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Chapter Text

Þú vilt halda öllum frá dauða, það er barnaskapur; þetta er orrosta, menn deyja

𝐆𝐎𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐀𝐑

ˡᵒᵏᵃ ʰʲᵃʳᵗᵃ þⁱᵗᵗ ᶠʸʳⁱʳ þᵛí

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐂𝐄

ᴵ'ᴹ ᴳᴼᴺᴺᴬ ᴮᴱ ᴷᴵᴺᴳ ᴼᶠ ᵀᴴᴱ ᴾᴵᴿᴬᵀᴱˢ!

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃: 04.07.2025

𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃: TBA

𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃: TBA

CA3LESTIS©

𝐀𝐑𝐂 1: THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE

CHAPTER 1: hin mikla uppgjǫr

CHAPTER 2: upphaf móðurskapar

CHAPTER 3: gleðifæðing

CHAPTER 4:rödd allra hluta

CHAPTER 5:

CHAPTER 6:

CHAPTER 7:

CHAPTER 8:

CHAPTER 9:

CHAPTER 10:

CHAPTER 11:

CHAPTER 12:

𝐀𝐑𝐂 2: THE GOD OF WAR

TBA

𝐀𝐑𝐂 3: FILLER

CHAPTER 1:

CHAPTER 2:

CHAPTER 3:

𝐀𝐑𝐂 4: RAGNARÖK

TBA

Chapter Text

"sometimes the best thing you can do is to forgive."

𝐀𝐑𝐂 1

COME AND GET YOUR LOVE

- redbone

I WAN'NA BE LIKE YOU

- phil harris, louis prima, bruce reitherman

JUMP IN THE LINE

- harry belafonte

SPORTS

- beach bunny

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD

- tears for fears

FEEL GOOD INC

- gorillaz

ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?

- tyler, the creator

AS IT WAS

- harry styles

TAKE ON ME

- a-ha

THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL

- abba

THAT'S LIFE

- frank sinatra

AGAIN & AGAIN

- the bird and the bee

LAY ALL YOUR LOVE ON ME

- abba

𝐀𝐑𝐂 2

LET DOWN

- radiohead

MY WAY

- frank sinatra

HOW I'D KILL

- cowboy malfoy

THINK OF ME ONCE IN A WHILE, TAKE CARE

- take care

EVERYONE ADORES YOU 

- matt maltese

FOREVER YOUNG

- alphaville

GOLDEN BROWN

- the stranglers

LONELY DAY

- system of a down

THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT

- the smiths

IMPACTO

- enjambre

ENTER SANDMAN

- metallica

𝐀𝐑𝐂 3

RAGNARÖK

- peyton parrish

AUGUST 10

- julie doiron

SPIT

- show me the body, princess nokia

ANIMAL I HAVE BECOME

- three days grace

FEEL IT STILL

- portugal, the man

PLACING THE BLAME

- self

HARD TIMES

- paramore

PUMP IT

- black eyed peas

НУУДЗЛЧДИЙН НУТАГ

- л. нарангзрзл

PRAY FOR ME

- the weeknd, kendrick lamar

RUNNING UP THAT HILL

- kate bush

SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW

- keane

𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃: 05.07.2025

𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃: TBA

ca3lestis©

gaman svienn

Chapter Text

For so long, Freya only wanted someone to be hers. Of course, Baldur was hers; he would always be her son, but she wasn't his. That title belonged to her sack-of-shit husband, Odin. Nonetheless, the blood pumping through her veins is the same source of life flowing through her sons. His hatred for her stabbed her in a place that she didn't know could be reached, so just as the wound had been healing over, she dug and dug, and dug until the wound had been left worse than when it was caused. 

For if that was the last memory she had of her son, she would continue to scrape and gouge until it was left raw and infected, because he was hers, and he would continue to be hers until the whispers of her name had been fully erased from this world.

Freya had no more tears left to cry, tracks of them permanently staining her hollow cheeks. The wind carried the scent of forgotten summers, but it did nothing against the agonising feeling of numbness in her chest.

In her hands lay the charm once kissed by a mother’s hope, now cold, lifeless, and heavy with regret. "You stole my choice," his voice echoed, sharper than any blade, more final than death. She had woven spells of love, wrapped him in enchantments meant to shield, not shackle, but to him, they were chains. Her tears were not loud, but ancient, like rivers that had always flowed beneath the skin of the world. And as they fell, mingling with soil and silence, Freya whispered to the sky, not for forgiveness, but for a time when her son had not yet turned his face from her light.

She could not stop wasting time. It was crazy. She used to speak passionately to Odin of what she wanted to do, now she slept until roots had grown over her body, sang lullabies she used to soothe Baldur to sleep with, or sat and stared at a wall.

If someone asked, she wouldn't be able to tell you what she saw. She didn't talk to anyone. Cicadas continued to die outside, and as she dreamed, her mouth began to grow thick and venomous with silence.

And this grief that has no release grows inward, rooting itself into her spine.

So when a child, with hair that reminded her of a newborn babe and with skin subtly tanned by the sun, tripped over her camouflaged legs, she could not help but allow tears she did not know she had to stain his raven hair.

He did not know who this woman was or why she was crying, but it really hurt to trip over someone's legs, so it was probably because it hurt even more than tripping. Not that he knew what that felt like.

But this woman was an adult and a pretty strong one from what the wind was whispering to him. This woman must be a crybaby, he thinks, but he knows how it feels to be teased; he gets it all the time from Baldur, so he doesn't make fun of her.

But even so, he has no idea what this woman is crying about, so he purses his lips and gives a slobbery kiss on her knee. There was no pain in her knee whatsoever, but this boy's childish affection and attempt to make her feel better made her feel as if her heart had been scooped out by a spoon. So she cries harder, harder than she has in the last five years, and the child crinkles his nose at the number of tears and wraps his pudgy arms around her neck in an attempt to comfort her.

He doesn't know why the kiss didn't work. Sif does it all the time on his scrapes, and it works; maybe he just doesn't have the magic touch that Sif has. He doesn't know what to do, so he allows this woman to clutch at the silk of his red shirt like a lifeline.

Freya feels like a child, allowing this child who looks like he's closer to being a newborn than a teenager. She is the adult, and she is the one being comforted by soft hands, not yet hardened from years of labour and battle. She doesn't even know his name, but still, she continues to clutch onto him, his warmth scabbing over a part of her that she thought died long ago.

The Vanir goddess continues to cry for hours before she can form words, and this time it feels like she has no more tears left to shed. Her cheeks are haggard and are a shade paler than her natural olive skin tone. By now, the child, who she still does not know the name of is asleep in her arms. His small hands pinched some of the strands behind her neck, and his head slumped against the crook of her neck.

His soft snores tickle her skin, and she can't help but feel fond. He is not her son; they do not share the same bond she and Baldur did, yet she can't help but coo and softly caress her thumb over a spot of drool beginning to form from the corner of his lips. She drinks in the moment and absentmindedly pats his back in a familiar rhythm.

The child's snores come to a sudden halt as he lazily looks up at Freya from her shoulder; he rubs his eyes and gives her a sleepy smile, and at that moment she notices the missing front tooth.

A moment passes, and he asks, "How are you feeling now?"

She said, "Better." And she meant it.

Sometimes, better is all you can ask for. She curls her arms around him like she would her son, and listens to his quiet breathing as she coaxes him back to sleep. She finally feels whole, this won't last forever, she thinks, so she savours it while she can and nuzzles her nose against his lemongrass-scented hair.

Sometimes, better is everything.

CREATED: 06.07.2025

EDITED: TBA

NOT PROOFREAD

Chapter Text

The forests of Vanaheim breathed with life. Each rustle of leaf, every echo of birdsong, pulsed with ancient magic. Sunlight filtered through a canopy of golden-green leaves, dappling the mossy earth with a warmth that softened even the coldest of hearts. Freya walked slowly along the narrow path, bare feet whispering against the ground. Her fingers brushed over blooming herbs and whispering ferns, the sacred growth of her homeland answering her touch like old friends.

