(Writer's note: Changed the start of the story's Chapter 1 and 2 to be more positive and less forced, but more ambiguous to better work with a reader's imagination. Also changed the title of Gorm, the Clan Leader, to Clan Formaðr.)
Date: Góa 4th, 798 AD. (Alt: 15th February, 799 AD.) Location: Götaland (Ancient Sweden.)
A few Model hours had passed from that minor transgression, the sun had passed the meridian line of the afternoon, with Heath readying to arrive before sundown.
"You feel afraid?" Gorm asks him in a sudden form of control, a voice that echoed with knowledge near-infinite, arranging his ages beyond from within ETERNAL. "I am." Heath would respond while preparing his new gift for the Vanir, eyes straining, adjunct to his plasma-building grip affronting his own chest.
"And yet, you make us the same for you." He finishes his wine, a taste he had come to forget by spending so long ruling a second stellar empire. "You have experienced a void that has stunted you, Heath." The Clan Formaðr closes his eyes, that punned triple-entendre on purpose. "We are here, you have given us power." A grasping of magic forces Heath's arm up, Leif's hand using his newly grown reserves to force them to stare into each other. "Remember what my son had said." His expression was still, yet he thummed his spiritual presence for Heath to see that he would gain his aid, no matter his rejections.
Heath nods, long having since calmed down from the first part of the day's information anxiety. His belief that fate will somehow correct itself to force an even worse punishment upon them has caused him to think of enough countermeasures that would even make the bat-cowled hero of another multiverse believe he was overthinking.
The gift is prepared within a ≈ 2-Model m^(3) (0.6465-m (2.1209-feet)^(3)) box of pure *Dyḗusium. Impossible to break except through a mystically keyed latch that could only be accessed by Konungr Tiwaz himself, where, once accessed, it would give 20 adaptable hilts for them. A thanks for the alliance, to then apologise for being so overreactive, he shrugs his shoulders, thinking to himself that it would be soon outdated anyway, with a new technology Heath may construct over the next month. It is exactly like giving a pre-medieval kingdom infinitely-recharging laser guns. Now chuckling to himself.
"Maybe overkill, but I wish for them to be safe." Heath talks on his side of the portal that connects to the Vanaheimr common grounds, which had allowed for the 437 refugees to enter. He walks through, seeing that Gandálfr was on the other side, bowing towards him immediately.
"I believe it has been fruitful, my dryhten (Lord?)" He keeps himself low, yet one can tell he is holding himself to his thighs, his old age making him shake slightly against the strain. "How long have you been like this?" Heath walked forward to guide him up, but was stopped by his raised hand, unexpectedly steady. "Just as you have your preferences. We, have ours." Gandálfr's deepened voice echoed out, leading others in their village to come out and greet the great scientist God. Many kept their distance, yet their tone and demeanour were one of extreme respect.
Heath looks towards their housing, seeing that they have become as envisioned and approved by the Vanir, grand apartment complexes in a more grid-based pattern design that could hold their population and have room for a septuple more. He nods, his face relaxing.
"I have come seeking talks with Konungr Tiwaz, may you lead me there, please?" Heath's question made the wall partition itself into a pathway that led to the Iðavǫllr council, with the high and low walking through, his premonitions of doom from the day before finally easing off. He walks in, finding a grand veisla (Feast party) using the grown berries in the hall, a celebration for gaining such fast-growing crops that are forever-hardy. The Gods' drinking stops, each swaying themselves towards Heath's entrancing.
The King of the misty storm stood at the front of the table with his hands seized behind his back, waiting for Heath to appear. He moved to the side, showing a seat specially made for a person of Heath's new form's size, Konungr Tiwaz himself pulling it out by hand.
Heath recognised it was a play for the other Vanir to accept him as if he were a native to them, and in doing so, Heath thanked him graciously before sitting down, being pushed forward and leading to the thorned king sitting upon his moved throne, happy that he had arrived early. "I see, you brought in, *Pause* a gift?" Konungr Tiwaz's magic raised his tendrils like an eyebrow's raise, his pure-golden eyes glowing with willing acceptance. Heath placed it upon the table, it being brought by the wood of the bench growing as warped graspers that pulled it in front of him.
