-46-
Cheilonerus Paralia takes parasitic insects to another level, laying its eggs inside the larvae of other chalcids that are already developing inside a host insect-like a parasitic Russian nesting doll.
-Natural History Museum
You're gone, gone, gone away,
I watched you disappear
All that's left is a ghost of you
Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,
there's nothing we can do,
Just let me go, we'll meet again soon
-Little Talks, Of Monsters and Men
XXX
"Listen Lind, I'm going to be blunt with you: There are demons involved here. A lot of demons, not just the ones we're going up against." Urd had guided Lind away from the others to talk with the Valkyrie in private, and the air of joviality that the woman was initially met with vanished from Urd's face. "I can't explain everything right now because that would compromise the safety of other parties involved, but... when we start this, when we go in there hunting down the demons who kidnapped Aiko, eventually those other parties are going to get involved." Urd stared down at Lind, her eyes earnest and pleading. "When the time comes, I'm asking you to trust me. Can you do that for me?"
Lind was quiet, staring at Urd in astonishment. "Urd, are you saying you're involved with demons?" She went rigid, a look of disbelief and even hurt on her face. "You- what is going on, Urd?"
The Norn grimaced, guilty and ashamed all at once. "I never said that." Her voice dropped into a whisper. "I said that there are outside parties involved. Listen, Lind, I swear I'll explain everything to you afterwards, but for this moment... please, can you trust me?" she asked. "This isn't something I'd normally do, and I'm putting a lot on the line just speaking to you about this, which is why I'm asking, because there's more at stake here than just who I'm interacting with."
Lind was silent, her face grave.
"Please Lind..." Urd begged. "I wouldn't have called you here if not for Belldandy for this exact reason. I didn't want to get you involved but..." She glanced away from Lind, presumably to her sister. Lind didn't know. Her eyes never left Urd. The goddess turned back to the Valkyrie and bit her lip. "Listen, I swear when all this is over I'll answer any question you ask and I'll be honest with you. I'll explain everything I can to you about what is going on, but please, for right now, can you help me?"
Lind still said nothing.
Urd gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. She sucked in a deep breath. "I don't know what else to say," she mumbled. "I don't know how else to convince you to help me without saying something that would be a lie." She opened her eyes. "If you won't help me though... will you at least do it to help Belldandy? Or at the very least to fuck over another demon?"
"Urd..." Lind began.
"Lind, please."
The Valkyrie sighed, and in her eyes was a deep, smoldering anger that cast a glamor like molten gold across her irises. "You tell me everything after this is over," she growled. It was a low, deep sound, one that brought with it the impression of an angry bear. "And after this... after this..." She shook her head, gnashing her teeth together as she bit back what she wanted to say. I can't trust you after this. She thought. You went behind my back and conspired with demons, and this after I would have called you my friend!
Urd nodded, hearing none of Lind's thoughts but perhaps reading them by the look of betrayal on Lind's face. "I understand," she mumbled. "And I apologize. You weren't meant to be a part of this." The woman dug into her left rear pocket and withdrew something. At first Lind thought it was a potion, and was gearing towards yelling at the woman, and now you offer me drugs?! Are you attempting to bribe me to get me on to your side?
She stopped herself when Urd opened her hand. "Here." It was a bracelet, handwoven with seashells and snakeskin. The seashells were tiny, almost miniscule, and dyed an intense shade of violet that almost glowed with power. The snake leather was wrapped at the base of it, primarily black but with a pattern of silver stripes that contrasted starkly against the darker scales. It was a rustic piece of art, old and well cared for, that seemed out of place in Urd's possession.
"What is it?" Lind grunted, her eyes darting from the bracelet to Urd.
"Protection," Urd revealed, and after a moment's hesitation, continued. "Water is... sacred to demons," she said. "It's... a symbol of life. It's why so many pieces of their jewelry incorporate seashells, as they're considered more valuable than precious stones and can take and hold spells easily. Snakes are sacred too." She rubbed the snakeskin between her thumb and forefinger, as if taking comfort in its presence. "Snakes- serpents rather- hold a special place amongst Falkin. Nidhogg is the First Serpent, which brought knowledge and wisdom to the Poison-Blood clan after the Elder Gods defeated the Ancient Ones and banished their children into darkness. Nidhogg's children are snakes, and... well... Falkin don't attack snakes because of their closeness to Nidhogg." Urd hesitated a moment more before continuing, "Falkin don't attack people who wear snakeskin either. It..." She bit her lip, reluctant to continue. "Okay Lind, what I'm about to tell you is a huge deal, and I need you to promise me you won't tell anyone else about this."
"What?" Lind demanded. "Why? What is so significant about snakeskin?"
Urd shook her head. "No," she stated. "Not until you promise to me. On your True Name. Not the name granted to you as a Valkyrie."
Lind recoiled. "How do you-"
"My step-mother was a Valkyrie," Urd reminded her. "I know a thing or two about their laws and policies, and it's because of them that I need you to promise me you won't say anything. Because what I'm about to tell you could affect the tides of war between Niflheim and Asgard, and I'm only telling you this because I see you as my friend Lind, and I feel like I can trust you with this information without all of Asgard hearing about it." She frowned, for a moment looking afraid. "I have friends in Niflheim. Family, too. And while I might have a rocky relationship with them now that I'm part of Asgard... I still care about them."
The confession was enough to make Lind pause. For a moment she took a step out of her anger, separating herself from the emotion with an ease only granted to her by the injury sustained by Spear Mint. Unhindered by her emotions now, Lind looked at Urd with a fresh perspective, taking note of the way the woman danced on her feet, the way she gritted her teeth when she attempted to smile, and how her eyes bore a sense of unease and despair that aged her face by decades. They were subtle, Urd's emotions, but Lind saw them easily after over a century without, with over a century's experience learning how to identify emotions in others, and after so long a time Lind was nothing if not an expert in that respect. Urd stood before her as a cornered woman, one pushed to the point of desperation as she attempted to barter for Lind's aid, knowing that what she did put others she cared for at risk. You're playing a dangerous game right now, Urd, and you know it, don't you? Lind thought. And all for what? She glanced down at the bracelet in Urd's hand, still held out in offering to the Valkyrie. For protection? Protection of who? Yourself? Belldandy? Myself? These demons who you're involved with?
The warrior took the small bracelet from Urd in silence, observing it as she worked her fingers over the small shells. The ridges had been worn away long ago, and the shells felt smooth and warm to her touch. "You realize you can't protect everyone, don't you?" Lind asked.
"I'm not trying to protect everyone," Urd replied. "Just those people who are important to me."
"That's what I meant." Lind sighed, staring down at the bracelet before slipping it over her left wrist. "I'll make my promise though. I promise on the name given to me by my mother, Aja Sedna Kajistiaat of the Frozen Waters, as Tanarak-Nanuk Kajistiaat, the White Bear on the Icy Tundra, that I will not breathe a word of what is spoken in this place, at this time, to another entity, be they of my kin or of my life, my enemy or my ally."
Urd's shoulders sagged with relief, yet Lind wasn't finished yet. Not by a long shot. "And in return I want you to swear to me by your Secret Name that you will tell me those secrets you've hidden from me in return," she whispered. "And don't tell me you don't have one. You're the Daimakaicho's daughter, Urd. Don't tell me she gifted you an Asgardian name that came from a rune."
