The Confectionary Chronicles || HP/SPN

Lollies and Loki- Ch47

In the end, Gabriel decided that the best course of action was to take the dragons to Múspelheimr, the dimension known in Norse mythology as the realm of fire. Much like Purgatory, Hell, Heaven and Avalon, Múspelheimr existed as a separate dimension to Earth and was inhabited by its own non-human population. Gabriel found himself grateful for the recent boost to his strength that Hermione and Fleur's ritual had given him, as although travelling between the dimensions was easier then travelling in time, travelling between the dimensions with fifty-one dragons after having stolen said fifty-one dragons from seven different banks across the world, with all of said banks having been heavily guarded against thieves, and then healing all of those afore mentioned fifty-one dragons from grievous bodily harm, was frankly exhausting.

In the face of the sheer joy he could feel, however, from the dragons as for the first time they took their first, tentative steps under the burning skies of Múspelheimr, he couldn't help but think the exhaustion was well worth it. The fiery realm of Múspelheimr was a dangerous one, mostly uninhabitable to living beings, but it was perfectly suited to creatures such as dragons. It fit the stereotype of how humans imagined Hell to appear, all fire and brimstone and sulphur, with the landscape dominated by towering craggy mountains from the peaks of which great floods of lava endlessly flowed.

Múspelheimr also happened to be where his vessel's wife had lived, and where his vessel's two daughters still did live.

Gabriel had met the original Logi*, brother of Aegir, Kári, and Rán, when he first left Heaven. Aegir, Logi, Kári, and Rán had been old for pagan gods, even when he'd first met them; much like tulpas, pagan gods came to be through the belief, and the early ancestors of the Norsemen had believed in an old creation myth that predated that of the Aesir. This creation myth consisted of a triplicate of ancient, primal elements, the Sea, Flame, and North Wind, which together created and shaped the world of the North. Thus; Aegir, God of the Sea; Logi, God of Fire; Kári, God of the North Wind, and later Rán, Goddess of the Sea, Sister-Wife to Aegir and mother of their nine daughters came to be, long before Odin and the pantheon he ruled had come to be.

Logi was on the edge of death, having been dealt a fatal wound, when Gabriel came across him with his brothers and sister. Gabriel, still a good little angel despite running away from home (and currently using a crow as his vessel, a vessel that he was already burning through, more and more feathers sizzling up and falling to the ground with every passing minute; he had to turn his grace inwards to keep from burning up in seconds, and the pain was almost unbearable), had offered to try and heal him. Aegir, Kári, and Logi had been suspicious but Rán, so mesmerisingly beautiful with her long, deep-blue tangled hair that fanned out behind her like a net for her to use to catch mortals who fell into the unforgiving depths of the seas for her to feast upon, begged that he try.

Logi's wounds had proved beyond Gabriel's ability to heal, particularly as limited as he was by his vessel at the time, but he had tried anyway. And for his kindness, Logi had offered him a kindness in return, giving consent for Gabriel to use his body as a vessel once he'd passed on, as the crow was little more than charred, bloodied skin and feather over frail, hollow bird bones by that point, barely held together by grace and willpower alone. Pagan gods had no soul, and once Logi had died, surrounded by his family, Gabriel had gladly shed the crow's body as a vessel, though he would never forget its sacrifice, and taken Logi's as his own.

It was Rán who re-named him Loki. Aegir and Kári, Logi's brothers, had taken longer to accept him, finding it difficult to be around one who wore the face of their brother and had the memories of their brother but who was not their brother, but not Rán. Rán had loved him and treated him as a brother to her from the very start. It was Rán who taught him how to be a pagan god, Rán who taught him how to shed his angelic morality in exchange for hedonism, chaos and debauchery, and Rán who took him to Múspelheimr, to explain to Glöð, Logi's wife, and his two daughters, Eisa and Einmyria**, the truth of what had happened to Logi, and who he was now.