“Cup!” Jorg said smiling up at her and making grabbing actions with his hands, “cup!” Thyri walked into the kitchen, grabbed his cup from the worktop and marched back into the living room. She handed it to her son and he snatched it from her.
“Drink too fast and you’ll make yourself sick,” she told him, feeling the familiar stirrings of irritation deep in her stomach. Jorg stopped drinking, lowered his cup and tipped his head to one side as if considering her. Thyri stared back. When he started to drink again he did so more slowly and she ruffled his strawberry-blonde hair with her hand. The little boy gave a contented giggle.
“Gone!” he announced handing her back the empty cup. Thyri took it back into the kitchen. When she returned to her son he was on his feet. He had pulled himself into a standing position using the bags stacked just inside the doorway. Thyri was going back to the Pantheon. She had tried to explain it to Jorg. He was going to stay in the woods with Svea but Mama and Fa were going to visit whenever they could. She had no idea how much he had understood. If she thought about it for too long she felt her heart ache and her eyes welled up with tears she refused to shed.
Jorg was smiling at her again. He seemed to smile a lot. Thyri wondered where he had picked the habit up from; it certainly wasn’t from her.
“Your father will be here soon,” she told the little boy and sighed when he began to clap his hands. Why did he have to be so happy all the time? A knock came on the cottage door.
“Speak of the devil,” Thyri said, bending over and picking Jorg up from the floor. He settled his legs on either side of her right hip and put his arms around her neck.
“It’s open!” The door crashed open and Rhaegar lingered for a moment in the doorway before stepping over the threshold.
“Fa! Fa!” Jorg gurgled happily. A ghost of a smile crept onto the Dane’s face. Thyri sighed feeling the stirrings of jealousy again; she handed the boy over into his father’s arms. As usual Jorg pulled the wolf pendant out from Gar’s shirt and ran his fingers over its white surface, his eyes gleaming with interest.
“Are you ready?” Rhaegar asked, and Thyri was relieved that he was looking at her in the same way he always had. Despite the child in his arms in that moment he wore that look of devotion he reserved only for her. She hadn’t realised how important that was to her until recently.
“I’m ready,” she told him, reaching up on tip toe to kiss him. He met her enthusiastically enough.
“Kiss mama!” Jorg said, holding onto his father’s neck as he leaned across to peck Thyri on the cheek. Rhaegar chuckled. Not for the first time Thyri found herself wondering if he’d find the boy quite so amusing if he had been forced to live with him. He got to experience the child as a visitor, and he could leave when his patience was tested. No matter, from now on she would be able to do exactly the same thing.
“You stay here with Svea” Gar told Jorg, lowering him down onto the sofa. The little boy sat obediently where he had been put his hands clasped in his lap. The Dane nodded his satisfaction.
“Goodbye, sweetheart,” Thyri said. The endearment tasted strange on her tongue but she ignored her discomfort and gave him a kiss on the cheek. As if suddenly aware of what was happening Jorg wrapped his arms tightly around her neck.
“Stay,” he said into her hair. Thyri felt the tears threaten again. With firm hands she extracted herself from her son’s embrace.
“Get me out of here,” she said to Rhaegar, closing her hand tightly around his arm for support. She did not look back as her lover steered her out of the cottage into the wood.
---
He had redecorated and tided up. The gesture meant all the more to her as she knew he must have done it all by hand. There were some new items and paintings on the walls that she knew were not his taste but that she found enchanting. She appreciated it, more than she would ever be able to tell him in words, so she kissed him instead.
“You’re too good to me,” she said when they broke apart, and she felt her bottom lip give an involuntary tremble.
“Nowhere near good enough,” he grinned wolfishly, pulling her into a warm embrace. No sooner did she feel herself pushed against the hardness of his chest than she knew it, she was home.
“I have to go and see Zed,” Gar told her, and Thyri let him break away from her reluctantly. “Will you be all right here? The dogs will look after you.”
“Go,” Thyri told him with a sad little smile, “do what you need to.”
Thyri had managed to stay alone in her and Rhaegar’s room for a little over an hour before she could stand it no longer. It was too still, too quiet, and she hated to admit it, but she missed Jorg. Thyri walked the marble corridors of the Pantheon flanked on either side by Skuld and Arnor. The elder of the two was limping on his front left paw so she slowed her pace a little to accommodate him. There was no purpose to her wanderings beyond distraction. She walked the stone maze taking first a left and then a right until she realised she had walked around in a great circle, back into the little chamber where Xephyr had once tended his fish in their stone ponds. It was silent now. The fish were gone and the water had turned green with algae. They were living in a different world; so much had changed in just over a year and Thyri didn’t think she liked it. Jorg would have liked to see the fish. The thought caught her unawares and brought back tears again. She brushed them away angrily as she stared down into the murky water. She didn't know who she was any more.
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