Chapter 1
Let’s be honest, there are pros and cons to being the daughter of presumed deities. On the one hand? Respect wherever you go! People expect things of you, acts of wrath or guidance, and they respect your position. On the other hand? People expect things of you, acts of wrath or guidance, and they bother you about it.
When you’re a young child, trying to learn your place in this bright and shiny world you call home, there’s not much issue. When your parents take you on a work trip to go visit the mortals, it gets tiring after about the fifth request, especially when you don’t have half the power that your mother holds in her little finger. You can barely make a flower bloom, much less an entire orchard. You can’t string together full sentences without stumbling or stuttering, when your father can weave together words with ease to inspire everyone from the lowliest of peasants to the grandest of kings.
It’s great, and it’s the worst. That’s where Eyvor found herself for most of her life. Caught between the expectations of those who looked up to her and the realities that she knew to be true. Skalds all called on her father for guidance and inspiration, and women groveled for her mother’s blessings and fertility.
And Eyvor?
Eyvor got both, asking for her to garner favor with her parents. Who was she, in this world of powerful people, when all she was used for was a back entrance to her parents?
So, she did what every teenager who desperately wants to fit in does. She found people who could tell her.
Eyvor sat at the feet of Mimir, asking endless questions. She learned about the Nine Realms, and the Aesir and the Vanir, and the role that Asgard would play in everything. She learned of the history of Asgard, of Vannaheim, Helheim, Jotunheim, Midgard, Alfheim, Muspelheim, Svartalfheim, and Niflheim. Mimir answered all her questions about what they as Asgardians were supposed to do in the Nine Realms, at least until Ragnarok began. Mimir told her that they were supposed to protect the Nine Realms, and above all else, keep the people of Midgard safe, because they were weak and fragile, and should any of the eyes of the other Realms turn towards it, disaster would surely strike swift and fast.
Armed with this knowledge, with a new place in the world, Eyvor began to shadow Tyr, absorbing his lessons like a cloth with water. He was tall, and he cast his own large shadow, but his knowledge was vast as well, and when Mimir was busy, she asked him questions, but more than that, she asked him to teach her how to protect. Kind, noble Tyr, respected by all of Asgard (as far as she knew, anyway), placed his hand upon her head, and agreed. Every morning, Eyvor left the house before her mother or father were stirring and met Tyr on the training grounds of Odin’s palace, where he began to instruct her. In the early morning light, when Sol was just cresting the horizon and Mani was only just disappearing opposite him, with Tyr’s firm hand guiding her, Eyvor fought for her place in this world of greats and those who were before her.
And then Odin’s son was banished to Midgard.
Eyvor had never met Thor, not that it bothered her in any way. She knew Tyr and Mimir, and her parents were Bragi and Iðunn. She knew enough of what Midgard considered “important” Asgardians and wasn’t interested in rabble-rousing with the king’s sons and their inner circle. She knew several others her age who tried to catch Thor’s attention, and even those who sought out Loki’s, even though those who fawned over him tended to do so in secret, but it had never been her way of thinking.
Tyr commended her on her attitude, and Mimir encouraged her to find her purpose in Asgard on her own. Her mother and father just wanted her to be happy.
Needless to say, Asgard was shaken when Thor was banished to Midgard. However, while most saw this as a great loss for Asgard, Eyvor saw it as an opportunity. The people of Asgard had stopped visiting Midgard when she was somewhere in her early adolescence, and Mimir had never told her why that was the case. Now, though, the door was open, though she would have to be careful about how she went about this. Her curiosity was piqued, and she had grown up molding herself into a protector, ready at the first sign of trouble to provide aid. She wanted to go see the place she hadn’t been to in a long time, see how it had changed and, more importantly, perhaps finally realize the purpose she had given herself at a young age.
She didn’t want her parents to worry, though, so she told them over breakfast that she planned to go to Midgard. So soon after the banishment of Thor, they were, understandably, concerned. Her mother in particular fussed over her, asking why in all the realms she would want to do that.
