FSE

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"If you bind me so that I can't get free, then you will sneak away so that it will be a long time before I get any help from you. I don't want to have that ribbon put on me! But rather than be accused of cowardice by you, let one of you place his hand in my mouth as a pledge that this is done in good faith." In the half circle gathering around him, the gods before the large wolf looked to one another, but none moved to obey the canine's request until Tyr stepped forward.

_A small hush sunk around them while Tyr's hand settled down onto the rug of the large beast's tongue. Then, the dwarven Gleipnir bound around him. Fenrir strained against the band, but it held firm. He struggled, and the gods around him broke in ringing tones of laughter. With a jolt of anger, his jaws snapped down. The copper bite of blood filled his mouth. Laughter rang in his ears. _

Outraged, he thrashed against the chain and stretched his jaws open, wanting to bite. A sword was thrust between his jaws, the hilt to his lower jaw and the pointed blade to his upper. His howl rang out, but it didn't ring louder than the laughter.

"Fenrir, Fenrir! Wake up!" Two strong hands grabbed onto the large wolf's shoulders, rocking her entire weight into him. Contrasting scents swam into Fenrir's memory, instead of the rankness of the cave he smelled cider, spiced with cinnamon. The sting of the sword's point weakened against the roof of his mouth.

"Fenrir! Wake UP!" Two eyes, at last, shot open. Alsa filled the canine's vision. Her own eyes were wide, edged with steely upset though concern also showed in the softening of her face when he woke. His own eyes were tinged with wetness and twitched side to side with anxiety.

The leopardess's blonde locks were loose around her face, freshly brushed out to hang past her shoulders in damp, crimped waves. Instead of her traditional leather, she wore a loose white skirt with a simple, brown blouse that hung loosely on her body. For a moment, Fenrir abandoned his dream, but it came rushing back to him moments later.

"I'll never escape," Fenrir growled. The look in his eyes shifted from bewilderment to anger. His gaze harden and he pulled back from the leopardess, shifting as though to head towards the stairs they'd entered from the night before.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Alsa demanded, sympathy gone the moment he attempted to leave. A hand darted out and snagged the loose scruff of his neck. "You need to sit." Her voice hardened further, gruff and commanding. "First, Tell me what is going on. Second, don't you ever, ever attempt to walk out of here again. You made a promise and I know you have more dignity that to go against a promise like the Aesirs did."

Stung by her words, Fenrir froze on the rug in the middle of the room. His hackles rose while a growl gurgled from his throat. Whirling around, his jaw dropped into a snarl. "How dare you?!" Both ears pinned back to his head while his eyes narrowed towards the leopardess, whom appeared unfazed by the outburst.

"And how dare you! I found you! I saved you from certain death when I released you at Ragnarok! You made a vow, Fenrisulfr." The leopardess remained unnerved by the wolf's large size, a quality he had enjoyed earlier when his size hadn't deterred their sex, but it was now unsettling the wolf's outburst to stare down at a female half of his size who didn't blink in the face of him. Even when he stepped closer, bearing overtop of her with a spray of foaming saliva, she didn't retreat back; she didn't even flinch. Seeing his hesitation, Alsa softened slightly. "Now, calm down and tell me what is happening."

A long silence settled between the pair, leaving only the faint drip of the faucet upstairs to fill the silence of life underground. Until finally, the large wolf sighed and sank onto the ground. "I dreamed about it."

Alsa didn't speak, but she gave a small nod, urging him to continue.

"I could taste the blood, the sword." Both of the creature's massive shoulder sagged downwards, and his chest settled into the floor. Alsa watched the replay of the legendary betrayal in the beast's eyes. The heart of the little girl, captivated by the mythological wolf and impassioned by that betrayal, ached for him inside Alsa's chest, but her logical, mature mind weighed heavily in her thoughts.

"You know you cannot seek revenge. You'd be justifying their actions in chaining you. You'd prove you were a danger, a menace." Her voice remained cool, disconnected. Still, conflict plagued her emotions. She too would desire to seek revenge after such betrayal, yet it wasn't the answer.

