Chapter Nine – Meeting Death

A/N: Oh my gosh I'm so sorry for how long this has taken me to update. As I mentioned I've fallen a little out of love with it and had some other projects and life get in the way. With the teases of Ragnarok we've been getting I'm starting to get back into the groove of this story. So, thank you to everyone that's been patient with me!

This chapter is much darker than the ones before and really gives you a look into how far Loki and Ilmr are willing to go to get what they want. Hillevi is a character I've really enjoyed creating and writing and she's very strong-willed and dark-hearted.

This chapter starts from Hillevi's perspective. After the first double break, it switches to Ilmr's perspective and, after the last double break, switches to Loki's perspective for the remainder of the chapter.

Lyrics are from the Manic Street Preachers' "Archives of Pain".

Don't be ashamed to slaughter
The centre of humanity is cruelty
There is never redemption

SIX YEARS LATER

Loki and Ilmr had left not an hour previously, farewells and promises of morning in their wake. She despised their leaving because she despised her other aunts and uncles.

It would be a mere handful of years until she would be able to join Ilmr and Loki on the battlefield, and it was a day she longed for. Fifteen, and Ilmr had promised she would see war before she was twenty.

In the meantime, she was subjected to night after night of drivel from those uncles and aunts that did not go to war. Their excuses for remaining behind were paltry at best.

Calder because he ruled the kingdom and without him, surely, the walls of the palace itself would collapse. Hillevi wondered which of her uncles would be caught under the falling debris, or if Skuld would warn them all in time. With luck, several would be killed.

Inghard had the sense and pride to go to battle most evenings, though Hillevi could sense the tremor within him. His cowardice had not yet done him in and it was truly shameful that their enemy had not yet dispatched him.

Orvar's claim to having use elsewhere was only factual if he was within the kitchens or banquet hall. Each night they had roast pheasant Hillevi hoped he would eat so quickly he choked on an errant bone he had been remiss in spotting in his hurry to eat everything in sight.

Tyr could barely bother with more than what he had to. At best he put his swordplay to use once weekly, claiming afterwards he was far too exhausted to venture forth the next evening. His skills were poor at best, she knew; given how infrequently he trained and one night it would be the death of him.

Unn made Hillevi's stomach turn, though she could not say why. The beauty in her aunt's voice and music was enrapturing. She was Hillevi's only as-yet-unmarried aunt. There was no man from any realm that Unn did not welcome into her bedchamber, only to banish them from her presence after a time. Hillevi believed that Unn was beautiful, but she did not know how so many did not see the lechery in the curve of her lips, the arch of her brow. Hillevi could only hope such a thing would eat Unn away from the inside out.

Skuld was most annoying; all self-importance and misplaced righteousness. Her ability to see what may be having allowed her too much leeway with the others and won her a handsomely rich husband, who Hillevi was sure had paid a hefty price for his wife's gifts. Ilmr was the only one who did not fawn over her, who did not fall over herself to find out what may be.

Skuld had not said it, but given the way she looked at Hillevi, infrequently and disconcerted, Hillevi knew Skuld could not see her fate. No matter the riches bestowed upon her for her gift, Skuld would –hopefully- be crushed under the many baubles she had been given as recompense before she was able to see Hillevi as she did all others.

With Loki and Ilmr away at war and the only company her useless, distasteful relatives, Hillevi had much time to herself unsupervised. Mostly, she stayed up as late as she could bear.

Practicing her gifts and the sorcery Loki taught her until the deep-set, swirling something inside her, that he had told her when she was a mere five years of age was her magic, thrummed in a way she swore she could hear if she strained. Practicing the forms Ilmr taught her until she felt her muscles and bones ache with memory of them.

Other nights, she wandered the palace invisible. Before Ilmr and Loki arrived she had only been able to call upon the skill when she was distressed. Loki had taught her enough –and she had practiced enough in the years that followed- that she could call upon the ability at will.

One such night, she took it upon herself to use her skills to put her wishes and frustrations into practice.

It was long after the dinner hour and yet Orvar nearly trod over her in his stumbling, sated departure from the banquet hall. She would not have had to be invisible, given the heavy scent of wine about him. She followed him to his chambers, servants passing in a hurry about their duties ignoring the perpetually inebriated prince and unable to see the niece trailing after him.