Urd flinched, and this time Lind saw Urd's own anger at having been swindled by Lind's promise. Yet it was gone in an instant, and sucking in a deep breath, Urd calmed herself down. "Very well," she said. "A promise on a name for a promise on a name. Fair enough." The woman pursed her lips, and then spoke. "On the Secret Name granted to me on the graves of my ancestors, the Igigi, I Azag Uru'mir The Great Serpent that writhes in Thunderstorms, promise to reveal to you those secrets kept hidden to you upon your arrival, to be spoken in greater detail upon the completion of aid rendered and received, and of only those secrets knowingly kept from your ears and to be heard by your ears alone."
"Then it's settled?" Lind tightened the knot on the bracelet, cinching it tight against her wrist.
"It is." Urd held out her right hand. "Shake on it." The two women shook, and Lind started when she felt a small shock travel up her fingers and into her elbow. Her entire forearm tingled when Urd released her hand.
"You've done this before."
"I wasn't always from Asgard," Urd reminded.
"So it seems..." Lind murmured, flexing her right hand in an effort to dissipate the tingle. "The bracelet?"
Urd sighed, but did not try to dodge the question. "Snakeskin... in particular, snakeskin from Nidhogg's favored children, which has a nullifying effect on Falkin demons," the Norn explained. She pointed to the bracelet. "So long as you keep that on your person, a Falkin demon will not attack you. Keep it out in the open and exposed, where there's nothing to block it, and it will protect you from most attacks." She hesitated a moment longer before continuing, "It's... one of the only reasons Niflheim doesn't suffer from mass genocides in power plays. Falkin just... lose the will to strike their opponent when they're garbed in snakeskin. It was... part of the First Laws Nidhogg and the Igigi laid down when establishing Niflheim as a world." Her voice once more fell into a whisper. "It's... meant to protect Nidhogg... and... those favored by Nidhogg."
Lind stared at the woman in no small amount of shock, then looked down at the small bracelet on her wrist with new appreciation, recognizing the significance of Urd's gift. "You won't keep it for yourself?" she asked. "Or at the very least, give it to Belldandy?"
"No," Urd said firmly. "I'm letting you borrow it because you weren't supposed to be a part of this. Had I not been pressured into calling you, you'd be safe and out of the picture. But because you're here now, and at my summons, no less, I'm responsible for your well-being. Not Belldandy, whom I have already gifted one bracelet which was lost to her in a moment of carelessness. Not Keiichi either, for he is Belldandy's responsibility, not mine. Just you."
"I see," Lind murmured. "I... thank-you Urd." She touched the line of snakeskin. It felt rough but warm beneath her fingers. "I'll take good care of it until I can return it to you."
"Thanks." The smile Urd gave her looked weak and uneasy. Strained. Like how it was during the Angel Fiasco after Holy Bell had first manifested. Alone, Lind realized. Like a woman struggling to shoulder the burden of the world by herself.
"You're not alone, Urd," Lind reminded her, and the startled look on the Norn's face was painful to behold. Frustrating as well. "We're in this together now, understand? Which means you don't have to bear this alone. So stop acting like it and put on your game face so we can beat the shit out of these guys and I can leave none-the-wiser."
"Right..." This time Urd's smile was a little stronger. "I apologize. I'm used to roughing things like this alone. It's... strange to know I've got someone to watch my back."
"Strange but not unwelcomed, I would hope."
"You'd be correct." Urd laughed softly. "Thank you, Tanarak. It means a lot to me. Life for you, water for your crops, Lind." The woman placed a hand on Lind's shoulder and squeezed it in a show of camaraderie, then turned away, making her way back to where Belldandy and the others were gathered. "All right guys, I think we're just about ready," Urd announced, her voice projecting over the brewing argument between her sister and Debra.
Lind didn't hear her, however. Her hand reached up to touch the shoulder Urd had gripped, then dropped to her wrist, where she thumbed Urd's bracelet.
Seashells.
"Life for you, water for your crops for the knowledge you shared with us." Captain Cabatu Temo of Clandestine Base 4210 leered at Gunnr from behind his desk, and Lind watched on in tense agony, fearful of the fate that would befall her sister-in-arms for speaking out loud.
Seashells.
Why was she thinking about him now? Because of Urd? Over a simple Falken saying for prosperity?
"Through me you pass into the city of woe." Cabatu's voice rumbled in her ear. "Through me you pass into eternal pain. Eternal and eternal you will endure. Abandon all hope, ye who enter, for your life has no meaning and less value than you believe, and death is but a passing grace into escape."
The Valkyrie closed her eyes and brought a hand to her brow, a part of her surprised to find the onset of tears ready to trickle down her cheeks. Why was she- over a simple saying? Her mind chose now of all times to throw her back to the past over a simple sentence?
Beyond Cabatu's voice, another called her back to the present; one filled with false bravado as Urd gathered the others around her.
"Let's do this. Time to save Aiko and kick some demon ass."
For all their sakes, Lind certainly hoped so.
XXX
They decided to stick together in their pursuit of Aiko. To split up now would be to invite misfortune, and it came as a relief to more than one person that there would be no division of their group. Instead, Belldandy and Urd took the lead, navigating the rows and rows of storage units like a pair of bloodhounds after a fox. The two were swift but thorough, displaying a side of themselves new to both Keiichi and Lind, who followed with Debra behind the two sisters.
On three separate occasions Belldandy had them retrace their steps. "They're playing games with us," she explained. "Leading us onto false trails to throw us off."
"They're experienced," Urd agreed with her.
"They're a pain in my ass is what they are," Keiichi grumbled. Lind was inclined to agree.
"How can you tell?" Debra asked. "I don't see any evidence indicating someone was here recently."
"It's their aura," Belldandy explained, for once not outright hostile to the woman in her pursuit of Aiko. She was too focused on the path before her-whatever path that might be-to bother with snide remarks. "It leaves an imprint, a residue if you will, that can be tracked back to the original owner when there is no solid trail to follow."
"Jeeze," Keiichi muttered. "And you and Urd can see that?" he asked. "Can you do that as well, Lind?"
"Not me specifically," Lind replied. "Skills like that require specialized training to acquire, and I never attended that specific course." She neglected to mention that such a technique was designed purely to track other tenth-dimensional beings, nor that Valkyries had their own dedicated career field of 'man-hunters' who did nothing but track down gods and demons and spirits. "Where did you learn to track like this?"
"Our grandfather taught us," Belldandy said, pausing for the fourth time and staring down at the ground before her. "Not this way," she mumbled. "Back the way we came."
"Who's your grandfather?" Lind asked, her own curiosity getting the better of her.
Belldandy turned and retraced her steps, distracted, but not before muttering a name that sounded like either "Othin" or "Wodan".
Lind looked at Belldandy in surprise. The man she was referring to had to be Odin, the previous Daitenkaicho who'd retired close to five hundred years ago due to an injury that had left him unfit for his position. Odin had been the one to establish the 'man-hunters' career field amongst not just Valkyries, but Aesir as well. He still bred hounds designed for that specific purpose for the military and law enforcement; huge, wiry-muscled beasts with long muzzles and heavy jaws, housing a speed in their bodies that could run down all but the fastest of gods.
The Valkyrie suppressed a shudder. "The more I learn of you and your family, the more I come to fear you," she muttered to Urd. Odin had near-legendary status amongst the military, and was often used as a talking point in military history, and she'd met one or two dog handlers in her military career. The beasts were notorious for their aggression and loyalty, and had to be penned away from people they were unfamiliar with for fear of attack.
The group of gods and mortals found the den of their prey after another fifteen minutes of searching. It was towards the far end of the facility, nestled behind yellow caution tape and temporary fencings held up with concrete blocks. A Red STOP sign hung near a door, followed by a message from the property owner warning people away from where the structure had collapsed during a recent earthquake.
