She woke to the sound of a leather tent flapping above her head. A hammer on steel can be heard, it ticks repeatedly over and over, it sings to her heart. A sound from her past she all but forgot. As she moves her arms out the sound stops. "Hey, you up?" The dwarf walks quickly over to her. He helps her sit up, everything hurts. In a rush of memories and emotions, her arms tremble as they reach out to Brok. She throws them around him and hyperventilates, then throws up. Her body not fully caught up with her mind.
"Woah Woah, hey look it's alright let it all out. Calm down." He says holding her hair back. "What the Hel is going on?" Laufey focuses on her breathing. She counts each one slowly until her heart was no longer pounding in her chest. She doesn't let go of Brok but loses her grip. He rubs his hand gently up and down her back. "We all thought you were dead." Laufey sits back and looks at him, he seemed, different? Hair was missing from the top of his head, thick lines had been drawn all over his cracked skin as if he was an old man. "What happened?" Was all Laufey could muster out. The dwarf shakes his head. "That's what I want you to answer!" He stands up and faces her. "Thor attacked the giants some 50 years ago. We all assumed you got caught up in the middle of it."
Laufey leaned forwards onto her hands. 50 years. She remembered the way time fluctuations differently through all the realms. "They are all dead. I was the only one left in Jotunheim, he killed all of us and the portal was destroyed. I couldn't get out." She whispers with exhaustion in her voice.
"Shit..." He says. "The portal on top of the mountain was destroyed when Thor brought a massive hand through it. Odin was furious with his little brat after that. Enslaved 100 mortals to rebuild it. Killed every single one when it didn't end up working."
Laufey remembered everything clearly. She looks around his small camp like shop, her axe was leaning next to the forge. She smooths her hair back behind her ear. "I'm was fixing her up while you were sleeping. I figured you'd do much more damage to her than you did. Woah, what is that?" He points to her ear. She reaches out and touches metal on her ear. The cuff of the woman, she feels the etching on it. "No!" She screams as she tries to take it off. It won't budge. She pulls as hard as she can, her skin blistering from the pressure. Feeling a drop of blood as she continues clawing at her ear to rip it off her skin.
"Hey, wait stop don't do that!" Brok pulls her hands away from her ears. "That thing hurting you?" He asks.
"No, maybe, I..." She was confused. Everything crashing over top her. This didn't feel like Hel. Brok was truly here in front of her. The woman, she, put this cuff on her? But when? How?
"Shit Kid, what happened to you?" He asked looking at her with caution. She walked over to the axe and picked it up. Stumbling over her feet until she remembered how to walk. "I have to go Brok. Tell Sindri, wait, where is your brother?"
Brok folds his arms to his chest. "Lot's happened since you've been gone, princess. World don't just wait patiently for you to comes back to it." He walked away from her. "I got sick of him..." Laufey interrupted. "You split up again?"
"Look, sweetheart, I knows you wanted us to live happily ever after. Making your people forks and knives because there won't be a need for weapons 'n fighting no more. But the worlds a coldhearted son of a bitch and it decided we needs to keep killing each other." He walks over to his hammer an picks it up.
"You said Odin was mad at Thor?" Laufey changed the subject.
"Odin is mad at everyone. His wife up 'n left him right as he dove off the deep end. Stapled his goat counselor to a tree, locked himself underground, and kills anyone who looks at him the wrong way. He stole Freya's brother away from that godforsaken war the skinny fuckers keep fighting. Don't even try to go to Alfheim right now. It's a disaster."
Laufey was starting to cool down, she smiles playfully. She missed his voice, his crudeness, her friend. He spoke to her as if they spoke last week and the week before that. "When is that place not a shit hole?"
Brok cracks a laugh. "She's finally waking up! Good, for a second I thought you were one of them reanimated corpses waddling around. You smell like one no offense."
"I thought the same thing myself. The last thing I remember was dying in Jotunheim. Then I wake up in the world between realms. I don't know how this is possible, I'm so lost."
"Good! You've been so chock full of yourself yer whole life thanks to your people's future mumbo jumbo, it's good to walk around on the dirt like everyone else. Don't waste it."
