The news of the assassination of King Gyrðir of Dvergar's Holdfast spread with astonishing speed. It was said that the murder occurred on a night of a crescent moon turned upside down, yet by the scorching heat of high noon, the Afbarahants clan, which governed the Sterburinn kingdom, had already received the tidings.
Dvergar's Holdfast was a far-flung land to the west of Svartálfaheim, while the Sterburinn kingdom lay toward the eastern frontier. The fact that the news of King Gyrðir's death traveled such a distance overnight was due to the evolution the dwarves underwent during the War of the Seven Brothers, a development inherited from the Gullheimr-Undirdjúpr kingdom. This gave rise to a method of communication through numerous interconnected subterranean pipes.
The Afbarahants clan, which currently rules Sterburinn, was originally founded by Ulfarr, the sixth son of Thrud. Ulfarr was a dwarf physically larger and stronger than all his siblings, and he later gained notoriety for his cruelty and treachery. He was the one who personally murdered three of his own brothers and was responsible for burning down more than half of the Gullheimr-Undirdjúpr kingdom.
In the underground metropolis of Grnnstjarna, the capital of Sterburinn, on 42nd Street, at the 6th Intersection, there was an ancient tavern named "Eldbjörn," which translates to Fire Bear. Taverns with such a name were once commonplace, as the Fire Bear was the personal symbol of the first Emperor, Ulfarr.
The Eldbjörn tavern was like any other old drinking hole; all four of its walls were riddled with holes. Although they had been extensively patched up with weathered wood, new planks were a costly commodity in this underground realm.
A strange, hairy creature stumbled out of the Eldbjörn tavern in a daze, tripped, and collapsed onto the ground, lying motionless. A short while later, a dwarven woman walked out of the tavern and stopped beside the fallen, hairy creature. She crouched down onto her heels.
"Mikilllfr, wake up! Wake up. Don't sleep here," the dwarven woman called out, shaking her right hand into his thick, matted hair.
The hairy creature twitched its body at the sound of the dwarven woman's voice. It pushed itself up from the floor and settled into a cross-legged position, replying, "Liv, you can't go marry someone from the Afbarahants clan. You just can't."
"What are you talking about? You're too drunk," the dwarven woman, named Liv, the seventh daughter of the Eldbjörn tavern owner, retorted.
"Just wait for me a little longer. I will definitely defeat every man in your household," said Mikilllfr, the true name of the strange, hairy creature.
"Give up, you loser. My father hates you. All nine of my brothers hate you. That promise—that I'd marry you if you defeated all ten of them at once—it was just a joke. So, go get a haircut. Tomorrow morning, I'm heading to Purple Stone Castle." The dwarven woman said this while shoving Mikilllfr's left shoulder hard with her right hand.
The strength of Liv's arm barely managed to shake Mikilllfr's well-trained body.
"It doesn't matter how much they all hate me," Mikilllfr replied, trying to lock eyes with the dwarven woman. "As long as you don't hate me, it's enough."
Liv avoided his gaze. She ran her right hand through her own hair once and said, "To be honest, I used to hate you a little bit, but I don't hate you anymore."
"Liv, my love, let's run away together. Right now. How about it?"
"I just don't hate you. I don't love you or even like you," the dwarven woman stated with a flat expression.
"Huh!!" Mikilllfr gasped in shock, his face instantly twisting into deep disappointment.
"You're a formidable warrior. You must come from some great lineage, right? I'm just a tavern owner's daughter. I'm not suitable for you."
"Who said you're not suitable for me? I'll knock out all their teeth," Mikilllfr declared sternly.
"I decided that myself. No one had to tell me. A dwarven girl like me is only suited for a blacksmith or a tunnel digger, that's all."
"I can be a blacksmith!" Mikilllfr quickly moved his right arm up and down, mimicking the motion of forging a sword.
"You fool. Are you even listening to me? We are not suitable." Liv said this, changing her posture from squatting to sitting cross-legged on the floor, just like Mikilllfr, and adjusted her skirt slightly. Most dwarven women are like this—they are not pretentious and share many characteristics with men.
"You're saying all this because you're going to be the bride of the Afbarahants clan, aren't you?" Mikilllfr accused in a pained, reproachful tone.
"You idiot! My mother is sending me to be a maid at Purple Stone Castle. She said I eat too much and she can't afford to keep feeding me anymore, Haha," Liv couldn't help but laugh at this. She continued, "The great Afbarahants clan? Why would they even glance at a messy, grubby tavern daughter like me?"
"I think you are more beautiful than anyone else! Why wouldn't others think you're beautiful? Who told you that you're not beautiful? I'll go pluck out their left eye and wash it!" Mikilllfr said, clenching his fists and raising them.
"Haha! You truly are both foolish and insane, Haha!" Liv could not help but laugh at the words of the dwarven warrior before her.
"Before this, everyone complimented me on how handsome and sharp-witted I was. But ever since I met you three years ago, I've become this monster that I am today," Mikilllfr said, using his right hand to adjust the long strands of hair covering his face and eyes.
"Who made you swear that you wouldn't cut your hair unless you married me? And who told you to make that promise about defeating all the men in my house?"
"At the time, I thought there were maybe five or six men in your house. Turns out there were ten. And every single one of them is strong as a bear," Mikilllfr confided, head bowed in utter defeat, as his right index finger aimlessly traced patterns in the dirt.
"Haha! I bet you regret it now, Haha!" Liv laughed, a sound of pure, happy amusement.
"Liv, my love, let's just run away together. Right now. How about it?" Mikilllfr pleaded, seizing both the dwarven woman's shoulders and desperately trying to hold her gaze.