Neither Belldandy nor Urd were deterred by the warnings. Belldandy leapt over the tape like a child playing hopscotch on the street, while Urd ripped it apart and moved the lock on the fence door. A moment later, and the gate swung open for them, allowing the group access inside.
A row of storage bays lay off to their left, the long line of jagged sheet steel that served as the roof having collapsed at an angle that grew steeper towards the end. The wall nearest to them had collapsed as well, revealing rubble and crushed boxes of some unfortunate family's possessions. A wooden crib, antique and at one time perhaps even valuable, lay broken on its side, with ripped and torn books scattered haphazardly across the cement floor from where a box of them had broken open. Beyond the storage containers was a visible dip in the road, hinting at internal damage that might yet lead to a sinkhole if the issue was not addressed soon.
At the far end of the facility, where a large brick wall stood lined with barbed wire, another group of people stood watching them. The wall behind them had been vandalized with graffiti ranging from the inane tags of gang names to the over-the-top style of street art. There were two of them at present, though Lind sensed more eyes watching from the shadows of the destroyed architecture around them. One of them was female, standing close to the wall but not leaning on it, garbed in blue jeans and a red and black plaid shirt. The sleeves were rolled up past her elbows, and a pair of black suspenders held her pants up in pace of a belt. Her hair was long and blonde, braided behind her in several thick ropes. The other was ambiguous, sitting with their knees pressed up to their chest next to their female companion, their features obscured by a long and dirty cloak that was more brown than white.
Aiko was nowhere in sight.
Belldandy and Keiichi recognized one of the bystanders immediately. "Hagall." If Lind didn't know any better, she would have thought the SEAL sounded scared. She dismissed it as her imagination, growing more interested, or perhaps confused by Urd, who dug into her pocket, withdrew her cell, hit a single number on the touchpad, and then pocketed it without a word.
"You." Debra stepped away from Belldandy at the level of sheer loathing in the Norn's voice. "You're behind this?!" the goddess hissed as she stormed forward, only to be stopped when Urd grabbed her arm in passing. The almond-haired goddess jerked back, then tore her arm from her sister's grip as she sent a heated glare towards the demon before her. "The things I will do to you..," she growled, and then in a louder voice, demanded, "Where is Aiko?"
"Who the fuck is Cholo-lady?" Debra whispered to Keiichi. "She's got facial tattoos."
"A demon," Keiichi whispered back.
"That doesn't look like Pennywise the Clown."
"Don't bring that demon in here," Keiichi breathed, and repressed a shudder. As if Hagall wasn't bad enough with her mind tricks. The last thing they needed was for her to spring some kind of mind trap with a fear-eating Lovecraftian monster from the primordial in-between of Todash. "She'll make IT happen."
Debra visibly shuddered.
The conversation of the two mortals ignored, the demon before them smiled. "Where indeed?" Hagall's voice was clear and jovial on the far side of the area. "And it's a pleasure to see you too, Belldandy-chan. And with your side-boyas well. I wonder, does your husband know?" The goddess stiffened at the title, spoken in mockery and with venom. The smile on the woman's face was more akin to a sneer. "I must say, I've missed our time together. You... me... Toshiyuki... What ever happened to your dear, sweet lover, by the way?" Belldandy flinched. "It's as if he just... vanished."
"Like Aiko?" Keiichi growled, moving to stand beside Belldandy. "Where is she, you fucking cholo Lumberjack?" He snarled.
Hagall narrowed her eyes at the man. "And I see the mortal who left such an impression on me is here as well," she hissed. "If you are wise, you will hold your tongue, Boy. Our last meeting left much to be desired, and of you especially I will take great pleasure in torturing."
"What, you didn't enjoy Monty Python?" Keiichi asked, his voice heated. "Your new taste in fashion says otherwise." Then, in a sing-song voice he said, "She's a lumberjack and she's okay."
"She cuts down trees and she works all day!" Belldandy chorused after him, and the smile she threw at Hagall was vicious and challenging. There was violence in her eyes. Violence and blood rage of the kind that would have been more at home on Hagall's face than Belldandy's. "I'll greatly enjoy finishing what I started in Japan, Hagall. Return Aiko to us."
"Not sure it's a good idea to be pissing off ol' Pennywise over there," Debra muttered beneath her breath.
Lind, her gaze lingering on the cloaked figure next to Hagall, was inclined to agree.
"What are you up to, Hagall?" Urd's voice rang clear and cold across the area, seeming to echo off the collapsed buildings and surrounding brick-and-mortar style high-rises around them. "No more games. What's a high-ranking demon like yourself- a demon that has the Damkianna's ear at any given time, doing kidnapping mortals on Midgard?" she asked. "Don't tell me this is about vengeance. Not over a mortal like Keiichi. Not even over a goddess like Belldandy, when there are so many other ways you could extract revenge on her."
Hagall frowned at the small group, her eyes narrowing to bright blue slits. "And what would a goddess like you know of such things, Igibala?" It was Urd's turn to flinch. "You are not of our stock. You do not even have the right to refer to the Damkianna by her given title- refer to her as your chosen people do, shahniga- as the Daimakaicho. You, of everyone here, have no right to call her by our title." The hate in Hagall's voice was astounding in its intensity, and Urd recoiled as Hagall hacked and spat on the ground. "Ni gis kas tag til nigin'zu," she hissed, then gestured to her loins. Lind, as ignorant as the rest of them in terms of Falken terminology, recognized an insult when she saw one.
Urd's lip peeled up in the start of a snarl, and her cheeks flushed a deep scarlet. "Peh ninin nam'us-tal!" she roared back, and the venom in her voice made both Debra and Lind retreat from her. "Is this what this is all about?!" she demanded in English. "All of this? Because I did not choose Niflheim?!"
"You are a plague to Niflheim," Hagall continued. "A sleeping disease, an incubating virus, a worm-infested zibanitum that the Damkianna loves and grooms and plays with, ignoring the foam at your mouth and the wheezing in your swollen throat!" she screamed. "What I do- all of what I do, what I have done, what I am doing, and what I will do- is for the sake of Niflheim!" she growled. "If I must stake a lure to bring the zibanitum from its den, so be it." She gestured to Belldandy. "If I must lay a steak at its feet to make it stand still, then so be it." She pointed next to Keiichi. "And if that is what it takes to lure that zibanitum from its den in order to shoot it, then so be it, I shall bring my gun, I shall bring my axe, and when I shoot it I shall cut off its head and bury it far from Niflheim, where it cannot poison the land or pollute the water." She pointed to Urd. "You are that zibanitum. You are that mad dog. And I shall be the one to end you." Her smile was cruel and filled with the promise of pain. "If I must go behind the Damkianna's back, then so be it. If I must gamble my life in the Doublet System, then so be it!"
Belldandy stared at the demon in shock. "You mean... all of this... all of this has been about Urd?" she breathed. "Aoshima? The past ten years of hell I've lived?"
"Bait." Hagall spat. "To lure the zibanitum from her den in Asgard."
"Bait?!" Belldandy stared at the woman in astonishment, scarcely believing her ears. Ten years she'd wondered why. Wondered if it'd been sheer misfortune on her part or if, as she'd felt in her most secret heart of hearts, if this had been a personal vendetta against herself. A question that had kept her up into the long hours of the morning and had haunted her dreams in her rest, where Aoshima was still a very real monster.
Not this though.
Some part of her could almost accept the idea that someone, a demon, had despised her enough to trap her with an animal like Aoshima. Some part if her could accept the idea that Yggdrasil had suffered an outstanding glitch that she'd been the misfortunate victim of.
