1. The Dawn of Despair

No one could recall the days after Ragnarök. The darkness lasted for innumerable years.  Man knew little more than disease, famine and pestilence.  The blood of Ymir hung ever present in the air.  Many of us succumbed to the cold.  Clans clashed, raiding and pillaging each others’ tiny precious troves.  War was the only law of the land; the songs and poetry of our forefathers scattered to the four winds.  What was meant to be the dawn of man was, in reality, the dawn of despair.

We had burned or buried thousands by the time I headed north.  I needed time to assess Man’s future – and my own.  With little more than my Mistletoe staff and a sled’s worth of supplies, I wandered the tundra for weeks, perhaps months.  I talked to the animals and to the four winds.  They whispered of yet more suffering across the Northern Realm.

I settled on a high rocky plain between the low tundra and the Black Forest.  I settled and I waited.  I listened for Freyja.