"They laughed, Alsa. It wasn't even just a duty for them. Do the legends say that? That they laughed at me? The foolish brute eager to prove he could break another chain! A fool to trust! Friendship is not a possibility if you hold any strength." His hackles rose again, hairs prickling up down his neck and onto the hump of his back's slope. "They laughed..."

*****

"They laughed, dammit! It had gone beyond duty for them!" One hand slammed onto the broad oak bar, jostling the empty pint beside him. From behind the bar, the aging bartender eyed the familiar patron, only shaking his head at the outburst.

Stubble dotted along the man's chin, the lingering shadow of a man who'd ignored the task of shaving. His tunic hung loose, undone on the top to show the wispy hair on his thin chest. Beside his frosted glass, the stump of a hand pounded onto the wood. "They laughed! Hah! Bastards, every, single one." A bitter chuckle started in the man's throat, but cut off with a wet rasp in the back of his throat.

The sound perked the dull eyes of the bartender into rounded circles while he didn't care about the woes of his customers, he did care if they retched onto the bar. "Hey, buddy. Why don't you take it outside."

Tyr glanced to the bartender and shook his head towards him, rolling to the side of his stool with waving legs that both miraculously landed on the ground evenly. The same disgust he held for "they" showed in his expression towards the dismissive bartender. Nonetheless, he stumbled across the tavern floor and pushed through the swinging wooden doors into the foggy light of afternoon. Rushing past on the street, a young vagrant peek at the stranger with blatant curiosity.

"Hey mister! Where's your hand?"

Tyr snarled, teeth yellowed with age and ale. "It's rotting in hell where I soon will be."

The child blinked and scurried off, realizing the man was not as harmless a drunk wanderer as he appeared. While his footfalls petered off, the god dropped himself into a barrel, pushed to the wall of a building. "Perhaps, if I joined my hand it'd be better than a life disgusted by the past and haunted in the present. What good am I to the world? A legend? Hah!" Bitter laughter burst out from the inebriated god once again before he spat yellow phlegm onto the dusty ground.

Shaking his head towards himself, the gods, and the world itself, Tyr rocked back into the wall and breathed a wavering breath. His good hand grazed the healed skin of the stump. "My reminder, my atonement...Every day like this..." He sighed, weak with liquor and lack of sleep, and promptly fell asleep.

*****

"I know how you must feel." Alsa flinched as she heard her own words.

Shortly, Fenrir growled low in his throat, and piercing yellow eyes met her own with a steel glare. "Oh? You've been deceived, chained in a cave, and left there for decades? Do tell the story, so we can discuss the similarities together."

Alsa returned his glare, unamused by the use of self- deprecating humor to avoid the subject. "Stop that," she snapped. "I refuse to even attempt to help you if you're going to be a illogical buffoon. You deserve better, it's true. The gods, Aesir, they did deceive you. They acted without consideration, don't you plan to do the same."

Again, the hair shot up into a spiked hump. Fenrir's tail hovered straight above the ground, angry and on edge. "Revenge does not require consideration. I suggest you do not toy with me. You are as expendable as I deem you. Do not fool yourself into believing I could not kill you. You even lack armor today, a foolish sign of trust on your part." He laughed, bitter and harsh; the sound resembling more of a bark than a true laugh.

"Fenrisulf, you made a vow to me. You are not the creature Aesir deemed you. Killing me, however, would prove otherwise. So, by all means, prove them right and perhaps they'll come collect you and return you to the cave where you purposely belong."

The dog's tail lowered. Still tense, the wolf's head tipped down, stung by her pointed remark. Slowly, his hackles returned to a relaxed position, though blood still rushed through his head. "They convicted me of a crime I had yet to commit, they chained me for a wrong not committed. Is that not a wrong in itself?"

"You are right," Alsa conceded. "However, if you attacked Aesir now, would you not then be committing a crime worthy of the punishment they gave then? You'd be fulfilling their expectations."

Silence crackled along the tension in the air, a spark in air filled with electricity. But then the beast nodded. His eyes hung down, heavy with the weight of his anger, his betrayal, and an inescapable history. "Fine, I'll stay. Relax. I'll remain here, without even revenge to heal my wounds." The wolf slowly lifted himself from the floor, walking slowly till he collapsed onto the low- rise bed on the other side of the room. The bed croaked with his entry, but then silence returned as he laid his head down.

