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Vow of the Valkyrie
Chapter 9
The moment Astrid made it to her small barrack, she fell into bed fully clothed, hoping to rest for a few hours. However, her brain didn’t want to shut off and names kept scrolling through her mind along with simple annotations on whether he or she could pull something like this off. Eventually, the Valkyrie gave up and sat straight up on the narrow bed and propped herself up against the headboard before conjuring a simple pad of paper and a purple ball point pen.
She wrote down every person in the known universe that could hide themselves from her, totaling up to 37 individuals, 35 of which had the ability to place such a mind block on Loki from a distance, 33 of those had a bone to pick with both Loki and Midgard.
Thanos was definitely a possibility, last Astrid had heard, the big purple alien had been planning a takeover of Earth, but she highly doubted that the man would want to conquer the planet through someone else, someone that couldn’t hold a torch to his power. (None of you tell Loki this, understand?)
Galactus was an option too, powerful but ego driven, and she crossed him off for the same reasons as Thanos.
Whoever she was looking for, was powerful, obviously, but it had to be someone that didn’t want to get their hands dirty, someone that didn’t want the glory of being the one to destroy or take over Earth, they just wanted it done with minimal risks to their person.
That list of 33 shrunk down to a measly 28. 28 mages, warriors, and gods that had the power to destroy the world on a whim… what had Astrid gotten herself tangled up with?
Alright so out of the 28 people, only 20 of them were women, and Astrid knew from the trace of a magical signature she’d found in Loki’s mind that whoever mind blocked him, was female, no doubt about it.
Without any more information to help cross more names off of the now shortened list, Astrid tossed the pad across the room, not caring at the pages bent and crumpled under one another as it hit the floor and landed at an odd angle. The pen followed the paper, but disappeared halfway to the far wall with a blink of Astrid’s blue eyes.
It was going to take forever to figure out who was behind this, and no, that wasn’t a vast over exaggeration.
With a deep sigh, Astrid flopped back down onto the mattress and transformed her Asgardian armor into a comfortable pair of sleep clothes. But still, sleep didn’t come, no matter how she arranged her long limbs, she couldn’t get comfortable; and nothing she did to clear her mind stopped the names, stopped the hypothetical situations, and it definitely didn’t stop the nagging suspicion in the back of her mind that there was something she was missing.
Astrid remained in bed for another ten minutes, until she was on the verge of blasting a hole in the wall out of shear frustration.
She changed back into her presentable clothes and lifted herself out of bed, bending down to retrieve her notepad before calmly exiting the room. There were still several hours left until midday, but she went out to look for this “gym” anyway, she needed the familiar feeling of her coiled muscles slowly unwinding after each meticulous movement. Of course, making full grown men cry tears of embarrassment at their easy defeat, was always another draw to the training arena.
While she had never been there before, her feet mapped their own course from the fragments of the future she had witnessed. It wasn’t enough for Astrid to draw you a map, but she managed to arrive at the on board gym without too many false turns.
This…gym, Astrid thought as she stepped through the sliding metal doors, was definitely not a training arena. There were odd machines lying all over the space in a jumbled mess, most of which looked like torture devices and she couldn’t imagine why they would be in a space created for training. Unless midgardians trained in torture…no, she would have remembered seeing or hearing of something like that. Humans must simply train very differently than she was used to.
With a flick of her hand, the unusual machine disappeared and the small cushioned mat on the far side of the room expanded to cover the entire floor. Then, with a simple head tilt of her head, the items she was used to seeing on a training ground appeared. Manikins, archery targets, wooden obstacles, and a long table holding every hand-welded weapon in the known universe made themselves at home in the space.
There, now she felt more at ease.
Astrid may have had a slight spring in her step as she walked over to the table, her fingers reaching for the very special weapon lying in the center, replacing it with her paper pad. To the common person, it looked to be a simple wooden staph, but there were more spells on it than Astrid cared to think about, it was the unique weapon of a Valkyrie, a T’ranyu.
