Flash Fiction Friday - Into the Ice

And the brave one's blood grew cold and his breath froze in the icy places below the world. Now he stood alone and unbent before the throne of the Jotunn jarl and thumped sword upon shield, singing out a challenge. No bearded behemoth greeted him, but a pair of rime-maidens, blue and sharp as hoarfrost. His gaze ran down their shining bodies, from hair like winter's wrath over breasts peaked like twin bergs to hips full of snow-dappled promises. Numbly his fingers surrendered their grip on blade and buckler as gelid fingers caressed him. He did not struggle, shivering with desire, as they stole the heat from his soul's hearth even as they fueled his loins' false fire. Thus he passed from mortal ken into the ice.

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I knew I wanted this to be about cold.  I don't know if PB chose the phrase purposefully, since I don't know anything about the picture other than what he gave us, but the combination of shivering and the blue tint and the weather was enough.  Boy I'm sure going to feel silly come Friday when everyone writes about cold.

At first, when I saw the title of the picture (King Sol) I was a bit confused and wondered if I'd completely missed the point.  Not that I was going to change my mind, just that I was reading something into it that wasn't there.  But while that may be true, King Sol works for me because I'd like to believe that this is a fragment of a myth concerning winter and the shortening of days, and perhaps King Sol, our intrepid (but rather overly-influenced by the lusts of his flesh) hero, is the sun and the rime-maidens are the approaching solstice.  Or something.  That's just a bit of fluff; I didn't think of that while I was writing the piece, but I'm post-facto rationalizing it.

After my Beowulf pastiche of a while back (go on, read it again, I'm quite proud of it) one might think that I've got a thing for Norse-Germanic myth, which would be semi-accurate.  I didn't do verse because this isn't Old English and I dislike repeating the same trick.  I'm also trying hard to be positive about Norse-Germanic myth because it gets co-opted far too often by asshole neo-Nazi shitheads.  And let's face it, there was a certain amount of sex going on in old Norse myth; maybe not as much as in Greek myth, but I couldn't see putting ice-maids into Greek myth because icebergs are pretty thin on the ground in the Peloponnese.

A confession: while I was looking for something else, I came across the word "gelid" which I knew but didn't remember and would probably never have used, and it clicked back into memory so I had to use it or lose it, but it feels a bit like I cheated and wrote by thesaurus.  However, the rest of the big words are all mine.  I love hoarfrost, and, like Coleridge before me (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner), I'm using "rime" with a bit of a pun, but in saying that I make myself look incredibly snobbish.  Informal poll: Anyone catch the pun?  Anyone get the pun in Coleridge?  Anyone know what the hell Lexi is talking about?

This was rather rambling because I'm rather scatterbrained presently, and I apologize if I've seemed boastful about using big words or puns or Beowulf or really anything that I've said.  In attempting to explain, I've just made things worse.  Just like always.

Anyway, to return to the topic at hand, I struggled with this, not because I didn't have an idea, but because I couldn't write the idea down.  Then I wrote it down but it was all wrong, so I cannibalized phrases from the original to feed the fires of innovation.  Then it wound up being too long, so I cut things.  I would have cut the required phrase ("shivering with desire" if you're playing at home) but even though it's basically three words the story didn't need, I left it in and cut some other three words because it's important to play by the rules (127 words, if you're playing at home).  I wound up changing most of what I cannibalized, so there's very little of the original still there.  And I wanted it to involve more sex, but instead you got some arcane words.  Quick, instead of an orgasm, I'm going to say, "brumal!"  That's that kind of thing that keeps them coming back for more.

But don't let all that make you think I'm unhappy with this.  Nor am I ever unhappy that I've thrown my literary bonnet in the ring for Flash Fiction Friday.  I doubt sincerely that you'd be unhappy if you tossed whatever hat you wear when writing into next week's ring.  We take all kinds: literary tamoshanters, literary porkpies, literary straw boaters, even the occasional literary giant foam cheese hat.