Beloved of Death
***
When I come to town for the last time
Pull up in a fast car for the first time
I'm gonna say goodbye
You didn't see me cry
I got a million on my soul
I go build an army on my own
They put a bounty in my soul
I got a million on my soul
"A Million on My Soul" – Alexianne
**
Hel watched the scrying pool with an absent gaze, dark cheek propped up by an equally dark hand. The bone-white skin of her other hand lightly trailed over the pool's surface, creating ripples that grew larger and larger as they moved away from her barely-there touch, engorged past capacity before breathing their last as they surged up to the water's edge.
"Here again at Mímisbrunnr, Daughter?" a voice suddenly spoke from just over the queen's shoulder even as a muted flare of magic—laced with the heat of a flame and the chill of death both—flickered to existence. Helheim's ruler smiled, the curve of her lips as sharp as her father's favorite blade, and Hel eventually lifted her dual-colored gaze to meet the dark jade of Loki's.
The trickster god quirked a dark brow at his progeny's otherwise impassive expression, answering smile as sharp as his daughter's. "Odin won't appreciate you using your position as the dead's guardian to get out of paying the Well's toll."
The Queen of Helheim lifted a shoulder at the warning, dismissing it with a single gesture. Knowledge, wisdom, and payment all had different rules to be played by when they applied to her: the dead spoke to her, whispered to her their secrets that had been kept so well during their lifetime. The dead told tales, and Hel had always listened. Odin may rage at the fact that she would not provide payment to Mímir's Well—as her grandfather had with one of his eyes, once upon a time ago—but the fact remained that Hel would be granted the knowledge she sought, freely and readily.
"Let him rage," Hel eventually answered aloud, husky voice low and distracted as she returned her attention back to the pool and the images that they showed. "It's not as if he can do anything about it, Father."
Loki hummed quietly in agreement while stepping closer to Mímisbrunnr, looking down into the dark depths to see what had caught Hel's attention so thoroughly. Immediately, both eyebrows climbed high upon his forehead, and he shifted just enough to direct an incredulous expression towards his only daughter. "You traveled all the way to Yggdrasil—to Jötunheimr--to watch a squalling, newborn babe? A mortal?"
Hel's expression grew hungry, gaze blazing with a hunger that would put Fenrir and Jörmungandr to shame.
"And to watch how he shall make starlight tremble," she murmured.
**
An exhausted Maria Stark carefully held her newborn baby—a little boy, her Anthony—against her breast, tiredly looking down upon her firstborn. The pregnancy and labor had both been difficult; there had been times when she had been afraid that she wouldn't be able to carry Anthony to full term. But, always, when her hope flagged low and the fear nearly swallowed her whole, something—a miracle, the blessing of God—would occur and things... things would be better.
And now she was able to hold her baby in her arms, to let him suckle hungrily and eat his fill: now she was finally—finally!—a mother after so many years of trying to conceive with Howard.
Anthony's future was a bright light upon her horizon, and Maria could not wait to watch and see how he would grow; she could not wait to see what type of man Anthony would one day become: an intelligent man as brilliant as his genius father, a kind man—a great man.