“I want to see it, Mother. I want to see what’s different, or if everything has remained the same. Mimir says we’re supposed to protect them, but I barely remember them.” Her mother and father sighed, sharing a long look with one another.
“If you want to know what Midgard is like, my heart,” Bragi said, “I would be happy to tell you.”
“It’s not the same, Father. This is–it’s something I need to do. I need to see it for myself.” Her father sighed.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then I see no way that we could stop or dissuade you.” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Stay safe, my little dewdrop. May Heimdall’s gaze remain on you and keep you safe.” Her mother pulled her into a hug, pressing kisses all over her face and blinking away tears before giving her a bag full of apples from their orchard. Iðunn gave her one last squeeze before they stood in the doorway, watching her make her way towards the Rainbow Bridge. At the top of the hill, Eyvor turned back and waved, and she could see them waving back. Adjusting the strap of her bag across her chest, she started walking. It took her a long while to walk across the bridge, but when she arrived, Heimdall was standing where he always was, his sword clasped in two hands and his watchful gaze turned towards the Realms.
“Good day,” she greeted, only slightly nervous.
“Hello, Eyvor.” She was startled for a moment that he knew her name before she remembered that he heard and saw everything. “You risk much going to Midgard, especially so soon after the banishment of Thor.”
“I’m not going to help him,” she said. “I’m going to see Midgard for myself.”
“I know. Odin may not listen, though.”
“If I ask him, I may not get to go at all, and this is something I need to do.”
“I know. If you are set in your path, I will open the Bifrost to you. You need only say my name, and I will bring you back.”
“Thank you,” Eyvor said with a bow, and with a great push, the Bifrost roared to life, and Eyvor stepped into the swirling portal, swept away under its might, until she found herself standing in a grassy field and sheep running away from her in terror. The runes of the Bifrost were carved into the ground, but she could do nothing about that.
It was time to see if she could find her purpose here when she could not on Asgard.
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Eyvor learned a great deal in her first three days of wandering. It boiled down to three things, though:
- Midgard had changed a great deal from when she was last here until its peoples were unrecognizable from the awed worshippers she had left behind.
- She remembered the great feats of building that they had accomplished, and they had progressed far past what she had expected.
- With greater building and progress came greater evils.
She’d witnessed robberies (some of which she was able to stop) and attacks and fights and so much anger . She knew that Midgard had never been the ideal and desired perfection her father’s songs and poems sometimes claimed it was, but she knew the same held true for Asgard. However, even when they had visited before, perhaps she hadn’t truly grasped how dark some Midgardians could be. She was grateful to be Asgardian and for the tutelage of Tyr, because she had witnessed a child being pulled kicking and screaming into a tumble-down building, and, when she followed inside, Eyvor had found dozens of children, all tied up and crying.
She made sure that they made their way to Helheim painfully before helping the children to the authorities.
She found her purpose.
She walked the streets at night, listening and watching, and when she found someone who needed help, she stepped in, making sure Hel’s was the next face those who would do harm saw. Now, obviously, if they’re just robbing a store, she held back, but she wouldn’t stand by those who snatched women off of streets or made children scramble back in fear or yanked men into back alleys and beat them until they could hardly remember their own names. Eyvor was not the daughter of Víðarr, but she would exact vengeance on those who deserved it as if she were.
Back in Asgard, all of her friends had been those she had been learning from. But here in Midgard, she finally made a friend.
She was walking across rooftops in an older section of London, a place that was usually quiet, but it was the quiet that lured her to the sound of scrambling and fighting. Peering over the edge of the roof she was standing on, Eyvor found an unmarked vehicle, and she watched a man pull a young boy into it, tape bound tightly across his mouth to keep him quiet.
