*Who shall sing to me? Or carry me to eternal sleep?*

Shrewd wiped the sweat from their brow as they admired their handiwork. A small plot of once overgrown graves laid with long, fresh cut grass. Leaning on her scythe, the priestess of Hel sighed longingly. Even here in Hell the cycle of life and death continues. Shrewd is here to see that all souls can find new or renewed purpose. Tending to these lost resting places in their downtime is her pride, and Shrewd sees to it that no stone no matter how small goes unrecognized.

*When I head down Hel’s long roads and the paths I tread are cold, oh so cold,*

From a hatchling, a small plump tiefling child cradled amongst a mass of writhing sea snakes, they had lived here in Hell. How Shrewd longed to see the mortal world, and once she obtained priesthood with the temple of Hel, she made her first journey. How the mortals seemed so afraid of her home, bolstered her with renewed purpose. They would see! They would all see, how wonderful the afterlife could be. How it was all a circle. Infinity.

*When you stand at the gates to Hel and you must tear yourself free, I shall follow you over the Gjallabrú with my song*

As the teifling sat on her break, she laid out an offering of bread and wine for the spirits of the yard before consuming their own. Then they moved on to sweep the grass, when a fallen creature just inside the perimeter caught her eye. With a gentle smile and a caress of the corpse’s furred back, she whispered,

*You are freed from the bonds that bind you and the binds that bound you,*

And with a small seafoam light, its form collapses into a soft pile of mulch, dirt, and fungus. A bout of seafoam and black posies sprouting amongst it. They thumbed a small Fylgja, an ouroboros charm, as she watched their magic transform the beast.

*Cattle die, friends die, and so you too must die. Though one thing never dies; the fair fame one has earned.*

How many mortal souls fallen in her homeland thought they had been so far gone and lost, she has seen them howling in pain for the judgement placed on them, not one did they believe couldn’t be found and given new life. There was a place for them here, and she could show them. The temple of Hel has shown her that she could usher in these souls, take care of them. Something Shrewd has believed in since their miraculous birth, her life given to an unexpecting beast who raise them as their own, was the goodness of the monstrosities of Hell.

Shrewd censed the yard and prayed over the graves with her fylgja. Her duty here was done.

*Cattle die, friends die, so you too must die. I know one that never dies, judgement of a dead man’s life.*