The women make jokes about how easy the birth was, the men about whether I enjoyed it. Both of these things are true, but neither are funny. It wasn’t just the birth that was easy, that I enjoyed, it was everything about my baby boy.
Do not misunderstand; I love Fenrir and Hel; they are my children. But Jörmungandr is, was, and will be, by far, the favourite I deny exists. We were inseparable when he was tiny. I’d wear him inside my clothes and make inside jokes that sent my bosom quivering with his silent laughter.
And when he was bigger, unlike the others, he really applied himself to his tasks. He researched, he learned, just like his father! He had a sharp mind, and a commitment to healthy participation—something no one else in the family had any notion of. I honestly don’t know where he got that.
But then he took off: intellectually, emotionally, and physically. That, of course, was the beginning of our end. His body grew to the size of his heart and his mind—enormous—before he was cast out.
He tried, tries, to make the best of it, I know. But the hole he left in me is no smaller than his physical shape. The baby that slid, so easily, so enjoyably, into my life, was torn out of it with an opposing force that has deeply wounded my ever-so-magical soul.
Jörmungandr pretends that it’s for the best: that he likes being both free and connected. And I pretend to believe him—until I don’t.