Past the Mountains, Among the Clouds

Things really didn't get any better, or so she said.

I'd like to break the suspense of the situation now and here only. While Freya's wording might reflect that she found herself in an even worse situation, it's barely a misinterpretation. Only partly, though. She was quite correct when she said that things didn't improve. In fact, based on the predicament I'd later found her to be in, I'd say things indeed got worse. However, at this very instance, while things didn't get any better, it also didn't get any worse.

"Foster home." She said dejectedly.

"I was put up in a foster home. Though I feel it'll be better to call them 'homes,' rather than a singular entity. Not like I have felt home in those walls of concrete." She continued.

Homes. Not just a singular quantity, but multiple. She had been passed around. Even after being rescued, stability eluded her.

"My first foster home was with an elderly couple. I don't remember their age—just that they were old, like I said." She sighed, as if that detail didn't matter.

"Foster home aside, I was also put into therapy. I think you'd have figured that much.No one with a past like mine could just live a normal life. So like a good girl that I've always been—a girl who destroys her families, a girl who never learns, a girl who'll only bring troubles to the one around her, be it her mom, dad, or teacher—I started following what I was told. I wanted them to be happy."

Another face.

Her words. They felt wrong. They felt out of place. What sort of trouble had she caused that she feels it's her duty to atone for them? She still put the fault of all the things that happened on her. At that time, I realised the Freya I had known—the playful, lively Freya—had been nothing but just another face. She, like Autumn, was buried in the pile of death and decay.

She was broken. Through and through.

"I was sent back a month later." She said. She almost giggled. The situation was so ridiculous that she couldn't help but cackle, but she didn't. 

Another face.

"I mean, I kind of get it." She said that with a strange sense of acceptance.

No. You don't get it. I don't get it.

"Like, being tasked with raising a child with a past like mine is already tedious. Add to it her precarious nature. She does what she's told to. She never makes you unhappy. She doesn't rebel. She seems more wise than you could ever be and you're bound to feel 'uncomfortable' with that 'robotic' kid. She must've felt 'fake'. Definitely she's 'artificial.'"

Those are not her words. Then whose could they be? 

Her first foster parents.

"I had been passed around five such homes before coming to this place. Funny thing is all that happened during the eighth grade. Can you imagine what that must've done to the psyche of a fourteen-year-old girl? Who'd already been through so much? Feels like a joke, right, Eirik?"

It doesn't.

Her words hung in the air, sharp and cutting.

I wanted to scream. I clenched my fist so hard I could feel the fingernails dug into my flesh. I sat where I was. My brow tensed up, but I didn't reply.

It wasn't a joke, Freya.

What you went through wasn't a joke!

The turmoil of emotions within me couldn't be condensed into words. It never could be. That's why when she looked at me in hope of some affirmation, I just stayed quiet.

The lack of a response seemed to have disappointed her. Her twisted grin quickly deteriorated into an expression of saddened acceptance.

Bierra sat unmoving, her gaze fixed ahead, as cold and distant as ever. Freya didn't look at her—maybe because she already knew what she'd see.

"Remember the therapy I told you about earlier? That ended up being like a joke as well. To think they had been all chummy with me, only to give up. So much for that nuisance." 

"Which brings me to that fateful day, where I became Freya Pomon Archion." She said with s cheerful smile. 

Creepy.

She even jumped up in joy, as if recounting a good old memory she cherished.

Another face.

"The fifth family. Had I not become a god, I wonder what that number would be?" She began as she looked at the ceiling. 

"I'm pretty sure they were going to send me back as well. Like the previous four, I could tell they too have been annoyed by my 'artificial', 'fake' and 'robotic' persona. Truth be told, I would have been as well if I were them." She had the same twisted grin. It looked like she felt proud of it.

No. I refuse to believe that. No one could possibly hate themselves so much to have pride in the hate.

It felt disgusting.

It felt—otherworldly.

"I was going back to that place."

Calling her home, that place.

"It was before the end term exams. I was alone. Just like my foster parents, even regular people were weirded out by me. I had developed this habit of staying late after school. No one cared where I was to begin with, so reaching home late was never an issue." 

"It was the crossing. I remember it vividly." 

"The air was heavy, the world strangely quiet, as if everything was holding its breath. Unlike here, where snow blankets the ground by November, that place still carried the lingering warmth of Autumn. One step, and it all changed. Just like that."

"The unnamed girl with the traumatic past died that day. And I was born. Ta dah!" She gleamed with confidence.

Another face.

"Sorry if that transformation sequence was very mundane. But that's just how it happened. One moment I was human, the next I had ascended. That's it." She said with that same twisted grin.

That's it? It can't be. It feels incomplete. As if something so important had been deliberately left out.

What was it?

What was it?

