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@helreginn
OOC UPDATE. INTERNET IS STILL NOT A THING but I had access long enough to re-up my queue and re-follow peeps ((Did everyone make a new blog while I was away? LOL)). Again, if you don't mind waiting for replies, always feel free to send memes/starters etc.
It's fun when I am able and I'm hoping to have steady internet SOON.
For new people, here is what is SUPPOSED to be the pinned post, should my wifi ever return from war. 💀<3
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His answer was a nod, as he took his place. His mind reached out to her.
Tell me what I must do. Do I follow, when you give the word?
There were more mysteries in the world than he knew, it seemed. What was this place, and her connection to it? If the danger were not to present, he would be interrogating her.
Not to worry. He would save them for later.
By the time his thoughts swept into her head, Hel had one foot rested on the window sill, the other dangling above the stone floor, one hand gripped the sill. Her eyes wrinkled in the corners as she softly grinned back at him.
Simply wait for my return. Her mouthless voice returned. Silent as you are able.
She remained a moment more, gentle repose lent out as earnestly as mind-spoken instruction. And then she was gone. Like a whisp of smoke taken by the wind, she fell from the window and out of his view.
"Ah." Emrys nodded, understanding entirely what she meant. "Py...Py is too much like mom. She doesnt see other people's pain all the time. Sometimes you gotta smack her."
Hel shrugged one shoulder, trying to play it off as she turned her head to the side, "It's not like it matters. Age gap siblings are bound to have distance in their bonds, no?"
The flicker of amusement that threatened earlier now leapt full-throated up Ragnar's gullet, and he made a sound that was more bark than laugh. She was right, and that was half the reason he’d followed her out here in the dead gray morning. That and the possibility— unlikely, but never zero— that she might have answers to questions Ragnar still couldn’t voice.
"Too true," lifting one shoulder in a half-admission, "Foolishness is my greatest gift. Born with it, even. Thick as an ox, and twice as stubborn."
Seeing that her teasing was taken well, her smile widened, wrinkles creeping at the corners of her eyes - a whisper of the age her face didn't betray. The dew-wet grass was cold beneath her bare feet. Hel didn't try to quicken her pace to match his stride. Any misadventure unraveling before them was inevitable, whether they showed up late or not at all.
"Mmm.." She mused softly. "My family suffers a similar affliction. Not an ounce of common sense between us." Her smile widened even more, the Vardøger of her father alighted in her expression. "Then again, even mine never willingly followed me into the misty grey.."
The Doctor went very still at the word she used. It was not Doctor. It was older. Older than Gallifrey’s burnt-orange skies. Older than the name he’d taken and the one he’d run from. “Oh,” he breathed. “That one. Haven’t heard that in a while.” He adjusted his coat. “I retired it. Bad branding.”
The wind shifted around him, and he did not turn as she circled him, though his eyes followed her reflection in the crystalline horizon. “Stories,” he agreed quietly. “Yes. We understand stories. We survive them. Sometimes we are them.”
At her invitation, his gaze flicked to the TARDIS. The blue box thrummed, and he arched an eyebrow. “Oh, don’t start. You like her,” he muttered to the ship. He paused then he turned to Helreginn. “And that worries me.” He stepped away from the place where he’d tapped the frost. “You say I’m welcome so long as I mean no ill-will. That’s generous. Suspiciously generous.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Realms like this don’t trade in generosity. They trade in balance. In debt. In inevitability.”
He looked back at her fully now. “You’re not keeping me out,” he said. “You’re not trying to trap me. You’re not threatening. Which means one of two things.” A finger lifted between them. “Either I am spectacularly beneath your notice or you need something.”
“You pulled at her.” He nodded to the TARDIS. “Not maliciously. More like resonance. Like two tuning forks humming the same note across a battlefield. So what’s fraying? What story is refusing to end politely in your after-place?”
