Forging a Weapon of War

November 28, 2017:

Siege and Enchantress travel to the Dwarven Realm of Nidavellir to prepare for battle.

Characters

NPCs: Hornbori, Eitri

Mentions:

Mood Music: None.


Fade In…

The story so far: Mattias, led by Amora, returns to Asgard to seek out the Norns. The three witch-like creatures (of Wyrd) that record the fates of past, present, and future acknowledge Mattias to be a lost Asgardian. However, at the end of the ceremony, a hole to Svartalfheim, the ancestral home of the dark elves and Malekith the Accursed, opens. A monstrous bird known as a ‘Valravn’ revealed itself to be the warped form of Mattias’ mother, and that if it were to devour Mattias’ heart, his mother would revert back to her Asgardian form and the curse would be lifted.

Wounded by the Valravn, Mattias lay in a pool of his own blood. Amora, having already set the stage for Asgard to be in her debt, directed Mattias through a ritual of Asgardian magics that both healed his body and forged a weapon in his hands that could be used against Malekith.

The ritual nearly killed Mattias Larsson, who succumbed to unconsciousness and fell to the ground…

Now…

“It appears to be mere exhaustion; he should be awake by his own devices at any time now, but if anything is needed, any pain, any sign of curse, we’ve been allotted to provide assistance.”

The apothecary was not the Grand Apothecary, but one of her subordinates. Still, past his graying and shortly trimmed beard and long hair tied back in a knot, he carries the satchel emblazoned with the symbol of the palace’s own doctors. Long robes of white and brown didn’t match the color of his hair, nor the green of his eyes, giving the man a mismatched look about his color scheme.

A check up, he’d said it was, a graceful offering from the seat of Asgardian power, but despite his polite smile to Amora the Enchantress and his friendly demeanor…
…it didn’t explain the presence of two Einherjar standing guard on the other side of the door…
…and others, down on the street, watching the roads as if their attention aren’t directed elsewhere.

The apothecary, as well, has spent the last fifteen minutes finding new and clever ways to always keep Amora in his field of vision, even when tending to the resting form of Mattias of Gothenburg.

But she had made it into the walls of Asgard, welcomed as a guest, give or take a few pairs of eyes.

But not the palace.

The series of rooms were lush. Nestled just outside of the palace, the small estate was a resting place for dignitaries from visitors from the other realms that held banners of peace with Asgard. Notably, the Vanir and the Alfar. The tall, high-walled estate was rich with tapestry and flowing white curtains, open to a massive balcony that boasts a pool of warmed water and an impressive view of the seat of Odin the All-Father’s power. Longship-shape craft patrol the palace high above, flying from point to point.

All around are the signs of magic so sophisticated that it has been harnessed to look no different from technology.

The center of the two rooms bore a table of Asgardian faire, rare fruits, wine, and a small care package of leathered pants and underclothing for Mattias to replace the bloodied clothing that had been cut away before placing him in his bed.

They had been generous.
But it isn’t the palace.

“If I may say so,” The apothecary continues, stepping away from Mattias’ door with a shifted pair of eyes to the impressive blonde. The Enchantress. “I’d been told that your assessment of his condition wasn’t a matter of trauma, and your assessment, I agree with. The magic that healed his wound seems to have been rather thorough, to the point that I couldn’t find anything wrong with him at all when performing the scrying. He’s in peak physical condition, regardless of his scarring.”

The apothecary shrugged the shoulder-strap of his satchel onto one shoulder and turned his back to the door, facing Amora.

“Is there…anything else that you may need from us?”

No Miss. ‘No Amora the Enchantress’, though few would regale her as such, save Mattias or those who spoke such a name bearing the weight of her reputation.

Still, the apothecary, despite his concern about turning his back to the woman, tries his politeness.

//

The weapon is placed, but not finished, not forged.

Magic’s and meddling of Amora’s own design blazed across the Axe’s dual bladed head with the meet of grasp between Mattias and his Midgardian mothers. Gifted to him bare, until then, the contact engraving the blade in a forging that a dwarf could not duplicate, with a meaning no heart could equal.

The haft arrived when the door to his other home closed and sealed the truth behind a woman worthy of Asgard, but not of it - before she went back to her own ‘other’ home in Africa, assuring Mattias’ mutual kinship in (dis)placement.

Two pieces to a whole, but unable to fully merge and become the weapon wielded by the man known as Mattias, Son of Lars. A hole between blades left open and unfulfilled, empty and loose upon the haft even if it fit, there was still a space of emptiness.

Loose.

Unwieldly.

A broken weapon..

A broken lineage.

Amora remains back as the apothecary does his own studies, his observation assuaging something but that does not show… Just as her entry within the walls of Asgard and the open stares were met with a deeper apathy.

And a lifted tilt of chin, though her eyes were avoidant of looking higher to the palace.

In time.

The caution and care the apothecary regarded The Enchantress with is instinct, even if the whispers and words proved fallacy, the way the woman remained beside her claimed seat, but not resting within it while those eyes of a frosted mossy hue stare upon the sleeping form of Mattias and the man seeing to him.

Feet are bare at soles, but between toes and through, golden tiny chains weave, holding emeralds to offset the chill of her gaze, to the heat of forged gems inlaid along the spidered splay of delicate chains. Where one path ends and another spread begins is marked by the hold of intricate weaving to knot around the Absinthe-huen stones of precious placement.

Spread over calves, point upon knees to meet just above where the path once more opens like ropes of gold, fine honed to fit perfectly over the contour of thighs that show shadows to contour where muscles of time forged practice and Asgardian rite… Disappearing beneath the slip of dark green satin, another meet and hold of fabrics just upon apex to spill in parts of four down around her legs, keeping her covered, but in now way would such exposure of skin seem modest by Midgardian standards.

A single thread drawn, a single link bent and the whole image would fall apart, but the only exposure seems to come from the fathomless gaze that could undress a man of his very skin and have him gift the bloody package to her with his own hands.

But not by first glance, not if one does not know, and the apothecary has very well listened. Some things though draw curiosity, down upon one exposed hip the massive head of the battle axe rests, her fingers curled over the curved top, fingers split around the wedge of the metallic hook of claw, the very thing that melds it (unfinished) to pin the haft in place. Heavy wood, reinforced by the intricate path and mold of Uru metal bracing to the base resting just outside of the arch of bare foot.

Blood still drops from the claw and between, down into the metal holding and along the revelation of placed haft, driven into the massive weaponhead…

A tilt of her head and the woven braids linked with tiny golden chains, tied upon the ends to hang like threads, sweep over the bare slope of shoulders, dipping along the contours where collarbones contour a small dip in the span of pale flesh before spilling beneath further drops of fabric that fall just as freely as the drapery within the space. Eyes flick from him to the table and back. “Let someone know meat and mead is requested.”

