Work Text:
Hela watched over the Dead, the Unworthy according to the Allfather and his kin. She watched as mothers and babes dead in childbirth played together. She watched as wives killed by their husbands taught maidens ravaged by wild beasts how to fend off unwanted attention, be it romantic or not. She watched as her people shared their skills because what use was it hoarding knowledge when they were already dead.
She watched bound in her Realm. She watched families reunited, friends long lost come together again, siblings torn apart by petty feuds embrace with tears shining on their cheeks. She watched bound in fire in a Realm of darkness and shadow. She watched bound by shackles like flames in and around her half-frozen spirit.
She watched and she thought and she planned. She thought of Thanos courting Death by destroying worlds and if, by some truly twisted logic, the greatest gift wouldn't be killing a Queen of the Dead. She watched over her people and she thought of defending them if something were to happen to her, if someone were to invade for her throne or power or people, who knew, and she planned how to protect them all (how to see her family again).
She watched for millennia and planned for centuries and, after, bargained, for how long she didn't know. Death was easy to win over, they'd been friends since Hela had been bound after all. Fate... not so much but eventually even he relented, for the correct price, of course, for a price she was willing to pay, a few years were a measly blink of an eye (and weren't the norns in a tizzy when they realized what would happen).
***
Poppy was used to the feeling that she was missing something or she'd forgotten something important. She didn't like it but she'd grown used to it over the years but when she learned of magic, she started wondering if it wasn't just a personality quirk but something someone had done to her. She wondered if she'd told someone of what the Dursleys were doing and that person had tried to help her instead of sneering at her like she belonged in a sewer. She wondered if she'd done something accidentally with her magic, something larger than anything she remembered doing and someone had decided she shouldn't remember it for her own good. She wondered for weeks and then decided it did her no good to wonder if she didn't know how to fix it.
She researched memory magics when she could (she didn't want to worry ron and hermione if it ended up being nothing) and the longer she searched, the more she started thinking there wouldn't be an answer in the Wizarding World after all. None of the books mentioned the faint niggling at the back of her mind, that feeling of forgetting something you almost remember, all they spoke of was a complete and total erasure that could be reversed with the right magics but that the target would never even realize something was wrong (obliviate, she learned was a dangerous spell). Unless, one of the books said, you tried to wipe away days or even weeks, and then went on with, the human mind would realize if it had lost such large periods of time, after all.
(after she got the invisibility cloak she started dreaming. things she could never remember after waking. except for the warmth she thought might be love.)
***
She fought against Draco (and won) and she started dreaming of a man with her eyes, a wolf larger than any car she'd ever seen, laughter like escaping steam, twin smirks of mischief, and she started wondering about telling her friends.
But no, what was there to tell? She had a vague feeling and odd dreams that left her happier than anything she could recall? She had felt as long as she could remember that there was something important she'd forgotten? No, none of it was immediately of concern, and besides, Ron and Hermione were stressed enough hunting down Horcruxes and dodging Snatchers.
***
She opened the ball of gold from so long ago, brought the Stone to her lips and felt something start to crest inside of her, she pushed it down. She crushed it to the deepest depths of her being. There was no time now for the mysterious something wrong with her memories.
(she doesn't know how she knows it's that)
***
A flash of green and she opens her eyes to pure whiteness, sitting up and - - Everything goes black around her (she thinks she sees dumbledore's face twisting to something unpleasant but it might be wishful thinking on her part) but then there is a hooded figure in front of her and a skeletal (skeleton) finger presses in the middle of her forehead and she remembers.
She is Poppy Lillian Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived, Undesirable No. 1, Saviour of the Wizarding World, Last of the Potters, Heiress Black. She is seventeen-years-old. She has red hair like fire. She has her mother's eyes. She has a lightning bolt scar.
She is Hela Lokisdottir, the Queen of the Unworthy Dead, Ruler of Helheim, Friend to Death, Sister of Fenris, of Jörmungandr, of Váli and Nari. She is hundreds of years old. She has red hair like the blood spilled in a birthing bed. She has her father's eyes. She has a scar shaped like Sowilo, like victory.
She falls on her back and laughs and laughs and laughs.
It worked.
She is free.