But not… Not as bait. Not as a pawn trapped for ten years in a sick political game she had no stake in.
Not as some discarded bit of trap designed for Urd.
The knowledge shocked her as much as it horrified her. Was that all she was? A worm on a line? A piece of meat in a trap? For Urd?
It hurt. Like a knife stabbed into her heart, oh lordy how it hurt. And now Hagall had gone and twisted it just a little deeper, just a little harder, and that wound in her chest left her wanting to scream, left her wanting to break down sobbing, because in the end what she'd suffered – in the grand scheme of things – everything she'd tolerated (like a goddamned martyr, that one) had been for nothing.
Hagall, with a single word, "bait" (like worms and bugs and tiny fish, and that's all she was, was that it? A tiny fish for a big fish?) had destroyed all the good she'd done, all the children she'd rescued, all the pain she'd endured and it was all…
Because.
She.
Was.
Bait.
Like poison, the word spread from her head and into her heart, and it was through such a means that Hagall, very unknowingly in that moment, won her first victory on that day.
"Then you're also responsible for hacking into Yggdrasil," Urd stated.
"No," Hagall replied. "That was my associate. I am one with Legion, and we are many."
"Wait..." Keiichi joined in now. "Then that demon... that man who attacked Urd when I first met her-"
"One of us, yes," Hagall agreed. "And I will take the Nitadam back with me after I rip your head from your body and free him from that damnable watch you have!" As if hearing her voice, a scream, loud and agonizing in its depths, rose from Keiichi's watch.
Debra screamed, and Keiichi yelled as well, holding the watch away from him as though it was poison.
Yet for the two Norns involved, there was no reaction. Belldandy stood stock still, her face as white as a sheet as she stared at the demon across from her with wide eyes. "All this time..," she breathed, and her voice trembled with unspent emotion. "I... ten years... ten years of..."
"Is that why you stole it?" Urd demanded, her voice rising in a shout as she stood trembling beside Belldandy. "The developmental bio-weapon? So that you could take me out?"
"What?!" Lind stared at first Urd, then the demon across from them. "She stole a bio-weapon?" Memories of her flight, of the lost Kestrel, and Cabatu in his clandestine base with his pet Rabishu ran screaming through her mind. For a moment the Valkyrie was left paralyzed as a wave of sharp fear, familiar and alien all at the same time, raced up her spine and fell into her gut. Within her breast, she felt Spear Mint stir restlessly, and a whimper arose from Cool Mint in her mind.
"Rabishu," Spear Mint whispered, and said nothing more.
"Urd, what are you talking about?" Keiichi looked at her in concern. "What bio-weapon? Like a nerve agent?"
He never got an answer.
The woman's attention was focused on Hagall, who appeared taken off-guard. "And what would you know of that?!" she exclaimed. "Or did your traitorous allies convene with you?"
And then Belldandy began to scream. It started off low, an agonized moan and rose at a gradual rate, gaining ferocity as it rose first into a roar, and then pitch as it became a shriek like that of a banshee. Above their heads, clouds began to form in mass, moving at a rapid pace and swirling together in their place in the heavens, Belldandy the eye of a storm about to give birth. The air around her began to snap and dance with light, and a heavy pressure fell upon those in the surrounding area, pressing down on mortal and goddess and demon alike and making it difficult to draw breath.
"HAGALL!" Belldandy roared, and her voice rolled with the sharp peal of thunder. "Today your life ends!" Keiichi retreated from her in a rush, and Debra cried out, falling back into Lind, who shoved the mortal roughly behind her.
Hagall laughed. "Then you will face your end alongside the zibanitum, Din'gir Shagiga," she exclaimed, and without another word vanished from sight, leaving only her silent companion in her wake.
"That bitch!" Belldandy screamed, and wheeled around, racing back from whence she came, determined to track Hagall down.
Urd grabbed her arm. "Belldandy, wait!" she cried, only to release the goddess with a yelp when a sharp burst of air buffeted her face, the pressure so intense that the older Norn had to shield her face.
"Don't touch me!" Belldandy snarled, and Urd looked at her in shock. "I- ten years. Ten years, Urd. Because a demon was after you." She bared her teeth at the goddess, who recoiled, wounded by the words. "I'm going after Hagall, and then I'm finding Aiko," she professed. "And you." She jabbed a finger towards Urd. "Stay the fuck away from me." Her voice was cold, like morning frost in late winter, and Urd flinched.
"Bell, I didn't know." Urd's voice was soft and pleading. "I'm sorry, but-"
"No." Belldandy backed away from her. "No Urd, not like this. I can't-not now. Not after-" The anger, the betrayal on her face never faded, and the woman turned her back on her sister, refusing to listen to another word.
She stormed off towards the car, and Keiichi chased after her. "Bell, this is crazy!" he cried. "You're being unreasonable!" If anything, his words made Belldandy walk faster. "You can't blame Urd for Aoshima's actions! She was trying to save you!" A sharp gust of wind barreled into him, and before the man could steady himself he was knocked off his feet, smacking the broken asphalt with enough force and momentum to send him rolling.
By the time Debra and Lind helped him to his feet again, Belldandy was gone. He looked back at Urd, short of breath and his ribs hurting as though he'd been punched in the chest. Urd hadn't moved from her spot. She stood where Belldandy had left her, with an expression of such exquisite pain and despair that Keiichi felt his heart break just looking at her. He'd never in all his years of knowing the Norn seen a look so forlorn and lost on her face, and he knew that by intent or simply undirected anger, Belldandy had hurt her sister gravely.
He just hoped it wasn't too late to mend the rift before it could destroy their relationship.
The man moved towards the Norn. "Urd, she didn't-"
"Leave." Urd's lips barely moved, and if not for a coastal wind that smelled of summer storms blowing through her hair, Keiichi would have thought her a statue.
"But Urd-" Keiichi tried again.
"Leave, Jank," Urd repeated. "Aiko needs you." Then, in a lower voice, "Belldandy too."
Keiichi frowned. "Not without you too," he pressed. "Belldandy didn't mean what she said. Come on. Let's all get out of here and find Aiko. Together."
"No." Urd's voice remained firm.
"Urd, you're being stubborn-"
"No Jank!" Urd snapped. "You need to leave!" Her voice rose, and Debra watched on in tense silence. Lind's attention was elsewhere. To the person Hagall had abandoned, only just now starting to stir. The bioweapon. "Not because of Belldandy, you idiot!" Just as quickly, her voice dropped. "Look behind me," she hissed.
Keiichi looked, and became afraid.
"That thing you see behind me?" Urd breathed. "That is a bioweapon. A living, breathing, walking monster, Jank." Urd still hadn't moved, and now Keiichi understood why, watching the cloaked figure rise- stumble rather- to its feet.
Perhaps its body had borne a likeliness to a human, once upon a time, but if so those days had long since passed. Tumors and outgrowths spread across the visible portions of its body like white knots and stumps on a tree. Like elephantiasis, Keiichi found himself thinking. Like the Elephant Man. The figure was horribly disfigured, what he saw of it, and as it righted itself it swayed like a tree in a gale, leaning heavily first to the right, then teetering to the left with a low, deep and guttural groan.
When Keiichi was fourteen years old, he and his family had taken a winter trip up to Wisconsin for the holidays. Debra's father had invited the Morisato family up there to join them in a lodge Debra's uncle owned, and the family got to enjoy a family vacation at a discounted rate of one additional adult and child plane ticket up to the Great White North and back again. Debra, ever adventurous, and Megumi, ever the animal lover, and convinced their respective fathers to take them to a wildlife reserve located up in the mountains, and Keiichi had come along as well when he'd heard that there was a real wolverine located in the facility.
