Hafleikr

This is the house right at the water’s edge, Hafleikr likes it here. She doesn’t fear its cold grey kiss so much as she would the loss of it.

She can sing a charm to call the gulls, when she sings part of her becomes the wind and a little more the mist.

Her eyes change with the seasons and tides. Spring is pearl, henna and coral, summer is sand, amber and aqua marine autumn is honey topaz and jet, winter is cloud, ice and jasper, but at night they are always the same, at night they are always full of stars.

Though she wears a delicate shell and takes her food from the land, she is strong and lithe. One touch of those slender fingers and the soil bursts forth with flowers and fruits. I have seen them grow just to reach out and caress a lock of her long wild hair.

She didn’t think I knew about her dreams, she hid them well beneath her eyes. But I know they are there because when she sleeps she talks of them and her spirit walks out and is hungry for the damp stones and the grey sea full of stars. I have seen her calling to the moon and I have seen the moon listen.

Once she whispered all night and made a fog that saved the beast. The sea is hers too, it cares for the great seahorses and covers the coils of the beast and like a lover it will wrap its self around her.

When men come and try to kill her beast she whispers up a fog that fills the whole bay, and keeps on whispering and whispering until the boat and the men disappear.

Look there are her footprints, I have told you I have seen all this. Go and look, you too may see wonders you never imagined or dreamed of. Fall into those eyes too you will see all.
You will sup at her table and the food will be like nothing you ever tasted. So clean and full like food from the beginning of time. Go, she will whisper you a fog, charm the birds and call the sun awake in the middle of the night. You will know great pleasure with her and you will see the world as if anew.

But remember this when you hear the voices of seahorses out in the darkness, you’ll wake only to a cold shadow drifting across the room.

Sitting for hours eaten up with worry, counting the ticks of the clock and the waves lashing the frail door, you will not by then be able to live without her. You will dream only of her eyes, all other food will be tainted. You will be sick for the want of her and no amount of her company will reduce your longing. Your hunger for her will increase with each caress and you will feel the total dread of the lack of her presence. Your pain will become unbearable, you will never have felt its like and it will only get worse.

But have a care, though you will feel such longing and terror at the mere thought of her absence, never follow her into her dreams. For her sea beast is wild and jealous. Perhaps he too feels something of a similar pain and longing.

I could tell you of the paths darkness that night, my last with her, though I didn’t know it then. I could tell of the moon that caught me out, straight after she had called it. I had heard the voices of seahorses before I was luckier then, but not that night. No that night I was caught in its brightness.

I could tell of the look of love in her eyes, like the one I had always hoped to see there among the stars, the words falling from her mouth like pebbles and the beast taking them and caressed them as if they were her lips.
I could tell you how he turned and I could see his pain and that it matched my own and that he knew then that I was the one who shared her.

I could tell you when he smiled that’s when I feared him most, the pain was still inside that smile and it was terrifying. Or that, that’s how he knew the worst thing that could happen, the worst punishment.

I could tell you how it hurt her too, how he made her look away, each tear made the ground tremble.

I could tell you, but you’re not listening are you?

I know the signs.

Off you go then, learn the hard way. I see your point, after all who would listen now?

Now I’m just a pebble on the beach?