iamcuziam:

my-mind-palace-blog:

icantthinkofaname-oops:

myotp-ruinedmylife:

underachieved-witch:

2srooky:

thegoodlion:

soulsoaker:

turing-tested:

hey so protip if you have abusive parents and need to get around the house as quietly as possible, stay close to furniture and other heavy stuff because the floor is settled there and it’s less likely to creak

socks are quieter than bare feet on tile/wood and for the love of god don’t wear slippers/shoes if you can help it

climbing ON the furniture will disrupt the pattern of your footsteps and make it harder to hear where you are in the house

crawling will do the same and if you get caught crawling you can pretend you fell

the floor near the wall can be really loud if the floorboards/carpet is old and not completely flush to the wall

do NOT attempt to use a rolling chair to travel without footsteps. they are extremely loud and hard to steer

Also. Breath with your mouth and not your nose. Your nose will whistle. Trust me.
If you need to get into your fridge, jab your finger into the rubber part that seals the door closed and create a tiny airway. This will prevent the suction noise when you open the door.
When drinking liquids (juice mostly), pour out your glass (or chug from the jug) and replace what you drank with water. If it was full enough in the beginning, no one will notice. DO NOT STEAL ALCOHOL. THEY WILL NOTICE IF IT’S WATERED DOWN.
Bring a pillowcase for dried foods like cereal and granola. It helps to muffle the sound it makes when it pours.

If your house has snack packs (like gummy bears or crackers or chips), count them every day until you know the rhythm that they get consumed. (This took me a week and a half with my twin brother and sister). Then join the rhythm when you make your nightly visits. It will be that much harder to figure out it was you.

KEEP A TRASH BAG UNDER YOUR BED FOR WRAPPERS AND STUFF BUT DONT FORGET TO THROW IT OUT WHENEVER YOU CAN. BUGS YKNOW.
Hope this helped.

I might have some useful info to add.

-a jar of peanut butter is long lasting and easy to hide under a bed or in a dresser drawer. I lived off of jars of peanut butter and boxes of saltine crackers I would buy on grocery trips with my mom.

-two words: Slipper Socks. These are the socks that have rubber designs on the bottom for grip. They make no noise, and also keep you steady on slicker surfaces like tile and wood. You can find them cheap at Walmart. They also keep your feet more protected if you’re outside.

-if you’re secure enough in your room to have a small food stash, make sure you’re not too obvious about it (duh) but also move its location every few days. I kept mine in a shoebox under my bed, then switched it to a backpack in my closet, then wedged between my bookshelf and wall, and I would cycle locations until i moved it permanently to a false-bottomed drawer I installed in my dresser when my father was gone for a weekend. I would NEVER put food directly into my stash after taking it. I would keep it in pockets of my clothes and between books until everyone went to sleep, then I’d stock and stow my stash for the next few days.

-get a water bottle with a filter in it. I used to be able to reach my bathroom from my bedroom door down the hall using a huge step or minor jump/leap. If I was afraid of being caught at night, I’d fill up the humidifier tank we kept under our sink while I took a short shower, and would refill my water that way. It might not be the best option, but I kept a small stockade of water under my bed for emergencies.

-if you can, smuggle your garbage out in your backpack or purse. Dispose of it at work/school. I got caught twice by carelessly throwing away packaging.

-if someone knows the situation you’re going through (close friend/partner/etc) see if there’s a way for them to get food or other supplies to you at school or work or what private time you may get. A hidden first aid kit literally saved parts of my body before and I owe it to a close friend.

-try learning the building’s natural rhythm. The house I grew up in would creak and settle heavily every night for 3-5 minutes. That was my shot, and I had to be QUICK. I still got caught a few times, but learning the patterns in our floors and walls, when they creaked, WHERE they creaked, kept me going. Eventually I was sprinting in slipper socks to the kitchen and back in less than 90 seconds.

-if you have stairs, or live upstairs. Sit as you go down them one at a time, or climb up them like an animal. It keeps you low/out of lots of motion sight, and also can reduce noise and creaking by distributing weight over more than 1-2 steps.

-You can use common hand sanitizer to remove the stains certain snack foods leave behind (coughs cheeto fingers) and a dry toothbrush can help scrub the color off your tongue. If you can get powdered toothpaste or toothpaste tabs to keep on hand, it makes a huge difference in sneakiness.

-I don’t recommend going for dried foods like granola or cereal unless you can sneak it to a secure place to get it. It’s too loud, it’s a gamble every time for something with less caloric intake than it’s worth if you get caught. Of course, there are times when that’s the only option!!

-if you’re taking milk, add water, but be SURE to shake/agitate the bottle to distribute the dairy fat with the water. I got into the habit of shaking milk jugs when I started sneaking it, and explained the habit as something I read in an old comic strip my father showed me. (Back when whole milk had a lot more cream fats and they’d separate, so shaking it would redistribute the cream.) I still shake milk jugs to this day.

-if your windows open or don’t have screens, eat leaning out an open window. Any food mess will be lost in the dirt. I was lucky I had bushes and birds outside that would catch my granola bar crumbs before anyone could notice.

-canned goods are tempting, but not worth it. It requires too many tools (can opener/strained sometimes/utensils/some need heat) stick to thinks like various nut butters (sunflower/peanut/almond), crackers, dried fruit, and easy to conceal food bars (nature valley/nutrigrain/etc.) dried ramen packets are good uncooked if you can stand the texture. Apple sauce and pudding cups are also easier to sneak and stash than one might think, and can be eaten with your fingers. The only canned foods I recommend are condensed soups and precooked pasta (spaghetti-o’s). You can easily mix them with a little bit of hot water from the tap and get something more sustaining than a handful of captain Crunch. The cans are cheap, sometimes recyclable, and drinking soup takes way less time than chewing solid food.

-if you menstruate, attempt to stash pads/tampons in a safe location. Sometimes shit happens. Pads can work as bandages in emergency situations. Sometimes shark week comes unexpectedly. If you can sneak a roll of toilet paper or paper towels, these are also life savers.

-plastic utensils from takeout containers can be hidden inside socks and will be worth their weight in gold when you least expect it. I bought myself a tiny plastic bowl from the dollar store and kept cheap trinkets in it on my desk so it didn’t seem like a bowl I was eating out of. You could try this with something like a mason jar, which is also useful for drinking out of or storing water.

-if you’re eating a crunchy or solid food, try soaking it in water. Mushy food can be repulsive in texture, but I could clock the sound of someone eating a nature valley oat bar from like 6 miles away. Dunking it in water (or using a secret bowl+water) can reduce noise, and also eating time since you don’t have to chew as much.

-keep a laundry bar or tide pen on you. Laundry bars are super useful, a little hard to find though. I washed a lot of stains out of my clothes with laundry bars in my bathroom sink as a kid. Not proud if it, but it kept me flying under the radar at school.

-clear rubber bands, plain twine or string, paper clips, and thumb tacks. Indescribably useful. I once rigged a system to open tricky cabinets and get objects from inside using two paper clips and a foot of plain string like a mock lasso system.

-if you’re pulling objects from tall cabinets, use your chest or stomach to cushion them. Let them fall into your torso and then into your hands cradled underneath. Not as loud, not as much grabbing, if someone sees it they can mistake it for it falling on you by the body language.

-get a bandana. Or four. Napkins, bandages, tool, and accessory all in one.

-get a tiny sewing kit. I’m talking 3 needles and a spool of thread tiny. Scissors if you can sneak it. See things into your clothes. Make hidden pockets or compartments. Threadbanger on YouTube did a video a few years ago about sneaking things into music festivals using tiny clothing mods, but they may be useful in sneaking money or medicine.

-on the topic of sneaking money. don’t take bills, take change. If your abusers don’t meticulously count their nickels and pennies, they’re an easy(ish) way to build up a tiny savings pool. I found nickels the least noticed coin I took, even more than pennies, and taking two every few nights from where they’d be tossed on our countertop soon built up to a semi-reliable fund I passed off to someone to get me food for my stash without having to sneak it from the kitchen. As soon as I became “independent” in my food storage, I was subjected to much less scrutiny. I managed to build up a solid 1-2 week ration supply after hoarding change.

-you can tape SD cards to the inside of book dust covers(the part that folds inside the actual cover of the book), if you have a sewing kit or zipper on it inside the stuffing of your pillow (trim a corner, stuff it inside, stitch it closed) or (this is final resort) VERY CAREFULLY remove the covering from your outlet and tape it to the wall stud before replacing the casing. I kept mine inside part of my wooden bed frame that I hollowed out using, you guessed it, take out silverware knives and 4 nights without sleep.

-THE FLOOR IS LAVA WAS KEY TRAINING FOR ME AS A CHILD. I learned to take pillows with me, climb on furniture to disrupt my flow of movement, toss a pillow down, and use that to cushion any rattle our living room could give off as I crept to the kitchen from the side entrance so my mom’s dog wouldn’t bark or alert anyone. I highly suggest crawling around on all fours like some sort of beast to stay out of sight.

-can you run your house blindfolded?? If you can’t. Maybe you should try to learn. I suffered some heavy eye traumas growing up and had a collective 3-4 months just IN THE DARK. Eyes bandaged, left alone. It was terrible, but damn if I couldn’t navigate the whole place silently, without any visual cues. This helps a lot with the whole moving around in the dark thing, too. Listening is obviously key.

-if your parents start getting suspicious, or you’re suspicious they’re getting suspicious, watch out for traps. String on the ground that gets shifted when you walk on it. Baby powder or flour left to track footprints or doors opening/closing. My dad was partial to wrapping a bungee cord around my doorknob and attaching it to the closet across the hallway. I wouldn’t be able to open my door enough to get out, or if I did, I risked ruining the structural integrity of the wrappings he did, and he would notice.

