Night Eyes

His business suit was the sort of comfortable that you had to have experienced to understand why people pay for bespoke suits. His body was softer than when he was younger, thicker around the middle, but the size and power of it made off the rack suits more uncomfortable than the battle dress and armour he spent a decade in.

It wasn’t comfortable now. He felt his professional friendly smile, the one that distracted you from his size and the scarred brutal promise of hands that matched his eyes and not his profession all to well, start to slip. He snarled, face becoming flat planes of muscle, eyes blank and flat, stare a thousand yards and a decade away.

He pulled into the coffee shop, put his phone on the table and gestured for a coffee. He would wait out what came in the solitude that is only possible for a person surrounded by strangers, where none would dare to ask what hell he returned to, what drove the cold hard ball of stress that now filled his gut, what caused the cold sweat that even now broke across his brow, or why his hands, not the soft things of a senior manager, but the scarred brutal tools of the soldier he once was, clasped again and again, seeking to close on the fore-stock and pistol grip of the rifle he walked away from after the war.

He remembered. Hunted. The nights were the worst. He was hard and cold, disciplined and had been there before. Taught the young ones how not to make the mistakes that get newbies killed. When he told them it was OK, they believed him, and he meant it. For others he was, and it was true. Here, at night, you were always alone.

The shots were scattered. It wasn’t like the movies. Three or four shots, some shouting about vectors and ranges, a few bursts in response. The undirected fire from bombardment rockets. Sure they were supposed to be leftovers from Russians attempt here, but he wasn’t sure how much he believed that. Not now. Smuggled in, to rain on a firebase, not enough to count, not enough to really hurt, unless you had the bad luck to be under one, but someone was sometimes. You thought about it. His cheek tucked in, four rounds aimed and a shadow tumbled. Hit or scared? Don’t know, won’t know, have to keep scanning. So few of us, so much ground, and the night seems to go on forever. Cold. So cold at night, and the sweat of the day makes it worse. God I would kill for a decent meal. The greasy rations and the greasy shits they gave were just part of the misery that made every day just another slice of stress and just another chip away at what was left of him. He smelled, the sick sour smell of sweat and fear, stress and bad food. Never free of the dust, of the sweat, of the damned diesel smell of the vehicles and generators. Never clean, never safe, never relax. God I would kill for a drink, even a coffee that didn’t come in an IMP packet.

His eyes were open, the coffee burned his hand when his squeezing popped the lid off, and with reflexive action, he lessened his grip, and off hand replaced the lid mechanically. His eyes were open, a thousand miles away, a million years ago, and yesterday.

She sat at the counter, counting out her coins. It would have to be a medium. She couldn’t afford a large and have enough for one in the morning to wash down her meds. Payday was two days away, and she had a roof over her head, money coming in regular, she had a door that locked, and even a bed. She reminded herself twenty times an hour, because she didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it.

She remembered. Hunted. The nights were the worst. She was hard, cold, and focused. She had been there before, on the streets since eleven. Taught the young ones how to not make the mistakes that got the newbies killed, or worse. When she told them it was OK, they believed her because she meant it. For them it was true, she would keep them safe. The reality was, you were never alone at night, fear was always beside you, until something worse was.

Sirens she tracked. The little they had, the little they could defend would be taken away and destroyed so casually by the smirking police, fine talk of getting you help as they made sure you would be wet hungry and cold the next night, that you couldn’t keep food safe anymore, that your clean clothes ended up accidentally in the mud to ruin what little chance you had of cleaning up enough to pass for not street long enough to get a job that maybe could get you some real food, and clothes not stolen from a bin.

The voices came, the drunken loud boys out hunting. They had homes, families, futures, and yet when they got liquor in them they formed a pack and went hunting. Hunting those no one cared to defend, hunting because they were young and strong, and untouchable in the sense that no consequence would stick to them. They hunted the other untouchables, the homeless nameless ones with no one to call, no one to listen.

Cold, so cold. That sick knot of fear that gathered in the pit of your stomach and just ached. The sweat of the day made it worse. God I would kill for a decent meal, but cheap and twice was better than not enough but good. Hungry, cold, dirty, angry and scared; chip chip chipping away. Never clean, never safe, never relax. God I would kill for a drink, even a coffee that didn’t come with a Jesus lecture and some creep copping a feel at the street mission.

Loud haughty voices talked over the girl, through her, as if she wasn’t there. Voices that sang of comfort never missed, meals left half eaten, nails manicured and polished, not dirty and broken, voices that rang with contempt for any that had known anything other than opulence, security, and of course the well bathed and perfumed perfection of privilege.