There was a note in front of the present, chiselled in as a small marble slate that stated the safety measures involved with interacting through the adaptable hilts, how not to directly point the ends of the 'portal weapons' towards allies and how it can cut through any known material that is non-Deific. As they know of Heath's intelligent yet chaotic nature-
-they forgo that if he were telling them to be wary, then they should follow it through. This was read through by Thyra, who deferred her master's touch towards the indent to the 4-split motioning grooves that run down the box. Konungr Tiwaz unassembled with the press of that button, leading to the pile of 20 adaptable hilts to be in view and the same amount of tablets containing the customisable spell inscription enchantments, facing parallel of the Vanir God-King, a rooty hand grasps the one highest upon the flat pyramid, extending it out with a thought and injecting his own will into the weapon for it to be bound to him:
*SHAAH* The same sound played when Gorm and Leif began their spar the half-a-month prior, rather than the standard cyanotic blue of the 'portal blade,' instead the same colour as Konungr Tiwaz's eyes, even more powerful and reaching Aghi's strength.
The thorned king kept quiet, scanning the weapon in all of its splendour, his sense of style enjoying the black and gold exterior. "Gullinbursti." He now calls the name of his trusty mechanical steed, its golden tusks suddenly gleaming within a nearby shadow before trotting in. He leans low, lowering his head to close the distance between his new 'portal spear' and towards an opening below the mushroom-carpet covering the golem boar's structure. Opening an internal latch that reaches its mechanisms. Konungr Tiwaz replicates the structures he sees, for one thing, if the myths were to be believed. . .
The Kings of either Pantheon are the smartest there is. The same sheen as the portal now glows upon the lower canines that jut out of its mouth. A disembowling that would be most dangerous even with minor contact. The King of the misty storm, enhanced both personally and by his mount, raises his head, eyes finally betraying an emotion from his wooden visage.
A trust that goes beyond equals, earning the books for brothers. He walks up to Heath, standing shoulder to shoulder, the God-King shrinks his hilt for the making of a 'portal knife,' cutting his palm to a harsh bleeding sap. The great scientist God realised what needed to be done, he raised his hand in asking for the knife, repeating the action. Both proximals and hand heels now pushing into each other to tie their lines eternally, ðrútanmennska and Vanir, each readying for the 'upcoming tides' as propertied beforehand.
"And." Konungr Tiwaz spoke with them, bonded together by Divine right. "I have questions." Both let go, their wounds already healed. "Of course, what may it be?" Heath kept open, both of them moving back to their seats for an open discussion.
Much of it was on ETERNAL's game development, the varied ways to guide their species, the leaps of different societal straws, and the best way to control and spread their growth. They see it not as a game, but a mirror to how real unknowns could be made among the stars. One, they wished to learn about its avenues. Of the 20 Uni-pods, 15 were in use by different Vanir, while the other 5 were being studied under tight watch. In case any blue-skinned, white-haired tricksters choose to play their games again.
"Is our, *Pause* species capable?" A knot-filled wood finger guided across the borrowed displayed screen on his adapted photoplastic (chloroplast-consuming creatures that then transfer the photosynthetic producers into their skin for partial solar energy) species.
"Are you hoping to turn your green slugs into something smarter?" Heath's question was met with a bobbing from Thyra, who would co-work with her master on the development of this unique Elysia chlorotica-inspired animal. "The first question I will ask you is, do you want them to grow limbs?" Heath saw her shake their head in response. "How do they communicate?" The Vanir tracker says it is through sound. 'Perfect' "Then what I suggest is for you to evolve them with asymmetric mammalian-like ears." He got a confused look adjoining that.
"Do you know owls, and how they can capture small, fast-moving targets like mice?" Heath paused for a moment, letting it settle in. "The different heights, yet high-cochlear sensitivity means they can track them in a radar fashion, pin-pointing their location." Even more dumbfounding occurred. "How will this help?" Baduhenna asks from the table.
