"Get up! Get up you load of troll dung!" Quinn nudges Lord Kazmer onto his back with her boot. Fell is already up, his mortal form hunched in on itself, knees to his chest.
Leif rubs the back of his head, getting clumsily to his knees, then pushing himself into a staggered stance. "What in the name of Helheim do you want then? You didn't have to kick me in the rib."
"If you prefer freezing to death in this water, then be my guest." She reaches down and tosses an old bucket to me. Leif and Fell get old helmets, long ago forgotten, but the metalwork so fine that they've survived the test of time. As I awaken, the cold seeps in then, freezing water swirling about my ankles. Lapping at my veins.
"There's a leak in the boat." The words slur out of my sleep-addled brain as though drunk. "Where's the hole?"
"Fish. Big fish or..." Quinn quiets. "Some creatures smacked the edge of the boat. If I wasn't on watch, we might've..." Quinn stares down into the murky water at the bottom of the boat. "We might be sleeping forever. But it ain't a matter now. We need to empty the boat, get unstuck from the rocks, and set off again."
Unstuck from the rocks? What...
I peer over the edge of the boat and find that the ship's dragon-headed front is lodged in an outcropping of rocks, standing eerily still in the choppy waters like skeletons from beneath. The shadows are figures against the Northern Lights of Fell's magic, watching us with stone-filled eyes. Taunting our impossible mission.
Like clockwork, I reach down and fill the bucket with the freezing water, tossing it to the side. Fell throws his cloak over my shoulders. "Take it." He tells me, his voice quite small. "Mortal or no, I don't much feel cold anyways." His blue lips tell me another story, but I allow him the small deed. Let him keep his bravery if the gods won't let him have his jötunn form.
"What'd we hit, do you think?" Leif next, the young lord tossing his belt and scimitar onto a higher ledge, to move about more quickly, emptying the boat of the water lodged in it. "A big fish, is that what you said, soldier?"
"Legionnaire captain to you, mate." Quinn scowls, tossing her plaits over her shoulder. She's removed her heavier furs, tossing them with Leif's weapons. Blue-ink tattoos line her arms, marks of old gods mingling with design like silverwork in her skin. "I don't know sea life. Ask the jötunn for that."
Fell peers into the water beneath, reaching his hand into the icy waves. "Selkies..." He murmurs. "Come. Come see."
We glance at each other for a moment, our feet all damp and freezing. We join him then, his tall, lanky frame peering out the edge of the water. At first, all I can see is gray-blue water, thick and cold. There's a song at its bottom, like a washbasin echoing, maidenly voices. They burble and chirp, joyous almost. Laughing.
And then, a hand followed by the view of a beautiful woman, stout with long, dark hair and gray skin. A seal fur winds over her head and past her shoulders. She's followed by a man tinged green, a big, soft belly with the same seal fur on his back, with deep brown eyes. More of their kin join them. In the water, they glide as seals, but soon as they clamber onto the rocks...
"I'll be damned and damned again." Leif laughs. "Selkies, real selkies."
The boat shakes and quavers as a giant fish, hvalr, a whale larger than the whole fleet of old Idriola put together, rides closer to the boat, a wave of water drenching us through our skin. Chattering and slightly terrified, we all huddle closer together. Quinn adopts her fighting stance alongside Lord Kazmer, though both are tilted due to the rocking waves.
Only Leif gazes upwards without apprehension. Eyes wide, watching as innocently as the selkies. The hvalr curves through the stone obstacle course, settling with its massive head on the rocks. The Northern Lights crash down from the sky into the waves.
The water hisses and burbles as though it's boiling. Our dampness and discomfort melts away as, suddenly, there's a flash of bright white light like that of Fólkvangr. The seiðr, we feel it as pins and needles in our skin, a pleasant tingle at the base of our skull. A song that croons louder, turning us into awestruck children once more.
And from the hvalr skin emerges a giant figure, taller than a jötunn with deepset eyes and a long, gray beard. He speaks with a grandfatherly tone, skin leathered by the salt and waves. A staff at his side to support his spine, though he looks far from being frail here in his element.
I get to my knees, and shocked, the rest of our party follow suit. The last to bow is Fell, in a state of total shock from the surge of magic.
"Father Ardo!" I cry. "What have we done to deserve the honor of your visit?"
He laughs, the sound carrying so far over the water, it's a wonder every human in the world doesn't hear it. "Do not sound so surprised, my child. I hear your complaints all the way from the place where the old gods walk. We know you are displeased greatly by the jötunn's curse of mortality."
"He may be the one bearing the curse, oh Father of the Seas," Fell glances over to me. I hold my palm out, and with his lips bloodless and trembling, he takes my hand for support, "he might bear it, but we all feel its effects."
"But he is your enemy. Your ancestors slew his."
I squeeze Fell's hand at that. "Then it's time to right those terrible wrongs."
"And if the mortals call you a traitor and try to kill you for siding with a beast?"
I smile at that, throwing my head back despite the terror pounding at my breast, my heart beating fast. "Then they'd best bring a whole damn army."
