Chapter Text
The halls are dark, lit by a single fire burning in its hearth up ahead. The air is festive. For everyone, except Hela.
Not that she isn’t… excited. Hela was born to be queen. She was born for this, but by the night’s end, she will be queen of all of Asgard and the Nine Realms. Perhaps more, someday. But she will be the one to make decisions, to decide the fate of her people and that of many others.
Yes, she will have Loki at her side, as she always has, but it is different than anything she has ever lived.
Should she be excited? Her cousin, Baldr, always speaks of the future as if it’s a thing to be excited for. So does Brunnhilde. All the Valkyrie do.
Hela is just terrified.
It’s a nerve-wracking experience, even if it is what she has been looking forward to her entire life.
She hears a soft set of footsteps, feels a prickling soft presence of an approaching life, a light shining in the blankness of non-living. Loki, her twin brother, the one who she shares her life with, the one she hopes to find a way to share the throne with, too.
This is her brother, and for all his chaos and despite how exhausting he can be, there is no one she’d rather have at her side as she rules.
“Are you nervous, sister?” Loki’s voice is teasing, but Hela knows the undernote of concern. He knows her better than anyone. She’ll climb those steps before the night ends, kneel and take the vows, mount that throne, and be queen for the next four thousand years until her or Loki’s child takes the throne instead.
No level of preparation or training or council could prepare her for this. Nothing even Frigga could say was enough
Hela laughs instead. “When am I ever nervous?”
“Nornheim,” Loki offers, lips quirking into a smirk.
“Ah, Nornheim.” Hela shakes her head. She’s smiling with mild amusement, appreciating the distraction. “It was mostly mere fun.”
Loki laughs. He shifts on his feet, fidgeting – he is as terrified as Hela herself. “Just a bit of fun,” he agrees. “You know, if we take the kingdom like this, it might not be so bad.”
Ruling Asgard isn’t fun. It doesn’t come with games or simplicity. Hela knows that, and so does he. Hela is the Goddess of Death. She knows not nervousness. It is only calm or humor, fear or rage. And she hates how scared she is.
Being on the brink of battle… is easy. She can fight. There has never been a time she could not fight off an opponent, never has been a time she was injured enough to get her down. Her powers do not grant certain immortality, but she is – with certainty – one of the strongest leaders Asgard has ever had.
“Only one of you may rule, but you were both born for the throne.”
Odin had told them that when they were children, but Hela does not believe that. Her and Loki are different. They’re twins. They share the same heart and blood – and if any two can rule Asgard as one, it’s her and Loki.
But as the elder, she is the one to which everyone will look to as queen. As leader.
“Are you planning any…” Hela waggles her fingers.
Loki laughs at her pathetic imitation of his magic. “Well, you may just have to wait and see, won’t you?” He swings his arm over her playful attempt to elbow him.
It’s almost time. The minutes are ticking by.
Pity she can’t have this postponed until tomorrow.
She turns Mjolnir over in her hand, willing herself to hold together. Cross the room, take the vows, have the feast, try to pay attention to the servants and speak to people as Father once would.
Hela will be seated at the head of the main table tonight. Not Father. Loki will be at her side, as he should be. But…
Not in the way she wants. Not really.
When they were little, Hela had insisted she’d pick Loki as the king, and he her. It had been centuries before they realized the role of the king and queen was to produce an heir, which means their thoughts and dreams could never come into being. It’s almost humiliating, now, that they were able to believe something so outrageous, and yet she wishes more than anything that she could have Loki rule with her. He’s… wise. He has a patience that Hela does not. And she does not understand her brother’s ability to connect with others. Hela has always lacked that.
She’s the Goddess of Death. She is meant to be a queen, but she is also a weapon, a fighter – and how to be a queen of a peaceful kingdom, Hela has no idea.
Slowly, she lifts her hands, brushing her hair back with a touch of seidr, her multi-pointed helmet rising from her head. Loki’s eyes lift along with the tops of her crown, a slight smirk on his lips. Hela’s gaze flicks to his, and he looks away, though his smirk doesn’t fade.
Hela is relatively certain that she looks normal, the way she should, but her brother’s face is making her wary. “How do I look?” Hela asks, brushing at her clothes. “In need of more green, perhaps?”
“Like a spider,” Loki quips, “Stuck on its back. With broken legs.”
He will never cease mocking her crown, nor she, his. They designed them when they were little, though Odin had been the one to assign Hela’s to her, which is likely half of the reason Loki finds it so worth mocking. She had been young, sparsely half this size and beginning to grow into her powers when he gave her the crown to aid in containing the wildness of her powers.
“At least my crown cannot be so easily knocked off. Unlike yours.”
“No, it can’t,” he protests.
“Really?” Hela’s hand snaps up to grab his perfectly yank-able helmet.
