A HELA HALF-ROTTED STORY: HELA'S SLIPPER

by Atana

Two days ago, Loki the Trickster had departed Asgard to tend to the well-being of his son Jormungand – left floundering in the seas of Midgard by Allfather Odin – and had left his daughter Hela in the care of Thor and his wife Sif for the duration.

Thor had not been Loki's first choice, of course. After all, he was the one who had sent his hammer smashing into Angurboda's hall when he and Tyr abducted Loki's children from Jotunheim some months ago. Mindful of his twelve-year-old daughter's feelings and the fact that Angurboda was still missing and presumed dead, Loki had tried his best to find another babysitter among the Aesir other than Thor the thunder god.

Bragi – the god of song and saga – taught the children of Asgard in his little school and did not mind watching her. His wife Iduna, however, had voiced the fear that the girl's presence would blight her golden apples of youth, and woe to the gods if they were spoiled! Freyja told Loki that she would rather throw her prized necklace into the deepest well in the Nine Worlds than host his malformed child, in spite of the pleadings of her daughter Hnossa (who, to her great credit, had befriended the lonely girl and defended her against the taunts of the other Asgardian children). The other gods gave Loki reasons ranging from the fact that Hela turned their stomachs to the fear that she would bring lingering death and decay into their very homes. Others just came right out and told him that his daughter would kill them, on purpose or by accident, and that was all there was about it.

And so – Thor's home it was.

Hela didn't mind, really. She had not told her father that she had a raging crush on Thor's stepson Ullr – what young girl would, after all, tell her flighty and imprudent father such a private matter? Particularly since no one in the Nine Worlds trusted him in any capacity?

xxxxxxxxx

Hela, Ullr, and Hnossa sat beside the entrance to the Bifrost, the rainbow bridge that connected Asgard to the other Eight Worlds, and spent their time gazing at its mighty expanse and weaving tales among themselves as children do.

Hela sat with her usual heavy clothing covering her blighted half, scowling for all she was worth at its guardian Heimdall. She knew he did not like her father, and half suspected that he had supplied Allfather Odin with enough information for Thor and Tyr to abduct her and her brothers. Her sour looks had no effect because Heimdall ignored the children as resolutely as he ignored anything that might detract him from surveying the worlds for any threats to the Aesir.

"Why did your brother turn into a snake?" asked Hnossa. Her question was innocent; her mother had never told her about shape-shifting and she knew little about it.

Hela sighed; the veil covering the left half of her face trembled slightly with her exhalation. "The boys always liked to play wolf and snake at home," the girl said. "Father is a shape-shifter and he taught them."

"Your father changed into a girl once, didn't he?" Ullr joshed.

She rolled her eyes at him. "I suppose so," she sighed. "And a horse too. They say Allfather Odin's horse Sleipnir is his son, but nobody will let me go near the stables to say hello." She shifted slightly, making herself more comfortable. "But that was when he was a girl horse, anyway. I don't like to think about it. Anyway, when Thor and Tyr brought us here, the boys changed into their animal forms to scare the Aesir."

Ullr and Hnossa exchanged wide-eyed glances. Their parents had told them how Jormungand had shot up higher than the Hall of Valhalla in his serpent shape, dripping venom over the ground and leaving hissing craters, and how Fenrir's howls had been loud enough to cause the gentle people of Asgard to cover their ears as he morphed into a wolf three times the height of the tallest god in the city.

"Once Odin saw them in their shifted forms," Hela continued, "he forbade them from changing back. Ever. Father has gone to see how Jormungand is surviving in Midgard's sea. After all, he is really a boy and not a snake. I wonder if he eats what a snake eats, or what a boy eats?" Hela dropped her head onto her knees and sighed again. "I wish I could shape-shift."

Again, Hnossa and Ullr exchanged furtive looks. Neither wanted to broach this subject with the sensitive girl. Mindful of the silence, Hela Half-Rotted looked up at them and read the questions in their eyes.

"I can't shape-shift. Father tried and tried to teach me but I couldn't do it. My mother told me that no sorcery in the Nine Worlds can change me from what I am. Believe me, she tried!"

Hnossa lay a gentle hand on the Jotun girl's right shoulder.

"Father says it's fate. Back home, everyone accepted me but here I am considered a hideous monster. I wish I wasn't," Hela sighed, blotting a tear with her sleeve. "I hate looking the way I do."

"You don't have to wear that cloak and veil around us if you don't want to," Ullr suggested. "You're our friend with or without it."

