(no subject)

[allfather-odin.livejournal.com]

Date: May 20, 2000 (Frigga Blot)
Setting: The Manor Dining Room
Status: Public (Everyone join!) 
(Also used for the writing challenge (sorry, quite long)- if you want to skip the memories, just scroll down to the (***)
Summary: Wednesday throws a party

In the bottom of Wednesday's trunk, buried under relics and runes, marked cards and false coins, is a photograph.  Its one of the few photos he owns.  Most of his memories date back long before George Eastmann (1) was born.  

Wednesday doesn't look at the picture much.  He doesn't need to.  He knows every line, could easily reproduce it if he wanted to, can see it when he closes his eyes at night.  The picture is of a woman, her back to the camera, red hair bound and keys jangling by her side.  She doesn't look much different then she did in the First Days.  Her skin is still creamy white, her posture straight.  She does not bow her head even though her hair is blown by wind.  

Sometimes Wednesday pauses, remembers before he was "Wednesday," thinks back to the days when he was Oðinn, Lord of the Aesir, Grimnir and the Terrible One.  He would travel, always searching for more knowledge, more conquests, more virginal damsels.  But always he would return to her in Fensalir.  More of a home than his own hall could ever be.  Her handmaidesn would attend to him as though he had never been away. 

She, on the other hand, was another story.  She was his equal.  Equal in wisdom, equal in ardor, and equal in spite.  She could greet him with a cold shoulder that rivaled the icy grip of Nifleheim.  Her back turned to him as she spun on her loom, weaving the fates of men.  Yet once he was back in her good graces, the doors to the cosmos were flung wide.

The truth is he always suspected that she knew more than he did, and he knew that he was probably right in the suspicion.

And he loved her.  Yes, though he loved many others, it was her face he dreamed of at night.  Her swift wit and cutting tongue that kept him sharp.  Sustained by the thought that at one time he had loved and been in love with a woman that could challenge him, always keep him guessing, and usually come out on top in the end.

He had last seen her in Berkeley.  She had always been adaptable, even more than he was.  She had her own shop; selling tapestries and reading the cards.  He had laughed when he saw her, for she was coning the marks just as he did.  The cards meant nothing, merely a prop for the grift.  It was in her tapestries that the true secrets were kept.  With the same steady hands and un-erring words, she could tell her customers their fate.  A steady point in a changing world.

He had taken the picture without her knowing.  The only photograph he ever took.  One final day in her arms, the sound of her voice in his ear.  He had snapped the photo as she walked away, her head unbowed, her hair as red as the heart of a fire, and keys at her belt that would never agains open doors.  

***
Wednesday woke up early that morning.  He had a lot to prepare.  Mead to be bought, food to be cooked, arrangements to be made.  But in the end it was worth it.  By 6pm, the dining hall no longer had the feeling of a cafeteria.  Wood smoke hung in the air.  Thick scents of meat and bread wafted down the halls.  When the old god closed his eyes he could almost imagine he was back in Fensalir.  With his wife's picture on the mantle, he traced runes.  Runes to gather all the inhabitants of the manor.  With them he hoped to celebrate her name.

(1) Inventor of the camera- (I wasn't sure if it would be too obscure.)

Comments

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

Uriel was getting quite hungry by now. Therefore, the scent of food filling the corridors drew her towards the dining hall even more surely than her brother's runes (not that she was aware such things had been traced).

As she stepped into the room and saw the changes to it, her eyes widened. The next moment she spotted her brother standing there. "Odin?" she asked, a bit hesitant. She wasn't sure how to react to what obviously was his doing. "What's the meaning of this?"

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Feeling Wednesday's call, Adam headed to the restaurant to find Wednesday, Uriel, and Loki together in a transformed space. The atmosphere was tense and he figured that he'd better stay just to keep an eye on things. Greeting Odin with a grin, Uriel with a wave, and Loki as nonthreateningly as possible, he sat in a chair a bit away from where they were talking and looked on.

[entropyoptimism.livejournal.com]

Destruction approached the manor jauntily, a smile on his face and a dog by his side.

"Someone's having a party." Said the dog, sniffing the air.

Destruction raised an eyebrow. "And you were invited, were you?"

"Are you a dog? Can you smell mead from a mile away? I bet you'd like to."

Destruction laughed and entered the manor. He located Odin's telltale signature and headed in that direction. Who else would have mead around here? Oh, even he could smell it by now. And now he thought about it, wasn't this that time of year...

The dining hall. He opened the door and walked in. "Odin!" He roared. "You have the first Frigga Blot in how many years and you don't invite your old drinking buddy?"

[leucemic-god.livejournal.com]

The door opened and Adam walked in. Loki tensed right away. He'd thought he'd feel safe enough with Odin there to protect him, but now found himself wishing for the wolves, and about half of the Norse pantheon as well. Even Heimdall and Frey would have been very welcome to him at this point.

Instead a man with a dog walked in as if he owned the place and seemed to be very familiar with Odin. Loki glared at the stranger and sincerely hoped that Odin hadn't adopted yet another blood-brother. Under other circumstances he would have challenged him, but he was feeling weak and didn't want to attract any attention from Adam.

[allfather-odin.livejournal.com]

Wednesday looked around the hall. There were fewer people that he expected, but the ones he was closest to were there. And perhaps other might filter in. Either way, it was time for the speech.

Taking Uriel by the hand, he lead her to a seat at his left hand at the table, Loki he sat on his right. He indicated for the other two to sit down next to his kin.

"I wish to welcome you all. Today I wish to remember my equal. The woman that made my existance complete. Schopenhauer proclaimed that life without pain was meaningless. Well, she gave my life meaning alright. She could be as stubborn, as pig-headed, as rude and as cutting as anyone. She was so proficient in these catagories that she challenged even me when it came to possessing them.

"Today I honor you, Frigga. My wife, my counterpart, the thorn in my side. I would be no where without you. Today I raise my glass, remebering the good and the bad. Frigga, wherever you are, I love you."

Raising his glass of mead, he indicated for everyone else to do so as well. He fucking hated mead, but today, for her, he would drink.

[chantinellie.livejournal.com]

Ellie peeked cautiously into the room, taking a quick inventory of its occupants before she stepped inside. Most of them she knew and was at least on speaking terms with, and the one she didn't hardly seemed threatening beside the likes of Adam, Odin and Destruction.

She was a bit too late to join in the toast, but that was all right; it hardly seemed appropriate anyway, and she doubted the old god's wife would be properly appreciative of her good wishes, even if she were present to receive them. She tended to have that effect on wives in general, for some odd reason. (1)

That didn't mean she had nothing to contribute to the party, though. She'd been waiting for an opportunity like this one, and smiled to herself as she sent out a silent call to someone who had been asked to listen for it months before.

Not wanting to interrupt, she folded her arms and leaned against the doorjamb to wait until the formal part of the proceedings was done, and for her surprise to arrive.

---

(1) If you detect a note of sarcasm in Agent Scully's voice...