It was all the same, except for a thick layer of dust over the unfinished paintings. Laufey set the two blades onto the cold, familiar ground and felt her body beginning to shiver. Jotenhime's mountainous cold weather penetrating her exposed skin through the foreign dress.
She held her hands out and summoned her wooden falcons. They screamed out in a flurry and flew around the cave several times before disintegrating into moss and pine needles. There was some comfort her runic magic had returned, but an unusual emptiness had suddenly opened up in her thoughts. Quickly, Laufey gathered the remains of her falcons along with some sticks and prepared a fire pit to help shake off this bitter cold seeping into her heart.
The jingling sound of the blades being picked up by someone disturbed her. Laufey spun around suddenly only to see the goddess, looking more stone than transparent from her usual appearance. Irritated, Laufey twisted her head back to the fire coldly.
"Our contract is over. Why are you still here?"
"Did you take what you needed in my lands?" The goddess says.
"Yeah, thanks for the dress. It'll serve me well in my solitude. Keep me nice and warm at night." Laufey says bitterly.
"Are you pregnant?"
Laufey turns to face her. "Excuse me?"
"The god you gave your axe too in exchange for the blades, the father of your people's chosen one. You didn't make a child with him. Why?" The goddess questioned.
Laufey stood up, "what god? Those blades attacked me!" She said pointing to them.
The goddess smiles while holding the blades by their chains.
"Curious, your son will never be born. I suppose that would make many things easier in some aspects." Her glowing eyes flicker several times. "Sadly, it is too big of an alteration and would cause too heavy a disruption in my plans. No, I'm afraid he must exist."
Laufey storms over to her. "What plans? What are you talking about? Who are you talking about? Stop involving me in whatever it is you're doing! Just leave me alone! Please!" She shouts, waving her arms furiously.
"He touched you yet here you stand, he didn't kill you. Truly you must have felt a connection with him? Or did he feel it first I wonder?" The goddess chuckled astonishingly, almost as if she was talking to herself. "That man who dressed you like that, who gave you those wounds still healing on your skin. He is, and he has always has been the father of your destined son."
Laufey suddenly dropped her arms to her side.
"You were right, you do struggle with comprehending everything presented to you. But it isn't too late, time flows differently between these worlds. I wonder how long he has been traveling? That demigod will be excommunicated for his atrocities in that land. Rage will drive him insane in his isolation. It won't be long until he arrives here, longing for the space between your legs to soothe him."
"Demigod?" Laufey says quietly. "He was the god you wanted me to kill? The one who killed his own family?"
The goddess nods her head. "You saw that land in chaos. I'm afraid that was his own doing. He has wrought death and destruction to everything he touches. I had hoped you could destroy him before he spread such chaos to other lands."
"I couldn't possibly kill him, even if I wanted to, he is too strong," Laufey says.
"He shows no mercy when he fights, I'm sure if, given the opportunity, he would kill you like the monster he truly is."
Laufey kept quiet. The goddess was wrong, he had the opportunity to let her die multiple times, but he didn't. Was this an error in the goddess' judgment, or was something bigger at hand here?
"But," the goddess says. "If you include him in your prophecy, we could make him the sacrifice to revive your people. The sisters of fate in my world have been destroyed by his own hands. But perhaps this realm is under a different jurisdiction? If he became intertwined in your prophecies, he would be powerless to prevent the inevitable sickness that befalls the parent of your son."
Laufey walked over to the goddess. She took one of the blades from her. "Even though he is a god, the burning fever will overcome him and his ashes would still bring my family back?" She questions, looking at the blades. "The parent of Loki." Laufey recites the prophecy as she looks at her reflection in the steel.
The goddess smiles as she hands her the second blade. She lifts her hands and a green glow emitted from them. All the murals of Loki traveling disappears off the walls.
"It would seem our contract isn't over yet?"
Laufey takes the other blade in her hand. "How will he find me? This world is cut off from the others. I'm trapped here."
"Never underestimate him. I learned this the hard way."
