Sosir's escape

 Sosirs escape.

The town thrived. Never before had the valley held so many Nornir, at least not in any memory. Neither living nor in Jotnar archives. The tents and improvised huts were replaced by plastered longhouses, a palisade now surrounded most of the village. Patches of bamboo had been planted in convenient places to reduce travel time, and the fields were irrigated by a primitive windmill pump. 

Somehow all this prosperity was the responsibility of one tall and dark Norn, whose only real drive had been wanderlust. Sosir felt burdened by this. He had accidentally replaced a sorcerer who had held the Nornir in a tyrannical yet unseen grip, and led them towards unity so they could protect themselves from a force he had helped create.

Yet change often is a chain- and the chain reaction he had set off towards wealth was a chain that bound him.

Sosir had once set off into the ridges beyond the ettin metropolis in search of allies. Here he had found knowledge that now fed and built the budding town of the Nornir, but also personal misery.

To accomodate a souvenir of this misery, he had collected the sweetest mothers in the community and some of the best thinkers so their combined knowledge formed an infirmary.

Here now the children of the Nornir were born and raised, but, more importantly; the children of a now extinct breed of Nornir and his own child.

Sosir walked the streets of what had come to be known as Vafborg. He himself resided in the new part, in a plastered long house with red tiles where the bamboo armored sentinels housed. Two of them escorted him, and he too was expected to wear a vest of the fire hardened scales. There was no threat to his life in Vafborg, and he knew they were there to keep him, rather than protection.

He arrived at the doorstep of the old dictator’s tower and looked up. It had been turned into a library, a massive archive to his strange Jotnar friend, Torsun.

“You two will remain in the antechamber. Torsun prefers not to be interrupted in his study. Marching an army into his library is far beyond his wishes.”

Reluctantly they remained on the pillows in the foyer as Sosir ascended the ladders. The large creature had his nose deep in the scrolls of cloth he kept his histories in, his seemingly clumsy hands deftly sewing symbols in the pale textile with a bone needle. Despite the clangor of Sosirs scales the giant’s focus was not easily broken. Warm welcomes and hearty hellos were shared when he finally noticed his friend. 

“I’ve heard from the Ettins in the forbidden city, Sosir. The masses of bone, claw and tooth you spoke off have reached their ancient walls.”

Sosir answered with a sardonic glance. 

“I see you’d prefer your old methods once again. That is fair, dapper Norn. You know what it is like to be alone and little else. I cannot change that, though your Nornir wish they could.”

“They will find another. In any case, my advisors have run Vafborg in my absence before, led in part by your counselling. As long as they listen to you, or the Jotnar at all, they will lead productive and safe lives. Them I do not worry for.”

“I presume you mean the eggs you brought with you from your expedition, Sosir. I wish you would swallow your emotions on their origin, and tell me their whole story. I can guess closely enough in the difference of upbringing you advice for them, but the full truth would be good to know. Nevertheless, I will be involved in their upbringing. A line of natural born defenders would be a good fit to the town.” 

“I admit it is weak not to confide in you in the tale and emotions, it is a new weakness I have found in myself, one I have not yet defeated. Were I stronger in the way of emotions and responsibility I would remain for them, and perhaps for Vasburg - too. Admittedly, I lament how the Nornir of this vale have changed by their changing lifestyle. Their bohemian ways have become drone-like, and their colorful fur gray. These city Nornir know less joy despite their safer lives.”

A good two nights later he left his bamboo vest and beaked mask on his mattress for another to find and wear in turn. A small stone knife and a waterskin were brought along on a woven bamboo fiber cord as he sneaked out through the window, his dark fur camouflaging him as he creeped through the gloom. A hike through the flowing grass and bamboo valley follows as he travels towards the mountain pass into the steadfast crags. By early morning this walk had taken him to the first rising ridges by the forbidden city, where he had somewhat of an overview of the far side of the metropolis.

The anticipated siege had indeed begun. The savage camps grew and multiplied while he watched, and even a display of a stone thrower the Ettins had mounted on the walls did little to impress the brutes. Having seen what threat loomed over his kin he felt real motivation to find their origin. The Ettinae would fend for themselves or beg Vasborg for help, but Sosir hadn’t the time. The strength and knowledge of his Nornir, supported by the advancement and mechanical prowess of the Ettin would be a sight to see.

His meandering thoughts of an alliance faded as the day went on. The hardships of the unpleasant, dusty roads and the monotony of travel soon cleared his mind to the bare basics. His feet took him through familiar terrain, past deep crags and razor ridges. Past the broken, ruined husks of once mighty pinewood fortresses. Now all they were good for was to serve as grave markers to the memory of noble Nornir. 

Cooling days turned to frigid nights, but his experience taught him to remain on his feet and keep warm by motion. Keeping on the move gave him a good chance to evade the clawed skeletal brutes, and get rest when the day broke with its warming sunlight.

