The Flock

Some of the most memorable creatures from Norse Mythology come creeping out of the shadow of Ragnarok. Their physical forms have changed, but at what cost?

It was like stretching out a taut muscle, a muscle that had not been flexed in over a CENTURY.

It felt good, like dipping my fingers and toes into a hot spring. Only, I had never dipped my fingers and toes into anything. I had never had fingers and toes to speak of, for a start. Not until my rebirth. Not until that freezing November morning, the air singing with sour notes like curdled milk, the final fishtail of bonfire smoke curling at the back of my throat.

I was born, but I didn’t know it. Things didn’t feel any different, not at first, not while my eyes were still knotted shut. When I finally opened them, my cheeks were damp. But what was even more astonishing was that I had cheeks. I raised a hand to my cheek, just one, and my fingers came away glistening like blades of long grass stained with dew. Was I now some kind of plant life? Had I been reborn a river reed swaying in the breeze with dew speckling my face? Stranger things had happened. I had seen them happen. But that was long ago…

The rebirth was not a messy affair. It took only a matter of moments, but it was a transformation nonetheless. There was no pain, no physical pain at least, just a kind of dull ache and then the unmistakable taste of thunder in the air and the mechanical whirr of my consciousness coming into being. And just like that my soul had been forged from the darkness of memory. And Memory, after all, had once been my name.