Author's Note:

Whoa, I did it, guys, I actually got this posted and finished! =D For those of you unaware, I posted this as a multi-chapter story about er, what six months ago now? before realizing that this would work better as a lengthy one-shot (to those of you who read the original first chapter, nothing has changed from that so you can skip it). So, it's definitely been a bit of a wait and I apologize, I was working on other projects and this kept getting stuffed to the side as "not as important" until I finished writing it as a way to avoid working on Stygian and We Drown Together (other MCU fanfics). I absolutely love villain redemption stories and this idea has been bugging me for a lengthy period of time. So, yeah, anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it! :)

Heads up for those of you who might've missed this: This is an AU where Thor didn't go to Loki for help in Thor 2 with the Aether so he wasn't ever released from prison.

Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors!

Rated for the darker feel that plays in this story (nothing inappropriate), some violence, implied/referenced torture, and paranoia on my part. No slash, no smut, nor anything else inappropriate. Language is all K.

Pairings: Very minor Jane/Thor and Frigga/Odin, this a brother/sister thing, though. :)

Summary: Thor found a different way to deal with the Aether. As Loki rots in his cell, Hela is released and steered in the World-Walker's direction after failing to retrieve Heimdall's sword. But trying to heal the broken, possibly ex-supervillian so he can accomplish her objectives is going to take far more effort that Hela originally thought. (Brother/Sister) (No slash, no smut)

Just a personal note, if you could refrain from using cussing/strong language if you comment (no offense to how you speak! Promise! =) It just makes me uncomfortable) I would greatly appreciate that. ;)

For your information, this is cross posted on Archive for our Own under the pen name of "GalaxyThreads". ;)

Edited on January 30th, 2019.

I was left behind,

and I wish that didn't hurt as much as it does.

Discolored:

Her feet hit the ground, heels clicking against the swirling glass, hair sliding over her shoulders to hang infront of her face. Her skin feels wound, but releasing softly and slowly as the surge of power gradually feeds her exhausted supplies. She pays no heed to her thin strands hanging in front of her right eye, attention focused solely on the Asgardian in front of her; although his is divided elsewhere. Her fists are clenched deeply, nails digging into the cloth of her long sleeves. She's drawing blood, but cares little for this fact.

His golden armor is exactly how she remembers, that stupid hat he was without fail fond of in her youth still atop his head. His posture is stiff, as always, and though there are more dents into a few places of his panoply, he has changed little. He doesn't acknowledge her, remaining forwards; back facing her. She is sure that he watched her as she rode her atop her stolen horse but he has not turned to greet her.

Still ignoring her, then.

Her lips part slightly but her tongue halts. There are so many things she wants to scream at him, make him hurt as much as she feels, crack his armor with her verbal blades and leave him staggering, lost and wandering in the dark. She blinks faintly, then tilts her head ever so slightly, burning his image into the back of her mind.

"Why did you leave me there?" Her words are a bare whisper, not the intended hiss she wanted. Not with the bite, the anger, the frustration she wants to shout and scream for. Instead they sound weary, exhausted with the barest edge of malice. Heimdall's spine stiffens slightly anyway at the sound of her voice. It's very slight, but Hela is looking for it.

He would not have missed her, she knows he would have watched Odin's passing—she knows he knows she is here. It was his beloved king, she was released just as quickly as he disappeared. She would have liked to watch it, his passing, have caused it, but she didn't. She can't now. It's too late. No matter, she will not grieve for him. Why should she? She was a rabid animal, and he the master.

Heimdall doesn't turn to face her, doesn't shift; just remains steady, still and quiet, his breathing the only audible thing between them for a long moment before answering: "It was the command of my king."

A loud, mad, bitter laugh threatens to tear from her throat, but Hela restricts it to a soft hiss instead. His voice is steady, exactly as she recalls from her memories, a hazy past that belongs in history books now. The same character, but a different story. A happier one, times before her father uprooted her suddenly and threw her into Niflheim without any warning, times before her family abandoned her, before she was deadly, before she was in a war, a lifetime ago, now. She doesn't know whether to weep or scream from the familiarity of it, the reassurance, the safety. Her fingers curl and she lifts her chin up slightly, "Your king left me there to die." Her words taste sour on her tongue and send a rush of ire down her throat as they escape. She doesn't try to swallow them back just lets it hang into the emptiness of this silence Heimdall is so intent on.

Heimdall's shoulders shift, rolling them back as if loosening it—almost as if he's stretching out a sore muscle. Irritation spikes through her. How can he be so lackadaisical about this? She's spent centuries rotting as he watched. He is-was one of her closest companions. Why is he taking Odin's side in this? She should take her's, he should agree, he should do something other than stand there silently!

"You were to be released." Heimdall's voice is steady, as always, but this time its blank, empty, cold.

Hela's lips twist into a dark smile. The expression jerks her face in a displeasurable way and muscles ache from the unfamiliarness of it. "Did you miss me so little?" Ah, there is the bite.

Heimdall sighs. A long, weary exhausted sigh of someone who has dealt with far too many frustrations in a day. His arms twitch, coming to rest on something. "What would you have me say, Hela? I am bound to the word of my king."

She gives her head a slight shake of frustration. She would have him say he's sorry. He would have done something to save her. That he cared, he missed her! Her wait was not in vain, the days she raged and screamed at the sky until her voice was gone weren't for naught. That her soldiers, Fenris—everything she had wasn't gone. That he is still here. But...that is no more than childish fantasy now.

"Have you say Heimdall?" Hela repeats, her voice laced with disbelief. Her fingernails dig deeper. "What would I have you say!? You did nothing for me! You watched me suffer and stood here, lax and uncaring as always!" Her voice is raised at the end, near shouting, but still managing to be soft and deadly. She wants to grab at his throat and give it a good throttle. Maybe shake his head until his brains rattle around and he can see common sense again, instead of this willful ignorance. She wouldn't have him say anything she would have him act.

"I did what I could for you." Heimdall says, not a trace of emotion along the blank words. As if he is reading it off a page long sense prepared for her arrival. The words so ran over and spoken they no longer have meaning behind them, simply another empty sound.

Her tongue presses against the roof of her mouth for a moment, words not latching together fast enough to explain her fury. What he could for her!? What he did was watch for over a thousand years! Her hand raises pointing behind them, downwards, finger jolting out. "You left me to die!"

"Only because of my king." Heimdall's voice is slightly strained now, yet he refuses to look back at her.

Coward.

"You were dangerous and reckless, Hela."

A low laugh bubbles in her throat that sounds wrong and backwards. Reckless? Dangerous? And Odin wasn't? Hela didn't start the conquest of the Nine Realms. He did. "And so was he." She grits between her teeth.

"Odin changed; you are ever stagnant."

Stagnant!?

Stagnant!?

"I was merely following my predecessor." She hisses.

"You disrespect your king." Heimdall says, impassive. This, however, just fuels her fury.

"I was meant to be the queen of Asgard! It is my birthright—and I am!" Hela's voice is rising, her emotions building up and clawing at her chest. The irrepressible power rips at her insides, begging to be released to taste the light once more. Hela holds it, with effort. Now is not the time, later, perhaps, will be. When she is ripping apart the Nine Realms, then she will let it go.

"You were never meant to be queen, and certainly never of Asgard."

She forces her face to withdraw from the sting. It was a promise, given to her from as long as she can remember that the throne would be her's. She would help bring Asgard up in its glory, rise it to the beacon in the Nine Realms, a sun in a vast wasteland of darkness. It is her's. One of the very few things left. He will not help her, he does not even feel sorry for leaving her there.

He is glad of it.

He left her there on purpose.

And yet...he fears her.

Good.

She can feel her expression darken, eyes narrowing and brows lowering and she watches (glowers) at his back for a long moment. Betrayal isn't an unfamiliar feeling to her, but oh, how she longs for it to be. Hela conjures a sword into her hand, drawing it from the depths of Niflheim where it laid resting with her other weapons. Hela doesn't craft the weapons with magic, she is a skilled blacksmith and has spent a thousand years working on them. A release from the anger, if she had not done so she would have lost her mind.

Maybe she already has.

Spinning and spinning, watch as she tumbles.

She grits her jaw slightly, teeth digging at her lip for a second before she tastes blood, "Then I am one born of hate." She tilts her head as Heimdall's entire posture seems to change from confidently blank to warily hesitant. He thought with a few words he could calm her, change her. Fool. "Kneel," Her voice is dark, cold, and commanding, "before your queen."

Heimdall's back stiffens further at this before he slowly with dubiety, turns to face her. His yellow eyes haven't changed, the deep staring either. Hela meets his gaze with her heated one curling her fingers around the hilt of her weapon tighter. She is only here for the sword, Heimdall was a pleasurable addition, a reverie on her in her long list of revenge, but not counted on. She thought he would be dead by now. Heimdall is not as old as Odin, but there have likely been many wars (how is she to know, she was gone) since her banishment he could have been taken in one of those. She thought him to be the only one remaining that would join her. Her only ally as her others are dead.

When she stepped through the portal into Frigga's garden some twenty minutes ago, she had laughed. Did Odin really expect her to be changed by remembrance of that place? She won't. She wants him to suffer.

There was no entourage awaiting her. No parade, no army, no people, but she would have been a fool to expect more. She didn't. She would have been surprised if there was. Instead, all there had been was the trees and life around her and the fading residue of Odin's magic. Odin was long gone. The least she can do is hope is wasn't a peaceful passing. She silently hopes he tripped and cracked his skull open or something equally un-heroic like.

Heimdall watches her, carefully as if ripping her innards apart and trying to see what lies beneath. Rage. Rage strong enough to burn down worlds. His yellow eyes finally settle on something and his lips curl. He has changed. The magic suppressed in her demands for his death, it would be so easy to just reach her hand out and drag the life from him, a skill she's never quite grasped full power over. She had no need to in Helheim, there was no one living for her to worry over. She is in control and if Heimdall is to die, it will be by her blade.

"You are not. I thought you a niece, Hela;" Heimdall's voice is quiet, his face twisted with melancholia. He lifts his gaze from the floor to her, "But now I fear I never knew you."

Hela recoils. Knew her? She trusted him. Why did he even pretend then? Were they no more than strangers? Where is the loyalty he speaks so passionately about? Why does she mean so little to everyone!?

She gathers what she can of her composure and flicks her wrist her sword flying out from her side to a fighting stance. The skin next to her eyes tightens and she glowers at him. "Give me the sword." Her voice is a low growl. She doesn't want to fight him, but she will. She is going to rip everything Odin ever held dear to pieces and when she is done she will build a kingdom from the ashes better than Asgard ever was, just to spite his memory. "You can either get in my way and I'll take it from your corpse, or join me at my side and live."

Heimdall draws Hofund and raises it towards her, expression grim. "I will not leave the Nine Realms to suffer your childish wrath."

Childish?

Hela's lips curl into a odium sneer, "Then you will be the first to bleed from it."

"So be it."

Hela hisses under her breath before drawing her other sword, swings them both, and charges. Heimdall blocks her leaped attack and pushes her back spinning and grabbing a short sword from its sheath at his hip. Her feet skid across the ground for a moment and she presses her tongue against the roof of her mouth in fury. This is a painful reminder that she hasn't had a real appoint in over eight hundred years and it's suddenly much different than she remembers. No matter, she will win, she has to get that sword.

Hela jumps at him, shoving a dagger up to stab him in the gut in a swift movement, but Heimdall knocks the weapon from her grip. It lands with a clatter at the second step of the Bifrost dais. Hela conjures another and slashes at his face, succeeding and the long cut digs under his eye, across his nose and down to his chin, but Heimdall jerks back, making no sound and sweeps his sword at her feet.

Hela jumps over it and conjures a spear throwing it at his boots. Heimdall stumbles back as she proceeds her attack, pushing him back towards the wall and draws another sword as he finally hits the golden metal behind him, cornered. Hela presses the sword against his neck, smiling venomously, "The sword." She demands. Heimdall stares at her for a half a second eyes determined.

"No."

Hela's free fist clenches, and she makes a leap for the weapon, but Heimdall turns and drags Hofund along the wall cutting through it easily—like paper—in less than a second flat before he jumps through the hole towards the ocean below. Her eyes widen. Is he mad? He could and likely will completely miss and fall into the void. No one returns from there. Does he truly plan to sacrifice himself to prevent her from getting the sword?

Who is she kidding? Of course he does, it's so noble.

So Heimdall.

Hela jumps over the spear's littering the ground and grabs the edge of the broken metal staring at Heimdall disappearing rapidly until he hits the ocean in a perfect dive from what she can see. Hela releases a shout of anger and flicks her wrist sending a sword down to where he disappeared beneath the surface. Hela stares at it for a long moment trying to spot him resurfacing but he doesn't. She missed him.

Where is he?

She's going to get that sword, even if she has to rip Asgard apart brick by brick until she does.

"Hey!" A voice shouts breaking through her raged fog and Hela whirls, hair flipping over her shoulder. A man is storming towards her, large, bulky, and in loose armor with tattoos on the top of his bald head. In either hand he's carrying some sort of strange blaster and his expression is a mixture between fury and determination. So cute, thinking he's intimidating—that he can harm her. "You can't just barge into the stable and take horses! Des and Troy have something to say to you, you little-" Hela storms across the length of the observatory in quick, even, heated steps as the first word leaves his mouth and by the time his unfinished sentences last syllable is aired she grabs him by his throat and rips him from the ground.

The Asgardian's eyes widen and the weapons fall from his hands as he grabs at her forearm—to relieve the pressure or make her stop, Hela isn't sure, nor does she care. She squints. Yes, she knows this one. When she snuck into the stable to steal the horse, he was there; working with some hay and shouting at other horses. Not much of a quiet fellow, him, at least to the animals. He saw her urge the horse from the stable and yelled after her. Dedicated to his job, she has to give him at least that much credit. Did he honestly chase her from the stable to here?

"I don't care." She growls. She'll burn the stable down if he keeps pestering her. "Who do you think you are, stable boy?"

The Aesir's eyes are wide now, wide with anger and frightened. Oh, how this fuels her. "Who are you?" He returns. His voice sounds tight, but manages to be rather loud for the strain she's putting on him; so courageous. Disgusting. He doesn't know who she is, none of the palace guards she spoke to knew of her, no one does. Of course they don't; Odin wouldn't want an ugly stain like her smearing against his perfectly flawless painting.

Her laugh is bitter and sharp, "I am Hela, first born of Odin, your queen. I asked you a question." She tightens her hold and his grip on her forearm gets painfully tight.

"Skurge!" He grits out, breathless, "I am Skurge!" His breaths are getting thinner, more wheezed and Hela softens her hold slightly. She needs information and can't gather it from a dead man. Not that there aren't others, of course, but he is...here and she wants them, now.

"I...don't..." He grinds out. Understand? Doesn't know who she is? Don't remember learning of her?

Hela presses her teeth together, "Where would Heimdall hide? Where would he go? Tell me!" She shouts, not caring that her voice is rising, her grip is tighter and he is dying. Skurge's eyes are so wide she wonders, idly in the back of her mind with repugnant fascination if they're going to pop out of his skull.

"Where would Heimdall take the Bifrost sword you insolent stable hand!?" She shouts, shaking at him. Skurge gives a weak pained protest and gasps out a shaken breath.

"I..am...unaware…" He hisses out. Hela's eyes narrow. Then he is useless to her. Her hold tightens but his gaze grows desperate. "Wait!" He chokes out. "There is...another way… to...other...sword."

It takes her a moment to translate his breathless sentence: There is another way beyond the sword. There wasn't when she was here. Only the sword was able from precaution from King Bor after other objects that could were stolen and misused. Odin wouldn't have been so stupid to make another beyond the sword, he has an issue with control. Hela clenches her jaw, but loosens her hold slightly, "What of it?" She demands, "Tell me, now."

The Aesir presses his lips together and looks unsure, suddenly, "In the dungeon...there is a sorcerer who can walk between...worlds—or that's what the rumors say... I don't know..." His voice is tight from the strain. Hela releases his neck and he collapses to the ground gasping, heaving, and coughing. One hand comes to rub at the area she gripped at which Hela can see is red. It doesn't bother her as much as it probably should.

She hesitates for a moment, only a moment, before giving her command: "Show me."

000o000

The palace grounds are empty (surprisingly, Hela remembers them being and endless surplus of life) and somehow manage to be an exact replica of what she remembers, yet nothing is the same. There are different scourges, buildings, and bruises against the property than she recalls. It frustrates her. She should have been here, watching everything be built or helped with the obvious battle scars and she wasn't. She was cast away like a tool that lost its purpose.

Shoved away, tossed, exiled.

A rabid dog that needed to be put down.

Skurge leads her through the servants back entrance then loops through the guards that are there on the courtyard, and in the palace with surprising ease. (He must have been a thief at some point, Hela decides, otherwise he wouldn't have such skill. In her youth, she was as good at sneaking as a herd of Bilgesnipes pounding across the ground-she has gotten much better, now). Perhaps that is why he was working in the stables, he doesn't seem like the person who enjoys helping animals, at least, from what she's seen so far.

Skurge leads her successfully to the dungeons without getting caught or even seen by anyone. She shouldn't have to do this. Hide. She's the heir. Their queen, now, yet she must cower in the dark like an enemy. All because of Odin. They would know who she is if not for him. Now she is unknown and forgotten.

"This is it." Skurge says and stops in front of a long staircase. Hela resists the urge to roll her eyes and push him. Yes, she knows. She did live in the palace, once. Everything is different now, and it is a comfort (if very small) that this hasn't changed. The palace prisons were made by King Bor during the war between the Dark Elves and Asgard for interrogation. After the war was over and the Aether was destroyed, they simply became the common dungeons.

