Fallen Máni: Journey

"And here's your coats in case both of you get cold."

"Mooooom!" both Manuel and Silvia groaned.

"Now now, have a good journey."

She kissed their cheeks, and off they went to Máni's chariot, pulled by a horse made of ice. Hjúki punched Manuel's shoulder affectionately, before he and Bil assumed their avian forms.

Without further ado, the chariot galloped into the sky, a swan and a crane by its side.

Beneath them the Canadian coast shrank, but the glimmer of the sea was clear. With the moon reborn, it was healing, and it followed the movement of the chariot. Flocks of terns joined them as Silvia took pictures. Manuel took care to suroound the air with breathable oxygen and warmth as they ascended further into the sky.

The loop around the earth was done, meeting with Sól under day's wrathful glare.

"Race you?"

"Oh, you're on."

Both of them ascended up Yggdrasill, the golden fruit and silver flower climbing their stems. First they passed Asgard, waving at Thor and Sif as they passed. Odin merely glared at them, while Freyja waved to them surrounded by cats in the waters of Fensalir. No sooner they went down to Vanaheimr, to its vast swamps, farmlands and forests, and were met with similar glee.

Down they went to Alfheimr, the luminous realm of the elves, almost as bright as the sun and day. Hjúki, Bil and Silvia couldn't stand the brightness, so they sojourned to Nidavellir, realm of the dwarves. They paid them no mind as they tended their forges and counted gold, baring the occasional child enthralled by the glimmering lights.

Down they went to Jötunnheimr. The feral jötunn paid them little mind, amidst the standing mountain ranges, dense pine forests and churning and wild oceans. It was as if a storm was perpetually brewing, and both Manuel and Silvia scretly thanked their jackets. Amidst the endless wilds, a glimmer of white glinted, and increased, the gallop of a wolf.

Sköll.

"What do you want?" Sól bore her flaming sword.

"Relax" the wolf grinned, "Like my brother I have no reason to hunt you anymore. But I have no reason to not kill you either. A reminder to keep on your toes, sun."

And with that he went away.

"Weirdo" Silvia said, taking pictures with her phone.

They grazed Svartalfheimr, their light not welcome there in the realm of night, nor down in the underworld. Instead, they concluded their journey by passing through the twin worlds of Muspellheimr and Nifleheimr, the realms of ice and fire. Ginnungagap, the eternal rift between them, offered them a most prestigious vista: glaciars tall as mountains melting into lava of all colors, each one like a continent in the fiery ocean.

Thus concluded their journey, and they returned home, Sól on the opposite side of Midgard.

But as Silvia went to sleep and Hjúki and Bil went to their new rooms, Manuel decided that the night wasn't quite done.

So he snuck outside, not as the moon, but as a boyfriend.