{[]Location: Midgard []}
{[]Year: 512 BR[]}
"Be stronger!"
The fist struck like a hammer, rocking my jaw sideways. Blood filled my mouth, warm and metallic, the taste of shame. My knees hit the frozen mud with a crack.
"Don't let those beggars hurt you!" my father bellowed, his voice thick with fury and mead.
Another blow. My ribs screamed.
"Don't be weak!"His eyes—cold, unforgiving—burned brighter than the hearth that had long gone out in our home.
"If you don't want to end up like your mother..."
The final kick landed square in my chest. Air fled my lungs. My back hit the rough stone wall behind me with a crunch. Stars burst across my vision.
I didn't cry. I already stop crying after my Mother's Death.
Crying was weakness.
Weakness was death.
That was the law in our house.
Snow drifted through the ground. Each flake a silent witness to my torment. My fingers dug into the earth, into pain, into the only truth I knew.
I was seven.
And already, I understood one thing:
Survival is not given. It is taken.
Footsteps crunched closer. I tensed as his heavy hand gripped my shoulder, fingers digging into my skin like iron claws.
"Never show weakness," he hissed into my ear. "Never show fear. And never, ever let yourself be weak enough for the world to break you."
His breath was hot on my neck, but his words were colder than the snow that coated the floor.
I didn't answer.
I remain silent.
His voice carried the weight of finality. No empathy. No love. Just a command—one that had been beaten into him, and now into me. A curse passed down like blood.
His grip lingered a moment longer before he finally let go.
Without another word, he turned and trudged back toward the mansion—our home only in name. The wind howled around him, tugging at his torn cloak. Snow fell harder now, covering his fading silhouette like a grave being buried.
I stayed where I was—half-sunk in the frozen mud, my limbs trembling, my breath coming in ragged clouds.
Every part of me screamed. My ribs ached. My lip was split. My right eye was swelling shut.
But I remained still.
Not out of surrender. Out of will.
My fingers gripped the frozen earth like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to this realm. I could feel the bruises blossoming across my body, fresh reminders of what he called "training." Others would call it cruelty. Abuse. Torture.
But here in Midgard, only results mattered. And pain was just the price of surviving.
I had to endure.
Slowly, I forced myself to stand. My body screamed in protest—every bruise, every fracture, every muscle fiber trembling with fatigue. But I stood. That was all that mattered.
My eyes drifted toward the crumbling mansion we called a home, its silhouette etched against the bleak gray sky. Broken windows. Rotting wood. A place of cold nights and colder hearts.
I should have gone back inside.
But something tugged at me.
A feeling—strange, weightless—settled in my chest. A stillness I had never known before, not even in sleep. My gaze shifted, almost on its own, toward the treeline at the edge of the clearing.
The forest loomed, dark and silent.
And then—
"Come, my child."
A voice.
Soft. Timeless. Neither male nor female, but something else. Something older than language.
It whispered into my mind, yet I heard it with more than just my ears. It resonated in my bones, in the marrow of who I was.
Without hesitation, I obeyed.
No fear.No resistance.No instinct screamed at me to turn back.
My body moved with unnatural calm, as if I had done this a thousand times before in a life I couldn't remember. I stepped into the forest, bare feet crunching softly over snow and roots.
The trees rose around me like sentinels, ancient and unmoving. The air was colder here, but I did not shiver.
At last, my footsteps halted before a towering wooden tree—its bark old and cracked, veins of deep red sap glistening faintly beneath the surface. I didn't know why, but I knew: this tree watched me. It had always been here.
"Sit."The voice whispered again, closer now, as though it were curled just behind my ear.
And I did.
I sank into the frozen earth beneath the tree, my back resting against the ancient trunk. It was warm—surprisingly warm—like the heartbeat of something alive.
Then—A sound.
A rustle.Low and steady.
My gaze snapped to the right as a thicket of bushes trembled. Something moved beyond them.
I didn't breathe.
A moment later, it emerged.
A wolf. No—a giant, black wolf. Easily the size of a bear, its massive form stepped into the clearing without sound, like a shadow given flesh.
Its coat shimmered with a strange texture, like the night sky itself had wrapped around its form. Deep obsidian fur that caught the light like moonlit water. Stars seemed to flicker between each hair as it moved.
Its eyes met mine—piercing, intelligent, ancient.
But not hostile.
There was no growl. No threat.
Only presence. Majestic, terrifying, divine.
I should have been afraid.
But I wasn't.
It felt as if the forest itself bowed to its will. The wind stilled. The trees held their breath.
Majestic. Terrifying. Divine.
I should have been afraid. But I wasn't.
Because, for the first time in my short, brutal life—I felt seen.
"Gerald."
The wolf spoke.
Its voice wasn't a growl or a snarl—it was a word, clear and resonant. A low, rumbling whisper that echoed not through my ears, but through the marrow of my bones.
I remained silent.
"Gerald… what do you seek?" the wolf asked again, stepping closer, its massive paws sinking slightly into the snow.
I couldn't answer. My lips wouldn't move.
"What is your wish, child of pain?" the wolf asked once more.
And something inside me cracked.
My lips trembled. My throat tightened. My eyes—red, raw—began to fill with tears.
The weight in my chest, so long buried beneath anger and numbness, surged upward.
The wolf came closer. Slowly. Gently.
Then it leaned in, and its great head rubbed against my cheek. Warm. Solid. Real.
It didn't hurt me. It didn't command me. It simply… stayed.
A low, comforting sound rumbled from its chest as it nuzzled me again, like a mother calming her wounded pup.
And the tears came—hot, bitter, silent.
I wept—not from pain, but from the unfamiliar warmth of kindness.
For once, I wasn't being yelled at. I wasn't being struck. I wasn't being told to toughen up.
I was simply allowed to exist. To be held by something greater.
The wolf pulled back slightly, meeting my eyes again.
"Gerald… repeat after me." its voice was softer now. Gentle. Like a lullaby sung by the night sky.
I nodded slowly, wiping at my tears with shaking fingers.
"I wish," the wolf said.
"…I wish," I whispered back.
"For the strength… to claim victory."
"…For the strength… to claim victory."
My voice cracked as I spoke the words, but there was power in them.
A vow. Spoken into the roots of the world.
The wolf's eyes shone brighter now, as though the stars in its coat responded to my words. It sat in front of me, massive and still, like a guardian carved by the gods.
And in that moment, beneath the ancient tree, snow falling around us like quiet blessings—
I was no longer just a boy.
I was something becoming.