Re: Esteem.
A weapon and tattoos. The mark of his bestowal. That was all... fitting, David thought. The pain Jimmy had expressed was troublesome for David, frankly, considering what he was about to partake in and the nature of his godly duties (to-be). Still, once Thor spoke again and James had moved to the side, David held his hand in front of Troy's chest when the shorter man moved forward to take his turn. "It's okay," he told Troy, who had all but said 'I will go next so David doesn't have to'. "This might be for the best..." The lanky Brit stepped opposite the Allfather and he fixed his glasses on his nose, took a deep breath, held it, then reached in.
The handle he gripped was most likely to a scythe, or a sickle, he presumed, but as he held to it, unyielding, it became clear what Auster held. A whip. A long, leather core, surrounded by dozens of bones... The handle itself was a bone, wrapped in leather made from... a demon's flesh. David's eyelids began to flutter and he fought his entire being and the sense he had not to transform into something that could better cope with what he was seeing. Each piece of the whip was a vertebra from a different enemy that had been defeated by the item's last owner. He saw their deaths... in slow motion. Each was gruesome as the last, and some were doubled - both body, and then soul, were dashed from existence by the weapon.
This was the deep, buried, dark, cold side of Autumn... This was the part that people claimed to love - the thrill of the mystery of death and the beyond, of the macabre, of bone and blood... It was not David's favorite aspect, but it was one he was chillingly familiar with and had embraced many a time.
He gasped, eyes righting, and the whip came free from the box in one fell swoop. Crack! In the air about Jimmy's head. The bones clattered to the floor of the barn, still strung along their binding, whip intact. "This was Hel's," David announced, breathless. The original Valkyrie and ruler of Helheim herself. He looked to Nate, perhaps for a bit of solidarity. Nate's own item had been the beastly woman's executioner's mask. His hand still held to the bone handle. His head tilted to the side, feeling the overwhelming sensation of a bloody panic attack, but instead of succumbing, his spine straightened and his head was held higher than before. He looked Thor evenly in the eyes: "Thank you, your majesty."
David stepped aside, his hand rose and the whip curled into an easy roll and he mounted the thing on his hip with no fabric in sight to hold it in place. "Troy..."