Legendary

We ended up banished to Hela's hall. It wasn't at all what I expected; despite the name, it wasn't anything like hell. She had smiled slightly when the group arrived and asked what had happened that all the valkyries defected. Eir told her, concisely, and Hela's perceptive gaze raked us as we stood before her. It settled on me. "You seem to cause chaos."

"I don't mean too," I tried to assure her.

"My son introduced me to the Midgard gaming tradition of role playing games," she said. I attempted to conceal my surprise. Somehow it just seemed weird for a god to be rolling the 20d in a Dungeons and Dragons game. "You are what I believe to be the 'chaotic good' orientation. Just do your best to stay out of trouble." She signaled, and someone took us to our new quarters. The rooms were not all together, but at least Irene, Carol, Dagny, and I were neighbors. The rooms were smaller than the ones in Valhalla, but each was equipped with a bed, a thick rug beside it, a small table and comfortable chair, and a chest. The bed was soft and cozy, with two pillows perfectly balanced between firm and squishy, and many warm blankets as well as smooth soft sheets. A small fireplace had a fire laid and a plentiful supply of wood. It had a window, but it was too dark outside to know what the view was. There were no private bathrooms, but there was one for every four rooms, large and well supplied. We were told the way to the store house and were supplied, without question or comment, with stockings, shifts, dresses made from both wool and linen--here it was the rainy season, which could be chilly or warm--a shawl and a cape, pants, shirts, and boots, and another pair of shoes. A bag containing handkerchiefs, a comb, brush, and hairpins. Stunned, we took our piles of bounty back to our rooms, where the fires had been lit and a light meal left. I ate first, then put everything away before taking a shower. I combed my hair by the fire then went to bed, wondering how Tony was and missing him.

We quickly settled into a comfortable routine. In Hel, Ragnarok wasn't a big concern, and people were free to do as they liked. The oldest valkyries--oops, former valkyries--found the ones who had already quit and were reunited. Our group cohesion crumbled fairly quickly without our shared purpose although friends continued to meet and spend time together. We met a lot of new people, and at least we newer former valkyries had learned a valuable lesson. We conducted a lot of what on Earth were known as informational interviews and started picking up knowledge and training in various crafts and trades. Some of it was traditional; there was a woman from the Victorian age who helped to improve my embroidery and I picked up enough woodworking to be able to create utensils like spoons, objects like bowls, and some basic practical furniture building, using what I remembered my dad doing to actually learn how to do it myself. There was still fighting practice for those who enjoyed it, and I found some worthy swordsmen to practice against. I had left my swords in Valhalla, unfortunately, so I had to learn to fight with a single sword. There were plenty to choose from, and lots of different styles of fighting.

I was invited to the blacksmiths and discovered an affinity for metal. Here was a wealth of knowledge such as I'd never imagined; legendary smiths in their own right showed me the secrets of Damascus steel, and a master in the Japanese tradition taught me how to identify over twenty separate regions on a sword blade and its handle, how to determine what type of steel should be used for a particular blade, what the profile should be, the thickness of the blade, how much grind should be used. I learned how to smelt the iron sand in a tatara and I began to learn how to work pig iron and high and low carbon steel for the soft center and hard skin of the blade. I did the hard work of forging--heating and folding the medium and hard steel under the careful supervision of the master. Once the blank had been created to his exacting standards, he took over, split the spine of the blade and inserted a center of soft steel flanked by thin pieces of hard steel, and created a blade that had the hardest steel forming the edge, a soft core to help avoid breakage, providing ductility, and surrounded by a more springy steel. A smaller knife to accompany the sword was created at the same time, but its construction was slightly less complex. The smith did the final heat treatment, cut a wide and a narrow groove into the steel to reduce weight without losing functionality or strength, and engraved a phoenix on the sword and a single feather on the knife before it was handed off to a polisher who refined the shape and brought up the beautiful hardening pattern along the edge. The polishing procedure took much longer than the forging had, and we went back to create a new set of blades. After the polishing, it went to a specialist who created the edge to the weapons. I was allowed to see how the tang was prepared for the hand grips, the creation of a beautiful hand guard with a cherry blossom pattern, the addition of the blade collar and scabbard wedge, and the end cap. The hilts were wrapped with a braided cord to help with the grip and a small metal decoration added to the hilt. The sword came with two scabbards, one plain, beautifully lacquered sheath for storage, and a heavier, more decorated version that was for use in battle. By the time these scabbards were created, another painstaking process, we had produced another set of blanks.

