Playing with Fire

Frigg caught us at the reception when we were making our rounds amongst the guests, offering to give us our wedding gift. If Gunnar and I were okay with it she was going to show me events in the future surrounding my new husband and I. That's how she put it anyway.

It was... difficult to watch. Painful, in almost every way it could have been. There was a lot of fire. It reminded me of Afghanistan. I think that unhinged me a little. Death. And things that should have been dead, but weren't. More fire, licking at my skin. I wonder if I would have felt burned, had I not been wearing dad's necklace.

And now, knowing what I know... Well, having seen what I've seen, and suspecting what I suspect, I'm well past the point of no return. I can't lose him like that. I won't lose him like that. Any of them. Nate, Brendan, or... gods, I don't even want to write it down.
I came out of it, hearing myself make a sobbing noise like I'd had the wind knocked out of me. I was crying and Frigg wiped away my tears. She said I could change what I'd seen. She said they were things that only might be. She said that the Aesir strive everyday to prevent such things. And she said, "Now that you are one of us, you had to understand." She said I was one of them.
I told Gunnar everything I saw. I laughed first, gallows humor. Told him he had snakes in his future and then I told him everything. Everything. The cribs, the bodies, the fire, the fights, the grave in Mag Mell and the sick sound of his bones snapping as Gunnar slid down the throat of that massive serpent. So loud.
No.

Gunnar hugged me, doing his best to come up with something reassuring. I... It didn't really help. The words, didn't, anyway. I held onto him for a while, though.

I pulled myself together, barely, and marched myself on over to Gunnar's dad. There's something I'd been meaning to tell him, and this was as good a time as any. I stood up straight, pronounced the words clearly. I'd practiced this, I didn't wanna fuck it up and say something stupid about cheese or squirrels.
"Yfir horn-heillr, koma ikk til ykkarr alfi." At the horn sound, I come to aid you. Just like I'd practiced.
And he slapped me on the shoulder and started laughing. Really loudly. Some of the guests started staring. Including my dad, who glanced at me as he raised an eyebrow. Heimdall kept laughing, and said I was bold enough to be a dude. Well, not in those words exactly. Maybe I shouldn't paraphrase gods, it tends to come out wrong.
He answered me in Old Norse, just as I'd addressed him. "I would think my son married a man for your boldness, daughter. If I were a few millennia younger..." His eyes twinkled a little and I was really glad he stopped that train of thought where he did. I'd probably just embarrass myself when I tried, and failed miserably, to beat the hell out of my godly father in law for sounding like he was about to hit on me. On my wedding day. "Well, let us not speak on that." Then he switched to English. "I'll hold you to that. My horn will call to your ears as well then!" Then he started yelling for more food, music and wine. I'm pretty sure he was using his mortal form to "get his drank on."
So, of course after that loud display my dad comes over. I was still working on that whole um... composure thing. He asked me what that was all about, and I'd been kinda hoping to avoid that conversation. I'm not sure if he saw the exchange with Frigg. I glanced in Gunnar's direction, which I shouldn't have done, because all those visions came flooding back and there went my composure again. Tears started welling up in my eyes. Dammit.
"I promised Heimdall I would help," I said quietly to my dad, still looking at Gunnar.
"Help with what, Laurel? Laurel?"
I turned my face back to my dad, several tears spilling down my cheeks. "The end," I kept my voice quiet, hoping that would keep it steady. It didn't. "I don't want to lose him, Dad."
"What are you talking about?" I realized here that I probably looked a bit like a crazy woman, breaking down like this, even if it was being done with relative subtlety (for me), in the middle of my own wedding reception. "Laurel, listen. Do you remember what I told you when I was Hal?" Just the mention of that name calmed me down. "About dying is what you do when you're done living?" He paused, waiting for it to come back to me.
It did. It was back in 2003, the first night I really talked about what happened to me. I told him - Hal - that my mom was dead and that it still hurt. He told me it always would, to get fucking used to it, cuz that's what people do when they're done living. They die.
I nodded a bit, blinking to clear my vision. He continued, "From what I know about Gunnar he's a man that won't be done living for a very long time. And if he gets lost for some other reason I gotta believe you'll be shining the light to find him. I would have put a stop to this marriage if I thought it was wrong. But that man loves you and I can see it. He isn't going anywhere, peach. I promise."
I took a deep breath, looking steadily now into my dad's eyes. Part of me wanted to chide him, warn him not to make promises he couldn't keep, tell him that I know that not even we - those who get glimpses at the designs of fate - really know what the future holds. But I was grateful for his concern, his faith in us, and most of all for his uncanny ability to simultaneously incite in me a reaction of irritation and relief. I didn't wanna piss my dad off by arguing with him, or sounding like a know-it-all. So I hugged him, tightly. Pulling back, gazing intently at his eyes again, I just said, "He'll go where he has to." I smiled fondly, if not just a little apologetically, "I just hope you understand when I follow." I kissed him on the cheek and set myself back about mingling.

Several things occurred to me as we hugged one another. I saw a lot of pain, and many deaths that had already happened. But I didn't actually see any of my friends die. I saw them suffer, and well... that sucks. Pain sucks, but it's survivable. Personal experience, there.
And it occurred to me that I know Gunnar is tough. He's going to have to be, to keep up with me.

I'll have to get clever to keep them safe. Clever and tenacious. Resourceful. I might have to break a few laws. Most likely physics. Maybe gravity, too.

"Daddy, I'm not gonna tell you that I'm sorry
And there ain't nothin' you can do to change my mind...

...Perhaps this calling is the channel of invention
And I will not blush if others see it as a crime
However dangerous the road, however distant
These things won't compromise the will of the design

Ten thousand demons hammer down at every footstep
Ten thousand angels rush the wind against my back
This church of mine may not be recognized by steeple
But that doesn't mean that I will walk without a god

Rolling river of Truth, can you spare me a sip?
The holy fountain of Youth has been reduced to a drip

But I've got this burning belief
In salvation and love
This notion may be naive
But when push comes to shove
I will till this ground."
Brandon Flowers, Playing with Fire