A drum of fingers, metal tipped, carry a low tone over the uru metal of the Ber-Axe, vibrations passing in the caress over runic inlay.

Before the apothecary can fully exit, the door space is shared by a bulky dwarf, no taller than four feet pushes through despite the grasp of one of the Einherjar upon his collar. No blows have been laid yet, but the sight of the dwarf pitched forward and set in his path despite the massive weight latched to his back, is a thing to easily avert attentions.

Amora’s eyes linger upon the apothecary, lips lightly parted as if there might be something else, those eyes of a similar hue lingering and then torn away to narrow at the sight of entry. If not for a small quirk to the corners of lips it would all seem almost unexpected….

“Hornbori, trained of Throgg in Nidavellir!” One hand extends and when the dwarf comes to a halt the Einherjar takes note of the name, the status, and the placement while his free hand seeks to pry fingers from the pommel of undrawn weapon.

When Hornbori is released from the massive grip, the posture of bull-dogged drag rights, his attire dusted with a grunt, he looks back at the corner of eyes nearly veiled by massive bushy brows that meet with his beard. “May be big, still can’t stop a dwarf!” Sniff. Snort. Pride unfettered despite the unseeable reaction of the Einherjar that leaves just behind the apothecary who stopped to bare witness.

“So, you bid for me to… do what for whom?” A narrow of his own eyes as he looks from Enchantress’ extended hand in greet towards the resting place of “… a Hamrammr, I heard correct? What are you up to now?” A lowering of his voice to a near rumble that could mimic disrupted mines.

But when moving back towards the form of the Enchantress his eyes fall (for lack of height!) easily upon the Axe, lips pushing out the bush of beard with their purse and working as if words came without voice.

“It’s not stable, not a worthy weapon, that bit you have wedged won’t do, and by the looks of his arm… Even if it was not scrap, could he even lift it!?” A shake of head as the dwarf is taking one step away, muttering.

“Afraid, Hornbori?” The words are just as cold as her eyes, if it was not for the small smile of her amusement forming to touch them.

The gust of exhale seems as if from a massive horse and not a dwarven man. “No good. No good always. Evil witch.” A shake of hand, index extended to her but the laugh is throaty even if words seem aimed to harm come in an exchange of amusement. ‘When’s that little monk-hand gonna have meats and mead delivered?”

“Tsk.” Amora clicks her tongue behind teeth and returns her gaze to Mattias, fingers pushing the head of the axe from her hip when it shifts to bring her closer to his resting form. “Mattias is my Ber-Odr, Hornbori, and everything that was taken was simply given back. That is what I am up to.” Fingertips of metallic barbs slide through that of a darker blonde, an endearing gesture…(perhaps?)..

“Right, and my mother’s beard didn’t catch her dinner either.” Even if the dwarf is curious, he does not reach for the Axe nearly dangling before him until it was handed his way.

//

Such a stark contrast, it is, from Westchester, New York, Midgard.

For days beforehand, Amora was confided to the height of a woman in Midgard, a masked persona of Helen Eve, and though the Xavier Institute was a mansion far better than most of the denizens of Midgard could ever be provided, it is no Asgard. This room, nearly three times the size of Mattias’ chamber in Westchester, was meant to be slept in by a more powerful creature of the realms.

When they’d brought him in, he was lain upon a table where nurses tended to wounds that weren’t truly there. Under Amora’s personal observation, his jacket of Asgardian ber was removed and his bloodied clothes cut away with shears. The buckets rushed in soon ran pink with blood wringed out of sponges, and the dirt was cleaned from his skin.

Like a warrior.

Before the chirurgeon could tend to Mattias and observe, his skin was anointed with oils and his hair cleaned, placed into a state his naked body could be viewed upon as the scarred ber-sekir he was shown to be, alongside the whispers of what his legend would be:

He fought a valravn?
His father’s son?
Maybe one day an einherjar?

As servant girls are known to gossip, their chittering whispers died the further they traveled down the hall, leaving Mattias, naked beneath the bedding and furs, where he now sleeps in an ornately carved bed large enough for a jotun to sleep within. One leg pressed out of the blankets, bare toes to the ceiling, his sleep is passionless, with little movement save the shift of eyes beneath closed lids as he dreams through the ether of secrets a witch such as Amora could scry through crystal or pool of water into.

Does he dream of Asgard?
Of Midgard?
Of his mother’s face?

The arrival of the dwarf does little to break Mattias of Gothenburg from his slumber. The prying of her finger through his hair, separating it from his face, draws a sigh from his lips and a shift of his head, following the trail of her fingertips. His head turns, rolling to the side in point towards her hip and the dwarf beyond, but his eyes remain closed. The regeneration of his strength is not yet complete; it’s as if within the walls of Asgard his body refuses his waking until he is ready for war again, knowing well the nature of the ber-sekir will doubtlessly turn to his growing pile of work to be done.

Darkness falls.

The lamps in the room grow a dim white to match the lamps that keep the street below illuminated. Two hours before the close of the markets and the main thoroughfares, the taverns and mead halls begin to fill and the sounds of laughter carry from down the street. The very pulse of Asgard and its vibrant nightlife mix with the sound of crickets chirping freely in a city so sure of its safety under Odin’s watchful eye, that even the children continue to chase themselves down alleys between the buildings, unafraid of thieves that wouldn’t dare upset the casual peace retained within its walls.

It is then, as the skies above dim from orange to purple, that Mattias Larsson opens his eyes to the white curtains covering the windows and the blue and green feathered bird sitting on its sill, jerking its head quickly to watch the blonde ber-sekir wake from his slumber.

The instinctual way he stretches his arm out to the left side of the bed, seeking the form that had slept beside him for nearly a week prior, is a statement of welcome in and of itself, even if Amora sleeps elsewhere.

//

The way he turned into Amora’s touch, a double edge sword borne upon each fingertip, Hornbori was attentive to the ministrations that barely grazed tips along Mattias’ jawline. The only motion that took his eyes from the half-forged Axe of a Ber-sekir.

..See the moon in your eyes..

“So then what is it..?”
“Not it… Him. Mattias. Larsso—- Son of Lars…”
“..and he will forge the Sig..r..”
“…Tssshhh…”

The finger is upon the smaller man's lips, the tip pressing through coarse hair to make his lips come to pause and his eyes narrow upon the reflection of strapped form, clad in nothing but intricate links and hanging drapery of emerald. Pearlescent braids slipped over bare shoulders in her lean that took Amora, The Enchantress, eye to eye with Hornbori of Nidavellir. A forgesmith trained beneath Throgg and Kamorr.

