(Writer's note: rewrote the two chapters involving the books introduced from Heath's home realm and when discussing a recap of Berserk's Eclipse arc, as I had been told such topics are worrying. Also, this may be a silly question, but am I relying too much on ETERNAL as a time-dilated simulation towards speeding up my character's training, or is it fine?)
Date: Góa 14th, 798 AD. (Alt: 25th February, 799 AD.) Location: Götaland (Ancient Sweden.)
"*Oh*Hreinþýðr (Handsome stag.) Where are you~?" The great Huntress would scan the forest line, their small game of cat and mouse with the baby brother of Agostino, Genesio, a fun pastime after the adult deer and crows had fallen asleep.
Especially from the North Crow Clan's Matriarch, Paulina, making so many turn drunk in a 'contest,' not being able to hold their liquor in hopes to impress them, they did, but it will not be worth it with the hangover later. The other children were playing with each other, but Genesio was the bravest in asking the newly married Deities to a game too, without using powers.
"Come ou- *-A*." Her call was met with a pair of arms wrapping around her, suddenly being pulled hereunder a bush. The 'owing' he had on her now led to a hidden snuggle with a perch of kisses upon each other's lips. While he may have started it, it seems Skaði wanted to 'end' it, her own tongue pressing against his with force. "I,*Smooch*think I have a name." She would tale out after a breather, close to mingling then and there from her own impatience. "Really?" He squins, eye closest to her shifting obliquely from her to a noise that sounded as if rolling over the main (forest farm) pathway.
"Yeᵉes." She feels the calling as the Goddess to take down her prey now that he was distracted, seeing the creases of his clothes on best to pull them off in full, but she backs her instincts at the last moment. "*-Hah*I will tell you later, we still have a minute left." . . .
"What do you see?" Skaði focuses on the direction her husband would set that was towards the north of the (forest farm,) finding it was the Dollens as a group travelling through. "*EY*Are you following us?" Heath would see that Goldie was at the front, with Rhoyna, Sterling, and Valyria trailing behind them. He was surprised that they were so quiet when they weighed multiple Long tons each. "We wanted to discuss something. Privately." Goldie would use the new voice modulation towards making his voice run as he had first shown on their ship in ETERNAL.
"Please?" His voice had picked up a beat, his monobrow tented, and golden irises dilated, playing towards the fact that his tapyric features made him the best chance at the 'cute son' card compared to the fiery red-headed brick, muscle-bearded hunk and warrior-scaled woman.
'*Heh*They learnt to pull emotional strings quickly.' Heath would smile, seeing that Skaði fell for his cutesy animalism. 'I wonder if this tactic would work even when turned giant?' He would internally ask while following them along, first leading his wife to a sitting place with an extra bowl of cornucopic fruit to pass the time.[1]
"Wait a second." He spoke in English after spotting Genesio up a tree and above them, with them letting the babies develop naturally to not affect their neural development, he would not have learned English from the language runic injector yet. Still, he did not know how he had climbed that high. Heath warps him down, switching back to Norse and tickling Genesio's snout while saying "Found you~." Heath helped lull him to sleep with a little hypnotic lullaby and brought the now nestled bub to his nest cot in his parents' two-story apartment room.
"We're gonna come with ya, Dad." Rhoyna would say in wishing to work as a backup to Fáfnir's ire. Even when less than a few chronological weeks old, her personality has been forged from the felt endless time in ETERNAL, creating a headstrong character that would make no way for their father to force them back out.
In the same period, Valyria had felt she was ready a digitally long time ago to share much of their story. The good of the grand technological marvels made in reality. The bad of the restless nights in worry of threats that did not even know of their shadow. And the worst, of seeing their creator be burnt to a crisp, having to spend 13 nights healing. Heath clicked his jaw to the side, puckering in annoyance at this invalidation when the safest place for his children would be here in the Cavern. He would drawl his lips, blinking himself towards calmness.
"I do wish you could." The great scientist God lumps his legs together in sitting upon the air. "To let you all see more of the world, yet I can't." He plays to the same attachments while keeping himself emotionally steady, a cracking to his voice held at bay.
"I do not want you to be hurt." There was silence from that, but in a strange debut, they had forced Heath's hand, jumping him with actual fighting intent. There was a minor tingling fear of them causing collateral damage with their powers, so he combats them with a spiritually pressured psionic wave. Showering a modicum, only an 8th of the way in reference, was enough to make them kneel from its crushing in a coning! He was about to release them again after a few attempted escapes as he felt bad at pushing his point so far, but what he never expected to happen occurred.
They were connecting their wills and souls into reaching and even exceeding that limited strength, unkneeling towards straightening their backs, defiant towards their father's lovingly 'misguided' hand.
Faces trained upon him, Rhoyna even raised a smirk in showing that if they stayed together, they would be fine. Heath twitched his cheek at their theatrics, thinking up a punishment for such antics. He stops once he felt calm enough, them nasally *"*Huffing*"* in relief, even when they were purely golems, turning towards the great scientist God's forced characteristic smile. "Come by me soon then." Heath would send a tagging to meet on an undisclosed planet in the game, for the creation of a dragon that replicated Fáfnir's abilities would be their most powerful match yet.
Whereby using their current strength as a limit in the simulation, Heath feels it would be punishment enough if Grazia's battle against the thaumaturgic golem was anything to go by. The great Huntress was also notified of this, and she was to watch the spectacle. But before that, Skaði realised there was a silent watcher in the bushline.
Búi was collecting the growing mushrooms in the forest as her old habit would set in with her wolf companion sniffing for forageables. She would eye every now and then while hidden, her shyness making her hope not to be a distraction. The Goddess nods, with the forager nodding back simultaneously to falling behind the 4th tree line. Now that she could no longer be seen, Heath would dually warp himself and his wife through to their shared home together, taking their Uni-pods and creating this draconic ass-whooping.
To give a rundown: This Fáfnir replica had flight capabilities about the speed of a commercial airliner, with the size to back it up, too. Strength that could cause earth-shattering stomps that lever-launched people multiple stories high. And worst of all, acidic venom spit that can melt through steel armour and its wearer, leaving only a pile of waste on the floor.
A 'Terran' Century's worth of training was all they needed. Battered, cracked, melted and shattered enough times to feel the futility of battling it on their own, their cohesivity dialled to prescience of each other's moves. The most kills were done by Valyria 1st, and Goldie 2nd. While the scales could not be traditionally cut through without God-killing iron, nothing says that blunt force trauma to the organs through skin is off the table. Brain mushing and torso pulverising were the main forms of death-instigating.
Heath had wondered why they had not used their 'Marmot's, 'Hoary's or adaptable hilts when it had incredible piercing power for higher criticality. But by their. . . Smiles, it was a question best left unanswered, with how much glee they took in finally killing him in such a brutal manner.
'Do I need to put them through therapy?' Heath internally unnerves with a degreed benefit of the doubt in understanding that, from their perspective, they were turned into sadists for anything potentially evil that could destroy their way of life, and he somehow inculcated them further down this route through a high-intensity, pedigreed crash-course. His children noticed his struggles, realising what his worries were, in that he sees fault in himself for making them this way, a personal sense of disappointed guilt came about in the Dollens.
Skaði was having none of that, the clenching of her hand creating clicks that broke the sound barrier and decibelling towards rifle shots. "I would be like this too if you were in harms way." She turned towards their father, and the children replicated the movement of scratching the backs of their own heads.
"And I know you would too, if I, or they, were hurt." The direct statement to refocus on thinking of his family led the tall God's facial extremities to fracture in light for a moment before reconfiguring back to normal. ". . . Fair." His voice deepened in malaise, his measure of distracting himself from anything discomforting now playing up as they speedily travel to the location of the orchard, passing the mountains and through a hidden valley, they reach the guarded sanctuary of Iðunn's trees.
