Author's note! I own nothing of Marvel-verse except my OC character, everything else belongs to the amazing Stan Lee, may his wonderful self Rest in Peace, Jack Kirby and all the other amazing men and women who helped bring about the Marvel-Verse in Comic AND live-actions well as cartoon and animations. All my work and creativity put in here is purely fictional and fanfiction based on the MCU-verse. All my work here and creativity put into this storyline is purely fictional AND fanfiction based on the MCU-verse. Thank you, and have a wonderful adventure! also have a great Day/Afternoon/Night.
Chapter 22
It had taken him some time to get up the side of the mountain at the waterfall at the edge of Asgard, climbing his way up to Himinbjorg to take back Hofund. But he found the two fallen warriors, on the steps of the Bifrost, Hofund still sheathed in the center of the building. Rushing to their side, he checked for a pulse when he reached Fandral. His head dropped and he sighed with remorse. He was dead. Closing his eyes, he removed the necroblades from the Warriors chest, grabbed his friend's sword and rested it over his chest, and clasped his hands over the sword. "May you travel safely and be welcomed in the halls of Valhalla, my friend. Find peace." He whispered over the man's dead body. Hearing the sudden cough of the man nearest his sword, the key to the Bifrost, Heimdall rushed to his side, "Volstagg-"
"The woman-" he coughed, his throat was dry, yet it was wet, coated with blood as he grabbed onto Heimdall's hand that rested over his bleeding wound. He had removed the Necroblade, wanting the damn thing out of him, hoping to dye the remaining of his slow death without the annoying reminder. But seeing Heimdall, he had to warm him.
"I know, Hela is back, come, we have to get you to a healer-"
"No!" Volstagg choked out with a roar, his blood spitting from his mouth and rolling down his chin, staining his red beard even redder. Grabbing Heimdall's hand at the neck of his armor to lift him up, he wouldn't make it to a healer. "Brenna…. Brenna-" he continued to chock. For some reason he just could not get the words out, the blood was filling his mouth far too much.
Hearing a name he hadn't heard in years, Heimdall stared down at the man, "What did you say?"
"Brenna… Daughter…" he said through his mouth full of blood, his eyes watering as he looked up at the man's golden eyes. Trying to choke out what he could, Volstagg's eyes grew heavy, too heavy for him to fight. He was weakening far too fast now. But of course, nothing could just be simple for them. It always had to become complicated just at the last possible moment. Forcing himself to remain alive as long as possible, Volstagg grabbed Heimdall's arm and smiled sadly at the man looking down at him with remorse at his unstoppable death. "Live… Live well," he whispered weakly.
Watching the man die in his arms, Heimdall's eyes closed at the man's death and his head dropped. Grabbing his friend's ax, he rested the weapon over his chest and closed his hands around the weapon. Even if he could not send them off in the proper manner, he knew he could do at least this. "May you travel safely to the halls of Valhalla, my friend."
Grabbing Hofund, Heimdall made his way back down the mountainside to the boat, but his descent was not of a peaceful mind. It was full of worry. 'How had I not seen her coming? Has someone shrouded her from my sight?'
Now panicking as the wolf chased after her, she sucked in a breath at the close call she almost had by that thing's jaws snapping at her when she cut a corner and went down an outdoor covered hall. So far, there were no people around, which she was very happy about. Otherwise, there would have been a lot more trouble. But she had a bigger problem right now. She had no fucking clue where she was going! When Bianca turned another corner she found herself coming right back out and around to the Palace once again. Coming to a stop, she panted out with tiered breathing, "You have got to be joking," she breathed, partially out of breath as she watched strange soldiers filing out of the palace. "Oh come on," she breathed. She stiffened instantly upon the ground shaking behind her, it was clear that her wolf had caught up with her and was very much behind her, the shadow that stood over top her told her that much as well. Feeling a puff and the smell of nose stinging breath, Bianca held her brother and closed her eyes.