But only ties that bind left the withdrawal of lips not herald a cry for blood and a lunge upon the woman bent and stooped before him. Hornbori looks from the Enchantress to the Ber-Sekir, to the… Unfinished Weapon, the talon still bearing base from the top of the weapons melding-craft. Such an unfinished bit of (perfection) weapon making the craftsman slowly close his eyes, crinkle a brow heavy in hairs to accent displeasure…

A step back parts metal claw from the hiding within beard and ‘stache’d lip to have him look upon her, but from bared toes laden in the weave of golden links… to that of her face. A framed bit of Asgardian perfection, also bearing the accent of golden chains in their fall, archs and bows to line her eyes in dips and the tiny accented dangles of a deep opal that reflects a pearlescent moss.

“Svartalfheim… He will know..”
“He already does, Hornbori…Mattias is the son…”
“You best be prepared, this is all the help I can offer due to his…”

Silence came when Mattias faced the dwarf’s way. Hornbori nearly chewing his own facial hair in the dour expression that only cast upward to the rise of Amora. No longer Midgardian demure/petite… Honed in her statuesque figure of lithe athleticism despite being one for magicks and not war.

“When he wakes, bring him…”
“… For the final forging of the …”

The door closes behind Hornbori before the sun even begins to set, but he did not go without being fed fully of meats, cheeses, breads, mead, and a playful exchange of simple pleasantries with a servant girl with red hair and freckles.

All they did was laugh, joke, and she awkwardly tried to speak his tongue…

Amora rolled her eyes as well as her wrist that held a chalice of potent wine, sipped from until the door slowly clicks closed, leaving her seated where she had been once Hornbori raised the question…

The edge of Mattias’ bed bore a bow where she had claimed space, the hand not laden in drink still filtering golden-gemmed fingertips of claws through golden mane, leaving it splayed in the perfect swirl of a fan along side the curve of one exposed hip straddled by strips of deep emerald silk where sunset links do not hold it in place.

Hours passed, Amora did not lay there, she remained seated, as one glass became the drag of pitcher to her side, the contents as shadowed as the outside, as empty as…

The goblet is set aside, clinking against the matching pitcher when his arm extends and hand brushes along exposed hip, ending the residual silence inside… Despite outside…

The grip alone, the welcoming coil of appendage that drags her along the surface as if she was a being so much smaller, leaves feet off the floor and tucks contours against him, but there was no positioning of slumber, just that of vigil, so when his eyes open, her arm extends along his side, a curl of fingers over his shoulder where gauntlets fade away and leave a touch of feather light to explore his ment wound.

For that moment, jade eyes meet his cerulean, then tear away to follow the lines her bare fingers paint over skin laden in (newer)old scars and one, new…. Same or opposing, she still ensures with a relentless press into softer tissue.

The light lean still captured by his grip and postured by her own has her look back upon him one that draws thinly pressed lips to a light part. When eyes close, they are pressed lightly upon his brow.

… I’m going for the finish line…

“Welcome… Home…” The rise from him is like Panning a shadow from Never Never…

But when her hand reforms the gauntlets, links sweep into the fabric’d drapery of clothing, returning part to draw up, latching to her shoulder in a grip, all her own but latched by hooked claws and placed lamely down her back, spilling along the floor in a trail that bears earthen tone when most would say red was more fitting….

A draw of hands and the drapes are split in a clatter of rungs that leads to a balcony over the Asgardian Citadel Streets below….

Amora has yet to even approach that ledge and look down. But the reflection of the moons, the bustle below, The Enchantress cast her own glow and it reflected in the gesture back to Mattias, to draw him up and out.

//

Mattias wakes to a smear of thumb across bared hip to silken fabric. The split of his eyes that pries eyelashes that feel like cracked bone apart from one another casts a haze of blue upwards, through the gold of Amora’s hair, to find her face. The brief second of confusion drifts away as the immediate details become clear.

A bed.

She’s not fighting, she has a goblet in her hand. She’s brushing his hair.

The scent of fire, dust, and wood from Yggdrasil are gone.

Wherever he is, it’s safe.

The lightning fast calculation in Mattias’ eyes is evident, prompting his eyelids to lower to half-mast. Through his nostrils, a gentle sigh wafts out against her fingertips as he watches her hip rise from the bed. The pillow beneath him divots in the center under his weight. Not unlike his bed back in Midgard, his muscles strain in waking under the blankets; the whole of his body tightens and shudders in a clench of muscles all of the way down to the toes. His leg that pokes free from the blankets extends as she passes it, toes flexing out to brush her hip…intentional or not.

He rolls on the bed to follow her path.

The comforter of sewn together wolfen hide falls from his shoulder, leaving a thin sheet of white linen against his skin that pools over it like water over a rock. The scarred spanse of shoulder down to his Olympian-ridged abdomen reveals a new scar, the talon of the Valravn. The more his hips buck and turn in his gentle roll, the blankets peel away.

“Home.” Mattias repeats to the low-plunging backline she wears, watching as she parts the curtains and allows moonlight to spill into the room. “It almost sounds foreign to hear as something that’s truth.”

The rest of Mattias of Gothenburg slides out of the bed. Cleaned and oiled, smelling of Asgardian salts and olives, he rises to his feet without a shred of clothing upon his body. A body that was devoid of scars before Amora had walked into his life. Shadow and moonlight curls to his sides in his walk towards Amora from behind, the scents growing ever-near. Naked and fearless, a warrior waking from battle, he steps in behind the Enchantress and lowers his lips to the crook of her neck for a gentle press. There, he turns his eyes over her shoulder to the buildings and the balcony before them, unable to hide the slow intake of breath as his head turns…and turns…and turns…at the sight of the massive Citadel looming over everything.

“Fokkin-A.” He blurts out before he can catch himself ruining the sanctity of the moment.

“Come.”

Mattias squeezes the part in Enchantress’ gown where bare skin meets silk, and without a shred of clothing, offers her the sight of his musculature stepping freely onto the balcony before her. Out into the moonlight, like a body pulled free from the waters and baptized in Asgardian air, he steps his first steps into the Asgardian city, a citizen.

“We finally made it, Amora. Both of us.” Mattias arches his back and turns his nose upwards, breathing in the scent of cooking meat and spilled mead that catches on the wind. He comes to a stop at the edge of the balcony, planting his hands to the stone railing. “Don’t think for a moment that I’ll claim this victory all for myself; this was never just my work. I wouldn’t be here if not for the risks you’d taken as well.”

Now it is his turn to extend a hand back to her, not thinking of the likelihood that their every move, from Heimdall’s post, to the Citadel above, could be watched.

“And I know we cannot stay forever, but you’ll have to forgive me. I can’t take my eyes off of it just yet. This is…”

Mattias trails off, failing to find the word.

