"By Fjalar and Galar." Fey's crutch struck the cracked pavement of the abandoned construction side as she spread her arms. "No dwarven poet could have come up with this idea!"
Before them stretched a half-finished freeway tunnel, its skeletal framework halted mid-construction. Rust-orange excavators crouched like sleeping beasts beneath peeling concrete barriers.
White wisps shimmered in the air, dancing around support beams and weaving through tall oak trees.
Maya hauled herself over a barrier, declining Val's proffered hand for the third time. VaL's shoulders slumped.
"Reminds me, Fey, why is this good?"
Val dejectedly stared at her feet, and kicked at a can.
"It's a dwarven entrance!" Fey hobbled forward, her crutch sinking into soft earth where asphalt had yet to be laid. "Crafty little bastards love to build the entrance to their realm beneath these very stones." She inhaled deeply, taking in the dusty air as the wisps swirled around her.
"Ahem," Maya harrumphed. "In human language, please."
Fey rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath. "This place is a perfect bait. That monster will follow these wisps like a drunkard to honeyed mead." Crossing her arms, Fey drummed her fingers over her cheek. "Oh, I could work some evil magic here."
"... I'll let you do your thing."
But before Maya could sink onto a concrete block, Fey yanked her back upright. sat down on a concrete barrier.
"No rest for the wicked. We have work to do, and I need an assistant!"
"But I just sat down," Maya whined . "And an assistant for what?"
"You'll see!"
Val stood rooted in place, fingers twitching towards Maya before she was pulled from her grasp. The Valkyrie had hoped for some minutes alone with her.
Rubbing her arm, Val felt agitated by the lack of attention she suddenly received. All she wanted now was to go back home with Maya and spend some time together.
A wisp drifted near Val's head as she sighed. She reached out to touch it, but hesitated. Although it was part of her, the last time it left her trembling with a strange, pitting feeling inside her.
Her hands had not forgotten how soft and warm the touch felt. Val was trembling to experience it again, but had to hold back before those drove her insane again.
First, she had to apologise. What came after would be—
"Hey there, Miss Handsy," Fey's full voice shattered the memory. The wisp fled. "Save that lovestruck pining for later. Scout the perimeter for advantages. You can do that, right?"
Val jerked her hand back, feeling ashamed by that nickname that stuck on her. Across the site, she noticed Maya ducking her head, holding a little smile.
Later, Val promised herself, smoothing her expression into something battle-cold. Duty first.
‧. .ˋˏʚ♡ɞˎˊ. .‧
"Only the dead have seen the end of war," laughed one of Val's sisters-in-arms, twirling a dagger between her fingers. "Only the Draugr or Einherjar truly know that phrase, don't they?"
"I don't think you should compare the Honourable with the Dishonourable," one chided politely, playing with her thumbs as her arm muscles flexed. "Wouldn't that be an offence?"
Another stretched, her freckled shoulders flexing beneath the thin straps of her dress. "Two armies clashing is just one big suicide pact. Change my mind."
"Are we seriously discussing war philosophy on our break," the last Valkyrie sighed, adjusting her knee-length dress over battle-hardened thighs.
Five Valkyries lounged in their respite—old warriors clad in the disguise of young maidens, their scars and muscles shown proudly underneath soft silk and divinity.
They have all known war and faced death. Despite varying origins, hailing from different parts of the world, they were predestined to become the Choosers of the Slain.
One Valkyrie was Zhou, a petite Chinese woman with choppy black hair and a feisty attitude from the Chinese Civil War. Her protection of animals and love for cooking rival even gods.
Another was Alice, a German gal who fought during the last great war in the resistance against her country. Her body was the most trained, but her heart was larger than any of her sisters. And as big as her enormous axe.
The third was Marie, a former actress and American Civil War soldier of Irish descent. If life had it, she would have loved nothing more than to sing and be merry to her heart's content.
The last of the five was Ava. A soldier woman who survived over thirty years of war. Her hands were both stained with the blood of the Romanovs' and the young girls who she sent flying to her deaths.
War has shaped them. War has chosen them. War became engraved in their very being.
All four girls then turned to the fifth of their group.
"Valory?" one prodded. "Thoughts?"
Val sat rigid on her stool, hands folded primly over her lap. With her slight frame and downcast eyes, she could have been mistaken for a well-behaved family daughter.
Among the group, she was a quiet oddball. Quiet and almost never talking her mind. She was there when each of the sisters joined the ranks. Joined when their oldest sister was still around.
"Yes, tell us."
"What's your take on this, sis?"
Val absently braided her blonde hair, staring unfocused at the ground. Then her fingers twitched for a weapon that was not there. Alongside a past she could barely recall.
"War does not determine who's right," she murmured. "Only who's left."
Her gaze blurred. Her sisters disappeared, and Val only felt the firm grip of someone important on her shoulder before she dove into the battle.
The memories shattered as her shield cracked against the Draugr's spine.
Vile, black blood rained down as Val's shield repeatedly hit against the Draugr Giant's nape, and eventually breached the cervical vertebrae.
Another roar reverberated through the construction site, but Val kept hitting and hitting until her face was marred with blood. Yet she kept on slamming her shield against the monster, even as it swiped at her with claws like scythes.
She clung on, driving deeper until its shrieks did nothing but split the air and its blood was everywhere. The shower she would need later was inconceivable.
"Time for the next step." Fey drawled, drinking in the ambient mana around her as she struck the asphalt with her crutch, morphing it into her rune-etched staff. Symbols peeled from its surface like burning moths of green, swarming Fey like a torchlight.
"More," she demanded. "We need more!"
"Stop rushing me!" Maya scrubbed her glowing neon-green crayon across concrete, sweat dripping onto the new runes.
Her instructions? Keep drawing runes on whatever surface she could find.
The runes shuddered, then lifted off the ground like bubbles rising to the sky.
Fey threw back her head and laughed. Green smoke poured from her mouth, her eyes, her every being. It coiled over the ground like a smoke screen blanketing the construction site. Sparks of green coiled around the Draugr, searing flesh from bone.
"Almost, yes!" Fey laughed manically. Alf Sowilo!"
Something detonated overhead, setting the Draugr Giant aflame. Fey was so drunk on magic power that she didn't notice a wisp detonate over their heads.
Lightning lanced down, and hurled an excavator through the air like an air missile. Maya tackled Fey to the ground just as it obliterated the tunnel entrance where half their rune circle had been.
"Oh," Fey whispered, staring at the smouldering wreckage. "Oh, that's not good. That's bad."
The Draugr's massive hand closed around Val's torso and hurled her skyward. Leaves exploded outward as her body vanished through the canopies.
"Val!" Maya's scream tore raw from her throat. "What do we do now!?"
The Draugr Giant snatched a wisp from the air. Its eyes ignited. White-hot,incandescent flames erupted across the forest, smoldering the asphalt into liquid cement.
Fey gulped, turning uneasily to Maya. "Hoping for divine intervention?"