Hercules stood there before the godling, pinching the bridge of his nose and asked, calmly, at first. "Do you mind explaining to me exactly… "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?" He tried to be the nice guy, but at this point, Balder had lied to him, deceived him, and had let some dangerous… who knows what or who loose into his home and now rampaging across Greece. "And what, or who is that? Because this entire time I thought that was your brother! I thought you were going to stop covering for your brother and actually do the right thing!"

Balder stared at his feet and sucked in his lips. Herc was right. He was absolutely right, but the kid was torn. "I- I know! I was- I didn't lie.. To you." He confessed, looking up, his blue eyes meeting the Greek hero's unamused glare.

"But you did lie." The two turned their heads towards Meg, who had wandered down to the garden after tucking Hyllus in. She stood there with her arms crossed, violet eyes drilling into the young god. The glare he received reminded him of his mother whenever he asked to do anything even remotely dangerous or benign like using a pair of scissors.

"Well- " Balder rubbed the back of his head under his long golden hair. He searched for a way to downplay the lie.

"Well your lie just unleashed a monster into my home, terrorized my son, eventually kidnapped him and-" Meg held her hand towards the city of Thebes in the distance where a plume of smoke rose from. "Destroyed half of a city."

Balder's mouth gaped as he followed Meg's hand towards the city.

"I- I'm sorry." He mumbled. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"Then what exactly was your plan?" Herc asked sternly.

And then Balder began to explain as quickly as he could. "I was just hoping that she could just get some exposure to something new, and she's really not all that bad… I mean it takes a while for her to warm up to anyone, but she doesn't really hurt anyone- unless someone really, really- Well no, she does on occasion commit murder but like- She can actually be a really nice person. She just needs a chance and some positive influences, and I thought you would be a good example that not all heroes are bad and things aren't too bad up here-"

Herc squinted his eyes at Balder, "She?"

"On occasion commits murder?" Meg asked, emphasizing every word.

Balder's mouth hung open as he held up a single finger, trying to think of a way to make things sound better. He was not at all that great at persuading people. He was just way too honest. "I know.. This sounds bad, and well I guess it is bad, It is very bad."

"Okay just to be clear here," Hercules held out his hands signaling a time out. "Is this some kind of complicated Hades and Persephone relationship thing?"

"A what?" Balder blinked, knowing the name Hades was familiar from Zeus' lecture.

"Persephone is Hade's wife." Meg clarified to the kid.

"Oh no! We're not married! I'm still a kid! That would be ridiculous! Wait ... how old do people get married here?"

"We're getting off track. Why on earth would you ever hang out with someone that occasionally commits murder, and is a wanted criminal?" Hercules waved the flier in front of Balder.

The gods eyebrows scrunched up as he studied the velum in front of him and then his eyes widened in shock. He snatched at the flier but his fingers only grazed the edges as it was pulled away from him.

"Where did you get that!?"

"That doesn't matter. Why are you friends with a wanted criminal- a demon?"

"She is not a demon! A wanted criminal, yes, but not a demon. That's just what they called her so people would-" Balder clasped his hands to his mouth. He lowered his hands to forms into fists, frustration was growing inside him, boiling over and welling up in tears that dotted the sides of his bright blue eyes.

"I really thought you wouldn't care what she is! You were friends with a gorgan, what ever that is, but I bet it was pretty bad!" Balder spat out making the demigod flinch.

Meg watched Herc fall silence and then look over to Balder. She remembered her husband telling her about Medusa. "Then why not just give us a heads up? Why spring your friend, that occasionally murders, on us like that?"

Herc sighed heavily, running his fingers through his curly red hair. "If you had just told the truth the first time-"

"You wouldn't have let her near you. No one would let her near any of us. It's why she's down there, if my mom found out, or any of my other family members knew she was even up there at the party to begin with, they would have destroyed her ... or tried. I didn't want anyone to get hurt." Balder's voice had grown soft and strained. He lowered his head to hide his eyes under his perfectly cut golden bangs.