One afternoon I was called from my master to the Great Hall, where Hela graced me with a smile and gestured behind her; to my astonishment, Bucky stepped forward and hugged me. "What?" was all I could think to say.

Bucky shook his head. "When Frigga returned after you all resigned, she was in quite a temper; neither she nor Odin like to be questioned or corrected by lesser beings," he said dryly. "But after hearing what you had to say, I started looking around in Folkvangr. Although there are many more women there, they were also expected to accept less than the men, with a few exceptions for Frigga's favorites like Emma. The differences were more subtle than in Valhalla, apparently, but once I started looking, I saw them. Men always served first, getting the best cuts of meat, for example. I told Frigga that it wasn't fair, and there was an argument. So I left."

I looked at him, dismayed. "But what about Emma and Captain Rogers?" He shrugged.

"Emma had some ideas for trying to create change, but I don't think it will be as effective as she hopes, and Stevie wants to stay with her. They may come along later. I felt I had to make a stand too. Frigga and Odin ask much of the people in their realms, and if it doesn't include decent treatment, there's not much incentive to stay. They shouldn't be allowed to bully or exploit their people." He put his arm around my shoulder. "I was worried about you, sweetie, your face was absolutely white when you joined the others and defected. What on earth are you doing?" he added, looking me over.

"Let's get you settled in, Bucky Barnes, and you can catch up with your niece at the night meal," Hela said, gesturing one of her people forward. Bucky bowed to her and was led away.

"Wow," was all I could think to say.

"Indeed," Hela said, then smiled slightly. "The halls of the dead are open to all, Alex, and it is no trouble to absorb another. And I confess I find it amusing to imagine Odin and Frigga's reactions. Odin has always felt himself to be better than the rest of us, and since Frigga passed from the land of life, she has become more like her husband, her compassion, which was notable in her life, blunted." She grinned suddenly. "Serves them right. I will summon you if other interesting people appear." She studied me a moment. "How do your lessons in the smithy go?"

"Amazing," I said. "There's so much to learn and I'm not very good at it." I considered that. "Yet." The goddess laughed and dismissed me. I went back to the smithy and resumed my work, finishing out our hours. Then I cleaned up and hot-footed it over to the dining hall. I joined Dagny, Carol, and Irene and explained what had happened.

"Wow," Carol said. "The resistance spreads." We laughed at her comment and speculated about what that might mean.

"Your uncle's here," Dagny gestured over my shoulder. "Bring him over."

I hopped up and drew Bucky over to join us, making the introductions. "It's always nice to meet Alex's friends," he told them. We peppered him with questions as the servers moved down the tables, placing dishes on the tables from which we served ourselves, refilling cups with water, ale or mead. "There's apparently a great deal of upset over your resignations," he said. "I didn't spend much time there, but the remaining women are also demanding change. Meanwhile, meals aren't being served; the kitchen just puts the food out on tables like a buffet, which angers off the warriors who are accustomed to being waited on. The men in charge of supply are getting nervous as the supply of cloth dwindles, the wool remains unspun, and the flax plants rot in the fields. There are a few people in Folkvangr who know what to do, but they're needed there. And of course, nobody is being brought to either realm. Thor was disturbed by the whole process; he thought his father had learned to treat women better. Tony just shrugged, said Odin had it coming." He squeezed my hand. "He understands why you left, sweetie." Then he changed the subject, asking how we were occupying our time.

"We never want to be without skills again, to outfit ourselves or produce trade items," Irene said grimly. "So we've been picking up knowledge. People here are very good about showing you how to do things. Right now I'm specializing in furniture making, learning bookbinding on the side."