Before she could even jump down to help, a figure appeared at the other end of the alley, covered by the shadows, and Eyvor was ready to stop them, but they through a punch right into the jaw of one of the men, the sound of the man’s jaw dislocating accompanying the muffled struggles of the child.
“What was that?”
“Hank? Ya good, mate?”
A pained groan, and another thud, as another punch was thrown, then there was a pained shout as the figure wretched an arm and broke it, and Eyvor watched in fascination and a good amount of awe as this one person took on five people. It was very bare-knuckle brawl-ish, but whoever it was clearly knew what they were doing. Honestly, they reminded her of Tyr in the way that they fought, efficiently and with calculated moves, but with all the anger and brutality of Óðr. It was amazing. She sat on the roof and watched, impressed at the way that they fought with only their bare hands. They had no weapons on them that she could see, but they were deadly effective with just themselves.
She was broken out of her trance by the sound of a door closing, and she turned to find one person slinking through the shadows in the opposite direction of the beatdown happening in the alley and heading towards the vehicle. Oh, it looked like someone was trying to make a getaway. Shame. Eyvor dropped down silently, keeping to the shadows as well, and she slashed two of the tires, the air hissing out quickly but covered by the fight behind her. Just to be safe, though, Eyvor reached down and took hold of one of the empty spaces between the car and the wheel, digging in her heels as the vehicle cranked to life, but it didn’t go anywhere. The door opened again, and she let go just in time to clothesline the man with her arm, knocking him to the ground. She knelt over him and grinned, hoping it struck fear into his heart.
“May Hel treat you with all the kindness you deserve,” she said before pulling him up by his collar and flinging him down the alley, where the fighting had gone silent. “Missed one!” she called into the shadows before going to the back of the car and flinging open the doors to find ten children, all young boys in their adolescence looking at her with tears in their eyes. “Hello there,” she greeted with a sweet smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe soon.” She glanced over her shoulder to find the figure from before in the shadows still. “Get out of here. I’ll handle it.” The figure tipped their hat at her before disappearing back the way they had come. She pulled out the phone that she’d gained her second week in on Midgard and called emergency services to come get the boys. Eyvor had the presence of mind to take one picture before she began motioning the boys forward to untie their hands so they could handle the rope around their ankles and the tape over their mouths. “If the tape catches in your hair, I will help you. Don’t hurt yourself needlessly.”
Eyvor made sure to cover for whoever it was in the alley, saying that she heard the sounds of fighting and came to check things out, and the boys hadn’t seen anything, so whoever it was went off free. Eyvor saw the aftermath of what they had done, though, and she was impressed. All by themselves, they had dismantled a trafficking ring. She only had to cover for them because she was already there. Otherwise, no one would have any idea about what exactly had happened.
Still, she left them alone, didn’t try to find them. She wanted to. Eyvor hadn’t had any contact with anyone from Asgard in months, and it was a little bit lonely when most of her conversations were with those she was rescuing or interrogating. She knew they were working. She saw the news covering the stories every few days and recognized their work, still impressed in how efficient they were all by themselves. Well, she assumed they were working alone. She didn’t need anyone, so she assumed that whoever it was was also capable of handling themselves. But it would be nice to have someone else to talk to.
Eyvor continued to exact her own version of protection on those she found who needed help. The cover of darkness was her friend, and she was good at finding whatever holes the scum of the city scuttled away into and out of, and she didn’t stick to just one city. She bounced all over; it was easy when she could move faster and better than regular humans. In the daytime, she watched and learned and waited. At night, she tore and slashed and mangled. They would show no mercy to those they took advantage of, so she showed them no mercy either.
Finally, she ran into her mystery ally. A prostitution ring that was kidnapping young girls and grooming them into what they wanted. She was waiting in the shadows when she caught movement behind her. Spinning around, she pulled out her dagger, but it was blocked, and she was met with dark eyes, a furrowed brow, and a familiar flat cap. “You,” she breathed, relaxing her arm and dropping it back to her side.
“¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?” It was a man, with curly black hair sticking out from underneath his grey cap, standing just a little taller than her. She didn’t understand that language he was speaking at all, though. It sounded nothing like she had ever heard.
“Huh? Look, we don’t have time for this. They just grabbed another girl. Are you helping me or not?” He regarded her cautiously, dark eyes searching for something in her face. Whatever it was, he found it, nodding.
“Por supuesto. ¿Por qué no?”
“Is that a yes? I think it is. I bet I can kill more of them than you.” A fire lit up in his eyes, and he smirked.
“¿Es eso un desafío?”
“Huh? Are you helping me? Come on.” She slipped into the window that she’d forced open, and he followed her into the darkened interior of the back room. They were at the end of a dark hallway. He walked along the left side of the hall while she handled the right. Between the two of them, they checked every door for sounds and signs of the girls
“A la mierda,” he said, and Eyvor watched him roll his shoulders back, crack his neck and march off down the hall in determination. She followed behind as if in a trance. Would she get to watch him fight up close? She wanted to, desperately. He didn’t spare her a glance, and when they came across the first man with a gun, the poor man didn’t even get the chance to defend himself before he was in a chokehold, a knife lodged between his ribs. Eyvor used her ally’s actions to slip into the room, finding it empty save for a collection of girl’s clothing, and she swore bitterly under her breath. More importantly, she saw a small trail of blood, and her own blood began to boil in her veins. She chose the life of violence and fighting, but these girls did not, and they did not deserve such.
She tore through the door with vengeance in her blood and fire in her eyes, and the noise would draw attention, but she wanted it. Let them come; let them fight her; let them try to stop her, to delay what was inevitable. They would all find their way to Helheim the same way, at the end of her blade or by her own hands. They would learn what happened when they toyed with innocent lives.
Guns were fired, and the sounds of yelling, but it didn’t matter. She whistled a tune, and the armor that her father had gifted her appeared around her, wrapping around her like a second skin, and in her hands were the handaxes Tyr had first trained her with, blood dripping down their blades and leaving a trail behind her. Distantly, she recognized the sound of fighting behind her as she carved a path through this building, but she was too focused, her vision a tunnel and her mind singly focused on ending this operation. When all was quiet, gunfire and fighting no more, she turned to see the man standing behind her, bruises and cut but mostly unharmed. She was covered in sprays of blood, could feel it on her face and running down her neck, but she did not care.
“There is a basement here,” she said, her voice rough and angry.
“¿Cuanto obtuviste, gota de sangre?” She tilted her head at him, confusion making the fire in her eyes smolder into tiny sparks.
“Come on.” She went down the stairs, the blood leaving bootprints in her wake. He followed behind her. They found the door into the basement locked, and she forced it open, allowing him to step in, as he wasn’t nearly as covered in blood as she was. She didn’t want to traumatize the girls any more than they already were.
“Llama a la policía,” he said, and she didn’t understand what he was saying most of the time, but she knew that last word well enough. When he stepped back into the stairwell, his face was grim and angry, as if he wished that he had taken his time killing the men upstairs. “Los drogaron, los cabrones.” Eyvor tilted her head at him in confusion again before he jerked his head at her to follow him. “Vamos, gota de sangre.” He walked to a window on the first floor and opened the window before he took off his shoes. She copied him, and they were left in their socks standing outside on the sidewalk, and he produced a bag out of nowhere, holding it out to her. She put her shoes in it, and he did the same, before they walked off, leaving not a trace of their presence besides the carnage they had wrought. Eyvor hadn’t felt so angry and yet so relaxed in a long time, and with a complete stranger no less.
“That was fun,” she commented. “I haven’t had anyone to work with before.”
“Trabajo solo,” he answered gruffly as he drove them away. She looked at him, meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror before he flicked his eyes back onto the road.
