Thumpa.  Thumpa.  Thumpa.  The sound of heavy footsteps pacing back and forth across the cold stone floor awoke Rebecca, causing her to stretch and pull the covers up tightly around her neck.  “Is somefin wrong,” she yawned sleepily, struggling to open her eyes and look around.

Once again, she was all alone in the massive canopy bed in Matthew’s room in Hel.  Rubbing the matter from her eyes, she followed the repetitive sound of the stomping to stare at Matthew as he paced heavily back and forth from one side of the room.  Glancing left and right, she couldn’t see Jennifer anywhere.  “Is something wrong,” Rebecca asked again, waking fully as a feeling of dread slowly rose up in the pit of her stomach.  “What happened?”

“It’s Jenni-worm,” Matthew snorted.  Stopping his irritated pacing, he turned and stomped over to the edge of the bed and sat down on the corner of it, facing Rebecca.

“Jenni-worm?”  Puzzlement and dread both filled Rebecca and she inwardly shivered.  It seemed like something had happened while she’d been asleep.   “Calm down,” she told Matthew as she slowly pulled the covers back and slid out to sit beside him.  Glancing down, Jennifer was curled up in the floor beside the bed, shivering pitifully in her sleep from the cold. 

“What’s happened?”  Reaching out, Rebecca gently took hold of Matthew’s face and tugged it until he was looking directly at her.  “You need to tell me what’s going on, or I won’t be able to help,” she reminded him, gently.

“It’s that one,” Matthew snorted, shaking his head in disgust as he pointed down to Jennifer.  “I don’t have a clue what the hell to do with her now.  To her!  About her!”  Matthew half screamed the last part, before hopping up and kicking Jennifer hard in the ribs, booting her across the room to crash against the wall.  Amazing enough, she never woke as she seemingly remained trapped in a deep sleep.

Seeing Matthew getting ready to stomp over and kick her again, Rebecca quickly rushed out of bed and placed herself between the two of them.  “Wait a minute!  Wait a minute!”  Wrapping her arms around Matthew, she hugged him fight until he quit struggling and then flopped backwards, down onto the bed again, his inertia tugging her along and pulling her half on top of him.

“What the hell’s going on!”  Rebecca quickly straddled on top of Matthew and placed a hand on each of his shoulders, trying to keep him pinned down.

“It’s all fucked up,” Matthew sighed, then slowly reached up and squeezed one of Rebecca’s breasts with each hand.  “She was supposed to be a true companion for us,” he complained moodily.  “Now she’s just a slave.”

“Who’s a slave?  Jennifer?”  Rebecca completely ignored his groping and fondling, looking back over her shoulder to stare at where Jennifer was crumped against the wall sleeping.

Matthew sighed deeply and drew out his answer like some sort of drunken redneck hick.  “Ahhh yuuuup!  That’s who I be ah talkin’ ‘bout.”

“Don’t do that,” Rebecca told him, turning her attention back to frown heavily in his direction.  “You sound stupid, or else you sound like you’re calling me stupid.  Don’t be an asshole and do that.  Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded moodily.  “How the hell is Jennifer a slave?  What the hell happened?”

“Hel happened,” Matthew replied, half laughing.  Leaning up, he wrapped his arms around Rebecca’s back and then tugged her down to rest against his chest.  “Sorry,” he apologized, hugging her tightly.  “I didn’t mean to make it seem like I was calling you stupid.  I just feel like the whole damn situation is stupid.”

“I’ll forgive you this time,” Rebecca told him, nestling to get comfortable as she snuggled down upon him.  “If you treat me like that again though, I’ll twist your ears off,” she warned him sternly, reaching for his left ear with her right hand and then twisting it slightly to prove her point.

“Fine.  Fine.”  Laughing lightly, Matthew tilted his head and gently kissed her on the nose.  “I’m just frustrated,” he admitted, sullenly.  “Apparently Jennifer is some type of crazy psycho bitch.  I don’t know what the hell happened, but when Hel looked at her soul to see if she was worthy to come here when she died, she saw murder in Jennifer’s heart.”

