Fic Updates 49

[Norgarth]

A Thing of Vikings
https://archiveofourown.org/works/104089.../116724736

Our faith is one of conflict. We are a religion of war. We view existence itself as conflict, that of order versus not just chaos, but nihilism itself. We view our lives as bubbles of structure clawed out of a meaningless, pointless reality, hewn together with law and order that will collapse should we act unquestioningly in accordance with our chaotic natures. For we know what happens if we succumb to those base urges and unquestioning reactions: Ragnarök, where all we have striven for, all we have built, will collapse and be purged under the onslaught of disorder. That, ultimately, nothing we have done has lasting meaning, that our legacies will amount to naught.

So we fight against that end. We stop the unstoppable. We question ourselves and our actions, to see their endings. The All-Father saw, but he never reflected on what he saw. He merely reacted, and in that reaction, set forth the sequence of his own destruction. But the lesson we take from this is that it is possible to step back from the precipice and interrupt the chain of events, by choosing a different path.

The followers of the Æsir are at war. But while the Jötnar are all around us, they are not the enemy, even as they are the agents of our potential destruction. No, the enemy is within ourselves. For, unlike the Jötnar, we of Midgard have choice. We can use that choice for good or ill, but to abandon it in favor of unthinking reaction reduces us to little more than an animal or Jotunn, a predictable force in the tapestry whose thread is controlled.

The Weavers care not for the threads. When the Tapestry is complete, they will begin anew. But for us and for those we follow, every inch woven is another victory, every day that we stave off the final knot a battle won.

This is our existence. It is not for everyone. Other faiths view things differently. That is their choice. Their threads still weave through reality, even if they care not to acknowledge it, or view it in different ways—as the Christians view themselves in the service of a Father-God of Order in a conflict against a corruptive god of destruction, or as the Jews view themselves as being in an agreement with a God of Wisdom, helping build upon an imperfect creation. That is their choice, to view things in such a way. But as for us, we will safeguard our own choices, and theirs, knowing that it could all fall to naught. This is our struggle, our burden, our exultation.

Who is with me!?

—Fyrir Hiccup House Haddock VI, Collected Public Sermons & Private Contemplations