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Sindri couldn’t remember how he had gotten into this position, but whatever happened he regretted all of it. His head pounded, a deep unsettling ache and pain that felt painted over his very consciousness. He kept his eyes closed, better than to open them and see more of the blinding light that seeped through his eyelids. There was something hard underneath him, it was cold as well which somewhat helped the ebb and flow of pain in his skull.
Something underneath his knee shifted, hiking him up higher on what he could guess was metal, it took a couple of minutes to click with Sindri that it was hands that were keeping him up. Opening his eyes slightly, only the bare minimum to see what was underneath him, showed a smooth metal plating with familiar patterns. The armor that he had made for Atreus with the help of Brok, this time around with padding on both arms once they figured out their nephew was ambidextrous. The knowledge that he had just puzzled out came to him slowly, fog and liquid seemed to surround him completely, Sindri could only guess that standing in it would be like swimming through tree sap.
Beneath him, Atreus stumbled, coughs wracking his lean frame as he trudged forward through the liquid. It was hard to tell with how the fog crept in around them, like hands reaching out for them. Lifting his head up gave him a better view of where exactly they were, it looked like some part of Alfheim; the sky a pale blue with yellow splatters throughout it, swathed in white around the edges of the horizon. Looking the way that Atreus was heading showed a land mass of some sort, made of sand and rock seemingly mashed together as if a giant of great size had thrown the pieces into the ground with anger.
The sand was pale white tinted with blues and pale undertones, the rocks scattered throughout it were grey and brown smeared together like oil work on a canvas. He could feel Atreus slowing down, trudging through water more than simply walking. Looking down at the boy proved insightful, there was a large gash on his neck, his magic working constantly to weave it back together, untouchable gold threads and sparks bouncing, arching, flowing across and over the wound. It bled steadily, but instead of dripping down, the blood flowed haphazardly down only a couple of inches before the sparks of gold racing along his skin led it back up into the wound. Sindri took a moment to hold back from retching, having been much too close to the wound when looking at it.
The moment they touched land, Atreus collapsed beneath him, hitting the sand quietly and became unmoving upon touching the ground. A yelp escaped Sindri’s mouth at the impact, and it took a moment for him to untangle himself from the boy’s limp body. Once the dwarf had fully recovered from the suddenness of their situation, which took longer than he’d like to admit, he made an attempt to flip the young giant onto his back.
In size Atreus was small, only being about a head taller than Sindri himself. But the kid; as much as he looked like skin and bone, weighed more than expected. So all effort that the blacksmith put into the action of flipping him over led him nowhere. The fact that Atreus was wearing metal armor and several layers of padding underneath was not helping, even if it was specialized to be light and flexible.
“Shit… Shit. Shit. shit!” Sindri cursed, now attempting to grab his nephew's arm to haul him up. Desperation started to claw through his mind, the pain from before ebbing more and relinquishing his senses to him. They were stuck on a beach in Alfheim, gods know where, Sindri didn’t even know if he could go get help. What if something attacked Atreus while he was away? Currently, the boy’s injuries were at least being taken care of by the magic flowing through him, but that did not help with anything else. Let alone being lost in an unknown place, probably with hostile elves, and what if Atreus didn’t wake up?
At that thought as if one cue the small giant groaned from his place in the sand, startling his dwarven uncle who jumped back at the strange sound. Shoving aside the disgust that boiled up inside him at the thought of anymore touching, he grabbed once more his nephew’s upper arm. Sindri’s second attempt at flipping the boy over worked much better, but solely because this time around said teen was using his own limbs to help in the endeavor.
“Auuuuugghhhhh…“ Atreus groaned, sounding strange and slightly garbled due to the larger slighter sharper teeth that frost giants possessed. His set of teeth was almost a near match to his mother, who for some reason, was not questioned by Kratos once upon seeing her teeth fully. Most likely for the same reason he had not questioned her strength, which was greater than his. “Hhhnnnggghhhh,” the boy began again, rolling his head to the side with a pained groan.
