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Jocelyn Klaes || Hel (tohelandback) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-06-08 19:25:00

meet me on the edges of this city
Who:​ Hel and Hodr
What:​ The Queen of Helheim greets her newest subject ​
Where: Gjallarbrú, the bridge which crosses the river Gjöll into Hel
When: Long ago, and across the sea

She waited for him at the near side of the Gjöll-bridge, at the furthest reach of her realm. His fair twin’s arrival in her realm had been a surprise - how could it have been otherwise, when Frigg had walked the nine worlds, gaining each thing’s vow to not harm her most-beloved son? Still, Hel was determined to do full honor to these her kinsmen who now resided in her realm, and so she abided, silent and unmoving as the grave, waiting for dark Hodr, slain by Váli.

If he had been given the choice, Hodr would likely have preferred to make the journey to Hel as his brother had: unaware to the very last. Unlike Baldr, he had been given ample time to think on what awaited him, though it had not truly prepared him for this moment. He had lived his whole life in darkness, yet the darkness of the dead somehow seemed far more absolute than all that he had known before. He stood, still but for the slightest of shivers, listening to the roar of the water and waiting for whatever might come next.

She hesitated for a long moment, hating the words that ritual demanded of her. It would have been far easier to leave the task to Móðguðr, the guardian of the bridge, but she had already decided that for her kin, it should be her voice to ask the questions.

“State your name and purpose, you who stand at the bank of the Gjöll.”

"My name is Hodr Odinson. I am following my brother."

As he had in birth, as he had in life, and now as he would in death. It would always be the same. Baldr blazed on ahead while Hodr followed behind in the wake of his light. The constancy of the notion brought some comfort in and of itself and he clung to that scrap of the familiar in the midst of his current uncertainty.

She smiled sadly, even though she knew he could not see her. “Well met, kinsman.” She held out one hand towards him. “Will you take my hand and allow me to guide you to my hall?” The question was asked gently, but even still there was an undercurrent to it that suggested that while taking her hand was optional, him going to her hall was not.

There was a brief moment of hesitancy, then Hodr's voice rang out, sounding more confident than he actually felt. "I will." He began moving across the bridge slowly, one hand stretched out before him until it met and wrapped around hers.

He did not have to walk far - Hel met him at the exact place where the covered bridge crossed into her realm, not wanting him to have to walk alone a single step longer than necessary. She led him across the bridge in companionable silence, her grasp on his hand no firmer than it had to be to help guide him. There were things she could say, questions she expected to hear, but she did not wish to cause him pain, and so she said nothing, waiting for him to speak or not as he wished.

At first Hodr seemed content to walk in silence, letting his senses inform him of his new surroundings. When he finally did speak the question was, perhaps unsurprisingly, not about himself or his situation.

"How fares Baldr? Is he well?"

She was silent for a long moment. “I...do not know,” she admitted. “He does not speak to me yet.” She sighed, softly. “I fear he blames me for keeping him here. Perhaps, with time, he and his wife will become accustomed. It has not been so long, after all.”

"I fear he will not wish to speak to me either," Hodr said after another silence. His voice and face were impassive, but behind it there was an untold amount of guilt. "I am far more to blame than you."

“And yet neither of us bears the largest portion of the guilt, cousin.” She freed her good hand from his to place it comfortingly on his shoulder. “Or will you hold it against my portion of guilt that it was my father who manipulated you?” The word of her father’s capture and imprisonment had reached her even here in Helheim, and it shamed her that she felt a pang of remorse that she would likely never see her father again, even though he had never come to visit her after her exile to this realm and its responsibilities.

“Do you hold yourself accountable for your father’s deeds? I know I do not with Odin.” The Allfather could be just as clever and cruel with his subtleties as Loki. Hodr had no illusions about that. Yet he had never felt one pang of remorse on his behalf, no matter the tale. “My brother would not hold you accountable either.”

Hel laughed then - a harsh sound, and full of bitterness. "Would he not? Cousin, I have always been judged by my father's deeds. Why should Baldr be any different than the rest of my ‘kin’ - who watched as a child was exiled to rule the land of the dead, and said nothing in my defense? What crime had I then, excepting that I was the daughter of my father?"

Hodr frowned, lapsing into frustrated silence. That hadn't come out the way that he had intended. He had meant to defend his brother in some way, but instead they both ended up looking foolish.

She sighed, and the two walked in silence for a little while. “In truth, if anyone could be said to rightly hold a grievance against me, it would be Baldr. After all, I did refuse to release him, in spite of Hermod’s pleading.”

"I was told that you made a bargain." Hodr's frown grew more pronounced, though now it was due to confusion rather than frustration. "They said that if every thing in every world wept for him he might return. I only found out just before--" My death. He could not bring himself to say it yet. My death. "Surely they will. The very ground mourns him."

There was a desperation to his words. Baldr couldn't remain here. He wouldn't. He was too beloved. He didn't deserve this. Hodr hadn't been dead for that long. There had to still be time.

And there was another story hidden in his words as well. It told of how Hodr had died after the bargain had been struck, after the Aesir must have been certain they would resurrect the brightest of their number. It clearly had not made any difference to Hodr's fate. A brother who killed his brother must not live, even if the killed might not stay dead in the end.

She was silent for a long moment. He did not know. No one had told him, and damn them all as cowards. And she was meant to tell him?

How very...generous...of them.

“When I was exiled here, none - save one - wept for me. For Baldr? All wept - save one.” In her heart of hearts, she took no small amount of satisfaction in the outcome. But it would not be kind to burden Hodr with that knowledge.

"Who?"

Hodr stopped walking abruptly, his grip on her hand tightening in sudden shock before falling away completely. His mind couldn't fathom it. From the moment he had been told that messengers were riding through the nine realms to spread the news, never for a moment did he allow himself to stop hoping that they would succeed.

"Who will not let my brother leave?"

“The word that came to me is that she was a giantess named Thokk.” Hel sighed. “But everyone, myself included, believes that she was really Odin’s blood-brother in disguise.”

She reached out, brushing her hand against his. “He has received the punishment that has long been his due, cousin.”

He shook his head, firm on this point as he was on no other. “No. No, he hasn't. For what he did to Baldr-- For what he made me do, for preventing his return... It can't be enough." Hodr's face was face was set in an expression of contained rage, looking every inch his father's son. Even his cold, white eyes seemed to blaze. It was the hard, patient, implacable hatred of the dead. Whatever punishment Loki had received would never be enough and Hodr knew it. Just as he already knew that when Loki's time came to die he would be waiting for him.

She knew that look well by now. He was not the first denizen of her realm to harbor hatred towards someone still among the living. Once, when she was young and foolish, she would have tried to convince him that it was pointless to do so - her father was bound until Ragnarok, and Baldr and Hodr both would remain in her realm until the appointed time. There was no future to be drawn from the Norns’ well in which Hodr would take vengeance against Loki.

But she was Loki’s father, and already distrusted by the Aesir. History had proven to her that her voice would not be listened to, not during the heat of anger or the ice of hatred. Time was the only remedy here.

Fortunate, then, that they had time, and likely time enough to spare.

So she said nothing, and the two of them walked in silence, until they reached Éljúðnir, her grand hall. Standing in the entrance way, she summoned her two servants to her, then turned to her companion.

“These my servants, Ganglati and Ganglöt, will see you settled. If there is anything you should need, ask, and if it is in my power to grant, it will be so.”

She hesitated, and when she spoke again there might have been a hint of...loneliness? in her voice. “There will be a place for you at my table, whenever you should want it.” She turned and walked away from him, not waiting for whatever response he might have given...not willing to risk his rejection.