The last thing Eric remembered were the flames. They had engulfed his whole body, and then sunk through his skin and into his bones. He was sure the True Death was upon him at last. But when he'd opened his eyes he was lying, un-burnt and wholly corporeal in some sort of underground chamber. It felt like a natural cave, but there were clear indicators that people had recently occupied this space. A torch burned in the passageway just beyond this room's opening and it's dim, flickering light revealed some rough furnishings and discarded clothing scattered around.
As for his own condition, Eric felt well. Vampiric and unchanged. In fact, he wore the same clothing he'd had on earlier that day. Black boots and trousers, dark grey, silk blended cotton t-shirt and his new favorite, a tailor-made, black leather jacket complete with titanium zipper and fastenings. It was strangely comforting to feel the cool leather under his fingertips and part of him wished he could lie there forever. Instead, he jumped up and rushed out of the chamber to see if his suspicions were correct.
The passageway snaked its way past many other small rooms. Some had people lying in various states of rest while others were empty, and obviously long unused. Finally the hall terminated into a vast, underground cavern ringed with thousands of similar openings. Stalactites hung from the limestone ceiling, and water rushed through the middle in the form of a large, subterranean river. People from every age, their dress identifying them as both strange and achingly familiar, congregated in small groups throughout the enormous gathering place peacefully. Recognition burst through Eric's synapses all at once. The ancestors had accepted him into the afterlife despite his desertion of his species. He was in Helheim.
His eyes slammed shut and his mind instantly leaped to the image of his murdered mother and infant sister, lying bloody and mangled on the ground in front of him over a thousand years ago. What he perceived as his physical form underwent an unfamiliar shifting sensation, like the earth moved itself under his feet. His eyelids jerked open and there was his mother, standing whole and healthy before him. Her face reflected a moment of shock, but her arms opened of their own accord and soon they were hugging, tears of joy rolling down their unashamed faces.
"My son, my Eric." Astrid finally wiped her tears and then kissed his cheek long and hard like she had when he was a boy. She even smelled of the same apples that had grown on the little tree near their house by the sea. "How is it that you have joined us here in Helheim? I'm overjoyed to see you, don't mistake me. But I'd have expected you to join your father, Ulfick, in Valhalla to drink and fight with Odin. At the very least you should be in Folkvang. What has happened to you?"
"Maybe Freya could tell I've had twenty lifetimes of fighting, mother." Eric released her but stood very close and kept his arm around her tiny shoulders. "Perhaps the Norns took pity on my weary soul and wove the Valkyries into a chase after some other poor warrior. It could also be that Odin hates vampires as much as everyone else."
"Vampires? Is that some sort of religious order?"
"No, mother. We're sort of civilized draugrs. Well, some of us act civilized."
"You are more wrong than you would believe to think that Odin would pass up one such as you to fight at his side during Ragnarök. Fate must have something unusual in store to have directed you here, listen well."
"How could I do aught else?" He kissed her cheek in return just as a lovely young woman approached them tentatively.
Astrid hugged the newcomer warmly. "Eric, this is your sister, Dagmar."
"But Dagmar, she was a tiny baby."
"Here she is one of our greatest philosophers and most influential thinkers."
"How is that possible?"
"It's the way of things here, Eric," Dagmar told him, hugging him fiercely. "We are all every one of our selves at all times. Each person sees another's image of self as they need to see it to satisfy their beliefs."
"Then I suppose I needed to see that you were grown, accomplished, and beautiful. Because you are all those things, sister."
"Thank you, Eric." Mind generated image of the perfect sister or not, she looked pleased over his compliment. "Mother has told me so much of you since we came to this place that I feel I've loved you the whole of my existence. You can only imagine how much finally meeting you means to me."
They moved their reunion to a large set of chambers down another of the warren-like hallways. Talking and laughing, he regaled them with some of the more heroic tales of his long life in Midgard. Having been dead for nearly eleven centuries, his family didn't have many thrilling stories to tell, but they did share some sips of a ceremonial type beverage with him. It had been so long since Eric had tasted anything besides blood, that the slight mint flavor came as a complete shock to his senses and he asked for another sip almost immediately.