Loki grabs her wrist, jerking her arm up. Hela twirls around, kicking his knee. Her brother drops with a yelp, raising his hand –
And Hela freezes at the footsteps in the hall behind them, the soft, flowery presence rolling into her line of sight.
She pulls Loki back to his feet before Frigga chews her out for fighting with her brother two minutes before being crowned queen in her place.
Loki was doing well at distracting her. It was a more than welcome one. A play fight with her brother would do wonders in easing tension and draining this frustrating amount of pent-up energy buzzing beneath Hela’s skin, but they also have to be prepared for the coronation, and Mother says it’s impolite to attend public meetings with not-perfect clothes.
But Hela’s not Loki. So long as she is not the walking dead, she has no consideration for her looks. She will not spend hours combing every last strand of hair into place, unlike her brother. And most Asgardians, apparently.
If the Valkyries went through a Loki-level momentous effort to prepare for her coronation, she will scream. But perpetual neat-ness is something Loki clearly inherited from Frigga.
“Fighting again?”
“Just fun,” Loki objects, “Hela is… nervous.”
Hela laughs. “I said no such thing, brother. I am perfectly ready to be queen of Asgard. What else could I have been born for?”
“Loki, go inside,” Frigga orders, nodding to the door, “The ceremony will begin in a few minutes.”
Her brother hates waiting. He’ll be in the royal part, not far from Mother once she arrives, but until then, he’ll be seated by Baldr, and her brother has undue conflict with their cousin for reasons Hela cannot fathom. Hela feels a twitch of sympathy, but she needs to have this conversation with her mother.
“Hela.”
She turns to her mother, away from watching her brother’s disappearing form up the steps.
“It’s alright to be nervous.”
There is no use lying to Frigga. She always sees a side of Hela that no one else ever could. “I am about to replace you as queen of Asgard.”
“You will be queen, but you will fill the role of the king. And you had something even the great All-Father never had.” Frigga is smiling softly, a gentle and encouraging affection shining in her blue eyes. A little bit of the tension fades away, though Hela is beginning to realize that is, in fact, her worse problem.
She can replace Odin. That is not what she fears. It’s replacing Frigga and trying to understand her Mother’s level of kindness and compassion when those are not things she has ever been trained to feel. “A much pointier crown, to be sure,” Hela snarks, even if she knows for certain that is not to which her mother refers. “Definitely a better taste of clothing.”
Frigga smiles. “Me for a mother,” she corrects.
Hela can’t actually think of a response to that, but the blow of the ceremonial horn sounds.
“Don’t keep your father waiting,” Frigga says, briefly touching her shoulder.
Hela turns away, inhaling deeply, squaring her shoulders, and walking forwards. She will most assuredly not trip, faceplant, throw up, or any number of other undignified things in front of the throne. She knows what to do. Walk down the hall. Across the throne-room. Between the rows of cheering Asgardians.
Hela waits a moment longer, breathing and gathering herself, before entering the room, head held high.
Her eyes roam the room, making out where Frigga is getting herself situated among some of her sisters and friends. A few visitors from other realms have gathered to witness it as well. Many of Asgard’s royal army. Up above, Loki, who smiles, though she detects a pained note which Hela chalks up to remembering the many times they discussed this when they were children.
Baldr, seated by Loki, blond hair falling around his shoulders, a light glow about him, a constant present symbol of his powers of Light. He's the only son of Odin’s younger sister, and though his mother died long ago, Baldr is still close to the royal family. He nods, face otherwise impassive.
All these people are looking at her to be the queen. Their leader.
This is scarcely a moment to savor.
She’s a princess. She is not going to throw up or faint in front of her people.
Hela continues onwards towards the throne, anyway, to where her father – and king – is seated, Gungnir in his hand.
Hela lowers herself to her knees in front of Odin, lying Mjolnir on the ground beside her.
Brunnhilde, the leader of the Valkyrie and one of Hela’s closest friends, is standing on the stairs. Several other members of the Valkyrie are there too. Hela briefly recognizes Hildegarde and Valtrauta.
Odin stands, thumping Gungnir on the ground, and the crowd hushes.
“Hela Odinsdottir, my heir.” Loki must feel something at that. Hela does not know how she would feel if Loki had been chosen to be king instead of her. It would have hurt. “My first-born. So long entrusted with the mighty hammer, Mjolnir. Forged in the heart of a dying star. As a weapon to destroy life, and as a tool to build it. A fit companion for a ruler. I have defended Asgard, and the lives of the innocent across the Nine Realms, in the time of the Great Beginning. And though the day has come for a new King and Queen.”
“Do you swear to guard the Nine Realms?”
“I swear,” Hela answers firmly. That one is easy. An oath she has already taken upon herself, as she trained in battle. As she trained alongside Brunnhilde and the other Valkyrie. Even as she fought Odin to do so.
