Fallen Máni: Day

Hati stared at the sea. 

He hated it. He hated it so very much.

He despised water in general, the memories of his prey still in his mind, even if the nightsky laid empty and dark, and the oceans only ever slightly longer rose and fell with the tides.

One brief glimpse of awareness illuminated him about his hypocrisy, for this was more than probably the end result of his once endless hunt. He scoffed and growled, his mind returning once again to his turmoil of animalistic emotions and drives. 

He hated water, and the hated the Moon, and he hated the sea, period.

Yet he felt more and more driven to scour the blue and grey horizon, to stare into the aquatic realm hiding his ancient, serpentine uncle, searching for something. 

He knew that the Moon wasn't dead, that he still lived, hidden somewhere like the coward he was. But he might as well had been dead, his scent long gone from all nine realms. 

Hati still remembered the last time he felt that scent, some 15 years ago, still fresh in his wet, black nose:

Wounded from a battle with the Moon, the wolf had gone to the realm of the Vanir gods, rebuilding his frost-burned pelt on tree sap and on the sacred flocks of aurochs and elk for 10 days and 9 nights. 

The scent then flared on his nostrils once again, just a sliver of the Moon's reflected white light in the ever lit air, but enough to propel the wolf furiously out into the World Tree again, his maw anticipating the divine flesh with drool that created lakes in all nine worlds. 

Reduced to a pure, murderous frenzy, Hati was led to Midgard, entering its skies with a hunting pounce, like a fox upon a dormouse. 

And his jaws closed into the nothing of the nightsky, as if Máni had been erased from existence.

Hati snarled at the memory, at the unjust and perplexing disappearance of his victim, at the night's cold air in his gums. 

He did chase the god in murderous insanity, he did bite at a black horse's legs and, in turn, received violent and skull cracking blows from the pitch black hooves. Its owner, the ancient night, exercised her nature, the pure, darkest void, on Hati’s self, erasing his flesh from her domain. 

What little remained to regenerate had been infused with a dire truth: the Moon was not in the heavens anymore. 

His fated prey, his divine lure, was gone forever. 

The sole reason Hati was even allowed to live in the first place was now as real as his sense of mercy, denying him both his fate and his function on the grand scheme of things. He was to eventually consume the fiery-one, the tide-smith, the wheel of night, he would eventually cause the Moon's death on his terms. 

But his place in the universe was stolen, as was Máni’s scent and flesh, the alluring white light on the gorgeous form no longer crossing the darkness of Nótt’s realm.

Hati had survived these 15 years hidden, away from the other Jötnar, away from the wrathful eyes of the gods. He did just that, survive, left to an existence of discrete, yet exceptionally violent murders, stopped only by brooding over his stolen destiny, his murdered fate, over the injustice of it all. 

He contemplated suicide multiple times, to join his prey in the void, and decided against it just to spite the gods, obviously laughing at his misfortune. 

To die like a coward when Asgard and his father alike were mocking him would be unthinkable, unless he had their blood shed on all corners of existence. 

More importantly, however, part of him just knew that Máni was not fully gone. 

Even if his nose no longer felt the Moon’s scent, those drives, those impulses to look at the dreadful seascape, to search with his eyes for something, were too unusual and too strong to be mere delusions, however weary his mind was. 

Máni was still out there, was still influencing the vast, cold, dark, salty waters, and wherever and however he was, the instincts grew stronger every year, leading the wolf here, to the most repulsive of the pelagic visages. 

The North Atlantic.

“Fine day to stare at the sea, brother" said a suave, cunning voice, "Funny, how you used to hate it so much...”

Hati snapped out of his brooding. He turned around, towards the thick boreal forest, where the voice had come, almost instantly aroused to a snarling, vicious wreck, just a couple of negative impulses away from jumping at the white-suited, black sunglassed man before him.

“Eesh, we haven’t even seen each other in a while" the man said, on the verge of yawning, "Is that how you greet your own brother?”

“Do not provoke me, Sköll. You’re already pushing your luck, appearing before me in that disgusting flesh.”

“Oh, you mean this?” motioned Sköll, pinching a gloved hand nonchalantly, drawing blood, “Pity, I thought I’d win you over if I showed up in my sexiest.”

Before Hati could fully give in to the desire to beat his twin into submission, the white-suited man’s forehead began to bleed profoundly. So did his nose and lips, which ripped themselves apart in an almost perfect bisection. 

The skin, muscle and fascia then peeled off like a banana, revealing a bloody mass of white fur. The sunglasses fell, revealing golden, feral eyes, which remained in place as the flesh suit fell off, and the head began to twist and convulse in violent spasms. 

The air filled with the loud, cracking sounds of bones rearranging, the shape-shifting body quickly becoming a horrid mess as humanity broke its way into wolfhood. Teeth were shot off and were replaced by sharper ones, while the jaws elongated and the nose darkened. 

The skin didn’t even reach the midsection when the now much more elongated torso fell forward, exposing two powerful forelegs that cushioned the fall, and tainted the earth with blood. 

The rest just slid off, revealing the now perfectly digitigrade hindlimbs and the tail, which shook off the the skin away.

