Match #12

[James]

MYTH: Æsir-Vanir War
GENRE: Noir fiction

Deadline: Sunday, 24th May

And so we're back to the myth round. We've had a wide array of myths since this round was first proposed, but never anything from Norse mythology. So we're asking for a noir-styled story about the Æsir-Vanir war. It doesn't need to be a literal retelling. There doesn't even necessarily need to be gods. We want creative retellings of the myth, something that really makes us go wow.

[ASGetty ((Zovo))]

The frigid winter wind gnawed at my overcoat, biting hard and whipping it every-which-way as I walked. Clumps of filthy slush crunched with my every footfall, it splashed at my heels and soaked the cuffs of my pants. I did not shiver, it was not wise to show weakness in this part of town. I muttered curses under my breath as I picked up the pace and hunched down my shoulders.

I had sworn to myself, all those years ago, that I would never come back to this place. But here I was, in the cold and the sleet, freezing my ass off just like old times. All because of a dame. It was always because of a dame. Usually the dame was polite enough to be alive, though. Not this time.

I saw no corpse as I approached the scene of the crime: just a pile of ash in the middle of an urban clearing. The place was almost snowed in, hidden in a mess of back-alleys, tangled like twine. I suspected the local boys-in-blue had already had their way with the place, but I looked around all the same, there was usually at least one thing they hadn't trampled all over.

The authorities never cared much for details, not in this city. They were more like tabloid journalists, just reporting what they saw on the surface, never delving below. That kind of work was left to people like me, consulting detectives and private investigators. If you wanted the truth in this city, you had to pay for it.

I found what I was looking for in the form of a small mauve purse, discarded carelessly in a nearby trash can. My fingers stuck to the frosted metal of the lid as I lifted it. I pulled apart its cracked-leather folds, revealing a few items of interest: a shiny new miniature revolver; fully loaded, a one-way train ticket out of the city, and a driver's license for one Freya Njorddottir. Definitely a local, with a name like that. The grainy picture of her told me everything I needed to know. From her strawberry-blonde hair to the inviting glance she was giving the camera, it was clear: this one was a heart-breaker, and a strangely familiar one at that.

“Excuse me,” said a sultry feminine voice from behind, “that's my purse you've got there.”

Then it hit me, I knew where I had seen that pretty face last. I turned on my heel.

“But you're—”

“Dead? Wouldn't be the first time.”

In fact, this was the third time Freya had died since I'd met her. The first time had been for insurance purposes, she had told me. The second time had been due to complications with the new-found fortune. What circumstances had forced her to change her identity this time, I did not know, but the trick was getting old. Every time she had come back with a different name When I first met her, she had been Frigga, though I doubted even that was her original name. Then she became Heiðr, and Gullveig after that, until those that hounded her caught the new scent. That's why I was here in the first place. She must have known I would come.

“I thought you were gone for good. If those Aesir thugs find out you're not really dead...”

“Let me worry about that. Silly, silly Ipabog. You think you're the only one in this city who can take care of themselves. Sweet of you to come, though.”

“I heard a woman matching your description had been murdered. Figured the case could use an eye or two that wasn't corrupt or incompetent.”

Freya glanced towards the pile of ash, a sly smirk spreading across her lips like honey.

“A woman was murdered, yet here she stands, alive and well. What do you make of that, detective?”

She approached me and snatched the purse and all its contents out of my hands, save the revolver, which I had tucked into the inner pocket of my overcoat. Freya noticed almost immediately.

“A girl needs a gun in a place like this, give it back.” Her words were as blunt as a billy club, but there was a certain playfulness about them.

“You're safer without one, trust me.”

“I trusted you last time and look where it got me,” she said, her glare turning as icy as the weather. She made no further argument.

“What made you do it this time?”

“Kvasir.” I'd heard the word before, muttered and whispered by lowlifes all over this part of town.

“Kvasir?” I asked, but she refused to answer.

We stood in silence until the wind died down, then I could hear echoes of stern men in stern boots, crunching and splashing. The Aesir thugs would be here soon and they were sure to get very violent, very quickly, if they found an outsider trespassing on their territory.

“We have to go,” I said, wrapping my hand around Freya's bare wrist. She was wearing only a thin red gown, but her skin was warm to the touch. It was a peculiarity of her people that I came to envy. Freya said nothing and did not resist, but shot me a bitter look. There were five passages that led to this place, but only one of them would get us where we needed to be. I pushed my hat down firmly on my head and started walking, pulling Freya behind me.

