Reason Behind Madness

"[THREAD TITLE]" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread started on [IRL DATE] and finished on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
Stonegit felt himself getting dragged across the cold ground, feeling the thin snow sliding past him. His eyes starred up at the grey sky, blinking slowly as his mind lost it’s last connections to reality. His world faded…
***
Stonegit dived backwards into the darkness of limbo, the angry voice of Hel calling after him “You selfish bastard! I’ll get you! I’ll send a legion of reapers! I don’t care what or how long it takes! But I’ll get you back! And when I do you’ll wish you had gone to Valhalla when you had the chance!” As Stonegit floated though the inky blackness, the deity’s long claw stretched out after him, the fingers straining as they reached for him. This was the unwritten part of the soul exchange contract. Pitch hadn’t known that the sacrifices went beyond relinquished memories and souls. Giving a low growl that was distorted by the water around them, the claws sunk deep into Stonegit’s head and heart. The boy winced once, feeling the sting but to busy struggling to get to the surface to find out what it was. The claws curled, and then pulled back, tearing away white, wispy tendrils of an ethereal material. Stonegit pulled himself out of the lake, coughing and gagging. Inside of him, his soul, which had once been intact, was now shredded with gaping holes. It hung limply inside of Stonegit. Over time it started to rot and putrefy. Then suddenly a surge of overwhelming negative emotion shriveled it drastically, sending Stonegit over a tipping point as he screamed over Haddock’s fallen form.
“I told ya I’d come after yer. I told I’d get you boy.”
“You did this to me? You ripped apart my soul?” 
 “I made it sick,” he deity corrected. “Now shut up, I’m not done explaining this.”
Stonegit spoke and acted boldly, and sometimes rudely, not giving any cares anymore. Granted the boy was snarky and now, due to dying and going blind, syndical…but soon it went beyond that. Haddock shook Stonegit, hitting him, yelling at the Warden, demanding Stonegit’s respect, the memory stung painfully. Stonegit told Haddock he forgave him, and meant it…but for some reason didn’t feel it. Tal’s head broke under Stonegit’s forearm, and as the blood spilled on the floor the boy felt as if all his emotions were draining out him, he thought it was just a feeling…but as it turns out, that’s what was actually happening. The guilt of disappointing Haddock, the fear of Hemlock, the hatred towards Dust, and the grief at the funeral…the moment he felt each and every one of these feelings it stuck, turning in his head in an endless cycle, unable to be processed, unable to fix itself. He though he saw Haddock out of the corner of his eye, just once, and suddenly the visions plagued him at every moment. Stonegit felt like he was sinking further and further into insanity. And every time he went down a layer, some cruel force was cutting away the only means he had to pull himself back up.       
“Did ye really think just putting a reaper ward on yer chest was gonna stop me boy?”
“So…” Stonegit said blinking as he starred at the image of Orskaf that Hel had taken the form in floating above him. “It’s not my fault.”
“Well of course it’s your fault!” Hel snapped. “Those thoughts and feelings you felt were your own. ‘Kill everyone who ever threatened or harmed Haddock.’ That wasn’t my idea boy. It’s not like I had you on puppet strings ya. You screwed up!”
“Are you for real?” Stonegit gasped, his eyes wide. “What you did was like cutting off a dragon’s tail and blaming it for spiraling out of control! I mean, yeah I felt that, and sure I thought of those crazy things. That’s called stream of consciousness, carnal desires, everybody has them! But people who have soulstend to repress them so they do the right thing instead!” he shook his head. “When Haddock died I went totally, rock bottom crazy in a week. A week Hel! That’s not even subtle, that doesn’t even make sense! Not even actual crazy people go down that fast!” he breathed heavily. “You literally took away my souls ability to heal itself, and you want to blame mefor going mad?”
Hel gave a passive shrug. “I knew no one would notice…nor would they suspect. You’re life was so dependent on Haddock that it wouldn’t seem odd to anybody that you went off the deep end. Come to think of it, I was half expecting that to happen even if I hadn’t torn a chunk outta ya.”
Stonegit looked offended. “What do people take me for?!”
“A stupidly loyal suicidal boy who invested his whole life into a mortal man…am I wrong?”
“No!…yes…sort of… gah!” Stonegit paced in a quick circle, rubbing his head. “Ok yes… that’s how I used to be. I had nothing, Haddock became my everything and my only reason to live. But then he did so much more for me. He started to show me that I could be happy, that I could be worth something, and actually make a life for myself for the first time ever! And that I would be able to do it even if he wasn’t there for me.” He gave a tiny, but real smile. “I guess I also have Mera to thank. Sure it stung, but it was because I knew that Haddock’s heart belong to her and not me, I learned to suck it up, and move on with life.” Stonegit waved a dismissive hand. “So when you asked me why I never told him I loved him…that’s why.” He blinked, and then frowned, pointing a finger at Hel and marching up to him. “And another thing about Mera! She’s the reason I know that this theory you have about me curling up and dying just because Haddock passed away is crap!”