Death patiently waits for her to finish her maniacal cackling before sending her back to finish what she'd started.
***
After the Battle, after Hogwarts is rebuild, after everyone is done being deliriously happy about being alive and winning and the War ending, she gets together with Ron and Hermione and tells them she can't stay in the Wizarding World, can't stay in Britain where she gets recognized and thanked all the time and where her buying groceries is cause for a news article and speculation on her diet.
She says she wants to see the world. She says she wants to stand at the edge of the world and feel insignificant like she never has after her eleventh birthday.
She says she wants to be free, of expectations and prophecies and others' lives altering decisions.
They make her promise she'll stay in contact. She promises (she doesn't know if she will).
Afterwards, she goes to Gringotts. The goblins know the moment she steps into the Bank and she isn't surprised, after all, the goblins learned all they know from the dwarves. She isn't even surprised when it's the General of the Horde that meets with her.
She is surprised when she is named Shield-Friend. After everything she'd done to the Bank as a mortal she didn't think the goblins would ever treat her with anything but cold courtesy and she would've understood that.
She makes a mortal Will, effective immediately, and leaves her mortal titles (all three of them, which surprised even her), her estates, her vaults, her gold, everything she can think of, to Teddy. She makes Andromeda his Regent until he comes of age. She knows Andromeda will likely curse her name 'till the last of her days for that but she thinks it's better than leaving all that wealth that could help Teddy and his grandmother to just rot until he is old enough.
(she doesn't leave the hallows to teddy. those are hers and will be hers until time runs out and even after that.)
***
She wavers at the edge of her Realm. She wonders if the Allfafther's Olde Magiks will shackle her the moment she steps foot on Helheim.
But, no. She is her Father's daughter and if there's something her Father has never been, it's a coward (no matter what thor and his ilk say).
She takes a step and shudders as Helheim latches onto her like a child to its mother. She waits and waits and waits but there are no insidious threads making their way through her being, no manacles of cursed fire pulling her down.
She grins as vicious as her Wild Brother and calls her staff, the power of Her Realm twisting around her like an excited puppy at its master's return as the twisted yew materializes in her hand.
(the dead part before her even as they reach out in greeting)
***
Her face is half-rotted and scarred and all of it hides (but never destroys) the sign of victory upon her brow. She smirks at her mirror-image and with the slightest tilt of her head her hair falls over the rune covering it from sight.
She won't let anyone see it.
(fate and death know but everyone else is liable to bend under the allfather's power and she won't risk her freedom getting back to him. not yet.)
***
She has been in Helheim for slightly over a week when a bird of shadow (an owl, she notes) lands on her windowsill. It tilts its head to a side and its eyes glint with the stars. It ruffles itself and little wisps of shadow separate and float in the air for a moment before disappearing. It clicks its beak at her in obvious annoyance and there is something familiar about the way it does it.
It takes a long moment (mostly because she refuses to believe, refuses to hope) but it all coalesces into a picture of a beloved friend lost and she chokes out, "Hedwig?"
The bird, Hedwig, coos at her in that familiar maternal way and glides to her shoulder before starting to groom her hair.
She is stuck between laughing and crying for what might be hours.
She only comes back to herself when Astrid knocks on the door and asks if she's finally managed to drown herself in parchment and books.
Her answering "I'm fine" might be a bit harsher than she meant it to be but she puts that down to the shock.
(hedwig's in helheim. how?)
***
The problem, she thinks a few weeks later with mounting frustration, with trying to find a cave somewhere in the Nine Realms hiding a "vicious, slavering beast" is that, well, it's somewhere in the Nine Realms, none of which are actually small no matter how abandoned some of them are. She hadn't seen her Wild Brother's imprisonment since she had already been bound by then and she doesn't dare ask any of those she knows were there for fear of discovery.
She could try and contact her Father, she guesses, but that smacks of far too much risk this early in her self-imposed mission.
She looks at the pile of tomes and written down ballads of heroes and their victories and drops her head onto her desk with a groan. Hedwig ruffles her shadows and clucks her beak in reproachment at the noise interrupting her nap before tucking her head back under her wing. Hela can't help the fond smile at the familiar behaviour.
