Loki

I wake to the site of the forest canopy. Gold sunlight filters down in a speckled lightshow. I try to get up and find my left side is hindered. Siggy is tucked against me, head resting on my shoulder. It takes a bit of prying to remove her arm from my torso so I can get up and answer the sweet call of Lady Nature.

“Desperate wench,” I mutter as I stumble away. Kind, of course. Lovely, she is. Well-schooled in all the maidenly arts. My daughter never liked her, though—but to be fair, Hel doesn’t like anyone, really. Including me. I’m rather proud of her.

Having concluded my morning constitutional, I stretch and take a short walkabout. It’s nice to wake with good air in my lungs. I feel nearly recovered from my brush with death yesterday—but not entirely. The venom was, thank goodness, not of the same origin as that which I’d endured for so long under Odin’s draconian rule. Had it been so, I would not be talking to you this very moment. I still feel odd, though.

I come back around in my stroll to the clearing where I’d woken up. I lean against a tree and study Siggy’s sleeping form for a while. She’s not changed much from the last time I saw her for any real amount of time—apart from the fact that I truly thought she was dead, and apart from the burn scars I know are hidden beneath her clothes.

I never loved her. I liked her well enough at first, but her feelings had always run deeper than mine. She’d been too good to me, for the way I’d treated her and fully intend to continue on treating her. She knows it, too. She’s always known it. Poor thing just can’t leave me, though she must know I’ll be the death of her. She’s a walking cautionary tale and I’m a monster. So it has always been and so it always shall be.

“So say we all,” I mumble.

Siggy wakes, like some hapless thing in a Grimm tale, and we gather up our things. The chariot, unfortunately, has disappeared with the city. We still have my weapons and her cloak, however, so we’re not entirely up the creek. She is not feeling as unwell as I am, but it’s clear that there is a touch of mortality about us both, which must be purged as soon as possible.

After some trekking through the forest, we come to the river I’d encountered in my first adventure here, and stop to refresh ourselves. The dragon-lady lunges from the undergrowth and I have to hack her head off with the Arthurian blade and send her dismembered carcass floating down the current. On an empty stomach.

We follow the shoreline upstream, figuring that sooner or later we will reach something noteworthy. It’s not quite a mosey, and involves a waterfall, but eventually we find that the river emerges from the mouth of a cave. We venture inside; just within, the stream of water, now only about two feet wide, disappears beneath the wall of the cavern. On either side of this, there are basins set into, verily carved from, the wall. I examine one, then the other.

“There’s a marking at the bottom of each, but I can’t tell what it is. Some sort of flower.”

“This must be the answer to the venom, the true answer,” said Siggy. “I’ll drink from this one, and we wait to see if it’s poison. If it is, then you’ll know to drink from the other.”

“Woman, you’re insane.” I scooped up a handful of water from the one I stood by and gulped it down. “I think that’s a lotus, which is obvious enough. Come on, drink from it—if I just poisoned myself, do you really want to live? Attagirl.”

