Time was warped. It passed in what could have been a second, a lifetime, or the silence that waited between two dying stars.
Myrkvi was falling, or floating—it could have been either of the two. He couldn't tell for sure.
That sensation only left when his eyes peeled open, like it was their first time doing so, revealing blurry strips of violet light, bruised against the sky.
Almost at the same time, like opening his eyes were the trigger of it, the sound of wind whispered in his ears, brushing against his hair and skin gently. It was lulling him in a language his human mind couldn't comprehend.
The sensation of water licked his feet in laps, leaving cold bitterness behind as they retreated.
This wasn't Volland.
The snow was gone.
The laughter of children was missing.
The smiths couldn't be heard beating metal against their anvils.
Traders and merchants were absent from their usual, lofty debates.
And him? Myrkvi, son of Steen was gone.
The only evidence of his history was the jarnmark on his arm, it was fused with his skin and bone, becoming a part of him—its runes and engravings writhing angrily, the signature of the fate that had claimed him.
Even his memories were faint and distant.
'Where... Where am I?'
Myrkvi lifted himself, his muscles screamed in the process, joints popped into place, cracking under his skin like thawing ice. His palms pressed against something malleable, something soft and grainy.
Beneath him, something he had heard described as the god's old road before they left the mortal plane. A deep black sand sank under him, wrapping around his fingers, it was wet like freshly spilled ink running in rivulets.
Lifting his head, the world rolled into place.
'The god's road... An ashen shore.'
Beyond the sand, joining the water in groupings, hexagonal pillars stuck out like mountains carved by the giants and etched by the gods.
The wind murmured once again, bringing its soft whispers as it threaded blonde hair across Myrkvi's face. The air smelt of sulfur and ashes—the breath of something sleeping beneath the fine black grains.
Staggering to his feet, his legs had forgotten the concept of standing, trying to topple over the torso that balanced on top of them.
The jarnmark that molded to his arm, shaping with his flexing muscles hummed a low heat beneath his skin like an angry beat of life.
The world was calling to it. And the band itself was answering, tugging at its host, trying to peel of and follow the string of fate.
Myrkvi, staggered and stumbled forward, a lonely silhouette weakly limping between the wounded sky and boundless sea, carrying names and memories he could barely remember.
His confusion grew into fear when blurry memories failed to align with others in one big mess. It felt like the sky was falling on him every time he tried to go back to them.
The iron band around Myrkvi's bicep boiled with the swelling fear, and its runes screamed in glowing blue, crawling out and stretching through his veins like a tree's roots. They pulsated and cried at him sonorously.
And before he could escape his daze of forgotten memories, something rose from the beach, thrashing against the sand, almost seeming to take form in that moment, in response to something external of itself.
A beast torn from a hollow dream, born of ash, sorrow and fear.
Its body was long, lean and charcoal-black, its obsidian skin polished by centuries of northern winds. Chunks malformed but smooth, eroded by the oceans tide.
From the creature's chest, six arms ending in hooked claws threaded out as if trying to swim through the bitter sulfur air.
And where the head should have been, there was smooth obsidian creating an eyeless pane of glass cracked with hairline fractures.
As it moved, the black grainy beads beneath it almost seemed to recoil, whispering to the wretched beast it birthed like a mother offering encouragement.
Myrkvi understood what was happening the moment its head tilted to face him. The same way a hare might have a faint understanding of a hawk's shadow falling.
His jarnmark burned against his flesh in its writhing, recognizing the beast as a challenge, the glowing blue ink still surging from the runes into his veins and spreading further.
The creature, despite having no eyes, was staring at Myrkvi with hunger. Where there should have been a mouth, a dim, cold light oozed out of cracks like drool.
This wasn't some mirage, not Myrkvi's imagination playing Loki's tricks on him. He could see, it smelt his fear and lusted for it. The creature was real.
"By Thors hell..."
The beast lurched forward revealing its back, or rather, its top, as the rest of it finished forming. Clawed footfalls sunk deep into the black sand under its weight.
