[Location: Wildwoods, Midgard]
I admit... I'm starting to have feelings for her.
But she is supposed to be the wife of Kratos and give birth to Atreus in the near future.
I don't know when Kratos will be washed ashore in Norse lands, when Faye will make that choice, when prophecy will decide what thread to pull.
All I know is that with every passing day… the idea of letting her go tastes more bitter than ash on my tongue.
"Oi, turd. Ya listenin' or just starin' at air with those dead cow eyes?"
Brok's voice snapped me back like a hammer striking anvil. I blinked, realizing my gaze had been fixed not on the table, not on the tools scattered across it, but past it—past the walls of the Wildwoods hut, past the smoke curling from the hearth, toward the woman chopping herbs at the counter.
Faye.
Even in something as mundane as grinding stalks of root into paste, she looked steady, grounded. As though the world bent around her pace instead of the other way around. My stomach twisted.
"I heard you," I muttered, dragging my eyes away, though my ears burned as though Brok had caught me red-handed.
The dwarf's beady eyes narrowed. "Horseshite, you were moons away. I could've farted in your soup and you'd've thanked me for the seasoning." He jabbed his stubby finger into the rough sketch he'd carved into the woodgrain. "Pay attention, slapjaw. This ain't no chicken-egg errand. I'm talkin' 'bout the kind o' trial that'd split ya open and see what's rattlin' inside."
"Then, draw your design."
As he handed me a piece of charcoal and a splintered scrap of hide to sketch on, Brok leaned forward, the forge light painting his face in shades of ash and copper.
"Draw yer design," he repeated, as though daring me to put thought to hand, hand to line. "Else, ya ain't serious 'bout the weapon yer jaw keeps flappin' over."
I took the charcoal. It felt small in my hand, brittle, breakable—things I was not. My fingers twitched.
Blades of Chaos.
The charcoal snapped the instant it touched hide.
A faint click, a brittle fracture. Half of it fell to the dirt at my feet.
Fitting.
Brok grunted. "Already breakin' things before ya even start, eh? Can't say I'm surprised. Some men get visions when handed tools. Others just get the shits."
I ignored him, pinching what remained of the stub. Slowly, I pressed again. The hide resisted, rough and uneven, but I carved anyway. Line by line, curve by curve.
Not just a weapon.A memory.A sin I had no right to replicate.
Two curved blades, chained at the hilts. Twin crescents, hungry, meant to rend not just flesh but spirit. Weapons born of bondage, of servitude, of blood spilled without end. Weapons that should belong only to one man.
Kratos.
And yet my hands shook as I drew, because I remembered fire. I remembered heat licking at my wrists, chains branding my skin, voices chanting, promising power if I only gave myself to rage.
Not this world's memory.Mine.Asura's.
I ground the charcoal harder, leaving thick black scars in the hide. The sketches grew darker, more jagged, until it looked less like blades and more like claws.
Faye's voice drifted from behind me, calm as always. "You draw them like they are alive."
I froze.
She stood at the counter, a mortar of crushed herbs forgotten in her hands, her eyes not on the paste but on my sketch. Her gaze pierced through me, through the hide, through the thousand unspoken things I could never explain.
Alive.Yes. That's what they were.The Blades always lived. They clung. They whispered.
"They ain't alive," Brok snorted, scratching his ass with the same hand he used to grab tongs. "They're hungry. Big difference. Like a wolf chained too long, starvin' for meat. Soon as ya feed it, it don't stop."
He stabbed a thumb toward the sketch. "That what ya want hangin' off yer arms, turd? A curse ya gotta feed every swing?"
My mouth felt dry. I wanted to say no. To laugh it off. To dismiss this as some half-hearted mimicry. But the truth throbbed in my chest like a wound that refused to close.
"Yes."
The word came before I could stop it. It tasted of iron.
Brok's brows shot up, then furrowed. "By the nine soppin' nipples of Freya, ya serious. Yer skull's emptier than a frost giant's bedpan."
He leaned close, breath stinking of soot and mead. "Tell me somethin', boy. Why in all the shittin' realms would ya want that? Them blades ain't glory. They're a shackle. A debt. Ya forge those, ya forge chains for yer own wrists."
I swallowed. The sketch glared up at me like an accusation.
Because I knew chains. I knew wrath. Because deep down, I feared the day would come when I could not hold myself back—when the thing inside me, the Asura, would scream until the world broke. And if that day came, better to have weapons built for monsters.
