milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Current Music: "Myth" - Delerium

(no subject)

[OOC: A day or two after this]

Somehow he got here.

How Niall arrived he doesn't know.

Suffice to say that he is here.

Sitting at a table.

Honey brew in one hand, and the other fiddling with the new gold earring hanging from his left ear.

Now and then a hand will slide up his arm to remind him that the lir-bands are as real as his earring is.

And Serri?

Well he's at Niall's feet, hoping Niall will drop him a leg of moose.

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All along he's been talking to a goddess... Till now he'd only taken her for a girl not that much younger than he himself was.

Gods...

And brother to a wolf and a snake too... Is that why Odin hated her this much? Did he have something against wolves and snakes?

I should hope not lir; I would not like to meet a man - or a god - who hates wolves so much.

"But if that's the way you look, and there's nothing you can do about it, why should he cast you out? What possible threat could you pose, even as a goddess?"

It is the same anywhere lir. There will always be those willing to shun those who are different, Serri said pointedly. Even Gisella cannot help her own defects, yet too many cast her aside.

Are you trying to tell me something?

More like hoping you'll take valuable lessons away from all this when we return to our world.

"I don't know. I only ever saw him when he told me that I was a monster. He threw Jormundgan into the ocean, they took Fenrir away, and then he threw me down."

Years are twisty things. Developmentally, she is a little bit younger than he is. As far as years? She doesn't really know. Immortals don't age normally.

"I'm sorry."

She's not sure why she's apologizing, 'though she's got something of the idea that it is for making him see her.

"That's cruel," Niall says with sincerity. "To throw out one's own kin like that. And you can't do anything about the way you look either..."

I hope you will be as kind to Gisella as you are to this goddess when we return.., Serri interjects, intending to make his point heard.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for Hel; it's how you were born. There's nothing to be sorry about."

"Thank you."

She murmurs it, with a flicker of smile. That's what her father and brother keep saying. Hel isn't quite sure, but she's trying to believe the people who speak to her.

"I am trying to keep from being bitter."

And she's a little awkward, not knowing how to change the subject away from the topic of herself.

"As long as you have friends, you'll find it easy to keep from being bitter about how Odin has treated you."

Niall doesn't know how to change the subject either, but Serri decides to take a little initiative of his own.

He gets up and nudges Hel's left hand, trying to give her comfort even though he can't speak with her at all.

But then, Hel is a goddess. She might yet find a way to bridge the gap...

"That is true."

She smiles a little, which becomes a larger one when Serri nudges her hand. One of her brothers is a wolf, and she sinks gracefully to the ground in order to give him the scratching and petting that such a noble animal deserves;

"He really is beautiful. How did he find you? I know your gods send him to you, but there must be a story behind it."

She's mostly a goddess of dead things. And very young. If she may, someday, be able to speak with animals...now isn't the day.

Serri murmurs louder, appreciating the good petting he's getting. This woman - no, goddess definitely has a way with animals. Especially wolves.

"I'm not sure how he found me, but I know how I found him."

He pauses for a moment; the story is long and complicated. And thus in need of considerable truncation.

"Well, what I know is that one night I felt empty - beyond empty - and I left the castle I lived in. I had to get out; I had to. I couldn't stay inside any more. And I stayed outside, in the forests surrounding my home.

"Out there I ran into someone who I knew meant me nothing but trouble. Ceinn. He and his friends used the Cheysuli gift of coercion on me, and they made me think I had a lir and that my lir was dead."

He shudders; the memories are fresh and painful.

"Well, when a warrior's lir dies before he does, he becomes an empty, soulless shell of a man, and as life as such a man is unthinkable, he instead performs the death ritual by going out amongst the beasts unarmed to meet his fate.

That's what Ceinn did to me."

Serri stops murmuring, but he remains to be scratched, ready to offer his input if needed.

"But it was then that Serri had found me. He found me and he helped to break Ceinn's spell on me. I owe him much; I'd be dead if Ceinn had succeeded."

Again a pause. And a drink from the now-cold cup of honey brew. He's a bit thirsty from talking as much as he has.

"In some ways, that's how a warrior finds his lir. He suddenly feels himself empty yet full of a great need to go outside, to find that which will make him whole; body, mind and spirit. And he stays out there until he finds his lir.

Lir-sickness they call it. When a man becomes so consumed with emptiness he has no choice but to go out in the forest and find his lir."

She listens quietly, scratching and petting Serri.

"They must have feared you very much, to pervert something as important as this bond you and Serri share."

The balanced words are measured out carefully as she thinks about the story,

"If they just hated you, I think, they would have found something else. May I ask what became of Ceinn?"

She would never admit it, but she's hoping that Serri killed him. Growing up with Fenrir left some probably indelible marks with regards to Hel's understanding of lupine reactions, and she has never liked the thought of injustice.

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