Howdy, friends! TMF user loverofmusic requested this one, and here it is. As usual, I welcome feedback!
Feather of the Gods (f/f, Thor Ragnarok fanfic)
by
Kid Indy
"To arms! To arms! Rally in the square!"
To arm herself, even called from deep sleep, was second nature: armor, boots, secure hair, weapon, shield. Everything in its place. Not a wasted movement. Around her the sisters moved wordless to the barracks door, then to ranks on the green. Her ears picked up the captain's voice as she took her place in the precise rank and file that she had learned as her place in Asgard.
"Hela has escaped!"
Murmurs among the ranks.
"Odin has summoned us once more to give battle, and once more we will overcome this menace to Asgard!"
Nods of approval.
"This will be exclusively an aerial cavalry maneuver--we need to take her from all directions, and we need to hit her as fast as possible. Mount up, move fast, and get ready to encircle the enemy!"
Boots made tracks for the stables, and flying wedges of winged horses soon cut through the grand Asgardian sky, headed for the mystical prison. Two ranks ahead of her, at the tip of her formation, she saw her sergeant's helmet light up. A message was coming in. Her head turned to shout back the change in orders.
"She's already making her way to Odin's palace! Wheel 'round!"
Reins tightened, and as one the formation changed directions, thundering towards the grand towers in the heart of Asgard's main city. In one of the city's spacious parks stood the dark figure that the Valkyries had learned rightly to fear: Hela. The goddess of death.
The Valkyrie captain signaled to the sergeants, and the wedges started to merge into a single cyclone of horses, women, steel, and wings. Hela took a break from slaughtering the city's hapless guards to look up. In the face of the force that had before put her down, rendered her helpless so that Odin might imprison her, she merely smiled. The Valkyrie captain gave the signal, and the Valkyries suddenly whipped into a dive, and Hela crossed her forearms in front of her.
In only an instant, the power that Hela had gained since her imprisonment terrified the Valkyries.
Then the power obliterated them.
They had seen her magical daggers fly forth, but only three or four at a time. This time, as her wrists uncrossed and her hands flung down to her sides, she rotated her hip, and her lead hand threw out a continuous line of deadly blades that broke the Valkyrie line, slaughtering woman and horse indiscriminately. As the rest of the formation swerved to avoid the falling dozens, her other arm swept upwards across her body, sending forth another swarm of sharp metal and completely breaking the diving charge. With four such swipes the fifty Valkyries were grounded, some rolling desperately out from under falling horse-flesh, some dead long before they hit the ground.
Those who survived the dive drew swords, knowing only battle, charging forward and dying one after another. Brunnhilde, as dark and as fierce as any of her sisters, charged forward, drawing her short sword and preparing to engage. The daughter of Odin saw her advanced, licked her lips, flicked a wrist in her direction. The Valkyrie was leaning in too hard; there was no time to parry the missile.
But nothing cut through the fierce Valkyrie; one of her sisters, attempting to slide to Hela's flank, moved in front of the blade, and the weight of her sister, driven back, landed on Brunnhilde. Winded by the unexpected hit, she fell to the ground under her slain comrade, and before she could bring herself to a fighting stance again, she heard the uncanny silence of a battlefield emptied of warriors. She shoved her friend's corpse aside and stood, and she came to the terrible realization that only she and Hela, but a newly-invincible Hela, remained on the field. The two goddesses eyed each other across the corpse-littered field.
"Would you try your fate where an army has fallen, little shield-maiden?"
No words in response. She merely tightened her grip on her sword's hilt.
"You Valkyries do amuse me. I think I want to save you for later." And with a flick of her wrist, she sent forth into the air a spinning forked blade that streaked through the air and snapped the blade of the Valkyrie's blade like a twig. Then she lifted one hand to the sky, and the Valkyrie's eyes could not help but watch a massive blade, the size of her barracks door, fly skyward and come down at her. The Valkyrie was frozen, but Hela kept moving. Shifting her hips and shoulders into a piston-punching motion, she filled the air with smaller blades, like semi-circles with their centers missing. The large blade slammed down into the ground behind the Valkyrie, and the brackets pinned her neck, then one wrist, then another, then her waist, then each ankle to the metal behind her. A terrible sound filled the air as the blades fused together and created one, continuous metal prison for the warrior-woman.
Hela strutted her triumph over to the Valkyrie, who was entirely at her mercy. With a gesture from the death-goddess, the blade lifted out of the ground and rotated until it lay horizontal, and the Valkyrie found herself floating alongside Hela down the now-abandoned main avenue of the city. The Valkyrie looked around in vain for help, but everyone had fled at the sight of the death-goddess's onslaught, and they walked uncontested to the gate of Asgard's palace. With a series of quick and destructive gestures, Hela tore the gates from their hinges, and the Valkyrie found herself floating, as in a strange funeral procession, next to the goddess of death through an abandoned palace's grand entry hall.
Through the palace they wandered until they reached what the Valkyrie guessed was the legendary treasure trove of Asgard. Hela seemed to know precisely where she was going, and the Valkyrie silently cursed the cowardice of whatever guards should have been resisting this onslaught. Then she heard the terrible sound of a death-goddess displeased.
"WHAT?!? What happened to the flame?" She turned violently to one side, then the other. "Where is the Eternal Flame?"
She turned to her captured warrior. "Where has Odin taken the flame?"
The Valkyrie had no words; why would she know where the kingdom's treasures were?
"Ah, the fear in your eyes is wonderful, my dear. You've never been in this room before, have you? How would you know where the most powerful force in the Nine Realms has been taken?"
She looked around for a moment, then turned back to her.
"But you might know where Odin has gone to, no?" The Valkyrie steeled her gaze and prepared for the first strike to come. She knew how this would proceed: with the death-goddess's penchant for swords and daggers, she would no doubt begin cutting her, but all of the Valkyries not only swore pledges of loyalty unto death but trained to withstand pain far beyond even what Asgard's palace guards could take.
