This fanfiction is a short story I wrote down after playing GOW. This is loosely inspired by it but will be somewhat based on the actual Norse Mythology and just fairytales in general.
Author Notes: The AD chapters are delayed due to editing issues and personal life issues, but they will be uploaded in mid-December and early January.
Prologue
Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman who lived deep in the woods. The woman desired many children, but could not bear them. After leagues of time passed, the married couple came to believe that the Gods would never fulfill their wish and ceased thoughts of children.
The husband went off to the woods to hunt deer for seven nights, leaving the wife alone at home. It was the middle of winter when the snowflakes were falling like stones from the weeping sky when the wife was looking out the window. She saw a man cloaked in golden and green wandering through the brutal snowfall and pitied him.
The wife opened the window and shouted out to the man. "Sir, if you can hear me, please come inside. You are welcome to stay here until the snow stops.''
She allowed the man inside and served him wine and bread, and in return, the man gave her an apple that was red as blood and had a golden stem. It looked so fresh and blood-red that she devoured it madly and longed for more.
"Thank you so much for this splendid treat. Where did you get it from?"
The man grinned. "These crimson apples came from a tree as white as bone, within the garden of the one that resides beside your home."
He was correct.
Through the small rear window of these people's houses, they could see into a splendid garden that was filled with the most beautiful flowers and herbs and trees. The garden was surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared enter, because it belonged to a witch who possessed great power and was feared by everyone.
"If you wish to bear children, eat some, and you will bear many. These apples bless those who eat them with fertility and vitality." The man said suddenly.
"How are you aware of this?" The woman asked.
"Because I am a man of knowledge, dear." The man answered. "Trust my words, and you shall attain your greatest desire."
Seven nights later, the snowfall stopped and the man left. The husband returned home to find his wife standing by the window, staring at the witch's garden and at the white tree filled with the most lovely apples. It was her greatest desire to eat some of the apples. This desire increased with every day, and not knowing how to get any, she became miserably ill.
Her husband was frightened, and asked her, "What ails you, my wife?"
"We need those apples," she answered, "if I do not get some apples from the garden behind our house, I shall die."
When the wife saw that her husband looked uncertain, she said. "Please. I need those apples. Ever since that man showed me the apples from our window, a great longing has come over me."
The husband, who loved her dearly, vowed to her, "I will get them for you. I will get you some of the apples, whatever the cost."
So just as it was getting dark he climbed over the high wall into the witch's garden, hastily grabbed up a handful of apples, and took it to his wife. She immediately made a feast from it, which she devoured eagerly. It tasted so very good to her that by the next day her desire for more had grown threefold.
Soon the wife came with child and she kept longing for more.
If she were to have any peace, the man would have to climb into the garden once again. Thus he set forth once again just as it was getting dark. But no sooner had he climbed over the wall and collected the two remaining apples, to his horror, the witch discovered him at the wall.
"How can you dare," she said angrily, "to climb into my garden and like a thief to steal my apples? Those apples give my tree life, and now it is dying. The precious apples that I have been growing for sixteen years! You will pay for this."
"I did no wrong." The husband said, "This is a matter of necessity for me to do this. My wife saw your apples from our window, and she was so enthralled by them that she would die if she didn't eat some."
The witch's anger abated somewhat and she said. "I still do not permit you to take my belongings. However, if you wish for my forgiveness, then seek the cherished apples of Idunn throughout the nine realms, and plant another tree for me. Then I will forgive your sin."
The husband's pride was unwavering. "I will not, you foolish woman. I do not seek your forgiveness. Do your peculiar eyes not see what I am? I am neither a god nor a demigod. I am mortal as well as my wife and child. I have no agility to waste on your ridiculous request. Let me take these apples one last time and I will never return."
"You may not have the apples, return them at once," said the witch. "If you do not, terrible misfortune will befall you and your kin."
In a blind rage, the husband pulled out his hunting dagger, and stabbed the witch twice in the throat, and once in the heart.
As the witch lay dying on the ground, she cursed the man standing over her. "Your dear wife will bear many children for the next sixteen winters, but none of them will surpass their sixteen years."
The husband ignored her words, climbed over the wall, and fled home.
When the husband returned to his wife, he fed her the apples and chose to speak nothing of the curse.
Not long after the wife gave birth to their first child, she became ill with a blood sickness.
Nevertheless, the husband still said nothing of the curse as the couple went on to sire six sons and five daughters until the day that the wife's throat drowned with blood and her heart fell silent.
Over time, each child grew weak and sick, and upon reaching their sixteenth birthday, they died of the same illness as their mother. In spite of this, the husband still did not reveal the curse to his ever-shrinking family.
Instead after each death, the husband would travel far and wide, searching for answers to remove the curse to no avail.
It was only when the husband fell bedridden and dying that he finally disclosed to his two remaining children the truth.
On his deathbed, he summoned his oldest surviving child to his bedside. "Listen carefully to my last words, my sons. Heed them with utmost urgency. You have been cursed even before you were even born due to my deeds in the past by a witch that is long gone from this world. She laid on a terrible curse that fate you to live short lives full of affliction and misery. Two years remain in your life, and seven years remain in the life of your sister. I have left behind a journal that may have the answers you seek. Please, once you are ready, travel and seek the removal."
Then he left the world.
The next chapter will follow up in late December to January.