Fallen Máni: Yew-Tree

Everything went in a blur for Silvia.

Her brother became the Moon, and the sky of their home became half-dark, half-light.

She was caught in the awe of that spectacle, until he left.

She knew why he left, but she couldn't help but formulate a simple accusation, a coward, in her thoughts. Running away from her, from everything. She however didn't blame him, at least not for long. 

The world was a mess.

The bird gods had taken her mother to safety, and sure enough the wolves looked more interested in gutting Týr than anything else, as if the homes they were breaking meant nothing to them. 

It was something as awe-inspiring as the return of the Moon, but the death of a god instilled a deep and heart-wrenching grief in her, and the ensuing gore was etched into her mind, forever and always.

She could process that scene only enough for a pained twin-cry, the fall of a crane and the agitated grief of a swan.

In a moment's notice, Hjúki had taken her and Jonathan, each tucked under the god's wings as if there was a pocket of feathers and skin holding them. Each wing beat pushed her head lower, and before she could protest she felt the world around her melt, giving way to an infinity she couldn't possibly have conceived off.

Yggdrasil, peering between the white feathers, stretched in all directions above and below, bark and leaves and light and darkness at once, a green as deep as an emerald's and yet as bright as barium flames, black and brown and red bark tinged with pulsing veins and nebulas and comets.

Amidst the immense, pulsing rhythms of life, there was an aroma of fruits and flowers. Fruits whose scent was the salivating flesh of light, flowers whose smell was the moody perfume of shadow.

Creatures and worlds laid before her, as large as if she were a minnow in an endless ocean and as small as if they were ants an infinite depth beneath an airplane.

The essence of everything, of all things alive and beyond alive, gave her quite the headache, and judging by Jonathan's rumbling she knew that the human condition probably wasn't the best equipped to deal with such things.

"Don't worry, we'll find a place to rest" said Hjúki, craning his neck beneath him to see if they were followed.

Silvia rose and looked in the direction Hjúki's head faced, finding the Earth. 

Or, rather, Midgard: it was her world, her planet, but also the infinity of stars well beyond it, as if it was the small flake and the large centrepiece within a snowglobe - or a dewdrop within a tree's leaf - at the same time. 

A dot floating in black seas of void, in turn sliding above a green mantle of leafy veins, supplying the Suns and Moons within it with life.

That dot was white and gold with Dagr’s light, and suddenly a burst of a more fiery gold erupted from the dewdrop, bursting it for a moment, ripples tugging at the stars and nebula within the oceans of space. When it pulled itself back together, the blur had long climbed the leaf into the branches.

Hati.

He darted past them, his bulk a bright flash that spoke to Silvia of the Great Tree's overwhelming truth: that she was insignificant.

And she crawled back into the pouch.

And then she heard a howl, a cruel sneer of a howl that turned air into dry ice.

"Sköll's coming!" Hjúki said, "Hang on tight!"

Silvia peered between the feathers, and was met with a cold gust that forced her eyes shut. The insides of the avian pouch weren't much warmer, and the contours of the swan's musculature and bones made it uncomfortable, but still she felt safer there.

Darkness began to surround her, and she only felt more safe.

***

Dagr contemplated the fruit of his labours. In more ways than one.

It'd taken 15 years, what he thought would simply be a small blink of an eye compared to the history of the entire cosmos. Things had gone off course, but what he lacked in foresight he made up in strategy.

The Moon's power had been restored to all corners of existence, but Midgard knew only blinding daylight as soon as Máni had flown away.

It'd be a matter of time until the gods noticed this, noticed all of it. But the god of Day knew better than most that confusion was a powerful weapon. A stunner, a delayer, sometimes an outright killer as immensity consumes and cleanses the mind.

Dagr simply stood in the now white skies, testing the power he had taken from the Sun. It had been a delicious meal, light pouring into his lips and tongue in sweet reds and indigos, sour yellows, savoury golds and oranges, bitter greens and salty blues and violets. The whiteness was fleshy like an apple, the Sun's hard core swallowed amidst it.

Day and Sun are different expressions of light. Light came first, spread across the universe like a blinding mist. Then it condensed into stars and fires and bolts and lamps and the birth of darkness and night became possible. The fruit of Yggdrasil, embedded with life from the Tree and the fires of Múspell, became the brightest object, the main fighter against the presence of darkness.

Day became tied to the Sun, guided by her and existing where her light shines, but he is an elder light, the original manifestation of light in existence, spreading whenever possible and perhaps once fated to blank the cosmos. And just as the Sun got her own light and fire from the energies given to her, so did Day become more powerful with the Sun's routine.

Order, born from the light's influence on the mind, as the cleanser of darkness or as the instigator of routines, be they measured by instincts or metal, a far cry from the Sun's flares and the clashing wavelengths within light. Rebirth, as the dawn rising each day to bring the Sun, but also ageing, as each passing Day sends mortals closer to death and light breaks bodies apart.

Dagr and Sól had always been closely linked, but the gulf between the fruit of Yggdrasil and the primordial light had been as wide as Ginnungagap, and much as the fire and ice realms had collided so now did Day had devoured the Sun.

The irony did not go over Dagr’s head: he, a god of rebirth, had just prevented the rebirth of the Sun. Or at least as a conscious mind: her power and soul coursed within him, the two lights reunited at last.

After a while, Dagr noticed the destruction beneath him. The seas and ecosphere were regenerating, but the buildings and shoreline remained broken. Pieces of Týr were scattered everywhere, and Dagr rose his nose with disgust.

