Chapter Text
It was not known what was to come, when the gothi began to dream. The vǫlur sang and wove galdr and spá-song, divining portents they found themselves unable to explain as they sat at their looms; just as the old priests scattered rune-carved bones and burned herbs in their fires to court further visions.
A child that was not merely a child, born of the blood of the wolf-world yet a stranger to it. A prince, some claimed--the oldest and canniest of the seers whose vision had been sharpened by time and practice--but not of a prince of any clan of the vlka, rather a prince of wild things. A prince of wolves.
The dreams stopped as the seasons turned, and Fenris drove onward in the sea of stars from its short and chilly autumn into the long darkness of the helwinter.
On Asaheim, amongst the wildest and most jagged peaks, a great she-wolf found a confused and malformed pup and carried it back to her den: nudging it to cuddle among her other pups and drink from her teat; attempting to speak to it in the language that wolves spoke among themselves; letting milk and warmth and growing kinship weave the newfound pup into her pack, until its shape had turned to that of a proper wolf and it could speak to her in return.
The people of Fenris had managed to claw their way up from the ice plains to Asaheim long ago, the saga told often around the hearthfires; the great struggle to scale the immense granite cliffs that sheared straight into the sea, and every man and woman who’d died on the first path that would lead the clans to stable land. The Peace of the Carved Stair had lasted for nine great years, as the jarls had agreed to set aside their feuds and lend the strengths of their clans to the endeavor.
Among all of them, it was said, the Russ had been the smallest clan, but their jarl had been a woman of great vision and persuasive voice, and so the althing had chosen her as the first high queen to act as judge over the disputes between the clans while they were meant to be at peace. Ragnvé of the Russ had settled her clan on Asaheim, daring the unknown of the continent while other jarls turned back to the seas and ice plains. The agreement amongst them all that the althing would meet and the clans would be welcome to find shelter on the continent when the time of fire came at the height of midsummer.
And so on Asaheim, the people of Fenris lived. Of the clans that had settled there the Russ became the most powerful, until the high throne of Fenris passed along the line of Ragnvé just as surely as the jarl’s seat in the clan’s hall. It was not uncommon for men and women who lived on Asaheim to put to sea and journey across the ice, just as it was not uncommon for men and women who sailed and lived on the ice to journey to Asaheim, and as time passed the great carved stair became merely the oldest of all the carved stairways that led from the safest harbours that could be found amongst the coves and pillars where Asaheim met the sea up to the continent. Watch-houses and halls built by the clans of Asaheim offered shelter to those travelers who came from the seaward stairs, but even after millennia the whole of Asaheim had not been fully explored, for there were places too harsh and wild here at the summit of the world that even the hardiest of warriors and bravest of travelers could not make passage to.
The priests and priestesses who lived on Asaheim had set about divining the best places for their clans to settle long ago, just as they had upon the ice plains. The continent may have remained solid during the time of fire, but many of Asaheim’s great mountains hid molten hearts and would erupt just as the sea-islands did. Shrines and runestones were raised and blessed, as the priests and seers discerned from the spirits of Asaheim which great mountains’ wrath might be dulled with reverence and which tracts of forests should be left alone as places the spirits dwelled.
Of the wyrd-touched on Fenris, the most respected and highly sought smiths of rune-shape were the volundr; workers of steel and carvers of stone, wood, and bone. They travelled far across Fenris, and were always welcome guests in the halls they visited, for the favor of the volundr could be expressed with an inscription of good health and fortune to be gifted to the hall that hosted them, and at times, the rarest and most precious of gifts: a master-crafted frostblade, to be cherished and passed down along the bloodline to the greatest warrior of each generation.
It was the volundr who roamed the furthest on Asaheim, sensing out the places the underverse welled closest to the fabric of the living world and carving out wards and runestones to weave tighter the tapestry of wyrd that held reality closed against the things that might slip through. It was the volundr who climbed the steep mountains and braved the cold-death and the beasts of Asaheim--larger and more fearsome than those on the old ice--to work their craft.
It was the volundr who first encountered the young prince of wolves whose advent--for none could be sure, even then, if the portents that had been seen meant birth or arrival , and the runes did little to clarify when they were cast--had sent such ripples through the verse and underverse.
