Re: [In between: Sif and Hel]
"It could be said," she posited, taking a brief break to suck upon the pipe that rested between her lips, "that we've roles to fill. I have little interest in filling mine, but you seem quite content with yours." Of course, this was rather oversimplifying. She knew not if Sif was content to sit here and wait for decades alone, but she suspected not. Just as she had no true desire to be unseated, despite all her insistence that she'd no interest in the role fate had settled heavily upon her shoulders. Her smile said she knew that her words were true at the surface level, but that there was rather a lot more if one dug. It was a statement for this place, for the dreaming, and not for the waking world at all.
"We're meant to be at war," she reminded the woman at the hearth.
It was, perhaps, a bit of an untruth. Hel had no battle to wage. She'd no need of battles, and everyone would end up at her doorstep eventually. There were places others went, certainly, but whatever mattered ended up as hers. It was the reason she was attempting to keep Derek alive. She'd no interest in a battle with Rae, even if Rae seemed unwilling to accept that she was who she was. But that was rather a musing for another dream.
Now, she tipped her pipe out helpfully, letting the dead tobacco fall to the ground beside her trailing white. As for politeness, Hel was never polite. She saw little point in it, but she could tell her hostess was tied to human politeness as a concept, at least based on the reaction she was exhibiting. Ah, well, all good things...
"Well, I'll allow you to consider your long overdue reunion, as I'm no good at playing at politeness, even in dreams." She was built to be who she was, and a polite woman could never rule her realm. After all, there would be vast oceans of religious lands of suffering named in her honor, and that required a woman who was strong enough to speak plainly. A mother, she suspected, had no need. Or, perhaps that too was another untruth.
Her hem dragged on the grass before the fire. "You will come look for me if you manage it, won't you? I suspect I'll be able to introduce you to some more polite members of our society that are more to your liking."