Rising flames and plumes of ash trail across the sky, turning the vastness of the night sky into a choking shroud of red and gray haze. The stench of sulfur and blood waft in the air intermingling with the wails of the hopeless and the dying. The World Tree stands against the horizon, branches grasping out towards the heavens, like it yearns for a salvation that will not come. The space in between the overlapping branches is not to open sky, but instead are viewing portals into all the Nine Realms. Scenes of chaos, bloodshed, and death are mirrored over and over again among the branches, repeating in endless fractals of complete destruction and desolation that have ravished all worlds.
An armored figure emerges across from the tree amongst a field of corpses, looming as a blackened and featureless silhouette backlit by the glow of fire and smoke. He once was a man. Now he is twisted and grotesque, muscles rippling across his body in the form of a monster. He raises a set of dual blades overhead, wielding them against the night sky, one blade dragging a pile of entrails still attached to one of the hewn figures lying on the ground.
With that final solute to a bloody sky, his work is complete. There are no more living creatures left in all of the Nine Realms. All have fallen to his blades. There is nothing left across the blackened lands. There is only the Destroyer.
Faye awakened with a gasp and stifled a scream. By instinct she summoned her axe to her hand. The feel of the wood was familiar, safe, and brought her back to her senses.
Her husband awakened beside her. He grunted and took up his own spear lying by their small fire. For a brief moment, he resembled the Destroyer from her dreams, a hulking figure cast in deep shadow against a soft glow of dancing firelight, visions of the future intermingling with those of the present. Then the illusion broke. The air was clear and cold, and smelled of soil and pine needles, not death.
Faye dropped her axe back to the ground, and lay her hand on her husband's spear arm.
"Bad dream," she said, squeezing his arm. "All is well. Sleep."
"No," Kratos growled, rolling up to a crouch. He scanned the boundaries of firelight encircling their small camp. "You are not easily frightened. You sense danger nearby, even if you cannot say what. We should move on."
"Very well," she said, although she knew he would find nothing lurking around the perimeter of the forest; the danger she sensed came not from outside their camp, but from within. She tried to shake off the dread she felt looking at him.
They packed up their camp within minutes. Faye carried a rucksack that she used for a light bedroll, oiled game bags, a rain cloak, two hunting knives, and the kettle and cups she used for tea. She could tolerate a life of exile living in the isolated and dangerous Wildwoods of Midgard with none of the luxuries of her previous life, but she would be damned if she could not indulge in endless cups of herbal tea. Just because she was in hiding did not mean she had to be a savage.
Her husband, on the other hand, carried no bedroll, opting instead to sleep bare-chested directly on the ground in all weather, plopping down to sleep on whatever rocks or sticks just so happened to be there. He carried no rucksack, nor satchel, or even pockets, yet still managed to carry a few useful odds and ends. Three decades of living with or near the man, and Faye had still not deduced exactly where he kept everything that he carried.
The sun was still far beneath the horizon as they set off, but the stars were blinking out with the approaching dawn. They jogged together through the blackness, falling into a matched rhythm of step and breath that ate through miles and miles of rolling taiga. As they ran, the sharp smell of pine and distant rain was spoiled by scents of nearby dangers. Trolls, Daugr, Vargr, ghouls, and common thieves. Although Kratos and Faye did not fear these creatures, they chose to weave in between them, switching between ridgeline and valley, trail and thick forest, as it suited them, avoiding enemies like dance partners crossing together through a crowd.
As the first light of morning broke through the tree tops they arrived at the confluence of several small mountain streams joining up to form the river that passed by their house. Faye hiked up her dress to her waist, took off her boots, then waded into one of the smaller streams forming the mouth of the river. She closed her eyes and let the water churn around her. The stream she now stood in was the outlet for the Lake of Nine, which was nested further back in the mountains high above them, and carried the mysteries and secrets that could some day free the last of the remaining Jotnar. These were sacred waters to her, one of the few places left where she could feel like her former self again: Laufey, warrior and commander in the last battle of her people against Odin.
Too bad that had all gone to shit. Her time as general was short lived, disastrous even, and all she had was a pile of dead friends to show for it.
Kratos, of course, knew nothing of it. He never asked, and she never told him.
"I will take the Northern rim," she said, tying her hair up into a braid, and shaking herself back to the present. "Once I am back to the lowlands, I will go searching for Glowcrest mushrooms. They are hard to find. I might be late." The sun had only just risen, and she had already lied to him twice. What a good wife she was.
"Hmph," Kratos grunted in acknowledgement.
"Try not to take any game further down-land from here. I do not want us to over-hunt the area by our house too close to winter."
"Hmph," Kratos grunted in full agreement. Her husband was so articulate!
She walked up to him and they slipped their arms easily around each other's waists, a gesture perfected by decades of practice. They pressed their foreheads together and shared puffs of breath in the morning chill, drinking in each other's scent and feel.