"Is there anyone in particular you'd like to visit, now that we've caught up?" Astrid inquired helpfully, trying to help her son adjust to his afterlife.
"Most of the people I would like to see, besides you wondrous creatures, are trapped in their idyllic warriors' halls and waiting on future battlefields. Aren't they unavailable to me?"
"In the way you're thinking, yes." Dagmar went on to explain some of the more permeable features of the walls dividing the dead. "But it is much more fun to concentrate on someone here in Hel. Surely there is someone here from our histories that you've always wanted to meet?"
"I remember hearing of a shield maiden of such skill that she lived her entire long life without ever feeling the slightest sting of defeat in battle. Grandmother claimed she died at some extreme age, peacefully in her bed."
"I think I know of the woman you mean and she is indeed here with us in Helheim. Close your eyes and concentrate on her. You will be transported there instantly. When you want to return, just think hard of me or mother. It's really very simple."
"But I have only heard tales of her from ages long past when I was still mortal. How can I picture someone when I have no idea what she looked like?"
"She will look however you want her to look anyway, so picture perfection and you won't be disappointed," his mother stated plainly.
Eric shut his eyes and formed his own mental image of the great Lagertha. She had long, blonde hair, half of it braided intricately to keep it out of her way, the rest of its glorious mass hanging down her back freely. She was of average height and slight of frame, but incredibly strong, with high, proud, breasts and an athlete's firm ass. Her skin was milky white, soft and flawless and her face boasted high cheekbones and plump, pouty lips. Her eyes were the color of the sea and slightly angular. They flashed with intensity no matter what activity consumed her and, just as he had as a young man hearing of her exploits on the battlefield, he dreamed of lighting them afire with his passion.
He felt the peculiar shifting sensation again just as her image fully coalesced into a complete picture of perfect womanhood in his imagination. He opened his eyes to see her scrutinizing him from a discreet distance away near the river in the giant main chamber. She was, of course, exactly how he'd pictured her, down to the fine embroidery surrounding the plunging neckline of her forest green gown. He caught himself wondering just how she saw him in this scenario. Kind of a Schrödinger's cat meets The Dating Game type of situation. He hoped she was in a receptive mood just before he'd popped in.
"Miss Lagertha Lothbrok?" Eric advanced toward her slowly at first, but when she didn't seem even the slightest bit apprehensive he closed the distance between them nearly instantly.
"I am known here only as Lagertha, vampire." She sat down on a bench that he'd somehow failed to see before that moment and regarded him with amused interest. "What is your business with me?"
"May I?" Eric waited for her to nod before sitting next to her on the bench. "My name is Eric Northman and you are one of the fabled heroes of my youth. My grandmother cuddled me by the fire and told me every tale of fearless, fighting women that she had ever heard. Most involved your exploits, and she loved you above all others. So did I."
"Every one of those stories is grossly exaggerated, I assure you. For one thing, I felt terror during every battle."
"But you fought anyway."
"I almost never had a choice, but you can believe me a faultless, mythic hero if it pleases you."
"It does." Eric found her hand with his and held it lightly while caressing her palm. He hadn't meant to get physical so quickly, but she was such living breathing feminine perfection, it felt completely right. "It's wonderful to meet you."
"I know you already, Mr. Northman. Well, by reputation anyway."
He didn't let go of her hand and used his thumb to repeatedly stroke the soft, sensitive skin along the underside of her wrist. "All good things, I trust?"
"One of my greatest friends serves as a Valkyrie. She's told me about many a glorious battle involving the eternal, vampire, viking God, Eric Northman." She smiled and took his other hand in hers. She began her own stroking and teasing without ever taking her eyes off his face.
"None of those stories were exaggerated in the least. Your friends' musings are dead on." He smiled in self-depreciating mockery of himself.
