Freyr did his best not to fiddle with the skirt of his dress as he glanced over at his sister who sat on the small backless seat that matched his own that was placed on the other side of their parents’ thrones. Freyja was sitting up proudly in the ceremonial armor she had received from their uncle when he had last visited the Álfheim Castle. She really did look like a prince in the polished dark blue and black armor paired with the simple gold circlet that had only a few small gems embedded into it that were the shade of blue that represented their paternal family.
Freyr, on the other hand, looked like the very epitome of a blushing bride. He was almost entirely adorned with the articles that would be his wedding attire; the outfit had been decided upon due to it being the first impression the Northerners would have of the fiance of their prince. He also knew how important it was for his mother to see him in the outfit since neither of his parents would be able to leave the kingdom for two whole months just to attend his marriage ceremony.
The white, off the shoulder dress had also been picked as the main base of Freyr’s traveling outfit for the convenience of not having to go through the various chests of the belongings he was bringing when it came to meet his groom and in-laws. By having only a few articles of clothing and other small items that would be accessible at moments notice, Freyr had been able to already finish packing up all of his belongings into the simple wagon that would be carrying his entire life to Taicirus during the month-long one way trip.
Freyr caught himself rubbing at the base of his pinkie anxiously at the reminder that the day he had been dreading had now arrived. The simple looking wedding gown, the ombre wedding veil looped around the curved dark blue bases of his horns, and his silver blue braids that had white and blue beads weaved in were all symbols to him that there was no longer any turning back from committing to the lie that he was the female heir of the Frotleikr family, and not the male heir. Freyr wondered if anyone would even believe him if he even attempted to tell the truth to the envoy since Freyja was very obviously more masculine than him.
Speaking of which, Freyr thought he could hear the quiet sound of footsteps echoing in from the hallway that was connected to the other side of the small-medium sized throne room where the four person family were waiting since the news of the envoy’s arrival in town. Freyr’s premonition was confirmed by the voice of a servant on the other side of the doorway calling inward towards them.
“Now presenting from the Taicirus Kingdom: Ciar Tryggvi, Alfarr Melrakki, Íris Tryggvi, and Sir Magni Drótt.” As the four foreigners came into view behind Aelius, Freyr saw confused looks flash their faces, and they then told something to Aelius and the other servant who had just announced them, unfortunately Freyr couldn’t pick up what was being whispered between them. He didn’t have to wait long to find out though, since an embarrassed voice called back out to correct their mistake. “I apologize, that is actually Elvar Melrakki, and Sir Magne Drótt.” The servant did his best to emphasize the slight mispronunciations as he slowly spoke the names that were evidently harsh to pronounce exactly with his southern accent.
As the servant corrected himself, Freyr realized a new anxiety he now had with moving to the Taicirus Kingdom: they had a lot of words and names that were very similar to words and names in the south, yet had very slight differences that would be difficult to pronounce on the first try due to the accent of his maiden dialect. Freyr was almost positive he would end up accidentally offending a few people once he moved to the other kingdom.
The anxiety-ridden teenager tried to push his new anxieties to the back of his mind as the four members who had chosen to represent the rest of the envoy, and the whole of the Taicirus Kingdom, finally entered and bowed towards the seated royal family. Freyr looked over the people who were most likely going to be the most important people for him to interact with when they took him away. He knew these were the people who would probably make or break how pleasant the next month, and maybe beyond that, would be for him.
Two of the foreigners were very evidently Fae who looked very similar. They both had pure white ombre hair that darkened to pitch black at the ends, and long pointed ears that had matching white feather earrings: one’s set with red beads and the other’s set of earrings with blue beads. Freyr thought he noticed that the two Fae appeared to have identical mismatched light blue and light purple eyes with black scleras when they had first approached.
Based on the appearance of the Fae and the names that were called out, Freyr made the deduction that the two were probably siblings. The sister, Íris, looked almost exactly like a slightly younger female version of her brother, Ciar; the main difference being her long hair that reached almost to the small of her back, even though a majority of it was pulled up into a ponytail, while her brother’s hair was more of a medium length. Freyr also noted that the brother wore glasses while the sister didn’t.