“I knew you wouldn’t be sleeping.”
Astrid spun around, the t’ranyu held tightly in her grasp, to find Thor standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest and a smile spreading across his sun kissed skin.
“My thoughts wouldn’t cease.” Astrid replied and turned to walk further into the room to stand in the center, which had been left open for several people to comfortably spar against one another without running into the walls or equipment.
“I assumed as much.” Thor laughed, “I’ve never known you to let your thoughts rest when they should.” The blonde man slowly walked inside the gym, his blue eyes sparkling as he took in the new renovations. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
Astrid smiled widely at the comment and watched as Thor made his way to the table, his eyes already zooming in to a sword on the end closest to Astrid. He grabbed in and swung the blade with a practiced hand before moving to stand in front of the Valkyrie.
“Are you going to play fair?” He asked, taking his stance and waiting for Astrid to do the same.
“ Of course not.” She laughed and brought the t’ranyu up to block the blow from Thor before she could get out a second syllable.
-
Astrid sat in the soft light of the rising sun and watched a pair of young men, not yet having met their 15th year. One was fair, the other dark and they battled with wooden swords as though their very lives were on the line. The two were most definitely brothers, Astrid could tell by the vicious words spat back and forth and the smiles when the other replied in kind.
The blonde managed to get a foot underneath both of his brothers’ and the dark lad fell back with a huff and a snarl as the wooden sword was pointed at his neck
.
“That wasn’t fair!” The dark boy exclaimed, and Astrid took it upon herself to reply to both of them.
“There is no fair, only life and death.” Both boys turned to their audience and scrambled to their feet, righting their clothes and brushing off as much dirt as their small hands could manage.
“We didn’t see you there, lady Valkyrie.” The blonde said, “I’m Thor, this is my brother Loki. We were just having a spar, if you need the arena…”
“And I was just watching, young princes, although I’d be more than happy to correct a few things I witnessed, if you’d like.”
Valkyries were well respected on Asgard they were trained to fight from the time they stepped foot on Asgard to the time they rested in Hel. Most men and women would kneel over dead just to get a few minutes advice from one.
“That’d be fantastic.”
Astrid laughed at the excitement in Loki’s cracking voice and stood from her bench to walk over to the pair. She had never seen the princes in person, fifteen years might as well been fifteen minutes to an immortal, and she’d spent all of that time down on Midgard watching a war that never took a causality. Complete waste of endless time, if you asked her.
“Who taught you to hold a sword like that?” Astrid asked as she neared the two boys, nodding her head toward Loki whose sword was held in an awkward grip that didn’t look like it could hold a daisy in the wind.
“Our instructor.” Thor replied for his brother just as Astrid walked up and all but snatched the wooden sword out of Loki’s pale hand.
“Are you left handed?” Astrid asked, ignoring Thor for a moment. “Then hold it in your left hand.” She pressed the weapon against the god’s left hand and watched as his long fingers gracefully gripped the hilt with a strength he just couldn’t replicate with his least dominant hand.
“But Sir Ivan said-“ Thor complained, poking around Astrid to see his brother.
“Lady Astrid said that if he’s more capable with his left hand, then he shall fight with it. No need to wind up dead just to be proper.”
-
There had been many lessons after that day, Astrid having to reteach the young men everything they thought they knew. Their instructors had been trained in the way of honorable swordsmenship, valuable knowledge if one needed to win a tournament, but worthless in battle.
Thor had taken quickly to the sword, the hammer, the spear, the mace, pretty much everything he rested his hand on. Loki, however, was never as proficient as his brother as fighter, but as a mage very few could match him
“What is it you think about?” Thor asked calmly, even while he swung his sword with all the effort he was capable of, knowing that he needn’t hold back with Astrid, he couldn’t hurt her and she had no qualms with hurting him.
“Simply that you still stand like a lopsided stool when your sword is raised in defense.”
