Iselvheim, 26th of Gormánudr, 779 A.C.
He could see the end as it began before him.
Mankind's ending came about as swiftly as its most-awaited beginning.
And just as brutally.
Perhaps even more so.
Because though birthing can be beautiful in its suffering, destruction rarely ever is so. And while most tend to remember the pain of bringing to life with warmth, no one would remember the chaos with such grace.
Not even gods.
And even though Odin knew not even him could bypass the unavoidable, it was still very much saddening to bear witness to the ending of any species.
Particularly one as young as Mankind.
Or one as dear to him.
His eyes tipped down, falling upon the soundlessly sleeping child.
Even after all the millennia he'd lived through, it still amazed him how children were capable of sound sleep when the entire world seemed to be breaking apart outside the walls of their crib.
A small smile tipped his lips up.
How blissful a fortune that was — one not many had the luxury of.
He'd often wondered if this was a human trait or rather simply a child's trait. Like some form of innate protection they carried from the womb, the ability to sleep through the end of the world if only that meant they slept blissfully through the night and woke up to a brand-new world, filled with nothing but ashes of the old one. Almost as a mechanism of self-defense, where if the end of all there was didn't take them, they'd at least wake up to the rubbish of what had remained, instead of having to run through the falling debris of all that once was.
Odin knew not the answer, of course, but he often found himself leaning toward the possibility.
Because if that was not the case, then how could one explain children's ability to sleep in a night like this? When the very fabric of the world was at risk? Breaking at the seams? Being torn apart? When humankind and all they'd achieved throughout their short centuries was in danger of forever being forgotten under the ashes of one of the most dangerous monsters in the entire history? Did they not care? Or not understand? Was the sound of screams and blood dripping and swords unsheathing not reason enough to keep their eyes open, even if only to witness destruction as it came?
The first option seemed more likely.
And gentler on the babies' souls.
After all, when one wasn't aware of the walls caving in around them, he wouldn't exactly wake up and expect them to be there. In many instances, ignorance was, indeed, a bliss. And this was definitely one of those cases, as well. One that granted the most beautiful prize of unawareness and acceptance, which those who remembered would never get.
So, indeed, maybe the children were the luckiest ones.
They got to maybe survive the end of the world and not know anything of it — and if that wasn't a gift of fate itself, he wasn't sure if anything would be.
He stared down at the crib.
The poor wooden object looked like it might keel over at any second. The wood had black dots swarming it all over as if taken by termites. There was a pale blue rag protecting the upper dome of the crib in order to create some warmth, but he could see it'd been patched with a whiter fabric in some spots and sewn over. The nursery had old, ripped curtains falling in front of the windows and he could see through the fabric that one of the tall windows had been left open, letting the breeze carry through into the nursery and bringing a chill to his very bones as he realized it'd probably been left so for hours already.
Furrowing his brows, Odin pursed his lips, unsatisfied with what he saw.
What sort of cruelty was this?
With a snap of his fingers, the click of the window closing sounded in the silence of the nursery.
The baby was sleeping wrapped up in blueish blankets — which, to his surprise, looked like the only thing new in the entire crib —, its small hands initially tucked underneath, although one had managed to lift the covers and escape to the iciness outside the wrapped bundle of warmth it was cocooned in, having turned a slight shade of blue from the coldness. Its head had been covered by a dark-blue beanie made of wool, but even though it hid most of the baby's head and hair, a few strands peaked through, blonde as honey in the darkness of the nursery. Its skin was still a slight shade of rose and wrinkled from the process of birth, but it still looked just as angelic as any other he'd seen in his lifetime — if not more so. Underneath the baby, on a lower rack of the crib, he could see what he guessed were old, moth-eaten cloth diapers, stained at a few spots where he imagined the baby had been thoroughly cleaned with.
To say the least, it was a disappointing view.
And at the most, it was disheartening.
He found it hard to believe such a putrid crib belonged in a Prince's nursery — even more so in a firstborn's.
He wondered restlessly how any set of parents were capable of allowing their firstborn child in such a decrepit crib, all alone in its own nursery, when the child was clearly not a full week of life.
Was it because they were King and queen?
Or simply because they were uncaring parents?
The door suddenly opened and though he hadn't been completely corporeal, Odin now made himself made of the same shadows that roamed all over the nursery. He didn't leave the crib's side, but he did make sure whoever had opened the door couldn't see him or feel him in any way.
