The woods were deep, and dark. Populated by dense thickets of tall, foreboding trees. Clustered together, ensuring the entrapment of whoever was far too idiotic to get lost within this treacherous realm. No light gleamed here; only the ominous cover of night seemed to exist in this place. It was a home to female jötnar, who gave birth to more of their kind. And howls could be heard all around, predatory eyes accompanied by bristling fur and fang-filled maws able to be seen. Rivers flowed, filled with blood and venom, hostile waters for all who were not prepared to be immersed in them, or drink from them.
An icy wind constantly blew through the branches and trees, rustling them ever so slightly. The temperature always blisteringly cold. Perfect for the eternal enemies of order. Always at odds with the stifling, limiting ways of form and matter. Chaos, the primordial lawlessness, wisdom that beckoned seductively from the void underneath the tree of life, dissolving the false self, both extreme heat and menacing cold…it was what they all craved and desired with every fiber of their beings. Defiant towards life itself; praising, worshipping, hailing death. Even those who they were often antagonistic towards couldn’t deny the dark truths held within their beliefs, for they, too, knew of and reveled in things that ran counter to that fetid, disgusting value called “peace”, and showed, in them, the presence of that yawning, eternal abyss. For their revered leader had the blood of those violent, devastating giants in his veins.
Something changed in the atmosphere, and wolves, man-wolves, trolls, giants all stalked, sauntered, to the center of the forest. All of their gazes meeting a truly wondrous sight…
Gullveig.
Relaxed upon her wooden throne, hidden well within this unholy place.
Pulling off the hood of her dark, soft robe with her pale, calloused hands, all gasped at the rather rare sight. Revealing her disheveled head of jet black hair and aged, yet strikingly beautiful face, dark eyes shimmering with excitement and full lips curled into a smile. Upon her lap lay a peculiar sight. A single wolf pup, sleeping soundly against her torso. Cooing in the language of the runes, she held the pup against her ample bosom briefly, before raising it to her face, holding it in her hands with tenderness and care. Milky white eyes and a mouth full of gangs being looked upon proudly by her.
In an alluring, smooth tone, she began to speak, and all around her listened intently to her words. Fixated on the newborn canid, who she seemed so infatuated with.
“Behold, a wolf, with immense jaws,
From its chin upon Midgard, to its snout high in the stars,
Shall stretch its mighty maw…
Progeny of I, and my darling, the trickster,
Wracked by the might of its marauding steps,
All the nine worlds shall be cracked by fissures…
Sibling it shall be to the snake that encircles the world,
And my daughter that dwells where the dead rot
In the ice; a bringer of the end, its strength shall unfurl…
By it, shall the moon be swallowed,
Rending apart chains placed upon it in vain,
Asgard’s ruler shall try to best it; an action empty and hollow…
Precious little thing, your time to shine will be near,
We, all of us, your kin, Jotnär; I, your mother,
Dub thee, wolf of all wolves, holder of the crown…Fenrir!”
Once the words were spoken, the gatherers roared and cheered, a calamity, a raucous made, welcoming into existence a new harbinger of the end times. Of the glorious apocalypse that would flay and tear asunder the gods themselves.
“Hail Fenrir,
Hail Fenrir,
Hail Fenrir,
Hail Fenrir,
Hail Fenrir!”
Chanted, was this, in three sets of the number six.
A World In Flames 