Hela looked at him sharply and the sorrow in her glance pained the boy. "If you saw my other side, you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me as you are. You would be all the way down the street by now. I'm – horrible. I can't see or hear on that side. I can barely raise my arm and my leg is weak. And I will be embarrassed to death that you'll have to help me to my feet when we leave here!"

Both friends were surprised at this small outburst. Hela rarely shared her feelings with them, or with anyone for that matter.

"I wish I had wings so that I could fly across the ground!" Hela sighed, then once again dropped her head onto her knees. "I wish I was a Valkyrie. Why can't I be a Valkyrie, I wonder?"

At that moment, Hela looked at Heimdall's face. For just the flicker of a moment, she thought she saw something like understanding.

"My mother is queen of the Valkyrior," Hnossa said. "Maybe I can ask her for you."

"Don't bother," Loki's strange daughter replied. "She'd sooner kiss a frost giant than give me wings."

XXXXXXX

The next day Sif sent Hela to the palace of Tyr, the god of war. "I'm not sure why he wants you there; have you any idea?" Sif inquired.

"Not at all," Hela asked. Her heart was in her throat; perhaps the god of war had orders to do away with her after all. She wished Loki was there for her. He rarely was.

Ullr was happy to help her down the steps of Thrudvanger and onto the broad golden main street of the city of Asgard. They hadn't far to walk as Tyr's palace was nearby. He hardly noticed the clopping sound of Hela's cane or the slowness of her gait.

"Ah, children," said the god of war. "Come this way into my stable." Once they had followed him and had been comfortably seated, Tyr smiled and tossed Ullr a horseshoe for him to play with. "I'm not bad at fire-craft," Tyr stated. "You might even say forging is a hobby of mine. I also excel at leather-making. It occurred to me, young Hela, that if I can make shoes for my horses I might be able to fashion one for you – one that balances out your feet so that you can walk more easily."

Hela stared at him with her exposed eye. "Why would you do this for me when you snatched me from my mother's home?"

Tyr shook his head. "Well, you might say orders are orders, and I carried them out as a son of Allfather Odin, but it would be a lie for me to claim that I enjoyed it," he replied. "I see how you limp. And as fancy as that cane of yours appears, it seems to be splintering against Asgard's cobblestones."

Ullr picked up the cane, the head of which was carved with two ravens, and examined it. It was true that it was beginning to split on the end. "We can't have that, Hela," the boy said. "You'll fall flat on your face and have to go see Lady Eir to get patched up again. I know how much you hate that."

Hela burned with shame at the memory. Her father had taken her to Eir – one of Queen Frigga's handmaidens and the best healer in Asgard – to see if he could cure her of her afflictions! What an idiot that man was! She remembered shutting her eye tightly so that she would not see the horror in the woman's eyes. Of course, Eir was as kind as she could be to Hela, but young girls of all Nine Worlds are prone to feelings of embarrassment and self-consciousness and Loki's daughter was no exception.

"So, girl," Tyr said confidently. "Stand for me and show me that foot, and I'll get down to crafting you a custom slipper that you'll wear with pride."

Hela was horrified. She hid her face with both hands, the left one covered by the extra-long sleeve of her gown. "I can't let you see it," she whispered.

"Ullr, why don't you go inside and see if my wife has bread and new butter for the two of you?" Tyr commanded. The boy went, and quickly.

"Now, little Hela," the war god continued, "we'll have none of that around me. I've seen many an ugly thing in my centuries as a warrior and you, miss, are no ugly thing. You are what I would call a curiosity. Do you understand me?"

The child looked at him sharply. "I understand you, Lord Tyr, but don't believe you."

Tyr sighed heavily. "I understand how you can blame me for doing what I did to secure you and your brothers. You were no trouble, just a bit of a thing that I could scoop under my arm, but your brothers -! One moment they were young men; the next they were monsters. It took every bit of Thor's and my skills to get them in tow."

Hela closed her eyes. She remembered the shrieking and the howling and the scent of the burning thatch which topped her mother's hall. She remembered her own futile attempts to get away from Tyr's grasp. Worst of all, she recalled Angurboda's shrieks from inside the burning dwelling. Later, she thought that she had smelled burning flesh in the midst of it all.

Mama -!

"It wasn't just that," the girl whispered. "I think I felt my mother die. I felt her go through my chest. I don't know why, but she did. I couldn't breathe for a moment after she did it."

