Past the Mountains, Among the Clouds

"All right. Let's began the preparation." Bierra said with cheerful enthusiasm.

I had never thought I'd use the word cheerful in a sentence alongside Bierra, but here I was.

"Cool, so how you gonna amp up my divine reconstruction?" I asked.

Freya looked at me with concern. Bierra wore a sinister smile. 

I felt a chill run down my spine.

"Hey, you aren't scheming something aren't you-"

But before I could even complete my question, I felt a gust of cold icy wind near my head, my ear to be exact. All of a sudden, I was looking at the frost covered feet of the Winter Maiden. The floor felt chilly. Oh yeah, Bierra had summoned Niflheim into the lecture hall. I tried to move my head, but it wouldn't budge.

Legs. Arms. Torso. Chest. Even my heart, for that matter, I couldn't feel them.

Iron. The smell of iron brew inside my nose. I felt something trickle down my cheeks. No. Trickle wouldn't be the correct word. It felt more like the side of my face coming in contact with some spilled liquid. Yes. Some red, watery liquid with the smell of iron.

Oh, I was beheaded.

"Man, look at you bleeding." I could hear Bierra saying in a fascinated fashion, though unimpressed.

Yes. On my second night of college. I died. Again. Third time if we were to count it. 

I blacked out.

When I came to my senses, I could tell quite a while had passed. Freya looked at me with a relieved expression and jumped on me to hug me. I had gotten used to such reactions of hers. As my life force was squeezed out of my oesophagus by the strength of this divine hug, which Freya possessed, my eyes fell on Bierra. She looked different. Unkempt. A mess.

Had something happened during the good while I was passed out?

Her hair was all over the place. On her cheeks, pale as the white winter snow, there were tear marks. 

She had been crying.

Freya's hug was getting tighter moment by moment.

"I can't- br-eathe." I tried to say.

"Oh, sorry." Freya let go of me.

The sudden rush of stale air into my lungs felt refreshing, albeit nauseating. 

"Did something happen while I was passed out?" I inquired.

"Oh, it's nothing." Bierra answered.

"You look kinda tired, to say the least."

"Oh this, amping up divine reconstruction was quiet a tedious task. I'm just a bit....exhausted." She said, her words rushed, as if trying to hide something.

"Oh, I see." For some reason, I wasn't really buying that explanation of hers. 

It didn't explain her tear marks after all.

"Which is why we'll postpone the rest to tomorrow night." Bierra announced.

"Wait what?" I was surprised.

"Do we even have that much time?" I asked both of them, knowing well enough Freya wouldn't be able to answer, but Bierra would.

"Yes, the girl has about forty-eight hours from now before she loses herself to her faces, disappearing into oblivion."

"Then we don't have time at all. She has seven billion faces. It's not like it's easy to dispense all of them in days! We should start right now." I protested.

We were already low on time. Postponing this to tomorrow meant dealing with all seven billion of faces in a single day. That's like dealing with eighty-one thousand faces every second.

"Have you forgotten where you are?" Bierra asked. Her words felt weak. She was definitely exhausted.

"In my domain, which means by extension, in this lecture hall, this space is completely disconnected from time and space. None from the outside can enter this place, nor can time flow in this place without my consent." She continued.

"Which means-" I understood.

"Which means we have plenty of time once you guys are here. Another makeshift solution would have been to have Freya stay here forever, but I guess she wouldn't want that." Bierra concluded.

"Yeah." I replied.

"Good, now let's meet back here once again tomorrow and be done with this goddess business altogether." Bierra said in a firm tone.

Just like that, we bid each other goodbye for the night. Freya offered to take Bierra to her dorm since she was too tired to walk to hers. She accepted right away. Interesting. I thought to myself. Finally, at 12:09 a.m. I reached back to my dorm. Bierra was right. Time really moved in that place as she wished. As I walked into my room, I saw August sleeping without a care. I envy the guy so much. Anyhow, I had no more strength to sulk about my situation. I blacked out as soon as I hit the bed.

To say my day went uneventfully, that would be dishonest. Late. Yes. I was once again late for class. However, this time, it was more than the death of a simple alarm.

I broke the desk.

I wonder how much penalty that's going to attract. Nonetheless, my roommate's reaction to the broken desk was far more expensive. Reasonably so. A guy just destroyed a desk with a light tap. Anyone would be confused. I don't blame him at all. I gave some haphazard explanation which I'm sure he didn't buy, but that's not important. Point was on my third day of college I was late, once again, for an even more stupid reason. Perhaps this is what we call as foreshadowing.

11:55 p.m. The dilapidated lecture hall.

"Nifelheim." Bierra spoke softly.

Moments later, her frosty domain had been conjured up within the space of the lecture hall, cutting it off from the outside world, both in the sense of space and time.

"Woah, this seems like an overkill." I said, surprised by the need to summon Nifelheim today.

"It isn't. Not even the strongest substance you mortals have conceived is half as durable as the ice of Nifelheim. And I'd need it to monitor you, too." She said, not breaking her icy demeanour.

"Monitor? Are you not staying here?" Another surprise, I must say. This sudden betrayal clearly left me a bit concerned now that I was faced with the fact that I'd be facing a goddess in battle alone.

"Battle between two divine beings will attract a lot of unwanted attention. Something that your human brain can't even conceive." She said in an extremely prideful tone.

"As if you weren't one at some point..." I grumbled.

"What was that?" She inquired, her eyes narrowing down.

"Nothing. Not at all." I knew better to not poke her.

The bigger issue at hand, Freya. She laid still on the other side of the lecture hall. Motionless. Her hair covered her eyes, her hand laid bare and her expression while I couldn't really see her, it was her smile. If you could even call it a smile in the first place. No. It was bloodlust.

"How much time to do I have?" I asked Bierra as I pushed back the sleeves of my hoodie. 

"About three minutes in counting, I suppose." She answered, not moving an eye away from Freya.

"I guess it's about time you make your leave, then." I said, trying to sound cool.

Bierra's expression changed. A crack in her icy demeanour; it wasn't for long, for just a second, I saw Bierra holding something like a look of worry.

"Yeah. Best of luck." A complete contrast to that know it all tone I knew of.

As she passed me by, I could tell something was off about her. She shot me one last look, a look that left me puzzled and with that, only two people remained in that frozen hall.

As I stood at one end of the frozen hall, I couldn't help but feel the weight of the task ahead. Seven billion faces. One goddess. And me—a mortal-turned-punching bag. What could possibly go wrong?

Hundred and seventy-eight. Hundred and seventy-nine. Hundred and eigh-

Fast. No, calling her fast would be an insult. Anything describing it as linear motion would be an insult. Teleportation. Yes. One moment she was at the end of the hallway, and now she was fingers away, laughing hysterically. Raging like a mad god. Her hair had lost their burnt red hue, they were black. The colour of the dead. Her hazel eyes burnt, the rage in them threatening to consume me at any moment.

A hit to the side. Not a punch. Not a kick. Tree. A dried tree stump tearing through the icy walls of Nifelheim. 

"Ahhhh!" I coughed blood. It wasn't over yet. The impact was only part of the blow. The laws of motion followed soon. I was sent flying across the lecture hall. My hands, broken from the attempt to protect myself from the blow earlier, dangled along as I slammed into the icy walls of Nifelheim, my body drilling into it as if they were made of cotton.

"So much for..... the hype about their strength earlier..." I said as I tried to recover from the impact.

It didn't take long. Had I been a normal human being, I would have been dead long ago. My injuries were nothing but light work for my divine reconstruction. Though seeing my broken arm put itself back into position and the sound of bones reattaching and regaining shape was nauseating to say the least. 

"C'mon. Is that all you got?" I roared at Freya. 

"Nice work there, kid." Bierra's voice called.

My predicament at the time didn't allow me to think much of it. How could I? When a bloodlust filled autumn demon was coming at you, you don't get that much of leisure time.

A demon. That's what I called the new form of Freya to be. Horns resembling the antlers of deers had grown on her head. Her head was now engulfed in this distorted deer skull. Her clothing, rugged and tear, nothing like the Freya I knew. She was coming at me. It took me one blow, but my eyes could now adapt to her speed. Sharp claws. Claws filled with intent to skew me alive were coming at me with unfathomable speed. I braced myself to defend.

"No. You can't defend!" Bierra's voice called again.

"Bierra?" I dodged.

"No. Don't dodge." She commanded.

"What do you mean, don't dodge?" I complained as I tried my best to get through the waves of uncoordinated from Freya.

"You aren't helping at all. This won't reduce any faces." Bierra started. It occurred to me that perhaps this was what she meant by monitoring.

Telepathy.

"What?" I questioned. Am I not allowed to defend myself here?

"Punching bags don't defend, stupid. How would she resolve her faces if her punching bag keeps running away? You said it yourself, it was like stress!" She scolded.

"You mean to tell me—oh, close one." I barely dodged another beheading.

"Yes, you need to let yourself be beaten!"

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?!" I cried out.

"I thought you knew of this! It doesn't matter! We need to do this. For Freya!"

"Easier said than done!"

I increased the distance between me and Freya. Good. That gave me a few moments to think.

"Alright. For Freya."

I took a deep breath.

"HEYYYYYY FREYAAAAA. I THOUGHT YOU COULD DO BETTER!!!" I screamed.

She roared back.

If digging your own grave was a skill, I must've been a master of it.