Only after we started down the path did I realize the grave error I had made. The crunches grew more distinct, the splashes more palpable. We rounded the corner and there they were: three Norsemen looking meaner than rabid dogs. The leader was obvious, he stood almost a foot above the other two, with a meaty build and long red-gold hair on half of his head. The other half was shaved and covered in tattoos, mostly Nordic runes I didn't recognize, but the lightning bolt was impossible to mistake. He chuckled and hefted his hammer as his gaze fell upon us. With a wave of his hand the goons that flanked him came to a stop.

“Vanir whore! Gaelic filth! You should not have come here!” he bellowed. “Do you know what we do to trespassers around here? Do you know who I am?”

Of course we did, anybody who knew anything knew the name of that meat-head. Thor, son of Odin, heir to the family business and head bruiser for the Aesir Syndicate. He was bad news all around. You wouldn't get anything so kind as a gunshot from that brute, he'd sooner cave your skull in with his bare hands than show mercy. He was what happened to those poor bastards that crossed the Aesir. I had friends that ended up as nothing more than pulp dripping off that damn hammer of his.

“I'm Wendish, you asshole,” I spat as I drew the revolver from my pocket and cocked it. Thor laughed heartily from his diaphragm, spraying saliva in a mad snarl. The other two pulled weapons of their own, but I was faster. One bullet for the goon on the left, one bullet for the goon on the right, and four bullets for the mad dog Thor. Or that's what would have happened if the gun hadn't jammed after the first two shots. Damn my luck.

Thor didn't seem to care at all that his companions now slouched lifeless against the alley walls, like so much garbage. He howled and charged, I pushed Freya to the right and dove to the left. His hammer was going to hit one of us, but not both. Thor chose me.

What I felt when Mjolnir connected with my ribcage was indescribable. Shock and agony; the wind left my lungs in a hurry and my bones turned to splinters, my blood to acid. It was like an atomic bomb had detonated inside my chest. It was what you felt when your lover betrayed you in the dead of night by slipping a stiletto through your heart. It was hell, but I survived.

Incapacitated for the moment, or possibly the rest of my life, it was up to Freya now. Thankfully, she was no ingenue and she always brought a backup weapon. In this case it was a small, elegant knife taped to her inner thigh. Thor knelt down over my crumpled form and wrapped his massive hand around my neck, relishing my every squeal as he pressed down like the weight of the world upon Atlas's shoulders. Freya wasted no time, gracefully jumping onto his back and jamming the blade into the base of his skull. He released a final, wispy breath into the air and I watched it vaporize and fade away, like the life in his eyes.

Freya made no move to help me. She left me pinned and helpless under that gargantuan. Without a word, she retrieved her knife from the felled man's neck and wiped it on her dress. It blended seamlessly with the red of her dress. Then she walked off, leaving me alone in the cold, just as I had done to her all those years ago. Damn my luck.



The few beams of morning sunlight filtering through the dirty window and the countless scratchy woolen blankets were not enough to ward away the cold. The building had no heat, I was told this was not uncommon in Little Vanaheim.

I should have been sleeping, but rest evaded me at every turn. When my body was beaten bloody and could not move, my mind simply picked up the slack. It was a character flaw that had served me well over the years, in my line of work. While I was recovering from my little run in with Thor, my mind never strayed too far from Freya and that damned word. Kvasir. Maybe Hoenir and Mimir would know.

They didn't really belong here, having been sent as a gesture of peace and goodwill from the Aesir. We'd been living in the final days of a blood feud that had been going on since time immemorial without even knowing it. The two families, after an untold amount of bloodshed and spent bullets, had finally realized that war between them was profitable only to outsiders. And if there was one thing the Aesir and Vanir hated more than each other, it was outsiders. So they called the whole thing off and exchanged envoys, hostages really, to foster lasting peace. The Vanir got a couple of junked-up wise men, Hoenir and Mimir, while the Aesir walked away with what they had wanted all along: Freya herself. They promised she would be unharmed, but I had my doubts. I would have gone after her myself, had I been able to move at the time. Damn my luck.

I pushed the blankets to the floor and sat up, wearing a weary snarl on my face. I had to get back home, but before that I had to make sure Freya was safe. Before even that, however, I had to get out of bed. My bones creaked and my muscles groaned as I swung my legs over the bedside and slid towards the floor. Balance did not come easily to me. It took me a few moments to regain my sea legs and I was sore like a virgin after her wedding night, but I could move again.

