Drifting. Roots curling around his soul. A separated essence coming together, blurring at the seams.
"Poor Mud." A sympathetic giggle, malicious and comforting. "Poor, innocent Mud."
He opened his eyes, and wished he hadn't. He floated in a ring of ironwood, and the sensation made him feel nauseous. Odd really, since he wasn't in his physical body. Yet he felt sick to his white stomach and dizzy.
"My ladies," he said, and attempted to bow. It was hard to do, given he had no form, but he managed a lopsided curve.
"Polite as always." Another giggle. "Our favorite pupil."
Your only pupil, Mud thought, and he marveled at how the thoughts came together. A fog had collected in his brain, and he found it hard to assemble his emotions with memories.
The Norns lounged around their looms, surrounding him. Long, white hair that spooled around their feet like silk pools. They lived beneath the World Tree's roots, fed on its rich insides as they spun. Weavers of fate, the Kindly Ones, the three Graces. Urd, Verdandi, and Skold; Past, Present and Future. Age and weaving had wrinkled their hands, but their minds remained sharp and youthful. Skold had a curved back, for she had to keep watch on people's ever-changing actions.
"Am I a vegetable?" he asked.
"You almost were," Verdandi commented. "Now questions for a question, as we always have done. Odin peeled your mind apart?"
Mud nodded. As he had entered the deep sleep, he still had to give his testimony to the All-Father given that Rainbow Isle had fallen and bad mortals had threatened the Bifrost. To observe the truth, Odin had separated emotion from perception. A mortal would have gone insane from the procedure, and Mud nearly had. People weren't meant to view events objectively, to view horrifying events and weigh their horrible nature.
"It does not matter," Skold sighed. "The gods are in denial that one of their own would betray Mud to a mortal, especially our Mud."
"Why am I here?" he asked.
"To learn," Verdandi tutted. "Always the time for lessons, especially in sleep. But there is another answer, which you will also learn if you answer honestly and thoughtfully. I have lots of questions for you."
Mud let out a hysterical laugh. He had just been drained of Vanir essence, lost his smallest cousin to death, seen his glorious brother possess a murderous mortal, and had the All-Father peel his mind apart. Yet the Norns wanted him to learn. How TYPICAL.
"I go first," Urd said. "You lost the battle with Alvin the Treacherous when you could have won. What was your mistake?"
"I turned my back," he answered in a flat voice; this was easy. "I did not finish him."
"And?" she prompted.
A mutter came out.
"Louder, dear."
"I hated the gamey blood," he said loudly. "I killed his dragon on impulse when I should have killed HIM first. I was too bloody scared."
Urd tutted and she was drier and more patronizing than her sister's. "No need for hysterics, Mud. You didn't finish the job, and you paid for it. So now you know. Your question."
"Why did Magni do it?"
"Why did he do what? Scratch his nose when the sun set?"
He hated this part, the asking. A deep breath to calm his voice. "Why did Magni betray me to this mortal? Why did he watch as I begged him for help?"
"Better, dear. Better." Urd pulled a string from the loom: magenta, and gleaming. "But I only answer one question at a time. Hold out your left hand."
He somehow took the thread despite having no solid form, traced his transparent fingers along the edge, and saw the last couple of days. He saw but he did not comprehend. Not yet.
Father and Magni hunting; their quarry a young doe. The lightning hitting her, the heart stopped. Father not happy, muttering, "My greatest failure." Magni climbing through a tree, the World Tree. Watching. Talking to Skold and Verdandi. Bargaining with them.
The images faded, and the string returned to the loom. Mud floated with a frozen, horrified expression.
"That's why," Urd said, returning to her weaving.
"Why did you help him?" Mud burst out. "You said destiny could not be changed, except at a high price. Did he lie to you about his bloody intentions?"
"Oh no, Mud. He asked for advice," Verdandi said; she liked to pick her questions rather than answer the first one asked. "Advice about how to make Thor happy. Whether we helped him, only time will tell. "
"Sweetheart, no one can lie to us," Urd reminded him. "We just prefer honesty because it saves time. Now how is a question: how did he know where we were?"
"You know few can navigate through the World Tree's roots," Skold said. "And for good reason. If ANYONE were to bother us to change a fate or two, why, then all of time would unravel."
Mud closed his eyes, still sifting through the images that had just flashed through his head.
