milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Hel is far too large to fit into the bar now, but the rats remember the tall young woman who tipped so very well and information is passed along until, at the last, the even taller, not so young, woman by the lake is greeted with a pitcher of hot chocolate (with peppers), a Jaguar tooth, and a card.

Eventually she'll test the card. Eventually, when she's up to risking disappointment. For now she's just going to look at the precious items she spent so long thinking were gone.

((Tiny Tag: Loki (Marvel) ))

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"So you are, lítill eldur hjarta." Hel states with amusement.

"I used to be a Nobody," he says. "And before that... It doesn't really matter anymore."

"It never really did." Hel says, "At least not to me."

Everything dies.

"That's good to know," he says, smiling again.

There's still something about her that's bothering him.

She doesn't hide, not here. Her face is clearly visible; live and dead.

The left is dead.

She has a heart, but it is to the left.

And dead.

He still hasn't quite made the connection; he has the senses of a Nobody, but a heart of his own to filter them through; it complicates matters.

"So are you new around here, or are you returning after a while?"

"Helgi says that it has been over a year since I was here in person. It has been far, far longer for me." Long like mountains into dust long.

"That happens," he says with a shrug. "I've been here for a little more than a year, myself, as the calendar here goes."

"I know." Hel says with a smile, "I have been coming here since I was under seven feet tall. I grew very slowly. It was hundreds of years the first time I left, and only two weeks here."

He gives a low whistle, his eyebrows rising slightly.

"Been quite a while for you then, hasn't it."

"Oh, yes." Hel says, "But I have seen a friends child, and I have spoken with minn köttur, and I am content."

Axel smiles.

"I'm glad you were able to reunite with your friends," he says.

Friends Are Important.

"Oh, yes. In their way they save the worlds." Hel says, and she means that. Very, very much does she mean it.

She learned so much in Milliways. She could use it in so many ways other than amusement.

"What do you mean by that?" he asks carefully. A part of him is slowly working its way towards... something.

"I am Hel." she says again, and it's the creeping cold of empty old age, alone and unloved. It's the slow fading of minds no matter how everyone tries to stop it. It's the face of eternity, with eternity laughing at you instead of with you. It's the sound of a little girl torn from her mother and exiled from everything by relatives who hate her.

Everything dies. Everything dies, and everything that has died adds to her power.

She is old.

And she is cold.

Only her friends stop her from being the monster at the base of the Tree.

And that's when he gets it.

Cold, and alone, and a dead heart.

"Oh. ...I get it."

"They keep me warm." Hel says quietly, "For I am your antithesis."

"Yeah," he says softly. "Yeah, you are."

Danger, a part of him screams, for her cold, for her dead heart.

"This is Milliways. I will not harm you, fire-heart." Hel states, "You are safe from me."

"One of the reasons I like this place," he admits. Not that it stopped him from hiding for a month, when he first heard of Xemnas being here.

"Besides...I am not a monster." Hel tosses her hair back proudly, "I am a goddess, and I take what the gods of men consider trash. I love them, and I care for them until our exile becomes their peace."

That gets him top smile again.

"Good for you," he says.

"We make do." Hel says with a nod, "I am not entirely displeased with my life."

This is different from resentful. She's very resentful.

"Doesn't mean that you're pleased," he comments.

"Things in Niflheim have a mental life of less than a year." Hel says, "Except for me. I am the only thing smart enough to blink in that entire world. My great amusement is dusting the dead."