The Journey to Find Mimir

Chapter Eight: I Strike Gold While Dumpster-Diving

The apartment across from mine has always has strange things in their dumpsters. Half-melted bicycles. Two pogo sticks welded together. Lots of shields. But out of everything I had ever seen alongside those garbage cans, the glowing, sky-fallen figure was by far the strangest. I stopped running when I reached him. My heart pounded as I bent over his body.

I had never seen something so bright in all of Nidavellir. 

The guy had landed face-first in a pile of soggy cardboard boxes. Golden light radiated off of him like a supercharged mossglow. He was insanely tall, with long arms and legs splayed out on the pavement. The sleek white suit he wore was splotched and stained from his bed of garbage. His head, topped with white-blonde hair, was tilted away from mine. I could not see his face. 

Looking at his glowing aura, I wondered if he was one of the Norse gods. Then my gaze landed on the pointed tips of his ears. I gasped. White skin, super tall, the ears -- this was no god. This was an elf. 

My mind flew backwards to an Interworld history lesson from my school days. Elves were from one of the Nine Worlds called Alfheim. Frey, the god of light, spring, warmth and healing, used all of Alfheim as a teething tool when he was a babe. The place was incredibly bright and made of light. Since direct light turns dwarven skin to stone, dwarves could not go to Alfheim because the world would petrify us instantly. It's why I had only ever seen pictures of elves in textbooks or on the news, and why I couldn't remember much else. I looked at the glowing elf. Alfheim was a place of light... But the elves weren't supposed to be made of light, right? 

They aren't supposed to fall from the sky either. 

A groan escaped from his mouth. 

"Hello?" I said, kneeling over him. "Are you okay? How did you get here?"

The elf continued to lay face down in the garbage. I hesitated. 

"Sir?" I asked. "Do you need help?"

I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. I quickly realized my mistake; touching him was like pulling the pin on a grenade. 

The elf shot out of the garbage heap and straight up into the air. A radiant glow clung to him like a golden fog. He must have been six feet tall and had sickly, pale skin. His eyes were wild and afraid. His hands threw around a series of sharp and panicked gestures in my direction. 

In short, I was frightened.

"HEY!" I shouted, jumping about a foot behind me. "Back up buddy! I was just trying to-"

I barely had enough time to yell out when the elf stopped gesturing. His hands fell to his sides and his eyes rolled. I watched him, puzzled, as he started to sway. Without warning, he began to fall like someone had taken an axe to the trunk of the World Tree. 

"Woah, WOAH!" was all I could say as I ran to catch him. 

I dove for the head, which I just barely managed to catch and protect as the two of us slammed into the pavement.  The upper half of his body was on top of me. I squinted through his golden aura. For a moment, I wondered if it was contagious.

"Helheim," I croaked. "Why'd you go and fall like that?"

The elf was out cold. He also weighed much less than I would have thought. I easily wiggled out from underneath him and shook off some garbage. I bent over to inspected him. 

His pale, sickly form was shaking badly. Something was clearly wrong -- beyond the fact he was an elf in Nidavellir stinking of garbage. 

I cursed myself for never paying attention in my Interworld History classes. What else did I know about Alfheim? All I could remember was that their population was split up into four districts. And that the sun never sets? Or almost never does? One thing is for sure -- the place was always bright. So, so incredibly dangerous for dwarves.