I stumble out of the Midgard portal, flailing my arms out for balance. I lean against the brick wall of an alley for support as I limp out, wary of my bad foot. My head sticks out of the alley like a mouse from its hole.

When I look around, I see lantern light waltzing with shadows as people of every shape and size walk, talk, and traverse all over what seems to be a thriving night market. It is night here, and the dark sky molds with the colors of the marketplace like a graceful song. I drag myself nearer, bumping lightly into passerby that mutter under their breath as they pass me by.

A slurring man that is singing a drinking song is thrown out of a nearby building, and I jump back at the spray of dust that rises as he lands.

"Severin of the Dirt, welcome to Midgard," Rhys sneers scornfully as he peeks out of my hood to look at the pathetic man.

I weave around to avoid more drunks and several suspicious characters that glance at my hood with pronged eyes before moving away. I can almost see their shadows reach for me as I duck into another alley and gasp for breath. I cling to the brick behind me as if it were my gods-shield, very disturbed by what I had seen.

"Not what you expected, gargan? Did you think that they'd be holding hands and braiding each other's hair?" Rhys taunts me as I collapse against the wall with weariness. "Kid, whether you like it or not, we have a better chance here than any other world."

"I know," I pant. "I know that. But now what, now that I'm here? I need a job, somewhere to live. . ."

"Let me worry about that. Just do what I say, and it'll be fine."

"Do what you say?"

"Do you have anyone else? Or any other plan?"

I bite my lip in agitation. I had not bothered to think about the afterwards, back in Svartalfheim. I doubted there would even be an afterwards. I truly have no one else, no where to go. I have no choice. And this damned snake will never let me forget that, no matter what happens.

"You said that you would trust me," Rhys reminds me, and I nod reluctantly.

"Fine. What's you plan?"

"Get out of this place and go into the forest. There, you can shift and sleep in an abandoned burrow. I'll help you afterwards, but first you have to do this."

I am about to object to sleeping in a hole in the ground before I weigh my other utterly nonexistent options. I nod again, and my lip is raw from tearing at it. I am impatient, and I wish that I had some idea of what is going to happen to me after.

At Rhys's instruction, I leave the market and town and head for the forest, unaware of what he's planning or what exactly he has in store for me.

--

He drags me out of the hole by his mouth, and I shift back into a human. I've never felt this sore before. My limbs feel like wet bread, and my sides and neck are aching as if I'd slept on a steep set of stairs rather than on the ground. I get up, groaning as I feel bones crack with my every movement. I want to go back. Back down the hole, back into the dark and the conforts that lie away from the warmth.

I sit on the ground with my legs crossed, blinking blearily at Rhys.

"What now? Any more blind instructions to give me?"

He cocked his head at me, meeting my gaze evenly. "Yep. Take out your Dagaz rune."

My hand instinctively goes right to it, gripping it tightly. "Why?"

"You said that you would trust me," he reminds me again, and I slowly take it from around my neck and hold it in my palm.

"Bite one of your fingers and spread the blood on it," he says patiently, and I swallow nervously.

I nip my finger with one of my fangs. I had grown them a year ago, in the fourth grade. I thought that they looked 'wicked' at the time, but they served no real purpose back then. I wonder how that will change now that everything else has. I know that I have changed. No, I became something completely new. My life is not Razan's. I keep forgetting, and I keep remembering what happened.

I had terrible dreams last night. I saw Severinus, and the dagger in his chest. It took hours for me to finally get some sleep, especially as a snake. I'd never slept in my shift form before. When I did, I saw my mother repeating the words, "You're supposed to be dead. You're supposed to be dead." I saw Muspell, and I felt the fire at my back as if I were still on the metal table. My eyes ache from the light that peers through the trees this morning, reminding me painfully of the bright light of the screens, white like the walls of my cell.

The images haunt me. I know that they will plague me until my life comes to an end. But at least now I have air. I have this thing called morning and sunrise and sun. I remember how much I had wanted it, dreamed of it, even...

