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Do you like Loki's creations, dangerous experiments, and willingness to challenge enemies that appear above his league? Then you will definitely like Thairon, the protagonist of my original story, Arrival : Ruptures. Comments, likes and reviews are appreciated. Here are the links for : AO3, Spacebattles, Royal Road and Webnovel.
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Sindri's House
Loki brought out a synthesizer, ordering two mugs of mead and a bucket of popcorn. He handed one of the mugs to his brother, watching the
"I can't believe this. He was right under our noses, and we didn't realize anything," Freya said with a scowl, pacing around the room.
"Calm down, milady. We all know what Odin is like," the talking head said from his place on the table.
"The head is correct. He is gone. We have to focus," the bald god, Kratos, as they had learned during the thirty-minute rant they had, said.
Brok slammed a mead cask open, filling his mug. "Can't believe we let that one-eyed shitstain get so close to us."
"You!" Freya turned to him. "How did you know he was Odin in disguise?"
He smirked, mouth stuffed with popcorn. "I am the God of Magic. His disguise was so amateurish I'm baffled none of you noticed."
"Wait, where did you get those?" Sindri asked. They certainly hadn't offered them food yet. The mugs weren't the kind they had either.
"From this," Loki said, patting the synthesizer. The dwarves shared a look, shrugging.
Thor shook his head, putting his mug down. "Can't believe he looks like that."
"Like what?" Freya asked, slamming her hands on the table.
Thor stopped sipping his ale to answer, letting a few drops spill in his hurry. "Like he washes his face with magical mushrooms," he said, snorting at the terrible joke.
"Or that he bathes in them," Loki added, chuckling. Odin certainly looked out of his mind with his wide-open eyes seeking something.
"Right, you two," she said, pointing at them with her sword. "You were saying something about a different universe with its own Nine Realms?"
That the blonde god carried a hammer and she could feel the lightning magic in his blood was disconcerting.
"Best you handle this one," Thor said, patting him on the arm.
He rolled his eyes, creating a screen, showing the snowy landscape of Midgard. "This is the location where we met," he said. The screen zoomed out, showing the entire planet this time. "And this is Midgard."
"With me so far?" he asked.
"Yes," Kratos said with his flat tone.
"This," he said, zooming out once more, this time depicting the star system," is the star system, with the sun, the other planets, and of course, Midgard here." Each of the celestial objects he counted lit up.
"Bloody hell," the head cursed. Freya and the dwarves were watching silently, and even Kratos' eyes widened slightly.
"This is the entire galaxy, which is what we call a cluster of stars numbering in—well, I doubt you have the necessary knowledge for the numbers to make sense to you," he said. Millions and billions were not necessary yet in Midgard by this time.
Freya crossed her arms. "By all means, explain."
"Ten times one hundred thousand makes a million," he said, and Freya nodded. "One thousand times a million makes a billion." She nodded again, though this time it was slower. "And the galaxy where Midgard is has around four hundred billion stars."
"And then finally, the entire universe, which has around five times more galaxies than there are stars in the galaxy we are in," he said. It was all based on the knowledge he learned back at home, but the differences were negligible enough.
"That's…." she began, lost for words. The scale was something she could not put into words or a frame, for it did not exist in her mind.
"We are from another universe," he continued as the room glanced at him blankly, creating another screen, showing his home. "Which has its own galaxy with Midgard and the rest of the Nine Realms."
"Well, brother, I am wise enough to admit I barely understood anything," the head said.
Kratos glanced at the head before turning to the brothers, who were eating lamb chops that weren't there a second ago. "And you are here to travel?"
This Loki looked and acted nothing like Atreus. He didn't know whether it was for good or ill.
"Yes," Loki said.
"Wait a fucking second," the blue dwarf bristled, reaching for a hammer on the counter of his smithy, face set into an ugly grimace. "If they are Aesir, why did you bring them here?"
Thor raised his arm, palm facing forward. "We may be Aesir, master dwarf, but we are not the ones you are in conflict with."
Brok faltered; the tone and how Thor called him took the wind out of his sails. "Master dwarf?"
"We don't know your names, and that's how we usually address the dwarves," he shrugged.
"So you won't help Odin and the Aesir of this universe?" Freya asked to be sure. She wouldn't have entertained their words at all if it weren't for the reaction of the Norns. Nothing they had done so far did anything to shake their predictions. Their guests, for she could think of nothing else that could be responsible, were the most likely candidates.
