- This is my story entry for this amazing deity that I hope on winning. If I do win him, I plan on continuing this "short" story, making it multiple parts wrong.
Winter’s Kingdom
“I know that I know nothing.” –Socrates
Something was far from being correct, that I personally knew. There was something off about this wintery landscape which I had somehow wandered into, lost without a hope of finding my way back home safely. Death would have surely found me if not for a fond deity.
Perfection is what I first described the wintery landscape that I had stumbled upon. Thick blankets of snow lay perfectly undisturbed on the ground in front of me, showing no evidence of other seasons. Evergreen treetops were dipped perfectly by the snow that had fallen, motionless without a hint of wind in the air. There was something haunting about the perfectly clear, cloudless skies.
Wearing only jeans, a long sleeve, and a light athletic jacket, I trudged on through the snow, breaking the perfectly laid blanket of snow with my hiking boots. My breath fogged up my classes, causing an annoyance as I tried to focus on the landscape before me. Bitter coldness struck at my entire body, like a literal game of trying to find a needle in a haystack. I would have focused on the pain if I hadn’t needed to worry about a survival plan.
Now, how had I gotten into such a mess like this? Well, I’ll just explain in simple black and white terminology—I don’t know. I had been casually strolling through the woods, when I suddenly just walked into this winter wonderland. There wasn’t any time lapse between the woods and the wintery solitude; it just happened without warning. Of course, with it being about fifty degrees outside, I hadn’t worried about bringing along a heavy jacket. No, I wouldn’t need that—the forecast hadn’t called for a sudden blanket of snow to fall randomly out of the sky from nowhere. And the sudden change in scenery hadn’t been called for, either.
A plan of action is what I had been devising as I was wandering through the newly discovered winter wonderland (since there was no telling where I could have been. For all I knew, I could have been in Narnia.) First was to figure out where I was, which was a bit difficult when the place was isolated from practically the rest of the world. Second was to find food and water, if there was any. The only possibility of finding food and water would have been in the forest, where I was heading to in the first place. Last was to find shelter before night came and the temperature dropped even lower than what it already was.
There was a very slim chance that there somehow was human life, or at least something or someone that could understand me enough to get food, shelter, and water. As a cynical and pessimistic as I am, I dismissed the idea immediately. What decent human would live out in a land like this? Well, there were always the ancient nomadic tribes of Russia… But then again, this land probably wasn’t Russia, and I probably hadn’t time traveled back in time a few hundred thousand years.
My brain directed me, my feet took me, and I found myself in the shelter of the snow-capped evergreens. Branches and twigs that had fallen from the trees crunched beneath my boots, making the scenery almost like one of those stereotypical movie scenes during the winter time. The entire thing was almost too perfect, frightening to me. Something had to happen to make this scene seem more realistic, something that had to disrupt the perfection of the scene.
What I found to be most frightening was how there were no signs of animals or bushes of any type. Just tons of snow and evergreens. Nothing else other than that. Only deafening silence caused my ears to throb painfully.
I had to stop for a moment to catch up on what I was thinking about doing. There were no streams, so far, nor were there any signs of food or anything living. Something was wrong about this place… Something was completely wrong, and I didn’t know what was wrong about it.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. And then I knew that I wasn’t alone, anymore. Something was there, and it was undeniably larger than I was. Heavy footsteps were coming from somewhere, though I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Nope, nope, nope, nope. I didn’t want to die this early in my life. Nope, there were far too many things to do in my life. I couldn’t die now, not in this way. Not when it would be impossible to find my dead body in this winter wonderland where inhabitants are severely lacking.
Heart thundering, I didn’t even want to turn around to face the oncoming person or whatever it was. Maybe it was a reasonable, logically thinking human? No, no that was highly improbable. A reasonable, logically thinking human wouldn’t live in a land like the one I had stumbled upon. Maybe a wild, untamed native that roamed these lands?
“And who might you be?”
My blood turned to ice in an instant, and I didn’t know what to think at that moment. Why not just get it over with and face my death? No reason to delay it now. I turned to face the newcomer… Only to find a massive polar bear, standing on his hind legs, staring on its hind legs. Ornate jewels studded its head, gleaming in the reflection of the snow covered ground. Blue, wispy markings ran from its head to its tail, gleaming in the sunlight like ribbons. No, this wasn’t a normal polar bear. No, not at all.
“And, I ask, who might you be?” a low voice growled threateningly. “And what are you doing on my land, puny mortal?”
Puny… mortal? I did a quick look around, just to make sure that the voice was, indeed, talking to me. But who said puny mortal nowadays? Some insane guy that believed he was a deity or someone of higher power.
“K-Kate…” I managed to stutter out after a moment of hesitation. I still didn’t know where the voice was talking about.
Blue eyes gleaming, the polar bear tilted its head down, thoroughly examining me. It stepped towards me, something along the lines of something intimidation gleaming in his eyes. The beast nudged my hand with its powerful muzzle, causing me to flinch back from the sudden sensation of the wet nose.
“Are all mortals as small and puny as you are?” the bear snorted, turning its nose away immediately. “Have you degraded in life to become as small as you are?”
I didn’t know rather to feel insulted, frightened, or all of the above. First of all, a polar bear, which I doubted was really a polar bear, was talking to me and calling me a “puny mortal”. Second of all, he even went on to point out and satirize the fact that I was far smaller than the average person of my age.