Why does it feel so empty?

I spread the blood on the rune, lost in the pain of remembering. The forest in my mind has darkened; while it is day, I forever am lost in the darkness of night. The sun settles on the skin on my face, but it is freezing inside this forest, and the sun is like a fire. I pull my hood down, fearful of the warmth.

Rhys approaches and touches the rune with his snout. "Now, activate the rune's magic. Say, 'Dagaz'."

"Dagaz," I repeat, and Rhys begins to grow before my very eyes.

First, he blows up like a balloon from the inside, then I hear his bones crack as if from the pressure of the air inside. He begins to change color from snow-white to coal-black. He grows limbs, arms and legs like mine. A cloak somehow sprouts from his skin, and he makes a small sound as his face cracks and forms a nose and lips. By the time the magic has finished its course, Rhys has become a copy of myself.

I scramble backwards in shock as Rhys inspects his new hands--my hands. He admires them, turning them over. They are pale, with long and thin fingers. The right hand is adorned with the two silver rings that Nydia gave me. 

I don't know what he's going to do now that he's a person. Rhys seems to always act with his own best interest in mind, but I'm not sure where that leaves me.

He looks at me with my eyes. He breathes, and my chest rises and falls. He is me, and he is Rhys. I am nothing.

I am dirt.

He tosses some sort of file at me. "Take this. This is the first thing you should read."

I glance at the side, and I see the words 'INMATE 4578'.

"Where did you get this?"

Rhys shrugs, leaning against a tree. "You took a long time killing the old man and taking his stuff. I had plenty of time to grab your file in the meantime, and you still weren't done by the time I came back. You need to learn how to move quickly, daufi."

I nod absently, opening it and wincing at the unnaturally white paper. My eyes widen so much that they hurt as I read the contents. My file has all these parentheses and little side notes, like my life was an inconvenience to the normal system. The usual little topics were altered to fit my information, stuff that kept changing or was simply out-of-place for normal harmr. Some of it's outdated, since I changed my appearance. Some of it's so recent that I'm surprised. I had no idea that I turned twelve in that place.

BIRTH NAME: RAZAN ELDR (to be referred to as Inmate 4578)

AGE: 12 (see additional notes)

HEIGHT: 4' 9'' (growth stunted due to iron deficiency)

HAIR: BROWN

EYES: BROWN

WEIGHT: 75 lbs (underweight due to refusal to eat standard inmate rations)

CLASSIFICATION: ORMBRHAMR, SNAKESHIFTER (Diagnosis: future threat to society)

BIND: MORDEKADR; DUBBED 'ADR', CORAL SNAKE (Micrurus fulvius, deceased)

STATUS: INCARCERATED (of illegitimate birth, held at Svartalfheim Institute for Juvenile Magical Offenders)

PLACE OF BIRTH: SHIFTER ISLAND, RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT 423 (see additional notes)

PARENTS: MANNINGA OLIVA (ormbrhamr, prostitute, current status unknown); RAGNVALD KIRKWOOD (vargrhamr, fugitive, traitor to the Brotherhood of Tyr, mass murderer, currently incarcerated in Sihung)

SHIFT: SEA KRAIT, BLACK-BANDED (Laticauda semifasciata, Diagnosis: unstable shift ability, Note: White stripes have disappeared since excursion to Midgard, and subject has since exhibited an ouroboros mark on the back of their neck. Subject claims ignorance of their causes. Will investigate phenomenon further at later notice.)

ADDITIONAL NOTES: Subject was found as an infant on Harpa the 7th in a cremation furnace. Further investigation suggests attempted infanticide. DNA testing identified parents, who were then sought out. Manninga Olavi was found to have fled prior to discovery of her child. Ragnvald Kirkwood was apprehended at the headquarters of the Brotherhood of Tyr, and confessed to breaking his vow of celibacy. He later escaped lawful custody and fled Nidavellir. Further investigation to be determined.

