Chapter 1: Hope
In the most recent round of Guess the Author, I wrote a piece. General consensus seems to be that the piece was way too short, which was somewhat intentional, and I really enjoyed writing it, so here we are.
This first chapter is the original Guess the Author piece with a few changes for clarity and flavor.
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It was a bright night, and the light of five moons illuminated the pure white sky. It was a perfect scene for the coronation of a king, and the empty throne looked beautiful in the moonlight. After everything that had happened, he was grateful that there was moonlight at all. He had missed it during those final years on Midgard. Once, Helgi would’ve thought that the gods were favoring his tribe, and he did believe that they were favored now, although he was unsure of who favored them now, as the gods were dead.
He didn’t know who was favoring them, of course, since he knew that the gods were dead, and so did his regal nephew, Sigfrid. Both of them had witnessed Ragnarok come and go, and it had been horrifying. Their tribe had barely managed to escape Midgard alive - and even that had been an accident.
Helgi’s brother, Ragnarr, had died during Ragnarok, but his sacrifice had not been in vain. His death kept the attacking Frost Giants away from the Norse escape ship that had been secured by the sacrifice of thousands, ensuring that the Norse and their traditions survived.
“Helgi,” a voice said. “The coronation is beginning. Stop reminiscing”. It was one of his soldiers, and it got his attention.
He turned and looked at the moonlit throne, and he watched as Sigfrid sat upon it. His nephew still looked young, but that didn’t matter. He had been elected by the jarls of their tribe, and he would grow up quickly - no, he had grown up quickly during the Twilight of the Gods.
“Our old world is lost, and we have fled beyond any of the Nine,” he began. “We do not know what occurs on Midgard now. In all likelihood, all of our gods are dead. We have personally witnessed Thor’s death and the fall of Odin Allfather. The ancient prophecy has been fulfilled, but we have escaped from the realms that answer to Fate. We are now free to pursue our own destiny, unburdened by prophecy. This world is free from gods! We can do whatever we wish here. And I propose a toast - to freedom! A toast to the freedom to do whatever we want!”
His nephew raised his glass, and it was met by the glasses of his subjects. “To freedom!” they proclaimed.
Helgi was part of this toast, but his words and his thoughts didn’t match each other. Freedom was fine, but too much freedom led to anarchy, and Helgi knew how that ended - in fire and ice, in unbearable heat and freezing cold, in dead gods, and in apocalypse.
Indeed, Helgi knew that their new colony still had many problems that they had to deal with. The most problematic was that they had only brought over a limited amount of meat from Midgard, and it would soon run out. They feasted on some of that meat. Helgi had a few ideas on how to deal with the food problem, but now was not a time to deal with such things. Now was a time for celebration and not worry. Worry could come after the party ended.
After the feast, the tribesmen slept, but Helgi’s dreams weren’t cheerful. They were filled with the deaths of thousands of his comrades. He remembered the ship of the dead carrying a massive army that intended to bring all that he knew to an end. He remembered his dead comrades riding to his aid as einherji… and of getting struck down. He remembered oceans of blood and castles of skin. He remembered the flames.
The world had been so devastatingly red, and even the river water that he and his comrades had been forced to drink tasted of copper.
He remembered the moment when he had first realized that the prophesied Ragnarok was upon him. He remembered looking up at the sky one cold night and seeing the moon shrinking - he remembered seeing the moon being eaten by a wolf. He hadn’t seen a literal wolf, but he knew that was what was happening. There was no other explanation for the crescent moon shrinking.
He remembered attempting to gather an army to save the sun and failing miserably. No one had dared to aid him. Their excuses were different, of course, but the reasoning was that he was either delusional and seeing things or correct, in which case they shouldn’t attempt to prevent the will of the Norns. His old tribe had even claimed that the last battle against the giants would be glorious, and they would even get to fight alongside heroes from Valhalla. Most of his old tribe had looked forward to Ragnarok. They were fools. Still, he hadn’t been able to even attempt to save Sól - how would he even get to where the battle was taking place? He couldn’t reach the sky.
He remembered the End of the Nine Worlds, and it hurt. He had been so powerless. He had fought as best as he could, but it had meant nothing.
He awoke because it hurt to sleep. He knew that he would continue to think about Ragnarok in his waking hours, but he would no longer see it. He needed to remember to ensure that the events never repeated but did his memories have to follow him into such vivid dreams?
As he awoke, he thought of the ancient prophecy that had predicted these events and knew that they had been fulfilled. He wondered why nobody had seen Ragnarok coming, but he quickly realized that he already knew that answer. The Völva’s Prophecy had been laden with metaphors. They had expected a literal three year long winter, but no such event had ever come to pass. Instead, there had been three years of a dishonorable shadow war that was rife with kinslaying, and the few kingdoms that existed in their homeland had collapsed by the second year. A never-ending war between thousands of distinct tribes had followed, and not even the kingdoms outside of their homeland had been safe.
