'Uroarbrunnr'

It was once said - '  Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent Illusion.' 

Was it Einstein, who first uttered those words....Or was it Eldir, the Fire-stoker. The faithful servant of Egir and Ran....

Or perhaps it was your own conscience  trying to tell you....Trying to remind you that, 

the past. The present and the future, they all exist at once.... That the distinction between them, is only a stubbornly persistent illusion....

Far below the world. Beneath the ash tree, Yggdrasil,  Loki had ventured. He was more then what they gave him credit for. More then what the other Gods of Asgard, or the Titans, the Eternal's  who had sprung to life within the minds of the feeble Midgardian's believed or understood him to be.

They thought they could banish him. They thought they could kill him.  Drive him into the empty void where all memories fade and each smile, each whispered word once spoken, is soon forgotten.

They did not know. How could they....

A hundred lifetimes he'd walked alone within the Wells of 'Uroarbrunnr'. A hundred lifetimes he'd fill his mind with their secret knowledge. With discovering the secrets. The hidden pathways between realms. Between time and space itself.... An endless ocean of doors.. An endless ocean of possibilities. Of  memories, past and present. Things that had been, or were yet to come. And always when he had thought he has seen them all,  When he had thought to have explored every passage, every possible scenario. Every dark corridor and every war torn decaying brick of his own existence, ahead there would be a corner.  A corner where the light from a grimy window pane only illuminated the unknown. A thousand more possibilities. A thousand more outcomes. And a thousand more lives which were, and would be interwoven within his own.

There was a place. A place most never knew existed. A place that only few  minds could truly fathom....that its possible existence could be real..

A well from which all life, all possibilities sprung, where darkness and light,: What was sought to be good or evil dance together in harmony. Where there was no past. There was no future. Only the defining  moment of the present. It was the greatest secret the 'Norns' guarded. And it was the greatest secret Loki had ever discovered!

He wasn't sure how long he'd stood there looking at the newly ajar doorway. It didn't matter if it was a year, a day or even an hour. In this place,  it was all only a moment. A moment to inhale a breath into your lungs and exhale it nice and slow..

A moment for his brow to furrow as his lips curved in a grimace, with half cast resemblance of a smile.

So many doors he'd entered.

So many doors of promising possibilities, and yet so many doors with their endless scenario's, always brought him back to 'Uroarbrunnr', to wander further within its shadowed and murky depths.

How many times had he told himself 'this one will be different'. How many times had gone there searching for the true meaning for everything. Searching for something he still could not fully comprehend - WHY.

Calmly, unperturbed by what he might find, he reached out. A gentle touch upon the door and it swung open.

At first he'd always taken a deep breath, fearing that the mass of swirling shadowed memories, pictures, illusions of past or future would fill his lungs; choking away his life with the endless scenario's of  the soul within's existence. Now he knew better.

Now he knew, that his access to these doors was granted by the wielder of the soul within. That with their random thoughts in passing, of his name, of him, they unbeknown gave him their permission. That they were and always would be  the secret behind the gift of immortality,  the ruse to never truly die, that he had bargained for with Hela.

And as he stepped into swirling life force, the doorway faded behind him. Replace by memories across time.  They played out like an endless sea of images before him. All existing in unison like the froth of foam upon a wave as it crashes against the shore.....

-He saw the soul. It's gluttonous ego swelling with self pride as he claimed his victory over the woman knelt before him. He knew about the notches in the mans belt. How the dominance upon these women's life's made him feel stronger. More important in the world around him. He knew they shadowed, hid the mans true feelings. The mans true fears for they fears Loki too suffered.

It was a way within the swirling mass of ciaos and despair that surrounded his soul to seek and obtain validation.

It was a way for the man to step out from the shadows of his dull and monotonous life and shine...

-He saw the man sleeping. He witnessed the fragment of his dreams, the sound of his own voice as it spoke calmly within the souls subconscious...

-He felt the pain, the conflict of a 'hidden past'. The scars of being cast out. Of being different. The sadness, the loneliness and anger it brought with it. The desire above all things to be accepted. To belong. To claim a vengeance upon those whom had sought to point a finger without just cause except for their own pride. For what was truly a monster, or what was ugly?

For years he had endured the fable of a monster.

 A frost giant,  like the Asgardian's would tell their children about to scare them... 

And yet Loki had seen himself within another memory, that he, his people had been created from Ymir. The Jotunn's, they were then know as... Not the slanderous term of 'Frost Giant.' That they had in fact been deemed as most fair and beautiful amongst creation once....

And as the image faded, entwining with another....  A Midgardian class room. Its desks lined like solders in a battalion. Row after row with the years of battle, of learning etched into the grain of their solid plastic tops. He heard the Teachers voice echo in his ears....

"This class will increase your understanding of Norse Mythology. There will be no textbook, you simply will purchase and read assigned readings in Snorri Sturluson's 'The Poetic Edda'."

And as within each memory, each moment the soul sought to share within time; A shadow began to form, growing in depth and density, liken to an illusion of water upon a sunny day or a rainbow after a storm filled sky.

It whispered back into the prideful man's mind, (the soul who slept;  He with the stunted, deformed body. He who sat at his desk, listening to the words of his oblivious Teacher's)

"Bethink thee, Eldir, if thou and I

shall strive with spiteful speech;

richer I grow, in ready words

if thou speakest too much to me."

 And from that illusion of water, that bestowed upon rainbow of hope, Loki stepped forward to greet them with a devious smirk-