fic | thor (2011) | yggdrasill dreaming: 7.

[mekosuchinae]

7.

i: bore-tooth.

The soft glow led her down, down, down through that narrow darkness till at last she came to another door, this one crafted of wood. Sif could not think how long she had been at it, for time was strange in the dark, only that she was tired of stairs and never wanted to see another set of them again. She set her hand in the groove and pushed at the door. Light flooded the stairwell; she turned, squinting, from it and stepped out into day.

The door closed at her back. The texture on this side was strange: deep ridges ran the length of it, and it looked like nothing so much as a box cut out of or into some enormous tree. It dawned on her slowly, for her eyes still stung with the light, that this was because it was cut into some enormous tree. She took a step back then another. Her feet slid through grooves, like the little channels in a tree branch magnified more times than she could imagine, and this was because she stood on a branch so wide as to dwarf even Odin's great hall.

Sif looked up and the trunk, which was so vast she could not see how it ended whether across or along, was surrounded by clouds; it rose through them, thick clouds in colors like stardust or distant nebulae. Through the clouds where they parted, though it was bright as day about her, she spotted stars. The knowledge of where she was and the enormity struck her in the gut, and she reeled as a child looking down from a high tower. Loki had spoken truly.

"Yggdrasill," she breathed.

A scratching, as claws on wood, startled her. Sif grabbed at her sword, drawing it free of its sheath and turning, at the ready, to the sound.

A little red squirrel stared up at her between her feet and said in a resonant baritone, "Oh, put that away. I've already had twice my share of acorns. I have no designs upon your flesh."

The squirrel smiled so his teeth showed, and they were long and sharp. She thought perhaps the squirrel had grown a few inches.

"You'll forgive me if I don't," she said. "I've fought shape-changers before."

"I'm no shape-changer!" protested the squirrel.

He darted suddenly up her leg. His claws pricked her through her trousers. Sif shook her leg once; he would not be thrown. The squirrel settled at her knee. He had grown larger, now the size and weight of a small cat.

"I am Ratatoskr," said the squirrel. His fat tail quivered. "And what's your name? Go on, don't be shy. I won't bite."

Sif had fought wyrms, traversed between stars, spoken with weird and wondrous beasts, and nearly died twice-once at the hands of the man she would save. Never before had she spoken with a squirrel, no matter how large.

"I am Sif," she told the beast at her knee. "I come from Asgard, in search of Loki, who is lost."

"Oh, him," said the squirrel. He leapt from her knee and landed neatly on the trunk, no longer the size of a small cat but a middling hound. She could not make out where the door had been.

"You know of him?" She drew close. "Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?"

"I know of many people," said Ratatoskr vaguely, "and many things and many whats and many whoms and many wheres. It's my job, you know. To know things. I'm very important. If I weren't around to entertain Níðhöggr and the eagle-" He clattered his tongue on his teeth.

"But do you know of Loki?" she persisted. "Do you know where I might find him?"

Ratatoskr stretched his neck out, and his head was enormous, like that of a horse. His eyes were huge and dark. Sif tightened her hand about the blade's grip, but she did not step back or turn from his consideration. His teeth showed: he smiled.

"What will you give me if I tell you?"

She raised her chin. "What would you ask of me?"

"Why do you look for him?" asked Ratatoskr. "What does he mean to you? Do you know what he has done? What will come about because of this?"

Ratatoskr did not look away from her. His tail had stilled. He'd grown larger yet, a small wyrm coated in red fur.

"No," she said. She did not know. "But he is dear to me, and I would save him."

"And what of you?" asked Ratatoskr. "Are you dear to him? Would he save you?"

In her dreams he had touched her face and said her name soft on his tongue, as if her name were another bit of magic he had to learn. As children he had teased her and called her horse and pulled her hair as if to spur her on, and when they had grown he had called her Lady Sif instead of horse and looked to her in such a way as to make her bones ache. At his order the sentinel had followed her to Midgard.

"I think," said Sif, "but I cannot know. All I know is myself."

