Well here I am again, able to post another chapter before moving again. Thanks a lot guys for the support and reviews, you are awesome, I know the fandom is going throught dificulties (we all miss Kidd and Law in the manga) but I'm happy to see people are still following this.
As always, for the anons:
CucuxumusuFan3:Woo thanks a lot for the support darling I'm happy you like my stories that much. About the norse mytology I'm sad to say it's not going to be about that. Maybe in Law's world, but when he is there I will focus in another things and miths and legends wont be so important. About the printed version of IgnisDraco I guess u can have one, but you will have to pay for the shipping to you country, since we printed it in another continent XD Sorry about that. Hope you like this chapter.
MonMon:stop with the norse mytology, its not that! XD In any case I hope you enjoy the new chapter and the meeting of our two loves.
"Before entering a place, look for its exit."
-Viking Proverb
Law quickly found himself lying down on the ground on a blanket of pure fluffy white snow. The sun was clearly rising in the pale sky announcing a new day, but still, the thick black clouds were covering the beauty of the dawn and plunging the world into a grey darkness.
Sitting on the strange cold white floor, Law blinked and looked around at the new, forbidden world where he had managed to get into and where he needed to find help.
It wasn't what he had expected.
The snow covered everything, white and bright, blowing among the huge mountains and cliffs of transparent ice that were in front of him and that seemed about to break over Law's head. The scenery was imposing. Wild and virgin nature. Even strange whimsical lights were illuminating the sky with purple and green shades under the dark looming clouds. However there was an element that seemed to be missing in this new world as it had been missing in the world Law had left behind.
Life.
There was no one, there was nothing. No animals, no plants, not even smoke rising from a distant chimney among the huge cliffs. Just nothing.
Law got up from the ground and looked back, waiting for just something more. The stone arch of Heimil's door where he had come from was still there. Tall and huge, the only colourless element in the foreign landscape of pure white and blues, but something had changed in it, it no longer shone, it no longer seemed to ooze magic or wait for Law to cross it. Now it just seemed dead. Law could even see through its arch the huge expanse of snow that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The silent cliffs in front. The white nothingness behind.
Had the door...confused his destiny? Was he in another world than the one he intended to reach? Was he lost? What was he going to do now? Law didn't even have food to endure another day, and at first sight this place didn't seem different from the swamp, where was he supposed to hunt here? And what had happened to the damn door?
"You shouldn't be here." a deep, powerful voice whispered behind him.
Law's instinct quickly turned on alert. His whole body seemed to react, the hair on the back of his neck bristled, his hand clenched the short rusty sword on his hip, and he unconsciously prepare to face the power that seemed to emanate from just the voice of the stranger.
A stranger that seconds ago had not been there.
Law turned slowly to face a colossus of a man. Unable to avoid it, he stepped back, trying to assimilate his mere ominous presence and feeling slightly irritated by the sheer size. Law had always been proud of his own height, but now, before this man, his pride seemed childish.
However, Law shut the irritation from his mind and focused on more important problems. Like where had this man come from? Law hadn't seen anyone before. Was he one of the gods? Has he magically appeared behind him?
Law was in their sacred world, he had been prepared to face the monsters living here, but this man just looked... normal. Yes, he was quite tall, with a musculature that would make any warrior -like Law for example- pale, and grit their teeth in envy, but besides that he looked normal to Law's eyes.
He had scarlet short hair that seemed to flow with an invisible air and curled between the snowflakes. He also had disturbing golden eyes like the wheat burned under the warn sun of summer, but otherwise he didn't look very different from Law himself. He was definitely a warrior, but he was wearing plain clothes, furs to ward off the cold, and strange boots made of a material that Law couldn't recognize. Law frowned again. Why should a god wear clothes so vulgar instead of the jewels and gold that would announce who he was? Was he human then? Fae? Yeah, probably Fae, Law concluded, there weren't humans in this world.
Except for Law.
Annoyed to find himself caught by surprise by one of the Fae, Law faced the other man completely, showing him a bit of arrogance but also relaxing his fingers over the hilt of the sword at his waist. Fae weren't a treat, not when he had an iron sword. However, Law was a hunter, a warrior and something like this, being caught by surprise, shouldn't have happened. He couldn't lower his guard now when he was so close to achieving his goal, he could not die on the verge of succeeding.
