Past Lives
There were so many memories that Rowan couldn't seem to go through them all. It was times like this that some of those memories resurfaced, as she drifted into a deep sleep where dreams were summoned to take over while the conscious mind took a break.
All she had remembered so far were her memories of her foster homes. These dreams were along the same theme, threatened by others and her power unleashed itself to protect her. However, this time, she was about to learn more about the times she unleashed Hel unknowingly in order to keep safe.
Her dream seemed to skip down a chronologic sequence of her life throughout the centuries.
The first one, she was a young girl wearing an old plain dress and a bonnet, cultivating a large garden, despite the cold wind, behind the small wooden hut that was her place. It seemed like an ancient civilization, perhaps ancient Iceland. Her father was dead and her mother was sick. It seemed that after her real father, Gabriel, took her out of Helheim and took her memory, she started life as a child, growing up again in a strange world.
And she had no idea about anything.
Back then, because she was old enough for marriage, which by today's standards would be taboo, the men living around offered to marry her and take care of her mother. Those men were three times her age if not more. And they were definitely Vikings. They weren't going to take no for an answer. They were just looking to marry off all the women because an unmarried woman was a waste of human reproduction.
Naturally, she had refused them all. It was pretty brave, but everyone else thought she was stupid. Countless times men had tried to rape her as a result to her stubbornness. There was no one there for her, especially not her mother who was slowly dying.
The first time, the man was old enough to be her father. He was a married man with nine children and she was so terrified. She felt a surge of power and, without thinking twice, gave into it. Well, that unleashed the darkness. The man was staring down at a shimmering half-dead corpse whose eyes were a frightening reflection of death. Out of fear, he jumped off of her and ran, telling everyone what he saw.
That night was his last, as he suffered a horrible illness that crippled him until he was brain dead.
Since that moment, the darkness took over whenever someone wanted to take advantage of her. She ended up scaring them all away where they eventually died of some mysterious illness. That's when tales of this half dead thing spread. Perhaps one of her Draugar had walked among the Vikings and called her Hel, encouraging the stories. Maybe that's how she became part of Norse Mythology.
The images blurred in her dream, as if to say they were all the same and the lives of those people didn't matter more than the life of a cockroach.
Then, with the deaths of those men as well as jealousy and suspicion forming faster than the plague, the villagers ended up chasing her out of her home, calling her the evil spirit, Hel. Her mother ended up dying alone. Rowan was so angry.
Oddly, the village ended up burning down to the ground, all of those people died.
Rowan had lived her life on the run, doing what she could to survive. Still, men tried to rape her. There must have been thousands and if it hadn't been for Hel unleashing her wrath, her little body would have been so badly scarred and damaged that she would have died before reaching twenty. It seemed that a woman was only good for sex and, since she refused to get married and give it willingly, the men had to take it from her. Well, they learnt that they couldn't take it from her and paid a fatal price for trying.
Hel had killed more men than the plague; disgusting how the men disregarded her value as a person.
Her dream faded and reappeared in a type of Salem memory; a small religious town that tried to conceal its demons because money allowed them. There were witch accusations flying around because strange things had occurred. It was all lies, stupid children making up lies and watching as everyone began to get paranoid. It was all fun and games, until they learnt they could get what they wanted. However, when the finger was pointed right in her face all due to these girls that started a rumor, Rowan was believed to have been sleeping with a married man. But that wasn't the worst part. The rumor was also that she was planning on killing the guy's wife with dark spells.
Trouble followed her no matter what period of time or country.
Her religious father was outraged and beat her, only to then suffer from a heart attack. When he died shortly after, she was accused of being a witch and her mother was no help. She claimed her own daughter was the devil.
The townspeople were putting her on trial and those same girls began convulsing on the floor. Their acting was shit, but the entire town believed them and found Rowan guilty; to be burned at the stake. She didn't even have the chance to defend herself.
The night where she was suppose to burn, it was the girls who burned instead, in the crowd as they ironically cursed her. She laughed wickedly, asking the dying girls to fake that. Rowan had the entire village scared out of their minds. Of course, that really confirmed that she was the devil, although she didn't know what they were talking about. She didn't remember anything. Naturally, saying that didn't help either; the devil had possessed her and she was a tainted vessel of the Lord that can only be purified by fire.
They tried to kill her and the result was a town filled with corpses in her wake, a strange and poisonous mist that suffocated them.
Of course, she didn't remember any of that. Just like the sonority party and the conversation she had with Jormungand about a week ago; any time Hel surfaced, Rowan forgot all about it. Now that her amnesia was gone, she remembered everything and realized how many people she had harmed and killed. All the soldiers that died in the World Wars came pretty close.