"Hmph... I'm such a fool for even talking to someone so mad and foolish as you." Liv finished, batting his hands away with a dismissive swipe of her right arm before climbing to her feet.
"Liv, I..." Mikilllfr's voice broke. There were no words left to speak.
"Go your own way. Go forge a reputation so renowned that one day, a servant girl of the Afbarahants clan hears your tale and realizes how utterly foolish she was that night for not running away with a great warrior." With that, Liv turned and walked quickly back toward her father's tavern.
Mikilllfr could only stare at the back of the woman who held his heart. He silently prayed for her to look back one last time, but the door of the Eldbjörn tavern opened and shut without so much as a backward glance from Liv.
Mikilllfr sat there, his heart shattered, for a long while. Then, he pushed himself up and staggered toward the high bridge.
That towering structure was even older than the Eldbjörn tavern. It was a crumbling iron bridge, rough and covered in corrosive orange rust. It had been built around the time Ulfarr was constructing the underground waterway, prior to his rise as Emperor. That monumental project earned Thrud's sixth son immense fame and support, yet few knew that the entire waterway system was conceived by Thrud's seventh son, Eilifr, whose name means Eternal. That brilliant younger brother was the first to be sacrificed for his ambitious sibling, though the waterways still bear his name: Eilifr.
Legend held that the Eilifr waterway sprang from the roots of the world tree, Yggdrasil, leading many dwarves to revere it as a sacred river. Mikilllfr knew better: the water did not come from any tree root, but flowed entirely from the Gjöll River—the river from Niflheim, the Land of the Dead. It was this water that the seven sons of Thrud had once used to flood the Ósigrheimr kingdom, drowning both dwarves and their captive dragons.
Why did Mikilllfr know these grim details so well? Because if the Ósigrheimr kingdom still stood, he would be the 32nd Prince of that massive, united eastern kingdom of Svartálfaheim, with the mighty Emperor Solmarr as his grandfather.
With a broken heart, Mikilllfr took a few heavy steps onto the high iron bridge and stared into the current, contemplating his utterly wretched fate. His noble title was lost, his life a lie, and now he was rejected by the woman he loved. This suffering was too great to bear any longer.
He made a final, desperate decision and leaped over the edge, intending to join the souls of the Ósigrheimr dwarves who had perished in these waters. His bulky, shaggy body plummeted through the air, but his drunkenness and inherent clumsiness caused Mikilllfr to fail once more.
Instead of plunging into the rushing current, his body slammed violently into the hard earth of the riverbank. He tumbled, scattering debris, before coming to a dead stop in the deep shadows beneath the very iron bridge he had just abandoned.
"Ugh... Ow! That stings," Mikilllfr groaned in pain, utterly consumed by disappointment. He failed even at death, forced to lie there and whine pitifully.
"What in the hell have you done?" A woman's voice cut through the darkness, not far from where Mikilllfr lay groaning.
Mikilllfr struggled to push himself out of the mud and orange rust. He turned toward the voice. Instantly, his pain was replaced by astonishment. He saw a young Elven woman with brown hair and a beautiful face, standing precisely centered in the gap between the rusty iron support beams. Her gaze was overtly hostile.
"Don't tell me you tried to jump in and kill yourself, but missed and belly-flopped here instead," the Elven woman assessed the rapid sequence of events, then continued, "Are you genuinely stupid or just crazy?"
The Elven woman's words mirrored the insults of Liv, Mikilllfr's beloved, who constantly called him foolish and crazy. Yet, instead of anger, the dwarf warrior felt a strange, thrilling acceleration in his heart.
The Elven woman moved closer. Without touching him, she used her eyes to examine the injuries of the foolish, hairy creature before her. "You're a warrior, aren't you? Your body is surprisingly tough."
"I..." Mikilllfr, still reeling from the impact of the long fall, could only manage that single, broken word.
"Well, if you truly want to die, I can help you with that," the Elven woman offered, her content shockingly cold and factual. Her tone was neither merciful nor mocking; it was simply the presentation of a viable option.
"What? You would kill me..." Mikilllfr instantly forgot his pain in a surge of astonishment.
"If you really want to die, I suppose I could assist," the Elven woman replied with utter indifference. She continued to assess the dwarf warrior with an emotionless gaze. "But if I were to haul you back up and toss you off the bridge again, with your strength, you might not even drown." Her words were not a compliment, but a cold caution about his potential to fail again.
"Who are you? Doesn't the law in Svartálfaheim forbid a Forest Elf from killing a Dwarf?" Mikilllfr asserted the rule of the dominant dwarves over the Forest Elves in this realm.
"Heh heh," the Elven woman chuckled softly to herself before returning the question, "What's your name, you hairy lump?"
"If you're going to ask someone's name, you should introduce yourself first. And I'm a Dwarf. You are merely a Forest Elf," Mikilllfr gently warned her, a reflexive act of courtesy and concern, given the low status of Forest Elves here.
"If you don't want to tell me your name, then don't. I was just about to leave anyway."
"You're a Forest Elf traveling alone in the land of the dwarves. Aren't you afraid of being captured as a slave?" As Mikilllfr spoke, a realization struck him: perhaps this Elven woman was a runaway slave hiding beneath the bridge from her dwarven master.
The Elven woman showed no interest in further discussion. She turned her face away, ready to leave her spot under the bridge.
"Wait! What is your name?" Mikilllfr called out, trying to stop the Elven woman.
"If you're going to ask someone's name, shouldn't you introduce yourself first?" The Elven woman used his own words to counter-question him.
"I... I am Mikilllfr Drakavaldr. I might be able to help you." The naïve dwarf warrior impulsively offered his aid to the solitary young Elven woman