Chapter 6: Mother of He Who Broke All

"Even paradise could become a prison if one had enough time to take notice of the walls."―Morgan Rhodes, Falling Kingdoms

Judy finds herself a prisoner in paradise.

Iceland 1916

The goddess of wisdom stood in the cavern and looked over towards the strangely carved stone ship-shaped alter which was before her. Removing her Corinthian-style bronze war helmet with its black plumes, she sat it down upon the stone and pulled back her long jet black locks, letting them flow over the top of her blood-red woolen cloak. She gave a thin smile when she picked a few loose beads from the chiseled rock. They had been crafted from a stone that she knew well, for they came from the lands along the warm blue seas to the south. Obviously, the Northmen who dwelt on this cold island had traded for them and they had also valued them enough to leave them as an offering to appease the fire giant they believed slept inside the nearby volcano. Setting them down, she wondered what any future mortal archeologists would think about finding them on this remote northern island?

"Athena, what brings you north to our lands?" a voice asked and the goddess glanced down the long lava tube to see that a female goddess wearing silvery chain mail and a white wolf skin cloak was standing there.

"Perhaps the same thing that brought you from Vingólf, the dwelling of the righteous souls, Snotra? I have come to check on the red book which is supposed to be hidden here within Surtshellir," the Olympian goddess answered.

"The Rauðskinna was taken away from this island many human generations ago after Loftur, the Unworthy, attempted to raise its cursed author Gottskalk Nikulausson from his tomb and seize that book of power from his undead clutches," the northern goddess answered. "But it has been found on the Green Island by one too foolish to understand its true power."

"Then we must seize it back and hide it where no mortal can ever use it again!"

"I fear we may be too late, for there are others more powerful than mere mortals who lust for the book's tainted power."

"Then both Odin and Zeus must be warned!"

"Odin cares not for anything in his realm, but the whereabouts of Loki's son," Snotra bitterly said. "Just as he and Zeus care not about the war which the humans even now wage upon each other, a war which may lead to mankind's extinction."

"Those foolish humans have always waged war upon each other."

"True, but this war is like none other we have seen before! Alas, our powers have waned over the centuries with the rise of the new religions, the crescent and the cross now hold sway."

"If what you say is true about the book, then there may be greater things for us gods to fear than just a rogue wolf god, a few mortals killing each other, and the new gods," Athena sighed as she picked up her helmet. "Perhaps it is time to call our sisters to council?"

Lagomorphalla 2018

The gray furred rabbit in the red, almost sheer, silken robe stood on the marble balcony and watched the busy streets below her. The brightest of the three suns which shone overhead had already set in the far eastern sky, bringing a shadowy twilight to the land before her. This seemed to be a land of plenty and she was its ruler's honored guest, anything that she wanted was at her beckoned call, be it wine, food, or even a scantily clad buck for companionship. The only thing that Judy Hopps could not have was the one thing that she truly wanted the most and that was to return home to her previous life and her best friend Nick. She was a prisoner in a rabbit's paradise.

How she arrived in this place was still a mystery to her, but Judy remembered finding herself sprawled out upon the marble tiles of this very palace. At first, she didn't understand what the three strange mostly naked male rabbits wanted and objected when one of them gripped her arm while she tried to stand up. "Let go of me!" she commanded the buck even while she pulled away from his grasp. He said something in his strange language even while he reached for her arm again and she shook herself free while she stepped back. "I am a police officer, stop touching me!"

His paws reached out yet again even as another of the males stepped closer. "Stop it!" Judy yelled. Snatching his paw free from her arm, she twisted it back and was rewarded with a sudden yelp of pain. She then felt the other rabbit grasp her shoulder and she twisted, leaping backward, and twirled to deliver a kick into his stomach even as she drew her tranquilizer gun. "I said, stop it."

Standing back, she pulled her radio free and tried to call into dispatch, but her attempts were only greeted with static. The three males were still standing in front of her and she prepared to defend herself from yet another assault. It was then she noticed that the buck she had kicked was actually crying. If these three males were planning to assault her, they were…well, they were certainly wimps.

The third buck was much older and he bowed to her while he offered her something in a small wooden box. She held up the plastic earplug that was inside and looked back to see that he was pointing at his ear. Carefully, she put the device into her ear and was surprised that she could now understand what the buck was saying in a heavy accent, "We meant you no harm, please don't hurt any of us again. If you will come with us, stranger, we will take you to our great exulted master." Still confused with what was going on, Judy cautiously followed the males down a long corridor, her grip was still tight upon her pistol.

Their master called himself Manabozho and he was tall and very, very handsome…no, he was extraordinarily sexy. His fur was a golden color and he sat there on a large cushion, surrounded by naked does who all seemed to adore him. Manabozho gave her a seductive grin at first and she felt her knees weaken when she smelled his scent. The sexy buck's scent was so…so…viral. Judy blushed and could not help but stare at him when he stood up and walked towards her, he was wearing a simple kilt-like garment around his waist which was of sheer white material and left nothing to the imagination. Nearby a priest in a brown robe chanted the god's name.