She only took Skurge because she needed to make sure they were still the same or this prisoner wasn't placed somewhere else. A sorcerer who can walk between worlds...that should be impossible. It is. Hela saw Frigga attempt it once and nearly ripped herself apart, it's been thought of, of course, but all attempts have failed, Frigga's case was one of the very, very few that didn't die. Hela has never been skilled at sorcery, her attempts at learning at it set something on fire, herself, the floor, curtains, something, always. She simply mastered what spells she could to the point of insanity. Walking between worlds...it's hard to fathom let alone do. Perhaps Skurge was lying to simply save his skin. If it is the case, Hela has more than enough weapons at her disposal to remove of him.

She takes several steps forward and presses her boot against the first stair down and whirls as Skurge grabs at her upper arm. It seems impulsive because as soon as she's facing him again, his eyes widen at what he did and he rips his fingers back like he's been burned. "What?" She demands, her voice is laced with her annoyance.

Skurge's mouth opens, closes, and opens again before he speaks: "He was imprisoned for a good reason."

What? He breathed in more fresh air than Odin wanted? Hela's eyebrow lifts slightly, arching up with as much sarcastic force she can muster, which is a fair amount. She can handle herself, she squints her eyes slightly and gives a soft smirk, "I am not afraid of him." She says, firmly.

Skurge's eyes cast down at the remarkably un-interesting floor; he murmurs something under his breath that sounds strongly like, "you should be" before looking up at her again. His gaze skitters from her's however, as if he's afraid she'll lop his fingers if their eyes meet. She allows a soft eye roll at the motion. "If you die if you talk to him, I think it'll be my fault...I want to come with you." His voice is hesitantly quiet.

She...what?

Hela blinks, more surprised than she wants to admit. "Hmm," She stares at him for a long moment. She is more than capable of handling this sorcerer if he goes rogue (a good dagger in the stomach slows anyone down), but this sudden loyalty from this man who doesn't even know of her is something that she wants to pathetically cling to. "Fine." She says and turns her back again, hair flipping over her shoulder and she quickly begins to descend down the stairs. Skurge follows after her, a few steps behind, but behind nonetheless.

"You're a smart boy," She remarks, not looking back at him as they climb down further. Her nose twitches as the dust picks up and she hears Skurge grunt behind her. Hela glances back at him, "How would you like a job?"

Skurge's face, ever readable, looks notably against the notion, "I already have one." He argues.

"A stable boy?" Hela scoffs, "I'm offering you a position of far more honor."

"...More?" This, at last, catches his attention. Attention and recognition. He seeks it, wants it terribly, it's painfully obvious.

"As my executioner." She says, simply. "When I was young, every great king had an executioner. It is the position of the highest honor in Asgard—or, it was." Hela pauses for a moment before adding, "I was Odin's."

She stops on the long stairway and turns to look at him. The deep shadows of the badly lit staircase latch over the other Aesir's face making it seem somehow angry. She presses her lips together and Skurge meets her gaze for the first time, "I'll...need to think about it."

Hela waves her hand, "Fine, fine." She agrees. They reach the last few steps of the staircase and to the entrance of the prison where the eerily haunting yellow lights are gleaming cheerily. Hela stares at it blinking to get her eyes adjusted and squints looking for guards. There are none. Is Odin really that naive to leave it without guards? Perhaps he's enhanced the prisons since she's been here.

Hela steps forward into the prisons and Skurge pops up her side suddenly, looking tense.

The prisons haven't really changed since she's been here last. The ground is dirtier, the row of cells slightly longer and some aren't flickering, broken and others are covered in thick layer of ash that looks permanent. Even the smell of stale hopelessness and tears is the same. The bright lights always lit are just as blinding from the spell casted by Odin's Father, Bor, in his long fight between the Dark Elves as she remembers. Although it is supposed to be used for common prisoners now, it's oddly vacant of any.

Hela sweeps her eyes over the cells, looking for Skurge's fabled sorcerer. She takes several more steps forward ,but Skurge grabs her arm, again, and she jerks her hand, irritated. She opens her mouth to snap at him, but he points at the cell she was about to pass. "He's there." Skurge's voice is deathly quiet, as if speaking too loudly will get him unwanted attention.

Hela turns her gaze from Skurge's face to the cell. She squints, staring at the white walls her eyebrows meeting slightly. The yellow light glaze over everything making it seem slightly hazy. She doesn't know who this sorcerer is, but clearly he has friends on the upper parts of society. Well...had. The cell in of itself is a disaster—collapsed chaos, really. Any furniture is in shambles and scattered everywhere, broken in what looks like a fit of rage,. Dark stains are spread across the floor and the lower parts of the back wall and really the whole room just screams 'messy'. This prisoner has obviously not had attention for months, perhaps even years. The only thing that looks relatively clean is the row of books, neatly aligned along one row in perfectly even stacks. Hela raises an eyebrow slightly at the oddity of the sight in contrast to everything else before taking several steps forward.

Such anger. Whoever threw him in here...it must have been Odin. He fears power, always has unless it's under his thumb squashed like an annoying bug or perfectly aligned to his puppet strings. Hela's eyes narrow at the thought and she swings a longsword out from her supply and smashes it into the magical wall. It pulses immediately, electricity pumping against the end of the blade and sinking up towards her arms. Hela grits her teeth at the pain but jerks the weapon up, cutting the wall. It slices easily beneath her blade and the light shudders and groans as it dies the ever persistent bright light, the break rippling outwards from her sword to the edges of the wall.

The cells near this one offer enough light for Hela to see by without concern so she strides into the room with confidence her heels clanking against the dirty ground; brushing past the strips of wood, glass, and the long deeply colored stain dragging across the wall. Fainter stains the same color are shaped like angry fist prints against the wall, perhaps someone dragging their hand across it. "Ah—I don't think that that's—" Skurge starts to protest behind her, but Hela ignores him. What has she to fear? She's in her home now, pulling her scrambled powers together. She isn't immune to death but she doubts there is anything this man this-Sorcerer can do do anything to her.

Hela scans the corners looking for the prisoner who she has rescued, but doesn't see anything; he's not rising or moving to get her attention or perhaps he's simply cloaked himself. Hela's muscles tighten at the thought and she braces herself for attack, searching harder. Her gaze quickly jumps over the broken objects her deep blue eyes come to a halt as she sees black hair poking over the edge of a green quilt hidden behind a larger piece of furniture, but still within the radius of the broken glass (mirror?) fragments. Actually, now that she's looking for them, the little pieces of shattered glass are everywhere. Pale skin meets her gaze under the hair and if not for the pathetic, near silent rattling wheeze of his chest and the faint raise of the blanket, Hela would assume that this Aesir is utterly and completely dead.

Slightly uncomfortable, but persistent, Hela turns back to Skurge, gaze hard,"What has been done to him?" Her voice is a low hiss of anger.

"He is not—?" Skurge doesn't finish the thought aloud, instead seeming to have masted bravery walks up beside her in the cell stepping over broken bits of wood and dark stains like some sort of strange dance. His gaze lands on the bundle and his eyebrows shoot up, this is not comforting.

Hela can feel the rolls of power rolling off of him, no longer restricted to bare necessities by the golden cell. She almost takes a step back as it hits her. He is a extremely powerful sorcerer. Perhaps Skurge's tale of him walking between worlds is not so far fetched.

Probably why he's in here in the first place.

Hela flexes her fingers for a moment. If she can just get him on her side he can be a great ally. Take worlds with ease, even, she'd guess. Hela knows she's powerful, but she has her limits and this-this Aesir can conquer them for her. Oh, what she could do with the power flowing in those veins.

"I don't understand," Skurge says, brow furrowed.

Hela ignores him, again, she's getting remarkably good at it. She moves forward towards the bundle, dodging what she can and steps behind the largest pieces of wood that this sorcerer seems to be hiding behind and stares at him. The pale face behind the blanket is horribly gaunt, cheekbones jutting out more than should be natural and his long dark hair is dangling across his neck in what she imagines is an annoying manner.

One hand is draped across his eyes, thin and as pale as his face is. A long green sleeve is sticking over a better part of his forearm but enough has fallen down to reveal his wrist. The rest of him is hidden beneath the diaphanous fabric of his faded green blanket.

Hela presses her lips together but kneels down beside him, resting an arm on her knee and lifts the other out to give his shoulder a shake. Her fingers wrap around his bony shoulder and she rocks him several times, harshly but the body remains limp. His arm falls away from his face revealing deeply shadowed eyes and what look like bruised eyelids.

Hela shakes him firmer and Skurge's breath catches but the Aesir doesn't awaken, remaining in his eerie corpse impersonation.

Hela releases a breath of frustration through her teeth. She looks up at Skurge pulling her hand back, "You are certain he has your claimed ability?" She isn't going to bother with the plan forming slowly in the back of her head if Skurge isn't.

Skurge stops staring at what he can see of the third Aesir and blinks twice before nodding. "Yes, I didn't see him do it but he stopped Prince Thor's coronation with it—that's what the stories say."

Hela's lips curl. Ah, Thor. The perfect little son that Odin was so intent on having. Her perfect little replacement. Round two, a way to not mess up as horribly with her. Where is Thor, anyway? Not that she cares, perhaps she'll kill him first. What better way to make Odin suffer than to kill the one thing he rebuilt Asgard for? Yes, when she sees her little brother she's going to kill him, slowly.

Hela looks down at the sorcerer again. He is so close to starvation that he's likely days away from leaving this world entirely, if she saves him from this he'll owe her his life. He'll have to open the portals and if he doesn't, she'll just torture him into submission. She's always been skilled at it. Hela's lips curve upwards slightly, though the expression feels venomous.

Skurge stares at her, his next words are weary, "What are you planning?"

Hela lifts her head, "Now is the time to choose your loyalties, Skurge." She says, forcefully and grasps the blanket off of the sorcerer ripping it away from his battered body. Every visible part is covered in dirt and grime. The clothing that's on him is hanging pathetically, his feet are bare and bloody. Likely from the glass covering the floor. Hela kneels and grabs under his back and knees dragging him upwards as she stands. His weight is far lighter than she was guessing it would be, which isn't a pleasant sign. She has a lot to heal him from.

Skurge stares at her, "I'll help you." He says after a second, Hela's lip twitches up and Skurge rubs the back of his neck, "Better than cleaning up after horses anyway." They left the horse, Moa, Skurge had said at the stables during their escape into the palace.

"Good," Hela says and grasps the limp body closer. She steps across the broken pieces of glass, wood and other random objects then out of the cell. Skurge follows after her. "We'll need a room to put him in." She says gesturing with her head towards the sorcerer. "And maybe some medical supplies."

Skurge stares at her incredulously, "Are you going to help him? Are you mad? He's dangerous! He was in there for a good reason!"

Hela stares back at him, unblinking, "And now he's my weapon. You take care of weapons, don't you?"

Skurge gapes. His mouth opens and closes several times but he is not, apparently, capable of speaking. Hela is not concerned. She turns and begins to scale the stairs they descended not five minutes ago and hears Skurge track after her, opposition to this idea pouring off him enough that she can sense it, even being ahead.

"Where would be the best place to put him, Executioner?" Hela asks after they near the top and adjust the weight of the limp Aesir. Skurge is quiet.

"I'm not sure. Maybe a guest bedroom for the other royalty? I don't know anything about palaces, I was a stable hand, not a servant." Skurge's voice holds a slightly sarcastic edge to it at the end and Hela presses her lips together.

"That will have to work, I'll take my claim to the throne later." She decides aloud, and reaches the top of the stairway. She blinks at the sudden daylight and glances down at the Aesir who suddenly looks far worse in real light. Hela presses her lips together once more, she can be patient, she can wait, Heimdall won't give her the sword and do all in his power to stop her from getting it. She'll work through his sorcerer instead.

"We need to avoid the guards and servants." Hela notes, "Can you do that?" She looks back at Skurge. He shrugs.

"Probably, I'm good at evading people."

"Lead on, Executioner," She says. Skurge takes a step forward until he's in front of her and starts to guide her forward. The weight in her arms doesn't bother her, it's merely there, but hiding and carrying a person at the same times provides to be a difficult task. Twice, Skruge has to knock two or three guards unconscious from behind so they can get through and once to a servant boy who's scrubbing diligently at a pot for a plant—they aren't aware of Odin's death and have no reason to stop their normal tasks.

They reach the guestroom Skurge has chosen somewhere close to an hour and a half later and Hela gladly deposits the sorcerer on the couch. His limbs dangling in awkward angle, but she is done with him for now so she leaves him in the widely uncomfortable looking position. She sits on the edge of the bed releasing a breath as Skurge closes the door behind her. The Aesir didn't shift or so much as twitch in her arms the whole journey here. Hela stopped to check to make sure he still had a pulse at one point.

If she had been expecting their sudden arrival to the room to rouse a sudden awakening from him, she would have been severely disappointed. She wasn't and he doesn't. Skurge plops down in a free chair close to the desk and releases a sigh. "If we get caught, they are so going to kill us." He moans, mournfully. Hela snorts. Oh, they'll try.

She blinks and stares at the sorcerer again, "No," she assures. "Have faith, Executioner." She says and rises to her feet before conjuring a large double bladed axe into her hands and holds it for a moment balancing the weight before offering it out to Skurge. The stable-hand stares at her for a long moment before reaching out and taking the weapon from her, he lifts the gleaming axe up to stare at. They need medical supplies for the sorcerer and food but she'll get him back to enough health that he can cast the spell, he has a purpose to serve her. Skurge is now within her higher-ups circle. A stable-hand, starved sorcerer and exiled heir attempting to rip apart the Nine Realms...Mmm, what a story this will tell.

Hela's lips curve up. "Good," She says and smiles, a true, proper one, "Then let's begin our conquest."

000o000

Hela isn't a healer.

Or a nurse, frankly skilled in curative magic, or have really any medical experience beyond how to patch up the more severe of battle wounds, and possibly how to handle a minor head cold. There was never a point for her to learn, her stepmother was always gifted in the art and handled anything Hela couldn't wrap and wait to heal. Her wounds have always mended together faster than others, anyway, and she left the bandaging to actual healers.

Skurge, is unfortunately, just as skilled as she is, if not less.

After scouring the room, they managed to round up basic medical supplies and begin to wrap the obvious wounds on the sorcerer. Initially, Hela had expected the wounds on his feet (the only bleeding ones) to heal by themselves or make some sort of progress into mending, but they just kept sluggishly pouring out blood. Hence, the bandages.

Hela tightens the white cloth further and slices the excess with a small knife in her sleeve before pulling her hand back. They didn't pull out any of the glass, but the goal is to stem the bleeding, not perform surgery. Ergo: it will hurt if he tries to walk or stand, intensely.

All the same, he will be less willing to leave this way, which is better for her. Hela pulls her hands back and stares at her and Skurge's handiwork. There's not much more they can do for him right now beyond wait for him to wake up. He hasn't twitched. She can't see any reasons for him to be unconscious, but the sorcerer remains asleep, his thin chest rattling up and down in a rhythm.

Hela presses her lips together and tosses her long hair over one shoulder turning to look back at Skurge who is digging through the small pile of medical supplies that they gathered. He's not looking for anything, just organizing so he has something to do with his hands. Bored, are we?

Hela glances at the Asgardian tossed on the couch for another second before she sits up. Skurge's gaze flickers towards her warily, but returns to his sorting.

He's persistent, has to get a job done once he's started it, she notes.

Why does he need to organize it? They aren't likely to use it again. Irritation spikes through her as he continues gathering it into small neat little piles that are stacked evenly on top of one another. There isn't really a reason on why, it just annoys her. She jerks her hand out and catches his wrist. He freezes at the contact as if she halted blood movement by her touch. His living arm is so strange after the length of nothing.

"Stop." She commands, there's vexation in her voice, but she doesn't care.

Skurge stares at her, confused.

Hela rolls her eyes up towards the ceiling and lets them hang there. By the severed hand of Tyr, must she explain everything?

"Organizing." She states, "It's pointless."

Skurge frowns and wiggles his hand from her grip, she lets him go. "Okay." He says it slowly, like she hasn't spoken the common-tongue before. The irritation spikes up further.

She turns her gaze away to stare at the room. It's nothing less to be expected of Asgard, they love to be known by big, glamorous, and gold. It's a large with a sitting area towards the far left (among the couches is where she tossed the sorcerer), there is multiple bedrooms joined into the center of the room; this is likely a family's guest room. Because she has such large family to share it with.

There are tables next to the windows and she can see a door leading towards a washroom. It's large and has far more color and structure than Helheim ever did. It's less...empty. Helheim was nothing more than a wasteland of a large battle that took place long before her birth—one of her great grandfather's—when the Bifrost was just first created and not as under control, it couldn't be turned off and as a result the world was destroyed by the burn on accident. King Bor saw it as an opportunity and later used it on the war with the Dark Elves to wipe out their entire species before he contained the Aether.

She focuses back on the present as she feels a pair of eyes on her back, they've been there for a long period of time now and it's aggravating. She turns her head towards Skurge and stares at him pointedly as he flicks his gaze away from her. "You're staring." Something draws his gaze towards her and doesn't let it stop. Likely just her existence, he didn't know of her until this morning.

Thanks a million, Father.

Nothing better than returning home and realizing your entire existence has been wiped off everything.

Rabid dog.

Skurge averts his eyes.

"I should claim the throne," Hela remarks, keeping her voice even. It's her right and Odin won't take that from her, nor her little brother. Where is Thor, anyway? She didn't see him on their walk to this room, she needs to remove him before he challenges her for the throne or starts an uprising. "Our people are leaderless." She adds. They probably aren't even aware of Odin's death. She turns to Skurge who is awkwardly tapping his fingers against his leg, uncomfortable.

"Where is Thor?" She asks. Skurge shoots her a look of surprise. She exhales through her teeth in annoyance, "He's my brother, I was told when my mother was pregnant."

"Oh." Skurge says, he shrugs a moment later, "Don't know, no one does." He explains. Oh, that's fantastic, how long has he been missing? After his birth? Odin take one look at his golden child and toss him out, too? "He came back here got everything the Palace Library has on the Infinity Stones and left. No one's seen him since."

