Queen of Asgard (NaNoWriMo2018, Completed!)

19: Second Dates (Part Two)

"Can I open my eyes now?" I asked and I felt Thor let go of my hand. "Or do you need a moment?"

"Just a second," I heard the breaking of grass under his heavy frame and his hands were on my shoulders, turning my entire body in a gentle motion. "Okay, now you're good!"

I opened my eyes, noticing we were in a grassy field, but the color of the place was muted by a large shadow and the second I looked up from the ground, I realized what was making it and I couldn't stop the awe-struck squeal from escaping me. I was no stranger to massive plant life; I'd visited the Redwood Forest with Yuki when she had been going to college out in that area, and this tree reminded me quite a great deal of those trees on Earth. The trunk was massive and I was sure, had there been a carved out section, an eighteen-wheeler truck could've driven through no problem, it's thick limbs were twisted but strong, stretching high into the brilliant blue sky before they were blocked from my view by the glare of the sun.

"This is huge," I muttered, knowing it was a very on-the-nose observation, but it was the only one I could make. The vastness of it was too astounding, but the nearer I drew to the black-brown trunk, I knew it wasn't the sheer size that was so astounding. It was something else. The closer I got, the more I could feel it. A sort of vibration, a presence emitting from the ancient tree and it was touching everything around it, even me.

Magic, I knew had to be the answer and as I touched the trunk, I was even more certain of it. The tree was thrumming, though it was clearly alive just looking at it, I could feel the force of that life underneath my palm; almost like a pulse. I looked back over at Thor who had his arms crossed, a curious expression on his face.

"Who planted this? Was it one of your relatives?"

Thor looked up at the massive tree, "That's the question on everyone's mind. We don't have the slightest idea how the Yggdrasil came to be."

"None?"

"None." He looked up at the tree again. "As long as we've been here, the Yggdrasil has been along too. And this is only a section of it." He approached the tree now, spreading his long fingers over the rough bark. "It spreads through all of the nine realms."

"This is on Earth too? I think that would've been noticed already."

"It has been, I believe you call it the Bermuda triangle?"

"Trees don't grow in oceans," I said numbly, knowing as the words left my mouth that the Yggdrasil might've looked like a tree, but that it was by no means bound by the rules I was accustomed to for life. "Is that why people disappear there? They get pulled into this thing and can't get out?"

"It's less about getting out and more about landing on another world, or getting lost on the tree itself." Thor let his hand fall from the Yggdrasil. "Before we built the Bifrost, this was how my people traveled between worlds. It was possible, but it was dangerous. This is always shifting, never stays in the same place in a world too long which made it hard to navigate. And that's not to mention what happened if you ran into a Jotun or a dark elf while you were traveling."

"Dark elves?" I repeated, a goth-looking Legolas popping into my imagination.

"They live in Svartalfheim," Thor clarified. "I believe you called them dwarves on Midgard. Very skilled craftsmen and deadly in a fight-which is why you don't want to run into one in a hostile environment." The image in my head switched, becoming a goth-Gimli.

"And the Yggdrasil is one," I finished, looking up at the tree. It certainly didn't look hostile from where I was standing, but I was quickly starting to learn that many things on Asgard were not what they appeared. "Have you ever traveled on it before?"