Sindri’s House
“Brother, why don’t you illuminate the home owners about the Norns?” Mimir asked, slowly walking around in circles, getting used to the fact that he had a body now.
A body!
He wanted to jump and shout, but the situation was too grim for that.
“Right, the Norns. Did they tell you how to get Atreus back? Do we have a plan?” Sindri asked, fiddling with his hands.
“The Norns say Atreus will be killed by Heimdall. The plan is to kill Heimdall first,” Kratos said, silencing the dwarves.
Sindri stopped sharpening the blade, pacing around, with a fluctuating tone to his voice. “Oh. Wow. Okay. Heimdall. Let’s see. Never loses, sees everything coming, and is unpopular at parties. This won’t be easy.”
“Whatever his advantages, I will overwhelm him with my own,” Kratos said, stern and confident.
Also a little bit angry, brothers noted.
“That’s the idea. You have to overpopulate his senses, see? And I got just the thing in mind to help you do it. Sindri, go get Draupnir,” Brok said.
The dwarf brothers descended into an exchange of ideas without actually uttering them. They worked in tandem, understanding what the other meant without the full sentences. Once the idea was crystalized, Brok sent Sindri to retrieve Draupnir.
He remembered it from the human myths. A ring that created eight more of itself on every ninth night, a gift to Odin himself.
“Draupnir?!” Mimir asked as the dwarf brothers finished. “I bloody knew these two had nicked it …and Odin blamed me for it disappearing.”
Kratos wanted to know how it would help him kill Heimdall. The blue dwarf left the question unanswered, only saying they were artists. Freya was saying something about storing Draupnir when Sindri opened a secret door behind a shelf.
“You know, it all starts to make sense now. Tyr’s hesitancy in violence and in war. It was all Odin’s attempts to stop us,” Freya said, laying her palm on her forehead, eyes stormy.
“He has failed,” Kratos said, glancing at Loki.
“Thanks to our guests.”
“You know, lad,” Mimir stopped before him. “You must be one hell of a god of magic to detect Odin’s disguise and, of course, give me a new body,” he said, clenching and unclenching his hand.
“There are different kinds of gods. Kratos, Freya, even Odin—they are all gods of flesh, bone, and blood,” he said, gesturing to the mentioned gods.
“What kind of a god are you then?” Freya asked. Kratos was content to watch and listen from the side, but even he was intrigued by the answer.
“I am pure magic, power,” he said, shedding the outer layer of his right hand. “My power is on a scale different from anything you have encountered.”
She considered the implications for a moment before shaking her head. “Forget I asked.”
“Lads, what’s your Heimdall like?” Mimir asked, changing the subject yet again.
“He is the Gatekeeper of Asgard and the Guardian of the Bifrost. He is proud, noble, and loyal to Asgard before anything else. He has eyes that allow him to hear and see everything across the Nine Realms. And unlike here, he is not our brother,” Thor said.
“Hear and see everything?” Freya asked. Just imagining Heimdall she knew with that kind of power made her lightheaded. He’d see every secret, every plan, and every attack coming.
So would Odin.
“Yes. There are, of course, ways to get around it. Generally though, he is Asgard’s first line of defense," Loki said. There were contingencies in case Heimdall was ever out of commission.
Which were put in place after he accidentally sent him to the healer’s room.
“Huh, good thing our Heimdall can just read your intent,” Mimir said.
“Atreus, he is Loki, right? My counterpart? Where did he go?” He was actually looking forward to meeting a version of him that wasn’t evil.
The stony look on Kratos’ face broke. He almost looked like a snarling beast now. “To Asgard.”
“What for?” he asked. Given how mentally unsound—batshit crazy, as humans would say—Odin was, that sounded like a horrible idea.
“He… believes Odin has answers for him,” Kratos said. They all knew he was hiding something but didn’t want to pry further.
“He wouldn’t be the first version I met with less than acceptable decision-making abilities,” Loki said.
“Wait,” Freya stopped, turning to Kratos with a face paler than his skin. “Since Odin’s cover is blown, what is to stop him from doing something to Atreus?”
Kratos’ eyes widened. He turned to the door, ready to rush to Asgard to find his son.
“Unlikely. Whatever he is seeking, he believes only Atreus can give them those answers. Otherwise, why would he bother in the first place?” Mimir asked. His words must have carried enough sense for Kratos to stop.