The Infinity Stones?

As in the...Oh, well, he's dead then. Splendid, less work for her. The only other heir is dead and there's no one she has to challenge for it.

"My lady," Skurge says and Hela lifts her eyes to his, waiting. Skurge's lips press together, "Perhaps you should wait a few hours."

Why?

Has one-thousand plus not been enough time?

"It is my claim." She states tonelessly.

"Yes," Skurge agrees, his voice is careful, like she's a wild animal that will bite him if he isn't. Good, she is. "But I have horses to care for, and you look like you could use a few hours of sleep."

Hela blinks at him, aghast. "I beg your pardon, Executioner?"

Skurge lifts up his hands in surrender, "I mean no offense, My Lady, but uh, you're a bit..." his hand flicks in front of his face, as if pointing something out on her's by showing it from his, "peaky."

Hela's eyebrow lifts slightly. She just escaped a thousand long prison stay, broke a sorcerer out of Asgard's most secure prison and Skurge wants to her sleep. Now? As he cares for his stable? Has she not given him a better position to fill? Is he unhappy?

"Think about it," Skurge presses, "He," Skurge flicks a finger towards the sorcerer and Hela's gaze follows it, "is your Bifrost right now, you should wait until tomorrow, at least, so you can sleep or until he wakes up so we can begin the...uh…'conquest'."

Hela's jaw locks slightly. It...makes sense. She is more exhausted than she cares to admit, she could feel the spell whining for days so she didn't rest to not miss the moment she could leave. She wanted out as soon as possible. Sleep. Sleep is good.

"I rest and you care for your stables?" She asks in confirmation.

His oh so dearly beloved stables. He hates the animals, so it's likely not out of deep love that he wants to return, but the need to escape from her.

Escape, ha.

She is not a prison, nor will she keep him captive, she has had enough of captivity for several lifetimes. If he must make up excuses so be it. They do not know each other well enough, yet, for anything other.

Skurge gives a nod to Hela's question, though it's slightly hesitant.

Hela hates herself for this stupid, childish need for people and loyalty, but she asks anyway: "But you'll return?"

"Of course," Skurge replies without missing a beat, Hela can't help the surge of relief washes through her. It's disgusting, because she should not need him. Skurge's gaze flicks towards the sorcerer again before he gives a slight grimace that was probably an attempted smirk, "Can't leave you with him, can I?"

Hela's lips thin. She's not a helpless pup that needs his protection. Nor can she say that she wants it. She doesn't.

But she needs someone who is on her side, she needs the company, she needs to know that she's not alone anymore, screaming towards the sky to deaf ears and—

Skurge rises to his feet and stares at her for a second, "I shouldn't be more than few hours."

Escaping, definitely.

"I await your return." She says in answer and Skurge nods before moving towards the door and sliding it open then exiting; had he been moving any faster "careening" would have been a better word choice. Hela exhales into the now quiet room and her voice hangs in the air for a moment. She turns back towards the couch, but the Asgardian hasn't shifted, his chest still heaving; the effort of breathing has never looked so exhausting.

Sleep. She needs sleep, right.

Hela drags herself to her feet, she'll just get a few hours and then deal with all...this.

Two, maybe three hours.

Hela collapses onto the mattress in one of the guest bedrooms and slips into unconsciousness.

000o000

Hela awakes considerably less exhausted that she was before she went to bed. She sits up and blinks tiredly into the semi-darkness. Night.

Night?

That was not a few hours, almost an entire day. Hela drags herself to her feet and grips the edge of the blanket. She is still here. It wasn't a dream. She did escape Helheim.

Free.

She is free.

Hela staggers to her feet and takes several steps forward and looks towards the couch. The messy black mess of hair reassures her that the sorcerer is still here. She glances up and notices something she hadn't before: A mirror hanging over a vanity towards the far end of the room reflecting her appearance back at her. She looks awful and can't help as her feet move towards it of their own accord. It has been so long since she has seen a mirror.

Hela lifts her gaze to the mirror and her lips curl slightly. She looks like a ragged beast went wild and played with her hair for several hours before letting it be. Her layers are a mess and clearly uneven, but she hasn't exactly had access to a mirror over the last thousand years. Her eyes hold a haunted note she doesn't remember being present before and her eyelids are shadowed with a black grayness.

Hela looks down at the contents scattered across the desk. There's a few combs here and there and a brush along with random assortment of beauty products. Hela sinks into the seat in front of the vanity and fingers the brush for a moment, resting a dagger down on the surface of the clean, white desk. The dirty metal against the white looks wrong, but she doesn't move it, staring at the brush.

What else does she have to do? Until Skurge returns she has nothing.

Hela grabs the brush from off of the desk and begins to run it through the wild raggedness of her hair. Hela attempted to make combs with the metal that was present on Heliheim, but had little success. Enough to keep her hair passable but not enough to truly be a comb.

The knots are thick and up to her roots and she's likely going to be here for a while, brushing everything out. Good.

Hela's in the middle of detangling one of the bigger knots nearly half an hour later when she notices something in the corner of the mirror, moving up behind her. She forces her movements to continue to be fluent not halting out of surprise, but watches them in the mirror. She doesn't whip around and throw a dagger at the person immediately, admittedly curious as to how they got into the room without her noticing. From the angle the figure is approaching at, the entry way would have been a window.

Hela eyes the dagger on the desk for a moment before resuming her tugging and glances at the mirror startled more than she cares to admit to see the sorcerer standing behind the chair, gaunt face pale and eyes slightly glassy. He didn't even make any noise from where he was a few seconds ago. Should he be standing on his bloody feet? He looks ready to collapse flat on his face and remain there for several days.

He catches her eye and Hela stills her movements to engage in the staring contest. His black hair hangs in front of his face slightly, but it doesn't stop his eyes. They hold a slight glassy note as if he's not entirely present.

The sorcerer licks his lips very softly and seems to shake himself from his daze. "Did she suffer?" He whispers, his voice is hoarse like someone stuffed sand down his throat, forced him to swallow then handed him another cup. When was the last time he had water? Hela shoves the thought to the side. His wellbeing doesn't matter so long as he's powerful enough to make the spell. First she needs his trust. Who suffered? She? Wife? Is he married? A sister maybe?

Hela very, very slowly sets the comb down on the desk. Loki eyes her movements the whole way tilting his head almost curiously at it. Hela stares at his reflection again and he lifts his emerald eyes to her deep blue.

"She? Who do you speak of?" She purposefully softens her voice and eases the tension around her eyes. He sends her a peculiar look as if he doesn't understand why she wouldn't know, but doesn't say anything on it. It doesn't seem all...here.

"My mother." The sorcerer voices, his words sound no better, if more strained.

"Ah, of course." Hela says and stares at him for another long moment. The sorcerer doesn't blink at it. "What was her name?" She can make up some story or another insisting that his mother didn't and all is well with her. She needs to play this carefully, she wants the sorcerer on her side and she wants him there willingly so when things get difficult he won't ditch her. She needs his power.

He looks close to collapsing forward and hitting the back of her chair with a loud clunk, but manages to stay standing then murmurs softly: "Frigga."

Hela feels the remaining color on her face drain.

Surely...this cannot be Thor. Had Skurge lied to her in effort to keep her from knowing this is her brother (so strange)? But—there is no way that this is her fabled younger brother that Odin dropped all his plans for universe dominance for, just so he could start over, be better, a wiser king. To raise this child in perfection so he wouldn't take the same mistakes, the same missteps as her. Frigga had loved the child and though Hela was gone before his birth, she knows that her stepmother would have never allowed this treatment—who knows, she let Hela stay in her prison for a thousand years.

Hela blinks and despite herself she has little control over her tongue in surprise and the question slips from her lips, "Thor?"

His eyes perk in recognition at the name, then he blinks the glassy eyed look reappearing. "Yes, Thor should know," he mumbles, mostly to himself, "you should ask him. He was here, you know, when the attack happened." The head tilts to the side slightly as he stares at her. What attack? Hela mentally exhales. This isn't, if in the least, Thor unless he regularly refers to himself in third-person. "They didn't let me go to her funeral. I didn't get to ask—I wanted to." He's rambling, his voice is soft as if he hasn't used it in a long time, it's raw. Had her stepmother and Odin have another child? He bares some resemblance to Odin in his younger days, not by much, but enough. Odin's dark brown hair is where her own color comes from and Frigga's insistence that it wasn't fair that no one in the family had her golden color comes to mind suddenly. Hela stuffs it away and stares at him for a long moment.

"You are Queen Frigga's son." She states, tonelessly.

The green eyes fall downcast, "Not anymore." He whispers, he stares at her as if the thought just occurred to him: "Who are you?"

They don't have time for these questions, he is awake, they can begin now.

Hela turns looking back at him. His clothing is hanging off of him like pathetic drapes and his skin is still waxy and pale. His dark hair is tangled in front of his face, falling on to his right side, but his eyes are more aware than they were earlier.

Hela forces a smile onto her face, "I am a friend." The word sounds wrong on her tongue because Hela has no friends, but she needs him to trust her and he will assist a friend, yes? He owes her now, she saved his life from the prison cell. Perhaps another month or so and he would have been lost to starvation. Asgardians are not immune to it.

He blinks hazily and stares for a long moment before shaking his head, "No," he says quietly, to himself almost. He meets her gaze again, his fingers are clenching in distrust at his sides. "Who are you?"

Fine, if he's going to keep pushing at her, she'll just give him what he wants. "I am Hela, firstborn of Odin, stepdaughter to Frigga the former queen and king of Asgard and I am here to claim my birthright."

The sorcerer's eyes widen considerably green orbs locking onto her and scanning her up and down for a moment, apparently coming to the same realization that she did. They are siblings. That man, pathetic as he is, is her brother.

Did Skurge know? Why is she asking, of course he knew, he lives here. This Asgardian is over a thousand, at least, and was their prince. Why didn't he tell her? What was he doing in prison? He must be younger than Thor and Thor is the golden sun so this Asgardian prince must be Odin's perfect youngest child.

She presses her lips together firmly as his eyes narrow and his gaze settles on her face. He isn't excessively taller than her and they're about the same height with her heals, he does not look pleased. She can't lose his trust (small fragment towards her it is), she needs him, loathe as much as she hates it.

"You reek of dark magic." The sorcerer states, his voice is slightly toneless, but there is a dangerous note to it. Yes, she's probably covered in the stuff, it's only what she's been around for a thousand plus years. That won't leave a stain at all. Not like it was by choice.

"I've been around it often, as of late, yes." She says, carefully, she's trying to keep her voice even and placid, it will be so much easier to use him if he wants to be by her side. He doesn't recognize her, he doesn't even seem to know of her, Odin did not tell him of her. Odin and Frigga kept her entire existence from her brothers? She was that ugly of a bump along Odin's reputation?

The sorcerer watches her for another second before his gaze flickers towards the room, flitting over things as if trying to place where he is. His eyes dawn with recognition after a moment before they harden and Hela's lips thin. They should both hope he's not planning on running or things are indeed about to get vastly less relaxed.

"I'm lacking your name." She says, attempting to draw him back to her. His gaze returns, but this time confused. Yes, very confused. She stole him from prison, doesn't even know his name and he has no idea why. "I've been away for a long time, I'm not exactly up to date on history yet." She says, almost defensively.

A long time indeed.

He hesitates and something clouds his gaze, but he apparently decides against his initial dither. "I am Loki."

Loki.

Hmm, it does fit him.

She waits a second for him to add something to his namesake, but it doesn't come. There is no "-son" or "of the this Realm". Strange, when she was in her youth it was customary if you didn't have a family's name to take to at least take on "of this Realm" at the end of the name. To not have it is a sign of rejection from the Realm or to it. Sometimes both.

He was in prison and Skurge is quite fearful of him. Perhaps that is why he belongs to nothing.

What exactly did he do?

Perhaps it actually is to much of Odin's precious air.

She stares at Loki for a long moment taking in his exhausted stance. The weight on his feet is carefully distributed, now that she's looking, as to keep pressure off the worse parts of the injuries that she and Skurge bandaged earlier.

Hela leans against the chair casually, keeping her posture relaxed. She cannot be perceived as a threat, not now. They are so close. "You are known as a World-Walker," she says, then tilts her head slightly, "is this truth?"

This is apparently the wrong question. Loki's hands flick up towards his chest in a slight "x" shape before sliding downwards, drawing weapons, two long daggers in either hand and his stance has changed from it's wary curiosity to threatening. She drags a small dagger from her forgeries in Helheim into her sleeve, just in case, but gives a soft laugh.

"Brother mine," She says, plastering a smile onto her face. It stretches at the wrong angles and she can tell it doesn't look authentic. "I have no desire for a fight."

Only war.

And he is going to help her get there.

Oh, this is wonderful, Odin's precious child is going to help her destroy his legacy.

The smile stretches for more authentically. "Well? You didn't answer my question."

"What do you want?" Loki grits out, his face is closed off now.

Revenge, destruction, her hate to be smeared out across the Realms so people don't forget her again. She'll leave a legacy so large that Odin will be a footnote for her. Her smile fades, "What I want is simple: Odin's legacy ripped apart thread by thread until all that is left is a ravel of strings is an ugly mess that I'll burn."

Loki's eyes cloud with an emotions she can't identify, but his hold on the daggers doesn't lesson. His head lifts up slightly, "Have you discussed this with him? I'm sure he'd be willing to come to an arrangement."

He sounds like Odin, doesn't look like him much, but the way he speaks is definitely similar to their father. "Odin is dead," She states, coldly. This gets a rise in him, and Loki's frame lessons it's defensive posture in surprise and he blinks owlishly at her, like a child whose pup just got kicked. "He is?"

"Yes, passed on this morning." Hela answers and sighs, "I missed it. Shame, I wanted to see it."

"You took me from the prison." Loki states, his tone is icy. "Why?"

"You looked lonely." Hela drawls, sarcastically, "I thought you could use a friend." Loki's shoulders draw tight, and his lips part like he wants to say something, but he holds his tongue. Hela applauds his control silently. "And I need you," loathe she admit this, "you're a tool that can be used for my purpose."

Loki's eyes harden, any glassiness that was there earlier is missing. He is sharp and focused on her now. "I am not a possession, Odinsdottir, you don't own me."

Hela rises to her feet and summons a sword, watching it slip into her fingers. The blade is familiar to her, a welcomed friend in her hand. "Let me rephrase that," she says and flexes her fingers around the hilt, "you can either join me by choice or I'll make you help me."

"Neither, I think," He says and Hela's head whips towards one of the large glass windows as they shatter as something is thrown against the center of the lower portion of it and Loki, several feet from it makes a running leap towards it. The man she had been speaking to wavers on the corner of her eye.

Illusion.

Idiot.

He's a sorcerer, remember?

Hela jerks towards the actual Loki, tearing across the ground and leaps at Loki's form to prevent the escape. Loki may have had the element of surprise on her as well as about ten feet, but he is an exhausted, starved Asgardian with injured feet and she is not. She grabs his torso and his attempted jump is halted.

Loki's form remains in her hold breathing raggedly against her arm, the effort of his attempted escape has exhausted him. She drags him back from the broken glass and presses the tip of her sword against his throat, his head lifts to prevent her blade from slicing him. "Futile." She promises, "You are weak, I saved your miserable life, brother, you owe me."

She pulls him back further a few steps before Loki's arm jerks up and one of the daggers he was holding previously (or his illusion was, was she always talking to one, or did he pull out during their conversation?) and slashes down on the back of her hand against his torso. She snaps her hand back in surprise and pain before he lifts the dagger with another swift movement with his left hand and smacks it against the blade pressed against his throat. Her hand jerks out from the force and he slips through the gap spinning to stab her, but she snatches his forearm wrapping her fingers around his forearm holding the weapon back.

Loki's eyes narrow and he lifts his right hand up, another dagger present and she peels three fingers from her sword and throws a small dagger from her open palm towards the weapon's hilt and it slices across Loki's fingers. He drops the weapon and she snatches his other wrist. His strength is stronger than she'd previously thought, but nothing excessively impressive.

She grits her teeth together watching the wound across the back of her hand knit itself together, it has been long since she's healed this quickly, it's almost hypnotizing. She pulls her eyes down from his arms to his eyes which are narrowed with concentration. His illusion looked far less sick. Loki's skin is waxy and pale and the red soreness around his eyes looks much worse in this lighting. He's straining against her grip, but failing.

If he wasn't an idiot he wouldn't have attempted an escape. He is a basically kitten compared to her.

"To answer your question," she's slightly breathless, "Our mother did suffer, she begged for death before the end, but wasn't granted mercy." He doesn't see through her lie, delivered with such venom and emotion. He's not looking for a lie. Loki's eyes widen at the edges well simultaneously hardening. "And if you're not careful, brother dear," she adds, almost gently, she leans towards him, "that will be you."

She pulls his hands down with almost no effort and pulls him forward behind her towards the couch she tossed him on earlier and throws him towards the piece of furniture. Loki collapses into it with a slight grunt and she catches a glimpse at the bandages on his feet. Most are staining red. Her brother shoves himself into a sitting position and glowers at her. She would find it more frightening if he didn't look like a tired cat attempting to become a snake.

The claws hurt, but they heal.

Hela sits on the coffee table in front of him and rests her hands on top of her knees, "You're pathetic," she hisses, "but I could make you so much more."

Loki's head lifts slightly, thins his lips and slouches against the couch, exhausted, he won't be attempting another escape for some time. Whatever sorcery he did seems to have drained him. "Sleep," she prods, "we'll discuss more when you wake again."

He is unhappy with her, yes, but this will change with time. It would have been easier if he'd just agreed with her, but she had her doubts he would. Either way, agreeing or not, he's going to use his world-walking ability for her and when he does, she might even give him a good place to watch Asgard burn with her.

000o000

Admittedly, she had been expecting him to give up after the first failed attempt. He, unfortunately, does not.

