Taking a deep breath, you pulled the old fur of a wolf tighter around your shoulders. An icy wind tugged at your clothes, whipping little pieces of ice across your face.
Your breath escaped your lips in white clouds as you climbed up the pass of the mountain. Snow crunched under your feet, along with sharp stones that dug into the worn soles of your shoes.
"Gods...", you murmured, looking up at the sky. "It is quite cold here. A strange world."
As was usual for your people, you had inherited the ability to travel between the realms of Yggdrasil. It had always been your greatest wish to explore them all and to learn more in order to one day build a library that would have made even the Allfather dust himself.
But a few centuries ago, madness had come upon Odin and it had brought war upon the worlds.
Your people had been enslaved. It was only a matter of time before they would end up like the dwarves.
Or worse.
And you had no choice but to jump from world to world like a fugitive. Resting was not an option. And given the fact that the Allfather was a shrewd man, you didn't dare hide either.
The sky above your head was as grey as the plumage of a jackdaw. Clouds passed by that looked as if they were made of ashes.
Shaking heavily, you climbed up the last few steps. Stones slipped from under your feet and fell into the depths. Fear was not something that could be attached to you, your curiosity had always been greater. But there was something about this mountain that sent a cold shiver down your spine.
And it wasn't the cold. Not entirely, at least.
"When will I be able to go home again?", you asked yourself, wiping your nose with your snow-covered sleeve. "I miss the red trees... The long grass."
All at once you became careless. Your step went nowhere, you lost your balance and slipped. Panic-stricken, you grabbed a rock and dug your nails into it.
Something sharp pierced your palm. Instantly the warmth of blood mixed with the ice.
"Damn gods!", you raged as you managed to regain your footing.
Eyebrows furrowed, you looked first at the deep cut in your palm and then at the bloody imprint your fingers had left on the stone in the snow. It burned, not only because the flesh was open but also because the cold ate into it immediately, nesting inside like a hungry larva in a ripe apple.
"By all the hells...", you growled. "This wouldn't have happened with my real body."
Sourly, you looked down at yourself.
As a giant through and through, you had been blessed with a height that could have filled even the god of thunder with respect. You had given up the appearance of no other, a perfect combination of your sun-like father and your thunderstorm-like mother, your hair the finest of silver and eyes so golden that a king would have been greedy at the sight.
But after the last developments, it was impossible to travel in the form your mother had given birth to you. Instead, you had used the giants magic to take on a more human form, less noticeable, not as suspicious.
Now you were relatively small, no trace of the blood of your people, with (H/C) hair, eyes the colour of (E/C) and (S/C) skin that made you almost forget what you had looked like before the spell.
You felt like you wore a shell and yet it was what you would look like for many years since there did not seem to be a near end to Odin's madness. Your soul was a giant yet your body had to be human. It wasn't what you wanted but what needed to be done in order to survive.
"A weak body.", you complained and kept on moving while blood dripped from your fingers into the perfectly white snow.
Icy wind danced in your ears and tugged at your hood as you finally made it to the top of the mountain behind a crumbling wall.
Inhaling deeply, you lifted your nose into the air and took in the scent of winter. Your gaze continued to wander over the land.
Of all the worlds you had ever seen, Helheim was by far the saddest, the most barren. Apart from bare stones covered in snow and ice, there was hardly anything of significance to be found. Sometimes the remains of ruins crossed your gaze.
But there was nothing more to desire.
In the depths, far, far below your feet, creatures ran about that could survive in this unbridled cold. They were mindless beasts with an urge to aggression and mouths that clucked like chickens.
They were called Hel runners, warriors of winter. Most of the time you had been able to avoid them, but now they seemed to be growing in number, louder and bigger.
"This world is learning.", you realised, and pulled your coat tighter around you once more. "Winter is also getting colder."
The ice already seemed to grow over your back.
Sighing, you sought shelter from the unruly wind under a rocky outcrop. With a dull sound, your bag fell into the deep snow. You pulled a thick book out of your chest pocket, wrapped in a leather cover and closed tightly with a ribbon so that the drawings would not fall out.
This was all you had left, the only memories that reminded your mind of where you had once come from. A bag of necessities and a book in which you drew.
"A sad existence.", you whispered to yourself with a mocking snort as you opened the book to draw the giant raven in the distance. "So hopeless..."
Like a river in a valley, you let lines of charcoal dance across the yellowed and crumpled pages. Eyes formed, then the bird's head, the body as it curved over a mountain, the claws clinging to stone and the wings.
Black was the plumage. Everything was so black.
But although it was just a simple raven, you could find something of Hel in its form. There was something divine that you could feel. Like a distant whisper calling to you.
All at once you had to yawn.
Fatigue crept into your bones.
When was the last time you slept?
Did you remember what it was like to lie in a soft bed?

YOU ARE READING
Tyr x Reader
FanfictionJötunheim has fallen. The giants are all gone, all, except for a few lucky ones who managed to slip away into different realms. At the verge of death you are rescued by a god with a cruel determination and a kind heart. But as time marches on, he ch...