-learn to tie some knots. Strong ones. They’ll come in handy at one point or another.

-remember that you’re not totally alone. There’s people out there for you. Wanting to make everything better. You don’t deserve what’s happening, it isn’t normal, and you will eventually find help. But staying safe is important, and you are important.

It upsets me that people might need to know these but I know it could really help someone by reblogging

being able to get around your house blindfolded (or, you know, just in the dark, in the middle of the night, without turning on any lights) is SUPER IMPORTANT. im lucky because i have natrually good night vision, but even without it you want to be able to get around your house in the dark. don’t be afraid to use your hands as your eyes. its way more helpful than most people realize.

Watching out for traps is a really good tip. When I was really young, I would get up in the middle of the night to sneak food out of the trash (I know, not the healthiest, but I was like 4). My mom strung cat bells along the hallway and around the trash can. The first bell I hit, I bolted back to my bed and didn’t sleep for the rest of the night thinking she would come in.

Another tip: Halloween time, sneak as much candy as you can into your pockets in between each house. Chocolate always worked better for me. M&Ms have probably saved my life. The sugar can help on those days where you get the shakes.

When you open the fridge, break the seal first, then get the light off as soon as possible. There’s no point in being silent if you’re a literal beacon in the night. If you can figure out a way to hold the button down before ever opening the door, great. I would use a school ruler, and just slide it under the seal where the button was.

I know how tempting it is to eat everything you can find when your left in the house alone. DON’T. Take a little bit of everything, I’m talking minuscule. It’s less noticeable and can keep you from getting sick off of the same thing over and over.

When you get an actual meal, don’t inhale it. Try to chew each bite about 5 times first. It’ll keep you from over eating and throwing it all back up later. Make this opportunity count.

Learn who you can trust. My mother abused us for years, and no one in the family knew until very recently. If there’s an aunt or uncle or grandparent who you get to spend time with alone, TAKE ADVANTAGE. Take whatever they will give you. A bath, a sandwich, a drink, a nap, anything. It may be a while between visits, and you don’t know when you’ll get those things again.

Stay safe. Please.

Also (mod desi here). This may sound like the same old “I’m here for you advice” but it’s something I wish I had done. If there is someone in a position to help you, TAKE IT!!! I spent years with an emotionally and psychologically abusive caretaker before my dad married my mom that took “care” of us while he was at work (she never hit me, but I believe she might have if she wouldn’t have had to account for the bruises to my dad). I never said a word about what I went through during his long shifts because I was afraid. I wish I had. My dad loves me to pieces and he was in my corner through everything and he would’ve done everything in the world to make it better for me. If I had only spoken up, I might have saved myself years of emotional trauma. If it’s not safe and there’s no one you can tell, definitely follow this advice, but if there’s someone who could get you into a more secure situation, especially if there isn’t fear of being put into the foster system or that person would take you in (like the other parent, a close relative, etc.) take it. If you can relatively safely get out but you’re scared, take a leap of faith. That is my survivors advice. I know it’s terrifying, but I’m telling you as someone who wished they’d done it.

I know this is supposed to be helpful but really you guys sound like you’re giving pointers on how to be a better crook.

@iamcuziam I know this seems ghastly in the casual way the pointers are given, but it’s not always safe to tell someone. While there are some situations in which conquering your fear and telling someone who can help, in some cases when there’s nobody else in the family who could take them, telling someone or trying to get out could result in being put into the foster care system, and while it could be better in a foster home, it could also be worse. Getting out of a physically abusive home only to go into a sexually abusive foster home is a very real possibility in a lot of places. Sometimes it’s better just to try to survive, and I love that this post is accepting of that and isn’t saying “you need to go to a social worker or the police no matter what” because the system is so fucked that doing that makes it worse as often as it makes it better. Also, the blasé manner in the way this advice is given is really nice because it doesn’t treat kids in this situation as if they are broken or fragile or creatures to be pitied: it treats them like human beings. And that means a lot to kids who can’t get out just trying to survive. I hope that clears things up a bit.

knitmeapony:

auntjj:

nancylou444:

agingphangirl:

olderthannetfic:

redshoesnblueskies:

knitmeapony:

regurgitation-imminent:

knitmeapony:

knitmeapony:

Kids. Teenagers. As someone staring 40 in the face lemme tell you a thing.

You are going to be horrified and embarrassed at some point by the shit you are doing now.

And you are going to wish with all your might you’d done more of it.

You’re gonna wish you had more selfies, more photos, more videos being dumb with your friends. You’re going to wish you’d had your hair even higher or your shoes even sparklier.

Go. Document the shit out of your ridiculous life. Fuck trends but if you wanna be trendy, go all in. Fuck in-groups and subcultures but if one sings to you, do it all. Be exactly as cool or punk rock or goth or fandom or country or hardcore or hip hop or whatever, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Just don’t hurt people. That’s the only thing you’ll ever genuinely live to regret.

@palejoke tagged: #I mean no offense but why a 40 y/o on the hellsite

I think I have talked about this before, but because life doesn’t end at twenty or thirty or forty or fifty and thinking that folks are going to fall out of social media or that there won’t always be someone your age and my age and twice both of our ages interested in [insert anything, ever] is a very limiting worldview.

Somewhere there is a sixty-five year old who unironically loves Taylor Swift’s music and a fifty-two year old writing Superwholock fanfic and a ninty year old who absolutely lives for the next episode of Archer and a seventy-one year old that can kick anyone’s ass in k-pop trivia. There will always be these folks, and all the Internet has done is give fans of all ages a chance to interact in a way that they never had before.

Before BBSes and the Internet and Usenet and the World Wide Web and fanrings and forums and social media, those people would just love it in their own way, in the privacy of their own homes. But now anyone can make an Ao3 account or a basic fansite or tumbl about whatever they want, and sometimes you’re gonna learn those people are old but they still get it, and sometimes you’re going to find out those folks are still kids, twelve or fourteen at the oldest, and marvel at their maturity and skill and attention to detail.

And that is rad as hell, that is fucking incredible, that is… whatever the kids are saying these days, hah.

As a sidenote, once, about a decade ago, I decided to email one of my favourite authors before she bit it … she was pushing 90 at the time. ( … she’s still alive now).

Anyways, we got to having a long discussion, because I shared my deadname with her late husband, and I actually had quite a long conversation with her.

The part of the conversation I’d like to share with you about this now pushing 100-tear-old author isn’t that she developed a liking for her breakfast eggs from her honeymoon in Vienna, or that her Husband would sometimes steal her drafts to read them as soon as he could, or that she superglued a potted plant to her bookshelf to watch her orange cat try to knock it over and fail.

Nono, I mention this to bring up what she would do as a writing exercise whenever she didn’t feel like writing her serious work.

In short, erotic darkwing duck slashfic. You can find it online.

This is the greatest addition this post has gotten so far.

I LOVE THIS FUCKING POST.

I love all the posts written by older fans, with their insight, and their generous attitude towards young fans, and young fanfic writers, and young fanartists.

Older fans who patiently explain to whomever questioned the validity of older fans participation…

that it’s older fans running the AO3 servers and the entire OTW organization;

Older fans most often writing the actually well written fanfic;

Older fans planning, organizing and executing massive cons;

Older fans who write out fandom history dating back to pre-internet so that history can be known and preserved and enjoyed;

Older fan lawyers enforcing Fair Use laws pro bono to keep fans from being sued for creating fic or art or any other media;

Older fans behaving well with life-lived-and-learned healthy boundaries;

or conversely dealing out smack-downs to those not behaving well be they older trolls or naively inexperienced younguns;

Older fans letting fans of all ages remember that zany enthusiasm is not the province only of the young – it is the province of humanity.

And we’re right there loving being human with you.

I’ll say yet again, Tumblr users are older than we think. There’s nothing unusual about a 40-something on here.

This started out as something great and turned into something better

Age is just a number but fandom is forever.

Young people today always think they control everything and that everything is about them.

I blame it on the we’re all special winners philosophy they are all growing up under.

No. Hell no. Do not come onto my post that is all about telling kids to enjoy their youth and be weird, and pretend that it’s OK to yell about young people and their specialness and participation trophies and related nonsense.

Young people are AWESOME. They are enthusiastic and thoughtful and self-aware and creative. They give life and joy and effort and thought and work to fandom. I will take one well-meaning and enthusiastic teenage girl over a dozen half or ironically committed adults any day.

Lots of them are unaware of fandom history because we have been very shitty at keeping fandom history – and that’s on us.

Lots of them don’t care about ‘elders’ because they don’t know they exist, or because they’ve been socialized to believe they shouldn’t exist, that people have to ‘grow up’ sometime – and that’s on us.

Lots of them want elders, they are delighted to discover that they can grow up and keep being as weird and awesome and wonderful as they are right now, that they don’t have to ‘become an adult’ by giving up everything that brings them joy. The notes on this post prove it.

And then lots of them are down on elders because we treat young people like shit a lot of the time, and they are not willing to put up with being treated like shit. I give kids today a lot of credit for refusing to put up with nonsense. That takes strength and courage and self-esteem and love for their friends and for humanity, all things we should encourage.

People have been bitching about the ‘special winners philosophy’ thing since at least Gen X (that’s as far back as my memory goes), and we’re about two and a half generations out from that now. This new crop of kids is hyper aware of when they’re being condescended to, and have no need to respect something without that respect being earned. They don’t think too much of themselves, they just want the same basic shit that everyone’s always wanted only now it’s harder to get – and considering that their parents generation had those things, it feels like an actual loss rather than a hopeful dream for the future.

