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An exhausted sigh escaped his lips as he lay collapsed once more into his plush furs. Despite the post-coital glow emanating from his naked form he lay wide awake, a crease furrowing his unblemished brow. Neither of the companions sharing his large bed awoke as he stirred with troubled thoughts. The day’s events had really been a shock to his usual solitude and his divine senses made it clear that he was no longer truly alone in the world. He felt a connection to his first child. Ystra, the Bight, the Rime. Born of fire but reborn of ice, she was filled with his essence and touched by Rós. He could sense her now, having travelled with the many-headed god to help create his flight of ice dragons. They were the opposite of Ystra: converted by the weather god’s power and blessed by Winter through her intervention. Her alarm echoed in his mind and he summoned her with calming thoughts. The matriarch of her own three children: Bight, Hoare, and Rime, three of the dragons more her than Rós. She led their migration north to ultimately patrol the Northern Crown and Niflheim. Added to the decreased temperature around the floating palace, so that no creature could even fly near, the new species of dragon added to the strata of threats to guard his realm. He was more remote, isolated and therefore safe than ever.

Yet he still could not settle. He had seen the gathering of deities drawn from afar to that terrifying crater and horrific monument. But he knew to leave that for the Lord of Light to have an issue with and the twisted mages to decipher. Although maybe he should visit his sister of darkness, as it was within her vicinity and she was a fearful one. They shared the cold and he was possibly the only creature that made civil contact with her. He had always made an effort out of sibling love but even he had started to tire of her endless self-pitying. He was the embodiment of a domain that wasn’t wanted by humanity either. But they were both necessary for worldly balance. She just needed to embrace her true place in the world. If that needed to be through fear and respect rather than love then so be it. That was how he had become worshipped. The northern tribes didn’t submit offerings to him through a love of hardship, frostbite and snow blindness. They did so to ensure that he was appeased enough to reduce the amount of those things. But recently the spread of fire had reduced their worship. The offerings were less and sacrificial youths less handsome. He’d already destroyed a village for such selfish blasphemy. When he had been stalking a bear, they had asked him to rid them of he’d overheard the elders laugh around their new large byre boasting about how they were keeping their most handsome and athletic men for combat and sending Sveiand the men of tribes they fought and stole from. The hunt became a rally cry as the winter god erupted into his true form. The guttural roar emanating from his now ursine throat bringing ice wolves, great eagles, snow owls, rampaging musk oxen and the great white bears themselves to the vicinity – most of them granted unnatural attributes through an agreement with Naswaru. The tribe had cowered as Oao’s darkness deepened but the usual blessing of the god of cold did not dance across the sky. At midnight they struck. Amongst the throng of ferocious beasts, the gigantic white bear mad sure that he was the last thing these tribespeople saw. He blessed them with seeing his true form and cursed them to never see anything again as the many beasts of the tundra ripped, gouged and crushed their flesh and bones. Winter was not forgiving. 

He pushed the memory from his mind and rose from his bed. He decided on a walk to clear his head and realised what a human concept that was. His laughter echoed down the many chambers, tinkling like icicles in a bitter breeze. The men in his bed slumbered on under his enchantment. His clothed formed around him as he strode down a grand corridor, the white furs growing a fractal frost, before he was nothing but a stream of consciousness in a banner of iridescent shimmer streaming to the nearest shore. It was there he reformed in a flurry of snow to follow a set of solitary boot tracks, the soles well-trod. The snow quickly lessened and the wind ceased to howl in order for the god to make out a figure clad in heavy furs. He had not received word of a new sacrifice and any human without his blessing and therefore intervention would surely not last long. Yet for some reason, story-telling elders and travelling bards in the future would argue over lust, loneliness or curiosity being the cause, but even Sveiand didn’t know why he continued to approach the character that seemed to be muttering to itself in the increasingly sub-zero temperatures. He was stalled by his unsummoned attraction to the brunette figure as he caught sight of his unnatural golden eyes. Another sacrifice he thought and turned to disappear once more into the landscape, weather beginning to worsen at his very though. But the appearance of a monstrous grey beast through the snowfall gave him enough reason to make himself known. He guessed from the slender limbs and horned skull that the winged skeletal creature was formed through knowledge. He made a mental note that even the pragmatic and twisted mind of Iva was touched by vanity, otherwise why make creations in your own image, but did not want to see a handsome figure lose crimson blood on his pure landscape when this gargoyle struck.

[color=6ecff6][i][b]“Why do you come here where you have not been invited?” [/b][/i][/color] his voice carried to them, as the very wind itself. He still maintained his human form and strode confidently through the snow toward them both. He nodded toward the beast to ensure that the other man knew of its silent presence before addressing it, [color=6ecff6][i][b]““What do They want this time? It took a long time to recover after last time and am not inclined to do so again.” [/b][/i][/color] He chose his words carefully as to not reveal his divinity immediately. In truth he had slept for decades after helping to construct the library with Iva’s incredible plans and had marvelled at their joint project. Yet he still felt he hadn’t been repaid in kind for his efforts. He felt the great bear within him tense as he awaited a reply from these trespassers. Winter was not forgiving.