The rest of the day passes by in an almost boring stillness.

Loki refuses the food she offers him, won't talk to her attempts at conversation, and is an all around quiet, moody resistance of the couch. Her and his existence is together, but it doesn't interact, at least Loki forces it to be that way. Hela doesn't sleep that night instantly sharpening weapons at her restlessness, and from what she can tell, Loki doesn't either; at some point during the process of night, he cuts his long hair to a little past his shoulders, but she never saw the process of it.

Skurge doesn't return that morning, and a slight feeling of paranoia settles in her stomach at it. She manages to track down more food in the guest bedroom and is in the process of gathering supplies to create some sort of recipe she found in a book (honestly, she is starving for anything that isn't the scraps and animals she could find on Helheim) when she hears a loud crash followed by a lusty curse.

Her eyebrows lift slightly before she moves towards the sitting room where Loki is rubbing at his forehead, on his stomach via collapse against the coffee table in between the couches. His current position gives her an excellent view of the bottom of his feet, where she can see that the bandages are bloodied and probably need to be replaced. She has no others to do so with.

"And what was the point of this? Brother, your skull lacks the proper strength to crack the table in two." She says, sarcastically.

Loki turns to look back at her, glare fixed on his face.

He doesn't answer.

This childish silence has to end at some point in his lifetime. It isn't befitting of him. Borders heavily on pathetic, actually. Hela finds it inane, but Loki seems to have his heart set on it. She resists a roll of her eyes and leans forward to grab his forearm to pull him upright. Loki flinches out of her grasp, then scrambles away from her as if she might burn him before clambering up the couch. Hela bites down on her tongue in annoyance and clenches her jaw slightly.

Fine.

She spins on her heal and retreats back into the kitchen, pulling out the cooking ingredients and supplies more heavily than what is probably necessary. She doesn't need him to trust her, or to even like her, he just has to work for her. If he's going to be a prat about it the whole time, she'll return the favor. She refuses to make eye contact with him for as long as possible and finishes preparing the meal.

Hela's cooking attempt fails.

Loki gives a smug, knowing simper towards her, as if he had known this was going to happen all along.

She smacks him.

000o000

It's late that night when Skurge returns, smelling strongly of hay and horse, in a familiarity that smacks face first into Hela. She used to visit the stable often, when she was younger, Fenris used to be kept there. She didn't see her wolf when she claimed the horse Skurge proclaimed Moa. She didn't see any evidence at all of her wolf's existence.

Fenris is dead, this much she knows and it makes her ache in a way she didn't realize was quite possible.

What did she do so wrong to deserve this?

This is just a strong reminder to her, of why she doesn't like her father. Of why it is, that she refuses to let him cover up her like some sort of dirt that needs to be scraped off shoes. Oh, how she wants the vengeance.

Skurge is still carrying the axe she gave him earlier, but his expression is slightly thoughtful as he enters the room. He closes the door behind him and it gives a slight click as it locks and he strides into the candle light via Hela. She managed to find a flint and steel earlier, (not being gifted with sorcery, she like most of Asgard's society, is stuck to lighting the candles using actual work, not a mind) to light the candles with.

She's sitting on one of the arm chairs across from her brother (so strange to think of him as such) lounging lazily with her left leg crossed over her right. Her hand is lazily playing with one a lock of her dark hair. It feels strangely healthier after brushing through it, and so much softer. Hela can't running her hands through it in slight awe.

Loki hasn't shifted much from his position earlier: his hand thrown across his eyes again, other resting on his thin chest that rises and falls as if every time it lowers will be the final one. It is nerving and she doesn't feel like she can wander to far away without him kicking the bucket as does so.

Skurge comes to a halt in front of the sitting room part of this guest room, his eyes glued to Loki with shock and slight fear. "Is he awake?" His voice is slightly pinched, and Hela glances towards Loki, frowning. She isn't sure, actually, he's been like that for hours, so he could be awake and just have not moved. She has no idea what Loki did to make Skurge so fearful of him and admittedly, she's a little curious.

"Tell me, Executioner," she says lazily, resting her fingers against her cheek, "did you plan to withhold that he is my brother for the rest of our association?"

Skurge stills, his expression flickering on open panic for a moment, "I—um...it...it didn't seem important at the time." He offers weakly. Wasn't important? Wasn't important!? Of course it was important, it's her bloody sibling for the Norn's sake! She would like to know that. It would appear then, that he was withholding this from her. Why?

Hela smiles wolfishly. "No?"

"He's not…" Skurge trails, glancing at Loki again, as his hand twitches before the sorcerer slowly rises to one elbow. His body language indicates that this is exhausting, but he remains sitting up and stares at Skurge piercingly with his emerald eyes.

Skurge's voice dies slightly, and he stares at Loki for a long moment.

She resists a roll of her eyes in miff. Oh, for Valhalla's sake, Hela waves a hand, "He's not going to take your head off, Executioner," she reassures, "be at ease."

Skurge's gaze wavers on the Asgardian prince, before he turns to stare at her, apparently feeling more comfortable under her stare. Fool. "...technically...prince anymore." He finishes. Hela's eyebrow raises slightly, and she glances at Loki.

"You were disowned?"

Loki offers no answer, but Skurge does: "Yes."

Interesting, so he was tossed in prison and disconnected from the family, she at least, got to keep her title of "Princess of Asgard" and "Odinsdottir", Loki did not.

Loki's expression twists unhappily and hei sits up completely then rests his hands on his lap, swinging his feet towards the ground, "So I am wayward and lost," Loki says, his voice is still croaky, but Hela's eyebrows lift in surprise at the sound of it. Finally broken his quietly proclaimed vow of silence? About time, she feared he might continue it for several more days. "No one cares to find me."

The lock for the room clicks and Hela and Skurge whirl in the direction of it as the illusion sitting on the couch wavers and vanishes in a shimmer of golden light and Loki, across the room, shoves open the door before breaking into a run on his broken feet finto the hall.

How the—!? He never even moved!

"Executioner!" Hela yells, leaping to her feet and breaking into a run as Skurge steps ahead of her. Loki's staggering in a helpless sprint, but still a great distance ahead of them. He's a bloody sorcerer, why does he not just teleport? Oh, well, she isn't going to complain.

Hela swings her hand down and unsheathes a short sword, heightening her pace. Loki doesn't have speed on them, but he does have the ability of knowledge of the palace. His run into freedom lasts a total of about three minutes with wild twists and random turns before Skurge manages to stop him and grabs the younger prince around his chest and pulls him into a choke hold.

Loki's breath's escape him in wheezed, pained hisses, but he still struggles in Skurge's grip. Hela presses the tip of her weapon against his abdomen, and at long last he stills, green eyes whipping up to meet hers definitely, something murderous in his gaze.

"I will never cease to be amazed by your idiocy." She states dryly, then turns, "Come along, Executioner."

They return to the room and distribute him on the sofa once again. He winces as his feet hit the ground, but folds his arms across his thin chest and tilts back against the end of the couch and closes his eyes, refusing to acknowledge either one of them.

Child.

Hela turns to Skurge, barely managing to hide her irritation, "You are sure he can walk between worlds?"

If he cannot...

Skurge turns to her, "Positive."

She almost wishes he couldn't.

Loki attempts escape four other times throughout the night, but doesn't get much farther than before. As the attempts progress, he gets less and less actually. His energy seems drained completely by the time they reach the end of four, for which Hela is grateful. He didn't use any illusions/small hand magic in his last attempt (as he has for the last three), but he is still impossible to keep track of despite it.

Hela shoves down a great the deal of irritation threatening to take Loki's head and be done with it as she drags the sorcerer back by his upper arm and tosses him onto the piece of furniture that Loki has sort of claimed as his own.

She stands in front of him for a long moment, folding her arms across her chest and squinting to make sure he hasn't doubled himself, again. During attempt two, this happened, so both she and Skurge have been weary because of it.

She is honestly starting to doubt that this will be any better than finding Hofund.

If she could find the Bifrost sword, she can just kill Heimdall and be done with it. This? This she has to be a professional babysitter. It is aggravating.

Loki collapses against the couch and doesn't move for the rest of the night, his breaths getting further apart as it progresses. Hela frowns in confusion and slight weariness, twice takes his pulse to make sure he's still alive, but beyond his heart beat being sickly, there is little else.

Hela waits for him to awaken for the rest of the night, and attempt escape five, but Loki just sleeps. And sleeps.

For. Four. Days. Straight.

Whatever illness that seemed to have grasped hold of him in his cell appears to have reappeared and refuses to let him go. Hela remains by his side, confused, and wary of his death suddenly striking them, but he stubbornly clings to life, even as it appears his body doesn't want to. Skurge is as clueless to this as she is. Hela wants to rattle Loki into consciousness, but when she attempts to shake him into waking, it doesn't work.

On the morning of day five, againation threatens to swallow her and Hela claims the throne of Asgard. Any that stand in her way (half of the fleet of Einherjar before gruff fellow by the name of General Tyr surrenders, a honestly pathetic amount, they must have been through a brutal battle recently) meet their end.

Skurge remains with Loki as she destroys the paintings above the throne and rises the Berserkers (her dead army) from the dead. Fenris was among them, still strung up from her brutal death. It made her angry.

"Fenris my Darling, what have they done to you?"

When she returns to their room, Loki is still unconscious and unresponsive. Her patience with him is completely and utterly dried through. She can't wait any longer. Her army is awaiting her command and she is thrumming with adrenaline to get started.

She needs Hofund, she cannot wait for Loki to finally stop being an idiot and asleep any longer.

Instead, she pulls General Ullr—the commander of the Berserkers—to the side and orders him to gather the Asgardian's into the palace's training grounds. They're going to get that sword one way or another, even if she has to slay every last Asgardian to do so.

When she returns to the room, she seats herself on the arm chair across from Loki's form as she awaits General Ullr to finish his task. She picks idly at her fingernails, misgrown and long to an aggravating amount. Had she still been working with the harp that Frigga forced her to learn as "a way to channel your energy out in a healthy way. Asgardian's learn instruments, Hela" her fingernails would have gotten caught on every string. It's still habit of her's to keep them cropped and short.

It is nearly an hour later before the door is opened and General Ullr opens the door, giving her a slight nod. The Eternal Flame does many things like reanimating dead bodies, but it does not gift them with much intelligent thought or speech. It is like she is working with the ghosts of her army and admittedly she herself feels barely above a floating remnant of what she used to be.

She nods response waving her hand and General Ullr disappears behind the closed door.

Skurge looks up at her, "What was that?"

"General Ullr has gathered the Asgardian's, we're getting the army one way or another. Hofund is needed, I want that sword and I'm going to get it no matter the cost." She promises. Skurge frowns, but says nothing further.

She rises to her feet and stills, her breath catching in her throat as Skurge (who is working on sharpening his axe) stops movement. A exiguous rattling noise has escaped Loki's throat and both turn to look at the Asgardian before his eyes flit back and forth under his eyelids.

Dreaming.

He's dreaming.

He's still here; he hasn't slipped into a coma.

Loki's breath quickens before he jerks upright suddenly and Hela tenses, but his eyes just rip open and a rattling moan escapes through his throat in distress. Nightmare. His gaze sweeps up towards them and widen slim amount; as if he can't believe they are here. Hela feels the same way every time she wakes from sleeping.

She's convinced this is a dream.

She'll wake up, still imprisoned and locked in Helheim with no way off.

Trapped. Alone. Screaming herself hoarse, but no one to hear her whimpers.

Loki blinks hazily up at her, squinting slightly as if the light from the rising sun hurts his eyes. He swallows audibly wincing at his dry throat. "What day is it?" He questions, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.

Ah, so he's not going to continue his childness silence after all. "You fell asleep four days ago, today is the morning of the fifth. What ails you?" She inquires, mostly from curiosity. She needs to know what's wrong, she can't have him passing out on her randomly. It would be terribly inconvenient.

Loki smiles thinly, though the expression is anything from joyful. "I am insane. There is little that can be done for me."

Hela frowns. She...doesn't agree with that assessment. She's seen insanity at its finest, at the most, Loki appears to be exhausted and grouchy, little else. Loki flops back down on the couch and a slight thrum of something Hela can't place attacks her. She leans forward and grabs his forearm, dragging him up again.

"No."

Loki stares up at her, aggravated.

"You're not going back to sleep again." She says firmly. She isn't going to wait any longer than she has to, and she's finally managed to get him awake without running off immediately.

Loki attempts to pull his arm from her, but she releases him. "I have little else to do." He says.

Hela expression flickers with vexation. "You cannot truly be tired after sleeping for four days straight."

"It's one of my few areas of expertise."

Hela smacks his arm in exasperation, and he jerks back from him her curling in around his stomach slightly. It's an instinctive reaction and Hela pauses slightly, staring at him with slight confusion, but shoves it to the side. It is not important. "I have things to attend to, Sorcerer, I will not have you escape."

Loki doesn't uncoil, but looks up at her his expression twinged on irate, "What could you possibly have to do?"

"Our father has passed on, in case you have forgotten, Brother. Asgard is without a ruler, I intend to claim that." She smiles and he blinks at her owlishly and, as if he finally caught onto what she's saying, he snorts. Annoyance prickles through her. Does he believe she can do anything? So far he has only presented a strong amount of disbelief in her abilities.

"Where is Thor?" Loki asks, his voice is slightly hesitant. his eyes skitter across the room again as if Thor might leap out shouting "surprise!" at any second. 'Where is Thor?' excellent question, Hela frankly has no idea. Neither does anyone else in Asgard, apparently. It's the first time Loki has asked about their sibling, but the thrum of slight desperation in his tone suggests it isn't the first time he (Thor) has crossed the sorcerer's mind.

Hela waves a hand, "Taken care of." 'Missing in action' would be better wording, but who cares for the difference? Loki's eyes widen and he lifts his hand slightly, his finger pointing up at her a minimal amount in anger.

"You killed him?" Loki's voice is a calm, even tone that masks a deeper emotion. Whether it's happiness or anger, she can't tell. Killed him? How is she supposed to have killed him? She doesn't even know where he is.

"Of course not," Hela responds, "not yet anyway, he's been missing for years."

"Doing what!?" There's a slight hysteric note to Loki's voice.

"It matters not." Hela answers.

Loki's expression doesn't agree with her assessment. At all. His fingers clench together tightly, his nails digging into his palms. She frowns and forces a breath through her nose then looks up. "Executioner, where is the spare clothing in this room?"

Skurge frowns and his eyes flick back and forth for a moment as he thinks. "There's a closet in one of the spare bedrooms from what I saw."

Loki's gaze flicks between them. "Go grab him one of the shirts and a pair of their boots, we're going to the city." Hela orders. She would much like to just let him remain here, leaving Loki alone for a few seconds is nearly a guarantee the they'll lose him. She wishes she had thought of this a few days earlier, dragging Loki around is going to make this a tad more difficult.

Skurge nods and vanishes into the rooms.

Loki tugs his foot up onto his knee and unwraps the bandages across his foot, his eyebrows meeting with displeasure at the sight. Hela glances at it and her lips curl. There is still remnants of the glass in his feet, a sharp sting that must be incredibly painful no matter where he positions himself. His feet are scabbed over, but there are deep gashes and smaller cuts across them. Little fragments of shiny glass poke into the pale skin like diamonds.

It looks unpleasant.

Hela grimaces.

Loki sighs through his teeth before lifting his right hand towards the barefoot and flexing his fingers. Green-red thin ribbons spill from his fingers towards the skin before his entire foot glows with the same color and Loki tugs back with force a slight pained noise escaping him.

Every piece of glass rips through and out of his skin in a hovering pile towards his fingers before Loki vanishes it. His foot is beginning to weep blood and Hela scrambles to remember where it was that Skurge put the bandages. She turns her head as Loki lifts his other foot up to repeat the process and spots them on top of a short bookshelf. She scrambles to reach them before pulling them up and turning to look at the dark-haired Asgardian.

Loki has extracted the glass from his other foot as well and his expression is filled with pain. She tosses the bandages at his chest and he jerks in surprise looking up at her. She carefully masks her expression.

"Wrap those." She commands.

Watching it bleed makes something pump in her chest that she doesn't understand or like.

Loki follows her command and is finished before Skurge returns with a long sleeve red shirt in one hand and the boots in the other. Hela takes it from him, "Wait outside, we'll be out in a moment." She says and he nods before vanishing outside of the room.

She dumps the clothing items beside him. "I'm not taking any chances of you vanishing again, so," she tosses the shirt at him. She is not any more comfortable with this than he appears to be. They haven't known it for the last thousand years, but they are siblings so it's less awkward than it could have been.

Loki bites his inner lip for a long moment before exhaling loudly with discomfort and rises to his feet and grabs the edges of his fraying green shirt and pulls it over his head and tosses it to the couch. Little white lines spread across his chest that she can see, but he turns to grab the red shirt twisting to reveal his back (likely not on purpose) and she stills.

What…?

There's ugly lines spread across his bony back like a spider went to work in creating a web with knives and blood. Hela has seen it enough to recognize some of the worst parts as whip wounds, but a majority resembles skin that has been burned terribly beyond complete repair. There are parts that appear to have been sewn back together, but the stitches weren't removed until much later than they should have been. On his right shoulder blade is a brand-mark, that's ugly and squiggly, but Hela feels her breath catch at it.

Asgard is not completely oblivious to what happens outside of the Nine Realms, the Chitauri Hela and Odin chased from the Realms to prevent them from pillaging their worlds apart. They saw enough of the ugly effects that they left on everything. The last she had heard, they were running throughout the Universe aimlessly.

This is, however, outdated by close to fifteen centuries.

Loki bares their slave brand.

And this infuriates her. She has no reason why, she and Loki are not friends or even acquaintances. She has no reason to be upset by this. And she is. Because that is recent. Within the last decade, at least, and Loki was in prison. Surely they did not toss him in prison for that.