Sosir fed with wild honey, and the milk of the shaggy beasts of that razorlike mountain ridge. Days passed, his journey a little longer than necessary because his path evaded a certain fortress, but eventually the ridges smoothed, the crags were less deep and the temperatures fell and rose by smaller increments.

The sun rose upon barren, smooth hills. The straw-like grass waved in the tugging winds and appeared like a crude imitation of the vales before the ridges. Heather broke under his feet, brittle as charcoal. Some of the hills were unstable, and turned out to be hollow with old and crude tunnels. The one burrow he explored briefly appeared to have been broken in. Though no tracks remained, entrances had been dug from illogical sides, and what little he could find in civilised remains had been broken. Even the outside air felt stale, somehow. Sometimes he made out galloping critters in the far distance, but these too appeared spindly and frail.

All was overshadowed though by a spire stretching into the sky, seemingly topped by some crescent structure. This gleaming edifice stood tall like a raised fist in this sleeping land. The sunlight reflected off it in many beams, glittering in the dusty air, but a pale taint covered much of its surface.

By bends and turns did all tracks radiate out from this technological steeple. By the time Sosir closed in on it the artificial sun was right above him, baking the destitute terrain with all its warmth. The air wavered before him, distorting the already nightmare-like vistas. His water bag again prove to be a blessing. Bones of young boney grendels that had not made it far beyond the place of their birth dotted the wasted fundament on which the tower stood. Hardened guano ran down the side of it. Upon closer inspection guano covered great parts of the tower in a caked- stalagmite like fashion.

“Odd. Not a bird in sight.”

He thought. 

An old door, clearly closed since immemorial times decorated the base, but a gritty looking metal staircase spiraled up around the technological artifact. It too was filthy, and clearly not designed for unshod feet. 

The tower is beyond ancient. Sosir tried to imagine what use it might have had when it was still maintained, even if only to keep his mind from his bare feet stepping up the hot, sharp stairs under him. Despite his experiences with mechanics, no clear use came to him.

Periodically he heard rushing fluid inside the tower, and he counted the breaths between the noise. Noon creeped on to eve, and his feet welcomed the cooling air. Another sensation his feet certainly welcomed was that he felt himself getting lighter as he rose the spiraled stairs. 

It was a strange sensation, one he had felt a few times, in slighter measure, when he climbed the high peaks of the ringed land.

Enjoying the feeling of lightness he paused and enjoyed a moment of respite. The cool evening air blew through his fur and he relaxed somewhat despite his weariness and the strangeness of his situation. His feet were painful, and he rued walking all the way down again. Even in the evening gloom he could see a long way from the tower, and he felt unsettled by how narrow the world looked from up there.

Suddenly the world tilted, and everything turned upside down as something grabbed hold of him with a mad howl. The cutting of claws burned in his shoulders as he and his assailant went over the rail. Unbelievably slow they went down, struggling in freefall. 

A kick threw the beast mad with hunger and loneliness off sosir, sending it falling away from the tower and sosir back onto the spiral stairs.

Roughed up and bleeding a little from shallow cuts, sosir continued upwards much more carefully. Finally he found an open doorway, a raw and powerful smell burning in his nostrils. Dried and papery husks of grendel eggs littered the floor. The rushing of fluid sounded louder within the walls, the tubes containing a liquid ran to a large laying machine. One of the pipes had been bitten by a desperate mouth and a trickle of a foul and syrupy biofluid dripped forth, the only real source of sustenance on the tower so far.

Somehow mad hunger was palpable in this chamber, but no living grendels were there. Sosir tore into the few unhatched eggs he could find, and opened the control panel to the machine with a stone knife.

Green cheese? Somehow a familiar sight was hidden behind the panel. The same alien green cheese he had sabotaged a strange contraption with once had been used to jam up the egg laying machine in some bizzare irony. Sosir cleaned up the electronics and reduced the egg production rate. 

Some relief he would grant the citydwellers, but he loved them too much to turn the machine off and give them an easy life.

He placed the panel back over the controls, and damaged the hardware so it would stay shut.

With another burden lifted off his shoulders he once again felt some adventurous hope, a feeling he had missed more than he had realised. He would see the top of the tower, even if only to say he did.

The artificial sun turned on, leaving the barren plains and the chalky tower of bones under a blanket of darkness.

His ascent was made easy and swift by the decreasing gravity, and before long he held onto the crescent-shaped station on top to keep himself from being pulled away by the wind.

Bizzare round beasts floated around the tower, pinchers and pedipalps sticking out of the exoskeleton, appearing like blown up crawfish. The source of the guano was revealed, but he didn't want to stick around to see what they ate.

A tube blew large, tar-black blobs of bioliquid into the air, where they remained in weightlessness.

In the distance a mirroring crescent shape appeared, attached to the dark back of the fake sun. It slowly closed in on the station sosir hung on to. 

Be it a reward or a punishment from the stars, he was going to travel to the sun.