I decided concretely that I would pay the brothers or cousins or partners or whatever they were a visit. It couldn't hurt and Hoenir and Mimir were surprisingly well liked among the local community. People would come to them with problems and money and leave with only wisdom. Wisdom in this case being the street name for a particularly potent elixir the duo brewed up. Old Aesir recipe, they said. You certainly wouldn't remember your problems after a pint of that stuff.

They came to me once, while I was still bedridden. I had thought at the time they meant to kill me, but Hoenir brought only a vase of half-wilted lilies, and Mimir, advice. He told me not to worry about Freya, that his people would treat her well, that if I pursued her, it would lead only to ruin. I could not believe that, no matter how hard I tried.

I dressed slowly, then made my way downstairs like a ponderous tortoise. My left arm was stuck clutching my chest, for fear my ribcage could not support itself, while I leaned on the environment with my right. It was not a particularly dignified way to travel, I admit, but it got the job done.

Hoenir and Mimir resided in a second story apartment of a local tenement building, worn down from years of harsh weather and neglect. I limped through the front door, receiving no help from the lazy-eyed strongman who guarded the entrance. He guessed who I was going to see and where I was from, then sort of grunted in disapproval and let me by.

I knocked three times on the apartment door.

“Who is it?” called a weighty voice through the wood.

“Ipabog, a fellow outsider.”

“What do you want?”

“Wisdom.” Three distinct locks made three distinct clicks, then the door was open to me. They stood together, staring with piercing eyes. Hoenir, the bigger and thicker of the two, crossed his arms and looked at me with an expression like soured milk.

“You got cash?” said Mimir, the pale opposite of his companion, with dark hair and a wire-thin frame.

“I do.” I reached into my pocket for tribute but found nothing. You could only spend so much time unconscious before some jackass helped himself to your things, apparently.

“Sit,” said Hoenir, waving me over to a threadbare loveseat and glancing at his better half, “and wait.” He took the seat across from me and gave me a stare that made my stomach churn. Mimir walked out of the room with a light step.

“So,” I said, wishing for a cigarette, “about the girl.”

“The girl?”

“Freya.” The name got a delayed reaction. He was blank for a few seconds as the stupid little cogs in his head whizzed and whirred. Then he frowned.

“Oh. The whore.” I gritted my teeth. The description, though technically accurate, never failed to get on my nerves.

“The whore,” I echoed.

“What about her?”

“Yes, what about her?” said Mimir, in a faux-friendly tone as he reentered the room with a milk carton that contained something much stronger than advertised.

“I need to know where she is.”

“Oh. Well, she's probably--” began Hoenir, before being interrupted by a slap from his partner. He groaned and rubbed his face, looking humiliated.

“A long way from here,” said Mimir. “You wanna know more than that, you gotta pay up.”

An assault on the door saved me the trouble of explaining my awkward financial situation.

“Open up! I got money! I got the money! Open up, man!” The voice was wavering like a first-timer on ice skates. Mimir signaled his partner with a shake of his head. Hoenir got up and opened the door, revealing a sallow skeleton of a youth with baggy eyes and baggy pants.

“You got cash?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah. Here, here.” The boy handed over a wad of crumpled bills. “Now gimme the stuff.” Hoenir threw the money to Mimir, who checked and double checked it was the right amount. When he was satisfied he gestured the newcomer over. That was my cue.

“Right, well,” I muttered to no one in particular, pushing myself up off the ragged couch and heading towards the door, “never mind about the wisdom.” If I had any doubts about leaving, they were erased when I saw the outline of a handgun in the kid's back pocket. I closed the door behind me and counted the seconds as I walked. On second seventy-three, as I was making my way down the stairwell, I heard a gunshot. Then another and another. Damn my luck.



They came in flocks and droves. Dozen after dozen of mourning Norsemen flooding the streets of Little Vanaheim. Such a display was almost unheard of, it was unclear if they were here for vengeance or just to pay their respects. They wouldn't have needed more than a couple of men to collect the corpse. No, they were here with purpose.

I stared at them with glassy eyes from my table at the all-night diner. Sometimes they came in, one or two at a time. They made no trouble. When the waitress next came to refill my mug with black coffee, greasy and reeking, I inquired about the situation outside.

“Don't know why they've come, I'm afraid, but it's plain obvious where they're going. The grove. In the park, you know? Weather like it is, there's no green to be found there, of course, but holy's holy, I suppose.” I thanked her for the information and waited for her to duck into the kitchen, then I slipped out before she could charge me for the awful coffee. The little bell on the door punctuated my exit with a tattletale ring.

