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Once upon a time, in a far away land...

Okay, that's a big load of bs, but it was a long time ago.

So, back before your time, and your grandparents, (unless they are as old as mine) there were many worshipped gods and goddesses. Pre christ y'all. Getting the picture, like, a LONG time ago.

As I mentioned, long ago, gods and goddesses were in vogue, and trend setters. There were a particular set of gods to the northern folks (we'll call them Norse, for the sake of accuracy) that were particuarly kickass. They promised the Norse who died in battle a seat in Valhalla. Now Valhalla just isn't a posh place to set your dead tush on a pillow and be served! It is the hall of the chosen dead. Every day you got to go to battle and every night there was a feast!

In Valhalla, the ruling god was Odin. The god of wisdom. Well, he was the ruling god in general, and his second hall was Valhalla, but lets not get into that. He was this old gent who had many personas. It was said if you gave your real name to a stranger, it was giving him power over you. He had one eye cause he wanted more knowledge so he hung himself upside down from the tree of life for nine days. Did I mention he speared himself? Ya, so he was tripping large, and in the pool of darkness below him, he ended up discovering the runes. The alphabet. This gave him even more power.

I'm not getting to Xanthia yet, huh? Well, these runes were carved into everything by Odin. Used by mortals and gods as a language, as a spiritual aid. So, you've heard of runes, where weird people can read the past and future from them. There were 25. A nice number.

Xanthia was a young goddess. Looked about 12, and acted quite young too. She was the goddess of hugs. A small girl, with long blue hair (which was rare, even among the gods), who was generally found causing mischief somewhere. Her brother Loki was always encouraging her, but she never wanted to be bad or mean. How could she? She was the goddess of HUGS. Sheesh. Anyway, she always got into a lot of trouble when she went into Valhalla and started hugging the warriors. Her dad, Odin, didn't know what to do. Thor, the god of war was always mad because she would fill people with love and kindness. He was always swinging that dumb hammer at her. How could she be allowed into Valhalla, when she would turn all of the warriors into bumbling idiots? They were even known to HUG eachother after she had been in there!

Taking the hostility out of these Norse warriors who were specially chosen for their strength and dignity was the last straw to Odin. His entertainment ruined by his daughter, he sent her on a few quests, where hopefully she would get lost and not come back. That didn't work. Her rune guided her back home each time, and each time her father felt so much love for her, yet it was ruining his rep.

One day, he sent Xanthia on a quest to find a glowing orb for the end of his staff. She was honoured that she would be chosen, and hugged her father and went off merrily. Once she was out of sight, Odin destroyed her rune sign, so that she could never find her way back.

That's how there came to be a blank rune! Who knew? Well, I guess I did.

Now, I don't want you to think that Xanthia was a little crybaby about this, because she wasn't very happy around all of those dead warriors anyway (well, except for the one that made her a cute bunny out of his napkin, but he got in a LOT of trouble). She travelled around the world, hugging people, and they would place up altars for her. No human sacrifices though, only hugs and poptarts. They had poptarts back then, I swear!

Since she was wandering around hugging, she totally missed Ragnarok, which was the end of the elder gods world. Whoops. Not like she wanted to be in a battle anyway. She had many adventures, and found that she didn't need a known rune to be summoned, only hugs.