It had been long enough and she was tired of waiting and wishing. Hillevi watched Orvar pour himself yet another generous helping of wine from a decanter in his chambers before settling into a deep, plush chair, cushion nearly bottomed out with age and the bearing of weight, and sipped hungrily, sloppily on the drink.

Loki had taught her the push and pull of an innumerable amount of things. She was nowhere near as good at this particular skill as he was. He, who could taken any item and vanish it into the folds of his garb with little more than a slight-of-hand sort of movement.

But she could move things well enough to serve her purpose.

She waited until he dozed, snoring deep, before approaching, keeping the veil of her invisibility wrapped around her. With her fist a mere hairsbreadth from his sizeable stomach, Hillevi concentrated and slowly, slowly, drew it up just high enough before splaying her fingers out and stepping back, concentrating on holding the liquid in place deep in his lungs as more filled the remaining space and his face took on a rictus of terror: he was too large to rise in a hurry and without enough air to get far even if he could stand.

With a growing smile she watched as Orvar, who was more an ambulatory boar than he ever was an uncle, gasped, coughed, and slowly went still.

When Loki and Ilmr returned that morning just after dawn broke, Hillevi was just rising. It was later than usual for her, much later, as by their return she had typically been awake for several hours in their chambers, stretching and taking a small breakfast.

Ilmr noticed immediately upon their arrival that all was not as it usually was. "Are you well, Hillevi?" She placed a hand close to Hillevi's forehead but did not touch her, as blood-stained as she still was from war.

"I am. I was merely up later than usual. I didn't intend to worry you."

At that, her favored aunt –her mother, for all intents and purposes- smiled after a short hesitation, seeming to save a remark for another time. "No matter. We will bathe and break our fast together."

Hillevi nodded, glancing to Loki as he turned from divesting of his heavier armor by their chamber doors. He, too, stopped in his tracks for but a moment before giving her a nod.

"Are you well, darling?"

"I am." Hillevi, for all her fondness for Ilmr, had a particular predilection for Loki; his magic perhaps, or his familiarity with a similar differentness.

"Good."

Hillevi took the time to stretch while she waited for them to finish their ablutions. She was unsure what gave them both pause, but she knew she would not have to wait long. They had always been forthright with her.

When Ilmr sat herself next to Hillevi rather than Loki, she knew something must truly be amiss. Loki twitched one hand to silence their chambers to all but the three of them.

"Did something happen on the battlefield last night?"

"No, dear." Ilmr carefully turned Hillevi's face in her hands. "Did something happen here?"

Loki watched quietly.

Hillevi nodded. "Yes."

"Something you did?" Ilmr had loosened her gentle hold, but Hillevi did nothing to move away.

"Yes."

A commotion outside their chambers cut their conversation short and Loki strode to their door, all sour expression and displeased interruption.

A servant nodded his excessive apologies before looking around Loki to Ilmr. "My – my apologies, my Lady, to interrupt you so early. So soon after arriving home. Your – your elder brother. Orvar. He is –he has –in the night. It seems he has passed. My condolences, my Lady."

Ilmr nodded, a troubled expression crossing her face and Loki's. Hillevi quickly adopted the same. She had practiced for years with them, too, to pretend to have a care for her crude, boorish relatives. For this very moment.

"Of course. Thank you. Some privacy with my family, if you please." Ilmr gave Loki a nod and without waiting for a reply from the servant, Loki shut the door in his face.

Loki twitched his hand again before he spoke. "Was this your doing, Hillevi?"

She nodded without hesitation. "Yes. You taught me how to move objects. I simply found a new place for his wine to settle."

She felt no remorse, not when she had performed the task and not now that she was recounting it. She was concerned they would reproach her, but she felt no heaviness in her heart, no shroud of guilt weighing on her shoulders.

Hillevi was surprised, nonetheless, to see a brief glance pass between Ilmr and Loki before they nodded.

Loki was the one to speak again. "Why?"

A huff of air escaped Hillevi's lips in frustration. "Because he had no use, no worth! He served his gluttony only, not his King, not his Commander, only himself. He was vile and selfish. He deserved no more than he received for all he hasn't done."

Loki nodded. "We will keep this to ourselves." He held up a hand before Hillevi could speak. "We are neither of us cross with you. You are resourceful and subtle and you did not act without cause." He smiled, then. "Your training is bearing out and you are proving a pupil to be proud of."

Hillevi smiled, glancing to Ilmr seeing her nod once.