The stranger was also looking at him and for a long and intense moment they both stared in silence. Studying each other with an identical frown. Finally, the stranger's eyes seemed to fall on the hand Law still had over his sword, and on the guarded pose Law still maintained, and his eyes seemed to shine with amusement.
Law for some reason wanted to hit him then.
"Good morning Sir" Law said, ignoring the other's previous warning "I'm sorry to trespass but I'm desperately looking for Ms Kailerte, the famous weather goddess, do you happen to know where I could find her?" Law asked, trying to be polite and have normal conversation with the stranger he already hated.
The redheaded fae, however, instead of answering, just looked at him again from head to toe, and raised a sarcastic, contemptuous eyebrow. Law could even see a faint flame of annoyance glittering in his eyes that, for a moment, confused him.
"No one calls me that nowadays, and the truth is that no one has ever confused me with a damn stupid woman" said the fae, crossing his arms over his chest and exposing the huge muscles of his forearms.
With the gesture, the speckled fur coat also opened and Law noticed the heavy sword with the hilt made of red rubies that the other carried. It was such a huge sword that not a human Law knew would be able to lift it without help. It was a sword worthy belonging to a god.
To make matters worse, as the stranger turned, Law also noticed the huge bison that the other carried on his back as if returning from a hunt, hunting a damn bison at that and carrying it around as if it weighed nothing was the other's normal day.
He was a god. And male, definitely, and overwhelmingly male.
The silence filled the place for a moment as Law accepted the two new fact.
"You?" Law said at last, his voice sounded slightly...disappointed.
"What's with that tone?" the other replied clearly pissed and with a slightly sarcastic tone "Did you want a woman so badly?"
"No, it's not ... wait," Law replied, trying to defend himself but still slightly in shock by the revelation "It can not be, Kalierte is more ..."
"More what?" The stranger's eyes took on a dangerous, unnatural glow. "Full? Over her chest?"
Law simply forced himself to close his mouth. If he wanted to ask a favour to this godde- god! Insulting him on his face and continuing to anger him would not grant it. The fact that it wasn't like Law had imagined -that he was not even the same gender as the legends said- should not be a problem. Law was a survivor because he adapted, because he expected any surprise and changed the situation to his advantage. This was not going to be different.
"Nothing. Sorry. It wasn't my intention to offend you." Law quickly apologized forcing himself to smile meekly and to look like a weak and docile person.
Cheating was part of survival. The less enemies that considered him a threat and the more they relaxed in front of him, the more Law could gain from them.
However the god's reaction wasn't what Law was used to. The other frowned even more at his false smile, the one Law had managed to perfect until his friends could not distinguish the false from the true one. Instead of smiling back as his friends did and relaxing his guard, the god turned his back to him as if Law was nothing but a fly, as if he didn't have a sword and could attack him. No, the god just turned and looked at the huge cliffs of ice, giving Law his unprotected back.
Law frowned even more and gripped his sword again trying not to answer to the insult. He had done this before. This couldn't affect him anymore.
"What do you want mortal?" Said the redhead without looking at him anymore, sounding tired and bored.
Law was accustomed to his rivals and enemies ignoring him, many times it was what he intended, but this felt different. This didn't seem like the treatment that one person would gave to another he or she considered inferior, this was the treatment that a giant had with an ant. The other was not worried about Law's attack, the mere possibility of Law attacking or hurting him seemed too far off.
Law felt for the first time in years totally helpless before a colossus who could do whatever he wanted with him.
Law shook his head and bit the inside of his cheek, forcing himself not to think and to just do his duty. Law had people to save.
Having practiced the supplication a thousand times under the attentive eyes of his superiors, the brunet fell on his knees and placed an open hand on his chest in the pleading position that he had been instructed by the priests. Then, ordering the words in his mind and remembering the sad voice he had to put, he began.
"I come to implore you, oh mighty god that controls the sky and the sun, if you could stop the rain that threatens to destroy my village and my people." Perfect. Simple and clear. Law had even managed the hurt and affected tone for the first time. His superiors would weep at his brilliant performance.
"No"
"No?" Law raised his head -humbly bowed- without understanding. Had he done something wrong? Was he wrong in something?
"No." repeated the stranger sharply, without even turning around and looking at him, still contemplating the cliffs as if they held the answers of life.
"Why?" Demanded Law rising from the floor with his pride a bit broken at the refusal. He had got down on his knees. What else did the other want?
"Do you dare question the 'Oh mighty God who controls the sun and the stars'?"
