Г„gir -

"Drink," Ægir commanded, his voice a calm tide. "The sea provides, and the sea takes. Tonight, we drink. Tomorrow, the storms return."

Ægir, the ancient giant of the ocean, sat at the head of his massive stone table. His beard was a tangle of frosted kelp and silver sea-foam, dripping with the salt of a thousand storms. Beside him sat Rán, his dark-eyed wife, weaving her unbreakable nets to catch the souls of those who dared the surface without his favor.

The doors swung wide, and the gods entered. Odin, draped in his blue mantle; Thor, still smelling of ozone and goats; and Loki, with a smile as sharp as a jagged reef. Г„gir

Deep beneath the churning grey waves of the North Sea, where the light of the sun is but a pale, flickering memory, lies the hall of Ægir. It is not built of stone or timber, but of polished coral and the bones of leviathans, illuminated by the cold, rhythmic glow of phosphorescent deep-sea blooms.

"The Aesir are coming," Ægir rumbled, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. "Drink," Ægir commanded, his voice a calm tide

The gods raised their horns. For a moment, there was peace in the depths, while above, the waves crashed against the jagged rocks, singing the song of the giant who ruled the drownings and the dreams of men.

Ægir watched from his high seat, his pale eyes unblinking. He was not a god of order like Odin, nor of chaos like Loki. He was the sea—vast, indifferent, and inevitable. Tomorrow, the storms return

He had promised Odin a feast that would be remembered until the breaking of the world, but he had a problem. He possessed no cauldron large enough to brew ale for all the gods of Asgard.