Hel (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} in_a_handbasket) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} nevermore_logs,@ 2012-05-31 03:34:00 |
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WHEN: Monday evening
WHERE: Outside Hel's apartment building
WHAT: The meeting of two Creepy Ladies.
WARNINGS: tba
The canvas bag in Hel's hand held what would be dinner for her brothers once she got upstairs, although she would let it be their decision whether it was cooked or not. Hel would do that if they wanted it, but she didn't eat anything so it wasn't an issue for her. Already she could smell it slowly rotting in the bag, all things starting to smell like that to her the very moment they died. To some that would be intolerable but the scent of decay was like perfume to Hel. She was decay. She smelled and saw death in everything.
Outside her building there should have been a doorman, but instead there was only a messy looking woman who, like Hel, would never die but was surrounded with death.
Hel slowed as she reached near the door and said, "you don't live here."
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-05-30 07:51 pm UTC (link) Track This
She had smelled the death before anything else. She'd walked from her usual post near Oedipus' door, once she'd only had her nest now she felt too anxious to remain still for long, to walk around the city. She wanted to be a plague again, wanted to have her fur and wings back.
Empty wishes, which made her sullen and angry. The doorman had stopped her, worried for her appearance, and she'd asked him her riddle. He hadn't answered correctly. The tenants near the cursed one already knew to avoid her. This one had not.
So when she heard the voice, the smell she'd brushed away, she looked up with blood on her lips and dripping down her chin. She set her hands on the corpse, this was her prey, and watched the god. "Was gate, was youth. Asked riddle, answered not. Mine."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-05-30 09:06 pm UTC (link) Track This
Hel had very little idea what the woman was talking about but she knew some times for sure: one of them being that she couldn't just kill people in the middle of a street at dusk without attracting some serious attention.
"You have to remove that body," Hel said, pointing a finger to it. (A rather pointless gesture as there was no other body she could be referring to.)
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-05-30 11:48 pm UTC (link) Track This
Sphinx just sighed and nodded. Some gods were so strange. There'd be very few things left of the body once she was done with it, and she rarely cared for the attention she may get. This was her duty.
She looked back to the body, picking long strands of meat off it and watching this strange god. "You smell like death."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-05-31 04:47 am UTC (link) Track This
Hel just nodded once, watching the body. "I am death," she told the stranger.
She looked around the street slowly, glad that it was so quiet. When she looked back to the woman-shaped thing she said, "they will lock you away if they find you with that."
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-05-31 05:24 am UTC (link) Track This
She hissed at the mention of chains and turned to the woman-shaped death with fear and anger in her eyes. If she still had her fur, it would be standing up. But she'd lost so much. "No. Not again." She looked to the body. "Tried taking Sphinx before. Put her in chains and tried to tell her she was mad. Cold and pain, and snaps of whips."
Snarling she looked at the woman, "not again. Won't find me now. Now I learn. Know which mortals look, where to take prey that cannot answer riddle."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-05-31 05:27 am UTC (link) Track This
"You're killing people in public," Hel said after watching the woman's violent reaction. It didn't matter to her that someone was dead. Hel knew that life and death were just things that happened. She had no control over them, no say either. Hel was neutral to all humanity. "You can't walk around in blood."
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-05-31 05:43 am UTC (link) Track This
"And how many mortals notice now? How many mortals will see me walk, covered in blood? Not been stopped before. Mortals see what they want. They see woman without home and ignore her." Shrugging she took the body and dragged it into an alley, returning in a few moments. "Better? Besides, Strangler has place to clean."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-01 10:53 am UTC (link) Track This
"Better," Hel simply agreed, although it wasn't hugely better to be honest. "The bodies draw too much attention and I live here." She gestured to the building they stood in front of.
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-01 10:59 am UTC (link) Track This
Sphinx looked up to the building and licked the blood of her fingers. She studied this old god that smelled like death, "not alone. Others there. Old."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-01 11:08 am UTC (link) Track This
"Not alone," Hel agreed without hesitation. "Two brothers, wolf and snake. I have to protect them and murder invites questions." She looked around them again. "Is your place to clean nearby? If not, come inside."
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-01 11:11 am UTC (link) Track This
"Ah," Sphinx could get that. She actually could. Although it made her sad. "Sphincter had brothers once. Then heroes came and drove iron and steel through their hearts and brothers were no more." She missed her brothers and sisters. Especially her fellow lion-brother. They'd gotten along so well.