He alone understood her anger towards his family, and his family's fear of her, her family and all of her kind. He barely remembered the day that his family became aware of her existence, but it followed after a wave of disease had spread across the nine realms, and when that died down, the gods noticed something. Something that didn't used to happen but now became so intrinsic to the fabric of the universe that it scared them. It started small, like the wood that lined their homes would creak under their weight, then eventually bend and finally break. Then the weapons began to dull and then rust. The most alarming came when they had to depend on eating golden apples to fight off growing too old and weak.

He remembered the fear in his brothers' eyes, and most of all his mother's obsession with keeping him safe. He was not allowed to go a single day without eating an apple, she sought to ensure not a single thing would ever harm him.

Balder hardly noticed when he felt Herc's hand rest on his shoulder. "Look, she seems very important to you, and I don't want anyone to get hurt either, but I need you to tell me as much as you can, because I don't know how to help you unless you do."

"She is important. She's my very best friend, and I want to tell you, but I would be breaking a lot of secrets to be keeping and…" He blinked away the tears that were already beginning to form. "It's not my story to tell."

Herc's hand slipped off of Balder's shoulder, "Well when you're ready to tell me, I'm willing to listen, but I will help you…" he glanced over to his tired wife. "Just in the morning we'll help, It's my turn to stand for scary monster duty right now."

Balder's face shifted to a slight pink, "Oh, yeah, it is late. I'm so sorry about all this- I really- Well you know- I might be a bit late tomorrow since I have to help Freyr repair the damage she did to the ground still, but she can't have gone too far." It's not like she was in any place familiar to her. How far could Hel exactly go?


As it turns out, Hel cannot get very far at all. She had a habit of moving slowly and being distracted by a lot of things, as well as stood out among the living like an undead thumb. Despite this, she was still very good at staying hidden and getting into or out of places. The city of Thebes was still on lock down, while the authorities tried to track down the monster that had terrorized the city. However, when enough time passed and no sign of the monster had been spotted for some time, people began to poke their heads out, suspecting the danger had already passed. Some spoke of the monster having already escaped and went off to terrorize some other city. But the truth actually lied within a cart.

This time she did not choose to hide in an urn, or a vase, or a jar or even a box. She had learned her lesson about hiding inside things that could easily be sealed for whoever knows how long. She hid with the ones she could easily blend in with, being sickly and dying.

The bus that escorted its senior citizens to the shady acres retirement community had finally managed to pass through one of the checkpoints. It was supposed to be the day of taking the seniors to the market, and for a healthy stroll around the city. You know, healthy stuff that good retirement communities ought to do. The driver was beyond weary. It had taken him all day to gather all the cranky old people into hiding, deal with each of their complaints and well aimed swings of their canes and then herd the old cranky cats back onto the cart once things were deemed safe. If they were actual cats, it would have been easier.

The driver jumped when the banging began again. They had quieted down after they left the city, eerily so, except one. The one that was trying to get the bus to pull over. "Quiet down there!" He yelled back over the creaking wooden wheels. "We'll get there in no time."

"I gotta use the ladies room!' The voice yelled back.

The driver pulled on the reins to slow the bus down. The voice sounded old, or at least sounded like someone trying to sound old in that same screeching tone. More importantly, the voice did not sound familiar.

"We- We will get there soon." He reminded his passengers. That tiny part in the back of his brain began to itch. That tiny part was his subconscious brain already factoring in over a million little things that was wrong with this picture that his logical part of hs brain had not caught up with. Or maybe, he didn't want to turn around and face it. Everyone was so quiet.

"I can't wait any longer." The voice spoke up, but was now much closer to him. How many people did he let on the covered wagon? Did he really count that well? The driver was in a hurry, so he was sure he counted someone twice… What if he let someone on? The driver gulped, the reigns trembling in his hands as he questioned whether he would be able to recognize one. He would, wouldn't he?

"Pull over." The voice was much more insistent then. "I need to get off."

"Yeah- yeah, I can do that." The driver's voice shook. The bus bulled oer and the driver tumbled off his seat and onto the grass. He desperately crawled away, but could not help but to look over his shoulder. The being didn't seem to take much notice of him or even care.

Hel stepped off the cart and stretched her body, bones snapping back into place. Sure she can shape shift, and manipulate her body in a lot of wild ways, but that came with some restrictions. One being she had to take all of her body and force it into a different shape, which felt really tight and restrictive. Getting out and stretching her legs felt good. Now that she was looking up at the darkened sky, she realized that she could really stretch out. If she wanted, and if she wanted to be an even bigger target.

