The Mechanisms
Ragnarok IV: Jormungandr
[Spoken word: LYFRASSIR]
At the door to Odin’s cabin, Thor emerges from the fray, tearing through a horde of sharpened flesh and slime-slick meat. In his hands an engineers hammer, now chipped and caked in gore. He staggers and bleeds from a hundred wounds as he kicks through the door.​

Behind it, what once was Odin laughs.​

Her body long and undulating, her one eye now vast and staring, as she who once styled herself the Allmother is transformed by the touch of the gods she had unknowingly served for so long.​

[THOR]
"What the fuck have you done?​"

[ODIN]
"I have given our people apotheosis. A final completion. The touch and gaze of those to whom we are less than nothing."

[THOR]
"You planned this! You knew this would happen."

[ODIN]
"When I first built this train, this snaking engine of change, I could not have guessed that this is where the songs I dreamt of would lead. But we are here, and when the train reaches Midgard, our new gods will follow and share their gift with all.​"

[THOR]
"You're insane!​"

[ODIN]
"Sanity has no meaning in this place. I am the serpent that shall poison the sky and boil the sea. The land shall freeze eternal as Yog-Sothoth beckons us hence, whose voice I heard when first we built the track so long ago. All shall know my rule to be the last, and none shall survive my reign.​"

[THOR]
"No.​"
[ODIN]
"Killing me will not save your world.​"

[THOR]
"I don't care.​"

[Instrumental]

[LYFRASSIR]
Wounded as he is, it is not a fight that Thor can win. Bleeding his last upon the floor, he takes nine steps to the glass wall of the observation deck. He cannot escape, but any window with a hammer is also an emergency exit. And the stars claim them both.​

[Instrumental]