Three sections to this:

1. Sif is becoming more detached and Hel is a complicated little thing.
2. Ollerus is plunged headfirst into family drama and Odin is a complicated old thing.
3. A unique friendship is formed.

Sif stirred. She hadn't been asleep but she wasn't exactly awake. She was merely resigned to focus on the cold as reprieve to the chaos of thought. Occasionally she felt a presence of warmth, brief and otherworldly, an ethereal flicker she liked to think was Ollerus holding the hand or kissing the face of her mortal body. But those moments were fleeting and unreliable.

Her chest clenched, so she stood up. She had no concept of time but she knew she had sat in solitude long enough. Pulling her cloak tightly around her, she ventured back to the throne room. Hel's company didn't seem so bad anymore.

"Well, look who's gracing me with her mopey-dopey presence." The cadaverous queen sat prim and proper at her conjured table, pinching dried leaves into a mesh ball. She was wearing white lace gloves instead of the black netting. "Sit down," she gestured to the empty seat across from her. "Have some tea." She handed an empty teapot to the Nybling playing waiter who scampered off, perturbed that he was assigned a subservient role while two of his comrades sat in complacency at the table. One was wearing a crooked bow-tie and the other a frilly bonnet, yet the rest of their bodies were naked as newborns save for the threadbare loincloths. What kind of game was Hel playing with these sad creatures?

"You conjured an entire wardrobe for me," Sif said upon approach, "yet you cannot clothe your poor minions properly." She remained standing.

Hel raised her brow. "Poor minions?" She then snorted, looking to the bow-tied Nybling. "Poor minions, she says." The creature smiled, like a mongrel awaiting a dinner scrap. Hel shook her head. "She pretends to know things about us."

"You will not mock me," Sif warned.

"I will unless you sit down and drink some fucking tea."

Sif eased off, glancing down at the beady black eyes of the Nyblings beaming up at her. What else was there to know about them? They seemed so innocent, so victimized. "Very well." Sif slipped into the chair crossing her ankles and lacing her hands in her lap. She towered over the other three at the table. "There's no need to be rude." She softened her tone. "I come here simply for your company."

Something flickered across Hel's eyes, a tease of vulnerability. She then blurted, "Do you like my hair?"

Sif blinked, surprised and a little amused. This child was so unpredictable. "I do," she replied, admiring the change of style. Hel had swept the raven locks off her face into an up-do, weaving them intricately around the base of the morbidly beautiful crown. "Queen Frigga fashioned her hair in similarly complicated braids. I never had the patience for anything beyond a ponytail."

"I can tell," The girl sassed, eyeing the locks falling around Sif's face. "I mean," she corrected, "you should let me show you some. There are quick and easy tricks that would look pretty in your hair. I've never seen that shade of black before..." she paused, tilting her head. "That's not hair dye, nor is it natural."

"It's a curse." Sif's voice darkened. "One I'd rather not discuss." The Nybling returned with a steaming tea pot, a blessed distraction. "Will I be able to drink tea in my ambiguous condition?"

Hel signaled the Nybling to fill Sif's cup first. "I guess we'll find out. I've never served tea to an inbetweener before. This should be interesting."

Through the swirling steam, Sif saw four sets of curious eyes upon her. She tested her rigid fingers on the tiny handle, pinching with success and bringing the cup to her lips. What should feel like humid heat felt instead like numbing, not a cold numbing, rather injections Eir had given her in the past before surgery. That made sipping difficult, her lips unable to feel contact with the cup's brim. She managed regardless, the liquid skirting across her tongue and racing down her throat. Again, no heat, only more numbing. It wasn't unwelcome.

"Not bad," was the only comment she had.

"Queen Frigga," Hel mused. "I have only a brief memory of her. It was my crowning day, the one day I was welcomed into Gladshiem. The Queen, my father and Thor were the only attendees."

Sif nodded. "I remember that day. Thor invited me to come, but I went home instead. Ollerus was still a baby so my trips to Glasir were frequent."

