Chapter 6 – Mistletoe

The next morning the house looked exactly the same, since Vali was refusing to relinquish the wrapping paper for Sigyn to clean up. The day went on in a relaxed way, Jor throwing the busted blow up duck over the little ducklings and watching them sink slowly before saving them and watching gleefully as they bobbed up to the surface once again. Nari reading vehemently, both Dracula and Wuthering Heights lying completed by his side already, his head engulfed in the Iliad, his lips forming the words as he read them. Ian and Loki set up the TV and Blue Ray. It could have been a quiet and peaceful day had it not been because Sigyn thought it was time to bring Max and Ian some new towels, and while doing so, spotted something lying on their bedside table. A bunch of green branches with long, narrow leaves, and clusters of white berries laid tied together with red string. Sigyn picked it up gingerly and looked it over, but there could be no doubt what it was. 

“Max, Ian,” she called loudly. Her tone suggested some annoyance, the two men noted, but why they could not tell – not until they stood in the doorway to the room they had been given upon arrival. 

“Oh,” Max said, as if he had been caught red handed with his hand in the cookie jar. 

“Why is there mistletoe in my house?” Sigyn asked overly calmly, making both men feel as if they had been called into the principal’s office. 

“Look,” Ian said with a pleading calmness in his voice. “It’s one of those modern traditions, you are supposed to hang it in the doorway, and anyone who passes under it is supposed to stay there until someone comes and kisses them. Max proposed to me under the mistletoe last year, so we kinda just, we wanted to have that bit of our traditions with us, but we knew the story of Loki and Balder and the arrow of mistletoe, so we didn’t want to bring it up with you guys.” Sigyn looked over the small and innocent looking little bundle of branches. Loki was the one who found out mistletoe was the one and only thing that could kill Balder, and he set about to accomplish it in his usual fashion. That was what had landed him in that cave, cost Vali and Nari their lives, and made Sigyn stand by him until the day Ian and Max untied his chains and set him free. 

“This is a symbol of love now?” she asked, as if someone had told her Mjolnir was now a tool for healing. 

“Yeah, pretty much,” Max said softly. Sigyn tilted her head wonderingly, then took the mistletoe with her and left the room. Max and Ian followed her downstairs at a safe distance, and watched as she held it out over Loki’s head. Loki looked up confused at her movement, then, noticing the mistletoe, flinched as if sure he was about to be scolded for his part in Baldur’s death again. Sigyn merely bent down and kissed his cheek though – which left Loki looking more confused than ever. 

Max quickly explained the modern use of the plant to the whole family, and Ian retold the proposal story again. Hel shook her head in frustration at the two men. 

“That isn’t good enough,” she said disapprovingly. Sigyn stood up as if about to defend them, but Hel continued. “You cannot tell a proposal story like that, it needs detail, emotion. That is a do-over.” A soft smile spread across her face, and Ian laughed in relief. 

“Well, it was Christmas eve. We were at my parents’ for the holidays…” 

“No,” Max interrupted. “It wasn’t Christmas eve, it was the 21st.” 

“No, we didn’t arrive at my parents’ until the 23rd,” Ian argued. 

“Yes, but on the 21st we went rock climbing,” Max reminded him. 

“Oh, like that!” It dawned on Ian. “Okay,” he settled back into the story again. “It was the 21st of December, one years ago. We were climbing this amazing rock formation in Texas – since we were spending Christmas with my parents we made a road trip out of it and took a few detours along the way. Once we got to the top of this rock we found a single tree, somehow growing on a small shelf on the cliff, and on it a mistletoe. Max pulled me over there, and we took an amazing picture kissing under the mistletoe, the background this beautiful wally – I actually have a picture here.” Ian pulled out his phone and showed them the picture before continuing the story. “Somehow Max managed to bring a branch of the mistletoe with him without me noticing, and on the 24th, while my mom was in the kitchen and dad was watching football, he held it out over my head and kissed me and placed a small box in my hand. When I opened it, it was an engagement ring.” Ian smiled widely at the memory. Max intertwined their fingers and shifted his weight so his arm was up against Ian’s. 

“He didn’t actually answer,” Max remarked. 

“You didn’t actually ask,” Ian countered. Max laughed and looked down. 

“He didn’t actually answer,” he said again. “He just put the ring on and kissed me.” 

“We still have the original mistletoe at home,” Ian said gleefully. “We didn’t want to risk it on a trip though.” Sigyn couldn’t help herself, she got up and hugged the two men. Hel nodded her approval. 

“That is one of the better ones I’ve heard,” she said as if giving them a score on a scale from one to ten. 

“I take it you make a habit of asking people?” Max inquired. 

“Always,” Hel said. “It’s an easy way to make people feel at home fast. You just have to be careful, sometimes people died on their wedding night – or, in the more recent years, while doing extreme proposals.” Max and Ian both pulled a face of pain at the idea. 

“Yeah, extreme sports aren’t for everyone,” Max said. 

“And certainly not the inexperienced or unlicensed,” Ian added, having taken a few calls involving failed extreme sports. 

“Can I…” Nari asked, looking at the mistletoe. “Can I see it?” The mistletoe was handed unceremoniously to Nari who looked it over as if it was an antique revolver, or Odin’s second eye, but before he could get too lost in the history of the small plant, his mother leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Soon the mistletoe was being handed to everyone in turn, and whoever the holder was, be they human like in shape or not, every single person in the room gave them a kiss on the cheek – from Sigyn a soft and motherly peck, from Hel a surprisingly not uncomfortable brush of half formed lips, from Fenrir a wet lick from bottom to top, from Jor a sorta first bump with the tongue, from Vali a smaller but equally wet lick, from Loki too a lick, just because he could, from Nari a sloppy, wet smooch, from Max a hickey, and from Ian a kiss full on the lips with no regard to who he was kissing – although with Jor he was only physically capable to kissing one lip due to size. Unsurprisingly, it soon turned into a fight about who could get the mistletoe, and who could be the first to kiss whoever held the mistletoe, and soon, once more, the entire island was filled with happy laughs and loving shouts of indignity when the mistletoe was stolen. 

Max and Ian had been right to keep their original mistletoe at home though, cause this one was soon torn apart, and eventually the fun faded as every single person seemed to be holding a mistletoe of their own. 

“What the Bragi,” Loki mumbled softly, tossing his mistletoe up in the air and catching it lightly. “How things change in just a few short millennials.”