“Do you swear to preserve the peace?”
That one is harder, truthfully. Hela means peace, but she only knows how to fight for it. And yet, it is what is expected of her. “I swear.”
Something is shifting. Hela can feel death from far away, death not caused by her hand. It always feels like a hole, something being slowly sucked out and replaced by a dark, endless void, taking and taking. There should be none amidst the rejoicing of this moment, and yet –
“Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and pledge yourself only to the good of all the Realms?”
Something is wrong something is wrong something –
“I swear,” she repeats, anyway. The familiar sensation of souls slipping through the veil between life and death is… oddly close. It shouldn’t be. All should be fine today. There is no battle. And yet, someone is dying?
“Then on this day, I, Odin Allfather, will proclaim you – ” Odin pauses, gaze shifting to something unseen. “The Frost Giants,” he says, urgency in his voice.
Hela can feel more life ripping away the moment he says it. They’re being attacked, aren’t they? Today?
Odin’s already rising from his throne and that’s enough for her to know that the ceremony is being interrupted. Considering that Asgard is potentially under attack by Jotunheim, they need to deal with it now.
Hela rises swiftly, picking up Mjolnir and following Odin as he leaves the room.
The crowd’s former excitement has shifted to alarm as they go.
Loki joins up with them as they leave, heading for the weapons vault where the disturbance came from. He seems on edge, as he should be. She’s on edge, too, and braced for a fight.
She fully expects to enter the Vault to an army, but all she sees instead is bodies. The shattered and melting ice along with the burned bodies of Frost Giants clearly show what happened. The Destroyer’s massive, purple glowing form is disappearing back behind the wall where it is kept unless needed.
Two bodies of Aesir guards are on the floor. Both dead.
Odin takes in the scene, face impassive.
“What course of action will we take?” Hela asks finally. She’s itching to summon her spears, but she knows there is no longer an imminent threat. The Destroyer would not have returned to its place if there was. The remnants of its magic blasts are still buzzing in the air, purple sparks fuzzing out across the floor.
“None,” Odin answers simply. “The Destroyer did its work, the Casket is safe, and all is well.”
“All is well?” Hela can’t hold back a semi-hysterical laugh. “I see. That three Frost Giants somehow managed to sneak through all your well-placed defenses into the most well-guarded room on Asgard is well. Remind me why we have guards? We could just hand the Casket back to them, for all it’s worth.” This was her home.
Odin looks at her sharply. “And the Destroyer dealt with them. I have a truce with Laufey, King of the Jotun.”
“Some truce,” Hela mocks.
“Enough,” Odin says sharply, “We will find the breach in our defenses, and it will be sealed.”
“Alright. We’ll wait until we’re attacked with a full army to concern ourselves with a potential threat. Even I couldn’t do better as the new queen.”
“You’re not queen yet,” Odin replies icily.
Loki’s shifted back into the shadows and looks like he’s trying hard to be invisible.
The ceremony was almost finished. But he hadn’t actually said she was queen so – yes, no she isn’t. This is the day she’s been preparing for, for decades really. And now that it’s ruined, she has no idea what that’s going to mean. She isn’t ready for the burden, truthfully, but that doesn’t mean she’s not upset. And mostly, Hela is concerned over how the Jotuns got here. And Odin doesn’t even care. This is what their kingship and world have come to?
“You’ll just let the Jotuns get away with what they’ve done?”
“As your king, I will handle the situation as I deem necessary without inciting a needless war.” His tone is sharp, an obvious indication that it’s time for her to shut up, but she’s too angry to care right now.
Sure. No reason not to rub in her face that her coronation wasn’t completed. The timing wasn’t any coincidence. This could be part of a much greater plan. It’s likely that it is. How can she be assured they aren’t planning a war? What else would they have come here for? It could have been an act by just a few idiots, but also might not have been.
Hela’s senses tell her never to take a chance like that. She may not be queen yet, but she is still a princess, and she has still taken it upon herself to protect her kingdom. Her home. The one that Asgard’s worst enemy somehow successfully infiltrated. And even Heimdall saw nothing. No one saw anything, and Hela didn’t feel the deaths until far too late to stop it.
This was her home, and what are they to do if someone is willing to attack Asgard at its very heart, the place which should be most well-guarded in all the cosmos? Perhaps her father is right, and it was just the act of a few, but Hela has no care to wait for the chance Jotunheim may be organizing for a full-fledged war. It would be safer to take the battle to them than have it here on Asgard.
“Alright,” Hela snips, “Let Asgard rest while Jotunheim may prepares for war. What could ever go wrong? It is not as if they haven’t already entered the palace itself.” She spins on her heel and walks out before Odin can say another word. Maybe he is unwilling to act, but Hela is not. She will not sit idly by as her home and people are threatened with war.