Ymir

Ymir is a Deity (Primordial Giant) of the first cold, felt more as a change in the land than as a single beast. Smell: the sharp, metallic tang of old ice and distant sea-salt, as if wind passed over ancient coastlines. Sound: a slow, hollow creak like a glacier shifting, punctuated by low, cavernous rumblings that settle the bones of the hills. Temperature: an inexorable, biting cold that steals warmth from skin and steals color from the world — not merely cold air but a pressure that makes breath smoke and time behave more slowly. Field notes: his traces show as white rime that never wholly melts, stones rimed in frost even under summer sun, and hollows where the snow lies deeper and older than memory.