Beside her walked a boy, [Name], no older than ten winters, but with the kind of spark in his eyes that hinted at freedom and greatness. He darted ahead of her now and then, chasing dragonflies or pretending to battle invisible beasts with a stick he'd carved into a blade. His laughter was pure, bright, a sound that hadn't echoed in Vanaheim for years. Freya found herself smiling more often in his presence, as if the forests themselves had grown gentler to hear him laugh.

The wind in Vanaheim was gentle that day, curling like a mother's hand through the trees. Freya had learned long ago not to trust peace—it was often the moment before pain. She sat on a moss-covered stone, sorting the herbs she'd just gathered. The basket at her side was nearly full—until [Name] came tumbling through the underbrush with a yell, skidded on wet moss, and crashed straight into her.

The basket flipped.

Leaves scattered like startled birds. Goldenroot, mint, and purple-stemmed yarrow—all crushed under a boy's boots.

Freya stared at the ruined herbs in silence.

[Name] blinked up at her from the ground, mud smeared across his cheek, twigs tangled in his hair. "Oops." She said nothing. Just stared. Not angry—something quieter. Something heavier.

"I didn't mean to," he blurted, already back on his feet, brushing at the mess with clumsy hands. "I was gonna show you my new jump! It's like—whoosh!—and then spin, and then—uh, maybe not in a forest..."

Still, she didn't speak. She simply looked down at the scattered bundle with the kind of silence that makes children shift their weight and look at the ground.

Then, finally: "That goldenroot bloomed under moonlight. It only grows once every four years."

[Name] winced. "I'll find more! I promise!" She looked up sharply. "Do you even know what goldenroot looks like?"

He paused. "...Yellow?"

Freya let out a long breath. "Sit."

He sat.

They didn't speak again until dusk fell, and the forest began to sing its evening song—crickets chirping, leaves whispering secrets between shadows. But [Name] couldn't sit still. He kept glancing at the broken herbs, then at her. Finally, with a grunt of determination, he leapt to his feet and marched off into the trees.

Freya blinked. "Where are you going?"

"To fix it!" he shouted over his shoulder. "I said I would!"

Freya turns around to scold him, but he's gone, and she looks at her hands, opening and curling them into her palm. Sometimes she can still see the blood seeping into the wrinkles and lines of her palm, and she sighs a sigh filled with such raw feeling of longing that it could make a mortal man crumble to his knees for salvation.

There is stability in self-destruction, in prolonging sadness as a means of escaping abstractions like happiness. Rock bottom is a surprisingly comfortable place to lay your head. Looking up from the depths of another low often seems safer than wondering when you'll fall again. Falling feels awful.

She found him an hour later, kneeling beside a stream, poking through a cluster of plants with his tongue sticking out in concentration. Dirt smudged on his cheeks, twigs in his hair, proudly cradling a much smaller—but entirely earnest—collection of herbs in the hem of his shirt. Some were weeds. A few were just decorative moss.

"I got the shiny ones," he said, grinning with a toothy pride. "These are the ones that smelled like tea, right?" He held up the basket like it was his entire life savings, and he lightly swayed side to side on his feet nervously.

"Okay," he muttered to himself. "She said goldenroot is, like... glowy. Maybe not actually glowing, but shiny. Kinda like—oh! This one!" He yanked up a sprig of something that looked more like goatweed than goldenroot, but Freya didn't interrupt him.

He held it up proudly as she approached. "Ta-da!"

"That's poison ivy," she said dryly. His eyes widened, and he immediately dropped it like it had teeth.

Freya chuckled despite herself and stepped forward, crouching beside him. "Here," she said, brushing his hands aside gently. She parted the greenery and pointed to a faint shimmer tucked under the roots. "That's goldenroot. See the silver veins along the stem?"

"Ohhh..." he breathed. "Cool! It's like a tiny star."

She plucked it delicately and handed it to him. "Stars are quiet things. They don't like being stepped on."

He grinned, cradling it like treasure. "Thanks. Sorry I squashed the other one."

Freya hesitated, then brushed a bit of mud from his cheek with the back of her knuckle. "You tried to fix it. That matters."

He beamed. "I told you! I always keep my promises." 

He is stopped by a firm hand wrapping around his toothpick bicep. Freya stared at the pitiful, miraculous bundle. Then, to [Name]'s great confusion, she laughed—not mockingly, but softly, like a weight had lifted from her chest. [Name] beamed. "So did I do good?"

Freya tousled his hair, a rare smile on her lips. "You did... better than most gods I know." Her hand slips down to his cheek, prepared to wipe it away, but she stops herself with all the will she can muster up as of right now.

"Clean your face." She musters and [Name] slumps all of his body weight—which was not a lot, in fact, he felt like a handful of grapes—onto her and whines. "Can't you do it?"

She does want to do it, oh Yimir, did she want to care and love for this child. But once she started, she would not be able to stop, and the worst part was that she did not know if she wanted to. [Name] was not Baldur, and he never would be, but Freya could not help but search for similarities. They were all trivial things, such as their shared appetite, thirst for adventure, but they were things she cared enough to take note of. Baldur's thirst for adventure was part of the reason Freya had chosen to bless him with invulnerability.

But duty is not love.

It's distance, dressed like devotion.

But [Name] is not Baldur.

She hardens herself. "You are not a child." He is a child. A wailing, babbling, reckless, happy child. For a second, Freya believes he has given up and turns to face him, only to find his face in the middle of melting against the soft grass that seemed to cradle him.

"I want to feel like one. Please, can you do it?" He sleepily groans, nuzzling his face against her tunics and robes. And she melts in warm white light that allows her to cradle this being in her arms so tenderly. She is not touch-starved. She is hungry to be touched, so hungry that the very taste of it makes her nauseous. It had been long since anything had touched her, fed her—that her body had grown more used to that gnawing emptiness more than anything else.

It's better for her to be held, to eat, but it makes her sick to try. You know?

But she can tell from touches lasting a bit too long, his body sinking a little bit too deep into her body heat, that [Name] did not get the love he needed; she knows from personal experience that it lingers for your whole life. Sure, it might change in the future and [Name] may end up no longer needing her warmth, but she'll savour the sweet moments between them that she has now. She will not repeat the same mistake.

So he didn't get the love that he needed. Big deal. Let me tell you what love he will have. It will be bigger than anger, and it will grow around the sadness. It will drown him.

He will become it. So, as of right now, he needs to be happy. She needs one of them to be happy.

So she cleans his face like the child he is, for that is all she can do.

Every moment he stayed in her woods, he was in danger. Not just from the beasts and gods that walked unseen, but from her—from the fury that still burned low in her chest like a dying fire. And yet... she didn't want him to leave.

He wasn't her son. But he was someone's.

And she was so, so tired of letting the ones she loved be taken.

"You can stay the night," she said, the words spilling out before she could stop them.

He looked up. "Really?! I can sleep in a tree again!"

"In the hut," she corrected quickly. "No trees. You'll fall out again."

He pumped his fist in the air. "Yes! You're the best, magic forest lady!"

"I have a name," she muttered.

He tilted his head, curious. "What is it?"

"Freya."

He said it like it was new. "Freya..."

Then: "I like it. It sounds soft and sharp at the same time."

She raised a brow. "You're strangely poetic for a child who face-planted into a mushroom patch this morning." He grinned, then hesitated. "Uncle Baldur used to say that, too. That I talk like I'm from a dream, but fall like a rock."

Freya's smile faltered.

"He said I reminded him of you sometimes." She turned away from him, standing slowly, fingers curling around her wrist as memories rose unbidden—Baldur's laugh, his fire, the way he once reached for her with the trust of a child before it all broke.

"He... said that?" she whispered.

[Name] looked at her curiously, then nodded, completely unaware of the tremble in her voice, of the way her entire body had gone still. "Yeah. He tells me stories of how he tamed a dragon, or how Himdill tamed Gobstopper." If it were anyone else, they might've chuckled at the mispronunciation of Heimdall's name and his steed, so would she, but she's currently still stuck on the fact that this child knows her precious son, and he talks about her.