She clapped slowly with an amused grin across her thin lips as she walked out of the palace, her hips swaying in her steps as she walked down the steps, her warriors making an open path for her to meet the woman before the stairs. "Well done, I have to say that I am surprisingly impressed." Hela complemented. "Not many can run from Fenris like that," Hse added with a smirk. "Take her to her room, keep her there. I want four inside to watch her closely and ten, yes, ten should do, outside of her room," she ordered calmly.
She walked with the guards surrounding her, this was purely against her will, but she had no other escape. She'd been caught and with no idea what these things' weaknesses were she wasn't going to risk getting slaughtered. Hela would only hold so much patients for her rebelliousness. When they opened a door, four of them walking in with her she took in the sight of the massive bedroom, the dark purple drapes with gold Norse designs, creamy silky sheets with a purple cover, the silk drapes were even purple at the opened windows with shuttered that could close the large open and breathable windows. She paced her room until nightfall, the resurrected guards watching her far too closely. After night turned to daylight, Bianca took to the Lectus couch of soft cushions to rest. She would not lay in someone else's bed. She had no idea who's room this belonged to, and she would not invade someone else's room.
She knew it was late, but she still wanted to see the redhead. Entering Brenna's old room, the room the woman was staying in, Hela silently walked the room, she was not in the bed, and she wished she knew why, since it was so late. When she found the woman asleep on the lectus couch curled up and fast asleep, she softly smiled and draped a blanket over the woman. Waving her hand across the layout of the room, the candles came to life, giving her the chance to look around the lit room. It was clean, dust-free, aired out, almost as if Brenna had just walked out to get something from her garden, scroll in hand. If she focused enough Hela swore she could see Brenna walking in through the half-opened door dressed in her favorite purple gown, her soft red curls she had likely covered upon earth to hide as many identities as she had lived through the ages. "Hela, what are you doing in here? It's late," her friends' gentle laugh echoed in her mind's eye shredding her heart as her sweet laughter turned into her screaming pleas to Frigga, "Let it kill me then!"
Unable to stay in there much longer, Hela headed for the doors. Looking to each of the four guards in Bianca's room she gave them a cold look of order, "She is not to leave," with her orders given, Hela left, closing the doors behind her and locked them, and headed down the halls in search of Brenna's library. She grew angry when she found that the Library had been removed from the palace and to a separate vault that Odin hid from everyone. "Skurge," she asked the man's attention, her hands ghosting over dust-covered scrolls in their slots. The tall ceilings and the golden magical lights lit the room as if they were fireflies floating around.
Stepping forward, Skurge took a nervous breath, "Yes, ma'am,"
"Have you ever heard of a woman named Brenna? She was the Royal healer, to myself and Odin?" She asked the man curiously. A hand ghosted over her flat belly as she thought of the intense aching emptiness she felt in that in that memory. It felt like one, but there were both different aching emptiness. One was aged remorse and hate mixed with despair, the other felt as though it was fresher, a newer wound, something that had been ripped away from her, not cursed as Brenna, but removed, the pain she felt in her womb during that memory was a pain that made her associate it with ripping and burning. It told her that pain was two different emotions. Frigga was never Baron or cursed to be so, and neither had Hela. Meaning the only other person that it could relate to was Bianca.
Thinking for a moment, Skurge softly shook his head at the new Queen Asgard. "No, I don't recall that I have," he answered honestly.
Sighing, Hela approached the display desk. It had once been Brenna's mixing Station. Where she would mix herbal remedies, where she scribbled on her scrolls of herbs and mixtures - What worked, what didn't, and what to never mix. Brenna had dealt in the healing herbs mostly, however, she and Morganna had both studied the arts of death, pain, and Poisons of herbs. Morganna had chosen to remain on Midgard centuries before Hela had been banished. She wondered if the Witch was still even living after all this time. "Brenna was my only friend, human-related that is, she was like a sister in some ways. No one was worthy of marrying her. If they could not defeat me then they were Unworthy. However, I see now that by doing so she was refused her life of children. And because of my carelessness involving her, she chose banishment and death. All to avoid betraying me and to have a child with a Midgardian… I will not make the same mistake with her daughter." Truly, Hela was speaking to herself. But, Skurge's presents made her make sense of the missing times. The cover-ups Odin had done. And it appeared that while no one knew of Brinner, or herself, Odin had kept a piece of her alive. Likely at the request of Frigga. The two had once studied under the very same Witches, alongside Morganna. Memories were painful for Hela at the moment. Looking at the last remanence of the last Scroll Brenna had been working on, Hela ghosted her hand over the new artifact of the dead woman before she turned away from Brenna's table and left the Library.
