A/N: Chap 18 review responses are in my forums as normal. An additional A/N at the end re: worldbuilding. Thanks for reading.
Chapter Nineteen: The Roots of Yggdrasil
Taylor woke the next morning feeling empty. She blinked up at the ceiling of her apartment, and even now could detect the acrid scent of distant smoke. Motion in the corner of her eye caused her to look, and for one brief moment she spoke without thinking. "Mom?"
It wasn't, of course, and she felt immediately embarrassed. Queen Frigga sat on a chair near her bed, hands clasped in her lap. She said nothing, sparing Taylor a little further embarrassment as she sat up.
"The king?"
"He sleeps." Frigga spoke with a tightly controlled calm that revealed her immense will. "He should have entered the Odinsleep a year ago, but it was interrupted by his sons antics. Now he has no choice."
"Will he wake up?"
Frigga met Taylor's gaze squarely. "I do not know," she admitted.
"Are you sending me away?"
Frigga did not answer immediately, and the silence hurt worse than any of the Dark Elf monster's blows.
"You are a remarkable person, Taylor Hebert," Frigga finally said. "If I thought, even for a moment, that the damage you caused was done out of anything but a selfless desire to help, you would indeed be banished. But your actions were not those of a villain, just a very powerful, but terribly inexperienced, youth."
Taylor felt her cheeks redden even as a weight of dread lifted off her shoulders. She thought of everything that happened, but her thoughts came back around to one small fact that had been lost in the battle.
"Oh gods," she whispered. "Mjolnir."
For the first time since Taylor woke, Frigga smiled wryly. "Remembered that, did you?"
"Oh, no! Thor must hate me. I didn't mean to!"
"And how many children have said that very thing? The difference was that most children break vases or lamps, not nigh-unbreakable weapons. We gave that hammer to Thor almost a thousand years ago to help him harness his power. He was very attached to it."
"And the girl he brought into Asgard broke it."
"Yes. But he also knows you broke it defending his parents and his kingdom. If there is any fault, child, it lay with my brother. For all your strength, and all your power, this was not your fight. By him making it so, you have broken time."
"I don't understand."
"I know." She crossed her legs as she studied Taylor. "I was raised by witches, girl. My mother Nerthus could wield the dark energy of magic like she could her knitting needle. Gods forbid I do anything to her flowers-she could switch my hand with her projections from across Vanaheim! But with that power, every witch has a singular vision of their passing. It is a curse that comes with the power. Yesterday, I was meant to die. My death would help Thor onto the path necessary for him to truly become the man he was destined to be. Now, because I live, the fates have been stirred."
"You saw all that?"
"I cannot always see the future clearly, child, but when those things that are fated do not come to pass, the result is jarring at best. Which brings us back to you."
She spun her wrist, and suddenly the air over her hand sparkled before a palm-sized ruby appeared. Almost immediately Taylor felt the buzzing in her head. It felt different than before-not quite as hungry. But still terribly powerful.
"A stone like this helped build Asgard," Frigga said. "Malekith wanted it to destroy the Universe. Your former master, we believe, seeks them as well. There are only six in all of existence, created from the first singularities that led to the creation of the Universe. Most call them Infinity Stones, and most mortals would die upon touching them. Only the most powerful beings can wield one."
"It felt like I had my magic back," Taylor said.
"Yes. Each stone is a personification of existence. This, what the Dark Elves originally crafted into the Aether, is commonly called the Reality Stone. The Tesseract that you helped Thor reclaim is, in fact, the Space Stone. The Scepter that Loki wielded bore a third, the Mind Stone. For the first time in millions of years, three of the Infinity Stones are in one place. It is...a dangerous thing. There are many truly powerful beings in this Universe that would not hesitate to slaughter all of Asgard to gain them."
She turned her wrist, and the stone was gone. "It occurs to me that we have done you a disservice. You are not like the youth of Asgard. How could you be? You were raised among mortals, and set on a path of sacrifice and war from an early age. But here, we have so few children that we treat them as treasured objects. And, having been raised as such, they accept it. You, however, need more. So, I wish to make a proposal. I wish to send you to my teacher."
"What will they teach me?"
"Life, child. Magic. War. You will be challenged, and you will be made to work in a way the children of Asgard are not. But this teacher is very selective with his students. He will not take you if you are not willing to learn. So, think on it. Stay in your room tonight-food will be brought. The whole palace is still on lock-down. In the morning, my brother will come, and you will decide then if you wish to continue your education."
