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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Ramon laughs.

'In that case, I hope I've not become a disappointment through all the years that have passed for you, Hel.'

Not that he could ever be a disappointment, naturally.

'I still remember you as you are, don't worry. Not like you said other people think of you.'

"You still burn." Hel says, "Slow-burning coals; you are never a disappointment."

His smile dies a little and he looks away.

'Never used to be this slow-burning, Hel. Things are changing and I don't like it.'

Amazing how not having seen her for a year, he can talk to her and immediately become more honest than he is with practically anyone else.

'But I'll always be the same to you, I think.'

"Everything changes." Hel agrees, brushing his cheek again, "And that is hard to learn, and harder to accept. Everything changes, but you will always be my first friend, my first love." Because she had that crush on him, and it settled into a content kind of love, but the knowledge of it has never left. "However low your rage may go, I am colder and you burn in comparison."

'...love?'

Had he known that? If he had, he'd forgotten. Jesus.

'I don't like change, Hel.' He laughs, again it's short and clipped. 'But I think things will get back to something like normal soon enough. And I don't think you're cold at all.'

"I told you, once. We were drunk at the time. Fyrstur ást, first love. It was a very, very long time ago." She was human sized, if only just barely. "I will, I hope, be here for you. That has been my great sorrow; the loss of those few from here. I have not changed much, it isn't in my nature."

'God, did you? I'm sorry. I forget things when I'm drunk.'

Still, he feels that's something he should have remembered. Nothing to be done about it now.

'I'm really glad you're back. Most people I knew well have gone and I'm not around much to see others. And I'm glad you're out of that place - I remember how much you didn't want to go back. Are you planning to stay here for a long time now?'

"It is alright." she informs him, "The saying was important, not the hearing. Yes. I think I am. There is no pressing need to go back, and even if I only see you now and then it will be far more often than I have seen you."

'I should only be out of the bar for a short time. I've got business to see to in Europe at the moment - after that,' he shrugs, 'nothing. So I'll be around.'

He hesitates briefly before asking.

'Are you much closer to your war?'

"What help I can give, I will." Hel promises, moving her hand in a quick bleßun for him, "I am. It is not close, not by far, but it is much closer than it once was."

He'd almost consider offering to fight for her, the mood he's been in recently. But he's bound to Arithon and anyway, he might be dead long before it comes around. But who knows?

'Are you hoping to get it over with now? It's a long wait you've had.'

"I always have hoped to get it over with, minn ástvinur, but I have grown very good at waiting." Death wouldn't stop her, not in the end, not if he offered. She touches his face again, "What has hurt you?"

'A life of waiting isn't much of a life.'

But it's what it is, he knows that. Theu've talked about it before. She's a goddess and half-dead and her fate has been written for more years than he can comprehend.

Ramon just shrugs.

'Life. Random.'

"Come, sit with me and speak." Hel offers, patting the ground next to her, "I don't have much comfort to give, but I can listen to you and be here."

They have talked about it, and nothing has changed.

He sighs and nods, sitting down next to her. He's not the 'talking it over' type but not talking hasn't got him anywhere and anyway, Hel is always nice to sit with.

'He's King of Amber. I haven't seen him in almost six months. And he's married to some woman. I've got nothing to do and I still can't go home.'

The situation in brief. He hard;y needs to spell out that the crux of it all is that he misses him.

Hel can't exactly toss an arm around his shoulder for comfort, but she can gently lean him against her living side with a light push, "Oh, Ramon." she says quietly. Not in pity, no, but with understanding of just what it means to lose everyone.

'Yeah, well.'

He does lean against her - bar Random, she's the only person he'd do this with.

'We're still technically together I suppose. We haven't seperated. I jut haven't seen him and he doesn't have any time and I can't go to Amber because he thinks someone will kill me.'

And he's half convinced he's sleeping with his wife, though he siad he wouldn't but fuck, how long has it been now?

"And you are used to being the center of the world." Which is not, her faintly slurred voice says, a bad thing. It is merely a thing, and it is a thing which he has not been of late.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ramon has never thought of it in those terms before. It wouldn't occur to him not to be the centre of the world. It's just the way things are.

'I wouldn't say that.'

He sighs.

'I'm just bored.'

"Is there anything I can do, minn kötter?" Hel asks quietly, looking down at him.

'Teach me how to talk with teenagers?'

He laughs and waves a hand.

'I'm kidding, forget it. No, there's nothing anyone can do. I have to fix this myself.'

He nudges her gently in the side with his shoulder.

'Thanks though.'

"You did very well with me." Hel points out, mussing his hair with one finger, "But I am here again, now, and will continue to be here for you."

'You're a girl though,' he points out, with a smile. 'And not one of my nearly-forgotten sons.'

It is, obviously, complicated.

'You're always good to me, Hel. I don't know what I did to deserve the attentions of a goddess but I appreciate it all the same.'

"So I am." Hel agrees wryly, "I have never been a son. But, minn kötter it was never a goddess that you earned the attentions of. It was that you treated me as a person, and for that you deserve all that I have to give.

"Getting my attentions as goddess is far less pleasant."

'...that's a good point.'

Girl or not, he imagines that pissing Hel off in goddess mode would probably be a really stupid idea.

'Speaking of which, do you want a drink? Some chocolate?'