I never understood why it was.

I reminded myself when it first happened, over and over again, that it was just a small thing, something of little consequence. The All Father had sacrificed his eye, and that only made him more powerful, more wise. More feared. The Watchman had lost his ear, to improve his hearing, and he was still a god respected; all saw that his was a job that needed to be done. No one would ever think that because of what they had lost that they were somehow less than other men.

No one would think them cripples.

It was not as thought I had lost my hand through stupidity and clumsiness: I had sacrificed my hand to the wolf just as Odin and Heimdall gave an eye and an ear to Mimir’s well. It was in bravery, self-sacrifice for the good of the Aesir, that I lost my hand. I gained nothing from it, as the father and his son gained from their sacrifices.

Truly, my sacrifice was nobler, yet I am the one who suffers.

Sometimes I think now that I would have been better to let Fenrir roam free and wild through our halls, putting fear into the hearts of our ladies, rather than sacrifice my hand. Then I would still be seen as someone of importance, for only I could truly command the beast’s obedience in most matters. Through his continued dominance I would have power. But these are not the thoughts worthy of Tyr – power through fear is no power at all.

Nevertheless, in losing my hand I lost an important piece of respect in the eyes of the Aesir. Of course, they still speak of Tyr’s bravery; the poets sing my praises in elegant verse and there are numerous toasts made in my name at feasts. All of things in the past.

But, I am no longer expected to handle weapons. I am no longer trusted with a weapon held in my single hand, I, a god of war. If giants or beasts need to be dealt with and the power of Thor is not enough, then others are called to aid him. His brothers, his sons, and his nephews are all trusted with tasks such as these.

My own son as well.

My son . . .

After the loss of my hand, my wife continued to share my bed and pleasure me. This was the once source of comfort offered to me, away from the depths of drink, that let me feel that I was still a man. In my wife’s eyes, I was certain, I was not a cripple, not something that was less than a man, a creature who, had it been a mortal child, would have been left in the wilderness to freeze to death, too weak to be allowed to live. Had she seen me as anything else, she would have surely divorced herself from me and been taken by another. But she remained in my hall and in my bed. Thirteen years ago she even gifted me with a son, a sure sign, in my eyes, that despite my loss I was still a man.

Tonight, however, I look at him closely as he sits on the floor by the fire, his head bent as he cleans and polishes, sharpens and smooths a sword as I taught him when he was much smaller, and as he works, humming to himself, I see in him all the things that are not in me.

It is more than the fact that he has both hands and is trusted to hold a weapon against an enemy when I am not, despite his youth. His hair is red and hangs about his face. In the light of the flames it looks like fire itself, glowing and dancing flames licking harmlessly at his face as he shifts in the slightest or when he exhales. It bares no resemblance to the gold of my own hair, a gift from my giant-possessed mother, or the rich strands that coil over my wife’s shoulders and down her back, the colour of wood. As a babe his eyes were a bright, shining blue, like my own and those of my wife, but in recent years, as he slowly grows to manhood, they have become green-brown, still bright and looking like waters of a shallow stream, but as foreign in my hall as his hair.

He is of small stature, his head only drawing level to the chest of my wife, and she herself does not reach higher than my shoulder. Among the Aesir, he is tiny, and while he wields his sword well, it is with more skill than power, and his muscles are stringy things on thin arms. His skin is very pale although it develops a rosey flush when he is excited, much like my wife. His fingers are long and thin, working with near womanly care after tools and weapons, his touch soft. Both are easily lost and engulfed in my single hand. It is true that he is too young to sport a beard, but I begin to suspect that even when he is a man grown, his face will be bare.

I watch him work and listen to his musical humming, which occasionally becomes lightly sung words, and in my mind I curse the Trickster and his twisted revenge that I was blind to for so long.

Because of me, the Liesmith lost his son, and so I lose mine because of him.

Had I not clung so desperately to the one thing that assured me that the loss of my hand was not the complete loss of my self, I might have realized the truth sooner, and I could have cast the child out, to Midgard or further, to fend for himself and certainly perish.

I study his bent form and I realize that although he has a weapon and both hands, overpowering him would not be a difficult task, particularly when I would no doubt take him by surprise. I could cast him into Midgard or Jotunheim and be rid of him forever, not be reminded every day of Loki’s existence, though he was now bound, or of my wife’s treachery.

“Father,” he says, his light voice interrupting my thoughts, “will you train with me in the morning?” He looks over his shoulder and smiles hopefully at me, his eyes bright and full of innocence, his hands temporarily stilled.

“Of course,” I reply quietly as I watch his smile widen in delight before he goes back to his work, and vow in my heart not to let the son of Laufey win from his prison.