I wake up to find Anna's arms still around me. With some difficulty, I manage to pry myself free from the tiny sleeping dom/don and rise to my feet, stretching my arms out to the strange unearthly sky. We don't tend to see the stars too well from our apartment in New York, but seeing these new giant ones is still a little disconcerting.

Are you ready to go?

Fuck, Skaldi, let a girl go find someplace to pee in peace.

She's been down here for days! Unlike your peaceful time in the Elyssium Fields, we have no idea what might be happening to her and if she dies here then she's dead for good.

She can look after herself. Anna and I may be immortal killing machines, but we're still nominally human. We need to sleep, eat, and occasionally even answer nature's call, so shut up while I find a place or I'll give you back to Anna to melt.

A few minutes later, I wake up Anna and offer her some pound cake that Lisa had made. We haven't taken the time to eat a proper meal in quite a while, and at this point we probably need it. All of this fighting even starts to wear on me eventually.

"Morning," she mutters, yawning as she snatches the cake from my hand. "You sure carbs are the best option right now? The protein from the nuts and jerky are a lot better for another full day of adventuring."

I swipe the cake back from her. "Well if that's how you feel, I'll have the cake all to myself."

Her eyes narrow. "You have five seconds to hand that back or I'll spank you so hard that you won't be able to sit down."

"I heal."

"Elsa." The word is clipped, and her tone promises that she'll make sure it hurts well past what I can heal.

I hand the slice of cake back.

"Good girl." Sitting up, she takes a bite of the cake. "I swear, no one can bake like Lisa. Do you see what we would have lost if you murdered Pete?"

"You're right. I hadn't taken baked goods into consideration when I was planning to kill the man who practically raised me. I don't know how it didn't occur to me."

"At least you've learned." Giving me a quick peck on the cheek, she returns to her meal. "Do try to eat something else too. We have a long day ahead of us. We have to find that puppy before she gets herself into any more trouble."

"Cake and jerky is a weird breakfast."

"Then have some pistachios, and maybe some bananas. I think I saw a few in my bag."

"I guess they are safe to eat now," I say, grabbing the fruit from her pack. I take a banana, a handful of nuts, and at least a pound of pound cake. That's still a balanced meal, right?

You're an animal.

No, you're thinking of Jasmine.

Once Anna is fully awake and ready to go, and has brushed a crumb I missed from my mouth, we set out back down the mountain. It shouldn't be much further. Maybe a day's walk at your top speed before we reach Hel proper. I've never made the trek myself, but I once had a woman in my lap who had.

Skaldi, you're gay?

No, she'd just castrated herself with a goat. It was a strange wedding.

What?

Suffice to say that you're not the first like you I've known.

Trans women or badass warrior gods?

One and the same.

Wow, that's the most positive thing about me I've heard from you.

If you knew her, you wouldn't take it as a compliment. But hold, who's that?

I shield my eyes to peer through the blizzard. "Anna, mind doing something about the snow?"

A bubble of heat suddenly evaporates the snow for a good fifteen feet in every direction disappear, causing us to drop down a couple of feet and stand in a newly formed river. "You know you can control snow. Why don't you do anything about it?"

"Can I?"

Between you and me? Perhaps. But I'd rather not make things any easier for the intruder. I still can't quite tell who it is.

Before us, apparently unfazed by the weather, his hands at the weapons on his hips, stands the figure of a man in a heavy cloak, a hood concealing his face from both observation and the flurry of snow. Let's try the opposite. With a twitch of my hand, I force the wind and a mass of snowflakes forward, smacking him in the face with it and knocking the hood off. I'm great at subtlety.

"I see you've found me," he says, staring straight at me through the newly-amplified blizzard.

"You're not who we're looking for," Anna explains. "So we apologize for the weather, but we've business with someone else and an appointment that we must keep." She attempts to walk past him, but he grabs her wrist, stopping her cold. "Take your hand off me."

"I'm afraid I can't let you past. My new lady would not approve of that. Ragnarok nears, and Lady Hel wants all of her forces at the ready."

Her arm catches fire and he leaps back, his palm red and steaming. "Well, when you put it like that, I suppose we can manage a slight delay." Daggers of fire appear in her hands as she leaps at him. She's so sexy when she really gets into the violence.

He brings up a small dart, tipped with something green, tinged with the dark brown of dried blood. With just the tiny shaft, he manages to block both weapons, holding them in place over his head. His burnt hand catches snow out of the air to ease the pain. "I don't know who you are, but I'll allow none to take what is Hel's."

She kicks him.

He leaps back, narrowly dodging the strike. Who is this fucker?

