I've been sitting on this piece for a number of months waiting to show it off, and I finally can! This was done for the Beast's of Yore collaborative project; a collection of artwork by 19 different artists depicting many strange, unique and mythical creatures from tales of yore.

My beast is the Norse dragon Nidhogg, who eternally chews on the roots of the tree of life, Yggdrasil.

More information on Beasts of Yore can be found on the deviantart group
http://beasts-of-yore.deviantart.com/

The below short story was written by a friend of mine, who is co-writing an original story that I'm illustrating in my off time.

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The worst thing, Nidhogg decided, was the taste.

He squirmed, his powerful muscles feeble compared to the entirety of creation that was the tree Yggdrasil. He had an itch low on his back, just above his hindquarters. He had had the itch for fifty thousand years, give or take a decade. The itch didn't bother him as much anymore. No, he was right. It was the taste that bothered him.

He shifted a minute amount. In California, it registered at 7.8 on the Richter Scale, and the National Guard was called out to give relief to those deprived of food and shelter by the disaster. He'd found a girthy chunk, fibrous and green. He'd been absently chewing it for days. He'd work up the will to give it a good bite soon, he decided. But not yet. He was philosophizing.

The worst thing was the taste.

He remembered the Darkness Before. He remembered Ymir, who was old when Nidhogg was fresh, only first exploring that which was above Niflheim. Ymir had been a bit stuffy, Nidhogg thought. Didn't mean it was right for him to die. Didn't mean it was right for them to build creation from his bones, to separate him into the earth and the air and the Tree. He could see the stars that had once been Ymir's skull through the World Ash's branches when they swayed sometimes. He supposed they were pretty enough, but still.

It was the principle.

This thought reminded him of his anger. He hated that he had to be reminded of it. For the first ten thousand years, he would scream his rage and gnash and bite and claw, like any respectable serpent should. Now, he found his rage replaced by complacency. By apathy.

His lips pulled back from his teeth, teeth the size of tall men. He steeled himself for a moment, and bit hard, with everything left in his jaw trained by millenia of practice. The bark crunched and snapped, and he tasted the dense flesh underneath. Pure, sustaining creation filled him. Love, and stability, and hope.

He hated it.

How could one hate the prison that sustains them when the sustenance was so... pure? He continued biting and tearing. It was satisfying, in a tantrum-ish manner.

"Oh-ho! The Old Serpent has teeth after all!"

Nidhogg chewed, swallowed, and sighed. He didn't bother looking at Ratatosk. The contemptible squirrel looked the same as it always had, brown and small and smug. Ratatosk could no more change than Nidhogg could. No more than the tree itself could.

"The eagle wants you to know that it defecated on some roots just for you, if you can ever reach them." Ratatosk said, a gloat in his voice that cost Yggdrasil a sproutling branch when Nidhogg tore it off in frustration.

"The eagle at the top of the Tree is an idiot," Nidhogg replied, voice calm from practice." Odin's gallows have kept me in place for as long as he's nested on them."

Ratatosk chittered at him and ran back up the tree, laughing as he went. Detestable chit. Nidhogg tried once again to muster the will to bite, but gave it up as a bad job. The Norns would be by soon, and they would do their best to repair the damage he created. Always, just a little couldn't be fixed, was beyond repair, and he took pride in that little bit, but it was a hard thing to be proud of. The four idiot stags that leapt from branch to branch and ate the leaves of the hideous, radiant tree did more damage to it by happenstance than he could by intention.

He sighed and relaxed, allowing the grasping roots all around him to be a cradle for a moment. Below him the mists of Niflheim were floated, and he gazed at them, finding shapes in them that were not there. He amused himself by re-envisioning Odin's nine days riding the terrible steed of death, Yggdrasil. It was a ride Odin surely would never forget. Nidhogg idly wondered what Odin had paid such a terrible price to learn.

He rocked, swaying in time with a song he had created himself a few centuries ago. It was a very odd song, keeping with the rhythm of stiff, barely-swaying roots, but it was his.

"Another hard day, Nid?" Ratatosk asked.

Nidhogg gave up and allowed himself to hang. He had been at it more than nine days, had been hanging almost his entire life, and if ever he were free, perhaps he would learn something greater, by his hanging, than Odin ever had.

"The eagle says," Ratatosk said, hesitation in his voice. "Well, he has some unkind words for you."

Nidhogg felt a small, furry paw scratch at the itch, and he sighed. Tears leaked from his eyes, and he was unable to to wipe them away.

"I, uh..." Ratatosk began. "I'd better get the Norns. You did a real number on that root there, it'll take them weeks to fix, if they ever can."

The little squirrel ran off. Nidhogg examined the root. It was a good job. Torn and twisted, bent in odd ways.

He nodded. It was very fine work indeed.

~Nate Newlon