"It would promote an aquatic echolocation like dolphins in using a similar structure if also kept under the chlorotophoric skin. Over time, evolve a different species to form the slug's 'limbs.' Following a similar blueprint to what I remember as the strawberry feather star." Heath showed a blueprint of the untethered crinoid, using its 20 arms and clawed ends to grab and catch food for itself. "Attach your slug above this creature, and using sound, it will be controlled like a drone-crane. You could give it commands like a pet to learn actions like stacking materials or digging." Now he was speaking their language. They understood!
"Then we could industrialise." Móðir Jǫrð's mouth widened a fraction, realising how ingenious this was. "Of course, your world is not like another's I know of. You have explorable islands." Heath continued, refocusing on this symbiosis.
"I see you find its verdant appearance beautiful, so I will try to find a compromise-" He raised his finger. "-as the first suggestion I thought of was you removing the chlorophyll coating and instead tinting the skin green with pigmentation, as it cannot last outside of water." He sees all nod in unison, obviously wanting another way. "Then what I suggest is you create an amphibious 3rd species for outside of the ocean, to hear the calls below before resurfacing." 'Good.' Heath smiles as his explanation led to a few of their irises alight anew.
"A 'smart' mouthpiece that guides others for labour, with this one doing the work above. It was good we called upon you, Creator of intelligence." Iði used that same title again, finding this evermore fitting. "Once all 3 of yours have ascended and achieved space travel, call me, I wish to see this sight." The tall God smirks during his head-wag.
"We, will follow." Konungr Tiwaz spoke again with solemnity, remembering what to do in perfect order. He looks over to Thyra, who closes her eyes during her bow towards both, before returning to her Uni-pod to start this project. Especially excited about realising this optimised strategy, all laugh in finding common ground, beginning their drinking spur again for the rest of the night's go-along. Heath drank enough to restock his magic reserves, quarce-rite (4 / 1 of the way.) He felt absolutely full and that he could have no more.
Many of the Vanir-allied had fallen asleep by now, each having found their way back to their quarters, some with nightly free 'parterings.' A few had tried doing the same with Heath, but were turned down. That was, until Skaði.
"*-haha!*Yes, right, right!" Heath laughed at her truth-played humour about the next month's gifting in how they would have enough food to gift the country over. "If you ever have worries about rotting, transfer back to us, Yngvi (Freyr), Skaði." He nods to both, who agree by downing their own mugs and giving OK hand signals, their Godly physiologies helping to reduce their drunkenness, yet one can tell they are getting tipsy. "Howʷ wʷill you deal wʷith it?" Skaði debriefs, lilting and leaning closer towards Heath.
"That is a secret~." He taps his nose with his right hand, a signal that it is something he wishes to be a surprise. They accept that and move on, seeing many having fallen asleep upon the table. Uncouth with Konungr Tiwaz still there, but he did not really charge for that.
"Do you need help bringing them back to their beds?" Heath asked them, but they shook their heads again, telling him that he was a guest who should be treated with dignity, not as a bell-boy. "Wʷell, I knowʷ a person you mᵐay help put to bed." Even when near falling over, her strong stride kept her up, chest leaning against his waist that was as still as a wall, a shortstack with her mind set upon a person she began vying for the best chance for romance. Heath's expression turned vacant, realising she was doing as said.
"Skaði." He holds her shoulder lightly, hoping to put some sense into her. "You are drunk, while I am not. In my home realm, this would be seen as me taking advantage of you." He murmured into her ear, yet she tried to grab his beard to kiss him. However, Heath quickly warped out!
"Does not mᵐatter here." She leaned in more, even when 'inebriated,' a Dís (Fate Goddess) was still more experienced than any mortal, showing her true self in how comfortable she was with him. Yngvi (Freyr) gave them a meaningful glimpsing before moving away to give them space, seeing this going either of 2 ways. "You-" She murmured. "-have such a lovely soul." She compliments, not perceiving appearances but rather how kind-natured he is. She began slipping on him, her hand resting upon his thigh, in balance and to garner a reaction.
'Luckily, I have designed nothing down there.' "Please know what you are doing?" He re-sat down, coming closer to eye level before closing his eyes in thinking how to talk with someone who would not take 'no' for an answer.
