Thus, at the whim of the divine breath, my thoughts go,— Victor Marie Hugo, "Dicté En Présence Du Glacier Du Rhône"
Ceaselessly driven in an eternal cycle.
From the ocean of earth, whose waves are bitter,
Like a thick cloud rising in the sun’s ray,
They always ascend toward the heavens, and without end
Descend again from the heavens to the seas.
The Enduring Peaks
The land of stone and sky,
a realm outside of time.
Vjelskalva is a place of towering peaks and sprawling valleys, where the world itself moves so slowly that mortals would not perceive its change. Here, mountains do not crumble; they shift, creaking and groaning under the weight of eons. Glaciers carve their way through stone not with violence, but with patience, etching their silent wills into the bones of the realm. The sky is vast, crowned with storm-laden clouds that coil and pulse like living things, spilling lightning in great, jagged veins of white fire.
The realm is sparse, not empty. Life does not teem in Vjelskalva; it lingers. The divine beings who reside here are carved from stone and pewter, sculpted by the will of their progenitors—Fjolskar, Glodveig, and Gaida. These lesser gods are not born as mortals are; they are hewn from the detritus of the mountains, shaped by falling rockslides or molded from the breath of ancient winds. The smallest among them, the pebble-born, are brittle and fragile, no larger than a man, while the oldest and strongest carry the weight of whole cliffs upon their backs.
Villages cling to the mountainsides, their structures melded with the rock, not built separately from it. They are carved directly from the bones of the land, shaped over centuries rather than constructed in haste. These settlements are few, insular, their inhabitants solemn and deliberate in their movements. They speak in deep, measured tones, as if their words carry the same weight as the stones they tread upon.
The valleys hold the largest of the cities, though by the standards of other realms, they would hardly be called such. Here, divine forges burn with blue fire, the air thick with the scent of molten metal and raw stone. Great spires rise toward the sky, not as symbols of ambition, but as testaments to time, each marked with the sigils of those who shaped them. The gods of Vjelskalva do not build for the present; they build for eternity
Above all, the land is silent. The wind does not howl, it sighs. The rivers do not rush, they move with steady inevitability. Even the thunder, when it rolls, does not crack with violence—it murmurs, deep and resonant, like the voice of the past speaking from beyond the clouds.
It is said that when Fjolskar dreams, the mountains groan in their sleep. That when Glodveig walks, the ice shifts beneath her feet, revealing pathways unseen. That when Gaida turns her hourglass, the winds carry whispers of moments not yet come.
Vjelskalva is a realm outside of time, a place where past and future are not linear but layered, stacked upon one another like the sediment of an ancient riverbed. It is a land of endurance where stone remembers and sky watches, and where gods carve their legacies in the land itself.
As the glacier melts; clean, clear, cold water— Alyce M. Nielson, "Melting Glaciers"
swiftly runs down the rocky creek bed; spills
over the side of cliffs as water falls; scrambles
over pile of boulders as rapids and flows under
bridges of snow until it reaches the river where
it continues to race toward the sea. Many times
on its journeys the melted glacier will quench the
thirst of woodland creatures and feed small
plants and trees.
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Keeper of the Hidden Sun
Glodveig moves through Vjelskalva with a measured grace, unhurried but never hesitant. Her skin is pewter kissed by frost, bearing a softness in its muted glow. There is a sheen to her, like polished metal left beneath moonlight. Her eyes are neither cold nor warm, but watchful. They do not burn with intensity nor pierce with judgment. Her gaze is like the sky on a windless day, vast and distant.
The soft, flowing garments she wears seem to cling to her like the morning mist rising from the valleys of Vjelskalva. Her hair, a cascade of snow-silver falling far past her waist, is always smooth, always catching the light in an ethereal way. It never tangles—the wind may make the light dance over her, but **the sun keeper will not be moved against her will**. If you see the wind picking up a strand of hair or blowing the hem of her dress around her feet, you can be sure you are convincing her of something. It is said that when the fog around the riverbank suddenly clears, you have Glodveig's blessing.
At her side, she carries a small, unassuming bag. If you were to ask what she keeps within it, she would only offer a quiet smile. Inside is the Solar Orb—not a blazing sphere or an unbearable heat, but an ever-present warmth she can press her fingers against and hold in her palm in the coldest moments.
Her steps are deliberate, as if she walks in time with the slow turning of the world itself. She does not rush, nor does she linger—she arrives precisely when she means to. She is not radiant. She does not glow with an ethereal, divine light. She does not blind. Hope is a slow, patient force, and so is she.
The divine beings of Vjelskalva do not question her. They do not plead for her to open the bag and release its light. They do not doubt her. She will bring it forth when it is time.
It is said that if you stand near her long enough, you will feel the warmth—not from the sun itself, but from the knowing that darkness never reigns forever, that even the longest winter will one day relent.
Glódveig does not carry hope like a banner. She does not wield it like a weapon. But for those who wait in the long dark, that is enough.
glacier after glacier after glacier— Emmanual George Cefai
the tempest bound vessel of humanity
went straight ice-breaking
fearless and risking
for what remains my Monsignor
but to risk and risk and risk?
The Wayward Ember
Gaida moves like a wandering breeze over the peaks of Vjelskalva—unpredictable, ungraspable, never quite where you expect her to be. She is the flicker of light caught in the corner of your eye, the sound of laughter carried on the wind, a presence that does not demand attention but draws it nonetheless.