She said nothing, noted his discomfort, but said nothing. Names were more than just choosing or sound. They are gifts and they are sentiment, the passing between written words, between chapters. Waters tested, Hel would not call that name again. She respected peoples wishes on such things. Nevertheless.. it's sound lingered, a resonant whisper of the past. A ghost drawn to ghostly queen.
One corner of her mouth lifted as he too spoke of stories. For an aeon now, when all was quiet and she sat alone, just her hollow realm and the endless dead, stories were all the company Hel had to keep. They sustained her far better than the food she was loathe to eat or the wine she over-consumed. Her eyes gleamed with curiosity; If maybe his words were as intentionally load-bearing as her own.
Hel stopped circling him.
"You're a deeply mistrusting fellow," she said, a breathy laugh to follow. "You have never been in my realm before. Not once, not in any of your lives. How do you know what I trade in? How do you know the weight of your presence?" Goosebumps prickled down her spine as overlapped sense of déjà vu slammed into her chest. He was not the first, not even this week, to purport to understand her realm while having utterly no idea about it.
The goddess blinked slow and asyncronously, exasperation apparent. In the briefest - almost imperceptible - moment between eyes squinting and fully shut, the golden honey of her irises was traded for pale grey.
His next guess, she let sit a while, lips pressed together, unable to conceal the amused smile his own unintended insult conjures in mischievous thoughts.
"I see her heart, you know. Bold and capricious as she is, she doesn't strike me as one who lets herself be pulled without injury...." Hel stared at and through him, this man who's lifespan made hers feel infantile. "Come," She smiled sweetly, "Let us supp a while. This cold will wither even her wooden bones if we waste precious time ironing out the wrinkles in your wary curiosity."
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Dustfinger's eyes followed the visions in fire, not entirely understanding what he was seeing, but entranced by the way the light followed Hel's words. Or perhaps it was the other way around, that she was simply explaining what she was seeing rather than conjuring it into being.
Either way, he struggled to understand how all of these creatures could have one father. Clearly, he wasn't human, to produce such varied offspring. And from Hel's description, he didn't seem like a pleasant sort of man.
"Did you grow up with him?" he asked gently.
However powerful she might be, she couldn't have come out of a life like that unscathed. Dustfinger had met many women already bowed low beneath the weight of powerful men by the time they reached adulthood, and only a few that stood tall despite them.
She turned her attentions from the burnt out pit. No fire could conjrue the memory so well as the ghosts that haunted her every waking thought anyway. Hel rested her cheek atop her bent knee as she then blinked over at Dustfinger. She was still a moment before her head unsteadily wobbled in a nod.
Oblivious to the man's confusion, Hel went on to explain but not clarify, "He was doting once. Warm and open. I think the world of him." Think. Think. Thought. She pressed her lips together tightly, admonishing herself for the unwavering heart all her family resented.
He had betrayed them. Betrayed her. And she couldn't bring herself to hold it against him. Not because she was admittedly the most similar to him or because she was so naive as to misinterpret heinous actions.. Truthfully, she didn't know why. By all accounts, she should hate him. But she'd long since given up trying to make sense of her own heart. It's current flowed as mysteriously as the Élivágar.
Hel shivered noticeably.
"Maybe." Eve said. She had little experience with people, but all of the interactions she had did not instill her with confidence. She had seen all of them and well maybe it was because Hel wasn't a human. Though she had seen just the same from others like her or just like her.
Eve approached cautiously. Not that she thought Hel was going to be mean to her, but she was always cautious about new people. A small nod from her as she accepted the bowl. "Okay." She said. She didn't want to do that. She grabbed a spoon as she sat down. She just hoped she didn't have a bad reaction to it.
Hel wanted to stand and watch every micro-expression on Eve's face but this was not her first time taking home a stray. She purposefully busied herself with small but visible tasks about the home: First, she pulled out spare blankets - the nights were bitter and unrelenting in the gallows wood. Next, she stoked the coals of the fire and added another log from the stack set to the side of the fireplace. Then, nothing more left to tend, she dropped her weight into the hand carved oak rocking chair angled towards the fire. She looked down towards the floor, searching with her eyes first, then her hands, for her most recent Nålbinding (similar to knitting) project.
