Distortions In Time: Book II

Unwanted Return

All my life, all my life, it has lurked, it has loomed in my memory – a shadow of a threat, a dark promise of things to come. It has been my constant companion, my past and my future. It lies there on the edges of my consciousness, whether I will or no. Never far no matter how far I may roam.

This is Jotunheim...

[The skies are empty on Jotunheim...]

[... so wrong...]

[... there is life even here...]

[... and beyond...]

[... it fell silent long ago...]

[... can you hear it?]

[... it is even here... in the silence...]

[... and the land descended into darkness...]

Throughout his life, from the time of his birth to his most recent visits, Loki had always seen Jotunheim through a specific set of eyes, a certain point of view. To him, Jotunheim had always seemed a dark and terrifying world, a dying Realm, a beautiful, spartan place, a hard, difficult land. Now, gazing out across the southern reaches of Utgard, back to the Eybjarg, Loki's birthplace seemed more desolate, mysterious, archaic and wild than ever.

Surveying Utgard and its disintegrating environs, the steep cliffs falling away into the Void and the further reaches of the Utanheim across the Eybjarg, Loki saw the Realm with the eyes of Thor and the others. More than ever, the air of Jotunheim, with its rumbling, cracking ice and stones in the otherwise silent world, had a pervasive whiff of death. Yet, there were traces of greatness even then – the tall walls, towers and ancient monoliths looming out of the mists seemed to speak of an ancient civilization, a powerful race and endurance enhanced by the ever present threat of extinction.

Utgard, Citadel of the Pale Moon, was but a shadow of its formal glory.

Or perhaps not, Loki mused. Perhaps they see only something that should have been destroyed long ago. And who is to say otherwise, realistically speaking.

For a moment, there was silence as the group stood there, taking stock of what lay before them. Setting aside the dangers of falling snow and ice and rock, the ground itself seemed rather treacherous, riddled as it was with sharp upward-slanting wedges of ice no doubt hiding cracks, crevices and larger chasms. Whipping across the Eybjarg down from the Grarfjall mountains which loomed darkly far off on the horizon, the wind howled wordlessly.

...you return...

...so warned...

...not all who fall to the dark Realm rise to sunlit lands...

...not all who fall...

...return...

Glancing at his comrades, Loki was pleased to note the solemn look on their faces as they were faced with the realization of what life was actually like on the wasted Realm. Of course, the weight of what they are actually bearing witness to has not fully sunk in... One day, Loki mused, one day Thor will be able to hear the Heimsrsal, the Voices of the Realms – and hearing thus, he will bear the burden of his Realm with a greater sense of duty... but not, I think, this day. Not this day.

"We should not be here," Hogun's quiet voice broke the uneasy silence with his usual warning.

"No welcome mat, I see," Fandral tried to laugh, but his attempt at jocularity fell flat, further deflated by a snort from Loki.