Alsa breathed out once, moving to her work table where her hands splayed over the smooth surface. "He can't live with this," she told herself, glancing to the bookshelf of his legend- each one filled with the reminder of those who betrayed him. "Something needs to be done..." In two quick steps, the female approached the bookshelf, plucking a thinner volume of maps. "And I think I know what to do."

*****

"Sir? Sir, can you spare a coin?" A small hand tugged at Tyr's loose tunic, making it slide to show his shoulder with skin rough and scarred from battle. With a croaking yawn, the man faced the waking world and swiveled his gaze down to the small child, barely a toddler tugging on the corner of his top.

"What the hell do you want?" He growled, relishing for a moment the flash of fear in the child's eyes before realization of that cruelty sunk over him and he fished out a coin. Tyr dropped it in front of the child whom snatched it from the air and scampered off, bare feet kicking up dust.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" Tyr hissed, glaring out around him as he gathered his bearings. Night had sunk in around the dingy town he'd settled in most recently. Though, now that the barkeep had kicked him out, Tyr began to prod towards the next closest village with a tavern. While he walked, boots, slow and heavy on the dirt road, his cleared mind returned to what haunted him daily- the binding of Fenrir.

"We betrayed him, but mine was the worst. Rather than charge him for a crime, we bound him before he'd committed any wrong. We created a prophecy of a self- fulfilling nature. It will not be true evil that drives him to kill, but his hatred for our crime that brings him to do the wrong we wished to prevent. Even our wrong has done more wrong..." He muttered, looking out on the dusty path he walked along. He eyed the distant sight of the mountains to the west and the small path visible of the river Von, expectation. Staring out over the landscape, Tyr felt another pang. Though, not of guilt.

Pausing on the road, letting night sink in around him, the god who'd betrayed the great Fenrir fished into his cloak for a leather flask, dropped onto the road, and drank.

*****

"I have to find Tyr," Alsa muttered to herself as she flicked her wrist towards the candles around her table, lighting them with absent magic. Her eyed pored over the open pages of a book, collected poems that mentioned Fenrir, but many of them also had fragmented mentions of the god Tyr. In a notebook, she jotted down his mentioned places, but none of them fit with locations on a realistic map.

Across the room, in her bed, Fenrir whimpered with the replaying of his nightmare once again, beginning with the first, breakable chain. Agitation played across the wolf's muzzle, twitching and parting with anxious snarls. Occasionally, the girl glanced over her shoulder to the wolf, but the sight of such a great creatures plagued by memories bit at her confidence, so partway through the night she closed the curtain between them and left herself in privacy to study alone.

Curiously, Alsa flicked her gaze to the collected amounts of sperm from the large wolf, momentarily considering the godly ties between Fenrir and the god she searched for, Tyr.

"Perhaps, if I enchanted a map to find relations, it would mistake the godly ties as traditional blood relations..." Alsa mumbled to herself, plucking another, smaller tome from her collected spells. With instinctive memory, she leafed through the pages with one hand while the other held the book stretched open. Finding the spell, she balanced the book onto a small stand between the largest candles, and spread the map out in the space in front of her. Carefully, she licked her lips and drew the bottle of semen towards the map, swirling it before she uncapped it and began to chant.

Her voice stay low with both eyes focused ahead on the words she needed to speak while her hands worked with ease of muscle memory to carefully drop the substance onto the midpoint of the map.

As she finished the spell, Alsa fell silent and the soft hum of her melodic chanting disappeared. At first, nothing occurred, but the leopardess remained patiently standing at her work table, peering down at the map until slowly, something did. From the center of the map, the substance, Fenrir's semon, spread outwards and appeared to dissolve into the parchment. Then, with spastic pattern, a splotch appeared on the map where Alsa's own home sat, a marker for the owner of the semen itself. Second, a faint trail spread out past the mountains where Fenrir had been trapped into a dusty basin, known for broken towns of beggars and vagrants. The map formed a single bleeding dot, spreading out like ink dotted onto wet paper.

"Well, that will either be Tyr himself, or someone who can tell me where to find him," Alsa mumbled, lifting the map carefully with a small nod. "I must prepare."

