Post by Magnus Thunder on Dec 5, 2012 23:58:00 GMT -5
Storm coming...looks...a storm coming...Magnus...like a storm is...
Lightning flashed behind the eyes of the giant Norseman, jolting him from sleep. He awakened to see the light of a police copter sweep past the window as it flew overhead. When it passed, Magnus saw a clear, cloudless sky, like flakes of snow in pitch. He rubbed the fatigue from his eyes and craned his neck from side to side, bones crunching in their stiffness. He closed his eyes for a moment more, remembering flashes of Jotunheim, someone speaking to him. A familiar voice from his past garbled by the abstract nature of dreams. No, not garbled. Drowned out. He remembered thunder.
The hotel room had seen better days, itself a pale imitation of its former pedigree as he looked over its dimly lit facade. Cigarette burns pockmarked the span of the room. Bed spread, floor, the nightstand where an ashtray once sat and was surely the sight of a dropped cigarette judging by the scorch mark on the side. The smell of ash, old liquor, and midnight rendezvous hung faintly but fetidly in the air. Anywhere he looked, there was decay. He looked once more at the window, catching his reflection. He felt a flash of surprise within him. The man who always expected the unexpected had been caught off guard. His face was time-worn and war-weary. Where he had once been clean-shaven in his suspended youth was now a thick gray beard from his chin and jawline that met with the silver hair that fell below the shoulders, tied back in both a pony tail and wind braids that hung behind his ears. His otherwise bare face was mirthless and without spirit, the emotional anguish he had to suppress for generations seemingly burned eternally into his granite-like face. Indeed, the man said to have been carved from the mountain himself was now beginning to wear a similar visage, lines of age beginning to form like crags on the sloping sides of Jotunheim.
“Why did the night come so quickly?” said Magnus. He opened his eyes and pushed himself out of his chair, pain shooting through his shoulders. He grimaced as he rose, almost winced, and stood upright before the picture window overlooking the city from his hotel room. He took a step forward on his bad knee, forgetting the beating it took on Rapture and all the old aches that were awakened in its path. He took another step and placed a hand on the thick pane of glass, leaning on it to ease his arthritic left knee. His chest heaved slowly in deep breaths, and wondered why it had to come to this. On the ledge outside of his window was a gargoyle, its wide flat back tapering down from the ledge to a narrow point near its skull barely five feet in length. It overlooked a canyon of concrete and glass, the only river that lay at its bottom consisting of aluminum bodies and halogen lights coasting over the dirty black sheen of a tarred and painted avenue. He looked away, hating this part of the life. Instead of tall peaks and swaying pines, he was greeted with the sterile and empty work of the hands of men, and instead of the great river that ran through his homeland and the sweeping valleys that bore root to the vivid hues of nature, he was given the sharp coldness of design that reflected the hearts of its rulers. His soul longed for the art of God in that old countryside, for the smell of lavender on the cusp of summer. For the silence...
He sank back into the chair, giving in to the ache for now. Why did he come back? How had it happened? Ah yes…the fall…
Months ago…
Fall had been well underway. The leaves had turned and the valley grew colder. The stoic mountainsides stood their vigil as they always did, as they likely would until judgment day and trumpet sound. The sky itself was without storm, yet the wind from the south brought a chill with it that told its sole human inhabitant that winter was here. Magnus strode through the thick brush on the valley slope with heavy, thudding footfalls. Several felled tree trunks were hefted upon his right shoulder, each fifteen feet in length and eight inches in diameter. The long trek from the opposite side of the lengthwise valley was almost over, and Magnus could see his half-finished cabin in the distance. Night was coming faster than he had anticipated, his mind set to the clockwork nature of things in the uncivilized north, and his work had preoccupied him in the peace of it all. For the first time in his life, he could enjoy it. No mission, no enemy stalking his steps, nothing left in his soul that would rise up from a bleak and deadly past to wreak havoc on a world unsuspecting. Indeed, his only wish for himself had come true.
He was allowed to die in peace.
After placing the logs within the partial walls of the log cabin, he looked across the skyline briefly. He viewed everything with seemingly new eyes, his final chapter written out day after day, and glad to have the same repetition so long as there was no danger. He silently thanked God, managed to lighten his expression from its usual sternness, and began his walk home to the caves, the last vestige of his past that he was eager to seal up forever.
A half an hour later and he came to the path to the upper slopes of the mountain. Through the winding maze of caverns he went, sliding off his heavy jacket to enjoy the cool air he had grown up with. In minutes he was out onto the arrowhead flat, a smooth surface hewn by his clan in ancient times to serve as a place of reflection and supervision for his people. It served now as a place of vigil and prayer, thought and still yet reflection, the place where Magnus came to find solace. It hadn’t stormed in ages here, not like it used to. The beast within had gone, and the evil he had harbored within was exorcised. Divested of his power and relinquished of his mission, his days of immortality had long fled into the horizon. For the first time, Magnus could imagine an end. The giant of a man turned back, and slowly made his way to the cave entrance, its dark maw less imposing that it had been. It was time to turn in for the night.