"Well, that isn't much," said Ratatoskr critically, but he subsided and as he subsided he grew smaller. "It doesn't matter anyway. I know many things but I don't know where Loki is." He did not seem bothered by this.

Sif found her breath short in her throat. Her teeth hurt, clenched so tightly. She swallowed.

"Then why," she said as reasonably as she might, "have you held me here with this nonsense?"

Ratatoskr turned his head to one side and eyed her.

"There's no need to shout. I said I don't know where Loki is, but I know of someone who does. Three sisters spin below. One has seen him fall, another has seen where, and the third knows how you might find him."

A savage hope filled her. Sif drew closer still. She set her hand upon the trunk and looked up to him. Her nails bit into the bark.

"Where are they? How do I find them?"

"That," Ratatoskr said with true regret, "I cannot say. They have forbidden me from their well. But," he added, "there is another. If you prove worthy to drink from his well then he will tell you how to find the sisters Urðr and Verðandi and Skuld."

"And where is he?" she snapped.

Ratatoskr moved swiftly. He was above her then before her, his pointed face near enough she could feel his whiskers on her cheeks. She recoiled and hated herself for recoiling. She had not drawn back when he had been large enough to bite her head from her neck.

He studied her a long moment, unmoving. Then he said, "I would ask a memory of you, but I think it will be more fun to see what you will do."

He turned and he was only a squirrel again, a little red thing scurrying higher up the trunk. The clouds began to close around him. His voice drifted:

"Go to the moss-side and follow it down till you reach the first root. There you will find the well Mímisbrunnr and Mímir beside it. If you drink from the waters, he will tell you where to find Urðarbrunnr."

"How do I get down there?" she shouted after him.

"You're clever," said Ratatoskr, "I think. If not, then climb. I hope you brought something to eat." His voice thinned, then that, too, faded.

The clouds closed about Yggdrasill. The scent of rain washed over her, and on the far side of the branch, a lazy drizzle began. Sif turned the blade over in her hand, gripping the hilt and releasing; then she sheathed it. The moss-side. She considered the vastness of the tree and the rain driving more strongly now. In an hour it would be upon her.

Sif turned her back to the storm and began to walk.

ii: loki dreaming.

Loki looked to the sky and in the sky: the stars, the worlds, the movements of distant galaxies as they spun or consumed each other or split apart, died and were born. The universe moved about him. Universes moved about him. If he'd time enough he would chart them, but even as he thought it he knew it untrue.

The branches swayed beneath him. Yggdrasill walked, restless.

"You say you cannot dream," Loki said, watching a star collape into itself. "What do you do when you sleep?"

"I watch," said Yggdrasill. She paced. "I see. Your Heimdall has an eye for each of the nine realms of Asgard, but I am all the realms and Asgard, too."

Loki ran a finger down the branch alongside his leg. Six wooden marbles fell into his hand. He heard Yggdrasill swat at her arm.

"Don't do that," said Yggdrasill. "That itches."

"Sorry," said Loki. He threw one marble in the air and caught it on his finger. Idly, he bounced it, then he tossed a second marble up and a third.

That dot there, he thought to be Goðheimr. It shone so brightly, how could it not bear Asgard? Homesickness washed over him, then it faded and it was only sickness, a knot in his belly. Home, but it was not his. First one son of Odin cast out, then the other, but Loki, king, had exiled himself. He flicked one of the marbles out into space.

A wasp stung his ear. Loki clapped a hand to his head and turned. The wooden marble rolled alongside his leg. He considered it.

"You are being very rude," Yggdrasill said. "Please stop vandalizing my person."

"I didn't know you had a person," he said.

"I have several," said Yggdrasill, "in many senses of the possession."

He scooped the marble up again and dropped it in his hand with the rest. They knocked together along his fingers. His shoulders itched. He wanted for Sif. He wanted to rest his head on her strong shoulder and weave his fingers through her hair and have her hands on his face. His face.

Loki pressed the marbles to the branch and rolling his hand over them, he pushed them back into the wood.

"Thank you," said Yggdrasill.

He bowed his head. "Of course. But it was nothing."

