#Dragons Regin | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beantoeboxstories · 24 days ago

Text

Ormrgild: Fafnir's Curse - Part 2

Continued from part 1

Fafnir rocks backwards as though struck. Surely it must be a bit of bark, a splinter, or at worst a sliver of bone. Something natural. Something normal. Anything else would be ludicrous.

"Ah!"

He screws his eyes shut and balls his hands into fists as the cuts suddenly flare with glass-cut pain, radiating up and down his skin in waves. He doesn't dare to even breath until it passes. When it at last ebbs he slowly wills one eye open to look. His heart skips a beat.

Fingernails are visibly forcing their way out of cuts along his fingers, his arms. One even pushes up beneath Andvaranaut, nudging it up and away from his flesh and tightening the ring's grip about his finger.

"No. No no nonono..."

His off hand trembles with horror, hovering just above the newly emerged nails but unwilling to actually touch the horrible things. The thought of doing so makes his stomach clench.

There is a deep ache within his fingers. It feels like something is pressing urgently against the flesh of their tips. Still shaking, he turns his hands around in time to see red, overstretched flesh pop and gory finger bones glide smoothly into the exposed air before curving into a sick imitation of claws.

"Fuck!" Fafnir bellows and casts his hands as far away from his body as possible, as though he could discard the monstrosities as easily as a food scraps to the family hounds. By now his whole body is quaking violently. It is a curse. It must be. He is cursed! "Odin, Freya, someone. Please! Please, I... I'm sorry! I'll make it right. I'll... AH!"

The last two fingers of each hand begin to stretch out before him, bending and twisting into long, spindly digits with the burn and snap of overextended tendons. They grow longer than his hands, longer than his arms, longer than the entire length of his body. He does not have the strength to lift them from the ground and when the tips hit it they jar like a struck funny bone. He hunches low and clutches at his hair.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

A thought surfaces: find help.

He half runs, half staggers towards the stone column abutting the cave mouth. His spindle-fingers bump along the ground behind him, stuttering on every hillock and pebble. Wild eyes stare up at the entrance. The column up is nigh vertical, but the byzantine network of gaps and nodules made easy enough handholds before. Yet as he tries to pull himself up he finds that he does not have the grip strength with only three working fingers on each hand. The others merely flail about like fleshy spider legs and cannot grip anything.

His hold on the rock fails and he falls backward onto unyielding ground, bashing into jutting stone as he goes. The impact knocks the air from his lungs and he stares at the high ceiling, stunned. Eventually he lets out a thin wheeze and feels an accompanying twinge in his ribs. Once he can breathe somewhat normally he sits up slowly. Clawed fingers fumble to pull his tunic up so he can examine his chest for injury.

It's not so much that his ribs are broken. It's that the lower half of his sternum is simply gone, leaving half his ribs to float freely. As he stares, multiple hard, thin ridges snake beneath his skin to hug his middle, and he finds many new pairs free-floating ribs have squirmed into place between what should have been his ribcage and his hips.

He's hyperventilating now. His gorge rises with revulsion and he vomits, but doing so offers no relief. His insides only churn more violently. It feels like there is an octopus where his guts should be. Nebulous things undulate within him, and if he looks down he can see them move. Grow. There is too much inside him now and it presses on his flesh, his many ribs, and inward on his stomach, forcing him to expel whatever remains inside. He retches again and again until he is dry heaving. He does not notice how his bile sizzles when it hits the ferns. When the retching subsides at last his skin still feels too full, too taught, but it is a somewhat more settled. Looking down he sees that his torso is longer than it should be, better to fit...whatever...is inside him now.

A seam in the shoulder of his tunic rips open. Then another, and another, and he realizes that he is not just stretching, but growing larger overall. He rolls over onto his front and tries to push himself to his moss-wrapped feet but finds he can't stand upright. His spine is too stretched, too weak to provide support. He cannot keep the length of his belly from sagging to the ground.

It does not stop. His hips ache. Something thick bumps against the back of his leg much like the nose of an inquisitive dog. It glides down his pants leg before growing too much to be contained. The fabric tears from top to bottom as a large tail thrashes about in time with Fafnir's screams.

His clothes shred themselves and he hears a small pop from somewhere beneath him. Suddenly wave upon wave of glittering coins cascades out from under him until the grotto is drowning in gold. Dazedly, he realizes that he has crushed the purse, releasing all of its contents.