The foundling was later dubbed 'Razan Eldr' and admitted to the Shifter Island Foundling Hospital.

Razan Eldr later lived to assault a group of students on their way to the Business District, wounding four and killing one. She is now held at the Svartalfheim Prison for Magical Offenders.

Not anymore.

Never again.

I drop the file to the ground and I stare at it with narrowed eyes. I want to burn it, but fire served nothing to me but to remind me of the name I was given and the torture I went through. So instead, I bury it, digging with my hands and a large stick. I tear it to shreds and spit on it before throwing the pieces inside and covering them with dirt.

A grave for Razan Eldr. A grave that will never have a tombstone.

A corpse without a coffin.

May she rot in Helheim.

I turn to look at Rhys. "And why are you still here? You are human now, you can kill me and take my place without worrying about being hunted."

He shrugs. "I would if I could, but unfortunately, the Dagaz rune doesn't work like that. It only changes appearances permanently when it has a new owner and the old ones are all dead. The ones that come after are temporary, and wear off after a while. Not a bad idea, though." He yawns.

He gets up from where he leaned against the tree. "C'mon, we're going shopping."

"Shopping?"

"Yep. Hurry up, gargan. You take too long. Oh, and you should probably take the rune back. You know how to use it now, and it wouldn't be good if it wore off while we were in town. Here."

He takes the rune from around his neck and tosses it to me. It hits my forehead, and I yell in pain before stooping to pick it up. When I straighten, he is a snake again. I allow him to climb up the length of my cloak, and shudder as he crawls into my hood.

"Go to town. Keep walking until I tell you where to stop."

I sigh through my nose and pray to Odin before beginning to walk.

--

"Stop here."

I pause, but I am hesitant. To my right is a florist's shop, with plants in pots hanging from baskets that were tied to the railing. There are herbs and spices in jars lined up neatly on the counter. I can't imagine why Rhys brought me here, but I turn to enter through anyway.

"Not here. To the left."

"There's nothing to the left." I whisper, glancing around for stares.

"Look again, vitskertr."

I turn to the left, where there's a crumbling wooden shack with black smoke coming from a rickety smokestack. It looks like someone built it by gluing the planks together. With a glue stick. In the rain. With a blindfold on. And accidentally set some of it on fire. And tried to put it out with someone's cat.

Okay, it looks terrible.

"See?" I whisper. "There's nothing there."

"Shut up and go in, gargan," he snaps.

I sigh and walk into the shack, wincing at every loud creak the floor makes with every footfall. Inside is a lot worse than the outside. There are huge black smears of ash on the walls, and the floor is littered with wooden planks and tubes of metal. There are arrows sticking on the ceiling, and I have to tiptoe around the giant holes in the floor. It looks as if an army went through here.

A little kid walks to me from a room to my right, completely black with soot.

"What the Helheim you think you're doing here, harmr? Scram, snake bastard. Unless you got coin, there's nothing for you here."

The rude little brat glares at me with icy blue eyes that stare from under the many layers of dirt and soot that are on him. I glare back, ready to give him a sound lashing with my tongue before I catch myself.

"How do you know what I am?" I ask him.

He huffs and crosses his arms. "I'm Einar the Ice Dwarf, fool. Dwarves can tell things like that, or are you too dumb to figure it out?"

A dwarf. I had mistaken him for a child of five, perhaps four years. Upon closer inspection, which wasn't easy with all the grime on him, I did indeed recognize him to be a dwarf. Still young, but not quite as young as I had guessed.

"The Helheim you staring at?"

I clear my throat, waiting for Rhys to explain. He peeks out of my collar.

"I need you to get this girl the cheapest weapon you have."

"Weapon?" I ask him in a whisper.

"This is a smithy, gargan. And you need to be able to defend yourself if you're planning on surviving very long," he whispers back.