"He followed me." His voice was flat. "He somehow caught sight of me limping to my previous lesson and marked the path to you, to visit later. Is this my fault then? Did I build my own pyre?"
"You didn't know what Magni was planning," Urd answered. "So no, this is not your fault. But be more careful in the future. How were you careless BEFORE the fight?"
Mud blinked against the transition from someone else's memories to his own. Again the answer came easily. "I didn't listen to Nephil or Astrid. They heard the Whispering Death before I did. I was too caught up in grief and anger."
"Good, good!" Urd clapped her hands. "We're making progress here. So what have you learned?"
"Don't let my emotions guide my stroke," he said. "Especially not fear or anger."
"And trust those around you, especially those who are just as suspicious."
"Do you have a question for me?" Skold fluttered her aged eyelashes.
"I do." Mud looked at her in the eye. "If I need to trust these mortals, I can't stay in the bonny sleep, can I? I have to wake up before regaining my former strength." The thought did not lift his dour mood.
"You are a poor thing," she responded, "but yes. Now is not the time for sleep, what with Magni helping the Outcasts?"
"You will never regain your full strength now that Alvin the Treacherous has your essence," Verdandi said. "He has power over you, if he chooses to use it."
"But now I'm mortal. I've lost my sword, and my magic. There is not hope."
"Not all of your magic," Verdandi corrected. "That will grow back in due time."
"The little hiccup that saved you was mortal," Urd spoke up. "The one you called skinny. He managed to stop the war between dragons and the humans and rescue Fury from the Green Death."
"He's too trusting," Mud responded, knowing he was missing the point. "He took Heimdall's orders blindly and got himself in over his head. If not for Heimdall, we would have been caught terribly." His voice shook.
"Will you trust him despite that mishap?" Skold asked. "Even if he miscalculated, do you still owe him?"
"No, I can't trust him, but I do owe him my life, and the babies' lives." No mention of Nephil.
"How will you repay that favor? It isn't often that mortals rescue a god."
"I'm not a god anymore, if I ever was." Mud knew the Norns hated to hear this, but they didn't like it when people lied either. "But I'll think of something."
Verdandi clicked her tongue. "You can't let others define who you are, Muddy. You know that."
"I know it," Mud replied. "But I've spent my whole life defined by others. 'Mud' is the first name I've chosen for myself, and I've been trying to forge my own path, to do what I want while not letting my selfishness hurt others."
"You have the knowledge of past, present and future." Skold plucked the loom like it was a harp. "Knowledge that others do not know, not even Magni. Watch this."
Mud watched. He saw a fleet of the same ships he had seen on Rainbow Isle. He saw the megaphones they had constructed, iron beasts that echoed the dragon roars until they became unbearable. He saw the Gronckles trapped inside each ship. He saw the Outcasts and Hysterics piling rainbow crystals into storerooms. And he saw the man who had drained him, planning with another bearded over a map, cutting a course into the canvas. With a red pencil they circled an island with a name he didn't recognize. A familiar dragon curled around Alvin, one that Mud had sliced up only a few hours ago.
Mud's insides went cold. The Whispering Death gleamed with metal stitches and malice Alvin had added Harmful to his new belt, fingering the rainbow blade. Harmful would not respond, because the sword had only one master- Mud- but it writhed with fury that would have put Thor's hammer to shame. Mud wished he could feel the same fury, but instead he felt a chilling fear, remembering the thick hand that had nearly covered his entire face and the gripping arms that had thrown him onto the man's back.
"Those Hysterics seem to want the hiccup that saved you," Skold said mildly. "How are you going to return the favor?"
"Heimdall gave you freedom of the rainbows," Verdandi added. "That means, although you cannot survive the Bifrost to Asgard, you would most certainly endure if you traveled through Midgard. How will you use that freedom?"
Mud opened his mouth. Then he stopped.
"I need to be on Midgard to think about that. No ideas are coming here," he said. "If I must wake up, my ladies, I should wake up soon. What will happen if I fail to repay that debt?"
Skold's eyes darkened. She uttered one word.
"Ragnorak."
Pain hit him first, in five different places, balanced with a damp coldness. He almost screamed as he awoke but managed to reduce the sound to a groan. He felt as if his ribs had been banged like thin hammers against gold, and perhaps they had. Sticky gauze covered the injured spots.
