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Chapter Text

The forest wasn’t supposed to be dangerous.

That’s what Shane had told himself when he’d brought Finn out here for a short walk, just far enough to let the boy see the frost-tipped pines and hear the streams running under their glassy skins of ice. Fresh air, he’d thought. Quiet.

He should’ve known better.

“Finn!” His voice rang too loud in the cold air, scraping his own ears. The echo that came back was thin, mocking. No answering footsteps. No small voice calling for ‘Daddy’.

He’d only looked away for a moment. Adjusted his pack, checked the map. When he looked back, his little boy, his boy, the one he’d signed his name for in a courthouse two years ago and promised the whole world would be safe for, was gone.

Shane’s chest felt like it was caving in. Every image in his mind was a threat: wolves, a fall, a stranger’s hands. The forest around him pressed closer with every step, branches snagging at his jacket.

“Finn!” It came out broken this time.

Finally, a sound answered, soft and high. A giggle. Not far, not scared.

Shane shoved through a thicket and stumbled into a small clearing washed in pale winter light—

—and froze.

Finn was there, his little hands tangled in the folds of thick fur, grinning up at the figure wearing it as though he’d found some secret friend. He looked impossibly small against him, barely more than a bundled shape in his wool coat and red hat.

The man, no, not a man, stood like a deer caught between flight and stillness. His hazel eyes, impossibly luminous, flicked to Shane and then back to the child clutching him like a lifeline. His pale fingers hovered awkwardly, as if he didn’t know whether he was allowed to touch or not.

Shane’s knees nearly gave out. Relief hit so hard it left him dizzy, but the fear still gnawed under it, sharp and unyielding. Because whatever he was… this man was as confused to see them as Shane was, and he had his son.

The mortal man’s fear was a living thing. Sharp, acrid, pulsing in the air like the scent of iron before battle. Ilya could taste it on his tongue, thick and electric. It coiled around his ribs, familiar in its desperation.  

Father, Ilya thought, and something in his chest loosened.  

The boy, this small, warm weight against his leg, turned at the sound of the mortal’s voice, his face lighting up like a struck match. “Daddy!” he crowed, but didn’t let go. His tiny fingers curled tighter into the fur of Ilya’s mantle, as if he were afraid he’d vanish if he released him.  

Ilya exhaled, slow and measured. He kept his hands carefully at his sides, fingers uncurled, palms open. A gesture of peace.

“...Your boy,” he said, voice low, the words rough-edged with disuse. His accent curled thick around the syllables. “He is... unharmed.”

A pause. The clearing held its breath.  

Then, quieter, almost hesitantly, Ilya heard himself speak again. “He is brave.” 

The mortal man was still frozen, his chest rising and falling too fast, his dark eyes flicking between the boy and Ilya like he couldn’t decide what to do first. The bond between them, father and son, was a taut, golden thread, fraying at the edges with panic.  

Ilya tilted his head slightly, watching. Waiting.  

The boy, oblivious to the tension, tugged at Ilya’s cloak again. “You’re tall,” he informed him, matter-of-fact. “Like a tree.”

Ilya stared.  

Then, against his will, he huffed; a soft, startled sound that might have been a laugh, if he remembered how to do such things properly.  

“Da,” he agreed, solemn. “Like tree.”

Ilya’s gaze lifted properly then, meeting the father’s eyes at last. They were dark, earnest, rimmed red with terror not yet spent. A warrior’s fear wore many faces across the ages; this one was no less fierce for lacking a blade. It burned for something smaller than himself, and Ilya had always understood that kind of devotion.

“I am not…” Ilya searched for the word Midgard used now. Dangerous, perhaps. But the lie tasted wrong, and so he tried again. “I am not meaning harm.”

The truth of it carried, settling into the frost like a vow carved into stone. The boy shifted, satisfied, as though he felt it too. He leaned his shoulder into Ilya’s leg and yawned extravagantly, the adrenaline of his adventure already burning off.

The father took one step forward. Then another. 