He stretches the length of a full longship now, and through tear blurred eyes he sees that his head is level with the grotto's entrance. With a shout he tries to hurl himself toward it, only to realize that his legs no longer touch the ground. They are suspended off the sides of his writhing bulk, still their original size but vestigial in comparison. They kick weakly in the empty air. Those anemic limbs are all that mark where his torso ends and the tail begins. Below his truncated ribcage he is simply one long coil of spasming flesh.

So he hauls himself towards the cave mouth by his arms, the vast lengths of the tail dragging heavy behind him. It scrapes wide troughs through the gold. But after only a few paces his arms quaver with exhaustion and he falls forwards into a pile of coins.

It is only when he accounts for the tail itself that he finds he can somewhat move. He is forced to roll his shoulders and strut his arms in time with the tail's swaying slither. It is a horrible sensation. He can feel hundreds of ribs up and down the tail shimmy along the ground like centipede legs. But at last he reaches the grotto's mouth. Heedless of his distorted fingers, he jams his arms through it and pulls.

He does not fit. He does not fit! His shoulders, his coils, they are larger than the mouth now. Reason leaves him and he bludgeons frantically at the stone around the opening, tearing at it with bone claws and hammering at it with what remains of his fists until a thousand scratches line its frame. It does nothing. He forces his head out through the opening and into the cold forest where the rosy light of dawn is just starting to set the mist aglow, and screams.

His jaw unhinges mid-scream and will not reseat properly. He realizes this is because his face is distorting, lengthening. He feels the corners of his lips peel backwards past his eyes and ears and all the way to the crown of his head. Flesh bubbles and puckers into gums beneath the new-formed lips and, somehow, he can feel the seeds of something hard inside of them. A bare moment later these small kernels explode from his extensive gums into spiked teeth that frame his face in a fan like horns. The tooth-horns rise to scrape at the top of the cave mouth, sending a shudder through him. It feels like chewing on sand.

He whimpers and slides back from the hole. Tears roll down his face but they fall unnaturally, catching on something. He clasps his hands to his face and feels the pattern of fingernails covering it like scales.

"I don't... I don't wha.. aa... gruh... want... I can't! Oh grrrods, wrrrrhat am I...?" He tries to form the words as best he can with his strange lips. He snorts as he sobs now, his snoutish nose twitching of its own volition.

Then skin along his spine splits open and he feels something heavy and moist emerge. He thinks it is blood until he feels it twitch, until it tastes the rancid palm sweat, salty tears, blister pus, and blood lingering on the gold-strewn floor. And he realizes that there is a tongue on his back that runs the length of his tail and beyond, framed on either side by gums and horn-teeth. He can feel it move and flex and when he screams it curls, mirroring the one in his mouth.

It is too much. It has been too much for some time and he is far past shattered, but it is only now that unconsciousness finally graces him.

~~~~~~~~~~

He wakes to the taste of metal, old sweat, skin oil, dirt, and mold. He gags, closes his mouth, but the flavors remain. Fafnir's mind is a-swirl with confusion and disgust. What did he eat last night? He can't remember. Perhaps he was drunk? He wonders if Father would give him the morning off to recover.

He tries to get to his feet to go wash his mouth out only to come crashing down on top of his own terrible coil. Recollection slams down hard on him and he is breathing to fast. He can't get enough air and passes out once more.

~~~~~~~~~~

It is the same every time he wakes. There is a period where he thinks that everything is fine only to have it ripped away from him all over again. He thinks it must be part of the curse. He is torn between the desire to spend most of his time sleeping and refusing to ever do so again for fear of what happens when he wakes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Those long digits have developed a membrane, have become wings. It started with a web of tiny, easily torn capillaries growing between them. Then a film began to develop around the vessels. Now it is like his arms drag heavy cowhide behind them, except that he can feel it.

The wings are large, but not large enough to fly with the weight of his body even if he could lift off without any true legs. He laughs. There is an unhinged note to it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hunger roils in his belly. He has experienced hunger before- lean winters and failed harvests were not uncommon when he was a child. He is used to riding out the initial pangs, silently telling his belly that he knows it is suffering but that there is nothing he can do about it. For some reason it always seemed to help. The pangs would subside, leaving only a persistent light headedness and lethargy.

