The pain was unbearable—fire ripping through her veins, her very soul screaming with each pulse. It should have ended, but it didn't. Silence. A void, cold and deep, enveloped her. She should've been dead, but instead... stillness. She felt no terror, only an unexpected calm as the struggle ceased.
Then the power hit. Raw. Violent. It tore into her, filling her with something foreign, something unnatural. Her body, no longer hers, jerked to life against her will. She was breathing, her heart beating, but it was wrong. Her eyes snapped open, and everything was a blur, but the pain was gone, replaced by the grotesque sensation of being trapped in a body that wasn't hers.
Strapped to a table, limbs held fast, she tried to scream but no sound came. Her throat, gone. Metal arms hovered above her, sharp and surgical. Flesh peeled away, organs discarded as if they meant nothing. The arms replaced them—cold, alien things, settling into her, into her very being.
Then the darkness took her again.
When she awoke, it was to a blinding light. Her senses returned, but she wasn't the same. Everything was sharper, clearer—painfully clear. Her body... her body was no longer flesh. Metal. Smooth, ivory metal. It pulsed with strange energy, veins of green light visible beneath the surface. She reached up, dread twisting in her gut, but the face staring back at her was not her own. A mask of cold, lifeless metal.
She tried to move, to escape, but every inch of her felt foreign. Unfamiliar. The flood of strange words hit her, but they made no sense at first but soon meaning hit her. The knowledge was there, wedged into her mind like an invasive wire. She was being remade, body torn apart to be made from metal and wire.
And then a voice, distant but clear. "You are Muninn."
The memory was fading now, blurry and distant, like the edges of a dream. She awoke in a bed, the soft linens beneath her unfamiliar. Her fingers twitched, but this time there was no panic. She blinked, slowly, looking around. It wasn't a dream. Nothing was familiar to what she had known, who she used to be.
Sitting up, she felt the seamless response of her new form. Every movement obeyed her thoughts with inhuman precision. She looked down at the body encasing her—a perfect imitation of life, synthetic flesh stretched over cybernetic sinews. She was dead, this thing that she had become was only a copy of her linked by a soul thanks to her maker.
There were so many questions and none that were given.She wasn't flesh and blood anymore. Even the sleep she had just emerged from wasn't real—merely a mechanism, a period for her neural pathways to align and integrate with the artificial systems in her body.
"I need to return to the Forest Father." She said as she stood.
Her nudity was not a problem, she could not feel hot nor cold and no clothing were given. Her mind raced with new words and connections that she would have never used in her previous life before she died. The room she was in was lit not with light crystals but electricity. The walls shimmered faintly under the golden glow, adorned with intricate patterns of gold and mythril. Blues, blacks, and whites melded seamlessly in the decor, speaking of culture and refinement. She acknowledged the beauty but dismissed it as irrelevant.
She walked to the door, her mind connecting to the computer? Yes, the computer, that is the word her systems told her it was called. It was connected directly into her neural paths making it like an extension of herself. No mana was needed, no power beside thought. She marveled for a moment at the simplicity of the process then her mind told her it was anything but simple. It wasn't mana or magic but untold sciences that made even that mundane thing possible.
She had not remembered much about the previous day, her mind was still acclimating to this new body. The Forest Father had to take direct manual control of her and guide her to this room. There the body could finish its, uh, updates? She was fairly sure that is what it was called. These new words were frustrating.
The door slid open, and she froze. Her breath caught sharply in her throat—a reflex she no longer required but still obeyed. Her systems quietly reminded her to exhale. Slowly, she complied, her eyes widening at the sight beyond. A massive window dominated the hallway, and through it, she saw her world. The planet glowed with a serene beauty, its blue-green surface illuminated by sunlight. Her thoughts stumbled as the systems calculated the distance: 46,573 miles. The number meant little to her. She cast it aside, her focus solely on the radiant orb before her.