The wolverine had been smaller than he'd expected, and nothing like he'd imagined; Marvel Comics had filled his mind with images of a wild beast more terrifying than a wolf and larger than a grizzly and twice as aggressive. The creature he'd been introduced to had been a little... lacking, in the appearance department. He'd seen dogs bigger than the creature, which when viewed from the right angle could kind of look like a very small and slim bear, but which he'd later learned was more closely related to some kind of weasel instead. It had been a disappointing introduction, he'd decided... at least until the thing had gotten cagey around the visitors gathered around it. Until the creature had started growling and snarling and chewing on the leash at its neck.
Then it hadn't looked so small and disappointing.
Then it'd looked and sounded very much like a wild animal that could bring down caribou four times its size, despite its short and stocky nature.
Now, looking at the creature that was starting its slow and lumbering trek towards them, Keiichi was reminded of that wolverine. The noises emerging from its throat resembled all too closely the animal in question, and the man felt his arms break out into goosebumps.
All at once he realized how vulnerable he was in California, away from his Kevlar vest and his weapons and his team, without even a pocket knife to hold him over.
"You need to take Debra and go after Belldandy," Urd continued, her voice still that same, low whisper. It was ominous, Keiichi decided. Scared perhaps, as though fearing that by speaking louder she might draw the thing to her, might have it attack them both in the midst of conversation, with Urd's back to it and Keiichi without a weapon, and them both slaughtered before either of them could react. "You can't fight this thing, Jank. Not you or Deb, and I'm not going to endanger you. Leave this to me and Lind."
"But-" Keiichi started to protest.
Urd drew a finger, slow and silent, to her lips. Keiichi shut up. "This thing doesn't belong on this plane of existence, Keiichi," Urd murmured. "We can't ignore it, Jank. It'll destroy California, it'll destroy the States, and when it's done here it'll spread. It's an Ultimate Destruction Program, Keiichi, I know this, and it won't be stopped until it's either completed its programming or is stopped by another force."
"But there's only two of you," Keiichi whispered, his brows furrowing together with worry. "Urd... even if you both are gods, will that be enough?"
"It will have to do," Urd said. "And besides, I've got backup." She smiled, but Keiichi had long ago come to recognize the fake smiles from the real ones, and the one he saw did not fill him with confidence. "It'll be fine. Think of it like Japan all over again, only now we're rescuing your sister instead of mine."
Keiichi was silent, and the worry on his face didn't fade in the slightest. He didn't want to think of Japan again, where Hagall had raped his mind not once, but twice, had invaded it and had shown him those scenes he hated most, those failures that had almost destroyed him and had almost done so again if not for Belldandy's intervention. And he didn't want to think about leaving Urd with only Lind at her back to face this- this thing that was grunting and growling and grumbling like an angry wolverine, that was lumbering and stumbling and rocking towards them in some wretched kind of dance, while Belldandy and Deb and him abandoned them to what might be their death.
It's either Aiko or Urd. Something sinister whispered in his mind. And you can do nothing for Urd.
The man set his jaw, grinding his teeth so hard together he heard something pop and felt a flair of pain that sent flashes of red across his vision. "Promise me," he said. "Promise me you'll make it through this. You and Lind both, Sheila. You hear me?"
And Urd smiled. It was a reassuring smile, one filled with confidence and ease and promise that Keiichi took heart in. "I promise," she assured, and in his relief, Keiichi missed all the little cues Urd was hiding from him. The way she squinted her eyes to make it seem as if her eyes were smiling in a genuine grin. The way she planted her hands on her hips to hide the tremor they'd gained. And the way she fell silent after speaking those two words, as if to mask the shake in her voice.
For there was one thing about Urd that Keiichi had forgotten in the years since meeting her. One thing that Skuld knew, one thing that Belldandy knew, and one thing that even Lind, who'd known her for a grand total of ten years but had only really known her a couple of months, knew very well. And that was this: that Urd was a professional liar who could sell the devil the souls he already owned when the moment called for it, and that moment was now.
Later, when everything was over and the excitement had calmed down, Keiichi would come to know this as well, and he would curse her name.
But by then it would be too late, and so instead Keiichi gave the Norn one last look (as if to imprint her last image into his memory, he would later think) and then turned away. He grabbed Debra, who shot the Norn one last, lingering glance, and for the two women: the hyper-sensitive detective and the lying Norn, it would be the last either ever saw of the other. And to Debra, who perhaps was more perceptive than Keiichi at the wide range of emotions that a human could exhibit, it looked as if Urd was afraid. Afraid and alone and filled with regret, abandoned by a sister she'd sacrificed so much for and sending away the people who would have stayed at her side, and for a moment even that vanished. For one final moment, Debra perceived the Norn Urd in all her greatness: As a great serpent, its body large and long and ever-expanding, its hide grey-black storm clouds, its eyes white-violet lightning, decorated with a silver plumage of feathers like the white lining of rain. It was a terrible beauty, one that brought tears to her eyes. Not the tears of fear but tears of awe, tears of gratitude that she was granted this rare opportunity to see and know a god, for in that moment there was little doubt in Debra's heart that was what Urd was, in the most bare and basic essence of what she was.
A strange urge befell Debra Johansson in that moment. An overwhelming urge to approach the Norn, to either thank her or to ask for her forgiveness, and to at the very least wish the woman luck on her endeavor with Lind, who lumbered to stand by the goddess not as a woman who looked like Aiko (she was wrong of course- Lind did not look like Aiko; Aiko had based her image off Lind without realizing it) but instead as a great and immense polar bear whose pelt was a snowdrift and whose eyes were blue glaciers.
And then Debra blinked, and where once there was greatness indefinable two women stood instead. The moment of opportunity passed before she could seize it as Urd turned to face the approaching monstrosity and Lind moved to join her.
It was the last time Debra Johansson ever saw the Norn Urd and the Valkyrie Lind in her life.
XXX
As Lind drew near Urd pulled out her cellphone once more. Her eyes came to rest on the creature that could only be the Ultimate Destruction Program (Mara had warned her and damn had she nailed it-Elegance was screaming) before speaking into the phone. "Did you get all that?"
"A-firm." The distortion over the phone combined with the rough voice Mara had gained two years ago made the demon almost unrecognizable. "She moving?"
"That she is," Urd replied, and then, after a moment's hesitation added. "Make that bitch suffer for me, Mara. I want her begging for death by the time this is over."
"Damkianna? That you?" There was laughter in Mara's harsh voice. Urd failed to see what was so funny. "I don't need your instructions on how to play with my food, Ki'aga-san." Some of the humor faded. "Will you be okay?"
"I've got a Valkyrie helping me out." Urd shot a look at Lind, who stretched her arms out in front of her and summoned a halberd, its metal silver-white and etched with blue, magical runes. "Between the two of us we should manage."
"I do not like you facing this with a mere Valkyrie alone." The disdain in Mara's voice was obvious. "When we have Hagall and her allies, we shall come to you, if you have not already destroyed the beast."
"Thanks, Gibil."
"Remember our talk." And then Mara was gone, a beep signaling the end of their conversation.
