Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Chapter 36

It was three days later Valkyrie finally felt rested and well adjusted from her fight with the Diablerie and being punished by Crow. They hadn't spoken, mostly because Crow was on a lot of cases following leads on small crimes, and at the same time trying to use his international contacts to get Rose now she was alone, meaning Valkyrie was left at home as promised.

With six friends that all wanted to make it up to her for being inconsiderate.

"Hey Fletcher," Valkyrie said, sitting besides him.

Peregrine had left them the morning after the fight and was grateful to her, giving her his number in case she needed him for anything, and then teleported away. She still wasn't sure she liked him but had decided he was nice enough. To be fair, she was too upset with other things whilst he'd been there for them to warm to each other. Fletcher had stayed on the orders of Meritorious. As he was seventeen, he was a minor. Valkyrie and her friends suspected it was a form of punishment for putting Valkyrie in unnecessary danger. Also, why he was being given a ton of cases – Meritorious wanted him to feel the pain of working alone so he'd bring Valkyrie back.

"Hi," he said, sitting down with a heaving sigh and looking completely despondent.

"Oh, it won't be that bad," Valkyrie laughed, gathering her things together. "You'll like it more than you think. It's not like normal school."

Tanith and Weasel came in then for their morning work.

"Right," Tanith smiled. "We'll start with maths and work our way into practical magic, then have lunch, some outdoors activities we found, English, then Irish for Valkyrie and cooking for Fletcher. We'll have dinner. Then I thought we'd talk about a topic over dessert for an hour or so or whenever we feel like and watch a movie."

Weasel nodded along. "I'm glad one of us is organised."

Tanith placed a stack of books she was carrying on the table and, with their help, they split the tables up into 'desks'. The tables were large, square office desks pressed together usually to make a very large second meeting room next to Gordon's old office. Valkyrie used to play under the desks in hide and seek as a kid. With them split up, it was meant to prevent getting too distracted with the other persons work.

Valkyrie set her stuff up – pen on top of her books, a different one per subject, all her revision and work books they were using to assist teaching her, a large book with all Shakespeare's works, a novel Gordon wrote right after she was born and then a cup with all her highlighters, gel pens, pencils, ruler, rubber and other random things she had collected to make the process as easy as possible. She had collected some things for Fletcher too, but he had put it all in a pile and shoved it into the middle of his desk, leant back on his chair and looked like he'd rather die.

Tanith sat with Valkyrie to go over her maths.

She was in fake year nine, fake because there were no years now, and that meant she was doing advanced algebra. Valkyrie liked algebra – it was fractions that stressed her. She listened to Tanith's explanation as expected, then did some practice questions with Tanith's notes beside her, then it was taken away and she did harder questions without it, working her way up as she went. It was a quick sense of achievement when she worked with Tanith. She focused unlike she, or her reflection, did in school and there was no one to distract or compete with her for the teacher's attention. Easy.

They worked on math for nearly two hours in which Valkyrie made "impressive progress for someone who refused to do their homework last year because it was 'too bloody hard'" and moved to practical magic.

Glancing over, she wasn't sure who was more relieved – Fletcher or Weasel.

She grinned, and they switched teachers, Valkyrie going with Weasel outside to work on her elemental work while Tanith had Fletcher retrieve items around the house.

"Alright," Weasel said, grinning at her and rubbing his hands. "I want to continue your last lesson with Skulduggery, manipulating the air so you move through it, like how you'd get to a roof. Just show me what you can do right now, and we'll go from there."

Turned out, Weasel was as intense and good at teaching elemental magic as he was combat skills which they ended up doing to make the lesson more fun. With Weasel's ability to know what she was going to do and him being in very good athletic shape, she was put through her paces and was able to get a better control of her magic in the process.

She did sort of prefer Crow's magic lessons though. She usually got a hug afterwards.

After lunch, it was some outside skills aimed at Valkyrie. They had to make themselves a fire without magic, climb trees, get water, set up a rabbit trap and finally chop wood with an axe. Valkyrie loved the last one and could have gone for ages, but Fletcher could barely make it through five swings, getting through two logs, before he complained of arm ache and couldn't continue.

"I sort of like having him here," Valkyrie whispered to Tanith as they watched Fletcher and Weasel talk it over.

