Chapter 9 – Skinny Dipping
Yule lasts as long as the mead lasts, or so King Hakon the good said. One thing was sure at least as the morning was chasing away the night: the effect of the mead was lasting. Still drunk from, well, from drinking all night, the party had left the warm comfort of the house and was watching as Sol in her horse drawn carriage was pulling the sun up over the great skull of Ymir – otherwise known as “the sky”. Max was standing behind Ian with his arms wrapped lovingly around him. Hel had helped herself to Ian’s camera and were taking pictures of the sun she so rarely got to see. Jor was playing with the ducks by the beach. All was peaceful and calm, when Loki suddenly let out a manic shout:
“Sidste man i bølgen er Sif’s afklippede hår!” And with a howl of laughter yanked off his clothes and ran full speed into the ocean. Sleipnir followed strong pursuit, and soon Nari was also stripped bare and running into the water followed by Vali in some odd looking jumps as if he was trying to run on the water instead of in it. Before Max could even turn his head, Sigyn was already in the water, running down the steep banks of the beach. Max looked at Ian, shrugged, stripped down, and in a sprint so as to not lose courage ran into the sea hand in hand with his husband. The water was icy cold and stung as it touched their bare skin.
“What the shit, this is cold!” Max practically screamed in a high pitch.
“What the Fenrir,” Loki replied loudly and laughingly. “This is great!”
On the beach remained only Hel, still holding the camera and with a soft smile filming as Max and Ian were swept up by Jor’s tongue and pulled high up in the air before being dropped and landing with a splash in the ice cold waves, bobbing up again with shocked looks frozen onto their faces. Switching to photos, she got an amazing shot of Nari doing a cannonball from Jor’s head, one of Sigyn holding Loki up above her head as he posed like an ancient Greek athlete facing the sun rise, his bare, wet ass shining in the dawning light. She got a shot of Vali and Fenrir side by side and shaking the water out of their fur, water droplets flying everywhere like a halo around them, their cheeks flapping like loose parachutes, fur blowing like grass in a hurricane. She also got a shot of Sleipnir in the shallows standing on his hind legs, front legs perfectly framing the rising sun, water flying from his mane in small droplets, his flanks glistening in the golden light.
When, only a few minutes later, they were all huddled back inside, wrapped in blankets and gathered around the fire, Ian shuffled over to Hel as she stood in the kitchen looking through her pictures.
“Nice,” he said, looking at the different textures in the Fenrir and Vali photo. “You can almost see the sunset reflected in the bigger droplets, making for a nice color contrast to the blueish grey fur.” Hel didn’t reply verbally, just smiled softly to herself and went on to the next picture. “I take it you prefer to be on this side of the camera?” Ian asked again, trying to get the death goddess to open up just a little. Truth be told, despite having spent time with her now on two different occasions, not to mention being one of very few people alive, much less mortals, to have visited her realm and been able to walk out again, Ian had to confess he didn’t know much about her. He knew she was Loki’s illegitimate daughter, and the only daughter he had, and he knew she ruled Helheim. Apart from that, he knew only that she was fierce but just – that much he had learned the first time he had seen her, as she argued with Sigyn. She’s a quiet one, when no one was in her face, not at all what he had expected from the looks of her, or the associations with death.