She starts walking out from underneath the tent. "Wait a moment!" He yells. "You don't need to be rushing out to meet your death this late in the evening. Plus I managed to convince some poor SOB to trade some good mead for a shitty helmet that didn't even fit 'em. I'm about to cook up something to eat. You should at least. Fill your gullet and take a proper shit before you head out." Laufey smiles so widely tears threatening to spill out. "You're right, maybe have something to drink too."
"I didn't offer you that." He quipped.
The food was as horrible as she remembered. Rotten uncured meat cooked over a bubbling forge smelling like molten metals. She picked her teeth with the bones. Before she drank down her second cup of mead. She hadn't drunk alcohol in 5 years. She told herself as soon as she started to feel dizzy she'd stop. "So what are you gonna do now?" Brok says with a mouthful, 4 cups ahead of her and topping her own cup off. "You still gotta paint that shit all over the world?" Laufey brought the bone back to her mouth. Her journey. What the elders had prepared her for long before their death. "No, I don't see the point anymore." Laufey finally says. "No one will use it."
"Hah, seems like all the more reason to do it to me. Now you won't be worried about someone finding yer fuck ups along the way."
Laufey smiles sarcastically. "But why should I still waste my time doing it?" She looks over to him, he sat in front of several swords and shields, masterfully crafted. A huge poleaxe was on the back table. Tools for carving molten steel lay all over the table. He had started a beautiful pattern etching the top of the poleaxe, it seems like he stopped suddenly midway down the staff. He was in such a remote area it seemed, who was he making these for? He had so many unsold weapon to begin with, yet he kept making more.
"Because it's yer job isn't it? Never took you for a slacker. I always liked that about you." He drank the last bit of ale from his cup loudly. "My brother on the other hand. What a piece of shit. First sign of change or an obstacle, he quits everything and starts a new job. Worthless." He leans over and holds a finger to his nose and blows a hard rock of snot out the other nostril onto the ground.
"I see why you kept rejecting that sorry sod."
Laufey smiles down at her own cup of ale. Her reflection hardly recognizable in the brown liquid. Once she drank the reflection of herself the room had begun to spin. "All these years and you've not once asked what happened between the two of us?" She says.
"'Nones of my business, so no." He snaps.
How long had it been since she was doing this? Simply this. Talking with not only another human, but a friend. Her cheeks were flushed with ale, a smile crept up onto her face, it was either that or tears, the alcohol made it confusing.
"Brok, I cannot express how happy I am to be here with you and your shitty shop right now." She jabs.
"Oh shitty is it? Well, go fuck yourself, princess. I upgraded your axe, made it extra shitty." He said offering more drink but she placed a hand over top her cup, gesturing she'd had enough.
"Mind if I sleep here tonight? Tomorrow I'm going to head out. Hopefully, I'll never see your stupid face again." She winks.
"Yer always welcomed here kiddo." He said standing up and taking her empty plate and cup from her.
That night she lay awake under the tent. A loud snoring several feet away from her. She wondered how a monster hadn't heard an easy snack calling it in the middle of the night. She leans against her arm and fell asleep while smiling, the room still spinning.
"Take it and shut up." He told her, handing her a pile of red fabric adorned with golden plate. "You made me a dress?" Laufey snickers. "Yeah! And I got yer measurements by groping yah in yer sleep last night. So no need to be bashful putting it on in front of me!" He says angrily, tossing the garb at her feet.
She smiles and begins removing her boots and tunic. He mumbles underneath his breath while he turns and walks away towards his anvil, fiddling with something off the shelf.
She looks at the dress, it came in three major parts. First she slips a copper red chainmail and fox fur long sleeved tunic over top her head. The cold mail felt heavy, hot, and then cold, it had been a while since she'd worn metal. The next part was the actual dress. It was a bright golden color and reached down to her ankles. She stepped into it and pulled it up, tucking her fox fur into it. It came up right over her breast. An inscription was written in the top hemline. "ᚠᚨᛚᛚᛖᚷᛏ ᚠᛖᚱðᚨᛚᚨᚷ" she felt the fabric. It shimmered oddly, sometimes light reflected off it, like a mirror. The last part was a pair of tall black boots. They smelled, odd. She laced them up and turned to face him.
