Within the idyllic refuge of Asgard, the god of light Balder was quietly sitting in the garden. Unlike the other gods who reveled in the thrill of combat, as a chief deity, he surprisingly had a greater fondness for reading. Regardless of the subject matter, as long as it contained the written word, he found it captivating.
"Chirp chirp…"
Beside his ears, the merry trilling of birds echoed without end.
And just as he was sitting in the garden, peacefully absorbed in his book, all of a sudden…
"Whoosh!"
Amidst the piercing whistle of something cleaving through the air, a gleaming spear suddenly hurtled towards him. In that instant, the god of light Balder barely had time to react, only managing to display a hint of astonishment on his face.
Just as the spear was about to strike Balder's body, it abruptly went limp in mid-air, clattering to the ground with a resounding "clang", accompanied only by the distant mirthful laughter of a few gods. Hearing that faraway laughter, the startled Balder could only chuckle and resume his reading.
Ever since all things in the universe had sworn oaths to Balder, he could no longer be injured and was impervious to any mortal peril. Thus, hurling various weapons at the god of light Balder had become a novel and tireless pastime among the gods in their idle moments.
And the mild-mannered Balder didn't particularly object to this new game his fellow deities subjected him to. Not to mention harmless weapons, even genuinely lethal arms were regularly bandied about by these audacious and mischief-loving Norse gods.
Not far away, a magnificently tall deity looked upon the god of light Balder with a mix of envy and melancholy. He was Hodr, Balder's brother, the god of darkness. But unlike his brother, while Balder was tall, handsome, and adored by all the gods, Hodr, with his unremarkable appearance, seemed to fade into obscurity in the radiant presence of his sibling.
He possessed strength second only to Thor, the god of thunder, and he diligently carried out any task entrusted to him by his father Odin without fail. And yet… regardless of who it was, they only paid heed to Balder, overlooking him entirely.
An inexplicable jealousy flickered to life in his heart, but he didn't allow the feeling to linger for long. After all, he still held his brother in high regard.
Gazing at Balder in the distance, he sighed.
"Sigh…"
In that moment, two sighs overlapped.
Hodr quickly turned his head, only to see Loki standing behind him, with his strikingly handsome visage, munching on an apple - one of Idunn's golden apples that granted the gods their immortality - and sighing.
"What are you doing here?"
Hodr gently furrowed his brows. Ever since Loki had strenuously tried to defend his children, relations between the gods and Loki had steadily deteriorated, to the point where now, almost all the gods unconsciously steered clear of Loki and kept him at arm's length.
He had been ostracized.
Only a scant few gods like Thor and Balder still maintained a modicum of interaction with Loki. Hodr clearly didn't number among them.
Loki glanced at him, not answering directly, but sighing and saying,
"The humble and insignificant younger brother, overshadowed and eclipsed by the infinitely radiant older brother, ignored and neglected by all… It must be a bitter pill to swallow."
His eyes, like twin serpents, seemed to pierce straight through to Hodr's soul as he calmly spoke.
Hodr, discomfited by Loki's ophidian gaze, made to turn and leave.
"Indeed, a younger brother should yield to his older brother, not vie for his limelight, but silently play a supporting role behind him. Even if dissatisfied, he cannot voice complaints to his elder sibling."
But behind him, Loki's nonchalant words made Hodr halt in his tracks.
He paused, remaining silent for a while, then turned to face Loki, who was still nonchalantly savoring his apple, and said in a heavy voice,
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
Loki looked at him, his upright, serpentine pupils utterly cold, yet an enigmatic smile playing on his lips.
"Although one cannot openly complain, for a younger brother to vent his frustrations at his older brother in a small, harmless way… should be permissible, no?"
As he spoke, Loki withdrew a short sprig of mistletoe from within his robes and transformed it into a wooden sword in his hand.
"Why not try throwing this sword at your brother, to indulge in a tiny act of catharsis for your stifled discontent?"