Warmth. Heavy, smoky air. Freshly cut herbs. A heavy blanket covering the pain. He wanted to hide under the warmth because if he took it off, the grief would assault him, and the reality of what had happened. He didn't want to believe it had happened, but the bruises told the truth.
His older brother Magni, the beloved son who everyone admired, had sold Mud to mortals so that he had gotten drained. He had helped kill Ivor and broke Nephil's bones in solid rock.
Mud wasn't entirely blameless, however. Because of his carelessness, Nephil had died. Or rather, Nephil had told him to make the sacrifice because they wouldn't have made it. The dragon's bones had been badly broken, and Magni had all but crushed his throat, but in those moments when Fury had clutched them and the noise attacked, Nephil had managed one word that only Mud's sharp ears had picked up.
VODR.
Mud covered his face. "Vodr." The Norse word for "rainbow." Nephil had already known that he wouldn't survive, had felt Mud's desperate, powerless hands as he had tried to heal the dragon, not even thinking of changing into a dragon because he had been so exhausted, so broken.
He tested moving his arms. Thin and weak, like those of a tender sapling's. "Tender" was the best word for it, for the aching wouldn't stop. Peeling off the blanket took effort he didn't have. He hadn't lost consciousness after getting drained and recalled the terrifying sensation of being carried into that darkness, of not being able to produce even a spark of light to save Nephil, of being treated . . . like a load of laundry.
"Good afternoon!" A cheery face greeted him. Mud started backward, yelping in pain as his bruises jostled.
A blond, bearded blacksmith with a bundle of clothes, a handful of herbs, and blocks of ice.
"How did you sleep, lad?"
"All right," Mud answered warily. "Where am I?"
"On the island of Berk, home to the only Dragon Academy in the archipelago and to the only Gobber." He tipped his helmet. "That would be me. And I'm guessing you are 'Mud'."
Breath caught in Mud's throat. He had seen the name "Berk" in Skold's vision.
"Pleased to meet you," he managed. "And the babies?"
"They're getting their portraits done." Gobber started to separate the clothes, trying not to let the ice soak into them. "That blue one Ardis keeps asking for Hiccup to draw her."
"Is Hiccup the skinny one with the brown hair who rides Fury?"
"Right on the first try!" Gobber handed him a green shirt with ridiculously long sleeves. "He's also the chief's son and head of the Dragon Academy."
Mud took the shirt but didn't put it on.
"Thank you," he said, not sure whether he meant, "Thank you for the clothes" or "Thank you for distracting the babies from their grief" or "Thank you for telling me where I am because I realize you're all in danger and now I can repay my debt."
"Not at all. It's what we do on Berk. We look out for each other." Gobber took some cold herbs and strapped them to one of Mud's bruises. He shuddered. "This is good for you; will reduce the swelling."
"Yeah, and I'll be a pudgy icicle," he retorted.
"We could use more of those. You know how you can repay old Gobber, though."
"How?" The wariness returned.
Gobber looked him in the eye. "Why does Thor hate metal?"
He blinked. "What?"
"Why does Thor strike lightning at metal?" Gobber gestured with his hook hand. "Few months back we had serious lightning storms when we put up metal perches for the dragons, and then a giant metal statue of Thor. A few villagers thought Toothless- Hiccup's Night Fury- was to blame. They almost let him drift to sea."
Mud bit his lip. He considered telling him the science behind electrons and the flow of electricity. Skold had educated him on those facts so he could learn to catch and release lightning, and to explain how Father had restarted his heart as a baby.
But he wasn't with the Norns. He was with mortals on Midgard. Mortals with hook prosthetics.
"Thor doesn't HATE metal," Mud said. "His hammer Mjollnir likes to send energy through the material. Have you ever sledded down a slippery hill in the winter?"
"Aye," Gobber nodded. "Always a thrill for my skivvies."
"It's like that with Mjollnir's lightning and metal. The metal is like a slippery tunnel that Mjollnir enjoys traveling through, over and over again. It likes the thrill and cannot resist, even though Thor tries to stop it and others may get hurt. An array of metal perches sticking out of the ground would have driven Mjollnir crazy with delight."
Gobber seemed to buy this half-truth. He turned away, heard a dragon groaning outside, and went to check on it.
"Besides," Mud added in an undertone, "my father has no power to send lightning to this island even if he DID hate metal. The gods have no power in the Archipelago."
Half a day ago . . .
