The Blood Red Path

A Trade

Odin

Those blues spread their condemnation of me. Tearing me up the middle, the feeling of my body splitting in half overpowers the strength in my legs to stand. 

I'll crawl if I have too. 

It's the last thing I see, the last thing she shows me before turning herself away. 

She doesn't run - she walks. 

"Don't follow me." The calm, slow rumble of thunder burst from her chest, to wage war against my body. It stops me completely, throws me back down on the ground. On my back. 

Belly up. 

Looking up at the sky it seems to be laughing, mocking me in the bright blue of the day. 

Again I try to get up, but the feeling of a hand is placed against me. Pushing me down in the dirt. Indenting my body to imprint within the ground. 

"Odin," a voice hints in my ear, shuffles the skin on my body. Looking around nothing is there, just the voice and a feeling of something keeping me down. 

"I have a trade, Odin." There is no face to the sound. 

"Who are you?"

"Your Moon." 

"You are not my Moon."

A laugh hurtles the trees away from us from their roots. 

"Sister," a serpentine hiss slithers along the ground, constricting the surroundings in a veil of fog. 

"Sister," the pressure on my chest lifts, looking to the side nothing is there but a swirl of leaves and mist. 

"I've come to trade." The Moon's voice is not a hiss, more made of fog. Dense, not see-through. 

The mist around changes shifts into a blanket that swirls around with the movement of two bodies. 

"You have nothing I want," the twisting leaves voice out, before taking on a shape of a female with long braids in her hair encased in mud. 

"I have made something for you," now the swirling fog takes it shape. A female who has braids of light, the stars aren't as bright as what's surrounding her head. 

A sound of drums starts, for a minute I can feel the percussion through my chest, except there is no drums but the the beat of my heart. 

"What could you have made me?" A splash of rain hits where the female with the stars in her hair stands. 

"I've made a god for a god." The fog lifts, there is no more mist. The two females stand to face the other.

...twins.

Ancient warriors dressed in furs with long braids handing down to the waist. The one female has two lines on her cheek, the other carries only one scar. 

"He is no god."

"He is, sister. I created him to give to you. A truce between sisters. Our war has gone on long enough." 

Nothing is moving, the wind has died. Both their eyes fall on me. 

"I feel nothing for him," the sister speaks with a closed mouth. 

"You will if you accept my trade,"

"What is your trade?"

"Kill the female, I'll give you the God as your mate."

"Kill the female yourself." The female's braids start to drip muddy water down on the ground creating a puddle at her feet. 

"You know I can't." The grind of the world's crusts shifts the land, the motion shakes my body. 

"Rules, rules, rules. Don't you hate them, sister?" The way she says sister is with a loving hatred that I can feel sharp against my throat. 

"I'll never not have my half." Standing against the shaking of the world. Standing in the face of these Gods. Sinking myself down into the dirt, anchoring myself against their eyes. 

Holding my territory.

A laugh, "I told you, sister, he can stand with us."

The mud in the female's hair has all but dripped away revealing her braids of black. The green film covering her eyes blinks themselves blue.  

A shiver of recognition shuffles down the bones along the length of my spine. 

Her eyes...

The female looks towards her sister, "how is this possible?"

"I am the Moon, give me my trade and I will give you him." The boom rolls across the territory. 

There is only her and I. 

She stares with those blues until I am left to stand alone. 

"I'll never not have my half." Yelling into the sky, pounding my fist on my chest. 

Nothing answers me back, just the echo of my voice. 

Author's Note. 

Welcome to the blood red path. 

Are you ready to bleed?