Something flutters to the ground. She turns her head slightly where she still has it against the desk and eyes the torn piece with Dark Elvish scribbled on it. After a moment of contemplating if she actually wants to move, she picks it up and something about the text catches her eye.
The Beast of Fire and Ice
The Monster of the Doom
Hidden where no-one would look
Hidden where the Tree spills
Its Middle into a Yard
Hidden where the Father first stepped
She looks at it, at this barely legible piece of text on singed parchment she hadn't thought would help her in any way and... There's something in the air. She can feel it. Something like waiting, like anticipation, like the Universe holding its breath as ridiculous as that sounds.
Most of it's easy to decipher. The Tree is of course, the World Tree, and its middle spilling into a yard is far too obvious of a reference to Midgard (she wonders who even wrote it). The Beast of Ice and Fire could be many things but when it's combined with the Monster of the Doom, she can only think of her Wolf Brother.
It's the Father that trips her up. Does it mean the Allfather? Or Ymir, the Father from which everything came? Or could it actually mean Loki? Is this what's meant to hide her Brother for all time? The Aesir and, if she's honest with herself, all of the realms willingly forgetting Loki's a Father?
There's a hope in her now. Something bright and fragile and savage that says yes, Our Father. She is not fool enough that she won't check the other possibilities just because her instincts are screaming at her to rip apart reality right now and step through to where her Father told her he visited while on Midgard all those ages ago when the humans still called on them for help and damnation.
She wonders if the places he had told her of while she was just a babe-in-arms even still exist.
***
She hides herself in shadow and walks the edges of Ginnungagap.
She wraps herself in death and darkness and traverses the borders of Asgard.
Finally, she pulls her mortal magics around her form and steps through worlds to Midgard.
***
She breathes Earthen air for the first time in months when there is a startled squawk beside her and then feathers ruffling and when she looks, Hedwig has changed (the obstinate bird refused to leave her alone on her travels).
Feathers black as tar have replaced shadows and a pair of pearls is where stars used to be. All in all, it makes her look like something straight out of the Underworld. Well, she supposes, that's not too far from the truth.
She blinks in confusion for a moment before snorting in laughter at the bird's indignant squawking at her sudden change in appearance. The laughter only yields her a sharp nip at her ear and sharper talons digging into her shoulder for a moment.
"Don't worry, you still look magnificent, Hedwig." Her only response is a haughty ruffle of feathers that clearly means well, of course I do, peasant.
***
She is surrounded by ice. She frowns when she realizes there should be more. There's something about the ice that speaks of dying and destruction and diminishing and she doesn't know why she understands that.
That's not important, though. Not now. Maybe when she gets bored in a century or more, she can see what she can do about the humans trying to drown themselves (and why she knows the ice is dying).
What's important is that she can feel a pull. And not just any pull but a pull that says kinbloodbrother and she laughs delighted. She'd found him.
***
It takes longer than she'd like and she actually has to travel to a second glacier but she finds the cave.
It's covered by tens of metres of ice and rock and spells to mislead and turn your focus elsewhere but she ignores all of it. She doesn't tear all of it to pieces like she wants. She can sense the Allfather's alarm spell woven through the threads of imprisonment and there'snothingherelookawaylookawaylookaway.
Instead, she pulls at the magic with infinite care and makes a hole she can fit through. (father managed to teach her something after all before she was banished and bound and she's had centuries to perfect what she learned) The cave itself is uninteresting and boring and there's nothing - - She stops herself from turning away and shakes her head before turning her attention inwards, to her magic and very being, for now hidden by the glamour her mortal magics made when she stepped on Midgard.
There it is. A pulse of insidious magic already assimilating itself to hers that's saying she should just go and forget about all of this, that there's nothing important in this cave.
She snarls and tears at the magic with her power until it's less than nothing and the cave wavers before everything around her seems to melt away and she's left staring into the feral, calculating eyes of a wolf the size of which there isn't anywhere else in the Realms.
The first thought she has is Fenris is wild and beautiful even captured and chained.
She takes a step forward and Fenris snarls as much as he can with the chains around his muzzle and the sword pinning him to the ground.
Hela blinks at that. They'd known each other since childhood and... aah, she doesn't look as she should. Probably doesn't feel like herself either what with her mortal magics on the surface.