"Come on, then. Let's find out where Odin hides himself these days, shall we?"
"You'll not find that out from me. No pain you can inflict can cut that knowledge out of me."
"Oh, she speaks! How glorious! Rest assured, shield maiden, that nothing so crude as pain lies in store for you. I'm the goddess of death, not of blunt instruments."
"Then kill me and have done with it!"
The blade floated through the palace as Hela continued to talk. "The battlefield is only one place where I reign supreme, little one. The warrior's death is a necessary arrow in my quiver, but there's another death that a shield... maiden like yourself has yet to experience."
"You talk like a fool, traitor, and your fool words will not trick me!"
They made their way into a large bedroom, and the blade returned to a vertical position. Hela made a series of gestures, her fingers flying, and a myriad of shining blades flew forth around the warrior's body. The Valkyrie could hear her armor being shredded at every joint. With some more gestures and the sound of sliced metal, Hela's grin widened, and her hands went to the sides of her head. With another gesture, her spider-like helmet gave way to smooth, flowing hair, and her armor transformed into a sleek silk nightgown.
"Soon you'll see that death does not impose order from outside as pain does. I'm going to find out what's under your own skin, and your own body will betray my father just as a mortal's body at the end of life's journey betrays his soul to me."
"Stop your talk, witch, and fight me!"
"I tire of fighting, my pretty. I want some other kind of amusement." With a gesture the brackets pinning the Valkyrie to the huge blade fell to the ground, and as instinct took over, the dark-skinned warrior leapt into a fighting stance.
And none of her armor came with her.
Suddenly the Valkyrie found herself as exposed as she had been in the barracks, everything from her boots up missing, covered only by the undergarments that Valkyries wore underneath their armor. She could hear pieces of her former armor drop around her, and the cool air greeted her skin. Her belly and shoulders and legs and feet were entirely exposed. She could not help but look down and realize her humiliation.
"Now lie down on the bed, my lovely, so that we can continue."
"DIE!" The Valkyrie led with a hard right punch, and Hela's wrist snapped up to deflect it, turning her body off balance. With a quick shove, the Valkyrie found herself tumbling onto the large bed. The death-goddess was far faster and stronger, and in an instant not only had she tossed the vanquished fighter onto the bed but had begun to sail through the air to land unceremoniously on top of her. Hela's bottom rested on the Valkyrie's hips, and for the moment she was too stunned to try to fight.
Hela gestured to the curtains hanging from the bed's canopy, and tiny flying blades cut four thick strips of heavy curtain away. They fell around the Valkyrie. Hela sprung, wrapping up one of the other Asgardian woman's wrists with one of the strips. A hard punch from the other hand struck Hela in the head, but the impact did not even distract her from the quick knot she was tying. Brunnhilde continued to strike at the goddess in the face and neck but could not slow her down. With another gesture, a metal shackle encased the curtain's fabric, and a magical chain soon connected the bedpost to the Valkyrie's padded cuff.
The Valkyrie panicked as she realized that she was trapped again. Her free hand flew to the chain, and she tried to pull, and as she did, Hela pivoted and wrapped one of her ankles and chained it with her sorcery. As the Valkyrie strained against the chain and continued to try to pull her arm free, Hela grabbed the other ankle and began to wrap it in the third section of curtain. The free hand disengaged from the chain and tried to grab at Hela, but the work was already done, and three of her four limbs were chained, in padded cuffs, to the bedposts. A weak punch, with no leverage, greeted Hela as she lunged for the last free limb, and as she grabbed the arm with both of her hands, the Valkyrie knew that she was helpless. She strained against the more-powerful Asgardian as she wrapped the last limb, but it was in van: she was captured. Hela slid off the bed and paced around her captive, leering at her exposed and stretched body.
The Valkyrie pulled against the bonds, but they were of the same sorcery that had vanquished armies, and one woman, Asgardian or no, could not break them. She could feel the luxurious sheets underneath her bare skin, reminding her that she had neither armor nor even clothes to fend off the knives that Hela so easily killed with. Nonetheless she raised her head, and she spat at Hela.
Hela allowed herself another laugh. "Now, my ferocious little girl, where does Odin go when he has to hide?"
"Cut me as you will, you sorceress! I'll never yield!"
"Oh, you still think that swords are my only weapons! We're in the bedroom now, shield maiden! You're about to learn some different ways that people die!"
"No man will ever touch me, sorceress!"
"I'm the goddess of death, darling, not of birth. I'm not interested in marrying you off or giving you children. I'm going to show you what you never knew was happening underneath that lovely Valkyrie skin of yours."
What was she going on about? Hela sat down next to her on the bed, her silk-clad hip next to the Valkyrie's bare leg. The Valkyrie braced herself, sure that the first cut would come from her knee, but instead the goddess's fingers, feeling nothing like blades, began to touch and to skim across the Valkyrie's athletic waist.
"What are you doing?" No answer. Just more touching, now pinching. She gasped at the new touch and felt something strive to escape her throat. What was this usurper doing? She kept pinching the flesh above the Valkyrie's hip bones, and her bound body began to twist away from the fingers, involuntarily. She groaned as she realized that her body was about to laugh at this humiliation.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
And that was a mistake: as her voice projected, one of Hela's wicked pinches found a magic spot, and the Valkyrie heard a giggle escape, not the triumphant scornful laugh of the conquering warrior but the sound she had heard the young wives of Asgard make when their men made their crude jokes and--the Valkyrie now realized--tickled their divine skin. But this was no brief lovers' pinch--laughing at full volume, she had no way to cover up, no way to escape, no sign of when the goddess of death, cruelty in person, would stop touching her waist this way.
