Chapter Zero: In Medias Res It was a beautiful day outside. The snow had stopped falling, giving way to a warm Norwegian sun shining across the land. Of course, warm was relative when you were a staff member in the northernmost university in the world. The professor stood up from his oaken desk and checked his watch. The coffee maker quietly bubbled in the corner of his office. With a satisfied grunt, he straightened his cuff after noticing that it was slightly askew. Gripping the side of the desk for support, he reached out to his walking stick. He was only 65 and his hip *just* started giving him some trouble, so it really wasn’t necessary. However, the grandson who gave it to him was very proud of making it himself, and how could he deny such eager puppy-dog eyes? Half-past noon. His guest should be arriving soon. A representative from the Vanagandr-Mous Foundation, who apparently needed to talk to him about some historical writings regarding a “lost” city in Egypt. Of course, the professor really knew what that man was coming here to discuss. There were better places than the city of Tromsø to discuss ancient Egyptian history. He rapped his cane on the legs of the coffee table as he walked by it, the jolt activating his “internet assistant” and its holographic projector. In its idle state, it began scrolling through some pictures that he saved on it. He smiled as he saw his seventh birthday, then a picture with his flustered wife, and finally a picture of his ten children, then all rambunctious Faunae wolf-cubs. Standing next to him was his wife, a head and a half taller than him. ‘Hm. Not bad for a 180 centimeter-tall twenty-nine year old.’ He thought. His eyes come to rest on a large hunting knife, resting behind a thick glass case. His reflection was clear in the golden blade, between the old Nordic runes engraved in the flat of the knife. Just looking at the blade brought mixed feelings. He owed a lot to it, and it had also taken much from him. *KNOCK KNOCK* “Ah,” he thought. His guest had arrived. “Yes, come in. The door is unlocked.” The door opened, allowing a smartly-dressed human man and Faunae woman inside. The lapel of his suit had a large metal VF pin on it, the logo of the Vanagandr-Mous Foundation. “Dr. Vidarsson? My name is Roland McDouglass.” Ronald extended a hand which the professor shook. “And I’m Henrietta Anderson.” The Oryx woman extended a hand as well, and on closer inspection of her features the professor noticed that a silver Vanagandr-Mous Foundation ring adorned one of her horns. “We’re historians with the Vanagandr-Mous Foundation’s Ancient Culture Research division.” She gestured to her partner. “The Foundation sent us to you for consultation regarding some archeological data we need clarification on.” “They want a free consultation, hm? I should take the cut for this from their allowance.” The man chuckled to himself as he realized the confused looks his guests were wearing. “Ahem. I trust the journey here wasn’t too hard? It’s not often we get guests from America here.” “Not at all, Doctor. I must say, compared to New York the Norwegian countryside is a breath of fresh air. And I mean that literally and figuratively.” Ronald laughs at his own jest as Henrietta rolls her eyes. “If you want to get serious, McDouglass, lets show the good professor those peculiar hieroglyphs regarding our dig site in Egypt.” She raised her briefcase to the table, moving aside the holographic projector which turned off. “We at the Foundation think that we’ve found something rather interesting down there regarding a potential discovery of a new lost ‘wonder of the world’ and we need your help in affirming the accuracy of our translation team’s notes.” Professor Vidarsson raises a hand, interrupting the young man. “Please, before we dive into formalities may I offer you some coffee? Or do you prefer tea?” McDouglass smiles. “Coffee is fine, thanks. You can keep it black, I don’t particularly like cream or sugar in it.” “Hm, that’s the opposite of how she liked it.” The professor mused, remembering the first time his late wife tried to drink coffee. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” The Oryx’s ears perk up in response to his murmur. Vidarsson grimaced, unintentionally letting the past get to him again. “Don’t mind me, just an old man reminiscing about days gone by. Would you like some coffee too?” The Oryx woman shook her head. “Get a grip. It’s been nearly ten years since you did the deed. And she wanted you to do it.” He thought to himself as his brow furrowed. Gingerly he placed down two porcelain cups filled with the bitter, dark liquid on the table. As McDouglass requested his cup was left untouched as Vidarsson added some milk and a sugar cube to his. After taking a sip, he was ready and focused to parse through the documents, fishing his bifocals from his suit pocket. “Now then, let me see your dossier. I’ll try to give any input I can.” A few hours go by as the old man studied the documents. Dr. Vidarsson noticed that his guests would occasionally keep glancing at the golden hunting knife behind him. After some time, he became tired of their lustful eyes; their mind obviously on something else other than the pages before him. He grunted, jabbing his finger at a line of hieroglyphs, snapping the other two’s attention fully on the papers. “These are very interesting hieroglyph patterns. Honestly nothing documented in the notes I’m familiar with matches any of these from any of the periods of ancient Egypt. Who compiled these?” McDouglass rifled through his notepad. “It was a recent hire, a graduate student working on his doctorate. He found them at a dig site that he triangulated after picking up on clues laid out on several ancient scrolls that were overlooked by others. It’s funny, really. It all began with certain myths that spread throughout the region during the early centuries, around 200-600 BC. Something to do with talks of a strange library that dwarfed even the Library of Alexandria, and an artifact that would put the wealth of most nations to shame.” “Artifact?” The professor leaned in, curious as to what the man had to say. “Yes. Supposedly, it was a large obelisk made of solid gold. Apparently this city enshrined the thing in a pool in the city center. Of course, no evidence of this city exists, only trace mentions from texts scattered around the Middle East and Anatolia regions. But from that, he was able to triangulate a dig site where apparently they…found something. A box of scrolls and parchment books. That’s where these images I’m showing you now come from. They think that these show the location of something very important. I wanted a second opinion, so I came here.” Dr. Vidarsson raises an eyebrow. “Really? That’s quite impressive. What exactly do they think they’ll find?” McDouglass’ visage darkened. “I really am not at liberty to say, doctor. Unfortunately, if I am to keep my position in the Foundation I must also keep my mouth shut.” “I understand. Do be sure to pass on my contact information to this individual, though. I would very much like to meet him.” “I will, Doctor. I’m sure he would love to meet with you.” McDouglass takes his papers and puts them back in his briefcase. As the latch snaps closed Henrietta perked up, unable to contain her questions any further. “Truth be told, professor, there is one last thing I wanted to ask you.” “Yes?” From his tone, Dr. Vidarsson seemed to already know what was on her mind. “It’s about that knife, in that case behind you. May I take a look at it?” She gestured to the golden blade in the back of the room. “By all means. Here, I will take it out for you.” The professor winced as he rose, surprising himself by actually using his cane for its intended purpose. He was going on in his sixties, and although his youth as an outdoorsman had kept him fit age was starting to catch up to him. He smiled sadly, as he knew she would have remained the same as she was forty years ago. As young and spry as the day they met. He lifted the glass cover over the blade, and gently took it out. It was heavy in his hand. “Here you are. Be careful, that edge is sharp.” Henrietta took it, running the edge between her fingers while studying the runes on the blade. “Elder Fuuthark…and an ancient dialect. Yet the blade is pristine.” Her voice was heavy with curiosity. At this point, McDouglass had stepped forward as well, his eyes scanning the blade. “It should be, that is just a reproduction.” The doctor mused. “Reproduction?” McDouglass said while looking up at him. “Oh yes. The real one is kept with my family…in a location I am not willing to disclose.” “Then, this really is…” McDouglass gulps. “This is the Hunting Knife of Vidar?” “Again, a reproduction, but yes. The Hunting Knife is very, very real. Tell me, young lady, why did you ask about this weapon?” “You won’t believe this, doctor. But one of the bound books in the chest that was found? It was written in Elder Fuuthark. It was a journal, but the text is extremely antiquated.” She gulped. “There are…rumors in the company. Rumors about the family that founded the Foundation and their history, and then this book shows up. I…I meant no disrespect but when we saw this weapon in your office…” At that, Dr. Vidarsson looked at his guests with an intense look. “A journal, you say?” His voice was measured, calm and holding back emotion. “A journal written in the language of the Old Gods?” “Yes. We were all wondering: why was a book written in the ancient Nordic language found buried under the sand in a dig site near the Toshka Lakes? Furthermore the contents of the journal confused us. It was difficult to translate, but the text within was full of notions of the apocalypse, with passages describing the world freezing over. Hell, I would have thought it’d be some kind of practical joke, if not for our carbon dating equipment placing its origin somewhere around late 500 BC.” She bit her thumb. “It ended up a critical part of triangulating the location of this ‘lost wonder’. But McDouglass and I were curious about this whole thing.” McDouglass began to speak, backing up his partner. “Being the expedition lead manager I contacted the head of the head of the Unusual Artifact Research division on his direct line. I told him about the journal and its contents, how it was out of place geographically. His tone got cold, well, colder than usual. He flatly told me that the journal was to be a valuable source of information, and that it needed to be hermetically sealed and shipped to VMF Headquarters immediately.” He sighs. “Our Artifact Recovery Containers are state of the art vacuum-sealed containers with active humidity control, capable of containing ancient artifacts for up to three years on one battery in a state of perfect stasis. Costly stuff. We had barely managed to secure three for this operation and to give up one immediately? I voiced my arguments that it was just a dusty journal, it could be shipped with a standard container.” Henrietta winced. “I supported that decision, and that was a mistake. We got a verbal lashing over that phone call and were told to bring the notes to you to discuss their validity as well as bring up the topic of the journal to you. He said that you would ‘provide adequate support to his claims’ on the importance of the journal.” Vidarsson smiles. “I see my youngest is still as stoic as ever. Funny, when he was practically a daddy’s boy as a cub. Hold on, I have something you need to see.” Rising from his chair, he walks back to the glass case. Lifting the velvet cloth the blade was resting on, Vidarsson extracts a small leather-bound book. Its pages were heavily yellowed with age, and the leather binding was mummified and taut. He offered it to Henrietta who took it with care. “This journal is dated around 576 BC. It originated from somewhere in northern Norway, and the author kept a record of their travels in it.” She looked up at him as McDouglass took the book in his hands. “And who is the author?” Dr. Vidarsson sat down, looking his guest in the eyes. “Vidar. THE Vidar. And if I’m not mistaken, he was the author of the journal you found as well.” The pair were silent for a moment. McDouglass clears his throat as he parsed the information, and Henrietta was the first one to speak up. “Yes. The Egyptian journal only credits a “Vidar” as the author. But surely it can’t be…” “It is.” Vidarsson interrupts. “Oh, it is. And that knife is his as well.” He reclines in his leather sofa. “I think I understand why my son sent you to me. He trusts you, I’m certain of that. He wants you to understand the gravity of whatever they’ve found out there. And to do that, I need to tell you about my own past, and what I discovered all those years ago. I trust you that the information I’m about to share only stays between us, and between you and my children.” McDouglass and Henrietta quickly nodded in agreement. “Very well then. Let us begin, all those years ago in the year 2014…” TRANLATION FROM THE JOURNAL OF VIDARR – EXCERPT ONE To the one who seeks to resolve my mistakes, seek my blade. Buried under the glittering mountain in the home of the Jotnar, you will find it. But understand this, my kin. Should you find my blade you will also inherit my mistakes. And it may be improper on my part, but I hope you are strong enough to correct them. For all our sakes. Chapter 1: Unchained “*Helsikken*, what a night!” Arne Vidarsson was shivering in his tent, despite the layers of winter protection he was currently nestled under. He knew it would be bad, but a sudden dip to -25 degrees Celsius caught him off guard. While his arctic-rated gear kept him warm, the wind whipped his tent as the blizzard raged on. Carefully, he got out of his sleeping bag and activated a small potassium heating pad. It may have been small, but it burned hot providing him with much needed heat. As he opened the flap of his tent, he was greeted with several feet of snow. “Good morning, mother nature.” He said with a hint of distaste. It was beautiful, yes, but dangerous. He shook his head, trying to push away his memories of the accident. With a resigned huff, he withdrew a small spade from his hiking pack. The snow was around three feet tall in front of the tent flap, and was densely packed. He knew that he needed to extract his tent and belongings from the snow lest they become wet, cold and soggy. After working for roughly thirty minutes, he reasoned that enough snow had been cleared around the tent. “There, that should be fine.” His stomach growled as his body reminded him of the fact that he still needed to eat. “Right. Breakfast. Can’t forget about that.” He took a ready-made hiker’s meal from his bag and a small burner. In a few minutes he had a steaming meal ready to eat. As he sat on his sleeping bag, eating the hot contents from the ceramic bowl he liked to listen to his travel radio to keep up-to-date on the events happening around the world. The first channel he tuned into was BBC Radio International. "And in the latest news, US President Germaine Haverford proposed a brand new economic reform bill that promises to allocate more funding towards national education, however this is raising controversy with …" He swallowed and washed his mouth with fresh-brewed coffee. “Alright, let's see what else is there...” He idly thought as he switched the channel to a local radio station, which had ended its news segment and had started playing the latest in trendy music. After a few more idle flips, he switched off the radio and packed up his belongings after washing down his meal with some water. He reasoned he was closer to Glittertind now, seeing the mountain peak rise above the rest in the distance. And if that were the case, he was getting closer to the location listed in the journal. After he stuffed the sleeping bag back into its carrying sack, he brought out the old leather-bound journal as well as his own notebook. Opening both, he thumbed through the pages of Old Norse runes and compared them to his own notes. While he had earned his degree in Nordic Anthropology, this journal was proving to be a difficult contender to decrypt. For one, it was written in Elder Fuuthark, a precursor of “modern” runic languages utilized by the Germanic people. References and resources to translate it were few and far between, but he had made some headway, enough to translate a critical portion of the text. He brought out a red ink pen and circled a few translated lines as he reflected on the journal. It had been handed down from father to son in his family for generations now with no clear origin point. At one point, it had been his great-grandfather, then his grandfather’s, and lastly his father’s item before it came to his ownership. Relatives called the journal cursed, that it brought misfortune to the man who owned it. While it was a silly superstition, there may have been some truth to it as every one of its owners went mad with wanderlust at some point in their life. His grandfather abandoned his family one day to explore the wilderness, never to return. His father tried actively to resist this