"This is power." Alvin clenched and unclenched his fist, marveling at the lightning swirling within it. "Pure, adulterated POWER."
"Not pure," Savage corrected. "If it were pure, the Vanir essence and magic would kill you, and then how would you destroy Berk?"
Alvin patted Savage jovially with the glowing hand; the possessed Outcast winced even though the lightning couldn't hurt him.
"That's why I like having you on my side, Magni, even if you took over my favorite second-in-command." Alvin nodded at the glass bottles attached to his belt. "The water really does the trick, holding the essence for a special occasion. Once I learn how to use it . . ." his voice trailed off with the glee of knowing about what lay beyond the realms.
It was past midnight. They had left Rainbow Isle after stripping the island of its crystals and recovering Woedin's body. Norbert and Alvin had insisted on collecting both the crystals and the body, Norbert especially, and they had sewn up the corpse with metal threads. Then they had surrounded the body with iron wood on Norbert's largest boat, one he had prevented from entering the fray with Gris. Alvin had pulled out the book of runes that he had kept away from Outcast Island.
"This is how we SHOULD have summoned Heluth," Alvin said, and recited the chant. This time his voice held more passion and determination. A bond with a dragon cannot change a mortal for the better, but it can provide emotions that he has never been capable of.
A dragon soul does not look that much different from a mortal one, or even a Vanir one. The soul is white and transparent and coils around the body, questioning its placement outside the corpse. It also glows in the dead of night, belonging to another world.
Alvin kept on reciting, his tone ordering his dragon to come back and finish the fight. The ironwood shook, and no one could tell if it were the gods trying to call back the lost soul or a chilly night breeze.
Woedin woke with a start. He stretched himself and noticed the stitches that mixed with spines. Yet, as he chased his tail and the strange stitches, there was finality to his actions.
Alvin didn't run and hug him the way Hiccup would hug Toothless, but he did stride forward and stroke him between the spines. Woedin loved that.
"Easy, new friend," he said in a soft voice. "You've been away on a long journey."
"We done it!" Norbert shouted with glee. "Victory over death!"
"Victory over death!" The other Hysterics shouted, swinging their axes. Some of the Outcasts took up the cry, but not many. Their dragons gave celebratory squawks at seeing one of their own.
Alvin scratched Woedin in a Whispering Death's favorite places as the dragon tested his stitches. Savage watched with cold eyes. The same look he had worn when seeing his brother call for help. Alvin hadn't made the process painless either; he had wanted Modi to suffer for having killed Woedin, even if Modi had apologized. The suffering had happened, and Modi's green eyes had clouded with dizziness. He hadn't fainted, however. Alvin had kept his iron grip and slung the changeling over his shoulder. They had left Woedin behind, since neither could carry a large Whispering Death.
"Why?" Modi had moaned with a betrayed, anguished tone. The changeling had hung from Alvin's back like a limp carrot, not even finding the strength to struggle. "WHY?"
He could have been asking many things: why had Magni allowed him to get drained, why Alvin had targeted him, why Magni was slowly killing his cousin Nephil.
"Because you gave the dragons powers they do not deserve," Magni had answered with Savage's voice, filled with arrogance and ignoring the look of betray. "And because runts like your cousin need to be culled."
Why couldn't he forget the hurt look in Modi's eyes, focused on the baby dragon whose movements grew fainter in the solid rock? The sheer belief in Magni's good nature, in that the older brother was the apple of everyone's eye? Modi had tried to KILL him when they were younger; granted, Modi kept claiming that the big crater was an accident, but no one had believed him. Magni's mother had made sure of that.
Modi had said something else, something Magni hadn't understood: "my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" What was the changeling referring to? To Magni, or to the gods unable to act in the Archipelago? Or another obscure reference?
Woedin let off a rattling screech and took in Magni's expression, worn on Savage's face.
"Everything all right, Magni?" Alvin asked. "You seem troubled?"
He shook off the troubled expression and asked a more troubling question.
"Why do you want the changeling alive? He's a runt, and runts don't deserve to live."
"Runts are useful little creatures," Alvin explained. "Your brother's only going to regain his power. Besides, you can't kill a child who's destined to rebuild a destroyed world. That only leads to a downfall."
He offered a blunt nod. "You are a wise man, Alvin of Outcast Island."
"I couldn't agree more," the larger man chuckled.