[center][h3]Winner of RPGC #26: All that glitters belongs to me[/h3][/center]
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[center][i]The Dowry of Böðvildr[/i] by [@Kassarock][/center]

I awake to the pain of your absence in my bed, that cold and empty space beside me that should be warm to the touch with you. Moonlight spills in from the open window, the sill is white with snowfall and bright beneath its silver rays. I hear the fluttering of wings and my heart surges with joy. But you do not come, just a nightjar searching for milk to suckle. [i]It knows...[/i] I breath to myself before it takes flight and disappears into the night once more.

My hand reaches down beneath the coverlet and traces the curve of my belly, the swelling sign of the love that we had once shared. I feel our child press against my skin, reaching out to me, reaching out to grasp the golden ring that you had set upon my finger. I know he shall be strong and quick and clever like you, though thinking of who he shall be makes me weep, for I also know my father shall take him away from me even after I have already lost you.

I am discarded by him. I am discarded by you. My sorrow is only eclipsed by my hatred.

My consciousness climbs out from the languid pit of despair I have wallowed in since you tore our world apart. Why should I linger here after all that has been done to me? Why should I accept the fate laid out to me? I am the heir of Níðuðr the cruel and I shall not be subject to another man. I make my decision, it shall be tonight. Tonight I shall claim the dowry my father has laid out for my husband to be.

I rise from the bed and stretch the last of my sleep away. I do not pick up the mourning rags hanging from the back of the chair by dressing table. Like a sleepwalker still in a dream I walk naked to the door and pull it open. Dark tresses sway against my milk white body, I feel our child kick inside of me, he already knows that I am about to do.

The hallway outside is dark and empty. My father's guests and servants all sleep. His guards keep their wary watches outside to study the sky with fear, watching for you, they will not see me stir from my bed. Silently I pace the shadowed stone halls, searching for the place where my father stores the treasure you made him. It is hidden in the farthest reaches of his palace, well away from the rest of his gold, for he cannot bear to look upon and my mother could not bear to part from them. I know the way already. I go there to look upon the things you made. Sometimes I go there to speak my brothers.

The stone floor is like ice and my bare feet grow chilled against it, but I do not stop. Through the half closed doors I hear the snores of the suitors come to claim me as their damaged prize. I let them sleep on, blissfully unaware of me, the ghost that stalks King Níðuðr's halls tonight. It gets colder and colder as I leave the last of the warm hearths behind until I finally stand before it, the mean stone cell where my brothers sleep amongst gold.

The door is not locked, all except my suitors know the secret of the treasure, and who would dare steal treasure with secrets such as these? No man would want such cursed things in his home. But I am no man, and they are my kin. They lie there, my brothers, in a chest of oak and iron. I kneel before them and lift the lid, feeling our child stir once more as my thighs press against my abdomen. I reach into the chest and draw them out one by one, my brothers and all the precious things that you made for us, made for me.

I pick up your goblets first. Silver set wide shallow bowls I had once seen my father and mother drink wine as red as blood from. Neither was regular or perfect in their design, but instead their contours followed a natural, almost organic, flow. Their stands were splays of silver struts that grasped around the cup, you had them bound together with silver wire, before having spread open again to form feet. Metacarpals and metatarsals cradling craniums, all used in your savage and beautiful craft. My brothers bones made beautiful.

Next I take out your necklace. I stare at them as they stare back at me. Golden chains linking four sapphire blue globes. Your art and magic turning my brothers' eyes to crystal stone. My mother had wept when you had told her what she had been wearing. I do not weep now as I take your gift and drip their sightless, tear-less, eyes around my pale neck.

Then there is brooch that you made for me. I am silent while I consider it, conglomeration of gilded ivory plucked from the mouths of princes. These teeth would never play with cheek and jaw and tongue to form tender loving words ever again. They would hold their silence forevermore - I do not mind, even silent they are my family still. I go to pin the brooch to my clothes before I realise I wear none. I drive the pin through the flesh of my breast instead and let my blood tickle down onto the other relics I have gathered against my skin.

He reaches out for them. Your son reaches out for them. 

My brothers. My dowry. 

His uncles. His inheritance.


But there is one last thing at the bottom of the chest. One last treasure you had created for us. The magic golden sword you had used as your lure to draw my brothers to your smithy on your lonely prison isle where you had suffered so long, tendons cut and bound to earth. I draw the sword from its sheath, feel the weight in my hand, touch one edge of its shining blade to a finger and watch as the blood wells up. This is your twisted Weregild. Blood for gold and gold for blood, shed in its own creation.

I shall make one more visit tonight.

I gather them up, the remnants of my family that you left me. The goblets I cradled against my side, the necklace I draped around my throat, the broach that pierced my breast still, and the sword, the sword I clutch in my fist. I take your final gift with me under my skin, hidden inside my womb.

Back out through the door, I retrace my steps in the pre-dawn dark. I know the door I seek now. My father's door, Níðuðr's door. I know that this will be your final revenge upon him, it shall completes your ruin of our family, but I do not care - I will not let him take my brothers and my son away from me.

Dripping in your gaudy treasures I push open the door his chamber and approach his sleeping form. I raise the sword above my head and bring it down into his belly. The bed fills with his blood. I have killed my King, killed my father. I crawl into the bed and lie next to him among the butchered and brutalised remains of our kin. This is the craft that you and I have worked together. This and the son I carry within me. Viðga I shall call him.

When I finally sleep again, I dream that you are there with me. You have finally come, your wings of beaten bronze holding you aloft at the tower window, your eyes like fire gazing into my soul. Mighty smith, maker and breaker of all things. I call out your name:

"Völundr!"

And then I awake.