Jagged plates from the spine stuck out in the form of mountain peaks like rigid patterns of stone shoved into flesh, twitching as the beast breathed.
"What is that thing?"
[ "Low-Level Dread Identified: Skelfborn" ]
'Low-level?'
Myrkvi almost laughed.Almost.
"So, you're born of fear? Or made by it?"
The thing standing before him was a beast of myth. Something that shouldn't exist in any world. Yet here it was. Drooling hungrily. Myrkvi's eyes analyzed it closely, trying to capture every tiny detail.
Then it moved, steadily stepping forward, its claws bouncing loosely like crystalline fangs searching for their prey.
It stepped forward again, closing the distance between the two, it's glass face glinting the battered violet light from above.
Myrkvi's knees wanted to buckle, and his heartbeat now pounded through his chest like a war drum, raring for rush, only making his jarnmark burn hotter with the beat.
With nowhere to run, he was left with one choice.
'I need to survive.'
Leaning down and bracing for the creature's attack, his heartbeat steadied out, hitting a metronomic rhythm, the war drum filling his ears for every kick it made.
The Skelfborn responded by matching his height, adjusting its posture to arch its spine back and lifting its glossy head. The rigid rocks on its back dancing to instill fear on its prey.
For a moment, the air seemed to still itself for a moment, joining the two in their beckoning silence.
Then, all hell broke loose.
The two launched at each other, lifting dust in their trails.
Myrkvi shifted to the side, dodging all but one of the crystalized claws as they came down on him. His right forearm, which he had left to hang mostly in the air, suffered a small but trivial cut.
Shadows all around the two were riled up, ready for the blood to spill.
He punched at the Skelfborn's chest just for his fist to slide off hopelessly, bruising his knuckles in the process.
This didn't deter him from trying more though. The two faced each other again, red in their eyes and their opponent ahead of them.
The two exchanged one-sided blows that left only Myrkvi hurt.
The sand danced up and down around his feet as he ducked around the back of the creature and tried to grapple onto it, pushing himself against the rocky spine as they tried digging into his chest.
"Arrrgh!"
The beast reacted shocked for a moment, then stood upward, facing its head to the sky and standing at its full length. Myrkvi's muscles were too fragile to protect him, his skin too soft to ward away the cuts thrown by the spine.
'Oh fu—'
The Skelfborn threw its body down, with Myrkvi under it. Quickly crushing him under its weight and rolling off.
Winded and dazed, Myrkvi inhaled sharply with a raspy breath, his lungs trying to scratch at the air and bring it into his throat.
"Son of a—I'm gonna kill you."
Myrkvi's eyes seemed to gleam with unfathomable rage as those words escaped from his mouth. Adrenaline racing through him erasing the initial fears he had let swell, joining the rooting spread of glowing blue ink in his veins.
In that same moment, he rolled to the side, just barely avoid a claw that was falling toward where he was laying.
"Get the hell over here."
Throwing his body up, Myrkvi clenched his fists and tensed his muscles, thrusting his leg forward to run at the Skelfborn head on once again.
Black sand flew up at his feet, and it sung beneath the two of them as they clashed their bodies against each other.
Seconds of fighting turned into a minute, turned into tens of minutes. As time passed, cuts appeared on Myrkvi's body and bruises on his fists. His body slowly giving into the exhaustion yet continuing to move through what should have been overwhelming pain.
And despite only Myrkvi receiving wounds, both of them began to slow down tiredly. The boy knew why as well.
"If you want to eat me because I fear, then I simply won't." He brought down his fist, bashing it into the wretch again, producing no results.
"I'll starve you and rob you of your greatest strength," twisting his body, he punched at the flat surface where the Skelfborn's face should have been, bruising and bloodying his fists further, "and then when you drop, I'll rip your claws from your limbs and use them to make a trophy out you!"
His blood boiled with the burning jarnmark around his arm, froth was almost falling from his mouth in the blinding rage as the fighters danced around each other.
"I AM THE MYRKVI. THE BOY WHO WAS KISSED BY NOTT DURING THE YULE RITES."