Einar turns his nose up at us. "Like you can pay up."

"Like you can afford to deny us business." I motion around the shop.

He glares even deeper at me, and I imagine that his face is red under all the soot.

"Tell you what," I say, irritated. "If you get me a sword, I'll bring a teacup over here so you can take a bath."

Thirty seconds later, I am thrown out of the shop with my head aching and my money-bag completely empty. I get up shakily, and fall again when I am hit on the head with a wooden staff.

"And don't even think about coming back, snake bastard! I'll make it big one day, you'll see! Someday, everyone actually worth the service will flock to come over here and get my weapons! I'll make a whole chain of smithys!"

The yelling is attracting more attention than what makes me comfortable, so I get out of there quickly. The damned dwarf is very strong, strong enough to throw a seventy-five pound snakeshifter out the door without even breathing hard. I'm going to have to be more careful about him.

The staff I 'bought' is long and firm. I can only wonder at how he could've made it. A masterful carver as well as smith.

"He couldn't have been more than eight years old," Rhys muses.

"How did you know about the smithy, then? You said you were locked up for decades."

"The kid's new. I've never heard of the Ice Dwarf Einar, I was expecting Ake Oslaug, a Fire Giant. This was literally the opposite of what I was looking for, but hey, we got the weapon and now you're going to learn how to use it."

"Oh, gods," I groan.

"Don't swear by them. You'll attract their attention."

"Then who do I swear to?"

I feel him move along my collarbone, and I gulp at the unfamiliar feeling.

"Swear to Jormungandr. He doesn't give a damn. Besides, you're in his realm, Midgard, not Asgard or Vanaheim. Not to mention that he's a snake like us."

"Fine. I swear to Jormungandr that you are a big annoyance."

"Doesn't bother me none," he responds boredly. "Now use the rune again. I'm going to beat some fight into you."

I change him back into a copy of me, and he draws wooden knives from his cloak and immediately attacks me. I raise the staff as a reflex, but I don't stand a chance against his ruthless attacks. Wooden or no, he uses them like a master. He could still seriously injure me.

Nevertheless, he hits me on the hilt of his knife instead of with the blade. "You're dead." He says as I fall to the ground.

I am already winded, and it took only seconds for him to overpower me. We share the same form, so how could he be stronger than me when he is me?

"How do you do that? We should have the same strength."

He twirls his knives lazily as he looks down at me. "The Dagaz rune changes you inside and out only once. All the other times, it only changes the outside temporarily. We share the same form, true, but I'm still me with this disguise. I retain the same strength I had as a snake, and I've done this before. I know how to use the rune, and while I did, I learned how to use knives. Even if I haven't had hands in years, I still retain the skill I had as a human when I'm a snake. Understand?"

"No."

"Figure it out, gargan. Until then, we're going to keep doing this until you somehow manage to not die."

I die fifty-six times before dropping to the ground in exhaustion. I fall asleep as soon as I hit the ground, tired, sore, and covered in bruises from the hilt of Rhys's knives.

--

"A dash of arnica. Now taproot. Just a dash, gargan! Are you trying to give me deformed arms?"

I groan with impatience as I try to fish out the Taproot from the empty skin I shed a few hour ago.

"Not with your fingers, daufi! Now you're going to give me acne!"

I am tempted to throw the skin on the ground and grind it into the dirt with my bad foot.

Rhys is trying to teach me how to use the Dagaz rune to turn him into carbon copies of other people. This is different than the usual transformation, as he previously explained. In the usual transformation, you use only blood to change form. But Rhys is teaching me how to use herbs and chemicals and the rune to turn him into an actual carbon copy, where he doesn't retain any of his strengths. He becomes a literal copy of me in everything but mind.

At least, that is what's supposed to happen.

Instead, he uses the rune to change form while I practice, and starts pelting knives at me. He does many things like this when he's bored. I am forced to dodge knives and try to mix the potion at the same time.

I am getting very, very annoyed.