Freya's throat tightened. She blinked fast, clearing the ache behind her eyes. "He was my son."

"I know," [Name] said simply.

She turned to look at him. "And you... You're Odin's?"

He scratched his head. "I guess? But I'm not like him. I don't like thrones or secrets. I just wanna go on adventures and eat meat and see cool stuff!"

"And if Odin sends you somewhere you don't want to go?"

"I won't go," he said flatly.

"And if he finds you here again?"

"I'll punch him in the knee," [Name] said, very seriously. She stared. Then barked a sharp laugh and shook her head. "You are a fool."

"I'm brave!" he corrected proudly. "My punches are like arrows" He gave a mock punch, giving a weak demonstration of his said punch.

"No," she said, softer now. "You're a child. And the world is cruel to children." 

She knelt again, took his face in her hands—gentler this time, firm but not cold. "But listen to me, child of Asgard. If I see you again in Midgard—if Odin sends you, or hides you, or dares use you as a piece in his twisted game—he will not find mercy. Not from me." Her gaze became storm-black, her power a quiet tremor in the air.

"Odin will bleed for you. He will fight for you. And he will learn—gods help him—what it means to provoke me again."

[Name] blinked once. Then, with zero hesitation, he said, "Okay! But I'm still coming back one day."

Freya raised a brow. "Did you not hear anything I just said?"

"Yup!" he said cheerfully. "I'm still coming back."

"Why?"

He grinned that infectious, foolish grin. "'Cause I like you."

Freya stared at him. Her lips parted—then closed again. And then, finally, she smiled. Soft. Broken. Real. "You are a storm," she murmured. "A foolish little storm." She pressed a sigil of light into his chest—a soft emerald glow that danced over his shirt before sinking into his skin. "This will protect you from the things that lurk between the realms. Use it wisely."

[Name] blinked. "You're scary." Freya leaned closer, forehead resting lightly against his. "Because I care." Then, to his great surprise, she pulled him into a hug—tight, protective, fierce.

"You're not my son," she whispered. "But I will not let you be broken like mine."

[Name] nodded against her shoulder. "Okay." When she let go, he smiled up at her. "You're kinda like a mom bear."

She raised an eyebrow. "You are dangerously close to being thrown into a stream."

He held up the goldenroot in mock indignation. "But I brought you this!" Freya took it, tucking it carefully into her pouch. "Come. Let's go home."

"Can I eat more of those fizzy berries?"

"No."

"...What if I promise not to dance with a basket on my head?"

Freya sighed, but her smile lingered. "We'll see." And as the sun slipped beneath the horizon and the woods folded into twilight, Freya walked beside the boy she should have feared... guarding him like he was her own.

Just this once.

Just this once, let her get what she wanted. For when she is six feet underground with bugs eating her brain, they will get visions of you. They will smell what you smelt like, and they will hear when you call her name through a moonlit night.

They will experience unimaginable wonders as they feast on the corner of my brain that houses you. And in 1000 years, they'll recall something like your name, and the bugs feasting on my bones will feast a little sweeter, flowers sprouting from my carcass will bloom a little brighter, and God knows not even the stars will see it.

For now, she embraces the warm light that [Name] emits, and savours it until she can no longer.

CREATED: 16.07.2025

EDITED: TBA

NOT PROOFREAD

Chapter Text

He drifted in light.

Not just any light, but the fractured, prism-sharp river of the Realms. The Bifröst hummed around him, ancient and alive, a storm of colour laced with prophecy and peril. The child did not cry. He did not wail. He watched.

Even as an infant, something was unsettling in his gaze.

Heimdall felt it before he saw it.

He stood alone on the bridge, arms behind his back, back straight, golden armour gleaming even in the spectral glow of the Bifröst. The hairs on the back of his neck stood.

A ripple.

A dissonant frequency.

Something in the song of the Realms offended him.

He turned.

And there, amid the shimmering paths of fate, was a child. Swaddled in fine, unknowable cloth. Eyes open. Drifting toward him like a forgotten promise.

Heimdall narrowed his eyes and took a step forward.

"Oh, you have got to be joking."

He crouched, inspecting the child as if expecting it to bite. "Dropped from the Tree itself, did you? Or maybe a cursed token from some realm-hopping idiot's conjuration?"

The child gurgled.

Heimdall stared. "...You're mocking me." He reached out. Not gently.

The moment his fingers touched the cloth, something strange occurred; his senses, usually honed to divine precision, twisted. For a second, he couldn't hear the child's thoughts. He couldn't hear anything. Just a silence so profound it clawed at his mind like a void. Maybe it was because this thing was as dumb as rocks, seeing as it kept trying to put its foot in its mouth.

He recoiled, eyes wide.

"I don't like that," he muttered. "I hate that."

Behind him, footsteps rang out across the Bifröst.

Sif.

Imposing, resolute. Her golden hair tied back, her armour immaculate even in urgency. Her sword was at her hip, but her voice was soft.

"Heimdall. Step away."

He sneered. "No greeting? No gratitude? I found this... thing floating through fate itself."

"He's not a thing."

"Really? Because he feels like a curse with a face."

Sif walked closer, ignoring him. "Give him to me."

Heimdall tilted his head. "Why so eager? You don't even know what he is."

"I know enough."

"You don't know enough," Heimdall snapped. "Because I know everything. I can read gods before they speak. I can smell lies before they're formed. But this?" He gestured to the child. "This thing is silent. No past. No future. Just... blank."

Sif stepped forward, and her eyes turned sharp. "Then maybe you're not as all-seeing as you thought."

That stung. Heimdall flinched but handed over the child with a sigh of disgust. "Fine. Keep your little mystery."

He leaned in, lowering his voice. "But mark me, Sif. The All-Father will know. And when he comes knocking, don't act surprised." He vanished in a flash of light, muttering curses.

Sif was left cradling the child, who reached for her face, unfazed.

She sighed, brushing her knuckles against his soft cheek. Flesh that had not yet been scarred, blood that had not yet been spilled. She hoped there wouldn't be a day when either one happened, but that would be foolish.

"You were meant to be found," she whispered. "And the gods help you if that's true."

DAYS PASSED.

She kept him hidden in the far chambers of her house, behind drawn curtains and golden doors that opened only to her touch. She fed him, held him close through Asgard's nights, and watched the stars reflect in his eyes.

He never cried. He smiled too easily.

She did not name him.

Not yet.

But in quiet moments, she whispered to him like a mother would a son. She spoke of Midgard's wilds, of battles won in her youth, of the peace she had fought to claim.

"You're not ordinary," she said once, rocking him by a sunlit window. "I see it in you. The quiet of your gaze. The stillness in your bones. You're not meant for peace... but gods help me, I will give you what peace I can."

He babbled in reply, soft nonsense that made her chest ache.

Then Thor found them.

It was just past dawn.

The light filtering through Sif's chamber window was pale gold, delicate as lace. A breeze stirred the silk curtains. All was still, except for the sound of quiet cooing, and Sif's voice, low and melodic, humming an old tune from her childhood. She hadn't sung it in centuries.

She didn't hear the door open.

Didn't hear the footsteps, soft, but heavy in the way thunderclouds gather without a sound.

But she felt him.

Thor stood in the threshold, arms crossed, his frame casting a shadow across the golden floor. He said nothing. Just watched.

Sif turned her head slightly, but she did not rise. She remained seated on the cushions with the child in her arms, wrapped in warm linen, feeding from a tiny, carved horn.

"Thor."

He nodded. "Sif."

The word settled between them, weighed down by the weight of shared history. Too many battles, too many silences. Too much unspoken.

His gaze dropped.

To the child.

And held.

At first, Thor's face betrayed nothing. No surprise. No confusion. Only the kind of quiet calculation that rarely surfaced in his eyes, narrowed, jaw tight, as if he was trying to read a language no one had ever taught him.

The child looked back. Calm. Curious. Not frightened.

That unsettled Thor more than any prophecy.

"He's not scared," Thor said, his voice low.

"No," Sif replied, adjusting the infant slightly. "He never is."

"Odd."

"He is."

A pause stretched between them like a taut string.

