Every semi-god had to be claimed by their thirteenth birthday.
That rule, which had been put in place by Percy Jackson five years ago, had generated great relief for the Hermes Cabin, glad to see their overpopulated living quarters suddenly empty as an onslaught of claims were put upon campers who had remained undetermined. Sure, it had been a great hassle for the Hephaestus Cabin, having to build extensions and work with the Athena Kids to accommodate everyone –but they pulled through and everyone was generally much happier now.
Generally being the operating word of that sentence.
.
Hel was a sixteen years old white haired girl who had been recruited mere days before the war against Gaia, though her recruitments was still a sore topic for most. Because, you see, Hel had been on Gaia's side. Not only was Hel weird (white hair, flaming red and golden eyes and obsidian skin –not chocolate, not 'black' as Africans were called, but pure unadultered obsidian black skin stretched over European features, which did not help her in the slightest to blend in crowds) but she was also unclaimed and one of the many 'reformed', as the semi-gods who had turned their coat on Gaia at the eve of the battle were now called.
Hel had no special abilities which specifically branded her as a certain God's decadent descendent, no feature which would allow her to fit into the mould.
Hell. She couldn't even read Greek or Latin –nor did she feel as if she even belonged in either New Rome or Camp Half Blood. She was just an odd ball, and Hel had gotten used to it.
It didn't mean she wasn't bitter. At sixteen, she was the only one to be claimed in camp. Even the newbies which had arrived post-Gaia, those who hadn't seen the horror of war and adverted their eyes from their scars, even those had been claimed by their Godly parents. It was just her.
(Was she such a disappointment?)
.
Hel didn't have anyone to lose in the war against Gaia.
Heck. Even now, she didn't have anything to lose. All that she might have forgone (if she still had it) was her life, and even that no one had been able to reap it from her on that battle field. She had been injured. Of course she had been injured. She had lost the use of the whole of her right side when a boulder-throwing giant had gotten her –and it was what she deserved for switching sides like a bitch at the eve of battle. After all. People like her never got any recognition. Either they switched to the winner's side and they were the filthy little asswipes who wanted a part of the winner's cake, or they switched to the losing side and they became the traitorous bastard, lower than the scum of the earth and tortured until death; because if they had betrayed you once they would betray you again and they therefore couldn't be trusted –and hence needed to be killed. Painfully.
Hel was an idiot, and she deserved it all.
After all. She was a filthy little traitor who had chickened out of her beliefs.
Even though she liked to think she was just an opportunist. A dancer on a line. A lone wolf. Someone who served only herself.
They were all petty synonyms for 'coward'.
.
On her bad days, Hel knew exactly who she was.
She had known since the day she had opened an ancient Rune text book, long forgotten in the library at Camp Half blood –hidden away under layers of dust by the war. Hel had instinctively understood the language, seemingly knowing what the book told and feeling, in her veins, the awareness of her existence.
Hel had had a hunch as to who she was long before coming to camp, and on a bad day, she could no longer make believe she wasn't right.
She had known since the day she had received for Christmas (the last one with her family, before she was brought to Gaia by an eight legged horse) two books, wrapped up neatly in a fiery red paper. One was the Prose Edda, and the other the Poetic Edda –in ancient Norse.
Hel had read them both in an evening.
Hel knew exactly who she was, when she closed her eyes and remembered that for her sixteenth birthday (the 21rst of December, four days before she received the Eddas) an androgynous redheaded man had handed to her a book; the Gospel of Loki.
Her name was inside. Goddess of Life and Death, Reaper of the soul and Daughter of the one and only God of Trickery and Mischief: Loki.
Hel wasn't an idiot.
On a bad day, she knew exactly who she was.
.
The day after the Battle of Manhattan was a bad day.
Of course it wasn't a bad day because she was grieving. She had no one to mourn, no one to lament. She had no one, period.
The day after the Battle of Manhattan was a bad day.
She was lying under that boulder, people having bypassed her to offer help to fallen heroes and semi-gods (because she didn't matter; she was a 'reformed', and they weren't even sure she had godly blood in her veins). She was lying under that boulder, staring at the sky with one eye –the other was too painful to open, squashed under that freaking block of stone that had ripped the life from her right side. As she was looking up (the sky was so blue it hurt her eye, and she was wondering how it could be so beautifully blue when the darkness had just begun to recede), Hel saw a three headed dog near her.
From the way the other people around didn't seem to appear fazed by it, Hel assumed she was the only one able to see it. She would have supposed someone would have rushed over, maybe even shouted or called for help if they had noticed the towering black mass of muscles and fur rippling under the sun. As it happened, the Helhound just strolled through the battle field as if it belonged there, heading straight for her and halting as it reached her head.
She knew him.
"_Garmr."
The dog (it was really just a huge, scary, cuddly black plushie) nuzzled her head with his nose, licking the still living part of her.
It was a bad day, the day which followed the Battle of Manhattan. Hel was looking up at the sky, when she truly felt the weight of the realisation of her being sink in at the sight of her father.
.
On a bad day, Hel knew exactly who she was.
She was Hel. Daughter of Loki. Goddess of the Underworld. Harvester of Life and Bringer of Death.
.
Nobody really noticed as the boulder trapping Hel crumbled when she touched it. Nobody really cared, as she stood up on shaking legs and stumbled, only for Garmr to catch her. Her right side –the one that had been killed by Life, was weak. It was withered and broken, intangible as Hel looked at her father.
"_you are the God of Mischief, aren't you. Loki."
"_and your father, occasionally. Yes."
She snorted a little, looking at the Helhound faithfully holding her up.
"_I don't suppose being my father has anything to do with the reason for which you are here."
"_no indeed."
They both looked on to the battle field, dead bodies littering the floor as souls withered and groaned before her.
"_you are here to make sure I do my duty, aren't you?"
Loki just nodded.
Hel set to work.
.
The first few steps were the worst. It felt like walking on a dead leg (which she supposed it was) and she tripped every few strides she took. However, she soon got the hang of it as Loki handed over to her a long black staff to help her walk.
"_the women over there" she motioned to a group of four blonde women, dressed as warrior and stood above the body of some fallen heroes. "they are Valkyries, aren't they? That's where I start, no? I follow them and reap the souls they don't deem worthy of Valhalla."
"_indeed. They are Odin's envoy, and therefore act in his name. They select the heroes, and you bring every other soul to Hel where they will remain until Ragnarök."
"_what about Asphodel? Tartarus? Elyseum? What about Hades?"
Loki looked around, bending to her ear as his breath ghosted over her skin. For a second, Hel wondered how it would feel to have him as a dad.
"_the time of Greek and Roman Gods is gone. You will be their downfall, Hel. It is our time to shine."
And he disappeared in the breeze.
.
Garmr remained with her all throughout the day. He answered (yes, answered. Apparently Helhounds could communicate –which was ever so useful because she had no clue as to what she was doing.) all the questions she asked, looking at her strangely though never without patience as she wondered how the Hel she was going to send the souls to the Seventh realm –her realm.
"_eat them." had been his only response.
Hel wasn't too sure as to the viability of this method, but she had soon forgotten the problem when the Valkyries stilled at her approach.
