Jean-Paul Surtr
This is brought to you by a conversation with ravenblack, who was complaining about the blithe indifference to canon of recent Thor comics. He said that it was all mythologically dreadful and really if they can't even get the basics right, how are comics readers (him) supposed to know more than mythology geeks (me) about mythology? Future generations will not be able to confound their friends with trivia! And somehow, this jeremiad became the birth of Jean-Paul Surtr.
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He sat stolidly in the corner of the room, ignoring the others -- he, who had come from Múspellsheimr in the south, attended by flames, his sword shining brightly. From the fiery realm of the jotun to a still worse Hel. She spoke brightly, as if he weren't destined to meet the Aesir on Vígríðr field in battle to herald the end of days. Pah! And he wasted time in this eternal room, gloomy with the presence of the unheroic dead. Hel, the valet-mistress of this realm, smiled. "That's good! So you haven't yet got over your - what-do-you-call-it? - sense of jotun dignity? Excuse my smiling." If only he could find the exit, he would cleave his way through to it and meet his fate singing the song of a warrior. He smiled back at Hel, full of menace. "But don't forget, I've a good notion of what's coming to me, so don't you boast you've caught me off my guard. I'm facing the situation, facing it." He knew his fate, though he still denied the end, harboring a hope to see Odin fall under his sword, to hear Thor's cries of anguish as his mighty hammer fell from unfeeling hands. Friend of Man indeed. He spared a contemptuous glance for his companions, they who demanded that they all confess to their crimes. Jean-Paul Surtr felt a supreme contempt for such weakness.
So what if he had taken lovers beyond his sweet Sinmara? He had never fled Múspellsheimr in the time of war; he stationed himself at its borders and waited to die. How it was that he had found himself in Hel's realm he could not reckon -- the shameful home for those mortals who had not died gloriously in battle. No, he was no coward, no deserter. He would ride over Bifrost and burn it in his wake, roaring his challenge before Freyr fell. That one, at least, he knew he would kill. But troll wives would take to the road and the heavens break apart before he would stay in this dreary place one more minute. He leapt to his feet with a tremendous roar, seizing Hel by the throat. "Enough! I have a fate to meet; it seems that warriors shall tread the path from Hel after all! Show me the exit, or burn and be consumed!"
To his surprise, Hel began to laugh. "Burn and be consumed? Well, well, don't mind if I do." Her voice shifted as she did, turning under his astonished fingers into a wisp of flame, a laughing, red-haired man. As the lying blood-brother of the cursed Aesir escaped his grasp, Surtr howled in fury and swung his sword through a figure that was no longer there. "I'll be seeing you... eventually," said the impersonator as he vanished. Surtr swore violently. "Hel," he said, "is other people."
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/182734.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.
*******
He sat stolidly in the corner of the room, ignoring the others -- he, who had come from Múspellsheimr in the south, attended by flames, his sword shining brightly. From the fiery realm of the jotun to a still worse Hel. She spoke brightly, as if he weren't destined to meet the Aesir on Vígríðr field in battle to herald the end of days. Pah! And he wasted time in this eternal room, gloomy with the presence of the unheroic dead. Hel, the valet-mistress of this realm, smiled. "That's good! So you haven't yet got over your - what-do-you-call-it? - sense of jotun dignity? Excuse my smiling." If only he could find the exit, he would cleave his way through to it and meet his fate singing the song of a warrior. He smiled back at Hel, full of menace. "But don't forget, I've a good notion of what's coming to me, so don't you boast you've caught me off my guard. I'm facing the situation, facing it." He knew his fate, though he still denied the end, harboring a hope to see Odin fall under his sword, to hear Thor's cries of anguish as his mighty hammer fell from unfeeling hands. Friend of Man indeed. He spared a contemptuous glance for his companions, they who demanded that they all confess to their crimes. Jean-Paul Surtr felt a supreme contempt for such weakness.
So what if he had taken lovers beyond his sweet Sinmara? He had never fled Múspellsheimr in the time of war; he stationed himself at its borders and waited to die. How it was that he had found himself in Hel's realm he could not reckon -- the shameful home for those mortals who had not died gloriously in battle. No, he was no coward, no deserter. He would ride over Bifrost and burn it in his wake, roaring his challenge before Freyr fell. That one, at least, he knew he would kill. But troll wives would take to the road and the heavens break apart before he would stay in this dreary place one more minute. He leapt to his feet with a tremendous roar, seizing Hel by the throat. "Enough! I have a fate to meet; it seems that warriors shall tread the path from Hel after all! Show me the exit, or burn and be consumed!"
To his surprise, Hel began to laugh. "Burn and be consumed? Well, well, don't mind if I do." Her voice shifted as she did, turning under his astonished fingers into a wisp of flame, a laughing, red-haired man. As the lying blood-brother of the cursed Aesir escaped his grasp, Surtr howled in fury and swung his sword through a figure that was no longer there. "I'll be seeing you... eventually," said the impersonator as he vanished. Surtr swore violently. "Hel," he said, "is other people."
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/182734.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.