She was the first Mjolnir to step foot anywhere near Death for over two centuries. Bad blood, her mother had said. The Mjolnirs found those who would wield them on their own, no need for a God that was not theirs telling them whose palm they were to flock to. There was always bitterness in the stories, too.

Marie knew something had happened, all those years ago, but no matter how deep she went digging, clumsily reading over the ancient letters of a tongue that had morphed, she could find nothing. A theft, a fight, a quarrel. No details.

She goes to America blind to the past and trusting.

When she arrives at the steps of the Death Weapon Meister Academy, her hair is braided. 'Like your ancestors,' her mother had said, eyes tearful when she kissed the top of Marie's head. 'Never forget that.'

The Swedish was so sweet in comparison to the harsh English of Nevada.

Marie missed home. She wanted to get back on the plane immediately, she was twelve, she was scared. She had two bags to her name and a single pair of heeled boots with fur on the inside that she wore the entire time, regardless of how hot Nevada was.

She was there to smooth over bumpy roads: at least, that was what she heard, what was said. She had no job but to be herself and the rest would fall into place. Some tried to tell her it was to help her control her powers, rare, precious things that told of the blood she had in her heart of a world once gone to her family.

She was the first to turn into a hammer in over four generations.

Bad blood or no, she was there and she needed to be, and at least Death could know that the Mjolnirs were willing to trust him, once more. When she stood in front of him for the first time, head lowered slightly, braids rumpled, sweating in her shoes, he seemed nothing like the vengeful depictions she'd seen in the story books. Instead, almost fatherly, he told her, in broken Swedish, that she should make herself welcome.

"Make yourself at home."

But Nevada was not home. So far from there, back in the place she could call her own, there was always frost in the air and a crunch beneath her boots. In Nevada, nothing is solid. The very earth moves beneath her feet, the sand finding no stability. The air is arid, and if she breathes in too deep, she does not get the familiar chill in her throat: instead, finding nothing but dust.

Nothing is as she is used to. The class she is in, not combat, yet, but English, teaching her how to pronounce words that are not her own, has no face she can call friend. In the corner, a girl the teacher always calls Kamiko sits, with a girl Marie thinks is named Azusa, talking with a few others in a separate language. At the other side, a similar story.

But Marie is alone. She feels like she's from a land of silence, of clipped tongues, of no words she can tell anyone else. She tries to speak to her teacher in Swedish, only to get the apologetic look of a person who could not understand.

She learns to talk in smiles, picks up words, learns fast. She calls her mother every night. The lilting voice she grew up with was such contrast, such sharp antithesis, she cannot help but feel alone.

Even months later, she does not feel comfortable. The language is new and clipped, but there. Somewhere. Lodged in her throat. And Kamiko, now Kami to her, laughs about homework, and speaks with fire in her hands, gesturing wildly.

What Marie cannot understand through speech, with Kami, at least, she can understand in gesture and passion alone.

And she walked her to her dorm-room with Azusa, the two of them knowing how easily Marie can get lost. How directionless she feels, how off-balance the entire world had become to her.

Every day but that day. Kami had detention for bloodying a boy's nose after they tried to put their arm across her shoulders and Azusa was in the office for a meeting regarding her becoming part of the rotational program. The room was in the school. She could manage on her own, couldn't she?

And yet, the dungeon stretched for what felt like ages. Nothing but flickering lights and dampness, making her move faster and faster, hoping that she could find her room eventually. The corridors yawned, darkness in their corners and creases, their bends.

That is how she sees him, the boy. She wouldn't be able to miss him in the darkness with how stark he stood out against it, dressed in all white.

He forces her to stop, something in her chest stuttering.

It was the hair: the color of snow she remembers, when it had first fallen, not yet coating the dark earth completely so that the gray broke up the silvery flecks.

Nevada never got snow. She forgot how much she'd missed it.

He must have known she was there; her footsteps were so loud with the click of her boot, but he takes his time in turning. Instead, he only, lazily, flicks his eyes over, looking somewhat curious.

Something must have morphed on her face, because his brows come together. But she is too busy looking at him, looking at the eyes that are green as the river she once knew, green as the half-dying grass was beneath her feet in short summer when she was still with her family. He had eyes nothing like the springy grass of Nevada, nothing like the fresh flashes of leaves on their trees.

He looked like…home.

And in the darkness of the catacomb she has found herself in, in the foreign edge of the school, the foreign edge of the world, she feels just the tiniest bit less heavy.

Written for Day 4 of SteinMarie Week 2k15: Mythology