Indeed, not even the beginning of Ragnarok itself had stopped the fighting. The Æsir had attempted to unite the Norse in vain, and Helgi still remembered Odin’s speech that had begged that his people unite to face the Jotuns and perish with dignity… and he remembered how Odin had been answered with a spear to his one good eye.
That was why he felt the sin that he was about to commit was a necessary evil. He slipped out of his resting place under a tree and looked up. He saw no sun, so he slipped into the cold night. His tribe wasn’t the only tribe to have escaped with the gift that the last of the Æsir - the prophesied survivors - had sacrificed their lives for.
Internal division had exacerbated Ragnarok, and he couldn’t allow history to repeat on his new world. His nephew was still idealistic and naive with his beliefs in freedom. They were free, but so was everyone else, and that needed to be… mitigated. Helgi refused to tolerate anarchy in his new world.
He slipped into the forest where the Ship of the Æsir’s sacrifice had landed. The other tribes couldn’t have gotten very far from there…
The forest was refreshingly free from blood. He was thirsty, so he went to a river that was very close to where the Ship of the Æsir’s Sacrifice was. He looked around him to see if anyone else was nearby. He saw two other people, but only one looked human. Still, they weren’t very close to him, so he thought that he could talk to them later.
He drank the water as if he had never before drank cold and clean water in his life. He’d almost forgotten what fresh water that wasn’t filled with blood had tasted like.
Then, he began to walk towards where he had seen the other figures. He wanted to talk with someone, and he would have to figure out where the other refugees from Ragnarok were before he could deal with them.
As he approached the figures, he saw that only one of them was human. The other looked vaguely like a human being, but his complexion and dimensions were wrong. He was far smaller than a short human - indeed, he was even shorter than the few dwarves that Helgi had seen. His skin was yellow like the color that the sun had been before it went out. His head was also in the wrong area, appearing to be located under his neck. Out his neck protruded long horns.
As Helgi approached, he nodded at both figures.
“Where do you come from, stranger?” he spoke to the human. “Of what tribe are you, and how did you react to the End of the Nine? What is your name?”
“I am Ahkemiella,” the stranger replied. “I did not know of your gods before the End of the Nine, and my people believed that your struggles against one another were foolish. We knew that only through unity could we survive the disaster that was upon us.”
“Pretty words,” Helgi responded. “If you speak the truth, where did your tribe live? And why did they not warn my kin of the consequences of their actions? And how did you realize that the Nine were ending if you didn’t know of the Æsir?”
“We lived north of your lands, and we did warn the Norse that civil war would only lead to sorrow,” Ahkemiella said. “We traded with your people, so we knew some of what you believed in. Our traders saw the signs of your apocalypse and warned us, and we began to prepare for it. We didn’t truly believe that you were correct, but we figured that it was better to prepare ourselves for nothing than for something to occur and catch us by surprise. Our people prepared, but it didn’t aid us. I suppose that’s what we get for trying to change fate.”
“Here, there is no fate,” Helgi said. “I suppose that gives us an opportunity to do better.”
“I suppose so,” Ahkemiella said. “Why did you wish to talk with me? You want something.”
“Too much freedom will lead to anarchy,” Helgi said. “I intend to mitigate the consequences of our newfound freedom from fate. There must be authority to reign in the tempers and ambitions of men. The internal fighting helped destroy Midgard. I will not allow it to destroy our new home. However, I don’t know where the other settlers are. If I am to bring them into the fold, I need to know where they are. I was hoping to ask you about their location.”
“My people and I have been living near here, but we know how to reign in our ambition,” Ahkemiella said. “I think that you wish to know where your own people are, and you were right to come here. There are a few collections of survivors near this river, but your kin have spread across this entire forest. It will be very difficult to bring all of them into a single regime,”
“I need to start somewhere, and, actually, I could use a little aid,” Helgi replied. “Also, how are you eating? My small tribe brought some food from Midgard, but I know that it will run out soon. Does this world have any food?”
“I would be willing to aid you in your quest to bring order to this new world,” Ahkemiella responded. “I will not kill anyone myself, but I would be willing to convince other people - including my own tribe - to ally with you. As for food… the other being that was near this river was one of the natives of this world. I trade human things for food with him, and that was why I was here today.”
Helgi briefly glanced at the riverbank when Ahkemiella talked about the natives. Sure enough, the native had left, but his new companion’s wording suggested that he would be back. His new companion would also make a great ally in his quest to unite this world.
“Let us prevent another apocalypse, then,” he said. “We have work to do.”