*****

While Alsa slipped out of her skirt and top and redressed in her leather garb, securing the corseted leather armor around her body with practiced quickness, Fenrir watched with a parted eye. Kicked from sleep, he saw her with her map in the candlelight, though he didn't understand where she was going. Instead of alerting her, he watched as she bustled through the room, collecting a scroll- shaped container that hung from her waist, presumably to protect the enchanted map; a heavy coin bag, secured onto the sturdy belt she wore; and her boots, which she tied only her feet with quick fingers.

Once dressed and prepared, except for the food and water she could gather from her kitchen, the leopardess crept towards the bed. However, she paused just behind the curtain, uncertain whether bringing the wolf would be a safe idea, seeing the man who'd tricked him years ago without warning may be a harsh reality for the wolf. Though, if left here she'd have to trust him not to find him on his own, which she didn't. That left the option of binding him here magically, but Alsa was unsure she had to power to do so, or the heart to trap him. So, bringing him along it was.

"Fenrir, wake." She stepped through the curtain to see the small glimmer of his eye. "Good, you're awake. Come on."

"Where are we going?" Fenrir grumbled, following Alsa up the stairs with a groggy slowness brought on by sleep's evading practice.

"We're going to find someone, someone who can help you find resolution," Alsa explained while sifting through the drawers of her kitchen. She tugged out an empty knapsack and proceeded to fill it with jerky, biscuits, apples, and several jars of pickles which appeared to be the only things in the kitchen.

"Who can do that?" Fenrir's eyes followed Alsa as she carefully selected her water flask and attached it to the hip left empty. Before they exited, she checked her supplies once and muttered an incantation to the door, sealing it till she returned.

Once outside, surrounded only by pale morning light that broke atop the mountain's to their left, Alsa fidgeted with his question, left with nothing else to distract with.

"Who can do that?" Fenrir repeated, no malice in his voice, yet his tone relented.

"The god, Tyr."

*****

"Goddammit! What is that horrid noise!?" Tyr woke to the sound of wagon wheels vibrating the road beneath his ear where his head had slumped down after he'd emptied his flask the night before, halfway between towns. Blinking against the painful stabbing light of the sun, Tyr waved a hand towards the driver.

"Need a ride?" Tyr grunted in response, nodding while he climbed onto the back of the wagon, stumbling only once. "Where are ya headed?"

Tyr looked to the driver, a middle aged man mostly likely coming home from trading in a larger city, eager to get home to his family, but willing to help a miserable man such as Tyr. "Take me anywhere."

While the wagon rolled forward, Tyr slumped his head onto his palms and stared to the mountain again, beneath which Fenrir remained, to his knowledge, bound. "Perhaps," he thought, "The beast is dead and I waste my time thinking of him constantly." For a moment, the thought calmed him and he let the wagon roll on, screeching wheels filling his head instead of thought.

"But, perhaps, he isn't."

"Mister? Driver, can you let me off here. I must check something. Give my best to your kids."

The wagon rolled to a stop, kicking up dust and an annoyed whinny from the aging horse. Tyr swung off the back and began to walk, leaving the driver blinking behind him.

*****

"You expect me to what? Get him to apologize? How do you think seeing..that..that traitor will assist me! Perhaps, if you let me kill just him!" The wolf seethed with anger, but Alsa raised once hand in a gesture for silence.

"Shut up. The map, it's shifting."

And indeed it was. The dot formed earlier that night began to trace forward while miles away Tyr stumbled into the brush alongside the road where the wagon stopped. The line traced slowly, but the coincidence of where he headed was impossible to mistake.

"He's going to the mountain."

*****

"He'd better be dead. If I walk all this way to have my head bitten off I will be a sorely mistaken man. I will be very unhappy for find myself dead by morning, though perhaps I deserve it. I surely do, actually.

I really wish I had a drink. Dammit! I wish grass did not grow in such a way!" Tyr, once a god of the sword, had deteriorated in agility once the only grounds he patrolled were bar grounds where he could get a stiff drink.

Over the years, as his guilt thickened, Tyr had fallen into a method of coping that broke down his mind and body like it was a race between the two- which would fail first. Currently, the winner wasn't clear.