“Let’s hope the goat boy is right,” Brok said, watching the god of war have an inner battle.
—
Sindri returned with the ring, saying they had to go to Svartalfheim for the rest of the materials. Loki, Thor, and Cosmo decided to tag along. Brok and Sindri got into an argument near the gate, with Brok wanting to visit the Lady this time.
Eventually, it was Kratos who decided the blue dwarf would be the one to do it.
Mimir, on the account of wanting to stretch his legs, took a shield and a sword from the forge, following Kratos and Freya.
The gate, the same one they had come through, gave Brok trouble at the start. With a rather colorful language, he got it working again.
—
Svartalfheim
“So wait, Svartalfheim is the world of the dwarves?” Loki asked, already writing it down.
“It is not the same in yours then,” Freya said, helping Kratos burn through a strange fungal growth.
“It was the world of the Dark Elves,” Thor said. He wrapped his hands around the gate in front of them, ripping it off while Kratos was searching the tunnel beyond the fungal growth.
Freya sheathed her bow. “What happened?” The Aesir believed that Svartalfheim was the realm of the Dark Elves. Not because it was, but because either they were too stupid to make the distinction between elves and dwarves or too uncaring.
“Long ago, they tried to transform the Nine Realms into a state where only they would be able to survive through the use of an artifact called the Aether. Grandfather Bor stopped them and hid the Aether. The king of the Dark Elves, Malekith, had his fleet crash into Einherjar lines to destroy our army. It did not work,” Thor said, waiting for Kratos to loot what he needed. It was understandable since they couldn’t exactly trade. Not with Asgard keeping a tight grip on most resources.
Freya and Mimir put the grandfather part on a list of questions to be asked.
“This Aether must be extremely strong to affect all of the Nine Realms.” Nothing short of Fimbulwinter and Gjallahorn could have such power.
Loki turned two creatures to dust. “It is part of the Infinity Stones, six gems of limitless power, each one representing a different part of the universe. When gathered together, it would give the wearer the power to do basically anything,” he said, watching for more. They were as interesting as they were ugly, using their tongues as whips to fight.
“Anything?” the smartest man alive asked.
“Anything.”
“Yep, your universe is mad,” Mimir muttered again as they proceeded through the service tunnel.
Kratos and Freya took out two more of the same monsters before they stopped in front of another gate. Thor ripped it out of the hinges as well, laying it on the side.
“You are strong,” Kratos said. Even in the short time they knew the Greek, it was obvious he was a man of few words.
“I always train in the Tenth Realm. It is a great way to go beyond one’s own limits.”
“Tenth Realm? I thought you had nine of them too,” Mimir said, confused just like the rest.
"It's a bit complicated. Why don’t we speak of it once back in the abode?” Loki asked. If explaining the concept of different universes was difficult, this one would be nigh impossible.
“He is right,” Kratos said, raising his axe as five monsters came to greet them.
“Everyone take one,” Freya ordered. Loki clicked his tongue, and Cosmo leaped forward. One of the monsters began to float before it was slammed to the ground, violently and repeatedly.
The rest were quickly disposed of.
“Forgot to ask, what’s with your hound?” Freya asked. She was too smart, too sharp, to be a mere animal. Even by the standards of familiars, the warm brown-furred hound was too aware.
“I am Cosmo,” she said to their minds. So far, the subjects were not the kind of things she cared to chime in on. Which is why she had chosen to nap during the entire meeting. Two gods and the fae stopped, watching the dog, unsure how they heard the voice.
“You can talk?” Mimir asked, crouching to let Cosmo smell his hand, mouth slightly parted.
“Cosmo is special. She was exposed to a form of power, giving her advanced intelligence and power,” Loki said as simply as he could.
“Nice to meet you, uhh, lassie?” he said, scratching her head.
“You too, goat legs,” she replied, her voice echoing in their minds once more.
“Kratos… Kratos!” Sindri called out twice as he was ignored the first time. Loki watched him phase back into the dimension they were in. He had already seen the dwarf follow them but saw no need to mention it.
“Please listen. You have to let me take Brok’s place. He can’t talk to the Lady. He mustn’t,” Sindri pleaded, his voice straining.
“No. Do not ask me again.”