Careful, as one approached a skittish animal, or a god whose temper he did not yet know. His hands hovered uselessly, aching to reach, restrained only by the strangeness of the scene.

“Finn,” the man said, voice breaking on the name. “Bud. C’mere.”

Finn considered this gravely. He looked up at Ilya once more, studying him with the frank scrutiny only children possessed.

“You won’t disappear?” he asked.

The question struck deeper than it had any right to.

Ilya knelt, slowly, lowering himself so the boy could see his face without craning his neck. The earth groaned faintly beneath the weight of him, fur mantle pooling like a dark tide in the snow.

“No,” he said, and meant now, and perhaps meant ever, though that was a promise he could not truly make. “I staying.”

That seemed to satisfy the child. Finn released the fur at last and trotted back to his father, who dropped to his knees and crushed him into his chest with a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. Ilya turned his face away instinctively, granting them privacy he had learned, over centuries, was precious to mortals.

When the man looked up again, his eyes were wet but steady now.

“...Thank you,” he said. Simple. Earnest. As though he were speaking to another mortal.

Ilya inclined his head, an old, formal dip meant for kings and equals. “You are welcome, Shane Hollander.”

The man stiffened. “I didn’t—”

“I know,” Ilya said astutely.

Silence settled again, but it was different now. Not held-breath silence, but rather something rested. The kind of quiet that came after danger had passed.

The boy peeked over his father’s shoulder and waved at Ilya, unabashed.

Ilya raised two fingers in return.

“...How did you know my name?” Shane asked eventually, when he was sure his voice wouldn’t break, fear thrumming through his veins once more. Who was this man? How long had he been watching them? Was he planning something? Should Shane call the police?

Shane tightened his hold on Finn without meaning to. Not enough to hurt, never that, but enough that he felt the solid, living proof of him there. Warm, breathing, real.

“Hey. How did you know my name?” he asked again, quieter this time, as if volume alone might wake something dangerous.

The stranger didn’t move closer. That helped, if marginally. He stayed where he was, half-kneeling in the snow like some storybook relic that had wandered into the wrong century, fur spilling around him, breath fogging faintly in the cold. He looked… puzzled, almost. As though the question itself were odd.

“The land told me,” the stranger said at last.

Shane blinked. Once. Twice.

“The—” He stopped himself, swallowing hard. Finn shifted against his chest, fingers fisting in Shane’s jacket, thumb finding its way into his little mouth. Exhaustion, Shane realized distantly. The adrenaline crash. 

He pressed his lips to Finn’s hat, breathing him in. Laundry detergent and cold air and something sweet he couldn’t name.

“That’s not funny,” Shane said, sharper than he meant to. Fear always made him brittle. “If you’ve been watching us, if you followed us out here—”

“I did not,” the stranger said immediately, too quickly, too honestly. “I came for forest. You came after.”

Shane searched his face for cracks. For the tells he’d learned to watch for over a lifetime of being careful. But there was nothing slick there, nothing calculating. Just… stillness. Ancient, maybe, or just very tired.

“The bond,” the man added, hesitating, like he was choosing words he didn’t often have to use. “Between you. Is loud, but… No blood.”

Shane’s breath caught despite himself.

“What bond?” he asked, though some part of him already knew.

The stranger looked at Finn. Not like prey, not like possession. 

Like reverence.

Like something fragile and miraculous.

“Father and son,” he said simply.

Shane’s throat burned. He looked down at Finn again, at the curve of his cheek pressed into Shane’s collarbone, at the faint scar on his eyebrow from a playground tumble months ago. His son. The words still felt new some days, like a promise he was terrified of breaking.

“...That doesn’t explain how you know my name,” Shane said, stubbornly clinging to the thread of logic.

The stranger inclined his head. “Names linger,” he said. “Yours is worn. Spoken often, with care.”

That shouldn’t have meant anything. It was nonsense. Poetic, maybe, but still nonsense.

And yet.

Shane scrubbed a hand down his face, breath shuddering out of him. “Okay,” he said weakly. “Okay. You’re clearly not normal.”