In the streets below, as he watches, Einherjar patrol the streets at the edge of the Citadel. Dozens travel the walkways below, some looking up, others moving about their business, as the fires light in nighttime lamps and chimneys begin to bellow smoke for the evening. Shadows across the purpling skies and the four moons above rain down light upon the mostly private balcony, but in truth, nearly all of the city is within their view, all of the way to the edges of Bifrost and the thousand-foot high waterfalls off of the mountains that form the ocean that tips off of the edge of Asgard itself.

//

“Astonishing.”

“Magnificent..”

“Spectac —- …”

Each word is a different language, varying dialect - all to hang on his missing final word as he draws in a breath along the expanse of exposed skin to bare his eyes to the city-scape of Asgard.

Amora expected no less in Mattias’ exhasperation, or the motion to carry him to the edge of the balcony.

If she was not welcome here, she would not be here…

Yet here she stands, bears witness….

Walking in the mist,
No one knows where I have been…

The citadel itself bears a bustle of bodies, even as the First Sun sets and casts an angle of shadow across the streets below the balcony.

Four to Three…

A thumb traces along curvature of flesh and Amora follows that beck and call towards the ledge where once before…

Far from my home now,
Going in circles ‘round and round…
I’m on my own now….

A pale hand caresses the brink of the balcony, and despite the lofty hold of chin and slight shadow of jawline there is a pale that sweeps over knuckles in the grip over the ledge that rests alongside Mattias’ own.

Barest brush of hip.

Faint sweeping caress of silken dress…

The Enchantress will not *bow*!

But when those pale mossy eyes turn to the horizon -

They have missed it so…

Far from my home now…

The rotation of guard comes and goes between misty lines for cloud-smoke and that of aerodynamic security regarded to a far more advanced people than believed by most Midgardian beliefs.

They are nowhere near archaic here…

Nothing’s ever what it seems..!

Alongside Mattias, Amora reveals herself to the Asgardian streets, as well as the very singular Raven’s eye of Odin…
… the ear of Heimdall…

.. Did they call it off tonight?…!

I’m on my own now…

”…Home…” The only answer Amora can whisper to Mattias as they breach the balcony ledge and oversee the Einherjar as well as the denizen’s deserving.

The very sight is one to furrow Amora’s brow, shadowed by the fall of braids and that of pearlescent tress while knuckles whiten over the ledge bearing such a view almost laden in a laughter of silent mockery.

“It is what you deserve…

Where you belong…” A trail of fingertip along his jaw…

Her hand departs and where it imparts…
A raven lands and a single eyes cants towards.

Reflective.

The cry of the Raven draws Amora back, further, a step beside, a brace behind her Ber-Odr.

“I wish nothing more than to be home, our home to be nothing less than this…” A whisper to the sign. The very being she cast cinders of papyrii unto…

For Revelation..

//

It may just be Amora’s fault that Mattias of Gothenburg isn’t so afraid of his naked state, even on the balconies of Asgard. His first months spent in the realm were in such a state; albeit covered in mud. The balcony isn’t lined with open cuts of rock, concealing the latter half of his form, but to feel the naked wind on his body is a gift of its own. The sense of want to present himself to the realm unbidden is strong, but there are times where care simply isn’t necessary.

He’s made it this far. It isn’t likely that he’ll be thrown out of his home realm for a lack of pants on a balcony that was intended to be his. Theirs.

He remains in silence, even with the touch to his jaw. His downward cast stare meets the eyes of onlookers. Some double-take, not at Mattias, but the sight of the infamous woman at his side. Those concerned add an extra bit of gait to their step to place some distance between the ominous presence of the Enchantress, even if she’s with a man rumored to be the son of a known protector of Asgard. Dark clouds spell rain. Platinum tresses and green skirts often spell trickery.

But in the sweep of his eyes, Mattias does meet the attention of some of the Einherjar, who look up to the balcony. Mattias slowly nods his head to one of them…

…and the Einherjar, with painstaking slowness, nods in return.

The sudden arrival of the raven and the way Amora tucks herself in behind Mattias, placing his muscular body between herself and the iconic creature, captures his attention. He turns to double-take from Amora to the raven. Mattias has to blink to see the single eye looking to them, but the famed imagery of the one-eyed raven in his childhood stories is known to him. His mouth closes into a quick clap, and he tilts his head to meet the angle of the bird.

And then Mattias nods, as well, to the raven.

“You know my heart, Amora. You know I just wanted what is, not what lies I was told to believe to be a part of someone else’s plan. Definitely not Malekith’s and no one else’s.” Mattias begins, sparing a glance back to her as an arm lowers to the front of her hip, palm turning around to press into her side. “And you’ve done just that. You’ve brought me here. That there’s worse coming was no one’s doing but Malekith’s, and for that, I’m grateful.”

Mattias turns his attention to the raven, speaking to Amora as he watches the sign.

“Our home?” Mattias leaves the question to the air. “At this point, I don’t know what I’m entitled to, if anything, but if there’s a home for me in this place, I would want you to be welcome in it and a part of it. For both of us, this has been an uphill battle.” Mattias twists at the waist and looks back to Amora, catching her eyes out of the corner of his sockets.
“Nothing less than this.” Mattias nods in agreement to her, then shifts his eyes to the lavish apartments. “If by nothing less than this, you mean, it would be hard to not say goodbye entirely to Midgard, though this matters not. I’ve pledged myself to aid and defend Asgard.”

Mattias grows silent.

“Which means I’ve declared my true home.”

//

The state of their exposure, or the scant lack thereof in regards to cover is not Amora’s concern. There was a message, there was a meaning, and somewhere in there… A heart pulsed, a fleeting moment of heat, passion, truth in it all.

”You will not win this!”
// laughter echoes into darkness while a pool ripples.//

How many scrys’ have been broken?

Mattias’ touch to the exposed spanse of hip, half covered in the drop of sateen fabric can feel the heat, and if tips of fingers dared to press, the pulse is there, evident like a war drum in the life-lines of carotid.

Mattias’ words echo in the backdrop of her mind, while in the forefront, that Raven (a Sigil of Odin) is given acknowledgement despite the past that has put up a wall of bullet-proof proportions…

..But eye(s) are daggers.

“I know what we call home,” A draw of her body aligns to the back of Mattias’ own, but her body is following the flow of her hand, where palm smears cross shoulder blade laden in sinew and honed trial of enchantress proportions. “I just want to be sure that which can be burned, Is no longer part of history…”

From one shoulder to the next, the form of Amora in whispering in a play of pressure and breathe, “That home is what you shall get.” A glance, a spark of emerald gaze alight within garnet infusion heads Mattias’ way.

