“Look, this is a mistake,” she insisted. “I don’t belong here.”
Leon laughed in her face. “Lady, you remember the snake up there, the one that sent you down? I know the snake. The snake’s a friend of mine. The snake don’t make mistakes.” He snickered to himself for several minutes, finding the remark much more clever than it really had been.
“Anyway,” Leon said, picking up his pitchfork, “I gotta turn you over.” He poked at her, rolling her over until she was face-down in the burning sands.
She said something angry and muffled.
“Ah, quitcher whinin’,” Leon said. “I know, I know. You’re in eternal torment, you’re in agony, you can’t bear it yadda yadda yadda. Guess what: that’s what Hell is for. You’re here to be in pain, you’re not supposed to like it.” He paused, reflecting. “Well, I mean, I like it. I wanna be in charge of it someday, and I will be, soon as I can cut out that weasel of an undersecretary Screwbolt and take over Circle Nine-”
She said something again, still muffled, but calmer this time.
Leon rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been lying that time; he really did like his job, but sometimes the tormentees gave him a pain. Reluctantly he pushed her over. “All right,” he said, “What? What?”
“You misunderstand,” she said. “You think I’m here because of blasphemy.”
“Yeah,” said Leon. “You called a Thunder God a name I gotta check the regs to see if I can even say down here!"”
“Not quite,” she said. “I got into an argument with my father, lost my temper, said some things which I regret especially now, and walked out.”
“Your-hey, that wasn’t in the-what kinda stupid-”
“Yes,” she said, cutting short Leon’s spluttering attempt to make sense of the situation, “I am Thrud, daughter of Thor. Therefore my true crime was a betrayal of family, therefore I should be in Circle Nine.”
Leon gaped. “Wait-you want to be stuck lower down?”
“Yes,” Thrud said.
Leon thought it over, which hurt. He couldn’t see the problem, even though he was almost certain there had to be one. “Alright, have it your way,” he said, and pulled her up from the burning sands. “One lake of solid ice, comin’ right up.”
Thrud said nothing. She would continue to say nothing all the way down through Circles Seven and Eight and as she was locked fast into the unending depths of the frozen lake in the very depths of the Infernal Regions. Inside, however, she began repeating one word.
Mlrning. Mlrning. Mlrning.
“Well, see ya never,” Leon said, climbing out of a crack in the ice. He didn’t much care for Circle Nine: too cold. When he was in charge of the place, he’d see if he couldn’t melt things up maybe just a bit-
In the distance, somewhere amidst the misty shadows of the eternal lake, he heard a sudden thunderous crash.
“What the-”
A shovel flew out of the darkness and whacked him across the head. Before he even had time to yelp it had flipped down and smacked the ice with a terrible crack. Thrud emerged and the shovel leaped to her hand.
“Hey!” Leon said. “You can’t-”
“Can,” Thrud said. “For I am Thrud, daughter of Thor, and I wield his mighty shovel Mlrning, with which he sweeps the very snows of Asgard off the Bifrost!” She hefted it aloft, and a beam of shining light shot from its blade and smote Leon, blasting him clean across the lake and freezing him solid on the other side.
“I believe,” she said, with a small smile, “it is I who will see you never.” Then Thrud, daughter of Thor, raised the mighty shovel Mlrning and rose away through the Infernal Regions and high into the stars.
Note: this story was inspired by
‘s prompt below: