Lif's Tale VI

“If all of you die, what happens to us that we survive?” Lifprasir asked. I could tell she had the same doubts I had. It seemed very unlikely all in all.

“There is a place where you will be safe,” Loki assured us.

“Then why aren't you all going to that safe place too?” I asked.

“We can't fight against fate, and our lives are worth the lives of our enemies. I am willing to die to kill Heimdal. He may not be Odin but I will leave Odin to my son. Fenrir is a better match for Odin, I will kill the enemies that I know I can kill and if I can take an enemy with me it is well worth it.” Loki was starting to get fired up again but I didn't really understand it. I have never been attracted to the idea of dying just because I don't like someone else.

“So how will we know where is this safe place to go if everyone else is going to die?” asked Lifprasir.

“You are sure to find it, because you have been seen finding it. If it would make you feel better however I will show you before we march into battle.” He could see the look of relief on Lifprasir's face, and I must admit on mine as well. Having comforted us, I was starting to suspect that Loki was a nice person, he walked off. I could see him taking the tiller of the ship and the ship started truly flying forward.

Almost instantly we were level with where the rainbow had broken off and I could see that it was a whole different world. I could see a tree up above us and I realized that what I had always called the sky was actually the broad, interlocked leaves, of the tree. We were so high up in the sky and all we were at was the roots. I could see the tree had three roots, one was right at our feet. It was huge and twisted like a staircase up to the sky. It dug into the earth of the land we had reached, it was beautiful but thinking about what was likely to happen there according to Loki made me shudder.

“There, climb up that root and you should be fine,” Loki shouted to us, pointing at the root that I had noticed. As he pointed the ship plowed into the ground and slowly tipped over. I was braced up against the edge of the ship so I wasn't hurt and neither was Lifprasir but we were both surprised and shaken. I instantly dragged Lifprasir to her feet though, behind us I could see the rushing hordes that Loki had brought with him from the depth of the earth. I doubted that they would stop to let us move. Pulling Lifprasir alone with me by her hand I was at the root of the tree in record time. We were already climbing by the time that everyone else was off of the ship.

I will never forget that day, as fire covered the earth and scorched the roots of the tree we sat in the branches and watched. We watched as the serpent and a man with a giant hammer battled and then both feel beside one another. We watched as Fenrir the wolf fought with another man and defeated him, only to then have a sword shoved through the top of his head and die. The earth was destroyed, the gods died like flies, I cried when I saw Loki fall. And then all was quiet and three gods still stood on the battle field unmoving. I motioned to Lisprasir and we climbed down out of the three cautiously.

“You are the humans, we will remake the world, and you will repopulate it,” said a fair haired god, who was the most beautiful thing man or object I had ever seen. It was an awkward subject, Lifprasir and I repopulating the earth though and I looked at her to see what her reaction would be, but she just smiled at me and I knew it would be alright.

Lif's Tale V

“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...

Lif's Tale IV

After the outburst of Loki, Lifprasir and I kept quiet. I could understand why he was angry if what he had told us was true, but I didn't want to risk his anger being directed at me. Loki seemed positive that Lifprasir and I were there because of fate and that fate was infallible but I didn't share his belief. Fate, I doubted, would protect me if Loki wanted to harm me.

When we got to the ocean I broke my silence with a swear word, not because of anything bad but simply out of awe. When Loki had said that there was a ship waiting for us I hadn't thought it would be a yacht or anything, our group was too large for that. What I had thought of was something like an aircraft carrier. What was waiting for us was completely outside of anything I could have imagined, it was a giant version of something in a painting of vikings. There was even a giant at the helm, not a large man, literally a giant, he made even the huge ship seem like it was a normal size. It was the material the ship was built out of however that truly caught my attention. It was the oddest thing I had ever seen.

“Is that made out of...” Lifprasir whispered, though not low enough for Loki not to hear her.

“Fingernails and toenails, that's right,” Loki sounded proud. “Thousands of years in the making. It was the completion of this ship that was the sign for all of us to gather and march against Asgard, that was agreed on many, many years ago. Or I should say it was decreed by Odin, who gave up his eye to see the future. We had thought that it would take much longer to complete, back in the times when people clipped their nails so they wouldn't die with them long, wanting to prolong the time before Ragnorak. In more recent times fashion has become to wear nails long and more people have been dying with lengthy nails, speeding up the building of the ship.”

I shuddered as I stepped onto the ship, I had no idea how it was that all of the nails were held together to make the ship seaworthy but that wasn't actually what bothered me. After all of the odd things that had happened that day I wasn't bothered by the hint of something slightly unnatural and probably magical. It was the thought that was stepping onto a floor built of centuries of dead people's nails that bothered me.

A wave rocked the ship almost as soon as we stepped on and a huge snake's head appeared over the side of the ship. Loki was almost instantly there, putting his head on the snake's head. Then the snake truly surged out of the water and I could see the waves covering the land, it was a typhoon I realized. The waves didn't harm our ship though, which simply gently rocked on it's moorings.

“My son,” Loki said gently and then turned and walked away, his wife by his side.

Once we were all on the ship the giant cast off and we started our sail. We only sailed a few feet on the ocean before I realized that we weren't rocking anymore and I pushed to the side of ship. Our ship was no longer on the ocean, it was very slowly rising into the air, most likely by whatever magic was holding it together. Lifprasir came to stand next to me and looked down.

“I had no idea this was what was what I was going to wake up to this morning,” she commented. I felt a sudden feeling of comradeship with her, I was starting to suspect that she was the only other living human on the ship with me. It made me more willing to open up to her.

“This morning I woke up on my way to death row,” I admitted to her. She showed the same lack of shock she had shown to anything else that day. I might have said more, or she might have responded but there was a shape that headed down towards us from the sky that grabbed our attention. Once it was closer I realized it was another wolf, as large as the one that had eaten the sun.

“Fenrir, you freed yourself,” Loki shouted up at the wolf that came to hang in the air next to us.

“Your imprisonment ended as well,” the wolf said, his voice almost a snarl but recognizable speech that entered the brain just like Loki's. “How long have we been imprisoned, Father?”

“Centuries, long enough for us to plot our revenge anyway. Your brother is here too,” Loki said, and the giant snake by our ship reared it's head it recognition.

To be continued...

Lif's Tale III

“Lifprasir?” asked Loki. The girl nodded calmly. I was impressed that she was so calm. I was pretty sure now that I was surrounded by dead men and I didn't think I would be very calm if addressed by a man at the head of a party of dead guys. Then I realized that I had been in her place only a couple of minutes before and I hadn't run either. There was something about Loki that made you trust him for just a moment and that moment was usually all he needed.

“Where are you going?” the girl asked. I realized that she wasn't really a girl at all, she was a woman about my age, it was her clothing that had made me think girl at first. She was dressed in what I had heard described as Lolita.

“We are going to the sea,” proclaimed Loki. I had wondered before if anyone else could hear his voice when he spoke to me but even though he was talking tot he woman I could hear him and I could only assume that was true when he spoke to me. “Join us, fate will happen either way and I have no reason to dislike you.”

So I found myself walking side by side with a woman I had never seen before and Loki. Loki was hard to describe. I still wasn't sure exactly what he was except for powerful and dangerous. He seemed to think he was important and should be known just by his name but I had never known his name before. He wasn't an big celebrity, or a politician, I would have heard of him them. He seemed to be associated with the fiery rainbow and the sun being eaten which would suggest that he was a God, but I had never heard of a Loki in the Bible.

“What will we do when we get to the sea?” asked Lifprasir. She was much more daring then I was about asking Loki questions.

“There will be a boat ready to take us across to the battle field and we will go to fight and kill Aesir. That will not be your business though. You two are not a part of the war though so you don't have to start looking for weapons. There is no glory to death in battle now anyway, Valhalla will be no more after this fight. We will make Asgard fall and there will no longer be a reward for those who die in battle. An unfair law I always thought in any case, and one they will regret. Odin thought to surround himself with the greatest of warriors by welcoming all who died in battle to Asgard but while we might not have the quality, I think we will beat them by number. How many more died of old age, sickness and accident who are now willing to fight with me for revenge of the injustice of being sent to Hel's realm. My poor, poor daughter.” For the first time ever I could see tenderness in Loki's eyes and he looked back at the woman I had seen before taking up the vanguard. He wasn't mocking or dangerous, he was parental.

“She's your daughter?” I asked, making sure I was right.

“My first. I have had many children and the Gods have done horrible things to most of them. And now she marches with me to battle,” Loki's voice was a little strained. Now a woman came from the side, I hadn't even noticed her before. She was almost transparent and had been silent up until now, hanging in the background like a ghost.

“Avenge my sons,” she said and it was the saddest voice I had ever heard. “I had to watch my son ripped apart by his own brother and his insides used to bind you to that stone. You know how I cried for them to be spared, they had done no harm, Loki. No blood price did I get from Odin, not even a sign of sorrow for my lose. Kill him Loki, I have protected you from the drips of poison for all of these years so you could avenge them. Kill Odin.” Her voice was nothing but a whisper, but the power behind her words couldn't be denied, nor could her anger. She fell back sobbing and Loki looked even more grim then he had before, he had been reminded of something.

“One of your son's killed his brother?” Lifprasir asked him.

“It wasn't his fault,” Loki roared, rounding on her and for the first time I saw her shrink with fear but then he instantly calmed. “Odin turned him into a wolf, and not one of the intelligent kind, a mere lowly beast who had no sense anymore for kin or friend. There he saw his brother standing bound and defenseless and being a beast he tore at him, seeing him as nothing but meat. It all happened just as Odin and the other God's planed. To punish me they bound me to a stone with my own son's intestines. For every crime I have committed they have made my family suffer and now they will pay.”

To be continued...

LIf's Tale II

There was a man at their head, tall and dark and proud looking. I couldn't have said what it was exactly about him that suggested that he was greater then the others around him, maybe it was the way that he carried himself. What ever sixth sense had suggested that he was greater then the others around him also told me that he was dangerous. I've known a lot of dangerous guys but never one that made the hairs on my arms stand up like this guy. It was even worse when I realized his eyes were right on me.

“Now what would your name be?” he asked me. He wasn't actually speaking in English, but it wasn't the language the other men around him were speaking either. It was speech that went straight to my head and I could understand every word that was said even though the words weren't any language I think have ever been spoken on earth.

“Richard Holmes,” I stammered.

“Not the man I thought,” said the man and even though his voice was in my head he sounded puzzled. I suddenly realized the mistake I had made out of habit, I had gotten so used to calling myself Richard Holmes that I said it automatically. This was not a man to be vain around, this was a man you should tell the truth to.

“I'm sorry, I accidentally told you my business name,” I admitted. Business name being the name I had went by for the last few years. I didn't want my family bothered by any of the people I associated with on day to day basis these days. “My real name is Lif,” I admitted. I could see the man's face clear.

“So your the man, I thought I recognized you. Nothing I do will change that, you can't change fate. You might as well come with us then.” I looked at the group and found myself very unwilling to go with them but even less willing to tell this dangerous man no. I joined by his side, thought I found that even though I was about his hight I was forced take two steps for every one of his.

“Can I ask your name, sir?” I asked, meekness itself.

“I am Loki, the trickster, enemy of the gods, thief of the apples,” Loki looked at me, expecting a reaction clearly, but I had no idea what kind of reaction.

“Enemy to the Gods, like the Devil?” I asked, filled with curiosity but also terrified that I was going to offend. To my relief he burst into laughter.

“Little did they think, Odin and the As that the day that I was no longer worshiped, so too would they be forgotten. How easy it must be for you humans to forget things that matter so much.” He probably saw the blank look in my eyes even thought I was trying to look smart and well informed and not like I had no clue what was going on. Then again since he was speaking in my head maybe he could read my mind, I never did know for sure. “This is the end of the world,” Loki explained, waving his hand at all the destruction we were passing through. I had hardly noticed it, I was so wrapped up in Loki's presence, he was like that, he made you forget that there was anyone but him present.

“I thought it was,” I said, and I was shocked how matter of fact my own voice sounded. Around me I could still hear the screams and the shouts of the citizens as our procession passed through, but they now seemed to belong to a whole different world. I realized that I was no longer a part of the world the other people were in, I had become a part of a procession as much as the other men with me. Now that I was looking closer it wasn't just men even, there were women as well, and in the distance I could see a very gaunt woman who was half flesh and half bone, towering above the back of our host. She had the same feel of Loki, in that there was something of authority around her, but she didn't have his feel of danger. I was so busy looking at the group behind us that I took a couple of steps forward after Loki had stopped. He was looking into the crowd of people who were shoving and trampling each other to get out of our way. All but one girl who looked boldly at us without moving or paying any attention to the people around her.

To be continued...

Lif's Tale

Sitting in jail, without the money to pay bond, waiting on a murder charge, isn't a lot of fun. I had no doubt of my conviction, when my trial came, after all I had pleaded guilty, because I was. There was no point in denying the fact that I had killed the man. Even though I was in such a position, uncomfortable though it was, I did not leave my cell immediately when the door sprang open. A lot of the other inmates went running out right away, heading for the door that had also become unlocked but I didn't trust it. Things like that didn't just happen, it seemed far too likely that it was a trap.

It was a full fifteen minutes before I finally decided to chance leaving my cell and advance into the hall. I expected to hear the guards somewhere but there didn't seem to be anyone left in the building. I crept through the abandoned prison, past the windows where normally an officer would be sitting, waiting for a jail break, but he wasn't there. I held my breath through the whole building, and didn't relax even as I walked into the prison yard.

As soon as I got outside I could see why it was that no one cared if one or two murders got free. That was the least of anyone's worries at the moment. Up in the sky I could see a huge wolf, I had never seen anything like it. The other prisoners, the ones who had escaped right away, were staring up at the sky without moving, side by side with the police and guards who were making no objections to them being there. As I watched the wolf bent and snatched up the sun in its mouth. In one big gulp, it swallowed it and the world was plunged into darkness. Around me I could hear the mix of reactions around me, some people swore, some prayed, some sank to the ground, I looked to the gate, which was open just like every other door in the jail. Pretty soon someone was going to take control and herd all the prisoners back into the jail I was sure, and I had no interest in being herded. I was pretty sure that if a wolf was eating the sun it was the end of the world and I didn't want to spend the last day of the earth in a jail.