Only these pangs never leave him. They just keep chewing at his insides. Nor does he starve or lose strength. Drinking copious amounts of spring water helps a little, but he is never fully rid of it.

~~~~~~~~~~

He tries to turn into an owl to escape, to find food. What he becomes is not an owl. At least whatever he is now has some combination of limbs, functional lungs, and no feathers growing on inside of his throat. He doesn't try it again.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are two things that he finds that soothe him, or at least distract him. One is the spring. He has found that the water has eaten away at the rock underneath to form short, rudimentary tunnels. They don't lead anywhere, but they are large enough that he can wriggle into the spring and float within it, feeling the gentle flow of water over his pseudoscales. In the back of his mind he wonders if he will still be here when the waters finally eat their way to the surface.

The other thing is Andvaranaut. On the one hand he loathes the ring so much that his chest siezes. He knows it must have a part to play in what happened to him. It seems to have grown along with him, yet when he tries to remove it it will not budge. He suspects it is somehow welded to his flesh based on the way the skin and nails beneath jolt when he tugs.

Yet he also grows increasingly dependent on the moments of relief it brings. Days go by simply basking in the ring's splendor, blinking occasionally to see what magnificent form it will take next.

The bitter difference between its transformation versus his own is not lost on him.

~~~~~~~~~~

He sometimes talks to what remains of the otterskin purse. It was his brother once, after all. A literal scrap of home.

"I wish I could... hrrrr... reee... reeeenember you." He still struggles with speech. It's his lips, the way they stretch back behind his head and the way the muscles around them refuse to obey. His throat rasps and strains on words, as well. It takes so much out of him to talk. But he still tries. "I'm sure you hate me. I... hurgh... I don't blame you. I would, too." He bunches himself up to retain heat as the chill of night settles around him. "I just wish I could take it back."

~~~~~~~~~~

Fafnir starts upon hearing a scream that is, for once, not his. It is followed by the sound of snapping branches and a low moan. He tears his gaze from Andvaranaut and peaks his head over a dune of coins.

There, by the entrance, is a small figure curled on their side. They wear a fine, embroidered tunic and shoulder a heavy pack. Fafnir stares in disbelief. Another actual living, thinking person lies before him. Someone to talk to. Someone who could maybe help him if he plays it right. And yet the thing that stands out most to him is lightness of their clothing. When did it become warm out?

A coin rolls down the the pile before him, accidentally disturbed from a brush of his mane-like beard. The prone figure jerks their head up and twists around to look his way. They are likely some kind of traveling merchant by the sundries hanging from their belt. They're holding their wounded shin close, but they seem to have forgotten it upon seeing first the eddies of gold and then the towering figure of Fafnir himself. Fafnir's heart sinks as he sees their their face contort into a mask of abject terror.

Fafnir raises a hand in what might be a placating gesture for a man only to realize how threatening it must now seem when the merchant frantically shuffles backwards until their pack is pressed against the entrance column. They clutch their leg with one hand and draw their knife with the other. It wouldn't even make a scratch, but he supposes they would rather make a bid for Valhalla than Helheim. Fafnir opens his mouth to talk them down but is surprised when he feels viscous saliva gush free from both his jaws and the appalling tongue on his back. Embarrassed, he uses his raised hand to try to hide the drool from view.

His stomach knots with hunger pangs and he doubles over. Meat. There is meat! muscle, marrow, organs, eyes, and brain. Fresh for the taking. The merchant before him wouldn't stand a chance. No one would know. No one would come. Fafnir barrels toward the merchant with the force of an avalanche, his mouth yawning wide to reveal the mishmash of spikes, fangs, and molars within. Flecks of spittle fly in all directions. They burn where they land.

He slams to a stop just before the small recoiling form, sending a spray of coins over them. No... no. He can't. He's already so heavy with regret, he can't add another weight. Not this. But then, what's one more regret atop the mountain he's already made? What is the point of resisting when he is already so far gone, when it would bring him even a thimble full of relief?

He reaches out and grasps the merchant. They feel so warm and he can feel the race of their heartbeat through his fingers. He remembers a time when he was eight and caught a mouse that had been knocked senseless by one of the farm cats. Its small body had quivered in his grip. It had been scared and warm, just like this. He'd let it go in the woods behind the longhouse, much to the ire of of his father.

Don't think about it, he tells himself. Don't think at all. He raises the merchant up. They are trying to stab at his fingers with their knife, but the blade skids right off of his ghastly nails. They are so close to his lips now. One bite. That's all it would take. One bite.

And that's all that it would be worth. That wouldn't fill his stomach. One bite, and he would still be hungry. He hisses, the claws of his other hand raking into the gold in frustration. Without even looking he continues to raise the merchant until they can reach the lip of the cave mouth. They scramble against his palm and then are gone.

Fafnir sags back down to the pile of coins with a weary sigh. He notices the merchant's pack lies half open by the pillar. It must have come off during the struggle. He rather doubts they will be back for it. Inside are bags of spices, a box of jewelry, and a few bolts of velvet. Well. More riches for an already obscene mound of treasure, he supposes.

He leaves them there and slither-stomps over to the spring, trying once more to fool his hungry belly with water.