Hel sipped her tea, mismatched eyes peering over her cup. "What if you didn't have Ollerus? Would you have come?"

"I..." Sif became tangled between words and thought. It has been a long time since she thought about what her life would be like without her son. "I don't know. I suppose so. It really would have depended on my standing with..." She paused, fidgeting with her cup. "...with your father."

Hel glanced at her Nyblings who were marveling at the sugar cubes dissolving in their tea. "What's your standing with him now?"

Sif closed her eyes, her shoulders dropping. The topic of Loki seemed inevitable. "Do you grant your residents the mercy of forgetting?"

Hel blinked. "Wow. Harsh." She glanced to each Nybling again, murmuring, "I guess I should have expected as much." Her volume restored. "But yeah, I can do partial memory wipes. You first have to die, completely."

"How long do I have?" Sif asked sullenly.

"No clue," Hel said. "You have some super-powered resistance to that poison that I've never seen before. I was clocking your croak time at like, yesterday, but you proved me wrong. Something mystical is keeping you alive and I'm guessing it's that potent little pocket of dark magic in you. And I'm not talking dormant. I'm talking active and frequently used. I can sense it."

Sif shook her head. "It is not mine. It is probably the spell that changed my hair color."

"Wrong," Hel said. "I would know my father's magic. This is different. This is you."

"That is impossible," Sif argued. "I haven't a magical bone in my body. You're lying."

"Cross my heart," Hel gestured. "I don't lie about magic. No ma'am, we take our magic seriously down here."

"If I was a magic wielder, Eir would have told me." Sif began questioning her herself. "Wouldn't she?"

"Don't look to me for answers," Hel shrugged, snapping a disciplinary finger at the Nybling trying to remove its bonnet. "You Aesir are a fickle bunch. Maybe your elder didn't want you pissing about with dark magic, so, in the spirit another elder posing as parental figure, she lied to you. And probably for your own protection. Dark magic isn't a game. If you don't know your tits from tats, you'll end up like my mother."

"Wh-what are you saying?" Sif was trying to wrap her mind around this. "Is my hair blackened...because of my own magic?"

"Looks that way, yeah."

Sif wondered if there was an upside to this disturbing revelation. "Could I use my magic to cure the poison?"

Hel shook her head, attempting to straighten the bow-tie on the other Nybling. It was no use. It was set on crookedness. "Only one thing can neutralize that toxin and it sure ain't a newbie sorceress."

"But you said it was keeping me alive."

"I said it was keeping you from dying," Hel corrected. "For all we know, your magic could keep you suspended in this coma forever. There's no way to know. Magic responds uniquely to each of its hosts. I wonder if Mother knew this about you when she picked her poison. Maybe that's why she went with such a bizarro choice. I told her to use one of the classics but she was insistent on that obscure Midgardian plant. I wish she'd told me why..."

Sif beheld the verbose teenager questioningly. It was difficult to tell her as friend from foe, her apathy and rudeness pointing to foe while her honesty hinted at friend.

"Would you teach me magic? Sif ventured. "That I might learn to awaken from this nightmare."

Hel narrowed her eyes. "What's in it for me?"

"What do you want?"

The mismatched eyes darted around, either searching for answers or afraid to speak the truth. It was a nice change of pace for once, to see her scrambling for retort.

Sif leaned in. "There must be something you want."

Hel's eyes locked back on Sif. "That's exactly what Father said when we made our bargain."

Sif's breath caught. "What did you tell him?"

"I wanted you."

"Why?"

"I lied. Sort of." Hel's eyes then saddened. "I actually wanted Mother. I thought either you or Father would slay her if she attacked you, and then she'd end up here."

"If she died by my sword," Sif stated, "wouldn't that earn her an honorable afterlife?"