“Yes, we do,” Ahkemiella replied. “And tonight’s as good a time as any to get started.”
This first chapter is the original Guess the Author piece with a few changes for clarity and flavor.
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It was a bright night, and the light of five moons illuminated the pure white sky. It was a perfect scene for the coronation of a king, and the empty throne looked beautiful in the moonlight. After everything that had happened, he was grateful that there was moonlight at all. He had missed it during those final years on Midgard. Once, Helgi would’ve thought that the gods were favoring his tribe, and he did believe that they were favored now, although he was unsure of who favored them now, as the gods were dead.
He didn’t know who was favoring them, of course, since he knew that the gods were dead, and so did his regal nephew, Sigfrid. Both of them had witnessed Ragnarok come and go, and it had been horrifying. Their tribe had barely managed to escape Midgard alive - and even that had been an accident.
Helgi’s brother, Ragnarr, had died during Ragnarok, but his sacrifice had not been in vain. His death kept the attacking Frost Giants away from the Norse escape ship that had been secured by the sacrifice of thousands, ensuring that the Norse and their traditions survived.
“Helgi,” a voice said. “The coronation is beginning. Stop reminiscing”. It was one of his soldiers, and it got his attention.
He turned and looked at the moonlit throne, and he watched as Sigfrid sat upon it. His nephew still looked young, but that didn’t matter. He had been elected by the jarls of their tribe, and he would grow up quickly - no, he had grown up quickly during the Twilight of the Gods.
“Our old world is lost, and we have fled beyond any of the Nine,” he began. “We do not know what occurs on Midgard now. In all likelihood, all of our gods are dead. We have personally witnessed Thor’s death and the fall of Odin Allfather. The ancient prophecy has been fulfilled, but we have escaped from the realms that answer to Fate. We are now free to pursue our own destiny, unburdened by prophecy. This world is free from gods! We can do whatever we wish here. And I propose a toast - to freedom! A toast to the freedom to do whatever we want!”
His nephew raised his glass, and it was met by the glasses of his subjects. “To freedom!” they proclaimed.
Helgi was part of this toast, but his words and his thoughts didn’t match each other. Freedom was fine, but too much freedom led to anarchy, and Helgi knew how that ended - in fire and ice, in unbearable heat and freezing cold, in dead gods, and in apocalypse.
Indeed, Helgi knew that their new colony still had many problems that they had to deal with. The most problematic was that they had only brought over a limited amount of meat from Midgard, and it would soon run out. They feasted on some of that meat. Helgi had a few ideas on how to deal with the food problem, but now was not a time to deal with such things. Now was a time for celebration and not worry. Worry could come after the party ended.
After the feast, the tribesmen slept, but Helgi’s dreams weren’t cheerful. They were filled with the deaths of thousands of his comrades. He remembered the ship of the dead carrying a massive army that intended to bring all that he knew to an end. He remembered his dead comrades riding to his aid as einherji… and of getting struck down. He remembered oceans of blood and castles of skin. He remembered the flames.
The world had been so devastatingly red, and even the river water that he and his comrades had been forced to drink tasted of copper.
He remembered the moment when he had first realized that the prophesied Ragnarok was upon him. He remembered looking up at the sky one cold night and seeing the moon shrinking - he remembered seeing the moon being eaten by a wolf. He hadn’t seen a literal wolf, but he knew that was what was happening. There was no other explanation for the crescent moon shrinking.
He remembered attempting to gather an army to save the sun and failing miserably. No one had dared to aid him. Their excuses were different, of course, but the reasoning was that he was either delusional and seeing things or correct, in which case they shouldn’t attempt to prevent the will of the Norns. His old tribe had even claimed that the last battle against the giants would be glorious, and they would even get to fight alongside heroes from Valhalla. Most of his old tribe had looked forward to Ragnarok. They were fools. Still, he hadn’t been able to even attempt to save Sól - how would he even get to where the battle was taking place? He couldn’t reach the sky.
He remembered the End of the Nine Worlds, and it hurt. He had been so powerless. He had fought as best as he could, but it had meant nothing.
He awoke because it hurt to sleep. He knew that he would continue to think about Ragnarok in his waking hours, but he would no longer see it. He needed to remember to ensure that the events never repeated but did his memories have to follow him into such vivid dreams?
As he awoke, he thought of the ancient prophecy that had predicted these events and knew that they had been fulfilled. He wondered why nobody had seen Ragnarok coming, but he quickly realized that he already knew that answer. The Völva’s Prophecy had been laden with metaphors. They had expected a literal three year long winter, but no such event had ever come to pass. Instead, there had been three years of a dishonorable shadow war that was rife with kinslaying, and the few kingdoms that existed in their homeland had collapsed by the second year. A never-ending war between thousands of distinct tribes had followed, and not even the kingdoms outside of their homeland had been safe.