~~~~~~~~~~

The merchant is not the only visitor to stumble upon him. Fafnir nearly succumbs each and every time. Inspired by that first meeting he contrives a way to trick himself- give in to not give in. He'll snatch the visitor up, bring them to his eager maw as though to devour and then... just keep going, holding them aloft to the cave entrance. He's started watching them when they leave, wondering what it's like to simply be able to step beyond that threshold.

It's been bothering him, though. It's true that he has no idea where the forest is located or how close it may be to a town but until he literally fell upon it the grotto seemed untouched by man or god. Yet now he get visitors often. His horde isn't just gold now. There are trinkets from all over the known world. Gems and swords and silk and spices. They all seem to leave something behind when they flee.

He casts Andvaranaut a considering look. It could be coincidence, it could be. But he doesn't believe it.

~~~~~~~~~~

The real trouble comes when word spreads. Perhaps one of the wayward travelers told somebody who actually believed them. That, or there are enough people with enough stories now that various jarls are starting to take it seriously.

He first meets this new breed of visitor when an arrow bounces off his shoulder. It's followed by a full volley. Fafnir turns his head and shields his eyes with a hand to protect them. Unfortunately this exposes the tongue on his back, which is promptly peppered with half a dozen shafts. He howls in pain and feels strange muscles along his spine contract reflexively. The teeth on either side of the tongue snap shut around it, covering it entirely. He looks over at his back with wide, horrified eyes. Every time he thinks he's done being nauseated with himself he finds something new and worse.

It takes effort to to keep the teeth on his back closed, though, and he doesn't know how long he can hold it. He barrels towards the entrance and reaches through to swipe at the outside. He hears shouts and feels swords land uselessly on his wrist. Then he feels his claws sink into something soft and wet after a brief feeling of tearing through metal foil. There's a strangled scream that ends abruptly, a beat of silence, and then shouts calling for a retreat. Drawing his arm back inside he sees that it is coated in blood and viscera. If he had anything left in his stomach he would lose it all over again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fafnir rouses to the sound of someone talking. He groans from where he lays on the cold ground and wonders why he isn't in his bed.

"Oh. Oh, Fafnir..." He hears his brother say. Why does his voice sound so fraught?

"Shurghh... Shut up, Rrregin. Tryin' to sleep," Fafnir grumbles. His voice sounds strange to his own ears and talking strains his throat terribly. His eyes flick open.

Regin stands clad in full battle gear. A helmet is upon his auburn head and a mail coat upon his shoulders. In his hands he holds a shield paired with a sword. His face, though, is sallow, sunken. Past the helmet's noseguard Fafnir can make out tear tracks down his cheeks. "What a monster you've become."

Monster? Monster... tail. Gold. Cave. Hunger teeth pain trappedribsguiltring... it all comes flooding back to Fafnir once more and he wails. Regin leaps away and drops into a ready crouch.

Fafnir pants heavily, bracing himself on his arms, and looks away from Regin. There is no hiding, though. "H... hrow long has it been?"

"Eight years."

Fafnir swallows and bows his head. It seems too long and yet too short. "Brughther. I'm sorry."

"For?"

"Everything."

Regin laughs bitterly. "Bit late for all that, innit?" He crouches down, resting his sword across his knees. "I mean, look at you. Fitting punishment for a thief and a murderer, though. A freakish flesh snake... thing... wallowing in gold you can't ever spend."

Fafnir shrinks in on himself. Each word is the turn of a vice on his heart. "I knowaagh... what... I am," He doesn't, though, does he? At least not physically. The rest of it is true enough. "How can I make it right?"

"It's funny, isn't it? This gold started its life as a weregild for our dear brother and now it can serve that purpose again for father," Regin drawls. "I take it all. Both shares."

Fafnir regards his brother. So familiar, so different. Family and stranger both.

He rumbles his assent. "It is yours. Just...one thing..." He winces at the suspicious glower Regin gives him. "Please. Hurh. Could you... come back? Murgghaybe open the cave up?" He looks down at the grimy, twisted claws of his hands, refuses to look anywhere else. "I hurgve not been outside in so lurrong."

The silence stretches. He can only imagine what Regin must be thinking. The risks of letting such a beast wander free, of what he could do, of being seen.

"Alright."

Fafnir's head shoots up and a delicate spark lights in his chest. He doesn't dare to call it hope. Regin still keeps his blade and shield at hand, but he no longer crouches in a battle-ready stance.

Fafnir slither-stomps to the pile of dead ferns and cloth remnants that he has made into bedding and picks through it inelegantly with a claw until he hooks onto the strap of the otterskin purse. It is so small compared to his hand that he rarely dares to touch it for fear of damaging it further. He sighs softly as he looks at it one last time. It had, in its way, given him some comfort.

It's a bit of an awkward thing to slither back to Regin with only one arm to aid him, but he manages and lowers the purse to his brother. Regin takes it with a wrinkle of his nose. "Gods, where have you been keeping this? It smells like a frozen sow dug up in spring."

"Thurrrgh clasp is, uh, broken but the... gruh... magic still works. Just don't let it spill."

And then Regin's eyes flick to Fafnir's warped hand with a familiar hungry glint in them. "Don't forget the ring."

