Despite his wide eyes and twisting gut, Vali immediately jumped into action in the face of danger. Ignoring his sopping wet britches and sandals, the taller Omega pushed his friend's back into the stony face of the cliff, trying to hide his smaller frame among the rocks. 

"Oh lord Odin, please!" Tofa's voice was quiet so as not to give away their position but scratchy and frantic nonetheless, his once carefree attitude shattered by an overwhelmingly depressing realization of what was currently happening to their village. "Not again!"

The smaller Omega had been through his before. And, if it had only happened yesterday, all of that blood and carnage, punctuated by the sight of his parents – faces frozen in an unchanging state of lifeless horror – eclipsed right back into the forefront of his mind.

Both friends stared at one another, gazes filled with equal parts understanding and terror. The connection only lasted for all of a few seconds, but by the time Vali finally fought past steel barriers of fear to speak again, it felt like they had been staring at one another for days. 

"Tofa, stay here and don't make a sound. I have to go check on Sigge, Ahren and my manageress, but I will be back for you as soon as I ensure their safety." Vali muttered the words quietly, and both Omegas jumped when the chorus of screams bellowing from the village suddenly increased in volume. 

Whatever was going on up there was certainly the farthest thing in the world from safety, but Vali couldn't possibly bring himself to leave his horses – his best friends – at the center of a bloodbath like that. 

Tofa's bright blue shimmered with wetness, long strands of midnight black hair clinging to moistened lips as he whisper-begged a plea. "Vali, please just stay here! I–I'm scared and– and I don't want ya' to get hurt!" 

Vali sighed, grasping Tofa's hand in both of his before pressing their foreheads together. Tofa was usually a bastion of fearlessness, a tiny fortress of fortitude against the terrors that this world contained, but right now he was a pane of glass on the verge of shattering. Vali would be lying if that thought alone didn't serve to increase his heart rate a few more beats per minute. 

"I know, Tof. I'm scared too." He empathized, the truth of his words more than evident in the way both of their hands shook with a violent tremor between them. "I'll be back as soon as I can, I promise."

The smaller Omega offered a forlorn nod after a few moments of hesitation, adam's apple bobbing with a deep swallow. "May you remain under Odin's watchful eye."

The prayer of protection sliced straight through to the center of Vali's overworked heart, and he lifted his head, briefly pressing his lips to the middle of his friend's forehead. 

"Thank you."

And with that, he was off.

The scene he was greeted with when he stumbled his way up the remaining steps and peered over the cliff line was one that almost sent him backpedaling right back the way that he came.

How so much devastation had been wrought in such a short span of time Vali would never know. But regardless of how it had occurred, the only thing that mattered is that it was awful.

It already looked as if there was more blood than dirt coating the ground and smoke rose like a monument as villagers tripped over their own feet, running to nowhere. Some scuffled around in the red dirt without direction, crawling on hands and knees until they were ultimately seized and slaughtered right alongside their friends, neighbors, and families

... Slaughtered by giants. 

The sharp, musky smell of feral Alpha mixed in with the smoke, and Vali had to begin breathing through his mouth to keep his instincts from taking over his rational thought. Right now would probably be the absolute worst time for his inner Omega to decide that he should roll over and submit to the overbearing sensation of powerful Alphas in his vicinity.

... Especially when one of said Alphas was currently driving his foot so deep into a crawling villager's back that he could have sworn he heard the woman's spine snap right in two.

Vali's hands flew to his mouth to stifle a scream at the horrendous sight he had just witnessed, ducking down behind the cliff face once more as he tried his best to pull himself together.

"Check on Sigge. Check on Ahren. Save manageress." He whispered the words, repeating them to himself like a mantra even though they were barely detectable among the rampant shaking of his voice.

This village, this life... even if it wasn't the most welcoming, it was the only thing that he had. 

Plus, sticking to the shadows was practically his life's work. He could do this undetected. He had to do this. 

A prayer to Odin and a quick tug to tighten the laces of his sandals was his only solace before Vali finally ascended the final few steps that lay between him and the increasingly likely possibility of a devastatingly painful, gruesome death.