"_Hel."
"_Shieldmaiden." She glanced at the fallen boy, her eyes grazing over a Roman. He had been a son of Belladona, she recalled the fire in his gaze when he fell into line at the beginning of the battle. She recalled hearing his cry as he died –at the hands of a harpy.
She recalled.
"_he was brave."
"_and for his bravery he will drink in the halls of the Allfather."
Hel looked away.
She had drawn the short straw.
.
The first soul Hel had to reap was the one of a Titan.
It made it slightly easier for her that he wasn't someone she knew. It made it slightly less personal. Slightly less painful, when his soul rose from his body, wailing and kicking and screaming as she forced it away from his bodily envelope and, almost as if she knew what she was doing, clasped the soul in her hand and squished it. the wails became louder as his hopes to escape vanished, the last cry echoing through the battlefield as he was cast in an ocean of darkness.
Her abode was cold and lonely in the seventh realm. Her home was dark and forlorn –with only the cries of a daunting past the keep away the shadows of death.
The Valkyries stopped to look at her as she allowed the slivery strands of the soul to escape her hold, curling around her skin and drifting away. Garmr's jaws snapped around it, swallowing the last filaments of happiness.
"_if you leave strands behind, the souls will keep on screaming. It echoes through the whole kingdom, reverberating through you and gives you monstrous headaches."
Hel just moved onto the next.
.
Eventually came the time when she had to reap a soul she knew.
The first person she encountered was a girl called Sarah. She had been a daughter of Hecate, one of the many semi-gods which had found no fame, no hope and nothing else but the incessant need to survive in their coming to camp Half-Blood. Sarah hadn't been nice to Hel, not by any length, but the daughter of Hecate had smiled at the 'reformed' when she had been introduced to them, alongside with many of the other traitors.
Sarah hadn't deserved death –but death often took those who didn't deserve it and left those who did alive.
The girl had been skewed in half by a spear, most probably wielded by another semi-god. Her soul was sitting beside her body, silently looking down as she seemed to have accepted her death. Sarah's smoky phantom eyes looked up at her, a sliver of recognition flickering through when they landed on her.
"_Hel."
She extended her hand, and the soul took it, standing up as she felt herself drain away the essence of the ghost.
So that was what Garmr had meant by 'eating'. That sensation to absorb the soul and herd it within, to feel the last slivers of life slip away from the grey appearance and into her, vivifying her.
"_you are starting to remember…" noted Garmr from beside her, looking on at the process.
"_what do you mean?"
"_when you accepted to be the one to bring about the new era, you fell into the sleep of Gods and projected a spark of your subconscious into this world. Now that you are reconnecting with who you are, now that you are remembering the fact that you are not truly Hel, but just a sliver of her mind, merely a thought, you will start to remember things; you'll start being Hel more and more. Your body will begin to change to what it used to be. You'll be able to change form again, and eventually you'll wake up one day as a fully fledged Goddess once more –you'll have Awoken. Until then, Odin asked you to remain in Camp Half Blood."
She stared at her hands, looking at them as people passed them by, unseeing.
She was dead to the world.
"_you are currently in your godly form."
Hence the right side, sterile white and withered and (there were no other words for it) rotting –life in its most primal state– and the left side, unyielding and unmoving, cold and a soft black colour –death for what it truly was.
"_once the souls have been reaped, you'll go back to your normal appearance."
Or as normal as she could manage.
.
At last, Hel stumbled upon the son of Hades.
It had been pretty obvious from the beginning that she would have to deal with him, since he would be on the battle field to 'help the souls pass on'. Hel had no doubt that it was what he thought he was doing; but for her he was a nuisance. Not only could he see her and Garmr (how was she going to explain the huge ass, three headed Helhound behind her?) but he could also feel her current state as a goddess and could without a doubt feel that she was the one reaping the souls.
So meeting the son of Hades was not a good thing.
Hel stumbled upon one Nico di Angelo as she reached the last few souls. He had been preceding her for a while, talking to the souls before she got to them and preparing them to the idea of death. She supposed he did what he thought would help people move on, offering comfort and help to the dead so the living could mourn.
He made her job a little easier, so that was really the only reason why she hadn't absorbed his soul already and carried on reaping.
That, and it wouldn't be politically correct.
Nico stepped back, watching her as she absorbed yet another soul. She was leaning against Garmr, the mass of souls she had ingested weighing upon her as the screams and whispers haunted her head.
"_the more souls you hold, the more painful it is. We haven't had to do a battle field like this one alone since, at least, 1918. The casualties were so high you had to dispatch everyone to help up."
"_I remember. One of the Helhounds had to be brought back in emergency because the souls had driven him mad."
Garmr looked away, aware of the fate of the poor sod. The only consolation Hel had found in the fact she had been forced to execute him when he had gone 'berserker', was that he had been reborn in a new body and held no memory of the… accident.
"_who are you?"
He had a tilting voice. It was kind of warm (she guessed it would have done something to her stomach if she had been in her human form at that time), and when he spoke to her he had a little Italian accent. It wasn't much, but she could hear it in the way his voice sung as he asked, taking on a small melody she had to admit to liking.
Hel ignored him, moving onto yet another soul.
A Hellhound, this time. Not from her realm but from Tartarus, a close cousin of her own companion's breed.
"_when the Roman and Greek myths will fade, to be replaced by the Norse –they will change as well to fit out mythology… Garmr?"
The knowledge had surfaced suddenly, the tidbit of information coming to the forefront of her mind.
"_yes. Just like the souls from Tartarus and Asphodel will come to Hel, and those in Elysium will join the Allfather."
Hel looked back down to the dead beast.
"_his loss makes me… sad."
Garmr did not reply.
.
The battlefield was empty of both living and dead when Hel regained her human form. It was a very smooth and simple process –one second she was a Goddess and the next she wasn't. Her skin had turned obsidian once more, her eyes back to the colour of the Phlegethon as she felt a fake sort of life coursing through her veins once again. Garmr was still beside her, but she could tell they were on two different planes of existence now. A difference in radio frequency. Different wavelength.
"_hey! what are you doing here! Everybody was called back to Camp an hour ago. They are going to burn the shrouds!"
The person who had called to her was on the other side of the battle field, running towards her as he carried on shouting.
"_hey! you are lucky I was doing a last round! We would have forgotten you!"
Hel ignored him, her eyes straying on the blood soaked earth. The battle had been two or three days ago –she wasn't too sure. Her human body was feeling a bit dizzy (probably from the lack of food and sleep) and Hel had a hard time making out the face of the boy rushing towards her.
"_come on! You need to go back to camp."
The person was blonde, that was all she could see. His skin was tanned and as he reached her, slowing down to a jog, Hel felt their voice lace with concern.
"_hey, are you okay? You look kinda pale. Have you slept? Are you wounded?"
She was beginning to have a headache, the sounds of all the souls screaming inside of her echoing in her head.
"_do you have water?"
Her voice was raspy, broken and unused as she winced when it bounced around under her skull.
"_here you go. Hey… are you hurt?"
His hand came to her face, where she felt something sticky roll down the length of it. She brought her hand to her forehead, stepping back as to avoid his arm and when she looked at her fingers again, a tar like substance was spread over them.
