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// 16: Mímisbrunnr 
// Story: Fimbulvetr 
// by Alkarasu 
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The enormous tree was a usual sight in Vsevolod's dream as of late. The scene wasn't always the same. He found himself on the different branches, the winged cow was usually nowhere to be seen, and the fires in the forests far below changed color and shape following a pattern he wasn't able to comprehend. The dream itself felt a bit different from the dreams that came to him back when he was still human. It felt more real and he had no trouble remembering it when he woke up. Not that there was too much to remember. On a normal night, it was just him, laying on a branch and looking at the dancing flames below. He was always alone, though at times he had seen traces of movement on the distant branches. Even his eagle eyes were unable to see, who or what it was. 

This night was not normal. This night, he had a guest.

The saber-toothed squirrel awaited him on the branch when he appeared in the dream realm, looking in no way pleased. It gave him a stink eye and closed its eyes, scrunching its muzzle in concentration. When nothing happened, the rodent cursed under its breath, waved its paws with utter disgust and turned to Vsevolod.

"Finally! Do you ever sleep? I thought I would never be able to track you down!" said the squirrel, stepping closer to the griffon. "Three days of being nagged by that stupid owl is three days too much for my taste. Next time he'll be dreamwalking for himself! Anyway, my time here is short, so I'll just cut straight to the point. The prince asked me to tell you that he's sorry. I have no idea why he even bothered with this, but it's not my job to ask. Here, I did it, so, I don't know, be happy. Seriously, why the squirrel?" With that, the visitor turned around and marched away along the branch, continuing to mutter something. 

The strange dream was enough to keep Vsevolod thinking about it for the entire morning, while the camp around him prepared to depart. Even deep in thought, he was once again surprised by how fast and efficient ponies can be despite their lack of thumbs. Of course, most packing tasks were nowhere near the dexterity wonders required to chain him and Helga to yet another cart, but the sight of folding tents and packing supplies was still worth at least a bit of awe. It took the nomads only about an hour to turn their small settlement into the long caravan of carts, surrounded by the small herds of small horses. 

Thankfully, he and Helga were chained to the insides of the cart, so, despite being slaves, they've enjoyed a bit of a "luxury" during the day, and all the boredom it brought with it. Since no pony insisted on them being silent anymore, Vsevolod decided to pass the time with an activity that was his favorite ward from the boredom back when he was still a human. He learned a language.

Of course, it was not the language of Nomads. While they were all around, he doubted any of them would like to chat with him, and even if someone did, it left Helga unattended. Vsevolod knew better than allowing his feral friend to run amok with so many unfriendly armed horses around. Instead, he did what he wanted to do for a while, but was always distracted from. He attempted to find a language in Hel. 

At first, his attempts seemed to fail. Helga's chirps seemed to be entirely random, emotion-based and carrying no clear fixed meaning. With no way to write down his findings, it felt like a complete waste of time - but then again, with no visible means to escape, time was something he had plenty of. The idea struck him only after he spent all morning and the better part of the day trying to fish something resembling a system from the combination of chirps and the words Helga already knew. His major field of study were the Nordic languages, primarily Swedish and Icelandic. He had very limited experience with the tonal languages, and never expected to find one spoken by a feral catbird. Yet, there it was, as weird as anything he should've been ready to expect from the world gone crazy at that point. 

Knowing that, it took him only two days to pry the simple language apart, though, his own attempts to speak it still often caused Helga to look at him in confusion. The language itself consisted only of a dozen separate short "words", but depending on the tone, each got a different meaning, many of which were too hard to explain with what they had had available. For example, while Vsevolod initial assumption that 'Heel-ha' meant 'Fly, you moron!' was correct, it only became so while the "phrase" was screamed at the said moron. Spoken as calm 'Helga', it became something like 'Fur-smell-bunny', with a big emphasis on the feathers.

The language was very strange to Vsevolod's human mind since it consisted mostly of verbs and nouns, had no noticeable grammar, somehow danced around tenses and had only three adjectives that he could understand. Nothing impossible to understand for a professional linguist, of course. Yet even for him, it wasn't clear how someone can use it for any complex communication. Still, even with a clear danger that Timer Urman posed to his immediate future, he felt that he, at least, managed to achieve something no one else did.

Timer herself seemingly forgot about her new property. Vsevolod saw her several times, trotting along the caravan and ordering ponies around, but she never spared even a glance at him. Kurgash was nowhere to be seen, and that made the young griffon worry - who knew, what the insane horse customs may mean to her in such a situation? He was willing to bet that it wasn't anything nice.

In the meantime, the caravan slowly moved south. The weather was sunny and warm, and he felt the air currents shifting constantly now, indicating that the spring was finally coming. That slowed down their progress to a crawl. By the time Vsevolod was able to pry himself from the exciting feral linguistics, it was evident that the nomads were getting more nervous every day. Still, no amount of shouting at the ones pulling the carts could do anything to make the carts move any faster.