Ilya suppressed a laugh at that. 'Not normal', like he was some sort of insane hermit rather than a god older than the world itself. 

He wanted to scoff, the sound pressed sharp and bright against the back of his teeth, but he swallowed it down, letting it melt instead into a quiet huff of breath. Mortals did not laugh easily when their hearts were still trembling. They deserved gentleness, not mockery.

No matter how tempting this man was to tease. 

“You are observant,” Ilya replied instead, voice dry, eyes warm despite himself. He watched Shane Hollander steady himself, watched the way he shifted his weight to better support the child, how his hand never stopped moving, rubbing Finn’s back, counting him again and again through touch. The habit of a protector, of one who had learned loss too intimately to risk it again.

It pulled at something in Ilya’s chest.

“...Do not belong to your world,” he said, choosing the words carefully. “Nor your laws. But am not your enemy.”

The boy had gone quiet now, his small body slack with sleep against his father’s shoulder. His breath puffed white, each exhale a fragile thing Ilya could have snuffed out with a thought, and would sooner have torn out his own heart than do so.

“You spoke boy’s name,” Ilya added, nodding toward Finn. “Into the trees. You called him back.”

He had heard it ripple through the forest like a plea braided with command. Names did that, love did that.

“Midgard listens when fathers beg,” Ilya said, and it was not comfort. It was truth.

Shane’s gaze flicked up sharply at that, suspicion warring with something like awe. Ilya felt the moment stretch thin, felt the man standing at the edge of belief, peering over without quite meaning to.

That would not do.

Just as Ilya was about to step closer, Shane swallowed. 

“What is on your arms?” he asked, blinking slowly, as if his eyes might’ve been playing tricks on him. 

Ilya stilled.

Ah. So the veil had thinned after all.

He lowered his gaze fully now, following Shane’s stare to his own forearms. The runes had begun to wake, slow, unhurried, as if stretching after a long sleep. Lines carved not by ink nor blade, but by oath and age, etched into him when the world was younger and gods still bled openly. 

They pulsed faintly, blue as glacial light beneath ice.

Careless, he thought. He had let himself speak true. Midgard always demanded a price for that.

“For you,” Ilya said slowly, eyes lifting again to Shane’s face, “is marks.”

He did not hide them. Hiding now would be worse. Mortals could smell evasion as keenly as fear.

“For me,” he continued, voice quieter, deeper, “is memory.”

The glow brightened for a heartbeat, responding to his attention. Names, deeds, vows sworn into bone. Battles no living mortal remembered. The runes hummed softly, a sound felt more than heard.

The child stirred faintly at the sound, brows knitting. Instinctively, Ilya drew the power inward. The glow dimmed at once, obedient.

“Did not mean to frighten him,” he says, and this time there was something unmistakably earnest beneath the weight of the words. “They answer when I forget myself.”

Shane hadn’t moved. His fear had changed shape, though. Less sharp, more stunned. Awe was dangerous, Ilya knew that. Awe led mortals to kneel, to offer blood, to pray. 

But this man was doing none of those things. If anything, he seemed thoroughly unimpressed.

Shane shifted Finn higher on his hip, squaring his shoulders like that might somehow make this situation normal. Like confidence was a switch he could flip if he pressed hard enough.

“Okay,” he managed, sharper now. “So what, you’re telling me you’re some sort of— of ghost? Spirit?” He let out a breathy, incredulous laugh that fooled absolutely no one. “You realize how insane that sounds, right?”

Finn made a small, sleepy noise and tucked his face closer into Shane’s neck. Shane pressed his cheek into the wool of Finn’s hat, grounding himself in the solid fact of him before looking back up.

“Tell the truth,” Shane said, jaw tightening, “or I’m calling the police.”

The threat felt flimsy the moment it left his mouth. The police wouldn’t know what to do with glowing runes and forests that listened. But it was the language Shane had. Rules, authority, something with edges he understood, at least more than he understood this.

The stranger didn’t flinch.

Didn’t scoff, either. No condescension, no irritation, just… patience. Like Shane was a frightened animal baring its teeth, and he had all the time in the world to let him calm down.

