HERO LOST QUESTIONS

Fellow Anthology Auth0r, Olga Godim,  

has a fascinating idea for a joint blog post among our group:

We each ask 5 questions of our main character from our fantasy.

Being a journalist, Olga said she would help with those questions if we had trouble with them.


Funny thing: 

there is a foolhardy reporter in my story.  

She learns that she was not prepared for the answers.


If I were to ask the Caretaker five questions, 

I would not get the first one out before his haunted eyes would breathe winter across my blood.

His eyes murmur of strange sins, longing for more than loneliness but expecting nothing less.

Such eyes halt shallow questions before they are even uttered.


Before Surt broke free from the earth's fiery heart, the Caretaker had spent centuries as an Einherjar --

the bravest of warriors who died in battle and whisked up to Valhalla.

Heimdall returned this most fierce of the Einherjar to both Midgard and Jotunheim 

with the purpose of killing giants, but he was forbidden to talk with the living.


The Einherjar did worse: 

He fell in love with the Valkyrie who had flown him to Valhalla.  

The Valkyrie returned that love.  

They married.  

Wotan exacted a terrible price on them both.  

But to tell more would ruin the story.


Caretaker's tiny friend, Mouse, rides in his safari jacket pocket.

Mouse owes his freedom to Napoleon's soldiers.  

The gust of bacterial air which breathed from the First Dynasty tomb they ransacked 

gave them the freedom of death.


Mouse might ask ME a question:

"You humans mock our limited minds.  But what have you done with your larger ones?"