The Erlking

While trying to go into a park, Erlking had meant to jump a small wall. It only came up about four and a half feet from the ground, and he could easily step over it. But, while it was a wall, it was outside of a subway station, Erlking didn’t notice the signs or anything, and didn’t notice until he missed the ground that he wasn’t going to end up in the park.
After tripping down a flight of stairs, Erlking found himself in a rather bad predicament. First, he had just tumbled down a flight of stairs. Erlking had always hated stairs, and this incident was just another n a long list of grievances.
Second, he was in a subway station (or, the underground, or the tube, or the metro. Erlking had noticed how mortals always gave things more than one name, probably because they liked to talk and confuse other mortals.)
Thirdly, he was underground. Down in the underground, there weren’t many plants. In the station he found himself in, there were many animals, (rats mostly, and a few cats, and one very confused cow.) But, he could only feel some moss near bye. This meant he wasn’t going to have a lot of things to help him.
Also, the station was crammed full of mortals. All of them waiting for a train, or getting off the train, and not very many of them takin notice of the man who had just tumbled down the stairs.
Lastly, The Erlking had scraped his knee when he fell and he was bleeding. He was bleeding red blood. Only mortals have red blood.
This was the biggest problem, because it didn’t make sense. He could feel his power, and he could hear the plants and the animals talking to him. He had his power, so he should have golden ichor, instead of the bright red blood of men.
And now, as The Erlking was lying on the steps of a subway station, without a clue what was going on, a few mortals noticed him.
Now, practically everyone saw him when he stumbled in, and there were three thoughts about him then. 1. He was stoned out of his mind and probably didn’t have a clue where he was and didn’t even know he was hurt 2. I hope he’s okay, and I’d like to go help him but I can’t miss my train, and then three friends all looked at each other and thought 3. Let’s go see if the guy needs help.
The three of them had all been waiting for the train to take them to school, and they had been laughing and joking, not really paying any attention to the other people at the station, until one of them, a girl named Chloe glanced over in time to see The Erlking ungracefully tumble down the stairs.
She gasped, and the other three, a boy named Steven, a girl named Daisy, all looked at each other, and then rushed over to The Erlking.
“Hey man, are you okay?” asked Steven, as they all circled around him.
“Uhm…”said The Erlking. He didn’t know, and he didn’t know how he could explain something like this to people.
“Go get him some water or something,” said Steven, as he crouched next to The Erlking. Steven happened to think of checking for a concussion, even though he didn’t know how to check for a concussion. The girl Chloe had rushed off to the water fountains nearby, and was now digging around in her backpack for something they could use as a cup, while Daisy hovered nearby, waiting to see if they were going to have to call an ambulance.
“Alright man, try and sit up.” Said Steven, as he tried to help The Erlking. The Erlking was feeling better by this point, and he really wanted to get away from these kids so that he could figure out what was wrong by himself.
He was about to  explain to the kids that he was fine, when Chloe rushed back over, holding a tupper ware container that had, until moments ago, contained a salad for Chloe’s lunch. It was now filled to the brim with water from one of the water fountains nearby.
“Here, drink this, it might help.” Said Chloe, as Steven took the cup and brought it to The Erlking’s mouth.
Erlking looked at the water, and had it on his lips when he sensed the nightshade. He sputtered and flung the cup as far away from him as he could.
Nightshade was extremely poisonous to any mortal, even one who was a god most of the time, if he had drunken that he would be in the last phases of a painful death right now.
But, now The Erlking knew what the fates were playing at.
He scrambled to his feet,(which revealed his sword and staff that had been behind his back, which made the girl Daisy scream.) and rushed over to the water fountains. They were the type that goes next to each other, one a little shorter than the other for kids to use.
The Erlking turned to Chloe, who was now equally as scared as Daisy, because the two of them were very unused to seeing swords lying around in subway terminals.
“Which fountain did you get that water from?” asked the Erlking. Chloe froze.
“Which one?!” he demanded. His voice rang around the terminal, which they hadn’t noticed, but had become mostly empty.
“The-the t-tall one, I think.” She stuttered.
Erlking rushed over to the shorter one, and saw a tiny lotus carved on the fountains metal spout. He turned the water on, and drank from the water that streamed out.  It was indeed lotus water, and within two sips, The Erlking was immortal again.
He turned back to the three kids, who were all now cowering in fear. And, as the Erlking was about to say something to them, he noticed a dark shape hurtle towards Daisy.
“No!” he cried, realizing it was a goddess. He rushed in front of the three kids, nearly fainting as a rush of life ending darkness rushed through him.
He turned as the shape kept moving towards the fountain, but he grabbed his sword and swung. It cut through with shimmering silver light, and the blackness faded, and it revealed a goddess bleeding crimson on the end of The Erlking’s sword.
He turned back to the kids, wary, and saw the Chloe had passed out, probably because of fear, but he could tell she would be okay. The other two were leaning over her, and while they were distracted, The Erlking grabbed his staff, and climbed up the stairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Balder

Life was a series of cycles, a series of circles that ran into each other over and over and over again. Everything fell into these cycles somehow, although, even having existed for as long as I had, it was impossible to tell what stage of the cycle you were in while you were still in it. In part, it was because of the limited perspective that even the wisest beings, like myself, had. Any pain felt like the worst pain when you were going through it. Killing someone for the first time had been an abyss for me, yet I continually discovered a new one, my immortality, the largest part of my identity, being taken away from me.

Of course, once you reached the bottom, the cycle promised that you would come back up. After hitting rock bottom, it was impossible to keep going down. Losing my immortality, then, must have been the pit, since, ever since then, I'd been given the chance to come back. My godly powers had been returned to me by eating the roc egg, now I had the chance to take back my immortality as well, become the full god that I had been when I entered the competition.

The sword hanging by my side promised me that I would never be able to return fully to the godly state I had been at. Although in its sheath currently, I'd already taken two lives with it. I knew I'd have to unsheathe it again, I'd have to kill another person just for the chance get out of this alive. If I was honest with myself, I still didn't understand why I'd entered in the first place. Flights of fancy had never been of interest to me, and I had very little to gain.

Images from my worst nightmares flashed before my eyes, of me running a sword through Loki as we stood alone in a forest. Lotus blossoms and nightshade decorated the ground around the pools in my dreams, someone has told me they symbolized death and rebirth together, the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. Blood was splattered on my hands, blood that I knew wasn't my own.

An undeniable feeling of dread used to watch over me when I thought of my dreams. Me hurting someone was almost unimaginable. Killing anyone, even Loki, was something beyond the realm of possibility. Now, blood already staining my hands, the thoughts barely fazed me. All that I felt was a slight discomfort, and the same haunting voice at the back of my mind that warned they were much more than dreams.

That much, though, I'd always been able to shake off. The images that had always been most disconcerting to me were the images of my own death, seeing my own neck shot through with an arrow made of mistletoe. Even now, with my immortality taken away from me, with my own mortality imminent, that thought was enough to disconcert me. Nausea pricked at my stomach, lightheadedness at the edge of my mind. Shaking my head, I got rid of those.

The pool standing before me, I kneeled over and took a drink.

Strength ran through me, easily overwhelming the nausea and lightheadedness I had felt. For a moment I felt invincible. Then, turning around and seeing Loki, finally noticing the lotuses and nightshade that decorated the ground, the nausea came back.

They weren't dreams. They were visions of the future.

I drew my sword.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eros Valencia

TORN APART BY MAENADS