The stars, a hundred thousand stars, millions of stars scattered throughout the cosmos, and all the worlds strewn among them. Goðheimr was but one. And the other realms- A question burned in his throat. Loki touched his tongue to his teeth. He made a decision.

"Where is Jötunheimr?" he asked. He did not falter. He was proud of that, and sardonic at his pride. If he could not name it, then he'd no hope at all.

"Would you like to see her?" asked Yggdrasill.

He did not know if he did. There are no monsters, Yggdrasill had said to him.

"Yes," he said.

"Let me see if I can remember," said Yggdrasill, then she threw out her arms and the sky dropped onto Loki.

iii: the unconscious one.

Time had worked weirdly there in that long passage that connected her room to the tree, and that weirdness carried over. Daylight lingered well after what she would have thought night. The storm caught up with her halfway across the branch. Sif pulled her hood up and slogged on through the tempest. Rainwater sweeping down the grooves yanked at her feet. If she fell, it would thunk her head twice on the wood, then her general weight would hold her down.

The rain cleared in the afternoon, morning, midnight, whenever it was there in the ramparts of Yggdrasill. Vast shadows moved across the bough: leaves, far above her. Perhaps she was closer to the roots than she'd presumed. She stopped to eat: a handful of dried apple crisps, a bite of bread, water. Her hair dried slowly at her back. Sif drew her knees to her chest and set her chin between them.

How far to the moss-side? More pressingly: who was Ratatoskr that she should trust him? She ran her tongue over her teeth, picking at them. The vastness of the task set before her settled upon her shoulders. Sif blew her lips out. Horse, she imagined Loki saying fondly. Loki. Too late to go back, and she'd promised him she would find him.

She spread the fingers of her right hand out across the ridge rising by her hip. The magic had gone out of her palm, the key used up.

Sif leaned her head back. She gazed up the trunk, up the ridges to where they softened and then faded in the incipient cloud cover. The natural lines cut into the bark gave her footholds, handholds. She could scale the trunk through the grooves and rest when she needed to in the knots and divots that rose periodically. The sunburnt lands had been far nastier.

Sif took another quick drag on her canteen and swished the water around her mouth. Rising, she shouldered her bag. Puddles spotted the branch, and the bark was soft beneath her boots; it caved underfoot. Sif pressed on.

As she walked, she thought of Loki: black hair curling or slicked back, the furtive line of his mouth, how his lashes covered his eyes. His mouth had been the same, his hair, the way he looked at her or looked away. Jötunn, but he was Loki. The 'but' picked at her. Growing, she had known the jötnar as monsters, as little more than savage beasts, but Loki was hardly a monster, and if Loki, who was jötunn, was not a monster, then: were any of them monsters? Had she been wrong all her life to think them so? If Loki was a jötunn, then were they even a them, a safe bogey, an other she could look at from a distance and deem lesser?

Her lips had burned when she'd kissed him, her skin blistering as it froze against his skin. Then: his magic, rolling warm through her, healing her as she hurt, mending her as she broke. He'd hissed when she put her hand on his cheek. Had it hurt him, then, for her to touch him?

She thought of his throat, how it worked, long muscles sliding and the knot in his throat bobbing as he swallowed. His fingers slithering low on her arse, biting into the muscle, the fat so round there. His teeth on her tongue, how he'd groaned for her. "I want to slip under your armor," he'd said, and his palm had rubbed over her hipbone.

Sif sweltered under her leather plate. She was as yet damp from the rain, and she felt rather like she'd walked through steam. No more thinking of sex-or, as she thought of his long and graceful fingers and of how he said her name, his cleverness, his infuriating arrogance, the smiles which toyed with his lips, of Loki. The knowledge of exactly how much of her life she'd devoted specifically to thinking not only not of sex but not of sex with Loki depressed her. She prided herself on honesty, and here she'd lied outrageously for years. That, she thought grimly, was the sort of thing Loki would do.

She stomped clear to the edge of the bough and looked down. The trunk went on and on and on. Thick branches jutted at intervals from its side. More clouds littered the way, hiding the rest of the tree from her. For all she knew, the roots were right there. And how far was right there? She looked back the way she'd come. It was day still; it was always day. She had the sudden, sinking feeling that she ought to have taken her mother up on her offer. The next talking squirrel she met, she was killing it for the meat, directions be damned.

Sif planted her feet in a tapering groove and looked as far out as she could. Her fingers dug into the trunk. The hugeness of Yggdrasill swamped her. She could just make out a trace of mossy green on the distant curve of the trunk, where it turned away from her. So: climb out. Climb down. Climb across. How very simple.

She eyed the fog below. If she fell, she supposed she would only get there that much sooner. Sif scratched at her hair, then she walked back from the edge. Rest, first. She'd slept in brighter light than this. She shrugged her pack off and pulled the sword and its sheath free of the top loops. With the tree as huge as it was and the peculiarites of Ratatoskr still fresh in her memory, she thought she'd rather not take any chances with whatever crawly things might happen upon her. She'd seen no signs of insects or of worms, but that didn't mean they didn't exist or that they wouldn't take a chunk out of her if given the chance.

Sif leaned into her pack and gazed up at the leaves so far above her. A wind set them to flapping. Like enormous birds. The faint suggestion of chimes and vast wings trickled over her. Rain dripped off the trunk and onto her nape, cooling her hot skin. The air was strange, fresh and thin and clean. She had never thought Asgard's air dirty before. Sif drew in a deep breath and let her eyes fall shut.

A soft mouth at her ear woke her.

Her eyes flew open. She grabbed for her sword; it slid free of the sheath. Sif turned violently upon a stag, who froze. His nostrils flared. His eyes were huge and black, and in them she saw a lacework of stars strung together. The antlers, which twisted together, bore thick, autumnal foliage. His lips parted; his teeth were flat. That was little comfort.

"No harm," said the stag in a small voice. "No harm. Only hungry."

She worked her fingers about the hilt but did not lower her blade.

"If you intend to eat me," she said, "be warned that I will cut your tongue from your throat before you so much as take my nose."

The stag's eyes whitened. He took a half-step back, his hindquarters rising. She raised her blade higher and he froze again in place. His thick throat worked. He was larger than the stags of Asgard, which were larger by far than those pitiful things of Midgard. If he were to charge her-

"Curious," he said feebly. "New smell. Not to eat." And again he whispered: "No harm."

"How did you find me?" She spared a brief glance about her.

"Smell," said the stag. "Came down. Very hungry."

"Came down," she repeated. She looked up the trunk. Little pockmarks stood out in the wetted bark, like hooves pressed into mud. Came down.

He took another step back. The muscles in his legs tensed. In a moment, he would fly.

"Stop," Sif commanded.

She threw her hand out. His deep chest filled with air. He sank on his forelegs, gathering strength. She modulated her voice, brought it lower down, made it softer.

"Wait," she said. "Please. No harm."

He blinked, a flicker of his lids. Sif lowered her sword slowly, carefully.

"No harm," she said again. "See? I will cause you no hurt."

The stag stirred. His ears flicked. He straightened out of his crouch. A red-orange leaf tumbled free of his antlers.

"No harm?"

"None at all," she said, "I promise you. How exactly did you come down?"

"Ran," said the stag. He danced on his hooves, a small step, then he settled again. "Flew. Out of the north."

She considered his shoulders (very broad), the set of his back (very sturdy), his legs (very strong). Sif smiled. This unnerved the stag, whose ears twitched back and forth rapidly and out of sync.

"Are you hungry?" she asked him.

His ears stopped, the right facing forward, the left back. He turned his head so he looked down at her with one eye. The left ear slowly came forward.

"Yes," he said.

"If I give you something to eat," she said, "something you've never had before, would you carry me down to the roots?"

The stag digested this. His ears flicked again, then his eyes, too. He stamped one foot twice and then went still all over. Even his breath faded, and the minute trembling in his skin dissipated. Sif waited. A breeze tugged on her hair and threw strands across her jaw, her mouth. She let them play there. No sense in spooking the beast. Another leaf drifted loose from his antlers.

His shoulders shivered. He snapped to again.

"Agreed," said the stag.

