Sun sets so low.
Fire lights the sky.
I asked you to come home.
I asked you not to die.

My brave soldier boy,
Fighting for so long.
My little soldier boy,
Please do come home.

When you cried your first
To when you hugged me last,
You’re gone forever and I thirst
So much for the blissful past.

My son, you promised me so firmly
When you were shipped away,
While, so tightly, you hugged me,
That on enemy soil you would not lay.

Florence (Firenze), region of Tuscany, Italy
December, 1490

Sioned was growing tired of the life she had chosen.

Setting: long feasting hall. Characters: Æsirs, Æsirs, Æsirs everywhere.

Thor: Hark, ye, good Æsirs! Might we entertain ourselves with a game?

(All agree heartily [who can’t? They’re all drunk])

Thor: Shan’t we be merry as we burn calories strolling and gallivanting ‘round our good table in a match of Musical Chairs?

Baldr: Here, here!

Hodr: Minstrels! Strike up a tune!

(Playing music)

(Loki enters feasting hall)

Loki: Did I hear a game?

(Music stops, all run for a seat. Loki teleports into Sif’s seat, leaving her standing.)

Four years had passed.
He had seen the trees change from white to green to red to black and all over again four times. He couldn’t believe how long it had been since the day the Yīnyǐng had separated them all. He had seen the change of what parts of the world they had travelled together, thoroughly worried by it all. Things changed so drastically wherever they turned that he was sure he woke up in a different world every morning.

Wynne made it to the barracks of the keep. Warrior women jogged to and from the extensive and solid establishment. Marching girls with blonde braids swaying on their backs passed by her, their blue eyes gazing on her. They whispered behind their small, pale hands in the lilting yet hard language of Skuld. Wynne smiled and nodded to the squadron, who smirked shyly and went on their way.
She knocked on the barrack door, and a lady dressed in a soft buckskin tunic and palla answered.
“Úda’lugha?” she asked plainly.
“Gwceff,” answered Wynne as she entered.

Nóe ran down the hall.
He remembered last night as if it were a second ago. Every memory was vibrant as if it had just happened. Every single word, action, and gesture was crystal clear in his mind.
“Your brother is becoming quite destructive,” mused Lord Crofton, carelessly strolling across his throne room. “It’s become… peeving. And his dog, that mangy, rabid thing… that is a lot to take care of.” He stopped mid-step, then turned to Nóe. “Has he been this way for long?”

The squadron that Master Pritchard dispatched silently scanned the Tywyll. Bowmen and crossbowmen walked behind the dagger-hands and swordmasters. Their feet made little to absolutely no sound as they crossed the cursed forest.
Not many could venture deep in the forest without becoming afflicted with madness. The utter silence could make one’s brain weak. Only, this was deep in the Tywyll; Caislín and her Solitary had stayed within the outskirts.

Wynne snapped awake and quickly pulled on a leather tunic and thick bragae trousers. She stuffed on wool boots and then proceeded to brush out her hair to the best of her ability, then she tied her waist-length locks in a high bun with her faded rose-colored silk ribbon. She sighed with nostalgia each time she laid eyes on it.

While Aloysius talked with Wynne in the stables, Sioned busied herself collecting hazelnuts at the cuff of the Tywyll. Bryngaer was well north of her, and it would take about two hours to get back home. She knew it was a ‘busy’ job to keep her from doing anything stupid, and she didn’t know what to think of that. Either way, hazelnuts were her favorite.
A feeling of someone near made her shiver. She scanned the dusk scene of the deep and dark forest, her heart pounding against her chest.