Hel's entire being tensed up in expectation of the inevitable as the new arrivals noticed her. Yet neither of them so much as flinched. Hel was sure she saw a flitting expression in their eyes as they took her in, but if questioned she could not have said with any certainty if she actually saw it or imagined it. Even if the looks were there, they were brief and certainly natural given her state. What counted was what came next.
Neither of the goddesses showed her anything but warmth. When Erebos introduced them, she sort of understood. She'd been around Night and Darkness enough times to have heard of their many children of course, enough that Styx's explanation of their attributes were unnecessary. Hel remembered the first time she'd met Nyx, when the older goddess had spoken of her daughter, Hate. Since then, she'd heard many positive things about both these women, but had chalked a lot of it up to motherly perspectives. After all, one did not expect Hate to be friendly. Yet her initial impression of the daughters seemed to mirror all that Nyx had told her.
While one might expect Friendship to be, well, friendly, Hate, on the other hand, was not what Hel would have anticipated. Smiling shyly, she placed her hand in Styx's own, being careful to do so softly so as to convey the necessity for gentleness on that particular appendage. She nodded as Nyx introduced her.
"Nice to meet you."
Now what? Hel had the urge to excuse herself, to allow the family time together, but she had a feeling Nyx wouldn't stand for that. Besides, she'd been accepted. Why was that? Was it only the Norse that thought she was too freakishly horrible to get to know her, or was it a different perspective for those of the Underworlds? Then again, Friendship made an obvious ally, and Hate...well, Hel didn't exactly look like Love and Light, the natural antithesis of hate. Maybe, in this case, her looks were actually to her advantage?
"And you too, Lottie," she finally added, realizing she hadn't acknowledged the other daughter yet. And then she did something she didn't normally do. She smiled at the sisters. In that grotesque half-smile, half-fleshless leer that she couldn't avoid.