And let’s remember: they never asked for the participation trophies. Adults did. And participation trophies don’t actually make you feel good, they make you mistrust praise and devalue outside encouragement.

Basically, fuck this attitude in general.

Also, “fandom” is now starting younger (and has been for some time) because fans of franchises aimed towards younger people now have a way of finding fellow fans far, far easier than when a lot of us were growing up. And if their first fandom is for an original property aimed at teens, chances are most of the first other fans they meet are going to be close to them in age, so *of course* it’s going to seem to them like fandom is *for* younger people. That’s not entitlement, that’s basic extrapolation from their experiences.

Not to mention they’re probably getting that, “Loving [show X / book Y] is for babies, when are you going to grow up?” bullshit from at least one older-than-them person in their lives, in which case, they’ve already been told that being passionate about fiction is a sign of immaturity, something that adults shouldn’t do- so why are we surprised when they internalize that?

How about at the end of the Dominion war Cardassia Prime was destroyed. Garak is devastated, and Julian comforts him. Love your work :)

writertobridge:

I skipped quite a few prompts to get to this one, but I wrote something in my free writing journal a few months ago that fits this prompt well and I really want to write it now.

The More Things Change

Julian sat in the infirmary alone.

One of his hands circled around the handle of a navy mug, which was half filled with lukewarm Tarkalean tea. The other was settled on the keyboard of the central console. Only his thumb on the keyboard moved. It pressed down on a single key, which let him thumb through the research that was gathered on the surface of Bajor. More plants, more hope for new medicines, but no luck. He focused on the research regardless. On heavier pages filled with words and formulas and considerations, Julian’s hand rose from the command board and his fingertips brushed against the stubble growing on his face. His beard was growing in again. He planned on keeping it this time, even if the two or three strands of white that poked through aged him some. He was experienced. Arguably one of the most experienced officers on the station now. He earned those hairs and his aged look.

Julian’s hand fell to the keyboard again, flipped to the next page, and then returned to his face to stroke those little strands of hair on his chin. A new plant, a flower, up on the mountains of one of the smaller peaks. It’s growth was attributed to the pollination of new life introduced by the Federation. The formula of the flower showed nothing remarkable but there was characteristics similar to aloe. Perhaps it could be used to–

“I see your boyish charm is nearly gone now, Doctor.”

Keep reading

dailylifeofadizzyfangirl:

this is not what we came here to do. no. but it’s what i’m going to do.

(ig: chadoescosplay)

(photo credit @smallestbrown)

xenaamazon:

awkward-dark-mori-girl:

takealookatyourlife:

takealookatyourlife:

Athena blessed her with the ability to protect herself and men beheaded her for it.

That’s actually a really intetesting intpretation of it I hadn’t thought of. Most people seem to think Athena turned Medusa into a gorgon as punishment for defiling her temple, but thinking that she did so to protect her from being abused again is interesting and I like it!

Athena’s hands were tied. Yes, she was a powerful Goddess, but she was very much a woman in a “boys club”, and the true offending party (don’t think for a moment that Athena blamed Medusa for being raped in the temple, Athena knows better) held all the cards. There was nothing that Athena could do to punish the true criminal, and she was expected to punish Medusa by everyone else. What’s a Goddess to do when she cannot punish those who need to be punished and is expected to punish not only the truly innocent party, but her most beloved follower? Use that incredible brain power she had to protect Medusa at all costs, and of course the men would see it as punishment, to be have her beauty stripped from her and sent to live in the shadows. Medusa should have been KILLED for supposedly defiling the temple, whether she truly did or not, but she was given the gift of life, and the ability to protect herself and her daughters (who she bore thanks to Poseidon). This is why Medusa’s image was used to signify woman’s shelters and safe houses.

Medusa means “guardian; protectress”, and she was.

Avengers (2012)/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: A Skin of Ice

Originally Posted: 22 May 2013
AO3 | DW

Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Clint and Angrboða
Word Count: 4348
Characters: Clint Barton | Hawkeye, Angrboða, Pepper Potts, JARVIS
Ships: Angrboða/Clint Barton | Hawkeye

“Will you let me see?” There’s a guarded expression in Clint’s eyes, a shuttered look that makes her worry.

“See what?” She’s not certain what he’s asking, though there’s an inkling.

“You.”

She’s curled into a corner, arms wrapped around her knees as she waits for Clint to return, trying to figure out how the ice could have formed. Always she’s been cold after re-ordering her memories so that she is no longer her lifetime but herself, but never this cold. Never wrapped in ice and melt-water. It makes her wonder just who her mother had been, and if when her father had said she left, he’d not been trying to soften the blow to a small child, but been entirely honest. That she had truly left, and not died as Angrboða had always thought as she grew older.

A shiver runs through her, and she lets out a shakey breath. If her mother had left, she was the source of Angrboða’s long life, perhaps was the reason she’d always preferred the colder places of the world between one pretended mortal life and the next. A Jotun, she would have to be, for there were no others that Angrboða could think of from the tales of gods and monsters that could control the ice like this.

The door opens, and she looks up, meeting Clint’s gaze with a lost one of her own, uncertain and looking for something, anything, that can anchor her. He gives her a smile that is as uncertain as she feels, coming over to slide down next to her, leaning against the wall between her and the door. Protecting her and guarding her from escape at the same time. It makes her smile.

“We don’t know if Thor will even know to come.” Clint sounds as if he hasn’t slept in a couple days, and she wonders how long she’s been here, chasing her thoughts in circles. “Tony’s still trying to figure out how you could make ice on the doorway at all, much less that much of it.”

“Magic.” Her voice sounds thin, strained. “Not seiðr. Jotun magic, something inborn.” Except that she’s never known about it, never created ice like that in her long life. Something is different now, her mother’s nature, passed on and lurking in her blood, brought to the fore.

Clint wraps an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close despite the potential for danger. “We kinda figured that out already. Tony just doesn’t like not knowing how it works.”

She lets out a brittle laugh, the sound like the cracking of rotten ice under her feet. “I have never done such a thing before. It should not have happened.” She turns her head, burying her face in Clint’s shoulder. “Seiðr I understand, but this is something I do not.”

There is silence for a long moment, though it seems more a considering silence, a thoughtful one rather than something dangerous. “You said it was seiðr that had pushed you off balance before. Could it do this, too? Maybe change your DNA or something?”

Shaking her head, she turns enough so her words won’t be muffled in Clint’s shoulder. “No. It might give me the appearance, but it would not be able to give me the abilities of a Jotun.” Which means this had to have been present before, but how could she never have noticed it, how could she have missed so great a part of her nature? “It could, perhaps, suppress the nature of a Jotun, but that would mean my mother did such a thing before I was more than an infant cradled in her arms. Wove it so deep into my being that I would never notice it as something strange, nor know I had been so changed.”

That her mother had been capable of weaving seiðr, she’d already been certain, or she never would have the ability herself, for certainly her father and his kin had shown no skill in it. She could see, too, why her mother would do such a thing, to keep her safe from the dangers of a mortal world which might have seen her as a monster; as she had tried so hard to do with her own children, for all that she had failed in the end.

“And whatever is woven around Phil destroyed that?” Clint rubs her shoulder, hand warm and familiar against her skin. “Like it ripped out those barriers in your mind?”

“Likely.” She closes her eyes, curling closer to Clint, and is surprised when he shifts away from her. Fingers under her chin tilt her face to look up at him as she opens her eyes again, confused.

“Will you let me see?” There’s a guarded expression in Clint’s eyes, a shuttered look that makes her worry.

“See what?” She’s not certain what he’s asking, though there’s an inkling.

“You.” There’s a wealth of meaning to that one word, and it’s something Angrboða flinches from, has flinched from for most of her life.

“I’ve never… been completely myself in most of my lifetimes.” She doesn’t want to let him pull away, but refuses to let herself cling too hard, wrapping her arms around her raised knees again when Clint shifts to face her more fully. “People feared me too much when I tried to be.”

“I can’t tell you no one will be afraid of you.” A smile quirks up one corner of Clint’s lips a moment. “I can’t even promise I won’t be afraid, just that I won’t be afraid of you.”

“If others are afraid, they will want to lock me away.” She rests her chin on her knees. “And they won’t let you stop them from doing so.”

“Even SHIELD can’t get through all of us and JARVIS without making a mess.” Clint meets her gaze steadily, a conviction in his expression that she finds both comforting and worrying. He trusts these people more than she does, and more than she expected him to. “Besides, I think Fury will listen to Phil if he says it would be a bad idea.”

“And will he?” She hadn’t been able to really meet Coulson, and isn’t entirely comfortable trusting him with her safety, any more than she’s comfortable trusting anyone else here other than Clint with her safety.

“Yes.”

She’s quiet for a long moment before she shifts, reaching out to touch her fingertips to Clint’s cheek, watching his expression soften just slightly. “I do not know if this will be as it has been in the past, where I am chill, but nothing more, or if it will do more, with the ice that I called today without even thinking about it or wanting it.”

“There’s an observation room where the camera feeds are sent.” Clint reaches up to catch her hand, holding it tightly for a long moment. An unspoken promise that he’ll still be around when she – when Angrboða – wakes.

After the door closes behind Clint, she draws a deep breath, leaning back against the wall. Sinking into herself and letting the outside world slip away with each slow, deep breath. Dismantling the walls that defined Anna’s life, that distinguished a mortal guise from the underlying being. She draws out memories, letting them settle into the framework, and waiting for everything to work itself out.

Clint knows he should have someone else down here with him, to share the burden of watching Anna while she does whatever it is she does to become… all of herself. He doesn’t want to share this – if he could, he’d even have shut off JARVIS’ connections to this part of the tower – perhaps especially because he hadn’t been certain why he’d come down here until Anna had curled into his side, seeking comfort he hadn’t felt quite sure he could provide.