She emptied her pack of the rest of the crisps, a half loaf of bread, and two unpeeled oranges. She unwrapped each and held them up to him, and the stag stooped to eat them from her fingers. His lips were soft, like velvet. When he used his teeth, he did so delicately. For all his great size, he was remarkably gentle. Thor would have liked him.

The oranges the stag loved best. He snuffled the broken bits of peel out of her palm and then ate the half-peeled orange in two quick bites. The second orange he ate whole. The sweet scent of the fruit spilled out from his teeth. The stag shuddered and sighed. His thick shoulders drooped. Sif grinned and wiped her wet fingers off on her chestplate.

"Good," said the stag, after a time. His eyes refocused. "A sweet toll."

Then, gracefully, he bent to his knees, his front legs first and then his back legs bowing, too. He lowered his heavy head, and a shower of leaves tumbled loose, bathing her legs in fiery light. The stag was a beautiful thing, a wondrous creature like as a god. And she would ride it. As if it were a simple beast, she would ride it.

Sif slid the sword back into its sheath. The stag watched in peace as she gathered her pack together again. She set her hand on his shoulder. His hair was like down, so light on her fingers. Muscle quivered under her palm. She hesitated just a moment, her hand on his side. Then Sif swung up onto his back.

He was broader set than any of the horses in Odin's stable; her feet stuck inelegantly out from his sides. Where to put her hands. She set them at the base of his neck, then thought of how very far she would have to go if she slipped off. Casting dignity aside, she looped her arms through his antlers and clasped the opposite roots.

"Ready?" asked the stag.

"Close enough," she said.

The stag stood, rising onto his feet as agilely as if he carried only air upon his back. Sif tensed. Her arms tightened. He shivered all down his back, muscles trembling, then he darted forward and leapt from the bough, and the wind tore through Sif's hair and leaves slapped her across her mouth and she screamed or laughed or merely wept, for they flew; they flew; down the trunk they raced like a cold wind bearing down from the north, and she could think of nothing but how her hair pulled, how the leaves crumbled in her mouth, and how she wished she'd a horse as fleet as this, for she never wanted to go anywhere again if she could not fly so swiftly as this stag.

She pulled herself forward and shouted into his ear, "What is your name?"

"I am Dvalinn," said the stag. His voice sang. "I am the autumn wind."

"I am Sif," she cried, then she hid her face in his throat for the wind froze her face.

"Hello," said Dvalinn gravely. "Hold on."

"Believe me," she said, "I am," then he rebounded off a branch, and she felt her legs beginning to rise. Sif wound her arms more tightly through his antlers and closed her eyes to the fog that dashed against them.

iv: the treetop.

Veðrfölnir dozed and as she did so, she dreamt uneasily of fire and smoke and hot winds buffeting her wings. War had lit in the heart of Múspellsheimr. Clouds of ash spitting out its great factories: she had caught a thermal and circled round them. The heat from the bellows so far below had warmed her beneath her feathers. Múspellsheimr had cut down its forests; it had cut out all it had to feed the fires. In her dream, Veðrfölnir circled and circled, her feathers fluttering in the smoke, and watched as they cut down Yggdrasill.

The eagle shifted. Veðrfölnir woke. A nebula had burst, spraying its guts in shoots of red, orange, a violent blue, across the dark sky. She thought it fire, cast from the heavens to consume Yggdrasill, then the eagle stirred again and said, "Wake up."

Veðrfölnir blinked. The fire resolved into stardust. The winds which ran fingers through Yggdrasill's high boughs were cool on her feathers. If fire burned, it burned elsewhere. Silly chick, to think Yggdrasill on fire because of a dream.

"Wake," said the eagle.

"I'm awake," Veðrfölnir snapped. She stretched her wings out and flapped, once. Kinks in her muscles popped loose. The eagle bore this patiently.

"Bad dreams?" she asked.

"That is none of your business," said Veðrfölnir. "My dreams are my own."

"You clawed my head," said the eagle.

Veðrfölnir busied herself with a loose feather in her right wing. The damned thing wouldn't come out. She bit at the root and said, "Sorry."

"I dream, too," said the eagle kindly.