"The only siblings of mine that were of use, that were good, have passed. In times of war, we must ration and now each person's ration will be slightly larger because of you. You have acted strategically, and I am proud."

"How long must we pretend to mourn?" Hillevi was well practiced at feigning her enjoyment of her relatives, but this she was not sure she could manage for long, this false lamenting.

"First we must keep you from sight for the next day or two." Ilmr gave Hillevi a small smile. "You are unusually flush and I suspect it has something to do with the effort you had to put into your magic."

Hillevi looked to Loki at that. He nodded. "It may be. Even with all of your practice, it can still take a marked amount of energy out of you. I suspect, though, that it is much of what Stark found years ago on Midgard." He leveled his gaze at her. "You have not been sleeping much, if at all."

"I have not." She had kept what Stark had told her in mind as she prepared, and knew she would need to tire herself enough to take from Orvar his life without straining too much as to be unable to perform her sorcery.

"Why?" Ilmr cut in, then. She had been made guardian of Hillevi upon her arrival in Vanaheim a decade before, but even still she cared as Hillevi suspected a true mother would.

"I want to go with you, to battle. I have trained for years, both with my sorcery and my swords. I want to go. It has been years and yes, you have both returned each morning with no grievous injuries. Luck runs out, even for the two of you. I want to go. I want to end this."

"You are not yet ready." Loki used the tone that most placated her without raising her ire.

"Tyr goes once weekly and I am more skilled than he!"

"You are. But Tyr is also going to die some night on the battlefield because we will not be there to protect him. We will not mourn him. We would protect you and we would mourn you. You will end this Hillevi, make no mistake, but not now."

Hillevi huffed. She disliked Ilmr's logic despite seeing the reason in it. "When will Stark come back, then? He is due. It has been three years since we saw him last."

"We will not see him again. At least, not in Vanaheim. Mortals age much faster than we do, he is past the age for a mortal now that he should take up arms. Even the last time he was here he was too old to do such a thing."

Loki rolled his eyes at the mention of Stark's abilities.

"You think he should come back?" Hillevi chased.

"No. I agree with Ilmr. I continually remember the uselessness of mortals and tire of them anew."

"Well then if not Stark, then who will you call upon now to lend aid, even for a fortnight, to win us some small reprieve?"

Hillevi watched a look pass between Ilmr and Loki and sat back to watch the aftermath unfold.

"No. Oh, no." Loki raised both hands in a gesture that would not halt Ilmr's resolve.

"Yes. It is the only avenue left to us. None from Midgard are of any use to us, now. Stark ages, Banner is older. The Captain is out of the question. Barton and Romanoff are the youngest of them and they are nearing an age too old to be of any use for more than a handful of hours at a time. There is only one option."

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose. Finally, after a long stretch of quiet in which he did not look at Ilmr and she did not look away from him, he spoke without moving. "All right. All right. I will send a missive requesting his aid."

"Whose?"

Heaving a weary sigh, Loki graced Hillevi with a resigned smile. "You will soon meet yet another of your extended family who you will have no use for and who you will find an utter fool."

"Who?" She demanded. She did not like the sound of this, having just rid them of one troublesome relative.

"My…brother." He hesitated on the word before spitting it out.

"Would he come, in truth?" Hillevi learned as much in her lessons from Loki and Ilmr as she did from her tutor. Lessons in geography, strategy, mathematics, literature. History.

Loki smiled wider then. "I am the God of Lies, my dear. I am more persuasive than most. And he would truly fall over himself to meet the niece he thought he would never see."

...

"You think she is ready." As with so many of Loki's inquiries, it was not actually question. Not a statement. A demand. He did not look away from the battlefield and approaching enemy.

Ilmr nodded, not needing to glace to Loki to know how his features would be set. "No. But if she never begins, she will never be ready. She has trained for ten years. She is capable and eager."

"And likely our only way to end this war."

At that, Ilmr graced Loki with a sharp glance. "If she does not begin to put her training to use, she will never get close enough to do what she needs to."

"I dislike it nonetheless."

"If you could, I think you would prefer both Hillevi and I remain away from this battle until it's over, though I think she and I would be the only two unsurprised."

Loki gave a low chuckle. "I would never request such a thing, my lady would never allow it."

A small smile crossed Ilmr's lips as she drew her blade to face the oncoming enemy onslaught.

