"Songs of the Return"
Volume 1: Says the Dragon to the Squirrel

A five-volume chronicle of Nidhogg's liberation and the consequences it will bring to the realms; an original tale based on Norse mythology.

It will also serve as a prologue for future stories involving my character, Alice Stryker, who is based on the Norse figure Nidhoggr.

The great tree, whose branches extended across the heavens and pierced each of the nine realms, seemed to quake and quiver with tension. Yggdrasil's bark shuddered and its leaves recoiled, and the animals that dwelled within the tree whimpered and hid within their dens and nests.

Only Ratatosk, the young squirrel who ran along the branches, delivering messages to the tree's celestial inhabitants, was unafraid. He was barely short of rejoicing, for he seemed to know what others couldn't see. Scampering with a mixture of eagerness and anxiety, he raced down the trunk, descending into the frozen underworld of Niflheim before reaching Yggdrasil's roots.

The thick, winding, knotted roots were frayed from gnawing teeth and ripped apart by sharp claws. The roots had been responsible for holding a terrible, powerful being at bay - an undead dragon as old as the tree itself; a monster that fed on the corpses of the dead as they passed into the afterlife; a Devil that would fly across the realms with death on its wings and beckon the End Times, should it ever escape Yggdrasil's grasp; the Nidhogg.

Nidhogg was gone.

The squirrel's body shook and shivered with both excitement and dread, for he suddenly wondered if his unlikely friend would truly bring Ragnarok to the worlds. After all, it was the prophecy, but perhaps prophecies aren't always inevitable.

A soft growl rumbled behind Ratatosk and he nearly jumped out of his skin, before turning around to the face of the great dragon itself. Its piercing, amethyst eyes and long, jagged claws had been much less intimidating when they belonged to a trapped creature. Nidhogg's long, slender, serpentine body was coated with smooth, shimmering, ice-like scales. Its massive jaws inched closer to the little rodent, who dared not move a muscle as he gazed at the free Devil.

"Ratatosk." A deep, low voice flowed from behind hundreds of sharp teeth, and despite having spent the last hundred thousand years speaking to the dragon, the squirrel was slightly frightened by the voice's power. "You have been a good friend to me. You have shown me kindness and kinship while others only offer hatred and fear."

Suddenly his own fears left him, having been reassured of the dragon's true character. "You're finally free! What will you do now?"

"That's what everyone is dying to know, isn't it." Nidhogg was silent for a moment, its maw curling slowly into a snarl. "They want a monster..."

Ratatosk winced at the fierce beast's snarling face, thankful that he was no enemy. "So you're going to give it to them?" He blinked for a moment, thinking as the great dragon growled. His eyes darted around before returning to Nidhogg. "You finally escape and you're going to go prove everyone right?"

Bark spattered out as claws struck against the tree, just to the squirrel's side. "They call me a Devil!" The earth-shattering shout echoed through Niflheim. "Their prophecies are meaningless and yet I have spent eternity trapped in their shadows, watching life sprout and grow and evolve around me. And they have spent that eternity mocking me, defaming me, casting me as their Devil." Its claws scraped down the trunk, carving out curly strips of wood as it spoke. "All I've ever wanted is to escape this wretched hell, but to what? A universe where my freedom is everyone's worst nightmare?"

The unflinching Ratatosk watched as the creature's inner turmoil began to boil over. "Then show them otherwise."

Nidhogg retracted its claws and stepped back. "Not before giving them hell." Large, feathered wings suddenly fanned out over the realm and with a single, powerful flap, the dragon was gone, leaving behind its very unsettled friend at Yggdrasil's base.