Odin stared around the garden. Visions of the past, present and future collided in his head, twisting what he saw until he was not sure what was fantasy, reality or fate. He blinked rapidly to clear the images, finally simply closing his eyes to block out what he saw. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as the chaos faded; it seemed that the tree had blessed him only with visions. If he closed his eyes, the jumble of time in his head quieted and he was offered some respite. This time, he found himself calmed by the sounds of the garden, the soft singing of birds and the gentle rustle of leaves disturbed by the autumn breeze. The sun shone down on him without fear or mercy, burning him comfortably at first but then increasing to a harsh heat.

The visions did not come every time he opened his eyes, but they attacked more and more often now, until he found himself simply stumbling along the path they presented him with. Sometimes he didn’t know if he was swimming in memories or reacting to a future that hadn’t come yet. What truly disturbed him was when the visions contradicted and he felt like he was lost in a labyrinth with no end in sight. His children and friends turned to him for guidance and help because he held every answer, but every answer was useless if he was too lost to guide it to its question.

He opened his eyes again, hesitantly, wary in case what he opened his eyes to was a horrific or tragic scene. Nothing. He sighed again and reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow. This was a particularly hot autumn and for a brief moment he mourned not having the ability to command weather. But the one he knew who did was gone. Thor often travelled away to Johutheim or Midgard, eager for conquest and adoration. He wouldn’t trifle the boy with such requests anyway. So he had to endure this heat. He supposed he could be grateful to it. It kept him anchored in reality.

The flutter of wings and the almost inaudible sound of a branch bending to a miniscule weight echoed and he turned his head to stare at the sparrow that had landed near him. Her black eyes were fixed on him intelligently and she chirped with a self-important pride as she hopped back and forth, observing him from this way and that. He watched her dance, entranced. Was she another vision? Was she here or would she only come to be here later? Or perhaps she had already been here and had long since passed on. This paranoia, this uncertainty, it seemed was something he was going to have to get used to now as his grip on what was ‘now’ slipped.

“Why do you dream so?”

At first, Odin did not understand. The sparrow could not possibly know of his visions? He barely told the others gods of what he saw. Foolish children that they were, none of them could possibly understand the burden placed upon his shoulders. The empty socket where his eye should have been still throbbed with pain, though he was certain it had been some time since he had given it up. The wounds in his side sometimes burned as if still fresh and open and bleeding. He endured it, the pain and discomfort, all for the sake of the visions that were slowly robbing him of his sanity and the wisdom that was his lifeline to reality. It was all as it should be.

Impatient with his wandering thoughts, the sparrow repeated her question louder. “Why do you dream awake, one-eyed one?” It was hard even for him to gauge the emotions of a tiny bird, but he imagined she was probably indignant at being ignored, curious at this strange intruder, perhaps a bit frightened of how much larger he was than her.

“I am plagued with visions of the future,” he answered and he believed that the answer probably satisfied her pride and whetted her appetite for information. Even he, in all his knowledge, did not know the inner workings of a single sparrow’s mind. Would she even understand what he said? He was a more advanced creature than she, after all.

“What do you dream of?”

As if triggered by her question, the visions began to burn again. The garden around them was aflame, the sky above them was crumbling and the world around them was falling apart. Odin shuddered as he saw a body, he knew not whose, fall before him, its head rolling away from him and keeping its identity hidden. The clothes were torn and bloody. The vision changed, and he reeled from the difference in scenery. He was no longer even in the garden, but sitting in the aftermath of the great battle, surrounded by ash and shadowy forms. One figure alone stood above it all, beaten and battered. The man’s hair flew free in the bloody wind, and just as he turned to look into Odin’s eyes, Odin blinded himself, shutting out the image.

“I dream of the end of the world.”

He could no longer see the sparrow, but in her mind she stepped closer, intrigued by his evasive and strange answers.

Perhaps it was because he had not spoken to anyone else about this, but Odin suddenly felt a need to get the words on his mind out of his mouth. His tongue ran over dry lips to prepare himself for the speech he had prepared in his head. He had ideally been saving it for when one of his gods questioned him, he often fantasized it would be Loki or perhaps Baldur or anyone wiser still, but he supposed a sparrow was just as good.

“I have been blessed,” he began, “chosen. No, not chosen…I chose. I sacrificed my good sight, days of my life, half my life’s blood, all for wisdom and the future. I am burdened with the weight of my knowledge and the chains of my duty. I dream of the end of the world, little sparrow, and I know that I shall be the one behind it. I am here, pulling the strings and aiding the inevitable. I push every piece into place and, when the time is right, I will make the final move and fire shall rain down and the world shall be over.”

He hadn’t even noticed he opened his eyes until the sparrow hopped from her branch, now hovering in the air just in front of him. She remained there for only a moment, staring into his eyes with what he thought may be awe or perhaps exasperation and disbelief. She dropped into his lap to rest her wings, chirping in displeasure and tilting her head to the side. She preened as she listened, feigning disinterest in his words.