The answer was soon, but that was not a good answer. The torturous pinches soon started to creep up towards her ribs, and when they found the boundary where her ribs began, the Valkyrie let out a shriek, and her bottom bounced into the air off of the bed. She strained and struggled at her bonds, but this tickling was not making her any stronger, and the goddess was not slowing down. As she continued to pinch at her ribs, occasionally fingers would wander from her sides to the middle of her belly, just below the sternum, and run a cascading course down to her panty line, and that tickling stood out enough from the other that she would squeal or even moan at each new kind of tickling. In one moment all eight of the goddess's fingers shifted to the front of her midsection, and the Valkyrie squealed at the unbearable touch. With this newly discovered spot, Hela worked on her belly for some time, circling her navel with a torturing fingernail, pinching, rubbing, poking, and making the warrior-woman laugh longer than ever she had laughed.
And after that never-ending belly-tickle, the goddess withdrew her hands, watching the Valkyrie pant.
"You see, shield maiden, this is the path to the small death, not one that ends your suffering but that uses everything that your body wants to pull you back and forth between pleasure and abjection. Tickling you is never going to wear out your body, never release you from my power. I can do this as long as I like!"
Through gritted teeth she managed, "I'll never tell you where he's taken them!"
"Them? Oh, darling, now you've gotten me curious! I knew Odin would take Mommy Dearest with him, but who else is in hiding?"
The Valkyrie could feel her heart racing. "Die, you witch!"
"No, my sweet, I am death. Perhaps I should remind you." Her hands began to descend on the Valkyrie's underarms, and the powerless hero tried to brace herself, but this was something different even than her ribs: Hela's touch only had to skim the surface to send the Valkyrie over the edge, and as they continued to work on the surface, her laughter became higher pitched until each laugh sounded like a whimper and the moans that punctuated the giggling surprised the Valkyrie--where were these sounds coming from? She kicked and squirmed, but the fingers would not stop, and she felt Hela's face close to hers. "Who are 'they'? I'll stop tickling here if you tell me!"
"No... can't..."
"Oh, but you can. And I can keep this up as long as you'd like!"
"Please... can't tell..."
"Oh, the proud warrior is begging, is she? This is even better!" Hela's fingers dug in deeper, and the Valkyrie howled at the new sensations. "Who are 'they'?"
"No... please..."
The fingers kept digging.
"Please... can't..."
Hela's eyes glowed with cruelty. Her fingernails had found paths to explore, and they moved with such purpose and speed that the Valkyrie's world contracted until there were only her tickled underarms and those terrible hands.
"ODIN'S SONS! ODIN'S SONS!! JUST STOP!!"
The hands immediately retreated. "Oh, do tell! So that's why the old man fled so quickly! New heirs to the throne, are there?"
The Valkyrie was horrified; how could she have given that up?
"Well, now I have all the more reason to finish this. I need the Eternal Flame to revive Fenris, and I need to know where these brats are so that there are no heirs to this throne. Wouldn't you agree, shield maiden?"
The Valkyrie pulled furiously on her chains. "Let me out of this! Stop doing this to me!"
"Oh, darling, I'm not doing anything to you! There's not a mark on your body, and you've experienced no pain. What you're experiencing is the small death."
"Stop saying that. I've never been touched by a man, and--"
"Oh, I have a hunch you've never much wanted to be touched by a man, have you?"
The Valkyrie flushed at the comment. "Let me out of these! I'll kill you!"
"No, you won't. You don't have that power. Every time I touch you, it's your body, not me, betraying Odin. That's what's lovely: pain comes at you from outside, but tickling draws the laughter out of you. It's terrible, I know, but it's also quite fun, don't you think? But we should get back to things. You do know where I need to go to find Odin, and that's what we're going to be talking about next." The Valkyrie's breath grew short as Hela stood up sat farther down the bed, by her foot. "So where might I find your beloved king?"
The Valkyrie's breath quickened. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"
With one hand Hela secured the metal cuff around her ankle and with the other started plucking at her sole as a harpist might pluck strings, each swipe igniting a terrible feeling, each note in the unheard song sending the Valkyrie closer to the laughing madness that she had just quieted. The pads of her fingers gave way to fingernails, and the more focused touch broke what resistance remained. The Valkyrie squealed in spite of herself, then began to thrash, unable to snatch her foot away from the tickling touches. What had happened to her underarms was bad, but this was unlike anything she had experienced before, and she felt the urge enter her mind: she could give up Odin!
"Please... please!"
"Beg all you want, my toy. I do love to humble the proud. But there's only one thing that will save these poor feet of yours!"
"I can't... I can't!"
"Tickle, tickle!" Her fingers were traveling all over the foot now, strumming the heel, tracing the instep, sliding along the bases of her toes. The Valkyrie's head pressed backwards against the mattress, and her hips rose into the air, but the tickling would not stop. Hela's nails began to trace random patterns across the skin of her soles, and she wished only for the death that the battlefield afforded. She discovered that the tickling had stopped only when she felt Hela's weight lift from the bed and watched her walk towards the other foot.
"Please, I beg you, give me the death that met my sisters! I'm sworn to protect Odin and Asgard!"
"And all of those poor girls back there swore as well. None of them could stop me. What makes you think you can, my ticklish little girl?" Hela lifted her wrist in a subtle gesture, and the Valkyrie saw a shimmering form emerge between her fingers.
"Wha... what is that?"
"What, did you think I could only make swords? Even metal, when crafted finely enough and shaped for spring, can work passably as a feather."
"Feather?"
"Darling, you still haven't told me where Odin hides himself when he's overmatched, and I need that flame. And now I'm going to show you what this little feather can draw out of your body." The hand that did not hold the feather grasped the ankle-cuff. The Valkyrie bit her lip as the sparkling silver feather descended towards her foot, and when its tip started tracing a line from between her toes, past the ball of the foot, and onto the sole, she began to scream in panic.
"No! No! I can't tell you! I can't tell you!"
