milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

hel,
ironhide

(no subject)

Hel is outside watching. This, that, the other thing, and everything else. She's very good at watching, and for all of her size she's very good at being unobtrusive. How a she can blend in so well to everything is something only millennia in Niflheim can explain. Regardless, even as unobtrusive as she is capable of being, someone thirty-six feet tall can be a little hard to miss.

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Especially when you're used to being close to that height yourself- or relatively close, anyway.

The black Topkick that made its way down from the mountains today stops dead when the anomalous reading shows up on its scanners.

Long, long ago Ramon Salazar gave a very young Hel a DVD player. She knows what a truck is, although she's never actually seen one in person before. She's also fairly certain they're supposed to be larger...and not generally people in their own right.

"Good day." one of the quirks of being Hel is that her voice, for all her size, is soprano.

Voices and sizes rarely correspond to one another on Cybertron. It's all about the voice capacitor. The truck gives the impression of being thoughtful for a moment; then metal slides over metal, parts rearrange themselves, and Ironhide stands up. "Good day yourself," says the somewhat boggled robot.

"How very interesting." Hel says, offering one hand to him for proper shaking, "I have never seen a hero quite like you. I am Hel."

"And I've never seen an organic anywhere close to your size," says Ironhide, who's wishing like anything that the compression field weren't in effect. "Name's Ironhide."

"My mother was a giant." Hel says with a small nod, "And my father is a god. There are not many giants. For them I am average." Not that she sees them when they're alive. She doesn't see much of anyone who is alive. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Didn't know those were real," says Ironhide. "Giants, I mean. You from Earth, or is it some other planet?"

"Something sideways, I think." Hel says, "My worlds are aligned on a tree, Yggdrasil by name. From Asgard to Niflheim, they rest in the branches and roots of the tree. My family is from Jotunheim and Muspellheim. I was born on Midgard, the world of Men, but taken from there by the Aesir and exiled to Niflheim, which I now rule."

"Can't say I know any of those names," says Ironhide after a bit; there aren't any Asatruar serving at Autobase, and he hasn't bothered to dig into human myths. "That's a literal tree?"

"It is indeed, and a long, long way down." She fell for years. It's a good thing she doesn't need to eat or drink. Her gloved hand pushes some of the hair which always escapes from the braid back absently.

Ironhide shakes his head. "huh. Must be some universe you're from. I don't know if there'd even be a way of anything that big existing in mine."

"I do not know." Hel says with a one-armed shrug, "As is obvious, there is much magic in my universe." She turns, at that, so he can get a good look at the left side of her face.

That's kind of... yeah, it's kind of disturbing, but to be honest, a bridge or train trestle half-corroded along all its length would probably put Ironhide further off zero point. "Yeah," he says, scanning the offered side thoughtfully. "You don't see a lot of that in humans."

"Men are different." Hel says, "Small, and weak, and breeding like rabbits. Their magics are as weak as the rest of them, and yet they are indomitable. I do not like them much, but I do not dislike them either."

Ironhide grunts in agreement. "Some of 'em aren't too bad," he grudgingly allows. "I'm still getting used to most of 'em. Only known the species for about a year now."

"I have known them for a very, very long time." Hel says quietly, "All those not heroes pass into my halls, in the end. Everything dies."

"Huh," says Ironhide. "It's different for us." He pauses, and adds, "Not that we don't die. I mean it's different what happens afterwards."

"You would not be one of mine anyway." Hel says, in the tone of voice of someone who just knows these things, "You are a hero. One who will die in battle, barring gravest of accidents."

Ironhide would lift an eyebrow, if he had them.

"The cannons gave it away, huh?"

Hel snorts a little laugh, "No. I do not see anything that I can recognize as cannons; Niflheim is somewhat isolated. I see it inside you." she reaches out with her right hand and points to exactly where the Spark rests, although she keeps quite a distance from actually touching him.

"... huh," says Ironhide, a little taken aback. "There's... not a lot of people who know what's there."

"I am Hel." she says, "Knowing that is a large part of what I am." The various gods can put their being into their voices. Hephaestus sounds like forges, for instance. Hel makes an effort not to sound like what she is.

But when she lets it into her voice, as she does on her name, it is metal aged to the point of simply falling apart, and the creeping pressure of so many memories that not even the Cybertronian mind can deal with it, and the last sputter of a spark that simply wore out.

Now that's unnerving. Ironhide's only heard anyone ever sound the remotest bit like that once before: long, long ago, when old Kup first told him the story of the Fallen- the first Cybertronian ever to die, as the entropy that had crept into the system became too much for the living mech's form to take.

"... I don't think I envy you."

"You should not." Hel agrees, smiling down at him just a little bit, "It is hard to be Hel. I would not trade it, though. I am as I am, and I have been as I am for a very, very long time. I would not know how to get along as anything else."

"That sounds familiar," says Ironhide. "I changed function a long time ago. I don't know if I'd ever go back now, even if I could."

Hel nods at that, a wry smile touching the living side of her face, "I admit, I have nothing to go back to. I have always been as I am." then, after a pause, "Shorter, once, but not for eons."

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