As usual, Vali stuck to the shadows, slinking along the outskirts of the village and camouflaging himself against the dense trees as he made his way toward his manageress' estate. Despite the fact that he was still breathing through his mouth, it was almost as if the Alpha pheromones dominated the air so strongly that they coated his tongue too, delivering a sharp flavor directly to his taste buds.

He hated to admit that it was far from a bad sensation, the furthermost primal part of his brain not quite understanding that the Alphas producing such a scent were also the ones who were single-handedly tearing his village to shreds. In fact, that scent was one that Vali would probably bend over and present himself for in any other circumstance, and he found himself having to shake his head, smacking his cheek to pull himself back together before he did something stupid enough to get himself killed.

Rounding the very last tree trunk, Vali steeled his resolve. He tried to focus on the sharp contours of the bark as it dug into his fingertips, grounding himself in this moment.

There was only one more pathway between this tree and the barn. All that he needed to do was get to the loose wallboard at the back, and he would be safe.

"Odin, protect me." He mumbled, not even noticing the sting as his knuckles curled, digging his fingers deep enough into the bark to break skin.

And then he peeked around the tree's thick trunk, and ran.

The Bjørn swung his large body, utilizing his strength, his own weight, as well as the heft of the bearskin atop his shoulders to add to the blow. His hand landed with practiced precision, smacking down on the villager's right ear hard enough to blow the eardrum to shreds and vibrate his brain enough to make it bleed. As they always did, the man fell to the ground in a heap, streams of crimson dripping from both ears, his nose, and mouth. The Beta villager pulled himself along the dirt with one arm, using the other to hold a weary hand up, begging the Alpha who towered above him like a god. 

The world vibrated around The Bjørn, all sounds silent to his ears as he stared without seeing. Despite current signs of life, this man was already dead. Einar had inflicted this injury on hundreds, likely even thousands before, and this one was no different. The man would hemorrhage from the inside of his skull until his heart failed, suffering from a lack of blood to pump to the rest of his body. And then, Einar would simply move on to the next person unfortunate enough to fall into his everlasting list of victims. 

Stepping over the bleeding man, Einar floated through the next few kills, eyes blank and unseeing. Although the blood splashed like a waterfall upon his branded skin – hot and putrid – the Alpha hardly felt it, choosing instead to exist in a barely-there state at the very back of his mind.

It was one of those days, one of those moments in his life where Einar struggled. He struggled to find meaning, grappling with his own fealty as he wondered why he shouldn't just lock himself in a burning home with the rest of the villagers as they awaited their final meeting with Odin.

But no matter how many times he pondered the possibility of taking control of his own destiny once and for all, there was always something that stopped him, an intangible sense of reckoning that forced him to remain tethered to this mortal plane. 

'Perhaps I am a coward,' he surmised as his fingertips dug deep into the eye sockets of yet another faceless form. Hands flailed, nails scratching into the flesh of Einar's forearms to join the plethora of similar injuries that also resided there, but the pain was nothing that the Alpha wasn't used to. So he pressed further, reaching backward with his fingers until he felt skull while his other hand finished the job, palm large enough to fully wrap around the villager's neck and then some. 

The villager coughed, sputtered, and then stilled, and Einar dropped them – like all of the others before – into the stained soil below. But not before a flash of... something... no, someone, flew across the furthermost portion of his peripheral vision.

Shifting the bearskin on his back with a stretch of his shoulders, Einar set out in search of the elusive being. Guiscard would be remarkably angry if they let anyone get away during a raid, the still-healing lashes that crisscrossed his broad back a testament to the Beta's remarkably high expectations of his bonded slaves.

But Einar knew better now, the brutal lesson landing right where Guiscard had intended it. The Alpha would handle this slippery villager quickly before returning to assist the rest of the Berserkrs that were currently front-lining their master's vicious attack. 

Vali breathed heavily, whispering sweet nothings to Sigge and Ahren who were currently raging in their stalls at the sounds of destruction that surrounded them from all angles. It was more than a relief to the Omega when he had finally slipped across the pathway and into the barn undetected, and he didn't waste a single moment before gathering his best friends into a tight embrace, tears clumping his long, multicolored eyelashes together. 