'Damn.' She thought. 'I'm bleeding.'
.
Will brought her back to camp as the last shrouds were being burnt. With every toga cast into the fire, a little word about the person was being said. As he walked her past, dragging her to the infirmary, words drifted to her ears.
"_Peter Elaine, eighteen. Son of Demeter and attentive listener to all."
Yet another who didn't make it to Valhalla.
.
As soon as they stepped inside the infirmary's wall, people called him from left to right.
"_hey Will. We need you to help set a bone. A titan swung him to the side."
"_Will, one of the Seven is wounded. He needs immediate attention."
"_we are out of ambrosia. Will, we need you to tell your dad about it."
It was an incessant ballet of calls and groans, patients moaning in pain as healers rushed left and right, running from getting bandages to the girl bleeding from a nasty, infected wound to grabbing a bucket for the guy sick in the corner.
"_Maria. You handle her, I need to help Josh."
She felt herself being handed from the blonde teen to an equally blonde girl who gently grabbed her arm and led her to a corner of the room, where she leaned and sat on the floor. All the beds were taken. Hel rested her head against the cool wall, enjoying the cold seeping into her brain. Her vision was fuzzy and the compress she was holding to her forehead was not helping anymore.
"_what happened to you?" asked Maria in a gentle voice as she noticed the bruise taking over the right side of her body.
"_boulder. My head aches."
Cool hands were placed on her forehead, as she felt a wave of warmth over take her. Hel closed her eyes as the feeling seemed to seep inside of her, some sort of life energy rushing through her system. Garmr beside her growled.
"_she is going to kill you."
Indeed, Hel was beginning to feel queasy. There was too much light in the girl's healing, too much life which contradicted with her very essence and made her even more sick.
"_you need to sit down and munch through the pain –all the souls are currently travelling down to Hel. Your body is, quite literally, a portal. By ingesting them, you are sending them to the seventh realm."
"_so I just need to sit it out?"
Garmr laughed as Maria shot her a worried look. She was talking to herself.
"_yeah. Sit it out."
Hel nodded to no one, groaning before she told the blonde before her;
"_thanks. I'm feeling much better."
That was an obvious lie, since the headache in her brain had intensified with the ministration of the Apollo girl, but Hel was desperate for her to stop and leave her alone. Thankfully, the infirmary was so overwhelmed by the effect of the war that Maria left quickly to help someone else.
Someone who deserved that help.
.
A boy died during the night.
Garmr who was sat beside her in the dark and quiet infirmary rose as his soul hovered over his body, waiting a couple of seconds for a Valkyrie to appear before, seeing the shieldmaden had no interest in the poor boy who died in his bead, he opened his jaws wide and swallowed the mourning soul. In the morning, a shroud would be burnt in homage to the Son of Mars.
And the pyre would burn for another three days after that, fuelled by the remains of those who hung unto life.
.
She reintegrated the Hermes Cabin that night, sneaking out of the infirmary and strolling through camp, mindless of the harpies. Hel was a goddess of the Underworld, not some filthy half-blood with a daddy complex. Or mummy complex, for that matter.
Well. She did have the daddy complex –but it was totally legit. Her dad was awesome.
Over the five hours she had spent in the infirmary, Garmr had had the time to fill her up on many things she had forgotten due to her turning into a 'mortal' being. In such fashion, Hel learnt that she wasn't actually the goddess of Hel, but rather a manifestation of her will. Hel's body, alongside with most of her memories, were down in Hel, lying on her bed as she apparently slept. The girl was just a manifestation of Hel's subconscious, a part of the goddess which she had consented to allow free reign for the time being. After agreeing to be the god's little experiment (for which Hel soon realised Garmr was a little bit bitter about), the goddess of the seventh realm was put under what the Norse knew as the 'sleep of the Gods'. She was basically letting go of her subconscious for a while, allowing it to run hammock and perform a task. When the not-so-mortal Hel would have accomplished what was asked of her –such as the menial task of bringing both camps down (note the sarcasm), she would be reintegrated into the Goddess' full being.
Hel, as the girl was known, as a half blood camper and fighter against Gaia, would be absorbed into the more complex persona of the goddess. She was just the projection of one of the many facets of Hel's personality.
She did not exist.
.
Back to her daddy complex.
Her dad was awesome.
And she may have the tiniest of hero worship, daddy complex and cute little puppy love for the androgynous red head who was never there as a father when she grew up, but always ready to be her friend when she was rejected and cast aside. Loki was the god of mischief and lies (some would say chaos, but it only meant they didn't understand. Her father was not chaos, he was born from chaos, was part of the original fire which spurred on life –but he was not chaos. He was her daddy, and Hel had never been more loyal to someone other than her dad), but mischief and lies weren't his sole attribute. He was a smart man, quick witted and seemingly the only one able to pull the gods out of trouble. Of course, he was often the one to have caused said trouble, but more often than not, gods were all too willing to put the blame on Loki without even trying to understand if the man had really been the one doing the deed. He was an easy target, neither a Vane nor an Ase.
Her dad had lived in the original Chaos, he was a son of the first spark which, upon meeting with the dark abysses of the cold pit, had created the very first life form. His lineage went back to the dawn of time, and Loki himself had been the very essence of what the end would come to be.
Hel was proud to be his daughter.
With his natural penchant for mischief and ease in lying passed down onto her (but sadly not her brothers, who would have really needed some of their dad's smart genes to save themselves from the gods) Hel had also received a natural incline towards darkness and cruelty from her mother, a Joturn –ice giant for those who haven't done their homework. Alongside the paternal ability to turn into their 'chaos' form ( a giant flame, very useful for escaping from an enemy's hold because they couldn't grab them), Hel had been blessed with the ability to whistand the lowest of temperatures –Joturn trait- and even turn herself to ice. It came in highly handy when the heater broke in her palace, because Jashin knew Hel was a very, very cold place.
(It was very confusing for her in the first few days, that her Name should be the one given to her kingdom –or was it queendom? It even confused Garmr, and that was hard to do. He acted like her secretary sometimes. But back to the topic. Hel was the Goddess of the Seventh Realm; Hel. Confusing much.)
It was the lowest plane of existence one could find, only akin to the deepest depth of Tartarus, where the Protogenos of the Pit saw his realm fade into the one of the first primordial; Chaos. Loki and Hel weren't so blind as to fail to realise Hel (queendom) was as much a prison for her as for the souls she kept there –a punishment for her father's crimes. All three of her father's children had been punished for his crimes. Her brother Fenrir had been tied up, his wolfish need for freedom ignored as the gods left him there to wallow in painful hunger and hateful misery. Her brother had turned into a vengeful soul –and Hel was looking forward to the day when he would, finally, be the one to bite Odin's head off.
Her other brother was a huge serpent (with Fenrir being a giant wolf and their bastard half brother an eight-legged horse, Hel was the only one looking remotely human), forced to endlessly bite his tail as he held within him the bounds of the sea of Midgard. Unable to let go, her brother would be the one to kill Thor into a fearless battle.
And Hel?
Hel would kill no one, silently collecting the souls of the fallen as the ship she had built from the nails of the dead would sail into battle, carrying onboard an army of bitter ghosts.
