(Siegfried's P.O.V)
The wind howled like a beast, growing wilder as Fafnir neared the mountain's jagged peaks.
I held fast to the sacrificial platform, but the currents battered me, each gust like a hammer blow.
Then my grip slipped.
The wind tore me loose.
I tumbled through the air, limbs flailing. The mountain rushed up to meet me—but before I could hit, the forest stirred.
Branches twisted. Vines reached. Leaves stretched upward like hands.
They caught me. Slowed me. Broke my fall in stages.
Still, I hit the ground hard. The impact rattled through my bones. But I was alive. No broken limbs. No torn flesh.
Just breath. And pain.
I lay there for a moment, staring up at the sky, the mountain looming above like a god watching in silence.
Then I stood. Looked up.
Fafnir's cave. Somewhere near the summit.
I started to climb.
No ropes. No tools. Just hands and will.
My fingers dug into stone, skin peeling, muscles burning. Blood smeared the rock. My body screamed with every pull. The fall had taken more out of me than I'd realized.
Halfway up, the wind whispered. But it wasn't wind.
It was doubt.
"What are you doing? She's already gone. You don't even know her that well."
"You're no warrior. No hero. Just a slave who forgot his place."
"You should go back. Crawl. Beg. Maybe they'll let you live."
The words dug into my spine. My grip slipped. My chest tightened. My legs felt like they weighed more than stone.
I stopped, forehead against the rock.
What's the point?
They were right, weren't they?
You have no weapon. No strength left. No hope.
Everyone has a place. And yours was never the mountain.
Then, just as I thought I might let go—
A voice.
Deep. Powerful. Familiar, yet unknown.
"Begone, shades. For he is mine."
The mountain shook. A pulse like thunder rolled through the stone.
The doubts screamed—and were ripped out of me.
I gasped, jerking upright, as ghostly forms—pale and broken—flew from my chest and into the sky. Warriors. Hunters. Wanderers. All consumed by Fafnir. All buried beneath the weight of despair.
Gone in a breath.
I clung to the wall, stunned. Breathing hard.
'Who are you?' I asked in my mind.
The voice only said:
"I wait Siegfried. Will you be worthy?"
And then it was silent.
But I wasn't alone anymore.
I climbed.
Faster. Stronger. Hand over hand until I reached the ledge that led to a wide black mouth carved into the mountain—the entrance to Fafnir's cave.
I stumbled in.
Bones littered the path. Burnt wood. Melted gold. Cracked shields.
Just inside the cave mouth, half-buried in ash, I found a rusted spear—long, flaking, pitted with age. I picked it up. Too long. Too light in the wrong places.
Near it lay a broken sword, chipped and dulled, its hilt scorched. I took it instead. Heavy. Ugly. But at least it could swing in close quarters.
Still… neither felt right.
Like holding a lie.
But I had no time for comfort. Only action.
The cave sloped downward. Heat rose from the depths. The air shimmered like a forge.
I tightened my grip.
The deeper I walked, the darker the cave grew.
Sunlight had long since vanished behind me. My eyes adjusted—slowly—just in time to stop myself from falling into a jagged gorge that split the path.
I took a few steps back, ran, and leapt—barely landing on the other side. My boots scraped the rock as I staggered forward, heart pounding.
A web of tunnels stretched out before me.
Then I heard it—Dia's scream, raw and terrified, echoing from the tunnel to my right.
I didn't think. I ran.
Sword raised. Heart locked on that sound.
A cloud of bats burst from the dark, shrieking past me in a flurry of wings. I ducked and kept moving.
Then the walls trembled.
The air thickened.
And from the tunnel's depths came a roar—a monstrous, choking blast of fire.
The heat hit me too fast to move. I dropped to the ground as flames poured toward me. The sword in my hand melted in seconds. My clothes ignited. Skin blistered.
I screamed from the pain.
'Gaea,' I thought of the Earth goddess who had always shown her favor, for the first time in my life. 'Please. Let me through this.'
The fire died as suddenly as it had come, replaced by silence and the stink of burnt flesh.
I opened my eyes. My skin was red, raw—boiled. But even as I watched, the blisters began to dry, scabbing over.
I didn't understand how. I didn't stop to ask.
I just ran.
The tunnel widened.
And then it opened into Fafnir's inner chamber.
A vast cavern, its floor a sea of treasure—coins, crowns, weapons, bones. Mountains of gold gleamed in the dragonfire glow.
Atop the tallest pile of treasure sat Fafnir.
Smoke drifted from his nostrils. His massive body coiled around itself, wings twitching lazily as molten eyes locked on me.
"You survived the flame," he said, voice like shifting boulders. "Impressive."
"Where is she?" I shouted.
Fafnir chuckled.
He belched—and from his mouth tumbled a scrap of fabric.
Dia's dress. Torn.
"She fought," he said, flexing a claw. "Clawed. Bit. Screamed. I grew bored. So I swallowed her."
He licked his fangs.
"But you arrived just in time… for the next course."
Flames bloomed in his throat.
I dove sideways, landing in a pile of gold as fire scorched the air behind me.
Fafnir laughed. "I enjoy when food fights back. Especially when it pretends to be the predator."
He slithered closer, voice rising.
"And then it realizes it has no hope. That it can't win. Can't run. The moment when it breaks… that's when it becomes tender."
I scrambled through treasure, ducking behind shields and broken helms. A heartbeat later, his tail whipped through, scattering gold and slamming me into a pillar.
Before I could move, one of his wing-hooks pinned me to the wall, spearing through my shoulder.
Pain ripped through me. I screamed, teeth clenched, blood pouring.
Fafnir leaned in close, his head massive, his breath rancid—meat, fur, bone. Fire glowed deep in his throat.
But he paused.