The asshole was making fun of him. Law was fully convinced of it when the other turned around again to look at him with that arrogance on his face that was beginning to piss Law off more than necessary.
"Yes," he replied with hatred, letting his dangerous temper ruin the situation. Ok, time out. Law breathed. He had to regain control now!
The god however smiled for the first time in front of him, showing Law his white teeth in a predatory smile that would make maidens faint.
"I won't stop the rain because I do not want to do so." The other finally replied, folding his arms and smiling with satisfaction. As if seeing Law's suffering was the best thing that had happened to him today.
As if to have the absolute power over the situation and the life of so many men gave him pleasure.
A sadist. The god was a sadist. And a spoiled child apparently.
Law felt a tic begin to appear in his eye. Had he crossed the stinking swamp, the fucking mythological gate and everything for this idiot to say no? Law felt the fingers of his hand close around the hilt of his sword as if ready to dismember the other, but fortunately, he restrained himself at the last moment. He couldn't kill the man he needed a favour from, he could not rise against a god, it would be suicidal, heresy. And surely Law must wait first for the other to make the rain stop before he could kill him.
"Excuse me. What the fuck?" Law asked again, forcing himself to stop his murdering instincts and force another horrible smile on his face, but still not being quite able to eliminate the annoyance of his voice and the 'bad' words. But what could he say? He was just a human. A warrior. Patience wasn't his fort.
The other however rolled his eyes and ran a huge hand through the red hair that reached his cheeks in a gesture of boredom and annoyance. As if the fact that Law pressed on his answers only exasperated him.
"Oh come now, magic is not something as simple as you think, mortal" said the magnificent god without even looking into Law's eyes "I can't stop it just because you ask me"
Law felt the tic increase.
If this wasn't a lie, Law did not know what could be. The other simply didn't want to do it! Clutching the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white under the leather glove, Law forced himself to keep smiling. He had survived so far, his village, his people, everything, a stupid god was not going to be different.
"I can not go back to the village like this. You. Have. To stop it!" he ordered without consideration, politeness or respect between clenched teeth.
Because it was done. His patience had evaporated. Another stupid provocation and Law would slice his head off. God or mortal. He didn't care.
"Actually, it's not like you could go back to your village anyway," said the god with a shrug. "So, the answer is still no"
That stopped Law's fury for a moment, and again caused the alert in his mind. He couldn't go back? What?
"What?"
The asshole looked at him again with a look of surprise and concern, but in his eyes Law could see perfectly the satisfaction and victory. Like a man about to give the final blow.
"Oh, don't tell me you don't know? The door is closed, you can't go back" said the other with a devilish smile gesturing to the dead arc of magical stones behind Law "Seriously, don't you listen to the legends and stories? What do they teach you nowadays?"
Law simply couldn't help it.
"That Kaliete is a woman"
The stranger who had turned and started to walk towards the cliffs as if he had won, came to a halt, now clearly pissed not having expected the low blow. Law counted it as a victory. He was in another world. Trapped. But it was a victory.
"Again, what happened to the "oh mighty god" and you getting on your knees?" the assholes keep provoking from the distance.
"It was over when you lost your tits" without mercy, right in the injury where it hurt.
The other one laughed dangerously one last time and his laughter rang loud and warm, like the wind on a summer day. Law hated the sound with passion. But the god kept walking toward the cliffs. An all-powerful god with his huge prey on his back and not stopping to hear the supplication of a mortal.
"The door has closed, and no one knows when it will open again, it may be tomorrow, it may be in a thousand years." said the other, moving further toward the frozen colossus, "Have a good day." he shouted cheerfully, mocking Law's luck. Knowing that in the end it didn't matter what Law said or did, the victory was his.
Law was in a dilemma. He didn't know this world. The other seemed to have hunted something, but Law might not have the same fate. And he definitely could not hunt a bison with the weapons he had available. He could not survive in a place he knew nothing about. Not in a world covered with ice.
Swallowing his pride as he had learned to do, Law shouted at the other's huge back one last time in his best actor voice.
"... let me live with you until it reopens, oh mighty god" he asked, this time with the sneer subtle in his voice.
"No"
Law tried another approach.
"If you leave me here I will die" he said. Guilt many times could change anyone's decision, Law had learned to use it long ago.
"And the world would rejoice, and banquets will be celebrated and poets will sing about this magnificent day" shouted the other from afar.
Law stopped his performance and let the anger, rage and impotence for a situation he could not control and that would cost him his life, flood him.