Her warriors and Skurge cleaned the fallen ruble from the Grand throne room while Hela walked the halls. The sun was setting as she approached Bianca's bedroom, three Scrolls in hand. These would become Bianca's first lessons.
Bianca had spent the entire day in this room. She was plum board. Over the hours she had searched for something to do. And with a room that was possibly four-thousand Square feet with a small spiral staircase leading up to a section wall of loose papers, Scrolls, ever hardened clay with symbols. Looking at the clay slabs, each one being slightly different. As if this was practice. To learn to read and write. When her eyes had begun to hurt Bianca swore her eyes and brain were planting letters and words with the symbols she set the last scroll back in the slot or the bookshelf and continued exploring the room.
When she came to a desk, thin paper, and old charcoal, she smiled at the light Sketches of faces, plants, Sceneries, and animals- or creatures, that Bianca had never seen or heard of before. Ghosting her hand over the sketches, her smile grew at the images and emotions that flowed through her.
"I have noticed you have a very rare and astonishing gift, Bianca," Hela said, Softly grinning at Bianca once she turned to face her. The woman's startled behavior almost reminded Hela of a child being caught ogling their warrior family members treasured weapon. Walking her way silently to the woman watching her closely as she approached. Reaching Brenna's sketch and notes station, Hela set the three scrolls down for her. "It was your grandmother's gift. Sadly, she was never taught in the Witch's ways like your mother was. And when your grandmother was alive she had no writings. Frankly, we hardly had writing when I was young myself. The witches, however, had a written form. One of your mothers knew. One they likely embedded into your magic and blood, so you could read such things if you ever happened across artifacts on Midgard."
Watching the woman closely, not sure if she could trust her not to attack, Bianca carefully took a side step away from Hela and the desk as she spoke of Bianca's female Lineage. She was, however, confused about her claim of Frigga and Brenna embedding a witch's ancient literature in her very being. It was ridiculous as well as I'm possible. "That's impossible," Bianca stated.
Amused, Hela grinned at her, "Oh? It is no different than the manipulation of things. Of an infant's identity really, they embroidered magic into your very Soul. You have it, your children will have it, and your grandchildren as well. You, however, I must say, will likely remain the strongest if properly taught. Frigga is dead, your mother is dead and I assume the ancient witches are also now dead. They already had a foot in their graves when they began teaching Frigga, Morgana, and your mother." She clarified with a small sigh. Placing her open palm over a certain scroll, she gently scrolled it open, a soft smirk on her lips grew when Bianca stepped forward and looked at the thin paper. "Go on… Read it," she spoke softly.
Looking over the symbols, recognizing that these symbols were, to her knowledge at least, never seen on earth. Shaking her head at the scroll softly, Bianca closed her eyes tightly at the headache coming on and pinched the bridge of her nose, "I can't, but these symbols have been making my head hurt since I found those clay tablets on the shelves upstairs." She explained.
"You're fighting it," Hela informed her. "Stop fighting it, magic in all. It will do more harm to you than help." She attempted to advise her. But when Bianca stepped, a nervous laugh on her lips, and walk away, Hela sighed and leaned back against the wall beside the little desk, "You can do this, Bianca, you simply have to stop fearing it. That is what is stopping you from being so amazing. From being so powerful-"
"I don't want to be powerful! I don't want any of this! I just want my family!" Bianca shouted, turning on Hela. Her eyes burned with angry unshed tears. "I lost everything, just because I'm Brenna's daughter, or even half of Frigga's daughter, having these hidden and dormant-whatever- powers. I never wanted them, I still don't-"
"And yet you have them, and you run from it because you fear it. Tell me this, Bianca, how exactly did you "lose everything"?" She asked her, crossing her arms and giving her a studied and curious expression.
