You don’t have to get too far into Helheim itself before you
come to a bridge, which is supposed to have a guardian standing watch over
it. But she wasn’t there when we
arrived, at least not alive. Claire
found her under the bridge, and it didn’t take my affinity with death to tell that
she’d died from some nasty-looking claw wounds decorating her torso. It did take my affinity with it to figure out
what happened. Apparently she’d been
killed by “Kur.” And it happened “before
the waters flowed again.” So there’s
been Sumerian interference in my Mother’s realm dating back roughly three weeks
or more.
We also learned from the corpse that so long as we stuck to
the paths neither “the Heir of Helheim” nor those I gave protection to would
meet any danger on the way to my mother’s halls. It was the perfect opportunity to finally
Vigil Brand everybody without having to worry about Claire bitching about it or
Cindy having some sort of feminism-based complaint on the matter. So now I’ve got a brand on all five of them,
and Rufus.
And it felt kind of weird being referred to as Helheim’s
heir. I guess…the place has just become
so synonymous with her that it’s hard to even imagine anyone else possibly
being in charge of it. I’d never really
thought that I’d be first in the line of succession either. Though I guess that’s not necessarily too surprising.
But moving on from the bridge we reached my mother’s hall
without any further incident. And once
we were there…we found my Father, the biological one, pounding on my Mother’s
bedroom door and demanding entrance.
Thankfully things didn’t immediately devolve into a violent
clusterfuck. They just…remained a
regular one. Hel and Vayu were fighting,
again. Apparently they’ve been doing so
practically all my life; about how I’d grow up, when I’d be visited, what I’d
inherit, who I’d marry, etc.
I sure hope I’m not engaged to some woman I’ve never heard
of.
Anyway…Lexi was really the only other member of the band to
involve themselves too much in the conversation/argument, which is fine. And she turned on the charm while doing so,
of course. Which lead to Vayu declaring
that she’d be his second wife. Which, I
know, is just going to lead to a complete PITA one way or another. But at least Cindy didn’t explode into any
feminist diatribes throughout the entire thing.
Let’s just say that Vayu isn’t the most progressive-minded person when
it comes to women’s rights, nor is he all that subtle about expressing his
views on the matter.
He did forgive me
for the…issues that arose during my visitation, at least. Though he said it was because Hel should’ve
informed me of my parentage so it’s not like he’s taking any of the blame onto
himself. But it’s a start, at least, and
I can presumably stop worrying about the possibility of him trying to hunt me down
and kill me. He also mentioned that part
of his motivation, at least, was trying to make sure I never got sucked into
Ragnarok in the first place. In other
words it seems like he’s had concerns for my well-being. So there’s hope that bridges can be rebuilt,
I suppose. But it’ll undoubtedly be a
very long, very trying process.
No comments:
Post a Comment