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Description
Sparring with him was not like sparring on the fields of Valhalla. There it was the constant chaos of battle, never-ending, with blood and pain and noise, only to begin again when they all had been revived from their most recent death. It was slaughter, not practice. Who needed practice to die?

This was careful, sensible, and quiet. The field he favored was covered with junegrass and dotted with meadowfoam and baby’s-blue-eyes. Every ten or fifteen minutes, he would break, and sit in the grass, breathing deeply, his long thin sword over his knees, almost glowing with heat. She stood and rocked on her heels, pacing or stretching. And every time he picked up the sword, she wondered if he would ever land a hit. He was quick on his feet, keeping her circling - but her blade had a longer reach, and it was easy to block. It was easy, too, to disarm - if she could catch him.

It was on the fifth bout that she finally landed a hit, and it was so heavy on the hilt of his sword that she thought she had hurt his hand. He only smiled and went to collect it from the grass, wiping off the dirt and morning dew on the leg of his trousers. “That was good,” he told her. “Were you holding back?” And he even sounded kind, and his smile at her was kind, too. She watched warily as he sheathed his sword. He unwrapped the length of dark linen from around the hand that had gotten hit, and she saw a glimpse of red, puckered scar tissue before he wrapped it more tightly than before.

“No,” she told him. “You move the same way every time. I just didn’t see it right away.”

He didn’t take offense. In fact, he laughed before answering. “I have some bad habits. I get lazy,” he agreed. “You’re faster than you look with that two-hander. Where did you learn?”

Hafsa looked rueful. “I didn’t learn properly,” she said. “I did fencing one semester at uni. My dad gave me a real sword after that and made me do drills until I was sick of it.” She paused, and then admitted, “so I found a rune spell that gave me the muscle memory so I could quit.”

He laughed. “Smart.” Then it was his turn to look rueful. “I just wanted to look like maybe it was a bad idea to pick a fight with me. But I hate it, fighting,” he confessed. “I don’t even carry arms most of the time.”

“It’s not like you need it.” Hafsa gave a wry grin. But he only looked more rueful still, and her mouth settled again into a line. “If you wanted to scare people off, you could do better,” she added then. “Why don’t you show fire instead?”

He shook his head. “Draws too much attention.”

“Okay, why not a flaming sword then?”

“It doesn’t exactly make a convincing sword.” He moved his hand over the hilt of his sword, but didn’t draw it. The gesture he made was as if to draw his sword, but instead a brilliant streak of white-yellow flame followed his hand. It formed almost the right shape, though flowing and flickering at the edges. He passed his other hand through it, wiggling his fingers in a somewhat childish demonstration. She hid a smile. “See?” The flames faded into the air. He shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugging. “Holding a shape means not burning and spreading,” he explained diffidently. “Takes concentration. Easy to put out. About as good as waving around a candle.”

“If you burned everyone that attacked you,” Hafsa started, and stopped when she saw the way he was shaking his head.

“I’d really rather not,” he said, with rather more
emphasis.

Hafsa gave up at that. Why was he like this? He wasn’t even really arguing. Not like the way people argued back home, which was noisy and angry and blew over as fast as a summer storm (its progress sped along equally by fists and mead). How could he be so calm when he was obviously bothered? She would have said something rude and snappish.

“Sorry,” he said after a moment, which drew her brows sharply down. “It’s.... odd, I mean, isn’t it?”

And he was apologizing?

“I just don’t see why you’d handicap yourself,” she said shortly. And she felt a twinge of guilt for being short with him. And of course, that only added to the shortness.

He inclined his head. “Right,” he said. Was that an agreement, or just acknowledgement? But then he said something that quelled her temper entirely. “I’m used to dying. I don’t want other people to have to die. And I dream about it a lot. Almost more than any other part. Of the other lives, I mean. And my soul mate is there. So it must be fate.” He sounded so utterly earnest, though of course what he was saying was ridiculous. Her irritation turned to pity.