“Atreus! Please, you have to sit up!” Sindri ground out as he grabbed the young giant's shoulders, digging his heels into the sand and pulling. Freya had given him a small run down about injuries and how to help when he had been wounded during Atreus’ flee to Asgard. The best way to deal with larger wounds is to adjust the person's body so that less blood flowed to the affected area.
From the angle he was at, the gash across the boy’s neck looked significantly smaller, gold filament weaving and stitching flesh back together. That thought alone sent a shudder through him, he knew that Atreus could heal himself like Kratos could, if a bit slower and only open wounds. But it was still extremely gross. Who knew what had gotten into the wound beforehand, or what had caused it. There were clearly other injuries on both of them, Sindri could already tell a bruise was forming beneath his chest plate, which had a dent in the middle. His head still hurt as well, and there were scrapes littered across Atreus’ legs, the fabric cut open in small amounts haphazardly.
“Where’dweendup?” the small giant slurred out, pushing a hand underneath him so that he was sitting up as Sindri instructed. His eyes opened slowly, gaze wandering until it landed on the dwarf standing beside him, hand still clutching the teen’s shoulder.
“Uhmm… Alfheim I think?” It looked and felt like the realm of the elves, but without leaving Atreus to fend for himself, he wasn’t likely to get a definitive answer. Yet one thing in particular was nagging at the back of his mind, how had they arrived in Alfheim? Where did all the injuries come from, or more specifically what had caused them? “Hey, so… how did we get here, Tre?”
The jotun groaned again, the gash across his neck now fully healed, leaving a jagged looking scar across the right side of his neck. And it was easy to see when he came fully back to the realm of the living, eyes much more alert and arms ceasing their slight shaking. Though he took a moment to look upon their surroundings, the sand and stone that made up the ground beneath them. The water they had left was a dark blue, with aubergine colored swathes throughout, fog surrounding them made it hard to see anything past only a couple of feet.
“Tyr turned out to be Odin, then he kicked all our asses.” Atreus growled while making an effort to stand, Sindri in his concern moved closer to support him if necessary. But he was grateful it wasn’t necessary, touching spread so many germs.
“Wait… the Tyr you invited into my home?” The dwarf gaped, memories sinking back into him at a slow and faltered pace. He had clearly hit his head on something in the time frame that sat between the fight and now, or maybe he had gained lasting damage from getting hit upside the head with a bear paw. He remembered how he felt more than what had actually happened, flashes of fear, shock, guilt, and anger mixing into something that was too much to think about. Beside him Atreus cringed and lowered his head, diverting his eyes to the sand beneath them.
“I… I didn’t know,” he trailed off, eyes still searching the ground for nothing in particular. Hands grabbing at the hem of his skirt, twisting and pulling at the fabric between his fingers like it would give them both the answer they were looking for. Kratos’ voice was probably ringing through the teen’s head, telling him off for what he had done, and how he should fix it. But Sindri couldn't care less at the moment.
“I gathered!” He snapped, throwing his arms in the air. “What in hel happened in my house, Atreus?” The dam broke easily, the blacksmith didn’t like to call himself an angry person, but bottling up emotions didn’t work very well for him. Now here he was, yelling at his nephew for something neither of them could control. But it felt good, to let it out and be able to blame someone for no one’s mistake.
He knew he had plenty of bloodlust in him, helping Atreus fight during their solo adventures had shown him that clearly. How good it felt when Dragur crumbled beneath something he had thrown at them, enemies dropping like flies between the two of them.
Raising his hand up to rub at the bridge of a nose where a headache was forming had Atreus flinching. The feeling that gave him had the dwarf taking a deep breath, anger wouldn’t help either of them, they would just keep being mad at each other until something snapped.
“One moment it was calm and the next we were fighting. I… I really don’t know Sin.” His tone was weak, more ashamed of what happened than defensive as he usually was. The fighting part made sense, why else would both of them be as injured as they were, but how had Odin been revealed?