“She wanted to kill me and you,” Matthew informed Rebecca somberly.

“Kill us?  Why us?”  Pushing herself up to the point where her elbows were resting on Matthew’s chest, Rebecca frowned deeply at him.  “All we did was rescue her from those g-things, give her a class so she could survive, and let her join us so she’d stay safe and not get killed in the crazy ass new world up there!  Why would she want to kill us for that?”

“I don’t know,” Matthew shrugged slightly.  “Mother said she was upset because we ruined her future, or something.”

“Ruined her future?”  Rebecca half scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief.  “What future?!  If it wasn’t for us, her future would’ve been either dying and having her soul fed to that crystal, or else living and having babies one after another until she finally died and then had her soul feed that crystal!”

“Are you sure Hel didn’t make a mistake,” Rebecca asked, slowly sliding up off Matthew to stare back over at Jennifer.  A deep frown caused her eyebrows to arch heavily as she stared, lost in thought for several moments.

“Hel doesn’t make mistakes when judging souls,” Matthew stressed, sitting back up on the bed and rubbing his face wearily.  “For whatever crazy reason, Jennifer wanted to kill us.”

“That just doesn’t make sense,” Rebecca said, shaking her head from side to side.  “If she killed us, how would she survive on her on?  Was she planning on committing suicide after?  Or just going to give herself to whatever beast tribe showed up next chasing that dungeon core?”

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“Damned if I know,” Matthew shrugged.  “It doesn’t matter now anyway.  Mother has settled the issue and punished her.  Apparently,” Matthew half laughed, “it’s not a good idea to waltz into a god’s sacred inner sanctum with thoughts of murdering their children in your heart.  Who would’ve believed something like that,” Matthew asked, mockingly.

“So she’s been punished?”  Rebecca looked back at him, then back over at Jennifer’s crumpled form.  “You mentioned she was a slave now.  Was that her punishment?  Who’s slave is she?  Hel’s?”

“Mine,” Matthew admitted gloomily.  “Mother has wrapped her soul up from top to bottom in dozens of shackles and hundreds of chains.”  Holding out his left hand, he pointed to the crystal runes tattooed around it.  “Here’s her leash.  I can’t take it off.  I can’t trade it, give it away, or give her freedom back to her.  I’m stuck with her now, just as much as she’s stuck with me.”

“You should’ve tried to trade her to Hel,” Rebecca said, snorting.  “Who wants a slave which might try and murder you in your sleep!”

“Trade her?  I didn’t think of trying anything like that,” Matthew admitted sheepishly.  “I was too shocked just finding out what had happened.”  For a few moments, he closed his eyes and quietly seemed to be thinking about something, before shrugging lightly and shaking his head from side to side. 

“It’s too late now,” Matthew told Rebecca, sadly.  “I pushed my luck with Mother and pestered her trying to get her to set Jennifer free.  I don’t think it’d be a very smart idea to try and bring the subject back up in front of her for at least another year.  That’s when she said she’d rejudge her, to see if she still wanted to murder us or not.”

“So we have to watch out for her killing us in our sleep for a year?  We should just slit her throat, cut our losses, and be done with it,” Rebecca snorted coldly.  Now she felt like going over and kicking her a few times!  Just why the hell had she even bothered to stop Matthew before?  Inwardly, she made a note to herself to put a little more trust in him and not just butt in so quickly without knowing the reason why in the future.

“No, we’re safe from that at least,” Matthew reassured her.  “Mother made the shackles so they won’t allow her to harm either of us.  She can’t harm anyone who we bring here and have join us.”  Grinning lightly, he pointed between Rebecca’s breasts.

Looking down, at where he was indicating, Rebecca’s eyes opened wide seeing the exquisite crystal runes tattooed between her mounds.  Reaching up with her hand, she gently rubbed one, feeling it tingle slightly under her touch. 

“Mother’s mark,” Matthew told her softly.  “Apparently a lot of people think the gods had symbols which represented them, and I guess with the Greek gods that was true.  Athena used the symbol of the owl, from what I remember.  Zeus used the symbol of the thunderbolt.  With the Norse gods however, they never relied on symbols; there’s no symbol where you can point to it and say, “Oh, you must be a worshipper of Hel!”

