Andvari - Part 2

Thor watched Loki run a hand over his collar of ice while examining the empty, brown-rock forge.

He called, "Andvari ! Andvari the Smith, are you here ? We have the last items to trade."

'Surely, I thought he would have waited for us. Considering how eager Fandral said he was to get Mother's hair and Sif's dragon-orb.'

Loki started wandering and running his hands over the walls, "It's really too bad he'll have set a spell to curse the ring if he dies. You don't think..."

"Think what ?"

"Remember when we were really little, before we started our slight seperation, when Father would tell us stories ?"

"Like the ones about the war between the Asgardians, Jotnar and, briefly, the Svartalfar."

"Exactly, Thor, remember the one time he told us about shape-shifters ?"

Flashback

Found himself staring enchanted into the book as a trout turned into a dwarf and back.

Loki and himself both exclaimed, as they looked up at Father who sat on the brown-table's other side, "Father, what's that ?! Can we do that ?" They looked at each other and in Loki's eyes there was excitement, "We could go scare old Silfrasol to an honourable death !"

Father chuckled before running a hand through both of their hair, while he left his hair the way it was, Loki pouted and he smoothed it for his little brother at which Loki smiled.

"Perhaps that would be so, but not everyone can be a shape-shifter and you can, ususally, only change into one other form."

"Why is that Father ?"

Father smiled at them as Huggin and Muninn landed on the table, "Well, Loki, to be able to change ones physical form takes great personal magic and training because if you turn into a person you copy their clothes, their voice, nearly everything you need to fool someone."

He asked, "Father who is that dwarf in the picture ?"

"That is the Dwarven smith Andvari, he is very powerful and makes great relics whether they be blessed or cursed. He may turn into a fish if he so wishes to at any time, it has helped him escape many dangers."

End Flashback

"Do you think we need to catch him ?"

Loki stopped running his hands over the wall to pull something out of his robes - a large and shining, silver net to state, "Before we left for Svartalfheim the first time, I went to visit Ran and asked of her net which she gave. With this we should be able to catch him if he is indeed in fish-form."

'He always thinks of near everything.'

With that they left the forge and stretching the net across the river, waited many hours before something was caught. Loki lifted the net from the water to reveal a trout which shifted into Andvari.

"What'cha think you're doing ? Release me this second."

Splash ! Loki with a sly smile had let go of the net and Andvari, now, soaking glared at his love and spat, "Cursed offspring of Laufey thee are Loki the Trickster !"

"Well you didn't say, "Release me this second over dry land.", my mistake. I apologize Andvari."

Andvari got up to wring water out of his long, silver-beard and snapped, "Oh, sure you do, boy, sure you do ! Do you have thy mother's hair ?"

When Loki folded the net and presented the dwarf with Queen Sokki/Frabauti's hair it was, with a quick thanks, snatched away.

"What of thee, Odinson ?"

"It took us a while to find the right spot, but with help it was found." It took him a second to pull the little statue out of his tunic and hand it over.

Andvari grumbled at Loki, "Curse you, again, Laufeyson ! I wanted the big one, but as I didn't specify, I suppose this must do. Very well, I will take you to Ymir's ring, but there is one thing I...forgot to tell you about."

He looked around, before eyeing the cliff above them, "What did you forget ?"

"It'll be a dragon, no doubt, or a dark-worm."

"The very last of the last dark-elves actually."

It shocked him when Loki resorted to human swearing, "I died here ! Basically feet from your doorstep by a dark-elf and you decide to not fucking tell me about this !"

The strange, white-blue fire that Loki had made in Jotunheim leapt from his finger-tips as Andvari dove back into the river. Like earlier with Tony, he had to stop Loki from jumping after Andvari.

'Argh, it's cold ! I know he's a Jotun, but how can fire be cold ? That should be impossible.' The cold-fire stopped and ice sped over the river in quick pursuit of the smith. When the dwarf was far enough away to have to shout the ice stopped, "The ring is in Malekith's old castle, the treasure room, of course. Malekith stole it from Ymir during Ymir's war with Bor and himself."

He tried to calm Loki as Jotunheim's Prince snarled, "You're a liar, Andvari and I hope the Norns curse you !"

"What is that fire made of, love ? I've never seen anything like it before."

Loki took a few breaths before responding, "It's joteld, frost-fire, unique to direct descendants of Ymir. It's the most effective weapon the Jotnar had against the dark-elves, that's why both Ymir and Thrudgelmir nearly died during the battle with them. If I had known about it before I died, I could have saved everyone from being hurt...and myself from being killed. Unlike my father, Ymir and everyone else, including my mother truly cared or cares about their subjects, not just as warriors to die for them."

"Let us hope that it's just as deadly to the one that we have to face now."

'Loki gets killed by a Svartalf, I kill Malekith and now we have to find Malekith's castle just to get the ring ?! This is not fair in the slightest, we have no hope of finding it by ourselves.'

So, they left Andvari's forge and Heimdall was happy to take them back to Asgard. He needed to ask Father if Grandfather had written somewhere about Malekith's castle and Loki would ask his birth mother the same about his Great-great Grandfather.