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Hearthstone was terrified
The plan had been simple: slip to Midgard, grab the fabric Blitz needed, and go back home so the dwarf could hermit in his room with his new prize and the álf could conk out in the sunbed.
Thinking back, maybe they should have planned their trip a little more carefully. While Hearth was getting more confident in his rune casting, it may have been slightly ambitious to think he could pull them both to Midgard and back again safely.
They had gotten the fabric, at least!
(Magical dunking into an ocean notwithstanding- it was hardly Hearth’s fault! He hadn’t been to Europe before, let alone whatever settlement ‘Italy’ was. He had gotten remarkably close to their desired destination, all things considered.)
And while he wouldn’t admit it to Blitzen because he enjoyed their little adventures, he didn’t understand why they needed to make the trip. Hearth simply did not see much of a difference in the silk they had picked up from the silk currently sitting on their coffee table at home.
“This is sea silk, Hearthstone! It’s literally one of the rarest silks in Midgard, let alone the Nine Realms! Nowhere else in the entire tree has the mussels needed to produce the fibres… at least four-thousand!... don’t you just love the colour!... and-”
Hearth would never admit to using his deafness as an excuse to zone out during his best friend’s fabric rants. He had a feeling Blitz was well aware Hearth could never hope to read his lips when he got going, though. He was content just to nod along as he let his dwarf chatter away, and if he was honest, while he struggled to be someone Blitz could talk to about fashion, it made his stomach feel all warm and fuzzy knowing Blitz was just happy to have someone to talk at about his interest.
Kind of like when Hearth started signing so erratically about magic that Blitz just watched him and occasionally gave an encouraging thumbs up, which was always funny when Blitz gave him an affirmative during a rant about how something didn’t make sense without realising it.
While he wasn’t overly fond of their little language barrier, knowing they would both be there to support each other’s passions regardless of their understanding was a new and amazing feeling for Hearth.
He focused back on the conversation when the dwarf almost hit him in the face with an enthusiastic gesture, his lips tugged up. He was smiling a lot more these days. He laid a hand on Blitzen’s shoulder before the man could start on another unintelligible tirade, ‘It’s getting late.’
Plus, he was trying not to show it, but he was exhausted. Upon pulling himself out of the water he had dumped them in with a rune, he had promptly passed out on the rocks. Luckily, ‘Italy’ was warm and bright. It only took about two hours for him to wake up to Blitz wrestling with a map of the area. Despite his impromptu, magic-induced power nap, he could feel the gravity of Midgard encouraging him to take a nosedive on the cobbled street.
Blitzen pursed his lips and nodded, “You’re right.” He shifted his bags to one hand to carry on in sign, ‘You up for taking us home?’
Hearthstone felt a shiver of stubborn determination work its way up his spine. He set his jaw and nodded once. He rolled his eyes when Blitz placed his hand on his hip and tilted his head, no doubt a sceptical brow raised under his sun protection. ‘I got this, going home should be easier than leaving home.’
“If you’re sure… but if you land us in the middle of a Muspelheimen fire lake, I will haunt you until Rägnorok.”
Hearthstone was fairly sure getting them stuck in Ginnungagap was way worse than Muspelheim.
They likely had a matter of minutes until their entire beings started to unravel; he was so hopped up on the sudden adrenaline rush he forgot to pass out from exertion.
The álf flailed in the white, if he hadn’t been so panicked, he might have questioned why it was tangible. As it was, it was freezing and empty and he had totally just gotten Blitzen killed! Himself too, obviously, but he cared a lot less about his own existence fading into the void than Blitz’s existence being wiped from everything.
Said dwarf spat a leaf out and brushed the white powder from his beard with a grumble, “When I said don’t get us stuck in a burning pit, I didn’t think you’d go so overboard as to get us stuck in a freezing pit.”
Obviously, the other couldn’t hear him complaining and wasn’t looking at him to know he was, but Blitzen knew he was complaining, so that’s what mattered. When he turned to Hearth, however, he was unprepared for the sight that met him.
The sight of Hearth scrambling with his runes, his nose and cheeks flushed from the chill, pulled into the expression of a kid convinced that a boggart had taken up residence under their bed, was both confusing and amusing in a warm and fuzzy way. He watched as his hands, clearly clumsy from the cold, dropped the runes and changed course to wailing about how they were doomed, something about empty, something something stupid- well, he wasn’t sure what to make of Hearth’s ramblings. And not just because he didn’t know most of the signs said ramblings were made of.
Blitz couldn’t help it- he burst into laughter. Hearth glared at the dwarf and kicked him, ‘Stop laughing! We’re so dead! Ginnungagap isn’t made for us!’