Her eyes briefly rose to catch the flicker-lit shape of her guest before she grabbed a completely new roll of wool and needle. Hel rocked back and forth silently as she began threading the needle and winding the thread around her thumb.
[ ϟ ]—– The words settle in a way that is... unnerving, heated iron in cooling water, hissing softly and shaping something not yet fully formed in his mind.
The tone is familiar, deflection dressed as jest, resolve wrapped in barely-present restraint, something the As had utilized himself, often and recklessly.
' It is,' the retort comes at last, sharp yet shaped calmly, his own deep bass void of any disdain or mirth.
Gaze shifts to the scenery beyond, toward old fields and envisioning halls hiding behind the horizon, where grudges were fed eagerly like fires of a hearth.
' I do not doubt you gave them fair and true warning,' and a breath is released, warm air mingling with its near-icy counterpart.
Concern settles upon countenance, the shapes and lines of features visibly contorting during the change.
' The Jötnar are not a people who heed caution when pride is stirred. Neither are mine, if we are being honest. If it comes to blows, it will not end at your borders. It never does.'
A pause, and voice is adjusted to not carry the worry it so audibly held a moment before.
' I will stand with and for you in this, I hope you know that. But it will disturb the Jötnar and Aesir relation further.. beyond repair perhaps.
"I know what I ask, Thor." Strangled inhale and half sigh speak to that; The weight of action so immense it's consequences ripple throughout realms. She feels so small. It feels unmet, the gargantuan mantle she cannot unclasp from her shoulders. Dusk-burnt eyes stare up into Cerulean, telling more of her thoughts than clumsy mouth ever betrays. She wonders if his large shoulders ache as hers do, beneath the pressure of world-altering responsibilities..
She knows what she asks.
Ire turned outwards, unearned.
A war she does not want but weighs against an eradication they could not avoid...
"It is not what I want but if you stand too long, feet pointed in my direction, eyes staring into the heart of me, my realm.." She inhales shallow and sighs deep. Fatigued. "A war that was already coming or the total extinction of my people.. I.." Bone thin fingers reach for the pendant above her sternum, the only security blanket inprisonment allowed her to keep. "I'm but one woman. I've no oracle, no sage man or woman of wisdom to guide me. I've run down the scenarios in my head until my thoughts fractured."
Unkind ears play games with said thoughts. The horns of war and screams, closer to memory than prophecy. She winces.
"This is the only way, as I see it."
Giants...
He had heard the rumors; he had seen the nests to the north, said once to have been the homes of beings taller than trees. But nobody in living memory had seen one.
Truthfully, he did know nothing of giants, particularly if Hel was implying that she was in any way related to them. He'd heard that they were kindhearted, yet dimwitted, which Hel certainly was not.
It made sense that she would be born in winter, a daughter following several sons. It matched her temperament. But that didn't answer his question.
"But where?" he pressed.
As her words wove a picture in his mind, they repeated in hers. She never meant to invoke prophecy but godly mouths cannot unspeak godly truths..
The dead of winter.. Fimbulvetr's first cold sigh. The youngest and only.. One who stands apart.. Her beginning an end, the quiet whispered warning before the horns.
She remained quiet a while, her stare contemplative and soul-piercing as it ever were. Then she smiled again, thoughts abandoned, "If I told you a name, would it have any meaning to you at all?"
It wasn't that she was unwilling to share but he kept asking, seeking understanding and finding no purchase. She'd already granted him more insight than most receive in a hundred years of knowing her. Her neck slowly craned down towards her shoulder as wild eyes regarded him. His curiosity reflected in her expression but not reciprocated in spoken word.
Mablung watched her crumble to the floor, and his heart sank in his chest. This was wrong; something strange and dark had overtaken her. This was the woman he loved, and it was not. She was never so... small.
He knelt beside her, reaching cautiously for her hand. Not out of fear, but uncertain if his touch was welcome.
