21: Humanity

Upon a throne of hewn and polished stone, contemplated an older man.

With an aged warriors physique, a groomed beard and a single golden eye that could understand everything, his identity was already known—the two ravens who flew to perch upon his shoulders were simply a reinforcement of it.

A silent conversation seemed to take place, the ravens beady eyes almost intelligent as they began to cry, a soft but deep kraaa-kraaa that made the man's brows furrow slightly, a look of clear displeasure upon his face. With a wave of a ringed hand, the ravens fell silent, and set themselves upon their master, their eyes closing as if to sleep.

A sigh left the warriors body, his gaze distant and his wizened expression tired; so the monsters people were still alive...

It seemed humanity had grown weaker.

In the old days, if he commanded it, slews of warriors would set sail and conquer the land and the people in his direction, gore and corpses lining the path to Valhalla, where he would welcome them, crowning them with gold and training them until they were prepared for Ragnarok—but it seems the current generation had weakened.

Mercy, cowardice, weakness—a humanity had been born within the humans, a certain weariness from the fighting gripping their souls and loosening their grip on their weapons.

Where had the dominators gone?

Where had the warmongers, the hunters, the fearless and the brave hidden?

Oh, humanity!

How weak they'd grown; what gentle and frivolous beings they'd regressed to; how faint of heart and fearful they were!

They were like newborn babes, and he a commander—he'd have to teach them their old ways, reform their weak thoughts and idiotic ideas.

Peace?

Nay, peace was but an illusion of security; with the end so near, how could he allow such irresponsibility to continue?

The thought of training them hard and well, came to mind, and he felt secure with the thought, though it was best to check with the Norns before settling fully on the idea.

If he didn't make his people useful, how would Odin be able to live with himself?

———

"Is this how I use this...?"

"...Not sure... comes naturally for..."

"Yeah, well not everyone is monstrously talented Sea-sh!t—"

"Oh shut it Dare, he's teaching you how to use Mirage better—not his fault you fail at it."

"He's just a bad teacher! I did nothing wrong, he's the problem—"

"Shut it! I'm trying to concentrate—ah! Crap, that's so cold; why are we training in a freezing cold pond??!"

"...Cold?... Not very... so... weak..."

"Hey!"

Currently, the trio and Jörmungandr were learning how to use the skills his Contact had allowed them. However... there were some kinks to work out...

Jörmungandr was standing on the surface of the water, completely calm, not a ripple to be seen beneath his feet, while Laura was struggling to stay floating on the water, her legs shaking from the cold and her clothes soaked from sinking beneath the surface more than once.

Truth was trying to use a skill called [Soul Seek], an inherent talent of Jörmungandr's that could sense the compounds and soul of an object a certain distance away; he was trying to meditate and dodge an enchanted Golem using this skill.

Where he had procured it he didn't know, just from somewhere, ( though he claimed to have gotten it from his older sister) but instead, he ended up with aches and bruises on his arms, legs, torso and most especially on his head.

Meanwhile, Dare was trying to craft a Mirage better than Jörmungandr's, which can be guessed at how effective his endeavor actually was; while Jörmungandr had made a wolf cub that ran circles around Dare, he was struggling to make an accurate rock.

See, Dare was good at painting a picture that looked okay from far away, but was terrible at little details in the picture—the most he could do was alter his appearance, but even that was clearly fake if you looked close enough.

Jörmungandr's wolf?

It looked real, like a living, breathing thing as it ran leaving impressions in the sand, tongue lolling out and fluffy coat shaking with the breeze and rippling with its movements, happy and excited to run wild.

It bound across the lake, making ripples as it went, before leaping to Jörmungandr, who hugged it with the smallest upturn of his lips; it reminded him of Fenrir somehow.

Feeling oddly hurt at the thought of his brother, he changed the wolf into a fish, silver and streamlined and mystically bright, with long trails of light being left in its wake from its flowing fins before it dived beneath the pond, growing in size while the water level lowered dramatically, making Laura yelp.

Now, she knew that the water was still there—she could feel it in the same position after all, cold and clammy—but the sight of the water leveling falling almost tricked her into believing it was really happening, that she was floating on the air.

The fish leaped from the now dry looking lake, even larger than before as it seemed to block out the sun, its shadow stealing away the breath of both Truth and Dare as the latter took a step back, marveling at the realism of the fish.

All at once, the luminescent fish turned to water, and suddenly, an entire lake-full of water began to fall down on their heads. Screams elicited from the trio, all of them trying to hunch down and get away before the water hit them.

The hundreds of pounds of water grew closer, closer—and then nothing hit them.

Laura remembered that she was on water the entire time and fell in for the umpteenth time, Truth was wacked in the head violently, and Dare had forgotten the rock and made real water appear by peeing himself.

All turned to look at the unfazed Jörmungandr, his eyes unusually curious, like a child's as he gazed at them, as if trying to determine why they reacted such a way to something so fake.

"...Interesting... Are humans... usually this... weak?"

He wasn't sure; but from their burning gazes, he sensed that they were going to be training vigorously to prove him wrong.