Fafnir stiffens. Andvaranaut. It was part of the original weregild and, logically, should be part of this one even if he had to remove his finger along with it. But imagining his days without its welcome distraction sets his heart sinking. How could he endure that? What would he do? Stare at the gray walls for all eternity? But perhaps if he could leave, it wouldn't be so bad. If his brother kept his word, then...

The curse. Oh, how could he forget! To pass on the ring would be to pass on whatever...this...was. Everything he endured, everything that had happened to him or worse. To Regin.

Fafnir shakes his head emphatically, little droplets of saliva flying as he does so. "Nughoo. No. It can't be passed on." His eyes widen when Regin takes a battle pose with his sword in response. "It is crugh...cursed, Regin! Lurrrghk at what it did to me!"

His brother laughs. He laughs. "You think a ring did this to you? Oh brother, the ring isn't cursed. You are the curse. Scheming, thieving, patricidal... this is punishment from the gods! You are a greedy, vile little shitstain better suited for wriggling on your belly like the worm you are than walking with men. You always have been."

Fafnir's jaw hangs open and a low keen emanates from his deep in his throat. His head and neck sway back and forth. It's true, it's true, it's true! He did those things, he is those things. Now it is merely carved into his flesh. He wants to crawl into a corner and tuck himself away from his brother's gaze.

His brother's....

"Rugh... Regin, we worked togethergh to kill Father. To take his fortune." Regin waves a hand idly as though that alone can deflect the accusation. "But it wasn't my hand that held the blade, now was it? And in the end it was you who took everything! And now I'm the only one of us left alive and," He purses his lips at Fafnir. "Intact. It is mine by rights."

Fafnir rocks his weight back and forth between his hands and his tail lashes. What if it wasn't the ring that was cursed? What it it was just him? If he withheld Andvaranaut from his brother he would wrong him yet again. But he had been so sure it was the ring! The question was, could he really take the chance?

Memories come unbidden and he shudders. No. He could never.

"I am shrorry, brother. Take the gold, take the purse, but the rugh... ring stays. I can't risk it."

Regin strokes his auburn beard and nods shortly. "Alright then." With that he spins on his heel and marches towards the limestone pillar by the cave mouth. There he bends over a sack of some kind. Fafnir is confused and instantly on guard. Is he not going to call the gold into the pouch? He readies himself.

Unfortunately, his focus on Regin is misplaced. A volley of arrows hums through the air, unleashed from the cave mouth. Fafnir clenches his back teeth shut and briefly wonders if his brother had talked at all to just about anyone from prior raids. If he had, surely he knows that arrows are ineffective.

A bright point of pain blossoms on his face and he cries out, slapping at it. When he looks at his palm there is something there, but it it too small for him to easily make out. Whatever it is isn't metallic and therefore not an arrow.

Another point of pain blossoms, and another, and another. Enraged buzzing fills the air. His eyes widen. Wasps. They have tied wasp nests to the arrows! He howls in pain as the creatures scurry about his pseudoscales, stinging between the seams where they can reach vulnerable flesh. More barbs pierce the exposed gums on his head and back. Fafnir thrashes and rolls, trying to crush as many as he can, but there is a thick cloud of them now and arrows keep landing with more.

A sword tears into one of his wings. His blood splatters across the gold coins, frothing where it lands. He throws his head back and screeches. Regin takes the opportunity to use the sword to haul himself up the slope of Fafnir's wing and onto his back. Fafnir turns to look at him as best he can through the black cloud of angry insects and sees that his brother has donned a straw basket hat such as beekeepers use.

Rage flares within him. And also indigestion. Something foul gurgles deep within his bowels and he feels it rise up through his esophagus with an acrid tang. He snaps his mouth open desperately, heedless of the additional stings, as a thick, tar-like substance ejects itself from his throat at high speed. It bursts into flame on contact with the air, igniting the cloud of wasps as well as the straw of Regin's basket hat.

"Fucking disgusting freak!" Regin snarls as he flings the basket hat from his head and dives out of the cloud of very much on fire wasps. His brother tucks himself into a roll and comes to a stop some ways away. For his part, Fafnir doesn't even feel the fire. He is more mortified by the fact that he just projectile vomited flaming tar.

He spins to face Regin and charges. The stings are starting to swell and he has trouble seeing out of his left eye, so he has to tilt his head to keep his brother in his sights. He catches up to him quickly enough. His brother may be small and quick, but the strides of Fafnir's arms are long.

It dawns on Fafnir that he does not know how to fight his brother without crushing him. Were he still a man he could use any one of twenty-three different maneuvers to disarm Regin, each one suited to a particular weapon, a stance, a counter. He was always the better fighter of the two. But he has no sword nor adequate legs with which to take a stance, and to him his foe is the size of a mouse. His body can no longer accommodate nuance.

He opts to try to gently grab Regin like he has with many a past traveler. Unfortunately, while most travelers weren't skilled enough to fight back his brother very much is. Regin deftly skids out of the way and smacks one of Fenrir's knuckles with the blunt pommel of his sword. Fenrir quickly retracts his throbbing hand with a hiss while his brother circles him.

A different tactic, then. Fafnir swipes forward with his claws, making sure that the leading edge of his wing is ever so slightly extended. As expected, Regin scuttles to the side and leaps over the wingrib to thrust his blade into the soft, fleshy wing itself. The sword bites deep for a second time.