“And your footing is absolutely perfect.” Thor mocked, bringing his sword down over Astrid’s head only to have it blocked by the t’ranyu. “You don’t dance around on your toes like a ballerina at all.”
“Shut up, princess.”
She wrote down every person in the known universe that could hide themselves from her, totaling up to 37 individuals, 35 of which had the ability to place such a mind block on Loki from a distance, 33 of those had a bone to pick with both Loki and Midgard.
Thanos was definitely a possibility, last Astrid had heard, the big purple alien had been planning a takeover of Earth, but she highly doubted that the man would want to conquer the planet through someone else, someone that couldn’t hold a torch to his power. (None of you tell Loki this, understand?)
Galactus was an option too, powerful but ego driven, and she crossed him off for the same reasons as Thanos.
Whoever she was looking for, was powerful, obviously, but it had to be someone that didn’t want to get their hands dirty, someone that didn’t want the glory of being the one to destroy or take over Earth, they just wanted it done with minimal risks to their person.
That list of 33 shrunk down to a measly 28. 28 mages, warriors, and gods that had the power to destroy the world on a whim… what had Astrid gotten herself tangled up with?
Alright so out of the 28 people, only 20 of them were women, and Astrid knew from the trace of a magical signature she’d found in Loki’s mind that whoever mind blocked him, was female, no doubt about it.
Without any more information to help cross more names off of the now shortened list, Astrid tossed the pad across the room, not caring at the pages bent and crumpled under one another as it hit the floor and landed at an odd angle. The pen followed the paper, but disappeared halfway to the far wall with a blink of Astrid’s blue eyes.
It was going to take forever to figure out who was behind this, and no, that wasn’t a vast over exaggeration.
With a deep sigh, Astrid flopped back down onto the mattress and transformed her Asgardian armor into a comfortable pair of sleep clothes. But still, sleep didn’t come, no matter how she arranged her long limbs, she couldn’t get comfortable; and nothing she did to clear her mind stopped the names, stopped the hypothetical situations, and it definitely didn’t stop the nagging suspicion in the back of her mind that there was something she was missing.
Astrid remained in bed for another ten minutes, until she was on the verge of blasting a hole in the wall out of shear frustration.
She changed back into her presentable clothes and lifted herself out of bed, bending down to retrieve her notepad before calmly exiting the room. There were still several hours left until midday, but she went out to look for this “gym” anyway, she needed the familiar feeling of her coiled muscles slowly unwinding after each meticulous movement. Of course, making full grown men cry tears of embarrassment at their easy defeat, was always another draw to the training arena.
While she had never been there before, her feet mapped their own course from the fragments of the future she had witnessed. It wasn’t enough for Astrid to draw you a map, but she managed to arrive at the on board gym without too many false turns.
This…gym, Astrid thought as she stepped through the sliding metal doors, was definitely not a training arena. There were odd machines lying all over the space in a jumbled mess, most of which looked like torture devices and she couldn’t imagine why they would be in a space created for training. Unless midgardians trained in torture…no, she would have remembered seeing or hearing of something like that. Humans must simply train very differently than she was used to.
With a flick of her hand, the unusual machine disappeared and the small cushioned mat on the far side of the room expanded to cover the entire floor. Then, with a simple head tilt of her head, the items she was used to seeing on a training ground appeared. Manikins, archery targets, wooden obstacles, and a long table holding every hand-welded weapon in the known universe made themselves at home in the space.
There, now she felt more at ease.
Astrid may have had a slight spring in her step as she walked over to the table, her fingers reaching for the very special weapon lying in the center, replacing it with her paper pad. To the common person, it looked to be a simple wooden staph, but there were more spells on it than Astrid cared to think about, it was the unique weapon of a Valkyrie, a T’ranyu.
“I knew you wouldn’t be sleeping.”
Astrid spun around, the t’ranyu held tightly in her grasp, to find Thor standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest and a smile spreading across his sun kissed skin.