strange “call of the wild” yet Arne remembered how he took him, as a child, on hike after hike in the forests of Norway. A gust of wind lifted the tent flap, sending bone-chilling wind into the small shelter. Arne shivered and blew into his exposed hands. He blinked hard to calm himself. His friends at the university always noted with irony that he was a chionophobic yet lived in one of the snowiest countries in the world. His fear of snow was deep-seated from the accident, but his passion for ancient Nordic history and his drive to unlock the mystery of the journal propelled him time and time again into the icy forests. He gave his notes one last look-through, then brought out his map and compass, drawing out a path from his current location. The journal spoke of something located in the “home of the Jotnar” along with the following instructions. “In the shadow of Glittertind when Sunna reaches the highest peak in her never ending journey, turn your back on the mountain; Within a tomb glowing against the shadows; beyond a veil of false stars you will find stone harder than the flesh of the Jotun themselves. You shall not break through this but simply walk through if you are of like mind as I. There you shall uncover the regrets of my past and the curse I have laid for you.” The way the journal was describing a curse reminded him of the jests his friends made, and the comments made by his father as well. What if there was something driving his family to search in the wild? Arne shut the journal and his notes, readied himself to step outside with map tucked safely away in his coat pocket. He stopped as he exited his tent, brief pangs of uncertainty ringing in his soul as he stared out into the snow-covered expanse. He shut his eyes to clear away his fears and turned his focus to stowing away his shelter. After all was put away, he began trekking. For an hour, the only sounds he heard were the whistling of the winter winds and the crunching of the snow underneath his boots. Gripping his map and compass as best he could he followed the path he laid out from translating the journal. It was nearly noon at this point, and the sun was practically overhead. “Okay, Glittertind is to the north. I’m facing one-hundred and fifty degrees away from it…so now what?” Arne looked around in the shadow of the great mountain. “There’s nothing but rocks and snow…hold on.” There was something glistening on the wall nearly sixty meters away. Glittering without any source of light. Arne picked up his pace until he came face to face with a rocky outcropping leading to a tunnel, lined with phosphorescent lichen in the shadows of the cave. “False stars in the darkness, huh?” Arne switched on his flashlight. “Well, my translation is accurate at least.” He carefully made his way through the damp cave, holding onto the slick, cold walls as best he could. His excitement grew as he delved deeper, feeling the slope of the cavern taking him ever more into the mountain. Excitement which grew as cave terminated in a dead end, exactly as the journal said. “Okay, there’s gotta be something here…maybe a loose rock?” His fingers probed the surface of the cold rock, finding nothing. Suddenly his fingers brushed against a ridge in the stone. Fumbling with his knife, Arne scratched away at the moss growing on the rock to reveal a strange set of runes. “What’s this…wolf?” He asked himself. “Why would there be the rune for ‘wolf’ be here? There’s another set here…’prison’, huh. Wolf Prison.” Unable to find anything else on the rock face, Arne slumped down against the rock to think. “I’m missing something, I need to ‘be of like mind’ as the author of the journal.” He scratched the blonde stubble on his chin as he removed his scarf to breathe a little better. “False stars…the author wrote about this cavern for a reason. If I were trying to hide something I’d want it to be a little hard to find. But I’m the one designing the security, so I’d know the way around it.” An idea struck him, and he reached up to his head light to turn it off. Darkness flooded the cavern, and the soft fluorescent glow of the moss around him became more prevalent. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the moss was gathering around one of the corners of the wall. Leaning towards it, Arne could feel cold wind brushing against his face, which he wouldn’t’ve felt with his scarf on. Arne felt the rock, and felt that it was loose. This stone was placed here to cover up something. Pulling it away, he found a small passage lined with the same kind of moss. Switching on his light again he entered the crawlspace, moving slowly through. Eventually he emerged in an atrium like room, with snow falling through a gap in the ceiling. Arne noted that this room was deliberately carved, with runes lining the walls and the floor. But his eyes grew wide at what was at the center of the room: a glistening golden hunting knife jammed into the stone floor. Arne walked towards it, struck by its beauty. Tentatively he grasped the handle and pulled. The blade came out of the rock easily, and while it looked golden the weight of the weapon did not reflect the material. It was heavy, easily five kilograms in his hand despite its size. Whoever used the weapon would need both strength and dexterity to use it as a knife. But what a weapon it was! “This had to have been forged during the Proto-Germanic era given the state of the rock around here…but it looks like it was made yesterday.” Arne marveled. His reflection was crisp in the blade, which was etched with more runes at the hilt. “Let’s see here…it’s a name.” Arne looked at the runes, the blinked a few times. “Vidar. Vidar?” This was a monumental find. He knew the myths well, about the Hunter, Vidar and how he slew the great Beast of the river Van. Given the knife’s age, and inherent strangeness…could it really be *the* knife he used to slay the beast? “No, I need to keep a level head here, can’t get swept up in silly myths and fairy tales. I need my journal, need to make notes…” As he fumbled in his stuffy winter gear, the knife slipped from his hands and sliced easily through the layers of wool on his arm, barely missing his foot. Even though it was dropped from a height of a meter, its blade still sank into the stone floor as if passing through paper. Arne cursed and gripped his arm, checking the cut. The gash wasn’t deep but still enough for a steadily-seeping wound to form. As he brought out his emergency kit to patch himself up, he noticed a strange vibrating noise. As if a tuning fork had been struck. Looking around the room, he noticed the blade at his feet was oscillating rapidly. The droplets of blood near it vibrated along with the blade. Arne’s hairs stood on end. Something was very wrong. He backed up towards the wall of the cavern when a blinding light forced him to cover his eyes, followed by the bitter sting of cold. Despite him wearing layers on layers of winter gear, this cold wind seemed to chill his very soul. And with his eyes closed, Arne realized that he could hear breathing. Strained, harsh breathing. He opened his eyes, and his blood froze. The room was covered in chains made of the same golden material. The harsh breathing was coming from the subject they were subduing, who was thrashing against her bonds in the center of the room where the knife originally stood rooted in place. She was…enormous. Her blue-grey fur was matted with wounds and scars, and it was covered with battle-scarred leather and iron armor fit for a warrior. Every time she struggled, it seemed like the mountain itself was shaking yet the golden chains did not budge. They wrapped around her legs, her waist, her wrists and even her muzzle, denying her to do anything but growl madly. Arne shook as he realized that the knife was no longer in the ground either, but now protruded from her left eye. Her remaining eye searched the room wildly, and then it fixed on him. Her growls grew more intense, and her sole eye seemed to smolder with hatred as it saw him. Without warning, a cold gale began to blow in the room. Something clicked in Arne’s head. That rune on the wall wasn’t just for “wolf.” It used a specific shape, one with denotation reserved for writing about Old Gods. The rune did not mean “wolf”. It meant Fenrir. Chapter 0.1 – Interlude “So, let me get this straight…” McDouglass sets down his cup. “The Journal of Vidar was in your family for generations, and your entire family tree was affected by it?” Dr. Arne Vidarrson nodded. “At the time, no member of my family understood the origin nor the significance of the journal. We just saw it as a priceless heirloom made even more valuable by its age. Honestly most of my ancestors just kept it around as financial insurance to sell to some museum for a pretty penny.” Arne took the book in his aged hands. “How foolish indeed.” McDouglass has another question on his mind. “And you said that the journal led you to the knife, which released a faunae woman when you touched it?” “Not when I touched it.” Arne pulls at his sweater’s cuff, revealing a thin scar. “It was my blood. The knife seemed to react to the blood of its’ master and undid the seal holding back-“ “Fenrir.” Henrietta completed his sentence. “You expect us to believe that you released a world-ending monster from millennia-long confinement?” “She wasn’t a monster.” Arne snapped, an edge coming into his voice. “She was a Fauane, much like you. And I don’t see how it’s hard to believe in her existence, seeing as stranger things have occurred with the Knife and whatever you’re finding in Egypt.” Arne set down his cup, now devoid of coffee. “Be skeptical all you want. We’re dealing with artifacts beyond scientific explanation. I don’t want to get into any theological or superstitious arguments here, but there are documented instances of objects and phenomena that we can’t explain, yet they exist and that the Foundation is actively searching for them.” McDouglass folds his arms. “Sir, that’s some high-clearance information you’re privy to. Knowing even that much constitutes to a major data leak and-“ Arne waves him off. “Please. My children own the company you work for. And they’re the ones keeping me informed about what they find or what they develop. And who would come knocking for an old man in a frozen town? Competitors? Political rivals? Assassins? My children are doing well to keep me safe, especially after their mother passed.” He hung his head. “Let me continue with my explanation. I have a feeling that listening to what I have to say will answer more of your questions.” Chapter 2 – A Beast in Chains The she-wolf’s good eye was fixated on Arne. His blood was like ice in his veins, his fight-or-flight response defaulting to the oft-ignored third option: freeze. The air was thick with the feeling of intense danger. One look at her and it was clear that she’d meant to do him harm. Another gust of wind buffeted him, pelting him with sleet. Arne shielded his face with his arms. This was a chamber underground, how could there be icy wind here? The wind subsided somewhat, and Arne glanced up. The she-wolf was now still, and glowering at him with a chilling gaze. She had stopped thrashing in her chains, and was now motionless. “Did she calm down? No…” Arne’s eyes widened in fear and realization. “She’s like a predator waiting for its prey to move.” He noticed something else too, a low rumble. A cave in? The noise grew louder, and he realized it was her, growling into the binding chains around her muzzle. She flexed her arms slowly, testing out the limits of her restraints. As she did so, copper-colored blood wept out of her impaled left eye socket, droplets splattering on the ground. His own crimson blood still stained the blade as well, collecting into a single drop which ran down her cheek like a tear. Arne watched the red bead make its way down the side of the muzzle. The wolfess herself seemed to be focused on it, following its journey by the sensation on her fur. Just as it reached the side of her mouth she sharply inhaled, allowing the droplet to pass between her teeth despite the chains forcing her mouth shut. She closed her good eye, and when it opened Arne could see a dangerous resolve in it. She flexed all muscles in her arms, and to her surprise and Arne’s horror, a single chain around her index finger snapped. Her eye darted in his direction as she pointed the finger in his direction. At her command, jagged splinters of ice erupted from the ground traveling at alarming speed towards the unfortunate explorer. Seeing the sharp ice rushing towards him, Arne panicked. “S-Stay away!” He grabbed the ice pick dangling at his waist and hurled it at the ice. The pick smashed through several icicles, but to Arne’s horror more erupted from beneath it. Despite looking like normal ice, the spikes pierced the hardened metal of the ice pick, fracturing it to pieces. Arne nearly fell over in shock as his head spun. “Ice that breaks through metal? What the hell, what the hell!?” Arne glanced over at the Faunae woman, and even through her face and body were bound he could make a look of disgust in her eye. Her finger pointed to him again, the ice surging forward at her command. Dodging the frozen spikes rising from the floor, Arne ducked and rolled away before getting to his feet. His eyes scanned the runes on the wall. He couldn’t translate them all, but two stood out at him. One clearly said “BLADE” and another close to it spelled out “IMPRISON”. She had appeared when his blood dripped onto the knife…maybe it could go the other way too? The plan he was brewing was completely idiotic, but it was either this or get skewered by ice. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Arne oriented himself facing the wolf-woman and charged forwards. He tried not to think about the otherworldly chill in the air passing through his layers of clothing, nor about the sounds of ice rushing towards him. He just ran, and kept running until he slammed into something furry. Something furry, yet built like a brick wall wearing leather armor. The wall let out a surprised grunt and he stumbled back, opening his eyes. The wolf was clearly taken by surprise by his actions, glowering at him with a hint of confusion as to what he was doing. Arne, however, wasn’t going to let an opening like this get away from him. He grabbed the hilt of the knife and began reciting the same word over and over in his head. Sounding out the extinct language in his mind, focusing on its structure and consonants. Imprison. Imprison. Imprison. Imprison… “Imprison!” With a roar the wolf’s eye went wide as she began struggling again in vain, enveloped by the chains glowing with golden light as they and she appeared to evaporate back into the blade. It hung motionless in the air for a moment before clattering to the ground hilt-first. Arne stumbled backwards in shock, collapsing onto the ground. “What…the hell…was that?” He carefully prodded the blade with his remaining ice pick causing it to spin around on its side. Realizing that the blade was no longer reacting to anything, he slowly picked it up and placed it in the broken ice pick’s pouch. Seeing that the weapon was secure, Arne took a moment to compose himself. An eerie silence hung in the chamber, accenting the cracking ice around him. A sheet of sleet on the ceiling fell, shattering next to the hapless young man. He bolted up to his feet. “I need to get out of here. Right now.” ----------------------------------------------------------- Arne glanced at the golden knife laying on the passenger’s seat. He’d made it out of the cave, and over the course of a day and a half made it back to his SUV parked at a local scenic lookout. His 1990 Land Rover wasn’t the pinnacle of reliability but it crossed terrain like no other vehicle could, scampering over rocks and trudging through snow banks. Plus, it was cheap. “Damn, the snow is really picking up. I hate snow so much…” Arne muttered under his breath as he hit the wipers. Ever since he picked up the knife in the cave the winds outside had picked up, bringing more flurries with it. To make matters worse it had been getting colder as well. Arne pressed down on the accelerator just as the car hit a pothole in the road that was concealed with snow. “Damn it!” Arne swerved the vehicle as it began to slide on the slick road, causing the knife to slide around. Its edge passed seamlessly through the plastic of the center console, no harder than it had cut through his arm. Swearing, Arne picked up the knife and drove it into the seat. The upholstery was ruined but at least the knife was no longer loose in the cabin. A few more days of driving, and Arne finally arrived at his family’s cabin outside of Tromsø. It had been in the family for generations, and now it belonged to him alone. His camping equipment was the first thing brought into the house, the bulky items stacked precariously in his arms as he walked towards the storage shed behind the house. His cut arm hadn’t healed up completely, and the tension from the load and dryness from the cold caused the scab to split. Arne grimaced, feeling