Because Hel wouldn't be fighting on the 'good' side. She'd be fighting on her dad's side –because the 'good' side had never even given Hel a chance. Because the 'good' side had cast Hel as far as they could, banishing her because she was different.
Good was over rated anyway.
.
Hel reintegrated the Hermes Cabin that night, sneaking out of the infirmary and strolling through camp, mindless of the harpies. When she pushed the door open, greeted with the silence of the night and the snores of her Cabin Mates, she was silently pleased to see no one had thought about touching the little corner of the room she had claimed as hers.
Discarding her leather jacket (part of her standard dress code she never bothered to alter), Hel allowed herself to slump on the mattress. The perks of being the subconscious of a sleeping Goddess was that she didn't need sleep.
The downside was that she had too much time to think.
Hel's task was easy on paper, but much harder to put in action. Effectively, she was to replace Hades' role in the Greek and Roman mythologies, silently reaping the souls as to weaken the God of the Underworld. Seeing that the souls were actually where the gods' powers came from, if Hel was to undermine one of them by stealing the souls, she would be taking over the whole of Olympus.
The practical side of it was different.
Stealing the souls was easy; but doing it in such fashion Hades wouldn't notice what was going on and send someone to investigate was much, much harder. She knew from personal experience that his kingdom had already begun weakening (especially with her reaping all the souls from the battle against Gaia), but Hel also realised that as she gained power over Hades, their kingdoms would begin to merge.
And that would mean that she had to find a way to get rid of Hades before they had done merging.
Also known as killing a god.
But how the hell do you kill a god?
.
Garmr was curled up at her feet, something which made a strange feeling in Hel's chest blossom. The Helhound was a bit of a mess, his mahousive shoulder size (one metre fifty) contrasting with the way he was behaving. Although Garmr had three heads (as dogs do), he was the cutest animal Hel had ever seen.
Provided, she was the one who had adopted him in the first place when he was just a puppy.
Hel hadn't been cast down to the seventh realm straight away from her birth. Of course, she had been raised for the first few years of her life by her mother who lived in a forest. It was pretty cliché, with the four of them (her two brothers counted, despite whatever she liked to think) surviving in the wild, through winter and summer, through the storms and draughts, past the beasts and the magic. When her dad had stopped by, one day, he had had the brilliant idea (again, note the sarcasm) to take his three kids with him to Asgard. Hel lived in the demure of the gods until her and her brothers reached adulthood, when the gods began to fear Loki's spawn's parts in their downfall.
Being a kid in Asgard wasn't easy. There weren't many kids around, and most of the children didn't like her anyway. They called her a freak because of her appearance, a child of chaos because of her lineage. Hel became immune to their jests and mockeries, until one day she found a puppy. The poor thing had three heads, and when the crossed she gaze of the six ruby eyes pleadingly looking at her for acceptance… well. Hel felt like she was looking into a mirror.
Loki didn't say anything when she brought Garmr back, that night. Sigyn, his official wife, was a bit reluctant in letting the strange dog in (he wasn't known as a Helhound back then. She hadn't even reached godhood yet.), but seeing Hel was a quiet girl who never gave much trouble… the patient woman gave in.
She was the easiest of the three to deal with anyway.
A few weeks after Hel had taken Garmr in, the hound went missing. Worried a little (he was only just a pup), she went out under the Asgardian rain in search of the black mutt.
It was pelting down, her simple leather clothes sticking to her body as Hel looked through the streets of Asgard. With the moon barely up, and the clouds hiding the meagre light from the stars away, a normal person wouldn't have been able to see where they were going. Hel however was a creature of the darkness, and the freezing temperature having no hold on her, she was able to carry on searching for her pup.
The first thing she heard was a low whine, coming from a back alley of Asgard. For all its luminescent splendour and phantasmagorical architecture, Asgard was a city with many dark turns and twists, a fine example of the trash of the gods. Under the rain, the whine was almost inaudible. The thunder was deafening, and the downpour itself seemed to try drowning all sounds of life as it smashed against the dark pavements in a deafening cacophony. Quietly calling out for her pup, Hel stepped into the even darker side street. Another whine answered her, and as she neared the source of all sounds, the soon-to-be goddess pulled a towel out of her leather bag, hanging by her side and slapping her thigh with every step. She carefully wrapped the small, shivering black mess into the towel, unsure of whether it truly was Garmr or not due to the sick, sticky scent of iron in the air.
"_Garmr?"
Another whine answered her, and shielding the tiny ball of fur with her body, Hel traced her steps back to Loki's home.
As soon as she stepped through the door, Hel made her way towards the hearth and unrolled the towel, placing the pup beside the fire. As she petted his fur, silently conveying her presence and warmth to the little hound, she took the inventory of his wounds.
There was certain irony to the situation, an undeniable anger bubbling up in her core. Hel had never really felt her cruel nature before, uncaring of the others because they were uncaring of her. However, with Garmr shivering so weakly before her, Hel felt the strange cold of vengeance wash over her. As she tended to the animal's wounds, Hel's mind grew darker.
They blinded a pair of eyes? She would make they cry rubies. They cut off two ears? She would deafen Asgard with their screams. They tore away jaw and tongue? She would allow their pitiful voices to gurgle in agony.
They touched her hound? She would make them pay.
So Hel waited. She waited until Garmr got better, waited until the wounds cauterised and the pain dulled to a throbbing ache. She waited until those who had hurt her hound gloated with the assurance of victory, waited until they thought the storm gone –and then Hel killed them.
Oh, of course she didn't actually kill them. It would be too easy, too quick. She wanted them to remember what they had done to Garmr (because he was just a silly mutt nobody cared about, right? Just a freak) and she was going to make sure they shivered in fear every time they heard her name.
The gods she had once admired, Hel now despised them.
After all. No one needs an ear. Eyes are superficial as well. So are balls. And don't get me started on fingers. Tongues are needless –they apparently had nothing nice to say anyway. Oh. And of course, no one actually had the need for toe nails. They were just silly things…
So Hel got her revenge.
Loki allowed her to do it. When he watched her step into the house, knowing what his daughter had been up to and yet coming back with such calm, Loki knew he wouldn't be able to actually be angry with her for her act.
She was being loyal to the only being that had ever given her the affection she wanted. Needed.
But when Hel was called forth to answer of her deeds, when her brothers were pulled alongside her and forced away from the only semi-loving home they had ever known, Loki knew it wasn't entirely Hel's fault.
After all. He was the one the gods feared –Hel's actions had just hastened the godly decision.
Yet, seeing Garmr's sleeping form cuddled at the end of her too small bed, Hel wondered why the Jashin she ever thought she was suited for this task. Without Garmr beside her, the girl wouldn't have even remembered how to collect souls! How was she supposed to overthrow the Greeks if she wasn't in full possession of her powers?
But the questions lingered.
How do you kill a god?
.
"_hey."
A hand on her shoulder startled Hel, pulling the girl out of her musings as she suddenly jumped up from her bed. A brown haired guy was hovering over her, having 'woken her up'.
"_hey, stranger. Breakfast is being served."
Hel resisted the urge to tear the boy apart.