“I’m not the person you’re looking for,” she reminded him. “I’m just a Valkyrie.”

He smiled at that, though he looked sort of sad, too, now, all mixed together on that earnest face. “You have dreams, too.” At that, she dropped her eyes to stare at her boots. He wasn’t wrong. She was not going to admit that. She did not feel quite that guilty. And she did not want to talk about dreams.

After a moment, she drew her sword again. Her boots slid into a balanced position. “Break over,” she told him. “Stop day-dreaming and fight me.”

He nodded and shifted to match her stance, drawing his own, much lighter sword. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Don’t.” Her irritation returned, briefly, and then she focused on forcing him to break his pattern of movement, harassing and thrusting and blocking until they were both panting and tired of chasing one another in sprawling and irregular circles across the field. By then the sun had risen high and the sky had turned a shade that matched the flowers. She laid back on the grass with her sword cradled in the arms, and put her right palm over her left bicep, testing the bruise that was beginning to blossom there. It was going to be a good one, she felt, and turn ugly and purple-grey overnight.

“Sorry,” he said, sitting down not far away, and carefully cleaning off the sword blade before sheathing it. The discarded guard for its tip and edge he kept rolling between his fingers. “Did that hurt?”

Hafsa shrugged and tilted her face up at the sky. “It’s fine. You don’t hit hard.”

“I’d hope not.” He smiled. “It’s just sparring.”

“So you can look like you know what you’re doing,” she said, repeating his earlier words. It still seemed absolutely ridiculous.

“And it’s fun.” He laid back on the grass, hands folded behind his head. “What do Valkyries do for fun?”

Hafsa shrugged into the grass. “Same, but to the death, every day, with all the einherjar and the rest of the family. And we go collect the new ones.” She realized she didn’t make it sound all that fun. Was it? She hadn’t considered it before by that metric. “It’s our duty to protect the Nine Realms. It’s not about fun,” she added quickly. “Fun is for kids, Icarion.”

He smiled out of the corner of her eyes. “Well, I do help keep an eye on these demigod kids. It’s good to have a little fun.”

Said the man who had just as cheerfully admitted that he was preoccupied with his imminent death. She rolled her eyes and contemplated finding a way to say as much before giving up the idea as a waste of time. Even after having barely met, she could see he was as obstinate as any of her divine brothers and sisters. Him suddenly becoming sensible would be like Freya giving up her cats or Idunn burning her orchard. It wasn’t something she could see happening; it wasn’t behavior that suited at all.

“Well, when it comes to a real fight,” she grumbled instead, and left off at that. She knew what he could do. She had seen him in Toronto. With his magic, he had burned all the armies of Jotenheim to the ground. And he chose to spend his time as a glorified baby-sitter? The sword was a silly conceit, too.

He didn’t reply. He closed his eyes and tilted his face to the sun, seeming to enjoy its midday brightness. She propped herself on one elbow and scowled over at him, and then abruptly picked herself up. Her sword had renewed itself by now; the carved runes down its length and hilt were another bit of cheat she had discovered. She sheathed it at her back. “I’m going back.”

“I’ll catch up.” His eyelids dipped closed. His expression was now drowsy, like a sunbathing cat. “Thanks for coming, Hafsa. You’re very good.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just gave a jerk of a nod and strode back towards the main campground. It did not count as running away, she felt. But the prickly, discomfited feeling lingered through the afternoon, and after eating and showering - because even with the water as cold as she could stand the feeling stayed - she ran a long loop around the whole camp. Her thoughts nagged at her - of his face, of the last dream, of her father and brothers - until a satisfying fatigue overcame them and drowned them in its deep well.

A quick, practiced rune-spell pitched her tent at the edge of that same field, and she sat in its mouth, stretching, until the sun dipped below the treeline. She fell asleep easily then, and when the dreams came to her again, she did not have the presence of mind to immediately connect them to the man she had sparred with that morning.