I know him. He was at my wedding, laughing away, right alongside me at Loki's show. But he was blind. That's Hodr, brother of Thor and Tyr. What has happened in my absence?

"Hodor, how about you go look for Bran and let us find our pet."

He turns to me, dark green eyes burrowing into me. Safe to say he's not blind anymore. In a quick fluid motion, he sends the dart flying toward me. I barely manage to catch it, scarcely an inch from my right eye. I snap the little twig in half.

Undeterred, he grabs the weapon from his right side with his left hand and holds up another weapon, a larger clone of the precious dart. Before I have the chance to quip, he crosses the half dozen yards between us and takes a swing at my face.

My forearm stings as I block the blow with an ice gauntlet and answer it with a short jab to his gut. He's not wearing armor.

He starts to topple over but uses the momentum to drop down, sweeping my legs out from under me. A ringing sounds in my ears as my head knocks against the bottom of the river I'd made a minute ago. At least most of the water's already gone.

I clamber back up to my feet and have to catch a dart as it hurtles toward my throat. Fucker just doesn't stop. "Okay, dickhead." I'm still seeing stars, my snarking is not up to its normal standards. I break the dart in my hands. "You're out of weapons now. How about you just let us past and we can forget about this whole thing."

"I will rest when you've joined Hel's ranks."

"We're Greek gods," Anna points out. "We'd just go back to Hades if you killed us. Your Mistress would gain nothing. But if you let us find our pet, there's a very good chance we'll have the opportunity to kill a whole bunch of more gods, and she can have them."

"Gods do seem to enjoy attacking us." Actually, now that I think about it, it's just servants of gods that like attacking us. Hera didn't attack me, Hans did. Now two of Hel's henchpeople have attacked us. At least that one Greek goddess seems intent on attacking us because Anna lied to her, so we have that going for us. Modgudr was a goddess in her own right. Don't underestimate your ability to piss us off, you're great at making enemies of gods.

"Do you think me a fool?" he snaps. "You'd kill them in combat, they'd go to the halls in Asgard."

He's here. No god that falls goes to Valhalla and he knows it.

"That's not how it works. Same reason you're here. Any Aesir that dies goes to Hel, so if we can just piss off two gods, then you and your Mistress are already better off than you were before we took Jasmine," I offer, rubbing where the bruise would be on the back of my head if I hadn't already healed. It still feels like it should hurt.

Anna looks impressed for a second before she realizes that it's Skaldi. Thanks. Like I can't come up with anything on my own. You can't. Fuck you too, Skaldi.

He smirks, staring between the two of us. That's not the face of someone considering a deal, that's someone sizing up their opponents. I don't give him the chance to act. Tiny snowmen seize his feet, grabbing him from all over, holding him in place. "What is this?" he asks, jabbing at them with his fists. Bet he wishes he hadn't thrown away both of his weapons now.

The sound of a gunshot echoes throughout the mountains. Snow shifts around us, threatening an avalanche, but it seems to think better of it, as nothing more happens.

Blood dyes the snow as Hodr falls over, a hole showing clear through his head. Anna takes a few steps toward him as she places the gun back in her bag. "I know that seemed a bit excessive, but I was growing so tired of his bullshit. I would have never forgiven myself if we had our asses kicked by a blind man. That was Hodr, correct? You weren't simply making a ridiculous Game of Thrones joke."

"Skaldi said he was."

"It makes sense. Especially with the mistletoe darts. What's next? Are we going to run into Baldur?"

"Like the old computer games?"

"You have the strangest set of knowledge, Elsa. You have been together with a Norse powered woman for over a year, and had a Norse goddess in your head for at least the past day, how have you not bothered to learn anything?"

"I learned how to kill them."

She stares at me for a long beat before rolling her eyes. "If you'll notice, I'm the only one here who's killed any gods."

"I killed that giant lady on the bridge."

'Tis true. You slew a Jotun, a feat far more formidable than the slaying of a single Aesir. They are a weak and pitiful people.

Having you on my side feels weird.

The feeling is mutual.

"Fine, you killed one god, but –"

"If you even think about trying to use me as evidence of your god-killing prowess, then you might just have to do it again."

Her face falls and her gaze joins it, trailing down to her feet, and the puddle of blood. "I wasn't going to, Elsa. I'm sorry I did yesterday, I wasn't thinking."

"Then what were you going to say?" I spit back.