"_I've been in your Cabin for a week, Price."
The son of Hermes stepped back, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.
"_ah, sorry. It's just so crowded I forget who belongs here and who doesn't. You aren't a sibling though… what are you doing here?"
"_unclaimed."
"_what? But you are like… fifteen! All demigods have to be claimed by thirteen now!"
Hel just shrugged, moving at the end of her bed to shake Garmr awake. She was sixteen (or seventeen? She didn't really know. Too early in the morning.), thank you very much. Lewis Price watch her shake the air with a strange look on his face, wondering for a second if the girl was actually alright in her head before he swiftly stepped away from her when she began to speak to something that wasn't there.
"_Garmr. Get up."
It wasn't even a language Lewis understood…
.
Maria was looking through all the breakfast tables, trying to find the obsidian-skinned girl who had escaped her medical all week. Eventually, unable to find the teenager, Maria turned to her half-brother (and head healer).
"_Will? have you seen the girl you brought in after the battle?"
"_which one?" asked the blonde, not looking up from his breakfast.
"_the very last one. Black skin and weird ass eyes."
"_nope, why?"
Maria looked contrite.
"_she left the infirmary without getting checked up."
"_maybe she was just feeling like sleep?"
"_the whole right side of her body was bruised! I bet some of her ribs were broken –she can't be fine. Plus, she had a killer headache."
Will rolled his eyes, aware of how a much of a worry wart Maria was about her patient. Almost as bad as himself.
"_Maria… we are too busy at the moment to be looking for more people." Seeing the anxious look on her face, Will gave in. "alright. I'll ask someone to look for her."
He was rewarded with a bright smile.
.
Will did try to find someone. As he was walking out of the dining hall, he stopped by quite a few tables, asking here and there about the girl. He knew the Athena and Hephaestus tables would be busy with the camp, making new room for all the 'reformed' and setting up plans for the reconstruction of New Rome. The Hecate cabin would have done nicely to look for the missing girl, but they were all really busy trying to find means to magically defend New Rome and renew their own Barrier –so as Lou Ellen phrased it so elegantly, he had to "do his shit himself". The Aphrodite cabin was out of the question, especially if the girl was as odd looking as he remembered. The Ares cabin was helping carry heavy loads for the reconstruction of New Rome, and the Demeter Cabin was pretty much gone trying to salvage the battle field to make it look more presentable than the muddy, red tainted earth it was now. Of course there was a plethora of other Cabins he could have asked, but Will didn't feel as confident in asking for help people he didn't know.
His last try was therefore Nico Di Angelo.
Now, Di Angelo was supposed to be resting, which explained why he was Will's last try. Although the son of Apollo knew he was most probably not going to agree to helping, Will could only hope Nico would actually accept and therefore spend the whole day doing something not too tiring. And when the black haired Italian actually did accept to go looking for the girl (how weird…), that was without really realising he would end up searching for a mentally unstable, sixteen years old, unclaimed and 'freaky' looking demigod. (And then Will remember Nico's check up was due for today –and realised that the boy had accepted in the hope to remain away from the infirmary all day. Now it made sense.)
.
As it turned out to be, Nico would have Hades of a time to find Hel.
And that wasn't even a pun.
.
As soon as everybody had vacated the Cabin of Hermes, Hel turned to her faithful hound.
"_so. If I wanna go to Hades' place… I just go home?"
"_go home? That's a way to put it. You just… how to explain it. You will it. You are a goddess –what you will shall be."
She grinned at that. All that she willed? All that she willed? She banned the perverted ideas from her brain.
So… She just had to will herself in the presence of her awesome counterpart. Doable. Hel closed her eyes, and with a power which wasn't fully hers and yet still right, the subconscious of the Goddess disappeared from the Hermes Cabin.
The underworld was way less cool than her own place –and that was a really bad pun on her part. Hel landed in Hades' little throne room (he had a power complex, no way) seeing his huge ass throne empty in the cold green light. The girl rose an eyebrow, wondering how her counterpart could afford the central heating when she herself had had trouble with warming the seventh realm, until a very clever thought snaked in her head. Tartarus was literally just next door, a wonderfully hot little cooker. Hades simply lacked central air con then.
Feeling totally at ease in the house of the Lord of the Underworld, Hel neared the throne and tossed herself in.
After all. She was Hades –so this throne was basically hers.
Suspecting that the god wouldn't lose much time in barging in (she was sitting in his chair, after all), Hel allowed her gaze to wonder on the (poor) decoration of the hall. Not only was Hades addicted to power, he was also highly egocentric, megalomaniac and totally awesome. The latter came with being one of Hel's manifestations.
"_who do you think you are, mortal?"
Ah, here he came.
Hel gave the man a once over, looking him up and down with little care as to being inconspicuous.
"_I would have thought you'd be… less mortal."
The god seemed startled by the comment for a second, before his anger bubbled up again.
"_just who the hell do you think you are?"
"_you really don't recognise me?"
"_I have little time to lose with pesky humans. Did I fuck you at one point?"
She burst out laughing.
"_oh dear, hun." A jolt of laughter burst through her, as Hades tried to place it back. She seemed oddly familiar. "maybe it's just the way I look at the moment. Mind you, I would have recognised you anywhere, hun."
"_who are you?" after a second of thought, Hades added. "and why the hell are you sitting in my throne?"
"_name's Hel. And… well. I am you."
.
After a little mindfucking session during which Hades ending up sitting on his throne and Hel perched onto the armrest, the Lord of the Underworld had finally understood the principle of existing in many different forms at once, depending on who the hell he belonged to.
"_it's like Hades and Pluto. Which one are you?"
"_I am both!" he replied, frustrated.
"_exactly! Well, we are the same person. Just like Osiris, Mandos and every other God of Death you might want to name."
"_but we aren't the same! You are a girl, and I am a man! And… why the hell are you here anyway?"
"_ah, finally getting to the good stuff! I am here coz I wanted to meet my awesome counter-part." Replied the Norse, sliding in the lap on the man. He pushed her off, and she stood up laughing. Hel smirked his way before her eyes regained their cold, icy quality.
"_all jokes aside, I need to get into Tartarus."
Hades chocked. Surely he hadn't heard her right.
"_excuse me?"
"_I need to get into Tartarus. I know you won't actually accompany me –since Tartarus isn't exactly your realm, but hey. I wanna go there. I even want to build a palace there."
"_but… why? What the hell?"
"_stop cursing it makes you look stupid."
He sent her the most disbelieving glare Hel had ever seen, looking thoroughly disgusted with her.
"_would you believe me if I said I wanted a palace in a warm place for once?"
.
"_so let me get this straight."
Hades had given up in pushing the girl off his lap, currently trying to swat her hand away as she pretended to plait his hair. Whoever had the sick joke to make his counterpart a sixteen years old girl was really, really cruel. And that was the litosis of the year.
Scratch that. Century.
Millennia. Eon.
"_you have a dad. Who by extension is my dad. And he is an androgynous flame. From the original Chaos."
"_you got it, mate."
"_not your mate." He muttered, absent-mindedly. Hel laughed, a sick idea in her head.
"_it'd be like masturbating!"