Ensconced by the surrounding gorge that led to the mystified entrance, Heath, Skaði hidden in eagle-form, larger than her father's, Aghi and Hel's watch in floating through the dagger's pointing as a compass and lastly the Dollens hidden above with Goldie and Rhoyna in flightsuits, like training wheels before they use their own magic to keep themselves aloft.
"*SCRAWʷw*(You two are learning quickly, good.)" She would follow behind as a safety net, them keeping away with a Deifically enhanced 'cover of impairment,' allowing them to remain undetectable to both sensors or mentats. Heath stopped by the border of the rock bridge base, lifting his fingers to his mouth and vowelling an air whistle. The "*Whoᵒeᵉe-ᵘuᵘeᵉe~*" travelled through the sound in a radiating curve, forsaking his location to the dragon's natural stronghold, an unnaturally nightmarish walking sound effect playing like a horror theme track.
*STOMP_Stomp_STOMP_St-* Fáfnir appeared a little smaller than the simulation, but still ungodly huge, came upon Heath by the border, staring him down with exact irises to Sandraudiga's. A green tinge to its teeth of the vile saliva capable of melting armies a threat at play.
"!YOU COME FOR THE APPLES?!" A beastly roaring tongue spoke with a saurian edge to its s's, blasting spittle that landed floorways to melt through the soil in moments after, Heath stayed fearless, for even if this mighty being were strong, he was not as dangerous as the Dróttningvættr (Spiritual Queen).) "No, hilmir (Prince,)-" Heath bowed in showing deference to dvergar royalty, earning a shocked opening of its mouth in not expecting a respectful visitor. "-I, Heath Dollen of the ðrútanmaðr, have no use for this orchard, for we already have our own."
Heath would show the truth of Rod's Golden Apples with artificially inseminated healing attributes within, feeling equal to those the dragon has guarded eternally. "What we have come for is you." He would put his hand forward that held the apple in a show of trust, letting Fáfnir scan the delicacy that was uniquely its own.
The dragon "*Sniffs*" the magically coated fruit, even asking to tell of its taste in a rather straightforward show that he knows it was not poisoned by its scent. Heath obliges, letting him try in a munching. "I have heard of your kind, the ðrútanmennska. I thought it was a lie." He felt the magic circulate within himself, feeling the same refreshment that came from eating what he counts now as a sisterly fruit. "You were the one who defeated the Dróttningvættr (Spiritual Queen?)" His optimally guessed reprieve was nodded to by Heath, who then let out poisonous puffs from its nostrils in realisation.
"You did not see me as dangerous?" Even when a dragon, he raised a spiky eyebrow, seeing that he had no armour or weaponry upon his form. Seems the magic that makes those above him invisible was working. "The opposite, I wished to be a trader. You have heard how my power included the raising of the dead from Loki's ramblings, have you not?" . . .
"That 'lie' you heard was true." He would show with the bones left on a corner, a few adventurous meðr (Norse persons) suddenly screaming in fear to seeing the dragon that left their bodies to rot before being warped away. "Where had you taken them?" Even when he was forced to kill any intruder as set by the greying trickster, he was surprised to see their soul signatures disappear from his meta-biological radar that could travel over many leagues. "To my home, in the Cavern." Heath would stare into his eyes as large as his body.
"What I hope for is that you may trust what I say, that I can bring your family back." The world stilled, almost turning grey scale with the green spewing out of his mouth, rather than directly on Heath, it surrounded him, creating a hilled crater to entrap upon a venom-bitten island.
"!DO NOT!" Fáfnir would growl out in anger, not that he did not trust him, he did after that spectacle, but more that he did not wish to let Ótr or his fatherly king see what he had become, that he was ashamed in himself. Heath stayed silent for a moment, face screwed up with wrinkles playing to his dubiety. "You know that I can fly, or even warp out of this, right?" The breaking of a serious moment with bad comedy made the dragon fumble, realising that what he had done was take out anger on the person least deserving of it.