"I will see you soon," she said.
They parted ways, Kratos swinging towards the south rim, and she to the north, bringing her up on the foothills of The Mountain and closer to the Lake of Nine. They would travel along parallel paths on a journey back to their home, thinning dangers along the way and taking a final supply of autumn game before winter set in. Or rather, that was the story she told Kratos. Like most things she told him, it was partially true, but had some very, very important omissions.
Faye slogged her way up the scree slopes of the foothills and, once she was sure Kratos could no longer see her, she took a diversion. Instead of heading towards the lower rim, as she said, she ducked into a cleft that continued up the path towards the mountain, following the lake outlet. She scrambled up the steep, rocky path of granite, alpine grass, and running water.
There, in a deeper cleft set back in the rocks, was a handprint shimmering with gold paint. It was the marker she had used to help find her own way back to this sanctuary, and she hoped, some day, it might mark the way for her allies when the time came to reopen the gates of Jötunheim. To anyone else, the handprint would be a slight smudge on the wall; to her allies, the handprint would shimmer with gold light both day and night.
She passed through the cleft, and ducked out of sunlight and into a hidden grotto tucked within the side of the rock. There, in the center of a shaft of sunlight, stood a Jotnar shrine. The shrine was simple. Just a series of stone pillars, crumbling in ruin. The runes marked on the side read: "When the wind whispers at dawn, the hidden doorway is revealed and drawn."
Whatever exactly that meant.
Knowing her kind, it was either a riddle designed to guide the way further up The Mountain and it revealed a hidden passage, or the artist who made just thought it sounded romantic and mysterious. Perhaps Faye had crafted this very shrine herself. She knew she had helped build something important here in Midgard, something by the Lake of Nine, that would allow the doorway of Jötunheim to open once again and light a way for the scattered remnants of her people to return home. She remembered that she had worked with Tyr to build a path that the long-awaited hero Loki would take to Ragnorok, the only path that could break the stranglehold of Odin's tyranny.
Pity she did not remember exactly what she built. Or precisely where it was. Or how it worked. Hopefully it was very clever and impressive.
Centuries ago, when she built some or all of this, she had been someone else. Laufey. Warrior, philosopher, builder, and prophet. She was blessed with visions of the future so that she could become an architect of fate, and weave together strands of destiny to fulfill an ancient prophesy that would bring her people to rise again. The gift did not come without a price. Visions of the future could overwhelm the mind, causing someone to lose all grasp on sanity, reality, a sense of self as all the conflicting threads of possible pasts and futures all collided together at once. When she had been Laufey, she had access to her people, to their counsel and wisdom, to their tomes of knowledge, to help keep all the entwined paths of reality and possibility separated from one another.
When she chose to stay in Midgard, alone, she was severed from that connection. Now, she was only Faye. She had still saw visions of the future, but they easily mixed and blended with her own ordinary fears, worries, hopes, and imagination in a confusing fever dream.
Fear not, last of the Jotnar, she thought. I, Laufey, am still your champion. I will bear your savior, Loki, into this world and I will guide him along the path to fulfill his destiny of starting Ragnorok and breaking the tyranny of the Aesir. Oh, and I should mention, I failed miserably in my last mission, and I do not actually know how to do any of those things.
She sighed and flopped down in front of the shrine, pulling out her kettle, cups, an oilskin pouch of dried herbs, and a mortar and pestle. What she said to her husband about needing to take extra time to find Glowcrest mushrooms had been a lie. Those were relatively easy to find, and it would not take her long at all. She needed the extra time to brew the most vile concoction to ever pass her lips: the elixir that she needed to prolong her life.
The spell could only be completed successfully within the confines of a Jotnar shrine. This one was small, the ventilation the bare minimum needed, but it had worked alright for the past few decades. Faye set out her materials before the shrine, muttered a blessing over them, and left a burning stick of incense to cleanse and purify the air.
While the burning incense purified and prepared the shrine, Faye left the grotto to conduct a different type of purification ritual. She scouted around the surrounding slopes, and killed a half dozen or so Draugr that were shuffling around the area. She could not have them mucking about while she was working. She collected more firewood. There was little to be had along this slope, but she did not need much, and greenwood cut from living shrubs was acceptable.
This chore done, she holed herself back up inside the shrine and began the ritual. In her final battle against Odin's armies, a spearman had stabbed her through the chest. She had killed him, pulled the blade from her body with a scream, and waited the agonizing minutes it took to heal. A piece of the spear, though, had been left behind. It was a tiny sliver of the blade, just a fragment, but it had a life of its own. Every day, that sliver of metal chipped off the edge of the spear tried to kill her. Every day, she kept it at bay using a combination of meditation, focus, healing songs and, most unfortunately, a rancid mixture of enchanted herbs that helped suppress the magical force driving the blade deeper and deeper into her chest. She could hold it off for a long time, centuries perhaps, but eventually it was going to pierce through her heart and kill her instantly.
