The Frost Giants came from nowhere.

The air had been crisp with the scent of oncoming rains and we could hear thunder in the distance. The darkness had already swallowed the evening, grey clouds forming an impenetrable blanket over our world.

I was nine.

I remember the night vividly; tragedy is impossible to forget, no matter how much you want to. We were all of us sitting around a campfire that we'd lit to keep ourselves warm. Most of the Berserker tribe was there. We were having a celebration for the Winter Solstice. It was an age-old tradition. Couples danced, children reenacted scenes from legends, and songs were sung. It was one of my favorite festivals. The air was cold, the snow from the previous nights already mulch beneath our boots.

We had been celebrating and the merriment had reached its peak with slurred renderings of odes and the kind of laughter only an ale-laden stomach could produce. The children were shrieking and laughing, running around the fires and trying to steal the last sweets from the stalls.

I was one of them, stifling giggles as I snuck into one of the stalls with my friends. I shushed them with a hiss that only resulted in more giggles. The owner was out, our distraction team already in place, begging him for some sweets. With what I thought was stealth, I reached up to the table and patted around the wood until my fingers met the cool ceramic bowl that held the sweets. I dipped my hand into it, only to find nothing.

Puzzled, I poked my head above the table.

The owner stared down at me, hands on hips and eyebrows drawn into an amused expression.

He held out his hand. "Looking for these?"

I gulped audibly. There were only a handful of sweets left and he had them all.

"Yes?" I squeaked.

The owner laughed. His name was Memnir. He was a good man with a kind heart and a soft spot for children. He held out his hand and gave me the sweets. I thanked him profusely and turned to my friends.

I hadn't finished handing them out when I heard a sickening crunch and something warm and damp splattered onto my neck. I turned around and Memnir stared down at me with wide eyes. I took a few steps back. He looked scary, his eyes practically bulging out of his head. His veins were taut and I shivered.

It was then that I noticed the spear sticking out of his chest.

Memnir fell forward, the expression of shock and fear etched forever on his frozen face. Behind him, glowing in the night's light, was a tall creature, blue like the icy lands it came from. It looked down at us, teeth gleaming in a feral grin, its body bulky and taut. Its eyes were a deep crimson, the colour of the blood seeping down my back.

A shrill scream pierced the night, the sound sharp and echoing in my head. This is wrong, I thought. People shouldn't be screaming. They should be rejoicing.

The scream jarred me and my friends to our senses and we ran out of the shop. The Frost Giant didn't chase after us, though I felt its eyes follow us as we shrieked and cried.

Everything was in chaos. Fires surged and blue lights flashed before my eyes. I quickly lost track of my friends. In the discord it was hard to keep track of anyone. I ran all over the place, crying for my parents. Taut legs descended to crush me and I scampered out of the way. Even my nine-year-old self could see the battle was pointless. Most of our tribe was inebriated. Both the men and women swung wildly, and were struck down without trouble. I saw so many people fall before me and still I ran. The tears trickled down my chin and I could hardly see from all the tears. My voice was the trembling tremor of a child. I was scared and confused and I just wanted my parents.

I heard a familiar shout and I spun around.

There, closest to the bonfire and attracting the most Jotuns, were my father and mother. They stood back-to-back, each defending the other. They were clearly not drunk. Their movements were fluid and precise, the trademark of the Berserkers. They fought with a fury I had never seen them employ before and I quickly understood why.

One of the characteristics of our tribe is our ability to fight. They fought like hurricanes. They tore through the Frost Giants, descending upon them like waves during a storm. My father and mother were Chiefs for this sole reason. They were the best warriors. They fought with everything they had, but the Jotuns were too many. Even the greatest warrior eventually succumbs to the weight of their own body, and so did my parents.

I watched as one of the Frost Giants sliced my father's head clean away from his body.

I watched as a spear rammed through my mother's heart.

The world seemed to stop. It slowed down so completely I thought time was broken. I could hear my own breath shuddering and ragged in my ear. I could feel my heart thundering at an impossible pace, even with the murky movements of time. I could feel the scream rising from my chest, a wordless sound that writhed with anguish. I could feel a heavy weight come crashing down on me, and if I was moving at a normal pace, I would have stumbled.

I screamed. It tore past my throat, searing the insides. A blinding fury ripped through me, depriving me of vision. Everything went black.

I don't remember much of the rest of the night. There were flashes of memory - a bright light, a rumbling in my toes like the earth itself was shaking, my hands clutching a bloodied knife, an odd pair of eyes. Then nothing.

When I woke up, it was past the afternoon three days later. The tribe had done a good job of cleaning up the place. You wouldn't have known a full-blown battle had taken place only a couple of days ago if you hadn't been there for it.

My uncle was there when I woke up. He told me most of the tribe was dead, including my parents. It was only by the grace of the AllFather that even some of us managed to survive.

He had come right before everyone got slaughtered. Odin had always been our king, but to hear my uncle talk about him then, you would have thought he was a god. They'd been alerted to the ambush and had arrived as soon as they could. Thor was with him, the heir apparent, as well as Loki. What Loki did I do not know, but Thor helped his father immensely. They drove the Frost Giants back, and those who did not go were killed.

I shuddered internally. So much blood.

There were barely more than fifty of us left. The thought made my shoulders droop. So much loss. So many innocent lives destroyed and for what? No one knew the answer to that. Everybody accepted it to be an ambush but my uncle and I differed. The Jotuns were not stupid, no matter what anybody thought. A sudden ambush was an irrational - and frankly idiotic - move. We didn't have any direct beef with them, so no one could fathom why the attack happened in the first place.

Too bad the creatures we could question had fled or were dead.

Odin had been kind enough to give us supplies to readjust to our lives. Food, clothing, metals. He even offered us a spot to relocate to, but we couldn't. This was our home. The blood of our brethren had stained the ground and we couldn't very well leave it.

Throughout the talk, my uncle had an odd look about him that I didn't pay much attention to at the time. I dismissed it as him pitying my loss. He was upset, too. My mother had been his sister and the pain wasn't easy on either of us.

When I asked him what Odin had demanded in return - for nobody does things for free - he said Odin would only ask for repayment ten years later.

I thought it was a good deal. In ten years we would have hopefully rebuilt ourselves enough to supply him whatever provisions he wanted.

Of course, nobody thought that ten years later, Odin would ask me to marry Loki.