Huffing, Bianca did what Bianca always did. She rattled on about Ross, what he had tried to do, what he had swiftly accomplished. "I opened my mouth… I did and said what I said because… Because I…"
"You didn't trust them to protect you," Hela said for her, saying what she knew Bianca likely had been hiding from even herself.
Scuffing at the woman, she crossed her arms and looked out the window sadly, letting those words sink in just a little, "I guess so," she whispered.
"Because they hadn't protected you the previous times something had happened," Hela accused, gently pushing off the wall she was leaning against and approached Bianca silently. "Something happened that made you feel great, but also made you fearful. You fear yourself. Say it, admit it, you fear yourself, you fear what you could do if you just let loose and gave it your all," she whispered, her tone deepening, malicious and excited at the thought that she had tasted something so wonderful and fearsome and had controlled herself by fearing herself.
"I was so desperate to escape I didn't care if it was mentally doing it, I managed to slip into someone's dreams. He'd saved me before, so… I thought…" The memory had her throat choking on the words. She had ruined his dream, a fantasy he was attempting to live out and she had walked right on in and ruined it all. Even as he told her to never apologize for going to him, even in his mind and dreams as she had, she still felt terrible for it. Dropping her head into a hand, she sighed sadly. She wouldn't get over that for a while. She had been proud at first, happy she had mentally escaped the Red Room's Doctors and what they were doing, but upon her realizing what she had done, she began to fear herself, of what else could she do in someone's sleep, what damage could she achieve, made her fearful of herself and of hurting someone. By the time she was trying to tell Bucky what was going on, she was being ripped out of her sleep and pulled down a hall and into Dreykov's office.
Hearing what she was saying, seeing her reaction to what she was remembering, Hela's grin grew, "You thought he could do it again,"
Nodding, Bianca sighed and looked back out the window. "I felt free there, like a… A surge of power I guess, as I searched for an escape, an opening to anywhere. And I found one, in his dreams, I just wanted to escape the Red Room. He must have been really asleep, like deep sleep. I don't know-"
This was exciting, never heard of, ever, "Even though you were on the same planet, you still transferred your consciousness to another."
Hearing the excitement in her voice, Bianca looked up to the tall woman and felt a shiver snake up her spine as she saw the fascinating excitement. She couldn't help but wonder why that was so fascinating to Hela. "What?"
"This just keeps getting better and better," Hela whispered, taking hold of Bianca's hands, she uncrossed the woman's arms and took a good look at her then walked her back over to the desk and scroll, "Read it," she whispered.
Hela's whispered demand was almost like a snake to her ears, taunting her, pleading, and prying her do as she asked. Like the snake in the biblical garden of Eden. Her eyes gazed over the scroll, her mind and eyes suddenly began to shift, seeing the strange symbols shift into letters and the letters began to form, pulling together to form a sentence. Before Bianca knew what she was doing, the words began to spill off her tongue and from her lips, in a language that she had never heard, never spoken. Yet, she was seeing it, reading it, her hands shimmering a golden gloss as she read word by word, the symbols and letters vanishing, absorbing into her from her very fingertips.
Hela watched with mouth-gapping awe. This was raw power this woman was casting with and she had no idea the kind of power she held within her. But her eyes, however, glowed with a ring of gold, her iris's shimmering in an aurora lights effect of teal, pink, and turquoise. But it was a bright glow of light around her belly, around the young woman's womb shining out from her belly that had Hela shocked. She'd wanted to be wrong, wanted it all to be just her own ache of the emptiness of never baring a child. "By all of the gods known," Hela whispered to herself. She was stunned, speechless, all forms of words truly. 'She's absorbing the spell, the writing, the magic in the words- apart of the scroll itself. She's absorbing everything. They likely have no idea what they have created,'
Finishing the scroll, Bianca blinked rapidly as her head spun from the rush. She felt a strong, small hand gently grab ahold of her arms and steady her on her feet as her legs began to fail her and eased her over to the bed.
Swiping the scroll back into the closed roll, she walked Bianca over to the bed and eased her to sit, "Good, very good, now, look," Hela whispered, rolling the scroll out onto their laps. She chuckled at Bianca's wide eyes of shock.