"No. I glanced at his mind. He is everything our father is not," Loki said. He was a drunk, obsessed, mad god with a cruel strike light-years wide.
"How about you tell us what your Asgard and Odin are like and we decide that?" Mimir suggested. This situation was getting more incredulous by the second.
"As long as you do the same, ask away," Thor said. He wanted to know more, to know what kind of an Odin would disguise himself and infiltrate this house.
—
When both sides explained the matters related to Odin and Asgard, Freya looked faint.
"A peaceful and benevolent Odin? I… I can't imagine him like that," she said, barely above a whisper, reaching for a mug the dwarves gave her.
"Would you like to meet him?" Thor asked, swirling his drink, all appetite gone. It would be interesting if his father met this evil version of himself.
It would put things into perspective.
"Maybe later. I think we have enough on our minds with what you have said so far," Mimir said. The knowledge of an infinite number of universes where they could exist in many different forms was…
Tiring.
"So what now?" Sindri asked.
Thor leaned close to Loki. "We should help them with Ragnarok," he whispered.
Loki raised an eyebrow. "Really?" he asked. He agreed with his brother. This pale, twisted version of Asgard needed to be wiped out.
"He is what Father could have been had he not changed his ways. I see no reason not to put this monster down," Thor said.
"I can't help but ask, what exactly is that machine?" Sindri asked, walking around the table, inspecting the machine. The curved cylindrical golden machine with a flat, glassy top and three green circles looked unassuming at first glance. The food and drinks that appeared out of it did not.
"It creates matter from energy," he said.
"Can it make anything?" Brok asked, walking next to his brother, scratching his beard.
"This one's for basic necessities such as food, drinks, and clothing."
"Wait a second," Mimir said. "Does this thing have Midgardian dishes in it?"
"I recorded a lot of them in my free time."
"Does that include haggis?"
"The one made with sheep's stomach? Sure," he said, uttering the name to synthesize the dish. The stomach, filled with the chopped heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep, along with onion, oatmeal, and seasonings, wasn't a dish he was brave enough to try before.
It wasn't going to change now.
He floated it in front of Mimir. The head inhaled deeply, nostrils wide, eyes rolling to the back of his head. "What I wouldn't give to have my body back now," he said, feeling his mouth water. It smelled just like home to him.
"What happened to your body?" Thor asked, lips tightened. Whatever had reduced Mimir to this state was certainly not a good story.
"Odin decided to punish me by binding me to a tree. Cutting and reanimating my head was the only way for me to be free," he said.
"Ah," Loki said. "Do you want your body back?" He didn't offer it out of a desire to make up for what Odin of this universe did but simply because the reanimated head needed help.
"I do?" he said, voice wavering, not sure where he was going with this. He couldn't think of a single god, even if they were the god of magic, that could return his body to him.
He waved his hand, looking across time to see what Mimir's body looked like in the past.
Mimir floated off the table, feeling a tingling in what remained of his neck. A green surge of magic moved downwards from the stub. Feelings that he had long lost came back to him. His throat clenched first, his heart beating next. He gasped, suddenly feeling the need to breathe.
The gurgle of his stomach followed.
He fell, his hooves clattering on the stone floor. He made a noise, as if he were choking and regurgitating at the same time. He suddenly breathed in deeply, feeling his lungs burn. His eyes watered, and it was the most wonderful feeling.
Amid the wide-eyed and slack-jawed looks of his companions, Mimir stood on his own two feet after one hundred and twelve winters.
He forced himself up, pressing one hoof on the floor first, then the other, pushing. His legs were wobbling, his brain struggling to remember the long-forgotten motions. He managed to stand straight, still swaying like a lone willow in the wind.
Kratos held him by the arm, slowly guiding him to the chair.
He raised his hand, turning it over, inspecting every part. The skin was the right color, a fair white. His chest, neither muscular nor weak, was the same. Legs, becoming furry near the end leading up to his hooves, were strong and should be capable of carrying him.
"How did you do that?"
"As I said, I am the God of Magic."
"So am I. This isn't something one can do with just a wave of a hand," Freya said.
"My powers dwarf yours by an order of a billion."
"Mimir, are you alright?" Kratos asked. He wasn't certain if this was an illusion or not.