A few images flashed in his mind. Weightlessness. He awoke soaked with freezing rain, coughing from the cold and, as the loud piercing ache that was his body suggested, broken bones. Magnus lay on the jagged rocky ground, his body bruised, cut, scraped, and bleeding. His mind was screaming. Confusion had set in, and the thunder above only intensified the fog in his mind. He was afraid to move. If he felt the pain this suddenly and with this kind of cold numbing his skin, then he was grievously hurt. He worked up the courage to pick himself up, his body roaring in pain. He had fallen. Fallen from the ledge of the arrowhead flat. The flashes in his mind…they had been the sole record of his descent. His mind flitted into and out of consciousness. He did not remember rolling onto his hands and knees, but he felt as though he were on fire. He fought to stay awake, hands moving slowly and painfully over the wet stone ground. His left hand pressed upon something strange. His fingers closed across it and he picked it up. It was covered in blood, and felt like bone. His bone? No…he felt it has been dry for some time, and looked to be part of the skull…it couldn’t be. Not him. Not again. They had settled their war. And yet…
Magnus began to feel an anger he hadn’t felt in almost two years return. It was time to finish this, or be finished in the process.
“BLOOOOOOOOOD!!!!” roared Magnus, his cry echoing off the peaks and into the forest beyond.
Present day. Magnus stands once more atop the hotel. Different city, same soulless rush below. He wastes no time in airing his thoughts.
Magnus: So it is we have returned and now face once more in the ring of metal and fire. Sickboy…only the sick would pattern themselves after such a sick world. It has beaten you, hasn’t it? Beaten you…and you have joined it. In your battle to survive you succumbed to the evil which stalked you since youth, and could not overcome its relentless pull. Why would you choose to become like that which has made you what you are? Why become that which has wounded you to the point of death and has shown no remorse in its wake? You walk and talk as if you’ve risen above, as though you have escaped the pull of a life lived one step ahead of the gutter. Yet the rungs of your ladder have begun to crack as I place my hands on the posts and tear them apart. Your second fall at my hands has come.
And Norway has been good to me. Ask Roland how lovely Stockholm has been. I bid thee goodnight, Mr. Wilkes. For you are not my quarrel. Your…brother in arms…has grave things to answer to, and I must prepare for an even greater battle.
Magnus turns…and walks into the darkness.
Lightning flashed behind the eyes of the giant Norseman, jolting him from sleep. He awakened to see the light of a police copter sweep past the window as it flew overhead. When it passed, Magnus saw a clear, cloudless sky, like flakes of snow in pitch. He rubbed the fatigue from his eyes and craned his neck from side to side, bones crunching in their stiffness. He closed his eyes for a moment more, remembering flashes of Jotunheim, someone speaking to him. A familiar voice from his past garbled by the abstract nature of dreams. No, not garbled. Drowned out. He remembered thunder.
The hotel room had seen better days, itself a pale imitation of its former pedigree as he looked over its dimly lit facade. Cigarette burns pockmarked the span of the room. Bed spread, floor, the nightstand where an ashtray once sat and was surely the sight of a dropped cigarette judging by the scorch mark on the side. The smell of ash, old liquor, and midnight rendezvous hung faintly but fetidly in the air. Anywhere he looked, there was decay. He looked once more at the window, catching his reflection. He felt a flash of surprise within him. The man who always expected the unexpected had been caught off guard. His face was time-worn and war-weary. Where he had once been clean-shaven in his suspended youth was now a thick gray beard from his chin and jawline that met with the silver hair that fell below the shoulders, tied back in both a pony tail and wind braids that hung behind his ears. His otherwise bare face was mirthless and without spirit, the emotional anguish he had to suppress for generations seemingly burned eternally into his granite-like face. Indeed, the man said to have been carved from the mountain himself was now beginning to wear a similar visage, lines of age beginning to form like crags on the sloping sides of Jotunheim.
“Why did the night come so quickly?” said Magnus. He opened his eyes and pushed himself out of his chair, pain shooting through his shoulders. He grimaced as he rose, almost winced, and stood upright before the picture window overlooking the city from his hotel room. He took a step forward on his bad knee, forgetting the beating it took on Rapture and all the old aches that were awakened in its path. He took another step and placed a hand on the thick pane of glass, leaning on it to ease his arthritic left knee. His chest heaved slowly in deep breaths, and wondered why it had to come to this. On the ledge outside of his window was a gargoyle, its wide flat back tapering down from the ledge to a narrow point near its skull barely five feet in length. It overlooked a canyon of concrete and glass, the only river that lay at its bottom consisting of aluminum bodies and halogen lights coasting over the dirty black sheen of a tarred and painted avenue. He looked away, hating this part of the life. Instead of tall peaks and swaying pines, he was greeted with the sterile and empty work of the hands of men, and instead of the great river that ran through his homeland and the sweeping valleys that bore root to the vivid hues of nature, he was given the sharp coldness of design that reflected the hearts of its rulers. His soul longed for the art of God in that old countryside, for the smell of lavender on the cusp of summer. For the silence...