Taking a step back, the polar bear seemed to inspect me even closer. As he focused on what he was doing, I read into him to figure out what was going on. Okay, he’s a polar bear, I analyzed, despite the fact that detail was completely obvious. A brutally honest, analytical, talking, intelligent polar bear. He could probably outsmart me, so I won’t even try tricking my way out of this situation. Besides, what’s the chance that he’ll let me escape without an injury? Oh, what have I managed to get myself into?
“You seem to be an intelligent human being, despite your puny stature,” the polar bear grumbled, looking at me directly. “I am assuming that you are ranked highly in your hierarchy and treated as the alpha, despite your puny size?” Tilting his head down, the polar bear just stared at me again. “Or am I mistaken?”
No respect, no dignity, absolutely nothing, I answered, though I dared not to say that out loud. This was a talking, intelligent polar bear. One slip up and I could easily be his lunch.
“I’m not too bothered with my social ranking,” I answered quietly, staring directly at the polar bear. “I have other things to be worried about, other than my social ranking.”
The polar bear’s head tilted to the side and came back a bit, either astonished or confused about what I had just said to him. It was nearly impossible to read into this polar bear’s expressions, if it was biologically possible for polar bears to express emotion.
“Fannar Bjorn,” the polar bear stated suddenly, just out of nowhere, “god of winter. But I must ask you, mortal, how you found this place? This is my realm, and I rarely allow humans into my dominion. Was it some other deity that allowed you in? One of my messengers, maybe?”
A deity. Right. Like I was going to believe that tale. Might as well just call him insane and schizophrenic. But with his appearance, there was something just a bit… well, strange about him, to put it simply. His appearance, the way he acts, the fact that he can talk. All of that was a bit strange. Still, I was trying to be open-minded about the whole situation, and decided to answer only the question that he asked.
“I am not sure how I ended up here,” I admitted, raising my voice a bit louder to let him actually hear me. “I was just walking through the woods, and this place just sort of appeared out of nowhere. There wasn’t anyone in the woods, so I can’t say that I was allowed here.” Awkwardly, I rubbed my hands and stared at the ground. “I honestly don’t know what happened.”
“Ah yes, that can unfortunately happen sometimes,” Fannar Bjorn commented, turning away from me. “If you will follow me, then I shall show you the way out.” He started walking, not even turning to check if I was following or not.
Without speaking, I hurriedly followed after him. I only wanted a way out of there, and he was kindly showing me the way out. There were many questions that I wanted to ask him, but he probably didn’t want to talk to me. I had wandered onto his territory.
After some painfully awkward moments of silence, my curiosity finally got the best of me, and I just had to ask the question that had been on my mind the entire time.
“So, err, Fannar Bjorn exactly what is this place?” I began, walking beside Fannar Bjorn, hands crammed in pocket, refusing to look directly at him. “I mean, you told me that it was your realm, your reign… But how did this place come to be, exactly?”
The deity didn’t bother looking at me, just kept walking straight forward. “Bjorn, if you would. I do not like being called by my full name,” he replied, his rumbling voice echoing through the deserted forest. “As you noticed, I mentioned that this was my domain, my territory. As the god of winter, I am expected not to appear on earth until my season comes. And, obviously, this isn’t my season, as of right now.
“So, as I wait for my season to come, I remain secluded here, away from the world, where the other seasonal deities do their jobs. Personally, I have a preference over my realm than the mortal world.” He seemed to wrinkle his nose in disgust. “I find that mortals have downgraded in intelligence and have lost their ways in their world. They have come to love their shiny technology far too much, and have forgotten the true beauty of the world.”
I gave a quiet grunt of agreement. “I know where you’re coming from,” I mumbled, hardly loud enough for Bjorn to hear. “Be lucky you don’t have to deal with them on a day-to-day basis.” Time for another question, I thought. “From what you said, there are other deities like you out there? So, what type of deities is there? Are they strictly just personifications of concepts or ideas?”
Bjorn continued to walk on, not looking back at me, still. “Yes, there are other gods,” he explained in a monotone manner. “It would be impossible for me to name off all the gods by memory, as I know only the seasonal deities thus far. As far as the concepts and ideas, I do believe that it so.” He paused for a moment, but then quickly shook his head, and continued walking.
I can’t help but be naturally curious; it’s just an instinct of mine. Chances are, I was annoying Bjorn, but he was willing to answer my questions.
“Do all deities have their own realm, or is it your own thing?” I asked intent on getting an answer from Bjorn.
Now, Bjorn just stopped in his tracks, staring straight ahead of himself, emotionless. Something seemed to flicker in his eyes, though I couldn’t tell exactly what that emotion was. Slowly, he rounded himself around to face me, eyes gleaming with an unspoken word.
“You’re the first mortal that I’ve ever taken a liking to,” he commented, his eyes still gleaming with the same unspoken word in his eyes. “In this realm, where time doesn’t exist and does not correlate with the mortal world, so we have as much time as we want to. A conversation with you would be quite pleasant.” He turned, without waiting for a response from me.
My face, usually emotionless and stoic, probably was plastered with a look of surprise. No one ever wanted to have a conversation with me, no one! And time in the mortal world wasn’t effected? That makes it even better!
I followed quickly behind him, with only one thought on my mind. I know that I know nothing.