Twilight, eyes widened continued flapping her wings even as the torrent of wind and rain pushed her back, leaving a powerful wake in the water as she flew, faster than a thunderbolt.

With a loud triumphant roar, Twilight flew through an archway that jutted out of the water and then did a loop-de-loop letting off a blast of flames to show the world that yes, she was back. But still, she wondered how did she achieve flight in the first place? Her wings should not have allowed it so. Actually, now that she thought about it, how in the Dragon Mother’s name did she even achieve those feats she pulled back on that beach? Her rear leg was broken! She should not have been able to leap atop a viking’s longboat as she did, and yet somehow she managed it.

Keeping her from thinking on this any further, another loud howl, sound enraged beyond measure cut through the air. Twilight shuddered, not from the howling wind and cold battering rain that pounded upon her very form but from the sheer unearthliness of the creature’s rage.

“Hróðvitnir…” Twilight mused as she thought upon the name. Whatever it belonged to, chances are it must have had a hand in driving those vikings from their village and reducing it to rubble. She tasted the name upon her tongue, repeating it. It wasn’t a word she liked.

As like a guiding hand, Twilight flapped her wings, her talons sharpened and ready for battle as she pushed on through the storm. Whatever awaited her, she doubted it was friendly. But as that white dragoness had stated, cowardness was not the way of a dragon.

In hindsight, Twilight should have surmised foolishness and wisdom were part of being a dragon as well.

She found herself landing on a beautiful green island, covered from end to end in heather bushes. Largely flat with some hills, it was an otherwise peaceful place and seemed to be untouched by the wind and the rain. Magic filled the air, it was so thick Twilight could almost taste it and indeed Twilight found her power seemed to grow as she continued to walk through the lands where Gods once tread.

Her spines glowed with this ethereal purple light, flickering like a flame, with the star on her hindquarters flowing brighter than ever soaking up pure Æsir magic even as she walked down a small dirt path, the sun shining down through a hole in the otherwise violent weather patterns.

Twilight basked in the sun, letting it shine down on her cold scales, and smiled. At last, for what seemed like the first time since she awoke on this chain of islands it seemed like she was at peace. But that was only a wish, really, she surmised. She knew there was something on this island, something dangerous. Despite this island’s otherwise peaceful appearance, with it’s flowing green hills and fields made of heather that there was something wrong with it. Something so ancient, and so old it was before history had been recorded by man.

“Ragnarök…”little voices whispered in Twilight’s ears. “Ragnarök will come from this island. Leave now, young lindworms. Leave before the fame-wolf gets you in his clutches!” they warned, before songs and dance started up, fiddles playing from somewhere beyond Twilight’s field of vision, somewhere in the heather.

“Brœðr muno beriaz
ok at bǫnom verða[z]
muno systrungar
sifiom spilla.
Hart er í heimi,
hórdómr mikill
—skeggǫld, skálmǫld
—skildir ro klofnir—
vindǫld, vargǫld—
áðr verǫld steypiz.
Mun engi maðr
ǫðrom þyrma.” Voices chanted in Old Norse all around her. Twilight continued onwards, knowing no Old Norse and therefore no fear came to her.

She continued to stride forwards through the fields and found herself in a small forest grove, leaves gently falling all around her. The grove looked peaceful, calm and tranquil but Twilight knew otherwise. There was this feeling, like a rippling across her scales that something was undeniably wrong about this place.

“Oh for the love of Týr...” Twilight murmured out in fear as she wanted to leave this grove completely, but vines and bramble seemed to close in all around her, entrapping her.

“Oh, that fool?” a low chuckle came from the brambles. “If you’re going to chose one of my family’s name to invoke, best you choose another than the one whom I bit the hand off of.”

Twilight’s breath caught in her throat again. In front of her, was this black wolf. Dark as midnight, and with piercing yellow eyes that looked into her soul. He was tied to a tree but by this fetter smooth and soft as silk but strong and firm like the steel of the Æsir themselves. Twilight’s eyes glittered with wonder, even as the wolf continued to speak.

“Ah, so I see you admire the Gleipnir young lindworm?” the wolf spoke out in her mind. He had to use telepathy, for his jaws were held shut via a sword. “It was a mastercraft of the dwarfs I will admit. I remember what I said to the Æsir upon my first binding of it. I said: “It looks to me that with this ribbon as though I will gain no fame from it if I do tear apart such a slender band, but if it is made with art and trickery, then even if it does look thin, this band is not going on my legs.”

“Looks like they bound you with more than just rope and twine,” Twilight observed, noting the stone slab placed deep into the ground, with Gleipnir slipped through it. Another rock was used as a binding peg. Mustering up her courage, Twilight continued to speak. “So, it is safe to assume you are Hróðvitnir?” she asked.