A moment of serpentine pressure, forked tongue, chaste-isement…

History shared…

“You need to forge your Siege, Mattias.” A pause enough that has Amora daring a one-eye’d stare of her own towards the raven before that near-serpentine ravel of limb, about Mattias draws her back. “Did you see the ashes I sent, or no… A Laurel…” Lars….

“I said,” A pause and even if there is a *flicker* of something else , hidden in those eyes that suddenly go a frosted moss hue before they turn back towards the streets of Asgard below, then seal behind lids dusted in kohl and ash. “Welcome to your home. Even Sons can proclaim another loyalty and keep their place amongst Gods, while abandoning Queens. But that matters not…”

A pause that gains girth, lips lined in plum tic upward at corners as her eyes reflect the streets and skies in their rise to only cut the raven’s way as it skips back on talon’d feet, scrates tally marks across Elder Stone and casts a shadow on the North-most Moon. “You belong here, even if war of many sons needs to pass. It is an Epic to be told, and you….”

A few breathes between them, a capture of hand, a gesture that could have left him pin-pricked…. Amora draws him in and brushes her cheek along his own cut-and-defined jaw line as she utters. “Get what you deserve. He will suffer for trying to demean You. Demean Asgard. Your right.”

A lingering in passage and slowly her hand releases, her foot draws back to seek a breadth between them… “When do you wish to make your Ox Sigr-hamrammr, whole?”

//

Mattias lowers his head, watching Amora the Enchantress out of the corner of his eye as she moves behind him. Ear pointed to the one-eyed bird, he breathes down through the braids in his long, blonde hair that were there upon waking; he’s yet to question them. A beast in the present tense, he has a talent for honing his senses for what is in front of him, always, but the bigger picture, he is always one step behind the mind of Amora. Thus, he watches, he listens, he keeps to the present, ever-confident like the Sons of Odin, that when the time comes, he will be the victor.

Even Achilles had his bravado; it was a bravado that ended him.

“I saw that you sent ashes into the sky, but I never truly asked what they said. Not what they meant, either. That you did seemed more than enough to make Malekith furious.” Mattias replies, rubbing quietly at his jaw to find the week’s growth to be gone, shaven clean. So clean that one would think that hair had never grown. “But worry not about abandonment and greed, not from me, Amora. This is my home, and my people are here, and my people are many, clear as I can see from this balcony.”

Mattias, however, looks not to the people below. His eyes are cast in one direction, and one alone. In such blue eyes rests a hint of fondness, but no, these words aren’t spoken with the magics of her enchantment, but a statement of loyalty.

He hasn’t forgotten how he’s come to this place.

“Malekith isn’t going to wait until I’m ready,” Mattias begins to turn from the balcony, walking in naked carelessness towards the curtains at the apartment’s archways. “My mother is trapped and held hostage; he’s going to use her as a means to get to me. This is going to be ugly, even if I’m a player in the war of many sons, but from what I see, he isn’t going to wait until I’ve found an unbeatable way to take him down and end this once and for all. To reclaim my right. To right these wrongs.”

Mattias crosses the room. The tile, cold on his feet, shimmers with the lit fires in the corner of the room and the roaring of the massive coalfired hearth in the center of the room, wrapped in chains. He steps to the table of food, plucking a grape free to pop it past his teeth.

“When, Amora?” Mattias speaks over his shoulder, turning two goblets over. “I’m considering whether or not one night to see my home is something I can afford. It should be whole by the time this fight starts, which could be any time. Is one night a foolish thought? I cannot decide.”

The wine pools against the walls of the goblets as he pours.

“All I know, for sure, is that this is not done, and I cannot stop to celebrate my victories long.” He continues in the language of Asgard; his accent has slowly improved. “To not put this as most important would be an insult to my birthright and the risks you’ve taken, so no later, not one second later than the coming of dawn.”

//

Nidavellir ….

« "You can have your night…" Amora's voice had stated towards Mattias as she grew closer to accept the goblet and nearly //scathe the bare hip against his own. "Drink. We leave.."//»

« How much time passed between? It is unknown as the alcohol within the chalice meets the *Mind*, pitching it to The Black…»
«The Dark.»
«A place where dreams see nothing and the *pounding* in one's head is a cadence of hammers meeting stone… Metal… Uru of Black..?»

« // A mixture as a gift of the Norns, the three cackling at the buckling roots of Yggdrasil they perch upon while scales weave and push upward with the 'Life', curious on an accord to stare into pools of..
Fate? // »

«"You can have your night another time…" Amora had stated in full. "… we leave now.» The doors to the quarters are thrown open by Hornbori, the /Dvergir/, The Enchantress had been associating with - again the Einharjar upon his heels with a manner more of purpse as weapons /scrape/ over holsters, scabbards,… hoists!»

« //"Rangr illa saga! (Wrong bad story!) Amora geffa Svaltalfar, Siedge… (I give the Dark Elves the Siege) Pier no taka byrðr Asgard… Midgard.(They will not take the birthen Home…(s)." And in the paltry peer of light cresting the surface a darkness consumes the room. //»

«// Hornbori can be heard. "Always Karnilla's Witchling…"
"Call me by myearned name!"
"After the travel of the Dark." A grunt and then silence as the hammering becomes louder….!//»

But to Mattias it may seem like pulse, heart hammering to overcome what draught he partook, as even when eyes open there is Pitch. Black.
Whispers bear in the back of his mind. Truth. History. Past. Present. Desires, Fears. Losses, seeking to take him deeper into (Night)Mares.

//

The murk of the drink hits Mattias Larsson as if it had been injected directly into his jugular vein. The darkness that overtakes him is disorienting, throwing off his balance, turning up to down, spinning him around and planting a boot into his ass to deliver him personally to the rabbit hole.

Is it another night? Another time? Mattias blinks hard against the darkness only to find that it's truly the dark and not something that he can wash his eyes to fix. He rubs at his stinging eyelids, taking stock of his booted feet and breeches, the only clothing he'd had time to wear before the darkness took him.

«"SIEZE HIM!"» A sudden rush of cloud forms into Malekith the accursed, bounding in front of Mattias with a cadre of Dark Elf warriors. Mattias swings at the smoke, dissipating it.

"Amora?" Mattias calls out, huffing past his lips in certain confusion. "What is this? What did you give me?"

«THIS IS YOUR DEATH!» Malekith reforms, rushing towards Mattias. This time, Mattias is ready. His fist crushes into the smoke and a sickening, breaking sound rings out. The form of Annika Larsson falls to his feet, gagging past her broken larynx. «"FOOLISH, STUPID CHILD."»

"Fokk, no, wait!" Mattias drops down to his knee, fingers pushing through the foggy form of his dying, adopted mother. She reaches for him, but the more he tries to collect her, the more the fog of her vision dissipates into red mist.

«"They were only temporary, Matti."» The female voice whispers in his ear. Two. Four. Six hands with painted fingertips can be felt reaching about his shoulders, rubbing at his muscles. «"Your glory won't be. We won't be. You won't be."»

«"I am not to blame for this," Amora's voice finally responds as the Dark echoes into Mattias' mind as well as encompasses their bodies, Amora not excluded from this… "The Dwarves want truth.." And in Amora's final words the //between folds over them, the goblets once held, now lain on their sides on the floor of that temporary Domicile in The City of Asgard. Hornbori gone as well, leaving the Einherjar staning in the expansive space once the ashen clouds fall - confused as weapons clatter to lower and look over…»
Amora had no time to change, but her figure, her facade is like a distorted play on a digital movie, blurring side to side in a rapidity that parse the separate entities, the Dark seeping between like fingrs, philangese curling, coiling, biting nails betwixt and peeling apart while a pained scream echoes, as if the very Tear Between hurts…
… and it sounds evenn visceral.
From that distance, as if looking through a one way mirror, Asgard is blanketed in a wave of Malekith's Forces while within the walls Mattias is left to witness Annika's fall. Lips part, but throat is constricted, held in a Dark Uru clsp that wrings with every flex of chords.
The flickering effigy clasped in clawed darkness cringes at the clutches, but the shudder is surreal - brittle, amost seeing as if it would fall apart and wither!
… But a sword scrapes across the dark floor, sparking small archs of light where it etches a hollow into the path…
Amora's fight is losing in the moment, the Will and Truth to See is being choked from her, and when her head rolls back and that 'Body' goes limp in the bindings.
«Hyenidae-like cackles echo with the rise of sparks… Turning to the eyes of the Beasts
Asgard is in shambles, a fresh and still falling ruin around her, where Amora is in rags, bound before a throne that is now a small lift in the broken flooring bearing Malekith while the Forced of Dark Elves surround them, forced to kneel in the reflective pool of still-warm blood that was once a Ber
«Did I not tell you?!» Accursed voice drips like honey'd venom from stained lips deeper than the hue of surrounding skin.
Fingertips tipped in black stain draw through the blood and leave trails parted to the fallen stone beneath her knees, rising she lowers her head to the lifted tips now stained red, drawing downward over her skin covered in unkempt ash and mire, even that pleated hair more dred locks than neat. «I never learn…!» And in a lunge Amora is trying to push to her feet and lunge at Malekith on the broken throne, despite the manacles that ut into wrists, ankles, and along throat. Anger stretching skin beneath to paint it…
«"I want to see your pain!….»
Sparks rise slowly, closing in - those eyes - that laughter…
«For once there is warmth that is not bloodletting, a flicker of smiles, flashes of teeth. Glory in the Realms as the Moons rise and Fall, but the Light is there, and belonging almost brings relent.»
Succumb.
A low tapering flame is that mossy gaze of Helen, Amora, almost snuffed, but then sparks waft passed her profile and cast a glow. An ignition that snaps them to the virescent hue in a final….
"
ENOUGH**!"

Rage. A rage grows within the belly of Mattias of Gothenburg. The choking and dying image of Amora is a faster leap to his senses than that of the image of the death of his adoptive mother, strange as it may be. The fake firelights capture the constricting of his six feet of muscle. Suddenly angry lines rise to the breaking of Asgard and the sight of Amora in chains before his sworn enemy.

"What is this mockery!?" Mattias barks out the order, storming in the direction of Malekith and the pool of blood he resides over. The harder he walks, stomping his boots through shadow, the further the images draw away. "Yes! Fight him, Amora! I'll see everything burned before he sits on that throne." Mattias gnashes his teeth, but skids to a stop when he realizes that it's a dream he'll never catch.

Mattias rolls a shoulder, fighting off the warmth, at first, but like a pool of water, it seeps at his skin, drawing him away, distracting him.

"IT'S NEVER ENOUGH!" Mattias roars and spins to face the eyes of Helen, of Amora. His teeth flare like that of a ber in his roar. "THERE IS NO SUCH END!"

The warmth is tempting, even as force-fed water drips from the corner of tapering light in eyes…
Hello… I believe it's time to go…
The 'Fire' that rises sparks within the drawing line of a sword, hooked - is reflective in those eyes, ones that know when they are no longer far-stretched in Midgard.
Sorrow is Rage.
Rage is Revenge.
It is all Aflame!
The One-Sided Mirrors of the Mares draw between, but only in the illusory, the true passing is the 'Pelican'-shaped maws of the Hyenidae massacres, bearing no fur, that pass while Matti and Amora wander…
Lost in The Dark.
Lost in their Nightmares to reveal the Truth!
Amora heard the roar of Mattias', but "whose" roar is what is scrambled in her mind and when one crystalline drop falls from cheek, to shattered Asgard beneath her barren feet…
~ "ENOUGH!" ~
Amora's lips do not move, but her rise is one of a Finale, eyes reflecting in that 'Looking Glass' towards Mattias, the Siegr… when claw tipped fingers, painted black reach for a neck of equal hue.
But the bellow belongs to neither of them, NONE of the entities the Mare wrought to exist, and when Amora and Mattias blink the 'Dark' away, the draw of fists, the rage, seen/unseen, is clutched in their own grasps…
… Standing before the Bearded Eitri - King of the Dwarves, while Horbori is beside him, his grin hidden beneath the fall of darker colored beard and heavy brows. In one of his hands is the head of the Axe, slowly remoulding…
The other hand? The Haft, the metal wrapping glowing a light red as behind them rivers run a molten xtred and the Hammering is a rhythm of belonging.
"So you seek to end the (Ac)Kurse'd of Svartalfhem and the War?"
"Good. Mayhaps, there is more nights for revelrie beyond the fort(night)."

Mattias would never know it, but one of the swings of his mighty fists comes dangerously close to Amora. The wind whips past his arm, cooling the tears on her cheeks, as he struggles with the same difficulty he's faced for months: A fight he cannot decisively finish on his terms.

Darkness pools like water. Images dissipate like smoke.

Not once does he feel the satisfying sting of his knuckles crushing into something that can bleed.

When the bellowing ceases the darkness, and light returns to his eyes with each blink, Mattias lowers his fists. The swelling curve of his breast rises and lowers in metered breaths, standing in tension-filled reserve as his sight returns to him. The tricks have been many. From Amora to Malekith to Loki, light isn't a rescue; it's another possibility.

Amora is there. Mattias' lips part when his eyes fall to the tear streaks on her cheeks. He nearly asks, but he sees.

"Yes, I do." Mattias responds to the King of the Dwarves, peeling his attention from Amora to nod his head downwards in respect to the commanding dwarf before him. "I seek to and I will. Everything he touches turns to rot."

Mattias lifts his chin, eyes narrowing in presentation to the dwarves.