"I do find your forwardness touching, and see your beauty as you see mine." Heath turned more poetic, hoping to put it through to her. "Yet we must know each other first. It has only been a few days." The words 'give it time' were undeniably held in his gentile tone. That became a better groundwork, as while the Pantheons in general (Looking at you, Ζεύς (Zeus)!) were known for starting instant relationships, mortals liked taking it slow, opposingly enough from their much shorter life-spans.
". . ." Skaði's brow twitched again, though understanding Heath's 'ticks' better. She nods, finally letting go before pulling a chair to instead have more convos. "Then wʷhat wʷould you like to knowʷ?" She continued, eyes fiery upon his, that did their best to keep calm.
"Then, how about your part in Vanaheimr? How has it been going?" Scoring him asking her, it led to a breakdown of general quotas, stipulations and how her own work in providing water and the blessed training for the hunter troupes towards the animal grounds and the butcher-working with the Æsir's Ásynja (Goddess) Gefjon. One of the few more neutral ties between Pantheons. Overall, her work was fulfilling, but repetitive. She rubbed her near-translucent arm, reasoning on how to continue her sentence without it being extremely boring.
"Howʷ about you?" She instead refocused on him, this fostering removing their divide slowly. "I have been planning something big! There has been a discovery on a mega-material that may be even more powerful than my *Dyḗusium." By that comment, her pure-blue eyes widened enough to become saucers.
"Is it. . ?" She asks in case of rejection, which sparks a disagreement. "I am planning to use it for some weaponry I wish to gift later. Better to warn before providing it." He takes out a small piece of it, warping the object into his braced-posing legs, back and hands. "*Ĥstḗrium (Star metal,) based on a 'perichoresic' state using both energy and space as a bi-concept, it can keep itself temporally suspended in space with close properties to 'strange matter.' It was hard to figure out from the simulations. . . *Pfbt* But it is stable enough to exist outside of extreme pressure now, unlike the unravelling that would naturally occur."[1]
"It is. . . *Ugh* Incredibly heavy!" Heath's spatially aware expression was careful not to knock the half a palm-sized cube into anything around himself, for it would be an even deadlier hit than Mjǫllnir, the block held much heavier than the haugr (Hill) that they stood upon.
"You are strong-. Do you want to hold it?" He raises it, his hands slightly shaking from the strain, while suspending his feet above the ground to not sink into the wood and earth below. Skaði, ripe for the challenge, self-propelled her power into her physical strength as to not embarrass herself. She sets her hands below it, nodding as if to ask him to let go. He flaps both hands away, dropping it into her grip with a sickening thud that nearly crashed into the floor. "SKIT- (SHI-)!" She nearly fell over into him from the sudden imbalance, now using her Godly power just for holding herself up.
"YOU- BROKE-YOUR PrOmᵐIsE!" Skaði voiced out loud through the strain, Heath taking it off her, hoping to understand what she meant. He warps it away back to the Cavern, to be contained in a small esoteric field that keeps it in the air. "How so?" Heath did not think he broke his rules.
"Wʷe agreed you wʷould ask for permᵐission." She intones, voice rising in befuddlement. "If it wʷas a task too hard." From her paraphrase, he realised what the issue was. "I had agreed with Móðir Jǫrð that I would ask for that if it was a task requiring more than 25% of my reserves. I made sure to space it out over half a day~." That caused Skaði's eyebrows to twitch for a lasting rejoinder, this time coming closer towards Annarr's past reaction of grabbing his shoulder to shake him up.
"Youᵘu, are frustrating." Now looking away, her cheeks held a minor flush of blue from understanding how powerful any armour or weapon could be made if even using a sliver of the hyper-dense substance, she found it endearing that he would even choose to share it with them.
"Wʷhat are you planning to use that mᵐaterial for?" She breathed stealthily, watching as Heath tried to inter-categorise all possibilities into a learnable list. "How much would you like to know?" That broke their truce. "All of it." And so they were told. Over 50 possible applications, from vehicle and golem armour plating, to deployment on battlefields as supradense bullets, to concepts like the 'Rods of God' super-weapon, where one would orbitally launch a filled barrel of tungsten to use the potential energy to be a purely-kinetic dumb bomb, but with *Ĥstḗrium being much heavier:
It instead creates catastrophic plasma-chained atmospheric explosions! His examples were ranked for their feasibility. "You are truly wʷise in the wʷays of science." Skaði chose to joke using Monty Python and the Holy Grail as a base in English, leading to Heath holding his chest while chortling.
