Resolution

When Hela returned to view along with Asta, Jörmungandr's agitation plummet back into his calm immediately. Wide, expectant sunset eyes asked a desperate question, to which Hela responded with a smile.

"She'll do it."

Relief rushed through him like a wave, prickles of coolness dancing across his skin as the faintest but sweetest of smiles crossed his lips.

"...Good."

Hela blinked rapidly at his expression, a gob-smacked expression resting on everyone's faces as the habitually blank-faced serpent was actually smiling with happiness. Anubis wondered if the world was ending, Aspen blushed and looked away, feeling as if she were intruding on a private moment, and Fenrir pinched his cheek and rubbed his eyes, attempting to determine if this was a weird, psychotic dream where his brother actually smiled, or if something was wrong with his eyes.

Seeing as it was neither, he stared at his elder brother weirdly, goosebumps rising on his skin from the foreign expression on his brother's face. He hesitantly reached out and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him a little; then, he check his brother's forehead temperature, finally snapping his fingers in front of his face a few times.

"...Jörmungandr, are you feeling okay? Y-you have a.... s... smi-.... smile," he cringed from the difficulty of saying the word that did not relate to his brother at all, "on your face."

A blank and slightly pissed deadpan was his only response to his question, but instead of being bashful, Fenrir had the gall to sigh with relief.

"Okay, nevermind, you're back to normal now, thank the Norns. Don't do that without warning next time brother, it's... unnatural."

Said elder brother proceeded to do another thing without warning, and socked Fenrir in the jaw with enough force to knock him off the couch.

"Ow! What the Hel was that for!??" Fenrir yelled, holding his jaw while Hela glared at him for the impromptu name drop.

"Shut up," Jörmungandr coldly replied before kicking him in the stomach, only for his leg to be caught and for him to be pulled down to the floor with Fenrir.

In the midst of the sudden sibling wrestling match, Hela looked towards Anubis with a quizzically raised brow. He could only shrug in response to her silent inquiry, as Aspen fretted over the two monster's sudden sibling squabble.

Meanwhile, Asta looked on quietly, her gaze sorrowful; if before she had felt guilty for taking Hela's deal, now she felt even worse than after her first murder.

The pure and honest happiness that had shone through that small smile reminded her of a dream from long ago, of a time where she had slipped into a river and went into a two week coma before awakening again—of the long dream she had shared with a certain white-haired boy. She recalled the many dreams afterward, of the hazy face she could not recall properly, and the name she could never remember.

She was no fool; she knew that Jörmungandr was most likely the same boy, but that frightened her more. How did a fantasy become reality, and how could that innocent fantasy turn out to be a serpent who would destroy the world and all she held dear?

Turning her mind back, Asta recalled the words her grandmother had consoled her with after she, a child, had naively cried over the story of Jörmungandr.

"'It is sad,"' she crooned, holding her close, "'but sometimes sad things must be done in order to protect people.'"

'Grandmother,' she thought with despondency towards herself, 'if you could see who I am because of this fear of attachment, would you still love me?'

Strangely, she could not think if her response.

Initially, she had been comfortable around Jörmungandr, or about as comfortable as a specter could be with a world-destroying that valued her.

However, overtime a sense of unease had come to her; as she stayed beside him, she knew he had emotions for those connected to him, and that he was capable of more emotions. She had seen him cradling her dead body while crying—she knew he was emotional when it came to her.

But so had her father been—emotional and volatile. For a man who was as cold and emotionless as he was, whenever her saw her face as Asta grew, passionate feelings would emerge and his hand would be moving before she even knew he was there.

The vivid memory of bodily aches and injuries a child should not experience was deeply ingrained within her mind—an image that came to mind when she pulled her patron off the creature, at the shattered bones and bleeding form more limp than a wet rag.

Even then, she felt certain he would not harm her with how tenderly he had held her corpse, at the sincere sadness he held—but then he asked that question, when Anubis's Priestess laid dying:

'"Why... are they sad?"'

It was as if electricity had struck her at that time.

'Dear heavens, even with me dying... he still does not understand how precious life is?'

And then the questions, the doubts, the anxiety and the fear returned.

'Did I misread him? Is it a misunderstanding on my part? Am I like a child's toy to him—a curiosity to explore and keep to himself before finding another one? If so, when will I be replaced, and when I am, how will I be treated?'

The terrifying images of her father's icy eyes staring down at her haunted her; would this kindness he had offered her turn as violent as her father had been?

Until now, she had been assured that that would not happen to her; she was a specter after all—if he ever grew volatile towards her, she could simply fade away and wait for his hidden fury to cool down before returning to his side.

Before, she could always escape.

Now, she was set for resurrection; if before, she would have been ecstatic, even hopeful, since she would be able to properly meet her companions, to even be friends with them.

Currently, at Hela's approach, she was terrified beyond belief, as if facing an execution instead of a resurrection.

Alive, she could build connections, make friends, find a family... and maybe even have a love of her own.

But life was not all sunshine and rainbows.

Alive, she could be hurt by others, make enemies, become abandoned... and maybe even permanently die this time.

Life was a terrifying and voracious monster that enjoyed kicking her to the ground and kept kicking; life was like her Father and Jörmungandr, and she both wanted to have it, and wanted to run away.

Pale blue eyes searched Jörmungandr's sunset yellow ones. They were warm, as always, warm and kind. But she could not trust those eyes; many before him had held those same eyes before abandoning and hurting her, save for her grandmother—but even she only kept her around out of pity, her mother's memory, and because it was cheap to have a granddaughter that could see and help her without paying a dime around.

'I won't give you the chance to abandon me,' she spoke to him quietly, her gaze blank and yet sad.

'I'll leave first—and then you won't have to bother with me anymore.'

Everything turned black when Hela's skeletal hand touched her head.