(no subject)

[in-a-handbasket.insanejournal.com]

WHO: Hel & Jersey Devil
WHEN: Late Saturday night
WHERE: Some dark alley
WHAT: Two of the darker denizens of the city and an unplanned encounter
WARNINGS: tba? Probably actually not too much.

There were storms coming in and the temperature had dropped dramatically over the last few hours. Not that this bothered Hel: anything was warmer than Helheim, that frozen over wasteland she'd once ruled by force. Anything on the surface was better than that. Hel didn't even mind that she wasn't a queen anymore. Queen had never been a title she'd cared for, although she considered herself to be a fair queen. She didn't feel sympathy for the dead. She commanded and ruled and let the rules be black and white. She had not been merciful, no more than she had been cruel. She simply did as was her appointed job.

But up here her only job was a human one, where she determined the reason for death by exploring mortal corpses. A fascinating change in jobs, but still related to the dead.

The night streets offered no danger to Hel and from the darkness of an alley she watched young men and women pass by on their way home, or out to clubs or... to wherever humans went. They were still a little mysterious to her.

Comments

[in-a-handbasket.insanejournal.com]

"Then perhaps I am the only one of this kind," Hel said. "Humans are probably 'ruffled' because you eat them."

[newjersey-devil.insanejournal.com]

"Maybe," Lucas said, shrugging. "Hey, they have only themselves to blame for that. For over a hundred years, I stole cattle from fields and did just fine. But then they started telling stories about me carrying off people. And Hollywood picked up on the idea, made a bunch of terrible movies. They make their own worst nightmares themselves. And me?" He shrugged again. "I'm riding the wave."

[in-a-handbasket.insanejournal.com]

"Interesting," Hel said again. "Humanity's fear of that which lurks in the darkness is constantly intriguing. They keep making monsters for themselves. Even if they understood their power, I'm not sure they'd stop."

[newjersey-devil.insanejournal.com]

Lucas just shook his head. "Sometimes, I think they like being afraid," he theorized. "They like the idea of the safe, horror movie fear that ends after two hours. They just never imagined that the movie would come to life and take a bite out of them."

[in-a-handbasket.insanejournal.com]

"Fortunate for creatures like you," Hel said. "I don't understand the appeal of fear. I don't feel it."

[newjersey-devil.insanejournal.com]

"Pretty much, yeah," Lucas agreed. "And neither do I, not really. But some people or beings really love it, I guess."

[in-a-handbasket.insanejournal.com]

"Do you wear a name like you wear a skin?" Hel asked him. "What kind of thing are you: a god-being or simply one of a species. I've met others that eat humans, but they weren't like you."