"I am. I just... feel weird."
"Your brain needs time to acclimate to having a body once more," Loki said, taking another sip. "Though, it doesn't stop you from eating."
He turned to the rest of the members of this little group. "You are free to use the machine. I can't guarantee the dishes from Vanaheim and Nidavellir will be the same as yours, though."
Kratos, who approached the machine, took some time to order. His request was a simple one.
Olives.
A plate full of black and green olives appeared, drizzled with olive oil. He took the plate, giving the brothers a nod, and walked to his seat.
"Say, blondie, mind if we take a look at your Mjolnir? We made the one your prick of a counterpart uses," Brok said, glancing at the weapon hanging on Thor's belt.
Thor shrugged, wordlessly putting his hammer on the table. Loki watched the dwarfs to see how their techniques differed from Eitri's and his people's. Brok took his hammer, tapping it gently on Mjolnir. A small pulse of golden energy spread but did nothing.
On the surface.
The pulse was similar to how he used his seidr to inspect the phenomena around him. It scanned the hammer on a molecular level by magic, giving the dwarves an instinctual understanding of it.
"What is it made of? Never seen a metal like this before," Brok said. The magic in the hammer wasn't that of thunder. It wasn't attuned to a single element. He guessed it was a magic focus, meant to assist the wielder with their weapons.
Different from the Mjolnir they had made, which was attuned to thunder and lightning.
"Uru. It is only found near Nidavellir."
Sindri tapped it this time, releasing a red pulse this time. "Its melting point is too high. How do they work it?" he asked. He wasn't certain they could melt it in their forge. Or anywhere else in the Nine Realms.
Thor winked at Loki. "With the heat of a star."
"With the fucking what?" Brok asked, blinking repeatedly.
Mimir accidentally swallowed the haggis the wrong way, coughing as he tried to dislodge the offending peace. Kratos, Freya, and Sindri fell silent, the latter two with gaping mouths.
Loki snapped his fingers, creating an illusion. The environment darkened first before the lights came on. Even though they stood on solid ground, there was nothing beneath their feet.
Freya tried to pierce through the illusion with her magic but found it no different than hitting a wall barehanded.
"Fuck me," Brok muttered. A star was encapsulated in a cage, with a massive ring around it. They weren't close enough to see the surface in detail, but he understood one thing.
It was fucking great.
Just as quickly, Loki dismissed the illusion, cutting their wonder short.
"Let me see if I get this right. The dwarves in your universe managed to tame a star to use it to forge weapons?"
"Some of the most terrifying weapons in the galaxy, but yes," Thor said. Thankfully, only Gungnir and Mjolnir were left now, and both were used for good.
"Your universe is mad," Mimir muttered, returning to his lunch. When encountered with such craziness, the best thing to do was to roll along with it.
Sindri looked giddy, like an explosive that might go off any second. "How did they build it?" he asked, words jumbling together. He launched into a stream of questions like a child on a sugar rush.
"I can feel a headache coming," Freya said, rubbing her forehead as she began to pace again.
Loki shook his head, leaning down to rub Cosmo's head. She leaned into his hand, closing her eyes. She whined when his communicator rang, interrupting her pets.
The two gods and the dwarf brothers turned towards him as he appeared to be letting out random noises.
"Just a call from home," he said, raising his wrist up, answering the call. "Mother."
"Loki, where are you two?" she asked, smiling as Thor leaned over to wave at her.
"In another universe," he said, pursing his lips.
She raised a single eyebrow slowly. "And you didn't think to inform us?"
"You two were busy," he replied. They were in the middle of a tea party when he and Thor had left.
"The Midgardians request someone to appear in a meeting their world leaders will hold. Apparently it is to get an understanding of Asgard's stance. Your father wants either you or Thor to handle it," she said. The request of the Midgardians, which was to shout at Heimdall in the hopes he would hear it, was understandable.
Enough that even Odin didn't think to ignore it.
"When is it?" he asked. Neither enjoyed dealing with the individuals such as the Midgardian politicians. Even in the short time Thor was on Midgard, he understood they weren't benevolent leaders most of the time.
"A week from now."
"I am sure we will be back by then."
"Good. Take care of yourselves. I love you both."
Thor leaned over again as they responded. "We too."
—
In the next chapter:
"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.
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