"I wish I had never even thought of this. I'm going to die wandering around out here. I didn't bring a spot of water! Though I haven't had water since last January, booze is easier to buy in these parts than creak drippings."

Steadily, chattering to himself like an elderly woman does alone in her home, Tyr returned to the sight of his deceit years and years ago.

*****

"What do you expect to happen? That we'll all sit down with a pussy cat as a moderator! This isn't something you can chant a little tune to yourself for and have it all work out! He betrayed me, Alsa! This is beyond you."

The leopardess, who for hours had remained silent in response to the wolf's tirade, suddenly spun on her heels. "Beyond me!? I found you. I found you after the rest of the entire world had forgotten you. You are not a legend any more, you are just a story that might be told at bedtime, but most likely not. You have been forgotten in exchange for battle stories and father's war tales. You were not important to anyone. You would not even have the option for revenge if I had not tracked you down and freed you. I did not have to free you. I could have witnessed you and brought others, made you into an amusement. I could have profited from your torture. Torture is profitable in this world, you see. People love to see something being miserable. Something strange, magical in its depression. They would have adored seeing the great Fenrir, the forgotten tale, chained in a cave drooling a river. So you have no right to claim this is beyond me. You are mine. I freed you, you owe me your freedom."

Panting, Alsa finished and turned once again. Increasing their pace, Alsa stomped ahead of him. Her tail lashed behind her with bubbling anger at the wolf's thoughtless commentary, and for the first time, Fenrir remained silent.

Watching the leopardess, Fenrir realized her dedication. She had shared stories with him only the day before, private glimpses into her life. "At first, the search seemed endless, but each time I uncovered a fresh writing on the matter, one detail might fall into place that was consistent with someone else's vocal history, passed down through centuries till it was written down in a storybook," She'd said the night before. She'd hunted for him, working out each detail with logical, careful precision. If she'd only needed him for the possibility of his magical qualities, she could have left him chained, easy to control and return to once she knew the location. She risked her life in freeing a beast she didn't truly know wouldn't kill her. She'd slept curled into his side, trusting.

Fenrir's stomach churned at the word. Against all odds, she trusted him. Would he then betray her trust as Aesir had done to him. Fenri couldn't, wouldn't do such a thing. Knowing her dedication, her sacrifice, Fenrir began to trust her in return.

*****

Tyr's monoloque fell silent after four hours of walking. The only sound on his pathway were the rustling of the gras the tangled into his feet with each step, the plod of his footfalls, and the croaking sound of his breathing every few seconds when he drew in a shaky breath. Walking from tavern to tavern and walking across a large expanse of countryside were two very different things, and the drunkard's body wasn't accustomed to the work.

However, against the odds, the mountain was steadily growing larger. Tyr could see the small sand bank that Alsa and Fenrir had stopped at their first night together, though he didn't recognize the small scuffs in the sand as a covered fire pit when he stumbled past to the cool water, drinking greedily.

Thirsty as he was, the water was as intoxicating as whiskey.

*****

Nearing the mountain, Alsa slowed to walked beside Fenrir, who had silently hung behind her. "Look, I know this will be difficult, but I think this is what you need as a resolution. The chapter of your life as being the victim of this wrong doing is going to come to a close and something new is going to start."

The leopardess glanced down to the wolf, seeing that he peered up towards her with wide, striking yellow hues. She fidgeted, nervous, before continuing. "It's hard to believe it's possible and controlling yourself won't be easy, but if you kill that man then we will have a right to kill you in return. If you constrain yourself, however, you may learn something that will solve your torment right now." Alsa looked to her hand, averting her eyes from the wolf's. She hesitated, as if going to say more, but then fell completely silent.

However, Fenrir noticed the self censorship and nudged his head into her leg, making her skip to the side in surprise. "If this chapter closes, what chapter will be beginning?"

Alsa's mouth opened, but then shut after no words came flowing out, and before she could attempt to speak again the cave opening came into view and she fished out the map once again.

"He appears to be extraordinarily close by." Alsa murmured, tracing her finger along the track to the stream. "He stopped for water at the river, but now he's following it to the cave."