Hades would have facepalmed if he hadn't been the Lord of Death.
"_dad?"
Two pairs of eyes settled on Nico Di Angelo, standing at the opening of the throne hall and looking at the girl on his dad's lap strangely.
Hades facepalmed.
.
"_so… you are my half-sister?"
As soon as Nico had entered the throne room, Hel had begun spinning him lies. Hades had let the girl talk, wondering why she wasn't telling his son who she really was instead of making him pass for her dad, when he saw the incredulous look on his son's face.
Actually, Nico would have had a seizure if she had said the truth.
"_what are you doing in the underworld, Nico?"
His father had cut straight into the conversation, forcing the attention back onto him.
"_Solace asked me to come and get Hel. Said something about missing a medical…"
The girl rolled her eyes.
"_I am fine! It is their freaking healing that makes me sick. I should just drink from Styx and be done with it."
Nico's eyes widened.
"_so they make you sick as well? I could never actually handle their healing. It made my head want to explode."
"_you said it. Their light is just… urgh. Inconsiderate."
The boy burst out laughing, as Hades watched them talk. He wished he could act like that with his son, he wished he had the same ease in connecting with people.
Hel's hand squeezing his brought him back to reality as a slightly evil light broke in her eyes.
"_so, Nico… I was talking with daddy dearest" the sarcasm was evident "and… is it true that you still sleep with a skelepup?"
The son of Hades recoiled, eyes wide and a blush dusting his skin.
"_he does!" Hel laughed.
"_no need to talk, Hel. You can't sleep without hugging me."
Garmr had been silently sleeping on the marble floor of the throne room up to this point, his cheeky heads curving into smiles as he looked up to his mistress.
"_that's because I'm always cold…"
"_not like you can light yourself on fire" counter-argued the dog. Hel had the decency to act at least embarrassed as Nico was the one to laugh that time.
"_well. at least we know it's a Child trait –because Hazel cannot sleep without being latched onto someone either; generally Frank." A mischievous light passed into Hel's eyes at the declaration, before she turned to Hades.
"_how much do we bet it is a trait we got from daddy dearest?"
Hades turned a nice little tomato colour, to Hel's delight.
.
"_you know…"
Nico was sprawled out on his bed inside cabin thirteen, his shoes tossed on the floor from where he had kicked them off after letting himself fall on the bed.
"_I would have never thought Dad was so much fun."
"_he does look like a stuckup sometimes. But the thing is… it's hard."
Nico looked up at that, brown eyes looking at the girl who was sitting on the obsidian floor of his cabin. In the dim light, all he could see was the mass of white hair and the fire eyes. They seemed to reflect the light of the Phlegethon, boring holes through the clenched hands on her lap.
Her voice had changed, and with it Nico felt the duty to listen to what his half-sister Hel was about to say.
"_it's hard, having to see the people you care about rot in your palace and, although you are able to help them, although you have the power to give them life again; you just can't because if you do, if you give into this desire to bring them back to life, to hold them close again –then you'll just be raising another war."
Her fire eyes looked up, staring straight into his chocolate ones and Nico wondered where along the line this sixteen years old sister had become the woman before him.
"_whereas Zeus dictates the laws only to break them, and Poseidon lives in the light with the knowledge of his allies watching his back –Dad is alone. He was cast down, anchored to the darkest of places by a power too great to be wielded; and all for what? The right to see people pass but not help them?"
She was getting angry. Talking as if the issue was personal, and for a second Nico wondered again if she was truly just his half-sister.
She reminded him too much of Hades to be someone else though.
.
"_our Dads aren't this different you know, Nico."
"_what makes you say so, Jackson?"
The son of Hades was sitting with the Seven, enjoying a small reunion of friend to which he had dragged Hel. Well. Nico himself had been dragged there by Hazel –but that was something he would rather ignore. The golden eyed girl had been ecstatic to meet another sibling, though she was rather confused that Hades hadn't claimed her, despite the fact that she had been widely acknowledged as his daughter.
"_well. Our Dads –yours too, Jas'– haven't been there when we grew up. In fact, they were never there. Because of them, we had a heavy load on our shoulders, and the duty to live up to their expectation. Being children of the Big Three, we have had to watch our steps all our lives. And yet… we still love them. We still love our Dads, even though they don't seem like they love us back."
Nico felt Hel tense beside him, her muscles ready to pounce as the atmosphere in the room dropped a few degrees. Hazel looked at the Daughter of Hades, wondering what caused such anger in her when the white haired girl silently slunk backwards into the shadows and disappeared.
Later on, when Nico and Hazel would enter Cabin thirteen, they would find Hel sitting down on Nico's bed, waiting for them. She would get up as soon as they entered, cutting them before they could ask questions.
"_Jackson was wrong. Our Dad loves us."
Chocolate and gold would cross, confusion seeping through the room as they waited for the rest of the explanation.
"_Dad loves us, and that is the difference."
.
Sometimes, the faith Hel had in their Dad amazed Nico.
She would never get angry over the fact she hadn't been claimed by him, never be upset by the knowledge she had to remain in with the Hermes Kids because her own father didn't want to acknowledge her existence. She would never despair, and that was something Nico admired in Hel.
He'd find her, joking with their Dad in the Underworld. He'd catch sight of her, strolling through Asphodel, looking at Tartarus and wrapping the Shadows like she belonged in them.
And Nico knew it was a front, because no one could be that serene all the time.
Especially not a child of Death.
.
The first time he saw a crack in her façade, Hel had been missing for two and a half weeks.
Hel was by default a very, very inconspicuous girl. She blended in the crowds, was very good at just becoming another nobody, and thus despite her white hair and obsidian skin. In fact, she was such a ghost that it took Nico alone five days to notice she was missing (and Hades knew he was the one to see Hel most regularly.) Of course, as soon as he had unearthed the ghastly news, Nico had rushed to the underworld. It was not uncommon to find Hel there, just basking in the presence of either their Dad, or Persephone: their Mother, mom, mum, mummy, mummikins –depending on the mood, the day, the reason.
However, when he landed in the underworld, it was to see a very surprised (and slightly concerned Persephone) who had not seen Hel since their last visit to the underworld, five and a half days ago.
Remembering that the girl hadn't left with them, but rather had stayed to speak with their Dad of a matter ("special top secret" she had said, her straight face cracking into a wry grin five seconds later), Nico made his way to where his Dad was last seen, hoping the man would be able to enlighten him as to the whereabouts of his missing sister.
.
"She went on business."
Clipped and curt and downright rude, the answer to his question didn't sound right. First of all, his father hadn't looked up from his papers to answer Nico. Then, his Dad had all but ignored him before and after the question, choosing rather to speak to the skeleton warrior next to him and asking the Dead to accompany Nico back to Persephone.
That was the stupidest, most patronising thing his Dad had ever done.
And Hel was back home that night.
That was the first crack in her happy half-sister façade.
.
"_why isn't Dad claiming you?"
Hazel, again. Nico was listening intently from his bunk, the three of them lying about inside Cabin thirteen. Hazel had come to chat with her brother, greeting Hel with enthusiasm. The conversation had turned sour as soon as Hazel breached the topic of Hel's claiming. Her face had closed off, her eyes becoming harder as she coldly replied to the chocolate woman.