“If you ever want to try being on the other side of the camera, let me know. I mean, I’m not a professional or anything like that, but you…” You shouldn’t hide behind the camera, he thought to himself. Not if there is any part of you who would like to partake in the fun. He looked down at the camera and smiled. “It would be an honor to take a picture of such a beautiful woman,” he said softly and honestly. Hel made a sound in the back of her throat, almost like a scornful laugh. Ian smiled mournfully. “You know, people used to respect you,” he said softly. “Worship you, pray to you.” Hel shifted, putting more distance in between them. “The old beliefs have faded, people no longer pray to Odin for wisdom, they open a book and find it themselves. People don’t fear Thor’s thunder, they make lightning catchers to keep their houses safe. No one looks to Freya for fertility, they visit the doctor.” He placed a gentle hand on her skeletal arm, feeling the bare bones beneath the fabric of her dress. “No one needs the old gods anymore, but they still look to you. Maybe they don’t pray like they used to, or make sacrifices to you, but they dress up like you, paint their faces to look like you, make themselves out to be like you, hoping to gain a bit of your strength. People all over the world are painting their faces to look like skulls. If you showed the world a picture of yourself, you would not be ridiculed or feared, people would be impressed with your skill in makeup, asking how you did it, begging you to teach them. You would be admired.” He gave her arm a soft squeeze of encouragement and left her alone, dropping the subject to not make her feel pressured. But by evening time she came to him, pulling him aside. As the others slept off the long night, Ian and Hel stayed out in the sunset snapping pictures. Ian captured one of Hel looking sideways at him, her curly black hair flying wild around her, her human eye glinting in the dimming light, her skull half just visible, her pale skin glowing in the red setting of the sun. He made her turn around, her skull half the focus of the camera. He instructed her to bow forward, letting her hair soak up the water, and then whip back. Perhaps not the freshest or most unique pose, but Hel needed most of all to see herself on the same terms as every other beautiful woman out there, so Ian thought this was the way to go. He asked her to twirl around at the edge of the water. The picture had her spinning like a ballerina on her skeleton leg, her fleshy leg shooting out in a ninety degree angle, her hair slinging water droplets everywhere, the dark red sun shining off on her clean bone, her arms spread out like bird’s wings, her lips parted in a laughing smile.
Slowly he coaxed her out of her shell, making her feel comfortable, until her dress slipped off her shoulder bone and she didn’t bother fixing it, she barely noticed.
“I have been in Helheim for so long,” she admitted as the last colorful clouds dimmed and faded, the camera memory now so full they had no choice but to stop for now. “My own domain, my own realm. No one to dare speak against me, no one to judge me. But I have heard the stories. I have heard how the world is now, I have heard every woman speak of their flaws, think themselves ugly. I have heard women complain that Helheim has no makeup for them to cover up with. If they are ugly by modern standards…” she paused, looking out at the dark sky. “I know I shouldn’t care, that…”
“That it doesn’t matter?” Ian asked kindly. Hel just shrugged. He was right, it shouldn’t matter, but somehow, over time, it had crept in somehow.
“I have power, I have an entire realm of my own, I…”
“It happens to the best of us,” he assured her, looking down at the sand beneath their feet. Slowly, with a hesitant hand, he reached down and lifted up his shirt.
“I am a tan, muscular man,” he told her. “Strong jawline, nice hair, everything a good looking man is supposed to have. But I also have a scar from a surgery when I was a kid, and scars are only attractive if you risked life and limb to get it.” He runs a finger over the scar on his abdomen before letting his shirt fall down again. “It doesn’t matter what we look like, there will always be something wrong with our bodies, some little flaw, and if we let it, it will be all we can see. I think Max is perfection, he could have literally stepped out of a magazine – but he can find a hundred flaws in himself, his skin tone, his hair line, the shape of his biceps. Modern standards of beauty could find flaws in Freya herself and leave her a pitiful wreck.
“You look the way you look, Hel, just own it – like you did when you were banished to Helheim. Own it, make it your own, and if anyone dares stand against you, wipe them out. Stand your ground. You decide your own beauty, not the world – and if you ever need a reminder, I have a mirror and a camera ready at any time, as well as a thousand cosplay tiktok accounts to help you out.” He pressed a firm kiss against her skull (which seemed a lot easier than kissing her cheek), and went back inside again. Hel stayed out a bit longer, looking through the pictures on the camera. Some of them great, others not timed exactly right, but all of them showing her herself. She smiled softly. Ian said a lot of wise things, some of them even tempting to believe, even if it would take her some time to accept it.
With three days left of Yule and no memory left on his camera, what will Ian do? And with New Year’s fast approaching, will Max have any other surprises left up his sleeve? Actually, thinking of it, how did he bring that much stuff with him on the plane? And how does Loki, without a job, afford anything at all? Who knows.