“All chains and fetters will open at Ragnorak,” Fenrir said, with a laugh though not a very nice one. That explained why I was out of prison anyway, though from the look in Fenrir's eye and Loki's feeling of danger I doubted I was the only murderer who had been freed. “You should have seen father, I stretched and my nose scrapped the sky and my jaw scrapped the ground. It feels so good to be free again.”
“At least we can die fighting against our enemies instead of rotting for the rest of eternity,” Loki agreed, but there was a tinge of sadness in his voice again. Fenrir and the giant snake seemed to notice the same thing because they both nuzzled him for a moment before going to fly on either side of our ship.
“I can't believe this is happening,” said Lifprasir, the first thing I had heard her say that showed that she was aware anything abnormal was going on. “I knew a lot of people in that city,” she added, looking back. I looked back for the first time since I had seen the waves wash over the city. I was looking for skyscrapers and the skyline that I had known for most of my life. It took me a second to realize that nothing that I was looking for was there anymore. All that was left was rubble and what looked like, even from the distance, like floating bodies in the water. I felt sick and I could hear Lifprasir retching next to me. So she did have emotions, I thought to myself, disgusted with the fact that that thought had even occurred to me under the circumstances. Lifprasir started crying, very quietly, and I had no idea how to comfort her, I kind of wanted to cry myself at that moment after all. Loki looked over us and noticed Lifprasir sobbing and my face, and he headed over.
“Is something wrong?” he asked. It was a considerate question but his voice was hard. He was no longer the man thinking about his children.
“We're just shaken about what happened to the city. I grew up there,” I added. I was trying to remain collected in front of the scornful Loki but my voice was shaking a little and Lifprasir still hadn't stopped crying next to me.
“That's just the start,” Loki told me, his voice emotionless. “Very few of us will be alive after this day. The world will burn and heaven will fall by my hands and you are upset about one city,” now he was obviously scornful.
“I'm sorry I don't have the ability to not to get upset that the entire world is collapsing,” I snapped. “We're all going to die and you expect me to be calm about this. Death row would have been better, I would have lived longer then.”
“Who said you were going to die,” now I realized it wasn't exactly scorn that was in his voice, there was something else but I couldn't exactly tell what it was. “You two are going to be fine, just fine. You guys are lucky, you've been chosen, it's the rest of us who die.” Now I knew what was in his voice, it was jealousy. This great and powerful man, obviously far superior to me, a mere human, was looking at me with jealousy.
“When you say the rest of you,” said Lifprasir, still sniffling. “Are you saying that everyone on this ship is going to die other then us? All of you?”
“That's right, me, my sons, my daughter, my wife, all of us,” Loki sounded bitter. “The price that we pay to take down our enemies. But you two don't have to worry, you two will survive.”
“How are you so sure?” I asked. If the world was ending I didn't see why I should be spared, that seemed like the chances of winning a lottery that the entire world had a number in.
“I already told you, Odin, who I hate, told us all our fate many, many years ago. He gave up his eye to see the future, and the eye of the all-father can buy anything he wants it to buy. All of this has been told of a long time before.”
To be continued...
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