---Fenris' POV---

The following days were spend research all kinds of deities. Ever since my revelation of what may have been the reason of my capture, my torment, I had been relentless in my pursuit for the truth.

A small list of deities was forming that could possibly be behind my torment but it was still mere speculation. There was only one person that I knew of whom would know exactly why I had been captured, enslaved and tormented.

But since this all went against what was prophesied, I wondered how much prophecies could be influenced. Further research into that had made me feel confused and utterly stunned.

Prophecies weren't set in stone. In fact on multiple occasions, Prophecies only came true because the recipient believed in them, took steps that led towards what was foretold.

Such a self-fulfilling prophecy is the story of Oedipus and his father. The man was prophesied that one day, his own son would kill him. Believing the prophet, he abandoned his own child, left it to die but didn't know that the child would be found and raised by his step parents.

Oedipus himself was also warned that he would end up killing his father and marrying his own mother. As a result and out of fear of harming, what he assumed to be his birth parents, he left his step parents and came upon his actual father.

It isn't a surprise to find out that when the pair had an alteration resulting in the death of Oedipus' father , he ended up marrying the stranger's widow, his own mother.

It seemed that people who truly believed in the prophecy and took steps to avoid it, often met their destiny through their own actions.

Which confused me greatly. Because up until my torment, I had no idea of the prophecy. Not a speck of hatred towards the pantheon that took me into their home and raised me as one of their own.

Supposedly I was destined to bring forth the end of the world. The end of the Gods as we knew it.

But if that was the case, if a prophecy was meant to be followed every step of the way, that already meant that my prophecy, the prophecy foretelling Ragnarök, was already broken.

I hadn't broken out of my chains ; I was released from them. And nowhere in any parchment, scroll or book did I find any notion of two deities coming to save me.

So if my prophecy wasn't a self-fulfilling one, perhaps it was a self-destroying one?

Because now that I knew of Ragnarök, what it all entailed, I had no reason to start a war with the Norse Pantheon. With a bit of luck, they could be reasoned with and shown that I wasn't the murderous beast they imagined me to be.

As a result, because of my lack of hatred, my desire of simply wanting to be left alone... the prophecy was void. It would not happen, as long as I had no intention of going after the pantheon.

But what if, whomever that Deity was, knew this was a self-defeating prophecy?

The thought made me pause, glancing up towards Cain, who shared my frown.

"If what you're thinking is true... that does indeed mean that the deity had abducted you for one reason only."

I nodded, lowering my head to scratch at my neck. Whomever it was, they hated the Norse Pantheon, the mortal realm or simply didn't care what happened.

They truly wanted Ragnarök to happen. To wipe out everything from the face of the Earth for an so far unknown reason.

Still, that knowledge didn't make finding whoever did it any easier. We didn't know if this was restricted to one Pantheon or all of them.

For all we knew, it could be someone from the Norse Pantheon itself. It could be a deity from another pantheon entirely.

We needed a Deity that was associated with Wisdom. Someone who had extensive knowledge accessible.

Hearing a soft chuckle, I looked up with confusion, watching as Cain leaned back in his seat.

"I'm hurt. But I'm not surprised that the knowledge of our Pantheon has been slowly dying out." Cain motioned towards himself with a smirk.

I tilted my head curiously, knowing that Cain was indeed a God himself but I never really asked or knew what he was a deity off.

He seemed to realize that the hint was slowly clicking into place before I murmured "You?"

"Yes. I was considered to be a patron god of priests and merchants, as well as the god of learning, science, agriculture, crafts and arts." He seemed to feel proud about that, tilting his head as I hummed thoughtfully.

Knowing that was certainly useful, though I had the feeling that, despite being a god of learning, of wisdom, Cain was not omniscient.

"No, I'm not. Few Gods can claim to be omniscient, where it actually is true to be precise. I'm certain that many claim to be so but are sorely lacking in wisdom, intelligence and knowledge combined."

Cain smiled sadly, tapping his fingers on the scrolls laid out in front of him. "One of the few deities who can claim nigh-omniscience, is Mimir. He's even wiser than Odin, and that is saying something, considering that the Allfather is regarded as a Deity of Wisdom himself."

He thought to himself for a moment, fingers ruffling a subconscious pattern on the table. "However, if we could contact other Deities of Wisdom, could convince them that the prophecy is a self-destructing one..."

My mind instantly started whirring as I nodded. "I, and that is a big if, they are willing to listen and see I'm not a threat, they could get in contact with the Norse Pantheon for us."