"Who's to say I'm going to stop once you do?" And with that the conversation ended. The feather's tip dashed across the deliciously ticklish skin of the warrior-woman, and every pass sent her voice soaring in tickled laughter. Her hips turned counter to her shoulders, she thrashed at the shackles, and she cried out in tortured protest as the magical feather did its work. For a moment she convinced herself that she could feel it drawing an energy from her chest, down through her diaphragm, through her recently-tickled abdomen, through her hips, and into... what was this feeling? Even her thrashing could not conceal that whatever the feather was doing, it was starting to concentrate not at her navel but below somewhere.
And then, as her toes spread in ticklish response, Hela slipped the feather's blade between two toes. The back-and-forth thrashing gave way to a grand arch, throwing the Valkyrie's electrified pelvis skyward and her voice into a tormented, desperate, shrieking moan. The feather sawed back and forth between the toes, and the Valkyrie slipped below verbal consciousness, her voice uttering strange noises that spoke no word but told Hela everything. Releasing the ankle-cuff, the death-goddess grabbed the big toe and spread them, then moved the feather's tip between two more, then began to saw again and re-secured the ankle-cuff. The Valkyrie's body now twisted but remained in the turned position as the terrible feather tormented the skin between her toes, making her laugh when she had no more laughter in her.
The Valkyrie heard her own panting moans as she returned once again to awareness. She had no idea how long Hela had feather-tickled her, but her Asgardian physique glistened with sweat. She raised her weary head, and only when she made eye contact with Hela did Hela, who was once more standing, but between her feet at the foot of the bed, lift one hand with three fingers brought together as a painter might hold a fine brush. From between them emerged not a brush but a slim cylinder of metal, mirror-smooth, rounded on the end. Hela's mouth twisted upwards into a deadly smile, and to the Valkyrie's eyes, the tip of the instrument got blurry as she heard it hum. "I don't even think I want you to tell me where Odin is yet, my pretty. What you see is truly the tool of inner death. One touch from its tip will be like nothing any woman in Asgard has ever felt." With that she reached the tip down and touched the skin just below the ankle cuff, her ankle, with the tip. The humming that she could hear instantly became a vibration she could feel, and her body recoiled and threw her weight away. She screamed at the sensation; this tickled in a way that was not natural, and Hela had only touched her for a moment, and on a spot that she did not even think of as tickish.
"Please! Odin is my king! I can't! I can't!"
Hela only smiled.
The tip of the instrument touched the center of Valkyrie's sole, the one that Hela had only tickled with fingers before, and the Valkyrie began to scream before she even knew she was screaming. She could hold out no longer. "MIDGARD!! MIDGARD!! THE LAND OF THE NORTH-MEN!! ON MIDGARD!!"
Hela immediately withdrew the buzzing tip. "Really? That obscure realm? I would have thought better of the old man. But no matter. You've given me what I want now, haven't you?"
Tears began to run down the Valkyrie's cheeks as she realized what she had done.
"Come on now, shield-maiden. We can't have you weeping while my celebration begins! Let's have a bit of fun before I go and take back what's mine!"
She began to lean in over the Valkyrie's feet. "No! You've already defeated me! Torment me no longer!"
"Oh, darling, I didn't think that your feet would be quite that ticklish! I still had plenty of places I wanted to try out!" Hela began to scratch the insides of the Valkyrie's thighs, and she let out the tormented moan of the soul who has no more to surrender. Between her legs was ticklish in a way that even her feet had not been, and her arms no longer tried even to break away from her bonds. The fire that had burned when the death-goddess tickled her feet now blazed beyond her body's bounds, and in her laughter and moaning she could feel an explosion about to happen, something that she never could have known was a mystery even to all but the luckiest wives of Asgard.
"Just think, the look on Odin's face when I capture him and reduce one of his beloved Valkyries to jelly with the tip of a feather!"
The Valkyrie's breath began to pulse, and her eyes rolled back.
"And then, while my legions and my Fenris overrun the whole Cosmos, we'll bring you along so that I can tickle you like this every evening after the day's fighting is done!"
The Valkyrie's torso tightened, then her buttocks, awaiting the blast.
"You'll have your death, shield-maiden. You'll have it whenever I want to deal my ticklish death again!"
Then the blast. The Valkyrie could feel the shockwave, but it was not inside her body. Hela's hands had stopped, and her whole form glowed with an unnatural colored light. Dust filled the air, and the Valkyrie looked to her side to see that an entire wall of the bedroom was gone. Beyond, Odin, flanked by Asgardian elite warriors, stood looking on. Odin's hand was extended, and in it was a royal Asgardian scepter, its jeweled head glowing with whatever magic had trapped Hela. Hela's body, as solid as anything in Asgard a moment before, simply disappeared from the space at the foot of the bed.
Odin spoke. "Release her from those chains."
The Valkyrie could not speak. She wrapped a sheet around herself as soon as her limbs were free, and she could still feel Hela's hands and the strange energy that the death-goddess had almost drawn from her but which still burned inside.
"You have done well, Valkyrie. Because of your bravery, we had time to gather the ancient magic and once again trap Hela."
"But I surrendered your location!"
"No matter. We needed someone to provide us time, and you extended the battle for hours while we gathered the magic."
Had the goddess really tickled her for hours? Suddenly bewilderment gave way to anger. "You knew we could not defeat her?"
"I knew that many of you would die in battle, perhaps all of you. And I worried that the fight would not contain her for long. But with your weakness, you managed to provide us the time Asgard needed."
The Valkyrie flushed as she realized that Odin knew what had transpired. But then her rage overran her embarrassment. "You sent us against Hela knowing that we would fall?"
Odin's one eye fell, and he looked at the floor. "Alas, yes. We had no other option." He raised it again and looked at the beautiful, ticklish warrior. "But now you will have your reward. Come, and marry one of our Asgardian lords. Join the mothers of Asgard, and take your place as one of the honorable matrons of our people."
The Valkyrie's growl was audible. "No man will ever touch me, old man."
"You watch how you address--"
"I watch nothing! The Valkyries are no more, and I will not abide!"
With as much dignity as she could muster, the last Valkyrie stormed from the Asgardian palace to seek out a place to forget.
