Run!

The morning finally arrived and a beam of sunlight was now streaming through his room window and Ron's cold face.

There was a loud knock on the wooden door. "It's time young god." Thor's voice yelled from the other side as his awful and rude knocking intensified.

"Yeah, am coming," Ron answered lazily, he sat upon the edge rubbing his eyes. He stretched his arms and legs, yawning.

He stood up and started collecting his things, the bag, and his shoes. He put on a fresh plain blue T-shirt that Nathan had given to him. He had come to know that he was the only one who hadn't planned clothes for the journey. He had only packed snacks and a few bottles of mineral water. He didn't think he needed a change of clothes at any point.

He reached for the bucket of water that Thor had placed next to his room door. He washed his face and that was enough to freshen himself up.

********

They were now out and it was still snowy but the wind had calmed down. The whole place looked like a forest, with frozen trees, and a long, endless rail of snow behind them. The only thing he felt good about was that he didn't feel cold.

Thor stepped out of the cabin, shut the door and it disappeared once he turned to them, must have been some security measure he had put up. He was in the same clothes as he was in the night before. With his hammer strapped to his belt and a cloth covering his face showing only his eyes.

"Let's move," he said (More like yelled), then quickly turned to Ellen, "Girl. Use the map like how I showed you,"

She nodded, then held out the magical map and chanted some words in Norse and the map's ink shifted showing her their exact location. "Isfar inte lamo" it read,

Thor looked at it. "Where do you want to go?" he read aloud.

"Niflheim" Ellen answered to the map. The ink shifted forming a long string of black ink. An arrow grew a the very end of the string reading; Niflheim.

"Hmm…" Thor narrowed his eyes, trying to study the map. That way…" he pointed north, "Let's move, it says that the boundary is at the frozen lake of Finmera the frost giant,"--he grabbed Ron's hand and pulled him to the front-- "I need to talk to you young god, there is so much you need to know if you are to succeed in this quest of yours," he whispered to Ron. "Things only Norse gods like us must know."

Ron faced him and nothing on his face showed he was joking.

They hiked through the snowy forest for an hour with having Thor and Ron leading the way. Most of the sky looked normal like the one on earth…the blue one… this felt no different than a normal hike through a snowy forest, Ron thought.

He could hear monsters squawk and howl from a distance. But Thor said they were safe because most of the monsters in these parts were night creatures and that they usually attack at night.

"Who are your candidates for the new council of gods, Ron?" Thor began after an hour of silence.

"The new council?"

"Yes, the new Aesir," Thor gave one look at Ron

"Well, um, I have Artemis and Nathan…"

"Wait the godslayer?" Thor was surprised,

"Yes, do you have an issue with that?"

"No young god, I had time to think about all this last night and I came to conclude that you are different from my father. He disliked teamwork, that's why my uncles left him to rule alone." Thor grinned, "His mightiness led to his countless victories, but also led to the continuously growing pride that made him feel that he alone could stop Ragnarok. So he came us with the idea of destroying the world."

"The truth is, I was against his plan because I had a lover amongst the humans. A woman named Boru had my child Eli. The first demigod to ever be born."

Ron froze after hearing that. Was this what Thera meant that they are connected in some way?

"To hide Eli from the gods, I suppressed his powers along with his lineage because if my father ever found him. He would have killed them," Thor continued.

"Then what do you want me to do?"

|I want you to find his youngest descendant, he will be my successor," Thor lifted his hammer and stared at it. "A worthy member of the Aesir." he stopped and faced Ron.

They all stopped moving.

Ron didn't know what to say if he remembered what Thera mentioned 'A demigod as one of the new Aesir, but Isvark had mentioned that there are many demigods out there despite being rare in this era. But was Thor asking him to do something impossible? Like, come on, it's just been a week and four days ever since the whole "hey, you're a god slayer now" moment. There was too much going on for him to even find out why he's suddenly a godslayer after fourteen years of humanity.

Ellen quickly noticed the tough situation Ron was in and she ran into at least intervening and helping him out. "We will do our best to find him," she said. "And we've reached the boundary." she then pointed at the frozen smooth surface that was just about ten meters away from them.

Thor turned and he couldn't believe that the rest of the forest had vanished and here they were. Had it been that long?

Nathan moved forward and scanned the surface with his practiced eye. "This is a frozen water body," he said, "the ice is about three centimeters thick. Hence,"

Easy for us to break through," Ellen continued.

Yeah, and…." Nathan stopped when he heard a distant howling coming from the forest behind them.

He slowly turned to see what that was. But he was pulled out of the way by Thor, who then sent his hammer flying and breaking through most trees of the forest.

"Run," he yelled after sensing what was in the woods, the dragon Nidhug is a sleeper do not wake him up if you want to live, the three of you have no chance against him. Get to elder spring and drop in this coin," he pulled out a gold coin with ravens engraved on both its faces and then placed it in Ron's hand. He clenched his hand into a fist, then nodded at Thor.

He turned and they all made a run for it. Heading for the frozen lake.