“We need to find everyone else.” Sindri mumbled out through the glove on his face, hand still massaging the space between his eyes. He could hear the sand shifting beside him, nature had an odd way of reacting when Atreus was sad, or really when he felt anything at all. Now the sand was being drawn towards him, attempting to encase him.
“You can go between realms to search for them? I can try and find a Gateway while you're doing that.” The small jotunn suggested, tone becoming more uplifted with the new found thought of being of use. Though the thought of the teen wandering about in the desert proved to be more concerning than being stuck with said teen.
“What if you run into something! You can’t go off all by yourself.” The blacksmith stated, verbally and physically putting his foot down. He took a moment to take his hands from his face to gesture around them to the desert shrouded in fog. What sane adult would let a child wander off on their own without adult supervision in an unknown place?? Oh right, Kratos. No wonder Atreus had no idea how to keep himself safe, both of his parents had little care for their own safety.
“I can fight on my own!” the small giant retorted, squaring his shoulders and resting his hands on his hips in a defensive display. Sindri was plenty aware that he could fight draugr on his own, but elves? He had no idea how well that would go, and he very much did not want to explain anything to an overprotective father.
“I’m sure you can kid, but it’s a lot safer for us to stick together!” the dwarf exclaimed, having to jog after Atreus when the teen began marching away. Farther into the fog covered land and heading the opposite direction of water, the sand below them turned into hard quartz stone, a platform sitting a foot taller than the sand. And as the fog seemed to recede slightly, he could just barely make out pillars surrounding them, they stretched beyond what either could see. “Can’t you use your magic or something? Clear away all this fog?”
“Throw something at me!” The teen called out, bounding a few feet away and turning quickly to face the dwarf. Atreus nodded vigorously when the blacksmith gave him a questioning look, already arguing before he could protest. “I know you have explosives in your bag of tricks.”
“Fine!” The blacksmith declared, taking a flaming pot from his bag and hurling it towards the boy. The archer swung his left arm hard, letting the back of his hand make contact with the projectile, it shattered in a burst of light with a shower of gold sparks.
When it all cleared, Sindri could catch the tail end of the magic shield he had made for the boy retreating. The explosion caused a burst of air which moved the fog away from them by a couple of feet, now they could see the tops of the pillars, broken jagged things clearly beyond repair. “Oh! Smart move!”
“Maybe I could climb one of these and see if I can find something?” Atreus implored, gazing up at the massive stone columns surrounding them in a circle. Something cleary sat atop them at some point, but Sindri had no idea what it could have been. Maybe a ceiling of some sort?
“Be careful!” The dwarf shouted, scrambling to the base of the pillar the young giant had started to scale. An arrow in each hand, whispering words in an unknown language as he plunged the arrows over and over again into the quartz columns. The arrowtips sunk into the stone like it was flesh, not a single crack or sign of disturbance on the face of them. Once the teen reached the top, he stood on the uneven surface and attempted to see through the fog.
“There’s a temple to the east of us!” The young jotunn called down, before scaling only half the way down before simply dropping the rest of the way. He landed scarcely a foot away from the dwarf beside him, and took a moment to put his arrows back in his quiver.
“How do you do that?” Sindri interrogated, curiosity growing as the small puncture marks in the pillar melded themselves back together. The wear and tear that was there before replaced any sign that the teen had climbed up it.
“I just asked,” Atreus brushed off the question with ease, turning to start walking in the direction of the temple he had seen through the fog.
He had always had strong legs, and this was plenty evident when he simply began striding through the shifting sand surrounding them. But he paused half way through the trek to pick up the dwarf lagging behind him. And refused to put him down even after they had reached the next piece of solid non-shifting ground. Leaving Sindri clutched to the chest of a child only a head taller than him, toes just barely grazing the floor, his back probably gaining so much grime.
“At least this place has a roof.” The small giant huffed, finally releasing the poor dwarf in his arms when he started struggling. Even allowing the man to dodge away from him once both feet had hit the ground.