Jon awoke in a panic, not knowing if he really went through that whole experience, or if it were a fever dream. He looked around the space he was in and immediately recognized his room. Jon could feel that his face was bandaged and immediately thought of his family, and the worry he had caused them. Upon getting out of bed, Jon stretched and threw on his clothes and walked into the large family room. He sat at the table with his head in his hands and tried to remember the entire trip. Remembering he had a book with him, he jumped up and ran back into his room, searching madly for this sacred tome.
Unable to find it, he was immediately in a horrible panic. He went through all that trouble to lose the damned thing at the last moment. Calling for his mother and father, Jon was nearly hysterical after not being able to find such an important item.
As his parents scrambled into the house and back to his room, they sighed with relief that he was not in physical pain. "Please tell me you have the book that I spent weeks to find. Please tell me you know where it is!" Jon begged and pleaded with them. His parents looked at each other and turned to him and asked what kind of book it was.
"It is a sacred tome, I told you, Woden asked me to retrieve this book and promised me the knowledge of a page!" Jon felt like he was losing his mind. He could not plead his case any harder as he already looked like a mad man in their eyes.
"We did not know if you were coming home, and you collapse on our doorsteps, clutching this book. This will get you killed, my son!" cried Lagertha, his mother.
Jon looked to his father who was standing there silently, pinching between his eyes. Without looking up he said, "The book is out back hidden inside the pile of split fire wood. Come with me and I'll show you." He did not look up, he just turned on his heels and walked away.
"Are you fu**ing mad?! He almost died ALREADY! You're giving him this book and he is just turned 16!" Lagertha was now crying, trying to reason with Raska. Raska knew the honor that his son was seeking, but did not yet understand its importance. Ignoring his wife, Raska quickly went outside, followed by Jon who was battling his inner dialect.
"Why would they hide this from me, the one thing that is of ultimate importance to me at this time?! THEY are the mad ones!" Jon thought, while suppressing his feelings about the situation.
As they came to the pile of wood, his father simply lifted a chunk of wood and revealed a nice cubic hiding place nestled in the pile. In this hiding place was the book he had worked so hard to find. Excitement washing over him, Jon hugged his father, grabbed the book, and sprinted into the woods in the direction of the singing stones.
Jon ran like the wind as the landscape was nothing but a blur going by, he felt like he was finally going to gain something magnificent from this book and for the injury he sustained and was still nursing.
As he approached the area of the singing stones, Jon slowed down and began to walk quickly along the trail. Recognizing the area to be close to where he broke from the trail, he once again went into the thick woods in search of the cave of the singing stones.
As he was looking all around, he began to recognize the area he was in more and more, recollecting the steps he took, he quickly found the cave. As he came into the mouth of the cave a fierce wind whipped up and blew through the stones. At first there was no sound, but rushing wind, but as the wind picked up, the musical melody of the stones was growing louder.
"Jon, you have returned to me in one piece, with my tome. Step into the center of the circles and I will give you a moment to choose any page from my book of knowledge before I take back what is mine." Woden's voice was not as harsh and booming now, but more like a father, full of pride and talking to his son. He beckoned Jon to step forward, and Jon did.
Once he was in the middle of the stones, Jon opened the book and began to look through it, hoping to find something that caught his eye. As Jon gazed on the pages of the book, he found that the book really was written in a language he could not even fathom.
"Allfather, I can not tell which page I want, to choose as I can not read this tome. How can I choose such an important thing, without knowing its content?" Jon spoke into the cave, feeling slightly funny as there was no visible being there with him.
There are stories throughout the works of the Northmen, where humans fool Gods into giving them more than they promised, but Woden was the God of Knowledge and knew all there was to know, as he saw everything through the eyes of his 2 ravens. Jon was hoping to glean the knowledge of more than just one page.
Seeing through this trick, the wind in the cave whipped up rhythmically, and almost sounded like laughing. "HAHAHAHAAA, Jon you are too smart for your own good. Trying to trick a God is a dangerous feat. I will choose a page that I feel will suit you the best in this moment. For you are right, how can I expect you to choose with no ability to read my words?"
Hearing this, Jon smiled and replied, "As you command my lord." He stood tall, looking at the back of the cave, his awareness was all around him as he felt every little change inside the cave.
Immediately after saying this, the wind took the book from Jon's hands, which Jon did not fight against. The book was floating high up and opened up, pages being rifled through so quickly, he thought the pages were sure to rip out of the binding.
As suddenly as the book opened, the pages lay still. The voice of Woden was loud when he spoke next, saying to Jon, "I will now give you the page containing unfettered knowledge of internal energies and a new, powerful spell. The name of this spell being called Gungnir. This spell summons a spear of light energy, which appears in the user's hands. If you master this spell, none may stop my spear, as it always hits its victim, and if thrown by me, will always kill. This spell directly links your energy to mine, as Gungnir is my personal weapon of war. Seeing as you are my champion, this is very fitting. Try not to call on us Gods to save your life again in a pinch, we are not always listening, young one."
With that the book was sucked to the back of the cave, never to be seen by human eyes again. As soon as Jon heard the wind die down, his head began to burn, as the knowledge of his God was being burnt into his memory. New images and secrets were flooding through his mind so intensely and so fast, that he could not focus on a single element. He was just along for the ride at the moment.
The pain was nothing like the claw to the face from the bird person he fought weeks ago, and he stood there in the middle of the cave, bearing the pain without so much as a twitch of his mouth.