Feather of the Gods (f/f, Thor Ragnarok fanfic)
by
Kid Indy
"To arms! To arms! Rally in the square!"
To arm herself, even called from deep sleep, was second nature: armor, boots, secure hair, weapon, shield. Everything in its place. Not a wasted movement. Around her the sisters moved wordless to the barracks door, then to ranks on the green. Her ears picked up the captain's voice as she took her place in the precise rank and file that she had learned as her place in Asgard.
"Hela has escaped!"
Murmurs among the ranks.
"Odin has summoned us once more to give battle, and once more we will overcome this menace to Asgard!"
Nods of approval.
"This will be exclusively an aerial cavalry maneuver--we need to take her from all directions, and we need to hit her as fast as possible. Mount up, move fast, and get ready to encircle the enemy!"
Boots made tracks for the stables, and flying wedges of winged horses soon cut through the grand Asgardian sky, headed for the mystical prison. Two ranks ahead of her, at the tip of her formation, she saw her sergeant's helmet light up. A message was coming in. Her head turned to shout back the change in orders.
"She's already making her way to Odin's palace! Wheel 'round!"
Reins tightened, and as one the formation changed directions, thundering towards the grand towers in the heart of Asgard's main city. In one of the city's spacious parks stood the dark figure that the Valkyries had learned rightly to fear: Hela. The goddess of death.
The Valkyrie captain signaled to the sergeants, and the wedges started to merge into a single cyclone of horses, women, steel, and wings. Hela took a break from slaughtering the city's hapless guards to look up. In the face of the force that had before put her down, rendered her helpless so that Odin might imprison her, she merely smiled. The Valkyrie captain gave the signal, and the Valkyries suddenly whipped into a dive, and Hela crossed her forearms in front of her.
In only an instant, the power that Hela had gained since her imprisonment terrified the Valkyries.
Then the power obliterated them.
They had seen her magical daggers fly forth, but only three or four at a time. This time, as her wrists uncrossed and her hands flung down to her sides, she rotated her hip, and her lead hand threw out a continuous line of deadly blades that broke the Valkyrie line, slaughtering woman and horse indiscriminately. As the rest of the formation swerved to avoid the falling dozens, her other arm swept upwards across her body, sending forth another swarm of sharp metal and completely breaking the diving charge. With four such swipes the fifty Valkyries were grounded, some rolling desperately out from under falling horse-flesh, some dead long before they hit the ground.
Those who survived the dive drew swords, knowing only battle, charging forward and dying one after another. Brunnhilde, as dark and as fierce as any of her sisters, charged forward, drawing her short sword and preparing to engage. The daughter of Odin saw her advanced, licked her lips, flicked a wrist in her direction. The Valkyrie was leaning in too hard; there was no time to parry the missile.
But nothing cut through the fierce Valkyrie; one of her sisters, attempting to slide to Hela's flank, moved in front of the blade, and the weight of her sister, driven back, landed on Brunnhilde. Winded by the unexpected hit, she fell to the ground under her slain comrade, and before she could bring herself to a fighting stance again, she heard the uncanny silence of a battlefield emptied of warriors. She shoved her friend's corpse aside and stood, and she came to the terrible realization that only she and Hela, but a newly-invincible Hela, remained on the field. The two goddesses eyed each other across the corpse-littered field.
"Would you try your fate where an army has fallen, little shield-maiden?"
No words in response. She merely tightened her grip on her sword's hilt.
"You Valkyries do amuse me. I think I want to save you for later." And with a flick of her wrist, she sent forth into the air a spinning forked blade that streaked through the air and snapped the blade of the Valkyrie's blade like a twig. Then she lifted one hand to the sky, and the Valkyrie's eyes could not help but watch a massive blade, the size of her barracks door, fly skyward and come down at her. The Valkyrie was frozen, but Hela kept moving. Shifting her hips and shoulders into a piston-punching motion, she filled the air with smaller blades, like semi-circles with their centers missing. The large blade slammed down into the ground behind the Valkyrie, and the brackets pinned her neck, then one wrist, then another, then her waist, then each ankle to the metal behind her. A terrible sound filled the air as the blades fused together and created one, continuous metal prison for the warrior-woman.
Hela strutted her triumph over to the Valkyrie, who was entirely at her mercy. With a gesture from the death-goddess, the blade lifted out of the ground and rotated until it lay horizontal, and the Valkyrie found herself floating alongside Hela down the now-abandoned main avenue of the city. The Valkyrie looked around in vain for help, but everyone had fled at the sight of the death-goddess's onslaught, and they walked uncontested to the gate of Asgard's palace. With a series of quick and destructive gestures, Hela tore the gates from their hinges, and the Valkyrie found herself floating, as in a strange funeral procession, next to the goddess of death through an abandoned palace's grand entry hall.
Through the palace they wandered until they reached what the Valkyrie guessed was the legendary treasure trove of Asgard. Hela seemed to know precisely where she was going, and the Valkyrie silently cursed the cowardice of whatever guards should have been resisting this onslaught. Then she heard the terrible sound of a death-goddess displeased.
"WHAT?!? What happened to the flame?" She turned violently to one side, then the other. "Where is the Eternal Flame?"
She turned to her captured warrior. "Where has Odin taken the flame?"
The Valkyrie had no words; why would she know where the kingdom's treasures were?
"Ah, the fear in your eyes is wonderful, my dear. You've never been in this room before, have you? How would you know where the most powerful force in the Nine Realms has been taken?"
She looked around for a moment, then turned back to her.
"But you might know where Odin has gone to, no?" The Valkyrie steeled her gaze and prepared for the first strike to come. She knew how this would proceed: with the death-goddess's penchant for swords and daggers, she would no doubt begin cutting her, but all of the Valkyries not only swore pledges of loyalty unto death but trained to withstand pain far beyond even what Asgard's palace guards could take.