"Why are you like this?!" He screamed with hate "You're a god! You are supposed to protect us!"
"What are you doing here in the land of gods?" The god's voice sounded loud and clear from the ice cliffs where the stranger had disappeared. Like a caress against the senses, as a whispered against his ear "Aren't you a mere human?"
Without being able to restrain himself, Law kicked the sacred stone gate that had brought him to this world of ice.
...oOo…
Law knew he was going to die, but his death was apparently coming much earlier than he had expected. As soon as the god had departed, a strange storm had broken loose in the place, plunging the world into dense darkness. Law didn't know if it was the god's doing or if this was simply a natural phenomenon, but the storm had been gaining intensity quickly until Law could not even see the ground he was walking on.
Without hesitation, the dark-haired boy had taken refuge among the high cliffs that seemed to form an icy labyrinth, but that had not helped. Moreover, among the fissures of the ice, the air gained strength, and Law now felt the snowflakes struck him like thousands of arrows and scratching against his skin.
Law had been prepared for the water when he had left the village, for rain, for the swamp toxicity, for days without sleep, but not for snow.
And if that wasn't enough, as soon as the stranger left, Law had finished consuming the last pieces of dried meat and hard bread in an attempt to regain strength. After all, if he was going to die, what better facing it with a full stomach? However, now, with the storm over him, the brunette felt his strength escaping in seconds in an attempt to keep the heat.
Law felt his fingers begin to numb from the cold, and for a while he had not been able to stop shivering despite having taken refuge between two huge, narrow ice rocks that had stopped the gusts of wind. The fatigue of the trip had finally taken its toll now that Law had reached its destination and the adrenaline, the need to survive and to reach his goal had vanished. Law felt his body run out, his mind falling asleep in what would be his last dream.
One thing was clear. Law would not survive tonight.
This was the end.
It was at that moment, at that precise moment when his body no longer responded, when he could not even move, that a new shadow appeared in the heavy snow that seemed to be able to bury his body.
The shadow quickly took the form of a kneeling man at his side. A man who took him in his arms lifting him off the floor as if he did not weigh a thing. The man then stepped outside, taking him out of his hiding and last refuge, to expose him to the horrible outside world. Law then waited for the avalanche of snow, the biting wind on his face, the cold that would end it all. However, with astonishment, Law discovered that the snow seemed to divide around the man without affecting him at all, as if to hurt him was the worst thing the snow could do.
"Foolish mortals," commented the stranger of red hair who seemed to float in the snow and in the strange ambience "you are fucking weak"
Law frowned. Law wanted to answer and defend himself, but he was soo tired that he could only fall asleep in the man's arms.
...oOo...
Kidd took the irreverent mortal in his arms as a mother takes his son, and as he had never done with anyone. Then, with steady steps, he entered the ice maze that was his world. The mortal should not be there, but the fact that he had managed to enter meant he had something to do here or the door had not let him pass. Even so, the fact that he was here was dangerous, to him and to Kidd, so the redhead took him down and down. Down the long stairway carved into the ice of one of the ice colossus, through the thick layer of ice that covered the world. Until it ceased to be ice and became something else.
His home.
Zoro was waiting for him at the entrance, his chest bare like his feet, the green haired man was only wearing his combat pants in the deep cold, probably having interrupted one of his training session to go meet him. He was frowning in disapproval, watching the mortal in his arms with distrust, but as Kidd approached he just moved from the door to let Kidd get inside without saying anything. It has been years since his friend had said something. Zoro had not smiled for an even longer time, taking refuge inside himself in a place where Kidd could not reach him.
They were friends. Almost family. They had the others back. Kidd will never leave Zoro and Zoro will never leave him. That's why, although the green haired man knew the stories, the laws, and understood what it could mean to them what Kidd was doing, he accompanied Kidd silently inside into the glass caves that formed his house.
This place had been described by mortals as the country of the whales, the kingdom below where Sedna, the daughter of the sea, lived. Another mistake of the mortals, Zoro also was not a woman. Even so, the kingdom of the green haired man was really beautiful, dark, calm and silent as the two god's needed, but beautiful. The palace, built of the purest crystal under the icy waters of the ocean, allowed the viewer to see all the unique fauna of that sea.