"_he has his reasons."
Nico and Hazel exchanged worried glances, as the thought sneaked into their minds (so stilly and illogical they awkwardly laughed it off)–maybe Hel wasn't a child of Hades.
Maybe Hades was covering for someone.
(But the thought lingered.)
.
Hel was growing godlier day by day.
Slowly, as her influence increased in Tartarus, as her palace inside the antique underworld began to anchor her down to the reality, Hel regained her hold on her previous godhood. She felt stronger daily, her powers growing with her aura.
Yesterday, all she had done was stroke a flower with her right hand –it had withered and died. She had stepped in the sun for a second, and around her the shadows seemed to have converged, hiding her, shielding her.
Hel was growing more godly day by day, and she was beginning to fear lest Nico would notice.
.
She didn't know why she cared this much about the annoying twat. She supposed it was mainly because the brat had been beside her when she had first awoken as a mortal, because the annoying little shrimp had helped her, taken her in as if she were his real sister.
She didn't know why she cared this much –cared to the extent that she felt her heart squeeze at the thought she would have to betray him.
.
Hel didn't realise she had touched a parody of love until Nico confessed to her his feelings for a certain son of Apollo.
When he came into their shared cabin, blushing a little, mumbling about some 'annoying ass sunshine' and pretending not to be flustered at all by the blonde kid, Hel wondered what the small clenching inside her chest was.
Gods didn't have feelings for mortal –especially not Norse Gods. That mushy stuff was good for antique gods who couldn't keep it in their pants.
She had much more class than falling in love with a mortal.
.
He couldn't understand why Hel was hurting.
Well. He could. He could see a thousand reasons for which the girl would act as she had begun acting. He could see a thousand reasons the girl had, for which she would make up silly excuses as to not being hungry.
He could see a thousand grudges the girl could be holding, and yet Nico couldn't understand which one was causing his sibling to draw on her skin with a silver blade every night.
.
Nico liked to think he was a good brother. (Despite losing Bianca, bringing Hazel back although it wasn't his right and sneering at Hel the first time he met her because she had been allied with Gaia.) He liked to believe he was good at protecting Hazel and Hel, liked to persuade himself that, finally, everything was going well.
Nico liked to believe his family was happy.
So that is why, when Hel refused to look at him, he didn't pry. That's why, that one time his sister told him she wasn't hungry for the third day in a row, he didn't push her to eat (he thought it would pass. It had to pass. Hel was alright. She was fine now. It didn't matter that she hadn't been eating for a week now. She was fine.) That's why, that one time he caught glimpses of scars, Nico preferred to close his eyes.
When he opened them, the scars were hidden and everything was back to normal.
Even though, six months later, he spotted new ones.
.
Hel soon understood that what had hurt inside her chest was her heart. It had been a very silly little thing, just a whispered word from Nico which made her whole world crumble before her.
He simply called her 'sister'.
As soon as the words left his mouth, she froze. He was just coming in from the outside world, she was lying very still on her bed, trying to work out a way of telling the Italian she was Hades, when the small, insignificant word tumbled from his lips.
Sister.
A vice like pain shot straight up from her hollow chest cavity, drilling through her whole body as if she had been thunderstruck. She froze on her bed, much like someone dead might freeze in their agony, and very slowly tried to exhale.
She felt like she had been shot.
.
The next time Nico went to the underworld, his father looked at him strangely.
Confused as to what he had done, he candidly asked his Dad why he was receiving those half annoyed, half fond glares from him.
His Dad merely shook his head, looking away as he muttered something about girls and their weirdness.
Nico couldn't agree more.
.
Eight months after coming to camp, as Christmas was finally coming around and Hel was near being fully herself again, Hel met Reyna.
Reyna was someone Hel had often wanted to meet. She had been the Praetor of the Roman during the war; but most of all she had seen the one boy she trusted turn his back on her. She had been the leader she needed to be, turning her back on her feelings in order to accomplish her quest –for the good of her camp.
Hel met Reyna, and somewhere inside of her Hel felt whole again.
Because if a mere mortal could do it, then she, the goddess of Life and Death, the bringer of Doom, could as well.
.
Hel was angry at him.
That was the only logical conclusion Nico could come to, as to explain why his half sister did not look into his eyes anymore, why she avoided him and especially why, as she looked at him when she thought he couldn't see her, her eyes had this annoyed look in her charcoal orbs.
He chose to ignore the fact that he had exactly the same attitude when he had tried to deny his crush on one Percy Jackson, a few months back.
.
On her eleventh month of knowing Nico, Hel was able to look into his face and tell him she was glad he had met Will without lying. On her eleventh month of knowing Nico, Hel was able to smile and act as if she had never loved the boy –because she had finally understood that loving the boy was not something that made her weak; it was something that gave her the strength to move past her feelings for him and protect her camp.
On her eleventh month of knowing Nico, Hel was finally able to look into a mirror again.
.
Hel regained her godly body on her twelfth month in Camp Half Blood.
It happened rather anti-climatically; one night she went to sleep as the obsidian skinned, white haired girl. The following morning, a tall bi-coloured Goddess of Death woke up in a small, mortal Cabin inside a stupid camp.
Simple as that.
Hel didn't need to open her eyes to realise what had happened. She could feel the very essence of her being humming through her veins, the dark flow of Death buzzing inside of her. Hel felt like herself again, like who she was born to be. She felt whole.
Hel felt alive.
.
Quickly, she shadow travelled to the underworld. There she met up with Hades, who welcomed her back as if she had been one of his own. She was, now. She was him, him in his Norse counterpart.
As the Lord of Death stood from his throne to embrace her, as he would embrace one of his long lost friends, Hel wondered who would be the dominant personality from the two. It was clear that Hades had prevailed over Pluto, much like Poseidon had over Neptune –but it had also occurred in the past that Juno should prevail over Hera, the Queen of Gods more often found as the Roman goddess.
Hel was unsure of the outcome, but a sort of peace still reigned inside of her.
Whatever it happened to be, she was happy. She was happy, content with where she was and with the life she was leading. Hel was happy, glad to be where she was –and maybe that was the reason behind what happened.
Nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
Or at least, not at once.
.
Slowly, over the course of the day, Hel began to notice changes in the underworld. The place became colder, the configuration of the palace changing slowly as thing started to look less like the Underworld and more like Hel.
She noticed, more and more, that Hades got out of breath often. They would be walking and the God would have to sit down. Whenever the touched, be it simply her holding his elbow as to keep him from falling, she would sap his energy, feeling it bloom inside of her.
Hades was becoming Hel.
When he stumbled, nearly falling to his knees as they were walking through Persephone's gardens, Hel felt fear strike her heart.
She was the Goddess of Hel, not some prissy prassy Halfling who claimed to have feelings. She didn't worry about people, she didn't care if they died. She was the Goddess of death, she relished in it.
Still.
She was fearing Hades' death.
.
It wasn't even a death, and Hades had agreed to it.
It wasn't even a death, because he would just be a little voice inside her head from now on. She would still get to see him, still get to be with him, because he would be part of her.
It wasn't the death of Hades.