Except Fafnir is prepared now. The moment the sword sticks he rolls onto his back, freeing up his other hand to wrap around his brother. He tugs gently. Regin cries out as one of his arms dislocate and loses his grip on the blade. Rolling back onto his belly Fafnir holds the dwarf before him.

A familiar hunger surges.

"Nugh- no!" Fafnir moans. His jaws tremble. The teeth on his back chatter together and open. Saliva pours forth. Oh, to taste meat. Not sweat, not stains, not gold, nor ground but actual, honest to gods food. Regin watches him struggle with his inner demons with resigned anger.

"Just fuckin' do it already, ya ugly beast! Or does turning into a worm mean you only eat shit?"

Fafnir gives an animalistic roar. His head darts forward, intent on snapping Regin in half.

It swerves at the last moment. Fangs sink deep into the muscles of his arm. Scalding blood floods into his mouth. It is sour like acid and bitter like gentian. It doesn't taste dwarven. He relaxes.

There is a the meaty, rending sound. A sudden agony in his chest. He coughs, chokes, and dark heart-blood dribbles from between his mismatched teeth, overwhelming the brighter blood of his arm. Fafnir lowers the wounded arm holding his brother aloft and looks down at his chest. A long, gleaming sword is buried to the hilt, angled up just where his free floating ribs begin. It is held by a man- a human- that he does not recognize, hiding in a trough of gold formed by his very own tail.

He feels himself falling, but not the impact. He chokes on his own acid blood and cannot breathe. People are speaking, arguing, but he cannot make out the words over the singing in his ears. Slowly the world washes away with every failing beat of his heart until, suddenly, it stops.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hreithmar chews on the end of a honeysuckle flower, savoring the sweet nectar while he leans against the trunk of a tree by the crossroads. A gentle breeze, thick with the scent of green things, teases his hair and beard. It ruffles the linden trees affectionately and sets the foxglove bobbing along the road.

He hears the clip clop of hooves before he sees her round the bend. She sits ramrod straight atop a sturdy roan, clad in lamellar so bright he could swear it is silver. A splendid belt of white bear fur and carnelian binds her middle. She rests a spear casually on her shoulder as she rides, letting it bounce along with the gait of her mount. When she catches sight of him she clicks to her horse and it slows. He notes how there are no reins. Valkyries are such show-offs.

Hreithmar gives the woman an easy smile and spits the flower out. "Hilda, my dear! So good to see you."

Hilda rolls her shrewd gray eyes at him. They're all that are visible beneath the chain veil of her helm. "You don't have to butter me up like a tavern server, Hreithmar. I get enough of that waiting on the einherjar."

"Oh? And am I not an einherjar?"

She looms forward ever so slightly and quirks an eyebrow at him. "Well, I don't know. Shall we ask Odin?"

Hreithmar swallows and his smile falters. "Ah...that's quite alright. My apologies, Hilda. I didn't mean to offend."

Hilda gives a curt nod. "Was your hunt successful?"

"Yes, but time consuming. But, more importantly, how, ah," He pauses, fidgets with the hem of his cloak. "H... how was your hunt?"

She is silent for a long moment, letting him twist in the wind for just a bit longer. "It was... interesting. Would you like to see him?" Hreithmar is certain that she knows just how well that veil hides her expression and is taking full advantage of it. He lets out a breath that he did not realize he was holding.

"Fucking yes?"

At this Hilda laughs and offers him a hand up. He forces his trembling hand to still and accepts it gladly, clambering up onto the back of the roan with only a little fuss. The beast does not so much as twitch an ear in dismay.

He does not know how long they ride. Time is a nebulous concept here. All about them bilberry bushes fruit and flower simultaneously and he swears he spots both coltsfoot and fireweed in full bloom when they should be seasons apart. What he does know is that the terrain becomes rocky, the elevation higher. He frowns and scans the ridges around them, hoping they aren't too close to settled lands.

"Where are we going?" He asks.

Hilda shrugs in front of him without turning. "He wanted to ease into things," she says simply.

A lopsided cave comes in to view, set into the side of a mountain where a shallow stream of water trickles out. Hreithmar purses his lips and tries to settle the butterflies in his belly. He hops down from the horse before it comes to a full stop, boots splashing in the stream, and quick-steps towards the cave.

"Wait, Hreithmar!" Hilda calls out behind him, but he ignores her and pushes forward. Bones from bear, moose, and reindeer litter the cavern floor just at the edge of the sun's reach.

"Fafnir...?" He calls out, not even a little bit ashamed of the quaver in his voice. He hears someone move in the dark, a muffled shuffling sound and a slosh of displaced water. But it sounds like they are moving back in the cave, not forward. "Son, it's okay. I can guess at what you might be thinking, but I promise you it's alright."

"Cahgn you?"

Instantly the hairs on the back of Hreithmar's neck stand on end. The voice is reminiscent of his son's but with a strong growl to it as though it passed through the lips of a troll. The voice, the grisly mass of bones, it practically shouts "trap." And yet... there is a melancholy to the words that he cannot shake.

He gathers himself and takes another step forward. "You tell me."

He stands there in the stream and waits patiently for the next shoe to drop. Something is deeply wrong, he can feel it in every screaming nerve in his body. But whatever it is, if his son is indeed here, then it is up to him to take the next step. That sorrowful note... he keeps his movements slow, obvious, like when he used to approach frightened strays in the old cowshed.

