Skíðblaðnir

I saved it for later. Later never came.

She asked his name after the boat had already left the shore.

Not because she was afraid.
Because she had spent a lifetime knowing who was responsible for what.

As she stepped onto the boat, a small sail, neatly folded at the mast, caught the wind and opened on its own.
Not suddenly.
As if it had been waiting for her weight.

He waited a moment, then said it simply.

“Freyr.”

She looked at him again — this time attentively.

“No,” she said quietly. “That can’t be right.”
Then, after a pause: “You shouldn’t be here. This crossing isn’t yours.”

He didn’t argue. He adjusted the oar, letting the current do most of the work.

“It wasn’t,” he said. “But it is now.”

That answer satisfied her more than an explanation would have.

The boat was light. Too light, she thought, for what it carried.
Its edges bent in a strange way, as if the vessel could be folded — or unfolded — depending on what was placed inside it.

They drifted for a while without speaking.

Then she began.

She spoke about a life arranged around others.
Children first. Always children first.
Days measured by needs, not desires.

Joy acknowledged.
Postponed.
Stored carefully for a future that never arrived.

“I knew how to be happy,” she said.
“I just never chose the moment.”

She didn’t sound bitter.
Only precise.

Freyr listened.

He didn’t comfort her.
He didn’t praise her sacrifices.

He had learned, long ago, that unfinished things didn’t need validation.

“I thought I would come back to it,” she went on.
“The trips. The music. The afternoons with nothing required of me.”

She smiled briefly.

“I kept them safe.”

“Yes,” he said.
“You did.”

As the opposite shore came into view, she felt something loosen.

Not pain.
Space.

From her hands — she wasn’t sure when they had filled — she began to place things onto the boat.

A morning with no obligations.
A laugh she had saved for later.
A summer that stayed folded.
A version of herself that never learned restraint.

The boat accepted them without weight.

When she finished, she hesitated.

“And you?” she asked.
“Why are you the one taking this?”

Freyr looked at the water for a long moment.

“Because this remained,” he said.
“After us.”

Then, more quietly:

“Someone has to carry what we left unfinished.”

She nodded.

That was enough.

Before stepping onto the far bank, she turned once more.

“What is this boat called?” she asked.

For the first time, he allowed the name to surface.

“Skíðblaðnir.”

She smiled — not in recognition, but in understanding.

Then she walked on.

Behind her, the boat folded slightly, lighter now,

ready to return.