Where Dreamers Lie
You're dreaming again. The Dream King's voice resounded in Alrik's head, carrying an almost foreboding tone. Open your eyes.
Alrik kept his eyes closed, ignoring the warning. “Nemo,” he muttered, “what do you want this time?”
“Wrong!” The voice of a child shouted from behind Alrik, startling him enough to open his eyes and make a half turn to his left.
Until he realized that he stood on the ledge of the roof. Alrik's feet began to slip as his hips began to sway with his whole upper body. His arms flailed in a vain attempt to catch his balance. He shifted all of his weight to his left again, his feet finally slipping across the ice. Even though his left hand lanced out to brace for the impact, the overall landing still left his lungs devoid of breath. All the while, a child laughed just a few feet away.
Alrik regained his balance and his sense of location. This was the roof of his building, still covered in the snow that was gently falling from the sky. He glanced around, noting the metal fire door with faded red paint that still swinging on broken hinges, passing his eyes over the triangular skylight that the owner installed for the residents of the third floor, and stopped at the child sitting on metal rectangle that could only be part of the ventilation system.
The child was still laughing and pointing at Alrik's sudden lapse of balance. Slowly, Alrik began to rise, straightening his knees first, his mind trying to identify this child.
This young boy left his blonde hair in a wild fashion, as if he let the wind decide how he would look each day. When the child opened his eyes between laughs, Alrik found himself looking into blue orbs that would make the sky jealous. Around the boy's shoulders and wrapped around most of the boy's figure, was a cloak made from the fur of what Alrik could only guess was a wolf. The child did not wear shoes, but did wear pants that were tattered and frayed at the base, as if they were too large until the boy wore them down. With every part of the boy Alrik noticed, the boy only laughed harder.
“Loki,” Alrik stated, gaining his balance on the snow covered roof. “I see Odin let you off your leash?”
Loki stopped laughing but continued to smile, his blue eyes pierced Alrik like a set of daggers. The boy's smile was nothing like Haddad's smile of mirth, nor was it like the formless grin of the Dream King. This smile was that of a predator, while Alrik's cold stare could only be matched with a wounded and cornered animal. Neither of them flinched.
“No,” Loki responded, the high pitched tone of a child's laughter now gone and replaced with the more serious tone of an adult. Loki's voice was reminiscent of the wind: still high pitched, but filled with both mirth and anger.
“Then why are you here?” The wind blew gently. If there was a warning in it, Alrik did not notice. Loki, the trickster, a giant and sworn blood brother of Odin, was not to be trusted, and held Alrik's entire attention. “And what makes you think I won't slay you where you stand and bring your head to Odin's hall?”
Loki chuckled at the hollow threat. “It's not your style to be bloodthirsty. At least not anymore.”
Alrik took a few threatening steps toward Loki. Times change, but some things don't. Alrik felt, rather than heard, the dormant voice within him. The child only raised a hand, and Alrik's movement stopped. “I don't trust you any more than you trust me,” Loki began, not lowering his hand. “Yet I will tell you this: it is in your best interest to not return me to Asgard.”
“And why wouldn't I?” Alrik knew this threat was also empty. He would not want to bring himself before Odin, even with Loki's head. There were just some memories that would keep him there longer than he needed to. And that was if he wouldn't be killed outright for the destruction of a god.
He shook the thought of Odin's hall from his mind. Loki only grinned as he realized that, for the first time in their history together, he had won.
“You and I both know the answer to that.” The adult voice coming from a child's body was almost eerie to Alrik. Almost.
“So why did you come to me? You know that I can't protect you.”
Loki laughed again. “Why would I, the master of deception, come to you, a mere errand boy, for protection?” Alrik's muscles tensed at the insult, but he found himself unable to move his legs any closer to the young avatar of the god. “No, I came to help you.”
This time, it was Alrik's turn to chuckle. “And what do I need your help with?”
Loki didn't speak. Instead, the wind carried the voice that only they could hear.
“No no no,” the voice sang, “no no, no no no no.” The voice was that of a woman, a soprano with some experience.
Alrik looked across the rooftops, seeing large portions of the city that were normally well lit suddenly go dark. The air was filled with screams, pleas for help. Last words suddenly drowned out by waves of echoing voices. Alrik stepped back and held his head, as if the positioning of his hands would keep the voices out.
“No no no, no no.” The soprano kept singing at a pace and to music that was entirely her own. Loki continued to smile.
“Daddy, stop!” Gunshots. “Don't let. . .” The sound of a splash as something fell into the water. “What happened to the lights?” The cruel sound of a blade against a grindstone. “I love you.” The silence of suicide. A flick of a switch. “Fire!” Torches being carried.
“No no,” the soprano continued.
Alrik blinked, and suddenly realized he was no longer on his roof, but instead in a field with knee high grasses that swayed in the summer wind. No trees stood here, no flowers bloomed, only the grass grew. The air smelled of iron. Of flames. Death.
“No no no no.” The soprano held the last note as Alrik moved his hands from his head. “No.” His hands, now clad in thick leather gloves, were coated with blood. His arms were layered in armor, and each movement created sounds of metal rubbing against metal.
“No!” He shouted across the wasteland of the battlefield.
“No!” The echo replied, softer than his own voice yet still carrying the same anguish.
The wind rose again, and the white petals and seeds of flowers that were not present a moment before flew through the air. Like a slow river. Like tears.
“Like snow.” A woman's voice. Soft. Elegant. Kind.
Alrik didn't think as he reached to his left and wrapped his hand around the shaft of the weapon that still rested within a recent victim. He couldn't think, only react. With a feat of strength considered impossible of a man his size, he lifted the scythe from the body and turned, swinging the awkward weapon in a high arc with only his left hand.
The blade of the weapon found the flesh it hungered for, the blood it thirsted for. The young woman who spoke behind Alrik opened her mouth. That was the only feature he could see through the red haze. Nothing of the woman's raven hair, milky white skin or perfectly angled face. Not even her green eyes or small nose. Only the shape of her mouth, releasing a silent plea. Or a curse.
“No no, no, no no,” the soprano continued. Loki continued to laugh to the point of hysteria. Recognition began to return to Alrik, as he realized the gravity of what he had just done.
“Stop!”
Loki laughed again as Alrik realized he was still on the roof, gripping his head in his hands. He slowly removed them, looking and praying that blood would not be present. He blinked once, and found his tears falling onto his clean, bare hands.
“Loki,” Alrik said, his voice taking a gravelly tone, “you're head will be found on a pike if I find you again.”
The trickster stopped laughing but still smiled. “Trust me,” he said, gracefully leaping from the metal box to the edge of the roof. “You won't, little messenger.”
Alrik reached out his hand, trying to prove something to the god, but was not fast enough to even have a feel of the fur of the cloak. Alrik caught himself on the ledge and looked down, his eyes following the cracked bricks and mortar of the boarding house, running between darkened windows of the rooms of sleeping tenants, down to the sidewalk which was illuminated by the last lights of the city. No trace of Loki remained.
Just as quickly as the trickster vanished, the wind picked up once more. No voices were carried in the wind, only the fury and anguish that Alrik felt. The final lights of the city, the lights surrounding his building, suddenly went dark as the sound of water finally proved to the louder than the wind.