"And the revelry after he is no longer left to prey on these realms will be that of legend."

The chill of fast-paced air nearly freezes droplets in time, Amora's eyes had closed for that moment in time, expecting something else in her lunge for the throat of "Malekith". His Jotun… ?
All she has is her fire, sparked by a blade stolen and kept, even if the passion is the same. Shared. The chill and the distant echo to not 'relent' from Mattias comes to fruit, her senses slowly returning to the heat those eyes reflected first, but recognition comes last.
Nearly toe to toe with Mattias, her hand is hook-clawed and outstretched for the throat of the Accursed, but is halted before Mattias' in the passing of fist that moves whisps of pearlescent strands around her face.
The looks exchanged cater to a balance for once, and a chill that is working its way into her pores. Unshown. Amora rights her posture now as the ink upon skin shed from 'Helen' drips through the bleed-of-black at her fingrtips, her height gaining as well as the swell of svelte Asgardian figure. Unknown Aesir or Vanir.
Asgardian.
There's a shift in her eyes, a moment of waver and then they draw from Mattias with his words, backed by True Belief, Truth…
Eitri is the Kingly object of the gazes, but on the outskirts the Mares have yet to leave, bodies of skin stretched in sinew over bone structures built from Horror. The Desert Plains cackles are humanoid despite the warped 'Alien' jaws the sounds echo from. Child to Woman. Man. Laughter and Cries.
Eitri's brows furrow, nearly fully shadowing his dark eyes in a crush to cheeks laden in beard. "They have Haunted for months now. Unleashed to our lands. Blessings and Curses come frequently." A chuffed exhale of long drawn out heated air and he is turning from them, Hornbori moving in tandem with his "liege", but what happens next unexpected by the bellow of defense! when Eitri's meaty palms clap over Head and Staff, throttling the unbound pieces towards the Fires of Nidavellir's Belly. "You brought them on Her behest, you teach then since you have decided!" A glower? A smile?
Who the fokk knows when it comes to Dwarves.
Hornbori simply stares, returns the silent look of words and gestures for Mattias. "You share the Forges of many a Legend, join me?"

Mattias holds his place firm. The streams of blonde hair hanging from his head are laced with ashes picked up from the forge. He corrects himself, standing shoulder to shoulder with Amora in his first gaze upon what might be a friendly, non-Asgardian soul, or at least an ally for the moment. He nods slowly at Eitri's assesment, lowering his eyes only to seek the corners of the darkness where the mares haunt.
He stares at their reflective eyes, narrowing his own blues in their direction at their haunting cackles and their pack-like presence. Like the skulls of horses dessicated by the desert; they are all teeth in front with empty, beak-like lines.
"Malekith and his like have been spotted on Midgard and Asgard, now Nidavellir. I have no foes in this realm, and thank you for this." Mattias speaks up, lifting his chin in a show of strength before the head comes down in another show of respect.
And in his bow, his eyes shift to the corners of their sockets, to Amora the Enchantress, no longer Helen, her Midgardian guise.
<We have gone places we did not think we would.» His eyes flash in a quiet stare. «This alliance.»
"I will." Mattias speaks up, turning his attentions to Hornbori and his forge. He presses his hand to his shoulder, rolling it in its socket on his forward stride. "Tell me what I must do."

Eitri, The King of Nidavellir, the decisive voice of when ENOUGH, is finite. Eyes upon Mattias and Amora narrow, ridged by a set of masses of brambled red-on-black brow hairs, nearly making them disappear in the shadows while he watches Mattias' gestures, exchanged looks between, and the only sound after his order to Hornbori is the heated exhale from flared nostrils. A pupil if His, a pupil of Hers? Nothing said for now as the two figures head for the precipice that omits a reddish orange glow from below.

Amora stands like a statue, her pulse hammering like the thundering bass and pitched crascendo of metal beating upon metal below in the Belly of Nidavellir. Even with the way she lifts her chin, chords in swan-like bend of neck can be seen in their song of tension while carotid aligning towards the slope - drms a mate of bass line, one of a different view on this war…

It did not stop her from returning Mattias' look, one that is hardened, edged in a bitter chill, despite the fact that the streaks of moisture that had wet small paths down her cheeks are taking on the grey of falling ash, smearing downward in the path - A Weeping Madonna, In Flames.

«You have gone places you never dreamed you would. You have undergone trials and torment to gain your truth.» The flash of his eyes is returned with a narrow of her own upon a mirthful, yet shark-like smile, teeth revealed behind lips of an abused ruby…«We…»

A break, a blink, swift and then rowards Hornbori, her shoulder rolling against Mattias', those chains heating that drape over shoulders and bolster the Deep Forest fabrics in strips over the 6'3 frame. Nothing spoken, just the whisper of satin fabrics, the tiny cadence of links and gems falling in the shift of figure, her eyes sliding back towards Mattias, and when he goes forth, she steps back, bare feet unbothered by the heated earth, pausing when sided with Eitri's.

Hornbori reaches the ledhe of the cliff, stairs cut in sone spiral down, etched from the inside of the mountain itself and hovering over streams, rivers, and falls of red lava that pours into the massive Forging Machine. "You will listen. Move when I say move. Stop when I say stop… And not complain about the blisters." Hard to tell if that Dwarf smiled or not, but he lead the way down, and once before the Forge the heating pieced Enchanted, are thrown within the Grated Pit.

Eitri said nothing until they disappeared below, the Mares circling but obviously wary of the braod little King. "What did Malekith do, now Amora. How much must we arm ourselves…" Even if his gaze her way is wary… "… For Asgard?"

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/9/9e/Nidavellir_from_Invincible_Iron_Man_Vol_1_506.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/344?cb=20160111102958

https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.IaAeQrRWHAoCWIdkIjP4owEsCs&pid=Api

https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.3n3_Sl9F7J6J4DyLw3PzeQFDDB&pid=Api

https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.GhvaK_7_PKDHG4koK6WYjgEsDI&pid=Api

The flickering orange and red over the stone walls, and the sense of heat belching out against the stairs, in another man's dictionary might read as the mouth of Hell itself. Despite the lack of demonic imagery, the sheer, volcanic awe of the forge and the undermountain it lives within is something Mattias isn't prepared for when his eyes truly meet the gargantuan size of the forge. He slows at the top of the stairs, mouth sliding agape for seven heartbeats.
Even the air he breathes feels warm, with the taste of ash. Though his body can survive the elements, the smothering, warm-breath feeling is stifling.
"If I can't lift my drink with my fingers because of the blisters, Hornbori, I'll lift it with my palms." Mattias replies downwards to the dwarf. He casts one final look to Eitri and Amora before he descends out of sight, one final look before he unlocks another door in his destiny. "I will do exactly as you say, though. I know how to take instruction when I'm not the master of a place." He adds roughly, breathing the words out against air that sears his lungs.
Each step whispers the leather soles of Mattias boots. With no railings to speak of, the Asgardian hybrid takes them as carefully as his pride requires. Slowly enough to follow at a decent pace, but without fear. When they finally are at the landing, he stops, watching the master of the forge in silence.