Loki's tantalizing whisper, carrying an alluring, almost hypnotic quality, tickled Hodr's ear.
After a long moment of hesitation, Hodr finally gripped the proffered wooden sword in Loki's hand and turned to look at the god of light Balder in the garden.
Through Hodr's eyes, Balder, sitting peacefully in the garden immersed in his book, seemed to be wreathed in countless flowers and suffused with a halo of light, an apt metaphor for his eternally radiant existence.
He nervously tightened his grip on the wooden sword, softly murmuring to himself, as if in reassurance,
"Although one cannot openly complain, for a younger brother to vent his frustrations at his older brother in a small, harmless way… should be permissible, no?"
Despite some lingering misgivings, when he recalled that his brother had been sworn to by all things in the universe, he reassured himself that it was merely a harmless jest, nothing more.
But behind him, in the place beyond his sight, Loki's eyes were filled with an abyssal coldness and deathly stillness.
Savagery, cruelty, rage, hatred, frenzy, resentment…
All manner of baleful and malevolent emotions roiled in his serpentine pupils.
"For a younger brother to vent his frustrations at his older brother in a small way… is permissible, is it not?"
Loki soundlessly mouthed, his eyes gradually warping into a shade of black that was terrifying to behold.
If the Valkyries had been present, they would have realized that they had never laid eyes on this particular sprig of mistletoe…
Loki had surreptitiously concealed this mistletoe sprig using his runes. This twig had not sworn any oath to Balder - it could wound this god of light.
And at this moment, Hodr, the god of darkness whose might was second only to Thor among the gods, had already raised the wooden sword high overhead. Every muscle in his body was pulled taut, bulging with pent-up force, the wooden sword aimed unerringly at the still-oblivious god of light Balder.
"Boom!"
Amidst the thunderous din, Hodr hurled the wooden sword with colossal force. In the distance, the god of light Balder collapsed with a cry…
Behind the stunned and aghast Hodr, Loki, the god of fire and mischief, the master of deception, finally covered his face with his hands and erupted into howling gales of laughter.
"Heh heh heh heh… Ha ha ha ha… Hahahahaha!!!!"
His entire frame shook with unbridled mirth, his laughter ringing with a sense of rapturous release. He, this deity so despised by his peers, had finally indulged in a minuscule outlet for venting his stifled grievances at that "brother" of his, that endlessly glorious king of the gods.
The words he had spoken to Hodr - and yet, was he not merely giving voice to his own pent-up emotions, his own long-festering resentments?
Yet within that laughter, there also seemed to be interwoven a subtle strand of ineffable sorrow and melancholy…
…
The god of light had perished, and the entire world plunged into stygian darkness. Gloomy clouds blanketed the firmament, restless lightning roiling amidst the thunderheads.
And in that moment, something suddenly plummeted from the heavens…
"Boom!!!"
Following the rumbling crash, a massive crater gaped open in the once-level ground, a figure in tattered garments lying prone within.
"Cough… Cough cough…"
That god who had once been peerlessly handsome, who had graced his fellow deities with a brilliant smile, was now spewing mouthfuls of blood, flecks of his shredded viscera intermingled within.
He did not possess a physique as indomitable as Thor's. Expelled from Asgard and hurled down from the sky by the wrathful gods, several of his ribs had snapped, impaling his internal organs. Were it not for his prodigious regenerative capacity as a scion of the Frost Giants, he likely would have already perished.
"Rumble rumble…"
In the firmament above, lightning serpents crackled and undulated, a torrential downpour ensuing in an instant.
Amidst the deluge, the crater rapidly filled with a shallow pool of water… a pool of crimson water.
And lying in this fetid, squalid hole, the figure did nothing, simply lying there quietly, allowing the rain to plaster his hair, his lifeless eyes hollow and empty.
After an interminable time, he finally raised a trembling hand, covering his face. The raindrops spattered against his countenance, forming rivulets that streamed down his visage, as if he were weeping in silence.