Thor walked further into the room. Each step was careful, as though he feared the floor might collapse beneath him. He stood before Sif and crouched, his red cloak pooling around him like blood.

His face was now close to the child's. The boy blinked, then reached out with one tiny hand.

Thor raised a brow but did not move away. Fingers curled around his thumb, small, warm, impossibly strong.

Thor exhaled through his nose. "Strong grip," he muttered. "Might break a nose one day."

"Maybe yours," Sif murmured.

Thor chuckled, but there was no humour in it. He looked at her. "Where did he come from?"

"Where do any of us come from, Thor?"

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Hide behind riddles."

"I'm not hiding."

"You are. You always do when it matters."

That silenced her. She looked down at the child and kissed his brow. "I don't know where he came from. Not truly. Heimdall found him on the Bifröst. He shouldn't exist."

"And yet here he is."

"Yes."

Thor's gaze darkened.

"I've seen many things, Sif. Fought beside gods, felled monsters, walked lands no mortals ever dreamed of. But I've never seen a child like this."

"Neither have I."

"You should've told me."

"I was going to."

"When?"

"When I knew what he was. When I knew what I was."

"Which is?"

She looked at him, really looked at him. Eyes like forged steel, tempered by grief and love both.

"His mother," she said.

Thor leaned back, stunned. "You would claim him?"

"No," she said. "I already have."

He studied her, lips parting to speak, then pressing shut again. A thousand arguments burned in his throat, but none of them made it past the guilt in her gaze or the warmth in her hands.

"Don't get attached," he said at last, but it was soft. Half-hearted.

"Too late," Sif whispered.

Thor turned his face away.

And though he said no more, his hand lingered on the child's for a moment longer than it should have.

The days that followed passed like a slow breath.

Thor did not speak of the child to others.

But he returned often.

Some days, to watch. Other days, to speak to the boy, to Sif, to the empty air.

He brought gifts he pretended weren't gifts: a tiny hammer carved from oak, a toy dreki that belched harmless sparks, and a rock from Muspelheim still warm to the touch.

And when he thought Sif wasn't looking, he would hold the child.

Once, she caught him singing.

Just a line. Just a fragment.

An old lullaby his mother used to hum to him when he still fit in the palm of her hand, before the world became brutal and warlike.

He saw her watching.

He didn't stop.

Sif briefly wondered how she would tell Magni and Modi.

ODIN CAME THREE DAYS LATER.

Not with trumpets. Not with thunder.

But with quiet.

It was the hush before a storm, the moment all winds stop, and the world waits to breathe.

Sif was in the courtyard, the boy bundled in her arms, wrapped in gold-threaded wool. He had grown—only slightly, but enough to feel heavier against her chest, more solid, more real. She was humming to him, the same song as always, one her mother had sung long before her.

The sky darkened—not with clouds, but with presence. The way a dream darkens before it turns.

She felt him before she saw him.

A raven landed on the edge of the marble well. Another joined. Then another. Silent, watchful.

Then Odin stepped from the shadows of a pillar that hadn't been there a moment ago.

He didn't wear armour. Just worn leathers, a crooked smile, and that thin, silver chain around his wrist, casual, understated, as if he'd wandered in by mistake. His staff was slung across his back. His good eye flicked from the boy to Sif and back, glinting with a kind of amusement that never reached his mouth.

"Sif," he said, as though greeting an old friend at market. "This is... a surprise."

She stood slowly, one arm wrapped instinctively around the child. "You're far from the throne."

"Pffft, thrones. You ever try to sit on one of those things for more than ten minutes? Back pain for days."

She didn't smile.

Odin sighed and tilted his head, mock-wounded. "What, no welcome? No bread and mead? You used to like me."

"You never visit without reason."

"And you never disappoint," he said brightly, then glanced down at the boy. "So. This is him."

She didn't answer.

He stepped closer, only a pace. Just enough to breathe the same air. The moment hung sharp between them.

"I heard," he said, voice quieting, sharpening, "that Heimdall saw a... blank like someone smudged fate with a thumb. No threads. No knots. Nothing."

Still, Sif said nothing.

Odin's smile faltered, just slightly. "That's rare, you know. Even death has threads. Even Yggdrasil has threads."

He crouched, hands on his knees like he was talking to a lost pup. "But you. You little thing. You don't have any at all."

The boy blinked up at him. Calm. Silent.

Odin's smile vanished.

The child tilted his head.

And Odin's eye narrowed.

"...Huh."

He stood slowly, brushing his hands off on his coat. "Well. Isn't that something?"

Sif's stance didn't shift. Her grip around the child never loosened.

"You took him in," Odin said, quieter now. "You."

"I did."

"Out of... what? Mercy?"

"He needed someone."

"Oh, sure. Sure." He nodded like he agreed. "Just... interesting. Coming from you. That sword of yours's got more blood on it than half the Einherjar. And yet here you are, singing lullabies."

Sif's jaw clenched. "I've changed."

Odin giggled like it was a joke. "So tell me, where did the blood on your hands come from? Self-divination or sacrifice?"

His squeaky giggles slowed to a stop, and his voice softened. "He wasn't meant to be found, Sif."

Something in the air shifted with the words. Like reality folded just slightly, wrinkling at the edges.

"You know that," he added.

The boy stirred against her shoulder, but didn't cry.

That seemed to catch Odin's attention more than anything.

"No tears. No fear." He leaned in, peering with a frown. "No... nothing."

And then his eye twitched. Only once.

He blinked.

The All-Father, who had given up his eye to have a chance to see every ripple of knowledge, every echo of time, every forked path of fate, saw nothing.

Only silence.

A wall where a river should be.

And deep, deep down, in a place even he couldn't name, he heard something.

Not yours.

He straightened. Too fast. Too stiff.

Sif caught it.

"You felt it too."

He didn't answer.

But he stepped back—a full step.

Sif's voice was steel. "What do you see?"

"...I don't," he muttered.

"What?"

"I don't see. That's the point. And that, that's a problem."

His gaze dropped to the boy again. But this time, there was no curiosity—only calculation.

"He's dangerous."

"I know."

"He could burn this whole realm to ash."

"Then he'll have help."

Odin looked at her. And for the first time in many years, there was no warmth in his expression. No coyness. No jest.

"I'll be watching," he said. "And when the time comes, if it comes, he'll answer for what he is."

"He's a child," Sif snapped.

Odin met her eyes. "So was Robin."

He turned on his heel. Then paused.

"Love makes us stupid, Sif. Don't be stupid."

Then he vanished, without a sound.

Thor came that night. He stormed in without knocking. His boots were streaked with mud, his beard damp with rain, and his fists clenched as though he'd been fighting himself the whole way there.

"He was here," he said.

"Yes."

"You let him near the boy?"

"I had no choice."

"You always have a choice."

"No. Not with Odin."

Thor turned, pacing like a caged animal. "He'll ruin him. Twist him. Use him."

"I won't let him."

"You won't be able to stop him!" Thor roared.

The boy stirred in his cradle, blinking. However, he did not cry; he gave a soft coo and a gummy smile.

Like all the pain and suffering of this world would never affect him, and oh, Yimir, he hoped it stayed that way.

Thor's voice cracked. "He doesn't cry, Sif. He doesn't blink like a normal child. He watches like," He paused. "Like he's already lived a thousand years."

"I know," she said softly. "But you're wrong about something," Thor quirked an eyebrow. "He cries, not for himself but for the people around him. He is just as scared for the future as you and I."

Thor dropped to his knees beside the cradle, hands on either side of it. "What is he?"

"I don't know."

"But you still love him."

"Yes."

Thor exhaled, shoulders shaking. "Then, gods help us all."

WEEKS TURNED INTO MONTHS.

And the boy grew.

Not quickly. Not in ways that were easy to mark. But in ways that mattered. His gaze followed everything with curiosity. His hands grasped things that should have been too complex for him. He began to babble in halting, cryptic syllables no one taught him. The runes etched into the edge of Sif's sword once flickered when he passed near. The ravens came often. Not just Odin's, but others. Gently tickling him with their feathers when they got too close.