“The gods, the mortals, the giants…even you, puny bird, cannot begin to comprehend what I have seen. What I have done. All to the end. The end. The end of everything. They will judge me, they will shun me, they will beg me for mercy and beg me for answers, and I will refuse them. They cannot begin to understand the duty that has been placed upon me for my greed and lust for knowledge. Whether this is punishment or blessing, I will never know. But I am proud of it,” he declared. His voice was booming and full of will and fire. “I will bring about my end, the end of my families, my friends, everything I hate and everything I love. I will be responsible for the destruction of everything, sparrow. That is my dream.”

The sparrow said nothing. She didn’t understand. Of course she didn’t. None of them would understand. This was his burden, his horrible purpose.

“Why?”

Odin felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time at the bird’s question: indignation. Why? How dare she question his reasoning? He, the father of all, the greatest god? “Because that is what Yggdrasil has shown me. That is the future I see.”

“You work for something you don’t want. Why?” Though the sparrow used big words and spoke with intelligence, Odin was coming to realize that her mind was painfully simple. She was not like his ravens. She couldn’t comprehend the use of doing something unpleasant if the end result was not enjoyable. He supposed he couldn’t expect anything more from her, but now a part of him longed for her to understand. If he could get her, a lowly common garden bird, to understand and accept his reasons for his actions, then perhaps when Loki or perhaps Baldur came asking why he was doing what he was doing, he could calm their doubts with ease. He wanted so badly for his sons to accept him. He was a god, of course, but he cursed the pitiful downfall of his, the desire to be understood and justified in his actions.

“Because it is the future. It is what is going to happen."

He didn’t suppose she understood what he meant; animals didn’t see time the same as gods did, gods did not see as giants, giants did not see as mortals, and mortals didn’t see the same as the animals. He understood some of their speak, enough to know they spoke only in present tenses, left the future to the advanced beings and left the past dead where it belonged. It was a simple and easy existence. So, he reasoned, the silence that followed was probably her tiny mind trying to understand and respond to what he had said. Asking a sparrow to think of the future was like asking a mortal to see the crown of a giant’s head.

“What is going to happen hasn’t happened,” she reasoned, hopping back and forth as if to celebrate her comeback. He could almost hear her mind working, almost see the thoughts struggling to make sense in those tiny black eyes. “If you don’t like it, why are you doing it?”

“Because it must happen,” he argued, feeling his patience beginning to slip. A voice in the back of his mind, though, whispered, ‘Perhaps she’s right…’ Trying to come up with a way that her primitive mind would grasp the concept, he closed his eyes again, not wanting any sudden visions to interrupt this encounter. “I have been told to,” he tried again, thinking maybe she would understand that at the very least.

This didn’t seem to satisfy her at all. He felt her light weight move up and down his leg as her mind and body worked into overdrive to understand him. “Sparrow doesn’t do what they are told,” she said uncertainly. He chuckled softly; her mix-up told him just how much she was keeping up with him, but before he got too comfortable with his place of power in the conversation, her words took a turn for the wiser. “Perhaps what you are told to do is a not-to-do,” she whispered, her words still juvenile and carefree. “Perhaps it is a warning. Do you consider that, Odin All-Father?” The sparrow he had previously envisioned as naïve and childlike now seemed wiser and almost menacing. He opened his eyes, but could not see her, instead hearing her chirping voice right beside his ear.

Rage and indignation welled up in him at this tiny being, daring to question the wisdom of the Yggdrasil, and he raised his hand to swat the sparrow away. But she had already flown away, landing on the branch she had originally came on.

“You understand nothing, puny creature,” he accused, his voice low and dangerous. If this bird planned to continue poking fun and lies at what was laid in blood and stone, he would make no attempts to hold back his fury. Odin was not a patient man and she stood no chance against him on any level.

“I do not. I do not understand why the All-Father is cowering afraid, flying away like a fledgling in a storm from what might be, afraid of defiance, afraid of what will happen if he regards what may be as what is, what will not come as what will.” The more the sparrow spoke, the angrier Odin got, but he did not lash out. This garden didn’t deserve the brunt of his fury. If he so desired, he could smite this bird with a wave of his hand. Only his merciful mood had kept her alive up to this point. “I do nut understand why you are a coward.”

“You know nothing of the world beyond this tree,” he snapped, no longer content to hear her paint him with these lies. “Tread carefully, sparrow. You know not of what you speak, and you know nothing of the true power of the being you are provoking. You would do well to retreat back to your simple life.” He no longer tried to imagine her emotions, as now doubt crept in to just how simple she was.