"Hel..." his voice was barely more than a whisper. "I..."
Now, his words failed.
The warmth of his skin was made to feel cold by comparison to the fever of her own. Adrenaline flurried through her veins.
Her name, always most precious a sound from his mouth, was the necrosis of her insides. Painful.
She slowly lifted her eyes to him, whole skies and oceans swirling their sunset depths.
She inhaled, sharp but quiet as tears fell and cleared her vision in their absence. She brought her other hand to cover her mouth.
Hel had almost... Almost...
Almost stole from herself moments already too few.
And more than almost borne a guilt she would never shake in her attempts.
The horror spilled out of her eyes and held her body in a vice, too scared to move; Scared that her descent into madness hadn't yet landed.
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Hello Hel, I have some not so good news about your brother and a...hm...related matter that I'd like to discuss with you privately, if you have a moment to spare.
@glynmostyn
Oh... That sounds.. like perhaps my wine cup is too dry?
Out with it, then. Better to know than allow my violent imagination time to wonder.
“Good.” He replies with a laugh, for a moment imagining Hel crawling around on the first floor like an insect.
It’s evident how much Hel relishes in the forest. Váli can see it on her face, in her eyes, in the way her walk slows and muscles relax. And he must admit, he does feel better. Perhaps his sister is on to something with her longing for the quiet of the woods. Though, if Váli were alone, he knows it would only take a matter of moments before the ever-present dread took over. The gnawing reminder that something is coming for him, for them.
Váli stretches his long arms over head, reaching and batting as a low hanging branch. Tempted to steal a leaf or two, but deciding against it for now. “But if mother finds out how far we’ve gone, I am blaming you.”
Like a snake that has shed it's cumbersome skin, Hel straightens as she walks. Her every step, cushioned by moss and leaves, seems easier. As if the dark of canopies above were waters alleviating her gait of body's weighted step.
A caged creature in the gold and gossamer of godly city, she remembers herself in the wilds.
She slowly rolls her head across her neck to meet his eye, a playful grin worn on night-pale face. A single thin brow quirks upward, silent challenge. They both know she'd get in less trouble. And also with what strength she could drag him low should he betray her..
Setting her sights forward, her smile grows into something more sincere. Future trouble or no, she delights in the serenity of now. Without much thought or a single word, Hel leans over and takes her brother's hand in her own before she begins happily swinging his arm between their two bodies.
It is not only the wilderness that brings her calm.
He'd thought it was obvious. He'd thought she'd wanted a servant, a devoté, a debtor. But she still continued to deny that, and she had yet to call in any of his debt to her. He was almost starting to believe what she said.
"You're just...good?"
That didn't quite fit, either. If she was a purely benevolent god, she would choose more than just him to help. Unless she had a whole group of pet projects that she just kept separate from one another, she seemed to treat Dustfinger with a difference.
"You just picked me, just because I was there when you decided to help?"
"Hah-" Came a breath of incredulous laughter. He said it as if it were so complicated - as if it were so simple. "You humans sure do love to ascribe morality to action, don't you?" She muttered to herself, shaking her head against weighty fingers as she stared at the ground.
After a beat, Hel schooled her expression as she lifted her face towards his. Her voice softened, frustration dulled against the curl of her tongue as she replied, "There was no decide. I try my best to offer comfort where I'm able. But yes," She nodded once and turned her fingers up towards the man, "you were there. And I was able. No thought, just raw instinct. I cannot explain it. I cannot justify it. And you, you need to stop overthinking it. "
She wished that words were enough, that he, in all his knowledge-sought memory reminded himself that though her shape is womanly, her breed is bestial.
“Hel, Py loves you she’s just…she’s kinda a bitch. To everyone. She’s always happy when you come visit, always happy to see you, but I just…she wont even come to an art show or to see the twins. She asked me if Nate and I could get married at the house so she wouldn’t need to “be around that many annoyances.” You can’t look at it like it’s because she doesn’t want to see you. She doesn’t want to see anyone.”