"Exactly." Hel smiled, bittersweet. "She'll earn a higher plane of damnation, which will allow us to be together. If she is instead mortally consumed by her abuse of dark magic, or if she takes her own life, I'll never see her again. Contact with family is strictly prohibited for souls bound to such wicked depths, even when their family is Queen of the Damned."

Sif actually felt sorry for this desperate, lonely girl. But she was also, still, very perplexed by her. "You could have asked anyone to slay her. Why did you devise this plot with your father? Why involve me?"

The girl shrugged a single shoulder, her puffy sleeve skimming her cheek. "It sounded like fun?"

Sif groaned. "You are your father's daughter."

"Thanks?" Hel wasn't certain how to take that. "So, back to the original question. What's in it for me?"

"Hold on, I'm still...I don't get..." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "So, Loki and Angrboda never teamed up to plot against me?"

Hel rolled her eyes. "Wow. You're going to make me spell it out aren't you." She then sighed dramatically. "I gave Father the impression I was trading his fake resurrection for your damnation, which I sort of was because let's face it, your soul is a sweet-ass trophy, but what I really wanted was to get Mother down here, and I couldn't very well ask my Father to slay my Mother. That's just bad form. Anyhow, Father, being true to his sex, was an idiot and agreed to my terms, thereby giving me permission to harvest your soul."

"Permission?"

"Yeah. It's a little rule around here for folks like you that are like, Valhalla bound to an obnoxious degree. I needed a family member or loved one to sign you over, so to speak. Now, where was I?"

"Your father was an idiot," Sif provided.

"Oh, right. Father thought he could outsmart the time-old rules of my realm (and part of me actually thought he might do it) but ultimately proved that there are limitations to even his scheming. However, nowhere in there did he and my mother ever share their plots with each other. Mother would have told me. She's still pathetically sprung on him, which is really sad because he's clearly and totally sprung on you."

Sif laughed ironically. "How can you sit across from me, in this realm, and say that? It's his fault I am here!"

"By the Great Tree, you are so fucking thick." Hel almost hurt herself with a facepalm. "He never wanted you down here, don't you see? Yes, he's an idiot for making a deal with the devil, and yes he's reckless and dangerous and untrustworthy and a dozen other things under the Branches, but none of that negates the obvious truth that he loves you."

Sif frowned, refusing this information. "What makes you so certain?"

"Because I know love when I see it."

"You're only a child." Sif was grasping. "What do you know of it?"

"More than you apparently." Hel scoffed. "I may be young but I've seen my share of heartbroken souls to know what love looks like."

Sif looked puzzled. "Why are you telling me this now when earlier you took pleasure in telling me of his betrayal?"

Hel's mouth skewed with a smirk. "I never actually said he betrayed you. I only said we bargained your soul. It's all in the wording."

"This is nothing but a game to you."

"Daughter of Chaos." Hel grinned.

"Forget it then," Sif sighed. "I don't want your help in learning magic. You'll only toy with me, make me sick like your mother."

"Hey now," Hel warned. "You will not slander her. That's not even remotely fair."

"Fair?" Sif couldn't believe what she was hearing. "She poisoned me, intent on killing—"

"Dead or alive, you will always posses that which she most desires."

Sif thumped the table, rattling the china and the Nyblings. "Speak no more to me about love." She then rose, shedding her cloak, rejecting all of Hel's hospitality. Beneath the cloak wasn't the armor she appeared here with but a gown of indistinguishable detail, shifting folds of misty fabric, elegant and ethereal. It was the attire of the dead, which meant she didn't have long. If the poison didn't kill her, her denial would, magic be damned. "I am not some dolly you can play with," were her parting words.

Hel waited for the fog to envelope the stubborn warrior before sighing her exasperation. "Let no one claim I didn't try." She turned to a Nybling. "What's that Earth saying? Boy who cried wolf?" The creature blinked, looking around the room. "No, dummy, I'm the boy. The one known for pranks, and then when he finally comes around to speak the truth...?" The Nybling kept searching the area for a wolf. "Ah forget it. Shut up. Drink your tea."