Her skin shimmers like polished pewter reflecting a restless sky. Unlike her sister Glodveig, whose presence is still and measured, Gaida is in constant flux. The light never lands on her the same way twice; it dances across her face, across the curves of her form, shifting with every movement. Her hair, a wild silver spun with strands of white-gold, is never quite as she left it. She ties it back with ribbons and clasps, but by the end of the day, strands have fallen loose, twisting and curling in their own defiant dance.
Her eyes are brighter than Glódveig’s, sharper, catching the light like the glint of sun on running water. They shift between bright blue and silver depending on her mood and the hour of the day. There is something mischievous in them, something weightless and unburdened—as if she understands the vastness of time but refuses to be troubled by it.
Endless Hourglass
She is always moving—rolling a smooth stone between her fingers, tapping a rhythm against her knee, or turning the ever-flowing hourglass lashed to her belt. It does not seem to ever run out of sand. Gaida turns it anyway, idly, absently, not because she feels she must but because it feels right. She does not worry that it might stop. This has never concerned her. Even if it were to stop, she would just turn it again without a second thought, but it never has, and perhaps it never will.
Gaida is a goddess of time, yes, like Glodveig and Fjolskar, but she does not fret over the future, nor does she mourn the past. She simply exists between them, untouched and untethered.
The divine beings of Vjelskalva adore her—not in the way one worships an untouchable deity, but in the way one cherishes a fleeting moment of warmth in a cold world. She flits through the mountain villages like a wayward ember, always welcomed, never expected.
It is said that when she laughs, the echoes last for days. That when she dances, avalanches wait, holding their breath, as if unwilling to interrupt. That when she weeps—if she ever has—the rivers run swifter, as if time itself bends to console her.
She is the fleeting moment you may wish you could keep, but she is also the promise that no moment lingers forever—neither joy nor sorrow. Gaida does not fear each moment's loss for she knows that each will return in time. She smiles, tilts her head, and turns the hourglass again.
Back out of all this now too much for us,— Robert Frost, "Directive"
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry—
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
Oathcarver
Fjolskar carries the weight of centuries in his bones, but he stands tall beneath it. There is a quiet regality to him, something carved not from gold or glory, but from the steady, unshaken presence of one who has endured. He is not a king, yet when he speaks, the mountains listen. He is not a scholar, yet he possesses a kind of long-overdue wisdom that often arrives too late.
He can speak without thought and can even be a bit petty at times, but his words carry weight regardless of his intent. That can be a curse when he doesn't say what he means, but when he speaks with conviction, it cannot be undone. His power is a challenge for him to wield sometimes, because he is far from perfect.
His skin is made of dark grey stone, deep as the mountains themselves, and when he moves, it rumbles, shifting like the earth underfoot. There are cracks and imperfections in him, formed by battles fought and burdens borne over millennia, the evidence of his past etched into his very form. He does not try to hide them.
His hair is thick and the color of storm clouds and night, streaked with lighter veins of stone, like the first frost clinging to the peaks of Vjelskalva. Like him, it is unruly and somewhat short, but never so wild as to be unkempt. He is constantly attempting to tame his fast-growing beard, a task that never seems to end—an outward expression of an internal struggle, an endless battle to remain in control, to curb the consequences of his own actions.
He is not an unshakable god. He is restless, burdened, and sometimes reckless, capable of making an impact whether in a good way or a bad one. He does not always realize the weight of his own hand until the damage is done.
The God of What Cannot Be Undone
It is said that the deep groan of a glacier shifting is Fjolskar speaking in his innocent slumber. That when rockslides crash down the cliffs, it is his absentminded touch, an unthinking gesture that sets the world into motion. That when an avalanche swallows a mountainside, it is not his anger, but the inevitable aftermath of his unchecked will.
He does not seek destruction, nor does he revel in it. Yet the mountains shift beneath his feet all the same.
His domain is not longing, nor nostalgia, nor even vengeance—it is regret. The slow, gnawing certainty of things done that cannot be undone, of paths taken that cannot be walked back. His power does not lie in rewriting fate, but in carrying the weight of it.
There are stories of those who seek him out—not for glory, nor guidance, but because they have nowhere else to turn. Those burdened by their pasts, by choices they wish they had made differently, climb the treacherous paths to his domain, their voices swallowed by the howling wind. They do not ask for forgiveness, because Fjolskar does not grant it. He does not ease sorrow, nor does he wipe away guilt. He listens. He remembers. And the mountain remembers with him.
But there are also stories—rarer, quieter—of the moments when he chooses to act.
It is said that if a boulder stands in the path of a traveler with nowhere else to go, Fjolskar will move it. That if a village, clinging to the cliffs, begins to collapse under the weight of its own past, he will set his hands to the stone and hold it together. That if a soul—broken and lost—proves themselves willing to bear their own burdens, he will help them carry it.
And it is said that when he does, he does not do it with ease, nor with indifference. He does not wave his hand and make the weight disappear. He strains. He pushes. He bears it, not because he must, but because he chooses to.
Fjolskar does not erase the past. But he does what no one else will—he carries it. And if you are willing to bear it with him, even for a moment, you may just find yourself standing beside a god who moves mountains.