A massive shape solidifies among the shadows. Details resolve themselves. It is like someone used his son in some act of deranged taxidermy, stretching his skin over the skeleton of a creature that might, with some considerable squinting, resemble the world serpent Jormungandr. But where there ought to be horns there are teeth and where the scales would be he is instead clad in fingernails like Hel's own ship. The full weight of what has happened to his son falls through his chest like a lead weight.

"Jesus Christ," he murmurs, an affectation he picked up from who knows where.

"Let's not bring the Christians into this, hm?" Hilda dryly, coming up behind him.

Fafnir flinches and turns his shaggy head away from him, hiding it in again in shadow. His whole posture is drawn in, though whether to make himself look smaller or out of a subconscious need to protect himself Hreithmar can't say. His son begins to back up, undulating a long, serpentine tail and shuffling his arms. Hreithmar winces internally but does not let it show on his face.

"I have a question," Hreithmar says, and just like that the tension in the cave multiplies tenfold, closing in around him in with a suffocating pressure. He turns to Hilda. "How in the name of Surtr's flaming ballsack did you carry him all the way to fucking Valhalla?"

The tension evaporates like steam released from a pot. Hilda laughs. "On my back, of course. The trick is to lift with your legs."

"It wah... warghs very embarrassing," Fafnir says lowly. There's still a note of trepidation in his voice, but Hreithmar's heart eases. His son settles onto his forearms, tucking the... wing bits? Wing bits. To his sides. Hrethmar opts to match him by hopping his ass up onto a nearby rock.

"I can't imagine what your horse made of that." Hreithmar smirks.

"Oh, Dick Snapper has handled worse."

Fafnir trades a horrified look with Hreithmar. "Your hrugh...hrorse's name is... Dick Snapper?"

"There was an incident."

"I...see." Hreithmar, for his part, tries very much not to dwell upon the fact that he has just ridden on said horse.

The Valkyrie shrugs. "It's Valhalla! Everything was back to normal the next day. Nothing to worry about."

"Are we really near Valhaghlla?" Fafnir asks softly. He is much more reserved than the man Hreithmar knew. He wishes he could say that was a good thing. "I rrreghmember dying. The sword, choking on blood. Regin. But I..." He looks down, refusing to meet anyone's eyes. When he speaks it's barely a breath. "I don't deserve to be in Asgard, murrrch less Valhalla."

Hilda snorts. "Oh please, as though it takes some great moral standard to end up here. All that really matters is that you died fighting. He," And she jabs a finger at Hreithmar, "Is allowed here on a technicality since he had enough time to draw a knife and try to fight and you," She swivels her finger to point at Fafnir. "Fought all the way. First your brother and then, well, yourself."

A little bit of ice finds its way into Hriethmar's blood when he hears that. He desperately wants, no, needs to learn what in Helheim happened to his sons. But there will be time for that later, and it is abundantly clear to him that Fafnir needs time.

A large glob of water splashes into the stream of the cave and he realizes that Fafnir is crying. "Brgh...but I am a murderer. I belong in Nastrond."

"Well I can certainly take you there if you want, but I can't say that I recommend it. Look, despite what the gods and stories say where you end up is really more of a whim and a game of technicalities than anything."

"But I, I..." Fafnir squints his eyes like he's trying to stop the tears, but they just keep coming. "I'm so sorrghy, Father. I killed you. And I meant it. I... I..."

"I know." Hreithmar sighs. "It hurt, that betrayal. For a long, long time. Still does. Afterward I kept wondering if I did something wrong, treated you badly, brought you up poorly. I second guessed myself a lot. Eventually I came to realize that though I was flawed as any man, no, nothing I did could have warranted murder. Nothing." He does his best to catch his son's eyes. "But I forgive you anyway. And in a way, I did have a hand to play in all of this. Loki warned me the ring was cursed-"

"I fughking knew it!"

"-And I didn't listen. I thought maybe they were tricking me. I suppose they did, by telling the truth. But by accepting it I doomed us all. Each and every person who holds it, and many more besides. You, me, whoever keeps it after you..."

"And if nothing is done about it, me." Hilda growls. "Or so my portents read."

Fenrir's voice is dangerously quiet. "Are you tellingh me," he rasps, "that I just shr...spent eight years as a monster starving in a hole in the grah...ground not because of the grruilt that I rightly bear, not because it was jrgh...just, but because the same gods who I begged for merghcy and forgiveness over and over again fucked us all after krrrillingh my brother?"

Hreithmar starts to say something, thinks better of it, and simply nods. There is a storm brewing in his son's eyes. A snarl forms, revealing mismatched teeth. What he took for a row of reptilian spines on the back opens like a mouth and a long tongue lashes out. He schools his face into the most neutral expression he can manage.

"Thurgh curse may have started this, but my aghctions are mine to face. I own my guilt, I do. But so should they!" The growl in Fafnir's throat vibrates through the rock of the cave. Something sludge-like bubbles from his mouth. At once his son throws back his head and roars, expelling a great jet of muddy spray at the ceiling that ignites upon leaving his lips. Globules of burning muck fall from the roof of the cave and hit the water with a violent hiss. Hreithmar forces himself to breathe and takes a step to place one hand on Fafnir's massive arm.

Fafnir freezes at his touch. His rage does not vanish, it will never vanish, but for the moment it is replaced with shock. He stares at his father's hand. There are too many emotions in his face for Hreithmar to be able to dissect them, but there is one that stands out the most- relief.

Hreithmar smiles up at him. "Well, then. How would you feel about a bit of comeuppance?"

