The Selfless Gene

Chapter 10

Thame settles comfortably on the cave floor, now bright with the gentle white light from the amulet. Ormr coils between serpent and man, joining Thame to sit cross-legged, at ease with one another. Both their eyes glow white, as if the light has filled them from within.

"Tell me about Aslaug?" Thame asks.

"She was typically Northern. Blue eyes, blonde hair that would have made Fairhair jealous, button nose."

"No, tell me about her." Thame counters.

"She was kind, gentle and loved everything and everyone. She worked hard - farm life was tough. But never held any malice. She had a massive heart," Ormr's voice tails off, lost in memory. "Just looking at her would calm you, bring you down to earth."

Thame rests his head back against the rock wall and sinks into Ormr's memories. Despite the short duration, Ormr and Aslaug's brudlaup was a long, collective process subject to many ritual rules and permissions. The wedding feast itself was important to the village, but even more so to Ormr.

"It was my last meal. We went to war the next morning and I knew who I was facing. I toasted their ancestors, I toasted Hella, and I toasted my brother.

We wanted to marry just in case. The rest of village had no fear, as they'd seen me fight. It was said that I was a God. Being so public with your skills... well you'd never do it today. But I'd felt him creep closer and bigger. I didn't sense in him any of the weakness I had. He'd not lived or learnt their ways. Just consumed and kept fighting where we'd left off."

The connection to Lohikaarme, to Henry, that he'd broken five years prior seeped back into him. He sensed that it hadn't been severed completely and he felt it spread wider than ever before. Not as strong, but lingering.

"Step in and feel this. Feel my heart." Thame relaxed further back into Ormr's memory.

Ormr and Aslaug are alone after the wedding. He's on their bed as she circles around him. She doesn't believe that some mythology from far away could cause any harm to her God: she dismisses any notion that this would be their last night together. Her confidence and excitement heightened by their eternal commitment. The room is opulent for their village and has a roaring fire built within it, making it more than warm enough. She looks him dead in the eye, smirks slightly and undoes her clothes, letting them drop to the floor.

She holds the power, and doesn't break his gaze as she slowly crawls up the bed towards Ormr. She kisses him hard, and pulls away his covers. The sex is slow, long and all encompassing as they intertwine their bodies and thrust themselves deep in spiritual bliss. They became bound together. Whereas Ormr had been beastly, quick and dominant with concubines and passing villagers, here he played his part as an equal, feeling, rocking and responding to her needs and movements.

It was their first and only sexual act. It was Ormr's first human emotional activity with a person and finally he felt like he belonged in his new form.

They fell asleep wrapped in one another, under the cover of fire and love.

Ormr woke early, startled. There was something new. A shot of light, no, a whole sky full. He looked down at Aslaug and knew that he was a part of her now.

Rushing to get dressed, he grabbed some old grape alcohol from the night before and swigged it down. Shutting the door on their marital home, he went straight to her father, passing by all the preparations for war, the blacksmiths up early finishing their weaponry. The day had just begun, mist whetting the air. Exhaling hard as he knocks; not from exhaustion but from emotion.

"There isn't time. I need you to pack up everything and leave."

"What? Why?" Aslaug's dad is groggy.

"I'll explain when you come to ours. Bring Harald and Sigrunn too. But pack light, take the amber and gold to trade and move swiftly."

Her dad, a great warrior and tribe elder, nodded. He didn't understand but he obeyed.

Aslaug is awake when Ormr returns.

"What's got you up so early? Change your mind?"

Ormr's urgency settles a little as he looks into her trusting eyes.

"Get dressed. There's something to tell you."

They settle down with some bread, and Ormr tells Aslaug about him, his brother, and gives her something that resembles an ancient book.

"This is my story. Why and how I'm a God, and where I come from. The man in the south coming for war today is my twin brother."

Aslaug isn't shocked. They called him a God and she always felt blessed to be chosen. Her devotion is absolute. When her family arrives and demands to know what's going on, Aslaug takes the lead.

"Father, this is our new family story and if we lose to his brother, he will wipe us all out."