Manabozho, Father of All.

Manabozho, the god of Lust.

Manabozho, the Fertile…,

It seemed that the hare's titles were never-ending to her.

"Welcome my daughter," the hare god softly said as he reached out to grip her paws. Just before they touched, the handsome god suddenly froze and his nose twitched in curiosity, suddenly his ears drooped and he stepped back in fear. "YOU!" he frantically cried out. "YOU ARE HER!"

Judy was surprised when the hare god frantically fled back to his pillow and seemingly hid behind his fluffle of concubines. Several of the priests charged toward her, to seize her. "NO!" Manabozho ordered. "Stop! No harm must come to the mother of He Who Broke All, The Bringer of the Void, the Destroyer of Reality."

"The what?" she asked in surprise while she stood there surrounded by the robed priests, who only looked in awe at their now cowering god.

"You are the mother of a god of time who destroyed time itself and undid all of reality. I remember what he did, all of us gods, big and small, remember!"

"I don't!" Judy replied to the cowering godling. "I am Judy Hopps of the Zootopian Police Department and I demand to know where I am, how I got here, and how I can get back home?"

Needless to say, neither the god nor his priests, had an answer and now she waited.

After a few months, Judy found that Manabozho would come by to ask how she was doing and after a while, he would stay even longer. From him, she learned of his strange world, about how he was once only one of many animal gods who reigned over a vast population of followers. Many of the prey animals, including the rabbits, were used for food stock for the mightier predators. Then a creature the hare god called a man-horse arrived with a magic hammer and raised a rebellion. "This non-god who had the powers of a god came with good intentions. The non-god who called himself Beta Ray Bill waged battle against the predatory gods and slew them all, but the rebellion soon grew out of control and it became a slaughter after the last of the predators and their families were executed, for the mortals had turned against each other," Manabozho sadly explained. "I took several pawfuls of the healthiest of my children and fled the land. We came here and built a new civilization."

"Wait! So are you telling me that all these rabbits are really your children?"

"Yes, they are for generations upon generations."

"And yet you…you…?"

"Whoa, I am not the actual father of all my worshipers, I just call them my children! I am not the god of perversion!"

"But you must have fathered children with some?"

"A few, my real children were demigods and unfortunately most did not live up to their father's expectations."

"I would imagine being a son or daughter of a god must be a hard legacy to fulfill?"

"I have traveled far and wide and never met any female of our kind who could resist my, let's call it my charms, until I met you. But then again, what you and your fox have is what we like to call True Love."

"We have never met before!" Judy objected. Her ears had shot up straight up when the god had said that she loved Nick and then they drooped back down when she realized that she might never see him again.

"We did, you are the mother of a time god and he once destroyed all that we knew."

"You said that when we first met and you were afraid. I can't be a mother, for I've never…" her voice trailed off.

"Of course you are and you also are not, for when all of reality was restored you went back to your life before it was destroyed. I thought you and your son would never be seen or heard of again."

"But why do I not remember anything like that?"

"Because only we gods were cursed to remember what had happened and not any of you mortals, a reminder…no make that a lesson about our godly limitations."

"A reminder, by whom?"

"There is One who is much more powerful than we gods."

"Oh?"

"So tell me, Judy Hopps, do you really have no idea how you got to my realm?"

"I was just on patrol with my partner, Nick Wilde, and there was a black swirly blob which appeared before us and it just pulled us into it," Judy answered with a slight sniffle. "I found myself here and only the gods know where Nick went?"

"None of the other animal gods I know of seem to know where the fox went," the godling answered. "Although, we have heard that the god of wolves has disappeared with Aion, the goddess of time, and possibly Death."

"A wolf god has gone with Death, does that mean he died?"

"No, he is alive. Death is a real being, a powerful force that is as old as creation. As for Aion, well she is someone you should meet."

"You called her the goddess of time, why would I want to meet her?"

"She is your granddaughter."

Judy's ears drooped and her mouth fell open in surprise.

"You are so cute when you do that!" Manabozho laughed.

"You shouldn't call a bunny cute!" Judy began to automatically reply before she realized that it wasn't Nick that she was snapping at but the hare god. How many times had she admonished that fox for playfully saying the same thing? "Nick, where are you?" she sadly muttered.

Athena is the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare.

Snotra is an obscure Æsir goddess of wisdom, mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's 13th century Prose Edda.

Archeologists have discovered a boat-shaped rock structure inside of an Icelandic cavern called Surtshellir. They believe that the locals left ritual offerings and made sacrifices to placate the fire giant Surtr, so he would not awaken and bring forth Ragnarök. Included in their finds are some beads from the Middle East.

Manabozho is based on the spirit hero of Ojibwe tradition and was a character in my previous story Lost in Time. He is a fertility god.

Beta Ray Bill is a creation of Marvel Comics by Walt Simonson and is a member of the Korbinite race. He is one of only a few who are worthy enough to lift Thor's mystical hammer, Mjolnir, and is given his own war hammer called Stormbreaker.