The Sword

I remember a time when he told me he didn’t believe in magic, good or bad, let alone curses. I hope he has learned better.
“What do you think of all this?” I asked the boy.
“I believe in magic, if that’s what you want to know.” I can hear the tenseness in his voice. He’s wary. Why?
“What about curses?”
“ If there’s magic there’s curses right?” But based on the way he said this I could tell he was being sarcastic. Stating the obvious but not believing. He turned back to his books.
“Have you heard of the story of The Rede?”
“What’s so important about it?”
I can hear the impatience in his voice but he must hear me through. “Every Norseman knew the story of The Redeand the Curse.” He pretends he’s not interested but I know forgotten things interest him. So I began.
“Deimangod was on an errand to warn the Vanir gods of trouble with the frost giants. He was aboard a ship offering a sacrifice when he was caught in a storm. He cried to the gods for help .One of the Vanas saw what was happening and asked one of the fairies why the man was journeying alone on the ship. The fairy told about the errand and the Vana begged Odin to stop the storm.Diemangod was able to deliver his errand and was given a reward. When he asked how to get it the Vana told him he must wait for a certain day, take the first thing that he saw when he woke and go to the hill behind where he dwelt and wait. That morning he woke and the first thing he saw was a reed and so he took it, and climbed the hill, behind his house. But when he reached the top of his hill hewas accidentally stabbed by his son, who was digging for a bone he had saved for a year to give to the gods. Deimangod cursed the weapon that killed him. He said that because the thing seems to like taking lives it will continue to until it can’t anymore. And after that the sonkilled everyone around him until all his family were dead and everything would avoid him when he’d come close. He tried to get rid of the shovel but the curse on it would not let it be destroyed or abandoned. He lost all his friends. At last he asked the gods to release him from the curse and the Vana said to him to go to the hill of Diemangod, where his father had met his end, and there will be a reed that will tell him what to do. So he went there and saw a glowing reed on the ground that had these words on it: Both sun and moon must scorch. with flame/n’ere ever weapon great became. So he waited until that afternoon he saw both the sun and the moon together in the sky and planted the shovel in the ground the point towards the sky and when the sun had burned the moon to a crisp and was fading from its own heat the son saw the shovel rust and knew it had turned into a regular shovel again.”
“Why is it called The Rede?” He asked, this time turning around and looking at me, not even hiding his interest in the least. “And I thought you weren’t from Norway,”
“Rede,” I responded, “is an archaic word for advice and you heard, the story is about people giving other people advice to solve their problems, or reward them for it. And, you’re right, I’m not from Norway. As I have told you before I was born here.”

The two sorcerers had left, ignoring any questions that had been thrown at them and everyone turned back to the picture that Wong had left and which Bucky had drawn.
“So what is this?”Thor asked.
“Is it related to the story?” Mantis tries next. The room was silent.
“I still don’t get why that guy was freaking out about an old fairytale,” Drax put in.
“Yeah,” Rocket echoed, trying to lighten the mood, “does he expect the cursed axe to come back again?” He gave an uneasy chuckle.
“The thing’s probably rusted to nothing in the ground somewhere,” Clint agreed.
“Anyway, who would want to curse a shovel, these days?” Thor inquired.
No one had an answer.
“Where did this symbol come from anyway?” Quill tried next after a moment of silence.
“That’s not the point,” Steve inserted before another word could be said, “the thing is we need to know what it belongs to.”
“By knowing where something came from will tell you what it belongs to,” Quill defended, siding with Rocket.
“Is that a saying here?” Rocket asked.
“I don’t know, probably,” Quill shrugged.
“ Is it or isn’t it,?” Drax pressed, "it's a simple question Quill.”
“It isn’t,” Quill shot back with annoyance. “I made it up, alright?”
“Guys,” Clint interrupted, “the symbol.”
“What we gonna do,” Rocket queried, “stare at it all day? That won’t solve a thing.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Can we stop with the secrets,” Thor demanded, “if we are to solve this we need to know how Buchanan came to have this picture anyway.”
“When I picked up the diary,” Bucky began with a daring look at Quill, “it burned this mark onto my hand then disappeared.” Quill opened his mouth but seeing the two Brooklynders challenging glances he thought better of it.
“So it does have to do with the diary,” Drax realized, “ok what next? Is this the guys signature or a secret password to something else?”
“That’s not how we do signatures here,” Clint explained.
“But you may be onto something about the open sesame.” Everyone turned to the newcomer.
“Tony?” Thor and Steve exclaimed simultaneously, turning, surprised, to the new speaker.
“Didn’t he die,” Rocket whispered, aside to Groot.
“Yeah, I’m back!” Tony announced.
“How did you—“ began Steve.
“Science, baby, what else?” Tony scoffed the obvious.
“Ok good to know I’m not the only one seeing ghosts,” Drax said quietly so that only Mantis heard. “First the god’s dead brother and now him.”
“Well shouldn’t we find the magic cave or something?” Tony asked. “It came from the diary tight? Oh and Quill that thing you quoted is an actual saying.”
“How long have you been standing there?” Drax was a bit taken aback.
“Since the wizards left.”
“And you choose now to finally intervene?” Quill said exasperated.
“I got intrigued,” Tony defended, “I mean can you blame me seeing you guys argue about nothing and trying to find this magic cave? I mean come on the answer is obvious it belongs to this thing.”
“He pulls from his pocket a small sword like knife, only an inch and a half long.
“ What’s this?”
“It’s a model I built based off of a sword I saw,” Tony explained.
“Apart from the size it fits the description of the sword we were looking for,” Rocket remarked.
“You saw the sword?” Quill was annoyed at having been outdone.
“I didn’t really have time to get it. I was busy trying to escape.”
“From what?”
Some gangly guys on bikes.”
“Hey aren’t those the guys that attack us?” Drax queried.
“He’s right,” Steve put in
“Of course I am, I was there,” Drax boasted.
“He means the dead but living guy, jackass,” Quill pointed out.
“The sword and the symbol are almost Identical.”
Everyone gathered around Clint who was examining the picture and model closely.
“Well good luck trying to get past the wizards to have an actual good look at the real thing,” Bucky said.
“Wow they must have some new spell to cheat time and space now,” Tony said.
“What do you mean?” Everyone turned to him
“I saw the sword just now before I came here less than an hour ago.”