Ruby sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes.
And then she noticed something she definitely would’ve noticed earlier if she weren’t busy existentially panicking:
Someone else was in the bed.
Someone tall.
Someone draped in shadow-soft fabric.
Someone whose presence felt like winter’s breath and old magic.
Hel.
The goddess of death was asleep next to her.
Ruby froze like a squirrel caught in a spotlight.
Her eyes went huge.
“…oh,” she whispered.
Ruby watched, breath held, as the goddess’s chest rose and fell in quiet, steady rhythm.
She hadn’t imagined it.
Hadn’t dreamed it.
Hel was real.
And she’d stayed.
Ruby swallowed.
“She… sleeps?” she murmured to herself. “Okay. Okay, that’s—normal? Probably? Do goddesses sleep? Or is this, like… meditation? Death meditation? Oh stars, I don’t know.”
She shifted a little—very carefully—so the bed wouldn’t creak and wake the literal goddess of the underworld.
But her gaze softened despite her panic.
Hel looked peaceful.
Unburdened.
Different from the solemn figure Ruby had met in the void.
Ruby’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“…thank you. For pulling me out.”
“Your welcome.” Hel replies sleepily
Ruby yelped.
She didn’t mean to—she tried very hard not to scream because screaming next to a goddess seemed like a fast track back to the void—but what came out was a strangled, startled squeak.
Hel’s eyes opened slowly, silver-green and soft with sleep.
Ruby froze mid-squeak, hands halfway in the air like she’d been caught stealing cookies.
“Y-You’re awake— I mean, obviously you’re awake— I mean— I didn’t think— um— good morning?” she stammered.
Hel blinked once. Twice.
Then she shifted slightly, propping herself up on an elbow in a way that looked far too elegant for someone who’d just woken up.
“You don’t need to be scared. I plan on adopting you afterall.” Hel responds
Ruby’s brain blue-screened.
There was no other word for it.
Her mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Her hands, still suspended like startled raccoon paws, slowly lowered as her expression cycled through a range of entertaing expressions.
“I— you— adopting— me?” Ruby squeaked, voice leaping an octave.
Hel tried to hold it in. She really did. But the sight of Ruby’s face—caught somewhere between awe, panic, and a small woodland creature confronted with a cosmic tax form—was simply too much.
A soft giggle slipped out of her, then another, until Hel was covering her mouth with the back of her hand, shoulders trembling with quiet laughter.
“Mom?” Ruby asks in confusion
“No, little Red,” she managed at last, voice warm and melodic. “ A familia is not… quite that.”
“It sounds like adoption,” Ruby mumbled, cheeks red as she picked anxiously at the blanket. “You saved me, you brought me here, you, um… tucked me in— I think? And now you’re explaining things. That’s very…” She gestured vaguely. “…mom-ish.”
“Very well,” she said, tone returning to something instructive—but still gentle. “Let me explain properly.”
Ruby straightened automatically, like a student bracing for a pop quiz.
“A falna,” Hel began, “is a blessing. My blessing. It is magic inscribed upon your soul—divine script only a god can place and only a god can read. Through it, I can watch your progress, strengthen you, and help you grow.”
Ruby blinked, captivated. “Like… leveling up?”
Hel paused.
Then nodded. “…Yes. Exactly like leveling up.”
Ruby’s eyes sparkled. This was a much safer conceptual territory.
“When you fight, learn, or push yourself,” Hel continued, the glow in her hand brightening as symbols drifted through the air like drifting embers, “your soul responds. Those efforts become power. I take that power and convert it into something tangible—skills, abilities, growth in strength, speed, resilience.”
“So… effort turns into stats?” Ruby asked.
“Precisely.”
A tiny squeak escaped Ruby. She was definitely vibrating.
“It’s like a real-life video game!” she cheered, practically throwing herself upright in bed. “Please sign me up, Mom!”
Hel opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again—more slowly this time, like she was bracing for whatever Ruby-shaped chaos might erupt next.
“You seem to… understand,” she said carefully, folding her hands in her lap with the poise of someone desperately trying to pretend the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened. “So I will ask you plainly: do you wish to receive my Falna?”
Ruby nodded so fast she nearly head-butted her.
“Yes! Yes, absolutely yes!”
Hel held up a hand before Ruby could launch into another declaration.
“And,” she added, voice smoothing into an even, composed tone, “for the record… I have no idea what a ‘video game’ is.”
She said it perfectly—calm, aloof, utterly unconvincing.
Ruby squinted at her, suspicious. “Really?”
“Ruby, no one here knows what electricity is. Everything in this world runs off mana stones.” She gestured lightly to the lamps, the heater crystal in the corner, even the faint glow in the walls. “If I claimed familiarity with… whatever you called them—‘video games’—it would raise far too many questions.”
Ruby blinked. Once. Twice.
“…Oh.”
Hel nodded, relieved she was finally being understood.
Ruby tilted her head, gears turning.
“…So no TV?”
“No.”
“…No consoles?”
“No.”
“…No handhelds?”
“Ruby—”
“…No LAN parties??”
Hel’s composure wavered for the first time. “I do not know what that is, but I can assure you: also no.”
Ruby let out a tiny, heartfelt gasp of horror.
“This world truly is medieval.”
“Yes, yes it is.” Hel responds