A woman walked through the door, to his surprise and even though he'd seen her before, Odin still found that his breath leapt from his lungs at the sight of her.
She was — as most would probably put it — godly and ethereally beautiful.
He understood now where the child in the crib had gotten its unmarred beauty, even in his first week of life.
It most likely held much resemblance to its mother.
She was a tall woman, with long legs and a graceful walk and stance that seemed almost hypnotic. Her image was like a shot of bourbon down his throat, neat and pure. A slender waist and wider hips, which swayed from side to side as the satin fabric of her dress complimented her every curve. Both a barbaric pleasure and a sweet torture.
Odin had to swallow his grunt to keep from sighing his delight at the sight of her.
She was dressed in a foot-long, faint-blue dress, with a long and deep V-neck and kimono sleeves, with a long skirt that flowed around her as she swiftly closed the door behind her and trailed the way to the crib. Her long, sultry, pearl-white hair in the darkness fell straight around her frame, flowing with ease under the wind as she walked, her eyes roaming the barren, cold, dark room with suspicion and a hint of sadness. He watched as her lips pursed and she rubbed her hands on her arms subconsciously, trying to ward off the cold she felt but didn't fully acknowledge. The breath that left her bow-shaped, full, pouting lips created a cloud in front of her mouth and he noticed she was breathing quite more quickly than normal. He could hear her heart hammering in her chest almost as if repeatedly throwing itself at her ribs. Through her clear panic, though, she remained as steady-paced and firm-faced as he'd ever seen a scared woman look as she crossed the room in quick, purposeful strides.
With just as much ease as she'd walked across the nursery, she now leaned over the baby's crib, spying inside of it, where the baby still slept, unaware of her presence or his.
"Oh, my baby…" She whispered to herself as she gently touched the one baby's hand that'd slipped out from under the covers and flinched as if burned. "My dear boy… Mother is here, now… I'm here, my love. You are safe, now," she placed her hands under the baby and kindly lifted it out from the crib, bringing it to her warm embrace.
Under her hug, the baby rustled, its lashes brushing softly, but it didn't wake. Instead, it snuggled its cheek against its mother's breast and let out a sound of contented bliss.
At the sight that robbed his breath from his lungs, Odin wondered if there was in the entire world any purer love? Than that of a child's for his mother?
He knew there was not.
"So small, so innocent, and yet, already so despised. Man's capability for horror really is limitless, isn't it, my darling?" She spoke to the baby in whispers as her body rocked it back and forth, her words turning into a lullaby instead of the cries of a sorrowful woman. "Your father's more than most…" She shook her head. "How could I ever believe he'd accept you? That he'd understand you?" She walked to the window with the baby in her arms, standing there inspecting the wreckage of the world outside. She laughed coldly, as if crestfallen at her own stupidity. "How foolish I was… wasn't I, my love?"
Odin took another look around the similarly abandoned nursery.
Could she mean that the father of that child was responsible for this? That he'd had the child delivered to this room and left here, in the cold and desolation of his own intention? Could the father truly be intent on keeping the baby here, in hopes it would die before it could reach maturity?
She certainly could not mean that.
Could she?
He'd chosen her and the father particularly. They would serve his purpose perfectly. He'd thought the child would be given a proper education — being born of royal blood —, and brought up to be an articulate young man, equipped with the knowledge needed to control his power and rule the lands with both wisdom and a gift unlike any other seen before by Man. He'd thought he'd be groomed his entire life for the responsibility he'd been given to carry, so it was an offering instead of a burden.
Had he been mistaken?
Had he been responsible for dooming an innocent child to a lifetime of suffering and despise?
"He's as much to blame as I am for your suffering, but I alone carry the blame for your fate. And even though I'll never ask for your forgiveness, I pray you forgive him one day, not because he means not this cruelty, but because he sees not further. Sees no better. Knows no different." The woman ran a finger over the sleeping infant's brow just as the baby turned his head toward her with the touch. "I've always known of your father's cruelty, but I foolishly wronged myself into believing nine months would be long enough for him to see reason." She leaned her face forward to gently lay her lips on the baby's head, motherly and so very kind in her kiss his heart nearly broke in half. "I am sorry, my lovely boy. For my foolishness and my naivety. In my hastiness to give you a better future than ours, I condemned you to a life of misery at the hands of your father."
