The Descent of the Light Elf.
The Dark Throne felt colder than usual, the air heavy with the weight of centuries-old grudges. After spending the better part of a day in Hela's claustrophobic company, Loki had managed to navigate the jagged landscape of her temperament. He discovered that a calm Hela, despite her sharp, "tsundere" shell, was surprisingly rational. Her mouth spat venom and denials, but her eyes—those cold, sapphire depths—had begun to soften. She had accepted him. Not just as a cub, but as her own.
"Then, Big Sister," Loki whispered, "the escape plan... is live."
Mave had provided the necessary tools for the breach: a cocktail of Vanir potions and inscribed talismans designed to mask the stench of death that clung to Hela's very soul. Loki added his own flair—a high-level shapeshifting weave.
Hela held the vials with a look of visible resistance. She loathed the idea of hiding, of trickery. But as she thought of Frigga's painstaking efforts—the mother she pretended to hate but secretly mourned—she drank.
The talismans hummed, dampening the necro-aura of the abyss. The potion surged through her veins, temporarily overwriting the God-King's lineage with the ethereal essence of a Light Elf from Alfheim. Loki leaned in, fastening a slender obsidian collar around her neck. It acted as a magical anchor, ensuring her divine power radiated the briny, fresh scent of the Great Sea rather than the sulfur of Hel.
"Oh?" Hela murmured, testing her new form. Her skin glowed with a faint, lunar pallor. "This spell... the little runt is actually useful. If you could purge that pathetic fear of death from your marrow, I might actually grow to like you."
"Yes, yes," Loki muttered, rolling his eyes. "I'm a coward. Now, grab my shoulder."
The Tesseract pulsed, a brilliant azure heartbeat in the dark.
Space folded. The Land of the Dead vanished, replaced briefly by the crushing silence of the deep-sea rift near Norway. They didn't linger. Loki didn't want to give the world—or the All-Father—a chance to notice the anomaly. Another flare of blue light, and they were gone, traversing the star-choked expanse of the Milky Way in a single, gut-wrenching jump.
The Soul's Sanctuary.
They stepped onto the solid, obsidian-dusted ground of Vormir.
The sky was a masterpiece of impossible colors—billions of soft, shifting lights dancing through a perpetual misty haze. It was a place of profound silence, where the very atmosphere felt heavy with the weight of billions of lived lives.
Loki reached out and unfastened the collar. They were too far from the Nine Realms now; the tether to Asgard was severed, and the need for a disguise had evaporated. Hela reverted to her true form, her black robes billowing in an unnamed wind that seemed to welcome them.
"Mmm..." Hela closed her eyes, tilting her head back. "The fragrance of the Soul. The little liar finally told the truth."
She inhaled deeply, her expression one of predatory satisfaction. "Within a thousand years, I will have tempered the Soul-Fire. The Trinity will be complete. I will be the ultimate Hela."
"A thousand years?" Loki winced. "That's... quite a stay."
"A thousand years is a blink!" Hela snapped, her hand shooting out to pinch his chin again. "You still don't understand the true difficulty of tempering ultimate power, do you?"
Loki groaned as her fingers dug into his jaw. "I'm learning, I'm learning!"
"Think of your power as an ordinary lake," Hela lectured, her face inches from his. "Crystallization turns that lake into a tiny, dense puddle of pure soul-water. Quantity is sacrificed for quality. But the Trinity? That requires you to turn that tiny puddle back into a vast ocean, but keeping that same pure, concentrated density. If your talent is mediocre, this path is a nightmare that will break you."
As she spoke, she pushed a thread of her death-energy into his chest to emphasize the point. Her eyes suddenly widened. She felt the roaring, incandescent heat of the Eternal Flame buried deep in his marrow. She felt the density of his divinity—it wasn't the shape of a cub. It was the shape of a monster.
"Wait," she hissed. "This... this isn't possible. Where did this freakish strength come from?"
She stared at him, her gaze piercing through the "Seven-Year-Old" illusion. "It's a spell. Tell me... how old are you really?"
The Viper Revealed.
Loki realized the game was up. He let the illusion drop, his form stretching and maturing until he stood before her in his true, eighteen-year-old glory.
"Mother told me to stay as a child," Loki said, his voice dropping into its natural, velvet baritone. "She said if I showed up as a man, you'd kill me out of pure spite. I only had my coming-of-age ceremony last year. I didn't mean to deceive you, Sister. I was just... following orders."
Hela stared at him, her breath hitching. To her, there was no difference between a cub and an eighteen-year-old—both were infants. But the power... "The Eternal Flame," she whispered. "You swallowed it. All of it."
Loki stiffened. "How did you—?"
"I can taste Surtur's rot in your blood!" Hela roared, half-exasperated, half-impressed. "Odin would never give an adopted runt the Flame. And Frigga? That soft-hearted fool would never let you risk your life for such a thing. Which means..."
A slow, terrifying grin spread across her face. "You used that shapeshifting trick to rob the All-Father's vault. You're a hidden viper. Cunning. Vicious. Filthy... and absolutely magnificent."
She laughed then—a hearty, genuine sound that echoed across the mirrored plains of Vormir. "Oh, Odin! To have a thief in your own house! I love it! Change back, little monster. Immediately!"
"What? Why?"
"Because I love that tender little face!" Hela barked. "Now, do as you're told!"
Loki sighed, shrinking back down into the seven-year-old form. Karma is a mistress, he thought.
"Good sweetheart," Hela cooed, pinching his cheek with enough force to leave a bruise. "Now, tell your big sister... what else did you steal from that old fool's treasury?"
"Everything," Loki muttered weakly. "The Eye of the Sorcerer. The Casket of Ancient Winters. The Uru Gauntlet. The Destroyer armor..."
"The Destroyer?" Hela's eyes glowed with a predatory light. "You have the Uru Sentinel? Oh, my sweet little darling! You are full of surprises!"
She rained kisses on his forehead—wet, slobbery stamps of approval that made Loki want to crawl into a hole.
[Chaos Points +50, +50, +50...]
[INTERFACE REWARD: Skill - Death's Grasp (Passive) - Your touches now inflict a decaying debuff on enemies.]
"Listen to me, little fool," Hela said, her tone suddenly turning cold and possessive. "You're staying here. With me. I'll give you everything—power, treasures, the universe itself. I'll even give you me."
Loki froze. "Wait. You?"
It wasn't that shocking—they weren't blood-related, and the Aesir were hardly known for their conservative family values—but the idea of Hela as a "companion" was like dating a hurricane.
"I... I don't really like the heavy, smoky eye makeup," Loki blurted out, his brain scrambling for a way to steer the conversation. "Have you ever considered a more... fairy-elf aesthetic? You'd look great in white silk. Very regal."
Hela's face went dead silent. The "Beautiful Snake" flicked its tongue.
"Fairy-elf?" she repeated, her voice a low vibration.
"Yeah! Like a Queen of the Forest! Very Galadriel-style!"
CRACK.
Hela's hand shot out, her fingers twisting his ear with a playful but agonizing strength. "Ow! Ow! Sister, mercy! I was just making a suggestion! Mercy!"
"You'll learn, little toy," Hela laughed, her voice echoing into the misty twilight of Vormir. "You'll learn exactly what I like."
Loki whimpered, his High-Speed Regeneration already working on his ear. I've saved a Goddess, he thought, but I think I've just enslaved myself.
If you like it, please give power stones.