They crossed over at a slow pace.

The bridge held even the cow's immense weight without showing cracks. As they drew closer, Reinhard felt warmth radiating from the pillar, it was gentle and soft.

With an odd feeling like he was being embraced and caressed by a bunch of warm sheets and pillows.

The Pale One reached it first. He extended one hand slowly, and when his bronze fingers touched the light, his entire form glowed.

The crimson veins beneath his skin flared bright, then softened, then flared again in rhythm with the pillar's pulse. His eyes closed, and across his face spread an expression of pure joy.

The female giant touched it next, and where her frost-formed hand met the light, mist rose. But it wasn't the violent steam of fire and ice colliding, but a gentle mist that warmly passed her by.

She gasped in surprise before looking at her hand and then leaned into the pillar as if embracing it.

One by one, the others made contact.

Each experienced something personal, something that showed in their body and the way they reacted after. Even the cow pressed its broad face against the pillar, and its body seemed to relax in a way it never had above.

Then the pillar shined more before a concentrated ray of multicolored light shot horizontally from the pillar's center to a point perhaps fifty yards distant.

Where it touched the air, space began to ripple, and then a bright light appeared in the middle.

The ripples expanded outward, growing larger with the bright light until they formed a portal. It was a massive portal that kept shifting between colors as it swirled down from them, and then the ripples stopped spreading.

Then a cool breeze came out of the portal carrying scents that were utterly alien to the ice realm. The smell of the earth, dirt, and plant soil, sweet smells that came from various plants that weren't in the icy realm above.

The towering giant approached the portal first, then turned back to look at the others. Its gaze swept through all of them before understanding and encouragement passed on the towering giant's face.

The ancient being stepped through and vanished before the others followed.

The transition was instantaneous.

One moment, the serene beauty of the light blue sky and crystal water, then the next, they are in a world of green and violet.

All around was a dense and impossibly lush jungle.

Giant trees stretched upward to heights that dwarfed even the frost giants, their trunks as wide as houses. Their bark was rough and covered in moss that glowed faintly with bioluminescent specks.

Vines hung between them, some as thin as thread, others thick as the Pale One's torso. And all of them were covered in leaves that ranged from deep forest green to crimson to amber.

The air itself seemed to glow with streams of golden sunlight that broke through gaps in the trees around. The ground was a maze with pathways of light blue-grey stone spreading through the grass and trees around.

Reinhard noted how they formed spirals and figure-eights, connecting clearings and areas around the massive tree trunks.

Bright green grass, more vivid than anything in the previous realm, grew between the stones. Red vines crept across both grass and stone, their leaves tiny and sharp-edged.

At one intersection of pathways, the Pale One noticed a small orb resting on the stone. It glowed with soft purple light, and once he picked it up, he felt how warm it was in his hand.

The female giant leaned in to look, her massive form casting a shadow over them both, and together they watched the light glow as if they were mesmerized by it.

Everyone continued deeper.

The forest opened into a clearing where a small pool lay, its surface shining in shades of rose and gold. The water was perfectly still, mirror-like, reflecting the trees above with such clarity that it was difficult to tell which was real and which was a reflection.

Near the pool stood a black tree with deep red-purple leaves, so dark they appeared nearly black in the shadows. But when light touched them, they glowed like embers and illuminated the area around them.

The female giant approached this tree slowly, one hand extended, and when her fingers brushed the trunk. She saw the leaves falling, each one spinning through the air before landing on her body, but not freezing. They simply rested there, small patches of dark color against her pale frost.

And when the light passed by, they still glowed amber to her surprise and delight.

The Pale One laughed, which was a sound Reinhard hadn't heard before in this dream. The female giant turned to him, and in her ice blue eyes something shone.

They continue exploring together, moving through the living maze of pathways and clearings. They found trees that sang when the wind moved through them, creating harmonies that had no equivalent.

They discovered flowers that bloomed and closed in response to their presence, petals unfurling to reveal centers that glowed with inner light. They watched birds, actual living creatures, not formed from ice or stone, soar through the area.

In one clearing, there was a massive stump that had vines and trees all around it. The Pale One and the female giant sat together at the base of that stump. Around them, the smaller ice-beings explored with their typical clumsy excitement, while the towering cow investigated a patch of particularly lush grass.

The ancient frost giant stood at the clearing's edge, its white eyes watching everything.

Time passed differently here, or perhaps not at all.

But gradually, the Pale One and the female giant drew closer. Their foreheads touched as they had once before, on that ridge overlooking their frozen home, and where they met, something sparked.

Light bloomed between them.

Not the cold radiance of frost or the aggressive heat of fire, but something entirely new. It was a warm golden glow that spread outward in gentle waves.

It made the trees sway, pools of water ripple, the other frost giants pause, and the birds stopped to stare down. The light grew brighter, more intense, until Reinhard had to look away.

When he looked back, they were moving to a portal that had reopened. They went from the jungle to the blue sky realm and then back towards the ascending passage to the familiar cold of the frozen world above.

They emerged near where the towering cow stood and the ancient frost giant waited for them, and around it clustered the smaller ice-beings.

But the Pale One and the female giant emerged last, and they were not alone.

Three forms walked between them.

Smaller than the female giant but larger than the Pale One, each one is a perfect fusion of both parents' features.

They had the ice-formed bodies of their mother but colored with the Pale One's color and filled with crimson veins. Their faces held her serene beauty, but his sharper features and long hair.

But Reinhard ignored the surprise and questioned when they came into existence. As he focused on the middle child, who had beautiful silver hair shot through with streaks of light blue, falling to narrow shoulders.

A face that managed to be both masculine and ethereal, strong but not harsh. And those eyes that were crimson mixing into blue, both of the two colors swirling together like a spiral.

That's Odin.

Odin.

The realization struck Reinhard as his eyes widened in surprise and disbelief.

As this child, which was a fusion of frost and fire and something else entirely, would become the Hanged King and All-Father. He would become that being riding on a massive warhorse with a terrifying spear and an amazing sword.

It's then Odin tilted its head. Its crimson-blue eyes shifted, moving from his parents to his siblings to the gathered frost giants.

Then, slowly, they turned upward and landed on Reinhard.

For one eternal moment, their gazes met across the dream.

The ancient being and the Beast Master dreamer, separated by time and reality and consciousness itself, but in that instant, perfectly connected.

Recognition flared in those crimson-blue eyes.

Odin's lips moved, forming words Reinhard couldn't hear.

Then everything shifted.

Reinhard blinked, and suddenly he wasn't watching Odin.

He was Odin. Looking out through those eyes at a world both familiar and strange. Feeling the cold of the ice realm but being unharmed by it. Sensing the distant heat of the fire realm and knowing it couldn't hurt him either.

His mother's massive hand on his shoulder, his father's bronze fingers gentle against his back.

A voice echoed in his mind, speaking words in a language he didn't know but somehow understood.

This is the beginning.

The dream froze.

Every figure became perfectly still. The smaller ice-beings mid-gesture, the towering cow mid-step, and his siblings with mouths half-open in silent conversation.

His parents looked down at him with expressions of infinite love and pride.

All of it captured in a single, eternal moment.

Then it shattered.

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