By Odin's beard.
If only I'd known…
The woman suddenly lifted her chin up to the ceiling of the nursery, where he could see most of the pain had chipped off. "Odin… oh, Odin…"
The name fell off her lips so rushed and silent he nearly missed it. Still, it felt like an iron had poked him in the chest when he realized she'd called him and he silently wondered if she could somehow sense —
"What will be made of my child?" Her voice now sounded drowned in tears and sorrows she kept locked within her heart so no man could see them. She kept her face tilted up as if by doing so, her words would reach the god, unbeknownst to her he was already there. "What will be made of this innocent life I carried in my womb for nine months that his father won't accept as his own? Is he marked for this sorrow? For this fate? Did we condemn him to this life or was he meant for it all along?" She lowered her lashes, letting the soft hairs fan the top of her cheeks as her chest heaved in a long sigh. "He was a gift to the world and this is our gift to him?"
It will not be.
It wouldn't be. Not if it depended on Odin himself. He'd invested too much in this child to see it be treated like no living being ever should. He'd sacrificed too much to see this child be mistreated by its own father like it was worth less than nothing. He'd offered power of his own to this child that the Queen now held, far too much to now just let it wither and die, without having fulfilled the purpose it'd been gifted with such a prize. He might not be the biological father of this child, but he held too strong of a connection with it to ever allow it to be given to this fate.
He would not let any being harm this child.
Human. God. Or Otherwise.
Thundering footsteps sounded outside the nursery and seconds after the door opened, beating against the wall with a loud echo, ripping paint off at the force of the impact.
"How dare you, Jordhana?!" A bulky, dark-haired man walked in through the door, his face morphed in fury and his eyes glowing with hate.
The solemn King of Arszden.
Odin had never seen the man, but he was a rather nonstriking man. He held no beauty, no poise, no particular education, and no power. Instead, he seemed to walk upon his own ignorance, carried by his arrogance and made taller only by his foolishness. To any man, he'd be a less-than-worthy opponent. To a God, even more so. With his enormous belly, his swollen face, small and slanted eyes, dark gray robes and the strike of fury in his expression, he looked like nothing more than a mere bug Odin could squish with his finger.
Jordhana whipped her head at the King entering the nursery with his strides quickly eating away the space between them. "My King, please —"
"How dare you, you filthy whore?!" The King yelled, billowing the insult in her face even as she shrunk against it. "You take another man into my bed, receive his seed into you, grow his mongrel on your womb for nine months, and once it's born, you have the audacity to name him after my father?!" Before she had time to cower or deviate, he lifted his hand and had it flying on her cheek, back-first, sending her reeling a few steps to the side. "How dare you, Jordhana?!"
The baby, awakened from its deep sleep, started crying, its wail echoing around the nursery walls.
Odin wanted to slap the arrogant King back, but he refrained from interfering, knowing his appearance would only worsen things, as it would prove the King's admissions of the baby's blood. Still, he didn't understand how this man-child thought that his wife had bedded another when that was clearly not the truth, at all. Had she not told him the truth? Odin hadn't touched her in any way. He'd merely bestowed the child she already carried a sliver of his power, which might technically mean he'd from there on be his descendant in some form, but never of his own blood. Odin had told all this to her when he appeared to her, offering his blessing to the child and she'd accepted. Had she not explained this to the King?
Or rather —
Had the King not listened?
Jordhana tried to coo the baby's cries, attempting to silence its wailing or calm it at the very least, but she was unsuccessful, once the child monster that'd walked inside the nursery kept yelling and bashing and trashing the furniture around in his anger.
Like a tantrum.
Odin tipped his head to the side.
Was this how royal children behaved?
He shook his head.
Humans indeed had still far too much to learn.
She held the baby protectively against her chest with one arm while the arm rose in a plea for mercy that went boastfully ignored. "Please… I've explained to you… he is your son… I've lain with no other man. I swear… please, don't hurt my baby," she sucked in a desperate breath. "Our baby."
"Dare not speak those words in my presence!" The man's face contorted with rage and his hand flew again across the woman's cheek, this time drawing blood from her lip. "That bastard is not my son! Look at him! Fair-skinned and with those eyes!" He growled as he watched her flop down to her knees on the floor, looking down at her with a sneer growing on his lips as his body tensed for another blow. "That mutt has the eyes of a monster! He is not mine!"