“Listen,” Thor said, bending over to the dwarf’s eye level. “I have a feeling there is something you are not telling him. It is obviously private, but he won’t change his mind otherwise. I barely know him, and even I can tell that much. If you want him to change his mind, you’ll have to give him a good reason.” Whatever secret Sindri was keeping, he would have to determine whether keeping it a secret anymore was worth it.
That and he was in no mood to deal with secrets.
“He is right,” Loki said.
Sindri raised his hands halfway up, squeezing his fists before he slouched forward. “There was an accident in the forge a long time ago. Long story short, Brok died, and I stole his soul back but not all of it,” he said.
“Bloody hell,” Mimir cursed. “You’ve been keeping it from him.”
“Yes.”
“And since he doesn’t have all of his soul parts, he can’t talk to the Lady,” he said.
“Yes. So please, you have to,” he said to Kratos. He huffed, looking away, but didn’t refuse either.
Loki coughed, having already had enough of the family drama. “How about I restore his soul and we cut this very dramatic scene short?” It was very sweet and understandable. If Thor were dead—not that it would ever get to that point—he'd resurrect him as well. However, he didn’t want to deal with the emotional parts.
“You can do that?” Sindri blinked. “Wait a second, of course you can,” he muttered.
“Yes. On the condition that you tell him the truth.”
“Restoring a soul is not an easy feat, not even remotely comparable to restoring a body,” Freya said. Loki gave her a blank stare, and she raised her hands, palms open towards him. “But if you think you are up for it, far be it from me to dissuade you.”
“Let us find him,” Kratos said, moving again.
The next area required a bit of puzzle-solving to get through. Any other time, he’d be happy to oblige for the sake of the experience. This wasn’t one of those times, so he waved his hand, making the doors disappear.
Freya shrugged and walked through. “That is truly convenient.”
The corridor led to a room where a monster, larger and uglier than the ones they had met before, was waiting. Thor threw Mjolnir, nailing the monster in the face, sending it stumbling. Freya launched arrows that lit the monster purple before Kratos threw his axe, freezing the beast solid.
Thor summoned his hammer back, shattering the monster to pieces.
The deeper they moved, the heavier the atmosphere became. Freya, with Tyr revealed as Odin, wasn’t shy to say there was a need for a new god of war. She mentioned how the Giants were hiding a mysterious figure, a champion who changed the course of Ragnarok. Her insinuations that it was Kratos were not welcomed by him.
Cosmo, bored with the talks, rushed forward.
“Will she be alright?” Freya asked. Loki didn’t seem concerned about the hound, no matter how gently he treated her.
“Yes. The monsters can’t get through her protection wards.”
“Brother, how does your Ragnarok start?” Mimir asked. He wanted to see if there were any parallels to help them uncover more. Even with what they had learned so far, there was much they didn’t know.
“To us, it's not about preventing it but causing it. Do you remember how we said our father was a bloodthirsty conqueror in his younger days?” Thor said, turning a Grim to a paste on the ground.
“Before he changed because he couldn’t sacrifice your sister, yes,” Freya said. Hela’s fate sounded similar to Baldur’s. A weapon to be used by the Allfather, discarded once useless. Only this version of Odin had done it for the good of all.
She chuckled, but it was devoid of humor.
“Hela draws her strength from Asgard, as do Father and I. Not counting Loki, the only person who can defeat her is Father. Otherwise, she’d be invincible in Asgard. To stop her from starting a war against everything, we have to destroy Asgard,” Thor said. Their hypothesis was confirmed with what Loki had managed to learn from his variants. Considering everything was the same on that end, he didn’t think there would be a difference in that regard.
Except for the fact that Loki could crush Hela like a bug.
“So you know how everything will proceed? How?” Mimir asked, swinging his blade to clear it off the blood. He took a deep breath. Even this moldy-smelling air couldn’t stop him from enjoying the joys of breathing.
“Ever wondered what if you did something different in your life?” Loki asked Freya, an idea forming in his mind.
“Yes. Many things,” she said with a distant tone. Kratos glanced at her but didn’t say anything.
“There are timelines, different branches of the same tree, where your choices were different. I managed to meet enough variants of myself from different timelines to know how Ragnarok will happen,” he explained.
“That is useful,” Freya said, imagining a world where her son was alive.
The rest of the path until they reached the surface was devoid of monsters courtesy of Cosmo. The cute-looking dog had painted the tunnels with viscera and blood, waiting for them at the end.