"It's still not over, Freya." Bierra's impersonal voice broke through the stream of questions in my mind.

"I'm sure you didn't make us listen to your sad story for sure, just for the sake of it." Her words felt bitter.

"I'm sorry, Miss Bierra, but like you said, I'm pretty much helpless. I don't think bearing my troubles on the two of you would be fruitful for any of us." Freya responded.

"Don't bend my words, Freya!" Bierra's sharp words cut through.

"I'm not talking about that and you know it very well. Your tale isn't complete!" Bierra said, her voice like ice cracking under pressure.

For the first time, she turned fully toward Freya, her piercing gaze fixed.

Yes. Bierra felt the same. Freya's conclusion felt incomplete. But why was it?

I'm dying.

I remembered her saying.

"Freya-" I said.

"You're dying." And just like that, two words were all it took to complete her tale. 

The realization wasn't extraordinary. Honestly, it felt more like looking at the missing pieces of the puzzle and making inferences about its shape. Freya Pomon Archion, the Goddess of Autumn. She was going to die. She said it herself. No. I shouldn't make any such conclusions just yet. That'd be unfaithful. What I will say is that the subject of the gods isn't as well defined as humans. It was vague. Vague as it could be.

The two words of mine were enough to complete the puzzle that was Freya Pomon Archion, as Bierra put it. All that was left was to look at the picture.

"Very well, kid. I'm impressed." Bierra said with an amused expression on her face. It was the very first time she had made a positive comment regarding me.

"I don't know, Bierra. I feel something's missing, but I can't pin it out."

"You just did."

"How?" I questioned.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Bierra was holding a proper conversation. Freya had resigned herself to the role of Bierra at this point. She sat by the podium with her shoulders slumped and a defeated expression.

"What do you think it means for a god to die?" She asked.

"You said something about disappearing into oblivion." I replied.

"Correct. You really are sharp!"

"I'm not sure how it relates to the tale being complete, though."

"For Freya to die as god, she must've been a god in the first place."

"Right. And?" 

"Did you think why was she chosen to be the Autumn Goddess in the first place?" She asked.

Why? Was it because Autumn was still around? No. But it must be something related to Autumn. Something which connects Freya and Autumn.

The fragmented details swirled in my mind—the twisted grin, her cryptic words, the way she danced around the moment of her ascension. And then it clicked, sharp and cold as a blade.

Faces.

Layers.

Autumn, a season of death and decay yet, it is appealing. It disguises. It hides. Just like Freya through her faces. It was the perfect fit.

"Seems like you've figured it out." Bierra said with a pleased expression.

She didn't have to say anything further. The puzzle was complete.

"Freya." I called out to her.

I prayed I was wrong.

She looked at me with a weak gaze.

"You said you were passed around five families."

"Yes." A dejected reply.

"The fifth family was going to send you back, too."

"Yes." The tone didn't change.

"Yet, if I am correct, they are still your foster parents."

Silence.

"For them to continue to be your parents, something must've changed. Something must've changed in the past you. You became a god."

Silence.

"Suddenly, the girl they were so disgusted by became the perfect fit for them. They began enjoying her presence. Not because you were a god. They still wouldn't know you're one. But it indeed has to do with you becoming a god."

Silence.

"Your faces. They became appealing to the world. Your godhood made them to be. Just like the death and decay of Autumn, your faces, which had once been your mechanism to shield yourself from the world, were now the face of yours for the world."

Her silence had forced the role of persecutor onto me.

"You must've been happy with this sudden strange development. Of course, you'd be. You, after what felt like so long, had something you had always wished for; stability. You now had what felt like a proper family. You could now make friends. You did and even made it to college."

Freya sat unmoving, her shoulders slumped, her gaze fixed on the floor as if the words themselves had weight she could no longer bear.

"But once again, it didn't last long. One day you realised something. After being unnatural to other for so long, how did it feel to experience the same for yourself? Your layers. Your faces. Maybe it was something that was pointed out to you. Maybe you found it out yourself. Which one of the faces were actually you? You'd become so masterful in your art of deceit that you had deceived yourself. You didn't know. Who was the original Freya? What did she like? What did she do? You didn't know. And that's when the crack seemed to appear."

"St-" Freya wanted to say something.

Yes. Tell me I'm wrong.

I want to hear it from you, but she didn't. I continued.

"Without your identity, you were neither the unnamed girl nor Freya Pomon Archion. Godhood is based on faith. It is a manmade construct. No. While it might not be manmade, it was still affected by humans; by our faith; by our trust. Your godhood had no identity to anchor itself to. It turned inward, latching onto its own construct. But you—Freya—weren't part of that construct. Slowly but surely, you noticed the changes. You were losing yourself day by day."

"You were dying." 

The final nail in the coffin.