//

The heavy head of the Axe is tossed within the glowing angry red maw of the Forge as if it was set to burn upon a pyre, the haft following, and for a moment they glow red and //slag/ drips from them, fissures crack and bleed the same glow, as if they would crack, fissure, and burn to ash before Mattias' very eyes. If Mattias moves to stop it Hornbori will bar his path with barring of his arm,as strong as the metal that holds such a flame, so hit it nearly withers skin upon nearness.

In that hand though is the tongs to grip the pieces from the Fires of Nidavellir, the hammer on the other hand, away from Matti. Not yet. "This forge has crafted the Odinsword. Mjolnir. Destroyers, Stormbreakers… You of the Ber, Jarn.." A loft of brow. "Name Your weapon and craft."

Hornbori's smile is visible now at Mattias' words, the massive palm giving a friendly thump of brutality and kinship while he laughs. "You will have to be fed your drink, we have no straws in Nidavellir."

The grips of the vice is released to fall then, in Mattis' hands. "Bring them to the Anvil, Son of…!"

Amora does not blink as Mattias looks back again, she is watching him, every move, every parting…

In those eyes reflects the Fires he walks into, a fisted palm resting upon exposed span of sternum between the press of breasts, coated in that layer of 'Earthen' Forested Green, lazily, folded and rippling to feet that already lift blackeed in replacement…

Eitri's words slowly get the draw of eyes, slipped to periphery limned in charred kohl. "He made a child. He manipulated the genetics of Asgard and hid his craft in Midgard, risen among mortal Modirs." But there is no serpentine hiss to the word, not revulsion, her stature remaining straight and that of a Pride all her own. Vanity still there despite…

Her throat swallows as if she could still feel that choking embrace, lids flutter, and she comes back. "he thought he birthed a weapon, but I found him, Son of Lars, and I made him a weapon… For Asgard." A look is now cast towards the King who works lips behind the grizzly beard. "… and I sent the proof to the All Father." Slowly, Amora looks ahead, away.

"Whatever card you are playing…that sleeved moment," Eitri looks back towards Hrnbori and Mattias' path. "I have two eyes and cannot believe what I am seeing. My ears burn. They are many?"

"They have his mother. Malekith made her his Valravn."

"And his Father?"

Amora remains silent as the hiss of heated metal meets its maker below…

//

"My craft, of war, such as the berserkir?" Mattias replies, waking from his hypnotized state in watching the fire. He'd never come close to reaching in after the metal. He stands before a forge he'd read in legends, let alone a dozen or so mentions in heavy metal songs. Entire droves of practitioners of Heathenry would only dream of being in such a place, and now, Mattias is there. "Or are there no such stupid questions? I know who I am. I am the son of…"

The metal of the tongs slaps into Mattias' palm, caught quickly by the man who swallows a breath, stepping into the forge, the name of his father drowned out in the crackling of the molten rock.
"I am Mattias of Gothenburg, Hornbori. Bloodied in war against the Kraken. Slayer of Ber and Wolf. A berserkir of Asgard and demigod of Midgard." Mattias shakes his hair away from his eyes, hefting the weighted tools as he takes his place beside the dwarf. "It will be an axe of victory, Ox-Sigr-hamrammr, the changing. Sigrnir."

//

Slowly, every pace takes her closer to the edge, the effigy of a 'Goddess' in her tower of over 2 feet above the bulken brawn of a True King. Shadowed above, looking below, their words pass between, like those documents, forged by a Dark Elf - Doctor to Annika and Olivia, kept, hoarded by Midgardian Women who treasure the Mattias they 'birthed' - pieces of shed shrapnel and Making cast like fireflies upward and around the duo above, watching the two below.

Sent towards the watchful Eye…

"Then pull it free and meld it while it is *hot*!" Hornbori's barring arm bearing the grips for Matti, drops away and he steps back, lofting the hammer to the mated Anvil awaiting the Burning of the Enchanted Uru. "Or they will not fit and stay in place…" Hornbori will guide in words alone, this is instinct for Mattias now, a prize earned, but not in a hunt. His eyes slowly lift to the precipice above, swathed in swirls of dancing embers from below.

Eitri nods down towards Hornbori. “So he was embraced in the Midgardian birthrites. Birth. Growth?"

Amora lowers her chin slightly in a nod.

"But that holds a different law for the Forge…" A moment of concern.

"Not if the Enchantment is right." Amora states with a smile that shadows her eyes.

"What?" Eitri pauses, still like the mountain itself and watches as the glowing metals ignite in a flame of green upon the exit of the Forge's maw.

"Just because he was cursed by the Accursed, does not mean he deserves less." Her words now drip a venom, but her eyes bare a smile that is different, altering, even to Amora.

"To what lengths….?"

"Every. Last. Link." Amora intercepts, answering as the glowing Jade of her eyes pulses and the light fades a bit, a mote withdrawn in the watch of burning emerald below..

//

Mattias blinks at the sheer heat coming off of the tongs. They do not burn his hand, not yet, but the constant heat and the sharp ankles solve the riddle as to why his hands will be useless by the end of the day. When he takes the tongs and the hammer, he looks to Hornbori with a knowing look. OH THAT, his eyes seem to say, slanting with sarcasm to the weighty dwarf, though not out of complaint.

The sheer exhilaration of working on a legendary forge, his first time forging anything over fire and anvil, is too great a lure. The embers crackling before him over the Uru metal call to him. The intense heat of the undermountain and everything but Hornbori’s voice fades from his peripheral vision as he takes the heated chunk of metal with the tongs and begins to shape it. Hammer blow after hammer blow, he listens to Hornbori, turning it when he says to turn, pounding it when he’s told to pound.

If there’s one thing that Malekith had taught him over years of punishing training, it’s how to take direction.

He wouldn’t dare forget that, now.

High above, the shirtless form of Mattias can be seen beginning to sweat in the heat. The orange light shimmers off of his shoulders and the bulbous swell of his arm as it rises with a hammer in his grasp. The ringing CLANG! of the Uru metal being shaped reaches all of the way back up to the stairs, to the two who watch the emerging Asgardian crafting his legend.

And through it all, it never occurs once to the mind of Mattias of Gothenburg that thousands of years ago, when the ancient Norsemen wove tales of Asgard and their exploits, that the moments recorded were such as these. One man. Forging a weapon in the undermountain of the dwarves.

//

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License