Repopulating the Realms

Countless lives were lost in Ragnarok, families and friendships torn apart with destiny holding no regard for the nature of its victims. The great and the small, the cowardly and the brave, it mattered not the character of one's being - everyone seemed just as susceptible to death as any other. Yet, when the dust had finally settled, what followed wasn't the malaise one might expect from an almost world-ending event, but rather a display of life's unflinching tenacity, ever demanding the right to define its own value.

There was still sorrow, no doubt, and while everyone managed their affairs differently, there was also a silent, collective agreement about the direction that the world had settled on - that there was a future, and that they were the ones who were going to build it.

Conversely, not everyone found the arrangement as fulfilling. With her husband gone and her daughter pursuing her own purposes, Sif had been left with less to do than she had anticipated. The rebuilding efforts, not to mention the restoration of relations between peoples, had fallen particularly on the Aesir to make right, and Sif's role in all this seemed to, on the whole, mostly boil down to the planning of logistics. She was certainly not one to shirk her duties, but as long as the days seemed to her, the nights quickly dragged to feel even longer.

For each time the light gave way to dark, she found her quivering body demanding another source of warmth, one the logs on the fire seemingly could not provide no matter how many she heaped upon it. Alone in her bunk each and every night, the feeling gnawed on her, and she found herself growing irritable, and a less useful partner in the restoration efforts, which only served to further exacerbate her bitterness. Worse still, there seemed to be little solace to be found, with none of her working partners truly catching her eye, none able to fill the hole that her husband had left behind - neither emotionally, nor physically.

So it came to be that Hildisvini would simply find her cabin empty one day, a small note left behind that spoke of some "duty" that ostensibly only Sif herself was capable of carrying out. Barring the clothes on her back, she seemed to have left with little else, and with no trace of her, no witnesses to her departure, all he could do was inform those involved about the turn of events.

Thus, her destiny would remain unknown, even to her daughter. The restorative efforts continued without her, the realms slowly recovering from the cataclysmic events of the world and the peoples involved growing closer through their collective struggle for a better future. Indeed, for such a massive endeavor, things had proceeded with remarkable ease - though there were some peculiarities.

One such being the recovery of Muspelheim, a realm generally neglected by the efforts in question. Its denizens seemed more organized, the towering structures tended to with a more deliberate hand than usual, and it seemed to have cooled even further owing to their work. But most importantly, its population had for some reason rapidly increased over the years, with the hulking brutes strewn about its surface speaking of a new queen, somewhere down there in the depths.

A queen whose duty, ostensibly, was eternal.

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Angle 1:
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/handmadeunimportantnewfoundlanddog

Angle 2:
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/graysilveryucker

Angle 3:
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/welllitturbulentindianrhinoceros

Angle 4:
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/unwrittencandidamericanlobster

Angle 5:
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/unitedheavystonefly

Angle 6:
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/robustregularwreckfish

Angle 7:
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/muddyallindigowingedparrot

Angle 8:
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/agileinbornsquamata

Downloads:
EDIT (sound, small file size, sony vegas edited)
Compilation (compilation video of all EDIT angles)
RAW (no sound, large file size, raw render)

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Sif making her way into an animation loop owing to the Alley Crew tier vote! Barring a few issues, with her hair being a particular creation of nightmare to animate in any capacity, I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out, so I hope you enjoy it :)

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and for all of your kind words! While my ear issues persist and I'm awaiting a new doctor's time, I'm feeling a little better today, so fingers crossed it might even pass on its own, though that'd be quite a few months in the making. Hope you're doing well out there, all things considered.

Take care of yourselves, and each other!
/DH