"Oh, Uncle Bucky, they have a library here," I said excitedly.

"Really?" he perked up. "That's the thing I've missed the most. There aren't many books in Folkvangr."

"Or Valhalla," I said. The others nodded. We all were enjoying the vast library.

"I'm learning storeroom management and shoemaking," Dagny said. I smiled. She was working on a pair for me, soft little slippers for around the house. Well, my room. I'd embroidered the uppers, and she was attaching them to soles.

"Cooking," Carol said. "I enjoyed it in life, and it's fun to learn how to scale up. Plus we do butchering, a new skill for me, as well as tending the kitchen garden and milling the flour."

"What are you doing, sweetie?" Bucky asked me.

"I started out with woodworking, enough to learn how to create essentials, like spoons and forks, bowls, that kind of thing. Some furniture making like my dad did, but I've been apprenticing with a master bladesmith. Japanese tradition, we're making katanas and tantos, but after we finish the set we're working on now, we'll do arrowheads, which isn't apparently nearly as labor intensive. What's nice is that each time that we finish a set of blanks, we shut down the smithy for a few days. Master says it's important to relax and recreate so that our concentration will be strong and unwavering for the next task. I also picked up archery again for a leisure time activity. There are some excellent archers and bowmakers here."

'We're all extremely wary of being left at the mercy of others again," Irene said, poking me. "But Alex here takes it to terrifying extremes."

"That's me, jack of all trades, master of none," I joked.

"Such a thirst for knowledge," Dagny said. "But the former valkyries have splintered into different groups, and we four have determined that among us all, we should be able to pick up sufficient skills and abilities as to allow us to provide for ourselves, should we need to. And not just get by, thrive." Her voice had hardened as we spoke. I nodded.

"Ug," Carol groaned. "Next I learn leatherwork. Which includes time in the tannery." I patted her shoulder in consolation. The reason why I hadn't been stuck with it was because my apprenticeship was taking a lot of time. Yay, metal!

"We still contribute to the greater good with what we work on as we're learning," I explained to Bucky. "I'm doing ceramics next. And our skills will enable us to be helpful in many places if more hands are needed in one specialty or another."

"What's really refreshing is that Hela doesn't play favorites," Dagny said. "As long as you're producing, no matter how long that takes, she doesn't care what you do, and you can make trade goods. For example, the clothing in storage is made in sizes, so for a custom fit, someone has to alter it for you, like Alex. In exchange, Carol makes her cookies, I'm finishing a set of slippers for her, Irene made her a little cedarwood box to keep things like her hairpins."

Bucky frowned. "How long does it seem like you've been here?" he asked, and I caught on.

"There must be a time difference," I guessed. "It feels like we've been here for a few years." The others nodded, and Bucky looked surprised.

"In Folkvangr, it's only been a couple of months."

"That's quite the time differential," Irene said, and he nodded.

"Let's hear it for the speed learners," Carol cracked, and we laughed. The dinner plates were removed and little honeycakes served. Desserts were a rarity in Valhalla and we all enjoyed them here. After we finished, we took Bucky on a tour of Hela's domain, ending in the library, where we all scattered to look for books. We were allowed to take a few at at a time to our rooms, and I loved being able to read before going to sleep again.

Bucky fit in quite well, and I saw him around the smithies. After a few more months, my master felt that I would be better served learning how different types of swords were made and creating my own, and my apprenticeship ended. I'd gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and come a long way with my abilities. He set up sort of internships with other masters, who were happy to teach me their skills as well. And as a parting gift, he gave me the katana and tanto that had been the first ones I'd worked on and found me a teacher who would instruct me how to fight with it. It was different from the style I was used to; you used the spine and sides in a parry to avoid damaging the edge. But of primary importance was the skill of rapidly deploying the sword from the sheath and cutting. It was an art in its own right and practiced kneeling, sitting, and standing. There were solitary forms to perform to make the motions automatic, which I took to practicing in my room every morning. The fighting was done in such a manner as to accomplish the task in the fewest possible strokes, and ideally would be a movement to draw the sword in such a way as to cut the attacker, a movement to shake the blood from the blade, and one, flowing from the prior movement, to resheath the sword. By the time I left the forge, I felt I had a pretty good grasp on how to make a sword on my own and had picked up fighting tips and techniques for each type of sword I studied along the way. I moved on to pottery.