She pushes her mortal magics down and pulls the power of Her Realm around her. She can see the moment the situation dawns on Fenris. The snarl dies down and something almost like intelligence enters those eyes.
She takes a step closer and her Brother snarls again but this time it dies down quickly before the Wolf whines and shakes his head as much as he can. The large beast settles down as low as he can and keeps his eyes locked on her.
This time when she takes a step closer there's nothing, no reaction. So, she walks closer and closer until she can touch him. There's a flinch when she lays her hand on his cheek and she swears vengeance.
The first thing she does is pull the sword out. There's no magic to it, she realizes, just there for pure sadistic purposes, and vengeance becomes death a thousand times over.
(especially on týr who she knows her brother had trusted as much as they trusted any of the aesir)
When she first grabs the chain, it slips through her fingers like so much water. She narrows her eyes. So, that's how it is, is it?
She calls her power to her hands and grabs for the chain again. This time it doesn't slip through her fingers but then again, she can't move it either.
She lets go of Gleipnir and takes a step back. She glares at the thing for good measure.
Fenris is still looking at her with calm confidence and when she says, "Well, the dwarves aren't idiots after all." he actually huffs in something like amusement.
She wonders about the enchantments surrounding them and how well they hide her power from Heimdall, has the Allfather chanted alarms for things happening inside the cage into his spells, can she risk it, but most of all, can she leave her brother here? The answer to which is of course, never, as long as she lives, so she sighs and cracks her neck. She calls her staff into her hand and pulls all the Power she can from Her Realm.
(in helheim, astrid and some of the other older dead get worried when the ground under them shakes and cracks and they feel the power of the dead leaving the realm)
Her eyes crackle with green fire, her hands and staff are bathed in shadow and when she speaks, her words are Ancient.
Death comes for all
Time takes and never gives
And now it's your Time
She takes hold of Gleipnir and this time there is a screech as something almost sentient flees the chain (and dissipates in the air) as her hands and Power rot away at the bindings. After that, it doesn't take long for rust and age to take away what little holding power the chain had left.
She helps Fenris onto his feet. There's a moment where he sways and almost falls but then he settles and raises his head and for the first time in centuries, maybe millennia, the Nine Realms shake with his Howl.
(on helheim, astrid realizes what must have happened and rolls her eyes at her queen's overcompensating before going back to her tasks.
in the sky, between stars and supernovae, sköll and hati pause for a moment in their chase to howl back in joy.
on asgard, loki's heart skips a beat as he feels more than hears an echo of a familiar howl, and for the first time in a long while, he has hope for his beloved children.)
***
When the chain crumbles and Fenris lowers his head, she sways as suddenly the Power leaves her for Helheim and her mortal magics surge in to take its place.
She's never done something like that before. She's never used her Power and the Knowledge she has had since birth like this. It's a rush and a lot at the same time and she stares into nothing as she tries to find her equilibrium again.
The thing that finally snaps her out of her daze is a gigantic wet nose gently nudging her and she can't stop the giggle when Fenris nudges her again, this time less worried and more playful.
***
Fenris runs and runs and runs. The dead don't care about him. What can he do to them after all? They've already lost their lives and Helheim would just put them back together again if he were to harm them for some reason. He's never understood inflicting pain for pain's sake.
He loves the freedom. He loves being able to run. But most of all, he loves his sister who freed him despite the threat of Odin's revenge now hanging over both their heads.
He runs, almost flies, over fields and plains and forests filled with dead things and shadow creatures. He knows he'll return to his sister eventually and help her with freeing the others but for now he enjoys the freedom of movement and unlimited space to do so.
***
Hela spends time with her brother. She judges the bigger quarrels between the Dead. She tries to find a way to free Jörmungandr without kicking off Ragnarök.
Some of these things are easier to do than others.
(she isn't her father's daughter for nothing, though)
***
Fenris spends days, sometimes weeks, lost in a haze of pain and memory and helplessness. He savages anything he can lay tooth and claw on and forgets. He runs and runs and runs.
There's red and there's agony and there's endless centuries spent alone and there's millennia spent unable to move and there's pain.
(he doesn't know where he is, doesn't know when he is, doesn't know who he is. he persists for the feeling of flesh between his teeth, for aesir broken and bleeding beneath his paws.)