Speaking of target, her hand rose up to her mask, still feeling the half of the arrow that was still buried into her masks forehead. She gave a more forceful tug at it, pulling her mask off her face and having it snap back onto her face with enough force to worsen the crack in her mask. She recoiled, cursing herself, her own idiocy, and more importantly, the springs that helped hold her mask onto her face. But at least she was no longer a unicorn.

Now she could add a bruised nose to her growing list of injuries that included the arrow lodge in her shoulder.

Yes, she could heal, just like pretty much every immortal being such as gods, titans and even jotuns. It was just that her ability to heal was just slower than most, painfully slow. Painful like the arrow that moved, shifted and dug in deeper with every slight movement she made. She could take it. She had worse, but it was starting to really get on her nerves. Who knows how long until that greasy guy showed up again.

She stopped in her tracks and began to push back the short sleeve on her tunic and pulled the bandages away so she could dig into the wound. Yeah it hurt, but if she could just look off into the distance and focus on something else, it would help distract her just enough. Her eyes drifted back towards the sky. She still could not believe how different it look from what she remembered. Her claws found the shaft of the arrow and pushed further to find the point of the arrow.

She thought she imagined the sky being a lot closer, almost within reaching distance. She knew that couldn't be true. Her mom was taller than her and the trees were taller than her mom, even while being carried in her arms, the sky was actually so much farther away. She could feel the edge of the arrow head now, and feel what kind it was. The kind that honestly would have been better hammered out the other side of her shoulder, but she made a bad decision in the past and she was going to pay for it now.

She remembered reaching, no, pointing to the moon in the sky.

"Ymirena, where is the moon at now?"

"Over there. East?" She asked, feeling unsure.

"Where's the north star?"

She couldn't find it. The sky now is way more full of stars, and they are all different. She just really could not remember where everything was supposed to be! As she began to pull the arrow out of her shoulder, the pain mixed with unease flowed through her. The air grew colder around her, and the ground beneath her darkened, the plants curled and began to slowly die, and pebbles began to crumble into soon as she started to unknowingly put her mark into the universe, her wound started to fuse itself shut. But she wouldn't notice that. Her mind was on the East and the moon.

East, and the moon. East and the moon. She knew what the moon was and could almost remember which direction east was. Was it more nifleheimward or was it closer towards the rim?

She dropped the arrow, coated in her blacked ichor, onto the ground. The shaft disintegrated but the point remained, sinking into the infected soil. She decided to settle on the moon was in the east, and Jotunheim was in the east, and that would be the way home.

Once she got there, everything would be better. She could put all of this behind her and forget everything bad that ever happened to her.

As soon as she took her first steps towards following East, she remembered something else she had forgotten. "Aw shite! I forgot the idiots!" She slapped her face and growled. She could try and head back there and pick them up but then she would be set back yet again. Hel paced for a moment. Even if she could go back, how would she even get there? It's not like she would turn herself in. Odin and his crew would attack her on sight. She inhaled and sighed, "Eh, they were fine before me. They'll be fine on their own." Not this time, she was not going to turn back for anyone anymore.


Ganglat wasn't the only one that Hel forgot about. She had also forgotten about her other partner in crime, Ganglatti. You see, It's easy for her to forget about her doppleganger. Not because they had any special ability to induce that, but mostly because Ganglatti was able to mimic her and her abilities, mannerisms and even surface level memories so well, that sometimes she'd have to push them out of her mind or fall into another trap of questioning which one of them was actually the doppleganger. It happened at least nine times already. After that, she decided to think as little about them as possible.

Ganglatti, on the other hand, always thought about themselves. Or at least how great of a job they were doing and how proud their boss was going to be of them, or more over, how proud Balder would be at Ganglatti's ability to follow directions.