Ollerus felt like a playground of mixed emotions that had worn themselves out from war charades and then collapsed together to form an anxious knot in his gut.

"Are you afraid?" Asked the All-Father in a stern but gentle tone as they approached the entrance to Fenrir's cave. The journey to Lygnvi from Asgard was over in a blink of Heimdall's magic.

"No." Ollerus knew the feeling wasn't fear. "A little nervous." He shrugged. "That's all."

Odin looked over his shoulder before leading them into the darkened, jagged entrance. "Good," was all he said. They descended down the narrow path. When the natural light became blocked by their depth, Gungir's stone illuminated to guide their way.

"Do you think," Ollerus broke the silence, "Fenrir will actually help us? I mean, after what you did to him and all."

Odin paused before speaking, his reaction out if sight. "You are blunt as a mallet." Another pause. "It is no wonder with your parentage."

"I mean no disrespect," Ollerus said. He truly didn't. He just never saw the point of tiptoeing across a frozen lake when a light-footed sprint held the same risk. "I just don't understand why Father couldn't have come. He's our best option for convincing Fenrir."

"Your father is needed at your mother's side," Odin explained, stepping carefully down the natural rocky steps. His red cloak dragged over tiny puddles, its rich color darkened where the water absorbed. "I trust this encounter to your inherent abilities. You will be a fine soothsayer."

"M-me?"

"I am merely here to dispel Gleipnir."

Ollerus now questioned if Odin had overdone it on the mead during dinner. "He's never met me. I don't think he even knows about me."

"None of that will matter." The elder turned to put his assurance on display, the white hot light from Gungir showing every line in his face. "Your half-brother's senses are the sharpest I've ever known."

That knot in his gut was tightening. "What am I supposed to say to him?"

A smile shown in the Odin's single eye, yet his mouth remained still until he spoke. "The truth."

The pair continued down the shrinking tunnel, the echoes of their footsteps dashing ahead with the light-fearing creatures. Under any other circumstance, Ollerus would be scrambling to capture and identify the cave fauna, but his mind was too occupied with the impending encounter.

When anticipation threatened to eat him alive was when they finally found an opening. Odin slowed his step, motioning Ollerus to stay back out of sight. Odin went ahead into the chamber.

"Have you come to finish me off?" came a resonating growl that made Ollerus shrink in his boots.

"You know as well as I what is in the prophecies," Odin stated.

"So you've come to die," said the beastly voice with an unseen smile.

"I have not," Odin said firmly. "There are more pressing matters at hand."

There was a pause, and the sound of shifting fur. Fenrir then asked, "What is that presence?"

Ollerus's heart jumped. The wolf could sense him. Odin turned and signaled him to reveal himself and Ollerus did not hesitate, but gasped when he saw his brother. The fabled creature was so much larger than he ever pictured, almost as big as a bilgesnipe. Even while lying down he loomed over the both of them. Ollerus approached cautiously.

"Um, hi." He cleared his throat. He sounded weak, his voice always cracking when he didn't want it to. "I'm Ollerus."

Fenrir angled his nose up, inhaling deeply. "Indeed you are." His mouth didn't open when he talked. His voice just sort of, came from his belly.

Ollerus looked to Odin who gave him a nod of reassurance. He continued, "You can call me Ollie. I'm a Lokison too." He dared a smile. "We're half-brothers."

Fenrir's only reaction was the flexing of his nostrils. His eyes were unreadable, reflecting the dancing light of magical torches placed around the cave. Their fires burned a familiar, familial green. The wolf spoke again. "Why have you come here, Ollie?"

The boy was eased by his nickname. "We need your help." He stepped forward, slowly. "In exchange for your freedom. There's a plant on Midgard, one that cures poison. You can help us find it."

Fenrir tilted his massive, thickly-furred head ever so slightly. "Who is sick?"

"My mother."

