing up of our Priestess. However, you must have seen my resolve slipping as I drew farther away from you, recoiling from your grim smiles and chilling laughs. I started staying away from you whenever I could, avoiding your presence unless it was strictly duty.

"Are you afraid of me... my warrior?" you whispered in lowly, parting your legs upon your thrown like some monstrous parody of an invitation. It was obscene because you were the one doing it, and tears sprang to my eyes as I watched you, degenerated as you were. You got up smiling darkly and leaned forward, licking a tear off my cheek. "Poor little boy... are you leaving me?"

Leave....

The concept became too tempting, though I had nowhere to go. My father had long since died, I knew no one outside this palace and you... I could not leave you alone.

But when you declared war upon Sanctuary it became too gruesome and meaningless, too terrible to even consider what you where bringing us down to. I decided to leave that night and if possible, take Hagen and Freya with me. I packed my things and worked out how I would do it.

And you knew.... damn you, for knowing me so well.

Arms encircled my shoulders out of the darkness, hands touched my chest invitingly and I heard you chuckling in my ear. "Are you leaving me... Siegfried?"

"Hilda...?" I stammered, trying to move out of your embrace. But you held on, lifting one cold hand off my chest to brush my hair behind my ears, leaning down to nibble on my shoulders. I froze, afraid and caught by the dizzy stupidity of what was going on.

"Gods... Hilda, what are you doing?" I demanded, trying to get you off me, but you held on, like a snake you coiled around my body as strongly as you had once coiled around my soul

"You can't leave me... you love me..." you whispered, pushing me on my back as you climbed onto me, straddling my hips. I shook my head and shivered, and yet unable to fight back anymore. "And you want this... you have always wanted it..."
"No..." I murmured, looking away and closing my eyes as you arched your back and took off the light night-time dress you had been wearing.

Gods, you were beautiful!

From the fullness of your curves to the angles in your hips and tight legs, you were perfection made flesh... but so cold. I could still remember holding you, feeling the world tip off its axis as I lost myself in your hair and the world was covered in snow but you -you!- smelled like fresh flowers in spring, like a warm breeze through the country. And here you were now, cold and unloving, devastatingly sensual and monstrous in the way you abused it.

"Yes... you want this..." you whispered again, leaving down to fumble with my shirt, pulling if off at last and licking up my chest like a cat. I hissed in surprise and pleasure, confused and unreasoning as you swayed your hips over mine like a lazy dancer... terrible friction.

"Leave... I don't..."

"Leave? You are the one who is trying to leave me, and I won't let you! You love me, don't you?" you giggled teasingly, hands moving over my arms and neck as I remained frozen and unresponsive beneath you. Praying that you would give up and leave...

Praying that you would go on.

"I won't... I'll never..."

"But you were going to, and I won't let you..." I wasn't sure of what was going on until I distinctly felt your hands moving up my legs, fighting the strapping of my leather pants as you touched me carefully, trapping me in a spell of a lust I had years in the fighting. "Because... you love me... don't you?"

And you were pushing your hands inside my clothes, fondling me with an ease I did not understand or question, I cried out ... denial? Desire? Both? But you continued, becoming erotically harsh and even heated in you determination.

"You love me... don't you?" you pressed on, pulling and stroking like the skilled lover I knew you weren't, making me shake and arch back into your touches.

"H-hilda..." I gasped, afraid.

"Don't you!?" you were already pulling of my pants by then, stroking my body and inflaming me with a passion that I knew to be forbidden, kissing and sucking and moving all over, determined to get an answer out of me.

"... yes...."

"But I don't love you..."

"I know... that...you... ah!" I twisted on the bed, trying to move away, but you were kissing me and reaching between my legs, making me gasp and shiver even more violently.

"Oh the irony... the maiden rapes the warrior," you intoned in a sing song voice. I growled and pushed you off me, squeezing your arms until I knew it hurt.

"Why are you doing this? Why?"

Why?

"Because I want to, and you will do this for me... love me, Siegfried." It was more an order than anything else.

"I.. can't!"

"But you already do, you fool." Your smile... it was almost like in the old days and it made me want to cry. But you parted your arms like a sacrificial offering, your eyes begging me to reach out for you as your smile remained as sweet and old.

"Please don't..."

"Love me," you demanded, running your fingers through my hair. "Please."

You were right, I already did love you, so you won.

It was heat and passion and terror, you were so cold you burned, your kissed were like frostbite marks against my skin as you writhed and cried out softly. I had dreamed of this so many times long ago, I had never imagined it would be like this... and that you would be so violent and lacking of tenderness. You drove and demanded, and I let you have it all, the full measure of years of contained desire that flamed to live the moment you put your arms around me. I bit you and made you whimper and even when I thought you had enough I drove you harder, pushing you beyond physical endurance until you were the one who was pleading and I could only hide my face in your shoulder and sob brokenly as the pleasure destroyed every ideal I ever had, and your cries of ecstasy burned into my mind like the screams of my dying dreams. I pushed against your hips and took some strange delight in hearing you keen softly, feeling your pliant body molding against mine in sated contentment. I touched your rounded breasts softly, heard you chuckle darkly.

"So soon again?"

I let my hands wander down to your ample hips, stooping lover and in between your legs to find you were as cold as I had indeed felt you to be, like a statue of ice.

"I loved you... you know?"

"Hm... now you love me again, don't you?"

I pulled you onto you back again and drove into you smoothly, saw your eyes fall half-mast as you bit your lip and smiled, responding as I had dreamed you would, gripping my arms and crying out at last as you gave into me and let me control you. I lost track of everything and when at last the searing rays of delight left us I lay panting beside you, feeling sick to my very bones.

"Yes... I love you."

"Don't try to leave me again, then."

You came back many times from then on, I finally realised that you were keeping me with you like this, holding onto your assets however needs be. I felt sick and used, but I could not love you any less. You planned it out perfectly, my Lady. When the adoration I felt for you as a holy icon gave way to disgust and rejection you appealed to the man inside of me, and I was caught. As I said, you gave my fantasy of making love to you, of feeling your body slick and sweaty against mine... but you took away the reality, the Priestess I had grown to believe in... was dead.

I never thought of leaving you again, of course, you knew that. I got ready to fight and die for you, not for a Priestess but for a woman, because against all rationale I still loved you, and I could not help feel that behind all that cruelty, the Hilda that I had fallen in love with as a boy was still alive... somewhere. When Freya came to me pleading for me to stop you I told her I couldn't, you knew this too.
I love you Hilda, I wish you knew how much and I wish I understood why things ended up being this way. Why I can have you in my arms, and yet I know that I have lost you forever, why I can kiss you knowing that I am no more than a dog to you. You aren't telling me anything or giving any explanations.

And I wish you would, I wish you would tell me why you rejected me, why my loving you was so wrong and why I could never do anything right for you. I wish you could tell me why I still love you so much, why I still believe that somehow I can save you and bring the young girl I loved back to life. I wish you could tell me.. but you aren't going to. And while you hold your tongue I must watch in silence and obey as down there, at the summit where you prayed while you were still pure, a Goddess is dying for your cause.

I used to gaze at the stars trying to find heaven between their waning lights and the moon, when that was taken away from me I learned to look for heaven inside your eyes. When that was gone... I learned to find heaven between skin and passion, only to wake up each time and know that you don't care. You want to know what I think? I think God doesn't care, that Valhalla is just a lost ideal and that there is no heaven to be found. All I want is to have you back, and each time I make love to you I know that I have lost you for good. And still I cannot let go. I am still the child I was, trapped in my room with my charts and my stars asking, every single night:

Why?

Tell me...

....someone....

Why?