As if kneeling to his name, the beast staggered and dropped to the floor for a second. Which was all it took for Myrkvi to close in and grip onto one of the loosely hanging claws.
"GRRRAAAGGHHHH!"
The iron band surged with force and fed his muscles strength as his hands pulled on the claw, tearing it from the beast's limb, bringing bits of muscle and bone with it under the force.
"COME. HERE!"
Swinging down, he bashed the sharp claw against the fractured face of the beast, causing more cracks to appear.
The monster seemed to silently shriek in pain and tried to crawl away weakly.
But Myrkvi offered no mercy to the beast, bringing down the claw again, hooking it into one of the cracks and tearing it further open.
Joining him, a cold and ancient blue fire spilled out of his jarnmark with explosive power, pouring into the cracks and holes he made, seemingly boiling the creature from the inside.
The runes shone with glee as it watched the enemy be torn apart from the inside, melted and cooked alive like brutalized livestock.
"Witness me, giants. Honour me, beast of hell. REMEMBER ME, ODIN! YOU SHALL KNOW ME AS MYRK, KILLER OF HELLS THRALLS AND SPEAK OF ME IN YOUR STORIES!"
Slamming his battered fist into the creature's body and digging the stolen claw into the obsidian flesh, he preached to the gods in strings of words that sounded like he was making an oath against them.
And then, the sand sighed disappointingly. The writhing of the mythical beast came to a stop. And the dim light that flowed from the fractures in its face dissipated.
Myrkvir slayed the Skelfborn.
The beast was dead.
He had won.
As the war drum in his chest settled, the voice that had spoken to him before sung again, returning after fleeing from the battle.
"Huff— Huff— Huff— Ughh"
A blonde boy stood alone on a black beach; his feet wrapped in powdery ink and his body littered with scars. Exhausted and injured, his eyes were bleak, devoid of rationality.
Before him, the body of a Skelfborn lay withering, the soul creeping out of its previous vessel.
In the boy's hand, a cracked obsidian thorn, glittery under a violent sky, it was a claw he had torn form the beast's body to use as a weapon.
[ "Your tether feeds on the dreads soul." ]
Cold and ancient blue flames flickered around his body retreating back under his skin and diminishing, now satisfied with the life they had reaped.
[ "You have been awarded a trophy." ]
"A trophy, huh?" Myrkvi's cheeks upturned, a devious grin split his face in two, revealing teeth, gums and all, "Haha.... HAHAHAHAHA"
The late shock from the previous rush of event's finally caught up as his heartbeat settled down and the adrenaline finally gave out.
No normal human should have even made it as far as he did without a complete mental collapse. Be it by giving up and letting 'fate' play out or collapsing in fear and feeding the Dread more strength. Both end the same.
But Myrkvi had prevailed, not only surviving, but killing the beast as well, even though it was only through luck, and with the help of some divine intervention.
"Haaaaaaaaa..."
His fragile body stumbled backward a few steps, with the release of adrenaline losing its effect, and moment of strength coming to an end, his muscles numbed and went limp.
His desperate grip on the cracked thorn released, plunging into the black sand below, and his knees finally buckled under him, signaled by a wet crunch as they sunk halfway into the powdered shore.
His lungs felt like they were seizing under the strain, and his alabaster white skin stained with the crimson streams from his wounds.
He couldn't breathe.
He couldn't feel.
And his vision was tainted; the blood mixed into his eyes and painted the velvet sky red with vein-like protrusions amongst the bloated clouds.
The systematic voice rung again, its tone flat and unwavering.
[ "Rest, Myrkvi." ]
Its presence was cruel and unmerciful. It almost seemed to be upset?
[ "Sleep, before you tear the sky apart." ]
Those words—that command. They wrapped around Myrkvi's mind like crossed chains, locking down and controller their prisoner.
The waves of the tide grew silent as Myrkvi's chest rose in one last trembling breath.
"I said... Call me Myrk..."
His voice, trailing and distant finally drew to an end as he fell forward. The world rolled once more, as his face met with the inky shore, darkness swallowed him once more.
[ "Well done dreamer. You have proven yourself." ]
***