“Waitress, if she is done her coffee, she should leave. There is no reason to tie up a table for someone who CLEARLY can’t afford and has no intention of being a real customer”

The words were hard edged, wrapped in superior smugness without the honesty of an open attack, but everyone knew what they were.

The girl snarled her defiance, snatching up the coin she had counted to order her coffee because be damned if she would let herself be run out because she got off the street, and these privileged bitches wouldn’t let her forget it.

A deeper snarl sounded at the next table, and her eyes caught and held the dark, ugly fury in the old man in the thousand dollar suit. For a second, he didn’t fit. Her eyes met those of something dark and cold, hunted and hard as she ever was. He didn’t set off her threat detectors, even as he rose explosively, his suit suddenly a poor fit for the naked violence that just entered the room.

In a voice low and terrible, shaking with emotion that terrified the middle class matrons into the silence of rabbits trapped in a room with a hungry bear, he spoke.

“My friend here will be eating. It has been a long fucking night, and she is not up to dealing with any more bullshit from twits too useless to have ever worked a day in their life.”

His voice became quiet then, and harder than diamond.

“Or ever wondered if they would see the dawn again”

He looked at the girl, wrapped in her pride, willing to throw his gift in his face rather than imply any weakness on her part, because sometimes pride was all you had left.

Snarling, his voice on the edge of losing control, he dumped a hand full of twenties on her table.

“Take it. Not everybody made it through the night, and there is fuck all either of us can do about that”

He stalked out, shaking, body back in the place his mind never really left. The girl’s eyes…….she had been there. Not the same place, and not the same year, but she was trapped in that damned cold night, the same as his. You always felt alone at night, and sometimes it almost broke you.

She watched him leave. The money clenched in her fist. The old man’s eyes. He had been there, somehow that suit that cost more than the room she rented was wrapped around someone who had been there too. The long night, the one that never leaves you, the shadow dawn can’t ever erase. She would take no charity, but this she would. You were alone with the fear at night, so alone it could break you. Maybe it was enough to know someone out there was alone in the dark too.

—There are a lot of people trapped in that night, even those who got out who at their lowest points find a part of them is still there, even when most days allow you to forget.  When you are trapped alone in that night, know this, even if you won’t believe the dawn will come, or you will be there to see it.  The night doesn’t lie when it tells you that you are alone.  It doesn’t speak the whole truth, because there are thousands of others, men, women, children, huddled alone in the darkness; alone with you.

Just because you can’t see us, does not make us less there.  The night is long, dark, and cold, but never so dark or so cold as to not leave room for the bonds between us.  Know that you are not alone.  Reach out when it gets darkest, and if you can do no more, let others know that you face this night with them.  It is enough.

A touch of Coffee

Dana looked at her pictures taped to the mirror.  Her promises of what she was, and what she swore she would be again.  It sometimes seemed like a brighter idea than others.

 

Two years ago, her hair had been long golden waves that Sif would have been proud to claim as her own, a face darkened by sun, eyes marked by laugh lines and bright with the promise of tomorrow. The picture a year ago before going for chemo showed the glory of her hair crowning a face haunted by the fear that she might not see another spring, fixed smile painted over screams she dared not start lest she could not stop.  There was the strength that she held hard against the fear, but then, and even now, she had no idea how it could be enough.

Looking back at the face in the mirror, she took in the bald skull, the perfection of her bones had not changed, but the skin over them was drawn tight over the cheek bones, hollow in the cheeks, yet puffy around the dark hollows of eyes whose blue no longer shone like a spring sky, but the deep blue of the tidal surge that shattered ships and shore alike.

 

It took the better part of an hour to put on her makeup, her wig, and restore her face to the woman she used to be.  Her husband, her children, her friends were happiest with it.  She was happiest with it.  She looked in the mirror and did not know who it was who looked back at her.

 

Yule had passed, and with it the lives of some friends.  It was the dying time, the veil between the living and the dead was thinnest, and she would be lying if she didn’t feel the fingers of the cold deep in her bones, didn’t hear the whimpers in the quiet of the night, the memories of those times it was too much and she just prayed for it to end, for this to be the last night.  You can’t shake the memories of those nights as easily as stepping into the sunlight, for some chills are written in your bones, some screams written into your silences, and can never be forgotten.
Today she didn’t have it in her.  Today she didn’t care.  Let others shy away, let others shudder at the spectre of the fate her face whispered of.  Today she would not pretend she didn’t see, pretend she didn’t care.  Today she just didn’t have enough left to carry anyone else’s fear, or anyone else’s shame.