Light, already filling the air as if a radiant mist, grew brighter and brighter, until discarded flesh and bone was gone. All that remained was the god's blood, now coursing through the oceans, and his armour and hammer, ideal relics for Dagr’s purposes.

He felt everything his radiance, his self, touched. Soon, brick by brick and tile by tile, every building was fixed, every piece of technology now running effortlessly on light energy.

Bil had tucked the populace not far away, pocketed in a sheltered valley. Dagr had always been with them, and carried them over to the restored settlement.

There, everything is fine now. The Moon has returned, the sea has returned, your houses have returned. You need not fret, for the Moon will die soon, for good.

***

Manuel soon reached Asgard, home of the Æsir gods. It was an endless expanse of sky, bright blue in all conceivable directions, punctuated by vast white clouds. Some of these clouds seem as thin as steam, while others seemed solid like snow, though they did not look cold.

Atop them were built all manner of buildings, from small cottages to temples that dwarfed all of earth's mountains together. Some were built from the cloud stuff, others from more typical materials like metal, stone or wood, others exotic substances that glistened in the daylit sky.

Passing amidst these, was Bifröst, fiery and bright. Manuel was not bound to it, the Moon long predating the lights of the rainbow, yet could not help himself from tracing it with his eyes, following it to the very edges of the sky, where the blue and white gave way to the green and brown.

Here, Bifröst passed through an enormous white mountain, just barely distinguishable from the clouds it emerged from. Atop it was a lone god, his back facing against the Moon, dressed in blunt iron armour and emanating a light not unlike day's.

But it wasn't him. And indeed, without even facing Manuel, the god waved his brilliant hand, urging him to come over. Manuel stood by his side, enveloping his own eyes in darkness to see past the intense glare.

"Heimdallr?"

The god nodded. His piercing eyes, small pieces of the rainbow bridge in his skull, were fixated on the distance. A rusty beard hang from his jaw, contrasting his rather youthful face and golden hair and eyebrows. His skin seemed like an odd mixture between porcelain and granite, light pouring through the cracks.

"You arrived just in time" he said, a rather mundane cough in comparison to his unearthly features.

"In time for w-" Manuel said before Heimdallr manifested a horn full of mead in his left hand.

"Not your favourite, but you still entertained one once in a while" he said, giving the horn to Manuel.

Manuel sniffed at the mead. It did smell like honey, but the alcohol was stinging his nostrils. He thought about refusing it, but he wondered if he still counted as underage now that he was a god. 

No one's stopping me at any rate.

A sip and he threw it away, falling down the mountain into the sky expanse.

"Pity" Heimdallr muttered.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to-" Manuel began, but a swan's cry filled the air.

"Hjúki?" Manuel yelled, and his eyes darted to the Bifröst.

Flying above the rainbow and soon rising to meet them was a swan. From under each wing came out a head, Silvia's and Jonathan's. No sooner did Hjúki shed his bird form that his passengers rushed to Manuel, embracing him. Hjúki hesitated for a final time, before he too joined in.

"I thought I'd never see you again!" Jonathan said, kissing Manuel passionately.

Manuel leaned into the kiss, forgetting momentarily about the world around him. His worries that everything would be different dissipated, he knew that if they could sort everything out they'd be alright.

And just then a glimmer of gold caught his eye, well beneath them, growing brighter as the wolf ascended.

Heimdallr sounded his horn, and Bifröst wavered, the Æsir gods rushing both from Asgard and from the worlds beneath.

"Go further within" Heimdallr said, before he produced a sword and jumped, meeting the other gods as they restrained the wolf.

Without wasting a moment longer, Manuel manifested his chariot, pulling Jonathan, Silvia and Hjúki on-board. He rushed as fast as he could across the sky. But as he did so, a mist began to chill the air, and Sköll's jaws bit off the horses' shifting legs.

Hjúki readied his bow and Manuel gathered the clouds around him to throw darkened spikes. None pierced Sköll, but distracted him long enough for the horses to grow new legs and lose him behind them.

Manuel realised that they couldn't run away to anywhere. His entire existence as Máni was to flee Hati, to always be on the run from death. And with two wolves chasing after him, this task would be much harder.

How long could he last?

The sooner you die, the sooner you will have an answer to that question.

Despair took over the Moon. He couldn't do that, he couldn't survive much longer, he couldn't run forever. He cried the bitter tears of surrender and almost stayed his hand.

Then two things happened.

At the same time as the triumphant call of a crane echoed through Asgard, Jonathan touched Manuel's face softly and looked deeply into his eyes. And as talons and beak pierced Sköll's hide and furious wing strokes blew him away, the boy said:

"We'll make it through."

And he locked his lips with Manuel's once more, this time a kiss of perseverance, a denial of death and defeat alike. They both closed their eyes, light gone, only warmth and smell and above all connection left, strengthening with each heart beat.

Darkness surrounded them, pushing back at day's furious glare, a shadow that eclipsed Asgard. Bil exhausted from the fight dissipated within it, and Sköll could only laugh at his own tricks being played against him.

Hati soon joined him, chin dripping with the blood and flesh of gods, but the only one he wished to kill above all others was once again gone.

"Not for long!" he snared, "I know you're here and I will fulfil my fate! Run coward, run all you can because I will enjoy tearing every single one of your limbs!"

And picking up the Moon's scent, Hati dove after with all the haste human minds cannot even begin to imagine.

As for Sköll, he sighed. This was going to take longer than he cared for it.