the pain from the re-opened wound. Holding his sleeve, he walked back to the Land Rover and carefully extracted the blade from the seat cushion. He held the pommel gingerly, keeping the edge facing away from his body. Once inside, he set it down on the dinner table and sat in front of it, arms crossed against his chest. From his coat pocket, Arne fished out the journal and stared at the name on the leather cover. In runes was a single name: “Vidar”. He long thought it was some kind of pseudonym, but now? He grappled with the thought that somehow, an ancient Nordic legend was intertwined with his family history. Arne shivered, his breath wafting in front of him. Had it always been this cold in the house? “I’d better start up the furnace. That’ll warm this place up.” Opening a cupboard, the young Norwegian fished out a burlap sack of charcoal. Taking a few lumps, he opened an old cast-iron furnace in the corner of the kitchen and popped them inside. With some lighter fluid and a match, Arne was able to get some heat spreading through the room. The chill in the air lifted somewhat, and soon he was comfortable enough to remove his coat. Arne began flipping through the pages, stopping one particular one showing circles of runic text. “These are the same patterns that were in the cave…” He glanced over at the knife. The name “VIDAR” was clearly etched into the golden blade in ancient Norse runes. He grabbed a store-made sandwich from the fridge and sat down with the journal and blade next to each other. “The runes here on this page and the ones in that room were the same, I’m sure of it. And I swear I saw those chains dig into specific rune sets here, and here…” He took a bite out of the sandwich in his hand, eating as he mulled over his findings. “Okay, assuming I wasn’t hallucinating from a fear-induced high, there was a very angry Faunae woman who appeared when I got my blood on the blade of this thing.” He frowned, his brow furrowing in concentration. He was intrigued now. He grabbed a small notepad on the counter and began jotting things down. He wanted to try and see if his blood would affect the blade again, but he couldn’t just summon a crazed and possibly murderous mythological being into his house. At least not without proper preparation. Chapter 3: A Guest In Chains “Phew, okay, that should be good enough.” Arne sat down on the wooden floor, catching his breath. He’d spent the greater part of the day clearing things out of the old one-room guesthouse behind the cabin. It was used as a storage shed before, but he’d taken the time to move everything in it to either the tool shed a few feet away or into the house. His hands left marks on his jeans where they’d been resting; his palms and fingers were coated in a layer of chalk. Flipping open the journal, he looked around the room to make sure his handiwork was correct. Over the course of several days he’d painstakingly written down each rune on the page, starting from the center of the room outward. Scrawls of ancient Norse were drawn on the floors, walls, and even the door. Arne clapped his hands together several times to get rid of the chalk before rising to retrieve the knife. Carefully he placed it in the center of the room, and from his coat pocket he procured a medical lancet. “Not too sure how much blood it needs, but a drop is a good place to start off as any.” Pressing his thumb against the opening of the lancet, he felt the ant-like bite of the small needle as it broke through his skin. A small droplet of blood began to ooze from his thumb, and taking care to avoid the blade’s edge he dragged his thumb down the side of the knife. A thin red line was left behind, and all he needed to do now was observe. It was slow at first. Patches of light appearing on the blade, spreading upwards until the entire knife was glowing with an intense light. Arne backed away, shielding his face as chains burst forward from the knife, which was now impossible to look at. When Arne opened his eyes, he immediately regretted it. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hate. Every fiber of her being thrummed with hate. Hate for the heavens. Hate for the world. She was death incarnate, the apocalypse made manifest. Yet here she remained, bound by the accursed magic woven into the blade jutting out of her eye. It hurt, oh, it hurt. She could feel the hunting knife embedded within her skull, piercing the divine flesh inside. To a mortal such an injury would be a deathblow, but to her? It was a mere nuisance. After all, she was the embodiment of the end. To end her would be a sin against natural order itself. No, instead the continuous agony only fueled her rage. She tried to move herself, but found herself still bound by lock and chain. And unlike before, these chains were fresh. Her good eye moved then to the mortal in front of her. She sniffed the air, one of the last free actions afforded to her. Hm, there was no doubt now. This was the same mortal who released her back into the physical realm of Midgard. The knife had held her for so long, she was beginning to forget the feeling of being made manifest. Looking at him…made her even more frustrated. A single mortal as her jailer? What an insult. Her rage began to swell further, and then she felt it. The world outside still heeded her call. Yes, even if she couldn’t bring this world to its knees herself, she felt some grim satisfaction in the fact that her influence would do it for her. The mortal began to speak, in some strange and alien tongue. The language was ugly and coarse, nothing like that of the Divine Fuuthark she knew. The longer he spoke, the more it began to annoy her. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- “Holy shit.” Arne swore. “Hooooly shit.” His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he came to terms with his situation. Just like before in the cave, the knife exploded in a flash of light, and when the brightness died down a very large and very angry wolf woman had manifested. The golden chains anchoring her to the center of the wooden cabin lodged themselves in the runes around the room at specific points. “Guess that proves my theory, this pattern really was meant to help in sealing…her.” He paced the room, talking to himself. “Okay, I need to calm down. Where’s that page, I swear I marked it down. Ah, wait, here we go.” Arne swallowed and flipped to a page marked with a post-it note, and began scribbling down a set of runes on his own notebook. “Okay, now for the hard part.” He looked at the wolfess, who returned his gaze with a particularly murderous one. He gulped hard, even restrained she looked capable of killing. His breathing began to speed up despite his efforts to remain calm as he noticed a slight frost beginning to form around her, coating the floor. Arne began walking forward doing his best to ignore the fact that it was cold enough to see his breath despite the furnace running, or the snarl that was coming from her throat. It began to dawn on him that his initial estimate regarding her size was a bit off. On her knees as she was now, she was nearly looking into his eyes. If she were standing tall, she’d easily be around 3 meters in height. Stopping just out of the final circle of runes, Arne held up the scribbled note. He’d written down the same runes as he’d seen in the cave, which he began noticing in the journal as well. On seeing the runes, the she-wolf’s eye narrowed and looked at him, almost in a demanding way. As if he’d asked her an obvious question to which she took annoyance to. Arne stepped back slowly. “Okay. She’s probably, most likely the Fenrir of legend. But…let’s see here. If I wanted to ask her “what’s your name” I’d probably write it down like this.” He wrote, to the best of his knowledge, a simple question asking if her name really was Fenrir. Holding up the paper, the wolfess growled angrily, in a manner that suggested offense. Looking at the paper, Arne realized that a single line on one of the runes was off. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The mortal had written down “You are Fenrir, not.” Was he asking to be frozen alive? How dare he mock her! Fenrir shook the chains more furiously but they restrained her well. A bolt of pain in her left orbit caused her to shudder slightly, stoking her anger even more. She was still bound, however, and no amount of thrashing would be able to break these renewed chains. Simmering, she opted instead to formulate battle plans in her head for her eventual escape. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Oh dear. Judging by her reaction to that, he must’ve insulted her. “Okay, okay. Um…” An idea came to him, but it was wholly idiotic. Still, acting kind towards her might at least show her that he meant no harm and wasn’t a threat. Well, he wasn’t a threat either way. If the legends were true she’d slain Odin, king of the Nordic Gods when she initiated Ragnarok. If a god couldn’t kill her, a human like himself wasn’t anything more than an insect to her. “Insect or not, kindness does go a long way.” He mumbled to himself as he ran back to the house. Shuffling around in his camping chest, he found what he was looking for: a first-aid hiking kit, filled with emergency medical supplies. Everything from pain medication to sutures, gauze pads and disinfectant. In particular, he kept a morphine auto-injector handy in case he suffered a very, very serious accident on the hiking trails. He wasn’t sure how resistant to pain his new guest was, but judging from the fact that she had a knife sticking out of her left eye and was still thrashing about with alarming focus, probably very high. He shook his head and put it back in the kit, picking up the suturing kit and blood clot spray instead. As Arne headed out, he wrote some more runes in his notebook, this time taking his time to make sure the grammar was as correct as possible. “Gah, was it this cold outside?” The moment Arne stepped outdoors he was greeted by a flurry of snow and icy wind. Snow was everywhere, covering the ground and trees in a blanket of white. “It wasn’t this bad ten minutes ago, and nowhere on the forecast were there any warnings of increased snowfall today. Man, this sucks.” He walked quickly, trying not to let the snow unnerve him any more than he already was. While he had certified himself in emergency first-aid, this was the first time he’d be preforming it on someone. Much less, a violently angry apocalypse goddess. He carefully stepped back into the cabin. “H-hi. Um, I’m not a threat!” He held up his hands, showing he wasn’t armed or meaning to engage her in combat. Fenrir merely stared angrily at him. “Yeah, you probably don’t understand me all that well…” Arne thought for a while, forming the words in his head. He’d only heard one person speak Elder Fuuthark and that was at a guest presentation at the university. He was about to attempt it himself, using only his research notes and the documents he’d studied. Arne looked Fenrir in her eye. “I am not threat. I wish healing, you.” His optimism wavered slightly when he saw no discernible effect in Fenrir’s demeanor. Okay, maybe actions would speak louder than words. “Thou still.” Ignoring her increasing growl as he approached her, he quickly unpacked the sterile gauze and readied the pain relief and blood clot sprays. “Right. Yank and grab. Yank and grab.” Arne chanted in his mind as he gripped the handle of the blade. Fenrir attempted to thrash and snap her jaws, but the chains binding her held her fast. “One…two…three!” He pulled the knife, and it slid out of her head with terrifying ease. Fenrir roared with pain before settling down into rapid, labored panting. “You got this…you got this…step one done, now step two-“Arne’s self-assurance wavered when he saw two hemispheres of ice on the ground. Ice that was rapidly melting and yet, looked like someone had split an ice sculpture of an eyeball in two. He was also made aware of a dripping sound behind him, a steady tap-tap-tap. “Step two, step two, step two.” He repeated that mantra to himself as he gathered his medical supplies. Sure enough, the tapping sound was that of Fenrir’s copper blood dripping onto the wooden floor. Arne hurried over and sprayed some antiseptic onto an absorbent pad. He pressed it against the weeping socket, and to his surprise the flow of blood was already beginning to abate. Fumbling around with the gauze and a pocket knife to cut it with, he circled her head several times to secure the pad in place. Now all that was left was to cut the gauze and- “Ow!” Damn, his hands were shaking and he nicked his thumb with the knife. He quickly tied up the gauze, then used a small bit to dab away at his own blood. As he brought his hand down, he felt a tug on the bandage. Fenrir had gripped the loose fabric as it passed by a gap in the chains binding her muzzle, and now it was lodged between her side teeth. Arne gasped and let go of the bloodstained bandage, watching Fenrir draw it into her mouth and swallow it. -------------------------------------------------- Fenrir tasted the mortal’s blood. It was metallic and sour, and completely unpleasant. When she was spawned into the world, her creator wove into her being a set of conditions. One of which was that as she felled foes by claw, teeth or ice, she could imbibe their sanguine essence to learn their knowledge and skills. The more she killed, the deadlier a warrior she’d be. She forced the fabric down her throat, processing the information that came with it. It wasn’t much, but she now knew her captor’s name, and the foul language that he spoke. If he dared mock her in her native tongue, then she will lash out in his own. Before breaking free of these chains and killing him, of course. With that decided, she began to yell. ------------------------------------------------- Arne looked at his “patient” in shock as she stared him down, thrashing and spewing forth what he could only surmised as muffled hate-laden speech. As Fenrir ranted, he glanced down at the golden knife on the floor. Back in the cave, when he told it to seal Fenrir, it did so. Maybe…maybe it could control certain sets of chains? “Careful now, okay.” Arne grabbed the handle with care, inspecting the inscription on either side. “Let’s try this out. Ahem!” He cleared his throat several times in preparation to pronounce the strange and ancient language. “Mouth. Unseal!” The chains around Fenrir’s muzzle went slack and slid off, clattering onto the floor before disappearing. She looked at them in shock as they faded before looking up again, her head still bound from turning. “Talk. Free. Thou?” Arne spluttered, butchering that sentence. Fenrir growled in response. “Speak not my tongue, mortal. I shall escape these bindings, and then you shall regret the day you brought me back to thine world.” She then launched into a vitriol-laden tirade. Arne was shocked. Firstly because Fenrir was now cursing him in perfect, if antiquated Norwegian. And secondly because he at least expected a thank you. Chapter 4: The Beast of the River Van “Damn you, mortal! How dare you attempt to confine me here with these…” Fenrir strains against her chains, which hold fast. “How dare you chain me with these bindings? You son of a whore! Come, I’ll rend you apart once I free myself, along with all else in this forsaken world!” Arne backed up a single step, taken back by the stream of profanity coming from the angry wolfess’ mouth. “You…speak Norwegian?” Fenrir spat on the floor in response. “Every syllable that comes out of my throat is like vomiting rocks. Ignorant men-folk, is this what you’ve perverted the language of the gods into?” ‘Okay, calm down. I’ve got to approach this rationally.’ Arne thoughts raced as he stroked the stubble on his chin. ‘I’m fairly sure the evidence points to the obvious, but I need to make sure.’ He looked at her, who had quieted down in a simmering barely-controlled rage. “You…are Fenrir? THE Fenrir?” In response to the question, Fenrir bared her fangs. ‘Oh great, here we go again…’ Arne braced himself for another round of tirades. “It seems rocks are not limited to your language, human, for it seems thy head is filled with them too. Your voice betrays disbelief; I sense fear in you as well.” As much as she could, Fenrir sat up straight with vicious pride. “Just as well, for I am indeed your reckoning. I am Fenrir, daughter of Loki and the harbinger of Ragnarök.” Arne simply stared at her, formulating a response in his mind. “Um, right. My name is Arne. Arne Mous Vidarsson, I’m 26 years old and I’m studying anthropology at…” The air temperature dropped a few degrees as Fenrir’s eyes narrowed, her lips curling into a murderous snarl. “Vidarrson? Do you mean my jailor, a mere mortal, is a spawn of Vidar?” The chains binding her arms were pulled taught as she attempted to pull out of them, eliciting a snarl from her. “A divine mockery, that’s what this is.” Fenrir ceased struggling, and let her muscles go slack. The chains however remained taut, suspending her arms to either side. Arne could see a flicker of some other emotion; other than the rage she had so prevalently displayed before. For a moment, she looked almost…tired. She raised her head, and her eyes refocused with an icy glare onto the hunting knife within his grip. “Why are you waiting? Get it over with and spare me whatever tatters of dignity I still have left.” “I, uh, excuse me?” Arne blinked, trying to understand what she wanted. Fenrir growled in frustration. “Are you slow in the head, mortal? You bear the blood of Vidar. He failed in his destiny to slay me, and so that destiny falls unto you now.” As much as she could, she straightened her back and pushed her chest out. “Strike me in the heart, and claim victory that you rightly should, hero.” Arne felt like she nearly spat out that last word in distain. He glanced down at the knife in his hands, his reflection looking back at him through the polished gold blade. His eyes turned towards Fenrir, defiantly staring at him, waiting. “I’m not a killer.” He muttered, and immediately he felt the room’s temperature drop. “What did you say?” Fenrir hissed. “I won’t do it. I…I can’t do it! What, you think I can just take this thing and stab you with it? I’m just a history student, not a hunter or soldier or whatever!” Fenrir cursed in her native tongue. “A coward. You and your ancestors are all cowards! I curse your bloodline, Vidarrson! I curse your bloodline for ruination!” Arne took several steps back at her outburst until he heard something, he didn’t expect from her; a harsh giggle. It first came in between growls, but then became a steady staccato in her voice. “You…you have no idea, do you? As long as I remain, I will accomplish my goals. It doesn’t matter whether I remain trapped here like some chained cur or if I am let free to finish what I began.” Arne gripped the blade’s handle. “What do you mean by that?” “You deny me a warrior’s death. So, I deny you truth, son of Vidar.” She said, flashing a wicked smile. “On the day of my defeat, I will answer your question with my last breath.” Unable to take anymore, Arne wished that she would stop talking. And the Hunter’s Knife responded. Brilliant gold chains branched off from the ones around her arms and wound themselves around her muzzle. Unable to speak, she continued to growl despite being muffled by chains, locking eyes with Arne as he backed out of the shack and into the cold winter night. Arne’s mind was racing as he trudged back through the howling winds. Despite the house being only a few meters away from the shed, the trek seemed to take ages as he hastily retreated from the monster in the shed. He flung open the back door and slammed it behind him, as if she had somehow broken free and was after him. He pulled a chair from the kitchen and crashed down onto it, staring into space as he began to process everything that had happened in the last hour. Somehow, he was able to recreate an ancient seal written in a long-extinct language. Somehow, he was able to free an ancient deity, and not just any deity but the Beast of the River Van itself…or rather herself. He furrowed his brow. While he was familiar with the Poetic Edda and its texts, there had never been any mention that Fenrir was a Faunae woman. Most books described Fenrir as an unintelligent, feral wolf, while the fancier prose gave the imagery of an icy, violent abstract force destroying the gods and plunging the world into Ragnarök. Perhaps that was the result of information being distorted over time? Or was it done deliberately when the legends were written, to de-anthropomorphize her into something mindlessly evil? He took out his journal and began making notes about what he’d seen, summarizing everything he’d done and the results. His mind’s train of thought had just been launched on its tracks. He got up and grabbed several books, some journals on ancient Nordic artifacts and some from his childhood, tales from the Poetic Edda and other Norse legends and set to work. He poured over the tomes, marking things with a red pen and noting down every phrase or mention he could to Vidar, the Hunting Knife and Fenrir herself. So deep was he in his concentration that it took the rumble of his stomach to remind him that he needed to stop and eat. “Damn, didn’t realize it was this late already…I think I have some leftovers that I can finish off.” He pushed away his book and shuffled over to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he retrieved the plastic container holding a stew he made the night before and popped it into the microwave. As it began to heat up, he recalled that he had a whole chicken in the freezer bin. As he pondered what to make out of it, a thought struck him. Food and drink had long since been signs of peace and stability, and even more so as offerings to gods. While Fenrir wasn’t the type to give out any blessings, maybe she’d appreciate it? At least, it would show that he wasn’t a threat to her. Still, he was putting himself at great risk just by letting her exist. If the legends were true then she was the herald for Ragnarök. Still, bound as she was, he couldn’t simply murder her in cold blood. He chastised himself for thinking such thoughts. Better to extend an olive branch rather than a blade’s edge. “I wonder if gods even get hungry…ah well.” He quickly dressed it with some dry spice rub he’d bought from the supermarket in town and put it in the oven. “I can wait an hour before I eat.” Around 45 minutes later, a savory smell drifted through the kitchen as Arne covered the freshly-baked chicken in foil. He grabbed a few utensils and an insulated lunchbox, packing it with the chicken and some soup in a thermos. “All right, a dinner date with a murderous she-wolf goddess dressed in Nordic combat armor. Romantic.” He mused to himself. Still, it was undeniable that she’d be his guest for the foreseeable future. Might as well try to eat dinner and get to know her better. Neatly arranging everything and adding a few napkins for good measure he grabbed his coat and went back out into the icy night. Snow crunching underneath his feet, his breath came out in wisps as he approached the door to the guesthouse. His fingers paused over the doorknob as he took a breath before opening the door. Fenrir’s eyes were closed, but her ears swiveled to the creak of the door’s hinges. She silently opened her one eye and stared at her visitor, unable to vocalize thanks to the binding chains around her muzzle. Arne set down the lunchbox and grabbed the Hunting Knife. Fenrir’s eye narrowed as she turned her focus to the blade, her breathing quickening slightly. Arne heard this and took a moment to look at the knife, wondering if her reaction was fear…or eagerness. He took a moment to compose his thoughts; the blade would respond only to raw emotion or vocalized commands in Elder Fuuthark. He parsed the words together in his mind, a simple short phrase that would undo some of the bindings. With the words in place he spoke in the long-dead language. “Loosen chain – mouth.” At once, the bindings around Fenrir’s muzzle fell away, clattering to the ground before vanishing in small flashes of light. Fenrir stretched her jaw before speaking. “So, mortal, have you come to fulfill your destiny? Or are you yet insisting that you keep me here like some sort of trophy?” She glowered at him as he set down the red Coleman lunchbox onto a small wooden table on the side of the room. Arne kept the knife down and opened the container, extracting his thermos and the cooked chicken. “I thought you might like something to eat, I mean, it’s really not much but you’re probably hungry right?” He undid the foil wrap, letting the herbal aroma of the cooked poultry waft through the room. Holding it and some plastic utensils in his hand, he carefully walked closer to the chained goddess. Every step he took, the air became more and more chilled until his breath was becoming visible as he stood in front of her. He was reminded of her height when, even kneeling down she was about eye-level with him. Fenrir looked at him, then the chicken, and then back to him. “Are you mocking me?” “What? No, I’m being serious. I made this for you, you know.” He gestured to her with the cooked bird. Fenrir’s eye remained locked on him. Her eye flicked down to the meal again and then back up. “Food. You, a mortal, are offering me, a god…food?” Her tone was still angry, but now with a hint of confusion. ‘She’s trying to deny it, but she’s interested.’ Arne thought to himself. “Look, I don’t have any interest in hurting you. Like I said before I’m a scholar rather than a soldier.” He unscrewed the cap off the thermos, and filling it with tomato soup made the night before. “Pray tell, how am I supposed to eat this…thing? My arms are bound, the chains on my neck preventing me from bowing my head. You make this thing that you pass off as “food” and then bring it to me, unable to make the slightest movement, just to taunt me further.” Oh, right. He hadn’t thought of that. “I could…uh. Hm.” He put his spoon down, considering his options. “I could feed you, if you want.” Fenrir took offense to that, baring her fangs. “If you so much as even attempt to do that, I’ll freeze your arm.” Arne frowned, based on her control over temperature and ice, she very well could despite being restrained. “Okay then. How about this?” He picked up the Knife again, and spoke to it. “Restraints, arms, loosen.” Instantly the gold chains suspending her arms to either side fell slack with her arms following them. She breathed deep, rotating them, and Arne could see powerful muscles straining against the leather under-sections of the plate armor. Then she stood up, and Arne’s blood ran cold. Her head was nearly brushing the ceiling as she brought herself up to her full height. At a little over 3 meters she towered over him. Fenrir took one deep breath, her chest unrestrained for the first time in years, her eyes closed. Then without warning she launched herself at him, claws bared. Arne yelped and, in his mortal, fear the Knife reacted, and new chains were released from the glyphs on the walls in response. They wrapped themselves around Fenrir’s body, locking her in place. Arne slowly opened his eyes to see a hand with black-tipped claws mere centimeters from his head. The chains began to retreat into the rune circles, phasing into them, as Fenrir was dragged back to the center circle. They tightened further, forcing her to kneel once more. “You…why…” Arne croaked breathlessly as he stopped hyperventilating. “Only a fool releases a prisoner alone without a guard. I saw my freedom and saw that you were weak. If you do not have the strength to complete your duty, I will complete my own given the chance.” “You mean Ragnarök, don’t you?” Arne got back to his feet. “That’s your duty, right.” “Yes, mortal. I am the harbinger of your world’s end. The purpose of my existence is to end yours.” Her tone was hostile, but it bore little malice. Instead it was repeated almost matter-of-factly, as if she believed that and only that. An awkward silence filled the air. Every fiber of Arne’s being was telling him to get up and run, but something yet persisted in him. For some reason that baffled him, he wanted to stay. And so, he sat back down in front of his thermos, and picked up the knife again. With more care in his grammar, he loosened the restraints on Fenrir’s arms slightly, enough for her to reach down to the floor and pick up the meal he’d left her. This caught Fenrir by surprise. “…What are you doing?” She tested out her range of movement, observing the new movement capable to her. “If I’m going to play the role of a warden, I’m not letting my prisoner go hungry.” He imbibed a spoonful of his soup. “If you’re going to end the world then I guess I do need to stop you…so I’ll do as you ask. But before that, I want you to help me.” She raised her eyebrow in surprise. “Help you?” “My ancestor, Vidar, left a journal. I can’t read it well since Elder Fuuthark is a lost language. But you speak it fluently. Help me translate it and I’ll end you, just like you asked.” She snorted. “Hmph. A scholar to the end then. Fine, as long as you uphold your end of the bargain as well. If I cannot end this world, there is no reason for me to exist.” She reached down and grabbed the chicken whole, biting into it and tearing away a chunk. For a moment, her expression softened as she tasted the herbs and spices. Arne was quick to catch it. “It’s not much, but it’s enough to bring out the more savory flavors of the meat. Do you like it?” Her expression hardened again as she swallowed. “…Acceptable.” Chapter 5: A God’s Purpose The first thing Arne woke up to was the howling of the wind outside. The weather had become rather onerous as of late, cold gales bringing in fresh snow every night at the best of times and harsh winds bringing sleet and ice at the worst. He yawned and slid out of bed onto his feet, drowsily making his way to the bathroom to freshen up. “Okay…let’s see how much she’s willing to work with me today.” His thoughts were weary as he picked up the old journal and a ring binder filled with photocopies of the pages. Progress on translating the journal was slow. Somedays Fenrir would refuse to speak or move, brooding silently while staring at him. Other days she was more open to talking, and begrudgingly would take the journal and read out a few lines. He quickly learned not to try and question her translation, as that earned him a low growl and the end of discussion. “Still, we’re making some progress, which is more than I can say than when I was going at this alone.” Arne began to pour himself some coffee when he was struck with an idea. He wasn’t sure if she could even drink coffee, but it might open her up to more discussion if she saw he came bearing a gift. Transferring the bitter liquid from the carafe to a thermos, he stuffed it in a backpack along with some sugar and creamer for good measure. The cold wind was biting as Arne trudged his way to the guesthouse, boots sinking in the soft snow underfoot. As he approached the door, he heard a low growl come from the door. He sighed, knowing that this wasn’t out of the ordinary for her, and steeled himself before going in. The growling, however, was not from what he was expecting. Fenrir was tucking into a packet of cinnamon cookies he had left behind on his last visit, the growls not of anger, but due to enjoying the flavor. Her back was turned to him, and she was so absorbed in the flavorful sensations that she didn’t even realize she had a guest. “Ah, so that’s what’s going on. I’m glad you like those, they’re a favorite of mine as well.” Fenrir made a noise halfway between choking on her food and a duck’s quack as she hurriedly dropped the packet and swallowed. “Y-you. You’ve got some nerve, mortal, entering my domain when I was not aware.” Arne calmly set down his backpack and began to unpack the thermos and notebooks. Fenrir slid the packet of cookies away. “Assume not that I was enjoying those. They are dry, and break easily. Fitting food for a prison cell.” She had made several attempts to struggle against the chains before, but his own control over them had also been growing. Before he felt unsafe just being around her, now while there was still some unease, he was decidedly more confident. “Here, they’re much better with coffee. Would you like some? It’s great, especially for cold days like these.” He poured himself a cup before placing the thermos on the floor, just at the edge of her reach. Stretching out her hand, she picked up the thermos and gave it a sniff. Her muzzle cringed at the bitter aroma. “This smells vile. What kind of swill is this?” “It’s called coffee, and while it may smell and taste unappetizing at first it quickly becomes the best thing in the world. Especially after pulling an all-nighter.” Fenrir stared at him while taking a tentative sip, making a strained face as she swallowed. “If that’s too bitter for you, add this.” Arne slid over the thermos cap which held two compartments filled with creamer and sugar. Fenrir emptied the contents and shook the canister, mixing everything inside thoroughly. Carefully she sipped ne new concoction, still struggling with the bitter flavor. Without thinking, she reached over and grabbed a cinnamon cookie to add some sweetness to her palate and downed it in a single bite. A hint of a smile flitted on her muzzle as she took in the cookie’s flavor. “You do seem to like that ‘prison food’ after all, hmm?” Fenrir made a spluttering sound as she swallowed the treat, embarrassed at her outward display of happiness. “I’ve got another one in the house…” Arne trailed off, lost in thought. “Enough. You are here to understand another page or so are you not? We shall see how far my patience takes me today.” Arne meanwhile was lost in his own thoughts. She’d been decidedly less violent lately as she grew used to her new accommodation. Now, she was still focused on her mission of bringing ruin to the world. During the last few session, she made sure to reiterate that. A threat she was in the past, and a threat she remains. “But how did she end up like this?” Arne thought to himself. “That’s it, enough. My