HELA HALF-ROTTED

HELA HALF-ROTTED CHAPTER 4

Chapter 4 - Condemned

By the time Otkel made it to the golden streets of Asgard proper, he was exhausted but still hysterical. He stood outside Odin's palace shrieking his tale to anyone who would listen. Within a heartbeat, a crowd had gathered.

Loki sat in his hall some distance away, brow furrowed and heart troubled. This whole mess with his children had proved quite embarrassing; his double life with the Jotun woman Angurboda had been an unwelcome surprise to his wife Sigyn. That had involved some of his best sweet-talking ever, but Sigyn had not made it easy for him.

Now one of his sons was consigned to the sea, locked into his shifted snake shape forever. It did not bode well for Fenrir, either. He now roamed Asgard, similarly locked permanently into his lupine form by the will of the Allfather, getting larger and more enraged by the day. Hela had proved to be the most troublesome of all because she had proved an affront to the eyes of every man, woman and child in Asgard. It was hard to miss a girl entirely covered by clothing clomping down the streets. Loki was not used to caring for a girl, let alone one as traumatized and disabled as his.

There was a sudden pounding on the door of the great hall. He waved to the servant. Within seconds, the man raced back to his master.

"Lord Loki, it seems that your daughter has killed someone. Lord Thor urges you to come immediately."

Loki felt his heart skip a beat, then give a large delayed thud in his narrow chest. What madness was this? What disgrace had that girl heaped upon him now? Loki raced out the doors and joined Thor, and both gods pounded up the street towards the forest. Thor's stepson Ullr, nearly in tears, raced right after them.

They were joined by a throng of people who had heard the terrible news. The dead child was Gunnar, and his parents headed the pack.

Daughter what have you done??????????

When the crowd reached the little clearing in the forest, they immediately surrounded the body of the dead boy. His father shook it, shrieking in anger and grief. Gunnar's mother immediately fell upon Hela, punching her furiously until Loki dragged her off.

It was a mad scene. Hnossa stood screaming and wringing her hands. Gunnar's parents clutched their dead son, keening. Hela had tried to crawl into the bushes to escape whatever miserable fate awaited her; one of the men in the mob scruffed her and pulled her back out into the open. Loki saw this and went wild, pounding at the man's back and then grabbing his daughter by her bony shoulders. He saw her torn and disheveled clothing, smeared with blood and mud, and immediately thought the worst.

"Get away! Get back!" the trickster god screamed. He gazed at her blank face and the look in her eyes terrified him. Ullr tried to grasp her hand but Loki reflexively shoved him away.

Hela had gone to some quiet place in her brain, a place in the Iron Wood of Jotunheim where she and her mother sat eating blackberries in the summertime. She dimly recalled Loki wrapping her in his green cloak and carrying her back to Odin's hall.

Within minutes of the crowd's return to the king's palace, Odin had ordered everyone out except for Gunnar's parents, several of the major gods and goddesses, and Loki. Hela had been placed in an adjacent room with several servants as guards.

"Your daughter is dangerous. Her powers have grown since she came here," Odin said to Loki. "The Norns have already prophesied that she will stand against us at Ragnarok, the last great battle."

"Don't speak to me of Ragnarok, Allfather," Loki retorted. "What I want to talk about is what was done to her. She is the daughter of a god of Asgard and an assault upon her has been ignored and dismissed!  What else is a young girl to think when two boys have her on the ground? What is she supposed to do? This is an outrage!"

"You will pay me recompense for the loss of my son, King of Evil," Gunnar's father shouted. "His death is the outrage! How dare you!"

"No one is dismissing the attack on your daughter, Loki," Thor replied. "What we object to is that it was punished with murder. And murder without weapons of any kind. That is either witchcraft or some unnatural power no god in Asgard possesses."

"Shut your head, Thor," Loki snapped. "Of course she has powers. She is my daughter. She need not explain herself."

"In spite of your feelings, Loki, you know that we cannot ignore the fact that she killed another child, however inadvertently. She can no longer stay here," Odin said. "I have decided to send her to rule Niflheim. You know this was coming. If I had done it weeks ago instead of listening to your fatherly entreaties, Gunnar would still be alive."

For a few moments there was silence, save the weeping of Gunnar's mother.