Urd pocketed her phone once more and called upon her magic, feeling plasma gather in her hands. It felt like a warm and comforting presence in her palms, and she carefully clenched her hands around it, curling her fingers around the energy like it was soft, malleable ball of putty ready to shape to her will. She fell back into one of the stances SEAL Team 12 had drilled into her head, and brought her hands up in front of her, watching the slow approach of their opponent. "That's the bioweapon," Urd murmured. "My source says it's some kind of experimental device. A magical creature designed for combat against Valkyries." She heard Lind grunt, but didn't bother to look at the woman's face. As such, Urd missed the way Lind's face paled. "I heard it's some kind of... angel eater, or something," she explained. "I was told that our best defense is to keep it silent. So that-"
"So that it can't call our angels out, I know," Lind said quietly. Urd looked at her, and felt a cold line of fear traverse down her neck. Lind looked scared. Lind looked terrified. "I've faced these things before."
"You what?!" For a moment, Urd forgot their opponent, staring at Lind with disbelieving eyes and feeling a well of despair crawl into her gut at the bleak look on Lind's face.
"It was different from this thing. More insect and less humanoid, but we can compare notes later," Lind replied. "After this thing is good and dead and not even ash remains." She said nothing else. Instead, despite the fear that haunted her face, Lind threw herself towards the lumbering Angel Eater, a rallying scream emerging from her throat that reminded Urd of a peregrine falcon.
For a moment, and just for a moment, Urd stood in awe of the woman that was her lone comrade. Here was a woman who stood afraid against a creature designed to defeat her and those women like her. Who had experience fighting this monster and still felt the fear of what she'd fought. And here that woman braved that beast, ignoring the fear that gnawed at her gut in the face of the danger this creature, this Rabishu, presented to not only herself, but Midgard and those realms attached to it as well.
The Norn took strength in the Valkyrie's courage, and with a shriek of her own, joined her companion, her friend in combat.
Lind landed behind the creature and spun on her feet, using the kinetic energy generated to add force to her blow. The angel eater proved to be as slow as its lumbering body suggested, and it proved unable to avoid or even block the path of Lind's weapon. The blade bit deep into the thing's shoulder, and Urd heard a sickening squelch, followed by the sickly-sweet smell of rotting meat. It was a noxious scent, one that made Urd's stomach revolt even as she sent a fist filled with plasma into the thing's stomach. Her hand sunk into the angel eater's body like a fist into thick and sticky mud, and the dirty cloak the creature wore began grow dark and damp with moisture; some kind of internal body fluid that had ruptured at Urd's strike.
The goddess recoiled, and the scent of rancid and rotting flesh grew stronger as the thing rocked on its feet, and the hood that covered its head fell back, revealing the Angel Eater in all its wretched glory. It had been a woman once, Urd saw, though time and whatever disease had so consumed her had left her face bloated and unrecognizable from the person she once was. Her eyes were two bulging white disks in their sockets, and even as Urd stared at them, she watched them move; not as a pair of eyes, but as something else. Something moving within those sockets, like a fungus or a snake that had taken residence in her head. It made the goddess retreat, gagging as she tasted bile in the back of her throat as her stomach churned uneasily, nauseous by the sights and sounds and smells that surrounded her. And then the Norn saw the fallen woman's sigils, as bright and blue as the day they'd marked her as a Fledged Valkyrie.
It was only then that Urd grew aware of the screaming, and was surprised to find they came not from the Norn herself but from Lind. It was a horrible sound, a distinct wail of not only despair but defeat, and Urd was frightened by the sheer horror in the woman's voice. It took her even longer to realize that the shriek was a name; one drawn out into a long and despairing howl.
"Rota!"
Time had not been kind to the Valkyrie Rota.
The century since Lind's rescue; since Rota's disappearance into the depths of first one clandestine facility as a prisoner and then into another clandestine facility as an incubator, had been cruel. "The larva feeds on the host throughout the gestation period." Mara had explained it to Urd while the Norn and Mara's team had been eating lunch together. The whole pack of them, ten Wilder demons and one Asgardian goddess, had all stopped for lunch at a nondescript little Roach Coach after Urd had turned down Aiko's invitation to go shopping. "Izza straight mongrel is what it is." The folks running the Coach had been charmed by their accents, and one of their mates had made a crack on one of the two sisters running the van, earning him an extra serving of refried beans at no cost to himself. "Cunt's like a mozzie, but worse. Th' eggs're laid on the bloke's back, an' when they hatch they'ah dig into the body through the back. Take up in there like a swaggie at Macca's and just start liven' off the host's body."
Mara had taken a large bite of her burrito then, and to Urd's mind at the time the rice that had come pouring out had looked like maggots. Like tiny little parasitic eggs, waiting to hatch after ingestion. "They latch onto thah' flesh an' feed off the nutrients, an' from they'ah comes an incubation period. The mozzies grow then. They'ah grow and grow and grow and grow, but somehow...somehow the ripe ol' cunts don't kill thah' host." Mara shrugged. "I dunnah how, and I don't wanna know, neithah."
"It's 'cause they know." One of their mates had spoken up, then. Mr. Steal-yo'-girl-for-refried-beans. "Magical implanted knowledge or shit," he said, and tapped his forehead with the back of his fork. "They know not to touch any organs and only stick to blood. Blood and marrow and nutrition to make em' big an' strong. So the cunts'll push the organs around, but won't destroy 'em, and the host can go on living and doing its thing."
"Only they aren't 'doing their thing'," Urd guessed.
"Nope!" Emesh. That had been his name. It'd been years since she'd ran with her old mob, and most of their faces had become faded and changed with time and age. Mara had been easy to remember, but that was because Mara had always been the only other sheila besides Urd herself, and so had always stuck out in the Norn's mind, even as a child. Emesh and the others she'd had to reacquaint herself with, though Emesh in particular was quick to stand out, if not for his talk and flirting then for the scars, deep and old, that marred his otherwise handsome face. "The poor cunt's a goner already," he continued. "At around the fifty-year mark, the thing's worked its legs up into the host's brain, an' at that point, you can't call 'em a person no more. They just a pack mule for the bug by then. Carry 'em, feed 'em, water 'em till they'ah nice and groomed and ready to pop!"
Urd had winced. "Bloody nasty way to go."
"You think we like this thing?" Mara had gotten riled at that. "I never said yes to its concept. That's all the military side a' the house, an' I'd just as soon see the whole thing scrapped then see it out in thah' field."
Now, seeing it up close and in person, Urd recalled her memories and agreed with her initial assessment. It was a bloody nasty fucker, that was for sure. One that, as Mara had implied, had no place in the real world and that sounded better on paper than in real life. This thing really is a monster. She thought to herself, and in her head it was Belldandy's words that traveled through her head, "Beware the monster that dwells within the man."
Fuck, hadn't that been when Bell had been sleepwalking?! Right before she'd driven a haymaker into her—
Without thought the Norn grabbed Lind, still screaming, still horrified, and pulled her to the ground away from the lumbering figure. A ripping sound as flesh tore, a snapping noise as bone broke, and a horrible, wet noise that Urd would be unable to describe in a century's time, and the Valkyrie Rota, MIA for over one hundred and fifty years and the last of Peregrine Flight to be discovered, exploded in a hailstorm of blood and bone and gore as the Rabishu emerged from its host. It was then that Urd joined her voice, her screams, with Lind's.
It was in that moment that something happened in Lind. Something snapped in that despairing moment, watching the lost member of her flight explode in a hail of bits and chips. Something that Keiichi would have recognized in an instant and something that would have left McGuiness worried.
In that instant, a light went out in Lind's eyes.
It would have been a look Keiichi would have had shortly after witnessing Fida's death. A sight McGuinness had seen in an untold number of soldiers and sailors and even a couple of marines. A broken look. One that drove men to do anything from walk off a sailing vessel in the middle of the ocean and let the undertow take them out in their inability to cope to sampling the bullets of their personal guns or testing the support beams in their house with a noose and their neck. Or it could even be something as simple as seeing how many pills could be swallowed before the pain finally came to an end. It was the look of a limit that had been reached, had been breached, where that person's ability to cope had been stretched and warped until finally it'd snapped.