"Hmmmm," mused the creature, shifting its gaze to no one. "My mother is also sick. She loved dark magic more than she ever loved me. Unfortunately, there is no cure for her malady." He paused, turning back to Ollerus. "Your mother is the Aesir warrior who cut the sword from my mouth."

Seeking explanation, Ollerus turned to his elder. Odin had nothing but a knitted brow. Apparently, the All-Father wasn't as all-knowing as everyone thought.

Ollerus turned back to Fenrir. "Does that mean you will help us?"

The wolf stretched his neck out to breath in another waft of air. "You carry the gene of dark magic mastery," he said on exhale. "I can smell it. It is the same as mine."

"What?" Ollerus was taken aback.

"For this reason, I will consider helping you."

"I don't, though. I'm like my mother in that way. We can't learn magic. You must be smelling..." Ollerus realized the weakness of his argument as he was saying it, "my Father's magic in these torches, which you probably smell all the time and would know the difference between it and someone who just walked in your chamber."

"Thank you for making my point for me." Fenrir sounded amused. "Your mother smelled of a similar dark magic. Dormant, underutilized."

"That can't be." Ollerus shook his head. "Neither of us can learn magic. Father said so."

"Father lies." There was resignation in Fenrir's voice. "Cheer up. You learn to live with it. You and I share the blood of a unique form of dark wielder. Like our father, we have the power to balance it."

Odin stepped forward. "Balance it with what?"

"Do not interrupt me!" barked the beast. He then calmed down. "That power is self control. Mother lacked this discipline."

"Do I have the discipline?" Ollerus asked.

"You do not know until you work with it," Fenrir explained. "There is always a risk if you do not also wield Light, which by the smell of it, you do not."

Ollerus's chest became weighted with that feeling of betrayal again. "I wish he would have told me..."

The slipping of loose rocks and an aged grunt caught Ollerus's attention. He turned to see Odin reduced to one knee, leaning heavily into Gungir. "All-Father!" He darted to his side.

"Splendid," Fenrir growled. "Is it time for me to dine on your withering flesh?"

"Do not fuss over me, son," Odin said as he pulled himself back up.

"I will locate your precious herb," Fenrir continued, entertained, "if you let me fulfill the prophecy of the All-Father's death."

"No, Fenrir," Ollerus interjected, moving toward the beast. "You'll have your freedom. It's a fair trade." He surprised himself with his insistence.

"In your freedom," Odin intervened, his voice restoring. "You are welcome to hunt me but I promise nothing. If vengeance be your life's ambition, then I will not dissuade you. However, I will warn of the decay it will inflict upon your soul. You would be wise to mimic the aspirations of your brother."

Fenrir looked to Ollerus. "And what are your aspirations?"

"Not to crunch on the All-Father's bones," Ollerus pleaded. "Come on, Brother. Don't make this complicated. We're going to free you. You can run wild. You can visit our Father. Maybe...maybe we could travel the other realms together."

Silence fell upon the cave as Fenrir contemplated what was said. The animal was hard to read but Ollerus swore he saw some taut fur relax and new sheen across the shifting, autumn-colored eyes. Dripping stalactites and crackling torches counted the passing time.

"I will help you," the wolf finally said.

"Yes!" Ollerus cheered while Odin, despite his weakening condition, actually smiled a for real smile.

Midgard had a unique rawness to it. Under moonlight, the region they were transported to looked like forests of Asgard, but the array of alien scents painted a new landscape on Fenrir's mind. He was free. His heart surged with a forgotten thrill as his legs pumped and his claws flung the tender earth behind them.

"Am I going too fast?" he asked, using his mouth instead of his magic to form words. His spindly blue brother clung with surprising strength to the dense fur around his neck, just below the permanent crease left by Odin's fettering ribbon. The teen's clutching fingers were an odd sensation after years of binding and isolation. More specifically it was a blessing. He had forgotten what physical, familial touch felt like.

