“I'm starting to get a better one,” Bragi said. His eyes shifted back and forth, and he offered her a mischievous half smile to betray that this was playful teasing rather than an actual representation of his views on the subject.. Bragi knew he didn't know how lucky he was, but thought it was well past 'very.' Then again, he didn't think the goddess had a true grasp on it either, except when it came to her. Especially when it came to her. All thoughts of peculiarity or shifted views had disappeared in the wake of her laughter.
If Bragi didn't know any better, he would have sworn for a second she'd looked disappointed too. If he didn't know any better, he'd say a whispering sort of wistfulness had come into her countenance as though she had just accidentally dropped something heavy in the lake, and realized at the last moment that she hadn't really wanted to let go of it after all.
Of course, knowing what he'd just learned, that would have been too silly to have actually happened. After all, he had said he amended his plan to fall exactly in line with hers. You'd think a goddess who had no future plans for settling would be ecstatic at a friends only proposal. In the back of his head, Bragi grinned for the smallest second until the apple maiden's words replaced the image with the faint smell of honey and lavender and the sound of his mother's tentative footsteps against the squeaking floorboards in his old room. Bragi was no stranger to wall builders. He got to know his mother best by what he'd heard under windows, and through locked doors, walls, and those squeaking floorboards.
The first time he'd asked about his father she'd looked nervous and wrung her hands like she was wringing something else. There wasn't a second time.
“That is a romantic idea,” Bragi managed. Romantic wasn't a word he'd ever used to describe it before. It had never felt that way to him. But she talked about it with a thrilled sort of mysticism, and her expression showed that she thought it was. Bragi's eyes turned to a faraway point in the distance. “But I've heard it's more romantic in theory than practice.” His tone was too even. In an effort to take anything deeper out of it, he'd almost made it too light. With that tone, and the way he'd phrased, Bragi had twisted 'I've heard' to sound like a colloquialism that meant he'd received the information from a second hand source. By itself though, it wasn't entirely inaccurate. Particularly if he added a few more senses. He'd heard, felt, seen...
He looked back at the goddess. She built her walls with bricks and stone rather than the smooth side of obsidian. Bragi raised a shoulder to look like he was shrugging. He'd liked it better when they'd been agreeing about the other apples and trees. She'd always hesitate at the doorway. He'd be wide awake with both eyes open but she'd still walk across the room like she was avoiding glass. As though she were hoping that if she were just quiet enough, he'd fall asleep before she got there and she could turn back. Bragi couldn't understand why anyone would want to go for a broken thing first without even trying for a whole one. “I couldn't do it to my children on purpose” Bragi admitted. He'd rather not have children. “Even if the parent's heart isn't broken, the child's could be. I'd imagine.” And if the parent's heart was broken..... Well, a helpless sort of guilt might come with being born a condemned murderer. A killer of dreams. It was hard to atone for ruining your mother's life when you'd done it by breathing.
Bragi laughed. “If you see her let me know.” His smile didn't hold all of the whispering secrets in the universe, but it might have had a couple that counted. In retrospect, Bragi would end up quite dismayed by how many times she withheld this information.