There were only glimpses at first. The volundr were aware of the particular vulnerabilities they faced, working their craft in the wilds of Asaheim--no matter how much it was necessary, the cuts and lines of the runic shapes of the oldest and most venerated of magicks on Fenris, known with bone-deep surety by every soul on the ice world to be the strongest means of warding against the soul eaters and wights who would crawl from the depths of the underverse if given half a chance or half a word of invitation--the inscriptions could take great years upon great years to complete, the runesmith’s attention needing to be fixed wholly upon the working; to breathe out the name of each rune as it was carved and smooth the soul of the mark into that which was marked. In some places on Asaheim, the ruins of such stones could be seen, boulders prepared for carving in some age past and too large to be moved away, shaped and ready save for some smashed and chiseled-over face where a mistake had been made and the whole working was destroyed to begin anew; the ill-fortune of even the tiniest error being broken away so it couldn’t fester, before a new and more auspicious stone could be found.
To look around oneself as one was working--and swift and sure the work had to be, for certain things could not be left half-complete, and even the blood of the ice world couldn’t stay hunched against freezing stone with only the smallest of fires that could be built near the workspace without burning it for very long--was not something that was often done. The volundr relied on their instincts, and the odd sense of respect that would sometimes be had from the world soul for their efforts. But the graceful stalk of a wolf with better prey to catch than a ragged stone-carver was far different than the tumbles of a wolf pup through the snow.
The prince of wolves, although he was not known as such at the time, was a curious creature; escorted as he was by two twin-wolves--their thick coats the soft greys of immature Blackmanes--who were clearly packmates set to minding him. They might have been of the same litter, the three of them, but for the fact the twin-wolves were obviously older by at least a season. They certainly had the mien of older siblings, it was remarked by the volundr who had noticed them, following exasperatedly as they were led by their younger and more headstrong brother--an excitable pup, who was still more fluff and fat than the sleek adolescent forms of his minders, with russet fur--down among the dense firs and pines that forested the slopes of the mountainside where a great carving had been planned to watch the volundr as they smoothed the stone and worked their tools into readiness.
As was common with workings of the size that had been deemed necessary to properly revere and ward the forests on the mountainside--declared sacred by a völva of the clan that had built their village downslopes of it, the wisewoman calling for the volundr herself, moved as she was by the power of a vision she would not share beyond the insistence that both wyrd and worldsoul demanded the working be done--the volundr had pitched a camp, the same as they would when travelling across the ice. Some of the runesmiths preferred to travel alone, but the task that had been asked of them was too much for but one pair of hands, and so nine volundr--each a master of the art, having traveled from across Asaheim to lend their skill--had set themselves to the task.
The chosen site of the working was a solid cliff that jutted upwards as the mountain thrust itself beyond the clouds; the soil of its slopes beginning to scrape bare as the treeline thinned and the granite that made the bones of the mountain was bared and battered by the winds and storms. There were many such peaks on Asaheim, as the continent--unlike the islands of Fenris--could never be shaken hard enough to return to the sea, and so with each time of fire the volcanos only grew themselves larger and the harsh trembling of the world as the solid land shifted and collided only drove the mountains higher; until it was as though they were the fangs of the wolf-world itself, tearing at the heavens. On either side of the cliff the volundr had chosen as the most auspicious site, the forest floor remained in even slopes, leaving the cliff face a bare clearing encircled by towering trees but sheltered from the worst snows and winds. They had pitched their camp at the base of the cliff, and for weeks before even the first glimpse of the young prince of wolves and his sibling-minders they had set about sharpening their tools--and forging them anew, if need be--and carving the uneven face of the cliff into one smooth surface to begin their work.
It could not be said what attracted the young prince’s attention, although among the volundr given to such ponderings there was some attempt made to consider just what it might have been. They lit fires to keep warm, and sang to each other as they worked, and let the noise of breaking stone carry as it would, and at some point they began to notice a thick-furred wolf pup with two more reserved shadows pouncing and rolling through the snow at the edges of their camp.