"Perhaps you can do it," Father Ardo murmurs, the laugh still carrying in his words. "I have borne the brunt of your magic on this journey. Calling upon the Northern Lights to guide you to the last of the cities you must unite along the Borealis." He reaches a single, massive hand down towards Fell. The boy with the rose-quartz eyes takes his hand and holds it to Father Ardo, a child reaching for its parent. "You cannot see it now, young jötunn. But this curse was able to show you," here he turns to me, "that there was humanity inside you all along. And, in turn," he gestures from me to Fell, "you proved that there was more than just the blood of a giant-killer in you. Instead, you want to right the wrongs of history and save the future that's dying and crumbling into war and mayhem even now."
"It's not too late." I counter. "It cannot be until all of us are dead."
"And do you not smell the sulfur and fire?" The old god laughs and the selkies snicker and chatter around him, his loyal creations, laughing at us foolish mortals and jötunn on a foolish quest. "Rahasia and Idriola are at each other's throats. The Masked Men are still out there, pillaging your cities. Ymir is out of touch with the common man..."
"So, the world is as Helheim is depicted in the old stories." I wave a hand at it, my own voice, though weaker than Ardo's, silencing even the selkies. "But it will only die if we stop fighting for it!"
Father Ardo pauses, his hand still pointed at Fell. A tendril from the Northern Lights dancing above the deity's skin, traveling into Fell's body.
With the strike of power, Fell is thrown overboard by the invisible force. He screams as his lungs fill with water.
I take off my belt and dagger, throwing off my cloak and ready to jump into the water after him. Quinn holds me back.
"What have you done?" I scream till my throat is raw, "you've killed him."
Father Ardo remains silent, all of our eyes riveted on the burbling, churning ice water where Fell's body disappeared.
From its depths, the selkies rage and swim far away. The ones on the rocky outcroppings keen and wail. The Northern Lights, the seiðr and magic, turns the water into a focal point for colors. Like the rainbow of lights that exit a crystal and turn a plain room into a wonderland of marbled color, the water churns into a vortex that would draw our little dragon boat under if Father Ardo was not grasping the hull in his hand.
We all brace against the side of the boat, staring into that swirling vortex.
From the chaos of lights and water and noise, a jötunn finally emerges. Fell is in his true form, looking as strong and powerful as the day he first awoke and came to Ymir. His ice armor is shining, a great broadsword made of crystal at his waist. His eyes are still the color of rose-quartz, still gentle despite what time and greed had done to him and his kin. Sorrow mixed with determination. He stands in the water grasping an anchor tied to our boat.
A rainbow path of lights leads into the distance. Clouds at the edge pull back and reveal a land of gray beaches and ice. Past it, I can barely make out the whispered linings of a village, people milling about it.
"The western cities, we've nearly made it." Lord Kazmer mutters in astonishment. "Unite them and it's over. It's all over."
"Helvete..." Quinn curses as her agreement.
"Why help us, Father Ardo?" I ask, tears in my eyes as I stare at Fell. Shocked that, somehow, he lives at all after seeing him plunge into those depthless waters. Shocked the gods let us meet at all. "Why help the children that the gods cursed, us pitiful mortals?"
"Because regina, you give a god hope." He laughs then, his figure descending back into the waters, into the form of the singing hvalr. "Hope that perhaps you humans weren't a mistake, after all. And you can mend the world that you abused, right your wrongs."
The wise god is almost gone, but before he vanishes, he glances over his shoulder at Fell. "You paint a mighty picture now, Fell Hallvarðr. But this magic will not last forever. Use it again," he warns, "and even I will not be able to stop you from facing your fate. And, little regina," he nods slightly to me, "I shall see you in Valhöll."
With that threat and warning, the god of the seas descends.
The selkies follow their master after, and we are left alone. Fell takes his giant strides towards land, the western cities growing in size as we near the horizon. The Northern Lights dim to a steady, pulsating glow. A path of color and magic. The way never looked so far, yet so terribly dangerous.
Quinn sings a slow, sad poem beneath her breath as we all marvel at our dry boat and belongings, the magic restoring our damp clothes to a new state of repair. We sling on our weapons, equip our blades. And we stare into that sad distance as Quinn sings, one hand on the dragon's oak-carved head.
Drøymde mik ein draum i nótt
um silki ok ærlig pell,
um hægindi svá djupt ok mjott,
um rosemd með engan skell.
Ok i drauminom ek leit
sem gegnom ein groman glugg
þá helo feigo mennsko sveit,
hver sjon ol sin eiginn ugg.
Talit þeira otta jok
ok leysingar joko enn —
en oft er svar eit þyngra ok,
þó spurning at bera brenn.
"I dreamed a dream last night
of silk and fair furs,
of a pillow so deep and soft,
a peace with no disturbance.
And in the dream I saw
as though through a dirty window
the whole ill-fated human race,
a different fear upon each face.
The number of their worries grow
and with them the number of their solutions —
but the answer is often a heavier burden,
even when the question hurts to bear... "
Like, comment, follow and all those good things, fellow adventurers. It helps this quest continue!
So, concept. You, Quinn, and Fell start a Viking legionnaire band. What song do you cover?