Silent Fjords

Silent Fjords

The fjords whispered with the breath of unseen gods, their silent expanse stretching into the mist. Ice clung to the jagged cliffs, and the distant city, barely more than a suggestion of shadow and light, flickered like an illusion beyond the frozen air. No sound carried through the cold, only the weight of something ancient. Something waiting.

Then came the tins of peaches.

They appeared one by one, lined neatly along the road that led toward the city. Their golden labels glinted in the weak daylight. No footprints disturbed the snow, no sign of life suggested who had placed them there. The travellers who stumbled upon them took pause, whispering of trolls and trickery, of red mist and of spirits from the mountains who delighted in unsettling games.

The elders spoke in hushed voices of the gods of old. Though their dominion was once, their presence still lingered in the bones of the land. Loki’s fire, they said, still flickered in the veins of the earth like a restless tiger beneath ice and stone. The peach tins were a warning, or perhaps a gift; a test from the trickster himself. Those who ignored them walked on unharmed. Those who took them found their dreams filled with visions of fire and laughter.  Their hands were marked with soot come morning as the dreams they tried to recall faded into nonsense.

No one knew where the road led, or if the city in the mist was ever truly there. But the peaches kept appearing, and the cold blue land, as always, watched in silence.

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