Her voice is caught in her throat slightly, but she forces her tongue to stop freezing at the top of her mouth, "What...what is this?" She demands. She wasn't expecting this. Not at all.

Loki tugs the shirt over his raggedly thin frame and turns to look at her his expression guarded. "It…" He too, appears to have lost control of his tongue. "Happened. Recently." The awkward silence that stretches between them is unpleasant and Hela frowns, but stares at him in a new light.

"Why?" She demands, it takes a great deal of effort to scar an Asgardian.

"Does it matter?" Loki hisses he grabs at the boots, but his expression is clouded with irritation to cover something strangely close to open panic, "It happened. That's all I care to say on it."

Hela bites back a venom laced reply in return and whirls on her heal. Right. It does not matter, she reminds herself, despite the other part of her that is yelling that it does and the only person allowed to harm her brother is herself. Loki is just a tool.

Loki is just a tool.

Loki is just a tool, nothing more.

000o00

The Berserkers have gathered the Asgardians in the training arena of the palace grounds, as she requested. Their eyes are frightened, woman clinging to their husbands, and children pressed up against their mothers. As she and Loki step into view, she can see a large majority of the citizens gape openly, then turn to each other.

"Is that Prince Loki?" They whisper.

"It is!" Other's proclaim.

"What is he doing associating with that woman!?"

"Has he betrayed us once more?"

Hela tilts her head slightly towards them, and lifts her hands slightly. "My beloved citizens," She smiles cheerifully, opening her arms in a friendly manner. The Asgardians stare at her with wide eyes, but she can find no familiar faces among them.

Everything and everyone she knows from Asgard is gone.

"I have need of your services. Heimdall, our loyal gatekeeper, has committed treason and stolen the Bifrost sword. I know he hides among you." The Asgardian's look at each other, a tightness appearing between them. Yes, they know where he is, then.
Good.

She needs this information.

"I want that sword." She says firmly. "Where is it?"

The Asgardian's stare at her, but hold their tongues.

Quiet, quiet, quiet.

"Oh, come now," she frowns, "I am your queen; you would dare deny me this?"

The Asgardians squirm uncomfortably under her stare, but remain firm in their silence. Pique flutters through her and she takes several steps forward and stands in front of a young blonde woman, her pale brown eyes staring at her with slight fear. Hela rests a hand on her hip, "And what about you, Darling? Do you want to withhold this information as well?" She softens her voice on aspire, but the blonde woman squeezes her eyes shut.

"I have nothing to say to you." Her voice is small, but firm.

Hela simpers, "Ah. I see."

She grabs the young woman's arm and turns, throwing her several feet in front of Hela and Skurge. The young woman tumbles to her knees, her long hair flying across her shoulders and several people (likely the girl's family) inhale precipitously.

"Well, no matter," Hela murmurs, her voice is careless. She turns to Skurge, "Executioner, her head, if you please." Skurge gawks at her, eyes large and flabbergasted.

Oh, what does she think he gave him the title for? So he can help her keep Loki staying in one area? Hela takes several steps forward, and tilts her head. Skurge makes no shift of advancement.

Oh, for the love of—

Hela shoves him negligibly towards the girl who is openingly beginning to sob, her head bowed. Hela cares not for it. Skurge stands next to the young woman, and his grip adjusts on the handle of the axe several times, his lips thinning with displeasure. He hesitates for a moment, and the crowd inhales sharply, but all dissent to it. Hela waves her hand for him to just get on with it and Skurge closes his eyes looking like he would much rather be anywhere else, but he nonetheless lifts the axe up for the swing.

And begins to lower it.

The weapon, however, never reaches it mark.

Two thin, pale bony hands wrap around the hilt of the axe, and the weapon is halted in its course with abrupt and sudden force.

Loki is standing in front of the young woman, his hair still swaying slightly from the swift movement that Hela didn't catch. How he manages to move so quickly without making any noise or be seen again and again is beyond her. He still looks like he's one breath from leaning over and vomiting, dead on his feet, but he doesn't relent his hold on the weapon.

His green eyes are narrowed and angry.

Irritation flutters through her, and Hela presses her lips together tightly before moving forward and grabbing Loki's shoulder; the sobbing woman flinching as Hela's presence grows closer to her. This is chagrin. Loki was just supposed to stand there and do nothing. He wasn't supposed to even speak, now he is preventing her from getting the sword.

He flinches at her touch, violently, but she doesn't care, "What are you doing?" She growls.

Loki's head turns to her and he shoves Skurge back several steps, releasing the hilt of the weapon so Skurge is a greater distance from the blonde woman. "What do you think you are?" He murmurs, his voice has a sharp bite to it. "She has done nothing." Loki says, his voice rising as he points back at the woman.

"I am above such sediments." Hela growls.

Loki's lips curl in disgust, "Obviously." He agrees before leaning down slightly and gently tugging the sobbing girl to her feet. The young woman scrambles towards her parents who are crying openly and they embrace the weeping girl. Frustration poors through Hela and she jabs at Loki's shoulder several times.

"You yourself are not innocent of crimes."

Loki's eyes flash, "I didn't go around removing heads!"

She bristles, "I need the sword." Without the sword, she can't get the Berserkers through, she can't take her revenge, she can't do what she's been dreaming of for close to fifteen centuries, without it she is...purposeless. She has nothing to remain here for. The thought terrifies her more than facing the wrath of Asgard for not being the most astute person.

"For what?" Loki hisses, "The Nine Realms are at peace, Sister, we don't want another war."

Neither does she, but she needs it.

"That's a strange sentence, coming from you." She draws. Loki's expression darkens.

"You understand very little." Loki growls.

A sword slides into her right hand and Hela grips it firmly, staring at the sorcerer in anger. How dare he? She understands more than he'll ever know. Does he understand what it means to be cast out? Forgotten? To have your entire existence written out of history? Odin never even told them about her. His first born. He has no idea what it's like to be locked up for centuries, scouring for survival and the only thing keeping her from giving up being the fact that she was going to rip Odin apart.

She understands more than he'll never know. It is he that is an ignorant fool.

Hela draws her other sword and leaps at him.

Loki dives out of the way, letting Hela dive past him landing in a roll and she pulls herself to her feet easily, and swings towards him. Loki jumps out of the way and pulls his hands up toward his chest dragging them down in a fluid movement, long daggers appearing in either hand.

Her weapons smash against his with force and Loki holds the weight of her press for a few seconds before bringing his leg up and kicking her in the stomach. Hela draws back, and Loki slams his weapon against her sword throwing the weapon from her grip. She lifts her arm up to block a slice against her face with her forearm guard and swings with her feet, throwing Loki onto his back.

He lands with a grunt and she dives towards him, but he rolls out of the way, almost appearing to shimmer for a second, but she ignores it as she swings her hand up flinging a long dagger at his undefended chest.

The weapon sails to and through him.

Illusion.

That little—

She leaps to her feet and lets out a loud gasp as Loki's dagger sails between her ribs from behind, pain exploding through the area before he pulls his weapon back and Hela slams a hand against the bleeding wound, but she can feel her healing already beginning to mend it.

He is exhausted, malnourished and still managed to stab her. This is humiliating. This is why she is not fond of fighting sorcerers, they bloody cheat. She needs to grasp the upper hand. Hela slides towards the crowd and grabs the ponytail of a long dark haired Aesir woman, pressing her sword against the young woman's throat and Loki stills abruptly, but his grip on the two daggers clenches.

The men that were near the woman let out several, "Sif!"'s.

Sif. This woman's name is Sif.

And Loki stilled so quickly, because he knows her personally. This much is quite clear by his body language and the sudden deep wariness etched across his features. Oh, this delights her. "Brother," she addresses, a sickly smile stretching up her lips, "I am going to get my army across these Realms one way or another. I know you can open portals between worlds and unless you agree to help with my army, this woman and anyone else within a four meter radius is going to meet their end."

Loki is rooted to the spot, motionless.

"Oh!" Someone moans loudly behind her in distress.

"You're either and idiot or a fool, maybe both," Sif grits, her voice is low, but still drawls with the Serenity (the capital of Asgard)'s accent; she is from the upper class of Asgard, Hela would guess. A bitter sort of laugh escapes the dark haired woman before she adds: "Loki cares not for Asgard, nor me. He will not help you at threat of our lives."

Truly? Did she not just see Loki stop Skurge from beheading an Asgardian citizen?

One of the three men that was standing beside Sif, a blond, falls to his knees, "Please, Queen Hela, I beg you to have mercy; spare her life." He pleads.

"Please." Another of the three states. All three fall to a pleading position, but beyond degrading their status among the Asgardian society, it isn't going to do much. She has no intention of stopping.

Hela presses the weapon further against Sif's throat and the woman makes a choking noise, Hela ignores it. She is staring at Loki's face, which is growing tighter.

Hela pushes further and a thin line of red slides from Sif's skin. Sif lets out a cry of pain and Loki's expression finally snaps, his daggers vanishing, "Alright, stop!" His fists clench, "I'll open your vapid portal."

Hela smiles victoriously, and releases Sif.

000o000

Hela drags Loki into the throne room (where most of the Berserkers are gathered at the moment) Skurge at her side, and releases the sorcerer shoving him forward a step. Her fingers are thrumming in anticipation for this, breath clipped. She is beyond ready to begin. She has been for days, months and years.

And it is finally happening.

Watch as I tear your world apart, Father.

Loki's disagreement with this is written in every part of his body, but he clenches his jaw and lifts his hands anyway. For a second, Hela fears that he's not going to comply, but his green eyes look back at her sharply, "Where is it that you so acutely need to venue?"

Hela pauses. She hasn't really thought about it before; she's just admittedly a little star struck she got to this point. "Nidavellir."

Loki looks away from her, and the veins of his fingers lighten slightly as the sorcery begins to work. It's why most sorcerer's where gloves; the more powerful the spell or the sorcerer, the more their veins or hands will alight. It's one of the downfalls for stealth, but shoving a pair of gloves on usually keeps everything hidden.

There's a sort of cackling sound that is uncomfortable to listen to, and Loki's fingers stretch then he slowly pulls his hands apart from each other, a white light beginning to softly glow between his palms. The crepitate grows in volume before being swallowed abruptly by silence and Loki jerks his hands apart. A deep black, thick substance pours between the white light shooting ten feet up from the ground and about nine feet wide. The black substance thins and reveals Nidavellir as if looking through a dirty window.

Hela's eyes widen.

By the severed hand of Tyr, he indisputably did it.

Skurge wasn't lying.

Loki can open rifts between Realms.

In her youth, the idea was thought of as fiction, the strain it would put on the body would rip any good sorcerer apart. Hela's mother attempted it when she was very young and nearly got herself killed. Odin hadn't been happy and there had been a screaming match between her parents that Hela can't really remember the details to well on now. They made up, but it Frigga was sick for months afterwards.

Loki's breaths are escaping him as gasps and his face is lined with perspiration before the portal slams in on itself in the center with a loud gurgling sound and Loki's frame limply falls forward. Confusion pours through her, but her limbs react before her brain can, and she lurches to grab Loki before he smacks into the ground.

She manages to catch him and lands on her knees a slight shockwave tossing itself through her, but she lets out a loud hiss of pain as a sudden, sharp, agonizing ache of pain shoots up through her arms. She releases Loki in shock and he rolls onto his back, face up towards the ceiling, eyes closed and breath still escaping him raggedly. What is wrong? What is—?

Is he dead?

No, he's breathing, you dolt.

Then what is—?

What on the—?

What?

Loki's skin is turning blue. It's spreading up across his face and revealing markings that Hela vaguely recognizes, but surprise spreads through her as she finally clicks this in her head. Loki is not her sibling by blood. That much is obvious now.

He's Jotunn.

Why on Asgard did Odin claim a Frost Giant for a son?

Jotunheim and Asgard were always picking fights with each other when she was in her youth, the king of Jotunheim's brother spread a plague through Asgard that wiped out half their population. When she was still here, there was no cure. Jotunheim isn't thought of fondly on Asgard. So why did her father claim a Jotunn?

Skurge exhales loudly behind her, "He's not Aesir?" He demands, taking several more steps forward peering over Hela's shoulder almost as if gawking at a animal behind glass.

So this wasn't made public?

Enthralling.

Hela stares at the sorcerer for another long moment and the blue etched across his skin, but he's still breathing rapidly, "Apparently not." She agrees and lifts her hand to touch him, but stops. She doesn't want to get frostbite at the moment. Getting burned from how cold their skin is aches in a way she can't describe.

Fortunately, there is no need; Loki's red eyes peel apart a moment later and he coughs several times before rolling up to his knees and tugging his hair out of his face over one shoulder before promptly vomiting.

Hela's nose wrinkles in disgust as Loki releases whatever is left in his stomach, which isn't much, and dry heaves several more times. He releases a loud moan and presses his palms against his closed eyes rocking back and forth slightly.

Hela watches him for another long three seconds, "Are you going to vomit again?" She demands.

Loki's head whips up towards her, surprise evident on his features almost as if he forgot she was there. He blinks in confusion and then looks down at his hands, promptly recoiling in disgust; his eyes widening, a horrified noise escaping him.

"No, no, no, no, no!" He chants and his eyes squeeze shut again as his fingers glow rapidly for a moment as pale skin starts to spread over his fingers and up his forearms. It halts, disappearing just as quickly as it started to appear and Loki pulls open his eyes again and attempts to vomit, but there's nothing in his stomach for him to expel. It's just painful dry heaves as he clutches at his ribcage.

Hela watches him with something of detached sympathy, but sudden understanding.

Loki has nothing for his magic to fuel through—no substance—and he's too exhausted to draw it energy from the air around them. If he attempts to do sorcery, the most he's going to do is continue to make himself sick. Hela is not a sorceress, but she does know the basic mechanics behind sorcery. She did attempt to learn, but the most she did was succeed in lighting multiple things on fire on accident.

Loki attempts to spread the pale skin once more over the blue and leans over, clutching at his stomach a rattled moan of pain escaping him.

He can't keep doing this, he's going to poison his blood on accident and as much as she would like to deal with that, she doesn't.

Loki lifts his head towards her, red eyes locking with her own. It's hard to tell emotion through them, but she thinks she glimpses something close to raw panic. "Make it stop." He whispers, "Please make it stop."

Something close to a whimper escapes him as he stares at his fingers.

She doesn't understand. Shouldn't he have known about this since his birth?

"Loki—" She starts, but stops. She doesn't know how to help him. She doesn't even know if she wants to. She does. She really does.

Loki looks down at his hands and the rattled sound of distress pulls through his throat again. He drags his nails along his palms as if he can claw the skin away. Hela hesitantly reaches forward and rests a hand on his shoulder for comfort; because of the clothing covering it, it doesn't sting, but it is cold. "What can I do?" She asks.

Loki presses his palms into his eyes again, "I don't know! I—I—can't—I can't…"

Air is not going into his lungs right, he can't breathe. She gives his hand a squeeze, trying to ground him here. "Breathe." She instructs as Loki's breath hitches again. "You need it to live, you fool."

A wild sort of laugh escapes him before he inhales deeply and exhales. He repeats it several times before his eyes open again, somewhat calmer and looks at her strangely. Hela then realizes that her hand is still on his shoulder and removes it swiftly.

The strange look doesn't depart, though.

Hela clenches her fist and watches as Loki lifts his hands, now shaking, to his face for inspection once more. "You are adopted." She states tonelessly. It's fairly obvious and a little hard to miss now. If Loki were to proclaim he was not, she's going to be startled to learn this is a curse, not his true heritage.

Jotunn, it's mind boggling.

Loki's lips press together firmly and he squeezes his eyes shut, falling onto his back with a slight ca-clunk has his head taps against the ground. Hela watches him as he presses his palms against his eyelids again, a heavy breath escaping him.

"You did not see the war over Midgard between Asgard and Jotunheim come to its end, yes?" He asks, his tone suggests this is meant to be rhetorical, but Hela answers anyway: "I did not." She admits. The war had been going on for three months when Hela and the Berserkers chased the Jotun's from Midgard with brutal force and Odin banished her shortly afterwards for a reason she doesn't understand, nor ever will. She just did what he asked, nothing more. Why did he give up on her? What did she do so wrong?

Loki hums slightly and releases another heavy breath, "Our father found me at the war's end, I had been left in their temple to die. I am Laufey's firstborn."

Hela's eyes widen considerably. Laufey. King Laufey? He is Laufey's son? Truly? But Laufey isn't so...small. Frost Giants are taller, wider, and never under eight feet. That explains why his markings are so familiar, though, she met Laufey several times before Helheim.

Hela remains quiet, keeping the thoughts she doubts will be awfully helpful to herself.

"I was taken by our father as a way to unite peace between our worlds; little more than another stolen relic." His tone is bitter and Hela frowns.

"When did you learn this?" She's jumping out on a line, but she's pretty sure it hasn't been more than a decade, at least, if he had known since birth, he wouldn't be so...unwelcoming about his true skin. Hela honestly doesn't find it as repulsive as he does, she knew a few Jotunn before the war, they were a little strange, but not bad people.

Loki's lips curve down, "I know not." He shrugs, "It has been some time since I knew what year it was, perhaps six now."

Wait.

Odin did not tell him of this until then?

Why the flipping heck did he believe that was going to be a good idea? He honestly believed it was wise to withhold such vital information such as this from his son for that long? Hela clenches her fists slightly, digging her nails into her palms. Loki should have known from his birth. It would have been the wiser decision, wouldn't have offset him so much and he wouldn't be ashamed of his heritage if he knew.

Hela's lips part slightly. "I cannot believe his idiocy." She states and Loki's hand pulls away from his eyes to stare at her as if he just suggested they start pet sitting. The bewilderment in his gaze almost makes her want to flinch back, but she doesn't, remaining firm and keeping her ground.

"You…" He pauses, as if trying words along his tongue, "agree with me?"