***
"Mistress of the Hallows."
"Friend of Death."
"Queen of the Unworthy."
"What can we do for you?" The question seems to echo with the tripled voice.
"My brother. The Earth-holder. Does his freedom mean Ragnarök?"
A pause for silence as the three discussed.
"It has been Seen."
"It has been Told."
"It has Been Written."
Narrowed eyes. "Was it earlier?"
"It has been Seen, Mistress of the Hallows."
"It has been Told, Friend of Death."
"It has Been Written, Queen of the Unworthy."
***
She thinks about that subtle emphasis for a long time. Thinks about possibilities and unravelling Worlds and history. Thinks about balance and freedom and knowledge. (thinks about fate and change) But most of all, she thinks of risk and victory and safety in stagnancy.
(she thinks about rebirth and death and being again and again and again (she thinks about breaking the cycle))
***
When she sees Fenris, she smacks his cheek with a bit of added oomph and still the massive wolf's head barely moves. Fenris opens an eye and glares sleepily at her.
"I need you to watch over Helheim for a while."
At that Fenris immediately wakes and locks on her with focus she hasn't seen in a long while.
"I'm going to get our younger Brother and I need someone capable of defending My Realm if the Allfather gets ideas."
The Wolf's eyes narrow and it takes an eternity (a blink of an eye) for him to nod his acquiescence.
***
She concentrates and pulls and weaves magic and Magick and she doesn't breathe.
This has to be perfect and it has to work forever and it has to be unbreakable by any and All.
There's silence.
There's magic.
There's a chain forming and looping in on itself. Over and over and over.
There's a chain with its beginning in the heart of the planet and its end somewhere between layers of magma.
There's a chain that grows and grows and grows and cradles a World.
There's a chain that's more sentient and alive than object.
(this has to work. she will not be responsible for killing teddy. for killing ron and hermione. she refuses.)
***
She finds the deepest, darkest corner of the seas and there she finds a gargantuan snake's head. It's eye is sharp and concentrated on her.
She smiles at Jörmungandr at the obvious recognition and fondness in her Brother's eye (in his aura).
Then she turns her attention to the massive jaws clamped together and held together by magic and duty because her Brother is many things but cruel to innocents has never been one of them (he's so unlike her and váli (and nari), unlike their father and fenris).
"You can let go now, Brother."
She sees his eye widen in surprise and she smiles.
"I took care of it. You can let go and join Fenris with me in Helheim."
She sees his jaw move, sees muscles locked in place for centuries loosen but his mouth doesn't open.
She steps closer (she hates the ocean. she has fire in her soul and the ocean is... not) and grasps one of his fangs (she can barely close her hands around the tip), puts one foot on his lower jaw and pulls.
Nothing happens.
She narrows her eyes. So it's like that, again.
She lets out a long, drawn out breath, pulls some power to the front and tries again.
This time there is movement and slowly, so very slowly that she wonders if there's even any progress, Jörmungandr's jaws unlock and open.
The moment she's certain he's free, she flees for dry land.
(she hates the ocean)
***
She steps on land and she hears wood groaning and creaking. She feels the world beneath her feet shake. She sees the seas boil in turmoil and the sky waver in distress.
She sees it all settle and calm down like nothing had happened.
Her Brother is already pulling himself into a smaller form when she turns to him. It doesn't take long before a man, taller than their Father, skinnier than their Brother, stands beside her. There's a crooked tilt to his mouth that, to her, speaks of knowing the secrets of the Universe, and how could he not when he has been keeping a World together for so long Yggdrasil Herself has to adjust to his absence even with all she did to maintain the balance.
***
She sleeps for a week after that. Apparently she hadn't been quite as recovered from her endeavour to save Fenris as she had thought, and it's not like freeing Jörmungandr hadn't taken as much if not more power than freeing their wolf-brother.
When she wakes, she stares at the ceiling of her chambers and she thinks of the other (others).
She wonders if it would be more merciful to let Váli drown in madness and forgetting all of it. She wonders if she could even help him without Nari (and then she thinks if death would even let her bring him back).
She cries for the first time in a long time.