Fáfnir's outsplayed wings that blotted out the sun shrivelled onto his back in retraction, head like a beaten dog's lying upon the ground at eye level to his. Heath flew over, gently patting his necked shoulder in comfort.
"I understand, you loved them, just as I loved my brother." They turned awkward, the revealing by a stranger to the being who had otherwise fought the world to protect this sacred garden a realisation he had little to no socialisation, missing the talks with others after decades of isolation. "What was your brother's name?" The air whistled between his now non-threatening fangs, red eye trained onto him as he had once done to his old friend Andvari. "Wade, after my grandfather's." Sitting down, the wind from above turned silent, the beauty of this valley a sight that would be perfect for a cabin.
"Wade, a strong name." The dragon blinked slowly, knowing he was in the presence of someone who wished no harm to him. "I am sorry. This trade you speak of, what had you hoped in return?" Fáfnir fell back to the old crown prince's role of negotiation, raising his head high in show while rolling 1 arm over the other in comformity.
"I had planned on asking for your help in strength, and that with me giving proof I wished to help, I had wondered on your choice to return to your original species while keeping this ormr (Wyrm) transformation like that of your once-ability into the tranr (Crane.)" Heath laid it out. "I require help with your venom, for its 'acidity,' the ability to melt objects, will be helpful with some scientific experiments compared to having to artificially farm other volatile compounds." Heath spoke of this modern lingo in a teaching tone.
"What use does my spit have to you?" While his red eyes did light yellow with surprise and hope towards becoming himself again, he more focused onto this experimentalism of what an 'acid' is, a term he had never heard of before.
"Rather than me describing it to you." Heath would raise a glowing hand, a histrionic vote of agreement in a consented touch. Everything involving this specific form of physics and chemistry would be introduced, where there are no other acids like his that are as strong, the only 1 having a candle to it, fluoroantimonic acid. "Do you want to realise the possibilities?" The tall God raised his hand higher, letting Fáfnir gain the choice rather than how he had been treated in being forced to this role in eternal binding.
Trusting claw to an open hand touched, knowledge in much the way as how it had been shared with Móði, painlessly transferring copies between them. Human lifetimes' worth of knowledge being voiced in lectures and hand accounts from masters, teachers, to students.
The dragon near foamed at the mouth at realising how much he could have done, from the way Heath freely shared knowledge of material and atomic properties that could be thunderously eclipsed over both with the theoretical pH level and of how his internal biomaterial composition could allow his 'production gland' to freely create it at no cost other than just by existing without it eating his body, something he never even thought of over the centuries of existence he had done.
"Corrosion resistant material synthesis, mining and resource extraction, recycling and waste removal, precision atomic nucleiation and alloying, so much. . !" His body shook the earth below it with how their tail swooshed around like a golden retriever finding the perfect stick.
But just the next moment after, realisation hit him, a depression pulled forth as his head tumbled down and his tail stopped wagging. "Is something wrong?" Heath walked into the air upwards, standing by the head of Fáfnir, whose presence shrank to its lowest point. "How could I help when I am trapped here?" He closed his eyes, where if reptiles had tear ducts, he would most likely have shed them freely. "And do I even deserve this freedom? After all I have done?" He looks towards where the pile of bones had been, 23 adventurers total killed before being suddenly resurrected by the Godly being in front of him.
"Redemption can always come." Another male voice spoke, a flowing velvet to the ears before the 'cover of impairment' in the sky dissipated, showing the children of Heath, and an eagle perching beside them, Goldie at the front, a spokesperson to all.
The dragon's left side of its jaw tilted, its version of a side-smirk. "Your wife and children could help me?" His prediction of their roles to Heath made him "*Chuckle*" in being seen through so quickly. "We will see." He scratches his beard, expecting something great.
[1] From Chapter 52: How much larger? ≈ 47.1521-Model m (15.2400-m (50-feet)) tall, the same height as the Iron Giant, which was a movie shown the night prior. Heath's face twisted like Jim Carrey's the Grinch, just imagining the sending of a dark warrior looming to step upon enemies.