"No farther." She looked up to the building, then the woman and nodded. "Alright."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-01 11:26 am UTC (link) Track This
"I'm sorry," Hel said and though her voice had not changed she did mean it. Her brothers were the only things in this world that were important to her. She understood that sort of loss.
Hel opened the door with the code and then led the woman through - the Sphincter? Unfamiliar to Hel other than as the name of human muscle groups - and get them both into the lift. She hoped her brothers were not home, they weren't supposed to be.
"Enter," Hel said as she unlocked her door and went towards the bathroom. "I will get water and towels." When she returned she had let the illusions drop away from her, half corpse once more.
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-01 11:34 am UTC (link) Track This
"I look for them. They do not come. No mother, no father. Just Sphinx." She trailed after the woman, curious about the other things she could feel lingering.
She walked into the room and let the dress fall to the floor. She never cared for this form. She only missed her fur and wings. Then she dropped to the floor, waiting for the water and towels. "where do you hail from?" The skeleton didn't bother her. She was a monster, of a family of monsters. She'd seen stranger.
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-01 12:07 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Europe," Hel said, as unbothered by the nudity as the woman was about her rotting form. "Scandinavia, the lands up high. Sphinx, you are Greek or Egyptian?" That name at least was familiar to Hel. She reached out and started cleaning the blood from the Sphinx.
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-01 12:13 pm UTC (link) Track This
"The Cold North," Sphinx knew of them. She sat quiet and still as she was cleaned, oddly used to this. People had done this to her before. She didn't mind water either, as long as she could lounge and no one forced chemicals on her skin. She snarled at the mention of the Egyptian Sphinx though. "Greek. Only one true Sphinx. Only one true riddler. Other just false guardian. No Sphinx. Me Sphinx. Only one." It was a matter of pride to her that she was the only one of her kind.
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-02 11:58 am UTC (link) Track This
Greek. Hel wouldn't make that mistake more than once after that reaction. "You're the only Sphinx," she assured her with a nod, cleaning the blood from the woman-shaped animals clavicles. "We are all far from home."
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-02 01:02 pm UTC (link) Track This
Maybe it was silly to get so upset, but it was a matter of pride damn it all. She'd lost so much already, was already so close to actual death, that she had to fight. It was instinct for a cornered animal to snap, and she was cornered. "Means strangler. The one that isn't just guards." She let the woman tend to her, growing calm with the actions. "Miss home. Miss Thebes."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-02 01:10 pm UTC (link) Track This
"I've never seen Thebes," Hel said, speaking calmly and softly. If there was one thing Hel understood it was how to keep an animal calm. There use of growing up with two very strange brothers.
She ran the cloth up down the Sphinx's arms. "I think all of us miss our homes. This land is new still."
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-02 01:31 pm UTC (link) Track This
"It was nice. I sat at gates. I had a big nest and still had my wings and fur. Gods told me to ask my riddle to the mortals. I did. Then I was killed." Sphinx still didn't get that she had done wrong. She'd done as she'd been told.
"Don't like this land."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-02 01:35 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Death finds us all," Hel just said, taking the monster's hands to clean off her long fingers. Death didn't find Hel though. She probably would have lived even past Ragnarok. Alone.
"None like this land, not even the mortals it seems."
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-02 01:44 pm UTC (link) Track This
She made a face to that, having learned to endure some bathing. She'd rather do it herself though. "Not for long. Sphinx walks again. In skin of man, but walks."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-02 01:46 pm UTC (link) Track This
"There," she told the Sphinx, drawing away the cloth and standing. "No blood for them to see. Sphinx can walk in the skin of man without being bothered."
Hel didn't much know why she bothered. This creature would just go feed again and get covered in blood once more.
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-02 01:50 pm UTC (link) Track This
She looked to the woman shaped thing and rose. "Sphinx will get bothered none the less. Man sees skin and wants it." Few could break her iron grip though. "But, thanks to you. Sphinx will not come here again. Knows what it is to protect nest."
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[info]in_a_handbasket
2011-06-02 01:55 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Thank you," Hel said, appreciating that the Sphinx understood that. The only important things in the world to her were her brothers.
"Dress," she told the monster. "I'll take you back downstairs."
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[info]riddlemenot
2011-06-02 02:00 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Oh. Yes." She'd forgotten the dress. Sphinx didn't care about her form. It just was. But she'd draw attention with her naked skin. She really did miss her fur.
She dressed again before going to follow the dead woman thing.