She stood, and then to Taylor's surprise sparkled away. It was an illusion-one so powerful that Taylor could feel the queen's breath and smell her scent in the air.
~~Titanomachy~~
~~Titanomachy~~
Taylor was dressed in her armored breastplate and woolen breeches when Freyr came the next morning. His eyes were sunken with exhaustion from the battle, and his smile looked less brilliant than normal, but he still shared it unhesitatingly when he saw her.
"Good morn, Telos. You slept well?"
"As good as can be. How's the Allfather? Any word?"
"He sleeps." That seemed to be all he was willing to say. "Have you thought of my sister's words?"
She'd thought of nothing else. "I'd like to learn more."
"Then come. There is a place I will show you."
They walked down a long hall with scarred, battered columns that were even then being worked on. Many of the huge braziers had been broken or tipped. A faint miasma of smoke remained in the air as they made their way to a vast, open bay where more of those boat-like skiffs waited in specially made cradles.
"I've always wondered. Why do your skiffs look like a boat, though?"
Freyr smirked under his beard. "We could make it look like a brick if we chose. We choose boats because we appreciate the aesthetic."
In other words, Taylor thought, it looked like a boat because the Asgardians thought boats were cool.
The skiff flew high in the air; below she could see other boats of similar shape, though sizes varied. From the edge of the atmospheric envelope that surrounded the realm, Taylor looked down on a golden city nestled between snow-capped mountains and a sea that ran to the edge of the realm. The great citadel that rose like the pipes of an organ from the center of the city stood twice the height of the mountains themselves, and towered over the rest of the city. The scars from the battle looked jarring and terrible across what should have been endless beauty.
Beyond the city, they came to the mountains that rimmed the realm. The mountains were filled with ancient ruins-all of which felt older than the pyramids on Earth. Freyr spoke easily over the slight breeze of their passage.
"Once, in my father's time, these mountains were filled with Asgardians. Giants, light elves and dwarves all found homes here, from across the realms. Now they are home to wolves, goats and the occasional troll."
"I don't understand," Taylor said. "What happened?"
He answered with a question. "Did you know of Ymir on your world?"
"The first frost giant," Taylor said. "The father of the gods and giants and all creatures. At least according to myth. In my world, he was...my great, great maternal grandfather."
"Indeed." The Asgardian looked ahead as they flew. "Like the Allfather, I am approaching my ten thousandth year. My children will likely not see six. Ymir was my great grandfather as well. He was known as Ymir the Crafter, a Celestial gifted one of the Infinity Stones. With the Space Stone, he shaped Yggdrasil, connecting its branches to worlds across the cosmos. He was among the First Host to shape life on Midgard, and in other worlds as well. In the heart of the world tree, he used the stone and his own vast power to shape the first Asgardians-Buri, and his wife Adumbla, and others. From them came the race. And by Buri's hands, Ymir perished."
"In my world's mythos, Odin and his brothers slew Ymir."
"Odin would not be born for millions of years yet!" Freyr said with a bursting laugh. "This much we know to be true. For Ymir looked upon the results of his shaping and felt an emotion that no other Celestial had known. He felt love. He knew his creation would not last; his fellow Celestials would tear it down in time. And so he shaped the Space Stone into an artifact that would allow his son to wield it, and gifted it to Buri. He sacrificed himself so that Buri could create Asgard as the heart of Yggdrasil, to stand eternal guard over the Nine Realms. Buri did as his father bade and shaped Asgard itself from Ymir's fallen form, and it was by his orders that the first structures of Asgard were built."
He waved a hand over the mountains. "At our height, we of Asgard numbered in the many millions. But though we were shaped in mortal form and granted immense life, we did not breed like mortals. When Asgard's armies rose to fight the Dark Elves and save Ymir's creation, we lost a quarter of our race.
"Far worse was the Aesir-Vanir War. That war saw our numbers dwindle from millions to mere hundreds of thousands. By the time we were called upon to defend Midgard from the Jotuns, we were reduced to mere tens of thousands. Our numbers have never recovered. Asgard is empty because there are not enough Asgardians to fill it. Ragnorak comes, but I wonder if any will remain here to perish when it does."