“That’s her name,” Matthew laughed.  “You can’t get any simpler than that.  Hel simply wrote her name across your chest, and then put mine beside it, since I was the one who brought you before her.”

“There’s six runes,” Rebecca said, questioningly.  “Aren’t they written with a single rune for a name, like with Asian characters?”

“Not really,” Matthew chuckled.  “In fact, I don’t think they’re actually even names.  Nordic runes are weird.  The three circling around on the left represent Hel and they’re the runes of ice, woman, death.  The three circling around on the right was what Hel gave to represent me – shadow, son, fire.  Reading them is up to interpretation.”

“If you read them, without knowing they’re simply talking about names, you might even think it’d say something like, ‘A woman of death and shadow, her son will be fire and ice’.  Old languages are best left for the old to read and interpret,” Matthew laughed.

“I guess,” Rebecca reluctantly agreed, frowning slightly.  Who knows when such language might come in useful in the new world they were facing?  “So she isn’t going to be able to hurt you, or anyone wearing your name like this,” Rebecca asked, changing the subject back to Jennifer.  There’d be time to worry over learning about runes later.

“That’s what Mother promised,” Matthew confirmed.  “You don’t have to worry.  She can’t harm either of us now, no matter how much she might want to.  She can’t refuse me either, no matter what I tell her to do,” Matthew added, almost as an insignificant afterthought.

Rebecca turned and raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t say anything.

Sighing under her glare, Matthew shrugged.  “It wasn’t my idea, and I had nothing to do with it,” he told Rebecca, looking a little uncomfortable.  “Sure, guys joke about having a woman who he can do anything with and who can never refuse them, but it’s all just a fantasy!  No one really wants that type of control over another person.  Not unless they’re some sick creepo,” Matthew added softly.

“It might be fun to play at it,” he admitted quietly, “but I’d never want to force it.  A girl who’s willing to do anything would be a treasure.  A girl who you have to force just makes you a despicable asshole.  I might’ve asked for a bargain between us, but I never wanted to actually force anyone to become my slave.”

“I feel like shit,” he finally admitted, flopping back down on the bed.  “Somehow, I feel like this is all my fault.  I just thought that since this was a new world, I could indulge and live out a couple of my standard male fantasies.  I wanted to find a willing partner, not a slave,” Matthew muttered, disgusted with himself.  “I’m not a total asshat.  Or, at least, I didn’t think I was.  Now  I’m not so certain.”  Sighing heavily, he pulled the pillow up over his face and hid it.

“You might be an asshat,” Rebecca told him, gently walking up and sitting down on the bed, “but you’re not a total asshat.  You made a bargain with me,  and I agreed to let you do anything and indulge your stupid male fantasies.  I knew what I was getting into, and I was – and am – willing.  Hel didn’t make me a slave, now did she?”

“If anyone is an asshat,” Rebecca said, tugging the pillow out of his grip to stare down into Matthew’s eyes, “it’s Jennifer.  She’s the one who agreed to come with us.  She’s the one who wanted to sleep with us.  She’s the one who wanted to murder us!”

“So what the hell am I supposed to do with her now,” Matthew asked, staring back up into Rebecca’s eyes.   

“Anything the hell you want,” Rebecca told him seriously, before reaching down and twisting his ear around in a knot. 

“Yiiii…  Yiiii… Yiiiiii!!”  Matthew squirmed and reached up to grab her wrist as Rebecca continued twisting.

Staring down at him, she finally released her grip and then lightly kissed him on the nose.  “Just remember,” she warned him softly, “I come first.”

“Always,” Matthew promised, rubbing his ear slightly, a small grin slowly working its way across his face.  Laughing suddenly, he grabbed forward and latched onto each of Rebecca’s nipples with a hand.  Twisting, he tugged her down and passionately kissed her.

“You first, always,” he promised, finally letting go and smiling brightly up at her.