Alright, back to the frost siblings. No, don't worry. I didn't forget them, though I doubt their first trip to Asgard was very satisfying. Blame me for misleading you guys if you like.
I'm starting to run out of clever things to say, so let's just say this. Thor. Not owned by me. Lawsuit. Not wished to be slapped with.
Chapter 11: Fractured Beliefs
Gingerly reaching out, fingers gently ghosted over skin, feeling the harsh and torn texture underneath. Sinmara winced a little at the feeling of the flesh of her back. The strikes from the whip had nearly torn flesh from her bone, leaving her in a crumpled heap by the time she had received all of her lashes. They had already started to scar, and she knew she would carry the marks for them for the rest of her life. She winced as she slowly stood, the pain rippling inside of her as she made her way to the small window. Moonlight shown through as she looked out over Jotunheim.
She had tried to count the days by the sun and moon's passing, but she had long since lost count. She didn't know how much time had passed, nor how much longer she had to go.
Her punishment had been severe. Lashings delivered by some of the brutal torturers they had, then thrown in this small cell to rot. Her back had stopped screaming at her in its pain, now a horribly aching throb. She'd not been healed, forced to sit in solitude as the bleeding gradually stopped on its own. There was no sense to help her after so thoroughly punish her. She was meant to feel this punishment.
Resting her forehead on the window, she figured the cuts were probably infected by now. They certainly still hurt. Once she was released, she would have to see about trying to see if she could salvage some herbs somewhere for the injuries. If she was released.
Her brother had told her after her tenth day, she would be released from her confinement. He had been harsh and cruel, a terrifying face for all that had watched her punishment. None had dared speak out of turn to him during the events, and she had a feeling they had not once after.
Helblindi had used her as an example, used her punishment to warn all others against crossing him. After all, if he would do such a thing to his own flesh and blood, his kin, what would he be willing to do to the others? Sinmara imagined he certainly had the control over the people now.
She wondered if she would really be let go, or if he would leave her to die here. It had only been through creating ice and letting it slowly melt had she been able to drink any water, and no one was on orders to bring her meals. She could last without food for a while, but hunger was setting into her stomach, hunger that was getting harder and harder to ignore.
She had been angry when she had first been thrown in her, but that had cooled rather quickly. She did not have the energy to waste on anger or rage, and all alone in the dark and silence of her confinement, she had only her own mind to keep her company. Thoughts and questions she had no answers to had started to occur to her.
Her brother had said he had hoped she would see the difference between their own people and the Asgardians. She hadn't understood him when he had said it, too surprised by his anger to understand what it was he had been trying to say. But as she'd sat on the floor, trying to ignore the pain and sense of betrayal, it had started to dawn on her.
The difference between their people? She hadn't wanted to see it, blinded from it, but she couldn't deny it now. She had been to Asgard as well, had seen the sights just as well as her brothers had.
The Asgardians had an empire, structured and strong. How many years had it taken to build it? How strong were their walls, their soldiers? And she had been arrogant enough to believe she could have brought a handful of giants there and tear it all apart? Helblindi was right. They were lucky her words had not gotten them killed.
Hugging herself, she slid down the wall, breathing deeply. She could still remember the Bifrost hitting their realm, tearing the land itself apart as if it were as strong as paper. The terror that had burned in her chest, the thought she was going to die that day, along with everyone else. And there was nothing... nothing that would stop the Asgardians from doing the same again thing if they wanted.
Sobbing softly, she pulled her knees up to her chest. She had always thought of herself as strong. She had been raised the same as her brothers. Sex did not matter. She was expected to hold her own. The strong lead and the weak followed. As offspring of the king, she was expected to either be powerful or to die. She had worked hard to stamp out what she had seen as her own weaknesses, often being nasty and cruel, even to her own family in order to assure others she was not one to hassle.
She did not like feeling helpless. It terrified her, and right now she felt more helpless than she had in her entire life. She would have torn all of Asgard's walls down with her bear hands if she could have, but she couldn't. None of them could. There were more of them, they were stronger, better organized.
And she had been too stupid of a fool to realize it.
Was she waiting for her death in this room. Were they all just waiting for death. Helblindi had said they were withered, nothing compared to what they had to be, and right now, Sinmara had to wonder if it really mattered anymore. Was her race just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the sword over their head to fall and finish them?
She did not know if she trusted Odin to keep his word, and after what she had done, she didn't even know if she had the right to expect him to. His anger had been obvious when they had left. Perhaps if her brother just killed her... maybe it would soothe it. The thought that there could possibly be another attack someday, that they would remember her harsh words and strike back because of it, it scared her more than anything right now.
Burying her head in her knees, tears flowed down her cheeks only to frost over and chip away into flakes of ice. Knowing that there could be an attack on them at any time, and that they had no means to defend themselves. Their power was gone. She had no way from inside of here to finish the sword, the casket lost to them, there was no hope that she could see that did not rely on the mercy of the men she had insulted.
She remembered feeling the casket in that throne room, but unable to determine the source. It had felt comforting, the power the emitted feeling of her home and her bloodline. It had reminded her of her father, with strength that she knew she could rely on, that would keep her safe and happy. When she had turned to it however, there had been nothing there but the prince, one of Odin's sons. The one that had lured her father away to his death.
Helblindi had said their father had been foolish, had left for what had obviously been a trap. Sinmara wondered if she would have been foolish enough to have done the same thing. No. There was no wondering. She knew she would have. She wanted her people back to their former glory just as badly, was willing to just as much to accomplish that, and would have died just as foolishly.
"Father," she breathed shakily, hiccuping. "I... I don't know what to do. Why? Why did you have to leave us?"
She did not know how long she sat there in the mostly dark room, crying to herself. The world outside felt so hopeless right now, and all of her strength, willpower and cunning had been sapped away in the forced solitude, only her own feelings of helplessness the realization of guilt keeping her company. It pounding at her now, like an ocean's waters beating against the rocks of the shore, refusing to let her be and get any rest from the thought that if Jotunhiem did fall, not only could she do nothing to prevent it, but that she had also had a direct hand in it's demise.
Jerking slightly when the door opened and light spilled into the room, she looked up to see Helblindi himself at the opening. He stared down at her, his expression only being able to be described as impassive. She tried to read his face as she stared up at him, but he betrayed nothing, only moving slowly towards her before taking her into his arms and pulling him up.
"It's been ten days now," he said, his voice as emotionless as his face. "Your punishment is over."
"Brother..." she said softly before looking down at the ground. "I..."
"Don't," he said. "Just come with me."
She followed along after him, their footsteps echoing in the halls. The chambers were empty of anyone else, and Sinmara guess that it must have been very late into the night for there to be no one around. Still, she rubbed vigorously at her face, not wanting to run into anyone by chance and let them see the fact that she had been crying.
Watching the back of her brother as they walked, she wondered what he was thinking. The fact that it had been days surprised her, and questions about what had been going on filtered into her mind. She didn't dare ask though. She did not know her standing right now, and she did not want to risk making him angry just to settle her own curiosity. It would probably only prompt him to think she was still up to something, that she still desired an attack on Asgard. For now, she decided it was best just to wait, a rare occurrence for her, and see what was going on when her brother felt like revealing it to her.
Eventually they reached his chambers. He opened the door and ushered her inside to which she saw Byleistr was asleep on the bed.
"He tried to stay up, but he hasn't been sleeping much," Helblindi explained. "He tried to sneak to your cell quite a few times too."
"I see," she said, not knowing what else to say.
"I have food prepared for you," her brother said, indicating to the table in his room, a plate of meat for her, along with a goblet of dark liquid. She moved to it somewhat tentatively before she sat down, Helblindi settling down on the other side of the table as he watched her slowly eat. Honestly, she was starving, but she didn't have the energy to eat very quickly. Not to mention, she felt like an animal right now, let out of it's cage and apprehensive, not knowing what was going on and worried about if it was going to get hurt or not.
"Do you plan to kill me?" she asked softly, looking up at her older brother.
"No," he assured her, though she did notice he did not seem surprised by her question. "You served your punishment, and now it is over. If you had cost one of us our lives, or opened war upon us, then I would have killed you. As it is, we have peace. It's a start."
"Have the others... caused problems?" she asked him.
"They desired a strong leader. I think I proved to them they have no cause for concern. If any of them wish to die fighting the Asgardians, it will not be under my rule," he informed her.
Protecting them even from themselves. She could not deny there was logic behind it.
"I'm sorry," she said.
He gave her an odd look, the first time since she had seen him that any expression at all showed on his face.
"What?" he asked.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "You were right. I could have gotten one of us killed. The whole time I was there, all I could do was think about how much I hated them all. I wanted to kill them all, make them suffer and hurt."
"You were arrogant," he said. "You could have never taken the whole race of the Aesir by yourself."
"No, but I wanted to try," she admitted.
"It doesn't matter now," he said. "It's over. We have our treaty will Odin again and we're not at war. For now, that's good enough, no matter what I had wished for."
"I thought you were going there to start war," she said. "But what more could you have wanted besides for the treaty?"
"Look at us, Sinmara," Helblindi said. "We used to have an empire, a strong people with proud and glorious traditions. Our culture is as crumbled as our buildings, and we have done nothing to change it. The war was over longer than a thousand years ago. What has held us back? What has kept us back but our own hatred? The Asgardians do not come here and break our spirits. For years they did not bother with us, and yet we still stagnate anyway, unwilling to grow."
"And you hoped to change that with Asgard?"
"I'm not foolish enough to think it could have happened overnight," he admitted. "But I did have hope, yes. I thought we could bring a unification between our peoples. Trade routes maybe, learning more about their culture and others while trying to rebuild our own, bring back the traditions that we ourselves had had. We used to have music, Sinmara. And paintings. Holidays, festivals, so much. And what do we have now? What do we do now? Nothing."
Sighing, he stood from the table, pacing a little.
"I want our people to be strong again," he said. "But now I'm afraid that day is much farther away than it was before."
He did not say, "Because of you," but she heard it anyway.
She stared down at her hands for a long time, the silence hanging between them in the room thickly. Part of her felt she should say something, and another part of her claimed that this was all foolishness and that she shouldn't encourage him asking the Asgardians of all people for help rebuilding their culture. Of course, that part of her had nearly doomed them all. The thought that there was still the threat of the Bifrost still clung to her mind and eventually she sighed and back up at him again.
"Do you really think that we can go back to that... if we pursue peace?" she asked him softly.
"Yes," he said. "In time, if we're prosperous enough, I think I could convince everyone that war won't solve any of our problems."
"Perhaps," she said before she swallowed the lump in her throat. "Perhaps you should try again then."
"I can't," Helblindi told her. "The way to Asgard has been blocked off. I have no means to get back past their borders. Besides, even if I did, sneaking back into their lands after the express conditions that neither of our peoples would not bother the other, I do not think Odin would be very eager to speak of peace with me. I doubt he trust me very much as it is."
"You don't have to sneak back in," she said. "If... if we could open our own way to Asgard, you could just send him a message. If you told him you desired peace maybe he would hear your words. We have nothing to lose by trying."
"What do you mean, open our own way?" Helblindi asked her.
"I... I have been working on something," she admitted. "Another relic... I don't know how strong I can make it, but I've been working on it for months. Even sealed, the magic of the path should still be there. I could tap it, imbue it into the new relic. You wouldn't have to go yourself at first. We could do this properly this time, ask permission to meet with Odin, have a real conference with him. It would take time... but what do we have to lose anymore?"
"You have been working on another relic?" he asked. "How? And why are you now so interested in peace?"
"I don't trust them," she told him honestly. "And I hate them. I do not know if that will ever change. But you are the king, and I am loyal to you, even if my actions have not always shown that. Besides, I think it's clear that my own way of solving things have not been well received. As for the relic, it's a weapon that I had been working on. I found it months ago and started to restore it. It's powerful, but as far as I could see, there was no particular spells attached to it. They either wore off or there was none on it in the first place. I've been experimenting lately, and everything I've done with it so far has worked. With some more time to work on it, I could merge the magic of the sword and path together and use it to open up a way to Asgard on it's own."