“Police,” the stranger repeated thoughtfully, tasting the word. “Will find nothing.”

That did not help.

Shane’s grip tightened again. “That’s not an answer.”

“No,” the stranger agreed easily. “Is not.”

Snow whispered as he shifted, the movement slow and deliberate, careful not to loom. Shane clocked it immediately, how intentionally non-threatening he was being, and that somehow made it worse. Predators didn’t need to try this hard to look harmless.

“Does not matter who I am,” he continued, unbothered. “Your son is safe. You can go.” 

Shane stared at him.

Just… stared.

Of all the responses he’d braced himself for; anger, smugness, cryptic riddles; dismissal hadn’t even made the list.

“Are you serious?” Shane asked, incredulous. “That’s it?”

“Yes,” the man said, utterly unbothered. “Shoo. Go.”

He even flicked his fingers again, a small, almost amused gesture, like he was chasing a bird from a windowsill.

Something in Shane snapped. Not fear, exactly, but offense. Raw, sleep-deprived, adrenaline-soaked offense.

“You don’t get to tell me to shoo,” Shane said sharply. “You scared the hell out of me. You had my kid. I think I’m entitled to at least—” He faltered, words tangling. To what? An explanation? An apology? Control?

Finn chose that moment to yawn hugely, mouth stretching wide before collapsing bonelessly against Shane’s shoulder again, fast asleep now. The tension drained out of him in a way Shane envied fiercely.

The stranger’s gaze softened at the sight.

“He come to me,” he said, as if that explained everything. “I kept him warm. Is all.”

Shane swallowed. His anger deflated, leaving behind something messier, something almost like gratitude, unwanted and heavy.

“Yeah,” Shane said, quieter now. “Okay, yeah.”

He turned to leave. He didn’t get far.

Something, not a sound, not a command, made him glance back over his shoulder despite himself.

The stranger hadn’t moved. Still half-kneeling in the snow, fur dark against the white, eyes fixed on them. But the look on his face had changed. The careful distance was gone. The patience, too. What was left unsettled Shane far more than the glowing runes ever had.

It was… soft.

Bare, almost. Like Shane had caught him mid-thought, unarmored.

For a split second, Shane had the strangest, most disorienting certainty that this man; this impossible, ancient, clearly-not-normal man; was looking at him the way Shane sometimes caught himself looking at Finn in the dead quiet of the night. 

Like something fragile and miraculous had wandered too close and he hadn’t known he was allowed to want it.

Their eyes met.

Whatever passed between them then was brief, wordless, and deeply uncomfortable. Shane’s chest tightened with a sudden, inexplicable awareness of himself, of being seen. Not as a threat. Not as a nuisance.

As a man.

The stranger blinked first. Looked away, as if embarrassed by his own attention. When he looked back again, the distance was carefully restored, expression smoothed into something neutral and ancient.

“Go safely, Hollander,” he said, voice steady once more.

Shane nodded, pulse skidding strangely. “You too,” he said automatically, then frowned. You too? What did that even mean?

He turned and walked away before he could think about it any harder.

Behind him, unseen, Ilya remained very still.

He watched the mortal disappear between the trees, watched the way he carried his son like the most sacred burden in the world, watched until the bond between them faded from blinding gold to a distant, aching glow.

Smitten was not a word gods used.

But as the forest closed in and winter shifted quietly around him, Ilya brought a hand to his chest. 

What he found there felt utterly, unmistakably, like warmth.

Chapter Text

The “knight in the woods” was first mentioned the next morning.

Specifically, at breakfast.

“Daddy,” Finn said around a mouthful of cereal, milk already threatening to spill over the edge of the bowl, “when can we go see him again?”

Shane, halfway through pouring coffee, froze so thoroughly he might as well have been a statue.

“...See who?” he asked carefully, once he'd regained his voice, carefully setting the pitcher down on the marble countertop.

Finn sighed. Loudly. The long-suffering sigh of someone who had already explained this and could not believe he was being forced to do it again. “The knight,” he said. “From the woods.”

Shane closed his eyes.