With a groan and a grimace I was on the move again. This was something I wanted to see, and I had a hunch about a certain young woman.

Outside was a strangely beautiful, if morbid, scene. Men and woman shuffling through the streets, cradling candles. Snow drifting gently down to earth in little spirals. I merged into the flow of foot-traffic, heading towards the park to find out what was going on.

It was not a particularly large park. Just a little patch of frost-coated flora in the urban jungle. Aesir and Vanir intermingled in what I guessed was some sort of funeral ritual, though I couldn't be sure. Each person would, in turn, receive a modest plastic cup of honey-colored liquid, swish it around like mouth wash, then spit it into a hole in the frozen earth. Then a word, uttered and echoed. “Kvasir.”

When it came to be my turn, the Norseman hesitated. I did not belong, it was obvious. He looked offended by my presence and was about to speak his mind when a woman in a thin red gown hushed him.

“Freya,” I said, but she hushed me too.

“Kvasir,” she said with a smile, putting a cup in my hands. I nodded, poured the sweet-smelling stuff in my mouth, swished it around, then spat it into the hole.

“Kvasir,” I said, playing along. Then, in a whispered tone. “Mind telling me what all this is about?”

“Forgiveness. Unification. We bury not only Mimir, tonight, but the Aesir and Vanir as well. We are one people now. Kvasir.”

She kissed me then, all passion and warmth, and then it was over and she was gone. I never saw her again after that. I searched and I searched but all I had was that damned word. Kvasir. The word did not mean forgiveness, not when she said it. Vengeance, that's what it meant. Her final judgment for the sins of the past.

[James]

Team Zovo

I think the biggest concern I always had about being a solo entry is that I didn’t deserve to win. You could win by turning up and writing something rubbish. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. This was a pretty decent story and would have given Team Kaez a fight if they had turned up. However, there were definitely some areas to improve on.

First of all, well done on the Noir-vibe. It was a bit on the nose, but you really got a sense of the traditional noir across. The “voice” of the narrator felt right at home in a noir story and that’s not always the easiest thing to do.

However, the myth part of the round could have probably been handled a bit better. I never really got a sense of where this story belonged. I think back to previous myth rounds, and when they’re done right, the myth is really embedded into the new timezone. Here, we got an urban setting, but then the mythical kept invading at random (the gods all use guns, except Thor who still has his hammer, for instance). It just made the story seem a bit disjointed.

My main concern was that the story never really flowed after a strong start. It wasn’t really a story; it was just some loosely connected scenes that were reasonably well-written. There’s no driving narrative. The main character fumbles from place to place, really doing nothing, and we get very little explanation as well either.

Overall, though, the writing was decent if a little direct. What I’d like you to take away from this is, though, is the needs of a story. Make sure it feels consistent in tone and place (the right balance between mythical and updated modern retelling). Make sure that there’s actually a plot to follow rather than a series of event. Inject some urgency into the narrative and make sure that the main character isn’t a complete passenger (it’s fine for him to be someone who’s caught up in something he doesn’t know – but he needs to do some shit for the story to get a decent sense of resolution).

But like I said, not a bad job. Keep up the good work.

[Matteo ((Taed))]

Team Zovo:

I had high hopes for this story at the start, but it came off the rails a bit after the first page break. The writing was pretty good, and you had a solid, interpretive set-up. Picking a figure from a related mythology as a sort of third-party, observational protagonist was a good idea, and selecting a hunter deity for that role played into the whole noir tone. And you started out strong in your attempts to engage with the source material while maintaining a unique take: making Freya’s three names and deaths into con jobs rather than mystical resurrections was a great idea.

You lost the thread after that, though. Rather than telling a story with well-rounded motivations and characters, you ended up checking off boxes on a list from the source text. Hoenir and Mimir die in the original myth, so you decided they had to die here as well. Which is fine, only you didn’t give us any reason for it. Our detective shows up at their house, gains nothing from the interaction, and then leaves without attempting to stop their off-screen murder.

Likewise with Kvasir. Why did the sequence of events go: Freya fakes her death and escapes the Aesir goons, Hoenir and Mimir are murdered (presumably by the Vanir), and then Freya is back with the Aesir and everybody makes up? That arc makes no sense. Surely events were building towards more bloodshed. We're missing a scene to justify the reconciliation.

So yeah, the plot needed to be better. I'm gratified to see that you at least gave it a go, and that you were able to put at least a bit of your own spin on things. Just needed to go further with that, rather than hewing to perfunctory accuracy at the expense of entertainment.