The Yeti
Registered
- Pronouns
- He/Him
07:30 | EARLY MORNING HOURS | PALACE OF VÆLFING, LOÐRUNN, ÁSLO
The city of Áslo lay hushed beneath the clamour of winter’s breath, where the wuthering winds wound their mournful course through frost-bound boughs flanking the palace’s western front. Dawn, though ascended, brought no warmth; the chill clung stubbornly, a spectral veil upon stone and soil. Guðfrøð trod solemnly across the hoarfrost-laced flagstones towards the humble chapel that stood at the heart of the royal demesne, wherein his lady wife, Queen Freyja, awaited in still repose. The seventh bell of Saint Eirík tolled its sonorous lament, and winter’s grasp held the sanctuary in a hush profound. The candles, vexed by unseen currents, sputtered their wan light in defiance of shadow.
Beneath arch and eave, under the sacred hush of vaulted stone, the King and Queen did kneel side by side—yet the space betwixt them might well have been a chasm. This was the hour consecrated to piety, yet beneath its solemn veil played the silent masque of estrangement. Guðfrøð knelt with hands clasped and brow unyielding, his mien austere, unmoved. His cloak, heavy with sable lining, hung upon his shoulders like a funeral pall, and the creases ‘round his eyes, deepened by the harshness of the season, bespoke weariness unspoken. Not once did he cast his gaze toward his consort, but remained steadfast in his mute supplication before Father Gautstaf.
As for Freyja, her gaze drifted like mist over distant hills—unfocussed, unanchored. Though her lips did echo the priest’s litany, the words were naught but phantoms, barely shaped, barely breathed. Her golden hair lay loosely bound, a curious slight to courtly decorum, as though ceremony had lost its grip upon her. A tremour passed through her pale hand, unnoticed but by the observant eye. Around them, silence thickened, oppressive, until at length the chaplain’s voice broke upon it like a bell upon fog, drawing the rite to a close. The retreating steps of the attendants whispered against the stone, vanishing into the deep hush that followed.
“You had not an ounce of sleep.” Guðfrøð’s deep voice rumbled between prayers, his eyes of ice blue did not meet Freyja’s.
“The walls whisper, even in the darkness of the night.” Freyja answered in a low, soft voice that was almost unheard. “They ridicule me in such knavish manner.”
“You have had the apothecary summoned?” asked the weary Guðfrøð, after a brief pause of speech.
“I am weary of their tonics. They quiet the mind but unseat the soul.” she answered, her answer laced with resentment. Freyja had been in a haunting state of constant unease, a profound fear of the unknown, the ominous presence of images that appeared from nowhere.
“Mayhap you are, Frejya. And yet the court may ill afford another display, not another scene to place shame on our shoulders sapped by your conduct.”
Freyja flinched, as though struck by the force of his censure, her gaze falling to the floor, heavy with shame. At last, Guðfrøð turned his eyes upon her—a gaze not softened by pity, but sharpened by judgement. His stare was chill as northern steel, unrelenting, his silence the weightier for it. He cleared his throat, not out of hesitation, but to underscore the iron of his rebuke, that there be no mistaking the firmness of his resolve.
“The Dowager has received word from Vesterholt. A delegation is expected by the week’s end,” Guðfrøð intoned, his voice devoid of warmth. “You will present yourself with composure.”
“As ever,” Freyja replied, her voice a measured whisper, “I shall don the masque and play my part in the pageant. It is, after all, the charge appointed to me.”
She dipped her head in faint assent, the motion more weary than submissive. Long had she grown accustomed to her husband’s cold, ceremonious cadence—a tongue stripped of tenderness, his speech ever cloaked in formality, as though feeling itself were an indiscretion.
When Father Gautstaf’s sermon drew at last to its solemn end, and the sacred hush returned, Freyja turned towards Guðfrøð with hesitance. Her posture was meek, her bearing subdued, as if weighed by unseen chains.
“Do you ever ponder,” Freyja murmured, voice scarcely more than breath, “whether we be the sinners or the sacrificed?”
Guðfrøð regarded her then, his gaze as barren as winter fields, empty of affection or remorse. “We are sovereigns,” he said, his tone as flat as carved stone. “That is a burden and penance enough.”
Without further word, he rose, movements stripped of grace or ceremony. His sable-lined cloak whispered against the cold flagstones, trailing behind him like the shadow of judgement. Each echoing footfall through the nave was a tolling bell of retreat. Freyja did not stir. She remained kneeling, spine straight, eyes lifted not to him, but to the altar—her last refuge, the only presence that had not turned its back.
She watched him depart, her expression unreadable, carved in stillness. It was not hatred that coloured her gaze, nor the last embers of love—but something colder still. Something irrevocable. The frost had settled not merely upon the world without, but beneath the skin of the crown itself.