That just made him laugh harder. The dwarf doubled over and wiped a tear from his eye.
“Hearth- buddy- relax! It’s just snow!” He placed a hand on the panicky álf’s shoulder with a thin smile. He pulled his pith off with the other and cupped some of the frozen fluff. He brought it to Hearthstone’s side and let it crumble through his fingers in front of him. Blitzen motioned lazily at the clouds above them and the gentle flurry they were unleashing. “We are not in the middle of the cosmic void, just a very lacklustre snowstorm.”
Why wasn’t Blitz freaking out like he was? The dwarf was way jumpier than him; while his soul was kind and his heart brave, he was absolutely the scaredy-cat out of the two of them. The fact Hearth was the one who jumped at horror movies more than Blitz did not count.
Blitzen also wasn’t stupid, so it really made no sense that not only was he not freaking out, he was laughing.
… Come to think of it, it was pretty odd that they were breathing in a vacuum.
He watched as Blitz took a handful of nothing and played with it in a way that a mortal absolutely could not play with nothing.
His racing heart slowed, and he took a moment to actually process that his senses were registering input- something he doubted they would do if they were in the gap. He could feel the temperature around them, could feel that they were clearly sitting on/in a solid mass, a solid mass he could see (and feel soaking through his pants). While he couldn’t smell anything, it was less because there was nothing to smell and more that all he could smell was cold. A smell he had only learnt was a thing after a spelunking adventure Blitz had taken him on.
Besides, now that he was taking a moment to actually think, he figured they probably would have died by now if this was the void. The air they were breathing was cold and a bit thin, but, ya know, existed.
He wasn’t sure what Blitz had called the stuff, but he clearly knew what it was and that it wasn’t dangerous. So, he decided to trust his friend. He put effort into relaxing his tensed-up body and focused on the other.
‘What?’
“You know… snow? That stuff that water turns into when it’s cold? Admittedly, we don’t really get snow in Nidavellir, but we don’t get most water cycle based weather…” Blitzen’s eyes drifted from Hearth’s and he had brought his hand to rub his beard in the way Hearthstone had come to recognise as the dwarf’s ‘mumbling’ mannerisms. “My guess is you dropped us in Jotunheim. Have you never seen snow before?”
Hearthstone turned his attention upwards at the grey clouds that were lazily depositing more white around them. No, he hadn’t.
Hearth’s brows drew together. He held out his hand and flinched slightly at the cold flakes landing on it. He watched in fascination as they melted on his palm. The álf watched Blitz stick his tongue out and catch them, he snorted at how dumb he looked before joining him.
Blitzen was right: it was just snow, cold water. So this was what snow looked like? Amazing! He had only ever read about it, he never really imagined that he’d get to experience it.
Hearth looked over the landscape with fresh appreciation now that he knew it was just frozen water and not the empty void. The sheet of white before them was glittering under the dim sun. He stood and wobbled slightly on the uneven ground, it gave way with each footfall, condensing under him in a weird sensation that felt like tripping but not.
Behind the pair was a forest, and upon realising that if he had just turned around when they landed, then he wouldn’t have mistaken the place for Ginnungagap. He fought the urge to grind his teeth and slap a hand to his head in embarrassment. He did not, however, manage to reign in the rumble of his throat as he exhaled in annoyance, which was clearly loud enough for Blitz to hear as he got a cheeky grin in response. He stuck his tongue out at the dwarf and wandered over to investigate the frozen flora.
The lush floor Hearth would usually expect of a forest was absent; in its place was a mixed-up slush of dirty and fresh snow, with the prints of whatever had been digging around left behind. The dull light of a low-hanging star was refracted into dazzling displays of colour through stalactites of ice that had Hearth checking above his head for a murderous piece of water with every step.
The trees, unlike any trees he had seen before- they looked more like the towers of wet sand you could make at the beach- were cased in white. He reached out and twanged a branch, jumping back when the snow tumbled off in a heap. Hearth smiled down at the mess and kicked a boot through it. He wasn’t sure why people described such pictures as wastelands. It was magical.
Blitz couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face, watching his elf kick at snow and laughing with childish glee at the resulting explosion of white. His earlier excitement about his rare fabric was basically entirely forgotten. Blitzen had stumbled upon something much rarer and far more precious: his elf discovering something new.
His grin turned mischievous as he reached down and grabbed a handful of powder.
Hearth whipped around, alert for danger, to see his dwarf laughing and tossing a white ball back and forth between his hands. Hearth’s eyes narrowed, he reached a hand back to feel his shoulder- the back of his jacket was wet. The álf smirked back at Blitz and leant down.
Alright, dwarf, two could play at that game.