It was at this time that I was summoned to Hela's presence again. I took the time to clean up as much as I could, a pot having gone kablooey on the wheel when my concentration was interrupted. Fortunately, it hadn't been a really large pot. When I trotted into the Great Hall, I was not very surprised to see my uncle greeting Emma and Captain Rogers, but I was shocked to see Tony and Bruce. I edged over to Tony nervously. Sure, Bucky had said that Tony understood what I'd done, but it didn't mean that he was really ok with it...

Tony studied me intently. "Is there mud wrestling here?" he inquired, and I flushed. Then I found myself in his arms, being kissed in the most satisfactory manner.

"Tony, what are you doing here?" I asked when I got my breath back.

"Missed my Tiger," he said simply. "Things are a mess in Valhalla and I didn't want to stay there without you. I wanted to finish some outstanding projects I was working on for Odin first." He released me, and I stepped over to give Bruce a hug; he was standing at a distance looking awkward.

"We thought we'd stay awhile in order to give you some news," he said, patting my back and releasing me. "Tony's right, Valhalla is not the same without the valkyries, and not just because you bring the glorious dead." I could almost see the air quotes in his tone. "I wouldn't be surprised if Odin shows up here and asks you guys to return. You might want to think about that."

"I don't know if I'd want to go back," I said slowly, earning looks of surprise not only from the two men but also from Bucky and his companions. Emma gave me a big hug and Captain Rogers shook my hand. I wanted to laugh but didn't because he looked so ill at ease. Tony reclaimed me by putting his arm around my waist and asked me to explain.

"It's so much nicer here, Tony," I said. "Wait til you see." Hela smiled. "The quarters are nice, there's never any trouble obtaining something you need, there's plenty of opportunity to learn new things, everyone is polite and fair. There's a library. Why would I want to go back?" He kissed my hair, the new arrivals were led off to be shown to their new quarters and I reluctantly returned to the pottery. But my focus was completely shot, so I cleaned up and went to my room early to clean up. I ran into Carol and Dagny in the bathroom and brought them up to date on events.

"Tony's here? You must be so excited!" Carol said, and I grinned.

"Yeah, of course. I can't wait to see him again," I said. "But we need to focus; it's what Bruce said that gets me to thinking. His feeling is that things are crap in Valhalla and Odin might ask us to return. There are the questions of whether each of us wants to consider that, and if so, under what conditions. Because I feel personally like I don't really want to leave here, or at least, not without huge changes to the way things were."

Irene came in at that point and there was a quick recap. "We all would need to make individual decisions, if in fact that ends up happening, but I think that we ought to be prepared with a list of demands that need to be addressed to our satisfaction before we would even consider it," she said, and the rest of us agreed. Dagny offered to spread the news among the other former Valkyries and sped off. Carol followed me to my room to dress my hair in an extra special style, then I changed and went down to dinner, kicking my skirts out of my way impatiently.

Tony and Bruce were there already, and there was another wonderful hug and kiss, although not as intense as I really wanted because, you know, public. Also, Bruce was there and it would be rude to exclude him although I certainly wasn't going to ask him to join us. Hence, the short kiss. I laced my fingers with Tony's and drew them both over to the table we liked.

"So what are you all doing now?" Bruce asked.

"Well, the group sort of disintegrated after we arrived, the groups of friends separating," I said, and they both nodded. "So I don't know what everybody's doing, but Carol, Irene, Dagny and I have formed our own group, and having been burned, decided to learn self-sufficiency. We're each learning different things, like furniture building, and metal working, and cooking. I'm learning pottery right now."

"Which is why you looked all muddy," Bruce said, and I grinned.

