Why are you still gone?
He thought, taking slow, deep breaths.
You know I don’t hate you, so why do you have to keep us apart?
Could the Elf have stayed with the woman, or had he simply kept his distance because he was afraid of what might happen when they met again?
Or,
Odin wondered, could he be so ashamed of what he did that he could not bear to look upon his face again?
Come on, Miko.
Please.
His torturous thoughts stopped when an idea hit him.
Why hadn’t he thought of it before? How could something so simple, something that required absolutely
no contact at all,
stay in the back of his mind until just now?
Maybe because I’ve been too stressed out to think about it?
Chuckling, Odin unlocked his hands from the bottom of his knees and extended his wrists, beginning to conjure the image of the white dove his friends from Elna had taught him to use. Fueling said image with all the grief, pain and hardship he’d experienced from the past few days and what little happiness that had arose from remembering said technique, he brought the bird into existence, its form shimmering to being. A smile crossed his face when it began to jump and flap around his hands.
“Hey,” he said, hoping the sound of his voice wouldn’t wake Nova. “It’s me.”
He paused, not sure how to continue the message. The bird cocked its head, as if it bore intelligence beyond what Odin had consciously passed into it, and cooed. He found himself smirking, because he hadn’t even tried to make the bird react to his pause.
Just keep going.
“I’m not mad at you, sir,” he added, with confidence he hadn’t felt until just then. “Please, come back to the cottage. I… I miss you, and I hate not knowing where you are or how you’re feeling.
Please,
come back. I want to see you again.”
With that said, and his words foretold, he broke the connection between him and the summon and cast it into the air to set it free. It flew a complete circle about the room before disappearing through the northern wall, leaving Odin to sit and wonder whether or not the creature he’d come to think of as his second father would actually return.
What seemed like forever later, Miko stepped into the cottage. He turned and closed the door behind him, but made no move to disrobe.
“Hello sir,” Odin said, standing to cross the room, but taking extra care to keep a safe distance between the two of them. “I’m sorry about what happened a few nights ago. I shouldn’t have questioned your actions.”
“You had every right to. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You were just hurt and upset about what I said.”
“I shouldn’t be hurting the young man I’m supposed to be protecting.”
Miko reached up and pulled his hood from his head. His eyes, now revealed for the first time since he’d stepped in, looked sad and glossed over, like pools sallow and speckled with blood. He imagined the Elf might cry if he said the wrong thing.
“Please,” Odin sighed, reaching out to touch his master’s arm. “Don’t be sad. I forgive you.”
“I don’t deserve forgiveness, Odin.”
“You made a mistake. Everyone makes them.”
“I shouldn’t. What would happen if I made one out in the field or during battle? One little mishap could get one of us killed.”
“You shouldn’t be thinking about things like that. It doesn’t have anything to do with what we’re talking about.”
“Yes it does.”
“No, sir—it doesn’t.”
For the next several moments, they stood in silence—Odin unsure what to say, Miko likely the same. The Elf was the one who took the initiative. Instead of saying something, however, he began to pull the rest of his dark clothing off, careful to cast them aside, then walked to the bed that he hadn’t lain for days. There, he did the unclasp of his cape and let it fall to his feet, then descended, drawing the fabric around him like a child would a blanket. “I’m going to bed,” the Elf said, looking over his shoulder.
When Miko lay down, Odin wasn’t sure what to expect.
On sudden impulse, he crossed the room and covered his knight master with a second blanket before the Elf had a chance to do so.
“Thank you, Odin,” the creature said. “I don’t deserve your kindness or respect.”
Leaning forward, Odin draped an arm across the Elf’s back and placed his hand right below the strong ribcage. He held the embrace for what seemed like an eternity.
When he pulled away, Miko rolled over to face the wall.
The gesture began the ache in his heart all over again.
“He apologized then?” Nova asked.
“No,” Odin said.
“What?”
Odin kicked a rock that lay in his path and looked up at his friend. Nova frowned, reaching up to scratch his cheek. “I don’t get it,” Nova said. “I thought you apologized?”
“I did.”
“But he didn’t apologize back?”
“He said, ‘I should be the one apologizing’ and, ‘I shouldn’t be hurting the young man I’m supposed to be protecting,’ but not that he was sorry or ashamed of what he did.”
“He doesn’t know how to apologize to you, Odin—that’s all.”
“I know.”
Another rock soared through the air, this time colliding with a house. It only barely missed the window. “I need to quit doing that,” he mumbled.
“Odin,” Nova said. “Listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re not keeping anything from me, are you? You two didn’t get into a fight or anything?”
“No, we didn’t. He seemed… unsure about coming back.”
“Do you blame him? It
was
the first time he’d seen you in a few days.”
“I expected him to be glad that I forgave him, not… well… depressed.”
“He’s different from us, you know? Besides—we can’t expect him to react the way we want him to.”
“I know.”
Another sigh escaped his lips, but this time he managed to resist the urge to kick another rock. Instead, Odin crouched down and picked up one of the stones. He examined hits surface and pondered why it was white until Nova set a hand on his back.
“You need to talk again. He needs to apologize for hitting you.”
“He did.”
“As far as you told me, he
didn’t
apologize. Let me finish though.” Odin nodded. Nova waited another moment, likely expecting Odin to counteract, then let out a deep breath. “As I was saying,” he continued, “he needs to apologize for hitting you, and you need to make sure he understands that
you
apologized. It sounds like he shrugged off what you said because he didn’t think he deserved an apology.”
“Why do you think that?”
