A Man Walked Into a Bar

A Short story written for the Geek and Sundry “Let’s Write” vlog. Thought I’d give it a go

Armand was a dead man. He knew it, and frankly, it was a good way to die. The bar behind him was filled with cheers and laughter. Even the Old Storyteller, one of the Aesir, was back, entertaining children with his meandering stories.

This was the end of the world as he, and his party knew it. His small group had been the ones that had brought it about, and only just escaped. It was the reason why he was a dead man. The important thing, at least to this once-selfish mage, was that they were not.

The old Cleric, Grenda, smiled saddly at him from her seat by the fire where she sat, warming her bones. It was her that had been instrumental in changing his mind about what it meant to live. A man who had been always obsessed with his magical power, it had been the mirage of her dying at his feet in the swap of despair that had done it. Magical power was one thing, but it did not grant him the power to heal. He had watched her slip away slowly as her body gave out. She did admit that it was no picknick for her. Yet one more thing that convinced her this had been her last adventure too. Mind you, she thought somberly, with Ragnarock beginning, her power would be needed here, for as long as it lasted. With the Gods dead, she would have no-one who would be able to answer her prayers, and she doubted that the new gods, sorry, the returning gods, would grant her such power as she had learned in all these years without a suitable length of devotion.

Jackson watched the group join in the celebration around him. It was, indeed a celebration, and he would even miss the mage when his time came, when his magic finally burned through what was left of his soul. A soul that he had had to burn in order to save them all from the falling masonry in the hall of Fenrir. Something he wouldn’t have had to do had Jackson not betrayed them all. He had not belived the tales that the Aesir were the rightful gods, and that Ragnarock was a restoration of the rightful order. He had not belived because running through his veins was the power of Thor. Somewhere in his ancestory there had been a daliance with a god, and the power had been passed down. He was the last, and it seems final, descendant of Thor. It seemed that their last journey together had been a revalation for him. Everything now made sense, but it seems that just as he was beginning to understand, everything he knew was being taken away from him.

Armand, the mage, faced the exhuberant crowd, and raised his glass “To Good Friends, may they never be forgotten”, the crowd responded with a cheer, and his party nodded at him with sad smiles.

Suddenly, the door slammed open, and a bedraggled man walked into the bar. “It is Ragnarock”, he proclaimed. The news stopped the revelers in their tracks, and the party readied themselves as they always had, and they all, as one, revelers and adventures alike, headed for the door.

All except Armand, who watched them go, and then slowly crumbled to dust.