"You're different," he said. "You don't smell like a thief. Or a hero. You're not here for gold. Not for glory. Something tells me it's not only for the girl either."
His eyes narrowed.
"You don't fear me. Why?"
I stared at him, eyes burning, lungs heaving.
"I could ask the same," I muttered.
Fafnir blinked. Curious.
"What is your name, strange little thing?"
I smiled through the pain.
And drew the golden dagger I'd pocketed from the hoard.
"Siegfried."
And I stabbed it into his left eye.
Fafnir howled.
The sound cracked the chamber.
He recoiled, thrashing, blood and flame spraying the walls as he flung me across the room, roaring, "MY EYE!"
I slammed into a pile of shields, gasping.
He thrashed and clawed at the dagger still lodged in his face, his eye now a mess of black ichor and molten blood.
"I'LL KILL YOU!" he screamed, voice shaking the mountain.
But I was already crawling up.
Swordless. Bleeding.
But alive.
I ran, lungs searing, across the shifting gold beneath my feet.
Fafnir's fire chased me in furious waves—each breath a wall of molten death that turned the dragon's hoard into pools of slag.
I dove, rolled, and scrambled, just ahead of the flame.
I spotted a gold pillar—a relic of some ancient temple or throne—half-buried in coins.
With a roar, I gripped it and heaved with all my full strength, veins bulging as I wrenched it free. The weight nearly crushed me, but I staggered forward and hurled it at Fafnir.
He didn't even flinch.
A flick of his claw split it in two.
"There you are, little rat," he growled.
A second later, fire split the air—not the wide, sweeping breath from before, but a narrow, precise beam that cracked the stone beneath my feet.
I raised the magical golden shield I'd found in the treasure.
The beam hit like the sun itself.
The shield groaned. Gold around me melted into puddles. The heat was unbearable, but I held.
Fafnir stalked forward.
"I'll rip your tongue from your head. Pull your eyes from their sockets. Leave you just enough to scream—my little pet."
He lunged.
I lifted the shield again—but this time the blow came from his wing, not his fire.
It slammed into me, breaking the shield's enchantment and sending me flying.
I crashed into the cave wall, and the world went black for a moment.
When I came to, I was slumped in rubble, broken, bleeding, and still on fire. My skin cracked, blistered, burned. Every movement screamed agony.
Please... I thought. Strike again. Like with Reinhardt.
But the skies were silent.
The heat rose again. Fafnir's steps boomed behind me.
"Perhaps I'll burn you to ash instead," he hissed. "Let's see if you can endure true draconic flame. The Skyfire."
Blue light burned in his throat, swirling into a blinding core.
I staggered upright.
"Wait," I gasped.
He paused. "Why?"
"You'll destroy your hoard."
Fafnir blinked once. Then smiled with all his jagged teeth.
"Gold can be pillaged again. But my eye… not even the greatest magiks can return that."
Then the flame came.
A torrent of blue fire roared from his mouth, melting stone, shattering treasure, and blowing me across the chamber like dust in a hurricane.
The second shield in my hand dissolved to ash.
I hit the far wall.
Everything went numb.
My skin peeled, charred. Smoke rose from me. My limbs were cracked sticks.
I couldn't move.
'Rest,' the voices whispered. 'You've done enough. You were never meant to win. You're just a slave.'
The doubts returned—heavier than ever. Pulling me down.
But then—that voice.
"Get up."
It rang from deep within.
"A midgardian wyrm is not your end. You'll face worse. If you cannot stand… then crawl."
I groaned, one trembling hand on the ground.
"Crawl toward your destiny."
So I did.
I dragged myself forward, each inch a battle, following the pull of the voice.
Fafnir loomed behind me, taking slow steps, savoring the moment.
But I kept crawling, drawn to a light.
And there, beneath a shaft of sunlight breaking through the shattered mountain roof—it waited.
A hammer.
Perched atop a throne of stone. Its head thick, runes glowing softly, dust covering it like it had been waiting an eternity. The same hammer from my dreams.
It called to me.
Fafnir slowed, puzzled, then chuckled. "You crawl to Mjolnir?" he scoffed. "Even gods fear its weight. And you think you'll lift it? Who do you think you are, the fucking Thunderer! Bah!"
I didn't answer. I reached.
And gripped the handle.
It felt like coming home.
I stood. Effortlessly.
The hammer rose with me—not with strain, not with struggle, but like it wanted to be held.
Fafnir froze.
"WHAAAAAAT?!"
Then the heavens responded.
A pillar of lightning screamed from the sky and obliterated the mountain, vaporizing stone and shadow.
Fafnir, buried beneath the collapse, broke free moments later—shields of magic cracking around him as he clawed out.
But the skies had changed.
I floated above the ruins—clad in lightning, runes glowing across my skin. Hair like wildfire. Blood turned gold.
He looked up, one-eyed and terrified.
"No… No! This wasn't part of the deal! Thor wasn't—"
He turned and fled, wings beating the sky.
But I was already moving.
I spun Mjolnir—felt its hum, its power, its will—and hurled it.
A crack split the air as the sound shattered. In a blink, I was in front of Fafnir.
He didn't even have time to react.
Mjolnir struck his skull.
The beast spiraled downward, screaming, smashing into the earth and leaving a crater behind.
He tried to rise.
But Mjolnir followed—slamming into his back, pinning him with impossible force.
I descended after it. Calm. Focused.
Cracking my fingers.
Fafnir raised a claw. "Please—wait! I was wrong! I didn't know! Lord Thor—have mercy!"
I stopped in front of him.
Felt the storm surge around me. Felt the name Thor, settle with a finality within my soul. For I was his reincarnation.
And I said what Thor would say in this situation:
"I am going to bathe in your blood, Wyrm."
::----------------::
Chapter 4 title: Loki.