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

Grumbling, I stomp off. I feel like a petulant child. I can handle her teasing me for not knowing stuff that I should really know by now. At this point I'm just refusing to learn more out of stubbornness, because I haven't for so long. Being reminded of that day – of seeing her face staring back at me as her flaming hand shoved through my chest and ripped out my heart – that's simply too much for me. It took a long time for me to be mostly over it, and her bringing it up like it was an old joke the other day was just a bit much.

So you do have feelings.

Not now.

I was with you when she made the joke, you seemed far less concerned than you do now. It's strange seeing just how much it gets to you. I'm used to you being this uncaring, largely terrible figure who just looms over my dear Jasmine.

Sounds like someone has a crush. I can hear Anna calling for me, but I'm not ready to talk to her yet. I pick up pace, snowboarding on an icy path down the mountain. She'll catch up eventually, but it can wait a bit.

I do not have a crush. She's like a daughter to me.

Okay, I can kinda see how it'd be weird watching your daughter be treated like a dog while she has kinky sex.

Only kind of?

I've never had a kid. I'm just assuming.

You can be truly vile.

Gee, it's like I'm a hitman or something.

But when you act human, you're almost likable. I'm not sure I've ever seen your facade break down as it has now. Even from your own head, you tend to hide all of your feelings.

I shrug as I hop off the board, midway up the next mountain. "I had to. Try being the trans daughter of the head of a crime family. If I wanted to eat, let alone to actually be able to stick around and transition, then I had to show that even as a woman, I could be twice the man any other son could be. If I couldn't cut myself off, shut myself down, and be the cold-blooded killer you hate so much, then I'd have been tossed out on the street.

I know a thing or two about terrible parents.

You do? I didn't even realize you had parents? What made them so terrible?

Well, it was my father's title for one thing. Even in poems, which take their name from me, he's still known as 'Thjazi, the terrible giant.' It wasn't wrong, but it was a good many centuries before I could view him as anything but my father – cut down far too early by the Aesir.

Is that why you hate the Aesir?

No. I forgave them for that. They gave me a husband, a good show, and placed my father's eyes in the sky. It's strange not being able to see them from here. I hate the Aesir because they're cowards intent on their own destruction. And, I suppose, because my father raised me to believe that they were just that.

Is he why you're a bitch?

She chuckles, the light laughter ringing inside my skull. Perhaps. Mayhaps I only hate you because I understand you so.

"You hate me? Wow, I figured it was dislike at most."

It's growing to a begrudging fondness if that makes you feel any better.

"The feeling's mutual."

"Elsa, would you wait up?!" Anna calls out, dropping in from the sky to settle in front of me. "I'm sorry. I know how sensitive you are about it. I think it's just on my mind because we're basically repeating the whole thing. A woman I love, with ice powers, is killed by fire, and I have to go through the relevant afterlife to bring her back. It's hard not to think of the last time it happened – and just how much more it was my fault. It's easier to make jokes about it than it is to deal with the idea that I killed the woman I love. A woman. My wife."

I grab her by the hand, pulling her flush against me, and kiss her softly before pulling away and staring into those fiery eyes. "You didn't kill me. Notos was just using your body. We also didn't kill Jasmine. Though we did pre-emptively avenge her. Maybe we can find whatever afterlife that asshole went to and kill him again."

"Maybe." She laughs, but it sounds hollow. "Please forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive. It's just a sore spot for me."

Her hand falls to my chest, the literal sore spot. I can almost feel it. At least it was a quick death. "I love you."

"I love you too, Anna."

She leans against me, her head nestling between my breasts, or at least it would be if I wasn't wearing armor. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I just needed a minute."

She nods, but doesn't attempt to move away.

I run my fingers through her hair. I don't know how I ever manage to be mad at her. She's just too beautiful, it's a little offensive. It used to actually really bother me, but I don't have those image issues anymore.

After a long few minutes in each other's arms, we climb up the rest of the mountain. Before us is the most wonderful sight we've seen in days.

"It's beautiful," Anna says.

So this is Hel.

What had seemed like endless mountains finally halts just another mile or so away. There's only a few more like this, then there's the summit of another, even taller mountain, but past it, it all drops off, and it looks like there's a whole world stretching out below us. If that really is where Jasmine is, then we're so much closer.

"We're almost there."

I nod. "As long as that guy who worshiped the goddess we killed was both right and honest.

"He didn't know we'd already killed her."

"He might've."

Sighing, she turns away from the view, back to me. "It's the only lead we have."

She has to be there.

I take her hand in mine. "Then let's find another lead." We could just fly down there with her power, but that won't help find Jasmine. As loathe as I am to resort to any option that isn't over the top violence, we need to go find some answers, and soaring over everyone won't solve that. So, giant mountain it is.