POV: Fáfnir Hreiðmarsson, the cursed prince.
Date: Góa 14th, 798 AD. (Alt: 25th February, 799 AD.) Location: Götaland (Ancient Sweden.)
'Skaði of the Hunt, made the wife of a new God.' The dragon would tap its claw into its other paw, matching the beats of his own thumping heart.
'I would have expected it to be much more of a surprise.' He closes his nictitating membrane, next licking his teeth to dislodge a seed that was left in between his front fangs. 'But it is not, with a man like him.' Fáfnir compared himself to him when he was still the second in line, before the curse had set in.
'A builder, intelligent of the ways of the universe, one that would sacrifice himself freely.' The seed finally forced its way onto his tongue, swallowing it to get the last remaining Divine essence of the apple. 'And who shares when others would hoard.' He would spot Heath warping in some foods and 'meats' of an unknown creature into the gorge, allowing him to have a proper diet after subsisting on the apples that he had gotten tired of. 'You would have been a better son to my father than I could ever have.' His own ability to sense the character of those he meets tells him this was not an act, this is how he was usually.
"I am sorry, Valyria?" His guttural voice spoke with lightness, as to not be disrespectful to a new ally. "Yes, Vinr Fáfnir?" Her calling of him as a friend made it easier to ask. "With how. . . Powerful he is, is he a ruler, a jarl (Chieftain) of his own land?" Fáfnir would see her shake her head, then explaining that he is the lead researcher of the Völsung Clan.
"He could destroy mountains with what I feel is his strength, yet he lets mortals command him?" He would see Valyria laugh in understanding, him not having ever heard of the tactics he had committed. "Post-mortals, Papa has removed their ageing, even turning the old to their primes." That was a continent-slammer of a reveal, his claw of his left hand gripping the soil enough to be lithified. "What you say is true?" Even if he could feel she had not lied, he asks in confirmation. "As true as me swearing it to Ásynja (Goddess) Vǫrðreiðr (Oathskeeper) Vár." She would say with utmost conviction, with no punishment put forth, that Valyria would see him sit in contemplation.
"*RrRrʳ*-For what reason?" He would probe with what he hoped to land, but rather than her providing copper, another gave 'fool's gold.' "He felt sorry." Was Sterling's response in the background while scanning the tree's attributes, yet keeping respectful of the rule of not picking the apples.
'FOR WHAT?!' Fáfnir would yell internally, the grasped lithified soil turning to magma. 'Oh, you are something else.' He would let go, letting the molten dirt drip off his claws before looking towards Heath, an anathema to his ideology itself. "I do not find pain to be something one should be proud of." As Heath felt it at the back of his head, he kissed his wife's hair, who was concentrating on a spell. "Would you not believe the same, for your own?" That damned sympathy towards the dragon dealt a psychological blow.
An appearance that reminded him of his Faðir Hreiðmarr's kindness to their subjects, he would have thought that this was a calculated mockery of another's plight, when in reality, it was just him, hoping for all to not be put through the same pain.
The tall God refocused again to allow the dragon a moment of reassessment, walking towards his children, the closest being Rhoyna, her muscles bulging within her arms and back in a magicless lift of a heavy steel cage above her head. "I don't believe you would need that. He's lost, not aggressive." Heath would recommunicate in English so as not to let Fáfnir understand. "Ain't about that, Dad. More t'be precautious, in case o'visitors." She would scan the valley-line, sensing some life signs, but none that were of too much danger to them.
"Alrighty then." The great scientist God would kiss Rhoyna's forehead after flying up before coming back down onto the floor, then doing checkups on all of his other children and their respective jobs. "Is it just me, or does it sound,*Uh*quieter, outside?" His comment that highlighted that they could no longer hear the wind or birds put them on high alert.
"That is me doing that, I hoped not to be spied on while speaking." Fáfnir, even if not knowing English, understood the gist of his comment. He explained in Norse of the answer to his current predicament. "You are a strange being,
Placed upon the floor, it rolled toward them with a sentience reaching that of a dog, no receptors, yet it could see souls, no mouth, yet its rotation had a little skip in its roll. Heath could sense it was alive, and a form was slowly forming in its shell in reptilian-esque manifestation.
'This day's just getting weirder, I know Gods can exogenically produce offspring without the need of another, like Skaði, who had no mother. But I had never heard of any similar myths.' Heath studies what he can best compare it to as a gecko egg, smoothly rounded with a wet sheened finish on its exterior. "Is it too late to say you had no need to do this?" The great scientist God would see the dragon's mouth curl while licking his upper lip. "A life for a life." Was all he would say before tiredly yawning.