“Is that so boy? Pray how can you be so certain with that dented head of yours?” Hel asked with a sneer.
Stonegit gritted his teeth. “When she and I met, she was kind to me, she saw more good in me then even I thought was possible…but she also wasn’t going to put up with any of my self loathing bullshit. If I had my soul, I would have dropped the idea of staying miserable right then and there in the snow where I was kneeling. Because in front of me was somebody worthwhile, somebody I would have been proud to protect with just as much honor and love as I had given to Haddock. And I would have never disappointed the rebellion and Haddock’s memory by committing those downright atrocities!”
Hel chuckled. “You think you’re getting away again don’t ya boy? Sorry…but it’s too late for you.” Flashbacks of the water dripping from his nose and seeping from his ear came back to Stonegit, and then intensified as he remembered the cold and dead feeling that came to him when he began coughing in up.“When a soul rots enough it can drain out of the body in another form, which I can then collect early. For you it was the water from the enchanted lake. I was able to harvest a nice quarter of ya before I got a chance to suck up the rest.”
Stonegit jaw dropped, pointing up. “You mean double dipped crazy up there had been operating on only three fourths of a soul that’s sick and torn up to boot? No wonder I had no self control! No wonder I couldn’t stop myself from, oh don’t know, mutilating my hand with a fire poker maybe!?” Stonegit backed away, his eyes hurt. “Akkey said ‘you can’t stop caring, because that’s what Haddock admired the most about you.’ You realize how much that hurts now? The only thing I could do right in my life was caring. Caring about Haddock! About my friends! And about a stupid blind dragon tied to a tree!” he set his jaw determinedly. “I have to go back.”
“You’re a brained dead slab of flesh up there. And even if I did give your soul back what would be up there for ye huh? More shame that’s what. Shame of what you did, as you’ll recall it as clearly as you would with any other memory. You’ll have to face those people you hurt and terrified. You could only hope that they would accept your pathetic plea for forgiveness.”
“No…” Stonegit said. “No more apologies.”
“What…?”
“No!” Stonegit said again. “Because ever since I was a kid, a bunch of old men wanted me to apologizes to Orskaf for a crime he committed! I never gave in, and I’m not starting now. I am sick and tired of knowing that Tree is still apologizing for what the Warden did! And Tezz, and Skye, and Akkey! They’re all apologizing for something that wasn’t their fault. Yet still…they suffer under everybody’s cruel suspicion.” His voice raised to a shout. “So no more! Because families shouldn’t do that to one another.”
“Lovely speech, but look at where you are. I’m taking you to Hel as soon as you get sick of being here and let yourself pass away. You will serve me in my home as one of my servants, since you will have died so bravely. And I can promise you living in Hel under those promised conditions will be far less painful and frustrating than being trapped in a mind that has the functionality of dried tomato for the rest of your life.”
Stonegit sat himself down, resting his hands in his lap and giving him a stink eye. “You’re trying to hustling my soul again aren’t you? Just like you did with Vox and who knows how many others. You know stuff like that will start Ragnarok so…” he raised his chin. “Ah…I got it.”
“What are ya talkin about boy?”
“Warning me about the end of the world and then pulling this crap is senseless.” He raised his chin defiantly. “You want the war…but only if you can win. So you hustle souls, it gives you a boost and its bloody effective. The only drawback is-“  
 “If I get a stubborn piss ant like you who is willing to go through limbo,”
“Again and again,” Stonegit replied. “Because I belong to Haddock, I am sworn to him. So I am not yours, and I will never be yours. So I’m going to use that last drop of soul I have to go live in that useless mind, and deny you this soul for as long as possible. And when I finally die, I will look and look for a way to escape again. And will never stop being a pain in your ass until you let me free!”
Hel practically exploded. “Why do humans always think they have an edge on deities such as I!?”
“Because when you break your own rules we humans are the ones who become the deciders of our destiny, and the gods have to sit back and twiddle their thumbs because they know that their fuck up just lost them authority!” Stonegit snapped back.
Hel let out a roar, the area around them shaking. He swooped down, hauling Stonegit up. “Fine! You want to play it that way! Then let’s just see how loving that family you hold so dear really is! They’ll reject you! They’ll let me have you! They’re humans it’s what they do, and will show you why the afterlife is truly the place where you belong!”
With that, despite Stonegit struggling against him, Hel vanished with the boy, rushing back up towards the broken mind of the bodyguard. 
Category:BOTGD
Category:Season 3
Category:Events
Category:Stonegit Brotchurn Elmiss
Category:Hel (deity)