~~~~~~~~~~

Fafnir flexes an arm, ensuring that the mantle of falcon feathers that Hilda gave him is secure. It is a short slither over to the mountain ledge. He shivers when he nears its end, feeling exposed. The sky, which is the same deep blue as the day it all began, is too vast. There are none of the sheltering, constraining walls that he is used to, and he finds it hard to know where to focus. He closes his eyes and musters what withered scraps of daring remain within after all this time. Then tips head-first off of the ledge.

He should drop like a sack of flour and splatter int an unidentifiable mess on the rocks of the valley far below but, somehow, this does not happen. Wings spread wide and gather the the wind beneath them. He feels the thrum of magic thread its way over his skin and, impossibly, he lifts up, up into the air. In his jaws is a satchel of tokens, offerings of goodwill for each and every victim of the gods he plans to visit.

An epic poem could be composed about the things that Fafnir does not know. Should a skald ever recite such a thing its telling would take a full fortnight at least. He doesn't know why the gods do what they do. He doesn't know why, after dying, he is still like this. He doesn't even know if there is such a thing as justice in the world, or which side of it he is on. But among the scant handful things he does know is this: the world should be better, he has a chance to try to make it so, and he is not alone.

He wheels in the sky, letting his panic course through until it burns itself out and leaves only embers of joy. He has managed one impossible thing today and aims to accomplish several more.

0 notes