Heath would then stare into the great Huntress's eyes, sending a mind-linked query in his own understandable paranoia. 'Do you believe he could use this 'child' as a tracker to the location of our Cavern, snærrskina (Shining snow?)' Heath earned a mild-mannered stare from his query. 'Same could have been said about Aghi, beside you.'
'*Mm*Still, just in case.' Heath acted towards a second scanning of the egg, finding no inscriptions of suspicious or rapturous nature from its exterior and interior. Fáfnir saw the scepticism in their every move, realising how potentially dangerous it was for them when he was a servant to Loki. "Us dvergar have no use for spying on others, I swear so under power to stab my own heart." The essence of the many Apples of Immortality he has consumed allowed for a portion of his power to be put under contract.
An invisible chain of threaded fate binds him in a similar way to how he was bound to the gold and ring buried under the orchard that has dysthimically trapped him in the valley. "All I wish for is that once it hatches is to experience something, anything more than just this life I have been made to continue."
He grasps the bitten finger, keeping the pain a reminder of what he has promised them. "And to prove I am more than just a beast." The fanged wound heals under a moment of hiddeneity, a mementoic anamnesis. "ᴼꟳ ᴮᵁᴿᴰᴱᴺ, ᴬᴸᴵᴷᴱ." Goldie would whisperingly comment, a sense of compassion playing below his nose's lips. "We should go, now!" His sudden turn caused a shocked play within the group. The golem touches the steel cage, altering it as to be a cloud of caltrops that are thrown at something humanoid in the sky!
It hits a valkyrja in mid-flight, one of the standard scout sentriments that comes by before the arrival of spring, which Fáfnir could not have expected to warn them about with the shifting seasons, they scratched and protted into the bare synthetic skin, unbleeding.
From the successful swarming of spiked metal tribuli, all quickly leave in a hurry, but not before being asked by the dragon to fulfil a story he had wilfully patched up in his own scaled hide. Multiple cuts and gashes that would leave the dragon immobile for a while are made by the Dollens to reduce the chance of anyone who felt even a slight qualm, instead simplifying that it was a group of strong adventurers who were pyrrhicaly pushed away by the dragon after protecting the apples in full.
They teleport away with the egg in tow, apologetic articulation in their every action that once they return or once his consciousness can work between his old and new body, he is to be given reparations. After the moment of rush passes, the one who is revealed turned out to be Geirr, who uses a spear most in battle.
The leftover spikes now rain upon them, and with seeing the grand pool of blood left on the floor and of the barely conscious dragon upon it, the spear-bearer brandishes it to deflect all projectiles away from Fáfnir. The sharpened rain stops after a forever-moment in angered wait. She flies into the sky to use the winds to directly transport herself to the Valhǫll, bringing in the Ásynja (Goddess) Læknavalkyrja (Valkyrial healer) Eir, her power over curing wounds and healing doing quick work with what had been made upon him.
After the quickpatching, the moment of 'truth' came. "What had you seen of the intruders?" Eir would ask in her standard nursing demeanour, clinical in flexion, yet hiddenly surprised that there could ever be warriors strong enough to defeat him in this 'roughnecked' environment.
"4 warriors, equal counts of drengr (Warrior persons) who spoke nought but worked as one. They overpowered me with weapons that, held,
They were kept quiet, but the two visitors realised it may be associated with what Fáfnir fought to be the recent 'outsiders' that have been spoken about in sorrowings, they communicated via sight commanding, lastly nodding before turning to speak once more.
""We will report this."" The dual valkyrjur travel back home with the collected caltrops as evidence, leaving the dragon on his own with the scent of malevolence from his own breath playing in his nostrils that he had come to hate less after his scientific enlightenment. "May I see you soon, Heath. May I see you soon." He closes his senses except for his vision, falling into a unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, a memory blur of colours and sounds that was part real, the other hallucinogenic, his dreams filled both with the past and sweet nothings.
He wakes up again during the night's middling, the stars making his scaled flakes shine in iridescence, his nocturnal vision adapted from being kept open with the transparent eyelid protecting it from detritus. He travels around the orchard's border, leading to the self-purifying pond where he drinks in quietened safety.
After drinking, the dragon realised a hidden compartment in the water that was not there before in a steel box of torso-size, dragging it out of the water with his mouth and front left limb, he spotted the latch built for his claw, inserting it, the compartments released in a technique too modern for this era, which he realised was the recent visitors' doing, a large basket of a single, ENORMOUS slab of brisket, textured and finely cooked through with a golden, apple-sauced glazing over it, the smell itself making his long extinguished hyperphagia ignite.