Fjolvarr was the oldest master present, and it was he who it had been agreed among them should carve the first lines--the volundr having all meditated upon the workings and designs that should be carved, and which runes exactly should be used to craft the meaning they wished to bring forth--when the work was finally ready to begin. And by this time it was no surprise when the young prince wandered into their camp, his pack-siblings a few paces behind. It was expected that he would perhaps investigate the firepits and tools that were laid out, or sniff at the furs that made up the tents, but instead he made his way to where Fjolvarr sat on a thick mat of woven branches and furs, weighing his burin in his hand as he formed the shapes he meant to carve in his mind’s eye. The young prince of wolves settled himself on his haunches at Fjolvarr’s side, eyes keen and bright as he looked between the old shape-smith and the fresh stone. There was something arresting about the young prince’s eyes: not the usual gold-pinned black of wolves but a strange blue-grey that echoed the color of the thick ice of Fenris’ seas, and as intelligent and canny as wolves were known to be, something in the young prince’s eyes--pup though he might have been--spoke of an awareness beyond anything that could be conceived of by a mortal.
The old runesmith caught the young prince’s gaze for a moment, and between the two of them an understanding passed that later the old man would find he could not put into words.
Taking up his burin, Fjolvarr began to carve, whispering out the name of each rune against the stone as he did; willing the world-soul to hear him and allow the runeshaping to take place, to bind the soul of the rune to the soul of the stone and create a greater working than either could become alone. The young prince watched raptly, never moving from his spot at the old man’s side as the first row of runes were carved with painstaking precision into the stone. When Fjolvarr’s turn to carve was done and he was helped to his feet by the others, to be led to the seat closest to the fire and offered hot drink and food, the young prince finally moved, getting up as well to alternately nose at the first carvings and lifting one forepaw to carefully pat the pads of his toes against the lines that had been hewn into the stone.
The work seemed to fascinate him, and when Asleif settled down on the thick mats to begin her turn--now the youngest among the gathered volundr, as had agreed would bring the best fortune to their work--the young prince flopped himself onto the edge of the sitting cushion to continue observing as the runes were carved, paws tucked under him for warmth and one ear perked up to listen to the noises of the burin meeting the stone.
From the first line that was carved that day to the last, as the volundr each took their turns until a point had been reached where they could stop for the night, the young prince made himself comfortable at the side of whoever was working the stone and watched. As the dusk fell, the twin-wolves finally seemed to grow tired of indulging the young prince’s interest, and began to attempt nudging him away from the camp, but they had no success until a great howl rang through the air; full-throated and deep, a blood-chilling sound only the most massive Blackmane wolves or the rare and elusive Thunderwolves that stalked the very highest peaks of Asaheim were capable of making. When the young prince leapt to his feet and trotted over to his siblings, the three of them darting away into the underbrush in the direction the howl seemed to have come from, it was clear enough that it was the call of a mother wolf to her errant pups.
But the young prince returned the next day, minders in tow, and faithfully settled himself down to watch the runes be formed.
For months, as the runic inscription began to turn from a lattice of lines into script--symbolic and ritual words that formed the poetry of what the runes merely said encoded with a depth of meaning and under-meaning to give them a weight beyond mere words--the young prince hardly missed a moment of the work. The volundr all became used to his presence and the presence of his pack siblings--who followed at a distance more often than not as the months wore on, and at times would even leave the camp to hunt for themselves while their younger brother remained--and would often speak to the young prince as they spoke to each other, each of them having understood that he was more than just a wolf pup, although the young prince’s exact nature remained a mystery.
The young prince grew more quickly than any of them had expected, although it could not be said that any of the volundr were very knowledgeable about the ways of wild wolves and so they did not trouble themselves with it at first. He soon was of a size with his pack-siblings, and soon enough all three of them were large enough that their shoulders reached as high as chest height on a man, soft puppy fur beginning to grow even thicker and more coarse as their adult coats began to come in, the color of the twin wolves darkening to the namesake dark greys and blacks of all Blackmane wolves, while the young prince’s fur remained a curious russet color; marking him as obviously not a Blackmane wolf himself, but still somehow adopted into a Blackmane pack.