And always, always, Heimdall watched from afar.

But even he didn't dare get close.

And then one night, the boy dreamed.

Sif heard him whimper.

Not cry. Just a slight sound, almost like fear. She rushed to his side, thinking he was either sick or had just woken up. His face softly scrunched up, his knuckles balled. A fat blob of tears began to roll down his face in even waves.

But he slept.

His fingers twitched.

And the air above his crib shimmered.

Just for a moment.

A jagged crack of light, thin as a needle, glimmered across the ceiling like a tear in the Realms.

Inside it, for a blink, Sif thought she saw a tree made of light.

Not Yggdrasil.

Something older.

And then it was gone.

The boy hiccuped wetly and curled against the warm hand of his foster mother.

Sif sat beside him the rest of the night, blade drawn, gaze fixed on the ceiling. Wiping away the saltiness of his tears, her heart ached at every drop falling down his chubby cheek.

Praying no more dreams would come.

Because whatever he had seen,

Wasn't meant to be seen by any living thing.

Odin stood alone, leaning on Gungnir like it wasn't just a spear, but a crutch for something far heavier. His eye gleamed beneath the hood, sharp, hungry, and moving too quickly, too intently, as if already breaking the child into a puzzle he could solve.

Sif stood at the base of the steps.

The firelight licked across her armour, painting her in gold.

"You summoned me," she said.

Odin smiled faintly. "No, no. Don't flatter yourself."

He waved a hand, casual as wind.

"I summoned him." His tone dropped an octave, just enough to make the air feel colder. "You're just... the delivery method."

The child stirred in her arms, calm, quiet.

Curious.

Odin's gaze sharpened.

"Let me see him."

Metal rasped softly as Thor stepped forward, boots heavy on stone. He moved beside Sif without a word, one thick arm sliding out to block the space between her and Odin.

"You'll look from here."

Odin's mouth quirked into something between amusement and insult. "Careful now. I'd hate for us to start swinging hammers before anyone says hello."

Thor's jaw clenched.

"You forget yourself," Odin added, voice light but eyes cold.

"You forget her," Thor growled.

Sif said nothing. Her hands shifted just enough to draw back the cloth from the child's face.

And Odin looked.

Not in wonder. Not in reverence.

But with that same slow, gnawing curiosity a wolf gives to the latch on a locked gate.

He stared longer than he should have.

Then, he took a step forward.

Thor was faster. Mjölnir was in his hand before the sound of movement finished echoing.

Gungnir rose in tandem, not by Odin's grip, but by will.

Thunder whispered between the two weapons, restrained but coiled.

Odin didn't flinch. He chuckled softly, almost kindly.

"Still protecting things you don't understand," he said.

Thor's voice rumbled. "I don't need to understand him."

He glanced at Sif.

"I only need to know he's hers."

Odin's gaze followed the motion, landing on Sif again, and this time there was no mockery. Only something cooler. More calculating.

"Do you know what you cradle?" he asked.

Sif's arms tightened. "I know who I cradle."

He made a small sound in the back of his throat, a thoughtful hum.

"Names have power, you know. Especially in this realm. Especially for someone like him."

Sif didn't budge. "He doesn't need a name to be loved."

Odin's smile vanished entirely, and for a second, there was no mask.

Just a flash of what sat underneath: the mind that pulled Realms into war, that twisted prophecy like string, that could see you coming before you took your first breath.

Then, he smirked.

"Love," he murmured. "That's a dangerous spell. Blinds even the best of us. Even the smartest gods."

Her voice was steel. "Then consider me blind."

Odin studied her for a long, silent moment.

Then, with a flick of his fingers and a breath of smoke, he vanished—like he was never there at all.

Only the echo of his words lingered:

"You'll wish you'd never looked away."

The sun bled over the horizon like a wound, casting long shadows across the training courtyard behind Sif's quarters.

She had taken to walking the child there in the early morning, before Asgard woke fully, before the clamour of armour and ego filled the streets. The guards gave her space. None dared approach her directly, not with the way she held the boy to her chest, not with the fire that flared in her eyes whenever anyone looked too long.

Today, however, she set him down.

The boy, still unnamed, though Thor had muttered a few drunken suggestions ("Rock," "Thunk," and "Little Me" among them), sat quietly on a blanket in the grass. He stared at the world like it was a puzzle he would eventually solve. Clouds. Leaves. Bugs. His eyes followed them all, but his expression never changed. It did on the occasional Hercules Beetle or Atlas Beetle, changing to an excited look as his too stubby hands poked and prodded at their horns.

Sif knelt beside him with a bundle of cloth and herbs.

She was focused, slicing dried roots into thin ribbons, grinding them with a stone pestle. The mix would help an injured Einherjar she'd agreed to treat. Her hands moved automatically, memory guiding her.

Behind her, the boy shifted.

At first, she didn't notice.

Then, a breeze.

She looked up.

He was gone.

Panic snapped through her spine like lightning. She rose instantly, eyes scanning the yard, hands already moving to summon her sword, but then-

A giggle.

She turned.

There he was, on top of a massive stone training post several body lengths high, legs dangling like a child atop a tree stump, smiling with careless joy.

She froze.

No ladder. No stairs. No vines.

Just... a child, barely toddling age, sitting where no one could reach.

"What in Hel's name..." she breathed.

Then, he jumped.

Her heart stopped.

He hit the ground hard. Dirt puffed around him.

Sif rushed forward, but stopped again.

He stood.

Laughing.

Not a bruise on him.

She dropped to one knee beside him, frantically checking his limbs.

"Are you mad?" she hissed. "You could've been hurt. You should not be able to do that!"

He tilted his head.

Then he stretched, reaching out lazily for her shoulder,  and his arm extended too far. Not grotesquely, not horrifically. Just... unnaturally. Like shadow bending in the firelight, or a dream where gravity forgot its purpose.

She stared.

The arm snapped back to normal. He laughed again, this time at her expression.

Sif pulled away slightly.

"What... are you?"

He looked up at her.

And smiled, and it somehow made sense. 

That night, Sif sat by the hearth, the child asleep in her arms, an air bubble growing and shrinking with the pattern of his breaths.

Thor stood nearby, arms crossed, his brow furrowed like stormclouds forming.

"You're certain?"

"I saw it myself," she said. "He climbed. Jumped. Landed like a boulder and didn't cry. Then his arm... shifted."

Thor grunted. "Magic?"

"Not like I've seen. Not even Vanir magics stretch the body like that. It was..." She struggled. "Playful. Natural. Like he's always been like this."

Thor was quiet.

Then: "He reminds me of someone."

She looked up. "Who?"

Thor didn't answer.

But in the firelight, the ghost of a grin twitched at the edge of his mouth.

"Someone reckless. Happy. Stronger than they understood."

Sif raised an eyebrow. "You?"

He laughed once. "No. Him." He pointed to the child, still sleeping. "He doesn't flinch. Don't fear. He jumps before thinking. There's no... hesitation."

Sif's gaze dropped back to the boy. "That's not a blessing."

"No," Thor said, more softly now. "But it's not a curse either."

There was silence.

Then Thor knelt, awkwardly, beside her. He looked at the boy for a long time.

And then, unexpectedly, he reached out and ruffled the child's hair, what was there.

"...Thunk might not be such a bad name," he muttered.

Sif smacked his shoulder lightly.

ELSEWHERE, FAR ABOVE—HEIMDALL WATCHES.

From atop the highest tower, Heimdall stood with his arms folded, golden eyes narrowed at the courtyard below.

He had seen it all.

The leap.

The stretch.

The laughter.

He did not laugh.

Instead, he whispered to himself, voice colder than ice across a blade:

"I was right."

He turned from the window and vanished into golden mist.

The child's future might be hidden.

But Heimdall would be watching anyway.

It was a quiet morning in the hall of Sif's garden. Light filtered through the high windows, casting dappled gold over the ivy-covered stone. Birds chirped from the nearby eaves, and distant clashing of training steel echoed faintly across the courtyard.