In that dream, she worked with knife and bone in a silent, red-stained room, in the cold of stone buried beneath the earth and unwarmed by the sun, and only after some unknown timeless period, she seemed to notice the bloody, bare sternum under her fingers. Her eyes moved dispassionately to the woman laying underneath her, her neck pulsing and her face bright and shining with some emotion that was not pain and that she did not understand. Her lips were parted mutely and she did not make a sound as she breathed, and even the dripping blood did not make a noise, curling into smoke almost as soon as it left the wound. And staring, her eyes were the same as his eyes, all sulphuric blue and burning, and that was what finally perturbed her into waking.

She woke and ran to the showers, and scrubbed at her skin under freezing water until she could gather herself enough to pack up the tent properly, and walk calmly to the dining hall, and mingle with the children. But she was on edge and wondered if they would hear from Thor today. Of course, he came to sit with her. He didn’t even ask. She scowled at the fruit on his plate and the neat way he plucked stems and separated peels and flesh. Occasionally there would be more juice than flesh, and smoke curled around his fingers as he popped a grape or orange segment between his lips. He was quiet.

“I hate you,” she said abruptly, staring at her own empty plate. She could hardly remember what she had eaten. It hadn’t tasted like anything. Her stomach was tight and cold with nausea.

He looked up at her then with a concerned smile. “Oh,” he said, but it was just a polite sound that suggested he wanted to ask for elaboration. She did not oblige. His eyes were on her back as she got up to leave. Her boots were loud on the tile. This time she was running away. She could not blame him for what she had seen, as it was not the first time she had that nightmare. No, she was fully aware that she was only furious that she could not ignore the explanation he offered for that vision, and she could not avoid his ridiculous ideas even when she was miles away and asleep.

As she kept walking out of the camp, she realized that the only thing to do was to search for her own answers. Surely some god could tell her if she held any memories of past lives. There had to be some way to know where the dreams were coming from. She would find out. And then she could put a stop to it; she could get on with her life; she could perform her duties without distraction. She would find out, and when it was done - go home.

Description
Sparring with him was not like sparring on the fields of Valhalla. There it was the constant chaos of battle, never-ending, with blood and pain and noise, only to begin again when they all had been revived from their most recent death. It was slaughter, not practice. Who needed practice to die?

This was careful, sensible, and quiet. The field he favored was covered with junegrass and dotted with meadowfoam and baby’s-blue-eyes. Every ten or fifteen minutes, he would break, and sit in the grass, breathing deeply, his long thin sword over his knees, almost glowing with heat. She stood and rocked on her heels, pacing or stretching. And every time he picked up the sword, she wondered if he would ever land a hit. He was quick on his feet, keeping her circling - but her blade had a longer reach, and it was easy to block. It was easy, too, to disarm - if she could catch him.

It was on the fifth bout that she finally landed a hit, and it was so heavy on the hilt of his sword that she thought she had hurt his hand. He only smiled and went to collect it from the grass, wiping off the dirt and morning dew on the leg of his trousers. “That was good,” he told her. “Were you holding back?” And he even sounded kind, and his smile at her was kind, too. She watched warily as he sheathed his sword. He unwrapped the length of dark linen from around the hand that had gotten hit, and she saw a glimpse of red, puckered scar tissue before he wrapped it more tightly than before.

“No,” she told him. “You move the same way every time. I just didn’t see it right away.”

He didn’t take offense. In fact, he laughed before answering. “I have some bad habits. I get lazy,” he agreed. “You’re faster than you look with that two-hander. Where did you learn?”

Hafsa looked rueful. “I didn’t learn properly,” she said. “I did fencing one semester at uni. My dad gave me a real sword after that and made me do drills until I was sick of it.” She paused, and then admitted, “so I found a rune spell that gave me the muscle memory so I could quit.”

He laughed. “Smart.” Then it was his turn to look rueful. “I just wanted to look like maybe it was a bad idea to pick a fight with me. But I hate it, fighting,” he confessed. “I don’t even carry arms most of the time.”