Unsure what to say, Taylor chose to sit still as they left behind the glitter and gold of the main city and moved into an area that seemed wilder and more rugged than the rest. The ruins there were overgrown by thick vines and crowded with spruce and dark oak trees.
"Freyr, where are we going?"
"Nastrond."
The name rang in Taylor's mind. "Wasn't that the roots of Yggdrasil where unworthy souls rotted?"
"In Midgard myth, perhaps. Here, it is merely a region north of the palace."
Under his deft hand, the skiff began dropping down to a long, narrow valley nestled between massive, raw-looking mountains. A river ran down the center of the valley, barely visible through the trees. At the end of the valley, Taylor could see a relatively intact stone structure that looked ancient.
Rather than fly her to the structure, the skiff came down at the mouth of the valley, where the river spilled in a scintillating fall to a larger river below-one that fed to one of the many lakes that, in turn, flowed to the ocean on the edge of the world.
"My sister is wise. She foresees a time when your strength may save us all. And so we bring you here in the hopes that you can more effectively learn to harness it."
He motioned across the valley. "There waits one who could train you not just in the art of the sword, but in the mysteries of the Cosmos. None have been found worthy in centuries, so I cannot promise you anything. But if you wish to find your place in this Universe, then that is where you begin. But you must travel through the valley to reach him."
"Why?"
"Surely you, of all people, understand the meaning and value of sacrifice?"
Taylor's heart skipped a beat. "And what will I learn if I sacrifice?"
"You are a god bereft of your power, child. Perhaps, there, you will find a new power for yourself. Understand, though. If you say the word, I will take you back. The Allfather and my sister have granted you asylum. You could join other Asgardian children your age for a few more decades of education, and perhaps when you approach your first century you will be allowed to don the armament of a warrior. Only step off this skiff if you are prepared to follow the path before you."
The idea of being treated like a child for a century was more than Taylor could bear. She stepped off the flying boat without a moment's hesitation, then turned and watched as the Asgardian steered the craft back into the air.
"Fare thee well, Telos," Freyr called. "I pray we meet again."
~~Titanomachy~~
~~Titanomachy~~
From high above, the trees did not look so large. On the floor of the valley, their roots were like canyon walls. Taylor followed the narrow, winding path under the dark, gloomy forest floor between the massive roots. There was no undergrowth to speak of because so little light escaped the canopy above.
If not for the age and solidity of her surroundings, she might almost think she was on a movie set.
She didn't get very far until she came to a blind canyon of roots, the lowest of which rose forty feet above her. When she turned to try and find another path, she found her way blocked by three wolves.
Wolves the size of horses.
"You know, you're pretty scary looking," Taylor said. "But I've fought bigger."
With magic, and free flight. And a magical bow and arrow.
The wolves were not impressed. They spread apart, snarling and golden eyes gleaming with hunger. "Maybe I can't fly, but the wings still work," she warned them, shifting them to diamond.
The wolf to the left lunged forward, but she just knew it was a faint for the one on her right. She ignored the feint and slashed with her wing to her right. The massive wolf yelped as blood sprayed from his slashed snout.
The one on the left adjusted instantly, turning its feint into a full charge. Taylor spun away from the right one and stabbed with her left wing directly into the yawning jaws of the wolf. The lower jaw snapped up under her foot, while her left wing sliced easily up through the underside of its snout. The wounded animal raised its head with a howl and shook violently, tossing Taylor through the air like a rag doll.
Instinct more than anything led her to adjust her wings, catching the air of her passage enough to stabilize her fall. Her feet slammed against the upper edge of the root; the third wolf was charging at her. She pushed off with a flap of her wings. On her earth, it would have sent her blasting away at the speed of sound. Here, without magic, she moved only slightly faster than a mortal.
Still, the momentum tied with her innate strength was enough to slam her into the charging wolf. Its greater mass met her greater momentum and brought both to a standstill. She dropped to the ground, and with an angry shout kicked down as hard as she could against the stunned wolf's right foreleg.
The bone snap sounded like a cannon going off. The beast bit at her; she used her wings to flap backwards out of the lunging bite. The wolf did not follow. It yelped and whined as it limped backward with the badly broken leg. The other two wounded wolves flanked it, no longer growling with the wounds to their snouts. In the wild, such wounds would have been fatal.
They glared at her. "I'm sorry," she said, and to her surprise she meant it. "I know it was your nature. I'm sorry I wasn't powerful enough to give you a clean death, or heal your wounds."