The great year had begun its descent into the deepest part of the helwinter, and so the volundr kept torches lit to continue their work as the sun would rise and set for shorter and shorter amounts of time, until it barely scraped over the horizon at all before disappearing again. The snows were thick enough that Jorunn had tied her skirts around her waist and wrapped rough cloth over her woolen leggings to climb the trees around the clearing and weave their branches together to make a roof over the site of the carving; strengthening it with rope and oilcloth to keep the cliff face they labored over from being covered by the snows, while also creating a windbreak from the sharp, frigid gusts that would come down the mountain. The firepit was expanded and wood was gathered and dried to keep the campfire blazing day and night to ward off the worst of the cold, as the tents were taken up and pitched even more closely together to stay within the circle of warmth and light it provided and the shelter of the woven tree branches and windbreak.
It was in the depths of the helwinter when the volundr finally learned what manner of creature the prince of wolves was.
As large as the young prince and his siblings had grown, the volundr had not considered themselves threatened by the pack, as the presence of the wolves had slowly but surely insinuated itself into the nature of their carving, and the inscription had deviated from its planned form to something entirely new as the runesmiths communed with the world-soul as they carved and were guided along a new design. It was considered right, then, that the wolves should be allowed to come and go as they pleased, for the whims of the wolf-world were not theirs to question. The young prince himself could now hardly fit into the same space on the edge of the woven mat the volundr would sit on to carve, and when sitting on his haunches would now tower over whoever was doing the carving. Still, though, whenever a row of rune marks were finished he would sometimes snuffle at the stone or lift a foreleg to press a paw against the graven shapes.
The tools the volundr used were just as important to the working as their knowledge of the runes, and so as each tool lost its keen edge or broke under the pressure of being driven through the stone, new ones were crafted and tempered; burins, chisels, and hammers of various size and weight, each prepared with special ritual, as the warding runes could only be carved with the proper tools or by a killing blade. After they were prepared, the tools were often laid out on squares of leather that they would later be rolled into for protection and ease of carrying. The young prince was usually curious about the tools, and would leave his place near the carving to investigate them before they were put away; once, when he was a much smaller pup, he’d even daintily taken one of the chisels in his teeth and picked it up. Asleif had quickly gotten it back in exchange for a strip of dried meat the young prince had been more than content to gracefully relinquish the chisel for, and afterwards--believing Fjolvarr’s words that he was wiser and more aware than any wolf the old runesmith had ever seen--had sat down and explained to the young prince what each tool was and why they were left to settle after being made. This had seemingly contented him, for the young prince had never troubled the tools again afterwards, and during the whole of her explanation had watched Asleif with unnerving intensity; making her believe that he truly understood what she was saying despite being a wolf pup.
It was common as the helwinter reached its darkest days for many of the volundr to sleep or stay wrapped in their furs and blankets around the fire or in their tents, those who were chosen to carve sitting or kneeling in as much clothing and coverings as they could wear while they worked, as the design of the runes began to reach further up the cliff face. There was always a cauldron over the fire, melting snow to drink and heating it so herbal drinks and teas could be made, or stew cooked, or wassail brewed. The young prince would stretch himself out by the fire sometimes, listening as people spoke and sang or told stories to amuse each other through the almost complete darkness that fell.
Midwinter and the solstice were the most celebrated of all the feasts and festivals on Fenris, and even in the wilderness at the site of their immense project did the volundr also mark the occasion; setting aside their carving to all gather around the fire. The sun stopped rising entirely for the two months on either side of the solstice, as midwinter marked the deepest night of the helwinter and the furthest the wolf-world roamed away from the Wolf’s Eye. It was a deeply mystical time, and though it was celebrated it was also a time of care, to be honored with caution and the proper blessings and wardings for continued safety in the long dark.
It was late into the festivities when Jorunn looked over to where she had left her toolkit and saw the child, a scream rising in her throat as her eyes registered the small, pale form of a boy--naked as a newborn, with long tangled hair hanging down to his knees--leaning over the unfurled roll of tools and tracing his hands over them; fingers clumsily picking at the ties that held them to the leather.