Hela huffs with amusement, "Why would I not? You were slighted, Brother." She states.

Loki frowns.

This topic is growing dangerously close to an emotional line she doesn't want to cross over. It's time to switch: "What do you need to do to retain your sorcery?"

Loki sighs, "Food. I am merely making myself sick at the moment, if you want me to actually hold the rift open for longer than fifteen seconds, you may have to wait a few weeks."

Hela frowns and pouts quietly inside, but doesn't argue.

At least she knows that Loki will open the rift, Hofund could be missing for many more years.

She won't wait that long. A few weeks is nothing.

When they return to the guest room they have claimed as their own, Hela all but forces food down Loki's throat and remarks in an idle half heartedness to Skurge that it would just be faster if they removed more heads. The fork Loki had been using landed a little to the left of her face as he had threatened lowly: "attempt to lay further hand on Asgard's citizens and the only head that will be removed is your own". Hela found this amusing, until she realized he's quite serious.

She can wait.

She's knows patience all to well.

She was forced to.

000o000

The following week and three days passes as if it is going backwards. Her patience is thinning and fraying at the edges, but she is managing to grasp the fragile strands and keep them together as she and Skurge work diligently to get Loki to eat food. They don't watch and guard him as heavily, but there appears to be no need, Loki doesn't attempt another escape with his illusions and Hela assigns Skurge to not in this exact wording, of course, but, "babysitting duty" as she works with dealing with Asgard's court.

They are not happy with her sudden appearance, and in all honesty Hela never expected to do much else but pop in, rouse the Berserkers and take them with her on a conquest to wipe Odin from existence. She didn't exactly think she'd be spending time actually ruling.

Yet here she is.

Loki has put a large waiting period into her plans, but his grasp over sorcery has been returning rapidly and he looks less like a walking skeleton now, but still thin enough to blow away at a strong wind. She watches him practice sometimes as he plays with the magic as if it is a child's toy rather than a deadly weapon.

A little life returns to his dead eyes.

Hela tries to shove the pride she feels at it to the side because Loki doesn't matter to her. He is only a means of getting from one place to another and when this is complete, she's going to kill him. She can't get...attached. She's not attached. She barely thinks him above a tool. That is it.

Hela has never really been a great diplomat; she was trained by Frigga and Odin, yes, but she never really found the lessons to be interesting. She mostly filed it away in her mind to never use again, and now she finds herself straining to recall how to deal with problems. It would be easier to just leave, but Asgard doesn't have a ruler and she can't leave them leaderless.

This is not her Asgard; the Asgard she remembers, but it is still Asgard.

It is still her birthright, and though Odin took it from her, she finds great amusement knowing that by claiming the throne she is smearing his promise that "you will never be queen," in the dirt and stepping on it. He swore that to her when he banished her, and now she sits upon the throne the title proudly attached to her name.

The court is terrified of her, for good reason, and most of them are honestly clods, but she works as best she can before returning to her, Loki and Skruge's room and smacking her head against the table at their idiocy as Loki and Skurge idly listen to her kvetch to the side:

"Why can they not think? The answer is obvious."

"Politics, bleh, give me horses any day. Those guys are stuck-up beyond what should be allowed."

"Mmm."

"I just cannot even fathom—"

"It was Sir Borison, wasn't it?"

If it's not him then it's usually some person whose-first-name-she-forgot-on-purpose-to-frustrate-him-Kidason. Asgard has seen little change over the last hundred years. Very, very little. It is different than from when she was banished, of course, but still so similar.

As she deals with the bumbling lamers, Loki (with Skurge following) often disappears into the library for hours or (according to Skurge) a few days ago sat on the edge of a balcony and stared at the city for hours doing nothing but breathe. As his sorcery returns, his demnor seems to quiet slightly instead of rippling with anger and hate all the time. After he regained enough energy, he switched to his Aesir skin and Hela hasn't seen his Jotunn one since a little over a week ago. She has her doubts she ever will see it once more.

Loki is ashamed of it. That realization only made her want to finish her mission more.

She hopes Odin rots.

At the end of day ten since the attempted portal, Hela slips outside after word from a servant that this is where Prince Loki was last seen and comes to a halt next to Skurge. He is sitting on a bench next to the doors, the axe pushed against the ground as he rests his hands on the hilt. His gaze is slightly amused.

He glances at her for a moment, dipping his head, "Good evening, Majesty."

"The same to you, Executioner," she says before Hela takes a seat beside him and lifts her gaze up to see what he's staring at.

Loki is in the courtyard of the palace, golden butterflies that look similar to sand being manipulated by his hand to entertain two small children. Twin sisters, if Hela were to guess that are chasing them across the sky with delighted laughter. Loki's expression is lifted into something almost peaceful, a smile on his lips.

It never really occurred to her that he'd be good with children.

Hela's gaze moves across the space, looking for the girl's parents, but finds nothing. Confusion flickers through her, where are they? They wouldn't just leave the two wandering around, would they? They can't be more than five by Midgardian standards.

Hela turns to Skurge, "Where are their parents?"

Skurge shrugs, "We don't know. Loki found them crying at the gate and has been entertaining them the better part of an hour now while we wait. I don't think they're going to show, they probably have no idea where the two ran off to."

Hela frowns.

Loki appears to finally notice her and waves slightly, leaning down to whisper something Hela doesn't catch to the girls who giggle, slapping their hands over their mouths as if to not divulge his secret into the air with their laughter. Loki smiles cheerfully before lifting his hands out and the two girls grab onto either with their small fingers as Loki moves towards them.

The sandy butterflies vanish in a wave of a wind and Loki reaches them about a minute and a half later. Loki dips his head towards her, "Evening, Sister." He greets.

Hela nods, staring at the two blonde girls who are now watching her with identical wide brown eyes. She lifts a hand out towards them vaguely, "Who are they?"

"Abrialla and Eurus," he says lifting the hand up of the girl he's referring to as he speaks.

"You're pretty!" Eurus (on Loki's left) blurts out then slaps a hand over her mouth with a gasp looking up at Loki for reassurance that what she did was okay. Loki lightly nudges her with his foot to quell her doubt and Hela's heart clenches slightly. She never had the opportunity to become a mother (as she never married), but it was always something she wanted from a young age. It became less important as she grew older, but this reminds her of that goal abruptly.

"Thank you." Hela says calmly to Eurus.

Eurus pulls her hand away from her mouth and beams, beginning to swing Loki's hand back and forth. Loki lets her, not really appearing to notice and looks at Hela, "May I have your permission to enter the city and return them to their parents?"

Hela blinks slightly in surprise. He was waiting to ask her? She frowns, but rises to her feet, "I will accompany you." She says.

Actual surprise flickers across his face, but he nods and leans towards the two girls, "Are you ready to go home?"

Eurus nods as Abrialla shakes her head, "No! I want to stay here and play with you, Prince Loki, you're nice! Everyone says your so mean and scary, but I don't think that anymore. Can you please, please, please make the magic sand again?"

Loki's lips thin, "I think we should get you home, your parents are likely worried."

Abrialla groans. "I wanna keep playing."

"They'll be another time, little one," Loki assures, lifting her up to rest against his hip and releasing Eurus, "for now, we need to get you home." Loki lightly touches her nose teasingly and Abrialla releases another giggle.

Hela lets out a loud expel of breath as Eurus's small hands wrap around her legs abruptly in a hug and the big brown eyes look up at her, "Up!" She commands, "Up! Up! Up!"

Hela freezes, looking at Loki helplessly.

She is not the child whisperer he apparently is, her experience with children hasn't ended well in the past. She doesn't like children. Her first instinct is to wave Eurus away and be done with it. Loki glances at her horrified expression, laughter escaping him before he gestures with one hand for her to pick the child up.

This does not appeal.

No. No. No.

Hela leans down and mimic's Loki's position, Eurus's small arms wrapping around her neck for support and beginning to play with her long hair. Loki grins to himself before moving forward towards the gate with Hela and Skurge following after him.

It's well after sunset when they find the two girl's sobbing mother and father, searching desperately for their young children that Loki waves down in a busy street located in Serintity. The two stand before them not a minute later, tears down both faces as they take the Eurus and Abrialla from them.

"Oh, thank you Prince Loki, thank you!" The mother cries and wraps her arms around Loki in a tight hug. Her brother stiffens, his spine lurching up at the contact, but he gently pats her on the back, his expression tight.

"It was my pleasure." He assures.

The mother pulls back from him, brown hair falling over her shoulders in loose waves from the messy hairstyle that is now falling apart. Gratitude is filling her eyes. She turns to Hela, "You have thanks, my Queen, I thought I'd lost them." Her eyes well with tears once more before she leans forward and wraps her arms around Hela.

Hela freezes, her expression looking nothing short, she's quite positive, of being stabbed in the back unexpectedly.

A hug.

This woman, she has never met before in her lifetime is giving her a hug.

Hela can't move or even breathe in her surprise, but the moment is over almost as quickly as it began. The woman pulls herself away and Hela sees the young blond she nearly took the head of all those days ago step up behind the mother to embrace her younger sisters.

Hela's eyes widen.

Oh, how the Norn's have a sense of humor.

The young woman meets her eyes and rather than seeing hostility, there is only thanks and a very, very slight wariness in them.

This is not what she was expecting. The mother of a child whose life she almost claimed, just embraced her with thanks and called her "my Queen". She has accepted Hela as she is and does not fault her for what betided.

This is...strange, but not unwelcome.

The mother embraces the two young girls who are talking about Loki's sorcery happily and begins to return to their house as the father turns and mouths "thank you" to them before vanishing through the crowd that has parted for them.

Everyone else is quiet, Hela realizes at long last.

Their arrival into the square quieted everyone and they all saw what happened. She doesn't want to turn and have to stare at their faces, but forces herself to. Many eyes are wide, some of the woman's hands lifted to cover their mouths with shock, but all appear to have been frozen with complete and utter stupefy.

Hela hates this sudden attention, she wishes she could return to being invisible.

Her mouth parts slightly, but all that wants to escape her throat is a slight sound of discomfort. Loki's hand rests on her shoulder, suddenly, thin fingers reassuring and there. It grounds her and comforting. She glances at him, his green eyes are tinted with concerned and she forces herself to shake his hand off and move to return through the path they emerged with.

The crowd parts for them and Hela and Loki escape to the palace grounds some twenty minutes later where she refuses to look at him. She forces herself not to, she hates the sudden realization that has hit her.

She will not be able to slay him when her goal is completed.

She is getting attached.

000o000

It is two days later after a strenuous amount of effort to ignore her younger brother's existence completely when Hela awakens to a hand slamming over her mouth and nose. A loud expel of surprised air escapes her tired brain and she grabs the wrist of her assailant twists it back and kicks them with her barefoot toppling them to the ground, leaps off of the mattress and pulls a long dagger to press against the throat of the att—Loki.

What on the Norns name!?

Loki is groaning softly and though he looks in slight pain, he doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned with her weapon pressed against his throat. Her brother is quite an idiot. Hela pulls her weapon back and steps off of him annoyance fluttering through her.

"What did you do that for?" She demands. She swears, if this is just some sort of prank—

Loki presses a hand against his ribs, hissing between his teeth and waves the other one behind him in a general direction. Hela lifts her gaze to it where Skurge is standing, fists clenched and eyes locked to outside the window. She follows her gaze and her eyes widen as she sees what Skurge is staring at, transfixed.

That bloody traitor.

In the gleam of the very early morning light, the Bifrost is running, it's sparkling light shining throughout the Realm and shooting off towards unknown space like a beacon. There is nothing else that open the Bifrost; Heimdall is there, bringing someone to Asgard from who-knows-where. Hela has no idea who the person could even be. Asgard has allies, of course, but he'd be a fool to summon one of their armies here. Perhaps he plans on pulling in someone king or another to talkto her.

Anger is burning under her fingertips, a power thrumming throughout her chest that demands release.

Hela's lips thin considerably, but she leans down and grasps Loki's left forearm and pulls her brother to his feet. His fingers are weaving a golden light into his chest and Hela recognizes it vaguely as a healing spell. How hard did she hit him?

Loki pulls his hand away and releases a breath through his teeth. Hela releases his arm and comes to stand beside Skurge, "Do we have knowledge of who he is pulling back here?" She demands, tossing her messy braid over her shoulder. It was a habit she gained from Frigga so many years ago to braid long hair before going to sleep and it's stuck with her.

Skurge gives a shake of his head. "None."

Splendid.

"I beg to differ," Loki states behind them, coming to a halt on her left. Hela turns to look at him. His green eyes are alight with something close to apprehension and his pale face is tight, "Heimdall would only search for one hero." His lips curl slightly with distaste at this, but the next words he speaks are soft: "He is returning Thor here."

At the mention of her other brother, Hela's fists clench. Of course Heimdall would return the golden child back here; he'll solve all the problems and make Asgard back to the way it's supposed to be: without her.

Hela hisses through her teeth before a slight sickly smile spreads up her face, "Well then," she says and glances at her sibling and her executioner. The light of the Bifrost comes to a halt and Hela turns on her heal striding towards the exit of this room, dragging her crown across her messy bed-head and searching for more suitable clothing with her eyes as she states to those behind her: "We'll just have to greet him."

000o000

Close to ten minutes later, Hela lounges on the throne of Asgard, Gungnir in one hand lazily as she watches the palace doors awaiting Thor's arrival. Loki is sitting at the last few steps of the throne, his back is to her, his long hair tangled across his shoulders. He's wearing armor he summoned with sorcery that is long and reminds her strongly of him. It's thin and lightweight, but still effective in battle. Skurge is standing beside her, axe blade pressing into the ground.

The Berserkers are scattered across the room, but in few numbers. After a few words from Loki, General Tyr agreed to pull everyone out of the throne room, something along the lines of "it's going to get messy" she's fairly certain.

Now they wait.

Hela's fingers are drumming across the arm rest in her anxiety in a low tapping noise that's echoing through the large room slightly. Skurge's fingers keep adjusting his grip and though Loki appears to be nonchalant, Hela can see a tense across his shoulders. He is nervous for this. Why? She knows not.

They remain still and quiet for nearly two minutes more before the doors to the throne room are thrown open with a bang making her jump slightly in surprise (even though she was expecting it) and a tall blond man skids to a slight halt, lowering Mjolnir.

Hela's eyes narrow with recognition to the weapon. It was her's, originally, Nidavellir gave it to her when they established peace between their Realms. It was a gift, now it is a tool of mass destruction that is no longer even her's.

Thor looks, admittedly, a mess. Long blond hair is tangled across his shoulders and a large helmet strapped with chains is gripped in one hand. His armor is tattered, even from this distance, and he's leaning his weight more on his right leg.

Hela wasn't expecting this.

He was supposed to burst in, perfect hair and start destroying everything.

He wasn't really supposed to look like a dead corpse wandering around.

Have her siblings been taking care of themselves at all these last few years? How did they bloody survive the last thousand years? They're like little kittens, they need someone to continuously keep them in check or else they won't make it very far.

The somewhat amusing thought is stripped from her mind as the large helmet Thor was holding clatters against the ground loudly. Hela lifts her gaze from the rising sun beyond the blond towards him as he takes several steps forward.

"What the Norn's name is going on?" He demands. His voice is deep and penetrating, willing all those who hear it to listen. Hela finds it irritating, grating even. It reminds her of Odin, Odin who would never listen and just speak and speak. Frigga would listen, she wasn't one of to many words. Like Loki.

Hela forces a smile to spread up her lips, but it lacks the authenticity for it to be proper or even mildly frightening. "Thor," she greets, her voice slides across the room like venom being squeezed from a wound. "What a pleasant surprise."

She has no doubts that Heimdall has explained the entire situation to him, in fact, she would find it strange if he did not. Thor seemed quite into his quest to find the Infinity Stone's and she imagines it would have been hard to drag him back from that. Still, as Thor moves forward, making the distance between them thinner and thinner he asks: "Who are you?"

Hela presses a hand against her heart, "Dearest brother, I am wounded." She declares, "You know who I am. Nonetheless, as you have asked: I am Hela, first born of Odin, Queen of Asgard. This is my executioner, Skurge Ykenson, and my sorcerer, Loki Friggason."

Loki may have been publicly disowned, but Hela doesn't care. He is Frigga's son whether he accepts it or not anymore. Thor's gaze flicks to Loki at the last part, his gaze widening slightly and Loki lifts his head to meet the stare. Hela can't see his expression and she wishes she could.

Thor's blue eyes remain on Loki for a long moment, his lips parting and closing twice before, with effort, he returns his stare to her. Loki's fingers clench.

Thor stares at her, lifting his hand up in a pointing gesture, "You are an impostor to the throne." He states loudly. And where on Asgard did that come from? Honestly, she has no one to point fingers at. Heimdall. It was Heimdall.

"You would deny me my birthright?" Hela retorts, leaning forward slightly and readjusting her grip on Gungnir, "Oh, this is interesting."

"It is not your birthright." Thor altercates,"Not anymore, Heimdall said—"

"Heimdall is a liar and a thief!" She interrupts with a shout. She forces herself to reign her temper in, and closes her eyes for a second. She is calm.

Calm, calm, calm.

Hela opens her eyes again and sees that Thor is watching her warily now, Skurge's grip on his axe has tightened. She bites at her tongue for a long moment exhaling through her nose, "You are not welcome here, son of Odin, I ask you on behalf of Asgard to leave."

Thor's expression flashes with anger for a second, "I am not the unwelcomed one here, you are. Heimdall has asked me to remove you of your stolen position and I will." Hela resists the urge to snort loudly, but Thor lifts his hammer and she feels Mjolnir gather the energy from the air and electricity pumps across Thor's weapon a moment later.
His stance, though exhausted, prepares for the coming fight.

Hela's fingers tighten around Gungnir as Thor leaps in the air towards her, lightning sparking. She doesn't have enough time to move properly and when he hits her, it is going to hurt.

