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The Vala looks much improved.

Well, at least where his face is concerned. A full day's rest and the bruises have healed, and his lip only has a small cut in it.

Can't say the same for the rest of his wounds. But no one can see those, and he is careful about moving.

At the moment, he is sitting in a booth -- stiffly sitting, must be careful of the stiches ... he's a bit afraid of Martin -- sipping tea and reading a book.

He would not mind company.

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"I like the lake. No little bitty people to trip over."

She allows herself to be led, but looks toward the door with longing,

"'N all the leaves. Bright red...I like red. Ramon and I had some. Said I'd make him a sword. Don't like tea. Can't taste it."

He remembers also what his mouth tasted like after a bottle of Atlantean.

"Hel, I would be surprised if you could taste anything right now. The tea is more for me than you."

The Vala helps her to sit -- making certain she is as comfortable as possible -- then slides into the booth across from her.

"Ramon has gotten you intoxicated. Did he become so as well? And why would you make him a sword? He does not strike me as a man who would use such a weapon."

She leans against the wall and sighs,

"I can't taste most things, ever. Could taste this. Was pretty...sparkly, like sunlight. Miss the sun, in Niflheim. Miss lots of things down there."

Then she nods, slowly and with a faint sigh,

"Uh huh. Drunk 'nough to lie to me. 'S a pretty lie, though. He wanted it. Gonna learn."

"I know what it is like to not have colour and warmth."

Pauses.

"What did he lie to you about?"

"So long..."

She says quietly, wrapping her arms around herself,

"Sometimes, when he was feeling in a good mood, Fenrir? My brother? The wolf, not the snake. He'd let me snuggle up with him. I loved that. So warm. Jormundgand would too, but he wasn't warm."

Then she looks up at him,

"Said I was beautiful. 'S a nice lie, but it isn't true. 'M kinda nice, sometimes. But not beautiful. Beautiful is a skin thing, and I'm not. Not not a skin thing, I have that. Just not beautiful."

She doesn't cry. Crying means that you haven't internalized the situation. Her living eye is as dry as her dead one,

"Should have been. Would be if I wasn't half dead. But I'm not. Better if I were all the way ugly. Wouldn't matter as much."

He tilts his head.

"Hel, Ramon is a lot of things, but he is not a liar. And I agree with him. You are very beautiful. Beauty is not only a skin thing. It goes far beyond the skin. If you are an ugly soul, it shows. But you are kind, very sweet, and it shows. Therefore, you are lovely to behold."

Námo shifts to come sit by her.

"I do not lie. I think it is a silly thing. And Ramon would not lie about something like that, either. To toy with another is wrong, even if it is in the best of intentions."

And that was a hard lesson to learn.

"That's not the same!"

She'd wail it, but by this point he's sitting next to her and she droops until her head rests on his shoulder and she's somewhat muffled,

"Just look at the Valkyrie. Should'a looked like that. Almost do, and its not fair. And I'm huge, the only part-giant here. Ever'body but you is miles shorter than me, and you're shorter too and I feel awful 'cause I look down on everyone."

Okay, now? Now she's crying. Only from the living eye, though.

A crying death goddess is not something the Vala is accustomed to dealing with.

But he does as best he can. He slides an arm around her, pressing close to her and offering what comfort he can.

"Hel," he says softly, bestowing a kiss to the top of her bent head. "It is so much more important to be beautiful of spirit than of body. And that is not saying your body is not beautiful -- it is because it is the form that your lovely spirit lives in. Fair is a myth. Something people wish for, but never really existed."

On one level, she is a goddess and understands that.

On another one, however, she's a physically imperfect teenage girl who was thrown away by her relatives for something, and if it wasn't for how she looks it must be, must have been, because she's evil.

They are the gods, after all, and even if you hate them...they are the gods.

So she just cries, drunk and unhappy and unloved.

So Námo sits with her, rocking and softly singing, his voice lyrical and quietly thrumming with power.

It is all he can think to do.

Eventually her crying comes to a halt (and if nothing else, at least she doesn't turn into a mess when she cries. Its a small thing, but important) and she sits up again,

"Sorry. 'M really drunk. Should probably go outside 'n leave you 'lone."

"You do not have to leave because you are drunk. Sometimes the simple pleasure of someone's company can ease sadness. You did that for me just the other day, when I was hurting so much I could have simply left."

He smiles sweetly at her.

"'M being stupid. I got your tunic all wet, and you're still hurt. Its hard to watch."

She may have changed the subject, some,

"I love the color an' I have things to do now that I wouldn't 've' had if I hadn't come back, but its so hard to see everyone having so much."

He strokes her hair gently.

"It is not an issue, Lady," he says. "My wounds are fine and my tunic shall dry."

Still he holds her.

"Aye. It is hard. It pains me to know that once I leave here ... well, let is be said I do understand. As much as I am capable of understanding and not being you, meldis."

"I don't like this. Feel like I should go back so that I can maybe forget in a thousand years or so."

But she doesn't move because she can't think how long it has been since she sat with someone anywhere near her size.

He ponders his words for a few moments before he speaks.

"I do not think that either of us could ever forget what it is we have learned in this place. Milliways changes us. We have very little choice in that. Taken from our natural places, we are altered."

Námo smiles.

"But I do not think it is all bad. I have met you, have I not? And you have met Ramon. Friendships have been forged. For the time being, you do not have to return to your home, I do not have to return to mine, and I think we should both enjoy this small amount of happiness while we can, no?"

"Long enough and you can forget anything."

She, for instance, barely remembers her mother's face or the smell of Jormundgand's scales.

"That I cannot help you with, meldis. While I have my brother here, he is ... much changed. It brings me pain now to see him."

The memory of sharing a booth with his brother -- a child in form while he was a cat -- burns inside him. The pain is palpable to him.

"I wish I could help you with this."

She nods, then presses her hands to her eyes.

"Sorry. I'm a weepy drunk, I guess."

He chuckles, kissing her temple without thought.

"'Tis better than landing in someone's bed. Weepy now is far better than weepy in the wake of a very big mistake."

She's a teenage girl who has never been so much as kissed. She just shrugs,

"I don't sleep."

"Sleeping is not the only thing that occurs in beds, meldis."

And he does not elaborate.

"I did not sleep until I became a cat and learned how. Can you shift your form?"

"If I could, I wouldn't look like this."

Her voice goes dull and pained,

"And I haven't done anything else in beds either."

Námo resists explaining -- as was explained to him -- what goes on in beds. Or on moss, for that matter. She seemed very young, very sweet, and very drunk. Now was not a time to discuss such matters.

"Well, I am sure you will find such opportunities here, Hel. There are opportunities for all sorts of trouble in Milliways," he murmurs.

She knows about sex. Loki is her father, it would be hard not to know about sex growing up in a house that had him visit. Norse homes didn't have terribly many walls.

"No, I won't."