On the main screen of the observation booth, set up as if it were a window into the other room, he has a view from the camera with the widest view of the corner Anna’s settled in, with feeds from other sensors on a smaller screen on the desk below the large one. He watches as the temperature of the room drops along with Anna’s, as Anna’s heartbeat slowed along with her breathing. Not stopped, but as slow as a hibernating bear.

Ice crystals form on her skin, on her hair and clothes, and spread delicate patterns across the concrete floor and walls. Clint wants to go in there, to wake her up and break her free of the growing ice, but keeps himself still with long practice and sheer force of will.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been watching when the door opens behind him, and Clint reaches for a side-arm that isn’t there. He spins the chair to face whoever’s invaded the quiet of the observation booth, only to see Pepper watching the screen with an expression he could only describe as horrified.

“Anna’s not dead or a monster.” He probably should feel some regret for the harsh tone of his voice, but he can’t bring himself to do so.

Pepper gives him a sharp frown, stepping further into the room so the door closes behind her. “I know that, Agent Barton.” He gaze slides from him back to the screen. “I doesn’t mean she’s all right, however, nor does it explain why she’s like that.” The gesture she makes encompasses both screens.

Clint almost wants to tell Pepper all of it, that he’d asked Anna to be simply herself, not to hide so much of who she was and is and could be. How he’d pushed at her, made her reassurances, promises that he didn’t know if he could keep. That maybe Anna had thought he wouldn’t – couldn’t – trust her as she is anymore. He wants to see how she’d react, but at the same time, he wants to keep the details that he’s not really certain of yet to himself.

So he doesn’t say anything, just turns back to the screens to keep his own watch. He ignores the look Pepper sends his direction, focusing on Anna – he has to get himself to think her real name, Angrboða – instead. Waiting for however long it takes her to come out of whatever this is that she’s in that she says will leave her without the mental barriers that made her Anna instead of Angrboða.

He registers Pepper’s movement before she puts her hand on his shoulder a moment, and nods when she asks if he would mind her bringing down dinner. He’s not particularly hungry, but if he’s handed food, he’ll eat – and he suspects Pepper knows that sort of state entirely too well. Clint had heard from Natasha about Stark’s long periods in his workshop when he wouldn’t sleep or eat unless he was forced to.

Dinner turns out to be some sort of casserole that tastes like Clint likes to imagine childhood meals should taste. Not full of bright spices or odd flavors, just cheese and pasta and tomato and beef and maybe a little something more. He all but wolfs it down, his attention focused on a screen that hasn’t shown any change since before Pepper left to fetch dinner.

“You don’t need to stay.” He scrapes the last of the food off the plate, setting plate and fork aside after he’s finished, taking a second to glance at Pepper, trying to figure out why she’s here.

“No.” Pepper smiles, the sort of smooth and professional smile that hides everything. He’s seen Natasha do it, and he knows Pepper doesn’t have the training Natasha does. It’s disconcerting. It slides into something more real, warm and almost gentle. “You shouldn’t have to keep watch on Miss Boyd alone, and I’ve counted her a friend for several years now.”

Clint blinks, taking a moment longer than he likes to parse that sentence. “Stark’s one of her clients.”

“Stark Industries, yes. Tony’s never actually met her; he trusted me to hire someone who wouldn’t steal company secrets while testing security on- and off-site.” Pepper keeps her voice light, and since she’s the CEO of Stark Industries, it’s her prerogative to share information Anna wouldn’t. She doesn’t share why she came to see Anna as a friend, but Clint isn’t really expecting her to. It’s enough to know that he’s not the only one who worries about Anna.

He reaches out to tug out the second chair from where it had been shoved under a desk, silently offering Pepper the chance to sit. The quiet is companionable and welcome, broken only briefly by JARVIS informing them that Stark is looking for Pepper, and asking if he should direct Stark here. Pepper leaves after a murmured negative, resting a hand on Clint’s shoulder a moment, and taking the dishes with her. He doesn’t know how long it is before she returns, but long enough that she’s changed clothes, and Clint’s starting to want a mug of coffee.

“Go sleep and shower. I’ll watch Anna until you’re back.” Pepper gives him a look that probably works on Stark, and Clint finds himself wanting to listen, even as he wants to stay and watch over Anna. “I’ve already asked Captain Rogers to come fetch you if you’re not upstairs in fifteen minutes.”

Her smile is sweet, and uncompromising, so Clint grimaces, glaring at her for anticipating his reluctance even as he goes. It’ll only be for long enough to shower – cold enough to wake him up – and get some coffee, or so he tells himself. He should have expected JARVIS to be in on it, like he had been last time. The shower is entirely too warm, and the coffee machine won’t work.

“What the hell?” Clint glares at the coffee machine, and then at the ceiling, since there isn’t anyone in the kitchenette of the guest room he’s using instead of his own. “Did Pepper put you up to this?”

“Miss Potts asked if I would assist in ensuring you had adequate rest prior to returning to your vigil, Agent Barton.” He could swear JARVIS sounds amused. “She did not specify how that aid would best be rendered.”

He wonders if the door’s been locked, as well, and the thought that it isn’t is enough to make him draw in a deep breath to control the spike of fear. Clint has never really liked the idea of being locked in anywhere, but right now, he suspects his fear is less buried than he would like. “So long as you don’t lock the door.”

“I wouldn’t lock anyone in, Agent Barton.” It’s mostly reassuring, and Clint waits a moment longer before giving up on the idea of getting back downstairs before he’s had at least a nap.

Pepper leans back in the chair, her tablet almost forgotten in her lap, despite the work she needs to get done for Stark Industries today, even when she’s not in the office. She’d already told her assistant to cancel any meetings that aren’t life-and-death for the rest of the week, to give her the flexibility to work from the Tower. Between Phil being back from the dead, and this… situation with Anna, her presence here is more important than her presence there.

A smile crosses her face a moment at that thought. If she’d chosen otherwise, she doesn’t know what would happen to the Avengers as a whole. Captain Rogers is clearly trying to help, but Pepper knows that Tony isn’t entirely ready to deal with Rogers on a day-to-day basis, no matter that he invited him to move into the Tower. And Banner isn’t comfortable around military types, even team-mates, while Natasha and Clint are very focused on their constructed family.

She wonders how much more work it’s going to mean when – or perhaps if – Thor returns to Earth. He’s from a culture that’s in many ways alien to those the rest of the team are accustomed to, and from a position of power that Pepper isn’t sure any of them know what to do with. It’s not like there are many royal families left on Earth who have the sort of power and authority that she would expect Thor does.

Sighing, she looks down at her tablet, shifting aside the Stark Industries work for a document that holds her notes on the Avengers, mostly compiled since the attack on Manhattan, and finds the name she needs, with a phone number attached. “JARVIS, would you place a call to Doctor Foster?”

If she can convince Doctor Foster to come to the Tower, then she’ll at least have someone who’ll be able to distract Thor when needed, and another ally in the job of herding superheroes – a task that is a full-time job in itself with just one, never mind six. She glances at the screen, where Anna still hasn’t moved, and is still surrounded by frost and the beginning layers of a heavier skin of ice. Superheroes and more, and she’s not sure where Anna will fall when this settles out.

The first thing Angrboða registers when she wakes is the quiet beeping of hospital equipment, steady and almost soothing, in time with her heartbeat. She doesn’t open her eyes at first, listening to the room around her, for sounds beyond the monitors. There is someone asleep next to her, their breathing as slow as her own, heartbeat almost in time with hers. Clint, most likely. Beyond that, there is the barely-audible hiss of air moving through vents, and nothing else. A room well-insulated to keep outside sounds out and noise in the room within.

She opens her eyes, waiting a moment as she adjusts to the low light of the room. Turning her head, she smiles briefly when she sees Clint where she expected. Beyond him, there is a window that shows the skyline of Manhattan, glowing with the lights of humanity, familiar from the memories of her latest foray into a mortal life. It’s the source of the light in the room, reflecting off the white ceiling and walls to create soft-edged shadows.

Drawing in a slow breath, she looks away from the window, pushing herself upright, and reaching for the machines to find the switch to turn them off. No need to have the alarms sound when she removes the sensors.

“Hey.” Clint’s voice is rough-edged with sleep, and she looks over to meet his gaze. He’s watching her with an uncertain expression, as if he doesn’t know what to expect; he knows not to expect Anna, but he doesn’t know what to expect of her.

“When did you move me from the other room?” She draws her hand back, leaving the machines to call out the steady beat of her heart. “Are you certain it’s safe to do so?”

“No.” Clint shrugs. “Tony says this room should be able to stand up to almost as much as the one in the basement, though, and it’s closer to help if something goes wrong.” He pauses, tilting his head slightly toward the window. “And unless you can fly, it’s a long drop to the ground, anyway.”

A smile tugs at the corners of her lips, and she chuckles quietly. “My shifts of shape are entirely of a human sort. It is not a skill I have much desired to expand.” She pauses, tilting her head. “I am still here, and if you still would have me, you do.”

Even when she’s walked away from mortal lives, she’s loved those she’s left behind. Sometimes wished she could stay, but she has never wanted to risk the fear of those she loved if they discovered she was more than they thought. Even now, she’s not sure she wants to risk it, but better that than to be certain of losing Clint because she won’t take that risk.

Clint is quiet for a long moment, holding her gaze – searching, she thinks, for something – and after a moment, he reaches out a hand to take hers, lacing his fingers through hers. “Yeah. I just want to know more.” About her, about who she is, and about what she will share of her past that made her who she is. It’s not entirely different from Anna, but she’s not the same, either.

