Fjodnir

You’ve just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As you look around, your gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. You duck and step into a tattered tent, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the tent, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town? she begins, then pauses to study your face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a cushion, “Tell me your story.”

 

Fjodnir watches the elder from underneath his polar bear hood, his hazel eyes focusing on her. After she gestures for a cushion, he says, "As you wish," Going, now, to sit upon the cushion, and ushering a sigh of relief after doing so. "I am sure, elder, you have had stories of heroes and legendary figures," he says with a thick accent. "However, I am different, you see. I am just a farmer like my father before me. I have been behind the plow, tending to the cattle, and behind the rod of the fishermen," he softly says. "I am no hero. However, maybe, one moment, proves that I am no hero," he says a little more clearly now. "After my twenty-first name-day, a polar bear came quite monstrously down upon my farm, killing my father, and maiming my mother. I was not quick enough to save him, and that is a twilight upon my heart. However, I took my spear, and quite truly gave that bear's heart the justice of the gods," he says with quick breaths, showing elevated emotions, he quickly takes a few moments to calm down, with the hag's eyes quietly upon him. "I cut the hide from the bear and crafted a coat. I am no better than those before me, as I failed saving my father. However, I must go n-now. The crops and animals need tending." He wipes a tear away from his hazel eye, and leaves the hut, heading back to the home that is closest to his heart.