Odin popped to the Jordhana's side.
His eyes first looked upon the King with disdain, before settling on the infant's, now awake. They were beautiful. The most beautiful he'd seen in a long time, with long, ash-blonde lashes framing them and two wide spheres of swirling dark-blue. It was a strange color, indeed, blue in its totality, but carrying simply a hint of golden that, under the right set of lights, made them the freckles of gold around his irises ignite like stars. Ethereal and hypnotic, the child's eyes were as much awe-inspiring as they were marking, because such eyes could never be produced by human genetics. Of course, he hadn't known bestowing godhood upon the child would leave traces of his ichor in his eyes and of course, he was to blame for that, but from there to believe the child's eyes were proof of not being of the King's blood was a far-fetched assumption.
Pissing ignorant.
They weren't the eyes of a monster. Or of a mutt. Or mongrel. Or bastard. They were the eyes of someone touched by something greater than humankind.
The eyes of a God.
"Please… please, listen… listen to me…" Jordhana begged, tears staining her cheeks and falling on the floor as she bowed her head over the still-wailing baby.
Then, in a quick motion, the King caught her hair in his fist and walked around her until he stood at her back, leaning down to speak in her ear. "You need not tell me who gave you that child. I don't care," he snarled in her ear, making her shiver. "But you can be sure of one thing. You'll never lay with another ever again. I knew you were a whore the day I married you, and for all these winters, I have whored you to my benefit, but never to have a child that wasn't mine!" He laughed maniacally, running his hands through his hair as his screams and the redness of his face grew palpably. Jordhana trembled fiercely in response but remained immobile. "Still, I've been much too benevolent with that bastard, but maybe it's time I teach you a lesson —," he seethed as a filthy smirk grew on his lips, dark and cruel, just as he lifted a fat, choppy finger to point at the baby still in the woman's arms. "— and deliver that mongrel to the fate he deserves."
The threat made her lift her head and turn her gaze onto the deranged man.
"What will you do?"
He straightened. "Give me the bastard."
She squeezed her arms around the crying baby. "No, my King… please, no…"
"Give me the bastard."
A few tears fell down the woman's cheeks onto the baby's, making it scream even louder.
Annoyance made the man's brows furrow in an expression of pure danger and evilness. "If you do not give me that baby, I will take it from you, Jordhana. Even if I have to take it off your dead embrace."
Astounded at the unfolding events before him, Odin kept silent and immobile in the nursery, watching as the affairs of Man unveiled before him with no chance of interference — he'd already interfered too much, it seemed.
Jordhana rose her chin, wiping her tears off her cheeks valiantly. "You wouldn't do that. No matter what you say, you'd never risk losing the alliance with my family by killing me. You're far too smart for that."
"Don't test me, Jordhana," the King threatened, stepping up closer to her and looking down at her from the height of his crown. "Give him to me and I will be generous, both with him and with you."
She constricted the baby in her arms. "No."
"Then, you defy me."
"I'm protecting my son!" She yelled, voice shrill and loud, for the first time exalted since the King had entered the room. "What are you doing?! Protecting your honor? Your manhood? Because you think I had another man's child? I have explained to you what happened but you won't listen!"
The King roared, throwing a hard kick into the crib of the baby beside him, destroying the piece of furniture completely in front of Jordhana's very own eyes.
How dare he?
She whimpered.
The baby wailed.
At the sound, a single man appeared at the threshold. He was very clearly a soldier, probably had accompanied the King on his way here, and his eyes made quick of assessing the situation within the walls of the nursery, observing but not judging. Almost as if he knew better, by now, to judge anything that he saw.
"My King —"
"Niklaus, leave us." The King ordered, cutting off the soldier.
"But, my lord —"
"Now!" The King yelled.
Without any more delay, the soldier rushed out of the room, his armor clinging as he walked and closed the door behind him.
Menacing, the King approached his wife and with brutal strength, he grabbed Jordhana's arm and pushed her to her knees. "You'll learn to never defy me again."
A single sob erupted from her chest.