Loki stood, running his fingers through his black hair. "Allfather," he said. "Please listen to me. Hela is only a child herself. She did not mean to kill the boy. Terrible things could happen to her in the land of the dead. There is no one there to raise her; to care for her. Let her stay with me. I'll keep her inside and her powers in check. She'll be all right."

"More lies from a liar," Freyja sniffed. "She does not belong here among us. She never did. Just look at her. She's not even human."

"Of course she is, Freyja," said Frigga, Odin's wife, "but I fear the rest is true. Why keep her in a place where she will be isolated from all other beings? Let her try a new realm and see how she does."

"Are you playing the fool, Frigga?" Loki shouted.  "One she goes to Niflheim, I very much doubt if she will be back." He approached Odin's throne. "Please, Allfather," he pleaded. "Let her stay with me. Forgive her and spare her."

Odin stood. "No. My word is final. Thor and Tyr, tomorrow you will take Hela Lokisdottir to Niflheim. It is a nine-day journey so provision yourselves well."

Loki screamed in outrage. "You will regret this, Allfather!" he cried as he stormed out of the great hall.

"I already do," the old man said to himself. Although he wouldn't have admitted it to anyone under pain of torture, Odin was now in great fear of little Hela Half-Rotted.

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Hela spent her last night in Asgard weeping in her father's arms.

Loki had tended her bruises and Sif had surreptitiously brought a meal over to both of them. Ullr stood by his mother, white-faced and sad at the fate of his friend. They both stayed a while, then left the little family to their preparations.

Hela was in a very bad state and the evening was full of bitter regret. She was sorry that she was ugly; sorry that she killed Gunnar; and sorry that she had been born. She dreaded the journey and was terrified of being placed in the land of the dead. She pictured monsters and devils and hideous spirits laying in wait there for her, ready to tear her apart at their leisure. What made her sorrier is that she had been cast on the mercy of Allfather Odin and even he had rejected her.

Her father said little as he held her through those long hours until daylight. He wrestled silently with his own powerlessness and that he could not even save one of his own from a dismal fate. He doubted if he would ever see his daughter again. He only hoped, silently to himself, that Hela's mother Angurboda would quickly seek her out once she arrived, as it had been true that Angurboda was dead.

The whole affair with Angurboda had been a mistake, he mused. The children had been a mistake. Now Angurboda was no more and their children scattered, their futures ruined. Just more wrong choices in a lifetime of wrong choices.

"I'm so sorry, my little one," he sighed, smoothing his daughter's hair.

"Father, will I ever see you again?"

"Of course you will. You will see me often, if I can get past that hellhound Garm who keeps the living from entering Niflheim. As queen, one command from you will allow me entrance, I'm sure."

"What is it like there?"

"No living person knows. Once you enter the gates, you never return to tell the living. You will, of course, although I cannot say how Allfather Odin will feel about it."

"How much do you hate me?"

Loki sighed. "I don't hate you at all, Hela. I love you and always will. And members of our family do have a tendency to get into scrapes, don't they?"

"This isn't a scrape, Father," the crying girl rejoined. "I am being condemned to the land of the dead for something I didn't mean to do."

Loki paused, shifting uncomfortably. "It isn't that the boy died, my child. It is how he died. No one in the Nine Worlds can kill by mere touch, yet you did it today. That sort of power – well, makes people uneasy, and the gods terrified. I think Odin wants you put away somewhere where he doesn't have to worry about you."

"But I don't know how to rule a kingdom!"

"I do. And I suspect with your cleverness you'll figure it out soon enough even without me."

"I'm only twelve!"

"I will be glad to help you. You won't be alone. I won't abandon you, I promise."

Hela sighed. She knew Loki was the Father of Lies, but wished she could better tell which of his comforting promises were falsehoods.

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When the sun made its way over the horizon, Loki and Hela walked hand-in-hand to Thruthvanger. Trembling with anxiety, Ullr had come out of the house first and walked over to them, pressing a packet into Hela's good hand.

"For you," he whispered.

"Don't forget me," Hela responded, her voice shaking.

The boy disengaged when he saw his stepfather and uncle approach. Without so much as another word, Hela was placed in Thor's goat-drawn chariot. She watched Loki say something to Thor; the latter grumbled and shook his head.

Hela Half-Rotted unwrapped the packet and found a collection of sweet cakes to ease her journey to the land of the dead.

She began to cry in earnest, then.