Chapter Text
“Myths weaved by proud and rowdy skálds in smoke-plumed huts, with beer-stained breaths and glass-eyed gazes, are half-truths distorted into grotesque falsehoods,” Víðarr whispers, running a tawny teasing thumb beneath his blue-eyed son’s chin. “No one knows anymore which story is the real one.”
The world is doomed when slain Ymir saw his corpse plundered and his core mutilated.
Truth is, Laurits muses, the riches of earth—an inherent jötunn birthright—had been snatched by gold-gleaming gods in scale-tipped demands. So typical. Bastards will be bastards, no matter the stripes.
“Hunting giants turned scavengers when Óðinn sat high and mighty on Hliðskjálf.”
“Mjǫðr their kind brewed turned rancid, burnt their tongues. Swallowed ale remained stale in their throats,” his father tells him; a mangled growl caught between his sharply white teeth.
The hunger they carried within since has not extinguished.
It pulses underneath his skin, hot and wanton, and all Laurits could do is to let it hum at the back of his skulls, rattling its rage like gold coins.
“Now, we dine exquisite delights, drained our cellars dry,” Víðarr says, his smile is thin and pointed, “and we take what we want, when we want.”
Laurits grins, impishly elated.