"Come on, then. Let's find out where Odin hides himself these days, shall we?"
"You'll not find that out from me. No pain you can inflict can cut that knowledge out of me."
"Oh, she speaks! How glorious! Rest assured, shield maiden, that nothing so crude as pain lies in store for you. I'm the goddess of death, not of blunt instruments."
"Then kill me and have done with it!"
The blade floated through the palace as Hela continued to talk. "The battlefield is only one place where I reign supreme, little one. The warrior's death is a necessary arrow in my quiver, but there's another death that a shield... maiden like yourself has yet to experience."
"You talk like a fool, traitor, and your fool words will not trick me!"
They made their way into a large bedroom, and the blade returned to a vertical position. Hela made a series of gestures, her fingers flying, and a myriad of shining blades flew forth around the warrior's body. The Valkyrie could hear her armor being shredded at every joint. With some more gestures and the sound of sliced metal, Hela's grin widened, and her hands went to the sides of her head. With another gesture, her spider-like helmet gave way to smooth, flowing hair, and her armor transformed into a sleek silk nightgown.
"Soon you'll see that death does not impose order from outside as pain does. I'm going to find out what's under your own skin, and your own body will betray my father just as a mortal's body at the end of life's journey betrays his soul to me."
"Stop your talk, witch, and fight me!"
"I tire of fighting, my pretty. I want some other kind of amusement." With a gesture the brackets pinning the Valkyrie to the huge blade fell to the ground, and as instinct took over, the dark-skinned warrior leapt into a fighting stance.
And none of her armor came with her.
Suddenly the Valkyrie found herself as exposed as she had been in the barracks, everything from her boots up missing, covered only by the undergarments that Valkyries wore underneath their armor. She could hear pieces of her former armor drop around her, and the cool air greeted her skin. Her belly and shoulders and legs and feet were entirely exposed. She could not help but look down and realize her humiliation.
"Now lie down on the bed, my lovely, so that we can continue."
"DIE!" The Valkyrie led with a hard right punch, and Hela's wrist snapped up to deflect it, turning her body off balance. With a quick shove, the Valkyrie found herself tumbling onto the large bed. The death-goddess was far faster and stronger, and in an instant not only had she tossed the vanquished fighter onto the bed but had begun to sail through the air to land unceremoniously on top of her. Hela's bottom rested on the Valkyrie's hips, and for the moment she was too stunned to try to fight.
Hela gestured to the curtains hanging from the bed's canopy, and tiny flying blades cut four thick strips of heavy curtain away. They fell around the Valkyrie. Hela sprung, wrapping up one of the other Asgardian woman's wrists with one of the strips. A hard punch from the other hand struck Hela in the head, but the impact did not even distract her from the quick knot she was tying. Brunnhilde continued to strike at the goddess in the face and neck but could not slow her down. With another gesture, a metal shackle encased the curtain's fabric, and a magical chain soon connected the bedpost to the Valkyrie's padded cuff.
The Valkyrie panicked as she realized that she was trapped again. Her free hand flew to the chain, and she tried to pull, and as she did, Hela pivoted and wrapped one of her ankles and chained it with her sorcery. As the Valkyrie strained against the chain and continued to try to pull her arm free, Hela grabbed the other ankle and began to wrap it in the third section of curtain. The free hand disengaged from the chain and tried to grab at Hela, but the work was already done, and three of her four limbs were chained, in padded cuffs, to the bedposts. A weak punch, with no leverage, greeted Hela as she lunged for the last free limb, and as she grabbed the arm with both of her hands, the Valkyrie knew that she was helpless. She strained against the more-powerful Asgardian as she wrapped the last limb, but it was in van: she was captured. Hela slid off the bed and paced around her captive, leering at her exposed and stretched body.
The Valkyrie pulled against the bonds, but they were of the same sorcery that had vanquished armies, and one woman, Asgardian or no, could not break them. She could feel the luxurious sheets underneath her bare skin, reminding her that she had neither armor nor even clothes to fend off the knives that Hela so easily killed with. Nonetheless she raised her head, and she spat at Hela.
Hela allowed herself another laugh. "Now, my ferocious little girl, where does Odin go when he has to hide?"
"Cut me as you will, you sorceress! I'll never yield!"
"Oh, you still think that swords are my only weapons! We're in the bedroom now, shield maiden! You're about to learn some different ways that people die!"
"No man will ever touch me, sorceress!"
"I'm the goddess of death, darling, not of birth. I'm not interested in marrying you off or giving you children. I'm going to show you what you never knew was happening underneath that lovely Valkyrie skin of yours."
What was she going on about? Hela sat down next to her on the bed, her silk-clad hip next to the Valkyrie's bare leg. The Valkyrie braced herself, sure that the first cut would come from her knee, but instead the goddess's fingers, feeling nothing like blades, began to touch and to skim across the Valkyrie's athletic waist.
"What are you doing?" No answer. Just more touching, now pinching. She gasped at the new touch and felt something strive to escape her throat. What was this usurper doing? She kept pinching the flesh above the Valkyrie's hip bones, and her bound body began to twist away from the fingers, involuntarily. She groaned as she realized that her body was about to laugh at this humiliation.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
And that was a mistake: as her voice projected, one of Hela's wicked pinches found a magic spot, and the Valkyrie heard a giggle escape, not the triumphant scornful laugh of the conquering warrior but the sound she had heard the young wives of Asgard make when their men made their crude jokes and--the Valkyrie now realized--tickled their divine skin. But this was no brief lovers' pinch--laughing at full volume, she had no way to cover up, no way to escape, no sign of when the goddess of death, cruelty in person, would stop touching her waist this way.