Coffee.  She needed coffee, and humanity could just frigging deal with it.

She scraped the windshield as the car heated up.  Her kids were already at school, and this was her time.  The coat was heavy and caught the wind when it gusted, she had not the weight she once had, and sometimes the wind sported with her more than she liked.  Her toque and scarf kept her warm, the cold Atlantic winds could bring colour to her pale cheeks, and make her fingers clumsy, but her strength was coming back and it could no longer make her tremble.  Caffeine, she needed caffeine.  She had an article in her laptop she wanted to read, but it was not something to read un-caffeinated.  One coffee there, and a second to take home should do her.  Her reward for a week survived.

She spotted the new coffee shop that had looked so interesting.  A pair of amber cats framed the sign Golden House.  Sure enough, two regal looking cats, about the size of lynx, observed the customers from a cat tree that dominated the wall opposite the counter.  The place was a happy untidy babble of conversations from a dozen dark hardwood tables that looked a lot like the benches of a mead-hall, heavy dark chairs, high backed and post carved offered hanging for coats and hats, as everyone had clearly done.  A roaring fireplace filled the wall opposite the window, and the firelight gave the place a warmth that made the outside winter hard to remember.  The smell of fresh coffee and mouth-watering baked goods made her stomach remind her she had not felt up to breakfast this morning, but perhaps now she might?

 

The owner of the coffee shop was dancing between the tables, there was no other word for it.  She had long golden hair and a figure that was as opulent as Dana’s had been before the choice had been to offer her breasts to the knife or her life to the cancer, and leave a battle long fought half won.

Where you would swear there was not room between the tables to pass a ruler she spun and twisted with a heavy tray in one hand and a second that seemed to alternate between waving to those far away, and patting those she passed between, somehow letting each know they had her complete and joyous attention for one glorious moment.  It was easy to see why the place was packed.

 

“Take off your coat, stay a while.  I hardly ever bite unless asked nicely”  The woman’s voice rolled over Dana like the finest mead over the tongue, sweet and smooth, unleashing a warmth at its passing that bypassed thought altogether and undid the knots of tension, pain and fear that held her wound tight as a sewing bobbin.

Without thinking she shrugged off her coat hung it and her toque upon the chair before she remembered that she didn’t wear her wig today.  Freezing in fear, she tried to turn and snatch it back up again, but before she could, impossibly strong hands gently pushed the throne like chair under the bench, seating her at the table as smoothly as if it and she weighed nothing.

Turning to look at the figure who had pushed in the chair, her breath caught.  He was dark haired, wild maned with long and bushy hair and beard, a body long and rangy under a loose fisherman’s sweater with a woven pattern of giant wolves alternately devouring men and being torn asunder at the jaw.  He wore heavy boots, not quite work boots, nor yet biker boots, they were somehow brutally and uncompromisingly functional in the way a thing put together without any care for appearances can somehow acquire a stark majesty almost despite itself.  Nodding respectfully to her, he walked around the bench and gestured at the cinnamon buns fresh from glazing, still warm from the oven, and made a vague motion similar to a seated bow towards Dana that seemed to suffice to the owner as an order, causing her to laugh.

“My silent friend her is quite taken with you, and asks if you would care to have a fresh baked cinnamon roll with your coffee, I recommend the Egg Nogg latte, it’s a little on the rich side, but if you don’t allow yourself any guilty pleasures you will just die innocent, and we can’t have that now!”

 

Dana blushed and stammered something incoherent in acceptance.  Once she would have accepted such attention as her due, but since the cancer had robbed her of her colour, her grace, her muscle tone, her hair and breasts were only the most obvious of the blows she had taken, she had gotten used to fearing the look of her body, rather than loving it.  Granted her strength was coming back, and with it the grace she was winning day by day, step by step, thrice as hard to rebuild as to first win, but she was now not the woman she remembered drawing attention.

 

The owner glided back sliding two cinnamon rolls the size of dinner plates in front of them, the rich smell of cinnamon, the sight of tiny nuts and little candied fruit promising a heartier fare than the norm, made Dana’s mouth begin to water.

Tall Eggnog latte in large ceramic mugs joined the cinnamon buns in front of the silent man and Dana, and before Dana could muster her social defenses against men getting the wrong idea about approaching her as a married woman, the owner ran her hands with casual familiarity down the long shoulders and chest of the man, and pulled his rangy hair back to kiss him impishly upon the nose.