“It’s not like you need it.” Hafsa gave a wry grin. But he only looked more rueful still, and her mouth settled again into a line. “If you wanted to scare people off, you could do better,” she added then. “Why don’t you show fire instead?”

He shook his head. “Draws too much attention.”

“Okay, why not a flaming sword then?”

“It doesn’t exactly make a convincing sword.” He moved his hand over the hilt of his sword, but didn’t draw it. The gesture he made was as if to draw his sword, but instead a brilliant streak of white-yellow flame followed his hand. It formed almost the right shape, though flowing and flickering at the edges. He passed his other hand through it, wiggling his fingers in a somewhat childish demonstration. She hid a smile. “See?” The flames faded into the air. He shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugging. “Holding a shape means not burning and spreading,” he explained diffidently. “Takes concentration. Easy to put out. About as good as waving around a candle.”

“If you burned everyone that attacked you,” Hafsa started, and stopped when she saw the way he was shaking his head.

“I’d really rather not,” he said, with rather more
emphasis.

Hafsa gave up at that. Why was he like this? He wasn’t even really arguing. Not like the way people argued back home, which was noisy and angry and blew over as fast as a summer storm (its progress sped along equally by fists and mead). How could he be so calm when he was obviously bothered? She would have said something rude and snappish.

“Sorry,” he said after a moment, which drew her brows sharply down. “It’s.... odd, I mean, isn’t it?”

And he was apologizing?

“I just don’t see why you’d handicap yourself,” she said shortly. And she felt a twinge of guilt for being short with him. And of course, that only added to the shortness.

He inclined his head. “Right,” he said. Was that an agreement, or just acknowledgement? But then he said something that quelled her temper entirely. “I’m used to dying. I don’t want other people to have to die. And I dream about it a lot. Almost more than any other part. Of the other lives, I mean. And my soul mate is there. So it must be fate.” He sounded so utterly earnest, though of course what he was saying was ridiculous. Her irritation turned to pity.

“I’m not the person you’re looking for,” she reminded him. “I’m just a Valkyrie.”

He smiled at that, though he looked sort of sad, too, now, all mixed together on that earnest face. “You have dreams, too.” At that, she dropped her eyes to stare at her boots. He wasn’t wrong. She was not going to admit that. She did not feel quite that guilty. And she did not want to talk about dreams.

After a moment, she drew her sword again. Her boots slid into a balanced position. “Break over,” she told him. “Stop day-dreaming and fight me.”

He nodded and shifted to match her stance, drawing his own, much lighter sword. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Don’t.” Her irritation returned, briefly, and then she focused on forcing him to break his pattern of movement, harassing and thrusting and blocking until they were both panting and tired of chasing one another in sprawling and irregular circles across the field. By then the sun had risen high and the sky had turned a shade that matched the flowers. She laid back on the grass with her sword cradled in the arms, and put her right palm over her left bicep, testing the bruise that was beginning to blossom there. It was going to be a good one, she felt, and turn ugly and purple-grey overnight.

“Sorry,” he said, sitting down not far away, and carefully cleaning off the sword blade before sheathing it. The discarded guard for its tip and edge he kept rolling between his fingers. “Did that hurt?”

Hafsa shrugged and tilted her face up at the sky. “It’s fine. You don’t hit hard.”

“I’d hope not.” He smiled. “It’s just sparring.”

“So you can look like you know what you’re doing,” she said, repeating his earlier words. It still seemed absolutely ridiculous.

“And it’s fun.” He laid back on the grass, hands folded behind his head. “What do Valkyries do for fun?”

Hafsa shrugged into the grass. “Same, but to the death, every day, with all the einherjar and the rest of the family. And we go collect the new ones.” She realized she didn’t make it sound all that fun. Was it? She hadn’t considered it before by that metric. “It’s our duty to protect the Nine Realms. It’s not about fun,” she added quickly. “Fun is for kids, Icarion.”

