“Yes, I wish to give Sköll a companion to return to the skies with,” said Dust. “Fenrir, bound as he is, will not be so eager to help,” said Loki. “Leave that to me, son of Odin,” said Dust. “I need only your help in finding him and prying that sword from his jaws. I know what he will need.” Loki smiled. He always seemed to smile, yet it was a smile others found no joy in. “Fenrir rests on the other side of the dark lake. We had best get moving.” ** The group found themselves at the gaping mouth of a cave, its edges sharp and jagged. A river gurgled out from within its depths and flowed to the dark lake which they’d sailed across. Aerl and Burl exchanged nervous glances, staring into the abyss of the cave’s mouth, waiting for the great wolf of legend to appear. Sköll noticed that the hind appeared uneasy, the first time he’d seen her this way since they met. Loki turned to the hind, “And I suppose you want me to …” The hind nodded. “Right,” Loki said, and made for the cave, the others watching on until the dark of the cave swallowed him whole. “Is he going to find Fenrir?” Burl chittered. “I believe so,” Aerl replied. Neither Dust nor Sköll said a word. Loki returned with a silken band in his hands, glimmering in the sun — a strand of Gleipnir he’d stolen when Fenrir was first bound. He set the strand into Sköll’s mouth and said, “Pull this, would you?” Sköll, who had kept quiet on their journey, was eager for this plan to work. Though he loathed to admit it, all those years chasing the sun and moon alone had left him longing for someone to share life’s journey with. He knew deep down in his wolf’s heart that one day he’d devour the sun whole. But it just didn’t seem to excite him anymore without someone to share the memory with. He ached for a companion, to be a part of a pack, and now he saw this was his opportunity. Sköll bit down on Gleipnir, the silken band fitting against his teeth. He dug his paws into the dirt and began pulling with the wolves’ might, forcing the earth forward as he ripped the band back. “I suppose we’ll see if this works,” said Loki. And it was just then something snapped inside the cave, and from the depths a bolt of metal came flying out threw the sky — a sword of the gods, left behind to keep Fenrir’s mouth pried open. The whole of the cave began to rumble and writhe, the jaws of the cave snapping shut for the first time in eons, cutting off the river’s flow. Aerl and Burl coward behind the hind, realizing now their mistake. Fenrir was not inside the cave. Fenrir’s jaws were the cave, and his body the mountains above. Fenrir’s nostrils flared as he sucked in the wind of the world, Aerl and Burl burrowing into the ground such as not to be sucked in through the wolf’s nose, the world’s scent reawakening the great beast. He rustled, quaking the ground beneath them, but his limbs — thick as the trunk of Yggdrasil — were still bound to the earth by Gleipnir. “Father,” Fenrir growled, his voice tingling the rabbits’ spines. “It is good to see you. I presume you and your merry band of friends here have come to apologize for Odin’s treachery and free me from these binds?” “You know your time will come,” said Loki. “I’ve come for a favor.” No. 98 “A favor?” Fenrir snarled, incredulous. “You would stand idly by as the gods bind your son to the Earth, and then have the gall to ask for a favor?” “This was a terrible idea,” said Burl, cowering in the shadow of the mountainous wolf. “It is not a favor for my self,” said Loki, cooly. “It is a favor for your son, Sköll.” Fenrir rumbled, a low growl in his belly. “If my son wishes for a favor, he can ask for one himself.” Dust and Loki turned their gaze on Sköll, who found himself ready to admit his inner desire: “I wish to be part of a pack,” said Sköll. “Ahhh,” said Fenrir, the weight of his breath billowing through the trees. “I know all too well the sorrows of a lone wolf.” “So you will give Sköll a sibling then?” asked Loki. “I will give you a child, yes. But I ask for one thing in return.” “And what is that?” Loki asked. “Freya’s beauty.” Loki laughed, “I am flattered you think me capable of such a feat, but even if I could steal away Freya’s beauty from her, the gods do not know where she hides.” Fenrir’s laugh bawled across the land, knocking Aerl and Burl to their sides. “And here I thought you were the wise one, father. I do not wish you to steal Freya’s beauty. I wish for her to give it on her own accord. Her scent is unmistakable.” Loki’s puzzlement could be felt across the realms, bringing joy to Thor in Midgard. But through the puzzlement Loki sensed an air of magic in his midst. He turned to the hind known as Dust, but the hind was no more. Where the hind had been stood — the goddess Freya. She was old and withered, her locks once red with fire now drained to nothing but a pale film of white. Her hair framed the hollow cheeks of one who stands in line at the gates of Hel, desperate to be let in. Her skin, riddled with warts, sagged over brittle bones, barely holding up her hands which glowed with the fire of her beauty, offered freely to the wind. “Freya?” Loki said, chiding himself for having missed such a simple illusion. “You can’t do this, Freya,” he continued, barely able look upon the wretched hag she’d become. “Odin always said I was more beautiful than the sun and the moon. Perhaps in drinking from Mímir’s Well he always knew this day was to come.” She whispered something to the wind, and the butterflies fluttered to her hands, carrying the glow of her beauty into Fenrir’s chasmic mouth. Loki looked on in anguish as his son, Fenrir, swallowed Freya’s beauty whole, no creature living or dead ever able to gaze again upon something so magnificent. But Fenrir kept true to his word, and from somewhere beneath his mountainous form a wolf known already to the world as Hati emerged, dashing with a devilish smile past Sköll, scratching that part of Sköll’s mind that cannot resist the chase. Sköll turned to run after her, but before he did he looked to the goddess Freya and bowed deeply to her, knowing he was forever in her debt. Freya nodded to him, “Go.” Sköll took off after Hati, the two of them leaping over one another into the sky above, beginning again their chase of the sun and moon, returning night to the nine realms.
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