She cries for her family that was torn apart because of one man's, god or not, prejudice. She cries for her family that seemed to get all of the Worlds' misfortune.
But most of all she cries for the children they could've been if they hadn't been stamped with Odin's judgment the moment they were born.
And for what? She doesn't know.
***
She speaks with Death about souls and splitting them. She talks about natural splitting and she talks about forcing the split in a bid for immortality and she talks about destroying one half and leaving the other to madness.
She talks about her brothers without talking about them.
(she knows death knows, it doesn't matter because she will reunite her family no matter what, she has a realm of the dead loyal to her, she will get her family back together)
In the end, Death rolls their eyes and says, "They will be mad but if you think it's worth it, I won't stop you."
So, she walks into the place between shadows where Váli still cradles what's left of Nari and breathes life to the pieces of flesh that used to be her brother and will be again.
They're not perfect, not even close, but they're alive and together and they will be better with time.
(they only have eyes for each other and she doesn't mind, knows fen and mung won't mind either)
***
Hela doesn't even know what's going on except that she'd come to Midgard's New York to see Teddy and Andromeda, and when she'd stepped into the city there had been robots flying and exploding everywhere and the Avengers seemingly being mostly responsible for the exploding.
She groans in exasperation. This was supposed to be her relaxation time with her favourite godson (she ignores the fact that he's her only godson) and now there's explosions and danger and - - She screams out in frustration (thankfully there's no-one to notice).
She takes a deep breath, cracks her neck and with a wave of her hand her comfortable clothes change to battle armour. Now she just has to find Teddy and Andy.
She closes her eyes and feels for the life of all the mortals running around and sees them as flecks of light. She excludes non-magicals first and that helps a little. Next she excludes all full-humans, which she notices has far less of an effect than she'd expected. She snarls in frustration.
She doesn't have time for this.
So she pulls on her mortal magics and more specifically, her mortal blood, forces her power to exclude everyone else from her sight and immediately there are only two bright lights in her mental map.
She steps into shadow and straight into a battlefield.
She takes a quick look around and sees Andromeda holding her own against any wayward robots trying to attack her and the small group of humans she's protecting. Next she searches out Teddy and that ends up being almost easier, his distinctive hair keeps changing from frightened blue to angry red whenever one of the robots gets close to Andromeda and she immediately crouches in front of him.
(she's so thankful she kept contact with teddy and andy after leaving britain. it means he recognizes her without any trouble.)
"Okay, Teddy-bear, here's what we're gonna do. Either you stay here with me and your Grandma or I send you to a safe place and come get you after the scary stuff's over. How's about it, love, which one is it?"
She keeps her steady gaze on him (and she knows the humans around her are gaping at her for making a five-year-old make a decision like that but she remembers being kept in the dark and powerless to make her own decisions about her life and she refuses to do that to anyone she loves) and when there's a shriek from somewhere to her side, quickly followed by a shout of "watch out!", she flicks out one of her long daggers and stabs backwards with it. There's no pitiful whine of electronics nor an explosion. What there is, is the creak of flash frozen metal and then the sound of an ice sculpture crashing to the ground and scattering every which way in thousands of little pieces.
None of this has stopped her staring contest with Teddy and she can see the moment he makes the decision.
He raises his arms and says, "Imma come with you, Auntie Pop."
"Okay then. Hold on, cub." She scoops him up and looks for Andromeda.
It doesn't take long to find her. After all, she's a Black and if there's one thing that mess of a family could ever agree on it was best summarized as "explosions are awesome" though if you said that in the presence of a Black (excluding siri and nymph, of course) you'd get your head bitten off and a rant about "proper language" and manners and "Blacks don't use a word as plebeian as awesome".
"Nice day we're having, don't you think?" Hela layers a generous helping of sarcasm into her voice and Andy snorts at her.
"You just had to pick a city in the Colonies. I should've known something like this would happen."
There's a moment where Andy throws a borderline dark curse past Hela's head and something goes boom behind her while simultaneously she throws a simple (extremely) overpowered Bombarda slightly left of Andromeda.
"Think you can get the civvies to safety while I find whichever moron decided to ruin my day."