For Keiichi it'd been the death of a child he'd come to know in the span of months.
For Lind it was the death of a woman she'd known longer than a lifetime and better than half her family.
And in the midst of a battlefield with the monster that was Rota's murderer, such an action could only end in disaster.
The monster was massive; three times the size of Urd at least, and how had it... how had it managed to fit inside its host for so long?!
The creature uncurled from the remains of its house, its carapace glistening with shades of liquid color ranging from the white of bone, light pink to black-red of blood and to an uncomfortable green-brown like spoiled meat and rotting organs. Its tail- or was that its head?- crashed into the spot of where Urd had been standing a moment before, and had it not been for Belldandy's voice in her head it would have been where she'd still have been standing. The Norn stared at the monster but could not understand what she was seeing; it was nothing but a long body comprised of legs and jaws and mandibles, where either end could be a mouth, and with the gore that covered it- what was she looking at?!
"Rota!" Lind was howling, her face red with blood and rage, and her eyes, horrified, traumatized eyes, were glued to the Rabishu. She sucked in another breath, only to release it in another scream-wild, unthinking, and frenzied.
Urd stumbled to her feet, her heart seized with fear, and slipped her hands beneath Lind's armpits. "We need to go!" she tried to scream over Lind's own cries, yet her voice was drowned out amidst the Valkyrie's anguished wails. "Come on, come on! Stand up you idiot!" Yet Lind showed no indication of hearing her, did not even seem to realize Urd was at her side; the woman was dead weight in Urd's arms. She dragged the woman backwards, away from the Rabishu, still too much a newborn to have noticed them yet. Blood on the asphalt made the ground slick, however, and Urd's foot slipped on a thick wad of tissue. The woman went down with a shout, and Lind fell back on top of her. The Norn's face hit the ground, and with it came the heavy reek of iron and rot. She gagged, almost retched as memories of two years buried came flooding to her conscious. It's a person. She thought, and felt an overwhelming desire to giggle. Oh Yggdrasil, it's not an animal, it's a person.
Above their heads, the Rabishu began to scream.
And their angels were all too happy to respond.
Spear Mint came first, as frenzied as her host goddess, perhaps as frenzied as she'd been when last she'd still had both her wings. Her pupils were contracted into two tiny black pinpricks against her blue irises, her lips peeled back in a snarl that screamed for blood. She screamed, but it was Lind's voice that gave life to her cry, and without hesitation she threw herself towards the rabishu without care. Her intent was obvious and simple, and that was to kill the creature before her and if not kill it, then maim it as much as possible before it wiped her out.
Cool Mint came next, and had any saner heads been there to see her, they would have wept with relief. The younger angel looked terrified in comparison to her sister, almost as if unaffected by the horrible cry of the angel eater but instead pursuing that of her raging twin. Her face was a mask of pure terror, one that would have mirrored the look Urd had seen on Lind's face before the Valkyrie had assaulted the host of the angel eater. She ran to her sister, not the rabishu, and wrapped her arms around her sibling's wing, dragging the maniacal angel down and out of the range of the angel eater before it could strike. But then, Cool Mint had always been an anomaly. More so than even World of Elegance with her black wing and striking tattoos. World of Elegance had not been born with the incorporated genetic material of the rabishu after all.
And last came World of Elegance, lost in a berserk mania that was rabid with blood lust one moment, terrified and reluctant the next, and shackled to both sets of emotions with chains so thick Urd feared she might be the one to go mad. Unlike the twins, each with their own set of objectives in mind Elegance was at a loss, twisting and writhing in the air like a majestic, free-form dancer... or perhaps some long-winged carrion eater caught in the midst of a seizure while drifting through the sky. It was as beautiful as it was awful, a useless dance that did little but draw the eye and capture the attention, and it terrified Urd because the emotions she received from her end of the link with World of Elegance were jumbled and confused in ways she could not explain. They made her nauseous, left her both light headed and suffering from vertigo. Her mind danced with a poisonous red light and her ears heard nothing but the crazed shrieks of her angel intermingled with the terrible screams of the rabishu, and Yggdrasil why wouldn't it stop?!
"Kill!" A new word had entered Lind's violent and limited vocabulary, yet at this point it may as well have been her regurgitating Spear Mint's thoughts. "Kill it! Tear it to shreds! Die! I want you to die!" Her voice broke beneath her shrill monologue, and with it came a broken sob. "Rota!" A name that meant nothing to Urd and everything to Lind, and the angel eater did nothing but flex its fleshy jaws and scream, its tail, that wicked false head filled with a venomous stinger, whipping and bobbing and swinging and swaying like it was in the heat of the same dance as World of Elegance.
Yet it never moved from its spot. It stood where it'd been 'born', resting in its red pool of blood and gore. Perhaps it was too new to the world to move yet; a butterfly newly emerged from its cocoon and whose wings had yet to unfurl, or perhaps a beetle whose new carapace was not yet black and shiny but instead still soft and white. Or red, as was the case with this one.
Whatever the reason it was a blessing in disguise. The creature was slow, lacking the bewildering speed that Lind had grown so intimate with in Clandestine Facility 4210. Slow and fat, as if in further evidence of how much it had dined on its host.
Lind crawled to her feet, her eyes blazing like a pair of golden suns. She grabbed World of Elegance, who hovered three feet above her head, and pulled her to the ground with such force that the feedback left Urd's world spinning with pain. It was not to protect the angel, not to get her away from the Rabishu, but because the angel was unfortunate enough to be in her way. The growl that rumbled in her throat was long and deep like that of an upset bear, and wasn't there truth in that comparison? Was she not the embodiment of the White Bear of the Icy Tundra? One pushed to the edges of despair and, above all, rage?
It was Cool Mint, of all people, who brought the woman back to sanity. The angel, fighting Spear Mint as the older twin attempted her assault on the Rabishu. Cool Mint had one arm wrapped around her sister's wing, the other in a loose choke hold that was unable to bring Spear Mint down. Her face was marred with panic, and Spear Mint fought her like a wild horse. The angel thrashed against Cool Mint's grip with such force as to take her younger sister off her feet, and it was as Cool Mint was floundering, as Lind was advancing, that her own's angel's foot smashed into the Valkyrie's chin.
It sent the woman crashing to the ground, stunned by the unexpected attack as stars flew into her vision. Her tongue throbbed and burned from where her teeth had come down on it, and liquid copper filled her mouth, her own blood, not (Rota's) the Rabishu's host. She spat it out, where it landed on the asphault in a wad of bloody phlegm, then looked back at the angel eater with fresh, cold logic accelerated by pain. She observed the situation around her, rolling away from the angel eater as its tail came crashing down next to her, and looked to her angels as though seeing them for the first time.
It's just like before. Some piece of her whispered. Some cold, unfeeling piece of her that had taken over when it had just been Sanngrior and herself, locked away like mice with a snake. Just like before, only now there are more angels and a civilian, and not just any civilian, your friend, Pepper. The voice sounded like Sanngrior. Sanngrior, who'd gripped her shoulders tight and whose final word had been Live or Lind, one or the other and in the long run did it even matter? Your friend is in danger, Pepper. Look at her. Look how frightened she is. Her eyes were dragged to Urd, as if Sanngrior had grabbed her head and forced it to look at the woman in question. Urd was terrified; her fear was open and bewildering on her face in ways Lind had never seen before. It was almost childlike when coupled with the confusion and bewilderment on her face, and the screams coming from her were raw and wild like a cornered animal. She's never fought these creatures before. You're responsible for her safety, Pepper. She said she's responsible for you, but that's a lie and you know it. You're the warrior with the expertise. Now stop acting like a rabid bear and destroy this beast. You can mourn Rota after it's dead.