Thor, however, never reaches her. He slams against an invisible force that ripples a slight yellow-orange and topples backwards, skidding several feet. Hela's on her feet the next second, her gaze flipping to Loki who is standing, hands lowering a slight concentration on his face.

Her heart skips a beat.

Loki just prevented Thor from attacking her, he could have let their brother just kill her and be done with it.

He didn't.

He saved her.

Loki...Loki—what?

Thor jumps at her again, but this time Hela is ready. She swings Gungnir to take most of the blast from Mjolnir and the sparks from the lightning sweep across the weapon, tingling her fingers. It hurts, but it is nothing she can't endure. Thor is forces a moment longer, then pulls back and attempts to swing at her feet. Hela draws a sword from Helheim and slams it against the hilt of the weapon, a low clung echoing around them. A dull throb sparks through her fingers before spreading across her body in a slithering agony and a shout of pain escapes her.

Electricity.

She is being electrocuted.

Blasted Mjolnir and its ability to focus Thor's power. It never summoned lightening for her, it was merely another weapon. For Thor, it is a destructive companion, set on her end. Thor shoves her weapon out of the way and grabs the hilt of Gungnir and twists it. She flips through the air and skids several feet, her muscles collapsing for lack of support of her weight.

Her healing is swirling across her to repair the nerve damage, but the amount Thor released on her should have killed her. It didn't, it hurt, certainly, but she can't get her stupid muscles to work properly. She is jerking, attempting to breathe right, but unable, scrambling to pull a weapon as Thor lifts Gungnir and leaps towards her.

This how she is to die?

What a pathetic ending.

A loud clang, echoes through the air as Gungnir slams against a sword, one of her's she registers vaguely, but not held in her own hand. A blast of some sort of energy slams into the blond before Loki, standing beside her twitching form, tosses the sword she dropped not a minute earlier, and lifts his hands towards his chest in a slight X shape and flicks his wrists out, drawing two daggers.

Hela's mind is struggling to process this. Loki is...defending her. After all she's threatened him, forced him to work for her and nearly killed him because of it several times, he is standing in her advocacy. She...doesn't know how she feels about this. Touched? Honored? Horrified?

Thor drags himself up to his feet a moment later, Mjolnir in his right hand, but his gaze is towards Loki and angry. "What are you doing, Loki!?" He demands, "You would side yourself with this villian? I did not believe you to be able to sink lower."

That is all she is now? A villain? Something to sink towards?

Loki appears to think no higher, the dagger in his left hand lifts and points towards the blond in anger, "And you would take the word of a man who has willingly committed treason, not once but thrice in the last decade?"

Has he? That's something she didn't know. Fitting though.

Thor's expression grows frustrated, "It was for the good of Asgard!"

Loki's lips stretch into a thin smile, "Of course." There's something oddly bitter about his tone.

Thor's face darkens, "Stop this madness, Loki, we can't let a tyrant on the throne. Do you care so little for our planet? Our father—"

"OUR FATHER IS DEAD, Thor!" Loki roars, he releases several breaths that don't appear to help pacify him much. Thor takes a physical step back in shock, though Hela has her doubts Heimdall did not explain this either. Perhaps he told him that she is the reason behind his demise. Ha. She wishes. Her limbs aren't shaking as badly as now, though her heart is still fluttering in her chest in an ugly rhythm. She forces herself onto one elbow. Loki exhales and closes his eyes, "Whatever great wisdom he would have bestowed upon us is no longer relevant."

Thor releases a heavy breath; he, akin to Loki looks close to a breaking point. "You would not have listened, anyway." Thor hisses. "Always ready to ignore anything unless it puts you in a good light or you agree with it—which, not surprisingly, is very little."

Hela see's Loki's fists clench around the weapons in his hands. She wishes she would stop bloody twitching. Loki's eyes peel open and he looks up towards Thor, his green gaze sweeps across their sibling for a moment, then he parts his lips and states in a low, hissing tone: "You have changed little."

This is apparently the breaking point for Thor.

He leaps the distance between the two of them and tackles Loki to the floor. Hela spins on her straining limbs to follow them with her gaze. As Thor attempts to summon lightning once more, but Loki drains the energy from the hammer and snaps his wrist together flicking his fingers apart and Thor goes sailing.

Loki vanishes from her view, likely teleportation, and she hears metal clank against metal a moment later. A shadow falls over her and Hela looks up as Skurge leans forward and grabs her upper arm, pulling her to her feet, "Are you alright, my Queen?" He demands. His voice is low and traced with slight concern.

Her limbs are regaining strength, she can move again without feeling ready to topple over.

"I'll live." She returns to Skurge's question and pulls her hand from his grip.

Thor and Loki's fight is getting messy and she'd rather not end up with the latter dead. Hela staggers towards the two as best as she is able as Thor pins Loki to the floor and begins to summon Mjolnir from across the room to hit him. Loki covers his head in with his arms in preparation for the hit.

Ha, ha, no.

Hela jerks her hand out and catches the hammer before it reaches either of them, her hand wrapping around the cool metal that reacts to her touch as if it is being returned to an old friend. The feeling is familiar and makes her ache in a way she doesn't understand.

Both Loki and Thor still as they turn in sync to look at her, eyes equally wide.

This needs to stop, now. Thor is coming within serious bounds of harming her sorcerer and that isn't allowed. She needs him for the Berserker's, after all. Heimdall has thus far proven to not be an adequate source of reliability to her.

Hela stuffs her fingernails into the hammer, digging into the metal and releases her power over death. The hammer quickly surges through its main sequence turning into molten rock and Hela digs her fingers into the rock and smashes. The hammer explodes with a white light and a power that surges across the ground and through the room in an unpleasant manner.

Mjonlir's pieces crumple into bits at her feet.

Hela drags her eyes apart that she squeezed shut for the light and glances towards her siblings. Thor, though he seemed quite intent on taking Loki's head off earlier, is crouched over Loki's form in protection and Loki summoned a slight shield so keep both of them from being blasted into bits.

The shield drops and Thor leaps to his feet as Loki scrambles to stand beside the blond.

Hela takes several more steps forward, over the hammer, and rests her hands on her hips, "What on the Norn's name are you trying to accomplish?" She hisses.

Thor is staring at Mjolnir's remains like she kicked his favorite puppy, "I—" He swallows, "You...that's not possible."

Hela waves a hand, a small smile stretching across her lips, "Darling, you have no idea what's possible." She allows the expression to drop as both remain quiet and standing beside each other as if trying to actually process that what she did happened.

She turns to Loki, "Explanation on the attempted murders, now." She demands.

Loki glances at Thor before both begin to blurt out a small essay of words in sync that grows more frustrated as they progress in about five seconds. Hela can barely scramble the jumble together. Thor is attempting to say something about Loki's treachery and how little he understands and Loki going off along the lines of "Thor is an idiot, and here is why".

It's confusing and frustrating.

Irritation builds in her.

"—and Loki escaped from his cell," Thor blurts suddenly, "why could he not have done so earlier. Why could he not have done so during the Dark Elves attack? Why could he not have helped me with Mother's—" He stops and Loki turns to look at him.

"Who put me there?" Loki demands, his voice low before his expression twists with deep pain. "WHO PUT ME THERE?!"

Thor turns to him, grabbing Loki by his shoulders and shaking him, "You know who! You know—"

Loki summons a dagger and attempts to stuff it into Thor's gut, but Hela grabs his forearm and pulls the weapon back. She fights it from his hand and tosses it several feet away then physically pulls Thor away from the younger. If Loki stabs him, it will only encourage more violence and she needs the dark-haired Asgardian as undamaged as possible.

"SHUT IT!" She screams. "SHUT IT!"

This reminds her abruptly of why she is grateful she was an only child growing up.

Both stare at her, mouths slamming shut. "Next person who speaks gets a sword in the gut." She promises. Thor's mouth parts slightly, but Hela lifts a warning hand to him, "Don't test me, brother." She commands. Her lips thin as she stares at the blond. She can't just let him wander around, he'll likely start a rebellion and she has no desire to deal with another Asgardian civil war.

Hela has no idea what to do with Thor; her goal was just to kill him when she saw him, but she knows that Loki will stop her, forcefully if she attempts any murder. He may care very little for his own health, but will fight to the death and beyond if she attempts to lay a hand on any Asgardian. And Thor is an Asgardian. Loki would also fight to protect her, a small voice announces in the back of her head. He just did.

She...doesn't know how she feels about it. Or even what she's supposed to feel. Anger, maybe?

It doesn't matter.

None of this matters.

She will not be here much longer.

"General Ullr, Skurge," She calls and both appear to materialize out of seemingly nowhere next to her. She gestures towards Thor, "Take my brother to the dungeons, we'll assign a date of execution for him later. I'm busy at the moment."

Thor's expression twists with rage, "You cannot—" He attempts to start, but General Ullr slams a hand over his mouth. Annoyance is across his rotting face. If they could talk with the Eternal Flame, Hela is sure he would have said something along the lines of, "you talk to much."

General Ullr twists Thor's hands behind his back and Skurge takes a position at the blond's other side before forcing him to move forward. A dozen or so Berserkers join the small party as Thor is dragged off and Hela releases a breath of anger.

She turns to Loki, jamming a finger at his shoulder, "Can you World-Walk yet?" She demands. His expression is tight with something she can't place and was watching Thor until she jabbed him.

Loki snorts, his expression falsifying into a smile, "For about a minute. I need more time."

Of course he does.

That's what everyone needs.

Time.

Time doesn't listen to needs, it just takes and takes.

It is a thief.

And Loki is lying.

They both know this. He may have had truth behind him a few days ago, but it is not the case anymore. He is buying time. For what? She knows not. Nor does she care. She is tired of dealing with this. Emotions are disgusting. She wants to finish her self-proclaimed purpose then rest.

She is so tired.

Hela makes no comment to bring the knowledge of Loki's lie into light.

She almost wishes he will continue to lie, so she does not have to wage this war. She doesn't know if she exactly wants to anymore. All she wants to do is sleep. Life was so less complex before Thor arrived, she was actually enjoying herself. With the addition of Thor, the council will now attempt to put him on the throne and discard her.

Just like Odin did when Thor was born.

Just like Heimdall did.

Just like everyone.

000o000

It is more than startling to her when the next day, the only thing mentioned about Thor's return is a question on what Hela did with him. When she answered with the prison sentence, the council seemed to shrug in unison before deciding it was not the worst fate and continue on with life. They, unlike she previously thought, do not attempt to immediately replace her with her younger brother.

She is nearly speechless with her surprise at it.

It's pathetic.

She still deals with Asgard's problems, still stands with helping figuring out resources because lack of trade until they can find Hofund and Heimdall, she manages annoying attitudes and succeeds in not to killing anyone—though she did briefly consider it. Sometimes Lord Fettison can be one of the most aggravating Aesir in the Nine Realms.

It is relieving and the familiarity of it is soothing.

She doesn't see Loki for the rest of the day, but she knows he didn't sleep because she heard him pacing for a majority of the night. He doesn't fall into rest the next one either, or the following one, or the next. Four days from Thor's imprisonment, Hela finally drags herself to her feet and moves to the sitting room and plops down on the coffee table as Loki's back is turned to her.

He walks past her and Hela sighs tiredly, "You could attempt to sleep, it might solve the problem."

Loki doesn't answer. She sighs, "What is the issue?" She demands resting her hand on her knee and positioning her head on top of it.

Loki snorts and glances back at her, but his following jibe is only half meant. "I apologize, am I keeping you from your beauty rest?"

"Immensely." Hela responds. "Pacing is annoying." Loki moves slightly closer to her so she can hear his footsteps louder as he passes. When he turns around she whacks his wrist in irritation. Loki's lips curve up into a smirk. She rolls her eyes at his childishness, "So?"

Loki turns to look back at her and runs a hand through his hair in agitation. "Thor."

Hela rubs her fingers against her eyelids, "What is wrong with Thor?"

"I don't…" Loki pauses, exhales then finishes: "I don't know what to do, about him. He...he is still my brother, but I...I…" Loki frowns, as if struggling to figure out how to put it into words.

"Are still displeased with his actions?" Hela guesses. Not that she knows much of what went on between them, she can't find anything in the palace library and she hasn't inquired of anyone for the information. She isn't going to ask Loki or Thor because she's fairly certain both might take her head off before answering the question.

Her younger brother shrugs slightly, "Yes. No? I don't know." He runs his fingers through his hair again. "I don't want...I can't explain this. It makes perfect sense in my head, but attempting to speak it is making me doubt my brain power." Loki groans slightly.

Hela laughs slightly and Loki looks back at her with a strange expression, "Don't ask me for advice, Brother, all I'd recommend is stabbing him, but that doesn't appear to be what you're going for."

Loki's lips thin, "Have you decided a date of his execution?"

No.

She hasn't.

She forgot.

She honestly...it doesn't appeal as much as it used to. She'd rather leave Thor in the dungeons for the rest of his existence then deal with it. She can't leave him down there, though, because she refuses to abandon anyone to the fate of being written from history...except maybe Odin.

Hela waves a hand casually, "I haven't given it much thought." She admits, "Perhaps soon."

Loki sighs and finally stops his pacing, sitting down on the sofa, "Great." His voice holds no joy in the statement and he curls on his side burying himself under a small mountain of blankets. He is dreading that day, Hela realizes. He doesn't want to see Thor dead.

Her lips tip down and she watches him until he falls asleep before standing and smoothing the blankets across his shoulders.

Admittedly, she's starting to doubt she wants Thor dead, too.

She hardly sees Loki over the next two weeks and a half after that. He vanishes with Skurge for a majority of the day, but they rejoin for an evening meal, usually, and neither her brother or executioner offer an explanation as to their location.

She doesn't push.

Asgard is slowly adjusting to her and she to them. Ruling is exhausting, but it is nice to not have to be left to her own mind for hours on end anymore. So, she doesn't push Loki for the portal, she doesn't even ask on it. She doesn't want to know, if he can do it then she has to leave and she doesn't want to.

At the end of week three since Thor's return, her curiosity finally snaps and she pulls a servant to the side and inquires as to the location of her younger brother and Skurge. The young woman points her in the direction of the prisons with a smile so large and fake it should be felonious.

Prisons.

Thor.

They've been there with him.

She shouldn't be astounded, but she is.

Hela takes several steps forward as she reaches the bottom of the stairs and comes to a halt beside Skurge. He is sitting on the bottom steps to the prison, sketching something out in an empty book he must have found somewhere. Hela thinks it is one of the horses in the stable. If not, it is simply a stallion, but looks as if Skurge merely framed a horse his skill is something to awe over. As Skurge notices his presence, he snaps the book shut as if embarrassed.

"I didn't know you could draw, Executioner," she says and sinks down beside him. His lips curve on a frown and he shrugs.

"My mother was an artist, she worked in the palace on the tapestries, I learned from her."

Hela nods, "You have skill." She notes.

Skurge shrugs once more, "I guess." He agrees. She lightly bumps his upper arm with her elbow.

"I rarely guess, neither should you." She warns, her lips spreading up slightly in a half smile. He huffs quietly and glances at her again.

"You should smile more," he says, his tone hesitant. "It looks nice."

The expression drops from her lips as abruptly as it appeared.

She has little to smile over now.

Hela looks up towards the actual reason for her arrival here. Loki is sitting in front of Thor's cell, legs crossed, the blond on the other side of the yellow light is leaning against the far wall, legs straight out and hands resting on his feet limply.

They are talking, but Hela isn't close enough to hear the soft conversation.

Hela turns to Skurge and says quietly, "What have they been doing?" Loki has been returning here for days, Hela is curious as to what has drawn him back here so often.

Skurge huffs softly, "Yelling, mostly, but...ah, sharing grief; I think." He turns to her.

Hela stares at them for a long moment then turns to Skurge, "What happened to them?"

Skurge blows out a soft raspberry, "Long story."

Hela raises an eyebrow, "I have an excess of time."

Skurge shakes his head slightly and sighs, "Prince Loki had been in prison for attempting to subjugate Midgard four years ago." Hela's eyebrows lift slightly in surprise. Loki? As in the Loki who was creating butterflies for young children to play with Loki? The same one who stopped Skurge from removing a young woman's head, who is so disgusted with himself he can't look in mirrors properly? That Loki? "Prince Thor...didn't take it well. The Bifrost broke because of Prince Loki—King Odin never really made it public on what exactly happened, all we know is it's Prince Loki's fault." Skurge shrugs, "Anyway, Prince Thor was put in charge of calming the Realm's down and didn't really visit Prince Loki, to my knowledge. Prince Loki was privately disowned by King Odin and forbidden visitors as he was to spend the rest of his days in solitary confinement in the dungeon."

Hela keeps any comments she wants to make to herself and remains quiet. This story is one she has wanted to hear for nearly two months now, but she couldn't find record of exactly what happened in the library beyond Loki's involvement with the Bifrost breaking and the disownment. His crime was listed as "the terrible deed" and little else. There were no details.

Skurge is giving them to her.

Skurge lifts a finger towards Loki. "The All-Mother did what she could for him without breaking the laws. When Asgard was attacked by Malekith, Prince Thor's mortal, Jane Foster had been possessed by the Aether."

Hela's eyebrows lift further. She learned of what happened to her mother through the texts, she knows of the Dark Elves attack, but any knowledge of this mortal is missing.

"Prince Thor took the Warriors Three and Lady Sif and "stole" the Bifrost sword from Heimdall as he distracted the king. Prince Thor managed to stop Malekith, but the power surging through Jane Foster overloaded her systems. I don't know exactly what happened, but a few months after the battle was finished, Jane Foster died of some sort of ailment. A heart attack, I think. Prince Thor didn't come back to Asgard in his grief until he become obsessed with hunting the Infinity Stones down."

