Between A Rock and Hard Place I

Somewhere in the Bregenz Forest Mountain of the Northern Limestone Alps.

A hut, thatched and wooden, built with a mind to blend in with nature, stood strong even against the giant foot that landed upon its doorsteps. Smoke billowed out of its pyramidal roof, leading a trail of white mist that blew down the mountain path.

Thrudgelmir stood at a whopping nine feet tall, his loincloth showcased his bark-like thick thighs and abdominal muscles that erupted with splendor. His mere presence attracted the very air around him, as if the land wanted to be a part of him, to be with him.

He would normally have five other heads besides his main one, but to do so would proclaim his existence, for his current stature was miles below his normal one. He was a giant, through and through, and, frankly, he did not like being this small.

But what can he do when the Aesirs hungered for his blood and his kin cares not but themselves.

In fact, he was fortunate enough to find sanctuary deep into the lands of the Adityas, whereupon he also found the home of his good and oldest friend.

Thrudgelmir hastened the large brown haversack on his back, knocking his knuckles against the thatched door. It was a mystery to him as to how it could survive against his knocks, for even diminutive, his strength held true to his gigantic form.

Reluctant grunts echoed from within the owner of the hut like his solitude and preferred the company of only himself.

He knew this, so he knocked once more, this time adding words to his greetings.

"Open thy home, my friend. I have brought much gathering and a creature from the Orient!"

His friend grunted once more, but opted to open his door.

What greeted the giant was a face full of pockmarks and a wart aside his friend's ears as big as his friend's eyes. A large hooked nose, one that reminded him of the human's of old that had made the north their home, and thick bushy beard with thick bushy brows and a thick bushy mustache. 

His friend, whose olive skin showed burned marks over his hands, huffed in greeting, merely waving him over and to watch his head on the doorframe.

"Ho! I have forgotten how large thy hearth is. So, where shall I put my bag so that we can start this?"

As soon as Thrudgelmir stepped foot inside of his friend's home, the world seemed to brighten and enlarge into a metal dome. Hexagonal patterns arrayed themselves on the ceiling that opened up once it detected the fumes and smoke coming from the large forge at the center of the room.

Metal scraps, ingots, and bars lay asunder to the ground, becoming a literal landmine for a bare-footed creature such as Thrudgelmir. A dirty and bedraggled cot was thrown to the side, alongside an array of weapons with which his friend considered his failures.

If that was not enough, the heat coming from the forge immediately caused the giant's skin to sweat. It was as if he was facing a frustrated Farbauti.

"Anywhere." His friend responded, returning to his forge. "What's this about the Orient?"

Thrudgelmir bellowed a victorious laugh, gently placing his brown haversack unto the grand and pulled out a body so burnt that it was still smoking. The body fell to the ground, a slab of its scorched skin sloughing off the bone as blood splattered onto the thatched floor.

"Found him on the way here, smelt of blood, demons, and fear. Also… Lucky me, I found a tree that grows pears." He turned his sack upside down, causing two dozen ripe pears to fall out and hit the body.

The body twitched upon being hit by the stone fruit, much to the surprise of Thrudgelmir and his friend.

"Ya fool! He's still alive!" His friend roared, stomping his way to the other side of the room and rummaging through a closet full of bottles.

"Ah, my bad, Hephaestus. I haven't been that well rested."

Hephaestus, stomping back to the burnt corpse, snorted as a response, merely uncorking a green-tinted bottle and pouring viscous liquid into the mouth of the burnt man.

Like a parched camel stranded upon a vast desert, the burnt corpse drank the liquid with much gusto. 

A healing potion, one gifted upon by the guardian of the mountains, to those that traveled through their lands. Thrudgelmir had one too, but had forgotten where he placed his potion.

Hephaestus heaved a sigh of relief, feeling the pulse of the burnt corpse quickening with the help of the potion.

"He'll live, but I don't know for how long," He remarked, gazing at his burnt body with a glint in his eyes. "How peculiar… his energy. Where'd you even meet him, Gelmir?"

●●●●●

Maybe he should just kill himself?

That would certainly solve all his problems. Even if he becomes a ghost because of "unfinished business", all he had to do was ruin some innocent person's life for a few weeks and wait for a hunter to come through town and destroy his bones.

