A Coward Among The Divine

Beginning of Ragnarok

Upon spotting the army of fire and ice giants heading for Asgard, the guard responsible with guarding Bifrost (the rainbow bridge connecting Asgard to the other 8 worlds), sounded his horn. This was the beginning of Ragnarok. As all the einherjar began preparation for the battle of their deaths, Dragan was nowhere to be seen. He was not on the battlefield, nor was with Heiðrún. Instead, he was found hiding between 2 beams that supported Valhalla. No longer was he a hero. No longer was he a warrior. No longer was he a einherjar. Now he was a man among gods, a coward among the divine.

Across the land he watched, with cowardice, the foretold deaths of the many he had pledged to fight with. Thor, a god that Dragan once aspired to be, was sighted in battle with Jörmungand ("YOUR-mun-gand"), the giant sea serpent. Dragan watched with bloodshot eyes as Thor smashed the sea serpent in the side with Mjölnir ("myOl-near", hammer of Thor), but the serpent did not move; instead he retaliated by biting Thor's torso. Thor tried to fight him but nothing worked. He had been bested by a reptile. As its fangs pierced deeper into the god, Thor never gave up hope, even as he was severed in two and devoured by the serpent. Jörmungand hisses as he slithered on, leaving death and desolation behind.

Next fight he watched was the fight he had dreaded the most. The death that he had hoped would not come true. Before him was Freyja, the last æsir rooting for him. With dry eyes and were unable to close, he watched as Freyja battled the fire giant Surtr. Surtr was a skilled fighter, but so was Freyja. The giant swung his fire sword hard and fast, but she was just that bit faster than him, ducking and weaving around the giant. They were fairly equal in skill and though her death was foretold, Dragan thought that she might win. Surtr pulled an attack, and Freyja was ready to duck behind the giant to hit him, but Surtr knew her moves and pulled and disengage, forcing his blade through Freyja's gut, finishing her and wiping his blade clean on one of the many folds of her dress.

Dragan couldn't believe what he just saw. He just let the only person that believed in him as an einherjar, die before his eyes. He really had failed.

With a clean blade, Surtr lit the grass around the body of the once glorious goddess, and set her ablaze. The corpse melted under the heavy flames of the fire, exhaling large opaque clouds of poison that danced with the air, fleeing with the wind. The foreign particles in the air assaulted Dragans eyes, but he could not look away. The fire that used her as fuel, turning her body into charcoal, was like no flame created by man. This fire was beautiful. Even in all of its destruction, the embers soared to other lands, igniting the life, spreading devastation.

Frozen in place and frozen in time, Dragan didn't notice the land sinking into the ocean until the water reached his bare feet. It stung Dragan's skin, and he screamed. Closed between the 2 beams, he was cornered with nowhere to escape. The water climbed higher, stinging him and ripping away his façade. The water that purified the land, also purified him. Higher and higher the water rose, burning more and more of his flesh, but as the water reached his head, Dragan started choking on the water that entered his mouth, drowning him. One would think "why doesn't Dragan just float to the surface?" but as hard as he tried to rise up, his guilt weighed him down like a rock forcing him lower and lower as more and more water poured over the tainted land and his tainted corpse. As all of Asgard was covered by the sea, the water devoured the lifeless bodies of the gods, and the world was submerged into the darkness of the anti-cosmic void that is Ginnungagap.