Zoro glanced again at the mortal Kidd carried while a huge humpback whale passed overhead. The huge creature contrasted with the small space of the corridor, and almost made them both look insignificant. Kidd looked at the thin lines that ran down the animal's back, which glowed with the strange light that all the creatures in this world had and which, this time, illuminated the two gods and the pale face of the mortal through the glass.
"Is he ill?" Murmured Zoro without the slightest expression on his face.
Kidd blinked. Trying hard not to react at the first words from his friend in centuries, trying to act as if it was normal. So Kidd just shook his head answering his question.
The mortal was not sick, they were just too weak. Fragile. He had not even endured the snow. His body was much thinner than other mortals Kidd had seen in the other world, his skin frozen, his clothes ragged, soaked and worn. The sword Kidd had seen him grab as if his life depended on it, was old and certainly not edged.
He was not important. He was not someone different. Why had the door let him in?
"Then why is he ... like this? He can't be so weak, the others are not so weak" continued Kidd's friend, speaking again for the first time in a long time, causing Kidd to shudder at the sound of his friend's dead voice.
"I think there was a mistake," Kidd said, because why would someone like this be sent to them? How useful was someone so weak?
"The door does not make mistakes," continued Zoro, pausing in front of the opaque amber door of one of the rooms of the palace.
Kidd just shrugged and, entering the room, threw the human on the bed with roughness. Then he put one of the heavy sealskin covers above him as he had seen mortals do to keep the heat. The boy's clothes were still wet, but Kidd was not going to strip the other. The human would not die for from wet clothes. Kidd could already feel him slowly recovering his strength as they spoke, now he breathed easier, now he felt warmer, but even then, it would take him a long time to regain consciousness.
Useless.
Kidd walked out of the room without looking back, not wasting another second of his precious time with the boy. Accepting a mortal in his house could cost him his life, the laws were clear, but he would not let him die outside like that. The words of the other continued rumbling in his head "Aren't you a god? Shouldn't you protect us?" Kidd frowned irritably. He was a god, but not the kind of god the other believed he was, yet he still had principles and a pride to keep.
"Are you going to send him back to his world?" Zoro asked, seriously watching Kidd leave the room and closing it behind him.
"When the door opens" he answered.
"What about the favor he asked for?" Said the other, clearly having seen the meeting between them. Being a god had its advantages after all. Both of them could physically be in one place, but their soul and mind could be far, so far away that it reached another world.
"... You know it's not so easy," Kidd said without looking into his friend's eyes.
"No," whispered Zoro at his back, pushing himself of the wall and beginning to walk along the rough glass corridor to the room where he used to spend the hours in solitude. "It's never easy"
Zoro had his own problems. As Kidd. Both dangerous and deadly. The world of the gods was an idyllic place for mortals. The paradise, the sky, the place to die for. Little did they know about reality, about the battles, about the suffering that could last for generations. The mortals who came to this world never survived, could never return.
But perhaps it was better this way, maybe it was better to give hope to a few, sometimes it was all that remained. Maybe it was better for someone to remember them with admiration and the respect they had lost.
Turning, Kidd walked away from the room that now belonged to the boy from the other world and went to his own at the end of the glass corridor to continue trying something impossible.
While on the outside of his home it was still snowing, while in the mortal world it was still raining, and while Kidd still found no solution to his problem.
...oOo...
He has been centuries waiting. Years, months, days counting the seconds until he could have his chance. But he had finally got it. At last they had made a mistake, had broken one of the capital rules and brought misfortune to their own. This time they would not be forgiven. Not a second time. In the end, he could make them fall, usurp their place and take the post that belonged to him by right.
At last he could take revenge on them.
The young god licked his mouth, thinking how he would make them plead, how perfect it would feel to see them beg for their lives. But he still could not rush. The god had learned from his mistakes and would not fall a second time, this time he would be the one who would laugh the last and would have the power.
So he would wait. For the right moment, for the moment when the blow would end them and hurt the most. He had to study them first. First, he should understand their weak point.
Enel had been patient. He had survived and stayed in the shadows ... he could wait a little longer.
So as you might see, it is not norse mytology, I know we all love it, but I don't know a lot about it while people do and I don't feel confident with it, and I don't wanna cause drama, so it will be Skimo Myths that no one knows about!
Kidd is Qailertetang (I changed and shortened the name cos is already hard to write as it is XD) the goddess of the natural phenomena and animals. Zoro is Sedna one of the most important godess of the Inuit mitology, she had a lot of legends about her and it's kind of interesting XD
In any case, thanks a lot for the support guys, love you.