The scaffolding creaked in the wind. Yari wondered who had put it there, so few had been to Yggdrasil in the last...thousand years. He stared at it as it sat off to his left. The edge of the cliff lost a rock or two as he shifted on it. They bounced off a ledge far below and hit the ground some 50 feet down. For 1 mile around Yggdrasil the land was lower than the rest around it. Not in a natural random way, like erosion, or even a gradual impression like a mountain or crater. For 1 mile around Yggdrasil, the ground was 50 feet straight up.
"Its....so desolate." Yari heard the crunch of gravel behind him before he spoke the words. The younger looking man sat down beside him staring intently at the gigantic shell of a tree root off in the distance. "You'd swear this was Muspelheim."
"Trust me, it is hotter there." Xulin reached his hand out to Yari, holding a water pouch. "It is our last, so use it sparingly. In a few years, when Yggdrasil has taken a better grip upon Midgard, the land will heal." The thin Vanir stood up. Yari looked at his profile while taking a sip from the container.
"I imagined something a little more vibrant....let's get out of here." His heels kicked the side of the cliff a few times before he spun around and stood up. As he began to stride away, he noticed Xulin was not with him. He turned about and saw his Vanir partner walking down the scaffolding towards the lower level. "Xulin? Hey....where ya goin?" He chased after him stopping abruptly at the wooden planks. "...I'm not sure this will hold me." He tapped it with his foot.
"Vanir and Aesir weigh a lot more than humans, even if we look a certain weight, trust me. It will hold you." Yari frowned at him
"You keep saying 'trust me'..." He sighed and stepped onto the planks. "And I keep trusting you."