Andromeda actually rolls her eyes at Hela at that. "I survived two wars. I survived losing my husband and my daughter to those wars. I survived my family. I think I can handle some flying pieces of metal, young lady."
(hela will never get over how andromeda treats her exactly the same as before even after she'd told her everything)
She nods, adjusts how Teddy sits in her arms and throws an impenetrable (well, as long as she doesn't run into the allfather) shield around him.
She takes a breath, shifts Teddy into one arm and her staff materializes in her hand. Its aura, usually a calm cold, is now dark and hungry, and she knows it's responding to the cold, protective rage burning inside her.
She steps onto the street.
---
She loses count of terrified civilians running past her. She doesn't care about the number of exploded robots, doesn't even care if they're all the moron's or not. She just makes her steady way through the streets to where she feels Aesir power (it has to be thor and where her idiot uncle is, there is the fight, she knows).
She stops in the shadows of what once was a very impressive square of some kind, she thinks. Teddy's eyes go wide and he whispers, "Tha's the Avenge's."
She just sighs. "I know, cub, and right now I have to talk to them about ruining our day out."
***
"Uh guys," Tony started and paused for a second to make sure he was actually seeing right, "we've got incoming."
"What?" Steve sounded disbelieving and Tony could understand that, after all they'd been fighting Doom's bots for hours. "I thought we got all of them!"
"Yeah, Cap, this ain't one of Doom's. It's a she for one. I think. And there's a kid. Probably mutant."
The shouts that followed that announcement scrambled together so badly Tony couldn't make out any of it despite JARVIS' best efforts.
They all watch as the woman approaches.
Finally, and unexpectedly, before Tony manages to open his mouth, Thor steps forward to address her. The bow he gives is even more of a shock.
"Your Majesty."
The woman, a queen of some kind apparently, returns the bow with a dip of her head.
"Prince Thor. Would you be able to tell me what," and she gestures to everything around her, "all of this is about and if it's finished?"
"Ma'am," Steve stepped forward with that earnest "this is all for everyone's good" smile and Tony, concentrated as he was on the freaky readings from the woman's walking stick, noticed the curl of her lip at that.
"Did I ask you, mortal?" the redhead spat out and Steve actually took a step back from the vicious, poisonous tone.
"Your Majesty," and Thor bowed again, "my comrade meant no insult."
This time he didn't rise until the woman made an impatient gesture with the hand holding the stick.
"Well?" The edge in the woman's voice had Tony ready for anything. It promised violence from what he could gather.
"My comrades and I were victorious, Your Majesty." Thor sounded somehow even more formal than he did normally.
"Good. Then I shall take my leave." The woman turned around and started walking away only to stop after only a few steps. She turned her head a little to the side and Tony glimpsed a cold, green eye. "I am presuming you can take care of your own filth so I don't have to, Prince."
Thor bowed again. "Of course, Your Majesty."
***
Thor battles with himself. He wonders if he should tell his father about Hela being free. He wonders if it would even matter with Heimdall's all-seeing eyes. He wonders if he even wants to stop her. She only wants freedom for her brothers and her father. (or so he assumes)
And who is he to stand against that? Why would he stand against someone who so clearly loves his brother?
Why would he stand against a family reuniting?
***
Heimdall saw her coming. He could've stopped her even (maybe) but that would've meant incurring the wrath of the Dead and that would be something Asgard couldn't take. Not now that they've grown fat and complacent with peace, maybe not even without that handicap.
He loves his home and the Royals but he doesn't always agree with them. Not when he sees everything Odin's decisions have wrecked on the Nine Realms. Not when he's watched so many children killed and starved and crying for their parents.
Not with what Odin's omnipotence did to Loki, someone the Allfather called son.
No, Asgard deserves this wake-up call.
(or maybe, this destruction)
***
She walks into the throne room with her head held high and two of her brothers beside her.
Loki's breath catches in his throat. His children. His beloved offspring free to walk the Realms. How, he knows not and it does not matter.
Hela has a crown of bone upon her head and a gown greener than any emerald he's ever seen. But it's the cloak that draws his eye. The cloak made of shadows and darkness that doesn't seem to exist even as it flows around her with her movements.
He tears his eyes away from his darling daughter to gaze upon his beloved sons.
