Saint Seiya: The Legend of Seiya

106 - At The Heart of Asgard

In the day of an endless night, a woman went up some steps in front of an enormous stone statue taken by the snow. Her eyes shed tears that the howling cold wind blew away.

"Why my God? What happens that this land grows worse and the night seems to become more and more eternal? More and more cold! But what is this sin that we have committed so we have to withstand such a terrible ordeal? What cruel fate is this to rule without the means to help your people who are dying of hunger, cold and sadness?"

She drops to her knees on a small platform immediately below the Colossus of Odin. Between her and the stone statue opens an enormous abyss whose darkness is lost at the bottom of the moat.

"Tell me, oh God, what's in this future? Give us a chance to see the sunshine again. Save your people, Odin!"

No one responds to her, as no one had ever responded since she was born blessed with that role. And kneeling down, as she did every day, she prayed for Odin and her Seidr illuminated the Stone Statue.

When, for the first time in her life, her prayer was interrupted by a deep roar that seemed to grow, as if something were rising from the bottom of an abyss. A voice finally answered her.

"Hilda."

The guttural voice echoed by the mountains caught the woman's attention, who got up in front of that huge statue that called her. And repeated her name:

"Hilda."

"Speak to me, Odin, Lord of the Aesir!" she pleaded.

"Take my people to the sun!"

"To the sun, Sir?"

"To the sun."

"But Father Odin, your people of Asgard have endured in this Land-Of-Yours for millennia in your name, suffering the greatest trial of all, which is living away from the heat and sun."

The voice didn't repeat it, as if it were incapable of formulating more complex sentences. And then Hilda was blinded by an intense flash of light that made her close her eyes for an instant. And when she opened them again, the deep voice from deep within the earth spoke to her once more.

"Take my people to the sun! Hilda!" "and repeated before disappearing. "To the Sun!"

Hilda advanced over the parapet of that pedestal as if she wanted to call and cry out to the Almighty, when she noticed a faint glow over the parapet. It was a Golden Ring. The Ring of the Nibelungs, she well recognized among the Treasures of Asgard.

"Odin." she called to the Statue. "There are no words on Earth to thank you for your immense gift. I will take our People to the Sun of this Earth and I will use your gift so that I never doubt your strength again. A Golden Ring. A piece of the Sun. I understood our mission. It's time to free Asgard."

The priestess looked at that ring that, by itself, emanated a certain coldness and ominous presence, but which she knew was unforgivable to depart from a gift from Odin. She took it between her fingers and felt the power emanating from it resonate. It was time to rise.

She placed the Ring of the Nibelungs on her ring finger and felt as if all history filled her chest, and her seidr, once so full and beautiful, filled with strength and vibration.

"Don't do this!" someone shouted behind her, causing Hilda to immediately look in that direction.

A man ran across the outer courtyard of the Valhalla Palace to her; with all due respect, the man knelt down, but he screamed.

"Please, Miss Hilda, don't put on the Ring!"

"What are you saying, Sigmund?"

"This Golden Ring is the terrible Ring of the Nibelungen, which is to be worn only by Odin in the End-Times. This is not the time to use it."