“Finn,” he said immediately, “bud. We can’t see him again.”

Finn blinked at him. “Why?”

Because he glowed, Shane thought. Because the forest listened to him. Because he knew my name without being told, and looked at me like—

“...No reason,” Shane sighed instead, sinking down at the table across from his young son. “Finish your cereal.”

Finn poked at the soggy flakes, unconvinced. “He wasn’t scary,” he added, helpfully. “He was nice.”

Shane’s jaw tightened.

“He was… a stranger,” Shane said, choosing the word with surgical precision. “And we don’t go running up to strangers, remember? It’s dangerous, like Mrs. Veele says, yeah?” he recalled. 

Mrs. Veele, Finn’s first grade teacher, had held a talk on precisely this topic as a part of their safety week a little while ago. Finn, apparently, had learned nothing. 

The young boy frowned, leaning forward in his chair with that same little pout that always made something in Shane’s heart clench. “But Daddy said he wasn’t bad.”

Shane paused, exhaling slowly through his nose.

“I said,” he corrected softly, “that you were safe.”

“...That’s the same thing,” Finn decided solemnly.

Shane dragged a hand down his face. 

It had been a long night; Finn waking up once, then again, insisting the trees outside his window were “too quiet,” Shane lying awake afterward staring at the ceiling, replaying frost and fur and eyes that had been too old to belong to anything that breathed.

“We aren’t going back,” Shane said, firmer this time, unfortunately used to negotiating with a six-year-old.

Finn considered this for a moment. Then, inevitably: “But he said he’d stay.”

Shane’s stomach dropped.

“He said what?”

Finn shrugged, cereal forgotten now. “That he wouldn’t disappear. He promised.” He brightened suddenly, black hair falling into his eyes as he straightened. “He waved at me!”

Shane stared at his son.

God help him, god help him, some treacherous part of his brain supplied the image instantly. Two fingers raised, solemn and careful, as if a wave were something that mattered.

“Finn, that doesn’t mean anything,” Shane said, too fast.

Finn tilted his head. “Daddy liked him.”

“I— What?” Shane paused to recalibrate, hand jolting hard enough for coffee to spill over and scald his knuckles.

“You did,” Finn insisted, utterly certain. “You looked at him like you look at me when I get a gold star.”

Shane swallowed.

“That’s not—” He stopped, breath catching, and forced himself to start again. “That’s different.”

Finn smiled, victorious. “The knight said I was brave too.”

Of course he did.

Shane pushed his chair back and stood, pacing once, then twice, the kitchen suddenly too small. Outside the window, the world was aggressively normal. Snow melting, a bird hopping along the fence. No glowing runes, no ancient mythicalities kneeling in clearings like they belonged there.

“Finn, we are not talking about the knight anymore,” Shane said finally.

Finn watched him for a long moment, then nodded, bottom lip jutting out. “...Okay, Daddy.”

Relief loosened something in Shane’s chest.

Then Finn added, casually, “Do you think he misses us?”

Shane stopped pacing. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then sighed.

“…Come on, Finn,” he said, abandoning the coffee and reaching for his coat. “You’ll be late for school.”

Finn sighed again, dramatically, but slid down from his chair. He shuffled toward the door in mismatched socks, dragging his backpack behind him like a stubborn animal. Shane watched him for a second too long, chest tight with that familiar, quiet terror of loving something far more than himself.

He grabbed his keys, phone and wallet, the muscle-memory checklist of a man who needed routine like oxygen.

Normal. Today would be normal.

Outside, the cold bit clean and sharp. The kind of cold that woke you up properly, that made the world feel solid again. Finn ran ahead, boots crunching through half-melted snow, breath puffing in little clouds.

Shane locked the door and followed.

The drive to school was quiet at first. Finn watched the world go by through the window, forehead pressed to the glass, humming tunelessly. Shane kept both hands on the wheel, jaw tight, eyes scanning the road too often, as if expecting—

What? A god in a fur mantle to step out of traffic? Lock in. 

At a red light, Finn spoke again.

