The Mechanisms
Ragnarok IV: Jormungandr (Live)
[Spoken: Lyfrassir]
At Odin’s carriage Thor emerges, from a wall of sharpened flesh and slime-slick teeth. He is wounded, bleeding in a hundred places. In his hands an engineers hammer, now chipped and caked in gore. He kicks through the door.​ Behind it, what once was Odin laughs.​

Her body now long and undulating, her one eye vast and staring, as she who once styled herself the Allmother is transformed by the touch of the gods she has 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, this is not a fight that Thor can win. Bleeding his last, he takes nine steps towards the glass wall of the carriage. He cannot escape, but any window with a hammer is also an emergency exit. And the stars claim them both.​

[Instrumental]