He smiled out of the corner of her eyes. “Well, I do help keep an eye on these demigod kids. It’s good to have a little fun.”

Said the man who had just as cheerfully admitted that he was preoccupied with his imminent death. She rolled her eyes and contemplated finding a way to say as much before giving up the idea as a waste of time. Even after having barely met, she could see he was as obstinate as any of her divine brothers and sisters. Him suddenly becoming sensible would be like Freya giving up her cats or Idunn burning her orchard. It wasn’t something she could see happening; it wasn’t behavior that suited at all.

“Well, when it comes to a real fight,” she grumbled instead, and left off at that. She knew what he could do. She had seen him in Toronto. With his magic, he had burned all the armies of Jotenheim to the ground. And he chose to spend his time as a glorified baby-sitter? The sword was a silly conceit, too.

He didn’t reply. He closed his eyes and tilted his face to the sun, seeming to enjoy its midday brightness. She propped herself on one elbow and scowled over at him, and then abruptly picked herself up. Her sword had renewed itself by now; the carved runes down its length and hilt were another bit of cheat she had discovered. She sheathed it at her back. “I’m going back.”

“I’ll catch up.” His eyelids dipped closed. His expression was now drowsy, like a sunbathing cat. “Thanks for coming, Hafsa. You’re very good.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just gave a jerk of a nod and strode back towards the main campground. It did not count as running away, she felt. But the prickly, discomfited feeling lingered through the afternoon, and after eating and showering - because even with the water as cold as she could stand the feeling stayed - she ran a long loop around the whole camp. Her thoughts nagged at her - of his face, of the last dream, of her father and brothers - until a satisfying fatigue overcame them and drowned them in its deep well.

A quick, practiced rune-spell pitched her tent at the edge of that same field, and she sat in its mouth, stretching, until the sun dipped below the treeline. She fell asleep easily then, and when the dreams came to her again, she did not have the presence of mind to immediately connect them to the man she had sparred with that morning.

In that dream, she worked with knife and bone in a silent, red-stained room, in the cold of stone buried beneath the earth and unwarmed by the sun, and only after some unknown timeless period, she seemed to notice the bloody, bare sternum under her fingers. Her eyes moved dispassionately to the woman laying underneath her, her neck pulsing and her face bright and shining with some emotion that was not pain and that she did not understand. Her lips were parted mutely and she did not make a sound as she breathed, and even the dripping blood did not make a noise, curling into smoke almost as soon as it left the wound. And staring, her eyes were the same as his eyes, all sulphuric blue and burning, and that was what finally perturbed her into waking.

She woke and ran to the showers, and scrubbed at her skin under freezing water until she could gather herself enough to pack up the tent properly, and walk calmly to the dining hall, and mingle with the children. But she was on edge and wondered if they would hear from Thor today. Of course, he came to sit with her. He didn’t even ask. She scowled at the fruit on his plate and the neat way he plucked stems and separated peels and flesh. Occasionally there would be more juice than flesh, and smoke curled around his fingers as he popped a grape or orange segment between his lips. He was quiet.

“I hate you,” she said abruptly, staring at her own empty plate. She could hardly remember what she had eaten. It hadn’t tasted like anything. Her stomach was tight and cold with nausea.

He looked up at her then with a concerned smile. “Oh,” he said, but it was just a polite sound that suggested he wanted to ask for elaboration. She did not oblige. His eyes were on her back as she got up to leave. Her boots were loud on the tile. This time she was running away. She could not blame him for what she had seen, as it was not the first time she had that nightmare. No, she was fully aware that she was only furious that she could not ignore the explanation he offered for that vision, and she could not avoid his ridiculous ideas even when she was miles away and asleep.

As she kept walking out of the camp, she realized that the only thing to do was to search for her own answers. Surely some god could tell her if she held any memories of past lives. There had to be some way to know where the dreams were coming from. She would find out. And then she could put a stop to it; she could get on with her life; she could perform her duties without distraction. She would find out, and when it was done - go home.