If it seems like I was pretty calm about the fact that the world was probably over and we were probably all going to die, that's simply because I was. I had had the death penalty to look forward to after my trial, I had gotten used to the idea I was going to die. Now I was going to die a little sooner then I had expected but I had made the decision I was going to make the most of it. While everyone was still looking up at the sky I calmly walked through the gate to the jail.

The panic on the street was if anything worse then what was in the jail. I could see some people were looting, some people were sobbing uncontrollably, there was even someone who seemingly had killed herself. I was just wondering where I should go when the ground started to shake. Living on the coast like we do earthquakes aren't exactly new but this was worse then any earthquake I had ever felt. And then the earth collapsed under my feet.

I could hear screaming all around me but I couldn't see anything. And then I realized that I wasn't laying in a pit like I had thought, the shapes under my back were steps and I could hear what sounded like an army coming up them. I opened my eyes and groggily stood up. Looking up at the distant sky I could see the sky was no longer pitch black, it now had a rainbow in fiery colors stretching across it. Even as I watched though shapes seemed to be marching across the top of the rainbow and as they walked the rainbow seemed to crack and crumble behind them.

The stomping footsteps behind me were now almost on top of me and I decided that I didn't want to meet what ever it was that was coming out of the ground in a dark tunnel. I ran up the steps and reached the surface with the sound of footsteps ringing in my ears. I had thought that it sounded like an army and I had been right. The legions came forth, in old and rusted armor, and antique weapons . They were shouting things but I could understand nothing that they said, it was an language that I had never heard before.

To be continued...

Ego II

I tied to comfort myself by telling myself that the coach was just as hard on all of the other players but I knew that wasn't really completely true. He harsh, and he told everyone that he expected better of them, but he also had words of praise for people who he thought deserved it and he had never once praised me. It was time to admit that I was lacking and the whole team knew it by now.

I started going to the gym more often then I had before. Back when I had been in high school I had gone maybe once a week outside of what the couch told us to, just so I could say that I did. So that I could act like I was making an effort. I had done it mostly because I liked having people talk about what a hard worker I was. Now I was going far more often then that and doing it because I wanted that praise again. My goal was no longer for everyone to praise me, I was only interested in one person praising me, my coach. His opinion started to be all that mattered.

It was a good thing during that summer practice that I didn't have a roommate because I would have driven them insane. Even after the gym was closed for the night I started doing push-ups in my room and I begged money from my parents for dumbbells. I would go for long runs, even when I was exhausted from practice. By the time that classes were actually going to start I was in the best shape I had ever been in. That did show in how the coach talked to me, he still wasn't happy with my catching accuracy but he had stopped telling me that I was too slow.

I didn't get my debut in our first practice match, I sat on the bench waiting but the coach never told me to play. It was the assistant coach who called me aside after the game while everyone else was heading into the post game meeting. A couple of people on the team who I had become friends with gave me a pat on the back as they walked past me. Having any coach asking to talk to you personally was considered to be a bad sign. You could be almost sure that you were going to get yelled at. I braced myself to find out what I had done this time and walked into the office.

“Sit down. You've been having some trouble haven't you?” asked the assistant coach and I nodded sheepishly as I sat. “I'll get right to the point, you aren't a receiver anymore.” I stared at the man in shock, trying to figure out what this meant. Were they saying that they didn't want me on the team anymore?

“Yes, sir,” I chanced.

“Don't look like I just told you we were going to shoot you,” the assistant coach complained, “it makes me feel bad. Are you really so set on being a receiver? You aren't good at it you know.” I was starting to hate the bluntness of coaches.

“I have realized that sir, but it's what I always was. I've been a receiver since middle school, I guess I thought I was good before coming here.”

“Always having been something doesn't make it a perfect match. Both the coach and I have agreed that you will make a much better running back then a receiver. Your catches continue to be only average but your speed has become faster then either of us could have imagined when you showed up. I realize that changing your position completely will be hard for you but both the coach and I agree that it is for the best. We are giving you the choice in the end though. You can keep being a receiver and unless you improve a lot I can almost promise you that you will never get off of the bench. On the other hand you can become our running back and you'll get out on the field every game I can almost promise you, at least if you keep up with the amount of growth you have shown us so far.”

I didn't get out on the field until the home coming game that year. Getting used to my new position. It wasn't easy, having spent my whole life in one position learning a whole new set of things made it seem like I was learning a whole new game. But since I had been sitting on the bench the whole time there had been a strange rumor going around that the coach was saving me as a special weapon for a real game. As I stepped out in a game for the first time in my college career the stands erupted in people shouting my name. A vision of fame.