"Well," came a voice through the haze of pain, "someone here seems like they broke a few bones in their body, didn't they?"
Val groaned, her vision swimming. The concussion brought back a flood of old memories. Particularly, Tamara's brutal training sessions. The way her oldest Valkyrie sister could fracture Val#s ribs with a playful flick of her wrist.
"Assess the damage," she would tell Val, who would lie wheezing from the pain.
First, Val tried to flex her arm, but her shield arm hung useless. The radius snapped clean through. Three ribs on her side grated with each breath.
The sensation was all too familiar.
"You can do better than this, Val,."
Tamara's iconic high laugh echoed in her skull. The elder Valkyrie crouched before her. Her bright purple eyes like the rich colour of ripe grapes in her umber face.
A coiled, voluminous afro swayed as she tilted her head. Faint white scars and ivory adornments gleamed against her dress. No armour was needed when your very presence was enough to frighten enemies.
One of the Allfather's favourites. The field-born Valkyrie from the Haitian Revolution of 1791. She who butchered enemies with a machete.
"I'd offer a hand," Tamara teased with a light laugh, resting her chin on one palm, "but I know you don't need it. Breathe, sis. Let your divinity work."
Val sucked in the cold air and racked a cough. The pain was unbearable, and the healing took too much time. Her hands gripped the branches and soft earth underneath her. If she didn't know better, she thought she was dying again.
"Gently, Val. Breathe, I am here."
A soft hand gently grasped Val's calloused palm.
And when she opened her eyes, she realised her sister was not there anymore. Tamara's playful sternness was replaced by the warm, gentle one of Maya, cradling Val's shuddering body.
"Val, can you hear me?" Maya's thumb brushed the sweat streaking Val's brow. "I know it hurts, but I'm here."
Val blushed, she couldn't help but smile despite the pain it brought with it. Then the rumbling returned, startling Val.
"Draugr." Val stirred. "Still. Need. To kill…"
"No!" Maya's voice cracked, trying to stop Val. "The plan failed. You're in no condition to fight."
A tear splashed onto Val's collarbone. "I thought you…"
Val couldn't help but hold Maya in her arms, who barely held back crying in front of Val. She didn't know what to do anymore.
"Options, little sister." Tamara's shadow loomed like an old memory, afro billowing in an unseen wind. "Take them."
"Can't. Do," Val replied through gritted teeth as a rib snapped back into place. "I have. A duty, but. I can't. Do it. Alone," she said, holding Maya's hand in hers. hand. "Please. Give me a hand."
Maya hesitated. The last thing she wanted was to put themselves into more danger, but Val's resolute face told her she wouldn't budge.
Steeling her face, Maya nodded resolutely. "What can I do?"
Val pressed her shield into Maya's hands. The cold material was almost as chilly as Val's own hands. "Gather. My divinity. Before the Before. It steals. More."
"Alright," Maya took the shield from her hands and ran back to the chaos, but not without calling back to her. "Don't you dare move!"
As Maya ran back, there was someone else who held her ground on the action. Though with Val out of commission, she wasn't doing very well.
"This is a bit too much strain for one witch, don't you think?" Fey wheezed as the Draugr's fist came down on her barrier, cratering it. But it held on
"Stop that, you ingrate!" Fey fumed. "Respect your ex-master, you rotting piece of—"
Another fist came crashing down. The barrier cracked, and Fey felt her body collapse from the excavator she sat on. She hit the thankfully muddy ground.
Her limbs spasmed as the backlash seared through her nerves. She could barely muster up the strength to keep things going.
Then she saw Maya sprint towards her. Relief washed over the witch as she reached out for her. "Great timing, girl. I need your help—"
But Maya sprinted past Fey, shield swatting at a fleeing wisp. "Come on, you glorified firefly. Come over here!"
Fey yelled, "What are you doing!?"
"What does it look like?" Maya huffed, swatting at a wisp in failure. "I'm trying to catch those pesky things to help Val."
Maya kept flourishing futilely at the wisp. "Come on, get back to your owner!"
"Priorities, woman!" Fey screeched, clawing at the earth in outrage. "Help me first. The moment the barrier breaks we're all toast!"
Another quake shook the earth. The Giant Draugr wasn't getting any friendlier.
"That thing," Fey wheezed, "is pissed. If we don't re-establish the wards then it's all too late. I can't do it alone, Maya, please."
Maya skidded to a halt, hands on her knees. "You want me to redraw those?" She gestured at the smouldering ruins of Fey's rune circle. "I barely understood them the first time from your 15-minute crash course of weird symbols I have never seen in my entire life! It's a miracle I did it in the first place."
Fey gave a thumbs up. "I believe in you."
‧. .✦ʚ♡ɞ✦. .‧
"Channel my inner arts-and-crafts demon," Maya scoffed, circling the Draugr's prison.
The wards Fey had drawn were fading away. Cracked lines barely clung to emerald light.
How do these even work? Maya grumbled some more.