“You fight like a warrior, but it’s different than anything I learned. Tyr didn’t teach me to use my fists. I learned with blades.” She whistled a tune, and her axes were back in her hands. “I’d like to learn, I think. Would you teach me?” He didn’t even glance back at her this time. “I’m a good student. Tyr says I have a talent for fighting. Mother and Father aren’t happy about it, but it’s what I’m supposed to do.” Again, no response. “Where are you taking me?” He turned off of the road they were on, and he stopped in front of a warehouse, getting out of the cab. She followed without hesitation. If he was going to try to kill her, he already knew it was going to be a hard-fought battle. She didn’t want to kill him, though. He didn’t deserve it.
Inside the warehouse, he dumped the bag into a metal barrel, poured some liquid into it, and set it on fire.
“Hey!” He left the fire while turning to a crate, unlocking it and opening it to reveal a pair of shoes exactly like he’d just burned, slipping them on without hesitation. “Rude. I don’t have another pair, you know. Because I only buy one pair of shoes.” He didn’t spare her another glance, going back to making sure that their shoes burned entirely, leaving nothing but melted rubber behind. “I appreciate it, really, but how exactly am I going to buy another pair of shoes when you just burned the only pair I have? They don’t exactly take kindly to people walking into stores without shoes.”
Apparently, he was done helping her, because he just settled into a chair to wait, picking up a newspaper and starting to read it.
“Well, if you’re going to be that way, fine. I enjoyed working with you, either way, and I hope to run into you again.” She gave him a polite bow before leaving, only wincing once or twice when she stepped on a stray piece of rock.
She liked him, whoever he was, even if she didn’t understand him when he so obviously understood her and was choosing or unable to respond in the language.
Eyvor smacked herself on the forehead as she climbed back into the window of the motel she was staying at. She didn’t even think to try speaking Norwegian! Of course, the version she spoke was tragically outdated and vastly different to the version that was spoken in Norway now, but she was working on fixing that!
Maybe next time.
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Eyvor liked him, whatever his name was. She kept running into him as she prowled the alleys and forgotten streets of London. She could go days or weeks without seeing him, and then she may see him three times in a week, but they settled into a rhythm, and she liked having an ally, a companion to exact her purpose with. She started to call him Hunter, just because he always seemed to move with a purpose, reminding her of a large cat stalking its prey while knowing that it wasn’t going to escape.
They had their own styles of fighting. She was an array of knives, carving her own path through those in her way, uncaring of how bloody it got, as long as it was done. Hunter was a true warrior, all brute force and calculated movements. Eyvor wanted to see him in the tournaments that used to be held in Asgard, where the greatest warriors would get into an all-out brawl. Hunter reminded her of their movements, viciously accurate and breathtakingly determined.
She was the more talkative of the two. When he did speak, it was in that language that she didn’t know, but she was sometimes able to pick up on stray words. It wasn’t often, though.
It didn’t matter. They had their own language that they spoke: it was as if they had been fighting and working together all their lives, they moved together with such fluidity and ease. They covered each other from attacks, shouted warnings when they were too far away. A kick from her, a punch from him, and those they were bringing down wouldn’t stand a chance. Her blood was often left thrumming in her veins in the quiet of whatever fight they had brought themselves into, and she would look at him, the pair of them surrounded by bodies, and they would share matching grins, blood in their teeth and dangerous gleams in their eyes.
She liked him, thrived in his presence. She felt more alive when they were together than she could ever remember. Something about him called to her, more than his abilities; it tugged at her very being, and whenever he inevitably started pushing her out at the end of the night, she felt empty and forlorn, even while still riding the high of battle.
Still, Eyvor was well-aware that he owed her nothing.
That was made very apparent when he disappeared for three whole months. He had never been gone for so long. She was getting worried. What if he had taken on more than he could handle (though she couldn’t imagine what the limit was)? Had something happened to him? She wanted to go check the warehouse, but the possibility that someone might follow her out of curiosity and expose his safe space had her refraining.