She stared at the blank scroll across both their laps, Bianca felt her eyes water, now realizing what the spell had been. "You knew… How did you know?" she asked.
"I felt an emptiness in you. An emptiness your mother felt when I saw her in a vision. It took me a moment to realize why I felt that emptiness so profoundly like I felt it in Brenna in the memories I saw. But there was a different kind of emptiness. It was different. So, I search for this spell, this one specifically, and watched. I was not fully certain until I saw the spell working on you. Your womb is healed, everything should be remarked, replaced whatever was ripped from you. Perfect."
Hearing her say it had her almost choking, a hand ghosting over her belly while she continued to stare at the blank scroll, hot tears falling from her eyes onto the scroll. Feeling Hela's warm hand gently press into the back of hers' and slowly guided her palm to press against her belly had Bianca sucking in a breath. She'd had it all ripped away from her, well, almost all of it, but it had still left her with minimal chances of ever having a born family of her own. That, to any woman, or young girl-teenager/woman such as herself, was destroying of hope. But this, this was breaking yet a reforming of hope, the diminishing of her hatred and anger.
The next few weeks Bianca had spent in her mother's library. It was a place Hela had walked her to after the successful healing the scroll had accomplished with Bianca's added magic. She spent as much time as she could in the Library, the rest with Hela training her own magic, but sadly, it was dark magic, the necromancy magic, thankfully Hela would also allow her to practice other magi, such as healing, defense magic, curses and breaking curses, but truly she had to learn to rules for curses, to understand how to break them. She even spent time training physically with Hela, and she had to say the Goddess was astonishing. Even more impressive in War techniques, and strategies, though Bianca had to admit she did not think she was that well in that last area.
While Bianca wanted to learn, to absorb all of this healing knowledge, she had taken into the thought of all of the things Hela could use all of this absorbed knowledge for. She wasn't doing this to be friendly or nice, or helpful in healing Bianca's body or her mind, which everything so far had been, to an extent. No, this was for herself. For Hela's concerns. But to conquer, she had to train her warriors again, train Bianca. She had convinced Bianca to use that scroll to Heal her womb, well the parts that had been removed, ripped from her very body. But, Bianca was not a foolish child now, at least, she hoped she wasn't being a foolish child. However, she had realized after a moment of being alone, that the scroll Hela had convinced her to use had been a test run.
Bianca was realizing over the few days after Hela's first visit, that Frigga and Brenna had given her cheat codes to this. By using their spell to create Bianca, to allow her to be born, they had given her their cheat codes, their knowledge to her through blood magic and laced in spells of their own. Meaning they had likely predicted Hela's return and spellbound a linchpin to save Bianca, as well as the rest of the universe from her, and Asgard. Unfortunately, that put a lot of stress on Bianca, thinking she would have no choice but to figure this out on her own. Scroll by scroll, sketch by sketch she absorbed as much as she could. She hardly slept, teas and fruits, wines and small plates of meat were all she'd eat throughout the days. She hadn't realized she had been in the Library so often or for how many days, until Skurge walked in with a big grin on his face, Hela walking behind him with an equally big grin on her face.
"Why hello da'ling," Skurge said to her as he walked in. A new Ax held in hand as he walked in.
Bianca's brow raised curiously at him, her absorbing of certain spells she knew Hela may not approve of her looking at or taking from Brenna's Library. He'd been perfectly fine this morning, like the rest of the month she had been there, strange as usual, uncertain about this, and helping his people, but now, now he was… Cocky, arrogant, possibly. She wasn't sure, but the grin that turned up into a smirk on Hela's face as she watched from the large double doors and the four steps into the Library had her worried. "Please don't call me 'darling' Skurge. What are you doing here anyway? I am studying." She said to him, her eyes glancing back and forth between him and Hela just standing and watching as Skurge continued to grin wider, from ear to ear as he walked up the second steps to the large desk where she stood and slowly stalked around the worn desk. The way he was behaving had her heart skipping with panic. Stepping to the side, away from him to attempt to escape, she turned to run for the door only to slightly scream at running smack into Hela, the woman's fingers lacing through her long hair and turned her around to the advancing Skurge and gently shoved her into the man's armored body. He'd set his ax down just in time to catch her against him, lynched her arm behind her back, and locked it in place, pulling a cried shout of pain from her, her body was forced fully against his armored body. He was strong that was for sure, meaning that she had simply taken him for a surprise when she had tried to escape. She turned her face from him as leaned down and his lips brushed over her cheek, back to her ear where he nipped at her ear and dipped down to her neck.
