February Contest Winner - Ambitious Writers - Goodreads

The member chosen genre was fantasy and the selected genre was myth. Rose, the Ruby Raconteur, won by popular vote and this is her entry.

Title: Ragnarök Is Upon Us

Rating: T, because I've got a reputation to protect

Genre: Myth...? Yeah, myth.

Word Count: Exactly 1,000

Summary: Oh, wouldn't you like for me to spoil things? >_> Well no! I shall not!

But I will tell you this! 'Tis about the Norse Gods (known as Æsir) at Baldr's funeral. It's basically them reflecting on things...sort of. I wrote mostly just...the feelings and thoughts that I THINK they would've thought and also them remembering what Baldr's death signals.

Ragnarök Is Upon Us

A god died last night.

The Æsir Baldr had been impaled by a mistletoe arrow. Oh, how the Queen detested that plant now, now that it had taken her son. She and Baldr had had dreams of him dying, blood spurting from his wound. Such nightmares had made him depressed so she went to every object in the world to gain a pledge that they would not hurt him.

Every object save for the mistletoe.

Frigg realized now, far too late, that if one was old enough to kill, it was old enough to make a pledge.

She buried herself in her hands as she followed Odin, like all the other Æsir, to the shore. Though they were still quite a while away from even reaching it, Bladr’s great ship, Hringhorni, had already begun to loom over them on the horizon.

Frigg crumpled into the snow the moment she saw her son’s magnificent sea craft glisten on the icy waters. The golden haired Sif rushed to her side, her eyes also red from crying, like all the others. Even Thor’s fiery eyes had dimmed as he helped his mother up from the snow, deciding that, for the moment, he didn’t have to carry his war hammer, Mjolnir.

Frigg began to regain her balance and the feeling in her fingers, thanks to Thor carrying one of the funeral torches, but her reddened eyes had still not ceased weeping, though she found solace in the fact that everyone had been weeping...

Almost everyone.

How Frigg hated him, how they all hated him now.

The Great Trickster, Loki.

Freyja shook her head in astonishment, unable to comprehend how a man like him could have done such a thing.

He had saved her from being the bride of a Jötnur, helped Thor retrieve his hammer from Midgard, transformed into a mare and given birth to Slepnir and given it to Odin, and countless other acts of being a functioning member of the Æsir. How could he just throw everything away with this?

Golden tears fell from her as Freyja answered her own question.

He had always been the odd one out in Asgard; they had just never cared.

He was the bastard son of a Jötnur Lord and an Æsir. His father had been killed by Odin in front of his eyes before being taken by the very same killer as a lesser son. He had always played tricks, like when he cut off all of Sif’s golden hair and replaced it with a charcoal black wig. Of course it grew back, but they would have never known then how demented his tricks would become.

They were so blind to his true intentions.

They were as blind as poor Hod when the redhead convinced him to throw an arrow at their dear ‘brother.’ The Æsir had made a game of throwing objects at Baldr because he was impervious to all of them.

Except for the young mistletoe.

None of the Æsir had seen the redhead’s shadow sneaking away until too late. None of them realized what had happened to Bladr until too late. None of them had noticed the Trickster guiding the tip with his magic until too late. Frigg had not noticed the redhead following her as she went into the forest to gain pledges until too late. None had ever noticed the wickedness behind his smiles until too late. And not one of them saw the hurt in his eyes when the quiet redheaded boy was taken from his home and to Asgard.

Not until too late.

None except Odin.

He had seen all this coming. He was, after all, the All-Father. There was nothing he didn’t know. He had impaled himself on a branch of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, for three days to know the secrets of the universe. To not know something would mean he died and resurrected incorrectly.

He had done nothing to stop things. It was fate for Baldr to die. It was fate for the Trickster’s father to be slain. It was fate for the Trickster to be imprisoned. It was fate for his children to be imprisoned. And it is fate for them to escape and for the Æsir to die by their hands.

Unlike his poor wife, Frigg, he accepted the fact that he would never see his son again and he reminded himself of his acceptance as he went forward into the ship, torch in hand.

The bitter frost seeped in once more when Sol had begun setting, the grief too much for her to bear.

Baldr’s servants, horses, and other worldly possessions huddled for warmth on the ship, waiting for their own fate. The fate that came by the hand of the King and the torch he carried in it. They watched him as he passed by them and knelt down at Baldr’s side and whispered something to his ear. His voice was so soft and quiet; it was hard to tell if he was even talking.

When he finished, he put a lingering hand on Bladr’s shoulder and stood back up.

Odin walked down the plank of the great ship, his torch touching a rope covered in oil as the fire snaked upwards into the rest of the ship.

A weeping giantess moved closer as Odin finally stepped off the ship. Her shaking hand thrusted Hringhorni into the icy waters with a mighty push.

The fire quickly engulfed the ship and soon, all that was left was a great ball of flames as Sol finally set and her brother Maní took vigil over the sky.

Odin looked towards the other weary eyed Æsir, their eyes reflecting the great fire before them.

The great fire...

He was reminded of another great piece of fate. A piece they all knew well.

“Prepare yourselves,” he said in a booming voice, breaking all of them from their grief-stricken trances. They looked up at their King as confidence radiated off of him.

He continued, “Ragnarök is upon us.”