A little story I made alongside the Matahouroa chapters (posted in many other sites; can't post here because no word doc for me), based on the hypothetical Norse setting ( post/152688273807/ideas-for-an-mtg-norse-setting-13). Most of the villains in the Chronicle are going to be sympathetic, so I took the Creative route and made some bastards.
Work Text:
Berta made her way to the hills. The path was thorny and wet, each foot step a splash on disgustingly yellowish mud. A hint of cold could be felt on her boots, and for a moment she was tempted to curse the air and frost, but the mere thought chilled the back of her mind.
They might have taken Ty, she pondered, and the very thought alarmed her.
It was twilight, and though it was cold the promise of the northern lights was too much to pass. They dazzled and wavered like a forest fire, tugged at by strange winds. They were mesmerizing, and for a moment the weight of her burden disappeared. No more missing friend, none of his mother's tears, only the spectacle in the skies.
But reality was fond of dark jokes. Suddenly, Berta heard the loud flutter of wings, accompanied by a croak. She screamed, stepping away to see a large raven, flapping its wings frantically while still grounded. She was cornered against the thorns, and couldn't get away. Still, she felt that she didn't need to: the bird wasn't chasing after her. She looked at it's feet, and saw what appeared to be a large, metallic coin. The talons obscure it, but in the faint twilight she could still make out a carved trace.
The bird looked to her side and flew away, leaving the coin on the ground. Now she could see that it indeed had a carved rune: exactly three traces, a central one with other two converging from its edges to in front of it, forming a crude, slightly-open triangle. As Berta picked it, the runes became pitch black, as if they were completely immersed in shadow, and she could feel a strange sensation, as if her body was surrounded by water.
She began to hear footsteps, and quickly hid her discovery in her pocket, next to her heart. The sensation stopped, but she felt a strange emptiness in her chest.
As she looked over she saw a strange old man, wearing the strangest clothes she had ever seen: a strange, gray jacket covering his shoulders, a same-colored shirt covering his torso and arms, what seemed to be a white shirt under that one, same gray pants and gray shoes. A small belt with exceptionally clean, almost dazzling knives tied his waist; they had different handles, some of metal, some of bone.
She thought those were fancy clothes of some sort - they weren't made of the leathers and fabrics her village, or anyone she had ever seen for that matter, used - but they seemed to be somewhat wearied down. There was something in the gray that seemed to have once been of other colors, but she couldn't quite figure which ones they were. That same grayness felt empty, and in the twilight it even seemed as though it was spreading, quenching the air and the moors out of any color.
His skin and eyes seemed to be of the same color, though in the twilight it was hard to tell. He looked somewhat thin, but his face wasn't ghastly. On the contrary, it seemed rather rounded, something helped by a rather short, white beard and mustache.
"Oh my, what has that frightful **** done to you?" he asked, his voice surprisingly sweet and vibrant, which calmed Berta.
"It was just a bird" Berta said dryly.
"Still, it is no manner to treat a lady. Come, I'll treat you with hot cocoa and a cozy light."
"What is cocoa?" asked Berta.
"Oh right, you don't have that here. Milk, perhaps?"
"Thank you, Mister-"
"You can call me the Silver Man."
Berta gave him a puzzled look.
"Thank you, Mister Silver Man, but I have to keep looking for my friend. He's lost and it's almost night."
"What's his name?" he asked pensively, as if trying to remember.
"Ty, Tyelsi" Berta replied hopefully.
He snapped his fingers, and Berta swore she saw a small white spark.
"Oh, that one. Yes, he's with me, and waiting for you!"
"Waiting for me?" said Berta skeptically.
"Yes, that's why I came here looking for you" he said chirpily.
"But he's the one who's lost?"
"Details, details. I am sure you can talk those over."
The man remained upbeat, but Berta noticed that his hands trembled slightly. A hint of impatience.