Indeed, not even the beginning of Ragnarok itself had stopped the fighting. The Æsir had attempted to unite the Norse in vain, and Helgi still remembered Odin’s speech that had begged that his people unite to face the Jotuns and perish with dignity… and he remembered how Odin had been answered with a spear to his one good eye.
That was why he felt the sin that he was about to commit was a necessary evil. He slipped out of his resting place under a tree and looked up. He saw no sun, so he slipped into the cold night. His tribe wasn’t the only tribe to have escaped with the gift that the last of the Æsir - the prophesied survivors - had sacrificed their lives for.
Internal division had exacerbated Ragnarok, and he couldn’t allow history to repeat on his new world. His nephew was still idealistic and naive with his beliefs in freedom. They were free, but so was everyone else, and that needed to be… mitigated. Helgi refused to tolerate anarchy in his new world.
He slipped into the forest where the Ship of the Æsir’s sacrifice had landed. The other tribes couldn’t have gotten very far from there…
The forest was refreshingly free from blood. He was thirsty, so he went to a river that was very close to where the Ship of the Æsir’s Sacrifice was. He looked around him to see if anyone else was nearby. He saw two other people, but only one looked human. Still, they weren’t very close to him, so he thought that he could talk to them later.
He drank the water as if he had never before drank cold and clean water in his life. He’d almost forgotten what fresh water that wasn’t filled with blood had tasted like.
Then, he began to walk towards where he had seen the other figures. He wanted to talk with someone, and he would have to figure out where the other refugees from Ragnarok were before he could deal with them.
As he approached the figures, he saw that only one of them was human. The other looked vaguely like a human being, but his complexion and dimensions were wrong. He was far smaller than a short human - indeed, he was even shorter than the few dwarves that Helgi had seen. His skin was yellow like the color that the sun had been before it went out. His head was also in the wrong area, appearing to be located under his neck. Out his neck protruded long horns.
As Helgi approached, he nodded at both figures.
“Where do you come from, stranger?” he spoke to the human. “Of what tribe are you, and how did you react to the End of the Nine? What is your name?”
“I am Ahkemiella,” the stranger replied. “I did not know of your gods before the End of the Nine, and my people believed that your struggles against one another were foolish. We knew that only through unity could we survive the disaster that was upon us.”
“Pretty words,” Helgi responded. “If you speak the truth, where did your tribe live? And why did they not warn my kin of the consequences of their actions? And how did you realize that the Nine were ending if you didn’t know of the Æsir?”
“We lived north of your lands, and we did warn the Norse that civil war would only lead to sorrow,” Ahkemiella said. “We traded with your people, so we knew some of what you believed in. Our traders saw the signs of your apocalypse and warned us, and we began to prepare for it. We didn’t truly believe that you were correct, but we figured that it was better to prepare ourselves for nothing than for something to occur and catch us by surprise. Our people prepared, but it didn’t aid us. I suppose that’s what we get for trying to change fate.”
“Here, there is no fate,” Helgi said. “I suppose that gives us an opportunity to do better.”
“I suppose so,” Ahkemiella said. “Why did you wish to talk with me? You want something.”
“Too much freedom will lead to anarchy,” Helgi said. “I intend to mitigate the consequences of our newfound freedom from fate. There must be authority to reign in the tempers and ambitions of men. The internal fighting helped destroy Midgard. I will not allow it to destroy our new home. However, I don’t know where the other settlers are. If I am to bring them into the fold, I need to know where they are. I was hoping to ask you about their location.”
“My people and I have been living near here, but we know how to reign in our ambition,” Ahkemiella said. “I think that you wish to know where your own people are, and you were right to come here. There are a few collections of survivors near this river, but your kin have spread across this entire forest. It will be very difficult to bring all of them into a single regime,”
“I need to start somewhere, and, actually, I could use a little aid,” Helgi replied. “Also, how are you eating? My small tribe brought some food from Midgard, but I know that it will run out soon. Does this world have any food?”
“I would be willing to aid you in your quest to bring order to this new world,” Ahkemiella responded. “I will not kill anyone myself, but I would be willing to convince other people - including my own tribe - to ally with you. As for food… the other being that was near this river was one of the natives of this world. I trade human things for food with him, and that was why I was here today.”
Helgi briefly glanced at the riverbank when Ahkemiella talked about the natives. Sure enough, the native had left, but his new companion’s wording suggested that he would be back. His new companion would also make a great ally in his quest to unite this world.
“Let us prevent another apocalypse, then,” he said. “We have work to do.”
“Yes, we do,” Ahkemiella replied. “And tonight’s as good a time as any to get started.”
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