It was much the same as every other battle they had faced in the dead of night the past ten years. Both Vanaheim's forces and reinforcements had dug in, as had their enemy. Some nights were banal if no less chaotic for it. Others seemed to unleash a new horror, an as yet unseen marvel of the dead.

The latter was the tone of the night, it seemed.

It was not much past the midnight hour when Ilmr's forces, which had been cutting in from the west, were separated from Loki's battalion.

It had not been a slow but steady wedge between allies.

A shrill sound at Ilmr's left came at the same moment she heard the dull thud of heavy feet. Three score of the Einherjar had appeared out of thin air, weapons drawn and coming down hard on their ambushed quarry.

Ilmr had half a moment to shout a warning and command before having to tuck and roll away from the spot in which she had stood. Springing up, blade overhead, she swept aside an attack aimed at her neck and plunging a dagger blade into her adversary's heart moments later.

The Vanirian soldier on her right took a blade to his temple and Ilmr ducked to avoid both the top half of his head and the blade that continued its trajectory. She took the creatures legs out above the knee. A blade through its face was its end, though not before she took an injury to her side from a second weapon her quickly dissolving enemy had in its possession.

It was not iron.

Had there been a body remaining for her to kick, she would have done so unreservedly. As it was, she grit her teeth and wrenched the blade from her side, taking only a few moments to catch her breath while parrying oncoming blows.

A handful of smaller cuts and lacerations marred her skin, though thanks to the ring Loki had gifted her when they were betrothed, immediately began healing. Just as she regained herself a sound behind her had her turning. Slow, as the wound in her side was still closing.

Too slow, she realized.

Ilmr threw up her blade in vain defense but the blow that would have sliced deep into her shoulder never came. Instead, the creature that had managed to position itself behind her began to dissolve, one of Loki's daggers embedded in the back of its skull. Grabbing the hilt as the creature fell, she nodded to Loki before dodging to her left and with a quick leap up, slashed clean through the throat of a new attacker.

It was enough, and Loki turned away and back to his battalion.

The night seemed to stretch on longer than others in recent memory. The Einherjar were appearing and disappearing all around them. It was a new tactic that the Vanirian forces had not yet seen. It made defending oneself difficult to say the least and by dawn, Ilmr had taken many more such blows as her side had received.

By the time they arrived back at the palace, she had healed, only surface marks marred her skin. Loki, if he suffered similar wounds, showed no signs of it.

Hillevi, as was her wont, was sitting curled up with Fenrir as she awaited Ilmr and Loki's arrival with Vidar. Their hounds alternated their stations, the one watching over Hillevi at night while the other went to battle with Ilmr and Loki.

At their entrance, Hillevi's small, serene smile fell. She was used to seeing the black blood of the Einherjar. She did not often see so much of the red blood of her parents.

"What has happened?" She placed herself in front of Ilmr, face shuttered and stubborn. It would not do to show her each and every similar injury; she had sustained several and all were beginning to heal. The only true sign now was a deep ache and bloodstains on her clothing.

Bringing her hand near to -but not touching- Hillevi's face, Ilmr waited until Hillevi's expression relaxed to speak. "Battle, dear."

Ilmr stopped then, as Loki took to unbuckling her breastplate and removing it. She removed her chain mail before he could, finally shifting her shirt to expose her side and the first of many injuries that night. The skin was red and puckered, but the wound had closed.

"You see? I am well. By evening, there will be no indication that I was injured at all."

Hillevi was not satisfied, it seemed, and turned to Loki. "What has changed?"

"Much. Just as I am able to teleport, so, apparently, are the Einherjar. If it's a trait they've always possessed, this is the first time they've made use of it."

"Which means either it's new, or we're gaining some kind of upper hand." Ilmr moved to feed Vidar and Fenrir.

"I wish to go with you tonight." Hillevi had been paying much attention when she was younger. She used a tone similar to the one Ilmr did when she would brook no argument from Loki.

Loki noticed, and smiled, placing his hands on Hillevi's shoulders. "Not yet. Soon, but not yet. You are nearly ready."

"And you will both be nearly dead before I have your permission! Have you not been training me for this since you arrived in Vanaheim? I have spent almost every waking moment since I was a mere five years of age training. When will I be ready? What indication do you wait for?"

Ilmr let them speak, unfastening Loki's heavy armor as she listened.

"Hillevi, you-"

"-Would you wait until Mother is more grievously injured?"