She was uncertain about going with him. Something about him felt wrong, in spite of - or perhaps because of - his kindness. Yet, the law of hospitality was sacred. If he was a bad host, the gods themselves would see him punished.
She knew of one such case: old law speaker Snorri, who once, begrudgingly, accepted a traveling bard. He had his way with his guest and fed only scraps. In return, the night the poor bard left, his flesh began to decay and fall off. He walked around the town, begging for help, but he was refused at every turn, even by the healers, and died in the town square. His blackened bones were burnt by a valkyrie's light, until not even dust remained.
The memories were horrifying, but Berta found a twisted comfort in them. The gods were looking out for her, and maybe she needed their guidance.
"Alright, I'll come with you."
The shack wasn't far away, being on the other side of one of the hills. The trail to it was a lot more pleasant than the one Berta had passed on, lacking thorns and with a drier, even warmer soil, covered in smooth grass.
"Ah yes, I take it upon myself to make roads as pleasant as possible" the Silver Man had explained, "All you need to make anything better is a good dose of optimism... and pruning some weeds."
Berta nodded half-heartedly, it was such generic advice. She wondered why she had felt unsettled by the man in the first place. Yet, with each step they took, the coin seemed to pulse with a strange sense of urgency, as if asking her to remain alert. Above, there was a sound of wings flapping, but before she could look the Silver Man tapped her shoulder.
"Here we are milady" he said, in a particularly cheerful way.
The shack was surprisingly large, almost like a small barn. It was made of gray wood, built in a rather strange way, the individual logs seemingly not tied together by any rope. Yet, it stood firmly, and was so clean that it even seemed to glow, a silver beacon in the fading daylight.
By far the most impressive feature were the windows, made of thin layers of sunstone and supported by silver beams, laid in a vaguely butterfly-like pattern of two triangles joined at the tips. Glass windows were rare in Berta's village, let alone ones made with such precious materials. The visage was awestrucking, especially as the northern lights were partly reflected, dancing along the beams and the textured surface.
"I see you like my windows" said the Silver Man, craning his neck.
"They're beautiful" said Berta, still mesmerized.
"They're even better on the inside."
The Silver Man walked to the door. He motioned invitingly, and opened the door slightly. One of the windows could be seen, that indeed reflected the lights even more intensely, as vividly as they were in the sky. Beneath the window was part of the wall; while also made of wood, it was covered by a rich white coating, that seemed as bright and as warm as daylight.
Berta halted. One last step before the unknown.
"Ty, Ty are you there?" she shouted.
No response.
Worried for him, she walked inside quickly, only to be greeted by a horrific visage, that made her pause in sheer shock. The Silver Man took advantage of this to silently close the door, cornering her in for good.
The shack was composed of a single, large room. On the center laid a wooden table, flanked by two wooden benches, seemingly made out of only three independent pieces of wood each. On top, the beams supported two rows of metallic hooks, beneath each being a bucket, also made of metal and rather simplistic, with no handles. A few crates laid at the edges, opened and bearing the same runes as the windows.
Hanging on the hooks were the bisected, disemboweled bodies of children, the metal piercing the emptied skulls. Their blood had almost entirely dipped into the buckets below, their flesh so thoroughly exsanguinated that it now had a very pale, almost white tone. There was no smell or rot; instead, the flesh smelled very sweetly, which reminded Berta of spring flowers in the meadows.
Clothes filled the crates. They were ripped and stained, yet tucked rather neatly. Shoes were laid on top of the table, and she could recognize Ty's at the end.
Berta looked again at the hooks. In her panic, her eyes darted from half-body to half-body, until they found her friend's left flank. At the angle it was hard to notice, but she did see half of his blue eye and part of his auburn hair, and soon the bisected face became more and more familiar, and all the more horrific for it. His flesh was darker than the others, the exsanguination apparently not complete.
Her eyes moved away quickly, trying to find his "right side", but it didn't seem to be anywhere.
