Baldur x Reader

Forty-Five

"We will wait, but not forever.", Kratos said as the doors of the temple opened and the icy cold of Helheim rushed inside.

With an understanding nod, Baldur hummed and turned around to get going. He could feel how time was running out. It crawled up his neck and nestled there, like a parasite that was about to bite and drain the newly won life from him.

As he stepped out on the bridge, a gasp escaped him. His eyes widened.

The cold of Helheim was something so different from the cold he had felt before. It was a lot more cruel, felt like shards of ice that stabbed into his limbs and crawled underneath his skin to cause a more painful kind of cold.

It didn't give him the feeling of shivering.

It felt so painful that the pain went numb after a while.

Letting out a deep breath, Baldur set foot one foot in front of the other. Snow and ice crunched below the soles of his feet.

With every step he took, souls grew out of the ground.

Their dark, green glow threw strangely misshaped shadows across the floor. It made it seem like the snow was rotting away below them.

With careful eyes, Baldur passed each and every single one of them. He didn't want to miss you just because he didn't pay enough attention. He needed to find your soul, otherwise, everything would have been for nothing.

But it was hard to tell who was who. Or what was what.

The shadows moved like people, seemed to act and react like people. But as they turned and looked up at the strange visitor, they revealed faces like corpses. There wasn't anything clear to see. Only a few remarkable details had remained that helped with telling them apart.

Some of them were tall, others short, some chubby and others as thin as a stick.

The shades of green varied. While some were more black than green others seemed to be lighter.

In the middle of the bridge, Baldur stopped and threw a glance back over his shoulder.

His mother had told him, the further the soul was away from the temple and closer to the gate that led into Helheim, the less likely it was to return.

Of course, he had expected this to be unpleasant. But he had hoped to find you close to the temple.

Now, he had already crossed the bridge halfway and still wasn't able to spot your familiar face in the crowd.

Green shimmer wrapped around his body. The dead walked through him, faded into smoke only to form a new body again that continued to walk down that bridge.

Their heads hung low. The pressure of death was visible all over this realm.

It wasn't just cold, but the souls, once humans and worriers, seemed so broken, so lifeless. It seemed as if there was no will to live left inside them no more.

They were just empty, shadows of their former selfs. They were supposed to die, not keep living.

Only thinking about the possibility that you could be one of them already, empty and ribbed from the bright, lively smile that made his heart face whenever he caught a glimpse of it.

All of a sudden, something inside his heart pulled together so tightly, he stumbled and fell to the ground. A gasp escaped him.

Pain spread through his body. For a moment, he started trembling all over.

A thin veil of tears filled his eyes. The world blurred before him.

"What- what is this?", he asked while the beat of his own heart was pounding inside the palm of his hand.

Never before he had felt something like this.

Was this how a heartbeat felt like?

Was this how his own heart was beating?

His eyebrows pulled together.

Why?

Why did it beat so fast?

It felt as if it was about to jump out of his chest and shatter into a thousand pieces.

His eyes jumped back up. A shimmer lit up inside the blue.

Fear.

Confusion.

He was afraid. And yet he didn't understand what he was feeling.

He was just happy to feel anything at all.

The cold of the realm bit into his skin, mixed with the pain of the inside and tried to chain him to the ground.

But he refused to loose time, time he didn't have. Time that you didn't have.

Pressing his lips into a thin line, he forced himself back on his shaky, frozen feet. The skin from his toes up was starting to turn blue already.

He was freezing and his new, weaker body responded to it. Some changes weren't all that good, he had to realise.

A curse left his lips.

He should have send you back when he's had the chance to the first time.

"What a coward you are...", he growled to himself and walked on. "You waisted so much time."

His hand clenched into fists as he started fighting against a wave of icy cold wind. Snow hit his face and rubbed into his eyes.

Blinded, he raised an arm.

"Baldur!"

Struck surprise, his head snapped up.

Not far from him, a group of souls continued to walk.

Like a unit, they pushed towards the gate, resisted against wind and weather, only one goal in sight.

They wanted to cross the bridge to die.

And in the middle of those souls was one struggling against the others.

"Baldur!", your voice called out for him.

With a leap, he rushed towards you. His hand reached out.

"(Y/N)!", his fingers wrapped around your cold, icy hand. "You need to go back to the temple with me."

A strange power kept holding onto you.

Your hands wrapped around his.

"It's pulling me in!"

"Listen to me! I'll pull you towards the temple. When light raises into the sky, fly into the light."

A dark shadow crawled over your glowing face.

"How? What... what do I have to do then?"

"Return to your body. Don't take risks. Just return to the place where you are, straight away. I'll wait for you."

Worried, you frowned.

"Promise?", you asked.

He smiled. His hand lay on your cheek and gently squeezed it.

"I love you."