A high pitched cackle filled the air, chilling Twilight straight down to the bone. “Oh, is that what they call me?” Hróðvitnir asked with a small tilt of his head. “It is one of many names I bear yes. You should know me by a few others. If you’re smart enough, then you’ll figure out the rest.”

Taking note of the wolf’s bindings, and the many warnings placed before her as she had walked towards the grove, Twilight’s eyes widened.

“Ah yes, there it is…” the wolf smirked upon Twilight’s realization.

“Fenrir,” Twilight whispered out in fear and she took a few steps back before finding herself up against a tree. Wanting to breathe out flame just to incinerate the infamous God-Slayer on the spot, Twilight chose the wiser course of options and decided against it. After all, she knew she was powerful now from all the magic she’d soaked up. A blessing, but a curse. If she fired off her flames now, she would undoubtedly incinerate the bindings that held Fenrir fast.

“That tingling sensation running up your spine? Inevitability. And that bit running down your leg? Fear,” Fenrir chuckled. “And… Ah yes, the magics of the Æsir. Powerful, but dangerous. You could kill me, but you could very well free me. A cruel joke placed upon anyone who set foot, or claw as the case may be on this island by my dear father Loki. He wants his dear sonny boy free, even if he knows he could very well be killed by the same creature which he helped imprison!” Fenrir laughed.

“So… So if you’re here, bound to that tree and those rocks, why did I find one of your alternate names, Hróðvitnir etched out on the ruins of a village?” Twilight asked nervously, and at this Fenrir flew into a great rage.

“SO THAT’S WHAT THEY DO, DO THEY? BLAME ME FOR ALL THEIR PETTY LITTLE FAILINGS?” Fenrir howled out in rage. “THEY BLAME ME, FENRIR! For my son, Sköll, and his transgressions, they blame me for them! Why do they blame me for all their ickle sad failings? They use my name as if I spent my entire lifetime sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive and vile. ‘Fenrir made me do this, he made me do that!’ Every damn time! I have never made anyone do anything, not ever! They live their own tiny little lives, I have never lived their lives for them!” Fenrir snapped. “Run now little lindworm. Run now before I decide to find a way to free myself from these bindings and destroy you where you stand for blaming me on my son’s transgressions!”

Twilight wanted to argue the point, that it was the mortals that blamed Fenrir for Sköll and his doings, but even as the vines and brambles gave way she found herself more tempted to run, and never look back.

“Why don’t you run?” Fenrir asked. “Are you not that prepared to die?”

“Call it… curiosity,” Twilight replied.

“That’s a dangerous thing, young lindworm. Think hard about what you choose to say next,” Fenrir warned.

“Yes… Well, if Sköll is supposed to be off chasing the sun goddess Sól, why is he ravaging villages? Is that not a neglect of duty, a casting aside of a role set for him?”

Fenrir seemed to think on this for a moment, before he responded. If he smiled, he would have.

“Yes, wise words indeed little lindworm. He is neglecting his duties, and for that, he must be punished!” Fenrir agreed. “I ask you to be my blade, hunt him down and if it proves impossible to persuade him to return to his duties then chop off his head and return it to me!” he requested, even as thunder rolled and rumbled in the background, and the sun gave away to more rain. “It shall be a great challenge indeed, but I have faith in you little lindworm.”

“And why should I do anything you request?” Twilight replied.

“Besides the fact that my son is out there ravaging villages and bringing harm to those meatsacked innocent?” Fenrir deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. “If you help me, and bring his head to me or return to from his duties I shall show you a way back home, and answer a few of the questions I know you undoubtedly have. Like for example, your strange healing abilities. Are you not curious as to how you have them?” he asked.

Twilight was struck silent, finding herself in a bind. On the one hand, she could ignore Fenrir’s offer, but on the other it would be folly and she would leave the warg Sköll to continue to ravage those who did not deserve it. But, he could have been lying about any knowledge he said he held. Even as old as he was, Fenrir was the son of Loki, the trickster. Surely the monstrous fame-wolf did not inherit some of his father’s tendencies? It would be folly to think otherwise.

“I know what you’re thinking, young lindworm,” Fenrir stated. “That I am lying. Good for you, you’re not as stupid as you look. So my hat is off to you. But, nevertheless, my son and his mania persists. And I have a tempting offer. You’d be wise to not dismiss the possibility I know more about your current predicament. In fact, I probably know a way back to your home, and it’s name. I am millennia old after all.”

The penny was in the air for the briefest of moments, and then the penny dropped with a resounding clang. Fenrir chuckled as he saw the gears in Twilight’s little mind began to turn at the possibilities.

“Ah, there we go,” he commented. “I knew you’d come along to my way of thinking soon enough. But be warned, as soon as you step off this island to chase my son, the magic of the Æsir will leave you. You will be the same as which you were when you arrived. And that power is not enough to slay one of my kin.”

“Then how do I…?” Twilight trailed off, cursing Loki and his kin under her breath.

Fenrir never answered.

Author's Note

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenrir