Gwen followed after Loki when he packed their things with unnecessary force in his actions. "Loki, you can't do this! You can't just bring Frigga back. She's not a part of this world anymore. You'll just hurt her more!" She was extremely scared of his plan. It was no chance in hell that he would be able to make this work.
"Hurt her more?"
Gwen realized what she just have said. "Sorry! I meant that, in general, the dead should remain dead. It must be awful to be dragged into the living world again!"
"Just as awful as being pushed into the abyss of the underworld. It was too soon for her."
"I know that you miss your mother, Loki. I know that you feel guilty over her death."
"I don't just feel guilty. I am guilty. I caused it!"
She half and half draped her arms around him. Gwen wondered which one of them who was the most surprised by her action. A warm feeling spread in her chest. "You want to make things right again. But this isn't the way."
He removed himself from her light hold. "You can't change my mind. Come with me or stay here." He took the blanket away from her. "I'll let you stay here, if it's your wish, but I'm taking your versatile blanket with me."
"You are leaving me with no choice, then."
He sniggered. "I know."
"Loki, you are just hurting yourself by letting your hopes rise this high," she concluded with a soft voice. "You should mourn her, properly. Not doing this! The chances are too small. You can't just walk into Hel's realm to simply ask of her to let Frigga go. "
"Who said I'm not offering something in return? Gwen, all I want is to avenge her, before I die myself." He turned his back on her and put the last things into the rucksack.
Gwen's jaw dropped to the floor. "Don't tell me that you are going to sacrifice yourself for her? Don't tell me that you are replacing her? Is this how you plan to make up for everything? You're letting Frigga go while your stays there. Are you going to serve in her place?"
He closed the rucksack. "Why would you care the slightest? I'll make sure that you will come home safe and sound without a scratch, I promise."
Gwen cared a great deal, did she realize in this moment. She wasn't jumping of joy from the prospect of coming home and getting rid of him, not this way. "But?"
"I'm learning from my mistakes and I'm not going to let my profit go to waste! You'll survive this, Gwen, you are strong."
Gwen shook her head. "I'm anything but strong. I'm scared and feels weak all the time!"
"To be strong doesn't mean that you aren't scared or feels weak once in a while." He held out his arm for her to take. "Come with me."
She clung to his side.
The air in the cave was just as ice cold as always.
…
Sigyn had recovered so much that she was out of bed during the days. The bandage over her arms and legs were gone. She knew that she had been lucky since only half of her body had burned but
she avoided anything reflective. Half of her appearance had vanished in the flames. Her long blonde hair had been burned to the roots on her right side and she had cut it off completely. The days went by slowly and she spent the afternoons with the dashing Balder. He had taken her under his wings and always spent at least an hour in her presence during the afternoons.
Sigyn glanced under what was left of her eyelashes at Balder. "Are you mad about how I acted out in the throne room, when I shouted at you? I know that you don't deserve it. We have different opinions regarding Loki. You must accept my humble apology!"
"I can't be mad with you, Sigyn," he confessed with a soft voice.
"I don't want to hurt you-"
"You are the last person who should worry about others."
She smiled sweetly.
He gestured towards her burned skin. "I have no idea of how you could have fallen victim in a such monstrous way. You seem like a person everybody should love." He shook his head. "I've never met a person that can love so unconditionally."
"There should be more love in the universe."
He agreed with her.
Sigyn leaned in and placed a hand over his. "If you had seen what I saw, you would understand my point, Balder. I've heard so many good things about you, you are regarded as the lightest and the kindest of them all, surely you can try to understand."
"No." He pulled away from her. "How could I when my own brother is facing the consequences for his crimes?"
"Did you see him shoot the queen?"
"No."
"And your brother was found with the bow in his hand?"
"Yes." His voice was barely a whisper.
"Oh Balder, how can you then ask of me to blame him when there's no clear evidence?"
"Who else could have done it? Look what he did to you! He ruined your home and sent a whole angry village at you! How can you protect him?"
"Your anger only dulls your common sense. Just as Odin searches for the guilty one in your brother, do you claim, without evidence, that Loki is guilty."
"You, of all, should be wanting to get him behind bars!"
She didn't answer him, instead she fidgeted with a small silvery locket and brought it into sight. It opened with a slight clicking sound. Sigyn held it out for him to see. Balder leaned forward and expected a photo inside but instead saw a hair lock. A black hair lock. He furrowed his brows and looked up into her face in a silent pray to get her to answer his question.
"It's his hair lock."
Balder asked softly; "When did you get it?"
She blushed, clearly embarrassed. "When he was sleeping."
Balder flinched and fell backwards in his seat. Quite disturbing. "Why do you have his hair?" He made a face of disgust.
Sigyn closed the locket and hung it back close to her heart. Her eyes were round and she blinked towards him. Sincerity imbued her behavior. "Because where I come from it's custom to keep something from your beloved one."
…
The coldness disappeared in a second. The wall of air that hit her was of normal temperature. Gwen breathed in the warmth to fill her frozen lungs. Tears rose in her eyes as she didn't see anymore snow. Nifelheim was beautiful and very much alive, not dead and ugly. The grass and leaves on the trees were green. The birds' songs gave her strength again.
"Is this the realm for the dead?"
"Yes, unless you've gone to Valhalla."
"It is more beautiful and peaceful than I expected!" Her imagination had run wild about a windswept headland and a penuriously lifestyle. Gwen had expected decay and despair. This was life and warmth.
Loki started to steer her towards something that looked like a palace of a mountain. Gwen lost her breath. It was huge! She had never seen such a large building in her whole life. "Is this her palace?"
Loki nodded.
"Did we travel by the bifrost, by the way?"
He chuckled. "Of course not. There are other ways into every realm."
She wondered if she should ask him about that weird statement but they had already ended up in front of the gates. The gates opened slowly before them.
"They already know that we are here," Loki concluded with a smile on his lips. "I bet she already knows why we're here. Oh, and one thing, don't be amazed by her looks."
Gwen furrowed her brows and followed behind him into the great hall. She realized how small she was compared to the building and jumped from fright when she saw that the guards that hid behind the armor was nothing more than skeletons. She gripped Loki's sweater.
They came into a round hall. Gwen stared up to the ceiling and realized that no ceiling existed. Was it a trick? She stared into the blue sky and almost stumbled. Loki caught her and hissed into her ear.
A woman sat in the shadows on her throne. "Loki, son of Jotunheim. Gwendolyn, daughter of Midgård and Asgård. Peculiar."
Loki glanced quickly at her. She gulped.
The throne lit up. The woman bathed in light. Gwen couldn't contain herself and gasped. Loki stepped on her foot quite hard. Hel had two appearances. One side of her was beautiful while the other was extremely ugly. Half of her body appeared to be rotting. Her skin was blue, just the same shade of blue as a corpse, and in some place was the skin so badly ripped of her that the bone pipes were visible. The other side was covered in milk white skin. Gwen couldn't stop herself from scanning both of her sides. Her hair was ebony black and her eyes had the color of green and her living side was so beautiful that Gwen's own heart stung from jealousy. That jealousy disappeared when she glanced at the dead side of the goddess. Hel represented both death and life.
"I already know what drove you here, Loki, but I am going to give you the chance to revalue your aim by letting you speak from your heart in this moment. Perhaps you've changed your mind?"
"I have not. My aim is still strong," Loki said with a clear voice.
"Do you have any idea of what you're getting yourself into?"
"Yes."
"Say the words out loud then."
"I want to replace Frigga's place here. Let her live again."
Gwen flinched and her bottom lip started to tremble. He was really trying to do this! This wasn't some dream.
Hel scanned Loki. "You are younger than her. This is not usual for me. Parents show up here begging for replacing their children, not the other way around."
"I know that. This is a different constellation. I caused her death and I want to take my responsibility."
"That's very noble of you, son of Jotunheim," Hel admitted between clenched teeth. "But what if I allowed you to replace her? I would be swarmed by people begging to make their dead come back. They would claim that I was being unfair."
"It is unfair to keep her here!"
"Death is more fair than life!"
His voice was thin. "Please."
"It's a waste to take someone so young. You should not be walking towards your own death."
Gwen noted that he was shaking despite that his voice was clear. She pressed her palm into his back to reassure him that-, well, that he wasn't alone before the goddess of death.
"I want this!"
"I know. They all do," Hel concluded with a bored voice. "I've heard and seen everything already. I've seen tears. I have heard howls of sadness."
"I am not driven by my emotions. I am here because it's the right thing to do."
"Of course you are driven by your emotions, everybody are," Hel said in a dismissive tone.
Loki had lost his faculty of speech. Gwen rubbed the small of his back.
"But I have to admit that I am very curious about you two," said Hel and for the first time did she express emotions in her living side of face. Her brows had softened. "One of you will I meet again here in Nifelheim, so it doesn't really matter for me now, while the other will go somewhere else after death. To finally meet someone that isn't destined for my realm is exciting." Her face features didn't quite match her words. Gwen didn't think the word 'exciting' fit the icy goddess of death.
Loki breathed in sharply.
"I can consider it," said Hel. "Allow me to think about it."
The muscles in Loki's shoulders relaxed.
"Since you've traveled a long way and must be exhausted and I don't want to be a bad host, you are welcome to dine with me tonight." Something that looked like a smile appeared in her face. "My servants will make sure that you are well tended to."
A man and a woman with pale skin turned up by their side. Gwen jumped from their sudden arrival. Loki wasn't affected at all. They were lead away from the throne. Gwen glanced over her shoulder and found that the throne was empty.
…
"She wasn't as bad as I expected," admitted Gwen with a low voice.
The servants didn't seem like they had heard her comment.
"Do not be dazzled by her warmth and motherly care, Gwen. She has a plate called Hunger, a knife called Starvation, a bed named Sickbed, a bedspread named Shining Corruption and a doorstep called Ruin," Loki informed in a whispering voice.
Warmth and motherly care?
The door to a chamber was opened by the male servant. Gwen lost her breath once again today. The room was completely made of marble. The windows were huge and every furniture seemed to be made of crystal. In the middle was a big bed placed. Gwen saw three more doors and wondered where the other bed was.
As if Loki had read her mind he said; "Hel is something of a romantic."
"Oh really?"
The female servant gestured for Gwen to follow. They took the door to the left and came into a magnificent bathroom. It was the size of her whole apartment. Gwen stared amazed at a big pool with hundreds of taps, a more orthodox silvery bathtub and something that looked like a steam room.
The pale woman started to undress Gwen with strong fingers. She accidentally pinched Gwen on a few places, but Gwen couldn't complain as she was lead to the bathtub. The water was hot, but not too hot, just enough. Gwen lowered herself and shut her eyes as the woman started to wash her hair.
After the bath was she lead into the steam room and left there for a while. Then she was retrieved again and brought to a stuffed bench. Gwen laid down on her stomach with a little bit worry in her system. But that easily disappeared when she realized that the aim was something as heavenly massage. Her tired muscles were tended to in the best fashion. More than two sighs of pleasure was let through her lips. The woman kneaded her feet and dropped something warm on Gwen's back.
If this death was this pleasuring, why would Loki want to collect Frigga from this amazing place?
Sometime during the massage on her head had Gwen fallen asleep. A hard slap on her shoulder made her wake up again. She groggily followed the woman to a new corner of the room and dressed herself in warm clothes.
"Thank you," whispered Gwen to the woman when she left.
The woman blushed slightly, pressed Gwen's hand and disappeared through another door.
Gwen walked out of the bathroom and found Loki laying on the bed with a bored look on his face. When he saw her, he pointed towards a tray with food. "Help yourself."
She almost ran towards the tray. Yes, she could help herself! It had everything; fruit, freshly baked bread, fish and a heavenly smelling soup. Her eyes went all teary when she saw a chocolate cake.
"Don't drool on everything!" Loki complained from behind her back.
"You should have taken the chance when you had it!" Gwen answered and grabbed a plate.
"We are allowed to go exploring before dinner," informed Loki.
She glanced at him as he stretched out himself on the bed. She knew exactly what she wanted to explore. The thought ran through her head and she started to blush. Gwen turned all of her attention on the food again.
"Table manners?" he reminded her with a raised brow.
She shrugged. "This is amazing! Haven't you tried this chocolate cake?"
"You're such an overeater."
"Silvertongue, that wasn't especially smooth! I'll tell you one thing that women can't keep their hands off and that's chocolate! The creamy, sweet taste and texture is wonderful!" She stuffed her face a bit more and then sat down beside him on the bed.
He sat up and chuckled. "You got some chocolate on your face."
Gwen dried it off and shrugged instead of being embarrassed. "I want to discuss something serious with you, Loki."
He waited.
"Are you sure about this?"
He closed his eyes. Gwen stared at him but he sat fixed like a statue.
She tried again. "Do you have a plan B if Hel decides to not cooperate with you?"
"Not really."
"I think that you are desperate. You're jumping at any chance to make things right again, even this kind of-, err-, chance."
"Your point?"
"Have you been thinking about the ethical side of this? Don't you think it's cruel to do this to her. It's not like she's going to wake up from sleep, ready to face a new day. She have left the living world already. We're not meant for returning to the living, Loki."
He returned his retort with calm but also force in his voice. "It's my cause!"
"You're not talking about a cause, you are all about desperation! Don't you think that I don't recognize it when it's right in front of me? Step back for a moment and take a breath to get a fresh perspective!"
"It's easy for you to say!"
"What about Frigga's opinion about this? I don't think that she would have wanted to see her son trade himself in for her in death?"
"I'm responsible for her stay in this realm!"
"What are you responsible for?! Did you shoot the arrow that punctured her heart?" Her question was meant to be rhetorical. She didn't expect an answer to it.
Her direct question made him shy back. "I aimed," he confessed with a thin voice.
"Did you aim at her?"
He turned to her. "Of course not! It was a mistake, I aimed for someone else..." His voice broke.
"Who?"
Loki got up and left the room. The door shut behind with force. Gwen fell back on the bed feeling like a complete idiot.
…
She stared into the ceiling, trying to figure out where he had gone. Mission impossible since she had no clue where he would go in this realm. She actually had no clue what was outside this room. Time to change that! Gwen got out of the room and wandered across the empty corridors. She briefly wondered where the dead were kept and if the fancy palace just was a way of hiding the real underworld.
She reached a door and opened it slowly. The sun's light hit her face and she was momentarily blinded. Gwen breathed in the fresh air and sighed happily, her eyes had gotten used to the bright light and she saw a beautiful scenery. Marble stairs led down to green, healthy grass and a crystal clear lake. She walked down and sat herself on the first step. Gwen found herself completely surrounded by a forest, truly an enchanted realm.
Gwen carefully dug her toes into the grass when a sound caught her attention. She looked up to see a utterly beautiful woman emerge from the behind the bushes. Her jaw dropped. (Why are everyone so extremely good looking in this realm? Something in the water, maybe?) Gwen had never seen someone so beautiful as this woman before. The woman walked up to her with a curious look on her face.
"Don't you know how to close your mouth?" asked the woman with a clear trace of joke in her tone. Her laugh was just as clear as pouring water.
Gwen closed her mouth but still remained dazzled by her.
She whipped her black, curly hair back and narrowed her brown eyes. "Are you new here?"
"I am merely a visitor."
"A visitor."
"Yeah, like a tourist."
"A tourist, eh?"
Gwen gulped as she was being scanned by the dazzling woman.
"I suppose I should say welcome, then." She straightened her white dress, rounded Gwen and proceeded up the stairs.
Gwen rubbed her eyes and turned around. She rubbed her eyes again. The backside of the woman wasn't as beautiful as she had expected. It was like staring into a hollow tree trunk. (Why did every beautiful woman have a less beautiful side in this realm? Was it something in the water?) Just as she had reached the door, it opened and revealed Loki. He kept his gaze low as they passed. She, on the other hand, threw him a seductive smile. The door closed behind the woman.
Loki sat down beside Gwen.
She stared straight ahead, into the enchanted forest. "You sure you aren't going to chase after her? I think you got a chance," said Gwen with a slight bitter voice.
He leaned back on the marble steps behind his back. "Skogsrå.*"
"Huh?"
"She's the protector of the wild animals in the deep forests."
"Oh," answered Gwen. "Impressing title."
"When she's in a good mood, she will help the hunters by making sure that they wont miss their target and when she isn't in a good mood, she will make sure that the wanderers will be lost in the forest," Loki told her. "Sometimes she helps the charcoal burner by waking him when the charcoal kiln burns in the nights."
"Sounds like quite some woman." All Gwen could think of was her beauty. She was about to tell Loki to not miss the chance again, but bit her own tongue.
As if he had read her thoughts he said; "She isn't the ideal lover since she steals the soul of the men she seduces."
She breathed out. Relief?
"The banquet will start soon. You might want to head back to the room to get ready," informed Loki and stood up.
"Banquet? I thought she said dinner?"
"Hel arranges banquets frequently for the dead." He turned his back on her and she followed after. "It's not like we are special."
…
The great hall was filled with round tables and people. A rising feeling of panic washed over her and she tried to put a lid on it, crowds were still something of a problem to her. Gwen zigzagged through the crowd of tables with Loki following closely behind. "Are we sitting with Hel?" Gwen asked. "Because I can see her now."
Loki nodded and pushed her towards Hel's table. He barely spoke and had his teeth clenched together for the most of the time during their walk towards the hall. Gwen looked in all directions, the hall was so extremely huge that she barely could see the opposite walls in the distance.
Hel was seated at slightly larger round table than the rest. Servants stood ready by two empty seats. Gwen made a face of embarrassment when one of the servants pushed in the chair behind her. Loki didn't react at all when every of his need was being tended to. Gwen sighed; royals!
"Welcome," said Hel and smiled with her living part of her face. "I am honored to have living creatures at my table. It's quite exotic to hear heartbeat and see blood flow under your skin, for a change."
The strange comment made Gwen fidget with the elegant pearl necklace that had appeared in their room, along with an exquisite yellow dress and a pair of heels. This banquet was apparently really fancy since all of the dead seemed to have dressed up in their best. Sure there were some variations in what they seemed to regard as their 'best'. Loki wore something that looked like his previous clothes. Some dead wore something that resembled potato sacks.
"And you wants to join us," said Hel and turned to Loki. "Your heart will never beat again, hence your heart stops, nor will you blush ever again."
"I care very little of those things," informed Loki.
"Tears of happiness, genuine laughter and love? You will lose everything that the dead misses here."
"I don't have the advantage in enjoying it now either."
"Of course you have." Hel snorted. "Such a waste, many here would kill for what you have."
Loki clenched his fists under the table. He remained in a stiff position as Hel offered them wine. Gwen's hand found his and she pressed it softly but released it quickly since his hand remained a like a dead fish in her grip.
Hel turned to Gwen and raised a perfect brow. "Who are you, girl, his companion of some sort?"
What was she supposed to say? That he had dragged her into this mission and that she, along the way, had grown so ridiculously fond of him that she didn't want him to die? "I am his travel companion and he's mine, as you said."
Loki dropped his knife on the porcelain plate with a clank. "No, she's not my travel companion," corrected Loki with a dead voice.
"But I thought-, we have traveled a lot lately, don't you think?" retorted Gwen while the feeling of being completely fooled in front of the goddess of death rose. Warm tears started to burn behind her eye lids. What was he going to claim now?
"It doesn't mean two people traveling together. If you were my travel companion, you would be regarded as my wife," Loki said in a low voice.
Gwen hung her head, the tears were replaced by burning embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I didn't know your about that custom."
"Your red hair goes beautifully with the yellow dress. I hoped it wouldn't clash, too much," said Hel as she changed subject with a confident smile.
Gwen muttered something under her breath.
"Is Frigga here?" Loki asked suddenly.
"She might be, good luck in finding her." Hel leaned back in her seat with a smug smile. "I feel slightly offended, son of Jotunheim, I thought this night was for me only."
"Of course it is your night," answered Loki in a humble tone.
The rumor of the living people in the hall had spread. Some took several turns to pass their table over and over again. Gwen tried to control her rising pulse. Other just stared. A pair of curious men had slouched up to them. One of them mustered enough courage to sneak up behind Gwen and placing his dead, cold hands on her shoulders. "It's true. She's still warm, I can see the blood pumping under her skin!"
"Hey, do you feel her pulse?" shouted someone.
Gwen flinched from their sudden skin to skin contact. "Let go of me!" she growled and pushed off his hands from her shoulders.
"You heard her," said Loki in a low voice and remained sitting.
Hel dismissed them with a flick of hand. The men left immediately when her angry eyes met theirs.
"I am terribly sorry about that, it wont happen again," informed Hel. "I'll make sure that it wont." Her voice changed to a darker tone and she discreetly talked with some guards.
Gwen stared into her lap.
The goddess' voice cut through the awkward silence. "Why so sullen?" asked Hel. "Have you changed your mind, son of Jotunheim."
"No." Loki gritted his teeth.
"Is he always like this?" Hel turned to Gwen with amusement. "When things necessarily doesn't turn out his way?"
Gwen's eyes narrowed. She analyzed Hel's playful tone and her last words and drew the conclusion that Hel wasn't going to allow him to replace Frigga. Loki's plan wasn't going to work out. She quickly glanced towards Loki who seemed like he hadn't caught the message. Gwen couldn't help it but relief washed over her. "Well, I haven't known him for so long."
The dead tone in his voice was back. "93 full days. Roughly a quarter of a year."
"You've been counting the days we've spent together?"
This time he stared into his lap. He looked like he was currently biting his tongue off.
Hel glanced between them. "We are going to be entertained soon. I might as well warn you, it's not what you are used to."
Gwen turned her attention towards an orchestra with curiosity. When the orchestra started playing, she immediately regretted her curiosity. Their music was the most awful she had ever heard, it was literally nails against a chalkboard (one old lady sat in the corner and performed that monstrous sound). She wanted nothing more than to close her ears. A fat woman appeared on stage and started to sing, her singing was even worse than the music. Loki's jaw had dropped. Hel had closed her eyes and simply adored the music. Gwen fidgeted with her pearl necklace and wondered if she would be killed off if she put her fingers into her ears.
The theme was a slimy love story of a sailor looking for a way home to his beloved, sadly it turned out that his beloved one had been transformed into a toad. People started to laugh when someone came onto stage dressed as a toad. Gwen didn't know whether to cry or not. The horrible musical continued for hours. Bad battle scenes, parodies of Odin and horrible plays were performed. What they seemed to consider to be humor wasn't really what she could laugh at. Gwen flinched when the audience laughed, extra loud this time, like hyenas. Loki put a reassuring hand on her shoulder but removed it quickly.
The dinner consisted of three meals. A soup for an appetizer, roast beef and cooked potatoes for main dish and strawberries with ice cream for dessert. Gwen had lost her appetite and ate only little of the dishes but when the ice cream appeared on her plate she couldn't keep herself from going for another round.
Hel scanned Loki who barely touched the food. "You are eating very little, son of Jotunheim."
"I'm not particularly hungry."
"Cold feet?"
"No."
"Then you should eat. Rumors from the dead tells me that food always tastes better when one's alive." She blinked. "Everything is better when you're alive. It's as if living in the underworld is a shadow to life itself." Hel laughed at her own dry joke. "Although, I can agree with them to some extent. Life is the real thing, if you allow me to say it that way. Taste. Hearing. Feelings. Pleasure." Hel sent Gwen a look that was hard to decipher. "It's just stronger for any living individual than the rest of us poor dead in this realm."
"If you are trying to make me change my mind, then it's not working."
"I'm telling you to live a little, you appear to already be dead!"
Loki stared into his plate.
"I've heard that you've already charmed a woman here. The guardian of the wild animals reported," said Hel and winked. "But I suppose you already knows better than to fall for her. She will feast on your soul. Those poor bastards who falls for her, I can't even talk about it."
"I am aware of that fact."
"Keen on keeping your soul then? That doesn't rime well with your death wish, son of Jotunheim. Why give the soul to me, when you can have the time of your life before handing it over to her?"
"You keep giving me reasons that I don't care about."
"She's not going to join us here." Hel nodded towards Gwen. "If you want to spend ti-"
"I don't care."
A smile spread on both of her sides. "She does." Hel pointed towards Gwen.
