Where Gods Fall (LokixOC) - 1st installment

Prologue

Asgard, Centuries ago. The Golden Throne Room.

The air in the throne room was unusually still that morning, the golden banners unmoving despite the open arches that usually carried a gentle breeze through the halls. A hush had fallen over the court as the morning light spilled through the tall windows like melted gold. Sunbeams cut through dust motes that floated, suspended, like tiny stars.

The courtiers and nobles lining the room shifted uncomfortably. They had been summoned at dawn, though none had been told why.

Odin Allfather sat on his throne, clad in his war-trimmed cloak of raven-black and deep crimson. His one eye—unforgiving and ancient—was fixed on the great doors at the far end of the hall, waiting. Frigga, ever composed, stood at his right, her hands folded in front of her, the fabric of her silver-blue gown cascading like moonlight. Her eyes were gentle but guarded.

To the side of the dais stood Thor and Loki.

Thor, broad-shouldered even for a boy of ten, shifted restlessly, tapping the pommel of his practice sword against his leg. His golden hair was pulled back, and his blue eyes flicked toward the doors again.

"Why are we waiting so long?" he whispered, a little too loudly. "Is it another ambassador? I thought they were coming yesterday."

"You'll find out soon enough," Frigga murmured without looking at him.

Loki, barely eight, stood with arms folded, his smaller frame swallowed in green and black ceremonial robes. His sharp eyes watched everything and everyone—quiet, calculating. Unlike Thor, he didn't fidget. He simply waited. Waited and wondered what could warrant this kind of attention.

Then—

A creak of massive golden doors echoed across the marble.

Everyone fell silent.

A strange cold spilled into the room—not a chill of fear or wind, but something else. A memory of winter. The kind that bites into bone and silence.

And then she stepped in.

She was no more than seven.

Tiny. Thin. Half-hidden beneath a heavy cloak of ash-grey wool, too large for her small frame. Her bare feet stepped lightly on the shining floor, and though she walked without a sound, each movement echoed. Her skin was a pale, moonlit blue, her features delicate, but tired. Her long hair fell in tangled waves of snow-white down her back.

And her eyes...

One a muted silver, the other a strange, haunting violet-grey, like a storm trapped behind glass.

The room held its breath.

She walked alone—no guards, no escort, only the great doors behind her groaning closed, sealing the warm world away.

A silence had fallen over the golden hall of Asgard, heavy and watchful, as though even the high arches and stone columns leaned in to hear what came next. And then—

Odin's voice cleaved through it, resonant and sharp, a sound like a hammer striking the anvil of fate.

"You are Eirlys of Niflheim."

His words did not echo; they landed with finality, an announcement rather than a question. A naming.

At the center of the vast throne room, her lone figure stood. Small. Still. Shadowed by the great beams of light spilling through the stained glass above.

She did not bow.

She did not speak.

She merely halted in the dead center of the chamber's polished floor, where reflections of gods shimmered like ghosts in the marble. Her head was bowed, yet not in deference—it was a posture carved from something older, deeper. A quiet defiance, or perhaps the weariness of one who had learned that silence was safer than any word.