She turned, looking out across the heavens. That distant spot, tucked behind a vast green cloud: that was Múspellsheimr, child of two stars. Veðrfölnir lowered her wing. The eagle shifted again, rolling from one side to the other as she repositioned in her nest. Veðrfölnir had never known the eagle to be so restless.

"War comes," said the eagle. "Yggdrasill knows it."

"Don't say it as though it's certain," said Veðrfölnir. Fear softened her bite. "Nothing is certain."

"War comes," the eagle repeated.

Fire, sent to devour Yggdrasill; fire, to burn her to her blessed roots, and the eagle burning with her. If war came to Yggdrasill, Veðrfölnir could fly; she could flee. The eagle, whose wings were as useless as Níðhöggr claimed, would remain.

"There must be something to be done," said Veðrfölnir. "Can we not stop them before they would find a way to cross the stars?"

"It is not for us," said the eagle.

Her head dipped. Veðrfölnir rode it out as best she could, wings splayed to brace. The eagle was silent for a time, staring through the cosmos at what only she might see in the farthest, coldest corners of the unborn universe.

She said: "We will watch."

"Oh, of course," said Veðrfölnir, "thank you for that. 'We will watch,' as if that isn't what we've done for the last several epochs." She snapped at the air. "What is the point of watching if we cannot do anything?"

"Someone must watch," said the eagle. "Someone must do."

"Bullshit," said Veðrfölnir.

The eagle did not deny it. Veðrfölnir hunched her shoulders against the chill. Now that she'd woken she could not easily go to sleep again, and if she were to be honest, as she liked to be honest and brutally so when she could manage it, she did not wish to sleep. The dream lurked; she saw its shadow in the corners of her eyes. She tucked her beak into her breast.

A familiar chittering started. A slender branch beneath them groaned then snapped into place again. Claws scrabbled over bark. Veðrfölnir squeezed her eyes shut so tightly she saw constellations. Oh, that she'd bit his head off when she first saw the little rat all those wretched millenia ago.

"And a good evening to you fine, feathered ladies," called Ratatoskr.

"To you as well, Ratatoskr," said the eagle gravely.

"Thank you kindly," he said sweetly to the eagle, then he shouted: "I said a good evening to you!"

"Fuck off," said Veðrfölnir.

Formalities concluded, Ratatoskr settled in. "You will never guess what I've come across."

He paused dramatically. Veðrfölnir refused on principle to guess. The eagle waited politely. Ratatoskr clicked his tongue and said, "No imagination in you two. Someone has come through the door, a Sif of Asgard. She claims to have come in search of Loki-you know, the one who fell with the Bifröst."

The eagle stirred suddenly. She heaved forward, nearly rising out of her nest. "What are you doing!" cried Veðrfölnir, and she hung on desperately as the eagle bent her head to Ratatoskr.

"Out of Asgard," said the eagle. "Out of Asgard?"

"Er," said Ratatoskr. His tail twitched. His eyes had gone huge, his pupils blown; the eagle reflected in them. "Yes. She wanted to know where he'd landed, but I wouldn't know because no one bothers to tell me anything, which is-"

"Shut up and get on with it," said Veðrfölnir.

He bristled. "Here I am trying to-"

"Get on with it," said the eagle.

"Oh, of course, my lady," said Ratatoskr, rubbing his paws over his mouth as he bowed before her beak. "I directed her to Mímisbrunnr, that he might direct her to oh, what's this, please don't!"

The eagle had surged forward, leaning out of the nest. Ratatoskr squeaked and dove for shelter in the greenery about them. Veðrfölnir gave up her perch as lost and took flight, circling once widely as the eagle stared intently down the length of Yggdrasill, through the clouds and fogs and stars hung like bits of dew from her leaves.

"Veðrfölnir!" shouted the eagle.

She swooped down that the eagle might see her. "I am here."

"You must fly," the eagle said, "to the southern roots. She has gone astray. Níðhöggr stirs. Fly."

"I didn't tell her to go there," Ratatoskr said, indignant.

