“Come and sit.”

The hulking warrior felt the voice reverberate against him with a kind of soft, burning power that ate through his own divine energy and echoed against his soul. It had a massive weight behind it, like a great flowing ocean, sliding over and past him, and letting him know that he was in the presence of someone with power that was, in its own way, the equal of Highfather Odin Himself.

He eyed the Axe at his side, which he had been allowed to keep. It was a sign of either foolhardiness or confidence in one’s strength, and feeling what he did now, it was not foolhardiness.

Briggs was standing to receive him. The Asgardian was one of the tallest of their kind, massive and strong, with giant’s blood that made him one of the very strongest of their people, below only the blood of Odin. Briggs was still slightly taller, but height meant little at their levels of strength and power, although the godling was surprised to find a mortal at his size once again. There were records that he had met the Hulk at some point or another, and been manhandled by the jade colossus...

Briggs waved him to a seat, and took his own at the same time. It was a gesture of respect for his ability, regardless of his past deeds and the grim reputation he brought with him. Thankfully, his mistress had been missing for some time, and while Loki had dragged him into schemes against Thor more than once, the edge had been taken off his deeds, and now, he had actually come to Russia to volunteer against the incoming wave of Annihilation.

It was a fight worthy of a god, so Briggs was not surprised.

“We shall do two things first.” Briggs placed his elbow on the table, hand open. “First, we shall compare strength. Then, we shall drink.”

Skurge grunted, his dark eyes gleaming, and his own massive hand clasped Briggs. Without another word, the two put pressure on, and the air began to crackle with tension... but not for long.

Skurge watched in disbelief as, despite his best efforts, his arm was forced slowly over, down and back. His pride fueled his fury, great veins bursting out like cables on his arms and neck, but it did not matter.

Slowly, steadily, taking on all his strength as if he were a child, the back of Skurge’s fist tapped the top of the table.

Briggs held the dark eyes with his own pale violet ones, keeping Skurge’s hand down, and then released the pressure. Skurge fought down words under the silent gaze, and exhaled loudly. They released their holds mutually, and Skurge watched as Briggs silently switched arms, and waited for him again with his other hand open.

---

“This is the girly stuff, like drinking fruit water. The kick comes about a minute afterwards,” Briggs said calmly, pouring some frothy pink stuff into both their flagons. Skurge looked at it suspiciously. “We will work up to the drinks for men, which taste like motor oil and go down like burning glass needles.”

Skurge grunted. “To what are we drinking?” he asked, raising the flagon and looking at the somehow cheerful bubbles coming from it like some strange new poison.

“The honest joy of combat!” Briggs called out, tunking flagons, and they drank.

---

Endure was set head-down on the table, opposite the Bloodaxe. Hissing swirls of mystic fires and energies swirled around the Axe, and it seemed to wriggle away from the Hammer.

“Stay where you are, or I will rend you here and now,” Briggs stated grimly, and the energies on the Axe settled down instantly. “The warrior across from me has borne you a long time, but you are far older than he. I can sense, however, that his deeds have brought a darkness into you that was not there at your forging.

“You are an Axe made for battle and war, of that there is no doubt, but you were not wrought of malice and ill will, but the need for a Weapon that could kill those who needed to be killed. Slaughter and carnage for their own sake were not a part of you.

“I can cleanse that from you once more, return you to your state of purity, and help you help the warrior who bears you so proudly to also keep that purity of will and purpose.

“What say you, Axe of the Blood?”

There was a pause, and a vein of darkness seemed to steal over the Axe. Briggs’ hand shot out, and one finger came down on that shadow, pinning it instantly in place as it promptly writhed and twitched under his finger.

“I am a Smith,” he stated in a grim voice, and the Axe trembled under that one finger. “This Darkness cannot escape my hand or Hammer.”

Lightning, fire, and frost swirled about the Rune-carved Axe in cautious acquiescence, and Briggs nodded, his pale violet eyes lifting to Skurge.

“As you brought this darkness into the Axe, you will help bring it out.” He lifted another blown brown glass bottle, and poured for both of them. “A boy’s drink.”

Skurge grunted as he watched the brownish-gold liquid fill his flagon. He was amazed to find his head was already swimming from these mortal drinks.

“Tell me of your history, Skurge, called the Executioner,” Briggs stated firmly, “and I will tell you of mine, short and inferior as it might be. Let us both find where this darkness rose in you, and what we can make of it.”

Skurge stared at the drink in his hand, lifted it in a toast after a moment, the flagons clinked, and he drained half of it.

It went down like smooth, burning fire, a fine brew by any standards, and even billowed up and out his nose with hot steam, startling him.

A boy’s drink...