Every night, she looked into the shadows more than she usually did, a distraction pulling at her to find him, to make sure that he was safe, but he was never there.
Until he was.
She had been keeping an eye on a group of people who had been targeting a select number of dark-skinned individuals for unknown reasons. She’d seen the aftermath of their actions, and she had finally had the chance to find their location. Eyvor was sitting atop the building across the alley from them, waiting for the last of them to get inside so she could block the entrance and keep them from escaping. She wished Hunter were here to help her cover both the front and back, but she could do this alone.
Just as she was about to start moving, she heard gunfire. Out of the third story window came a figure dressed in grey robes, falling backwards and dragging someone with them. Curious. When they landed, she fully expected both of them to be severely injured, if not dead, but the one in grey got up, groaning in pain but apparently unharmed, and the other, having landed atop them, rolled over, holding the gun at their face. It fired, and she waited for the figure to fall back. Her eyes found glowing blue-white behind the fabric covering their face, but their eyes stayed open, and there was no bloom of blood. Instead, they kicked out, and the man on the ground’s head snapped to the left with a crack, falling still. People poured out of the building, surrounding the figure, and she wanted to step in, but now she was intrigued. She wondered if Hunter would know this person. One person against ten seemed unfair, though. Especially when they only had their fists and the group had guns. Then again, the gun hadn’t worked just a second ago.
Eyvor settled on the edge of the building to watch, curious.
They fought with fists, yes, but they also pulled out gleaming weapons from a spot on their chest where, when they turned, she could see the emblem of a crescent moon. How interesting. They appeared to use them as both throwing knives, daggers, and a weapon to make their punches more deadly. What an idea.
The longer the fight went on, it became to Eyvor that they were holding back. Those weapons they had were deadly, and yet the figure chose unconsciousness rather than lethal force. The others could tell, apparently, because they got more vicious, attacking violently and with intent rather than caution.
Then, she saw the shift.
The grey robes melted away, and she gasped when she caught sight of a familiar deadly snarl.
Hunter. He was the person the robes. Why had he been holding back, though? That wasn’t something he did. She would know. Why, then? She would have to ask him, though he probably wouldn’t answer her.
In half the time that he’d taken before, amidst the sound of gunfire and grunts of pain and anger, the men were on the ground, bleeding out, and Hunter was standing in a circle of death. It was just then that Eyvor could see how dangerously he was swaying.
She jumped.
He flinched when she landed, his fists coming up in defense and ready to swing, but she held her hands up. “Just me,” she said. “Are you hurt? That took you longer than normal.”
“Tú,” he answered, his voice like rough gravel, grating and coarse.
“Hi,” she replied, taking careful steps closer. He jerked back. “You’re about to fall over, Hunter. Let me help.”
“¡Mantente alejado!” He took another step, and his knee buckled, his eyes rolling back in his head as she leapt forwards, catching him before he hit his head on the pavement.
“Hey!” He didn’t respond, unconscious. “What happened to you?” She shifted him until she could carrying him on her back, his arms hanging limply over her shoulders as she hitched him up by his thighs. She got some looks, but at this hour, most people probably assumed that she was bringing her friend home from a bar or some such place.
Eyvor had upgraded from the motel she had been staying in to an actual apartment. It had taken some lying to the sweet older lady she rented from, but how did one explain that they were from another realm and thus didn’t have any necessary paperwork? Either way, she was able to meet her expenses by stealing from those she exacted revenge on. Let those who found them think it was a brutal robbery, if nothing else.
She laid Hunter out on her bed, taking off his shoes and stripping him of the dirty clothes he was in. She’d wash them with her own things.
She was unsurprised to find him littered in bruises and cuts. In fact, it would be more surprising if he had been uninjured. She couldn’t find any reasons why he had passed out, but perhaps he had been pushing himself too hard.
Either way, she would keep him safe and look after him until he was back on his feet. It was the least that she could do for her friend.