The Eye of Elddraugur

On days like these Freyja stayed indoors; sun-filled days, brimming with life, where the chill of perpetual winter loosened its bony grip upon Draugavik. “Indoors” was inaccurate; there were no more doors, just holes in the stone where sunlight peered through every so often. On moonlit nights, she would wander the ash fields, trace along the scars of lava flows, leave traceless footprints in the black sand beaches, but not today, not on a day when the Sun would not set.

She could still feel the ash in her lungs sometimes, even if she couldn’t quite feel anymore. “This isn’t happening,” she repeated over and over again as Elddraugur up above spewed molten rock and burning dust from the very heart of the Earth. And as the residents of Draugavik offered that same prayer to a silent Heaven, Hell answered in its stead. When Freyja awoke, she awoke from ash. Her father Magnus rose, too, as did her mother Elin, and all her brothers and sisters and friends and relatives. Bathed in moonlight, the ghastly remnants of Draugavik refused to die, carried on their unlife as though nothing had happened, before the lava had even had a chance to cool.

The Sun would rise on Draugavik once a year, trace the horizon before sinking into oblivion. It was days like these when Draugavik would spring to life, step outside, feel sunbeams sink into their skin. Not so much anymore. The first year after the eruption, when the Sun rose to meet the rim of the sky, when Erik’s boy Lokir ran out to meet it once more, the Sun pierced him, brought him back to the ash from where he rose. And so Draugavik made a decision: They would continue to choose not to die, even if that meant never feeling the warmth of the Sun on their skin ever again. Still, when Freyja closed her eyes sometimes, she could see the echo of little Lokir in his second final moments: Melting into a sunbeam, his ear-to-ear grin lingering like a scar in the air before vanishing into nothing.

On this sunlit day, Freyja felt the weight of the town's choice more acutely than ever. Staying indoors, away from the piercing rays that could end their ghostly existence, she could almost hear the whispers of the past mingling with the silence of the present. The decision to remain in the shadows had kept them together, a spectral community bound by a shared history and an unspoken pact.

Freyja closed her eyes and let herself remember Lokir's last moments. His joyous laughter, his boundless energy, and then, that final, fatal embrace of the sunlight. Would he have leapt so daringly into the daylight if he had known it would unbecome him? The memory was bittersweet, a reminder of what they had lost and what they had chosen to preserve. His grin, though brief, had left an indelible mark on her heart.

As the sun arced across the sky, Draugavik lay in a quiet stillness, its ghostly inhabitants hidden from the lethal touch of daylight. Freyja found herself drawn to the edge of the town, leaping from shadow to shadow of jagged obelisk and ancient homestead, between them hiding behind the frayed remains of what once was a cloak so the Sun would not dare touch her skin. Here, the ash fields met the sea. Here, the air was thick with memories, the black sand shimmering under the relentless sun.

She stood at the shoreline, the waves lapping gently at her feet. The sound was soothing. Freyja let herself be carried away by the rhythm, feeling a connection to the vast expanse before her. She whispered a silent prayer, or perhaps a question, not to Heaven or to Hell, but to the endless horizon that seemed to hold all the answers.

Dropping the cloak, she stood on that black shore, let a sunbeam wash over her like a wave of ash. For the first time since Elddraugur took Draugavik in its searing embrace, a warmth came over Freyja.