Liquid gold eyes stared back at her before the three massive wolves turned and limped painfully away into the shadows of the forest. Taylor took a deep breath, and then grimaced at the wolf's blood splattered over her. She'd find a stream later. For now…
She turned and looked back at the massive tree root blocking her passage. Squatting down, she lifted her wings, and then with a powerful flap of those wings and thrust of her legs jumped as high as she could. It was not quite flying, but it was better than nothing. She easily cleared the forty-foot wall of ancient wood with ten feet to spare. A second flap sent her falling forward toward an elevated meadow where a few beams of sunlight fell on knee-high grass and a riotous rainbow of flowers.
On the far side of the meadow, a few massive goats grazed. They were not quite as large as the wolves, but definitely large enough that Taylor could believe they were used as draft animals. She wondered if Thor ever did have a chariot pulled by such animals like in the myths.
With a tired sigh, she began walking across the meadow as Freyr directed. The goats for the most part ignored her. As she grew closer, though, one began bleating. It sounded like a foghorn, it was so large.
A hand as wide as a volvo fell from the trees, grabbed one of the large goats, and lifted it bleating into the air. The trees were so large that the forty-foot tall monster did not overtop it, but it was enough to make Taylor step back in alarm as the monster ate half the massive goat in one bite.
Goat horns projected out from the massive forehead of the troll, while a thick beard the color of sandstone hung down to the middle of its massively furred chest. It wore what looked like a kilt fashioned from battered Asgardian shields around its waist.
Choosing the better part of discretion over valor, Taylor crouched down into the grass and started making her way to the far end of the meadow. The troll, though, spotted her. It reached back behind it and grabbed a massive stone slab lined in ancient, roughly hewn runes, and then marched toward her.
Taylor ran.
With a roar that shook the sky, the monster lifted the stone slab over its head. It was easily ten feet long and two feet thick. When it slammed it down, the ground shook as if being hit by a quake. Between one step and another, a shard of rock shot up out of the ground and hit Taylor right in the chest. The blow was so powerful it lifted her clean off her feet and sent her flailing back to the ground ten feet away.
She lay struggling to breathe; the ground shook with the troll's approaching footsteps. The fact that she hurt all over was an unwelcome novelty; that more than anything else she'd experienced confirmed the absence of her mother's protections. That also meant when the troll moved into her field of vision with his enchanted stone slab raised above his head, she knew if she did not move the monster could do her serious harm.
Using her left wing to propel herself, she rolled away just as the slab sank into the ground right where she'd just laid. She didn't have time to regain her feet when another spike of rock shot up right into her stomach. She cried out from the pain of it as it sent her once more flailing through the air.
Pushing through the pain, she flapped her wings to control her fall and landed on her feet. The troll spun around much faster than something the size of Behemoth should have been able to do, and began stalking toward her as fast as a human sprinter.
In her mind, she found herself tracing trajectories and relative speeds and knew she could not outrun him. Without a weapon, she couldn't even hurt the beast without sufficient leverage. The best she could do was hamper him.
The slab of stone came down. This time, Taylor bunched her feet close together. When the spike of rock shot up under her, she used the momentum to launch herself into the air. She flapped her wings twice to prolong her leap. The troll blinked and roared as it looked like she was heading right for his face.
He lifted the slab to block her, but instead she angled her wings to take her down faster. Landing in a rough, clumsy roll, she rushed between his massive, stinking feet and then with all her power slashed at his left Achilles heel with both wings.
Thick blood spurted out; the troll screamed, lifted the injured foot, and then tried to stomp on her. Taylor jumped clear and slashed at his other heel.
The troll answered by swinging his slab like a club. She tried jumping clear, but it was so big that she couldn't completely avoid it. The rock hit her in a numbing blow that sent her spinning wildly across the field.
She landed in a heap with ringing ears and gasping breath. Every muscle ached and she could feel bruises in places she never realize she had.
Slowly she climbed back to her feet, shaking tiredly as she did. The troll stared back at her with an angry glare, leaning on its massive stone slab. She waited for it to charge like the mindless beast it seemed to be. For the longest time, though, it just stood and stared at her. Finally, it moved, but not toward her. Instead, limping heavily from its cut heels, it turned away from her and began moving back toward the trees it came from.