"Yeah, until he gets annoying again."

Valkyrie snored and enjoyed the fair weather until they had to go back in for their English lesson. They went over essay skills, reading, had a spelling test, looked up stupid and overly long words to use against Crow, analysed a little more Shakespeare and finished it all off when Valkyrie threw her massive Shakespeare book at Fletcher.

After laughing themselves silly at him, Fletcher was banished to the kitchen to cook dinner with a glaring, towering Bear – he'd caught Fletcher trying to flirt with Valkyrie after she told him to go away several times and decided he hated the boy with more hate than his gist could possibly be made of – while Valkyrie sat down with Panda for her Irish.

It went smoothly, and he was just teaching her some clever insults when they were called to dinner. They had a nice dinner to be fair, but the growl Bear gave every time Fletcher spoke was the best. Something had really got him annoyed with the boy, but Fletcher annoyed them all.

"So," Valkyrie said when she, Fletcher, Bear and Tanith were sitting in one of the living rooms with pink fairycakes Fletcher had made. "What are we going to talk about."

Tanith ate the jelly tot off the top of her cake and pondered it. "How about… how about – actually no. Not that. Um…"

"How about how to take 'no' as an answer," Bear said in an evil calm, staring into the top of Fletcher's spiky head.

Tanith clicked her fingers. "Perfect. You're good at this," she grinned. "Fletcher, spell 'no'."

He glared at him but they all stared at him and he eventually sighed and said "N. O."

"What does that spell?"

He closed his eyes. "No."

"No, what?" Tanith grinned.

"No, Miss Low," he said.

"Good boy!" She cheered. "Valkyrie, when is it appropriate to tell someone 'no'? In the subject of like, flirting and sex and stuff. Not eating vegetables."

Valkyrie snorted – she'd been about to mentioned sprouts. "When someone is doing, saying or acting in a way that makes you uncomfortable." She was good at this one.

"Perfect. And when is it not appropriate to say 'no'?" Tanith asked her.

She went to answer, then thought it over for a hidden circumstance and went with her original. "There isn't a time it isn't alright."

"It's almost as if this is basic knowledge!" She laughed. "What if someone says yes and then no? Fletcher."

"It's no," he said, looking uncomfortable. Valkyrie bumped her shoulder against his lightly, not wanting him to get upset with it. Sure, he was annoying, but she didn't want to scar him mentally.

"Right. People change their mind," Tanith said, then her smile vanished, and she sat up. "So, with all we've learnt, what if someone says no to you, not just once, but several times over several days and you continuously try to force a yes out of them?"

Fletcher looked a little pale. "It's wrong?"

"Yes," she snarled at him, then paused, smiled and settled back into her seat. "And Valkyrie, what do we do with inconsiderate little gits that don't take no for an answer?"

She shrugged. "Punch them."

"Good."

They spoke a little more, or rather, tortured Fletcher with some more obvious questions and then let him go upstairs. He teleported out immediately.

Valkyrie rolled her eyes. "I think that conversation had ulterior motives."

Bear wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into his side tightly, kissing the top of her head. "He needs to understand he can't force you into being with him."

Valkyrie smiled at him. "He might need to learn that for himself instead of having it forced down his throat," she said gently, knowing this subject was difficult for the man. She was his little girl in a way, the one he protected from the worst problems she could encounter. "I'd rather he decided for himself to leave me alone than get scared. At least I can punch him, better me than someone else."

Bear shook his head and Tanith came over and sat on her other side, hugging her and leaning her head on Valkyrie's. "You shouldn't have to though. I know it's just a little flirting, but you are barely fourteen and he's about to be eighteen. Four years is a lot when you're this young. I know it'll be nothing in ten years, but right now, it's a lot."

Valkyrie wrapped an arm around her sister's shoulders. "It's alright Tanith. I'm not that little, remember. It's okay."

She sighed but gave in, and they let each other go. It would be nice for Fletcher to stop flirting with her, but at least if he tried anything with her, she could beat him up. Letting him learn through her was safe, she figured, but another girl such as Nadia wouldn't be able to fight someone off the way she could. Although, Nadia would probably slap and shout at him… she grinned at the thought.

I love torturing this boy! I have so many plans for him hehehe. Please give me a review to keep me going! :)