Where to?
Thor had begged his father for weeks to take him on this trip. He wanted so bad to explore one of the realms with his father, and at such a young age! He wanted this so badly that he acted extra well behaved and worked extra hard in all of his classes and training, and made that hopeful, admiring face whenever he spoke to his father…
And when he was finally traveling with him, he found himself bored.
Half of the journey consisted in traveling through the field and pointing at the mountains, and half of it consisted in grown ups talking of boring things.
Thor concentrated in the fun part of it: exploring new land at a young age, and played pretend that the journey was across a never known before territory.
He wandered off on his horse, looked arround for monsters, pretended a young tree was a monster, and entertained himself while his father was busy.
He had been just a couple arrow shots from the others, just around a big rock on the side of the mountain, just out of sight for a few minutes.
He couldn’t remember when he fell asleep.
He woke up to freezing cold.
Colder than a cold bath. Colder than getting up from bed in winter, colder even than playing all day in the snow and going back home late with wet clotes.
Colder than he had ever expirienced, colder than he knew was possible.
He was in the arms of an extranger, no guards, no one around, no father.
No mountains either. There was no rocks, nor sky blue nor ground below, nor woods around him. He looked around and for a moment he doubted if he was in a dream or he had gone blind.
It was just white. White in every direction, as far as the sight can reach, white even falling from the sky with the wind, making it blurr with what little he could see.
And cold. Actually, bone chilling, right across his clotes, biting cold.
He had been asleep, and his very limbs felt cold and numb.
His fingers… he could not feel his fingers, scept for his nails. They hurt.
He looked up at the cloaked stranger that was carring him.
“where are we?”
No answer
“Where’s my father? Hey! What happened?”
The extranger stopped walking for one second and put him down.
“If you are awake now, you can walk yourself”
“But where are we going? And where is my father?”
“come on”
The man answered nothing and tried to grab him by the hand, but Thor shook free.
“I’m not moving ‘till you tell me where are we!”
In his life, Thor hadn’t so much as receibed a slap across the face. His parents were the only ones who would ever scorn him when he went too far, or punish him. But never too harshly. His father would allways forgive him.
Now, he found himself on the cold ground, half buried in… snow. It was snow. That’s why the white and cold. They were in the snow.
His head hurt so bad. Worst than any pain he had ever felt. Never falling down or wrestling with other kids had lead to pain like this.
The man had answered his questions with a punch to the face. So strong he fell to the ground. So he had an actual headache now, aside from the burning in the spot where he was hit.
He barely ever cried. Becuse boys don’t cry and he was strong and brave… but he simply could not hold back this time. He started crying stronger than he could ever remember, thick tears falling down his face and breath coming cold and laboriously, hurting his throat.
Thor wanted his father and his mother to come pick him up, or at least a guard to let him know it was all right. But no one came.
His captor just walked up to him and held him up by the arm, and made him walk.
Thor refused to move, still bawling, and the man had to drag him a few paces, but then lost his patience and stopped again.
He held the boy upright, and slapped him across the face, hard. This time Thor didn’t fall to the ground becouse he was being held by the arm.
“You walk or else!” the voice of the man was scary and demanding. Thor could barely even understand what was going on, but with a couple more pushes, he walked, while still crying.
He kept crying and walking until he was out of breath. His head hurt worse than ever and the tears in his face freezed with the cold wind. He kept brushing his face to take them away, but his skin was still moist and cold and his eyes stinked.
He finally tired of crying and kept walking in silence. Finally realicing that his father was nowhere arround, that no one was coming to help him. There was only the man who hit him. Thor took his time before he dared speak again.
“My head hurts”
No answer. Did he not hear?
“My head hurts a lot! I’m getting sick”
“Keep walking!”
“I’m tired”
“Move or I’ll hit you again”
Thor took a moment to speak again.
“I am very cold”
“I don’t care”
“…but I am very cold. My face is freezing. Really. I am very, very cold!”
The stranger held him by the hair and crouched down until he was grouling in his ear.
“Shut up and walk”
And pushed him forwards.
Thor fell face first into the frost, and when it took him a moment to react the man kicked him.
“Up! Move!”
He obliged and kept walking.
He was extremly tired, but it was not as bad as the pain in his head, and certainly not as bad as the constant, bone chilling, deep cold. His face hurt now too, raw with the constant scratch from the wind. His feet felt funny too in a not funny at all way: he could barelly feel them, but his nails hurt. More even than his hands.
He heard stories from experienced warriors: they said that, when you get too cold, you get frost bite. And then your fingers fall off. He didn’t want to believe it. They were just stories to scare him, right? How can a finger just fall off?
But aparently they were true: different men confirmed that some warriors had lost entire limbs to frostbite. Or even their lives. And when he asked his father… he told him, again, of the frost giants.
“the very touch of their skin produces frost bite. You can never even let them touch you. Not only they feel like ice. They transmit the cold to the very flesh they touch”
He massaged his hands in vane. Was this frost bite? What if he lost his fingers? He wouldn’t be able to hold a sword. He culd not play without fingers, nor train, nor be a warrior. His father wouldn’t like it.
He would be furious.
One last time, he turned to his captor, eyes narrowed in anger.
“My father is Odin. He will punish you for this”
His captor didn’t even flinch.
“shut up and walk. Or I’ll break your legs”
Now, Thor had just found how painful an actual punch could be. And he imagined that habing his legs broken would be even more painful than that.
Not only that: he believed this man. He was not like anyone he had ever met. He would actually hurt him.
And Thor believed he would break his legs if he didn’t keep walking, so he did.