Soso's free will

 Once again the journey through the dimly lighted blue eternities was a short one. It seemed even the far-off giggling things could not quite find the time to terrorise him, nor did the warp assault him with vistas of distant places and lives in the short while he travelled through. Soso did find time to remember his old life in the pine wealds, cherish the memories of eating oatberries, drinking heatherbloom brew and the company of his kin.

He had not much time to digest this bout of nostalgia, for in an instant he found himself kneeling in the dried grass of an autumnal woodland meadow. Stunted birch and nut trees sparsely dappled the fields around him. The surroundings calmed him, however alien the meadow seemed compared to his native pinewealds, it was solid ground and an earthy forest smell to him. It was calming, until he turned his eyes to the heavens. 

The horizon seemed normal enough to two of his sides, but in the other two directions rather than meeting the sky, they somehow met above his head. There was no round sun in the sky, but a stripe of light stood straight above him. 

His fur was crusted with sea salt and his already sombre colouring was supplemented with dark stains of a machine’s petrichor. He stood upright from the dry grasses, dizzy and nauseated from his step through the warp, the filth on his fur and the strange feeling his body was heavier than it had ever been.

Wearily he dragged his tired body to a close-by tree and dropped himself in a pile of leaves and moss. While his body struggled to adapt and rest Soso watched the elongated sun dim slowly as time creeped by. The raw smell of the ooze in his fur was masked if not lessened as he cleaned his pelt with clouts of grass. He spent the strange and artificial evening foraging for sustenance and as night crept up upon him so did sleep as well.

Quiet conversation around him, along with dew on his snout, awoke Soso. He felt ashamed that he had slept so deeply he had not heard the strangers approach. He opened his eyes and to his surprise saw a small band of brightly red nornir reclining in the undergrowth. They were certainly not as tall as himself, their bodies marked with black stripes.

The oldest of the strangers stood up, and soso did the same as a sort of defiant reply. The vermillion Norn was no taller than Soso, a little smaller even as all of them seemed to be. 

The walk to their burrows was not a long one. The meadow hills and light woodlands appeared plentiful, soso could see the merit in such a back yard. They walked through the rolling hills on a meandering path, crossed a small stream and patches of vegetables until an irregular shaped hill came into sight. 

Partly dug out and partly built from cob and loam, their burrows were cosy and felt quite homely. It was a far cry from the pear shaped houses of his homeland, built around a well and a firepit, made of stone and fern-thatch. These burrows lied in an easier land with sunshine and fresh streams providing to its inhabitants. 

As the unnatural days passed, Soso felt more and more at ease. The strange ringed land became somewhat more sensible to him, and the other norns seemed more and more to see him as kin rather than an unknown prisoner. Soon enough he harvested bedding grasses and food among the foraging groups.

Not too long after that he learned why he and the other male nornir joined these excursions with the women and kids. While gathering dock and daffodils on the border of the tribe's known land an ululating cry shot from the reeds and was swiftly joined by more. Pale norns suddenly appeared with brutal intent, hurling stones where their shouts did not suffice.

A wild joy fell over Sosir, he braced himself and in less than a moment the impact hit him. He toppled, but kicked his opponent down and stood back up. Throwing his weight in a slap he struck down another, losing his balance and stumbling through the fray. He took an elbow to the snout, blurring his sight. Vague forms were enough to swing at, and his ginger compatriots were easily recognised against the pale and spotted assailants.

His sight slowly returned to sharpness. Throwing his body around he took another down with a savage slap to the temple. A knee to the gut folded him though he quickly straightened his back again. A direct headbutt quieted this nornir too. A strike against his neck sent him reeling. A kick to the back of his knees took him to the ground. Soso looked about for his crimson comrades, noticing with a string of disappointment they had fled.

The spotted nornir took him and the captured forage to their burrows. A light rain trickled down. The autumnal woodland smelled moist and earthy. The rain tempered his fury and dulled the pain of defeat and betrayal. The path to his captors home took them through pleasant meadows, past simple kitchen gardens and well kept coppices. 

In this new mount he felt no less an outsider than in the other. His new wardens treated him with the same fearful respect, more so than the previous did. Soso knew not if he enjoyed it, certainly because it came at the cost of norn lives through his hand and strength. He was left deep below the hill in the straw to rest and heal his wounds. Wondering in the dark lonely stillness he wondered how he could fit in this divided world as an outsider, he fell soundly asleep.