The next one was a Victorian era memory. Rowan wanted to write novels of mysterious things, inspired by the supernatural and fantastical literature of the 18th and 19th Centuries, and she lived independently. It was still the same bullshit; she was a woman and she had to be married. Every man that proposed wanted her to leave her foolish ideas of writing and live in their house, cooking and cleaning for them, having their children. The worst was to simply hang on their arm at social events, laughing at his stupid jokes and just looking pretty.
There was no way she was doing that.
She was walking down the street after trying to publish a story under a male name, sadly because it was a Man's World and no one would publish an unmarried woman, and she got attacked. A man dragged her down the alley, still with that stupid idea of rape, and when he tried to pin her on the dirty ground, she punched him in the throat, and he found himself pinned to the ground, angry glowing eyes staring down at him.
The man was found dead in that same spot and then Rowan went from crazy woman to evil woman who everyone eyed with fear because the police couldn't find evidence that it was her who killed him. An eyewitness, meaning a nosey neighbor, saw her walking away as the man suffered in a very mysterious way.
Her novels certainly didn't get published after that.
There were so many more memories that flooded her, but it was all the same; refusing to be what others wanted her to be, men attempting to rape and murder her, her walking away from their beaten or dead bodies without remembering a thing. That had been the only constant theme in her life. Rowan had come to realize three things; that she had lived like the Phoenix, born-live-die-reborn, that she was so dark with her amnesia she was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and that she never once got married or had children.
Not only did her father take away her memories, but he had done something where she could live like a human, while staying eternal, living all over the world. Why hadn't he done that for Jormungand? Unless nothing is eternal. Maybe even the Goddess Hel could die.
And then there's the split personality thing. It seemed that because she no longer remembered she had been the Goddess Hel, daughter of Loki, that there had been some unleashed darkness that came out of nowhere.
No, not nowhere.
Through her dreams, Rowan realized that she always had a dark side, but it was stuffed deep inside, never having a reason to pop out. It was like the darkness was her subconscious mind. Had her father, Gabriel, known what would happen to his daughter? By taking her out of Helheim, taking her memory and letting her to live again and again all those years, that there'd be an insatiable darkness? Or did he also put that there so she would protect herself?
And her dream twisted into her memory of trying to consume Bjarni's demonic essence that was slowly turning human again. She felt the sinister power of a demon and the darkness within her, forced to the surface due to exhaustion, wanted to feed on that sinister power.
What worried her was that the darkness probably wouldn't have stopped, realizing that Bjarni was slowly reverting to human. That dark side only cared about Rowan.
No, that darkness had always existed within her and there was nothing wrong with it. Rowan would just have to stay rested until Helheim got souls to inhabit its seven levels. Those souls would give her power and she wouldn't be tired again. The best fact was that she wouldn't have to eat any souls to gain strength.
Then, it's no wonder Crowley liked her so much. He probably sensed that darkness in her. Was she angry with him? No. She expected him to be cunning and he'd never do anything to betray her; no words were ever used, but she knew they loved each other. And Crowley was right; they were beneficial to each other, a perfect match.
Rowan's dreams and thoughts were interrupted, the images shifted to that old room where she had first met Death. She turned, glancing at those chairs with the little table in between. Sure enough, Death was once again in that chair, reading a book, looking at her as if she had interrupted him. Rowan crossed her arms over her chest, not pleased that he'd pull her away from her dreams to that shitty little room.
"I said I'd check in after two days." He said, looking at her with those dark piercing eyes, although he seemed pretty calm. "I'm amazed you managed to meet your self-imposed deadline." He added and she frowned at him.
"You didn't have much faith in my resolve." Rowan replied and his expression didn't change, not that she expected it. "You want to send the souls over, do it when I'm awake." She added, remaining on her feet, ready to go.
"And Heaven?" Death asked. Rowan turned to glare at him, her eyes dark with frustration.
"Why don't you take care of that? Why is it all on my shoulders?" she asked, her aura of power glowing, but that darkness also rising into her eyes. If Death was a little worried that he had pissed her off, he didn't show it.
"You're part angel. Heaven is out of my jurisdiction." He replied and a spark of anger flared in her eyes.
"So, I'm just so convenient." She said and he raised a hand as if to say he chose his words poorly.
"Your father passed down his right to Heaven onto you. I do not have that right." He said and looked at her as she seemed to be calming down. It appeared he might have been a little worried with her show of rage. "We can have the souls ready at your earliest convenience." He concluded and she relaxed.
"Thank you." She replied and fell back into her dreams. He hadn't released her from that room; she simply found that she had some control in that. If she didn't want to be there, she simply had to will herself to be back in her dreams.
Rowan returned to viewing her memories of the lives she had lived. She wanted to remember them all as well as give herself more time to rest. The world could wait. She was done playing by its rules.