In case anyone had forgotten, Balder's last words to Ganglatti were "Go home." And so Ganglatti went home. There were several problems, one being that Ganglatti being a physical manifestation of a shadow of someone. This made travel both easy and hard. Sure Ganglatti could easily slip through any crack or nook, but light hurt them. There was also the difficulty in being able to affect the physical world without taking a physical form. The default for Ganglatti was to take Hel's form. She rarely minded, and often deployed this tactic to confuse people anyways. The final problem with being a doppelganger, is that by design, they encapsulated the entire identity of the person they mimicked. This includes voice, skills, and to some extent memories, though limited.

This of course led Ganglatti to falsely believe that they were Hel. Again. If you ever wanted to throw some confusion and chaos into the mix, just throw a doppelganger in and just let it do its thing.

So Ganglatti was able to eventually find their way into the underworld, and even all the way down to a station by Kohlstadt, a small undervillage under a peat bog. It would be inaccurate to call Kohlstadt a necropolis, for that implies that it is a city of the dead. Yes, there were dead denizens, but mostly undead, and a few sickly elves, but it was small. It was more of a small town of the dead. A necroburb, if you will.

Kohlstadt had one main line of travel, a large tree root that snaked its way across several hanging, gargantuan lumps of rock and dirt that hung precariously over the abyss. Each lump, crevice, and node were eventually populated by various races into towns, burbs, and even cities on the larger roots. The mode of travel across the Nordic underworld was varied but each one was dangerous, time consuming, and complicated. Even the safest method of travel was by Millipede, or as the locals called it, The 'Pede. A gigantic semi-dead millipede infested with parasitic fungus, hollowed out to incorporate dilapidated carts to carry occupants to various stations across the underworld for the low, low price of two fingers, or five wyrm teeth, or one wooden coin if you were feeling fancy. These stations were always packed, as they quickly became hubs of commerce.

A small crowd formed around the outside of arm's reach of Ganglatti as they made their way towards the station line. Ganglatti waited patiently studying their hand with careful consideration, completely ignoring the whispering crowd, and excited chatter of fans, naysayers, and skeptics. Ganglatti knew this came with the territory of being a controversial figure in the The ndervvorld. Instead they continue to study their outstretched hand carefully, squinting behind a duplicated mask. Which fingers were they willing to part with? The thumbs were right out, they were too useful to lose, as well as the middle finger. They knew they got plenty of use out of that particular one. The pointers were useful for firing with a bow, and the obvious choice would be the pinkies, but losing the pinkies meant that their middle fingers would no longer be middle fingers. They would just be slightly towards the middle fingers.

As they were trying to make up their mind, the shrill cries of a poltergeist broke through the crowd of whispers and mumerings.

"Breaking news! Controversial figure known as the Hero of the Depths last seen with Ivaldi who narrowly escaped an assisaination attempt! Has the so-called beloved savior of the Dwarves sided with the Elves during a resource crisis!? Or have they been captured in another failed attempt at the surface? More information will follow after these messages!"

Ganglatti lowered their arm and glared at the direction of the platform that Poltergeists tended to deliver their speeches on. They could just brush off the rumors and gossip as just that and continue on their way to... Where were they heading again? They knew it was something important. Ganglati scratched their head, trying to recall important details, but the pull of the crowd gathering around the poltergeist's platform drew Ganglatti's focus away.

They sighed heavily and stepped out of line to join the audience. They muscled their way through the crowd towards the center, getting quite a few double takes as the Poltergeist rambled on about Ms. Bodil's Miraculous de-rigamortising cream, and how superior it was to Geir's Balm for Every Body.

"Can you repeat the last story!? I think I misheard it!"

The Poltergeist stopped mid shriek, bristling with anger as seen by nearby window boards shaking with agitation, but when she recognized the masked figure before her, the rumblings of nearby windows immediately ceased. "I- Uh-" The incorporeal spirit began to phase in and out of sight. What was she supposed to do? She had one job and that was to just yell the news at anyone who would listen. Mr. Ratatoskr was not going to like this. She didn't have to worry about it much, because no sooner than Ganglatti had made themselves known, some of Hodor's posse rounded the corner, drawn by the whisperings, murmerings, finger pointing and even, yes, a bit of bribery. The largest undead warrior was the first to fling himself onto the doppleganger. Followed by the next goon and the next.