"As I told you, weeds need to be pruned" said the Silver Man, and Berta heard a knife being detached from the belt, "And your friend wasn't one. He was pure and sweet, so undeserving of this rotten plane, so I saved him."
Berta tried to turn and punch the Silver Man in the gut, but she found her arm stuck in midair. She couldn't move it, and she saw her sleeve's brown color being muted.
"Part of him was already buried" the Silver Man continued as he examined his knife, "never to be touched by rot or decay. Though his left side is taking quite some time to clean. Part of me thinks I misjudged him, but I'm willing to forgive him nonetheless."
He turned towards Berta, glaring. It was a sort of calm fury that wouldn't otherwise be noticed, if not for the angle his eyes stared at her own. Berta noticed that they were indeed gray, both the irises and the sclerae, separated only by a thin white band. They reminded her of ashes, well after they've cooled down from the fire and began to whiten.
"You, on he other hand, are clearly sinful" he said, spite seeping into his voice, "I see it in your eyes, in the way you talk. You have faith in these g-, in these demons, don't you?"
Muffled pecking came from one of the windows, and both Berta and the Silver Man turned to see the silhouette of a raven. For a moment hope welled in the girl's heart, but she noted that the bird was barely holding onto the ledge, and was forced to take off, hovering uselessly around the frame.
"Luckily, these are true hallowed grounds. Your 'gods' do not have any power here. You will finally pay in full for all of your sins, you will face the justice your people so gleefully evade. You will die, and you will die in pain, until every last drop of your miserable blood boils and is cleansed from this world!"
He raised his knife, and his eyes closed. Berta heard a muttering sound, and she knew he was praying. But she didn't understand any of his words, and his voice had an echoing quality to it, permeating the air and the wood and even her own soul.
As she heard it, the voiding sensation in her chest increased. She looked down at the pocket, and saw it glow with a violet light. The coin radiated that light, but the rune, vast against the pocket, was still pitch black. Still immersed in the deepest shadows.
Berta realized something, and turned her gaze to the Silver Man. She inspected him, her eyes lowering to the ground, and noticed that he had no shadow.
She, on the other hand, still had hers clinging to her feet. It was small due to the ambient lighting, but it was still rather dark, and she lost herself in its blackness, focusing on it. She thought of how dark the night outside must've been, how much she'd rather escape and run away far into it, away from that place of death.
Yet, she wanted revenge for her friend. No, she would not run away, into the night. The night would run into her.
She kept staring at her shadow, and sure enough it grew. And unlike her body, it was free. Berta delighted in this, and took no time stretching the shadow as far as they could go. It met one of the walls, then crawled up the ceiling.
Soon, it reached the hooks. And their flesh.
"Now meet your end!" the Silver Man said, preparing to strike.
Before his knife could touch Berta, however, half a child body slammed against him, knocking him off his balance. He swatted away the corpse, but to his horror its hand still clung to his sleeve, weighting him down. Half a mouth tried to bite him, but his knife to an end to it, and the jaw dropped into the ground, followed by the arm, with a bloodless thump.
To his horror, the other half bodies dislodged themselves from the hooks. Some tentatively, slowly tearing their half-heads, while others swung wildly and landed all over the place, knocking or falling on the buckets and splattering the blood across the pristine room, and themselves. All of them had been touched by Berta's shadow, branched like puppet strings.
"What have you done, witch!?" the Silver Man yelled madly, grabbing the undead children and butchering them further.
In the chaos, Berta tried to move, but she was still stuck. She kept trying to overwhelm the Silver Man, but this strategy quickly backfired as he glared at her, knowing exactly what to do. So she used the children as a blockade, slowing him down slightly.
This was all she needed to separate one half-a-corpse from the rest. She stared at him for a moment, tears welling in her eyes, before she willed him to jump and throw himself out of the window.
"No!" the Silver Man shouted, punching a half-face out of the way, but it was too late.