The noise was enough that the child startled, snatching his hands back from the tools and whipping his head towards Jorunn, eyes wide, as moments later the twin-wolves of the young prince’s pack burst forth from the underbrush and into the circle of firelight to surround the child, obviously placing themselves between the boy and the rest of the camp as guards. No one moved, both humans and wolves studying each other in the long silence that followed, as Jorunn slowly sank to her knees on the ground--the two Blackmane wolves near enough to her that she could feel the heat of their panting breaths and see the snow slowly begin to melt from their fur in the warmth of the fire--almost holding her breath as the boy leaned himself into the side of the wolf nearest to him and cuddled into its thick fur, turning his face into the shaggy ruff around its neck and peeking out at the stunned volundr.
He was a slender child, skin as pale as the snow, with thin scars and scratches along his flanks and arms and legs. His hair was a curious red in the flickering firelight, but there was no doubt to be had that it would shine russet in the sunlight. When they could be seen from where he’d hidden his face, the boy’s eyes were the blue-grey of sea ice.
Changeling children were not uncommon on Fenris. There were countless tales of them; a mother looking into her newborn’s crib to find a wolf pup instead, or a she-wolf bringing a freshly weaned babe to a village and leaving it. It was unknown exactly how such things happened, but the priests would often take in such a child, or carry the pup away to where it might be found by other wolves and taken in. What was not common, or had never been heard of at all by any of the volundr--well-versed in lore as they were, keepers of their own mysteries of the workings of runes--was a changeling child who could assume the shape of a wolf or the shape of a man at will.
It was obvious that the boy was the young prince; more, the volundr at this time first began to understand that the boy was indeed a young prince of wolves, for the intelligence in his eyes was undimmed, and the two great Blackmane wolves who were his siblings and guardians did not stray from his side even now that he was no longer in the shape of a wolf, but rather drew closer to protect him.
Fjolvarr, who had had the most conviction that the wolf who paid such attention to the working of runes was not truly a wolf but some spirit sent by the world-soul, was the first to speak to the boy.
“What is your name?” he asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the camp.
The boy considered the question for a long while, moving his lips quietly as though speaking to himself, before answering in a raspy voice, “Yes...but...not for this tongue.”
Fjolvarr nodded, because it made sense that the language of wolves would be unspeakable to men, just as the language of men would be unspeakable to wolves.
“Why have you come to us, and visited our camp so often?” Fjolvarr asked.
The boy inclined his head towards the cliff wall and the inscription taking shape on it, “To learn.”
The volundr looked amongst themselves and whispered to each other, but before any of them could speak out, Fjolvarr replied, “I will teach you, return tomorrow and we will begin.”
The young prince nodded, eyes not leaving Fjolvarr until he’d stepped back behind his pack siblings, the two wolves closing in around him concealing him from sight as they herded him back towards the very edge of the circle of light cast by the bonfire. Each of the volundr watched carefully to perhaps glimpse the boy change his shape, but the forms of the twin-wolves were too massive to see beyond, and the boy’s bare feet sunk deeply into the snowdrifts gathered in the underbrush; so that from one moment to the next there was only the flicker and shadow of a child clumsy on two legs--unused to walking on them--and then the shape of a massive russet-furred wolf shouldering its way out from between its packmates, to glance back at the camp once more before turning and disappearing into the darkened forest.
When Fjolvarr was questioned as to why he had accepted the boy as a student so easily, the old runesmith could not explain himself beyond his conviction that it was the will of the world-soul, and that the wyrd itself had brought them here so the young prince--for they all agreed that as nameless and strange as the boy might be, he was surely of a princely bearing and treasured by his pack--could be taught the ways of the runes and wyrd. This was agreed upon, as the boy’s talent with the wyrd must have been truly great, if he could change his form in such a way.
So the volundr prepared, quickly searching through their belongings for a tunic that could be cut down to the young prince’s size, and training tools that would suit a child’s hands, and some pieces of wood freshly cut into thin boards, so their camp could not only continue to work on their great inscription but also so that each of the nine volundr who had been gathered more than half a great year ago by the völva--who had surely foreseen this, in the vision she had refused to speak of--all of them great artisans and masters of their craft, could teach the young prince of wolves the secret ways of the runes.