patience is tried as it is being confined here. I will not tolerate being degraded by a mortal.” The she-wolf growled through gritted fangs. Instinctually Arne wanted to run and hide from the snarling monster chained in front of him, but his rational side kept him calm. “Actually, I’d like to ask you a few things. If you can answer them, that’ll be enough for today.” Fenrir pursed her lips. “I thought we agreed to get through this journal quickly, so you can finally end me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or is this a method by which you wish to torture me? By having me remain in this realm, chained and unable to fulfill my own purpose?” “That’s actually what I wanted to ask you.” Arne swiveled in his wooden chair to face her. “Why do you need to end the world, exactly?” Fenrir snorted in amusement. “Why? It’s the reason I exist.” Fenrir stated it as if it were a simple fact, and Arne staring at her blankly caused her to sigh in frustration. “It’s simple, mortal, and you try my patience with your idiocy.” “Okay, fine, I might be simple-minded to you here, so pray forgive my ignorance.” Arne’s snark wasn’t missed on Fenrir, who growled in response. “Don’t be insolent towards me, mortal. Know your place.” She struggled against the golden chains, making them rattle. Arne rubbed his temples. “What I mean to say is, why can’t you just decide ‘not’ to destroy the world? Destiny this and purpose that, but it’s not a rule you have to follow, surely?” Fenrir grew silent, and her eyes looked downwards. Arne realized that he somehow hit a chink in her armor. “You mortals take so much for granted…” She continued to look down with a blank expression. “You are free to choose your own paths, forge your own destinies and pass them down among your ilk to others.” She looked up. “Do your books and scrolls tell you about me, mortal? About the terrible monster that is Fenrir?” Arne reached for his iPad within his backpack, powering on the tablet and loading up the Wikipedia page on the mythology of Fenrir. In truth, he knew the tale by heart. The offspring of the trickster god Loki and the giantess Angrboda along with two other siblings; the world-serpent Jörmungandr and Hel. He just wanted to see if Fenrir would be piqued by the device. Her eye narrowing and her ears standing alert meant that his ploy was successful. “What…is that?” “It’s a device we’ve made, us mortals. We aren’t exactly gifted with power, strength, or knowledge so we developed ways to work around our weaknesses. This,” he said gesturing to the tablet, “contains all the world’s knowledge and more.” “Are you playing me for a fool again? You are braver than you let on initially, as I would’ve ended your life multiple times now.” “Yes, yes, mine and everyone else’s.” Arne put the iPad on the floor and slid it to her, the screen still unlocked. “See for yourself.” Fenrir looked at him before picking up the device, the tablet now considerably smaller in her grip than his. She examined it, rotating and sniffing at it, before focusing on the glowing screen still showing her Wikipedia page. Tentatively she touched it and withdrew her finger, her eyes growing wide as the screen shifted to the contact. She tried again, this time dragging her finger across the screen and watching the words move back and forth. “Black magic…” she muttered. “By what cleric did you bless a stone such as this to radiate light? To respond to my handling and on which letters shimmer and disappear?” “No magic, just centuries and centuries of innovation and mortal ingenuity.” Arne smiled at the sight of the wolf goddess engrossed with scrolling up and down on the screen. “We’re not like you gods, but we do have our own merits and strengths.” “Hm.” The she-wolf grunted in response. “Perhaps that is true, though it changes nothing of the fact that your kind is ignorant and misguided, living fleeting lives.” Arne realized that she wasn’t just absent-mindedly flicking at the screen, she was reading and re-reading the document. While her ability to learn information by drinking the blood of others granted her a knowledge of Norwegian, it was taking her a few reads to process the information. After studying the webpage, she huffed, seemingly content. “Look, I know you don’t think very highly of me…or really any of us ‘mortals’, and while I admit that I am…afraid of what you are I am also curious.” Arne rotated himself on the seat to face her. “We thought the gods to be myths. And yet, here you are in the flesh.” Fenrir looked at him, her expression virtually telling him to get to the point. “I have a lot of questions to ask you. About Asgard, about the knife, about you.” “Are you adding to the agreement already made?” Fenrir’s eyes narrowed. “Do you wish to keep my chained here, continually adding to my incarceration and denying me the death I deserve?” Arne became aware of another dangerously low growl coming from her. Arne’s throat ran dry as he gulped, realizing that he was still treading on thin ice. “Look, I’ll still uphold our deal, I just want to know you. I swear on it.” Carefully he walked over to where she was chained, and extended a hand. “Take my hand, it’s a gesture meant to affirm a promise between two people.” Fenrir looked confused, slowly extending her paw and gripping his hand with it. Arne was stunned by both how large it was compared to his hand and also by how velvety the pads on her palm and fingertips felt. “What you are asking then…’tis a pact? A deal?” Fenrir said. “Uh, yeah. Of course.” “Very well then.” Fenrir’s muzzle shifted into a curious half-smile. “I’d heard of other gods granting boons to mortals in return for a promise kept. I was told repeatedly by my father that I would be different, that no mortal would make a pact with me. If only he were here to witness this now…” Her half-smile spread into a bemused smirk as Arne felt the grip turn cold. “You set the rules of the last promise, now it is my turn. One-hundred questions. That is the limit you may ask me. At the end of those questions, you will uphold your promise to end my life. Otherwise….” At that moment, a ring of free-floating icicles began to form around Arne’s neck. They were razor-sharp, and floating close enough to barely nick his Adam’s Apple. “Should you delay, or try to give another excuse, I will end yours.” At that moment, a chill ran through Arne’s body as if all of his blood was being frozen at once. “The pact between god and mortal is made. I will uphold my end of the bargain as long as you uphold yours.” Fenrir released her grip and heat flooded back into Arne’s body. “Funny,” Fenrir mused. “The chains that bind my body prevent me from using my powers to their fullest, yet allow for pacts to be made. Perhaps the ones who made them believed no mortal would willingly approach me?” Arne gave a shiver as he familiarized himself with the situation, he now found himself in. A silvery band, almost like a tattoo, wrapped itself around his wrist. “Now then…” Fenrir extended one of her claws and gouged a short line in the floor. “The answer to your first question. Yes, it is true that the trickster god Loki is my “father” while Angrboda could be considered my mother. But we gods are not conceived in the same manner as you mortal are. True gods, such as my father and those that resided in Asgard were drawn to this planet, shapeless and purposeless by a “beacon” of sorts…at least according to what father told me. They found mortal kind around this “beacon” and in turn mortals began to worship them, giving the gods strength and purpose. Eventually, the gods would form their own realms based on the mortals who worshipped them. These gods were venerated, and in return gave succor to those who pledged allegiance to them by interfering with the mortal plane.” She grew quiet. “Gods made from other gods however…are different.” “Different? What do you mean by that?” “Yes…” Fenrir paused, carving another mark into the wooden floorboards. “Gods made by other gods are…were fairly common. A single god is limited to the role they must play, in part both to their nature and the power and beliefs given to them by mortal kind. In order to achieve a personal goal outside their scope, however, they require a medium.” She reached down and picked up a cinnamon cookie. “Often, this will be a mortal. Father told me of ‘heroes’ chosen by the gods to accomplish a task. But mortals are easily swayed, easily broken.” For emphasis, she crushed it in her hand. “For more focused tasks, they require something more powerful.” Straightening up as best she could, the air in the room lowered in temperature as she looked at Arne. “Father took Angrboda’s essence, taken as payment for a deal brokered between them and melded it with his own. He told me that I began as a wish, as desire taken physical form and molded into a celestial shell. Made for one purpose and one purpose alone.” Frost began to form on the window, creeping up from the edges. “The destruction of all gods, and all mortals. Why he wished this and why he formed that wish into me, I do not know. But I shall carry out his will, as it is the reason for my very existence.” Arne looked at her, about to speak up when Fenrir interrupted. Her gaze was not fixed on him now, instead looking at the floor. “I am a god of death, of ruination and despair. Other gods are revered by mortals, yet even before I was sired my purpose and duty had already been foretold. I came into this world reviled and feared, and so it shall be. And so it was that a ‘hero’ was made from the wishes of the other gods.” She looked at Arne again. “You know of who I speak, mortal. Your celestial ancestor, who bore the only arms capable of harming me.” A low chuckle escaped her lips. “And for all the good it did, we both failed. I did not destroy Midgard, he failed to kill me. And now I remain as a remnant of that realm, forgotten and mocked by mortals as myth and legend.” As Arne beheld Fenrir, less she looked like a goddess of death and destruction and more like a broken warrior. For the first time, he felt not fear or hesitation towards her but sadness and strangely, empathy. She was proof that at one point, the ancient Nordic gods did indeed exist, and now here she was; powerful but alone, unable to complete the very task set for her that brought her into life. And here he was, the only person on the planet capable of wielding the weapon that could end her, and simultaneously her only ‘follower’ if not by choice. The wind howled outside as it picked up. Light was fading, and shadows began to creep through the room at evening’s advent. No words were exchanged between the two, the only sounds in the cabin room coming from the wind outside. Arne’s mind began to race. Here was a goddess, a literal celestial being, the last member of the Nordic gods, and she was chained up in a shed like a circus beast. He sighed, aware that he was about to do something reckless again. “Fenrir, how would you say ‘chains, become manacles connected to weights?’ I’m having a hard time trying to form the words.” Fenrir gave him a curious look and recited the phrase in Elder Fuuthark, while clawing another mark into the wood plank. Arne repeated the incantation, and the chains binding the goddess began to quiver. They snapped from the runes drawn in the wall, coiling into ball-and-chain weights at her feet. The golden chains around her upper body retracted and snaked around to her wrists, becoming a solid pair of cuffs while another set wrapped around her throat forming a solid collar. They were all interlinked with smaller golden chains, loose enough to allow some movement but still restrictive enough to keep her bound. A thicker chain burst from one of the handcuffs, merging into the hilt of the knife. “What…what are you doing?” “This really isn’t a good place to continue our discussions.” Arne grabbed the knife and gave it a light pull, causing Fenrir to shuffle forward a few centimeters. It looked like whatever force he applied on it was amplified on her. “It’s much warmer in my home. We’ll continue the discussion there, if you don’t mind.” Chapter 6: Warmth Within Ice “What.” Fenrir looked at Arne with a blank expression, like she couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. Her eyes were locked on his face, blinking as if she couldn’t process what he had said. “What did you say?” Arne was taken aback; this wasn’t the response he was expecting. He had braced himself for more hostility, as if the suggestion to enter his home would be some kind of transgression. Instead, the wolf goddess looked genuinely confused. “Did I say something wrong?” Fenrir seemed to fail what she was looking for in his eyes, and her gaze instead focused on the door. “Fine. If you so wish, then I shall enter your place of dwelling.” Her voice was still low and flat, but Arne could make out a distinct tremble as her sentence finished. She closed her eyes, and when she spoke again that slight crack that had formed in her mental armor sealed itself. “I do not know your reasoning for inviting me of all gods into your home, but you are not lying. I would have known if you were.” She shook her cuffs, letting the golden chains rattle. “Well? These magicked chains may seem light to you, but I cannot yet move my legs.” Arne gave a tug at the chains by pulling back on the dagger, and Fenrir gave another shuffle forward. Slowly he continued tugging at the chains and Fenrir followed, ducking under and through the doorframe with a bit of effort. Out in the open, Fenrir was able to freely stand to her full height without having to slightly hunch over, and Arne realized how tall she was compared to him. Her 3-meter frame stood proud even with the chains binding her, the rising moon giving her icy white fur a pale glow. Her golden eye almost seemed to shine in the moonlight as she looked ahead into the night. Arne couldn’t help but think of her as the archetypical “proud warrior” as he stood beside her. “Well? Are you going to invite me or not?” She said in a gruff tone. “Ah. Right, this way.” As soon as the guesthouse was locked, Arne pulled on the chains tugging along his celestial prisoner behind him. “Mind your head, this door wasn’t really designed for anyone of…your stature.” The wooden door creaked open revealing an unlit interior. As he stepped inside, Arne noticed that Fenrir was still standing outside the doorframe. There was an awkward silence between the two as they just looked at each other. Arne coughed, breaking the silence. “Is something the matter?” “I must be invited in.” “Can’t you just walk inside? I already told you that I wanted to continue our discussion here.” Fenrir made an exasperated huff. “There exists a boundary between moral and god. One that permeates our dual existences. The very reason why I couldn’t begin personally razing your world to the ground until I had finished with Asgard. Just as a mortal soul cannot be invited to the gates of Valhalla unless guided by a being of higher power, a divine being such as myself cannot enter the dwelling of a mortal unless invited.” Her good eye narrowed. “Specifically invited, with intent.” Arne understood immediately. In mythology, there were countless examples of powerful beings unable to interfere with mortal-kind unless given explicit permission to do so. In some cultures, prayer was seen as a form of inviting a being of higher power from the heavens to the mortal plane, by offering one’s home as a place of convergence. “Prayer….” Arne thought to himself. He paused for a moment, considering the fact that he was about to really do this. He wasn’t traditionally religious by any measure, but with an actual goddess standing in the snow falling outside his home, he had to quell any feelings of incredulity. With some hesitation, he bowed his head and put his hands together. “Uh, O Great and Terrible Fenrir, Slayer of Odin and Bringer of Ragnarök…please come into my humble dwelling so that you may impart your knowledge to me.” Arne kept his head bowed down, hoping to hear her footfalls on the wooden floor. Instead he was greeted by silence. Looking up, he saw a slightly flustered Fenrir scratching one of her arms. “A simple ‘please enter my home’ would have sufficed.” She stepped through the doorframe, which seemed to shimmer a bit as she passed through. “Though, you are the first mortal to offer such a prayer in my name.” She wore an unsure expression on her face as she looked around, as if this were an entirely new experience for her. “That was the first prayer I’ve ever been given, actually. I suppose I should thank you for that.” Fenrir muttered as she stepped onto the wooden floor of Arne's home. He shut the door behind her. “Your first prayer? You've never been prayed to before?” Fenrir snorted in response to his question. “Please, do you think I would be given any form of prayer? The one fated to bring this world to ruin? Nay, I heard prayers being offered to those I slew as I tore Asgard to the ground. Mortals, terrified as my ice began to grip the world ever more.” She grew quiet. “And that is how it should be, monsters do not deserve prayer.” Arne