Icon #41 Kiss

#41

They filed into the room, dark robes trailing the floor behind them, eyes downcast. Baldur – it was not his name – but his title, stood in the center of the room. The air was filled with scented smoke, dimming the dancing light of the candles and obscuring faces and forms.

Besides Baldur, there were only two men in the room. One held the title of Loki, and another – seated on a raised platform in one corner – that of Odin. Baldur stood, and Odin watched, one eye hidden beneath a leather patch. The rest were Loki’s flock.

The ritual was as old as the seasons, as cold as Winter and bright-hot as Summer, cool as Autumn breeze, and sharp as the air at the birth of Spring. As the flock entered, the air in the room shifted, and the smoke danced. Music rose from somewhere distant, soft pattering beats and rippling notes. As the robed flock danced, the volume rose. The women’s feet, bare beneath flowing cotton, whirled across the floor. Their steps blended with the beat of the music, and Loki, dancing among them, clapped and pranced.

Above the center of the room, dangling from a twist of vine, a sprig of Mistletoe was hung. A clump of white berries clung to the branch. They glistened, and then were lost in the billowing smoke, then glistened again in the glimmering light.

Baldur stood still as stone, and Loki, laughing softly, took the first of his flock by her arm. He spun her into Baldur’s arms, and they kissed. Their embrace was feverish, her limbs sliding over him, hips grinding close. Baldur raised one hand to her hair, and the other to the Mistletoe above. He plucked a single poison berry and dropped it to the floor, where it was trampled, or kicked aside. The woman spun from his arms with a gasp, and another took her place – taller, longer of limb and hair – her kiss seductive and hungry. Baldur lingered, but again, he reached for the berries and another fell away.

They danced, and they kissed. Baldur grew taut with need – straining into each new embrace. Loki’s laughter grew throaty. Odin’s one eye gleamed, and the flock slipped in and out of the room’s center as the berries were plucked and the lips tasted. One after another — until Baldur reached a final time to the vine above his head and his fingers came away empty. He groaned , pulling the woman in his arms closer. Sensing the shift in his mood, she shivered, but did not draw away.

Loki began to sing softly and danced closer. Odin rose, striding through the dipping, dancing flock. Baldur brushed aside the woman’s robe and lifted her physically from the floor. They met, and became one – the music following their rhythm into the heat.

Odin gave thanks, and raised his arm, drawing the golden scythe lovingly across the woman’s throat. Baldur cried out in release and Loki, his grin wreathed in mist – drove his spear, woven tightly of Mistletoe and hardened by fire, through Baldur’s back with all his might. There was the soft sound of a second joining as the shaft pierced both Baldur and the woman. Loki released the spear and stepped back.

Baldur and his lover, the Summer and his Autumn, fell away.

In the world beyond, the long night of Winter had begun.