Whatever else he might have said Veðrfölnir did not hear, for she circled higher, orienting, and then, tucking her wings in, Veðrfölnir fell out of the sky.

v: the southern roots.

The stag slowed. The relentless dragging of the wind eased incrementally, till Sif felt it only as a breeze tugging at the ends of her hair. She lifted her head from Dvalinn's nape. The orange-burnt verdure so thick through his antlers scratched at her face. Leaning back from it, she looked about.

Gargantuan roots rose to either side; they gnarled about each other and drove recklessly on through the light fog which clung to Yggdrasill's lowlands. Dvalinn sprang down the length of one root. They passed beneath the arch of another, crossing over the first. The shadow stretched on, then they were out again and nearly level. She could not make out the earth, though she assumed it was there, somewhere below the clinging mist.

Sif unwound her arms. The joints had stiffened, locked in place. Her left elbow popped like a shot, and Dvalinn started.

"No," Sif rasped, "it's only me."

She licked her lips: they'd cracked. Blood had dried at the corners. Her canteen had broken off from her pack. Another three sat inside her pack, but until the stag had come to a stop, they were as good as useless. Sif turned her face to the fog, which engulfed them. Water dropped upon her skin, beading her throat, her cheeks. She opened her mouth to it.

Dvalinn slowed again, then he came to a stop. The root burrowed into the earth, a pillar planted in the fog. "Here," he said, and he bowed for her.

Sif slipped down from his shoulders. Her knees buckled, and she threw her hands against his shoulder. Her thighs pitched, muscles trembling. She grit her teeth and forced herself back from Dvalinn. Legs straight, still she felt as if they bent to the sides.

"Thank you," she said. She bobbed her head, the best bow she could offer him without falling off the root.

"Welcome," said Dvalinn. His legs twitched. His nostrils rounded. He looked spooked, as if he'd caught scent of something he would have preferred not to smell. The stag turned his eye on her.

"Be quick," he said.

Then he turned and sprang up the root. In a moment, he'd vanished through the fog. Sif squinted at the shadow 'til she knew it to be a thing she imagined. Blood dotted her lip. Speaking had cracked the scabs open. Water, first, then she'd move on. She shrugged out of her pack. The shield clanged on the root; the fog muffled the sound. Sif put her hand on it anyway, to keep it from ringing again.

She glanced over her shoulder. Fog. The suggestion of another root showed, hulking. If anything stirred, she could not hear it. That meant little, in a strange place with strange beasts-squirrels that changed size, a deer which ran fleet-footed and unheedful of the inexorable pull of gravity. She freed her sword and slung its strap round her shoulder.

The water canteens, she found buried beneath the rest of the oranges. She found her coat, too, and wished she'd thought of that before she'd frozen half to death. Sif shoved it back down and grabbed an orange and a canteen. She popped the cork with her teeth and drank deeply. If the water was stale on her tongue-the taste of the fog lingered oddly, like wine in the back of her throat-it was water.

Her legs shook, minute quivers running through them. If she sat, she didn't think she could stand up again. Dvalinn, with his eyes rolling back so the whites showed: he'd smelled something, here in the fog, down at the roots. Sif stuffed the orange into her pack, drew the strings tight, and hooked it over her shoulder. Dropping to a crouch, she swung out off the root.

Sif landed in mud, sloppy mud which squelched and burped up her knees. It smelled-what did it smell of? Rot, and something sweeter. Her legs threatened to give out. Sif tensed her thighs and forced her feet on. The mud clung to her heels, but after three steps, four steps, she strode more readily through it. She looked up to where she thought the trunk would be but she could see nothing but the fog and a distant light which might have been a sun.

Moss-side. Forward, she thought, and if it wasn't, far enough around and she'd find it again. When she found Loki, she was going to slap him across the face. He'd always had to make hide and seek into a trial. Absently, Sif adjusted her sword strap.

At her back: a sound like stones grating. A thick shadow swallowed her. Sif turned, fingers at the hilt, and the wyrm said, "Don't even bother. You can't stick me with that little thing."