"Hela!" she snapped, bringing her knee up into his crotch, Bianca breathed with heavy panic as he released her and dropped to his knees and held himself, breathing through the pain of her attaching his male anatomy.
"Alrigh', alright, I deserved tha'," he breathed out through the pain his balls plus his 'little brother' were experiencing, "Sorry," Skurge breathed. Apologizing for the personal invasion of her space and body. He had gone too far, he understood that.
Glaring after the woman leaving the Library, Hela chuckled, "Get used to that kind of attention da'ling, you both shall be married by tomorrow afternoon. Get out of this Library sweetheart, you've been in here for weeks, it does get rather stuffy, don't you think?" She informed the woman as she closed the doors.
Bianca stared mouth gaping at the doors, then turned to Skurge as he used the table to stand back up with a few grunts of pain and then began to 'fix' himself. She closed her eyes at that and looked away. "How- no, I'm sorry, why, okay, just wait a moment. What is the correct way I should word this? Why in all of the gods' names are you helping her?" she asked him with disbelief.
"I don't want to die!" Skurge snapped a little. Gripping the table, he sucked in a breath clenched his eyes tightly, and breathed his breath out long and painfully. "I don't want to die, alright. I like living…. I'm a coward." He breathed sadly. His tone was full of shame.
Watching him, Bianca felt herself begin to sadly laugh, "Skurge, we are all scared of death, I am petrified, but I cannot live knowing that I have done nothing to stop this, to stop her."
"They aren't even your people! Why should you want to dye for them?" He demanded, raining an arm up from the table and out towards the double doors, aiming out for the people of Asgard as his target.
"Because they are people, whether or not they look like me should mean nothing to anyone. They are alive, they live here, this is their home, and they are scared, angry, they want their homes their freedom, all of it, back. They want to live. They do not want to live in fear. Nor should anyone have to. Not here, not the earth, not any kind of home world of any kind that supports life. Why are you so scared of her?"
Laughing, Skurge looked at her, feeling his eyes water with shameful tears. Looking away, he sniffed and looked out towards the windows. It was one of the many reasons why Hela let her be in here alone. Far too high for anyone to survive, especially Bianca being Half-Asgardian then looked back at the woman. "Why aren't you!?" he snapped at her. He could not believe how defiant her behavior was towards Hela was from the start! It was as if the woman was fearless!
"I am!" She screamed, her blue-green eyes watering as she glared at him, "I am terrified, far more than you could possibly understand. I have something inside of me that she wanted to make stronger, it's something that I don't want. All I want is to go home, to my family. My mother, my father, my aunts and uncles, my friends. I want to kiss my best friend just to say that I've kissed someone I have no right to kiss, but I know I won't kiss him, Peter and MJ belong together and I will die before I hurt them like that… Also, because I kind of like my best friend. But I also like someone that I really… Really, shouldn't like also- by that's defeating the purpose of this conversation. What I'm trying to say is just stand up to her-"
"Hell no, I choose to live… And you should do the same. You and I will marry tomorrow, you will be happy, you will follow the Queen, help her, heal her, aid her, and we will be safe. Goodnight, wife." Skurge growled with anger, grabbed his new Ax and walked out of the Library, looked at a set of Zombie guards, and ordered them to return her to her room.
Grabbing the scroll she had been interrupted from, Bianca walked back to her room with the guards silently, her heart pounding in her chest. She was being forced to marry Skurge. Question was, why? When the guards had shut the doors to her room behind her, Bianca rushed to the desk in the little nook where the desk was, unrolled the scroll, and returned to her room.