"I don't.. I'm not really sure how to put it.." she licked her tongue out and let her lips part as she blinked at him, brows furrowed as she tried to organize her thoughts into something akin to sense on her tongue.
She thought on her journey; How she must travel the realms, in fatigue and absence of spare time to see her. The wrinkle at her brow deepened.
"I guess I just thought her barriers were harder to parse than mine. That it was easier for me to go, not just convenient."
[ ϟ ]—– Broad palm rises at that, settles upon the chest in mock dramatic gesture as if some invisible, nay, non-existing wound was torn into his flesh there, seemingly cut open by Hel's words.
' You wound me....'
And it is drawled out in similar feigned hurt tone, the acting rendered entirely unbelievable by the evident and undeniable amusement softening the rugged features. A smile in return, the sort that was blinding and breathtakingly dazzling, or would be, under different circumstances.
' I truly believe I had earned at least some of your trust by now,' and there was no bite in the remarks, only a calm sort of acceptance. ' Mind you, this was not bribery of any kind, just to be clear. I have simply decided the rules of engagement I should abide to are nonsensical.'
The gleam of her smirk bore a striking resemblance to the sheen of sharp blade. Wounded, he says? A tinge of pride marrs her face as she considers her strike well met.
She speaks nothing more but her face says much. Their play-pretend delights and bemuses.
"Some, yes." She replies - too quickly - as if she wouldn't set the weight of all her beliefs in his palms.. He is the best of their ilk. Not the brightest or the smartest, but the very most sincere. And if conversation were not muddied in jest.. if he asked of her the most, she wouldn't hesitate to give it.
Vibrant laughter steals from pallid mouth. Hel shakes her head slow but endearment cannot be concealed. "You've only now come to realise this?" Soft snickers leave her nose in a bursting breath, "I long abandoned rules of such kind. Stifled and cramped as they were.."
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At a stalemate now, he stood there, watching her. It was not that he did not believe her when she said she needed no comfort - but he wanted to ease his own conscience, and to feel as though he had attempted to offer some kind of olive branch at the start of this arrangement. Alas, it had fallen short.
“I insist —” his words fell short as she bent her fingers back. Point taken, he supposed. He felt his cheeks warm, sheepish and embarrassed, as he climbed back into the bed. He picked up his book again, but did not begin to read, wondering if he should say anything else.
The silence was thick and awkward, and he yearned to break it, but gods, what did he say?
“I did not know you could do that.”
Some small satisfaction welled in her chest as she watched stubborn will relent. Her reasoning was sound. Argument worn thin. A weary smile unfurled on her mouth as she watched him return to the bed she'd rudely compelled him out of.
Better he than she, she decided. Better that he is warm and content.
When there was only disquiet left in her own bones.
"Be kind?" She snickered to herself.
Hel rose to her feet and tentatively wandered just inside the bed area of his their quarters. "Undoubtedly I am not so learned but I try my best."
She swayed there, by the doorway. Fatigue apparent in her slow-blinking eyes. "If nothing else, I would hope their is solice in that. That I mean you no ill will."
Tevildo yowled pitifully as he was held by Hel. Ah, such was the date of princes, he thought grimly, to survive so many tribulations just for this.
Hel seemed to take him seriously, as she brought him back to Molinde's cottage, and to his rest.
Speaking of Molinde, she was outside in that moment and as she saw Hel carrying Tevildo, her eyes widened. "My Lady, please forgive my straightforwardness, what happened?" Tevildo was yowling in pain. "Oh, sweet Morimo, worry not, Molinde will make the pain go away!"
Hel moved in such a way that every step was softened. He would know no more strife than his aching leg allowed. Soon enough they returned to familiar buildings and comfort. She didn't slow in her pace.
As soon as Molinde had asked it Hel answered, "Sweet prince bravely wrastled foul beast. Struck her low and quiet. But lo - he is undone by his brilliance."
She shared something of an eyeroll with the woman as she carefully handed the creature off. "Please see that he is tended. Such valor cannot wither in injury's wake."