Based on the shape of the river, the leopardess stared across the distance to spot the small shape of a man, trudging just off the beach's edge. His steps were uneven, pitching forward slightly occasionally and wobbling with weak legs beneath him.

"He appears to be..having trouble.." Alsa commented, looking a mix of confused and surprised by the legendary, one- handed god's approach. Though, glancing down at the map, she confirmed it would be him, not a coincidentally wandering homeless drunkard.

Waiting for him to approach, Fenrir stiffened beside Alsa, but neither spoke for a long moment until he entered into the realm just within their view. Stubble had sprouted helter- skelter hairs that shot off from his face without an groomed pattern. Atop his head, the hair there mimicked the same wild sloppiness. Both eyes were sunk back, giving her face a hallowed look while his mouth hung partway open, mid pant as he hauled himself up a small incline. The tunic he wore, streaked with mud from his drink, hung to the right and showed a bare shoulder. His good hand gripped tightly to a stick he leaned into for assistance walking and the other stump swung uselessly beside him, slapping carelessly into his thigh.

20 feet from them, he looked up. Surprise shot across the man's face. "You're not dead." He gasped, frozing on the patch of ground he stood on.

Alsa blinked, confused, "Stunning observation from the god of justice."

Beside her, stiff with tension, Fenrir grunted, "Smells more like the god of mead to me." His nose twitched in the air, catching the lingering stench of liquor that the man practically sweated.

"H-how did you get out? Did you break the bonds? Did you break the cord?" Tyr began to stumble forward, arms outstretched for balance.

"I freed him." Alsa spoke up before the wolf, sternly looking to the god. "We've also tracked you down. Do you have anything to say for yourself? For Aesir?"

For a moment, only the river gurgled between the trio. Alsa stood forward between them, but Fenrir lingered back. His recent nightmares and the past memories of his binding plagued his mind at the sight of Tyr, but also a small part resented what had occurred to turn the once proud god into a bumbling drunk.

Then, Tyr stumbled another pace forward. "Fenrir, we made a mistake. God, they laughed at you. I-I can't speak for the rest, they abandoned me as well long ago, but, as for myself, I see their wrong, my wrong. We betrayed you, forced you into a prophecy of revenge, which I'm assuming you've come to enact..." The man straightened, as though preparing to proudly take a blow, which he received from a glaring leopardess across his cheek in an open handed slap.

"Get off your fuckin' soap box. What do you think this is the theatre? Fenrir is above revenge. You've already destroyed yourself, the worst thing we can do is continue to let you decline as I see you have been. What a pathetic mess." Her fur stood on end, tail lashing and a fierce conflict flickered behind her eyes. Confronted with the man who'd caused the torture she'd witnessed in her bed, holding Fenrir captive in memory replaying as nightmares, she felt the rush of outrage she'd held back explode forth, but a small nudge to her knee made her pause.

Fenrir had moved forward, looking to the slumped god before he spoke, "Do you truly believe you put me in the position to do the wrong expected of me?"

Tyr blinked, still shocked by the aggressive female and the control of the massive beast. "Uh, yes. I have for years. It's plagued me what we did. We condemned you of a crime not committed."

Fenrir swallowed, thinking back past his binding in history to the times before. To the time where Tyr hadn't been his betrayer, but his supporter, his friend. Slowly, he nodded. "Good. Of all Aesir, I had wanted you to understand I did nothing wrong."

Tyr glanced momentarily at Alsa, shielding back from her cold glare, then stared to the yellow glow of Fenrir's gaze. "Fenrisulf, nothing in life have I regretted more than betraying you."

For a moment, Fenrir's lip tugged up into a half grin, "Here I thought your greatest regret was your cuckoldry-"

"Loki never let that go." Tyr added, a smile cracking onto his grave face.

Awkwardly, the two old friends, broken by betrayal, silently realized this was their last interaction- pleasant or otherwise. They had marked acceptance of the mistake made and of what they'd once had, but both knew it wasn't a reparable bond.

So, Fenrir turned away from the god and leaned slightly towards Alsa, looking to her face with an intense gaze. "You said I have a new chapter," he started, rumbling in a wolfish whisper, "What will you name this one?"

Alsa felt a small smile tug up her lips, "Fenrir: New Beginnings."