Taylor sat back in the grass and took a deep, pained breath. The sitting turned into laying as she fell back and stared up at the impossible, sunless sky of Asgard. She never slept; nor closed her eyes longer than a blink. She just lay there feeling the many hurts first of her fight with the wolves, and then the troll.
After a quarter of an hour, she forced herself first to sit up, and then to stand. Her hardy nature was already wiping away her hurts. The earth felt hard and unforgiving under the heels of her boots as she began walking through the meadow.
Beyond, she found the river and began walking beside it. The water cut deep into the rock in some places; within she could see carp and salmon swimming. On the far bank she saw a black bear as large as a Chevy Bronco pawing salmon from the water. Unlike the wolves and trolls, it ignored her as she kept walking. It only wanted food, not a fight.
The upper valley felt much more like Sweden or Finland than the dark, twisted forest she passed through. Though the mountains rose majestically around her, the trees took on a more normal proportion. She saw more glades with thick grass and flowers, not to mention insects. There were no mosquitos, she was pleased to find, but the black flies tried and failed repeatedly to bite her. She flicked them away.
The light was fading from the sky when she reached the edge of an ancient ruin. Carved stone had been worn down by time until, in the fading light, she saw only the hint of shapes. The first signs of the ruin were stone pillars marking a path. There were steps, there, but the steps were bowed in the middle from the eons of feet that climbed them.
She followed those steps to an open courtyard framed on three sides by crumbling ruins. Behind the fourth side was a stone tower perhaps four levels high that looked intact and in mostly good repair.
A modest fire burned in the middle of the courtyard, framed by felled tree trunks as benches. As she approached, she saw a tripod set over the fire with a cauldron hanging in the flame. A single figure sat on one of the fallen tree trunks.
He was huge, larger than Freyr. Rather than armor, he wore wolf fur about his shoulders and as a kilt that hung down to his ankles. He had a head full of thick white hair and a beard even thicker.
"Come, child. Share my supper with me."
His words rang in her head like a gong, permeating through any other thought she might have had until the whole of her mind had no choice but to listen and hear.
Taylor walked cautiously toward the fire. She could smell the stew he was cooking-mutton, if she were to guess. She could also smell him. A deep, powerful masculine musk that reminded her of her father in a way. Not mortal, but rather it was the scent of a powerful and ancient god.
She reached the fire and sat. The ancient being stood and dipped a wooden bowl directly into the stew before handing it to her. He then took a large loaf of black bread, broke it in half, and handed half to her.
"Thank you," she said. She'd not eaten at all the whole day, and she had a hard time not just digging in. Only her uncertainty kept her from doing so.
He stared right at her with eyes the color of a cobalt sky, and used his bread to shovel stew into his mouth. With that blatant hint, Taylor clumsily did the same thing. The stew was just as good as that first meal she had she had with Freyr and his family.
They did not speak as they ate, and at his nod, she even had a second bowl. When the worst of the hunger was handled, she sat with the empty bowl in hand and studied her host. Though she could no longer see the truth of things, from her own eyes she saw a being of ancient days.
"Are you Njord?"
The ancient being sat for a long moment with such stillness he seemed almost to be a statue. His voice rumbled from a broad chest when he at last answered. "Njord was my son," the ancient god said. "A gentle soul-too gentle to lead a young kingdom. He took his followers to Vanaheim, and lived there in peace until his and Bor's children clashed in war. A dark day for all."
The bowl slipped from Taylor's fingers. "Buri," she whispered. "But...Asgardians don't live forever!"
"It has not been forever, so your statement is still true," Buri said, the hint of a wry smile behind his beard. It reminded her strikingly of Freyr. "I was the first of Asgard, child, but I am not Asgardian. I was shaped by the power of Ymir from the aether. I will remain as long as the flame of Asgard burns. And for now, I shall teach you, just as I taught my own children. As I taught Odin, and as I taught my precious little Freya."
He stood, standing easily a foot taller than her. He waved his hand and the first went out instantly. "Come, Telos of Midgard. I will show you your bed. Tomorrow, we begin our first lesson."
Tired from the long hard day, with a full stomach and the aches of two battles, Taylor could only follow and obey.
A/N: It should be obvious by now that I am melding several different pieces of lore into the background of my version of Asgard. It is an amalgamation of the comics, myth and movies in my humble attempt to try and make Asgard make sense.