Hell, he wouldn't even become a ghost if he just continued what Dagon did to him. As long as he had no physical remains, he would not be tethered into the mortal plane.

Still, being a ghost would be better than what will happen to him once he wakes up from his comatose state.

The intense pain from the agonizing torture and extreme emotional distress had awoken a dormant power within him, one that he had been recently familiar with.

Return To Origin.

The term had been around for more than six hundred years, but the concept, according to the oldest writing within Lady Anastasia's library and the Supernatural Record's combined research, was recorded as far back as Hammurabi's reign and his cohort of court warlocks.

Left alone in a desolate world, filled with nothing but barren land and a sunless yet still unnervingly bright sky, Irwin felt as if the world had let him go.

His passport in this new world had been revoked and eternal deportation would just right be in a corner, merely being harangued by cosmic bureaucracy.

He took a look back at his previous actions, something he had not done for a long time. In the short four months that he had arrived in Richard's body, his life had completely changed.

Right off the bat was killing an almost thousand-year-old werewolf and his pack, which included Richard's uncle, maid, and, although cured, his own sister. If not for the fact that he was given the Great Hunter System, then he would also have lost his life during that night's culling. 

If that was not enough for him, he tackled this brand-new world by attempting to hunt demons. Even he was bewildered by his response to reincarnating into a show that he loves so dearly.

Battered, beaten, but unbowed. 

That was what happened during the rest of his hunts, even when he had taken the time to train his newly gifted skills. He knew what fate awaited him in his old world, what hid behind door number one.

Maybe that's why he strived to perfect his hunt- to escape his past and the sins he had committed. Perhaps he wanted to start anew, enjoy his new lease on life by doing what he did best: destroying lives.

Time grew slower in this mental realm, but he was never bored. His mind sharpened as he took the time to review his hunts.

What he did wrong, what he did right, and what he did that should have been done at a different time. The questions kept piling up, so, too, did the mistakes.

For instance, his mind wandered unto his Curse Purge cards. Wasting one hundred credits for four consumables that an instantaneous spell worth two-to-three hundred credits would have done for as long as he had magik and stamina.

He deemed himself as unlike that of Richard, a wastrel with more money that he had morals, but here he was being wasteful for the only currency in the world that could bleed countries dry for even a smudge.

What would Ella think of his buying routine? His thoughts converted into the mind realm, allowing him to see the figure of Elizabeth Thorrin reconstructed in front of him.

"What the hell were you thinking?" The figure admonished, replicating the same way her eyebrows curled whenever she scolded him. "You could have at least saved some so that I don't have to do so much work?"

"I'm sorry."

She scoffed, settling down onto the ground and crossing her legs like he was. "If you're truly sorry, then at least go back to us."

Irwin smiled. "Why? I'm… I shouldn't be allowed to be… I'm not Richard."

Ella snorted, giving him an amused grin. "It's not like you've bothered to pretend that you were him. Besides, did we care?"

"I-I suppose not. But… still, I'm… I'm a murderer." He clenched his fist, lowering his head in shame. "I killed my sister out of pure anger."

"I killed my mother." Her response caused him to halt his actions, unclenching his hands.

"That's not-"

"It is the same thing." She said, interrupting his words. " I killed her to protect you, or at least what I thought to be Richard, but the sentiment remains… Swept away by our emotions, our lives became entangled by sharing the same fate. You loved those kids, more so than yourself; but when they killed them with such…savagery, you wanted to tell them that, even in the afterlife, you will protect them."

Tears slowly dripped from his eyes, biting his lips as if to prevent himself from howling in anger and guilt.

"Why? Why aren't you… why aren't you a mess? Why do you have- how do you do it?"

His question was left unanswered as Ella merely walked closer to him and placed her calloused hands on his cheeks.

"How do you do it?" She asked.

He held onto her waist like she would flee the moment he let go, his head resting upon her chest and letting out all his emotions.

"Because you're gonna fucking die if I don't!" He screamed into her, gripping her clothes even more tightly. "The Winchesters doesn't do fucking jackshit! They just react to the storm they fucking created in the first place."

"So what are you gonna do, then?" Her question seemed to dig deep into his very essence.

"I-I don't know."

She smiled. "You know what to do. You just need to stop being a fucking idiot!"