"*Ho Hoo Hoᵒ!*Oh, there will be so much more." He swigs another newly provided stein, this time feeling it hit him. "This is perfect. What is in this brew?!" 'I feel it affects my constitution!' He earned a hand-held over her own mouth from his astonished expression, happy for him to finally notice. "A Divine-permᵐeated mead. For a special somᵐeone." She suggestively raised her eyebrows, her mouth not speaking yet clearly enunciating the words: 'Now we are even.' Clear Skaði has tipped too much as her personality has escalated. "Whose work was this?" His question was met with her fanning towards herself, expression mischievous.
"*D'aw*Thanks for that." He innocently swung a mouthful, finally feeling the effects of alcohol after the time spent in that void. He missed the sensation of being able to dull, to relax, forming both in the material and the metaphysical.
"Yeah, this is something I may ask more of, hard to get drunk when someone's like me." Heath finished his first stein, placing it down gently yet still creating enough of a *Thud* against the table to resonate through the nearby conversations. "Of course, but later. Wʷe have so mᵐuch mᵐore to discuss." Skaði's left leg underneath her leather pelt lifted before being put over her right, dangling her foot while leaning her head and torso forward, the dress accentuating her lean, musclebound form, sightline flicking between his eyes and lips.
That poured cold water over Heath, realising she was trying to lower his guard, not with malicious intentions, mind you, but to be more receptive. He instead holds her hand, Skaði finally seeing he still has reservations about having his previous dead lover in his mind.
"I knowʷ I wʷill never replace her past wʷith you, Heath." She takes her second hand, gently covering his own, as she covets to be his one and only. "But that does not mᵐean you should still be so harsh on yourself after all these wʷinters' passing." That tore a weak point in Heath's carefully curated shield, leading to him flickering slightly in Real-Space's appearance. "How did you realise?" Now that earned a smile from her end. "Hunting is not just a sport. It is the ability to nurture others and oneself." A truth of such a concept that is her own.
"And twʷo are required for that." Skaði did not voice it, but she also felt angry at how her Ætt Freyja had treated him at first, as well in also divulging his secrets to their council. Something else to tally to her grievances with her that she would act on later.
Heath's bald scalp turned low, his sharp brow keeping his expression invisible as he became as still as stone. Thoughts shirking his many unforgettable experiences within this realm that had taught him to view it with the utmost caution. In reality, it felt safer, strangely enough, even against Godly existences with the ability to wipe his traces out of this timeline. Something inside of him switched, not from any external influence, a feeling as if the last of his survivor's guilt waned away, probably the effects of twinging alcohol.
"Do you, wish for a date?" Heath asks her in suddeneity, with an opposing expression being one of extreme joy from finally being asked out. She hugged him, kissing him on the cheek before letting go abruptly. The sudden quick-time event stunned the tall God for a moment before giving away his last fears.
"Skaði." His voice turned more sincere, closer to what it was when he was a mortal. He moved his second hand away from his lap, holding both of their hands together against the table, a smile unlike his characteristic one splayed throughout his face, head bowing to his right from finding her more beautiful than before. Cruisingly running his palm over the top of her carpus. He felt it had gone too quickly, but there was no way to backtrack out of this now. "Mine, or your place?" Heath's silly quizzing was met with a light tug between his fingers from a looping hand.
"Mᵐine first, there is somᵐething there I had wʷaited for you to accept." She leaps off the stool with an alcoholic's courage, pulling him along and through the door after saying their mutterances to the people in respect.
Before leaving the door, Heath tips a lucky gold medallion coin he had made on the side towards Gangr, with an engraving of himself and Konungr Tiwaz beside each other, the word "Eilífr (Eternal)" embedded below.
[1] Strange matter is a theoretical hyper-dense state of matter made of freely managed up, down and strange quarks. It has a strength below other potential baselines, such as Nuclear pasta, which is itself below Neutronium, sub-atomically designed structures that could only exist and would unravel if outside of neutron stars.