It was just the death of everything he stood for.
.
"_Dad! Dad, we need your help. Things are –"
Nico pushed the wide doors of the throne room open, rushing through the strange looking palace as he tried to spot his father amongst the darkness. His words stumbled from his mouth, hurried with urgency and worry. The earth was shaking, the gods were wailing as they slowly began to fade. Things were changing, new gods arriving and claiming to be the bearers of a new era.
Nico had watched Zeus fall to his knees before some redheaded brute, had watched the King of Gods bend under the iron will of a merciless hammer.
Thor. The man had claimed to be named Thor.
A shiver ran down his spine, as he called for his Dad again, halting when he saw a figure bent over the lying form of a man.
No.
Worry coursed through him.
No. Not his Dad. His Dad was invincible. His Dad was awesome. His Dad was…
His Dad was his Dad.
He couldn't die.
Nico needed him. He needed his Dad. Heck. They all needed his Dad. They needed him. He would not abandon them. Nico had faith in his Dad. He had faith in him. Nico trusted his Dad.
He ran forward, spotting a strange woman bent over him as the pieces slowly fell into place inside his brain.
No. It couldn't be his Dad.
Nico loved his dad.
.
"_who are you? Step away from him!"
Nico drew his Stygian Sword, standing between the bicoloured figure and the fading form of his father.
"_what have you done to him? What have you done?"
The figure's eyes were trained on him, a light in them which Nico felt familiar with.
"_do you not recognise me?"
The Goddess (she had to be one, had to be one to slay his dad like that) had spoken with a soft voice, a little tilting at the end which Nico couldn't help but feel as if he had heard before. On another woman. On a friend.
"_who are you?"
The figure's eyes closed in pain, and before he could even think of raising his sword, her index and major gently pressed against his forehead.
"_I am sorry, Nico."
The boy surrendered to the darkness.
.
Hel watched the other gods, watched them as they dined and laughed heartily, the merry atmosphere choking her. Loki was standing beside her, hiding with the woman inside the shadows.
"_they have forgotten their promise already, Hel."
She looked away, down at the burnt land and scorched trees where a fertile earth once laid.
"_why did they have to kill them?" she murmured, her mind seeing again the wailing ghosts of those she had lived with crying out to her in madness, anger and fear.
Not one had recognised the quiet Daughter of Hades.
She supposed that was for the better.
.
"_so what now?"
Her father had spoken with a strange inflexion in his voice, a little malice behind his words. Hel sent him a sideways look, her face still cast into its eternal mask of coldness.
So what now?
Now that she had reaped the souls of those she dined with. Now that she had watched the earth she had trod upon be defiled by her brethren. Now that she had thought her task accomplished, only to have the bitter twinge of betrayal ground her.
So what now?
.
The Goddess of Death felt hollow, as her eyes roamed over the spot where she had slept. The cracked walls of Cabin Thirteen had refused to bow before any other God than herself, only crumbling to dust when, in front of Reyna's disgusted eyes, she had silently stroked the black surface.
The Praetor's black eyes haunted her.
And Hel wondered when she had turned her back on her kin and found a family amongst the mortals.
.
As the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months, and the months to years, Hel watched with washed out eyes the world change.
She watched the world become crueller, colder as her brothers and sisters visited the middle realm, silently toying with the lives of those they belittled. She watched as the Gods became bitter, as their eyes veiled to the beauty of the earth and as they turned to violence and anger.
As time passed, Hel watched the land she had lived in crumble and turn to dust, becoming the recipient of the Gods' wrath.
And with every child mourning, with every song unsung, with every tear shed, Hel missed the company of those she had come to cherish more than she should have.
.
Eventually, one day, Hel had enough.
She had enough of hiding, had enough of mourning, had enough of living this parody of a life.
Hel had enough to pretend they were here with her, when the ghosts of those she loved wouldn't even bear to look at her in the eye. She had enough pretending she was happy when she so clearly wasn't.
So what now, had her dad asked so long ago.
Now…
Now Hel was done.
.
Tired of pretending, Hel did the only thing she could think of to right her wrongs a little; she back tracked.
It was a simple deed, the right thing to do. To simply wish herself away, and she would disappear into the wind, taking with her a kin in which she had lost faith. She would become a mere figment of human imagination, someone that had never existed anywhere other than in the heads of a few lunatics. With a simple swipe of her hand, Hel could set the world back to what it was before she sold it for a place at the council of Gods. (wasn't it ironic?)
With a simple swipe of her hand they would be back.
Hades would be back. Nico would be back.
Reyna would be proud.
.
Hel remembered.
She remembered the first time she had heard Nico's laughter. He had a really nice laugh, it was warm and homely and cute. After that, Hel had tried to crack some jokes, to hear his laughter again.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't –but she tried, again and again. Because his laugh made her smile.
.
Hel remembered the first time she had met Hazel. She had been so worried, wondering how the girl would react to her, if she would be kind or if she was going to dislike her for taking her place by Nico. She was feeling anxious, her palms sweating in a way which made her far more human than she should have felt.
Hazel greeted her with a warm hug and an open heart, and Hel felt at home right away.
.
Hel remembered the first time she had met Persephone.
The woman with the chocolate skin had looked at her with unreadable eyes as she scrutinized the girl her husband had just introduced as yet another one of his illegitimate children.
"_that one's not a mortal, Hades."
The explanation about Hel's nature had ended up with Persephone, Hades and Hel sweaty, in bed, doing things they shouldn't have been doing.
.
Hel remembered the second time she had met Leo (the first he was so drunk he tried to kiss her).
He had had this gleam in his eyes, the one look of utter longing and despair as he thought he was alone. Hel had sat beside him, silently waiting for the silence of the night to envelop them in its cold embrace.
Neither spoke a word, but she came back the following night. And the following.
Until the broken light left his eyes.
.
Hel remembered Reyna.
She admired the girl, which had been a strange concept for her. She had never thought a Goddess could have respect for a mortal, and yet here she was, looking on at the girl with what had to be respect (and maybe a little awe) in her eyes.
Reyna would be granted a place in Valhalla, she had no doubt about it. She was, by excellence, the definition of a leader.
And Hel felt sad at the thought that she would never get to see the girl again after her death.
.
Hel remembered.
And there, in the midst of memories, Hel wondered if they would still remember the cold, quiet Daughter of Hades when her friends would wake up.
.
So, after one last look at the earth, barren and dead under the harsh rule of the Asgardian, Hel allowed herself to fall out of time.
And she took with her, into the folds of Chaos, all those broken Gods she had once envied.
.
Reyna was once asked what a hero was.
The Roman paused, thinking a little and weighing her words before a reality imposed itself in the forefront of her mind.
"_a hero is someone who is able to rise past her mistakes, as to righten the wrongs, be they hers or simply the ones of fate, in the name of what she cherishes."
A small smile made its way onto her normally closed off face, a whisper of a name lingering on her tongue.
Someone like Hel.
She chased the thought away with a frown.
Reyna didn't know anyone called Hel.
.
The thought hit Hel, one day as she was laying in her bed, waiting for the sleep eluding her, thinking about the gods and her role in this masquerade.
God is only Dog spelt backwards.