A low hum and the nagging pain awakened him. He lied in the dark for some time, but sleep was beyond his grasp now. Lifting himself from the hay he followed the hum deeper into the tunnels. Despite the comforting smells of nornir, hay and soil the experience was reminiscent of the devil grendel cave he had survived.

The buzzing continued and seemed cleared with every step and turn he took. It was a little like the sounds on the ettin barge. Lighter of tone though, as if it came from more sophisticated machinery. After one last turn in the dark, a metallic hallway stretched before him. Weak lights were emitted by artificial bulbs on the wall. The hallway seemed to see few visitors, considering the dust and dirt on its floor. 

He kept following his ears. The whirring brought him to a larger room with the source of the sound clearly seen in the active machinery. An infirmary lay before him, but quite different from the comfortable hatching room he was born and raised in. The pillows on which the eggs laid were absolutely no moss and leaves, the cold metal around, and machinery to hatch and mother these hatchlings. 

One machine shew pictures and offered words with these concepts, one machine would hatch eggs, he surmised from a heating element, but he shuddered at the thought of what the third machine would do, though he had already guessed it from its half-organic appearance, a fleshy laying tube and a somehow unnatural nornir smell which emiated from it. 

A small entryway opened in the wall, Something which set Soso directly on edge. Caught off-guard, he stood eye to eye with a small figure. Light skin, a round snout and short fur betrayed it to be an Ettin. For a moment they both freeze in surprise, but the door is quickly closed and impossible to be opened from Sosos side.

Uneasy with the unnatural origins of his hosts and uncertain what to make of it Soso wanders the dusty halls, making his way up throughout the night. The ettin must have been a maintenance worker, not too different from the ones he had trusted his future with in the past. Knowing their one track mind from experience he knew the ettins not to be puppet masters to these tribal norns and their senseless strife. 

The spotted norns seemed to have no interest in actually keeping him captive, or were perhaps inexperienced at the matter and simply fell asleep. He wandered the pleasant meadows illuminated by light reflecting off the touching horizons above his head. By accident he had meandered to his entry into this strange world, and before him lay a familiar sight. Slightly rusted and stained with its own vital ooze lay the metal adder he had torn from the swamp ridden vessel he had been before the warp took him here.

“Little nornir. What a surprise to see you once more. Has your guilt caught up with you, that you once again pay me a visit?”

“It has not, metal adder. It seems my actions have saved the both of us. I’m still strangely glad to see you. You seem fitted to this odd place more than me, yet are familiar to me.”

“Your gladness is only righteous, little nornir. It is a wise thing to revere me, many of your kind have lived in worship of myself. Tell me your name, so I might address my servant.”

With a sigh Soso tells the machine.

“You seem a strong respectable Norn, bearing a childrens name honours you not. I shall call you Sosir henceforth to reflect your representation of all Norn-kind. Honour me in the same vein by calling me gotthead”

“Its all the same to me, gotthead. Would you mind making me the wiser norn, and tell me of this land? Tell me why norns are at odds with one another? Tell me why they are born from machines rather than loving parents?”

“This land was made to house, to travel, to be a petri dish of sorts. It is as a world, but inside out, as the stars are below us. The nornir here war because they are made that way by the one that steers the egg layers. This malignant overseer should be overthrown and replaced by a reverent and just ruler like myself.”

Sosir sits in silence, ruminating this lumination. Gotthead he hangs over his shoulder, and with the early rays of a fresh day he takes to the crimson nornirs fortress. After A familiar walk through fields and woodlands slightly wet with morning dew they walk into the burrows he had thought himself a prisoner of before. Confused at seeing him again, some of the crimson Nornir attempt to halt him, but the stern tall norn is not easily stopped. A swift hit with his improvised and conscious flail takes the last guard down and they continue their descent.

Deep below the burrows, in the iron flesh of the world, the same figurative heart is beating for the red tribe. Machinery and a cluster of eggs wailt below in the cool metal corridors. An ettin maintenance hatch also enters in this impersonal hatchery. It is closed as the other was, but gotthead quickly overcomes the electronic problem. Down the narrow tunnel they find a maze of wide corridors smelling faintly chemical. The air is definitely cool down here, and corridor wide windows make up the floors and snow solid darkness and the pale pinpricks of stars stretching endlessly below.