The words were spat, angry and frustrated. And it was the first time Hillevi had ever called either of them such a name, though Ilmr knew she and Loki had thought of Hillevi as their daughter for many years now, and in turn they knew Hillevi considered them her mother and father.

There was silence then, Loki's expression at war between fondness and regret.

Ilmr did not hesitate then to draw Hillevi to her, though she had not yet washed the war from her skin.

"My dear girl." She gave her a squeeze. "You must not fret." She met Loki's eyes as she continued. "I will not be so injured, I have wards against such a thing and I imagine if I have gone to war almost every night in your memory and returned without fatal injury, then I will continue to do so."

Hillevi nodded. Loki's eyes held regret and his jaw was tight, but his smile was affectionate.

Before Loki could speak, Ilmr cut him off. "I will return shortly." She turned to their bathing room, not wanting to hear any argument from Loki that had to do with the look in his eyes.

...

He had taught her well. Too well, perhaps. She hit him right where he was most vulnerable though this time she did not know she'd done it. Hillevi was every bit the rapier-witted child he had been. At times, he forgot they did not share blood she seemed so alike in her manner.

Ilmr did not give him the opportunity to prolong the conversation. Once she had shut herself in the bathing room, Loki silenced the air around he and Hillevi.

Who narrowed her eyes. He did not keep things from Ilmr.

"Hillevi, there are some things you must know about the shared past between Ilmr and myself that we have not yet told you, for no other reason than we did not need to, and you were too young." He held up a hand to silence her indignant retort. "But you have made a point I cannot ignore."

Hillevi seated herself at their table, beginning to pile her plate with fruit and cheese and several cuts of meat. "That I should be going with you tonight?"

Loki raised an eyebrow, seating himself but not yet eating. "That Ilmr may be more grievously injured."

"So might you be."

"I am Aesir, it is much harder to so injure me, and I have my sorcery." He sighed, rubbing absently at one eyebrow for several moments before continuing. "I am inclined to train you for the next fortnight rather intensively." He shot a pointed look Hillevi's way. "Without Ilmr's knowledge."

"Why?" She watched him carefully, her dark eyes penetrating. Her eyes were something Loki greatly appreciated about her. They swallowed light, endless maws that seemed to unsettle all but he an Ilmr.

"Because she has been injured before. So grievously that she died."

The flicker of Hillevi's eyelids was the only indication that she was startled. "You retrieved her from Helheim."

"Yes. The Mad Titan took and tortured her for my failings when I could not repay him a mighty debt. He stripped her of herself and it took far longer than I would have liked to bring her back to herself."

"You think this war is at the behest of Mistress Death."

It was not a thing he had said to any except Ilmr and the Man of Iron.

"Yes. I think she expected that I would fail before now and because I have not, she plots to gain the pair of us by force."

"Both of you?" Something shifted in Hillevi's eyes; it seemed to Loki a shadow moved, predatory, behind them.

"That was our bargain. I could bring Ilmr with me back from Helheim provided I never set foot in Asgard again. If I did, Death would take both of us as recompense. I think she assumed I would not be able to deny the lure of the Realm Eternal and try to find a way back in. That I have not she considers an offense, I think."

"How will you prepare me?"

Loki gave Hillevi a sly smile. "I will incapacitate, and return with, captives. You will fight your enemy until you kill him. A fortnight of this and you will be better prepared than you would otherwise be."

Hillevi nodded. "And then I will join you. You will not waylay me."

"I will not. But it will take us time to draw out Death, you understand."

"It matters not. When we draw her out, she will be killed." Hillevi hesitated then and glanced to Loki. "She can be killed, can't she? I hear you say it but I don't understand how."

"I think she can be. Much like Bor passed his reign on to Odin and then Thor, each realm's ruler eventually passes on their crown; those that have crowns, at least. I think it's time we began experimenting very carefully with the Man of Iron's findings from when you were a child."

Hillevi gave him a sly smile. "I already have."

"Oh?"

She shrugged. "I have practiced more on fruit. Small animals that I've found in the courtyard. Some hanging plants."

"And?"

"The plants and fruit are easy, but I need to concentrate harder when it's an animal. I find I am at once drained and refreshed. I will need further practice if I am to meet Mistress Death on the battlefield."

Loki nodded. "Then I will see it done. We will protect your mother, and defeat Mistress Death."

Hillevi was unable to add anything further, hearing the bathing room door open, and with a fond, conspiratorial smile, Loki quickly let his enchantment drop.