“I was born of a Storm Giant father, my mother a warrior woman of Skornheim,” he began slowly, words he had seldom told anyone, and which were mostly bandied about behind his back. “It is not unknown for giants and Asgardians to have relationships, but it is not frequent, and the children are often mistrusted for their bloodline...”

“Ah,” said Briggs, his features of an Ancient seeming to etch themselves into sharper relief. “I might know how that feels...” he murmured sadly, looking away, and Skurge nodded despite himself. At least Skurge looked like an Asgardian, albeit a very tall one...

---

“...and I watched the last of them die in the gladiatorial pits there, deep under the sea,” Briggs said grimly. The flagon in his hand was solid steel, but it crumpled like wet clay, the metal squeezing out between his great fingers in protest. “I swore that I would make the Deviants pay for what they had done...”

He set his ruined flagon aside with several others that had not survived emotional moments from either of them, fetched another one from a nearby table, and he poured a young man’s drink for them both.

Skurge coughed once when he drank it.

---

“She was all I desired in a woman. She had strength of her own that was no challenge to my own, beauty, a sharp wit, the ambition to be more...” Skurge stared into his flagon, feeling tears welling he suddenly could not control.

“But she did not desire your heart,” breathed Briggs across from him, “only your strong arm.”

Skurge nodded, and tears he had never shed afore, as these mortal brews uncorked the emotions he had long contained in his heart, fell into and salted his drink.

“That is a horrible thing to confront, be it man or god,” Briggs nodded, raising his flagon, and they toasted and drank. Salted by a god’s tears, the brew going down Skurge’s throat seemed to rampage like a storm, as if pulling up his buried emotions to feed a rising thunderstorm.

“I have heard of this woman long afore, as has my hag. Know this, Skurge... Amora the Enchantress did not listen to her own heart, either.” The brooding eyes of the Executioner regarded him strangely. “She listened to her ambition. The thing which drove her to gain power and status and cleverness and plot and plan to advance herself was that which dominated her.

“You could not see it within her, because she warded her heart, and buried it under that which made her great. You know this, for she was not a Goddess of Love, she was a Goddess of Passion. She chased her ambition, and stirred up yours, but she did not follow your heart or hers, and so both of you remained chained.

“It is not a kindness, for you are a god, and a god wants the best and brightest, and she was that to you, save that she could not shine for you.”

Briggs paused a moment, and then reached out to pick up a dark bottle from among those arrayed to the side for them.

“My Sama stole my heart long ago, and though I have loved other women for who and what they are, my hag is mine, and I am hers. I have not had to experience what you have, and, by all the gods willing, I am grateful, for the torment it has wrought upon you is indeed great and worthy of a god. What matter the pain of flesh that heals, but the heart and soul linger on...”

He hefted the dark bottle, and fetched both of them clean flagons, their large hands ritually clenching and crushing and setting the former ones aside in mutual agreement. “This... is a man’s drink.” Skurge’s eyes glowed darkly as the drink poured, an inky gold laden with crystalline undercurrents, interplays of light and shadow that promised something unique. “It demands a man’s response.”

Both flagons were lifted, and pale violet met dark and brooding. “Skurge of Skornheim, I can send you to a woman who is worthy of your strength and your heart, and, I think, you will find someone you can be worthy of, too. Are you interested?”

Skurge tapped his flagon, and drank.

The taste was horrid, the flavor of metals and stones and awful labor, the exhaustion of steel and the weight of time... and the grit of that which did not bow to time and endured it all nonetheless. It ran down his throat like spikes of glass, searing him with fire and acid and lightning, and only seemed to feed on his bitterness and despair, bringing them up with shades of black rage.

And underneath it all was still that grim endurance, the power to take it, to suffer, and to overcome it all.

Black tears fell upon the table, and Skurge the Executioner gasped hoarsely. He looked up, wondering if he might have been poisoned at the kick of this brew, and saw Briggs sitting across from him, black tears dripping down from his eyes and nose, spattering on the table just like his own. Violet eyes were cast down at the uncaring wood, remembering awful decisions made and carried through, events of the past that weighed on him even now.

Black tears of regrets and pains of the heart and soul...

Skurge drew a deep and raspy breath. “I would... have another.”

Briggs understood both meanings. The bottle did not seem that large, but Skurge was not surprised when it poured out again, and filled both their flagons to the brim once more...

-------

The Forge heated before them. The flames rippling within it held shades of many energies: Divine, Primal, Cosmic, Elemental, Emotional, and more.

Skurge heaved on the bellows. It was not air that they pumped, but power, drawing it in from many places, and his own divine strength seemed to flavor and pulse with all of them.

There was no doubt in his mind that this mortal was a Smith worthy of the gods.

Briggs’ eyes were on the Bloodaxe as he placed it into the flames. Something dark seemed to dance and writhe just above the flames as he lifted his unharmed hand away.