"It's more than that," Ormr interrupts. "After last night, well, you're pregnant. And not just with our child. I will live on, my genetics, my memories. The man in the South will want to wipe out all of me. You cannot let that happen. Now or ever." Ormr slows at the end for extra emphasis.

"My Lord, this is..." Aslaug's dad tries to deal with the news. Aslaug places her hands on her stomach.

"If I win, I'll find you. It's my blood and I'll feel it. If he does, he won't exactly pinpoint it until the light calls. Take the rock, the book and disappear. Be someone else."

Aslaug steps up. She was a natural leader, commanding absolute loyalty.

"If you're going to protect me and my line, brothers, uncles, father, you must take an oath. We will have to become someone else but still as strong. Self dependant. Able to fight if we need to."

Her family with her brothers and uncles roll up their sleeves and with a knife let blood down into a bowl. They swear their oath to protect Aslaug and her line, then Ormr drinks their blood to cement their mutual bond.

"Under a gentle sun on a misty morning, after the best night of my life, The Order was born. Not for me but for her."

"Hella taught me patience, forgiveness... fairness. My Aslaug added in this genuine warmth and love. We'd sleep close and it felt like I was complete. We were the true twins, bound strongly with love. It burned and stopped me breathing, it was so strong." Ormr paused and let the silence build between them. "I know you've felt it, with Isabella."

Thame is defensive. "Not like that. It changed you."

"Time has made you forget. Perhaps you're still angry at her for ditching you. But all people have secrets. Remember, I feel what you do, how you respond, what you love and hate. I'll never remember it as strong as mine... that's forever here," Ormr pulls his hands to chest and stomach; "But I feel yours just as you're remembering mine."

"I miss her. But she ran away. No, she pushed me away. It's been a few years now and it's like any relationship I suppose. You can think of it fondly, or stay angry about it. There was this unspoken divide that got bigger and bigger until I couldn't see her anymore." Thame sighs. "I withdrew. So did she. I thought it safer for her and she, she, I don't know."

Thame trails off before tensing to make a point. "I envy you. What you've had, are and could be."

"Envy me? Zmaj-Azdaja, Touleuss, Draah, King, East or West India Company. Wall Street. My brother didn't die. He's lived. I envy him... I envy you, son, for living. I just wish you weren't afraid to step from the shadow and into the light. I hope you stop fighting what's in you and embrace being alive. I was locked in a black prison. Hell. Living in the dark, unable to talk, eat or expand. I never saw Aslaug's end, just heard the stories written after. A snapshot hundreds of years later? That's not to envy."

"I'm sorry. For not... for... for being afraid of you." Thame sighs. "If I were shut away, after being what you are, and for years just having that love and loss, I'd go mad. I don't blame you for fighting to come out. To be put in a box, where you can't touch, smell, walk around, expand your horizons. Just to be there with your thoughts until eternal death. I'd have, I'd have not let me have a chance."

Thame puts his hands out, stands and moves toward Ormr, who answers,

"I can live through someone, feel what they feel. I can remember her and our life. I'm not going away. But when trapped then I have no choice but to fight like I did for Hella's village all those years ago."

Ormr and Thame touch.

"Let me live through you. You're more than a vessel. Be you. In the light and beyond. End the war, live with love and no limits. I'll help but my time has gone. You're still mortal and as my distant son, I want you to live. For me, it may be a short glide in the sky, swim in the sea and run through the forest, but you are life." Ormr pauses.

"I can see you now." Thame concludes.

"And I submit to you." Ormr calmly concedes.

They sit in silence for a while, before Thame turns to the challenges ahead.

"How did he kill you? Aren't you equal?"

"In strength, yes. But where I'd got weaker and worried about my tribes, he didn't. They were toys for him, fodder. He won the battle but the war still goes on."

"What about the knife? The one I used?"

"Mine. But it came through with him. I had the rock that made that." Ormr points at Thame's amulet.

The white in Thame's eyes becomes milky and drains out of him. He looks across his reflection.

"I can still sense him, we can still sense him. There's still a war going on and we need to win together."