"This feels more like a wedding dress rather than something to hike across the world in."
He grunted. "That's what I said."
She twisted her hips around, the dress spinning side to side. "It's so light though."
"The red undershirt part was the last thing Sindri and I worked together on before I told him to fuck off. When you showed us on the map where you had to go for all this shit we noticed a detour in Hel AND Muspelheim. That shirt should protect you from the fires as well as the bone-crushing cold. Plus it'll protect you from any idiot thinking he can make quick work of yah up close. The dress, ehhh that's all Sindri He enchanted it with some fairy shit. It'll take a hit as if you were in plate armor, but it won't weigh you down like wearing a full set of the shit. Don't ask me about the design I think you look ridiculous. He called it "The travelers dress." The boots were my project, it's sort of an experiment so if it kills you don't bitch at me."
She lifts her dress up and looks at the somewhat boring and generic looking boots. "They're made with several thousand tadpoles." He says.
She looks up to him questionably. "Baby frogs?"
"Yeah I waited out overnight and when their mamma was off, probably cheating on dear old dad, I stole the whole lump of em. Killed them in the fires of my forge. When their crying souls started weeping with the realization they ain't ever gonna live to hop in the sunlight, I bottles the smokey souls up!"
"Brok that's horrible!" She says dropping her dress over the boots. Her hands placed firmly onto her hips.
"You say that now, just wait. Come here, away from underneath the tent."
She walked out from underneath the canopy.
"Jump." He said grinning.
She rolled her eyes and jumped. The ground suddenly left her. Her skin and hair pulled back violently as she shoots into the sky. She reached her final altitude. Possibly 20 feet into the air. She screamed as she fell. No way of knowing how she should break her fall. She pushes her hands out in front of her and violently falls onto the ground in a loud and painful thud.
"Shit, I forgot to tell you about that," Brok said quickly waddling over to her.
"Yeah, I didn't exactly think it through the whole way. I was able to capture their desires of one day jumping high into the air... but I suppose none of 'em wouldn't exactly know how to land properly yet. Anyways moral of the story is. If yer gonna dream of something, think it through all the way before someone kills yah and shoves your soul into armor."
All Laufey could do was laugh as her legs wobbled in pain when she stood up. "You're the most talented idiot I've ever met."
"Holy Shit was that a hint of gratitude?" He barked at her. "I can't make you fly like that thunder cock, but if you needed to paint something high in the air and couldn't get to it, well, then these may help. So, now that you have everything, I'm about to start packing up and getting the fuck outta here. Oh shit, I forgot one more thing. I never did get those portals up and running. Ran into a problem." He said. "They kept all leading to some godforsaken spot out in the middle of nowhere out in a forest of Midgard. Here you can try it out if you ever run into one of the dozen anchors I built. Sorry, it ain't gonna be much help on your travels."
Laufey walks over to her old clothing and takes all the necessities. Her knife, the Bifröst, and her pouch of herbs and water. Everything else was left back in Jotunheim.
"I'll never know why you continue to spoil me Brok. I will find a way to repay you one day, I promise."
He started packing things into boxes. "You already have kiddo. In more ways then you know." He groans as he picks up His anvil, Laufey rushes over to help give him a hand moving it. "For a while, I don't remember a time when my brother ever cracked a smile onto his ugly face. Then one day some teenager with big tits and googly eyes starts orbiting around him talking about magic and destiny. When we broke things off you convinced us to try and make up. Sucks that it never worked out but I can't say I didn't hate every minute of it." After the anvil was in the wagon he started packing smaller items into his bag, hammers, wet stones, and other tools. "Guess I always thought of you as a sister, some days I figured it might be official." He says with a wink. "But I think you made the right decision. Trust me if you ever see him again you'd be happy you ran. He's flown off the deep end, and I'm not just saying that. He's lost his...-"
"You can handle the rest. I'm heading out." She walked away, almost a skip in her step. The maze was over, she found herself again. "Oh, and it was your brother who shot me down, so next time you see him, tell him I said 'fuck off, his brother has more talent!' "
As Laufey walks away with her axe resting on her shoulders she could hear him roaring in laughter.
Finally, she was ready to start her journey.