“He had pretty eyes.”

Shane barely repressed the instinct to flinch.

“Buddy,” he said carefully, “we’re not—”

“They were like leaves,” Finn continued, completely unbothered by the interruption. “But shiny.”

Shane stared straight ahead. The light stayed red for far too long.

“...Some people just have light eyes,” he said. “That’s not special.”

Finn hummed. “Daddy’s aren’t shiny.”

“Thanks,” Shane muttered.

At drop-off, Finn hopped out of the car, then paused. He turned back, gripping the door.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“If he comes back,” Finn said, very seriously, “can I show him my drawings?”

Shane’s heart stuttered.

“He’s not coming back,” he said, gently but firmly, but it lacked conviction.

Finn frowned, clearly unconvinced, then brightened. “Okay. But if he does, I will.”

Before Shane could respond, Finn ran toward the school doors, disappearing into the chaos of coats and backpacks and noise.

Shane stayed in the car for a long moment after.

The world felt wrong in that subtle, infuriating way where everything looked normal but didn’t feel it. Like the volume was slightly off. Like he’d walked out of a movie theater and the daylight hadn’t caught up with his eyes yet.

Eschewing the feeling, he pulled out of the drop-off point and drove to the rink.

The season wouldn’t rest for supernatural nonsense. 

But even then, throughout warm-up and competitive drills, the forest stayed with him. Not the trees, nor the cold, but the stillness. The way the air had felt attentive, the way the ‘knight’ had looked at Finn.

And worse—

The way he’d looked at Shane.

That afternoon, the first sign that something was wrong was the drawing. 

Finn burst out of school with it clutched in his hand like treasure, cheeks pink from the winter chill, eyes wide and alight.

“Daddy! Daddy, look!”

Shane knelt automatically, car keys jangling in his palm. “Hey, buddy. What’ve you got?”

Finn shoved the paper into his hands with all the ceremony of a ring bearer bestowing a bride.

It was crayon. Thick, messy lines and childish proportions, but unmistakable nontheless.

Trees, snow, a tall figure with a fur mantle and curly light hair. Blue lines curling down both arms, and a big crooked axe that looked more like a shovel. Finally, a little stick-figure boy holding his hand. At the top, in uneven block letters: ‘THE NITE’.

Shane’s breath left him like he’d been gut punched. 

Mrs. Veele leaned over with a smile, her crows feet deep and warm. “Finn was very inspired today,” she said warmly. “He told us a wonderful story during show and tell.”

Shane forced his face into something he hoped resembled neutrality. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yes,” she laughed, glasses slipping further down her slender nose. “He told us all about a forest knight who keeps children safe. Very imaginative.”

Imaginative. Right.

“That’s great,” Shane said weakly. “Good job, buddy.”

Finn beamed, and Shane scooped him into the car like the floor was lava.

That night, Shane did not sleep.

He tried. He went through the motions the way he always did. He brushed his teeth, tucked Finn in, checked the window latch twice, left the hallway light on just enough to spill a soft line across the carpet. 

Finn had fallen asleep almost immediately, clutching the folded drawing Mrs. Veele had sent home like it was a talisman, his breathing deep and even, utterly unbothered by the fact that his imaginary friend now apparently had a name, a promise, and a standing appointment in the woods.

Shane lay awake anyway, staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks he’d memorized years ago and still couldn’t stop seeing. Every time he closed his eyes, the same images surfaced uninvited: frost clinging to fur, the hush of the forest falling unnaturally still, eyes too bright and too knowing turning toward him as if Shane had stepped onto a stage he hadn’t known existed.

At some point after midnight, when the house had settled and the pipes had stopped ticking and the silence had grown heavy enough to feel deliberate, Shane gave up.

He slipped out of bed quietly, careful not to let the floorboards creak, and padded into the living room. The couch swallowed him whole when he sat, old springs sighing in sympathy. He opened his laptop more out of habit than hope, the glow of the screen harsh in the dark, illuminating the faint lines of exhaustion etched into his face.

“...What are you doing, dude?” he muttered to no one, fingers already hovering over the keyboard.