"Magic," Fey would then say. As if that would explain anything.
With the neon-green crayon in hand, Maya went down to her knees on the ground and retraced whatever she could discern.
The rest was dangerous guesswork as her brain tried to fill in the gaps. To her surprise, something clicked into place the more she leaned into it.
Like a puzzle setting in her mind, her hands drew the runes almost automatically. Maya didn't know what they meant by itself, but somehow, she could guess it by simply drawing them.
It was the same with Maya's linguistic classes when she understood almost immediately the grammatical rules, words, and nuances the longer she immersed herself in it.
As Maya drew the last line, the runes flared blue under her fingertips.
"That's… not right," she thought at first at the azure glow. "Eh, but it'll do, I guess?"
A wisp zipped past her ear.
"Hey!" Maya lunged unsuccessfully with the shield, stumbling over scattered tools. "Stop moving!"
Weirdly, her shouting worked. The wisp froze mid-air. Maya caught it, but tripped over her feet forward.
"Ow," Maya groaned, flopping herself over. "That didn't hurt at all!"
But as Maya stared at the shield glowing with a wispy white light, her whining ceased. She had caught a wisp. Clutching the shield in her arms, she almost weeped. "Quick, I have to bring this back to Val before—"
An icy chill crawled down her spine, boring into her like a drill. Maya slowly turned her head upwards and saw the Draugr staring right down at her.
Its rusty sword blocked the sun above. A foul breath of rotting meat and acid wafting over her like a sickening breeze.
The blade came cleaving down on her, shattering the wards in the wake.
"Maya!" Fey shouted as asphalt broke and the ground levelled before them.
Their eardrums buzzed. Dust covered the air as mud was flung everywhere. The Draugr Giant had broken free. And its rotten fingers closed on Maya.
Bones creaked and groaned as they barely ground together. Val's fractures knitted themselves together agonizingly slow, no matter how much Val tried—it was as if she watched tar drying.
"Come on, cygnet. Let's go, go, go!" Tamara cheered, kicking her legs like and thrusting her fists in the air like a cheerleader. "Go, Val, Go! Show us what a Valkyrie can do!"
All that was left were the appropriate outfit and the pom poms.
Val collapsed again.
No matter how much Val tried, her wounds didn't close fast enough. Hissing steam as Val forced broken skin and flesh to reconnect and regenerate. But when she tried to stand, she plopped right back down.
Tamara's arms fell to her hips and sighed. "I wonder how else to motivate you."
Home.
There were not many reasons why Val would shirk away from responsibility. No matter how much of a bad day she had or how obnoxious people got, she would do her job diligently.
Every single day. For countless years.
Yet, this time around, there was only the thought of staying at home with Maya and enjoying her time with her.
As the ground shook, followed by a terrifying roar, Val felt a sharp tingling sensation in the back of her skull. Her golden hair stood up on all ends. Her heart beat like a drum, threatening to break out of her bruised ribcage.
Her breath was stunted—as if she suffered from another asthma attack.
The last time she felt like this was when the Draugr attacked Maya at home. Everything in her body told her she was in danger.
Val shot upright. Even as her muscles teared and blood streamed from reopened wounds, Val willed her body to move. Her sneakers brushed through the mud and her thighs burned as she shot into a sprint.
Tamara let out an impressed whistle on the sudden fervour.
"A Valkyrie's divinity is something unique." Tamara casually skipped next to the dashing Val, easily keeping up with her. "Some already have divine heritage, many are born plain mortal. Yet we gain our divinity and immortality by servitude to the Allfather and the Queen of the Slain."
Val heard her aching bones crack. Her muscles spasmed and her lungs burned in agony. Blood trickled down her nose. But whatever the surge was, it let her run like it never did before.
Val remembered another lesson Tamara had given her.
She held a machete in her hand and cut her own hand, leaving a nasty, bleeding gash. Each Valkyrie had the innate ability to heal themselves, to regenerate the nastiest and most dangerous wounds of wounds. It was not perfect, though. They could still bleed out, be maimed, or retain scars.
Tamara let the blood trickle down for a minute. And when she clenched her fist and opened it again, the wound was gone—without leaving a scar or single trace.
Another time, Tamara brought Val and her sisters to the borders of Asgard where a giant tried to sneak through the walls. They fought it for hours, barely keeping it at bay.
All the while, Tamara lounged against a nearby rock, watching them struggle until she was done nibbling on her lunch.
By then, Val and her sisters were a wrack. Tamara then took out the Giant in less than five minutes. Tamara was a wildfire, able to inspire entire armies as they marched to war.
Val's skin sizzled. Her veins and eyes gleamed hot white.
She knew she would never be as capable as Tamara. She was everything Val admired. And with all that, she saw the similarities between her and Maya, giving her the focus she needed to push herself.
Maya.
Val's heart ignited. That's all the motivation she needed.
Tamara stopped as she watched Val rushing past her. She tug her hands on her hips and smiled at the sight. "Show them your fire, Valkyrie."