She only stared at him, her head cocked to the side. Her tail twitched. “The fledgling knows nothing beyond his mother’s nest,” she slowly replied, as if putting a great deal of thought into every word. “But he knows not to encourage his father to fly into the maw of the sun.”

“Do not attempt to compare your foolish world to mine, child—”

Whatever further words may have been exchanged melted away as someone else entered the garden. Odin opened his eyes, turning his now smoldering gaze to the right. A small boy pulled himself out of the bushes, awed and shaking at the All-Father’s might. Though the spells surrounding him were slight and invisible, Odin knew this child was not who he appeared to be. His jaw tightened and he sighed deeply, somewhat disappointed he could not continue his conversation. For some reason, he felt rather desperate to convince this sparrow of his truth.

The sparrow took one look and retreated from Loki’s disguised form. She disappeared into the foliage of the tree above them, chirping once in alarm and surprise.

“What foolish fool has attempted to understand you?” the play-god asked, his mind so simple and small that from Odin’s view, he seemed almost as stupid as the sparrow. Neither of them understood. There was nothing he could do to fight his fate, so why bother? It was now his duty to aid the destruction of everything, at the expense of the trust and hope of everyone. Before the end came, there would be a betrayal, his own disguised as another’s. No one would trust anyone, hope would die like a flame in rain, and there would be bleak despair and darkness before the universe breathed its final breath.

“Tell me, child…” Odin began, for now going along with Loki’s deception, “what do you think of the Ragnarok? Who do you suppose will bring it about?”

Wide blue eyes blinked in surprise. “I…I do not know, All-F-Father…” he stammered, feigning a child’s fear. “But w-whoever it i-is, I’m sure y-you’ll prot-tect us…right?”

As he looked into the child’s wide and hopeful eyes, Odin suddenly doubted that this may actually be his Loki. Perhaps…perhaps it was a younger version of his pawn. Or perhaps…perhaps Loki’s child?

Well, whatever it was, the answer would remain the same.

“It…it’s not going to happen soon, i-is it?” The child’s eyes grew even larger if possible, and his hands suddenly clasped into a nervous tangle of fingers. “I…I’m not going to die, am I?”

Pity for this poor ignorant stilled Odin’s normally harsh tongue. “Everyone dies, child…everything has its time.”

“But…m-my mama says th-that the f-future isn’t…s-set in stone,” the child argued weakly, obviously just trying to calm his own rebelling nerves. “N-no one c-can pred-dict the d-death of any…anything…” He withered under the full force of Odin’s gaze.

Foolish children…

Odin left the garden, the sparrow and Loki for the solitude of his tower. He sat in his throne and he watched, every blink bringing to him another vision of greatness, of despair, of fire, of peace. He put a finger on his temple and tried to ease the churning sea of thoughts beating in his skull.

The beating wings of his ravens brought to mind the sparrow’s words. He fixed his eyes on the horizon, finding a strange interest in the sunset, and, as always, the visions came again, assaulting his mind one after the other like the frenzied attacks of desperate enemies. He saw a man before him, his face twisted in rage and fury, demanding an answer Odin didn’t have.The anger in his son’s eyes was justified, he knew, but the exact details of how he had wronged him escaped his fading mind. Before he could come up with any explanation, he found himself standing at the foot of a great behemoth of a structure, staring up into the endless branches.

He blinked and found himself in his tower, facing the same man from before, years early or later. There was no anger in his face now. No, now he looked at Odin with only awe and love. Odin didn’t even think about the words that sprung to his mind. Whether this was happening or not he didn’t even know, but either way, he knew what he had to do. Even if this was the past, what had to be done had to be done.

Odin looked at the man. What he was about to say was going destroy him, in and out. It was going to fill him with such rage that he may even feel justified in purging the world of his existence, and in the process purging the world of its own.

Then he saw it…a sparrow embroidered on his breast. It was sloppily done, either done by a child or a clumsy wife. But Odin swore he saw it move, turning to fix him in a curious and strangely intelligent black gaze.

The All-Father is cowering afraid of defiance…if you don’t like it, why are you doing it?

Jaw clenched in juvenile defiance, Odin did something that every fiber of his being defied; he did nothing. The man remained at the door for what may have been hours, his knocks going unanswered. The doors didn’t open for him and he eventually gave up, leaving with no answers to his unspoken questions. Odin remained alone with an answer to a question he didn’t even know. He sighed deeply in relief and something else he could not name when silence finally fell, signaling his solitude.

He turned his gaze back to the sunset, not entirely sure if it was setting for the first, the last, or the millionth time. He stroked his chin. He waited for something, a crack, a flash of pain, a vision, a warning. Anything to suggest that what he had done was wrong.

Nothing happened.

As his eyes slid closed to block out any impending visions and his body went limp with exhaustion, Odin swore he heard chirping laughter and the soft pitter-patter of children’s feet, dancing around in a garden disturbed only by an autumn breeze.