"Well, well, well, if it isn't the old goat and the bald bearded brute," Brok greeted, immediately noticing Kratos and Mimir walking toward him, with Zelos and Atreus following behind and Ragnir floating beside Zelos. Brok was about to add something else, but he stopped himself as he seemed to notice something.
"What the? Another one?" Brok said, already walking toward Kratos and Mimir, drawn by the magic he could feel permeating their new forge. Sindri felt the same pull and hurried after him, and the two of them wasted no time hunting down its source.
Zelos watched the pair of them closely. Brok had returned to the same healthy color as Sindri, his soul whole and fully restored, which meant his skin no longer carried the sickly blue tint it once had.
"It's good to see you again, Brok, especially looking so much better," Zelos said in greeting. Brok waved a hand at him without really looking, too busy staring at Ragnir, who had gone unnaturally quiet.
"Enough. Separate me already," Ragnir demanded, and the sudden voice startled Sindri so badly that he stumbled back and landed hard on the ground. Brok flinched too, though he recovered his footing a moment faster.
"Haha, I knew I recognized it from somewhere. It's Ratatoskr," Brok said, glancing over at Sindri, who was only just picking himself back up.
"No, that's not quite right. Ratatoskr is busy tending to the World Tree. This is one of his personalities," Sindri answered, having recognized the same aura Brok had sensed.
"Oh, this is one of his personalities. He got captured by the Jotunns after a fight and has been trapped in this hammer along with their essence ever since," Atreus explained, clearly excited to be the one with the answer.
"A personality," Mimir repeated under his breath, more to himself than to anyone else, shaking his head slowly as though the idea of Ratatoskr being split into pieces small enough to be caged was something he had never once considered possible.
"I want to know if you can free him without destroying the hammer, since I would like to keep the hammer afterward. If that isn't possible, then free him and let the hammer break in the process," Zelos added, while Kratos and Mimir stayed silent through the whole exchange, content to listen.
"It's not impossible, but I'll need another binder for this hammer, since Ragnir seems to be the one holding it together. If he's freed with nothing to replace him, the essence the Jotunns packed into this hammer would have nothing left to contain it, and it would collapse in on itself," Brok answered, already turning the problem over as a smith would.
"I might have something that could help," Sindri said, pulling out a drawstring pouch covered in dwarven runic script that Zelos recognized on sight. It was the same script used to capture essence with no tangible shape of its own. Zelos leaned in, curious, and Atreus, Mimir, and even Ragnir did the same, while Kratos simply watched, cautious as ever.
"Is that a concept, Sindri?" Zelos asked. Sindri's chest puffed out with obvious pride.
"Just tell us already, you smug little fucker," Brok snapped, out of patience and foulmouthed as ever.
"Relax, I'll tell you. This right here holds the breath of Ratatoskr. The original Ratatoskr," Sindri said, and the words fell over the group like a hush, silencing everyone except Brok and Zelos, the only two who grasped immediately what it meant to be holding something so rare.
"So you could shape a pseudo-split of Ratatoskr from that, one that isn't officially part of him, and swap it in for Ragnir without disturbing the hammer's form?" Zelos said aloud, and the deduction made Atreus, Kratos, Mimir, and even Ragnir understand at once just how valuable the pouch really was.
"Correct. That's exactly what I'm planning to do," Sindri said, and Brok let out a short laugh beside him.
"Only Sindri would carry something that precious around in his pocket like it was spare change," Brok added, still chuckling, and for once Sindri did not bother arguing the point.
"Can you work this in as well?" Zelos asked, reaching down to pinch a spot on his left leg, where Terra resided, and drawing out a small fragment of her essence, a pure piece of the earth element. When he handed it to Brok, the weight of it nearly dragged the dwarf's arm down, and Brok grunted at how dense the tiny thing was.
"Hah! Motherfucker," Brok swore, shaking out his arm as he and Sindri started toward the forge, with Mimir, Kratos, Zelos, and Atreus close behind. Ragnir stayed floating beside the two dwarves the whole way, and Brok did not stop complaining about the weight of the fragment once.
"Alright, give us some room," Sindri said, pulling out his smithing hammer as Brok set the fragment on the anvil, already enchanted to keep the cave itself steady against whatever the dense material might do to it. Brok raised his hammer and struck. Each blow sent a small tremor rippling through the ground, though neither his focus nor Sindri's ever wavered.
While Brok worked the fragment of Terra, Sindri did his part as well, holding Ragnir's form steady and slowly chipping away at him, drawing him out in exchange for the breath of Ratatoskr from the pouch. Bit by bit, a glowing shape began to take form in the air, Ragnir being rebuilt outside the hammer he had been bound to for so long.
Zelos could follow every step of what came next, though Atreus, Kratos, and Mimir could only watch the shape of Ragnir slowly emerge, unable to see the finer threads of magic at work. Atreus leaned closer despite understanding none of it, fascinated all the same, while Kratos kept his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on the forge. Once Ragnir's form had fully separated, Brok, who had never once stopped hammering the fragment of Terra, folded it directly into the hammer that had held Ragnir until now.
The two dwarves fell into rhythm together, striking the metal in turns as Brok fed more heat into the forge, melting and merging the two materials while carefully preserving the hammer's original concept. Sweat ran down both their faces, but neither slowed.
"Just a few more touches," Sindri said, glancing over at Brok, who remained locked in concentration on his work. Together they layered dwarven runes over one another, weaving them through the older Jotunn runes already etched into the metal, until at last the hammer flared with a fierce light for a full minute before finally going still.
The forge fell silent, save for the low hiss of cooling metal. Atreus let out a breath he had not realized he was holding, and even Kratos leaned forward slightly, waiting to see what had been made.