Utopa stood beside his mother in silence.

For the longest time he did not move an inch.

His gaze seemed lost between relief and disbelief, but the image of that god was burned deep into his soul.

“I wonder if we’ll ever see each other again?” He mused unwittingly as he turned his head to face the west, where the storm now carried on past the waiting valleys.

His men finally rushed in from the chamber doorway, each and every one of them held looks of concern on their faces.

The one to first see the lady’s body, the one to first raise a scream, was the young boy’s wet-nurse from years gone by.

She was also his present day nanny, and hence the one most concerned for him of all.

“Madam!” She cried, yet she ran to Utopa first and used her embrace to shield his eyes.

The boy sobered from his sorrow, then raised his hand to pat her shoulder.

“It’s ok,” He said, “Mom’s fine, so am I.”

He glanced towards his men and asked them, “How many people died?”

All they could do was return him awkward stares.

That was when Utopa realised that the god hadn’t killed anyone, even when the towers collapsed and the buildings shattered not one of them had died.

That did not just demand restraint on his part, given the debris, but a more active will to protect those who might be caught in the way.

He felt relief, then faced his mother with a solemn gaze.

“This could’ve been far worse."

The boy turned to the guards, and gave them his command.

“Place my mother under house arrest.”

The guards were stunned for a moment, but then turned to face the madam’s body with all too eager looks of righteous fury.

Their lord seemed to have matured somewhat because of this incident, and for that they were truly thankful.

The woman herself stayed silent and unconscious to the last, yet should she wake she likely could not utter a single word of meaningful protest.

The reality of what she’d done was just too serious for them to ignore it, and whether she realised that or not on waking it was too late for the revelation to make any kind of meaningful difference.

 ______________________________________________

All was not calm within the city proper.

One figure loomed in the dark, Utopa’s would be killer.

The Knight of Cain frowned towards the distant storm, the Einherjar he’d witnessed on a rampage.

For him it was all too clear proof of the callousness and fearsome might such beings dreadfully commanded.

He raised his arm, from which wings erupted.

The bird took flight carrying a letter to his kin.

The Knights of Cain had noticed him, they would not leave him be...

 ______________________________________________

The storm moved slowly through the skies with Rudolph’s body hovering high.

The scholar had only just woken from his unconscious state, yet there was naturally a lot on his mind.

He closed his eyes and was plagued by memories of the past.

However he quickly recognised that these memories were not his own, rather they belonged to the Einherjar who was possessing him.

There was a boy, he was raised in a mighty city together with a girl who was an orphan, an outsider raised lovingly by his family.

They played in the fields as the farmers worked and the guards prowled the land.

Then one day armed men came to attack that place.

The boy protected the girl, he faced those men blade at the ready.

Yet to his surprise she did not cower nor heed his cry to flee, no, rather she stepped forward as he was beaten down.

The heavens then were torn asunder, a sapphire storm consumed those men.

The people bore witness as the girl conjured the fury of a deity.

She turned to the boy, who looked back at her in silence.

He was quickly pulled away by his parents, who shunned her forevermore.

Guards took up their blades and farmers brandished their pitchforks, all of them looked upon the girl with fear and hatred.

She did not care one whit about their gazes, only the boy was reflected in her eyes.

His fear alone seemed to wound her heart.

Her body faded to mist, she turned on her heels and disappeared into the azure cloud layer.

The boy’s life from then on however did not get any better.

His parents were shunned, and so was he, then the day came that he was banished from that place while only twelve years of age.

He lived his life in exile, but still he was haunted by her shadow.

He decided to be weak, to split himself in two, as his kin were known to do.

Blessed by the goddess, his clone became famous by the masses who worshipped her.

Accompanied by his sword alone, he lived the life of a hermit upon the mountaintops.

Though he found himself moving whenever a town began to gather inexplicably at his feet and people came seeking his knowledge of the sword.

His clone expired, she perished, the goddess’ blessing was lost with her.

That was the point, for his clones were made to sever things away.

That led to the final and fateful day of his demise.

She came for him, raised a Beacon to make him her Einherjar.

Yet he did not want it, he refused and she would not hear it.

He had no choice in the matter, she would make him her Einherjar, and so he severed himself for a second time.

His hatred, his fear, all the things he could not bear, they became...someone else, someone new.

Rudolph opened his eyes.

That boy had been beloved by the goddess, that's the truth of it, but there was such a thing as too much.

There was no malice in her motives, her actions were even understandable, but so too, sadly, were his reactions.

She wasn’t wicked, but her existence caused him pain time and time again.

She must have seen this, for she gave him his freedom, yet still she could not let him die a man of this mortal world.

The Scholar took stock of his surroundings and struggled for control of his body, control that came swiftly.

He looked around, afloat in the heavens within the eye of a storm.

The raging wall of wind formed faces soon after, the Einherjar was staring back at him.

“Finally awake, are you?” The Einherjar said, his voice echoing inside of Rudolph’s head.

“How long was I out?” The Scholar asked.

“Only a moment to my mind,” The Einherjar answered.

“Right...I guess I shouldn’t have asked you,” The scholar said as he turned to face the sky.

The memories of his new travelling companion were still fresh in his mind.

He could guess the girl was Authun, the Goddess of this Muspelheim, but the land she’d lived in then was far from here indeed.

She likely moved at a later time, and it was likely she did so after being fought off by another Vanir.

Such things happened often in those days, this he knew from his sturdies of their kind.

Yet even after all of those memories bled into his mind he still didn’t know who this man was meant to be.

Perhaps his was a name long lost to history?

“I am...Rudolph of Mars…you are?” The Einherjar cast a frown.

He never asked for Rudolph's name, nor did he care to give his own in reply.

Yet reply he did, in spite of all that.

“Orthrus of Gemini."

The Scholar searched his memories.

Looking back through a millennium's worth of history was harsh, indeed not everything could come quickly even to his superhuman mind.

“The Cursed Child of Gemini,” Said the Scholar in realisation, “You’re over six hundred years old.”

The Einherjar, Orthrus, did not answer.

Were he to do so, he could only add to that figure the "small" number of forty nine.

Rudolph knew him by many monikers: The Hermit of Zodiac, Cursed Child of Gemini, Great Teacher, Sentinel, Mountain Severer.

“You’ve had a hard life.” 

“Your’s has not been easy either,” Orthrus said in reply.

Rudolph didn’t argue, rather he nodded and even chuckled.

“Perhaps, but if given the choice I still wouldn’t change a single thing.”

The Einherjar closed his eyes, he distracted himself from those words by scattering his Ash and sensing everything in his surroundings.

Traces of his other half remained, he caught them in his sensory snare.

“I judged you too harshly,” Said the Scholar, “You are not a monster.”

“You think so?” Orthrus said with a snicker as the storm moved forward into the horizon, “All Gods are monsters to a mortal.”

He did not believe otherwise, no, he thought even worse than this.

Whether it was his mortal life before or his actions after ascension didnit matter, both were indicative of a monster in his mind.

“I was seven years old when I first took the life of another man,” Said the Scholar, “Nay, he was but a boy, fifteen years old. I crushed his head with a rock. We were fighting over food...nothing but dead rat meat.”

The atmosphere turned silent between the two of them.

The Einherjar didn’t say a word, not of mockery, scorn nor acknowledgement either.

“We all do desperate things to survive.”

The Einherjar focused forward, he tried to ignore the Scholar's words.

The time had come for him to take back his sword and everything else he’d thrown away along with it.

However reluctant he once had been, he could no longer afford to run from the things he’d thrown away.

What is more, he no longer wanted to.