Cain nodded. "I could try and reach out myself, but if the Norse Pantheon gets suspicious of me and follows me home..."

A shiver darted over my back. "There would be no telling how they'll respond."

Cain's expression turned grim. "Oh, I can just imagine how they'll respond. The hotheads of that pantheon, like Thor, would rush right here to destroy you before you have a chance of triggering Ragnarök."

"They would..." I agreed reluctantly, knowing that Cain wasn't lying. Well, I couldn't exactly give any input here, even though I had lived in that pantheon.

Because knowing there was some shapeshifting deity that had pretended to be multiple gods, I couldn't accurately say if I even had met any gods.

How many of my memories were filled with imposters, and how many were filled with the actual deities I had grown up with?

I knew it was impossible to not have met any of the gods. After all, there had been times where I had been surrounded by multiple gods, had interacted with Odin while in the presence of Loki, Thor and others.

While this shapeshifting Deity had managed to trick me during my entire torture, it did give a vital clue in my memories.

They had always been alone. A single deity that visited me, to further my torment and supposedly punish me for my existence.

It didn't matter who they impersonated. Thinking back, they always had the same color of eyes. That faded blue that nearly melted into the whites of his eyes.

And then I smirked to myself, giving off a halfhearted chuckle. Cain watched me carefully, curiously. Compassion and sorrow mingling in his gaze as he leaned closer.

"As a Deity of knowledge, I'm quite certain that you have a fair idea of how certain deities look like, right?" I questioned, making Cain lean back in his seat with a thoughtful frown.

"I do..." He drawled slowly, wondering exactly where I was going with this. Rubbing over the scars on my wrists, I shivered before licking my drying lips.

"Then it wouldn't be that hard to make a list of all the deities that share the exact same eye color as my captor."

At that, Cain's eyes sparked vividly with pride and glee before he nodded. "That I can easily manage. None of the other pantheons will think twice if I were to ask them about any missing information because-"

"You're a deity of knowledge, of learning. Your kind is known for their quirks, curiosity and never-ending thirst to find more knowledge." I finished, watching as Cain jumped to his feet.

His long legs easily took him across his room, eyes focused on the many spines of his book collection. Fingers deftly plucking out the titles he required.

"I may know more than the average mortal, or the average deity, but this will still require some heavy researching." Cain muttered, plopping down a stack of books on his desk before returning to the book cases that reached the ceiling.

I hummed in agreement, taking one of the books to flip through its contents. Listening as Cain continued, "Last time I checked there are 27 pantheons, but that can always change. New religions are created just like that." He added with a snap of his fingers.

"Not to mention that certain Pantheons are filled to the brim with Deities." He added, grabbing several volumes describing Hindu gods. "I haven't met them all, but rumor has it there are 33 million deities in the Hindu Pantheon alone."

I choked on my saliva, coughing and slapping my chest at the mere idea that there were so many gods out there. And if that was one pantheon, I could only imagine how many gods resided in the others.

Cain chuckled, patting me on my back as he added "However, many of us believe there is one Supreme god, four main denominations and then 33 Devas within the Hindu Pantheon. It's...hard to explain. I believe many followers of the Hindu pantheon are confused as well."

I managed to catch my breath before sighing. "We have a lot of reading to do." One look at the book made me frown and set it aside, as I couldn't read the scribbles there.

Cain smiled apologetically. "You'll find a lot of these books will be unreadable to you, unless you're an expert in ancient languages."

At that, I huffed, crossing my arms on the desk before sulking. I hated being completely useless, to not be able to do anything useful. Even if my idea was helping, it sucked to sit aside and watch Cain run back and forth.

"Oh, you can help though." He stated, making me look up just as he placed a stack of books with familiar runes in front of me. "I trust that you're familiar enough with Norse script?"

Grinning, I flipped through the pages and while it took me a moment to get used to the runes, it was relatively easy to remember the meaning behind each one.

Each mention of eye-color relating to a deity was noted down, didn't matter if it was one of the mayor deities or some backwater god that a select few worshipped.

Still, the list was slowly growing, adding several individuals from the Norse pantheon as time went on. It was quite amusing how lacking the human texts were with descriptions of their deities.

You'd figure that, if they worshipped a certain deity daily, made sacrifices to an individual, they'd at least know some details about said god.

But apparently, some religions refused to describe or depict their deity as anything else but an unseen voice. Others weren't at all that shy and added copious detail and descriptions of their deities.

Huh...Faith is such a weird thing.