detected a modicum of hurt when she said that. This may be the chance he was waiting for, a chance to get to know more about her from her own lips. “Who…who told you that?” He kept his voice soft and his tone understanding. Unfortunately, this seemed to have the exact opposite effect he was hoping for. Fenrir’s fur bristled, a ring of frost forming at her feet. “That tone…those emotions emanating from your being…dare you pity me, mortal? I accept what I am, and find pride in what I was created to become! I am Fenrir, terminus of this world! I will not be degraded to the point where a single mortal feels pity for me!” Through sheer force of will, she managed to turn away from Arne and face the door, each footfall shaking the house as she fought against the chains. “Enough of this farce. Return me to my cell.” “I’m not going to do that.” Arne pulled the chain taut again, forcing her to face him once again. “I’ve already asked for your help in prayer, right? And I meant every word.” Fenrir bared her teeth, speaking through them in a half-growl. “That much is true. I am compelled to…at the very least listen to what you are saying.” Arne had to calm her down somehow. “I’m going to make some more coffee. I’ve got some more cinnamon cookies in the cabinet over here. Reaching up he pulled out a small wrapped packet and opened it, handing it to the goddess. Fenrir glowered down at him in silence. “I offer these to you as a sacrifice.” Fenrir cocked an eyebrow in response. “A sacrifice? You’d offer me a sacrifice?” “In history, sacrifices were made to gods to quell their fury. I don’t really have much but I do know you enjoy these- “Fenrir opened her mouth to deny her fondness for the sweets while Arne continued. “So, I pray with this you forgive my previous…transgression.” She reached out and took the packet in hand. “The first ever prayer directed to me, and the first sacrifice I’ve ever received. It is a strange day indeed.” The ring of ice at her feet receded slightly as she gave a huff. “I accept it.” Arne simply gave a wry smile. “Thank you for accepting it.” He poured some water into a kettle and set it over the stove. “Well, while that gets to a boil, I could show you around the house. It’s not really anything too fancy, but it’s my home.” He paused. “Although it is getting a little dark now. Hold on, I’ll get the lights.” Reaching over he flipped the light switch on the wall, and the LED bulbs wired on the ceiling turned on with a flash, bathing the room in a warm yellow light. Fenrir, seeing this, took a step back. “How did you do that?” She looked around at all the light sources in the room. Speechless at the sight of it, she walked over to the light switch and crouching down, flipped the lights off and on again. “I smell no smoke from lit tinder, and yet you have light brighter than that from a celestial brazier.” She rose to her full height again, her ears brushing the ceiling. “And this is done without manipulating the energies of life?” “No, another example of us mortals figuring things out and applying them.” Arne paused. “What do you mean by the energies of life?” Fenrir shrugged. “Ask me not about that, I am not a scholar versed in exploring them. All I know is that every god can manipulate it, and it is an innate skill. Such manipulation is how I am able to generate my ice.” She held out a hand, only for a small yet still sharp stalagmite of ice to rise. “Tch. Were my power not limited so, I would be able to more. Much, much more.” Arne walked over to the spire of ice that had risen in the middle of his kitchen. It glowed with a whitish-blue hue, and as he approached it, he could feel the temperature in the room drop despite the heater being on, blowing warm air through the house. “It’s…unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” Fenrir puffed her chest out proudly. “It is no mere ice, mortal. I was created, perfected to generate it. It is ruination made manifest, ice stronger and sharper than any iron and capable of bringing any and all life to a halt.” ‘Ruination made manifest?’ Arne thought to himself. Recalling what her ice did to his ice pick back in the cave, he grabbed an old cast-iron pan and filled it with water. He walked over to the icy spire, and carefully raised the pan over the ice’s tip. As he got closer, he could feel the metal grow increasingly cold in his hands. As he brought it over the sharp tip of the ice, the iron had grown unbearably cold, as if he were gripping a fresh chunk of ice from a frozen lake. Fenrir watched as he made contact between the celestial ice and the iron pan, smiling ever so slightly as Arne gasped as the utensil immediately froze over. Arne released his grip and stumbled back holding his hand, and as he let go of the pan the weight of the now-frozen ice within it caused it to fall onto the spire. The glowing ice speared through the pan like a knife through paper, cracking it in two and sending the shattered remains clattering across the floor. Arne blinked a few times. “That is incredible.” He looked up at Fenrir, who bore a curious expression. That wasn’t the reaction she was looking for. She expected him to be terrified, to be fearful to see a fraction of her power. Instead, the human was awestruck. “You are not afraid? Most mortals would be.” Her question was met with a shaky laugh. “I mean, yes, I’m slightly shaken by what you can do. But you have to understand, we were taught you and the rest of the gods were just legends.” He nervously scratched the back of his head, still smiling slightly. “We’ve been talking and having our meetings for only a few weeks and you’ve shown a slight fraction of your powers then, but now with this demonstration you’ve reminded me just who you are. And I would be lying if I said if I wasn’t partially ecstatic at having you here.” Fenrir raised her eyebrows at that comment, while otherwise maintaining a neutral expression. “You are either brave, or foolhardy.” She muttered. “To think that you actually find some enjoyment from me being here. A strange human indeed.” Casting a sideways glance at the ice spire, she willed it to shatter and disappear. The ice broke apart with a clatter, sending the shards sprawling across the floor which quickly evaporated with a faint hiss. “Right, let me put on some coffee.” Arne did an about-face, kicking aside one of the iron pot’s halves as he walked. “Hm. Your powers are limited right now, so I don’t see the harm in letting you roam around while I get this made.” He picked up the knife and opened his notebook to a list of word he’d deciphered. “Roam, within dwelling.” Immediately the chain went slack, collapsing to the floor with a heavy thud. Fenrir looked at Arne before turning around towards the back door. As she bent down to touch the handle, the chain spung tight, preventing her from even making contact with the lever. “Hmph. It seems you are getting better at casting these wards.” She stepped away from the door, and once again the chains fell flat on the ground. “Very well, I shall…make myself a guest in your home.” “I did pray, after all.” Arne quipped, not looking away from the slowly-heating kettle. Chapter 7: The Mind of a Goddess Reflexively, Fenrir’s muzzle drew back to bare her teeth at the smart remark but she managed to keep herself stoic. For the most part, the wild rage she’d been feeling after being freed had subsided into a more simmering general feeling of frustration. “Yes, yes, and I shall respond in kind as a goddess should.” The she-wolf rolled her good eye. Still, she felt a flutter of a new emotion within her breast, something other than the icy grip of anger and resentment. It was a familiar feeling, an emotion excised from her being when she was yet a young goddess newly brought into the world. “This has to be pride.” She thought to herself. While she either wore a scowl or a stoic blank face while not in a fight, it was behavior drilled into her thanks in no little part to the training she’d went through at the hands of her father. If any emotion other than what she was used to feeling bubbled up from the depths of her being, she’d analyze it then make an effort to discard it. After all, she’d been told that she only needed to be an avatar of destruction, and all other feelings were irrelevant to her. But this was different. She was actually being prayed to. It was faint, but she could feel the pulse of immaterial energy that came with the prayer flow into her being from the mortal. Her first follower in her millennia of existence, granted he was one under unusual circumstances, but still a follower nonetheless. Her static expression twitched a bit with the ghost of a smirk. A ghost that soon faded. No, nothing had changed still. For all her grandstanding, she herself knew that her status was less that of a goddess and more of a weapon; her only purpose in her eternal life was destruction. That message had been drilled into her from the start. Don’t expect praise. Don’t expect followers. Don’t expect admiration. She would be hated, despised, and cursed for all time. Her frown returned. From that magicked black slate the mortal had called an “Eyefon”, she read the myths surrounding her being. History had recorded her as the monster she was raised to be, something to be reviled. So be it. She had been told that she was an abomination, a demon, a destroyer. If the world saw her as such, then she will gladly oblige in turn. Mist began to form around her as she felt the chains shackling her burn into her fur, only serving to deepen her scowl. Even the slightest exertion of her abilities caused them to inflict pain on her. She gritted her teeth and silently bore it as she had been doing all this time. She’d felt worse in combat anyway, this was nothing compared to some of the more grievous injuries given to her by the Valkyries as she tore down Valhalla. Godly weapons couldn’t kill her, and wounds would close instantly. But she still felt the pain inflicted. The mist grew thicker as ice crystals sprouted in her footsteps, tiny spikes of frost creeping over the wooden floorboards. The human’s dwelling was a far cry from the halls of Asgard, but then again, she was never privileged to walk among those. When she was newly created, on one particular day she stole away to see them for herself. “Father caught me as soon as I left the hunting grounds. Tch. He made sure to teach me a lesson then, that training session was excruciating.” It was the only one of many, designed to temper her into a being with a single focus. To destroy and bring ruin, and to feel nothing except the urge to do so. Perhaps at first, she tried to rebel ever so slightly. Then she was told the reason that she was being made to endure such harsh lessons, and it broke her. On that day, something fell apart within her, and she accepted her role. She ducked and squeezed through another opening to a larger room than the kitchen. The wooden floor creaked underneath her feet as she paced the room, spying another small white lever fixed to the wall. Reaching out, she flipped it causing the room to become awash with soft yellow light. A larger flat slate was mounted on the wall, her reflection clear in the black glass. A long plush seat faced it, backed against the wall. It drew her attention, as it was the most recognizable item in the room and yet still unnatural. There was no bronze or wooden frame to it, it was almost entirely made out of soft leather. She sat down onto it, trying to get comfortable on a piece of furniture meant for a smaller mortal. After several moments of fidgeting she decided the most comfortable method of sitting was instead sprawling across it, her legs extending beyond the long seat’s arm rest. It was too small for her body, and yet still the most comfortable thing she’d been on. As she stared above to the ceiling, her ears perked up, sensing someone entering the room as well. “I see you’ve taken to the sofa then?” Arne rounded the corner holding two steaming cups filled with freshly-poured tea. “You didn’t really fancy coffee, so I made this instead.” He set down the cups on the table in front of the sprawled-out goddess. Fenrir looked at the cup before flicking her gaze up at Arne. “Is it- “ “An offering, yeah.” “Hmph.” The sofa creaked as she righted herself, her legs pushing away the table slightly as she corrected her position to be more comfortable. “You have a simple home, compared to the walls of Valhalla.” Arne settled into a chair across from her. “Valhalla? Heh, that’s incredible.” A childlike smile grew on his face. “Is it as they say? Halls of gold where the slain find eternal solace?” His eyes grew wide as a thought popped into his head. “You must’ve met Odin, then. After all, he is the one who rules it.” “Of course, I have.” Fenrir snorted, taking a deep swig of the still-hot liquid after a tentative first sip. “I killed him.” “Ah. Right.” An awkward silence fell upon the two. “The halls were magnificent though. White marble inlaid with the brightest gold. A fitting realm made for the souls who were forged in strife…” She trailed off, frowning into her cup as Arne sat back. Of course, with Fenrir in front of him his doubts about the ancient Nordic pantheon being real were quelled, but as a historian the revelation that the myths were not mere stories was still something he had to process. His thoughts were interrupted by a loud slam on the table as Fenrir slammed the ceramic mug onto the wood. “A much more palatable drink than the first one. And…refreshing in a way.” Arne looked down at his own mug, still cooling off. “That didn’t hurt to drink? The water I used was nearly boiling.” Fenrir grunted. “It makes no difference to me. If anything, the heat was pleasant.” “I see…I suppose that’s another difference between you and I.” Arne tapped the floor with his foot. “Well then, seeing as how my drink is still too hot, why don’t I show you the upstairs floor of my house?” “Is this some kind of a joke?” Fenrir’s ears twitched in irritation. Arne, meanwhile, was looking up at the gap in between floors which the stairs passed through. He didn’t live in a very big house, and there were only a few inches of clearance as a person of his height passed between floors. For Fenrir, this was an impossible feat. “It wasn’t designed in mind for gods. Sometimes, I wonder if the architect of this house wasn’t thinking about making it for humans either.” Fenrir sighed. “I suppose there’s no other way about it. Very well.” She inhaled sharply, and ethereal wisps of mist began to emanate from her body, growing denser by the second. There was a flash, and jagged icy-blue crystals formed over the entirety of her body. The temperature of the room visibly dropped as Arne became aware of a repeated crackling sound. The mass of crystals began to crush inward, the mass reducing to a height about three heads taller than him. With a shatter the shards went flying in all directions, and there stood Fenrir, now slightly shorter. Arne reasoned she was now two and a half meters tall rather than slightly over three as she usually was. “I won’t denigrate myself by further reducing my form.” She avoided eye contact with him, showing hints of embarrassment behind her otherwise stoic expression. Arne, meanwhile, was thoroughly impressed. “That’s incredible, I didn’t know you could do that!” “Mmph. Our appearances in this plane are bound by several rules, but within those rules we are free to alter our shapes and appearances at will.” Still avoiding having to look at him, she ducked under the low-hanging ceiling and made her way up the stairs. “Then what do you look like, really?” Arne asked as he followed her up. Fenrir abruptly stopped in her tracks, and Arne nearly stumbled face-first into her tail, which was face height with him. “What I truly look like?” She chuckled; a low laugh that hinted at some amusement mixed with a deep otherworldly power. “Your mind wouldn’t handle such a thing. The rules to exist in your world are only there because otherwise, us gods wouldn’t be able to manifest at all. In Valhalla? It is you mortals who change to suit our existence, lest your very souls be torn asunder by viewing that which you would not comprehend.” She started moving up the stairs again, her armor clinking along the way. “Right.” Arne said, following her. “Something great and terrible. Got it.” Fenrir shot him a glare. “You’re starting to become awfully bold with your speech.” Arne held up his hands, one palm open and the other palm holding the golden chain. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend.” He then locked eyes with her. “But you going on and on about how terrible you are can is starting to wear thin on me. You might be a destroyer of worlds, but in this house you’re a guest. So please try to find a more positive way to describe yourself.” The two of them stared each other down for an uncomfortably long while, until Arne noticed a twitch on Fenrir’s lip. The twitch grew into a slight grin, showing off the ends of her canine teeth. “Hah! You have stones, mortal, to talk to me like that.” She shook her head, still grinning. “That amuses me. In my time, a mere mention of a god’s name had mortals scurrying in fear. And here you are, issuing a challenge to my face! You do have some of Vidarr’s blood running in your veins after all, then.” She stepped forward, leaning down to look him in the eyes. Oddly enough, Arne felt no fear, instead a deep burning sensation flickered within the depths of his soul. He was rooted in place, unmoving. He wasn’t sure what this feeling was, but it was as if he were remembering something long forgotten. Something that he’d always known, yet didn’t realize until now. No, he stared right back, doing what the restrained goddess was currently doing to him, and almost instinctively his grip tightened on the otherworldly hunting knife. “Hm, yes. Embers of his essence do indeed remain, mere motes of it. But your scent, your presence in the immaterial…is partially, unmistakably, of his own. There is no mistake of it, I will not soon forget who he was.” Arne furrowed his brow. “Good to hear. Now, can you please describe yourself in a more positive way? I’d like my guests to feel at least somewhat comfortable and good about themselves in my home.” Fenrir half-barked, half-chuckled again and rose up to tower over Arne again. “Fine. I suppose that the one thing I can say with pride about myself is that I am the apex hunter. I was willed to be the ultimate warrior; godly weapons only wound me, but will never be able to kill me. Mortal weapons merely pass through me, as if they are ephemeral. With my own two hands I burned Valhalla and laid low the Nordic gods. All but one.” Her grin grew into a wicked smile. “I accomplished the first aspect of my purpose without fail.” Arne gripped the knife. “And the second aspect?” “The destruction of the world. As you know, I command celestial ice, a kind only I can will into existence. Once Valhalla fell, I would move into Midgard and freeze the world, ending all.” “Ragnarök, I assume? The end of days.” “And I was nearly successful. That is until the fateful day when Vidar appeared before me for the second and final time, clutching the very same hunting knife in your possession. At first, I dismissed it as another weapon forged by the gods. And then, in a single moment he struck at me. His first attack missed, but then I noticed that it had cut not just my armor but some of the fur on my arm. It was only a small cut, it wasn’t closing.” Fenrir’s focus seemed to dull, her eyes seeing not the corridor of the house but a faraway battlefield. “I was confused. Any damage incurred by a godly weapon would instantly heal. But here, no such thing was happening. It was then I noticed the glow to the knife. An aura of shimmering light, unnaturally bright. Something about that light struck fear into my heart. We moved at each other again, but with a practiced motion he duck under my claws and drove the knife at my heart. Instinctively, I summoned ice under his feet to rise up, but that only leveled the knife from my heart to my head, where it struck my eye.” She tapped the scar on her face. “The wound heals slowly; I can feel it. The knife has permanently altered my celestial essence within the immaterial realm somehow. In that moment, I staggered back with the knife lodged in my skull, and he realized something. He was able to read my essence, and could bind it to his will. Vidar wanted vengeance, and found a way to enact it beyond merely killing me. No, he wanted me to suffer in defeat, denying me my own purpose, and bound me to the knife itself. Undying, trapped with it to exist until the sun itself grew dim.” She closed her remaining eye. “He wanted me to know that for eternity, I failed to accomplish the very reason for my existence, thus rendering my entire being…pointless.” “I see.” “For a god such as myself, without followers, without faith, purpose is the only anchor to life that we are granted. To leave that purpose unfulfilled, we are revenants who cling to existence before fading, forgotten and alone. Only, I would never have faded. I would be trapped within a prison, tortured by the fact that I’d failed the only reason I was born into this world.” She looked off into the distance, her eyes unfocused, until her gaze drifted down to Arne. “Ironic, that now I do have a follower, but only as a captive. An unwilling follower, an unwilling captive, with a mortal wielding power over a god. It almost resembles a plan Father would have made. He loved irony.” Arne saw it again, a crack in the mental armor she’d built around her being. Her eyes were still unfocused, her posture slightly less tense, and her ears tilted backwards. Her expression was still as stoic as ever, but he could see the hints of something else beneath it. Something vulnerable. Perhaps it wasn’t a good day to read his ancestor’s journal. “You must be tired.” Fenrir refocused her gaze on him. She said nothing and just stared at him. “Perhaps she can never truly feel tired,” he thought to himself. “But you’re mentally exhausted, and I can see that clearly.” He was going to find out more about the journal, but now he also wanted to know more about her. “I cannot tire, mortal. I need not food, nor water or even rest.” “Fair enough…but maybe you’d like to relax for a moment? Feeling constantly angry and agitated can’t feel too good, right?” “I…what are you playing at?” Fenrir eyed him cautiously. Arne shrugged. “I’m saying; would you like to take a warm bath? If I’m stressed out, I usually do that. It can do wonders for the mind, to say anything about the body.” Chapter 8: Disarmament For the longest while, she’d been having trouble analyzing the mortal’s behavior. Many imagined her as a savage, a brute, and perhaps rightly so. One wouldn’t think that a warrior-goddess solely created to bring about ruination and death to be anything other than a hate-fueled berserker. “Then again,” Fenrir thought to herself, “They did not have a father who prided himself on scheming and mischief.” Her mind had been honed as much as her body had been. “Power without focus is worthless,” her father’s words etched into her mind, his lecturing while she was pitted against conjured monstrosities as part of her training. “Power without focus is worthless, but with focus becomes a force of change. And you, Fenrir, shall be that instrument by which change is shaped.” It also helped that she’d been woven partly from his own essence, his intelligence forming part of her being. His training was brutal, effective in shaping her to be the ultimate weapon. Sometimes he would create snakes that would bite deep into her veins, carrying celestial toxins through her system while an antidote was just out of reach – only to be given if she could recite a treatise on fate written by the Norns from memory. Other times she’d be pitted against foe after foe, their weapons stabbing at her flesh and tearing it apart, only for her to heal not a moment later. And she did it all for recognition, for some flicker of acknowledgement from him which she received rarely. She eventually stopped feeling anything other than a purpose to accomplish the tasks he gave out to her, for that was the only way she would find her moments of solace. No matter what the task called for. She had combat techniques, philosophies and treatises memorized to the word. She could strategize her prey’s movements ahead of time, to the point that not even the best warriors in Valhalla stood against her. She felt nothing from her victories, instead trying to think ahead of her next foe. So why then, did a simple human confound her so? “I’m saying; would you like to take a warm bath? If I’m stressed out, I usually do that. It can do wonders for the mind, to say anything about the body.” Her focus came back. She hated talking about her past, it was one of the few things that threw her off-balance and made her distracted. The fog of ages cleared instantly from her mind, and she was once again still in a shamefully diminutive form, bound by magicked chains, standing in front of a mortal that commanded more power than her at present. She blinked again. The human seemed earnest in his offer, his face showing no sign of betrayal. “Fine. Lead me to your bathhouse.” It wasn’t like she could do anything else at present, anyway. The mortal on the other hand gave a simple chuckle, as if she’d said something humorous. “I’m not rich enough for that. Not on an assistant professor’s paycheck at least. I do have a regular bathroom though.” He led her to a side door, which opened into a rather cramped room. A cursory scan showed some sort of empty tub, a curious metal flower jutting out of the wall pointed down into it, a smaller sink and some strange seat-like contraption. “I see no water here with which to bathe.” The human scratched his head. “I was getting to that, see those knobs there?” He pointed to two teardrop-shaped pieces of metal in the tub’s wall. “Turn the one with a red marking on it, it’ll fill up with warm water.” Fenrir looked at him, then the knob before squeezing into the bathroom, her reduced form still brushing against the doorframe’s top. Reaching out and turning the metal fixture, she took her hand back slowly as a water began to flow. “It’s already warm.” She didn’t see him prepare any coals or fire to warm the water first, nor did she see any buckets or barrels of water from a stream. In the past, her father had shown her how the mortals lived; peasantry eking out a life near streams and rivers, often farming for sustenance. This mortal styled himself a peasant as well, but lived like a king compared to them. Light when he wanted it. Hot water and heat at his call. Black stones that lit up with moving pictures and text. Compared to them, he was akin to a god himself. ‘So, this is how they’ve grown since then.’ She mused. “There’s soap in that bottle, just give it a squeeze. And there’s towels underneath the sink.” He paused, contemplating something. “Your armor. Do you…need any help taking it off?” She looked down at herself, clad in heavily scratched celestial iron and leather. She honestly forgot about it, having worn it for so long. “No need. I will take it from here.” The mortal looked confused. “There are chains lined along a few of those panels. How are you going to remove those?” She huffed in slight annoyance. If he was told to leave, he should leave and let her continue on. “I told you, I do not require assistance.” “And I’m asking you how that’s possible. I’m no smith but I’ve read about Nordic armor. It’d be difficult to remove alone.” He looked up at her, into her eyes. The embers flickering inside him. “If you need help, don’t be stubborn enough to refuse it.” Her anger began to bubble up again. She was already dishonored by her confinement. Dishonored by reducing her form. Dishonored by being led around by a mortal, and now she was being lectured by him? Fine then. She would instead show why he wasn’t needed. She faced away from him and exhaled sharply, veins of ice spider-webbing across the surface of the armor until it was covered in a thin sheen. Then just as quickly, the armor itself shattered leaving her bare fur exposed. Facing away from him, she kept herself covered with her arms and tail leaving him with a view of her now bare backside. She shot him a dangerously angry look over her shoulder. “This answer should suffice.” The mortal’s face grew red and he stammered out some non-words before retreating, slamming the door shut on the chain which kept it propped open somewhat. Sighing, Fenrir walked over to the water. The moment she dipped her leg inside she reflexively recoiled, expecting the water to disappear. Another sigh escaped her lips, this one of relief instead of anger. This water was real, not an illusion. Eventually, she was situated in the tub as best she could, knees poking above the water. It felt…good. Warmth from the liquid flowed into her being. As she enjoyed the feeling, she couldn’t help but ponder. “When was the last time I had a bath like this?” It had to be centuries, at least. Glancing to her side, she saw a clear bottle, the material unfamiliar to her. As she picked it up, the material flexed in her hands causing her to drop it with a start. With a distinctive “plop” the bottle bobbed back up to the surface of the water and she fished it out. She could see through it, like glass, yet it bent in her hand like soft wood. She squinted, trying to read the words written on the label. The letters were all familiar but the order was unnatural, as if this was a different language entirely. “Ni..ve..a” Pronouncing the letters as they were written resulted in what she could only fathom as the substance’s name. Tentatively, rotated the cap, finding it came off quite easily. She threw it to the side and squeezed out some of the bottle’s contents onto her palms. It smelled clean and fresh, perhaps a bit overly clean. Rubbing it on her arms, she found that it bubbled and frothed, before the suds washed away in the water. Now the fresh scent was on her body. She felt troubled. Never had she been given access to perfumes or oils, her father calling them unnecessary. This was a new realm to her. She slowly rubbed the fragrant liquid over her fur, conflicted emotions roiling within her. “Yes, I forgot. This is what I feel like.” She pinched her arm, tugging at the white fur. “This is me.” No target to exterminate. No mission to fulfil. She closed her eye, nobody to deny her some rest. And then her eye shot open. No target? No purpose? Then what was she good for? She was here to cause Ragnarök, and bring ruin to the world of god and man. She tried to stand only for the chains to draw taut, forcing her back down and sending water splashing over the tub’s edge. “Damn it. Damn it all.” She shot the ajar door a look to confirm that nobody was spying on her, and then curled her legs up, tucking her tail between them. Idly, she continued rubbing water on her fur as she closed her eyes, trying to feel somewhat at ease. ... Yet still her mind raced. While imprisoned in the wooden shack the mortal called a “guest house”, she tried to determine his next move. Torture, perhaps? He might’ve tried it, only to find out that no mortal instrument would even mark her fur. Perhaps he meant to instead leave her in her fetters. To create a new prison for her, just as the one in the cave had been. Still, even if she’d been locked away the seal had been weakened, her latent powers already affecting the globe. Ragnarök would not have been as sudden as she liked, but still an inevitability as long as she existed in the mortal realm. Then he offered her food, in the form of some kind of cooked poultry. By the design of the very will that created her, she came into existence being able to experience things most gods had to impose on themselves. For some unfathomable reason her father created her with the desire to feel mortal urges. She may be perpetually filled with energy yet still feel sleep tug at her consciousness without explanation, she may never feel the need to eat yet still be gripped by hunger. Other celestial beings had to put effort into merely emulating these drives. In her case…they were written into her very essence. She was denied sleep, denied any form of food, and given only the slightest bits of either after fulfilling tasks set forth for her. One hundred years before the initiation of Ragnarök, the burning of Valhalla was when she had had her last rest, her last morsel to sate the claws of hunger with the promise of more on the completion of that very task. And it was then that she’d realized why she was made in such a way. All those base drives, repressed and allowed only slight reprieve had turned into a chasm of anger and frustration within her, all with a promise that they’d be sated if she only did what was told. And so, she began to feel nothing save for the desire to complete what tasks were set out for her. And that itself was millennia ago. So, when this human, this mortal, approached her not only without fear but with something to eat, she was taken aback. At first, she thought it may be poisoned, which would have still failed. As he brought it closer, she thought he would torment her by placing it just out of reach from her shackles, but no, he set before her within arm’s length. “He’s plotting something. Any mortal who knows who I am, what I am, cannot act with such…unnatural nonchalance.” She growled under her breath. “But that makes no sense, now, does it? A pact has already been struck, and at the end of it either I or he will die.” She tried to sink into the water, shifting herself so that her legs stuck up more while she was finally able to sink her chin beneath the surface. “His behavior defies any reasoning…I suppose such is the nature of a mortal.” As she began to ease up a little, her focus lapsed. And in that moment, the ever-present feeling of fatigue that she felt began taking its hold on her. Her eyes drooped and one of the legs she’d been propping up on the tub’s wall slipped down and slightly turned one of the faucet knobs, causing water to begin cascading into the tub. Fenrir bolted upright and turned it clockwise, only adding to the flow. “Gah, infernal