Full of mirth rang the halls of Asgard. Celebrating, the Gods drank of mead and feasted on roasted beast while the corpse of their defeated foe, the Jotun Thjazir, lay cold nearby. For decades were they at odds. Now, that conflict was ended. Odin and his ilk openly boasted of their achievements, laughing and cheering while the floor ran wet with spilled spirits.
Then, the doors swung wide, breathing icy winter wind across the hall. There she stood, spear in hand, skin, porcelain pale, clad in snow dusted furs, and eyes blue as glacier ice but smoldering with vengeful fire. Skadi, the Jotun's daughter had come.
Transfixed by her beauty, the gathered Gods sought to dissuade her from violence. As a symbol of honor, Odin cast the eyes of her father into the heavens to twinkle as stars for eternity. Skadi was not moved. A life for a life, she demanded.
It was Loki that softened her heart with humor and dance. So jovial was he that, at last, her frozen features cracked a smile.
A wedding! Odin declared. Skadi would marry a God and so, herself become a Goddess. This would be her payment for the life of her father. Now warmed to them, Skadi agreed. Blindfolded, she was to choose her husband by only his feet. Eligible men came forth and Skadi made her choice.
Their marriage did not last. Niord was a God of Summer and Skadi a Goddess of Winter. After a few years, they amicably parted ways. Skadi returned to the snow-capped mountains of her youth, but without her father or husband, she soon grw lonely. Word spread of a war between the Pantheons. Odin and Loki, Niord and Ullr; these gods were her family now, and Skadi would not lose the only family she had left.