With brutality, the man dragged the woman to the side of the room, where the King kicked a door open that led to a balcony. The curtains bellowed with the wind outside and Odin could see that beyond the balcony there was nothing if not lingering darkness, with promises of nothing but death, pain, and cruelty. He could see Jordhana's body clearly trembling, but he didn't move even as his heart thundered at him to move and stop what was surely about to happen.
He could not interfere.
I shall not interfere in what is to be.
The two reached the edge of the balcony.
The King looked down over the railing down into the abyss below and the air filled with a sick scent of madness and evilness that would forever live in Odin's dreams — or nightmares. Jordhana did the same, inspecting the world down on the ground, where they all knew the lake wilted and snaked around the castle.
Moving with much more fluidity than he could have guessed, the King wrapped a hand around Jordhana's throat, and with the other, he ripped the baby from the woman's arms. She screamed, attempting to reach for the baby but failing as he quickly moved his hand in a circle until the small, crying bundle was over the edge of the balcony, wavering over the dark abyss underneath, its fate swirling around in chaos as much as the world's around him.
He gasped, his heart beating erratically in his chest.
Would the King be insane enough —
"Thorden!"
At that moment, it started to rain. It pelted over the King and queen's skin and quickly soaked wet the baby's blankets, making its cries become baffled by the sound of the storm clearly approaching.
"May you be handed to the fate you were meant for, mongrel," the King said to the darkness ahead of him, his fingers moving over the frail fabric by which he held the baby. "And may the man who fathered you forever learn the price of laying his seed in what is mine."
Anger rose in Odin like acid at his words and this time it was harder to contain. He wanted to blast this self-righteous King into oblivion three times over.
I shall not interfere —
Lightning struck from the sky.
Before he could think better of his decision, he teleported himself to the balcony, making himself corporeal so both the King and Queen of the human realm could see him and feel his presence entirely, no longer bothering to cloak his godhood from their eyes or senses.
If this King thought his son was not his own, then so be it. He should not be, indeed, and he would make sure the King knew so from this day forward. But, by the strength of his vengeful bloodthirst, Odin would make this petulant man-child bow to his will and raise a child he believed was not his own, protect him until manhood above all other royal chores, and ultimately, on his deathbed, deliver his throne and his crown to the young man everyone would believe to be his own.
Or he'd curse him to the end of his days with a fate far worse than death or disgrace.
Lightning struck once more and the flash it created upon the skies had a radiating blueness to that reflected Odin's anger perfectly, letting all beings in the world know that his anger was alight and burned bright in the darkness.
Another flash erupted in the heavens —
A single thunder came crashing down into the earth and just as it rolled to strike the King, the flashing blue light formed the shape of two crows, whose iridescent wings beat in quick succession as they careened down in the King's direction, beaks opened and shrill crowing erupting from their vocal cords. As they neared the ground, the thunder moved swiftly through their small bodies, making them glow for a few seconds, before it disappeared.
Hugin, the white crow, dove straight for the King's face, aiming for his left eye and striking with his talons bared. As for Munin, the black crow, following suit with his owner's wishes, attacked the King's right eye, digging his talons deep into the man's socket and pushing, his wings flapping as he inflicted as much pain as possible.
He chuckled to himself with delight.
Munin was always an escalator on brutality. Unlike Hugin, he was much more devoted to punishment whereas Hugin handed out merely a sort of payment for the evil deeds done. The two crows, while both of the same creation and origin, were much more than mere animals. As sentient beings, they were capable of thought and of actions of their own free will, and in their own uniqueness, they were different in all their resemblances.
The King's screams filled the atmosphere as more thunder rumbled from the skies, his pain a sweet caress to the crows' ears and to their owner's.
As the King's hands left Jordhana's throat and the baby's bundle of blankets, Odin teleported himself further into the balcony, catching the baby just as the King's hand released it. Jordhana cried as she watched, her hands flying to her chest in horror as a scream erupted from her throat before she realized the baby had been saved.
Her eyes went round as she saw Odin wavering there, above the railing of the balcony, with the baby in his arms, who'd now stopped crying, just as one last thunder rolled from the sky.
With the child in his arms, Jordhana freed of the King's hands and the man's screams sweetening his ears, he looked down upon the two crows. "Munin, Hugin, that's enough," he called to them gently.
Both of them flew off the King's face.
