Fear.
That was probably the only word that Hermod was trying to find but refuses to still acknowledge. Of course, his denial was with reason; As the fastest Aesir in all of Asgard, he had never once needed to fear for his life-- as even the mightiest of them will never be able to catch up to him even if they wanted to.
He was far from the strongest, but because of his speed, he didn't need to be. An hour ago, he was doing his normal duties, scouring the expanse of the 9 realms and seeing if there was anything that needed the attention of the Aesir.
As one of the few Aesir that was capable of freely traversing through the expanse of space, the task of being the Messenger of the Aesir would obviously be placed onto him-- and he had done so for tens of millennia.
The Aesir have actually been more alert than usual because of the looming threat of the Transported, especially since they killed one of the Progenitors a few tens of years ago.