Angrboða tugs gently on his hand, shifting over as much as she can on the bed. “Come to bed? To sleep?” She’s not sure she really needs to sleep right now, but it’s an echo of how the adventure that had led this far had begun.

A brief grin, amused and acknowledging the parallel, is his response, and he slips into the bed beside her, shifting so she can curl into his side, her head resting on his shoulder. More can wait for morning.

Clint isn’t certain how much Angrboða sleeps before the sun comes up, but he remains awake, staring at the ceiling and thinking over the last couple weeks. Ice had formed and then thawed within days, and Pepper had suggested they move Angrboða upstairs, in case she needed medical attention quickly, especially when she didn’t wake up soon after the ice had melted entirely. Too soon after, Pepper and Tony had taken off for Malibu – Pepper still has a company to run, that needs her back on the west coast, and Tony doesn’t want to leave her alone right now (that’s Tony’s story, and Clint isn’t about to argue with him).

Of course, he’ll be back if there’s anything new; if Thor actually comes back, or if Phil starts to share information from whatever weird thing happens when he’s asleep and dreaming. Clint worries about that a little, but there’s nothing he can do about it, and Natasha worries enough about it for the both of them anyway. And she’ll do better at coaxing information out of Phil anyway.

A cool fingertip traces down between his brows, and draws his attention back to Angrboða. She watches him with eyes that are different than they had been before the ice – pale, clear blue now – and an expression that’s open and fond. “Have you been awake thinking this whole time?” she murmurs, raising an eyebrow a little, a smile curving the corners of her lips.

Clint shrugs, tightening his arm around her shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep, and didn’t want to wake you up.” He shifts, sitting up a little more, and she moves easily with him, almost easier than she had before. “Feeling better?”

“Some.” She picks at the edges of the sensors still attached to her skin, glancing over her shoulder at the machines still chanting out their beeps of a steady heart-rate and even breathing. “I’d prefer not to be attached to the machines any more – I’m not in any danger of suddenly dying.”

“Nor of developing a skin of ice?” Clint smiles to take any sting out of the words, though he can’t hide the worry that underlies the question, and Angrboða smiles, leaning into him a moment.

“I don’t think so.” She picks a little more at the sensors before pulling away, reaching over to search for the switch to turn them off, the silence almost deafening for a moment before she lets out a soft sigh of relief. “Better.”

It takes a moment longer for her to peel the sensors off, and she drops each of them to the floor once it’s free. After, she curls into his side again, softly humming.

Clint is quiet for several minutes, just listening, and cataloguing the differences in her since she emerged from the ice. Some are minor, like the subtle alterations in the shape of her face, and the timbre of her voice. Others are greater – she’s taller, her eyes are blue instead of gray, her skin still holds an underlying blue tinge that makes Clint wonder if it really had always been there.

“You’re thinking again.” Angrboða tilts her head, looking up at him without taking her head off his shoulder. Watching him for a moment before she adds, “Ask me what you want, love.”

“How much can you change your shape?” He wonders how different she could have been from the tall and pale woman she is now – and he wonders how she does it, but that’s a different question, one to leave until later.

“I do not know.” Angrboða looks thoughtful. “I have not tried to deviate much from what I knew in my youth. I pick humans who close enough to what I have looked like that they might possibly have a child who would grow to look as I do.”

“And then what?”

“I spend two or three years hiding behind an illusion, giving them memories of a pregnancy, of a birth, of an infant. I refuse to be helpless entirely.” She closes her eyes, turning her face into his shoulder a moment. “I become the child, small and young, and I build the walls in my mind to keep the life I live as a mortal separate from the rest of myself. I grow and I live, and eventually I slip away – the illusion of death, of a body to bury or burn, while I travel to colder climes and remote places to become myself once more.”

Never telling anyone what she was, or letting on that she might live longer than most. Except maybe… “When did you start doing that?”

Angrboða is silent for a long moment, her eyes closed as she leans against him. She takes a deep breath, turning her face into his shoulder again to hide her expression, and it muffles her voice when she finally replies.

“When those whose lands bordered my own small holding burning me out of my hall in the name of their new god and their king, and called me demon for my long life.” There is fear underlying her words, audible even with her voice muffled, and Clint instinctively tightens his arm around her. Silent promise that he won’t let a modern equivalent to that experience happen, not while he lives. “Sometimes I am almost glad Loki stole away my daughter in the years before that. At least she could not be harmed in the destruction of our home, as too many others – faithful servants and friends alike – were.”

sanerontheinside:

writing-prompt-s:

You’re one of the very last humans surviving amid the apocalyptic wreckage of earth; your salvation comes in the form of aliens interested in conserving endangered species.

@deadcatwithaflamethrower, @obaewankenope, @maawi, @stonefreeak, @meabhair, @lilyrose225writes, @eclipsemidnight y’all in the mood for some morbid funny?

It was a fucking accident.

That’s probably all at once the best and worst thing you could have to say about our species. We were sitting on a powder keg—global warming, loose ice shelf, a supervolcano in Yellowstone, and fuck knows what political shit-throwing competition. Russia was surfing the hacker waves and North Korea was finally building successful baby-nukes. With borrowed engines. Probably from Russia.

It was a perfect storm all its own without any additions. But it all hung in the balance, and nobody really paid it much mind except in the moment every new bit of nonsense was achieved and announced.

One thing I’ll say for my species, we’re amazingly good at archival. Literally every single blasted event was reported, overreported, reviewed, turned, twisted, viewed from one point or another or yet a third, analysed, reported again, filed away for a week and then dredged back up again for a few more kicks to the corpse. Of course, when you’re trying to keep up with the vagaries of a seventy-year-old disorganised orange mop-haired husk, you have to step up your natural talent a bit, so in the last year or so it’s been something of a necessary obsession.

All this archival is a bit pointless without the internet. The old information systems—radio transmission and all that—lived the longest after our little Big Bang.

So when I say, it was an accident, that’s from back when we still had information at our fingertips. No one had the chance to twist it up yet or anything. Or at least I think so. It’s either a mark of the human condition that we’d go out in a massive flare of irony, or it’s my personal perception—either way I find the futility of it all morbidly appealing and I’m (one of?) the last ones here to tell the story, so my version is what you’re getting.

A ship wandered out into the middle of what was supposedly contested area because they were trying to outrun a storm and some freak accident knocked out their electronics—you know, like it did with those couple of planes a year ago? Shit, was it two years now? Whatever. A hostile power viewed the situation as a threat and fired off a little nuke. What’s a couple rads between friends, anyway?

Probably shouldn’t have hit Yellowstone. Fucked up their vector in a hurry, I guess.

So. For those (whoever’s left? I guess?) who don’t know, Yellowstone National Park was sitting pretty right on top of a damn supervolcano. Which is to say, there’s this absolutely giant lake of heated molten rock under a pretty thin surface. And we’d been talking for years about how the continental shelf on the West Coast of the United States was one day gonna fucking move, and we’d lose—heck, Japan and coastal states at least? And that could spark Yellowstone anyway?

Well, about that.

Hugs for EVERYONE*

morgynleri:

*hugs you all* Because today is a day for hugs, and I’m going to run out of spoons if I go putting hugs in everyone’s ask box.

Feel free to reblog this to give a hug to every one of your followers.

*who is comfortable with being hugged. If you do not like hugs or are uncomfortable with physical contact, or even just prefer not a hug from someone not a mutual friend, cookies or other snacks suitable for your dietary needs and restrictions.

Avengers (2012)/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: Dreams of Dark Places

Originally Posted: 5 April 2013

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology

AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior

Series: Coulson and Hel

Word Count: 3011

Characters: Hel | Hela, Sigyn, Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanov | Black Widow, JARVIS, Anthony Stark | Tony | Iron Man, Bruce Banner | Hulk

“Do you think the All-Father would allow his precious son to leave Asgard without his well-wishes?” She could have done as he suggests, but it would tip her hand too soon to do so.

“I don’t think he would be able to stop Thor if Thor thought there was danger to Earth,” Coulson answers easily. “But you don’t want him to go without Odin’s permission and assistance.”

The scrape of leather against rock is all the notice of Sigyn’s arrival that Hel is given, but it is enough that she can draw a cloak of sieðr over the circle of stones that she uses to meet her messengers and spies. Her father’s wife is pale as the snows of Hel’s childhood, dark haired and brown-eyed, clad in the simple clothes of a Vanir peseant, no matter her rank. It allows her to pass almost unnoticed, at least along the paths they use to avoid the Bifrost and Heimdall’s ever-vigilant gaze.

“He is gone from Asgard.” Sigyn crouches across the tiny fire Hel has built for the Vanir woman’s sake. “The All-Father sent one of his carrion-birds to Vanaheim to look for him, thinking he would come to me and to Vali.” There’s a brief, sharp smile, and Sigyn does not need to say the raven has come to harm – though, unfortunately, Hel doubts the bloody thing is dead.

“I told you I would not send him seeking to Vanaheim where the murderer would think to search for him.” Hel returns Sigyn’s fierce smile with a far calmer one of her own. Relaxed and uncaring for the warmth of fire or passionate anger. Hers is a longer-burning one, colder and more dangerous for it. She will not rest until her goals are met. “Father is safe, and I will make sure there is a safe place for you at his side once the murderer can no longer interfere.”

Sigyn sighs, dropping her gaze to the fire she warms her hands over. “I will wait as long as need be, but I would not have it be too much longer.” She pauses, looking up again after a moment. “Is Nari well?”

“As well as he might be.” Hel’s smile is warmer this time. “He still has yet to master the weavings that will allow him to project his thoughts into a seeming beyond the confines of my hall, but I think perhaps he might soon meet with you here on Niflheim, at least.”