Leaving to the naked eye what had been left of his face. Blood soaked all through his skin, dripping down his chin onto his clothes. Scars ran along his eyes, over the top of his cheeks, and above the skin of his eyes. Both his eye sockets had been completely disfigured, clawed out by the crows' talons.
A cruel fate in many's eyes. A lesson in Odin's.
To a more ruthless man, the scars would probably be a most beautiful work of art, but Odin was not of such heartlessness. He saw merely the punishment he'd wished delivered upon this fretful man who knew nothing of the world he thought was his to command. To Odin, the wounds he carried, now, signified merely his ignorance and foolishness, in believing he ruled over his lands by the ordained blessing of his own blood or birthright. Because others before him had ruled, and therefore, so should he. He only forgot that those before him hadn't earned these lands. They hadn't conquered them. Instead, they had been offered the lands, and so, the scars the King would carry served solely the purpose of reminding him that he was lord of nothing, for all he possessed had been given to him by beings far more powerful and far more dangerous than he could ever be, and he'd never forget, to the end of his days, that he lived only because Odin had wished it so.
Because taking his sight had been the punishment he'd chosen for the foolish man to see if his blindness made him finally see.
The crows flew off and Odin felt the gentle graze of their talons as they swiftly breezed past his hair into the skies.
Their way to say goodbye.
"King of Arszden."
Amidst the agonized screams of the loathsome king, his face tipped to Odin even though he could not see. "Who speaks?!" The King exalted, his eyes tipping forward to the god that now stood in front of him without his knowledge, corporeal in his image but ethereal in his presence. "Who dares to speak to me?!" Desperation and pain rang loudly in the man's voice.
"I am Odin of Asgard, father of all, and the Nine Worlds."
The King's hands moved to his eyes as if maybe wiping off the blood or feeling the scarred tissue there would make him see once more. "Odin?"
"Do not speak my name, dishonorable Child of Clay," he growled through clenched teeth, wanting to throw the man across the room but knowing that killing him wouldn't do any good to the plans he wished to set in motion — it'd only bring more havoc. "You are not worthy of my presence even, standing before you as I am, belittling myself to the stench of your existence." His voice thundered on the balcony as the wind ripped into all three of them. Still, he protected the child as best as he could, making the raindrops keep clear of the bundle of blankets that kept it warm. "Dare not address me without the respect I am owed. You are King of one of the realms of the Clay Children, but I can make your throne, your crown, and your kingdom fall apart at my feet if I so wish it." He laughed, making the sound purposefully mocking and harsh to the human ears. "And it shan't take much effort, since its King is as dishonorable as he is blind."
Odin heard Jordhanna take a breath.
Odin felt quite proud of his own audacity and even more at the audible empty swallow he heard from the foolish, senseless King. "You should be on your knees thanking me for the blessing I've given you, mere moons ago," he continued, crafting the first lie he'd ever said in his existence, but using all his fury and power to make such falsehood the absolute truth. "No other king has ever been blessed with such a gift."
"Blessing?" The King repeated, squaring his shoulders with the sort of pride Odin recognized as born of nothing but his own self-entitled respect and a golden crib he'd been raised to believe was his birthright. "Giving me a mongrel child is a blessing? My wife has been incapable of conceiving for as many winters as we've been married and somehow making her pregnant is a blessing?" The man's face twisted with anger, and the sight turned even more gruesome by the blood still covering his face and clothes. "I've lain with her, so I believed he was my heir, but with those eyes, he cannot be mine."
"You misinterpret the meaning of my words, King of Arszden," Odin corrected, walking inside the castle where the winds followed him, billowing just as strongly through the open windows and doors. "The blessing was not making your queen fertile. She was never barren, to begin with," he announced, knowing without having to assess the human queen that she had never, in fact, been incapable of conceiving. Through the corner of his eyes, he saw the Queen's face twist with fear as the truth of her ability to mother children became known to the man Odin suspected she'd tried to hide it from for winters. "My blessing to you was the child. That infant you almost dropped into the cliff to die is my blessing. I offered him to you, and this is how you repaid me. By attempting to murder him."
The King's brows flew up with a grimace of pain. "He is your son?"