“You said he rolled over after you stopped hugging him, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what makes me think that.” Nova pried the rock from between Odin’s clenched fist. “Pretty rock. You gonna keep one?”
“How come?”
“Don’t you want something to remind you that we were here?”
“I… I guess.” He hadn’t ever considered taking home a souvenir.
“Well, I know I’m keeping one.”
Rather than pocketing the rock Odin had just held, Nova reached down and figured through the patch until he found a stone worth keeping. He slid it into his pocket, then took Odin’s hand and set the rock in his palm.
“You could’ve taken mine,” Odin said.
“I know, but I want you to keep this one, ok?”
“Ok.”
“Like I said, talk to him again, all right?”
“I will, Nova. Don’t worry… I will.”
“You want to talk about it?”
Miko looked up. He’d only risen from sleep because Odin had asked to speak with him, though rather than secure his cloak around his naked upper torso, he’d wrapped it around himself and remained placid, eyes dull and face devoid of expression. “No,” the Elf said, then sighed, “but we have to.”
Sitting down, Odin crossed his legs and set his hands in his lap. He waited until the Elf raised his eyes, then to see if he would speak. When he didn’t, Odin took a deep breath and decided he would have to go first. “You know I meant it when I said I was sorry,” he said, “right?”
“I know your apology was sincere.”
“But do you know I meant what I said?”
Miko said nothing at first. Gradually, though, he expelled a breath from his pursed lips and nodded. “I didn’t want to believe it, but yes, I do.”
“Why didn’t you want to believe it?”
“Because I don’t deserve to be forgiven.”
“You made a mistake, sir. Like I said, I don’t blame you. If I were you, I probably would’ve hit me too.”
“You would?”
Though his choice in words had been a bit harsh and one-sided, Odin nodded. They at least held some semblance of honesty, especially given the situation. “I called you a rapist,” he began, then almost continued with an ‘I know you aren’t before thinking better of it. “I know I won’t ever understand what you go through, but I can try and understand how bad the urge must have been.”
“I hope you never feel so great an urge, regardless of what I told you. She bled.”
“She was a virgin?”
“Yes. She… was afraid of my organ. She begged me not to… to lay with her, but I was so far gone that I couldn’t resist. I hurt her, Odin—I hurt her more than I have any other woman I’ve been with. You should’ve seen the sheets after I was finished. They were covered in blood.”
The Elf bowed his head. He failed to hide the tears that the light caught and reflected.
“Sir,” Odin sighed. “Please… dn’t cry.”
“You were right, Odin. I
did
rape her. I gave in to the beast and let it do whatever it wanted to do to that poor girl. I… I wanted to keep going even after I released myself ten times.”
Ten times?
Was it even possible for someone to go for so long, for a woman to endure such pain? Miko’s organ was not small, by any means. He’d been surprised at its size back in Ornala, when he’d seen it flaccid and free of arousal. How large was it when thick and full of blood—double that length, maybe more?
“Sir—”
“She screamed,” Miko said, his voice dull and without emotion.
“Sir?” Odin asked. “Are you—”
Slowly, with grace that seemed impossible given to the situation, Miko pushed himself to his feet and set his fingernails to his arms, where there he began to dig his fingers into his flesh. Sharpened, horribly, to vicious points, they cut through skin like knives and brought forth blood so dark and black Odin wondered but for a moment if it was not blood but sludge. In turn, it took him several uncalculated moments to recover, and when he did Odin grabbed the Elf’s wrists and managed to pry them apart, but not without slicking his fingers in blood.
“Nova!” Odin screamed. “Nova!
NOVA!”
Nova burst into the room from the outside world and forced himself between the two of them, grabbing Miko’s bloodied hands. Somehow—and how, Odin felt he would never know—Nova forced the distraught Elf against the wall, pressing their bodies together like two lovers tangled in a frenzied fit of cannibalism.
“KNOCK IT OFF!” Nova screamed, slamming his chest into Miko’s what all his might. “STOP!”
“Let go of me,” Miko said, voice still devoid of its conscience.
Odin pressed up against Nova’s back.
With the combined weight of Odin and Nova against his body, Miko gave in. He stopped moving, struggling, even screaming. Instead, he bowed his head into Nova’s neck and remained silent, his body free of all struggle and his breath nearly inaudible in spite of the violence wreaking havoc through the room.
Finally, when the words began to make sense, they became stutters—long, drawn-out vowels that only bore one word. “I,” it was. “I… I—”
“Quit,” Nova said. “No more.”
“I—”
“It’s over, Miko. You can’t change what you’ve already done.”
The Elf’s eyes began to darken at a considerable pace.
Is he,
Odin thought, but didn’t finish, as soon after the Elf’s entire body went slack in Odin’s arms.
When he was unsure—when he knew not how to respond, to act or to say in response to this strange and somewhat-euphoric sense of admittance—Odin took several steps back and watched.
In but a short moment’s time, Nova drew the Elf away from the wall and pressed him down into the ground.
There, at the depths of his own cruelty and mercy, Miko lay silent.
Odin closed his eyes.
Just what was it he would do?
The whole while his arms were being bandaged, the Elf didn’t say a word, nor did he protest when Odin led him to his makeshift bed on the floor and told him go to sleep. Throughout the whole ordeal, Nova watched with his arms crossed over his chest, barely moving and hardly breathing at all. It was as though they were being watched by some higher, greater thing, and for that they didn’t speak a word. They could, it seemed, be judged at any moment, and for that silence seemed the greatest answer.