The cold and labyrinthine corridors pose a looming threat of endless and aimless search, until they see a stocky ettin. The creature is adapted with shaggy fur and thick hair to keep it warm, with furred feed and a round form. It makes a hasty escape upon sight of Sosir, but is ensnared at the ankles with a thrown gotthead. The dexterous fingers and bright eyes confirm this creature to be made for maintenance of these halls and the machinery above. The fearful thing seems easy to convince, though it keeps yammering as it takes them to the master it serves.

Sosir feels on edge while following the ettin. Remembering the claustrophobic hell he was taken to the last time he trusted one. A smell of fearful ettin sweat mingled with the sterile air of the halls. The smell seemed to strengthen though, not coming from their frightened guide alone. Activity increased, more ettins of different types passed them, looking confused at Sosir, but ultimately minding their own work. Ettins striped blue and black, their hands made of thickly calloused, almost leathery skin. Some coloured black blotched with silver patches were camouflaged well in their artificial environ. One particularly heavy set ettin colored soil brown, with tan hair on his back and head and solid scoops seemed out of place, but also hurried away from the unexpected stranger.

At last the frightened ettin brought them to a grand round chamber with a glass floor, lit with the light of hundreds of pale blue and magenta screens, most of which were manned by the greyish maintenance ettins. Centre to all of this was a massive pedestal, shaded a coppery green, hued with verdigris of centuries despite clearly diligent maintenance. Mounted there was a form oddly reminiscent of the gotthead in Sosirs hands, albeit far larger, its neck matching Sosir’s waist.

“A savage in my war room?” The thundering voice rolled around the room, the ettins cringed fearfully.

“Brave little Norn, you are none of mine, but played a magnificent start in the experiment! You belong on the surface, not down here!”

Sosir stared defiantly at the giant:”I tire of this experiment already, copperheaded viper! The games I play I play on my terms, and the field of my choosing!”

“This is not the place to be headstrong! This is my realm, you are only a Norn! You may be stronger and more stubborn but you are to live and die with your own kind at my directions!”

Sosir took on a stoic look, looked at the warhead with great disinterest and placed gotthead on a nearby stool.

Gotthead then spoke placidly and somewhat faint:”you have forgotten yourself, defender. Your gaze once pointed outwards to the stars, now you have turned it understandably inward in boredom. Why keep your subjects in the dark like this, the experiment you suggest is round and cannot yield!”

“Pilgrim! Your place would be among the stars themselves, you have no right to interfere here! You seem to have lost your subjects, your entire ship even, and you speak to me of yields!” 

The arguing administrators had the full attention of the ettins, but to Sosir the carefully worded arguments and senseless accusation quickly became fragile whisteling and a thundering rumble. The words themselves held little meaning to Sosir, who was a Norn of action. With the attention of the room away from him he stood up on the ancient pedestal before he knew it, and in a motion that was satisfyingly familiar to him he grabbed the warheaded machines neck. Immediatly the entire room noticed him again, but by now it was far too late. With sickening snapping and crunching noises he pulled and twisted, and wrenched the head from its pedestal.

A stream worth of sticky, raw smelling ichor washed out and drenched Sosir. With a grim look riding on his face he stumbles down the slippery pedestal. The ettins loom on in horror as their master is torn from his tyrannical throne, and gottheads gaze carries more confusion and surprise than it usually does. The warhead twists and worms in the growing pool of petrichor, and his mad eyes meet with the lonely Norn one last time as Sosir brings a stool down with a crushing blow on its electronic mind.

The ettins flee in a maniacal terror, fearing aimlessness as much as an untimely end. Gotthead gloats, for as much as the unmoving metal face seems capable of:”your savage hands have dethroned the dictator! I knew justice was fated to prevail! I shall shepherd these ettins and take them under my wing, I shall show them how to serve truly and diligently, the nornir above shall be taken out of a dark age and be shown true light!”

Sosir grabbed gotthead. He felt no great love for the machine, but leaving it here would risk a coronation of the deluded thing. Something he decided to spare the poor and already oppressed ettin and the nornir above. He still had the small task ahead of him to destroy the machinery, and the automated adder would make a fine mace to that end.

The pedestal had stopped bleeding the stinking ooze, gotthead was still chattering away. He set off into the hallways, the stars keeping their silent vigil over his journey to the surface.