"I expect you do not believe I am required to explain my wishes or actions to the likes of you, human King, but since you speak of them, I shall explain what you will never see again." He knew the King deserved no explanation from him, but he wanted to make clear the deal he would be closing today with the mortal so that when the time came, he'd understand exactly why he'd been given the fate he would ultimately live with for the rest of his days. "The child's eyes are the only mark he will bear of my touch and he will carry it because he was chosen. He is of human flesh and blood, but he is of my essence and his eyes will always remember those around him that he is greater than all after or before him."
"You — I thought the — eyes —," the King stuttered with sincere horror written on his face as he registered the foolishness of his assumptions. "I thought they were of another man's. Not a god's."
"That is a mistake you shall never again make, then. To assume something you know nothing about before properly assuring yourself of the truth. It was your mistake and it shall be your burden to carry, from now on," he commented darkly, feeling his blood boil from the fury of the small-mindedness of Man. "No healing, no treatment, and no miracle will ever erase the scars my crows have given you, nor give you back the sight with which you judged my son's eyes. For if when you had sight, you were already blind, I shall curse to live so for the rest of your life."
Maybe then you'll learn to see.
Genuine terror leaped to the human King's face like fire upon a bed of wood. "No!"
Odin felt the power gather in his veins, ready to blow out of him and make this human understand just how far the wrath of a god went. "You will raise him, King of Arszden. Even if useless in all else, this you shall do to perfection, and under my watch, I shall make sure of it, or I will take more than your sight," he threatened, voice low. He felt Jordhanna rustle as the threat worried her, but he ignored her concern, knowing deep in his soul no harm would come to her in her small existence. "You will watch him grow, train him, educate him, and protect him as your own. He shall be Prince of your lands and heir to your throne. You will never again lay a finger on him or threaten his life, for if you defy my will once more, I will return to the filth of your realm, King of the snow lands, and you will not find me to be kind twice."
The King's face morphed with discontentment at the god's words, but he knew better than to not accept Odin's orders. With the wounds fresh on his skin and the world around him darkened forever, he acquiesced to the orders given to him, but not without questioning them. "Why? Why did you give him to us?"
Odin hadn't given him to them. He'd already been theirs.
All along.
Odin's eyes moved briefly to Jordhana, whose gaze was fixed on Odin and the baby still in his arms. Looking down upon the child, he saw with a hint of satisfaction it was now blissfully asleep once more as if it knew it was safe in the arms of his father. "Because his fate is greater than all fates," he answered, repeating the words he'd once said to Jordhana when he proposed infusing the child she already carried with a piece of his godhood so the savior of the world could be born. "And when the time comes, he shall be the one to free the world from the monster who will seek to destroy it. His destiny is greater than your existence could ever be and he shall rise above all to bring peace." Odin straightened before the King, making sure he felt his presence. "Do you swear to do as I require?"
The King swallowed loudly. "Yes."
Very well.
The woman's gaze traveled over Odin's face, inspecting it as only she was capable and after sensing the King's acceptance of the role he'd been given in this life, he turned his attention to the Queen.
"You said you wouldn't interfere in the matters of Man no more."
He floated down from the railing of the balcony, landing in front of his son's mother. "He is my son," he answered tenderly, offering the baby to his mother's arms. "He is the heir to the throne of the Nine Worlds and the god of thunder. I could not let a bug like the royal king of Arszden interfere with the fate I've trailed for him. He is much too important." He lifted a hand, ignoring completely the King at their side, who heard their words in silence, and cupped Jordhana's cheek gently. "He is not only my son, Jord. He is this world's son. And long past the time when we'll all wither, he shall rule and protect this and all worlds."
His mother would never know the future he'd been born for.
She'd never know what he'd one day become.
But he would be great, when his day came for him to assume the throne he'd been made for and claim the title that'd been his since the day he'd been conceived in his mother's womb.
She leaned forward until her lips brushed the baby's forehead. "But until the time comes for him to fulfill his destiny, he shall be my baby boy."
Indeed.
Until he came of age, he would not be Thor. He would not be a savior. He would be the Prince of Arszden.
Odin nodded. "So, it shall be."
"May you always be with him, Odin."
"And may the thunder forever protect him."
Because there would certainly come a time when he would not be able to protect him. This boy's fate went far beyond all that was ever written. All that'd ever been seen. No oracle could properly predict his deeds or see the outcome of his fate. Because unraveled in his choices and his actions was not the aftermath of his own life, but that of all the Nine Worlds.
For only a striking thunder could fight the swirling darkness.