Gwen looked away with embarrassment. How could Hel have read her mind so clear? It started to ring in her ears and sweat trickled down her back. "Excuse me," she mumbled and got up to walk away from the table.
…
The cold air of the night embraced her. The combined feeling of being insulted, bullied and completely fooled slowly washed away. She sat down on the stairs right outside the main entrance. Gwen didn't care if someone came and closed the entrance door, she had survived worse cold.
A familiar man sat down next to her. "Interesting night."
She stared right ahead, already knowing it was Loki. "This day has been very interesting, you made me realize that I was wrong," she admitted slowly.
"So the physiologist was finally wrong about the psychopath?"
"You've changed so much during the past day. My analysis turned out to be gravely wrong. I thought your aim was a throne. Not to sacrifice yourself for another being. I would never had thought that you had it in you."
"When she fell down, dead. My whole world turned upside down." He started the next sentence in a much lighter voice. "I thought you hated me! But that seems not to be the case." A smug smile played on his lips.
"Funny how the prospect of you dying could make me decide what I wanted."
"Yeah, I should try this more often." He slapped her playfully on her shoulder. "Tell me what you are, daughter of Midgård and Asgård. I think I deserves it now when the end is so painfully near."
She sighed. What was the point in hiding it now? "My father is from Midgård and met my asgardian mother in the year 1942, during WWII. They fell in love immediately and I was born in the next year. After my birth mother fled, she left us, me and father."
"So you are a mix? You gained your way of aging and the magical abilities from your mother, right?"
"No, I took after my father much more. The illusions are merely party tricks. I can't move an object nor do anything practical with my ability. It's just optical illusions, a way of fooling the eyes of the rest of the people."
"You never changed the color of the knave?"
"No."
"But what about your slow aging?"
She dried a tear. "I was aging, just like a normal human, up until 1970 when I was visited by mother. She claimed that we would get to know each other and I believed her. It turned out that she wasn't there to get to know me, instead she tricked me into eating a apple from Idun and my aging stopped. I have absolutely no idea what this means, only that my aging froze..."
"It will wear off in a hundreds of years or so. You'll eventually die." He shrugged. "Idun's apples doesn't make one immortal. They slows down the aging."
"That's a long life. Death is supposed to be catching up with me already. I was born 71 years ago. I should have wrinkles, ailments and grandchildren already-"
"You don't want to have ailments and wrinkles," informed Loki with a shudder. He knew what that was like.
"Is that the reason why you are ready to go into death so young? Do you want to be a beautiful corpse?"
He snickered as if he never had heard something so stupid. "Beautiful corpse?"
"Sorry if I insulted you, you would be a beautiful corpse anyway, even if you dies marked by age." She slapped his shoulder in return.
"I'm relieved to hear that you don't fear for my beauty."
The playful tones in their voices served as a balm. The awkward tension between them disappeared.
…
Loki removed her pearl necklace gently. A few of her hair shafts had tangled into the lock and he softly untangled her hair from the necklace. Gwen laid down on the bed and stared into the ceiling, just like earlier that day.
"Do you have second thoughts?" Gwen asked as he removed her heels. She sat up to stare into his eyes.
"I don't regret my decision," Loki claimed with a shaky voice.
"Are you afraid?"
He didn't answer. His silence was enough.
She stroked his cheek and he put a hand on her waist. They sat for a moment with their foreheads together. She leaned in and awkwardly tilted her head to place a small kiss on the corner of his mouth. He remained fixed like a statue, only the grip on her waist hardened. Gwen pulled away slightly but stopped when he moved. His lips softly pressed against hers and then pulled away. She leaned in again. Blood boiled under her skin. She wanted this so bad. Strangely this seemed to be the one thing she had been striving for in the past year. This act was the only thing that had kept her going. They were at the edge of the living world and she was shaking of anticipation. Their lips crushed onto each other a little bit harder.
When one have tasted icy desolation and one have missed out on burning desire for so long; a simple caress and a loving whisper becomes so affective. Gwen's hand tangled into his hair and she pushed him backwards.
*Skogsrå (Swedish), Huldra (Norweigan), Elverpigen (Danish) is a mythical seductress who lives in the woods in Scandinavian folklore. Her appearance and name often changes from place to place in Scandinavia.