He hesitated, before typing: knight in woods, folklore.

The results were immediate, and useless. 

Arthurian legends, halloween costumes, a Pinterest board titled Forest Knight Aesthetic. Shane huffed softly and scrubbed a hand over his face. He refined the search, then refined it again. Forest guardian myth. Knight protects children folklore. Old gods woods fur cloak axe.

That one at least got him somewhere strange.

He clicked through half a dozen pages, skimming descriptions that danced frustratingly close to what he’d seen without ever quite touching it.

Green Knights who tested men’s honor. Wild Hunts that rode through winter forests with horns and hounds. Slavic forest spirits with antlers and teeth. Celtic protectors bound to groves and thresholds.

Old stories, all of them, blurred together by time and retelling, stripped of sharp edges and danger by children’s books and museum placards.

Just as he was about to slam the laptop shut and frustratedly force himself to sleep, the glimpse of one search result he hadn’t yet clicked on made his breath hitch. 

The Leviathan Axe.

The Leviathan Axe, according to the internet, was a modern invention, crafted for a game, inspired by Norse aesthetics rather than pulled from any single surviving myth. Shane almost shut the laptop then, a bitter laugh already forming in his throat. 

See? His brain was borrowing imagery from pop culture, stitching it together with fear and exhaustion. This was nothing.

And yet.

He scrolled.

Buried beneath gaming forums and fan wikis were academic PDFs with titles like Weapon Symbolism in Late Pagan Scandinavia and Embodied Violence: The Deification of War in Pre-Christian Nordic Cultures. Shane clicked one, squinting at the scanned pages, dense with footnotes and half-faded diagrams. 

He didn’t understand most of it, but certain phrases leapt out at him with unsettling precision.

Shane leaned forward, elbows on his knees, heart beginning to thud a little too hard.

Another article mentioned lesser-known war gods, older than Odin’s dominance in the pantheon, venerated in isolated regions, their names lost or deliberately erased as belief systems consolidated.

 One passage, translated awkwardly from Old Norse, described a god who “walked the tree-shadowed borders of the world,” who protected settlements not through conquest but through presence, whose battles were fought away from human eyes.

Shane swallowed.

It was nothing, he thought, though the words felt flimsy even to himself.

He opened another tab. Then another. The hour crept toward two, then three, unnoticed as he chased fragments across the internet: mentions of frost-bound warriors who carried weapons that answered only to them; marginal notes about gods who had gone quiet but not gone away; speculation, always framed as metaphor, always safely distant, about divine figures who might still linger where belief had once been strong enough to anchor them.

What he did not find was comfort.

There were no clear endings in these texts. No neat explanations. Gods did not die the way men did, and they did not leave the way men did either. They receded, they waited. Sometimes, according to one author, they attached themselves to ideals rather than temples: war not as conquest, but as protection; violence as a last resort; guardianship sharpened into something lethal.

Shane closed his eyes and saw Finn again, standing far too close to that towering figure in the snow, his small hand swallowed easily by a larger one that had known battle long before Shane’s family name had ever existed.

He snapped the laptop shut, the sound sharp in the quiet room, and stood abruptly as if motion alone could shake the unease from his bones. He paced the length of the living room, rubbing his hands together, trying to ground himself in the ordinary. Couches, coffee table, the faint hum of the refrigerator. Outside, the trees stood dark and unremarkable against the night sky.

No gods. No warriors. Just woods.

Still, when he finally returned to bed, sleep came in broken fragments, threaded with dreams of ice and iron and a presence that loomed not with threat, but with watchfulness. 

He woke before dawn with his jaw clenched and his heart racing, the sense of being observed lingering like frostbite beneath the skin.

Morning arrived anyway, indifferent and bright. Finn ate his breakfast, talked about school, asked if knights ever used axes instead of swords. Shane answered automatically, kissed his son’s hair, and told himself, again, that this was coincidence, that meaning was something people imposed where none existed.

But the truth lingered in his mind regardless.

Whatever was out there in the woods was not a story.

And it had not left.