Her eyes flicker several times. "If you'll excuse me. I must tend to... Matters, in my own time."
"Wait what do I do?" Laufey shouts, but suddenly the goddess was gone.
Laufey walks over to the now empty walls. She bends down and picks one of the dusty chisel tips up. She begins chiseling something into them.
That night she struggled to get to sleep. The cold had proved too intense and she didn't have the proper attire to battle the chill. When she did manage to doze off she dreamed of the man. A god who killed his own family, he stood over bodies of people drenched in blood. His face looked the same as it did when he fought her. The white and red god grabbed her arm violently as he did with all the others he had just slaughtered, but instead of killing her, he gently readjusted one of the seashell pins that had come lose on her dress.
The next morning she went back to the wall and began to carve out the image of the white and red man, and their son.
Loki was holding his dead body while the essence of him flying into the sky to rebirth the giants. Next, she began to paint her son traveling along with Fenrir and his pack to kill Odin.
"I'm not sure that dress is very appropriate for this climate." A man says.
She drops the chisel and turns around. An old man with a tall hat and long curled beard. His face was jolly and plump with rosy cheeks. "Though I suppose you were just there not too long ago. 'When in Rome' I guess! Wait- that's right, you'll have to excuse me I get those two mixed up all the time."
She rubs her eyes. It couldn't be him. He was dead.
"Tyr?"
He lifts his tall hat and bows extravagantly.
"The beautiful Laufey. My lady, it's a pleasure. Truly. You have no clue how happy I am that the time has come for our paths to at last cross." He puts his hat back on and strokes his beard. "The mother of Ragnarok itself. That must have been quite a hard title to walk around with your entire life." He grins while looking her up and down.
"Though like many things, I'm sure you wear it beautifully."
"This isn't possible, you're dead." She says.
"I am? Ah, the magic of temporal magic. I don't recommend you start playing with it. It'll cause all sorts of disarray, just look at old Njord!" Laufey balls up her fist. "You've been around, this entire time... and you never appeared to us? Not once?!" Her fists begin to shake. "Even in our darkest hour. You didn't even attempt to help us?"
The ornate man stands before her silently.
"You were the reason behind all our suffering. You were the one who convinced us Mjolnir would be fine in his hands. You stood by while he slaughtered us. You...-"
He places a hand onto her head. "Child, we all make mistakes. Some of us hold more horrendous ones it's true. Every child has a hero whose deeds define them as monsters." He starts to move his hands over the top of her head. As if to pet her. "True heroes choose to spend their remaining time rectifying those mistakes." He moves his hand down to cup her cheek. "And the truly amazing among us help them through their retribution."
She looks up to the man. "I don't understand."
He moves his hands from her cheek to lift her chin upwards and winks. "Isn't it exciting?"
"I see you've started without me. Wait, this part isn't right." He removes his hand and points to her etching. "Here, let me help you." He lifts both arms and snaps his fingers. The entire cavern begins to tremble. Her newly painted scene cracks and chunks chip away as the cave shook. A yellow spark cascades throughout the walls. He begins to write the story of her son.
The real story.
Laufey sees the white and red man fighting alongside him. Their encounter with Freya, their meeting with the world serpent. She lifts her eyes to the top to watch them sail in the skies of Hel. Then she sees herself, standing with the elders in her golden dress. Holding the Leviathan. She smiles. "You got the dress right. Will I truly see them again?"
He moved closer to her and places a hand on her back firmly. Then he guided her to another wall. "I must apologize for the lapse in the timeline. The way you look in your dress while holding that axe, it was just too beautiful to leave out."
She sees a pile of logs with a golden body laying on top of it. It was her, at that moment Laufey saw her fate. She wraps her arms around herself. Then brings her hands to cover her mouth silently. Tyr leans into her ear and smiles brightly at her while pointing to her dead self.
"My sweet girl. Don't you see? You are the key to their salvation. Every aspect of your existence is my retribution to the giants. Not just what you leave behind for the next generation. That's why I made you."