Sif sat beneath the blooming branches of a sacred ash, watching the boy tumble through the grass, arms flailing with delight. He laughed when he fell, clapped when he caught a butterfly, and spun until he was dizzy. There was a spring in his step now, confident, wild. He had grown bolder in the weeks since he was found, although he was still no older than an infant.

Today, he was humming.

A strange melody. No words, just a rhythm, boisterous, stubborn, catchy.

Sif raised an eyebrow. "Where did you hear that?"

He looked up at her, grinning.

Then he stood, feet wobbly and unbalanced, chest puffed out like he was about to challenge the world.

He raised a tiny fist to the sky and shouted:

"MEAT!"

The word echoed through the garden like a battle cry.

Birds scattered. A breeze picked up. Somewhere in the keep, a guard dropped his weapon in surprise.

Sif stared.

He grinned wider. "MEAT! MEAT! MEAT!"

He began marching in place, fists still high. "MEAT! MEAT!"

Sif blinked. "That's... your first word?"

He nodded proudly. "MEAAAT!"

She buried her face in her hands. "Yimir, help us."

LATER.

The child sat at the long table in one of the lesser dining halls, legs swinging, face covered in grease, happily gnawing on a mutton bone nearly the size of his arm.

Thor was laughing so hard his chair rocked.

"First word was MEAT?" he bellowed. "That's my boy!"

Sif glared at him. "He's not your boy."

Thor grinned at her sideways. "He's not not my boy either."

Across from them, the child had stood on his chair and begun to chant again, slamming the table with his hands:

"MEAT! MEAT! MEAT!"

Thor joined in. "MEAT! MEAT! MEAT!"

The room descended into rowdy chaos.

Then the doors opened.

And Odin entered.

Silence fell like a blade.

Even the child paused mid-chant, blinking at the tall, cloaked figure.

The All-Father said nothing at first. His single eye took in the table, the food, the grease-smeared child staring back at him with fearless curiosity.

He walked forward slowly, each step echoing.

The tension rippled through the air like drawn bowstrings.

The child tilted his head.

Then raised a hand again.

Odin braced.

"MEAT?" the child asked, softer this time. Like a question.

He wobbled in his seat, fingers curled around a chunk of meat, covered in its grease.

Odin stopped in front of him.

"Is that all you want, little one?" he asked.

The child didn't hesitate, stuffing the meat into his mouth like a peace offering.

He pointed at Odin's cloak, then at the table. "Meat."

Thor snorted.

Odin... smiled.

A strange, crooked thing. Not cold. Not warm. Intrigued.

"I think I like him," Odin said.

The boy smiled back.

ODIN STOOD BEFORE A MAP OF THE REALMS, eyes distant.

Ink bled across the parchment like veins, connecting territories with old paths, some long forgotten, some best left that way. Candles guttered low, casting wavering shadows over Yggdrasil's roots etched into the stone beneath.

Behind him, a raven perched silently, its claws scraping faintly against the carved wood post.

"He speaks now," Odin murmured.

The raven tilted its head.

"Not like the others. No fear. No agenda. No bloody sense, really."

He reached up, absently stroking his beard with ink-stained fingers.

"Is that what makes him dangerous... or important?"

His voice hung in the air, caught between curiosity and calculation.

He turned, slowly.

Behind him, Heimdall stood like a coiled wire, arms folded, jaw tight, golden eyes flaring with tension barely restrained.

"He's an idiot," Heimdall spat. "A loud, messy, erratic idiot. He throws the balance off just by being there."

Odin didn't argue.

"Isn't that what they said about you once?"

Heimdall stiffened, but said nothing. The silence said enough.

Odin turned back to the map. His finger moved, tracing a long curve from Asgard to the far southwest, stopping at a knot of runes: Vanaheim.

"He's not normal. Not of this realm. But his heart is... uncorrupted. There's a purity to him."

He tapped the realm once, gently.

"There's power in that kind of heart. Untouched by fear. Untangled from prophecy."

He leaned closer to the map, voice dropping to a murmur.

"I wonder if she has felt it yet..."

In the deep wilds of Vanaheim, beneath silvered canopies and moss-drenched groves, a ripple passed through the air like a silent cry.

Freya froze mid-step.

The roots beneath her bare feet quivered, ancient things stirring like dreams that had awakened after centuries.

The wind shifted, not in direction, but in intention. Birds quieted. The spirits held their breath.

She turned slowly, the beads in her hair clinking softly, her eyes narrowing as if to pierce the invisible veil between worlds.

Something had shifted. Not just in magic. In meaning.

A will had spoken.

A voice, small but loud, had brushed the weave of the Realms like a finger across a harp string.

She closed her eyes.

Felt it again.

A note, pure and inexplicably whole, ringing through the branches of Yggdrasil itself.

Freya opened her eyes, and they glowed faintly with the light of the Vanir.

"...Who was that?"

Magni was the first to notice something was off. It wasn't the usual "battle brewing" tension or the scent of distant stormfire; it was quieter than that.

Wrong in a way he couldn't name.

He nudged his brother with the butt of his axe as they walked the golden corridors of the keep, scowling at a door left slightly ajar that Sif usually kept locked. 

Modi grunted, annoyed, until the sound from within caught his ear, a laugh.

Not Sif's.

Lighter.

Higher.

And then something else: humming.

When they pushed the door open, weapons half-drawn, they froze.

Sif sat by the hearth, but it wasn't she who stunned them. It was the boy at her feet, squatting like a little frog, building towers out of gold coins and splintered training pegs. He looked up without fear, eyes far too old for a face so young, and smiled like he'd known them forever.

That smile chilled them both. Magni stepped forward first, expression unreadable, staring down at the child as though trying to place him in some battlefield vision he couldn't quite recall. "He doesn't smell like anything," he muttered, sniffing the air like a wolf.

Modi crossed his arms, towering. "Looks like a runt. What's he doing in the war hall?" The child stood up, clumsily balanced, and toddled forward, not away, but straight to Modi, head tilted.

Big," he said, pointing at Magni.

Magni blinked. "Did he just-?"

"Bigger," the boy added, pointing at Modi.

A beat of silence. And then: "Fat," he said plainly, with a proud little nod, as if he'd solved a riddle.

Modi stared.

Sif coughed into her hand. Thrúd turned away, who they just noticed was in here as well,  shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

The boy stood, wobbly but determined, and walked over. He poked Modi in the shin. "Tree," he declared.

Magni snorted. "He means you're built like one."

"He means I'm tall," Modi said.

"He means you're wide," Magni grinned.

Before a brawl could start, the boy clambered up onto a low bench, arms outstretched for balance, and looked Magni dead in the eye.

"Name," he said.

Magni tilted his head. "Yours or mine?"

The boy frowned, looking up at him as if he were stupid.

"Magni," he said slowly.

The boy repeated it: "Mani."

"Magni," The god corrected.

He turned to Modi. "Name?"

"Modi."

"Modi," the child said, tasting it. Then, thoughtfully: "Moody."

Sif lost her composure, barking out a laugh.

Thrúd wheezed.

Modi opened his mouth, closed it again, then finally muttered, "I hate him."

"No, you don't," Sif said, ruffling the boy's hair. "You just haven't figured out why you like him yet."

The child turned, pleased, and raised both hands into the air. "Meat!"

"Why does he keep saying that?" Modi asked.

"He says it when he's happy," Thrúd said, stepping over, subtly rubbing her arm. "Or when he wants to hit something."

"Perfect," Magni said. "He'll fit right in."

Then the boy did something strange.

He looked at Magni again, solemn now, and reached forward to place a hand over the centre of his chest. His small fingers pressed against the leather there, above Magni's heart.

The moment stretched.

And for a second, Magni felt... something. Not a trickle of power or foresight, not a spark of magic. But a weight. Gravity. As if this child were tethered to something enormous. Or would be.

The boy pulled his hand back.

Magni stared at him.

Modi, quieter than before, shifted his stance. "He feels like thunder before it hits."

"Because he is," Sif said softly. "But it hasn't found him yet."

The child turned, climbed back onto the rug, and began arranging pebbles in strange, deliberate patterns no one had taught him.