Its not like it would have worked. Ganglatti splattered across the ground, in a form of black ichor, or at least half of them did. They almost lost their form, but they quickly remembered that, boss wouldn't go down that easy. When the undead goons stood up, wondering where their target went, Ganglatti reformed behind them.

"Hoi! I'm trying to listen to the news! Do you mind?"

The nearest undead readied quickly fumbled with their cross bow but didn't get unnoticed by Ganglatti. "Whelp,, An arse kicking it is then."


Tyr and Ganglat had finally made it towards a station after what seemed like days of slinking around trying to go unnoticed, still getting noticed because at least one of them resembled a God that was partially responsible for half of the deaths, while the other was considered a co-conspirator of a completely bogus conspiracy.

When they finally reached the furthest edges of kohlstadt through one of the many mining tunnels, they nearly fell to their knees in relieved exhaustion. It felt like forever since they had seen any semblance of civilization since Gutweg.

"Fiiiiiiiinally." Ganglat happily groaned. They were getting closer to home, and then she could finally eat the sweet sweet dreams and nightmares of her boss, let her boss slap the godliness out of Ganglatti, and then who knows. Sure her boss was going to be livid with the both of them failing in their assignments, but she would be over it. Eventually.

"I can't feel my legs." Tyr mumbled from his slumped spot into the ground, ignoring the bewildered geists that passed over them.

"Your legs are longer than mine." Ganglat miffed.

"So now what?" Tyr rolled over looking to the small demon for direction. The entire time, he knew he should remember more of her, he couldn't dredge up anything except the few times he encountered her during the Aesir-Vanir War. Neither was he able to recall any kind of memory unique to him that others wouldn't know and would not be able to replicate.

He remembered when he was very little, and his parents and their faces, and he recalled his other parents and the day he found out about his true lineage, and then a whole lot of blanks. Memories were funny that way, never really showing up when you needed them, and always out of order, and never during a time that is convenient. When you think you have things all recovered, you find another and now must figure out where and how to order and catalogue them in between the spaces of sure fired ones.

The one thing Tyr knew was that it bothered him immensely not knowing, more now, and especially while treading through lightless tunnels for an endless amount of time.

Ganglat did not answer Tyr for some time as she stood up. What was her plan? To be honest, she didn't have much of one, just find her boss, who certainly could not be in danger, captured or worse. She had to believe in Hel. She always came back for them, even if she never kept promises, made deals or claimed to follow any rules, she knew Hel could be depended upon to be there for the ones she tolerated.

"I guess we can start by regrouping at Hollow, she's likely to be there waiting for us." Ganglat wrung her claws nervously. If she was there, then plenty of people would have seen her and lose faith in the gossip, just like every other rumor or conspiracy theory delivered by Rotatoskr. Even still, some of the rumors had a small grain of truth to them.

Sure monsters were angry at not being able to eat the undead, the undead were unhappy about being undead, the dead were well... Dead, and the elves and dwarves were never happy with each other ever. But the idea and unease of the boss taking a side, or disappearance would cause even more unrest.

"If not then we can just bounce around to the other places she might be."

Tyr sat up and eyed the small demon, "She has more than one place? Why not stay at Eljudnir?"

"Why would anyone stay at that dump?" Ganglat wrinkled her nose.

"Oh." Tyr left it at that, not sure of what became of his uncle's place to be called a dump. "Well," He slapped his thigh and stood up. "Let's get going then."

"We can take the 'pede if you have a finger to spare!"

"Do I look like I have fingers to spare!?" Tyr growled "We'll find another way!"

"Fine but you're carrying me." Ganglat clawed her way onto his shoulder as they headed off in a completely different direction, completely unaware of the chaos that Ganglatti was already creating.

"What's going on over there?" Tyr asked his tiny leader. Whatever it was, it sounded a lot like a fight had broken out over by the platform. The crowd obscured his vision just enough.

"Who knows. Let's not bother, we don't want to get caught up in that mess again!" Ganglat hissed into Tyr's ear and even tugged at it to direct the god into the right direction.

"Okay fine." Tyr grumbled.


Authors Note

Hey sorry for the lateness. Pandemics messed a lot of things up, and the person that proof reads my stuff before posting them has been understandably drained. I hope you are all well and in a good place.