She stepped forward, reverently, never breaking her gaze. The window—transmetallite, her mind whispered—was not glass but a metal alloy designed to endure the harshness of the void. Irrelevant. She pressed her hand against its surface. Had she still been organic the sensation would have been cold but she felt only the dull sensation of pressure against her palm. Her organic self would have wept at such beauty, but now, her mechanical eyes remained dry.
Despite everything, joy surged within her. It was not the joy of flesh, of tears and trembling breaths, but something spiritual. She was here, among the stars, in realms where only gods dared tread. Slowly, reverently, she sank to her knees, her body shivering—not from cold, not from grief, but from the sheer, overwhelming existential beauty. It had sunk in, the fact that she was chosen. That she was given a gift. She was alive. She was reborn. She was free to witness the divine.
She was unsure how long she remained there at that window but she knew she had to keep going. She did have a duty of course and she would fulfill it. She had a long lingering look at the world below and then turned away to find her master. It shouldn't be difficult, she could feel her connection to him and seem to know where he was on an instinctual level.
As she walked she could not help but marvel at the fortress she was within. She's scoffed when the systems in her head informed her she was not in a fortress but in an observation orbital station. In her previous life these words meant nothing to her but now she understood as the information flooded her mind. Instead of dismissing it as irrelevant she decided to listen to this information as it entered her mind.
Several concepts were foreign to her such as the concept of something orbiting another's center of gravity due to mass. Her questions just led her systems to inform her of the orbital plane of her planet. The station wasn't stationary but circled her world, suspended by forces she barely grasped. The words felt heavy with meaning: axial tilt, gravitational binding energy. The fact that planets were round and not flat, the fact that her world orbited the sun and not the other way around. That the moon was smaller than the sun which had been a hot debate in druid astrology for a long time. She snickered at that, not only at the accidental pun, but also at how primitive her society actually was.
Her reverie ended as she approached a large, imposing door. She could feel the presence of the Forest Father beyond its threshold. He was the almighty creator of her people. The one that fashioned them from nothing. The being that was of the forest and everything that it embodied. The humans called them the Divine, The dwarves the great ancestors, but the druid called them the True.
For a moment, hesitation gripped her. If she still possessed an organic body, she might have been sweating, her breath quickening in a futile attempt to calm her nerves. Panic bubbled up in her chest despite the absence of such physical responses. She steadied herself and connected to the door. It slid open with a quiet hum.
Her mind raced. Should I have knocked? Was that disrespectful? She glanced down at her unclothed form, heatless embarrassment flaring. Should I have dressed first? But no clothes had been provided. She realized how unprepared she was and cursed inwardly. What should I even say?
Without further thought, she fell to her knees, prostrating herself at the threshold. "Father of all nature. Most high one, I, your hrafn, have returned. I await your judgment and directives."
The response was immediate but entirely unexpected. "Ah. I was just about to go get you. I see that you have adjusted to the system as well."
Her head snapped up, confusion flashing across her face. The voice was not the deep, omnipotent tone she had expected. Instead, it was warm, almost conversational. Standing in the doorway was a man, his form unadorned, his posture relaxed. The man was tall, over six feet, with dark brown skin that gleamed faintly under the station's artificial light. His long hair was braided neatly down his back. He looked human, but the systems within her mind quickly corrected that assumption.
Cognitive Data Relay … Scanning … Entity Description
Name: Huginn
Species: Hrafn
Serial #: D2
Body Composition:
Primary Framework - Constructed from Aeuralite, a lightweight metal known for its self-repairing molecular lattice, which ensures structural integrity even after extreme stress or damage. The Aeuralite core is laced with Mithrilium, a…
Muninn blinked as the stream of information continued, detailing the synthetic composition of his body. The specifics felt overwhelming and, frankly, irrelevant. She dismissed the data with a flick of her mental focus. What mattered was clear: this man was like her. Another hrafn.
"Well, that was rude," Huginn said with a smirk. "You could've just asked for my name."