The answer was soon, but that was not a good answer. The torturous pinches soon started to creep up towards her ribs, and when they found the boundary where her ribs began, the Valkyrie let out a shriek, and her bottom bounced into the air off of the bed. She strained and struggled at her bonds, but this tickling was not making her any stronger, and the goddess was not slowing down. As she continued to pinch at her ribs, occasionally fingers would wander from her sides to the middle of her belly, just below the sternum, and run a cascading course down to her panty line, and that tickling stood out enough from the other that she would squeal or even moan at each new kind of tickling. In one moment all eight of the goddess's fingers shifted to the front of her midsection, and the Valkyrie squealed at the unbearable touch. With this newly discovered spot, Hela worked on her belly for some time, circling her navel with a torturing fingernail, pinching, rubbing, poking, and making the warrior-woman laugh longer than ever she had laughed.
And after that never-ending belly-tickle, the goddess withdrew her hands, watching the Valkyrie pant.
"You see, shield maiden, this is the path to the small death, not one that ends your suffering but that uses everything that your body wants to pull you back and forth between pleasure and abjection. Tickling you is never going to wear out your body, never release you from my power. I can do this as long as I like!"
Through gritted teeth she managed, "I'll never tell you where he's taken them!"
"Them? Oh, darling, now you've gotten me curious! I knew Odin would take Mommy Dearest with him, but who else is in hiding?"
The Valkyrie could feel her heart racing. "Die, you witch!"
"No, my sweet, I am death. Perhaps I should remind you." Her hands began to descend on the Valkyrie's underarms, and the powerless hero tried to brace herself, but this was something different even than her ribs: Hela's touch only had to skim the surface to send the Valkyrie over the edge, and as they continued to work on the surface, her laughter became higher pitched until each laugh sounded like a whimper and the moans that punctuated the giggling surprised the Valkyrie--where were these sounds coming from? She kicked and squirmed, but the fingers would not stop, and she felt Hela's face close to hers. "Who are 'they'? I'll stop tickling here if you tell me!"
"No... can't..."
"Oh, but you can. And I can keep this up as long as you'd like!"
"Please... can't tell..."
"Oh, the proud warrior is begging, is she? This is even better!" Hela's fingers dug in deeper, and the Valkyrie howled at the new sensations. "Who are 'they'?"
"No... please..."
The fingers kept digging.
"Please... can't..."
Hela's eyes glowed with cruelty. Her fingernails had found paths to explore, and they moved with such purpose and speed that the Valkyrie's world contracted until there were only her tickled underarms and those terrible hands.
"ODIN'S SONS! ODIN'S SONS!! JUST STOP!!"
The hands immediately retreated. "Oh, do tell! So that's why the old man fled so quickly! New heirs to the throne, are there?"
The Valkyrie was horrified; how could she have given that up?
"Well, now I have all the more reason to finish this. I need the Eternal Flame to revive Fenris, and I need to know where these brats are so that there are no heirs to this throne. Wouldn't you agree, shield maiden?"
The Valkyrie pulled furiously on her chains. "Let me out of this! Stop doing this to me!"
"Oh, darling, I'm not doing anything to you! There's not a mark on your body, and you've experienced no pain. What you're experiencing is the small death."
"Stop saying that. I've never been touched by a man, and--"
"Oh, I have a hunch you've never much wanted to be touched by a man, have you?"
The Valkyrie flushed at the comment. "Let me out of these! I'll kill you!"
"No, you won't. You don't have that power. Every time I touch you, it's your body, not me, betraying Odin. That's what's lovely: pain comes at you from outside, but tickling draws the laughter out of you. It's terrible, I know, but it's also quite fun, don't you think? But we should get back to things. You do know where I need to go to find Odin, and that's what we're going to be talking about next." The Valkyrie's breath grew short as Hela stood up sat farther down the bed, by her foot. "So where might I find your beloved king?"
The Valkyrie's breath quickened. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"
With one hand Hela secured the metal cuff around her ankle and with the other started plucking at her sole as a harpist might pluck strings, each swipe igniting a terrible feeling, each note in the unheard song sending the Valkyrie closer to the laughing madness that she had just quieted. The pads of her fingers gave way to fingernails, and the more focused touch broke what resistance remained. The Valkyrie squealed in spite of herself, then began to thrash, unable to snatch her foot away from the tickling touches. What had happened to her underarms was bad, but this was unlike anything she had experienced before, and she felt the urge enter her mind: she could give up Odin!
"Please... please!"
"Beg all you want, my toy. I do love to humble the proud. But there's only one thing that will save these poor feet of yours!"
"I can't... I can't!"
"Tickle, tickle!" Her fingers were traveling all over the foot now, strumming the heel, tracing the instep, sliding along the bases of her toes. The Valkyrie's head pressed backwards against the mattress, and her hips rose into the air, but the tickling would not stop. Hela's nails began to trace random patterns across the skin of her soles, and she wished only for the death that the battlefield afforded. She discovered that the tickling had stopped only when she felt Hela's weight lift from the bed and watched her walk towards the other foot.
"Please, I beg you, give me the death that met my sisters! I'm sworn to protect Odin and Asgard!"
"And all of those poor girls back there swore as well. None of them could stop me. What makes you think you can, my ticklish little girl?" Hela lifted her wrist in a subtle gesture, and the Valkyrie saw a shimmering form emerge between her fingers.
"Wha... what is that?"
"What, did you think I could only make swords? Even metal, when crafted finely enough and shaped for spring, can work passably as a feather."
"Feather?"
"Darling, you still haven't told me where Odin hides himself when he's overmatched, and I need that flame. And now I'm going to show you what this little feather can draw out of your body." The hand that did not hold the feather grasped the ankle-cuff. The Valkyrie bit her lip as the sparkling silver feather descended towards her foot, and when its tip started tracing a line from between her toes, past the ball of the foot, and onto the sole, she began to scream in panic.
"No! No! I can't tell you! I can't tell you!"