"…Because they suit me."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Even the fire in the hearth seemed to dim.
Faye's pestle clattered against the mortar. Her hands had gone still, her lips parting as though to speak, but no words came. Just a soft exhale that could have been sorrow… or fear.
Brok broke it with a bark of laughter so sharp it made me flinch. "Suit ya, he says! HA! By Odin's shrivelled sack, I ain't heard a fool's oath that fine in years."
But his laughter died quick. He eyed me again, hard, like a smith testing flawed metal. "Fine. Ya want 'em? Then ya bleed for 'em. And not just yer hands—yer whole self. The forge don't give unless it takes."
"As I said before, the materials... Surtr's sword's fragment and the World Serpent's reverse scale. I have some of the remaining materials at the forge, while Sindri might have others." Brok said while simultaneously picking his ear.
"I know, how the fuck do I travel to Muspelheim, Brok? Or what, you want me to walk into a volcano and knock on Surtr's door?"
The dwarf spat into the fire. It hissed, smoke curling like black serpents."Don't tempt me, shitspine. Might be the first useful thing ya do—melting into slag."
He turned, rummaging through a pouch that smelled like rotten moss and iron filings. From its depths he pulled something small, cracked, and pulsing faintly with red glow.
A stone.
No bigger than his thumb, etched with faint rune lines, pulsing like the faint heartbeat of a dying ember.
"Muspelheim seed-stone," Brok grunted, tossing it my way. I caught it; the thing burned against my palm though it wasn't flame. "Don't get yer sweaty mitts too excited. That there ain't no ticket. It's a key. Half a key, really."
I turned it in my hand, the light within flaring when my wrath stirred. The glow bled into my veins for an instant, setting the red cracks across my forearm alight before dimming.
"Where's the other half?" I asked.
Brok snorted. "Sindri's wrinkled ass probably tucked it under his pillow, kissin' it goodnight. He's got the patience for keepin' things safe. Unlike me."
I arched a brow. "And you expect me to fetch it from him?"
"Expect? Nah. I know ya will. Else ya ain't steppin' into Muspelheim without lookin' like a dog humpin' a locked door."
I ground my teeth, staring at the seed-stone. My fingers tightened until I thought the brittle thing would shatter, but it didn't. The glow pulsed steady. Waiting.
"So, do you happen to know where he is?"
Brok's snort was like gravel scraping iron. "If I knew where that prissy sack o' laundry was, ya think I'd be sittin' here dealin' with you? Sindri don't exactly leave postcards, turd. But last I heard, he was sniffin' around Alfheim. Somethin' 'bout light crystals and fairy dust. Shiny shite that makes him tingle in places I don't care to imagine."
I frowned, rolling the ember-stone in my palm. It pulsed in time with my heartbeat, veins along my wrist glowing faintly red. "Alfheim."
The name alone was enough to summon an image. Blinding light. Bridges of crystal. A realm of beauty that cut sharper than any blade. But if Sindri had half of what I needed, then that was where I'd go.
Faye's voice interrupted, quiet but firm. "Alfheim isn't kind to outsiders. The Light Elves war with the Dark. You'll be caught in their strife before you even find Sindri."
Her eyes were on me again. Always on me. Watching, weighing. That steady gaze made me want to look away, but I didn't. Couldn't.
"I'll manage."
Brok barked a laugh, slapping his thigh. "Ya hear that? Mister Charcoal-Scribbles here thinks he'll 'manage.' Like the elves'll see him an' say, 'Oh, look, a walkin' temper tantrum—let's give 'im tea and biscuits!'"
"Shut it, dwarf," I growled, pocketing the seed-stone. "Tell me how to reach the realm."
"Who knows, I'm not some damned travel agent," Brok spat, digging a knuckle into his nose. "Realms don't just swing open 'cause you wanna stretch your legs. You need a gateway, a bridge. Somethin' carved by the All-Father's greasy hand or tinkered with by folk smarter than you."
He leaned closer, and I swear his beard bristled like it wanted to punch me too."And let me tell ya—ya don't strike me as the patient, rune-memorizing type. More like the 'kick the door 'til your toes snap' type."
"I know or not?"
"Piss off with that," Brok spat, leaning back on his stool like he owned the hut. "What am I, yer wet nurse? Go sniff out a gateway on yer own. Or better—punch a hole through the world tree with that tantrum juice yer body leaks."
I didn't bite. Not this time. My patience with the dwarf was thinner than the charcoal stub in my hand, but every insult he threw carried something behind it—truths buried under muck, the way ore hid in stone.
