Work Text:
Yngvi-Freyr Njordson to Mardöll-Freyja Njordsdóttir:
Dearest Sister,
As I write this, the third blizzard of Fimbulwinter is pressing hard against the watchtower on Asgard’s border. The resin lamp sputters and crackles, its oil mixed with a little of the marigold essence you sent me last year; the flame casts a warm gold upon the wall, much like the sunset we watched together on the shores of Nóatún. Spread across the corner of my desk are the supply-route charts for tomorrow’s review—the ink grows thick and sluggish from the cold seeping through the window-frame. I have just finished wiping down my antler-halberd; frost has stiffened my knuckles. Byggvir tells me the southern road remains passable for half a day yet, so I seize this pause to write.
Do not be alarmed, nor hurry to throw your cloak about your shoulders and ride to Asgard. By the time this reaches you, the Fire Giant’s vanguard may have trampled the borders of Muspelheim, and the passages between the Nine Worlds will have split asunder. I have entrusted this to none but the most steadfast Skírnir; he is not allowed to anything else until the letter is in your hands.
I received word from Father a few days past—he has packed his belongings and set out for Vanaheim. Before departing, he sent a messenger to ask whether I would go with him, saying that my old chamber in the hall still stands in Vanaheim, and the harvest-altar in the grain-field has never been dismantled. I wrote back, bidding him not to wait for me, and to travel safely. His reply was brief—merely a farewell. I am truly grateful that he has always supported my own choices in life, unconditionally, even if his heart may ache over them.
You will knit your brow at this, curse me for my obstinacy, and ask why, when retreat is open to me, I choose to stand in the foremost line. Others have said it too: I was sent as a hostage from Vanaheim—while the truce held, my place was in Asgard; when the world crumbles, I could withdraw without reproach, and need not immolate myself for the fate of the Æsir. But you and I both know that from the day we set foot upon Asgard’s golden steps, the word “hostage” became a page long turned.
Father is different. He was the chief covenanter of the Vanir; it was he who led us across the sea, offering his own person as pledge to seal peace between our kindreds. His going or staying was never a private choice—it was the very term inscribed in the treaty. In times of peace, he abode in Asgard as surety, the anchor of trust between the two tribes; in times of doom, he returns to his native soil to guard the last ember of the Vanir. That is his örlag—his appointed work—and he has done what was due, owing no man a debt.
But I am not he.
For a thousand years I have held the stewardship of Álfheim; the rolls of the Elven folk stand three feet high upon my desk—I remember every village’s count of souls, every woodland’s yield. I know the grain-harvests and the birth-tides of Midgard as well as I know my own palm; even the wandering tribes along Jötunheim’s border recognise my grain-flagged supply wagons, and know that if they follow that banner, they will find a bowl of hot porridge. As a lord of Asgard, my godhood has long been woven into the very fabric of this realm’s governance; my worshippers are scattered across the field-ridges and hamlets of all Nine Worlds. If I slink back to Vanaheim to save my own skin, then those who call upon my name for harvest, those who flee along the food-routes I established, will perish without shelter.
The first duty of the God of Plenty is never to preserve himself, but to make the soil yield grain and to let the defenceless endure the winter. That is what Father taught me, long ago in the grain-fields of Vanaheim. I had barely strength to lift the ceremonial sheaf, and stood no taller than a haystack; he took my hand and thrust the barley-ear into the earth, saying: “Freyr, remember—a god’s power is not for shielding himself, but for upholding others.”
I have held that memory fast, and never dared forget it.
You have asked me more than once why I do not reclaim my most puissant sword from Skírnir. In the past I evaded your question; now the answer lies before you. Skírnir stands in your presence at this very moment, charged with a second errand, and at his belt hangs that blade which human call unbeatable. In the coming Ragnarök, he and the sword shall aid you through the perils of the twilight; but the ways between the worlds have already closed, and they cannot return to me. I can guess that by the time you read this, you will be cursing me roundly, calling me arrogant and self-willed for denying myself the chance of life. Yet to my mind, it is better to let the sword become your shield—when fate has not yet written your ending—than to keep it beside me for a desperate, all-but-hopeless bid to escape my own doom.
Dear sister, I know well what it means to go unarmed. I know the prophecy: “the slayer of Beli shall fall by the hand of the Fire-King.” But what of that? No god of Asgard has ever fled his destiny. Odin fretted against his fate all his life, knowing the outcome, yet still he sought out every crack in the weave, every shift of the battle-line; Thor, though he knows full well that he will drown in Jörmungandr’s venom, will nonetheless stride forward with Mjölnir raised. Fate has already spun the web; the question is not how to survive, but how to walk to its end with spine unbent.
These past months I have been drilling with the halberd in the practice-yard, and Thor has trained with me for many a session. Byggvir always urges me to rest, saying that no amount of practice can match the edge of Surtr’s flame-sword. I tell him: “Ten more rounds.” He asks if I fear losing. I answer that I do not fear losing—I fear that another should bear the end that is mine to meet.
Freyja, I am your brother, a lord of the gods, and the Harvest-God to whom countless souls have offered their prayers. What I must carry, I will not yield one step. Do not grieve over my passing, nor punish yourself with the doom of kin.
Father guards the retreat, I guard the frontline, and you guard the legacy—this was the best design from the beginning. If the Vanir are to leave a living seed in the ashes of Ragnarök, one must withdraw, one must fall, and one must remain. It is not that any of us is nobler than the others; we are only allotted different offices.
You wield the seiðr-magic that can pierce the seams of fate; you claim half of the slain, giving a home to warriors who have fallen bravely; you can coax flowers from barren earth and gather broken kindreds back into one. You are not meant to die on the front lines—your battlefield lies after the war. When the flames have burned out and the snows have melted, you shall take the strength of the harvest and sow new barley across the ruins, raise new hamlets, so that those who survive have a place to go, bread to eat, and hope to hold.
That task, to be honest, is far harder than dying in battle. Dying asks only a moment’s courage; but living—carrying forward the memory of all who are gone—demands a lifetime of resilience. My sister, you are the more enduring of me; this you can accomplish.
When I am dead, I shall not truly vanish. I have guarded Plenty all my life; in the end, I shall become Plenty itself, and return to the soil. When the first earing of the new world’s wheat thrusts up, and the wind ripples the field with a rustling whisper—stand on the headland, and that is I. When spring’s blossoms cover the riverbanks, and you look down upon the little yellow flowers—that is I. I was never parted from the earth, and to return to it is the fairest of ends. This is not an ending, but a fulfilment.
Lastly, give Father my thanks.
Yours in all steadfastness，
Yngvi-Freyr Njordson
At the Border Watchtower of Asgard,
at the close of Fimbulwinter.
P.S. — Thor bade me tell you that his hammer shall take a few more blows of the flame in my stead, so set your mind at ease. He is clumsy with soft words, but his meaning is true∶）