"Who's to say I'm going to stop once you do?" And with that the conversation ended. The feather's tip dashed across the deliciously ticklish skin of the warrior-woman, and every pass sent her voice soaring in tickled laughter. Her hips turned counter to her shoulders, she thrashed at the shackles, and she cried out in tortured protest as the magical feather did its work. For a moment she convinced herself that she could feel it drawing an energy from her chest, down through her diaphragm, through her recently-tickled abdomen, through her hips, and into... what was this feeling? Even her thrashing could not conceal that whatever the feather was doing, it was starting to concentrate not at her navel but below somewhere.
And then, as her toes spread in ticklish response, Hela slipped the feather's blade between two toes. The back-and-forth thrashing gave way to a grand arch, throwing the Valkyrie's electrified pelvis skyward and her voice into a tormented, desperate, shrieking moan. The feather sawed back and forth between the toes, and the Valkyrie slipped below verbal consciousness, her voice uttering strange noises that spoke no word but told Hela everything. Releasing the ankle-cuff, the death-goddess grabbed the big toe and spread them, then moved the feather's tip between two more, then began to saw again and re-secured the ankle-cuff. The Valkyrie's body now twisted but remained in the turned position as the terrible feather tormented the skin between her toes, making her laugh when she had no more laughter in her.
The Valkyrie heard her own panting moans as she returned once again to awareness. She had no idea how long Hela had feather-tickled her, but her Asgardian physique glistened with sweat. She raised her weary head, and only when she made eye contact with Hela did Hela, who was once more standing, but between her feet at the foot of the bed, lift one hand with three fingers brought together as a painter might hold a fine brush. From between them emerged not a brush but a slim cylinder of metal, mirror-smooth, rounded on the end. Hela's mouth twisted upwards into a deadly smile, and to the Valkyrie's eyes, the tip of the instrument got blurry as she heard it hum. "I don't even think I want you to tell me where Odin is yet, my pretty. What you see is truly the tool of inner death. One touch from its tip will be like nothing any woman in Asgard has ever felt." With that she reached the tip down and touched the skin just below the ankle cuff, her ankle, with the tip. The humming that she could hear instantly became a vibration she could feel, and her body recoiled and threw her weight away. She screamed at the sensation; this tickled in a way that was not natural, and Hela had only touched her for a moment, and on a spot that she did not even think of as tickish.
"Please! Odin is my king! I can't! I can't!"
Hela only smiled.
The tip of the instrument touched the center of Valkyrie's sole, the one that Hela had only tickled with fingers before, and the Valkyrie began to scream before she even knew she was screaming. She could hold out no longer. "MIDGARD!! MIDGARD!! THE LAND OF THE NORTH-MEN!! ON MIDGARD!!"
Hela immediately withdrew the buzzing tip. "Really? That obscure realm? I would have thought better of the old man. But no matter. You've given me what I want now, haven't you?"
Tears began to run down the Valkyrie's cheeks as she realized what she had done.
"Come on now, shield-maiden. We can't have you weeping while my celebration begins! Let's have a bit of fun before I go and take back what's mine!"
She began to lean in over the Valkyrie's feet. "No! You've already defeated me! Torment me no longer!"
"Oh, darling, I didn't think that your feet would be quite that ticklish! I still had plenty of places I wanted to try out!" Hela began to scratch the insides of the Valkyrie's thighs, and she let out the tormented moan of the soul who has no more to surrender. Between her legs was ticklish in a way that even her feet had not been, and her arms no longer tried even to break away from her bonds. The fire that had burned when the death-goddess tickled her feet now blazed beyond her body's bounds, and in her laughter and moaning she could feel an explosion about to happen, something that she never could have known was a mystery even to all but the luckiest wives of Asgard.
"Just think, the look on Odin's face when I capture him and reduce one of his beloved Valkyries to jelly with the tip of a feather!"
The Valkyrie's breath began to pulse, and her eyes rolled back.
"And then, while my legions and my Fenris overrun the whole Cosmos, we'll bring you along so that I can tickle you like this every evening after the day's fighting is done!"
The Valkyrie's torso tightened, then her buttocks, awaiting the blast.
"You'll have your death, shield-maiden. You'll have it whenever I want to deal my ticklish death again!"
Then the blast. The Valkyrie could feel the shockwave, but it was not inside her body. Hela's hands had stopped, and her whole form glowed with an unnatural colored light. Dust filled the air, and the Valkyrie looked to her side to see that an entire wall of the bedroom was gone. Beyond, Odin, flanked by Asgardian elite warriors, stood looking on. Odin's hand was extended, and in it was a royal Asgardian scepter, its jeweled head glowing with whatever magic had trapped Hela. Hela's body, as solid as anything in Asgard a moment before, simply disappeared from the space at the foot of the bed.
Odin spoke. "Release her from those chains."
The Valkyrie could not speak. She wrapped a sheet around herself as soon as her limbs were free, and she could still feel Hela's hands and the strange energy that the death-goddess had almost drawn from her but which still burned inside.
"You have done well, Valkyrie. Because of your bravery, we had time to gather the ancient magic and once again trap Hela."
"But I surrendered your location!"
"No matter. We needed someone to provide us time, and you extended the battle for hours while we gathered the magic."
Had the goddess really tickled her for hours? Suddenly bewilderment gave way to anger. "You knew we could not defeat her?"
"I knew that many of you would die in battle, perhaps all of you. And I worried that the fight would not contain her for long. But with your weakness, you managed to provide us the time Asgard needed."
The Valkyrie flushed as she realized that Odin knew what had transpired. But then her rage overran her embarrassment. "You sent us against Hela knowing that we would fall?"
Odin's one eye fell, and he looked at the floor. "Alas, yes. We had no other option." He raised it again and looked at the beautiful, ticklish warrior. "But now you will have your reward. Come, and marry one of our Asgardian lords. Join the mothers of Asgard, and take your place as one of the honorable matrons of our people."
The Valkyrie's growl was audible. "No man will ever touch me, old man."
"You watch how you address--"
"I watch nothing! The Valkyries are no more, and I will not abide!"
With as much dignity as she could muster, the last Valkyrie stormed from the Asgardian palace to seek out a place to forget.