"I know you are scared... I'm scared too." He murmured shakily, pressing kisses to each of their muzzles before burying his face into the soft tresses of Sigge's white mane. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying with all his might to drown out the screams. "I am so sorry that I cannot protect you, I wish–" 

The distinct sound of heavy footsteps interrupted his sentence, and Vali choked on a terrified gasp. The quick suck of breath confirmed the heady taste of Alpha, particularly potent and so much more powerful than what he'd sensed earlier by the tree line. 

The Omega wanted nothing more than to fall to the ground and curl up at the sheer level of virility and dominance that oozed onto his tongue... So that was exactly what he did, the uncontrollable intensity of the emotions currently tearing through his psyche weakening him against the incessant calls of his inherent nature.

But luckily a sense of self-preservation still lingered somewhere in there too, because before he scrunched himself up behind the partially deconstructed bale of hay that he had started on that morning, Vali grabbed the pitchfork that he had also discarded earlier that day, clutching the handle so hard that he was sure that his knuckles would burst right through his skin. 

The footsteps grew closer, and Vali's breathing grew quicker. Then, the crucifying bang of the front barn door hitting the wall behind it nearly left the Omega paralyzed in his spot. He held his breath completely now, not willing to risk his instincts throwing him directly into the lap of death.

"Odin, please give me strength to protect Sigge, Ahren, and myself. If I am to meet you today, I pray that you welcome me to the gates of Valhalla." Vali muttered, voice barely audible so as not to give away his position. It was a simple and quick prayer, but a necessary one. 

Vali may have been an Omega, but he was far from weak, at least mentally. If he was to fight this Alpha, he would do so without sacrificing a single shred of dignity, fighting for himself and those that he loved until the bitter end. And if he was to be slain in the midst of battle, he could only hope that Odin would give him a warrior's welcome to the hero's afterlife. 

He counted the Alpha's steps in his head, eyes fixated on the space on the other side of the hay bale. His breathing skyrocketed to new heights when a shadow finally revealed itself, the dismal reality of his situation weighing heavy on him like a shroud. 

This Alpha was gigantic, with bulging muscles and humongous stature more than evident in his shadow alone. Vali shuddered, chewing on his bottom lip and banging his head onto the hay bale behind him as he suppressed the need to cry.

There was absolutely no way that he could beat someone like this. Especially with nothing other than an unwieldy pitchfork that was practically the same height as himself. 

This was it. His fate was sealed. He could only hope that Tofa would forgive him for breaking his promise after he was gone.

Vali didn't have much time to completely lose himself to the pits of despair though as the shadow grew closer and closer. His lungs burned from lack of breathing, knuckles bruised atop his makeshift weapon, and mind whirred as he accepted that the time had now come. He had to strike now, while he still possessed an upper hand on the element of surprise.

So, with a high-pitched warcry of his own making, Vali shot up from his hiding place, charging directly toward the source of the shadow with his pitchfork at the ready. 

The Bjørn's head swiveled toward the direction of the unexpected sound, although he remained thoroughly unphased by the faceless figure that was currently engaged in a negligible attempt at self-defense. Many people had tried to fight against him with an endless number of weapons, but even he had to admit that a tiny Omega with a giant pitchfork was a first. 

But it didn't matter. Either way, this faceless Omega would be dead within the next few seconds, with or without his farming tool.

Einar surged forward, intending to simply snatch the weapon and end this with a quick and easy snap of the neck. But what he did not expect was for the Omega to switch paths, ducking behind a horse stall and swerving around the corner.

The pain in his bicep was sudden and sharp, and the Alpha looked down to see rusty metal sticking out from a fresh, bleeding wound. It was far from enough to incapacitate him and was quickly remedied with a quick grip and tug of the pitchfork's metal end, but it was enough to make Einar decide that he might need to approach this kill with a little bit more care than previously anticipated. 

Part 2 in Next Episode