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Valena Martell awoke to feel unease prickling between her shoulders as though some unseen enemy was watching. Try as she might, she could find nothing wrong within the small shelter where they lived. But it was the omen that greeted her outside that nearly made her heart stop.
In her dreams of late, she had seen aa shadow falling across the world. In every dream, the same items laid before her as if in wait. An hourglass sat to the side, spilling sand faster than it ought. There was the pressing feeling that time, at least in this dream, was running out,
Valena took a deep breath and called for her love who still lay amongst the furs in their small home. “Skaði, come out,” she could not hide the trembling in her voice as she watched the small black edge of a shadow move over the sun into a crescent.
Skaði heard Valena calling her and glanced around to find their bed empty. Getting up she stretched her wings as she exited their little home. Immediately her eyes lit upon the sun or what was left of it. “Hvi” Skaði imitated as though she was spitting. “This is an ill omen.” She walked out into the open watching the sun slowly being devoured by blackness. She paused. “Is this like your dream, Valena?” Valena’s voice was breathless as she spoke. “Yes. I have dreamed it over and over again. The dream will give me no peace. And now…”
“Then it is a thing that you have seen,” said Skaði.
Valena objected. “But it was just a dream.”
Skaði’s eyes fell back to Valena. “This is no longer a dream. This is happening, Valena. What you saw was an omen.
Valena could feel her chest starting to rise and fall in panic. If this was more that a drea …. If this was an omen like Skaði believed, then she did not have much time. The hourglass would be running out.
“What do you need?” Skaði asked.
Valena tried to recall the items that were laid out in her dream. But her heart was racing, and it was hard to focus. “I need… I need a knife, a bowl, shavings from an ash tree, the oils from a djare mushroom, a fire, and… She trailed off. “We will need my blood.”
Skaði’s eyebrows raised up as she looked at her. “Your blood? This is a blood spell?”
“It’s not a spell. I am no with. “It’s just some ritual from a dream that I do not understand. But the more I stand her, the more it is apparent that I must do this.”
“We agree to disagree, my little witch.”
“Do not call me that,” Valena cautioned.
“I only speak the truth,” Skaði smiled tentatively. “I will get the ash tree shavings and the djare while you prepare the rest?”
“Be quick, time grows short. I do not know how long this window will be open to do this. I have no clue how fast this event will move.”
After a moment, they separated. Valena went into the tent to gather up the bowl and the ritual blade that Skaði had gifted her last year. Back then she had said she would never need the blade, but Skaði had insisted anyways telling her there might come a day when her mind was changed.
Valena took the bowl down to the river nearby and cleaned it, seven times. It seemed like too much but the number seven was stuck in head as though there was some importance to it.
Then she made her way back to camp where she waited for Skaði.
It took some time to find the cluster of ash trees that grew a few miles away. For a moment, she bowed her head of the necklace of Thor’s hammer and listened to the silence of the wood then kissed it before beginning.
The shadow crept over the sun, filling her with more unease as she used her blade take shavings from the ash tree. The sun was half gone when she finished collecting the shavings and put them in the bag she carried. The mushrooms took a bit longer, as she had to turn over what felt like hundreds of logs to find enough to make an oil. The Djare mushrooms glowed faintly blue as she tucked them into her pouch and took off at a run to make their lodging. Valena was waiting, tending carefully to the fire as she gave her the items she requested.
Carefully, Valena took the Djare and pressed the flat of her blade against them to release the oils within them into the bowl. It took some time and as she did it, she could feel the fine sheet of sweat starting on her brow. After she’d pressed all the mushrooms, she added the wood shavings to the bowl and started mixing them. Then sun was covered except for a small crescent of light that grew tinier and tinier with each breath she took.
“Now we wait, until…”She paused considering what to call it.
“Until Skoll devours Sol.” Skaði’s eyes were focused on the darkening orb.
“Who?”
“My mother was told by my grandmother who was told by her grandmother who was told by her grandmother all the way back to the dawn of my line that the Sol, the sun, and Mani, the moon were lovers. The details are unclear, lost to time. But I will tell you as it was told to me. Skoll and Hati the wolf sons of Fenrir cared not for Sol or Mani. Skoll mocked Sol and Hati hated Mani. I do not know why, only that ever since they have existed that the wolf sons have chased them hoping to devour them. One day they will catch them it is said. They will slowly devour the light of Sol and Mani, rending the glow from their bones and separating them forever in endless death. Bit by bit until they are gone and nothing is left except Ragnorak.” Her voice falls silent and for a moment they sit alone.
“Ragnorak isn’t that…”Valena paused, “Isn’t that the end of the world?”
“It is the fate of the Gods,” Skaði said in reverence. “When Mani and Sol are devoured by Skoll and Hati, all the light of the world will fade. Even the stars will cease. There will come a long winter, such a winter that his land has never heard of it. All will be cold. Soquili kind will forget the things they have learned and the ways they have evolved until no one has a friend. There will be fights among herds and even among sibling, until the world is left without. Only a few will survive, but they will have no joy in the living with all the atrocities they have to commit. Mountains shall fall and trees will die. The great Fenrir will snap his chains and the other monsters shall come for the ending of the world. The-”
“Please,” Valena spoke softly. “Don’t tell me more.”
Skaði looked to her with eyes filled with love. “What will come will come. But if this is Ragnorak, I wished not to live to see it. But if I must, at least these last hours are with you.” She nuzzled her lover as the light from the sun blinked out until only the reddish hue around the sun was left. All sound stopped. All life seemed to hold it’s breath. “Do it now,” Skaði said, her voice unfailing.
Tears fell from Valena’s eyes as she lighted the shavings in the bowl as Skaði stood to kick out the fire. She held out her foreleg over the fire and cut it with the blade.
The sound of the hissing and spitting of the embers lasted a moment before a blue light flared from the bowl as Valena opened her eyes and she could see despite the darkness because of the glowing of her orange eyes.. She felt cold as she looked out around her. Skaði was gone and she was alone. The world a desolate wasteland every where she looked as the thunder roared and the lightning danced. The fire felt cold. Beings of ice and fire walked. Wolves howled chasing glowing balls across the ground. A waterfall fell into a cup without overfilling it. Arrows fell faster than rain, and only the blue fire remained. And remained. There was the sounds of screaming–of death and life.
A voice both young and ancient, male and female spoke as the fire in the bowl grew brighter and brighter until there was nothing but the light everywhere she looked.
“Fight the darkness with light. One small ember can bring the dawning of a new age.” The voice repeated and repeated until she was shaken out of the stupor she had fallen in.
The light was beginning to return and so was the bird song. The feeling of life coming back awake. She shivered hard and turned finding Skaði concerned eyes on her. “I saw the world fall to darkness.”
Skaði shut her eyes tight, just as she heard her lover say. “But there was hope, Skaði. I don’t know what it is, but there was hope.”
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