He went at the meat with a flavour that was of greater quality than even the meats of the farmed maðkr (Maggots) that consumed the leftover magic from Ymir's soil generation after his death. For him, a nicely ground layer of fungus and mushroom stew with slowworm strands would work rather well beside this feast-worthy meal.
"*GH, PFTHU!*" Fáfnir spat out the grass he bit down into without realising, picking his teeth with his sharp talons before realising a note was written on the bottom face of the box. "'Speak to choose your next meal?' What?" The dragon tilted to such generosity from them, with thanks in his heart, what he chose was a mennska (Norse humanity) special of the chicken he had gotten out of the rucksack from one of the defeated past explorers with a vegetable gravy sauce with bones. Big bones. The intent marks through, and the box warps out and back in the moment after, a *Zip* sound extricating from the water, which he chose to wait for the next day, despite his gluttony urging him on.
He continues surveying the surrounding valley that enclosed him, with a greater sharpness from feeling fuller stomach-wise and by a renewed hope for a new tomorrow. But it was the same, always the same. The only thing different was the face of Geirr by the northern entrance, luckily far away enough for her to have never seen him gorging himself.
She saluted him with a fist to her chest, warrior to a stronger being, but due to there being no attire set for the Valkyrjur, it sounded as a punch to her bare-chested skin with the strength as put traditionally to the greeting. 'I still do not know why they do not wear anything, not even armour.' A mental-hued voice spoke through his thoughts, sounding exactly like the one he spoke to yesterday. 'Heath?' The dragon played it as she would, nodding to Geirr before moving to scan the front of the valley mouth himself.
'Yes, I have much to ask about, though at a rather, inopportune time. Are you alright?' His question was met with a "*Snort*" while breathing in the scent of what seemed to be a faun. 'Healed thanks to Eir. And how is the egg?' Which the great scientist God would describe how it is being incubated in its own special corner of his Cavern.
The description of it was that, while not specified, controllably large enough that it would take long parts of the day to travel from one corner to the other, and made to appear as a wide meadow for him to freely fly around. (009 / 128 ≈ (978,949.4447-Model km (316,406.25-km (196,605.7288-mi)))^(2).) With even a mental image of its appearance, which Heath had a major terrain simulacrum through inspiration by his visit to Song-Kul, Kyrgyzstan. (You should look up its pictures. It's beautiful.)
'Do you do this for everyone you meet?' His confused statement was met with silence before another voice cut through the comms, it was his daughter Rhoyna. '*-aha~*Yes, he does.' The voices turned back away with what sounded like "I told y'others h'noticed" and whatnot.
'-a second. So, besides the chicken, would you wish for new flavours you may not have tried before, or foods we do not know of you would want to share?' Heath's voice turned to the front, also giving a wide availability of options as part of the 'meal scheme plan' that he tells that he may also bring around for others he will be introducing over to other allies as well. He gave a memory and work of what was described beforehand on their own and as combinatory flavours and of their raw versions for them to rearticulate into their system.
'Alright, we will get you to try the lamb cutlet later, I know you will love it.' He could tell his voice was smiling through the telepathic message. 'We will see you soon.' Everything cuts off, Fáfnir's distrust at first removed with how hygge it sounded over there.
Feeling satisfied, he remembered many of the fun times he had before the present, even if faded, it was still as warm and inviting as ever. . . But to not be too caught up in memories, the dragon refocused on his work again, realising that there was something off of the situation. The valkyrja was nowhere to be seen where she was, he swapped over in direction, soon hearing the sound of clanging metal. He unfurls his wings, flapping them to launch himself to the eastern cliff face, soon finding Geirr was not being attacked. She was hunting some boars.
The valkyrja spearwoman nods after throwing in the 15th boar to the meat stockpile, soon flying above the trees to scan for more without decimating the population too badly. He would raise his open palm in repose, with her understanding that it was him saying she already had enough food.
She flies into the wind again, leading towards bringing another valkyrja, Herfjǫtur, one who determines the fates of armies. Both of the warriors to be slain in battle, and those on how they are to be kept alive. In the case of Fáfnir's fate, he is to be fed with a roast boar platter, first separating and removing the organs and skins of the corpses, she spits them through a flammability check before starting the connected bál (Bale fire, a developed bonfire.) It was a more muted environment than if there were no people there at all.
Nonverbal, uptight posture, purely standing to watch the fire. They did not need to breathe, they had stilled like a form of hybernation, becoming sculpted busts, evocative to the Greeks' ancient belief that to show Divinity, their heroes should be pure, nude.
'I cannot take it out of my mind that I agree with Heath, why wear clothes indoors and be naked outside?' His flummoxing was hidden through his eyes closing, the only sense open being his hearing and snout, smelling the meats sizzling over multiple Model hours.