“My thoughts wouldn’t cease.” Astrid replied and turned to walk further into the room to stand in the center, which had been left open for several people to comfortably spar against one another without running into the walls or equipment.
“I assumed as much.” Thor laughed, “I’ve never known you to let your thoughts rest when they should.” The blonde man slowly walked inside the gym, his blue eyes sparkling as he took in the new renovations. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
Astrid smiled widely at the comment and watched as Thor made his way to the table, his eyes already zooming in to a sword on the end closest to Astrid. He grabbed in and swung the blade with a practiced hand before moving to stand in front of the Valkyrie.
“Are you going to play fair?” He asked, taking his stance and waiting for Astrid to do the same.
“ Of course not.” She laughed and brought the t’ranyu up to block the blow from Thor before she could get out a second syllable.
-
Astrid sat in the soft light of the rising sun and watched a pair of young men, not yet having met their 15th year. One was fair, the other dark and they battled with wooden swords as though their very lives were on the line. The two were most definitely brothers, Astrid could tell by the vicious words spat back and forth and the smiles when the other replied in kind.
The blonde managed to get a foot underneath both of his brothers’ and the dark lad fell back with a huff and a snarl as the wooden sword was pointed at his neck
.
“That wasn’t fair!” The dark boy exclaimed, and Astrid took it upon herself to reply to both of them.
“There is no fair, only life and death.” Both boys turned to their audience and scrambled to their feet, righting their clothes and brushing off as much dirt as their small hands could manage.
“We didn’t see you there, lady Valkyrie.” The blonde said, “I’m Thor, this is my brother Loki. We were just having a spar, if you need the arena…”
“And I was just watching, young princes, although I’d be more than happy to correct a few things I witnessed, if you’d like.”
Valkyries were well respected on Asgard they were trained to fight from the time they stepped foot on Asgard to the time they rested in Hel. Most men and women would kneel over dead just to get a few minutes advice from one.
“That’d be fantastic.”
Astrid laughed at the excitement in Loki’s cracking voice and stood from her bench to walk over to the pair. She had never seen the princes in person, fifteen years might as well been fifteen minutes to an immortal, and she’d spent all of that time down on Midgard watching a war that never took a causality. Complete waste of endless time, if you asked her.
“Who taught you to hold a sword like that?” Astrid asked as she neared the two boys, nodding her head toward Loki whose sword was held in an awkward grip that didn’t look like it could hold a daisy in the wind.
“Our instructor.” Thor replied for his brother just as Astrid walked up and all but snatched the wooden sword out of Loki’s pale hand.
“Are you left handed?” Astrid asked, ignoring Thor for a moment. “Then hold it in your left hand.” She pressed the weapon against the god’s left hand and watched as his long fingers gracefully gripped the hilt with a strength he just couldn’t replicate with his least dominant hand.
“But Sir Ivan said-“ Thor complained, poking around Astrid to see his brother.
“Lady Astrid said that if he’s more capable with his left hand, then he shall fight with it. No need to wind up dead just to be proper.”
-
There had been many lessons after that day, Astrid having to reteach the young men everything they thought they knew. Their instructors had been trained in the way of honorable swordsmenship, valuable knowledge if one needed to win a tournament, but worthless in battle.
Thor had taken quickly to the sword, the hammer, the spear, the mace, pretty much everything he rested his hand on. Loki, however, was never as proficient as his brother as fighter, but as a mage very few could match him
“What is it you think about?” Thor asked calmly, even while he swung his sword with all the effort he was capable of, knowing that he needn’t hold back with Astrid, he couldn’t hurt her and she had no qualms with hurting him.
“Simply that you still stand like a lopsided stool when your sword is raised in defense.”
“And your footing is absolutely perfect.” Thor mocked, bringing his sword down over Astrid’s head only to have it blocked by the t’ranyu. “You don’t dance around on your toes like a ballerina at all.”
“Shut up, princess.”