Sigyn nods, saying nothing as she waits for her hands to warm, and her own energies to be once more at a point where she can safely make the journey back to Vanaheim across the swaying branches of Yggdrasil.

The mortal dreams of walking in the eternal night of Yggdrasil’s branches, and Hel watches. He is unafraid, though he has no idea where he is or how he came to be there. She isn’t certain herself how he might have come to walk here, either, no matter what seiðr she had woven about him. Coulson is a strange one, even caught as he is now between death and true life. Time borrowed and stolen through seiðr, giving him life until the weaving is unraveled.

“What did you do to me?”

He doesn’t just walk among the branches, but he calls, and he seeks for answers that she would not give him – nor plans ever to give him. Hel presses her lips together, twisting the seiðr around her fingers, thin threads catching against the weaving around Coulson, and twining with it to draw his attention to her, to let her walk in his dreams. She doesn’t want him to catch the attention of the Aesir-queen.

“I gave you the choice of life where there would have only been death.” She doesn’t change the place of his dreams, standing in front of him on the gently swaying branch of Yggdrasil he walks. Paths he never could have seen in life, so she doesn’t know how he sees them now, unless her weaving did more than she had intended it to.

“You did more than that.” Coulson is dressed as he had been before, in mortal costume that had long allowed his courage and valor to be overlooked. It is perhaps what had attracted her attention to him when he had crossed paths with Thor, and with her father. “I was convenient for your purposes, and you used me to cause harm to a civilian.”

“Angrboða is not a civilian.” Hel shrugs, wondering at his ability to piece together the puzzle as quickly as he had. Then, he had seen the closest to her father’s plans – or he never would have been able to surprise her father quite so well as he had with the amusing weapon he carried. “She is my mother.”

“I know.” Coulson meets her gaze without the fear too many show, or any hint of subservience. A man who the All-Father would have gladly welcomed among the ranks of his Einherjar, had she not denied him this one of the valorous dead. “She wasn’t involved in this until after you used me to carry some manner of spellwork to cause harm specifically to her.”

“She has been involved since the day she lay with my father, and conceived my brother who lays under the waters of Midgard.” Hel lets some of her anger at the harm done to her brothers to show. “She hides and wishes to forget who she is, but she cannot.”

“But why involve her? Why not cause some other trouble which would have required we seek Thor’s help?” The mortals must have called for Thor – if Heimdall will pass it along, or the All-Father, that is a different matter altogether. “Or even have sent him word that he was required immediately on Earth, and given him a way to get there without the assistance of Odin or the use of the Bifrost.”

“Do you think the All-Father would allow his precious son to leave Asgard without his well-wishes?” She could have done as he suggests, but it would tip her hand too soon to do so.

“I don’t think he would be able to stop Thor if Thor thought there was danger to Earth,” Coulson answers easily. “But you don’t want him to go without Odin’s permission and assistance.”

Hel watches him in silence a moment, a faint smile on her face. “You have been taking lessons from the Widow in interrogation, or she has taken lessons from you in the past.” She had recieved more than one of the souls that the Widow had sent to their deaths, ignominious and as unvalorous as their lives. They’d all wondered at how she’d been able to get from them so much information when they’d thought themselves in control.

Coulson shrugs. “I don’t even know if the answers you’ve been giving me are real, or if this is all a figment of my imagination.” He glances around them at the strange, shifting darkness of Yggdrasil’s branches. “I would prefer to think this is real, as I don’t recall ever having seen anything of this sort before, rather than think this is a creation of my subconscious.”

“It is real, and here, there can be unfriendly eyes and ears, as much as in the world of the living and the dead.” Hel lets her smile widen. “I would take care, my mortal friend. Even the dreams of Yggdrasil can have dangers if you tumble from her branches.”

“And before? Where were we when you wove the seiðr you used to bring me back from the dead?” His expression gives nothing away, but Hel wonders where he’d heard the proper words for her workings, rather than calling it a spell like she’d expect of a mortal of his background. It is another little piece of him that makes him fascinating.

“A safe place, between the living and the dead. A far safer place, where there are fewer eyes and ears to see and to hear what they should not.” A place where the Aesir-queen can walk and where the valkaries may walk, but none others save the dead on their path to Hel’s hall or to Valhalla.

“Safer, but you still…” Coulson’s words were cut off as he vanished, woken by something and dragged out of the realm of dreams. Hel sighs, and releases the seiðr she’s woven to worm into the mortal’s dream, and wakes in her own hall once more.

“I apologize for waking you, Agent Coulson, but I believe you should be aware that Director Fury is downstairs, and Sir directed me to inform you that he and Doctor Banner shall be speaking with him.” JARVIS’ voice is one of the more pleasant ones to which Phil has woken in his life, though he’s still somewhat irritated to have been woken at all when he had been getting at least some answers from Hel. If only by pretending more awareness and knowledge than he already had.

“Thank you, JARVIS.” He did have to acknowledge, though, that knowing Fury was in the building was important information in itself. It means he thought something wasn’t quite right with the information he had, and he intended to check it out himself. That Stark and Banner will be the two to meet him won’t allay his suspicions at all. “Please tell Stark I would prefer Director Fury not to remain unaware of my ressurection, though I will leave the details he includes to his discretion.”

For the moment, and only because he’s still not entirely certain of all the details himself. Phil will submit a full report once he has what he needs to do so, and the ability to actually leave the bed he’s spent over a week in, for longer than it takes to get to the bathroom – a milestone he’s only achieved in the last twenty-four hours.

There is a momentary silence, before JARVIS says, “I have done so, Agent Coulson.” That he doesn’t provide any indication of just what Stark’s opinion is perhaps somewhat worrying, but expected. “Would you like me to inform anyone that you are awake? Agent Romanov and Captain Rogers are both available.”

“I’m not in need of company at the moment, but if there is a need for someone to maintain a physical watch over me at present, then please do inform Agent Romanov.” Phil doubts that’s actually needed, or he wouldn’t have been left alone last night, much less have woken to an empty room. He’s not certain what measures JARVIS has been instructed or is able to take if he should prove more dangerous than he choses to be, but suspects that the only limits are what security measures Stark has installed in the tower.

After a moment, and a distinct grumble from his stomach, he adds, “Although I would appreciate breakfast.”

“Of course, Agent Coulson.” There’s an amused note to JARVIS’ voice that makes Phil raise an eyebrow, but he doesn’t comment on it. It’s something to pay close attention to some other time.

Natasha brings him breakfast, and watches to make sure he eats all of it, though she doesn’t talk. Her expression tells him as much as the silence; she trusts him not to pass on any information, despite the fact that simply his living means he’s compromised. She trusts him, full stop.

“Clint’s downstairs,” is all she says once Phil’s done eating. The tray, she removes to a table that’s been brought into the room to hold extra bits and pieces, before settling back in the chair with a book. It’s a trashy romance, one of the sorts of books Natasha only ever lets Phil or Clint see her reading, and only when she’s trying to show them she’s comfortable. Even if she really isn’t.

“Did you bring another?” Phil finds the books soothing in their predictablity, if not highly entertaining. It’s mindless enough to allow him to mull over the strange dream while he reads, and try to draw some useful information from it.

Natasha quirks one corner of her mouth up slightly before reaching into the small bag she’d brought with breakfast, and handing him a book. Not one of her romances, but one of the alternate-history books she knows he likes to pick apart. Something to distract him, rather than let him worry about the possibilities.

“Sir?”

The elevator has slowed noticably with JARVIS’ carefully polite interruption of their conversation on what to tell Fury when they get to the lobby. Bruce thinks Tony’s plan to tell Fury nothing about Coulson is probably not a good idea – he’ll notice they’re holding something back, and then they’ll have SHIELD trying to snoop around the Tower. Bruce doesn’t like that idea, but he doesn’t exactly have a better solution at the moment, since he suspects Fury won’t go away if he finds out that Coulson is alive again, and currently being hidden from SHIELD by the Avengers.

“Yeah, JARVIS?” Tony glances up toward the corner of the elevator that Bruce can only assume is the one with the hidden camera JARVIS would use to keep an eye on the occupants. He makes a mental note of it, so he can direct his gaze there as well – like remembering to look someone in the eyes.

“Agent Coulson is awake.” There’s a moment, and then Coulson’s voice comes over the speakers, asking JARVIS to tell Tony and Bruce that he doesn’t want to be hidden. Which, as far as Bruce is concerned, does answer at least part of the question answered, though it leaves almost as many behind, since he leaves the amount of information beyond that provided to Fury up to Tony.

“Huh.” Tony looks thoughtful a moment. “Didn’t know Agent trusted me that much.” He leans against the back of the elevator, his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like some rebellious teenager suddenly told he’s not in as much trouble as he expected to be. He looks over to Bruce after a moment, a smirk quirking up the corners of his mouth. “You want to tell Fury about how we found Agent alive?”

“No.” Bruce hadn’t been there, since it hadn’t needed the Hulk, and he’s still more comfortable in the labs of the Tower than out among the people of New York. Which isn’t always a whole lot. Even if he had been, he’s still not sure how Coulson can be alive, the probable involvement of Hel not withstanding. And he’s not mentioning her, because he can imagine the potential trouble that could raise with SHIELD. “He’s not going to let us know if he believes us or not unless he sees Coulson himself, you know.”

“So does Agent.” Tony frowns, and glances up to the display that tells him how much further until they reach the lobby. “I don’t like the idea of Fury in the Tower.” There’s more there than a distrust of Fury, but Bruce is only beginning to see just how much more. They’re all just starting to figure out this team thing, this… family thing, really. But he’s certain that’s why Natasha didn’t tell SHIELD the truth about the last mission, and maybe it’s why they’re all thinking about asking Thor for help with Anna and with Coulson before they consider asking SHIELD.