Skurge waves a hand, "In the aftermath of the battle, King Odin sort of forgot about Prince Loki in his grief. I was stationed as a guard the night after the prince was told of the Queen's death—before I attempted to steal from the Treasury Room and was given charge of the stables as punishment—anyway, Prince Loki demanded to speak to the king. When we refused, he completely disappeared under an illusion—it was horrifying, we couldn't tell if he'd escaped, but we could open the cell without the king. When the spell broke there was blood everywhere. He'd broken the mirror and walked across it on accident and cut his hands from throwing the bits of mirror like daggers. His grief for the All-Mother...it was intense. Prince Loki just sat in the middle of the chaos, he was moaning for Prince Thor. They haven't seen each other since Prince Thor returned Prince Loki from his attempted-subjugation."

Skurge finishes his story and tilts his head towards the two brothers, "They are both trying to figure out where to go from here. Prince Loki didn't know what happened to Jane Foster, or where Prince Thor has been. Apparently, yelling at each other is a necessary part of that." Skurge rubs his forehead in irritation.

The humor of this is lost on her, Hela just watches the two siblings with jealousy.

She hates that it is this way, but she can't stop it.

They have a bond she will never again have with another being. She had one similar to this with Heimdall and he betrayed her, and Odin, but he banished her. Anyone that would and will still be loyal to her is dead or does so for fear of becoming dead. She has no one. She is the third awkward party attempting to fit in here, but all she does is be out of place.

Hela clenches her fists and squeezes her eyes shut for a long moment. "Thank you for telling me, Executioner." She says. She rises to her feet before he can respond and all but flees from the scene. She cannot watch Thor and Loki for a moment longer. The burning frustration that she should be apart of their little trust group is attempting to choke her.

Odin prevented her from this simply because she won a war with more force than she should have.

Hela wanders in a quick pace through the palace for a long time, doing her best to not think or feel anything as she does so. She comes to a halt in front of a door that is familiar to her, one that she has paused before many times in her lifetime. She stops, hesitates, but grabs the handle and pushes it open.

It is her parent's bedchamber.

The room still smells like them. Leather, roses and the faint tinge of peppermint. The space itself has hardly changed since her youth. Bits of her parents are everywhere. The rug that Frigga was so fond of when Hela was younger is more used, messier and faded, but still there. Odin's little nick-knacks from his obsession with collecting rare origami from Vanaheim. Little pieces of them are scattered, but put together in a way that is easy to see. Frigga's touch in this room is less present than it used to be, but that is because her mother has been dead for four years. And her father for two plus months.

Overwhelming grief hits her suddenly and she staggers in a few steps shutting the door behind her.

Everything she knows about Asgard is gone. Everyone she knows from her past is dead. Her mother is dead, and Hela never even got to say a proper goodbye. She is an aimless monster of rage that she cannot keep focused anymore. She doesn't want to go to war. She doesn't want it. Without it, she is meaningless, she is nothing.

Hela stumbles to her parents bed and collapses on top of the mattress, soaking in the smell of their fragrances. They are gone. Gone, gone, gone. Nothing she does will bring them back. Nothing she screams will return them to her.

She has been so focused on being angry she hasn't realized she is also feeling loss.

Her parents are dead.

Her father.

Her mother.

She is the only living proof that Asgard was once different, and this makes her ache.

Hela doesn't realize she is crying until the blanket she is leaning on is suddenly wet. She jerks her head up with surprise, a slight choking noise escaping her. She cannot be weeping. She is above such sediments. Is she? Is she truly? Is it wrong to miss her family? Is it?

It feels wrong to cry.

But Hela does so anyway.

Ugly sobs that wrack her frame and make her chest ache and her nose burn.

Anger was easier than greif. Anger was easier than realizing that she is getting attached to Loki as a sibling, Skurge as a loyal second in command, and she feels like Thor has stolen Loki from her, it is easier than realizing that Asgard is afraid of her, it is easier than the bitterness of Heimdall's betrayal, easier than the realization that the goal she has had for years no longer matters to her.

All she wants is to not be so alone.

She is drifting away and she doesn't know how to stop.

000o000

She cried herself to sleep, like a young child, and only comes to this knowledge when she realizes someone is shaking her from rest. She recognizes the grip to be Loki's in the back of her mind, so she doesn't attempt to attack him, but slowly pulls her swollen eyelids apart from so many tears and glares at him.

She is still on her mother and father's bed, tangled in their quilt towards the bottom of the mattress. Loki is standing with a tray in one hand beside the mattress, his other hand on her shoulder. As she opens her eyes, he pulls his hands back and lifts the tray of food towards her, "Lady Milla insisted I give this to you."

The head cook of the kitchens? Why?

Hela shoves herself to a sitting position and Loki dumps the tray in front of her. It's a handful of different food, a roll, pastry and some other things she doesn't recognize. Something is covered in a thick syrup.

None of it appeals much.

She looks up at Loki who is staring at her. His hair is slightly messy. He either didn't sleep, or didn't bother to comb it when he woke up. Hela takes the water on the tray and downs it before asking: "How did you find me?"

Loki shrugs and lifts up his fingers for her to stare at, his veins are glowing a slight green, "Tracking spell."

Of course. She isn't surprised.

Loki takes a seat on the edge of the mattress and stares at her. She grasps the roll to pick at it so she doesn't have to look at him. She's sure she looks like a mess. Her eyelids feel close to being glued shut nose itches slightly, her hair is so messy she can sense it.

Loki's lips curve into a frown, "Is something amiss?"

A slight bitter laugh escapes her. Why would he care? No one does. "Why do you suspect something is?" She demands, her voice is sharp, though it is low.

Loki's eyebrow arches upwards, "You've been crying, clearly, and you are hiding in our parent's bedroom." He gestures lazily to space around them. Hela follows his hands. She should have moved last night, but she couldn't bring herself to lift her head, let alone trek half the palace. Her grief is now obvious.

She is vulnerable. It is like Loki has found her nursing a wound she was attempting to keep hidden. She doesn't like this. At all. She lifts her blue eyed gaze to his green, "Why do you care?"

His lips part slightly before Loki's head tilts and he stares at her, almost as if puzzled. "You are my sister."

Hela says nothing else in shock and Loki shoves the tray towards her before leaving.

It is the strangest thing in the world to be considered part of a family again.

000o000

She manages to get the more important duties done faster than usual over the following six days and stalks Loki as he visits Thor. Apparently, (according to Skurge when she asked, he (Loki) has been visiting their brother every day for nearly three weeks now), Thor has been down there for a month.

They (her brothers) don't do anything of great significance; usually they just talk. About anything, really, boots, trees, opinions on pigeons(a Midgardian thing, apparently, they don't have such idiotic birds on Asgard), but there has been two days in between the six where Thor refused to speak back to Loki and Loki read a book aloud and where Loki refused to speak to Thor and Thor simply regaled them with old legends that both are familiar with.

Loki never steps inside the cell and wide berths his own.

Hela feels like she's intruding, admittedly, but she wants to know what it is about Thor that keeps bringing Loki back. They don't get along well, and there's a sort of line that they dance across, but the loyalty and bond between them is still present. Tattered and bruised, but there.

Hela longs for something similar.

Perhaps that is why she keeps returning, she is watching them to figure out how it is they got so close. How they keep it. She has no idea how to keep close relationships. She didn't have many friends in her youth often regarded as "that crazy Asgardian Princess" for her ability to see the dead. Asgard was still recovering from Jotunheim's plague, Frozen Bite, there were many ghosts that wandered the streets and everyone thought her insane when she would point them out. Odin thought it was the beginning of insanity and took her to a mind healer to see what was wrong.

Lady Jeya (the head healer at the time, her apprentice, Hela has learned is a woman by the name of Lady Eir) had stared him in the eye and stated, "she can see dead, King Odin, it is uncommon, but she appears to have a connection to them".

She still has her doubts Odin believed her.

It is on day seven that Loki finally slips away from Thor momentarily to stand in front of her where she is sitting beside Skurge as he sketches her hand. Loki folds his arms over his chest and stares at her, "Since you're so intent on watching at us, do you wish to join us?" He asks.

She stares up at him, gaping slightly. She didn't realize he was aware that she has been quietly stalking them. Stalking sounds terrible. It is, unfortunately, the truth, though. She has been watching them. Learning. Attempting to, at least.

Hela snaps her mouth shut as she realizes staring is rather unflattering. She glances at Skurge who is watching her and shrugs before giving her a slight push forward with his elbow. She takes his hint and rises to her feet and nods wordlessly.

Loki nods, "Great." He turns on his heal, leathers swaying around his feet before they both move forward. The cellblock is still just as yellow and lifeless as she remembers, and Loki moves across it, gaze locked forward and doesn't break that until they reach Thor's cell.

The blond watches her as she approaches, and she is strangely open to his stare.

She lifts her head up and stares at him. Loki comes to a halt in front of the yellow haze in front of the cell before plopping down into a cross legged position resting his hands on his knees. Thor stares at her for a long moment before stating: "You destroyed my hammer."

Hela shrugs and forces herself to not be as surprised as she feels that he didn't immediately start shouting at the top of his lungs. "You were going to hit Loki with it." She defends. No one is allowed to cause bodily harm to him except her.

Thor and Loki share a look before Thor shrugs, "Not the first time."

Hela frowns and folds her arms across her chest, "Then I feel even less guilt." Not that she felt any in the first place.

Thor hums and silence settles between them. It's uncomfortable, but she has no idea how to break it. Loki drums his fingers across his knee. This stretches on for about five minutes.

"Loki said that you stole his horse." Thor announces abruptly.

She doubletakes.

What? When?

She hasn't been near the stables since she was released from Helheim and...Moa. Moa is Loki's? That explains why Skurge was so desperate and chased her down, she unknowingly stole one of Prince of Asgard's horses.

Whoops?

Hela's expression flashes with surprise and she looks at Loki, "You never told me I stole your horse."

Loki shrugs, "It didn't seem pertinent."

She points a hand at Thor, "You told him."

Loki glances up at her, green eyes unimpressed. Whether or not he finds it amusing, frustrating or other she can't tell. Thor laughs slightly and she turns to look back at him, "Sorry, I just can't believe you're actually attempting to argue with him." Thor gestures to Loki, "Most people just end up in tears."

Hela frowns, and ignores the comment "You are different than I was expecting," she says to Thor.

Thor lifts an eyebrow, "Is that so?" Thor pauses, but then states: "You are as well. I...Loki has told me much of what has occurred on Asgard well I was away. Heimdall only gave me the basics...I am not one to refuses to admit when I am wrong. I slighted you, Sister, I apologize."

Hela stares at him for a long moment.

Odin wouldn't have apologized. He always thought what he was doing was right and if you couldn't see that, well, sorry. It used to drive her insane. Neither Loki or Thor are like that.

It is relieving.

She stares at Thor for as long as she is able before finally stating: "And I shall do my best to accept it."

They remain for another hour that passes by in both agonizing slowness and breathtaking speed. The remaining conversation isn't anything of great significance, but Hela is amazed at how much she misjudged him.

Thor is so different.

They all are.

When she and Loki say their goodbyes and rejoin with Skurge, Loki grabs her shoulder. She stops and turns to look at him, "There is something I must admit to you." He says, his expression is slightly anxious and his green eyes are wide and round.

She remains quiet, awaiting it.

Loki releases a breath, "I have been able to World-Walk for days, weeks, honestly." He tenses as if preparing for a blow, but Hela only sighs quietly.

"I know."

He looks at her, eyebrows lifted, "You do...then why…?"

Her lips press together, "I no longer want war."

She never did in the first place.

Loki stares at her quizzically, his head tilting, "Then what do you want, Sister?"

She stares at him, hesitating on admitting the childish want, but stuffs her scruple to the side and says, quietly: "Family."

000o000

Hela releases Thor from prison the next day. He is surprised and sputters over his thanks, but still offers it. She waves a hand to it and assures him that if he attempts to dethrone her, she's going to remove his head and plant it in Frigga's garden among the daisies.

Loki, without missing a beat promptly adds: "It is a messy experience to watch, Brother, don't test her."

Thor gapes at her after that at neither Loki or herself offer a truthful explanation.

The following week passes by tensely, but they manage to make it through with minimal injuries. They do not always get along well, or at all, but all of them are trying and that is something. Loki begins to assist Thor with his developing elemental power that without a focus is starting to get out of control.

Skurge successfully manages to bake something without burning the kitchen down and is beyond proud of it, he shows it off to anyone, including Lady Milla. The head cook frowns and the next day she, Skurge, Thor and Loki spend a majority of the afternoon learning from palace cooks the basics of cooking with yeast.

Skurge's next batch of cooking doesn't taste quite so horrendous.

Hela never imagined that having her brothers at her side would be so relieving and reassuring. She is still closer to Loki, at the moment, but she can see herself getting a bond between Thor as well. He is a person who wears his heart upon his sleeve, but has a sense of humor unlike anything she's ever seen. There is still a aura of seriousness to him, but it doesn't stop the playful childishness that he contains.

The palace seems to brighten at the return of the golden-haired prince.

Asgard rejoices at Thor's release and Hela finds herself dragged into the festivities by a very energized Thor and a miserable Loki who declared without mercy to their brother that "people are the odium of existence, Thor, and I cannot believe you are dragging me into spending time with them." Thor had laughed, but didn't stop.

The center of Serenity is a mess of celebration and Hela is vastly uncomfortable by it. The people are happy and laughing as music plays and joyful dancing is present. Hela remains as far away as possible from interaction before she is told by some young children waving around sparking sticks that they're celebrating the return of her as well stating:"'cause you've been missing for a long time, but you're found now. Mommy thinks you make a good queen".

Hela watches the party with more affinity after that.

Loki spends a majority of it towards the side, head tucked into a book he summoned, his stance one that promises bodily harm if someone is to come near him. Skurge and Thor have vanished into the crowd and she can't see them anywhere as she slips through them and sits down next to Loki.

They've been here for about two hours now without much interaction, but Loki appears to be getting more and more miserable as time passes. He is not a person for spending lengthy amount of time around people, she has learned.

"What are you reading?" She inquires.

Loki lifts the cover towards her and she glances at the title, "the Bifrost Mechanics" she glimpses the page he's currently on. It's a long stream of complicated equations that make no sense to her whatsoever. Her brain cowers at the thought of attempting to solve it. Her lip curls, "You can't honestly be enjoying that."

Loki lifts his green eyes to her, "I am." He flips the page to reveal a worse set of the symbols. She did not realize the Bifrost was so complicated, it's just supposed to be shove Hofund in and twist then go. She didn't realize there was actual thinking behind directing the light.

She shakes her head, "It makes no sense"

"Perhaps if you don't know basic math."

She whacks his leg, "I beg to differ, younger brother." She argues. His eyebrow arches up in disbelief.

"Who was it that came to me not two weeks past nearly weeping because you couldn't figure out what Sir Artcenson meant with his newest project he wanted to get funded?" Loki challenges. Not fair. The system of equations was ridiculous, Loki himself had spent a good fifteen minutes trying to figure out what the Aesir meant before ripping it apart and telling her that the man is either an idiot or doesn't understand how solar flares work and she shouldn't agree to assist him. When she had said no the Aesir had huffed and declared her to not understand how much his plant-thingy (to this day she isn't sure what it does exactly) would have done to improve their crops.

According to Loki's following rant after ripping the equations apart about "how no one takes into account the sun in anything", only light them on fire. Hela shed no tears over the manner.

Hela tosses her hair over her shoulder and raises a finger to him, "That's not a fair example, you yourself spent forever working on it."

"It was seven minutes, hardly sempiternal." Loki deadpans. Hela's hand lifts further to engage in their fake argument/banter, but stops as a voice speaks up: "Hela."

Her mind scatters, all playfulness seeping through her abruptly.

She's on her feet, sword drawn in one hand and prepared for battle before she even glances at the Aesir in front of her. She recognizes him by his voice. She knows that voice.

Heimdall.

How dare he throw himself into this celebration and destroy it?

Does he honestly believe that all will be forgiven?

Is he now going to try and slay her?

He looks messier than she remembers, his armor is missing and he's wearing travelers clothing. The Bifrost sword is balanced between two hands lifted towards her. The people around her go quiet suddenly, but she can spot a majority of the ones to the north (the direction Heimdall appears to have come from) standing impatiently.

Thor appears to materialize out of nowhere beside her, and Loki closes the book he was reading rising to his feet on her other side.

Heimdall is staring at her with his deep orange eyes as if he can see through her once more.

She holds his stare. "I am queen." She states, her voice low, "It is 'Queen Hela', Gatekeeper, what business do you have here after betraying us?" She gestures vaguely towards her citizens and her siblings. There's something pained about Thor's expression as he watches Heimdall; Thor knew the gatekeeper well, then; the thought of the Aesir betraying Asgard must be unwelcomed.

Heimdall's lips curve on a slight frown, "I have wronged you." He says and slowly lowers himself to his knees, lifting Hofund to her, "Asgard has made this known to me."

The citizens behind Heimdall, she realizes and lifts her gaze towards him. Heimdall did not do this of his own accord, Asgard dragged him into returning Hofund to her. They are loyal to her. Even with her disastrous beginning, they see something in her.

The thought is comforting.

But she no longer needs Hofund.

Asgard does, to prosper and survive, but her? Nay.

She leans forward and plucks the weapon from Heimdall's grip, the heavyweight balancing between her hands. Asgard seems to inhale sharply as she takes it from the Gatekeeper. She stares at him for a long moment: "Skurge, come here."

Skurge shifts through the crowd and she lifts Hofund to him, "Take Hofund and Heimdall, our Gatekeeper, back to the Observatory." Unlike Heimdall, she will not take everything from him simply to spite him. She is above that. A few months ago? No, she would have killed him where he stood, but now? Asgard has changed her.

She lifts her head slightly and glances at Loki and Thor. Her siblings. Her family. Skurge is watching her carefully, his expression open with concern for her. He is her loyal second in command. And beyond them? There is Asgard, awaiting her. She maintains eye-contact with Skurge before stating: "I already have everything I need."