Muninn felt embarrassed and would have blushed red if her body allowed for it. It felt like she'd broken some sacred rule among the hrafn. On top of that, the realization that she wasn't the only chosen one for the Forest Father stung more than she expected. It was logical, of course—someone as powerful as the Forest Father would have multiple agents. But still, her mind raced with questions. Was there a hierarchy? Did Huginn outrank her? She didn't want to overstep.
"I'm sorry," Muninn said quietly. "I didn't know. I… don't even know how to address you."
Huginn waved her apology away. "I'm just teasing, Muninn. Call me by my name. There are no titles or ranks between us." He smiled warmly. "Now come on, get up. We've got to make sure you're functioning properly."
Muninn rose to her feet and followed him into the room. Her stomach tightened as the familiar scent hit her—blood. Her blood. Though the room was pristine now, she remembered it vividly. It was the same room she was remade in, the augmentation room and medical ward from what the system in her head was telling her. The sterile environment was unnervingly quiet, save for the faint hum of hidden machinery.
"What is this?" Muninn muttered, her voice uneasy. "Why do I know things I shouldn't?"
Huginn's expression turned sheepish. "Ah, the information in your head? Yeah… about that. It's new for me too."
"What do you mean?" The question hung in the air.
Huginn spread his arms in an exaggerated flourish. "We embody different aspects of the Forest Father. I am Memory, and you are Will. Huginn and Muninn. We're connected—to Him, and to each other." He tapped the side of his head. "That 'system' you hear when you think? That's me. Whenever you query something, I'm the one answering."
Muninn frowned. "You're the one feeding me all that useless information?"
"Yeah," Huginn admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry about that. I'm still getting the hang of it. It'll improve, I promise." He gestured to a chair. "Now, sit down. Let's get started."
Muninn complied, and Huginn began his examination. He started with her eyes, shining a light to test their responsiveness. Then he had her move her limbs, observing her range of motion. His hands were clinical as he pressed on her abdomen, tracing a line up her sternum to her neck. Suddenly, her synthetic skin split open, revealing the gleaming white metal framework beneath. Muninn flinched, but Huginn's steady grip reassured her.
"Relax," he muttered, carefully inserting small probes into the gaps between her ribs. "Everything looks good so far. I am going to turn on some of the sensation's you have been missing, temperature, pressure, and bodily responses like taste, tears, and skin responses to the environment or emotions." After a moment of silence, he spoke again. "You won't be able to see Him, by the way."
Muninn blinked, confused. "Who?"
"The Forest Father," Huginn explained. "He's in the next room, preparing His new vessel. Your ascension was the first time He left that space in years."
Muninn's eyes drifted to a heavily fortified door at the far end of the room. It was a masterpiece of magic and technology, inscribed with runes that pulsed with divine energy. The symbols seemed to shift and flow across the metal surface, alive in their complexity.
"Are there others?" she asked hesitantly. "Other hrafn?"
Huginn shook his head. "No. It's just us. There were others once, but they've long since moved on."
Muninn hesitated before asking, "Were you a druid like me? Before this?" She tried to keep her mind off the fact that Huginn was still probing her open chest. "There is a war going on down there between us and the wendigo. He saved me from having my head removed by a… demoness? I am actually not sure what she was."
Huginn's expression darkened. "Muninn, who you were before doesn't matter. That person is dead, just as the man I was before is gone." His tone softened slightly. "You are now the Will of the Forest Father. Who you will be is all that matters."
With that, he closed her chest. The synthetic skin reattached seamlessly, leaving no trace of the incision. A glimmer of mirth returned to his eyes. "But I have to say, He did a fine job with your new body. Have you seen yourself in a mirror?"
Before she could answer, a mirror descended from the ceiling. Muninn gasped as she took in her reflection. She barely recognized herself. Her once green skin was now a radiant, sun-kissed white. Her antlers were gone, replaced by long, flowing hair that shifted between black and silver in the light. Her eyes, however, were the most striking change. They no longer held the weary sharpness of someone merely surviving. Now, they gleamed with purpose for the new life she had yet to live. A life she would dedicate heart and soul to her True.