She looks back up to the golden body over the logs trembling. "Made me? Am I a god?" Tyr chuckles. "No child, that you are not. You are and always will be a jotunn. A special one at that. Just as your ancestors were created from Ymir's pit, I studied this technique and plucked you from my own. You are not my child, but you are still my creation."
"Did my brother know? Was he even truly my brother?" She placed a hand on her heart. "He was indeed your brother, made the same as you, to act as your protector in my absence."
Laufey clenched handfuls of her dress in her hands. "Was the goddess in on all this?"
He scrunches his eyebrows. "Goddess?"
"The woman who brought me to a different realm. Who gave me those blades. Who told me to kill the white and red man."
"Athena..." he hums under his breath. "Athena?" She asks.
"She is testing my patience once again. She has a habit of meddling in the affairs of your in-laws and their descendants. You didn't give her sweet Helen of Troy, did you?" He says with a questionable face. "What? A child appeared and she told me she would return her to her home."
Tyr sighs as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suppose you may have inherited the way you treat the spouses of your grandchildren from me. Well, I guess I have to make another pit stop." He lowers his hand and winks. "Maybe I'll pay the old man a visit? I can't wait to see how cheerful he is as an old grey man. Even at his decrepit age, I bet he is giving your sister in law a run for her money."
Laufey looks away. She wasn't truly paying attention to him. Her fate still sinking into her mind. A wave of disparity, fear, and hope clash within her mind.
"Seeing as I am now double booked. I'm afraid I must expedite our appointment. I had planned on having you paint a few more things in my temple... but I suppose I will have to do that myself. I forgot. Where is the realm tower around here?"
Laufey looks at him questionably. "You destroyed it?"
"Oh, that's right! That old illusion is still up and running? Well shit, that worked a lot longer than I figured it would. Then again Odin always was an idiot. Come!"
He extends his hand. "Gather your things and follow me. Let's go out the back door. Mimir is probably sleeping right now. If not we can always say hello and simply chop his head off." He laughs.
They exit the back of the cave and walk up the mountain. Laufey stands in front of a small cliff she had to climb. "You forgot a spot on your journey." He says pointing to the small edge. His hand glows yellow and he presses it into her palms. Drenching her hand in golden paint. "Your boy will have had traveled for quite a while before he gets up here. He will have much he wished he could have told you at this point." Laufey closes her eyes and pictures the young boy from the cabin. His blue eyes and round head. A smile creeps onto her face when she remembered how he demanded she smiles for him. "You should leave him one final message Laufey."
She gently presses her hand into the wall. "You can finish this." She whispers.
"Now then. Don't squander any of that paint on your hands! Off we go!" He scooped her up and flies over top the cave, across the stone bridge, and down to the broken portal her brother had destroyed.
Sure enough, the adviser was sleeping when they came through. "Hah! Robin Goodfellow down for his afternoon nap!" Tyr shouts. Then quickly covered his mouth and begins whispering. "Told ya. Now, Let's get you someplace safe. Think of a place that makes you happy."
He snaps his fingers and they appear in a forest. Freya's forest. "Ah, a bit reckless. But it makes sense I suppose." Laufey shuffled around still trying to catch up. Her bag and the two blades appear at her feet. "Now, Let's get that barrier up and going. Then I must take my leave. You'll take over from here?"
After placing her handprint onto the final tree she looks over to Tyr. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver trinket. It was a miniature world serpent. "I'm about to go talk to the little guy. I'll tell him granny says hello."
"What is that?" Laufey asks.
"Oh, this! It'll clip onto your back and hold your axe. Freeing up your hands for more important things." He says with a smile. "I left the Leviathan in a different world," Laufey says.
Tyr chuckles through his thick beard. "It'll always return to you if you recall it."
He leans down and hands her the silver ring, then kisses her forehead. Tyr disappeared, leaving her all alone in the forest.
Laufey reaches her hands out and attempts to recall the Leviathan.