“Better?” retorted Sköll, flickering his tongue.

“What do you want?” growled Hati, simultaneously angry and unnerved.

“Why, to help you realize your destiny, of course!”

Sköll’s tail passed under Hati’s neck. The golden wolf felt as if there was a small blank space in this memories, and that began to seriously disturb him.

“I’ve heard that you’ve been quite depressed these past 15 years, my dear brother. That depresses me too, so I’ve decided to help out as soon as I could.”

“How thoughtful” Hati snarled.

“Oh, I’ve been quite busy, but I can assure you that I’ll be of service now…”

“Does Máni live?”

“Why, of course he does! You know it don't ya? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be staring at the lake.”

“Get to the point" Hati blurted, "Your displays bore me.”

“Oh, how I’ve missed your sweet, dense mind. Isn’t it obvious? I’ll help you find him!”

“You are too much of a crawling maggot to aid even your own kin without something to gain in return. Again, get to the point.”

“Eh, nothing special, dear brother, just some help in starting the beginning of a new era.”

“The Ragnarök does not need help to unravel itself. Again, get to the p-”

“‘Get to the point this, get to the point that’, blehblehbleh!" Sköll mocked, "You know, it’s rude to be this ungrateful, especially to your own twin.”

“You always have thorns in your promises, Sköll! Every ounce of kindness from you is laced with trickery and bile, never with honor and never with anything in mind but yourself! Every favor from you always lead me to humiliation at best, if not fighting for my own life! Again, get to the point, lest I rip your legs and make you crawl to Father’s den!”

“Eesh with a capital 'eesh', lighten up a little. Since you asked so nicely, I have made a deal with a kindly benefactor of ours, whom I am pretty sure you’ve at some point before this whole mess happened. He will help us, he is positively thrilled about helping us finishing the spawn of Mundilfäri, to kill those heavenly bodies for good, to have your pretty teeth sunk into Máni’s body and all that jazz."

Hati snarled. He already felt nostalgic for the decades he'd been away from his brother.

"All he asks in return is that we help him bring fourth the true new era, the alternative to the Ragnarök! Conveniently, this just means killing who we’re supposed to kill, which is what you want, isn't it?"

While basically utterly scoffing at the sheer absurdity of “an alternative for the Ragnarök”, Hati began to be genuinely intrigued by this promise. A benefactor? Certainly none of the Jötnar, not even his father or grandfather, who had little to no sympathy for his goals, or him in general. 

Did the gods decide to aid him, for once? They did start his function in the great scheme of things, after all, even if to keep him in check. 

And, truth to be told, as much as he hated Sköll and, in principle, anyone associated with him, the golden wolf was that desperate go with whatever his treacherous twin had in mind. 

Máni had to be alive, and Hati had to fulfill his destiny, and Sköll’s inevitable betrayal was but a minor sacrifice in achieving fate’s mandate. 

His own life was, in the end, expendable if this meant that things were going as they should be going, with the Moon dead and his role terminated consequently.

“Show me this 'benefactor' of yours, and I will aid you.”

“My, it almost sounds dirty when you put it like that”, Sköll smirked, showing all his teeth in a grin from eardrum to eardrum, something that had always sent shivers up Hati’s spine, “Hear that boss? He’s on board!”

Suddenly, a bright light flooded Hati’s eyes, filling his sight with a blinding, expansive whiteness. It wasn't fiery like the Sun's, but equally intense and vicious, piercing through the eyes and further into the whole of the wolf's body and soul. 

His senses dimmed; there was nothing but endless ivory. 

Greetings, Hróðvitnisson. We have last met in Odin’s terms, in the bloodlust of war, so long ago that I can seldom remember. But I am willing to enlighten you, Mánagarmr, to privilege you in this new era to come. I will ensure that you kill the Moon for once and for all, and that you will have glory in the cleansed nine realms, worshiped, praised and feared to your heart’s desires and to your whims' discretion. 

All I need from you is your cooperation, and loyalty to my cause.

The voice was all too familiar to Hati, an eldritch sensation like light passing through a prism, as if reflected by every atom of glass.  He was reminded of the night's strike on him, and he realized that it was her opposite. 

For a moment, the wolf thought about scoffing it off, to end his life by refusing to serve the god before him. 

But, if Hati had a grudge towards him, it was long forgotten, and he was just that desperate. Now, he had the chance to make things as they should be, and thus he did not spit on the “benefactor’s” face, let alone have himself killed. 

And, as much as he hated to admit to himself, curiosity gnawed at the edges of his mind. Part of him wanted to see how this “new era” would unravel itself. Hati rarely denied his impulses free reign, let alone ones that invoked so much willpower within him. 

So, with a deep breath, he calmed himself, something that was as much torture to him as that light. And so he gave the response Sköll and the blinding deity already anticipated:

“Yes, son of Dawn. Guide me to my prize, and I am yours.”

***

In the vastness of space, the Sun kept her long vigil.

Next to her, two black masses formed, taking the form of ravens.

It is time, they said in unison, a single "voice" that spanned the whole concepts of memory and thought.

The Sun sighed.

Yes, it is time, she concluded.