Once Freyr had confidence in placing the names of first two, he moved his inspection on to the two other members of the envoy in front of him. The one who stood in the middle, next to the Fae that Freyr had placed as Ciar, appeared to be a fox type Beastfolk with mostly dark pink hair pulled back into a bun, but also sections of black hair on either side. His fox-like ears were a lighter shade of pink, with black tufts on the very tips. Looking between the two remaining visitors, Freyr narrowed down his guess to this being Alfarr/Elvar.
The male Beastfolk wore glasses similarly to Ciar, but Freyr wondered if they were just for show since the stranger’s heavily freckled face also had several face piercings including a few on the bridge of his nose; as well as a loop on either side of his lower lip, and a few lining the top of his eyebrows. Freyr had never actually seen anyone with so many face piercings since piercings were still rare to find in Ástland, and usually only limited to the ears. Since the person was a Beastfolk, it made the sheltered prince curious what the piercings would look like whenever they took their beast form, or if they had to remove all the piercings before changing forms.
Moving on from his curiosity, since it was probably a rude question that he wouldn’t be able to ever actually ask, Freyr looked at the fourth and final guest. Freyr had concluded who the Beastfolk was based solely on the fact that this last person was the only one who was wearing light armor, and therefore was the most likely to have the title of “sir”.
Freyr couldn’t immediately detect what race the knight was predominately. The man did have slightly pointed ears poking out from his two toned crimson and black hair, so he definitely had a touch of Fae in his bloodline, but his ears weren’t as long as a pureblooded Fae, so he likely had a mix of another race that Freyr couldn’t identify at the moment.
What Freyr could deduce, though, was the knight’s guardian deity. As their eyes met, Freyr felt himself get momentarily sucked into the fiery gaze of the crimson eyes that were peering back at him curiously. If the fiery sparks that floated amongst the knight’s irises weren’t enough to narrow down who had chosen the knight as their Favored One, the small deity that was directly floating above him really narrowed it down.
The small red and orange flame spirit was practically clinging to the male mortal, but had taken a small moment to look at Freyr to give a sly looking smile and a small wave. They had taken the form of a feminine Dragonkin with red and orange dragon wings and two sets of straight yellow horns emerging from their long dark flaming red and orange hair that seemed to dance in the air as if the strands were actual flames. Their scantily clad skin was deeply tanned with a tinge of a red hue. The spirit also had bright red marks under their own set of glowing crimson eyes.
Freyr recognized the markings that were similar, yet not identical to, the markings he had observed on other flame spirits that were a part of the group that other mortals referred to as the god Brandr. Like the other parts of “Brandr”, the flame spirit was on the smaller size for being a deity, and was just barely half the size of the mortal that they were clinging on to; although compared only to the other parts of “Brandr”, this specific flame spirit was actually on the large size. Freyr was a bit curious, but knew better than to voice his curiosity.
Freyr had learned at a young age that no one around him actually knew that Brandr was actually a collection of various flame spirits that collectively made up the deity that the mortals knew as the god of fire. As such, each spirit would usually pick one Favored One at a time and spend most of the mortal’s life beside them unless there were external factors or events that required a majority of the flame spirits to come together to represent “Brandr”.
Since the individual spirits were on the weaker side and rarely needed to directly interact with the mortal realm, very rarely did the ones Freyr met have actual humanoid appearances. Most of them took the form of small flames and communicated by directly sending images or snippets of words directly into Freyr’s mind. The teenager had also occasionally met a few who preferred to take the shape of an animal that they felt were similar to their individual personalities; the amount of flame spirits he had met who had a humanoid appearance, though, could probably be counted on one hand.
Another thing he had learned about them was that, although the mortals referred to the deity of flame as masculine, a majority of the ones he had met actually identified as non-binary or genderfluid. With how the knight’s guardian was dressed and presenting itself at the moment, the prince wondered if they currently were one of the spirits that was identifying as feminine; at the moment at least. He couldn’t ask them though, since that would reveal that Freyr could see and talk to deities, and also that “Brandr” wasn’t actually “who” mortals all believed “he” was.
The teenager had often wondered growing up how much the world would be shaken if he had actually shared half the truths he had learned first hand about the deities of their world. Freyr had noticed that most of the deities found the minor misunderstandings the mortals came up with to be a bit amusing and put up with the “silly mortals” and their misconceptions. So Freyr held on to the hidden truths, just like all the other barely veiled hidden truths of his life.
Comments (1)
See all