Kurgash found them on the evening of the fifth day when they just ate their usual meager meal and were preparing to cuddle for some sleep. If Vsevolod wasn't told by Podorozhnik, that the symbols on the ponies were more or less unique, he would've never guessed that the pale shadow of a pegasus is the same energetic mare he traveled the Field with. The only thing that was still looking healthy at her was her wings - the feathers have finally grown in and, by the look of them, were preened daily. She silently went to the griffons, embraced Helga and started softly crying into her feathers. After a while, she turned to Vsevolod and said, still fighting the tears:

"He's... gone. My Spring Rain is gone! The light is no more, the spring doesn't sing to me. Honored Ancestor... you are wise, you know many wonderful things, tell me, why? He was so sweet... so smart, so gentle, and now he's no more! Tell me, was it always like that? Was your world any better? Can you bring him back? You went to the Eternal Fields and returned, tell me, is there a way?"

Vsevolod wasn't prepared to deal with something like that. Even Helga became quiet and only carefully brushed Kurgash's disheveled mane with her sharp talons. He couldn't lie to those tear-filled eyes, though.

"Sorry, Kurgash, but no, I can't bring him back. I don't know if it's possible."

"They tell... mother says that he fell with honor. I've been there. I tried... tried to save him. To push him aside. To make the bullet claim me instead. It claimed my ear," she turned her head and Vsevolod noticed that she no longer wore the bandage on her head and that her right ear was missing, "but it still took him. All because we argued... what honor are they talking about? Why..." With that, she turned back to Hel and started crying again. Vsevolod decided that it would be better to remain silent, so he simply hugged the mourning pony and let her cry it all out. 

After some time, Kurgash turned to him again.

"Honored Ancestor, I'm sorry I've brought you here. I thought I give you home, instead, I gave you death. Mother doesn't believe me, thinks you are an assassin, that you wanted to kill the Khan. She would ask you questions, and then she'll kill you when you won't answer them. The Khan could've saved you, but we won't be at his camp before tashu. It would hold us, so she'll have to do the funeral first, and she would get impatient after that. She would ask. You must run before she does."

"What about your flying lessons?" Vsevolod was trying not to think too much about the inevitable moment he has to deal with Timer Urman, yet it seemed that the moment was closer than he was comfortable with.

"It would be my funeral as well," said Kurgash matter-of-factly. "Won't need them afterward."

"What?" the young griffon practically screamed it, jumping onto his feet. "Why?"

"Good fiancee follows her fiancee to the Eternal Fields. It's honorable. I know that Yangyr wouldn't want me to go so soon... but the elders decide when it's proper. The elders said I should go," the voice of Kurgash was completely devoid of any enthusiasm about that.

"Why won't you run away then?" asked Vsevolod.

"They would catch me. Then it would be the same, but not honorable. And where would I run in tashu? I can't swim very well."

"What is tashu?" the griffon's mind went into overdrive and he needed some more time to catch the elusive idea that was hovering at the edge of his perception.

"That's a big spring flood. It comes, it comes soon."

"Yes!" shouted Vsevolod, trying to do it as softly as he could to avoid raising suspicion within the camp. "That's exactly what we need! I knew I was missing something, of course! Helga, carry-breakfast-fly-can?"

"Fle-e? Strong-carry-breakfast-high!" chirped Helga, brightening up. "Fly-fly-fly!"

"All right," for once, being in charge of something felt refreshing to Vsevolod. "Kurgash, we are fleeing when the flood starts. Helga would carry you, and I hope my flying is good enough to get me to the next patch of dry land. There we would teach you to fly and then try to leave the Field before the flood recedes. You need to gather some supplies on this cart and find a way to remove this shackles. Yes! That's a perfect plan! Can you do it?"

"Honored Ancestor... That... Thank you!" the pegasus noticeably perked up. "You can use that file to remove the cuffs, and your supplies are already on the other side of this cart! Mother keeps all her evidence here!"

Looking around, Vsevolod noticed, that indeed, further in the cart, half-covered with some sacks, were hidden familiar-looking saddlebag and the notorious antler. Among the sacks, he could see some tools, like old saws and several heavy files. Suddenly, his pride of his own smarts was replaced by the shame of his stupidity and blindness.

"Oh... and on the third day Eagle Eye noticed that the barn we are locked in has a missing wall," he muttered, hiding his face in the claw. "Kurgash... let's never speak of this again, or I'll die of embarrassment. Now, when do you think the flood would come?"

"Two, maybe three days. The herd is seeking the high place to hide now, there's one that we'll probably reach tomorrow."

"Then tomorrow at night we are out of here. Come when you are ready," Vsevolod grabbed the file and started examining the links of the chain. Kurgash nodded and skipped away, already looking much better than when she came to them. 

In the evening of the same day, he was distracted from his slow and tedious work of inconspicuously filing through the link of the chain by Helga pulling on his wing. When he stood up, he noticed that Timer Urman herself was approaching the cart.

"Greetings, keshe. I think, it's time for us to talk."