Fenris is larger than any Aesir and doesn't so much walk as he prowls. His tunic is the cold grey of a Northern wolf's pelt and his trousers a dark, soft leather. His oldest son's eyes hold a wildness that speaks of dark forests far from any civilization, places where only wild things dare roam.
Jörmungandr has never held the same muscle as his brothers but he is lean and taller even than the Light Elves. His hair flows freely down his back but for the serpent braids holding it away from his face. There's a spark in his eye Loki's never seen before, a curve to his lips that speaks of Knowing. He can only hope they are good things.
Hela stops in front of Odin's throne and that she made it that far unmolested only speaks of the shock of the court and the guards.
She doesn't bow her head, doesn't avert her eyes. In fact, she tilts her chin up slightly and says, "King of Asgard."
Loki can see the slightest tightening in Odin's jaw, "Queen of the Unworthy Dead."
She bares her teeth in a mockery of a smile and replies, "Only because you made me."
The tension just ratchets higher.
(later, loki wonders at the courage his child has. i will free my brother. i will free my father. i will free the realms. he wonders where she got it from.)
***
She goes to every Realm. She always starts the same.
"I am gathering an army. An army to free us from Odin's and Asgard's rule. Anyone who wants to join me is welcome, anyone who doesn't is free to live as they please."
She gathers an army. Not many outside Asgard like Odin or his dictatorship.
She moves through villages and Realms and her army grows.
***
The ground was wet with blood, and red with it. The mud losing its original colour under the countless bodies. Screams from everywhere. Some dying down, some just rising in volume.
Clashing metal and flashing spells. War cries and insults. Battle after battle after battle. Everyone believing their cause as righteous.
And in the middle of it all two figures faced off. For the right to rule, for the right to freedom.
***
She's on her knees in the dirt with the giant's son bearing on her with his cursed spear. She's panting and there's a wound in her abdomen that doesn't want to stop bleeding. She's been fighting for hours, maybe longer and it's finally come down to this. Finally, the Allfather has been drawn out.
There's a cold look in the god's eye. A look that says you will die and your family will suffer and there's nothing you can do about it and knowing the sort of things Odin does even without the goal of suffering...
She can't.
No, she won't.
She absolutely refuses to let that happen.
Her fingers tighten around her staff and she rises on trembling legs, knees barely staying straight.
She doesn't do it consciously but she can feel Her Power, Her Realm's Power, the Power of her Staff, all of it collecting in her, overflowing into her surroundings killing indiscriminately because that is what it was made for, at its core.
She pulls her staff back and strikes forward at the same time Odin does. She wonders why his eye seems to widen.
(she doesn't see it but her eyes are blazing with eternity, with the end of all things. she doesn't see it but her staff becomes more akin to a spear as she moves forward, twisting and sharpening and forming edges that will tear and hooks that will grab. she doesn't see it but the rune upon her brow, still unmarred, blazes with white light, with triumphant power, with something like destiny.
she can't even guess that odin feels like he's back on that tree hanging and wondering if it all was even worth it, if this will be the end of him. she can't ever know the fear odin knows in that moment.)
Her staff sinks into the Allfather's chest at the same moment as Gungnir pierces her abdomen.
She grins with blood-soaked teeth at Odin even as the god gives a roar and raises her from the ground with naught but his spear. She laughs and her breaths are blood that drips onto Odin's face even as she feels herself slipping further down on the spear.
She twists her staff and lets go of all that Power still inside her.
She says, "Death comes for all."
Her staff splinters, explodes really, in Odin's chest, in her hand, shrapnel flying at both of them.
And then there's black.
(odin stares at the woman, girl really compared to him, and wonders what it must be like to raise an army against him and his, wonders what it must've taken (never wonders if he was wrong in doing what he had to the girl and her family))
***
She rolls onto her back and groans. Death is looking at her with that indeterminable gaze that says there's a choice to be made.
She closes her eyes, rolls her head to the side and looks at something that's not Death and their immeasurable patience.
Odin's there. Unconscious. At least it looks like that.
She closes her eyes and thinks.
(here again. with a choice. again. except it really wasn't last time, was it? but now. a choice. she's never had a choice.)
Death waits.
They are the only one for whom Time stops.
The Universe holds its breath.