“It might be the only way to keep him from trying to send SHIELD agents in.” Bruce doesn’t know if it really will help, but it’s worth at least voicing the idea – though recalling Natasha sent to find him in India, that Fury is alone in the lobby doesn’t mean there aren’t agents outside, or that there isn’t a helicopter or one of the quinjets waiting in striking range to drop agents on the roof.

Tony snorts. “He’ll have to hack JARVIS to do that.” Which only means that it takes more effort on SHIELD’s part, but Bruce hopes Fury has the sense to wait Tony out on this. Wait out Tony, and wait out the rest of the team.

“There has been no word of any call from Midgard for Thor.” The soft whisper is as a prayer spoken in the night, a gossamer thread of thought from one of her eyes and ears on Asgard. They never should have held those from other realms, who knew better than any Aesir how to weave seiðr into so many forms, in clever threads that pass unnoticed between realms along the branches of Yggdrasil.

Hel frowns, wondering what it will take to draw the Odinson from Asgard, if the pleas of his boon companions are not heeded. She taps her fingers on the arm of her throne, nails clicking on seiðr-seared and blackened bone. Her brother could draw attention with ease, but it would come too close to Ragnorak if he were the cause of strife enough to return Thor to Midgard.

Thanos, too, could be used to create a distraction, but she would prefer to see him destroyed in some fashion that would send him to her realm. Let him die a death that was not valorous, and be brought into her power, and she will not let him forget that it was her father he took and harmed beyond anything Hel would wish upon him for his crimes. No, Thanos is better suited to screaming through from his death to Ragnorak, not taking his ease in Valhalla.

She twists a thread of seiðr between her fingers, spinning out as fine and shifting as the one that had brought the information to her. “Let a whisper spread of secrets kept by the throne and the gate.” Let Thor ponder on that, and see if he has learned anything of intrigue and politics since he has been returned to Asgard. Enough, she hopes, to seek Odin’s response to such a rumour, and to expect that he will be told it is of course true, but the throne must always keep certain information close. Perhaps to believe it, but wish to know the secrets himself.

Once more, her fingers drum on the arm of her throne, mind already seeking alternate paths to achieve her ends, cataloguing the strengths and weaknesses of allies and enemies and the pawns who move to the bidding of both. The Odinson must leave Asgard, and leave the realm vulnerable. Then she might achieve her revenge, and destroy the ascendency of Asgard and its arrogant, thieving king.

Avengers (2012)/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: Sparring Circles and Ice

Originally Posted: 23 February 2013
AO3 | DW

Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Loki and Sif
Word Count: 3622
Characters: Loki (MCU), Sif (MCU), Helblindi, Thor (MCU)

“Does my brother ask you to take on another quest?” Thor at least doesn’t speak loudly, though Sif glares at him nonetheless. It is not a question she wants spoken aloud.

“I do not know. He has not said.” Sif shoulders her glaive, stalking through the scattering warriors toward the palace. “I will tell you later if he asks me to do such a thing, and does not insist that it is a quest that must be carried out alone.”

Loki has not provided any further tasks for her since her return from Jotunheim, and Sif is beginning to worry what he might be thinking to have her do. She’s almost tempted to stand guard outside his door once more, save that she can already hear Fandral’s insinuations and not-so-friendly gibes about doing so. She doesn’t care to hear them, nor to see the annoyance cross Thor’s face when he hears them – or hears of them.

And hear of them, he would, because she wouldn’t allow the insult to her honor pass – nor would she allow it to be quietly dealt with by some token payment or sparring session.

Scowling, Sif binds her hair back before heading for the training grounds, which have once again become a haunt of hers, as they had been when she and Thor and the Warriors Three were between adventures. The usual assortment of practicing warriors are present, and Sif looks for someone who has no sparring partner, settling easily into the rhythm of practice, with its contradiction of heightened attention and easier dismissing of the extraneous.

So she’s aware of the stir in spectators, and their clearing of space for Loki to stand just clear of the ring, in a circle of space all his own, but ignores it as unimportant until she’s defeated her opponent. Only then, while the other warrior exits the circle, does she turn to meet his gaze, raising an eyebrow without speaking. Waiting for him to either indicate she should follow him, or to reveal what she’s done by giving her a command in front of others.

He watches her for a long moment before he smiles, sharp and dangerous, stepping into the ring with a deliberateness that makes her wonder what he’s up to now. Weaponless and challenging her to spar while she still holds her glave.

Snorting, she settles into a ready crouch, watching him to see what he might do. Circling the perimeter of the ring as he does the same, waiting for him to make the first move, peripherally aware of the thickening crowd. Someone, no doubt, has gone to tell Thor and in the doing, spread word that will reach the ears of the Warriors Three. No matter the outcome of the sparring bout itself, Loki has opened the door to more speculation and gossip.

A flicker of movement makes her react, shifting the glave to meet an unexpected weapon, ice shattering and spraying her with shards. A knife or magic, that she’d expect from Loki, but not ice, though perhaps she ought to have. The Jotun had to be right, in one thing, at least, that Loki was born of Jotunheim rather than Asgard.

“Do you regret your decisions now, Sif?” Loki’s voice is entirely too close to her ear, and Sif drives an elbow backward to try to catch him, and strikes nothing but air.

“No.” She hisses as she feels something score across her thigh where her guard had opened up a little. A knife this time, and not one made of ice.

Loki laughs, cold and cutting as the wind on Jotunheim, and moves toward her, ducking under her strike at his shoulder. Fast as a striking snake, his hand wrapping around her wrist, cold seeping through the leather guard there for a moment, and numbing her hand enough that she has to take a one-handed grip on her glave. She stomps down on his foot in return, shoving away to break his grip on her.

She can hear the crowd murmuring, thinks perhaps she can hear the louder call of questions in familiar voices, but Sif ignores them in favor of pressing forward, forcing sluggish fingers to wrap around the handle of her glave, and putting her weight behind a strike that Loki slides away from like water.

“You need to do better than that,” Loki taunts, his voice seemingly right next to her ear again, and Sif snarls, whirling to sweep her glave through where Loki’s head would be if he were behind her. She focuses, listening and watching for any flicker of movement that would give away where Loki actually was – she doesn’t trust what she sees being anything other than an illusion now. It’s how he fights.

What had begun as a strange sparring session is, she knows, rapidly becoming a real fight, a desire to prove she can out-fight Loki, even if she doesn’t have his cunning or deviousness. Even if it’s mostly her getting tagged with scratches and taunts as Loki proves he can evade her and wear her down. Waiting until she’s panting, with muscles trembling faintly under sweat-sheened skin before he does anything more, striking hard and fast.

Her glave is in his hands before she can properly register he’s taken it from her, and Sif snarls again, launching herself at him with bare hands. Forcing herself to move at her limits despite her exhaustion, managing to wrap her fingers around his throat, and shoving him to the ground. Her knees hit the packed earth to either side of Loki’s ribs, and Sif can feel her glave trapped between them.

The gleam in his eyes makes her wonder if he’d allowed her this victory, but she banishes that thought from her mind. She’ll take the victory, no matter where it came from, and she smiles ferally down at him, waiting until he spreads his hands in a gesture of surrender – though she’s unsurprised he does not give her the satisfaction of saying he yields.

Shifting, Sif stands, reaching down to take her glave before she lets her attention widen to the audience once more. The Warriors Three and Thor are indeed in the crowd, watching her and Loki with varying expressions – Hogun is unreadable, Thor looking torn between pride and concern, Volstagg strangely subdued, and Fandral frowning with suspicion.

Loki steps close to her, crowding her toward the edge of the circle – to leave it to others, which Sif is willing to do, and perhaps some other reason for keeping close. A reason that is revealed in words spoken barely above a whisper. “You will require your weapons and your warmest clothing, warrior mine. Return to the door I showed you when you’ve fetched such.”

With that, he leaves as Thor and the Warriors Three come to surround Sif, questions clear in their expressions, though they at least have the sense not to ask them here.

“I will tell you later.” If she has the chance, because there’s something off about what Loki had said. Last time, she’d been to Jotunheim on a diplomatic mission, as poorly as she still thinks she’s suited to such a task, and had left her weapons behind. Now, he wishes her to take weapons? It makes little sense.

“Does my brother ask you to take on another quest?” Thor at least doesn’t speak loudly, though Sif glares at him nonetheless. It is not a question she wants spoken aloud.

“I do not know. He has not said.” Sif shoulders her glave, stalking through the scattering warriors toward the palace. “I will tell you later if he asks me to do such a thing, and does not insist that it is a quest that must be carried out alone.” She can see Fandral open his mouth out of the corner of her eyes, and adds, “I shall join you later; I wish to bathe alone.”

Thor claps her on the shoulder, a smile on his face that is bright and hopeful. Sif isn’t sure if she can make good on what she has said, and his open expression causes a brief twist of guilt, though she can’t know yet what will happen. “We shall await you, then.”

Loki is somewhat surprised to see Sif arriving without Thor or the Traitors Three in tow, but it is strangely reassuring to know she had shaken her favored companions when he had not explicitly told her to keep them away from this journey. Particularly since he doubts they’d be willing to allow her to travel with him, or for him to leave at all – not that they could truly stop him. Better that there is some time between their leave-taking and the discovery of it.

She watches him as she approaches, and says quietly, “They wished only to know if it were another quest which you would send me upon, and I told them that if it were, I would tell them so long as you did not forbid company.”

The offer of information that he did not ask for is more of a surprise, but again a pleasant one for the most part. Perhaps Sif truly will hold to her oath, and not betray it, though Loki still does not trust that when she has broken an oath already.