Tyr knelt beside Loki's daughter. "I beg your forgiveness for that, between you and me," he said quietly. "You would know better than most whether your mother crossed over or not; surely you know that the Norns have already proclaimed you the death goddess?"

Hela nodded. "I don't want to be the death goddess," she sighed.

"Sometimes our vocations come to us unbidden," Tyr replied. "Sometimes we have to do things we would rather not do – like invading a Jotun home to snatch its children. Or using our powers to safely channel the dead to their next home." The god shook his shaggy head. "Enough of chatter, now, Hela. I want to take a look at that foot. Your young friend is away so there's no need to hide it now."

Defeated, the girl reached for her cane; Tyr gripped her upper right arm and helped ease her to her feet. He lifted the hem of her heavy gown and placed his huge hand on her small foot, carefully removing the worn shoe in which it was presently shod.

He took all care not to show any reaction on his rugged face, as he felt the girl watching him closely. He probed the twisted foot gently, careful not to tear loose the gray peeling skin or cause bone to protrude through it through a moment of careless force. Instead, he bade Hela Half-Rotted to stand nice and straight – or at least as straight as she was able with her crooked back – and then slid various pieces of leather under and around it with a gentleness that surprised even him.

"I think I have a good idea on how to work this, child, so don't fret a minute about it. I'll have this ready for you in a few days. You shouldn't need the cane afterward. Since Allfather Odin has fancied those two ravens, you might make him a present of them."

At this, the girl jerked back, nearly falling. "The ravens are enchanted! They are named Hugin and Munin, and they are mine! Father created them to watch over me. And why should I give them to Odin? He hates me! He hurt my brothers and he hurts me! I think he is going to kill me!"

"It's just a suggestion, girl," Tyr said gravely. "Let me say that while I don't know what goes on in my father's thinking, I do know that things can go wrong for you here or really wrong for you here, if he's of a mind. All I am saying is that he might treat you more kindly if you make him a present of that cane."

Hela was silent for a long time as she worked through this very adult concept in her mind. "I'll think about it."

Tyr nodded. Within moments Ullr returned with some buttered bread; Hela was hungry and fell to it at once. After they were finished and made their farewells to Tyr, the two children made their way back to Thrudvanger.

XXXXXX

Evening was darkening the skies above Asgard, and both Ullr and Hela watched for the appearance of the first stars. It was understood between them that the first to see one would get his or her dearest wish granted.

"I see it!" Hela cried, pointing.

"I saw it too, just at the same time," Ullr laughed. "Well, what's your wish?"

Hela looked at Ullr, who was seated to her right side so she could hide her withered left half from his attention. "I wish I was just as pretty as the Asgard girls," she whispered.

Ullr shook his head gravely. "That won't do, Hela," he replied. "Those girls are boring. They all look the same to me. Nobody looks like you. I've never met any girl like you at all, and you are – "He dipped his head. He was a young boy and such talk embarrassed him half to death. "Well, you're the most interesting girl here. I wouldn't want you to change. Not for all of the Nine Worlds."

Hela smiled and quickly covered her face with her cloak to hide it. If Ullr half suspected how she felt about him and how much she adored him, she would drop dead of embarrassment herself. "Thank you, even though I know you don't mean it."

At this, Sif's son took umbrage at his friend. "Look here, Hela," he retorted. "I'm no liar. And I certainly don't lie to my best friends. And you are – one of my very best friends. And my wish was that we could be friends for always, no matter what happens to us when we grow up. But it does me no good, does it; since it was you who saw the first star instead of me?"

"Actually," Hela replied softly. "I think you did see it first."

"That means it will come to pass, sure as sure," Ullr crowed, jumping up in the silly manner young boys have. "Come on. We have time to walk over to Folkvang and say good night to Hnossa. Up with you! And just think of how fast you'll be able to run once Tyr makes that shoe for you!"

Hela took his outstretched hand and struggled to stand. She was suddenly overwhelmed with such feelings of joy and hope that she could not keep back her tears. Ullr pulled her up and then wrapped his arm around her. "It's us two for good, then," he said. "Don't you worry. I'll look out for you. And when we're old and have our own lives over and done with, we'll still be the best of friends."

Hela nodded, easing into the security and warmth of his embrace with the closest thing to joy the poor blighted girl could imagine. "I am so glad you saw the first star," she whispered.

The sandy-haired boy chuckled, and helped Hela turn around so that they could visit Hnossa before their bedtimes.