"You joke, but all the Valkyries speak of your prowess as if you were the undead love child of Thor and Freya. Taking on armies here, seducing queen's there." She shook her head in confused amazement. "It's actually a great shock for me to see you here. Surely you didn't die a coward, or in some sort of pathetic accident?"
"No, beautiful one. The greatest treachery and deceit I experienced in all my long life led me to burn up on that mountain, but that's a sad story for another time. In truth, I have no idea why I am here, in Helheim with you. Perhaps we could talk to your friend Valkyrie and ask her to convey my regards to Odin and he will change his mind. In the meantime, there are many other, far more pleasant things I would like to discuss with you now."
"You want to know where to find the rainbow bridge."
"I was actually going to suggest that we find somewhere more private where we could learn more about each other, but we can always go over the directions to Valhalla afterward." Eric shot her his most devastating smile and waited for her to melt.
"Even knowing your reputation with women, I should feel insulted that you attempted to seduce me within minutes of meeting me."
"I don't know what's come over me, Lagertha. I feel quite undone by you."
"I know precisely the problem. You're new here and unused to the magic of the place. You likely projected perfection, pinned all your known and unknowable wants all over your perception of me. What that gives you is an ideal from which you feel, at least at the time, you can never recover. Therefore you want to cement our relationship quickly with physical pair bonding to keep me. The metaphysics of it all is much harder to explain. I leave that sort of thing to your esteemed sister, Dagmar and the great minds of her salon. But I digress. I said I should be insulted, but I'm not. Would you like to know why?"
"Of course."
"I mistakenly thought that all the death I had dealt in my long, strife filled, mortal existence was somehow enough excitement for one person. So as soon as I got the wasting sickness of the elderly, I swore off violence and prayed every day to Hel, hoping she would embrace me like a mother with a peaceful afterlife."
"I take it that hasn't been all you'd hoped for."
"This place is so dreadfully boring."
"That, I believe."
"It's hard enough for me to find someone with common interests here in Helheim, let alone a real man of substance to share animal lust."
"I think I see your problem."
"So if this is what you had in mind," Lagertha grabbed Eric's jacket lapels and pulled him down to kiss him wildly, "I think I can oblige you."
"Should we take a walk to your place then?"
"No need. Just concentrate all your energy on me."
Lagertha wrapped her arms around him and they closed their eyes. That same unusual shifting moved them both together and changed their circumstances much more dramatically than Eric expected. This time he opened his eyes to Lagertha's naked body straddling his similarly nude hips and grinding her sex against him. He was flat on his back, resting on a firm, raised pallet in what must be Lagertha's quarters in this realm. His penis went from interested to painfully erect in record time. She gasped with delight as she felt his full length harden beneath her and press lengthwise into her pubic mound. She slid her wet folds up and down the length of his shaft while kissing him deeply and teasing his nipples and chest hair with her dangling breasts.
Losing himself in his need to know her completely, Eric rolled her on her back and buried his face between her legs. He began gently sucking tiny sections of her juicy, red-flushed, nether lips into his mouth and rolling them around under his active and merciless tongue. Her hands shot into his hair and began to steer his face around her genital area. He just maintained the light, but constant, sucking and licking and soon she was moaning with each new flick or stroke. When she begged him to fuck her, he sat back on his ass and pulled her onto his lap, plunging his cock deep into her throbbing orifice. She rode him just as hard as he bucked up into her, matching the ferocity of his lovemaking thrust for thrust.
Eric felt his climax approaching, so he removed one of his hands from its tight grip on her ass and used it to firmly cup her clitoris within its fleshy nest, smashing it regularly against her pubic bone with each of her own hip thrusts. The great warrior Lagertha came screaming his name just before the proof of his orgasm burst inside her. They clung desperately to each other, panting, floating in the same fuzzy pool of discharged sexual tension for a few moments.
Eric recovered first and raised his head to stare deeply into her still unfocused eyes. He dropped some quick, feathery kisses on her lower lip, and then told her sweetly, "I've never been so happy to be dead." He smiled wide before asking, "Now how are we going to sneak over the rainbow bridge? Isn't that thing guarded pretty well?"