He peered at her suspiciously and she tried not to get angry at his silent accusations. She was trying to help him. Was that not good enough.
"It's just a message we'll be sending," she told him. "Nothing more. If Odin receives it well, then you can try to fulfill your goal of bringing our people to a better future. Isn't that what you want?"
"Yes," he admitted slowly. "It is. But..."
"You don't trust me anymore," she said. "Brother, please. I truly wish to help. Let me try to repair some of the damage that I have caused."
He watched her for a second before sighing.
"Very well," he said. "It is a plan worth trying, and I am intrigued by this relic you say you've created. I would like to see it myself. I doubt we will ever have the casket back. They would never return it to us, but there is nothing in our treaty that says we have to stay as powerless as we are now."
"Actually..." she said, wondering if she should mention it.
"What? What is it?" he asked.
"It's nothing really," she admitted. "I just felt... When we were at Asgard, I felt the casket. I think it was in the throne room. Did you feel it?"
He shook his head.
"Are you sure it was the casket?"
"I'm sure," she said, her voice firm. "It couldn't have been anything else. It's power was incredible, and I felt like... It was the casket, you just need to believe me."
"But what was it doing in the throne room?" he wondered.
"I don't know," she said. "But it didn't feel like it was there when we arrived. In fact... well, I don't know if it means anything, but when I first sensed it was when Loki arrived. Do you think that might mean something?"
"Odin might have ordered one of his sons to safeguard it, considering everything that has happened," Helblindi said. "That wouldn't really surprise me, actually. It doesn't matter much though. No matter what they are doing with it, it's lost to us. I do not think Odin would ever consider returning it to our people, and if what you're saying about this new relic is right, we may not need it."
Sinmara was still curious about it, but Helblindi was right. There was no way to know for sure right now anyway, and they had even less means to get it back. It was probably for the best not to worry about it too much, at least for the moment.
"You should finish eating, then get some rest," Helblindi said. "I'd like to see this relic tomorrow, but I don't want you trying to force yourself to work on it until you're well."
The compassion should have been out of place, considering he had ordered her lashings and imprisonment, but she said nothing. It was actually comforting to know that despite the tense words and arguments they'd had, they were still kin and he still care about her and her welfare.
"I won't disappoint you," she promised him.
"I know," he said as she began to eat. The meal finished, she crawled into the bed with Byleistr, pulling him close in an embrace and falling asleep with him soon after. Helblindi did not go to bed himself, both of their bodies taking up too much of it to have bothered anyway, and too much to think about now anyway.
The chance to make peace with Asgard properly was tempting, but he had to be realistic. His love for his sister could not blind him. If she was planning something, if she was not being honest with him, he was going to have to tread very carefully. He could not risk allowing things to get worse.
He was also curious about the casket. Was Loki in possession of it now? And if he was, to what purpose? Did the Asgardians not keep their relics and weapons locked away in their vaults when not using them? Why have one of the princes carrying the casket around with him?
Granted, maybe Loki didn't have it. It could have been a coincidence, or his sister could have been wrong. Or she could just be lying to him. There were any number of possibly explanations, and Helblindi had no idea which one could possible be true.
If it were a real concern, then it would see to itself. If he had any luck on his side, Odin would be open to his plea for an actual peace conference. And if Odin wasn't, then whatever was being done with the relic was of little concern to him.
End of Chapter 11
These guys are always deep, and very fun to write. Sinmara is starting to wise up to the fact it's probably not a good idea to be such a bitch and is starting to be the supportive sister Helblindi could use on his side right now. Of course, she's still bitter as hell, but getting dealt with as harshly as she was was bound to make her think a bit. Helblindi is not cruel, and does not enjoy hurting people for the hell of it, especially his family. Opened her eyes at least a little. Still, probably not a good idea to let her come to Asgard again.