Eventually, after a few hours, I make a mistake-riddled carbon copy of myself with Rhys and the rune.

"Useless brat," he drawls, tossing another knife at me. I catch it, gripping it so hard that my knuckles turn white. I throw it back at him with all the strength I have left. He easily dodges it and throws three more.

One day, I will get him to tell me where he keeps them all.

I grab my staff from the ground and try to deflect them, but one hits my shoulder. I drop my staff, and Rhys leaps forward, another knife at my throat.

"Not bad, kid. But you're still dead, even when our strength is matched."

"For how long?" I seethe. "How long will I 'die' by your hands?"

He draws back, shrugging. "Until you learn how to live. That means learning how to survive. I'm not a teacher, and this isn't something that can be taught. So instead, I'm going to push you to your limit until your limit can't take it anymore."

"And how long will that take?"

He chuckles for the first time, and I raise an eyebrow in confusion. 

"That depends. Not on how much you're willing to give up, but how much you're able to take. Can you handle it, kid? Don't answer that," he says hurriedly before I can say anything. "You're going to have to, for your sake and mine."

I glare at the ground silently. He's annoying, he's rude, and he commands me to do things that I don't quite understand. But he is insufferably, annoyingly right.

I hate him for it.

"Again," he commands.

I would rather slam my face into a tree, but I shed my skin and gather up the necessary ingredients, muttering obscenities at him under my breath.

"Ouch!" I hold my head at the sudden blow.

"No obscenities, little snakeling," sneers Rhys, "Swear by Jörmungandr or swear by Helheim, but you'll only mess up the one thing you can afford to keep to yourself."

"Which is?"

"Your speech. Your words, the books you stole from Severinus. Collect words, craft lines of them in your mind. You can't do that with anything else anymore, because that's the only thing you have left that is yours that you made for yourself."

"And the staff?"

"Practice nonstop, and the little skill you can scrounge up will also be yours," he sighs, rolling his eyes.

I scowl and swing it at his head. He blocks it, knocks it away, and kicks me to the ground. He crouches over me with another knife, but I grab his hand and kick him in the stomach. He bashes his head on mine, wrenching his hand free and holding it to my throat. 

"You're learning, kid. Pick up the pace a little, and maybe you'll survive."

--

"Shift. Back. Shift. Back again. No, no, no, and no. You fail, gargan."

I get up from the dirt, wincing at the pain in my foot. Every time I shift, the pain intensifies no matter how long I'm in my shift form. It is a great burden in battle, when I need to be either light on my feet or in a firm defensive stance. My bad foot makes me both unbalanced and clumsy, causing me to trip over my own feet when sparring.

"Ow," I say as a knife hilt connects with my forehead.

Rhys leans against a tree, picking his nails. "Oh well, I guess it can't be helped. Your next six-month eating deadline's happening soon, and we're out of money."

"You mean I'm out of money."

"I mean we're out of money. I'm your bind. You're my ward. Your hands and feet are mine, and my scales and fangs are yours. Your money is my money, and my skills are your skills. Your life is connected to mine. Any damage that happens to me is transferred to you, and my death is triggered by yours. Don't look at me like that," he chides. "You accepted me as your bind and took the Dagaz rune. Now we can't be separated for too long before it takes a toll."

"What's your point?" I growl at him.

"My point is that we need money, or we won't last long. And snakes like us are only good for a small number of jobs: assassination, infiltration, espionage, magical combat, etcetera etcetera."

"I can't do any of those! And you can't expect me to! I'm only ele--twelve!"

He gets right in my face, and I try to shrink as he looks right into my yellow eyes.

"You're going to become an infiltrator," he says slowly. "—and you had better be a good one. If you don't, you will die and I will die with you. Get your act together, kid, before I decide that you're too much trouble and break the bind we made and find someone else. There is always someone else, Severin. And you had better hope that there will never come a day where I finally lose the patience the gods granted me."