Still, I pressed, voice low. "Do you know of one or not?"
Brok's smirk thinned. His eyes flicked, just once, toward the door—toward the faint blue pulse of the protective staff Faye had planted outside. Then back to me.
"…Aye. I know one."
Finally.
"It's submerged in Lake of Nine for more than 150 winters, and while I'm at it, your second material is also there."
"Jörmungandr?"
Faye's voice cut the air like the snap of a bowstring. She leaned forward, hands braced against the counter, amber eyes narrowing in a way that told me she already knew the answer but still demanded it spoken aloud.
Brok grunted, digging a blackened finger into his ear before flicking whatever he found into the fire. It hissed and popped.
"Aye. The big bastard. World Serpent himself."
Faye's lips pressed into a thin line. "Impossible. He slumbers in the depths. None can reach him, let alone take from him what you speak of."
Brok snorted. "Ya say impossible like I ain't spent my life squeezin' the balls of impossible 'til it shits gold. Don't mean it'll be easy. Just means it'll hurt."
But thoughts were on my memories of the plot of the game God of War 2018, how Kratos threw the Leviathan Axe into the middle of the Lake and the impossible happened—an ocean stirred, the world shifted, and from the depths rose a being older than gods, older than giants, older than the prophecy itself.
Jörmungandr.
The Serpent who circled Midgard.
I remembered the scale of him—not from this life, but from a borrowed one. How his body coiled around the realms, how his breath fogged the sky, how his voice thundered like mountains crumbling.
And now Brok was telling me that was where my path led?
"To take from the Serpent," I muttered under my breath, fingers tightening around the half-seed stone. "To reach into the throat of the impossible and pluck out one cursed scale."
Brok shrugged like it was nothing more than fetching herbs. "Don't get yer piss all frothy 'bout it. Ain't like ya gotta gut the big bastard. Just… annoy him 'til he sneezes somethin' shiny your way."
Faye's voice cut sharp across his mockery. "You jest, Brok, but you know full well the risk. To wake Jörmungandr is to risk the balance of Midgard itself. His stirring could swallow villages. Sink ships. Topple mountains."
Her words struck heavier than the dwarf's jests. I turned toward her. She wasn't scolding him—she was staring at me.
Like always.
"You've barely survived your own wrath," she continued, eyes steady, voice calm but laced with steel. "Now you speak of stirring the wrath of the Serpent."
Her words lodged in me like splinters. Wrath. Always wrath. Mine, the world's, the gods', the beasts'. And here I was, chasing it willingly.
"Maybe I should," I said before I could stop myself.
Her brow furrowed, the smallest sign of the storm beneath her calm surface. "Why?"
I met her eyes, even as the words burned my tongue. "Because if I can't face my own reflection in another beast's fury… then I've already lost."
The room went still.
The fire in the hearth crackled, throwing sparks like little stars dying between us. Brok shifted uncomfortably, scratching his beard but saying nothing. Faye's lips parted, as though to speak, then closed again.
And I realised what I'd admitted.
Not about the Serpent.
About myself.
…
Later that night, after Brok had stomped off to sulk in the forge and mutter about "idiot turds askin' to be eaten alive," I found myself outside.
The Wildwoods were quiet. Snow fell in soft flakes, painting the ground white, muting every sound until the world felt hushed, reverent. Above, the moon glowed pale, silvering the trees.
And beneath it, the staff pulsed faintly blue—Faye's protective ward.
I should have gone back inside. Should have rested. But instead, I walked.
Each crunch of snow beneath my bare feet was loud in the silence. Each breath misted in the cold, yet my body steamed, wrath burning beneath my skin like banked coals.
I thought of Faye.
Her steady hands. Her gaze that always cut deeper than words. The way she said my name—Asura—like it wasn't a curse, wasn't a burden, but something… whole.
And I hated myself for it.
Because I knew the story. I knew what she was meant to be. Kratos' wife. Atreus' mother. The beginning and the end of a prophecy I had already twisted just by existing.
Yet the thought of letting her go—to him, to fate, to anyone—curdled in me like poison.
I clenched my fists until the cracks of glowing red seared across my skin.
"I admit it…" I whispered to the trees, to the snow, to the gods that weren't listening. "I'm starting to have feelings for her."
The words steamed out of me, burning in the cold night.
"And that terrifies me more than Surtr, more than Odin, more than any damned Serpent."
***
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