"Yeah, I fell out of the zone I was in when Hela summoned me," I said.

"What have you learned to do?" Tony asked.

"I learned some carving, enough basics to make sturdy, not-elaborate furniture, worked in the smithies to learn how to make swords and other weapons, and now pottery. Irene did a lot more with furniture, learned bookbinding--just wait til you see the library!--and is learning how to make and blow glass. Carol learned cooking from harvesting the vegetables, butchering, grinding wheat, to preparing and preserving the food. She's learning leatherworking now, had to spend some time in the tanneries." I shuddered. Such stinky work. " And Dagny learned how store rooms should be kept and managed, how to make shoes and boots, and now I think she's learning how to make small buildings with stone and mortar." I drummed my fingers on the table. "We never want to be in a position where we are dependent on other people to provide our essential needs again. Hopefully we'll never have to use all the skills but they're also a way to chip in to the public good, make our contributions. We can also make things to barter, so we're in a really good position right now. Maybe one of us should learn basic agricultural methods, too. Just to be safe." Tony grinned and Bruce looked a little dazed, but then they stood at the approach of my friends, who greeted them before joining us. We had just settled in when Bucky brought Emma and Captain Rogers over to sit with us.

"What did they say?" I asked Dagny, and she shrugged.

"The older ones honestly couldn't be more done with Odin, no surprise there, and there's general resistance to the idea of returning among the others, but we agreed to think about conditions under which we feel we might be able to return. We'll meet at some point, come up with our list of conditions, and if Odin shows up, we'll be ready. If not, no harm done. We continue on as we are." That seemed good, and we turned our attention to the new arrivals, who showed up just as the servers started to bring out the meals. We caught up on general news; word about the mass resignation of the valkyries had spread to Folkvangr which caused unrest among the women there too, so both Odin and Frigga had their hands full. Loki and Thor were making themselves scarce.

As dessert was served, small spiced cookies, Hela appeared at our table with some questions for Tony and Bruce. Captain Rogers, sitting on my other side, turned to me and spoke. "Somehow I got off on the wrong foot with you, and I want to apologize. I'd say I'm not very good at talking to women, but I'm also awkward with men, people I don't know well in general, unless there's a mission or some sort of work to do. Buck never said much about you before you turned up in Valhalla, all he'd say was that he missed you, but Emma told me how close you were. And in many ways you resemble him--the hair, the eyes, the general face shape, although your features are more delicate. You share the same interests, and I felt like I kind of knew you. Obviously, I didn't, and I forgot that you don't know me at all. So I know I sounded bossy the few times we've talked and I understand why you didn't like that. I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you I'm sorry and ask for a fresh start." He put out his hand. I looked at him. Since we were going to be in the same afterlife now, and if I wanted to spend time with my uncle and not make it awkward, it was in my best interest to take Captain Rogers up on his offer and accept his apology. Plus I had to admire his willingness to apologize. I took his hand.

"Thank you, I'd like that," I said. "And I didn't give you a fair try, either. You were an irritant on the battlefield, and when we actually met, I wasn't in the mood to be gracious." He laughed.

"No, it was a bit much to ask after what you'd been through with that injury," he said. "We got off to a bad start."

"Well, hopefully a new start will be happier," I said optimistically.

'If it's not too much to ask, I'd like to see you spar with Buck one of these days," he said tentatively. "He speaks very highly of your skills, and I know you're a lot better with a sword than I am."

I smiled. "I'm sure that can be arranged," I said. Tony, still talking to Hela, absently reached over and found my hand to hold. This afterlife was shaping up to be nicer than expected.

And then a steward brought a new arrival over to our table and presented Peter Parker to Hela. Tony looked at me to check my reaction, which was an eye roll. He grinned and squeezed my hand. Well, I'd mended fences with Captain Rogers, so I could deal with Parker too. I sternly reminded myself that it wouldn't be fair of me to take out my antipathy for his daughter out on him and that Hel was a big place. We could be polite to each other. I spoke up, inviting Parker to pull up a seat and join us.