Outside, thunder rumbled, distant, unprovoked.

Magni rubbed at his chest. "Yeah," he murmured. "I felt that too."

CREATED: 27.07.2025

EDITED: TBA

NOT PROOFREAD

Chapter Text

The roots of Yggdrasil trembled as the Bifröst opened once more.

[Name] stood in the arch of light, barefoot, eyes still glittering with the wild green of Vanaheim. Freya's scent lingered faintly on his tunic — smoke and soil, flowers blooming in the dark.

He was smiling.

He shouldn't have been smiling, not with the scent of frost curling behind him, not after what he'd seen in those deep woods — not after what he'd heard.

But he was.

Sif didn't care.

The moment she laid eyes on him, standing there at the edge of the great golden hall, she rushed forward, her arms thrown wide like a banner in war.

"By the gods," she breathed. "You're filthy."

[Name] giggled.

And then he was scooped up — enveloped in armour, warm linen, the scent of rose oil and steel polish. Sif held him as though the Realms might vanish beneath her feet if she let go. He squirmed only a little, then melted into her shoulder.

"You were only supposed to be gone an hour," she murmured into his hair. "An hour, [Name]. What did you do?"

"Talked to a bird lady."

"Freya?"

"She said I was weird. But in a nice way."

Sif pulled back, brushing twigs from his curls. "That tracks."

"She told me not to tell anyone what she said after that."

"Then you already failed."

"I think she knew I would."Sif held him tighter. "Let's get you inside before you try flying off a roof next."

"You're pouting."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not!"

"You are absolutely pouting," Odin said, amused.

[Name] crossed his arms so tightly his ribs creaked. He stood beside the great map table, kicking at the carved runes like they had personally offended him.

"All the other gods have missions," he said. "Even the grumpy one with no eyebrows."

"Which one is that?"

"I dunno. He didn't tell me his name."

Odin chuckled, rubbing his temple. "So, what, you want an errand?"

"A mission!"

"You're a child."

"I'm a god."

"You're barely a god."

"I'm stronger than Baldur."

There was silence.

Odin's expression didn't change, but the air in the room tightened — like a bowstring drawn just a little too far.

[Name] glanced up, blinking innocently.

"...He told me I was," he added.

Odin exhaled, something between a sigh and a growl. "Tell me — what would you do with a mission?"

"Win it."

"That's not what that word means."

"Yes it is."

Odin narrowed his eye. "You don't even know what you're asking."

"I do! I wanna help! Everyone else helps. Even the goats."

"I'll think about it," Odin muttered.

[Name] deflated. "That's what you said yesterday."

"And now you're nagging. Truly divine behaviour."

"Why don't you trust me?"

That stung. Odin didn't show it. But it stung.

He looked down at the boy, at the child with no fate, no threads, no future that could be read. And for a moment, just a moment, there was silence.

Then he turned.

"Fine," Odin said. "You want a mission?"

[Name] brightened.

"Thor," Odin called.

There was a thoom as heavy boots approached. The doors groaned. And Thor stepped into the hall, rubbing one shoulder like he'd just come from the training pits.

"Yes?"

Odin flinched back at scowled at the wide man, "For Hel's sake, stop doing that!" He nodded at the boy. "Take him with you."

Thor blinked. "Where?"

"Niflheim."

"...No."

"Good," Odin replied. "I knew you'd agree."

Thor opened his mouth to argue — then looked at [Name], who was now hopping in place with excitement, swinging a wooden toy sword he definitely wasn't allowed to bring indoors.

Thor groaned.

"Why?"

"Because it'll be fun!" [Name said.]

"You know nothing about Niflheim."

"I know it's cold."

"It's worse than cold."

"I'll bring a jacket."

"Gods," Thor muttered, rubbing his temples.

"You're retrieving fragments of Auðumbla's ribs," Odin said. "Old relics, scattered in the frost tombs near the edge of the corpse fields."

"Why me?"

"Because the mists kill everything else."

"And the boy?"

Odin smiled. "Maybe he's not 'everything else.'"

Niflheim was cold.

Like, 'your nose wants to fall off' cold.

Wait, no. Like, 'I'm going to turn into a popsicle if I stay any longer,' cold.

"I'm hungry."

"You're gonna cause a food shortage one of these days."

"Takes one to know one."

Thor's eyebrow raised, "What?"

"Nothing..."

[Name] was quick to move on as he leapt from jagged stone to jagged stone, arms outstretched like wings. "I'M A MOUNTAIN DRAGON!" he shouted.

"You're gonna fall," Thor said.

"I've already fallen!" [Name] cackled. "From the sky!"

Thor rolled his eyes and trudged on. [Name] kept pace by running in circles around him.

Eventually, they reached the glacial cliffs. Ice glittered in ancient runes. Wind howled like wolves mourning stars.

[Name] slipped on a frozen ledge, spun once, and landed in a crouch. "Nailed it."

Thor didn't look back. "Stop clowning around."

"I'm not a clown," [Name] said seriously. "I'm a glacier pirate."

Then he burst out laughing.

Thor sighed. "What now?"

"She told me a new one," [Name] said. "Freya. 'Why did the storm chase the sun?'"

Thor didn't answer.

"Because he thought thunder would impress her!"

He laughed so hard he fell over, kicking up snow.

Thor allowed himself a reluctant smirk. "Terrible."

But then he paused.

For a moment—just a flicker—[Name]'s hair shimmered. The ends curled upward, weightless, like mist. Wisps of cloud trailed from his head before vanishing.

Thor squinted.

"You alright?" [Name] asked, sitting up, brushing snow from his ears.

Thor's frown lingered. "Yeah. Just... the wind."

[Name] nodded sagely. "Yep. Niflheim's full of weird farts."

Thor said nothing.

Because he wasn't sure anymore if [Name] was the weird one, or if the realms were simply shifting to match him.

The next second, [Name] slipped on the same frozen puddle of ice.

Nevermind.

He was the weird one.

A moment later, Thor followed with a grunt, hefting his axe and muttering something about "Odin's sense of humor."

They stood at the lip of a long-forgotten pass — a valley of skeletal trees and frost-shrouded ruins stretching before them like the ribs of a long-dead beast. The mists swirled low, dense and half-living, as if they hungered for trespassers.

"Stay close," Thor muttered.

"I'm not scared."

"That's not what I said."

"I'm still not scared."

"You should be."

[Name] kicked a bit of frozen rock down into the mist below. It vanished after three feet, swallowed whole. He stared down into it, frowning.

"You think it's like soup?" he asked.

Thor gave him a look. One that said, 'If-you-drink-a-sip-of-that-water-I-will-dropkick-you-into-it.'

"You know. Like... death soup."

Thor sighed and walked forward. [Name] followed, humming.

They didn't talk for a while.

The silence in Niflheim was thick and unnatural — not just a lack of noise, but the absence of memory. Even [Name], with his bottomless well of questions, seemed subdued by the cold. Thor led them carefully along the old Vanir trail, half-buried in snow. His instincts did the work — if there were traps, beasts, or worse out here, they would know to steer clear of the thunder god.

"I've been here before," Thor said eventually. "Years ago. Odin had me hunt a beast made of smoke and teeth."

"Did you kill it?"

"I thought I did."

"...Did it come back?"

Thor shrugged. "Probably."

They passed what might have once been a shrine — now just a pile of bones and a rusted idol, half-eaten by frost.

"Why does Odin want cow bones?" [Name] asked.

"She wasn't just a cow," Thor muttered. "She was the first. Auðumbla. Fed the first gods with her milk. Carved the first being from the ice with her tongue. She made us."

[Name] blinked. "That's weird."

"She's a primordial force."

"She's still weird."

Thor didn't argue.

They found the first rib fragment at the foot of a dead glacier — a slab of ancient, shining bone jutting from the ground like the mast of a sunken ship.

Thor reached for it — and paused.

[Name] felt it too.

The air changed. The mist hissed.

Then, laughter.

Not loud. Not cruel. But unexpected — a high, warm chuckle, like the kind Sif made when he said something accidentally clever.

Thor froze.

"...What was that?"

[Name] smiled. "A joke."

Thor turned. "From where?"

[Name] pointed at the rib.

Thor raised an eyebrow. "The rib told you a joke?"

"No. She did."

"Who's she?"

[Name] tilted his head. "The cow."

Thor stared at him.

[Name] grinned. "She said you smell like bread."

Thor blinked.

"...Like fresh bread or old bread?"

"She didn't say."

They stood there in the frost-blanketed silence for a long moment.

Then Thor muttered, "You are more trouble than you're worth."

[Name] laughed again.

It echoed off the ice in a strange way.

And then Thor saw it.

Just for a heartbeat.

[Name]'s hair — once tangled, dark, wild — shimmered in the cold light and lifted. Not from wind. Not from motion.

From weightlessness.

It turned white at the tips — soft, luminous strands like clouds curling upward as if he were becoming air itself.

It vanished a second later.

Thor didn't speak.

He just reached for the rib again — and this time, it came free.

"Come on," he said. "We've got more to find."

[Name] followed, still laughing.

And somewhere, just beneath the sound, the world itself listened.

The second rib was deeper.

Thor and [Name] climbed through jagged paths carved into frozen cliff faces, where even gods had to mind their footing. The walls gleamed with veins of old magic, dull red like dried blood caught in ice. Wind howled through the narrow pass like a chorus of the long-dead.

[Name] was undeterred.

He danced across the frost-bitten ledges, fearless as ever, slipping only once — and even then, he laughed as Thor's gauntleted hand caught his arm mid-fall.

"You're going to get us both killed," Thor muttered.

"I'm lighter than I look," [Name] replied, grinning. "Besides, you wouldn't fall. You're too heavy. Like a stone. A very angry stone."

"You're not funny."

"You didn't deny it"

Thor didn't smile. But he didn't throw the boy off the cliff either.

They continued, finding the trail only when the mists parted for half a second, just enough to glimpse the ancient runes carved into the frost. These were Vanir symbols, wild and flowing, buried beneath centuries of snow and silence.

Then they saw it: the second fragment.

It jutted from the heart of a small, frozen lake — an obelisk of bone taller than Thor himself, covered in spirals like fingerprints. The surface shimmered faintly with enchantment, reacting to their presence.

But something else was there.

A shape moved beneath the ice.

[Name] stepped forward instinctively.

Thor grabbed his shoulder. "Wait."

The shape rose.

For a breath, it was just a shadow. Then the ice cracked — slow and loud, like the sky breaking open — and a creature emerged.

It was made of frost and bone. Half-skeletal, half-mist, with horns curling back from a head shaped like a beast's skull. Its arms were long, its fingers dragging long grooves through the snow.

It had no eyes.

But it saw them.

[Name] whispered, "It's watching me."

Thor stepped in front of him.

The creature opened its mouth — and the wind screamed through the valley.

Not a roar. Not words.

A memory.

[Name] flinched. "It's saying... 'Return it.'"

Thor pulled Mjölnir from his back. The crackle of stormlight was like a torch in the dark.

"You talk too much," he said, and swung.

The hammer hit the creature dead center — but it didn't break.

It staggered, shrieked, and swung back with claws that cut through the air like spears. Thor grunted, absorbing the impact with his forearms, forcing it back with another blow. Ice shattered beneath their feet.

[Name] didn't run.

He walked closer.

"Hey," he said, softly.

The creature froze.

"Wanna see a magic trick?"

The mist around the beast flickered. Its head turned slowly, like it was willing to stop mid-battle for a magic trick that this eight-winters-old child could try to muster up.

"Ready? On three." [Name] said, waving his hands around like Dr Strange. "1. 2-" And just like that, the beast was conked out on the floor, an air bubble increasing and decreasing with his snores.

Thor stared.

[Name]'s fist was still curled in a fist as he turned to face the fat man behind him, a straight face like he had gone through a lobotomy and gave him a loose 'peace' sign.

"Do you do that to everything that wants to kill you?"

[Name] stared at him like he was stupid, "Uh, yeah?"

The thunder god deadpanned, "And it works?"

The child gestured to the still knocked-out monster on the ground. Thor looked up at the sky like he was evaluating his life choices that led up to this point in his life.

'Maybe Sif is right, I should've just said no a long time ago.' A silent tear trickled into his beard in defeat.

And the second rib cracked free from the ice like a tooth pulled from the mouth of the world.

Thor stood stunned.

[Name] smiled.

"I showed it a magic trick."

"What the fuck."

The path to the third rib was harder.

The deeper they went into Niflheim, the stranger the realm became. Snow turned to ash. Ice gave way to cracked glass underfoot. The mists stopped moving like weather and began breathing. Watching. Reacting.

[Name] noticed it first.

"I think it knows where we're going," he said, eyes wide.

Thor grunted. "What does?"

"The wind."

Thor glanced around. He'd seen many things in his life—he'd walked between realms, slain gods, buried friends. But this place unsettled him.

The frost had grown too quiet.

Even his hammer felt heavier. Well, heavier than it already is.

Like it didn't want to be here.

They crossed a plain of shattered bones. Not just from animals. Some were clearly divine—too large, too ancient, too twisted. Rib cages as tall as houses, vertebrae stacked like towers toppled by time.

And in the centre of it all, partially buried in a glacier of opaque ice, was the final piece of Auðumbla.

Massive. Glowing faintly with an inner light. The colour of first milk, untouched by decay.

But something was wrong.

The glacier it sat in... pulsed.

Not visually. Not physically.

Spiritually.

Thor could feel it in his bones. The weight of eyes—eyes that weren't attached to anything alive.

"This is the last one," he muttered. "We take it and we go."

[Name] nodded, but his expression had changed. He was frowning. Listening again to something only he could hear.

"Wait," he said softly.

Thor turned.

"She's talking again."

Thor's grip on Mjölnir tightened. "What is she saying?"

[Name] took a step forward.

"She's... laughing. But it's sad."

"Tell her to stop."

"She says the frost remembers. She says... this rib wasn't lost."

[Name] touched the ice.

"She says it was hidden."

Cracks shot through the glacier like lightning.

Thor raised Mjölnir. "Get back—!"

But [Name] didn't flinch.

The glacier burst open—not in violence, but like a cocoon. Ice crumbled around the rib, revealing not just the relic... but a shape curled around it.

A beast.

No, not a beast—something older.

It uncoiled, slow and terrible, its form shifting in and out of view, like it existed slightly out of sync with the world. Its eyes were sunken hollows full of stars. Its flesh looked like it had been carved from myth.

Thor stepped forward.

"I've killed worse."

"You haven't," [Name] whispered.

The thing roared.

But it wasn't sound.

It was memory.

A memory too large for a god to hold.

Thor stumbled as the roar hit him, clutching his skull. For a moment, he saw visions of milk feeding the cosmos, of tongues carving gods from ice, of blood and bone forming realms.

He almost dropped Mjölnir.

[Name] stood still.

The thing turned to him.

"Please don't show this thing a magic trick."

And bowed.

Not deep.

But enough.

Thor blinked. "What...?"

"She knows me," [Name] said.

"You've never been here."

"I have. Or I will. Or I am. I don't know anymore."

Thor watched as [Name] approached the creature. No fear. No hesitation.

And the being—this guardian of frost and memory—let him take the rib from its nest.

Just like that.

Then it melted.

Not like ice.

Like a dream.

Fading into snow.

[Name] turned, holding the last rib in both hands.

Thor stared at him.

His hair was floating again, cloudlike, weightless, whispering.

And behind his eyes, Thor saw something vast.

Too vast.

"Let's go home," [Name] said.

They returned to the Bifröst in silence.

No more jokes. No more laughter.

Just the sound of boots on ice and the quiet, echoing weight of what had just happened.

Thor kept glancing at [Name] from the corner of his eye.

The boy didn't seem tired. Or scared. Or proud.

Just thoughtful.

Like he'd been told something no one else could understand.

And maybe he had.

They stepped through the light.

Asgard welcomed them with open sky.

CREATED: 08.08.25

EDITED: TBA