device.” She turned it the other way, stopping the water. She looked over to the door, and confirmed that she was still alone. While she wouldn’t admit it, she was slightly fascinated by the advancements mortal kind had made in her absence. And even something as mundane as a bathtub had her attention. “Now then, turning this, what does this do?” She reached under the water and found a sliver cap on the tub’s floor. Giving it a twist, she noticed the water level begin to drop rapidly. A few moments later, and all the water had emptied out. “Fascinating. So that’s how they’d drain a fixed tub like this.” Her attention was drawn to a metal lever on the wall, with two strange icons at the up and down positions. The upper one resembled a raincloud while the lower one resembled a wave. She flipped it up, but to her slight disappointment and annoyance, nothing happened. “Hmph. Well then, I suppose I should fill this with water again.” She bent down and reached over to the knob, then stifled a yelp when a torrent of hot water began to rain down on her back. Jolting upright her head knocked the metal flower built into the wall, which came off. The flower was spewing water everywhere, connected to the wall by a silvery flexible pipe. Growling, she turned off the water and picked up the flower. It was made of metal, that was certain, but had small pinpoint holes in it. “A way to emulate rain? Heated rain, no less.” Carefully, and with the “flower” pointed away from her she turned the water back on. The shower sputtered back to life, and she slowly extended her arm. “This…is not bad.” Slowly she waved the shower head back and forth on her arm, enjoying the sensation. From her arm she began to move it across her chest, then her other arm. She moved the shower head down, shifting slightly as the water massaged her abdomen. “Why…why does this feel as good as it does?” Involuntarily, her tail began to twitch, slapping the side of the tub wall. She gritted her teeth, in an attempt to stifle her pleasure. “N-noted. I need to be careful about my core area.” She moved the shower head lower, and nearly doubled over. The water jet was now massaging her groin, stimulating her in an entirely different way. She staggered back, her claws digging into the ceramic wall. “A-aah…” The flow circled around her most delicate of parts, causing her to bite her lip to stifle the moan coming from her throat. She hurriedly pointed the shower head away as she caught her breath. To feed her anger, her drive, she was given mortal feelings by her father. This much, both he and she knew. But the process was too effective, beyond anything he expected, and this was a secret Fenrir kept to herself. Among the mortal urges she’d been given, there was one she’d failed to mention, one stifled after being called “monster” and “weapon” one too many times. She was told that she’d be forever alone, an instrument to both give and receive hate. Yet this feeling was a distinctly primal thing, and a feeling that caused her no slight amount of disgust whenever it came into the fray, serving only to feed the pit of anger and frustration within herself. And now, in this moment of vulnerability she accidentally allowed herself to indulge in it ever so slightly. “A thousand curses on you, father, for creating me to be like them.” She grumbled to herself. Perhaps this was enough self-indulgence for one day. She reached down and turned off the water and put the shower head back in its place, before breathing deeply. Exhaling, the water coating her fur instantly froze then began to shimmer. The sheen of ice grew and expanded until it shattered, and there she stood in her full battle dress. Arne was burying himself in a record of ancient Mesopotamian dig sites, blocking out the world with a pair of noise-cancelling earphones blaring Tchaikovsky’s 4th. Really, he just hit his “orchestral music” playlist and pulled a random book from the shelves. Anything to distract him from the memory of a certain toned, nude wolf goddess. He sipped on his tea, now cool enough to drink. He hadn’t really been in the dating scene for a good while, choosing instead to focus on his academics instead, and while there were certain online sites that quelled those specific urges, this was something else entirely. While her demeanor and appearance while armored was entirely intimidating, underneath the armor was an Amazonian beauty…still murderous, but the view of her back was still breathtaking. He swore he even caught a glimpse of her toned ass before her tail swooped down to cover everything. “Ah, for heaven’s sake.” He hit the pause button on his iPhone. “Focus, Arne, she’s an apocalyptic world-ender, not a supermodel.” Sliding the book aside, he pulled out the journal and several photocopies. “Good thing I’ve been diligent about taking notes whenever we’ve talked before. This entire passage has been translated.” At first, their translation sessions would consist of long awkward pauses with Fenrir translating a handful of words at a time. For someone who wanted the journal translated as fast as possible, she was taking her time. It dawned on Arne that she wasn’t just being stubborn or prideful about it, she was constantly thinking, calculating both his and her next move. Soon, a handful of words became a sentence at a time, then two sentences at a time. “I won’t say we’ve gotten any more comfortable with each other in these few weeks,” he thought to himself. “But the general edge between us has reduced…ever so slightly.” He leaned back and slipped off his earphones so that they hung off his neck. The familiar rattling of chains and clink of chainmail on metal plates signaled his guest’s return to the living room. Arne turned slightly in his chair so that he was facing her. “So? How was it?” For some reason, Fenrir was avoiding his gaze, seemingly embarrassed about something. “I-It was fine.” “Well, if anything you do look a bit more refreshed. If you want some more tea it’s still pretty warm in the kettle.” He swiveled around again to collect his notes. “I’ve been working by myself here, but thanks to your help I’m getting a better grasp on Elder Fuuthark lexicon.” The hardback notebook he was jotting notes in closed with a snap in his hands as he stood up. “This is going to work wonders for a thesis I’m writing, you have no idea. And I have you to tha-“ His words got caught in his mouth as he frowned. “What?” Fenrir glared at the human; whose brow was now furrowed. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.” Arne left his notes on the table and walked over to his bedroom and began to rummage through his hiker’s first aid kit. He returned holding some medical tape and gauze pads, along with a pair of scissors. Fenrir kept her gaze locked on him the entire time. “I’m going to have to ask you to kneel down for a moment.” Fenrir narrowed her eye. “What are you getting at, human?” “Your bandage. It’s coming loose. You didn’t notice it?” He gestured to his left eye, and Fenrir raised one of her hands to feel the wrapping around her head had come loose. “I need to redress it.” Fenrir was about to complain, but then she also realized that her vision had not yet returned. The golden blade that wounded and sealed her unusually powerful, sure, but she should have recovered by now. Begrudgingly, she knelt so he could reach the bandages. “There we are. Now then…” Arne slowly reached out and began to take off the still-wet wrappings. As he brushed against her fur, Fenrir’s ears twitched. His movements were cautious, but also gentle as if he didn’t want to cause her any harm. But why? She had been nothing but hostile to him from the start, and yet he was not hostile in return and on top of that, he showed her kindness. It made no sense. “Okay, that’s the last of it.” Arne looked up at the wound with a puzzled expression. “You said that weapons forged by the gods could hurt you, but the wounds wouldn’t last, right?” “Yes,” Fenrir studied Arne’s face. He wore a puzzled expression, as if he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. “What is it?” “Well the good news is that your eye is back.” Arne shuddered slightly as he recalled yanking out the knife from Fenrir’s skull, her bisected ocular organ coming loose with it. “But…it has a cataract. And you have a scar where…you know.” He made a stabbing gesture over his left eye. Fenrir was silent. “Let me see.” She stood up and walked back over to the bathroom on the upper floor, leaning over the sink and staring into her reflection. She raised her clawed fingers over the eyelid, feeling the thin vertical strip of pinkish scar tissue, her had coming to a stop over an eye with a formerly-brilliant golden iris, now a dull bronze glossed over with a glassy opaque film. “So. It is truly gone then.” “Gone? I thought you said that wasn’t possible.” Arne peered from behind the doorframe. “I said it was impossible for godly weapons to harm me.” She glanced over to Vidar’s blade, hanging from Arne’s hip in a holster that formerly held a more ordinary survival knife. “Whatever that is, however, I can say with absolute certainty now.” She scowled. “That blade...’tis not of the gods make.” Arne unsheathed it, an alien golden glow emanating from the metallic surface of the knife. At first, he thought he was imagining it, but at seeing Fenrir’s expression he came to realize that his own feelings of apprehension at handling the blade were not unfounded. “Then what is it?” Fenrir huffed. “Hmm, mortal…you are not the only one who is interested in reading about Vidar’s exploits now. Come. Let us see what my foe’s memoirs reveal.” Arne moved aside as the goddess shuffled her way out of the bathroom, her armor scratching the door behind her. He was about to ask her to be a bit more considerate about his house, when he noticed the deep gashes in the shower wall. “Maybe…maybe later.” He mumbled to himself as he followed her down the stairs. ROUGH TRANSLATION OF THE JOURNAL OF VIDAR Day after day, I am haunted by my failures. The ruins of Valhalla burn bright in my mind, jagged towers of ice breaking through the marbled streets and once-verdant fields. Countless souls, each having earned their place as the finest warriors of the realm falling one after the other to the Beast of the River Van. Their essence scattering amongst the winds denying them their resting place among the gods. It was here that I fought her for the first time. I am a god born of vengeance; fury is in my blood that can only be quenched by finishing my father’s killer. Equipped I was, with a spear and shield, armor forged by the finest smiths that graced Odin’s halls. At my side, the trump card; a chain forged of the purest celestial silver and etched with runes on every link. They called it Gleipnir. A chain that would bind the Beast and force her into submission. The first struggle against her lasted three days and two nights. Every gash I made in her armor lasted only a moment, until I saw the flesh underneath heal, scabs of ice forming to block blood before shattering to reveal unblemished fur. She used no weapons, only her claws and teeth, and her damnable ice. She was too experienced, too learned, as if she’d been made for this purpose and this purpose alone. I saw hints of other combat styles in her form; those of the Valkyries, those of mortals who’d been resting within these halls until now. It was with horror that I realized that she’d been consuming their essences into herself; learning their knowledge and copying their ability. Suffice to say my armor lay torn, shield splintered and spear cracked by the end of it. And so, I cast the Gleipnir. A weapon born to bind gods. Yet as it ensnared her, a curious thing happened. She managed to snap the chains. Supposedly unbreakable chains destroyed in an instant. It was then, that I fled in shame. I would not have my vengeance if I were to fall that day. Valhalla was lost. Asgard was lost. And I exiled myself to the mortal realm in hiding. My journey took me far. I walked from the lands from where we drew our greatest strength, wandering down the terrestrial landscape. Mountains and ice turned to temperate and lush forests, not unlike those of the hunting grounds I’d seen. The mortal folk changed too. The colors of their skin, their stature and shape. ‘Tis strange indeed that we gods are able to influence their world so greatly yet are dependent on them as well. After all, our shapes are forged by their own vision of us. It was there, in the land of where golden sands flowed across the ground in waves and the sun beat down on every denizen of the land did I find a glimmer of hope. It was a market in some city nearby a great river. I had altered my shape to blend in better with the mortal populace. The growing cold over the world had not gone unnoticed. Traders spun stories of seeing ice and snow in lands that never received them, and even here I could feel the intensity of the sun growing weaker day by day. Even if their language had no word for it, I knew that the grip of Ragnarök was growing ever stronger. Her actions in Asgard had shattered the Immaterial Flow of the world, tipping it in her favor. Lost in the crowd, I overheard something from a nearby merchant. About how the “City of Knowledge had sunk beneath the sands after it’s treasure had been stolen.” I was about to walk away when he mentioned that he’d barely escaped with his life, and had seen a great spire of gold vanish from the city shortly before it was destroyed. That alone was of little interest, until he raved to a small crowd that he had witnessed it performing miracles, and that the city had paid the ultimate price for interfering with divinity. And with this, he had my attention. The Immaterial Flow, the Aether, are the energies that make up both our world and the world of mortals. The world of the gods is purely comprised of Aether, given shape by mortal will. The mortal world, in contrast, is Aether given function, and while not physically present it influences the nature of the mortal plane. The best example that I learned from my training was the nature of the soul itself. Gods do not have these souls, as we are beings comprised purely of Aether. Yet mortals are an enigma; both beings of Aether and beings of physical substance. Their weak, frail bodies are host to incredibly powerful quantities of Aether, and they can never access it in their short-lived lives. And curiously enough, some learned individuals are aware of it. In every culture I meandered through, they all had different names for it. But I digress. Aether is ever-prevalent and immaterial, yet on rare occasion it can condense into physical objects. Avatars of reality, if one were to wax poetic about such things. Little information is known, even to us gods about these objects. But one rule is clear to us all; Aether will always balance itself in reality. Our very beings, powerful as they seem to mortals are ironically dependent on mortals for identity. Such is one example of balance that Aether enforces among many. Only one of us had seen such an object. Allfather Odin, in his waking years walked through Midgard, and was drawn towards one such object. He described it as “a great obelisk of golden hue, pulsing with Aether such that he’d never seen.” He, a god, was filled with a great feeling of the unknown while in its presence and left, writing down only what he’d seen and not where he’d found it to discourage others from seeking it out. The description of this city’s treasure was too similar to ignore, so I questioned the man. He, in a scared tone, told me that he wanted nothing to do with it anymore after having escaped with his life. Dejected I left the market with a huff, but as I was leaving the city I was halted by a man suffering from some mortal ailment. He told me that he could see my true nature, and that I was looking for something divine. Somehow, at the twilight of his life he’d been granted the ability to see Aether for what it was, presumably from being at the threshold himself. And so, I revealed myself to him, in my true glory as a son of Odin. The mortal was not phased, and began to chuckle. He told me that he could sense what I wanted, what I was looking for. That his mind had been leaving his body more and more of late, exploring the vast Immaterial Flow over the world. He told me that he’d seen a focal point, a bright burning concentration of it stuck within our world and not the immaterial plane. I asked him where I would find it. He replied with a laugh. “You will feel it, a divine being such as yourself will be drawn to it. But this is a power that predates even you. If you seek power, it will ask you a price in return.” With that, still chuckling, he hobbled away retreating to some dark alley between streets. For his aid, I would have personally consigned him to Valhalla…had it remained. I retook my mortal form and took a moment to clear my head. I noticed a sort of…pull, at the edges of my mind. As if I were a steed, and something was at the reigns. I would follow this pull. I would find this object. And I would then gladly offer anything for the power to slay my foe.