“Oh he does have an eye for the beauties.  He will never be any sort of a conversationalist, but the Silent One pays attention, and looks more deeply than his father ever did.  That is his second-best quality, right after knowing what a tongue is really for!”

 

Dana almost choked on her latte at the uncomplicated joy the woman took in casually discussing such things in a restaurant full of locals who roared with approval and pounded the table to her clear delight.  Dana knew there was no mockery here, but she was not willing to accept praise for what was long taken from her, the beauty she never knew she treasured until it was stolen by the thief that sought her life.

 

“I am hardly a beauty any more.  I mean…”  Dana made a hand wave that took in her bald skull, pain haunted eyes, and the flat hanging sweater that was stretched out for the generous curves she would never have again.

 

Sliding sensuously over to her side, the woman ran her hand across Dana’s bald scalp and Dana felt her entire body catch fire, back arching in helpless pleasure towards the fire of her simple touch, she felt her hands continue down the back of Dana’s skull and catch the necklace she wore under her sweater.

 

Tsking softly, the woman slowly drew the necklace from under Dana’s sweater and laid the simple Thor’s hammer below the hollow of her throat upon the soft sweater.

Murmuring softly, amber eyes burning into Dana’s blue ones like dancing fire, the woman spoke

“Such a kissable neck should be highlighted,  the hammer is a nice start, a statement of strength, but it needs a touch of fire to bring out your colour”

Taking one of the strands of amber that hung around her own neck, she softly ran the back of her knuckles over Dana’s collar bones and neck to fasten the strand of amber at the back of her neck, to lie half way between Thor’s hammer and her throat, drawing every eye to the regal curves of her shoulders and neck, the proud lines of her cheekbones and richness of her eyes and lips, the stark strength she alone could not see shining there.
Dana had not been with a woman since long before she was married, but her body trembled from this woman’s touch like it had not since those teenage days of experimentation.  Before her touch could arouse the defenses of a woman who had no intention of straying, the owner swayed away, to be replaced by the two large and graceful cats that now butted at her hands for attention from either side of the table.

Dana muttered a protest.  Voicing at last the fear that howled at her each time she faced the mirror in the morning.

“How can you say that?  I am not that pretty girl any more, I won’t ever be again!”

There was half a mile of pain and two full fathoms of fear in that cry, and it hung upon the air like a challenge.

It was the Silent One that spoke at last, his words ground like a blade on a stone, tearing away dross and damage to leave naught but the brutal purity of the naked edge behind.

“You are not the girl that didn’t know, nor the woman whom the foe found, you are she who won.  You are the face of victory”

Both their eyes were upon her now, the shining golden one who danced like flame, and the dark silent one whose eyes held the shadows of prices paid, and in them both she saw herself not as what she lost, but at last as they did, as she who won.

 

——-I have lost dear friends to cancer this year.  I have had had other dear friends who have won their fight at terrible cost.  I remember my father on his third bought with cancer, it was the fifth a decade later that would kill him.  He rewarded himself by getting his tattoo touched up.  He had got an eagle tattoo on his arm when he finished jump training in the Canadian Airborne, but cancer had carved long ropes of white like lightning all up and down his arms, through his tattoo, taking most of the colour.

When he got it touched up, he had the colour of the tattoo restored to full glory, but had the cancer scars outlines like living lighting where they defaced it, rather than having them coloured in to undo the damage done to the original tattoo.  I asked him why he didn’t hide that damage, and he looked at me honestly confused.  “Why should I hide, I won.”

 

Odin does hide his missing eye, nor Tyr his missing hand.  Our gods bear their scars openly, proudly, for they are the boasts of victors, the proof of prices paid, and victories won.  Our gods do not turn their faces from the scars of our life, not the inner ones, nor the outer ones.  The shame we heap upon scars and the prices paid by survivors is cowardice born of fear we might not have the strength to ever face such ourselves.

Freya is goddess of passion, love, and the old and terrible magics.  Hers is the raw, the brutal and primal magic of death and life, hers the first choice of the valiant dead.  Freya is goddess of that fire that screams its joy at life from the brink of death, and howls its ecstasy to stand upon the edge of the abyss and know by its own will, it will stand and not fall.

 

Vidar, the Silent One, Fenris bane is the god of prices paid, the god of leavings, the one who knows the cost of what others boast about.  He is silent, for he boasts not.  He is the god of deeds, not words, of paying the price to do what must be done, and salvaging what seems lost.  His boots are made of the scraps thrown away, yet at Ragnarok they will shatter the jaw of Fenris Wolf, for he understands what it is to grow strong at the broken places.