I'd have no problem voting Yea for the parts before and after Sigdrifa's tale. The middle part of the tale, the one between the battle's end and the Valkyrie's solitude... it feels like a hail of misery, a storm like the one the ship has to suffer at sea, something you feel you have to see through but it's overly painful and disheartening. That would be a good thing if it had kept me caring for the victims of said misery, but it simply doesn't.

The surviving 'crow' made some of my empathy click, it's a nice touch to say something of each character before they get thrown on the sacrificial slab of the narrative, the tone and the feeling remain constant thorough the whole part of the tale and they sound fitting for the tale, it's only right that the angel remembered all the people that died during that tremendous watch, the encounter with the World Ormr was kinda interesting, and yet I thanked the Joker when Sigdrifa started to wander around getting spat on the face and something changed at last.

But I don't think it could be changed into a less vexing form without losing elements of its tone or function, and I don't feel like I should ban such a fundamental pillar for Aralheim's story from the Archive, so I'll just abstain this time.

So, I was finally able to make time for this...

...a lot of time...

...especially since I read it while listening to it from a text-to-speech program that reads at 189 words a minute. So, about two hours and 17 minutes later...

Okay, so I'm not one who should be talking about length or verbosity. I have more words in the Archive than anybody, I know. But, and I hate to say this because I'm a big fan of your work, I did not enjoy this. The writing style is, as you no doubt intended, reminiscent of olden stories like the Icelandic sagas, but I've never enjoyed that style. Too many linguistic acrobatics for my taste, much of which doesn't add much, in my opinion.

Mostly, though, it's that I agree with Huey. I liked the Framing story and Rani's tale of her encounter with Skoll. Still not a fan of the language, but if this had just been that story, I'd vote Yea and easily. It continues both Rani's story and Marina's, and contextualizes Skoll's power level against the Valkyrie, which is useful for what is very likely the endgame of this story arc. I was cool with that.

And, to a point, I enjoyed the battle between the previous Skoll and the Builder/Valkyrie forces. Basically, up to and including the point where Jorðormr comes is all stuff I liked, despite the language not being to my taste.

But I honestly did not enjoy the trek. It felt like it just kept going. At first, I was assuming based on the scale of destruction you had described, that these were basically going to be the only people left alive on the plane, and this was their story of how they (re)created civilization. But as people kept dropping off (people I had no emotional connection with, I might add) I realized it was more like a survival horror story without the horror. And with the unconventional, long sentence structure and the Elder God thing going on with Jorðormr, it very much struck me as H. P. Lovecraft writing a travel guide. I would literally occasionally scroll down to see how much was left and groan.

Sorry, I know I'm being super-negative here, and I apologize. But when considering what to vote into the Archive and what not to, one of the things I think about is re-readability, as in, how likely am I to reread the story. And, though this may be harsh, I am not interested in rereading The Last Valkyrie section again. It was just way too long and way too hard to get into for my taste.

Now, so that this isn't all negativity, let me mention some things that I really DID like about the piece. I mentioned that most of the deaths didn't really affect me, but there is one major exception that I want to mention. I thought Rig's death was nicely done, and I enjoyed that a lot. Maybe it was because it was so early in the process, or maybe it was just that quiet dignity with which he passed, but I thought that was the best death of the lot, and the most affecting, at least to me.

I also like the concept of cyclical time that underlies the entire thing. Reading between the lines, it sets up a really nice, dark forecast for what is likely about to happen. Skoll is an interesting antagonist, and it's fascinating to see how you are sort of blurring the lines between fantasy literal and fable symbolism. The fact that he has literally eaten a sun before is interesting. I did not reread "The Hunter" before reading this story, so I don't know if that was discussed there in addition to the metaphorical meaning it had in that story, but it's interesting, nonetheless.

I'm also finding myself suspecting that Sigdrifa was not the first of the Valkyries to go through something like this. Something tells me that Brynhildr may once of been the Last, and the First, of the Valkyries.

Anyway, sorry to say, I need to vote Nay on this one. I hate to, since you clearly put a lot of work into it, and it's not as though it's poorly written or anything, but I think the overall effect is not one that I can vote for.