Actually, she thought it was more likely to sever her aorta, but that did not sound nearly as poetic as stabbing her through the heart.
Brewing the elixir took all afternoon, lots of singing, and lots of acrid smoke that gave her a piercing headache. By the time it was ready, it had the smell, consistency, and color of blackened tar. Even worse than brewing the awful mixture was needing to drink it. Fortunately, she only needed to do this particular task once every few months. She could put off drinking it for a few more days without harm, although longer than that would start to be a problem. The shard was twitching in her body, coming awake, and would gain ground towards killing her if she let it.
She bottled the elixir and headed up towards the ridgeline as dusk fell, stopping to make camp in a saddle along the ridgeline. Although they were separated by miles of wilderness, she could sense her husband making the same journey in parallel across the valley from her. Maybe he was setting up his own camp on the saddle directly across from her own, looking back and wondering about her. The thought made her smile. Two souls, together and apart at the same time, walking together and staring off in the same direction. Even though he knew nothing of her past and burdens, it made her feel less lonely and isolated to know he was out there on the other side of the valley. Laufey and Kratos, kindred spirits who buried the pain of past heartbreaks and deep failures by immersing themselves in a simple life on the wild frontier, flirting with just enough hardship and danger to keep themselves busy, and letting the world disintegrate into ruin around them.
How romantic. How long could they really stay in this dream, this sanctuary?
The next morning Faye swept the slopes and apex of the ridgeline, killing every Draugr she saw on sight, and growling a few words of warning to a Direwolf bitch that stalked her for a short distance. Around noon she killed a bear that was too thin to survive the coming winter, aiming to make use of its hide and whatever fat she could render from it. It was too floppy and large for her to carry, so she dragged it behind her on a travois of branches.
As afternoon faded into evening, she reached the boundaries of her own woods. Faye cached the bear carcass under a dense pile of pine boughs to keep off the worst of the oncoming rain. The sky darkened with the coming night, and the rain clouds rolling through the sky spoke of a night filled with pouring autumn rain. Best be on with harvesting those Glowcrest mushrooms quickly, or wind up soaked.
Faye found a familiar seasonal creek, already swelling with rain from the higher elevations. She followed the creek downstream until she found another familiar landmark: a round, smooth boulder that was nearly the size of an adult troll. There she picked up a small game trail that led upslope. She followed it, lost it for ten yards, muttered a spell seeking, and then found it again, expecting it to lead her straight to the Glowcrest mushroom bloom, as it had the dozens of times he had walked this path. Instead, it took her to a small cliff face embedded into the hillside. No mushroom bloom in sight.
Odd, Faye thought. She had been certain she was on the correct path.
No matter. This part of the forest was dense, deep, and a little bit repetitive. With so many features looking the same, it was easy to end up on the knoll or depression adjacent to where you meant to be.
Faye backtracked along the game trail, beating her way through the wet brush. She walked and walked, but the familiar stream she had followed in and the distinct builder she had used to follow the game path were nowhere to be seen. Faye frowned, slowing to a stop. Sometimes she misplaced her exact location in the forest and needed to reorient herself, but nothing about this area was familiar to her.
She cut a new path both West and downslope. No matter where exactly she was in the maze of unfamiliar hills, walking West and downhill was guaranteed to put her by the river. Once she was back to the river, she could reorient herself and try to find the Glowcrest mushrooms taking a different approach from another landmark.
Instead of hitting the river, she ran into a large hillside that looked like it had been sliced in half by the wing of a Giant's axe. The side facing her was steep, muddy, and marred with landslides of collapsed soil and vegetation. Faye gasped, staring at the muddy cliff toering over her. There was no such cliff like this anywhere in her forest. She was certain of it. Not unless it had collapsed very, very recently.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up on end. Faye unholstered her axe and, with a cry, she leapt at the cliff and buried the blade into the mud, using it to gain purchase. She clawed away at the vertical hillside with her axe to climb at first, and then when the terrain leveled off a little bit more, she scrambled on all fours up the hillside. Faye panted and scrambled up the muck oozing down the sides of steep hill. She slogged through mats of pine needles and rotting mulch, hurling chunks of debris and earth back behind her as she breasted the apex of the hill and stepped onto the plateau.
She rested for a moment, breath still heaving, and worked her fingers along the straps of her pack to warm them against the clammy wet chill of the air. There was a break in the trees, allowing her a view of the surrounding valley as night settled in. Autumn rain poured in misty sheets across the endless taiga. The swirls of mist in the dusk and the shifting forms of trees as they swayed in the wind blurred the boundary between land and sky, between tree and the shadows they cast.
As the last hints of the feeble twilight yielded to night, Faye felt a panic rising in the back of her throat, her breath returning with heaving gasps as the realization came to her: She did not recognize a single landmark, in any direction, for miles.
She knew with absolute certainty, all doubts vanished. This was not her forest.