Midgard is a sprawling tundra, enclosed on all sides by high frosted mountains, it snows there often. From the center of the vast valley rose a mountain that became a tree at its summer, branching out into the aether and catching clouds and sun-rays in their eves, the denizens of midgard refered to this as the world tree.
Neighbors here are non existent as small families live in mountain cottages and lodges, all held under some phantom king who failed to appear within the land.
In one of these cottages lived a man named Bjorn, a large bearish man, hardened by the world. Here he grew his family, and here they would die, taken by a plague he had begged his Gods to take away from the land.
Bjorn stepped free from his home a bear-pelt cloak fixed to his shoulders, a man made cold from the world.
Along a long stretch of road he walked through the sparce fell-lands, passing by a church to baldr, the light in a pantheon of dread gods.
The devotees inside sang their high prazes, hoping that their hyms might bring about peace.
Bjorn new why they were being punished, if that's what this was; this was because of the war. The war in the land and the sacking of distant ones, all that death was a cancer on the very grounds, and Bjorn had seen what the gods and their like where capable of.
When he had to serve in the warring times, he found that at the end of the battle, when all blood that needed to be had been spilt, strange twisting tendrils of light would drip through the overcast skies and large feminine and Eldridge creatures would fly down on tattered wings, snatching up the hugr and lives of the fallen men, tearing their souls from their bodies like vultures. This was his experience with the Valkyrie, the fate of all battle fallen men and women.
Bjorn, for his troubles found himself at the mead hall whenever he felt the walk was worth it; that is where he found himself walking on this evening.
Along the walk Bjorn realized he was being followed. The man was stout and short, with a red braid and goatee, he stood in a green cloak with a red suit underneath, this was Locill, the closest thing he had to a brother in arms.
"Bjorn, son how have you been, eh? Staying well in these trying times?" Locill sauntered closer.
"As bright as the bifrost." Bjorn blurted, making no move to smile or show any emotion, he wasn't one to fake them.
The two of them walked together for some time. When they had reached the mead hall they turned to split ways.
"Bjorn, old friend. Im afraid I must split ways, yeah? Business to attend to!" Locill chimed, stepping off to share some drink with an abnormally large man who sat slumped in the corner, hiding under a dark hood.
Bjorn sat at the bar, he wasted his hard earned coin without a second thought as he went straight to the bottom of two, four, six tankards of a dark intoxicating brew.
"I've been... Meaning to take that hike." Bjorn drawled, his forehead practically touching the wood. The man behind the bar sighed, the kind of sound you make when you've heard the same story ten times over.
"The one you planned for Ingrid?"
"Im--gonna climb that bloody mountain... I'll get on yggdrasil. Im going to see the top!"
The man on the other side of the bar slid Bjorns tankard away from him.
"Go home Bear man, the drinks not going anywhere by tomorrow."
Locill gave Bjorn a passing glance as the drunken man dragged himself out into the tundra, a pouring rain coming down on top of him.
When Bjorn reached his home Locill emerged from behind a large birch, that man was always full of tricks.
"So... Finally taking that hike?"
Bjorn drew his silvery eyes up from the ground, looking to the man he called friend.
"I mean it this time," he slurred in his gravely voice. "I'll pack for tomorrow... And finally be off." Bjorn said with a slight hiccup.
Locill gave a grin dripping with moch sympathy and handed Bjorn a long roll of rope, a thick, hefty cord.
"One can never carry enough rope when trecking the great tree." He said.
Bjorn, who was sloped against his door at this point, took the rope, looking at it with grim purpose.
"I'll be off tomorrow." He said, and slumped inside, dreading the pain that he knew he would wake up to the next day.