The room darkened, until only the Silver Man's faint light remained. And immediately after, every window and the door burst, as a massive flock of ravens swarmed in in all directions. They flew in a disorganized mass of feathers and croaks, knocking Berta to the ground. She quickly found that she could move, and crawled her way to the door.
As soon as she left, an intense white light began filling the shack. It wasn't it regaining its glow, but rather something within it shining intensely. The ravens were repelled from it, and Berta could see its source.
She wished she hadn't.
With a last, hateful gaze into her eyes, the Silver "Man" was gone from that world, and his leaving was marked by an intense blast, burning away the ravens, the children's bodies and Berta's eyes into oblivion.
Berta could no longer see - or feel her face at all -, but she knew when the light stopped, when its pressure left the emptied, now dry sockets. Soon after, she heard the shack fall, the final tomb for what remained of those children.
Berta crawled in the dark. Al though she was blind, she began to feel the rune pulsing, guiding her in the shadows, and knew more or less where to go. She managed to get up and run, only to kneel down gently. Her hands reached, feeling a cold, wet object.
Tears streamed down her eyes, as she hugged what remained of Ty.
Suddenly, a familiar croak filled the air, followed by intense flapping.
"You're the only one that made it out, aren't you?" Berta said, although she couldn't guess why.
"Payment" a voice emerged, guttural and croak-like. Berta didn't have to guess who it was.
"What?" she asked.
"You offered that boy in exchange for the blasphemer's demise. It was an offering to me."
"I had to get out!" Berta cried, "I didn't know-"
"That is irrelevant. Give me his body."
"No! He needs to-"
"To what?" the voiced darkened, "To bury him or burn him, deny me my prize? You have my gift, you had my service. Now offer him."
"You mean this?" Berta said, grasping the coin and throwing it to the ground, "Take it. I don't want it anymore."
"So be it."
Suddenly, Berta felt a sharp pain on her palms, like a thousand knives pierced through her hand. The pain - and what seemed like a physical force of some sort - pushed her away, prying her away from Ty.
"No!" she screamed, impotently stabbing herself further, trying to reach her friend.
Suddenly the pain ended, and she fell on broken and shredded hands unto the ground. Ty was gone, the last evidence of him being some strained wing strokes in the distance.
Anger consumed Berta. Even though she hated the Silver Man, she saw clearly why he felt the way he did. The gods were nothing but petty savages, they needed to be brought down.
With a pained effort, she rose from the ground. The run was no longer there to guide her, but she didn't need to. She knew she didn't need it anymore.
With effort, she made her way back to the village.
In the Halls of Godheimr, the Allfather couldn't help but laugh. Perched on his arms, the flock of ravens echoed a dissonant song, a hymn of mockery to the girl.
In his palm laid Ty's body, the two parts now one. Yet, the unburied half had darkened, rotted slightly on the way to the world above all others. The part buried by the Silver Man had, however, remained pure, protected by his odd enchantments. This amused the Allfather to no end, who rejoiced in the poetry of irony.
Suddenly, the halls lightened up with an intense light. the Sun had arrived, her chariot trotting through the pristine, quartz-like firmament, stopping half-way to the throne. The Allfather closed his hand, hiding his prize.
"Had a good day, I presume?" he said mockingly.
The Sun didn't say anything. Her valkyries helped her out of the chariot and fred her steeds, guiding them out of the hallway. Dark-clad valkyries - his - joined in, brushing the steeds. Valkyries, light or dark, took the Sun's weapons and armor, cleaning them.
She walked to the right, in the direction of her own chambers. But not before glaring at the Allfather.
"What?" he asked, "I did save the children, did I not?"
"You know your cruelty goes too far" she said angrily, "Sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my time with the wrong monsters."
"Wonder AND wander all you like, you're never going to sit here" the Allfather laughed, raising his butt slightly.
The doors to the Sun's chambers close with a violent tremor. A silence followed, ended with the Allfather's sigh, regretful and wistful.
He stared at the mended boy in his palm, and breathed it into life.