In the belly of Godheimr, Sif had slain newly hatched wyrms. She had laid waste to the wyrms of the sunburnt lands, who spat fire and towered four heights above her, wyrms whose blood turned sand to glass. Thor had cut off the head of Eingeirr and brought it to Asgard, and she had marveled at the hugeness of the monster's head, how it stood twice again as tall as Thor, tallest in Asgard. The wyrm which bent to her now dwarfed Eingeirr as a mountain would her mother's house. It was long and sinuous, and the graceful arches of its throat belied the muscle which teemed beneath its plate. So long was it that the rest of it vanished into the fog, its back a great shadow and its tail nothing more than a faint whisper.

Sif drew her sword. The wyrm laughed. Its teeth flashed, a mess of razor edges set at cruel angles. Fangs jutted from its jaws. It leaned toward her, its mouth open. Swinging the pack from her shoulder, Sif yanked her shield free and slung the pack into its mouth. The wyrm caught the pack with its slithering tongue and swallowed.

"Such a waste," it said mournfully. "What was that meant to accomplish? Now you've lost everything you had."

"Not everything," she said.

She cast small, flickering looks about her, assessing what she could see of the terrain, the wyrm, where she was in relation to it all. A root dug into the earth at her back. A small, slanted hollow showed in the side of it.

"Oh," said the wyrm, "that's right. You still have your twig."

It laughed again. That had been the grating sound, of stones rolling against stones. The muscles thick in its throat worked. Larger opponent meant she needed to be quick. Best shot was to get under the hook in the root at her back and bring her shield up before her.

The wyrm wriggled closer. Its claws, each as thick around as Sif, bit deep into the mud. Its breath stank of rot and carrion and honeyed things. The eyes were the worst, for they spun in their sockets, and as they spun they hummed. So close, she could thrust her arm into a nostril up to her elbow.



In a sing-song murmur it said, "Here, since I'm so generous, I'll let you have a free shot. What do you say? Just one quick-"

Sif lashed it across the snout. Her blade screamed over the scales. A spark flew out and dashed in the mud. The wyrm began to laugh again. No gash, no cut, she hadn't even scratched its polish. Forty steps to the hollow. A claw twitched, and Sif brought her shield up to bash it hard on the nose once, twice, then she drove the end of her sword into its nose.

The wyrm shrieked at this and snapped back. Sif began moving to the hollow, running backwards on her heels. She kept the shield up. The wyrm shook its head. A bit of blood spattered out the end of its nose and guttered in the mud. Smoke poured out the divot the blood carved in the earth.

"That," said the wyrm, "was cheating."

It reared; its neck drew back; its head raised to the sky, and Sif thought: Fuck, fuck, fire-breather, should've known from the throat- Its neck began to bulge, near to its chest. Didn't matter if she made it to the hollow; it would roast her wherever she stood. She had no ward to break the fire.

A ghastly scream cut through the fog. Briefly, Sif thought that was it; she was done for. She made to bring her sword up to bear. The wyrm paused. Its throat deflated and it said, "What-" then a shadow smashed into its head and drove it back into the mud. A wave of earth splattered Sif. She fell back and threw herself forward to keep balance. She looked to the wyrm.

It was a bird, an enormous hawk which had driven its claws into the wyrm's jaw. The bird swiveled its head sharply to look at her. Its beak opened-Sif had time enough to think of how badly she wanted to hit Loki and whether she could manage to score its mouth before it bit her head off-then the hawk screamed:

"Run, you fool!"

The wyrm stirred. Its claws dragged through the mud. The bird snapped its head back around.

"Look at you," the hawk jeered, "can't even stand up! I prefer to eat things with more substance but I suppose I could stomach a worm."

The wyrm hissed. "I've always been partial to canary myself."

"Continue straight and you'll find Mímisbrunnr," the hawk shouted at Sif. To the wyrm, it said, "Oh, please. If you even tried canary you'd choke on it."

So, she'd been right then, she thought; forward it was. Turning her sword over in her hand, she bolted for the far root. The fog closed around her. At her back, the wyrm swore tremendously at the hawk. A mad place for mad beasts. Her legs ached, worn out, but Sif did not slow; she did not falter; she did not stop.

Interlude. | Masterpost | 8