"Not even," Ollerus responded, strangely winded even though he wasn't the one running. Perhaps he too was thrilled by their shared adventure. "I've had Glimmer, my pegasus, up to twice this speed."

"Is that a challenge?" Fenrir taunted, playfully.

"Could be," Ollerus countered.

Accepting the challenge, Fenrir beckoned his magic to quicken his legs' pace where muscle alone would not suffice. It wasn't the wisest thing to do since he should be focusing his energy on maintaining their cloaking spell, but he didn't care. Let the spell flicker. It would give any backwoods Midgardian who happened to be in their path a wild story to tell their grandchildren. And besides, Odin wasn't here to reprimand them, thank the heavens. The aging Aesir fell victim to an obviously inherited silver tongue. Fenrir couldn't believe Ollerus had convinced the All-Father to let them collect the herb on their own. This kid had some skill for one not knowing how to use his magic.

"How old are you?" Fenrir asked.

"Thirteen. You?"

"I can't remember. Older than you."

"Yeah, but not by much," Ollerus stated. "Our Father...how should I put this..."

"Wasted no time knocking up your mother after he moved on from mine," Fenrir supplied. "At least that's how Hel put it." A projection of his sister had frequented his cave over the years to catch him up on gossip.

"There isn't really another way to put it." Ollerus paused before speaking again. "Tell me about your Mother."

Fenrir questioned the young woodsman's intentions. "You ask to ease the process of hunting her down? I will not tell you."

"No," Ollerus said, a little offended. "I know what she looks like. I mean what's she like, as a mother?"

"I wouldn't know. My first memory is of Father and of Asgard. He took me in and raised me where Mother neglected me." At least that is what Father always told him. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I don't think she's as bad as the Aesir make her out to be." Ollerus seemed reluctant to accept this. "I hated her at first for attacking my mother, but Odin said she had a hidden agenda besides revenge. It only seems fair that I give her the benefit of the doubt the way I have to with every Asgardian I've met, my parents included." There was bitterness there. "I also want us to be friends and hating your mother isn't conducive to that."

Friends. Fenrir couldn't help but be touched. He never had a friend before. "Tell me about this presumed hidden agenda."

"Odin believes," Ollerus began, "that she didn't poison my mother for the sole purpose of killing her. She did it so we would be forced to free you since only you can sniff out the cure. Her choice of poison is too specific for coincidence."

"Interesting..." He had wondered why the All-Father was being so merciful. Apparently he had no other choice. "So, am I supposed to be grateful to her? Do I simply forget that I was abandoned as a pup?"

"Father could have been lying about that," Ollerus said with a darkening tone. "Like you said back in the cave, he lies. He lies to his kids, and it's something we just live with. For all we know, he took you from her."

Fenrir felt his spirits falling by the grim turn of their conversation. He didn't want to talk about their parents' failings right now, he waned to get back to the friend part. "Are you going to be this moody for our entire mission?" The question caught Ollerus off guard. "Because," the wolf continued, lightheartedly, "if anyone should be moody, it's me. I'm hungry again."

"But Odin let you eat like twenty stag on the way to the Bifrost," the hunter said. "You even ate the arrows I stuck in them."

"I've eaten nothing but lizards since you were a toddler," Fenrir argued, teasingly. "And here you are whining about one little lie."

"Little?" Ollerus scoffed. "Magic's kind of a big deal."

"You know what's really a big deal? Starving while in solitary confinement! But am I going to complain about that now..." His words paused as he jumped over a fallen tree, hurdling them through the crisp, exhilarating air. "...and spoil the mood?" he continued with a smile. "No."

Ollerus gripped tight to his fur for the landing, struggling to keep his body aligned. "I see your point." He couldn't hide the thrill from his voice. "There'll be time for complaining later. Now, I say we take the most obstructed path we can find. That was really fun!"

The wolf flopped his tongue out the side of mouth. He liked having a little brother. A friend.

"I agree. Better hang on tight."

Song: Wolf by First Aid Kit