I slept for a long time. But it wasn’t sleep. Wasn’t dreams. The world was static. But not like it usually is. Instead of showing me the world in detail only the gods could match, it left me wanting more. Lost. Grabbing at fog and holding nothing.

Nineteen days I spent frozen in place. Hearing only fragments of speech. Trying to grasp what was happening, where I was. Every fragment was a gift. A step away from terrifying ignorance.

It took two days to figure out that I was laying on a bed. Another that it was not mine. Two more and what felt like a thousand different shapes I did not know, to finally figure out where I was.

Satisfied, I moved to the next puzzle. There was always someone sitting at my side. But it wasn’t the same person. I narrowed it to three, with an occasional group coming to join them. It was an action of one of the three, not the outline, that finally gave me the key. The one that came for the day, brought a canvas. And she painted.

I cried. I cried because it took me so long to find her. That she was so close and I couldn’t reach. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t beg for her forgiveness for being such a selfish and horrible daughter. I layed a foot from my mother as she painted, and I cried. I missed my mama.

The last puzzle would prove to be the most important. And it took me the longest. It was something that once I figured out the answer, it was so simple and so easy a thing to solve. Why couldn’t I move? Why couldn’t I speak? Why could I only see?

Because my eyes were closed.

So I opened them.

I woke up confused late at night, looking up at a dark ceiling. I tried to sit up but my legs were strapped up and elevated. Confused, I took a moment to look myself over. My legs were in a cast. I was in a hospital gown. Soft probing with my left hand, my right still in a cast, an IV in my left arm. I noticed my entire stomach area in bandages. My left side burned as I touched it, and I could feel stitches. My head hurt and my throat was dry. I had bandages on both, and more stitches on the left of my throat. I counted four cuts. More stitches on a gash on the right of my head, with half my hair shaved completely off.

I racked my brain, trying to figure out how this happened. Where I was. But all I could remember was...

I heard shuffling next to me. I carefully turned my head, my neck and skull hurting with the effort. It was Papa, shifting awake in a chair next to my bed. Blinking a few times, he looked at me. He jolted up, and jumped to my side. “Hildr, you’re awake.” He said, holding my face in one of his large, rough hands. “How do you feel?”

“Papa...” I whispered hoarsely, throat burning with the effort. “Where am I?"

“You’re in the hospital, Hildr.” He said carefully.”

I stared at my feet, thinking hard. My head ached with the effort. Finally I looked at Papas eyes quizzically. “Why?”

He looked at me, face a mixture of worry and sadness. Even still, noticing my growing panic, he leaned in and kissed my forehead before asking, “What is the last thing you remember?”

Stiffly, I moved my hand to my forehead. I tried rubbing away the pain in my head, as I racked away for memory. “I remember...being angry at you and Mama...” I whisper, throat burning. “Wanting to prove myself...taking Mama’s sword...and...” I tried and tried for what felt like forever. But the only thing I could remember past leaving home was waking up just seconds ago. Tears forming in my eyes, I looked a Papa. “I...I can’t....” I start, sobbing between each word.

“Shh, little soldier, shh.” Papa soothed, carefully crawling in with me, holding me as I curled into his chest. “We found you in the woods, close to death.” He started, after I had suitably become has comfortable as I could, legs suspended as they were. “Close to death.” His eyes were very far away. Sad and horrified and...scared. I had scared him. “We rushed you to the hospital and you’ve been in a coma for almost three weeks. We’re starting to wonder if you would ever wake up.”

“What happened to me, Papa?” I asked. “Why don’t I remember?”

“The doctors say you’ve hit your head hard. They think...” his voice caught in his throat, and he held me tighter. “Hildr you may have issues remembering things for a long time now. Probably forever.”

The world disappeared. I took this information in, numb to everything. I tried to remember the things that mattered.

Mama and Papa and Nikolai. I saw their faces clearly.

My name, my wants, my room. They were still with me.

Stories of the gods. The names of Thor and Wodinn and Skadi and Sigyn and Freya...

The pathway to the hall and to school and to home.

Home. The thought of home made me feel again. Feel guilt and sorrow. I began to cry again. “I’m sorry Papa.” I sobbed silently. “Sorry I was selfish. Sorry I was dumb. Sorry I wasn’t strong enough to probe myself. That I disappointed you and Mama. I’m sorry I failed.”

“Oh my little soldier.” He cooed, kissing my head. “We can never be disappointed in you. And you did not fail.”

“What?” I asked looking up to him confused, neck screaming with the movement.

He smiled softly at me, “Your mother, after seeing only the hilt of her sword by your side, went to the cave of the bear. She found it, in the neck of the beast.”

“Did she finish what I couldn’t?” I asked him.

“No, Hildr, there wasn’t anything to finish. She found the bear as you left it.” carefully getting up, he moved to a old green duffel bag, and pulled out what looked like a large fur blanket. He carefully placed it over me, and I realized it was the pelt of the bear. “You didn’t fail, Hildr.”

I stared at the pelt, covered in runes and beads. At the hood of it, a valknut covered a large X shaped gash over it’s right eye. A good trophy from an epic battle. The beginning of any good tale. An amazing achievement. Holding the fur tightly, I sobbed.

“I don’t remember.”