“We will not need their company.” Loki dismisses the idea with a small curl of his lip. “Nor shall you be returning to speak with them, save if I should have need of an envoy to the All-Father.”

That causes surprise to spread across Sif’s face, and Loki does not give her time to react before he steps through onto the branches of Yggdrasil, the paths among them familiar and welcome. Sif follows him swiftly enough, and there is no talking in the pressing dark between Asgard and Jotunheim. Loki knows there is no returning, and while he is uncertain he wishes to claim the kingship of Jotunheim, it is better than remaining in Asgard where he has little more than unpleasant memories and pretense he does not care to play at right now.

Jotunheim is dark and cold as he recalls, and Loki draws in a deep breath, letting the cold seep into him, knowing his skin is taking on the blue shade of his Jotun blood, his eyes shifting from green to a bloody red. At least they are not blue as he recalls them being too often in the mirror of late.

Sif steps onto the ice behind him, taking up a position behind and to his right, as if she is a trusted companion guarding his back from treachery. It makes him quirk one corner of his mouth in a wry smile before he shrugs, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. She is paler than usual, and her expression is almost blank.

“You said the Jotun called Helblindi Laufeyson waited for you at this end of the path?” Loki doesn’t wait for her nod to look over the landscape, searching for a sign of someone among the crags of ice, the darker shadows and paler swathes where it looked as if fresh snow had fallen.

“I still watch this place.” The voice comes from a shadow cast by a spire of ice shattered partway to where it might have once reached. “I had not thought you would so swiftly respond to such a message as I gave your bondwoman.”

Loki lifts his chin slightly, his eyes narrowing at the buried insinuation that perhaps he might not have come at all, even given an answer to his offer. “I made the offer in good faith, and held it as an oath once accepted, even if only by one of the Jotnar.”

There’s silence a moment, and a shifting in the shadow, before the Jotun stepped out where he could be seen. Helblindi is not terribly much taller than Loki, indeed, far less than he was entirely expecting. He watches Loki for a long moment with a contemplative expression, before he shrugs. “I will show you what remains of our battered realm, so you might see how great a task it is you have undertaken.” He glances at Loki’s armor, a small smirk curling one corner of his mouth. “You would do better if you were not in Aesir armor, little prince, or keep to your Aesir-pale mask.”

That much is likely true, after all that has happened after Thor’s interrupted coronation, yet Loki hesitates to leave his skin as bare as Helblindi clearly is, only a kilt wrapped about his hips that reaches to his knees.

“Your bondwoman will be hard-pressed to keep you alive otherwise.” Helblindi turns to lead the way, shrugging his shoulders as he speaks. Loki narrows his eyes, glaring a long moment before he draws back on the mask of Aesir skin. He will leave dressing as a Jotun for another time, if ever he does such a thing.

“It is ill-done to mock a people, and we would react rather badly to the idea of an Aesir princeling daring to wear a mask of Jotun skin.” There’s another shrug of Helblindi’s shoulders once Loki falls in beside him, refusing to simply follow. “Better to think you Aesir until it is proved you are not, if indeed you can.”

Loki does not point out that Helblindi has apparently accepted him, at least to some extent. Perhaps it is because he is Laufeyson, perhaps there is some other reason. Why, after all, was he waiting just where this particular path emerged on Jotunheim? There are few who know of the paths along the branches of Yggdrasil, and Loki has not heard of any Jotun walking those paths alone, as Helblindi would have had to do to find the right path and the right door to know this path leads to Asgard.

They walk in silence until they reach the broken spires where Thor had initiated battle only a single long year before. Where Loki had negotiated with Laufey to bring him to Asgard where Loki could kill him. There had been beauty here, once, but it’s all gone to powder and shards.

“It was the temple before the All-Father shattered it, or so I’ve been told.” Helblindi looks at Loki out of the corner of his eye. “It was where the Casket was kept, and where the kings of Jotunheim were consecrated and crowned. My elder brother was consecrated here, but none have seen him since the All-Father destroyed the temple.”

And this is where Loki will have to begin, if he’s to achieve the recompense for his assult upon Jotunheim, as he’s already made payment for the deaths upon Asgard. It will leave only Midgard to call for his blood, and he will concern himself with that later, after he has settled accounts here, though it might call for greater a price than he’d anticipated needing to pay.

“Are there any who recall it as it once stood, or shall I build as I desire?”

Helblindi chuckles, a grin spreading across his face. “If you are who you claim to be, than the ice will flow at your command, and however you should make it will be how the temple should look now. It is ice, not stone.”

Ice that answers only to a king, and then, only a king who is of Jotun heritage – and perhaps something more. Loki doesn’t enjoy the niggling sense that he is not being told all, that there is something hidden at work, trying to manipulate him to its own ends.

“Why should the Casket only answer to a king of Jotun blood?” He will use it, but not yet. Not until he has some better sense of why it responded to him, even though he had not been king of Jotunheim, and Laufey had yet lived.

There is silence for a long moment, Helblindi watching him with a hooded expression. “Not of Jotun blood. Of Jotunheim.”

“Then why could I make use of it while Laufey yet lived?” Loki challenges, shifting his weight slightly in case there is violence offered. “I was king of Asgard, then. Not of Jotunheim.”

“A prince is consecrated, and a king acknowledged. Yet I would have no claim upon the throne, even acknowledged as a king. The temple was destroyed, and the Casket taken before I was born.”

And both temple and Casket were needed to consecrate a prince, a consecration necessary for a valid claim to the throne of Jotunheim or the use of the Casket. An initiation, likely, to whatever secrets the Casket held, but why would they initiate an infant as Loki had been, and one who was small for a Jotun beside? Unless it were because he was born during their war with Asgard, perhaps as a safe measure should Laufey be killed in the fighting.

“And who is acknowedged king on Jotunheim?”

Helblindi smirks, and shakes his head. “There are none who could make claim to the throne, save my elder brother.” He looks over at Loki with the smirk still on his face. “If it could be proved he had found his way home, and that he were capable of the acts of a king, there are those who would acknowledge him as such.”

Loki remains silent for a long moment, contemplating the ruins of the temple, and what he information he had coaxed from Helblindi. The temple, his to rebuild in what image he desired, and Jotunheim his for the ruling if he wished it. He smiles to himself, summoning the Casket from the pocket dimension it has resided in since he froze Heimdall on the Bifrost. That his skin is bleeding pale from it like blood, turning to Jotun blue as he directs the energies of the Casket, he ignores, as he does Helblindi and Sif alike. There is only himself and the ice, and rebuilding what was destroyed.

Sif struggles not to shiver in the cold, standing outside the room Loki had carved for himself out of ice, his skin Jotun-blue and ridged with patterns she could not read. For now, he slept, the glittering evidence of his labors rising from the ruins where it could be seen as he stepped from his room in the second shattered building that had stood close by. A palace, likely, and all of it enough to chill her to the bone without a fire to warm her.

She refuses to think it is more than the cold that makes her shiver, refuses to allow herself to fear even though she is surrounded by Jotnar and only left alive and unharmed because they see her as thrall to Loki. It is a sting to her pride that it is that, and not respect for her skill as a warrior, that keeps her alive.

“No one will test themselves against you while you are bondwoman to our king, unless they are also given such an honor.” Helblindi is sitting in the shadows of the ice once more, leaning against the wall of Loki’s room. “If ever he releases you from his service, they will not give you such consideration.”

“Then I will be without anyone to spar with, for I doubt he will take others into his service, nor shall he release me from the same.” Sif is very certain of the latter, at least, if not as certain of the former.

Helblindi chuckles. “A king should not have so few bondmen as he has now. There will be others, though perhaps not other bondwomen.” He glances sideways at Sif. “They will test themselves against you, but it will not change that you are the chief among them, being bondwoman to our king before any other.”

“Is there no woman of Jotunheim who is a warrior, then? Or is that no woman would wish to be a warrior in service of the king?” Sif is both angry and smug that she will still be the only woman warrior among men, if the answer to the first is no.

“There are women who were once warriors, but they wish to raise their children rather than to leave their raising to a woman.” Helblindi’s words make no sense to Sif, and she frowns. He smirks at her irritation, but adds, “A warrior does not bear children, but any Jotun may be either the father or the mother of a child. So one who wishes to bear and raise a child will not be a warrior until the child is grown or dead.”

Sif stares, knowing her innate disgust for the mingling of roles in such a way – for one person to take on both the roles of a woman and of a man, even if not at the same time. “And this is normal?”

“Can you doubt that even your king might do such a thing?” Helblindi’s smirk is gone, but he watches her with an expression that makes Sif suppress a shiver. “I know of each of his children, those he fathered and the one he mothered, though I’ve not met any of his sons.”

Another shiver runs through Sif, and she cannot repress this one. She had deliberately forgotten the long-ago incident, when Loki’s distraction had given Thor the chance to get close enough to a cheating mason to destroy him. A distraction that had resulted in a terrible shame, a dishonor that Odin had hidden from most of Asgard, but could not have hidden from those companions closest to Thor and thus to Loki.

“The monster Odin bound as his steed.” Sif can hear the undisguised disgust in her voice, and from the hardening of Helblindi’s voice, he didn’t miss it either.

“The boy who never was given a chance to learn he might have another shape, and now never shall.” Helblindi’s voice is cold and sharp as the wind. “That is a dishonor on the All-Father’s head, not his own nor upon his mother’s. Do not think it otherwise, daughter of Asgard.”

Helblindi rose before Sif could form another reply, and moved away, toward the rebuilt temple. Leaving her to think on the conversation, and to her own conflicted emotions.