I run—no, I run sideways, backwards, into the ribs of hills that breathe, and Fjalar, molten glass crowing through my chest, splits into a thousand mouths, each singing riddles that fold into Vafþrúðnir's marrow, but the marrow is fog, but the fog is me, but me is the eagle dripping Idun's suns into the field, into the sky, into my eyes, which are roots twisting through Hoard-Mimir's labyrinth, which is also my hair, which is chainmail, which is blood, which is a swan bending light into shrieks and fractals and mirrors that do not reflect but consume, and—
Berchta pulses under my eyelids, her glow a heartbeat that folds into every pulse of my blood, every footstep that is not a footstep but a fracture, a loop, a spiral of myself chasing myself chasing myself chasing the Hunt, which is me, which is the air, which is the ground, which is the field bending into itself, which is the screaming of the horses' hooves striking sparks from my lungs, which are mirrors, which are eyes, which are rivers that leak through every dimension of every possible me.
I press my face to soil. No—soil is wind. Soil is bone. Soil is the ribs of the hills, and the hills are me, and I am the Hunt, and the Hunt is the storm, and the storm is a mouth tasting marrow tasting marrow tasting marrow, and the marrow is infinity fracturing, fracturing, fracturing, and Skuld breathes into my chest, youngest face, oldest doom, and my chest is sky, and the sky is rib, and the rib is river, and the river is a throat, and the throat is mouth, and the mouth is the black river of unbaptised babes, floating, folding, multiplying, spiraling, echoing, devouring, screaming, laughing, folding again, and—
Time melts. Yesterday is tomorrow. Tomorrow is yesterday. The mire pulls my ankles into rivers into soil into hair into chainmail into teeth into stars into legs into eyes into me, and I am none of it, and all of it, and every self I have been and will be folds into itself folding into itself folding into itself, until there is no inside, no outside, no ground, no sky, only fractal becoming, only the Hunt, only wind, only blood, only pulse, only—
I am the horses. I am the hounds. I am the screams. I am the Valkyries' wings slicing through ribs that are not ribs, that are trees, that are rivers, that are skies, that are mouths, that are bones, that are stars, that are flesh, that are marrow, that are me, that are the Wild Hunt, that is everything, that is nowhere, that is all at once, that is fractal, fractal, fractal, fractal—
And then I—
—am everywhere.
The sky folds into my lungs, the ground into my skull, the storm into my eyes, the Hunt into my heartbeat, the Valkyries into my fingers, the babes into my hair, the chains of Mimir into my ribs, and I—cannot stop—cannot stop—cannot stop—cannot stop running running running running—
And yet I am no longer running. I am the running. I am the fold. I am the echo. I am the fracture. I am the black river swallowing every light. I am the Wild Hunt. I am Nidavellir. I am the infinite becoming of terror that never ends and never began and never will. I am.