He sank back into the chair, giving in to the ache for now. Why did he come back? How had it happened? Ah yes…the fall…
Months ago…
Fall had been well underway. The leaves had turned and the valley grew colder. The stoic mountainsides stood their vigil as they always did, as they likely would until judgment day and trumpet sound. The sky itself was without storm, yet the wind from the south brought a chill with it that told its sole human inhabitant that winter was here. Magnus strode through the thick brush on the valley slope with heavy, thudding footfalls. Several felled tree trunks were hefted upon his right shoulder, each fifteen feet in length and eight inches in diameter. The long trek from the opposite side of the lengthwise valley was almost over, and Magnus could see his half-finished cabin in the distance. Night was coming faster than he had anticipated, his mind set to the clockwork nature of things in the uncivilized north, and his work had preoccupied him in the peace of it all. For the first time in his life, he could enjoy it. No mission, no enemy stalking his steps, nothing left in his soul that would rise up from a bleak and deadly past to wreak havoc on a world unsuspecting. Indeed, his only wish for himself had come true.
He was allowed to die in peace.
After placing the logs within the partial walls of the log cabin, he looked across the skyline briefly. He viewed everything with seemingly new eyes, his final chapter written out day after day, and glad to have the same repetition so long as there was no danger. He silently thanked God, managed to lighten his expression from its usual sternness, and began his walk home to the caves, the last vestige of his past that he was eager to seal up forever.
A half an hour later and he came to the path to the upper slopes of the mountain. Through the winding maze of caverns he went, sliding off his heavy jacket to enjoy the cool air he had grown up with. In minutes he was out onto the arrowhead flat, a smooth surface hewn by his clan in ancient times to serve as a place of reflection and supervision for his people. It served now as a place of vigil and prayer, thought and still yet reflection, the place where Magnus came to find solace. It hadn’t stormed in ages here, not like it used to. The beast within had gone, and the evil he had harbored within was exorcised. Divested of his power and relinquished of his mission, his days of immortality had long fled into the horizon. For the first time, Magnus could imagine an end. The giant of a man turned back, and slowly made his way to the cave entrance, its dark maw less imposing that it had been. It was time to turn in for the night.
A few images flashed in his mind. Weightlessness. He awoke soaked with freezing rain, coughing from the cold and, as the loud piercing ache that was his body suggested, broken bones. Magnus lay on the jagged rocky ground, his body bruised, cut, scraped, and bleeding. His mind was screaming. Confusion had set in, and the thunder above only intensified the fog in his mind. He was afraid to move. If he felt the pain this suddenly and with this kind of cold numbing his skin, then he was grievously hurt. He worked up the courage to pick himself up, his body roaring in pain. He had fallen. Fallen from the ledge of the arrowhead flat. The flashes in his mind…they had been the sole record of his descent. His mind flitted into and out of consciousness. He did not remember rolling onto his hands and knees, but he felt as though he were on fire. He fought to stay awake, hands moving slowly and painfully over the wet stone ground. His left hand pressed upon something strange. His fingers closed across it and he picked it up. It was covered in blood, and felt like bone. His bone? No…he felt it has been dry for some time, and looked to be part of the skull…it couldn’t be. Not him. Not again. They had settled their war. And yet…
Magnus began to feel an anger he hadn’t felt in almost two years return. It was time to finish this, or be finished in the process.
“BLOOOOOOOOOD!!!!” roared Magnus, his cry echoing off the peaks and into the forest beyond.
Present day. Magnus stands once more atop the hotel. Different city, same soulless rush below. He wastes no time in airing his thoughts.
Magnus: So it is we have returned and now face once more in the ring of metal and fire. Sickboy…only the sick would pattern themselves after such a sick world. It has beaten you, hasn’t it? Beaten you…and you have joined it. In your battle to survive you succumbed to the evil which stalked you since youth, and could not overcome its relentless pull. Why would you choose to become like that which has made you what you are? Why become that which has wounded you to the point of death and has shown no remorse in its wake? You walk and talk as if you’ve risen above, as though you have escaped the pull of a life lived one step ahead of the gutter. Yet the rungs of your ladder have begun to crack as I place my hands on the posts and tear them apart. Your second fall at my hands has come.
And Norway has been good to me. Ask Roland how lovely Stockholm has been. I bid thee goodnight, Mr. Wilkes. For you are not my quarrel. Your…brother in arms…has grave things to answer to, and I must prepare for an even greater battle.
Magnus turns…and walks into the darkness.