Yes Ma'am. Lind thought, and a wave of cool control followed it. The Major had always given sound advice, and the woman in her head proved no different. With direction in hand, Lind pushed herself to her feet. The angel eater shook itself, like a dog casting off water, and something that was not quite a scream and more of a chitter emerged from it. Cool Mint. She called, and sensed rather than saw her angel look at her. Keep Spear Mint and World of Elegance safe.
Affirmative, came the entity's reply, and Lind didn't stop to question how sanity remained to one of her angels but not the other. Like mourning Rota, that could come later.
A haze of gold, like a yellow filter, slipped across her eyes, and Lind felt the hair on her arms and legs and back stiffen, as though she'd been engulfed by static. She recognized the strange Golden Eye technique that had come to her following Sanngrior's defeat, amidst Spear Mint's endangerment at the claws of the last rabishu, and peeled her lips back in a smile, knowing that it was more a snarl.
Like a silent bullet, Lind launched herself at the rabishu, and it was then that the real fight began.
Her body low to the ground, she came up and into the beast's center, about two feet above its head. She avoided its leech-mouth, which looked large and ominous with the blood (Rota's blood, her mind whispered) that still clung to its teeth. Her fist sunk into its carapace with ease, yet did not break the surface; as she'd suspected, the shell was too new, too malleable, to crack beneath her attack. Yet that also meant the creature was soft. Squishy. And the Valkyrie wasted no time in following one punch with another, that punch with an elbow, that elbow with its twin before driving her knee into as well. The creature keened in pain, not an angel's death cry but the high wail of an animal in pain.
Yet unlike before, the Valkyrie's attacks did not break its carapace, did not spill its guts in a steaming pile to the floor, and that enraged Lind. She kicked off its body before its metatarsals could snag hold of her, and landed six feet away from it. As soon as she touched ground the warrior launched herself at the beast once more, wanting, needing it to keep wailing, because so long as it was stupid with pain it couldn't scream, couldn't draw the angels to it, couldn't bite their heads off with a single chomp.
She aimed for its head this time, and almost lost her hand when the creature lunged at her. It was a bolt of white-violet lightning that saved her, and as Lind retreated she threw a look to Urd. The woman had crawled back to her feet, panting, and silver hair clung to her face. There was a wild, almost frenzied look to the goddess that brought back memories of Japan. Yet when their eyes met, Lind found Urd's eyes clear of any madness that would have left her berserk. The Norn nodded to her, rubbing the sweat from her eyes, and bolstered by the support her friend offered Lind returned her attention to the Rabishu.
It was retreating now, and another pained scream left it as another Urd Bolt collided with its head. It scrunched its body down low to the ground then, and curled up into a long coil. A wave of confusion passed through Lind, having never seen this before, and then cried out when the creature sprang on her. Another scream emerged from it, this one that same hair-raising death-knell that had sent Spear Mint into a frenzy. Lind swore, and somewhere behind her she heard Urd scream as well, her voice hoarse and ragged after her first bout with the angel eater. It landed in the midst of the group, separating Lind from Urd and the angels. The scream left Lind slow to react, and it spun as it landed, the blasted false-head of a tail colliding with the Valkyrie and sending Lind sprawling.
What happened next could only be described through the eyes of another, as the two goddesses, one Valkyrie and one Norn, were too preoccupied with the monstrosity before them to bear witness to it. Here, through the eyes of the one lone, sane angel, Cool Mint watched as the Rabishu screamed and as Spear Mint lunged toward it. She watched World of Elegance flail in mindless confusion-not affected in the same manner as Spear Mint but close-and was struck with inspiration. A moment of insight into World of Elegance that no one: not Urd, not Nebo, not even Moony, had ever concluded.
Like an angel, but not.
The thought rang through Cool Mint's mind. Like an angel, but not. The angel eater screamed again. Spear Mint fought her, Cool Mint winced, and World of Elegance danced. Like an angel, but not. But what then? Like what? The answer brushed her like the wing of a bird. Like how Luna Spirit is an angel, but not. It whispered. Like how Urd is a goddess, but not. Like how Urd is a demon, but not.
But what did that mean? And more importantly, how could she use that against the Rabishu? Black touches white, you'll be all right. A nursery rhyme grazed her mind. Black touches red, better off dead. It was a strange thought, and one that had no place in her head. Something like the old poems taught in childhood about snakes and seas. Red touch yellow will kill a fellow, Red touch black, friend of Jack, or Red sky in morning, Sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. One attributed to snakes, the other to the sea, and the final one... Black touches white, you'll be all right. Where had she heard that before? Black touches red, better off dead. What was it attributed to?
Like an angel, but not.
I've heard it before. Cool Mint thought to herself, staring at World of Elegance in retrospect. It's knowledge that was already there, I'm certain, but what was it...
And then it came to her.
Chugach was a land known for its regional diversity, sectioned off as it was by tundra and oceans and icebergs. Beneath its harsh waters dwelt creatures of unfathomable biology, and above it only the most durable of creatures were able to survive. Yet Chugach was also a land that had been held under siege by foreign entities throughout its history. The Jotun, Chugach's closest neighbors, had claimed it first for half a million years against the will of the indigenous people, and with it they'd brought invasive species ranging from Jotunheim locals to exotic Niflheimian sub-species to the region. Many of them were unable to survive the harsh Arctic conditions of the region, yet there were some-there were always some-that managed to adapt and survive. To thrive.
Like an angel, but not.
By the time the Jotun had been defeated by their Asgard enemies and chased south out of the region, those creatures had integrated themselves completely into Chugach's ecosystem. For better or worse, like rabbits in Australia, they'd made themselves a home in the icy tundra, and some, over that long course of half a million years, had evolved to better suit Chugach's cruel and merciless environment. Sahara birds grew fur on their legs and a white plumage in the snow. Reptiles that survived Chugach's summers-even then with snow on the ground-developed long claws for digging deep burrows away from the frost or evolved feathers to lock in body heat.
Black touch white, you'll be all right. Black touch red, better off dead.
And wasn't there one species that was like that? A serpent brought up from Niflheim ages ago with claws like knives and fangs like swords? A serpent large enough to pray on caribou that had grown a thick, downy plumage after its introduction to the region? Yes, as Cool Mint thought about it now, that was exactly it. There was no regional name for it-its name held the same meaning for everything from salt-water eels to rare summer snakes to thermal water worms: Nimiàiaq, though the Jotun had called it by another name. Its ancestral name, if Cool Mint remember correctly, straight from Niflheim itself: Ušum gùn'kus, the decorated serpent. It was rumored the species were the offspring of Nidhogg itself; the chosen sigil of the Daimakaicho as a creature renowned for its aggression when provoked, capable of a bite that could kill even those beasts with the thickest of skins with its venom.
Its hide was rare; a unique type of scale that could reflect light in different angles to create the illusion of different colors. A hide that could be used for camouflage (like a rock, but not, like a tree, but not, like an angel, but not) or to warn off invading animals that came too close. They were known for hyper-aggression when they scented prey, and could smell blood from up to three miles away. Their invasion into Chugach had always been a problem for the local population, but the natives were known for nothing if not their own adaptability, and after half a million years living beside the invaders, they'd learned to co-exist with Nimiàiaq as they had nalutuk and pisukti. Black touch white, you'll be all right-Nimiàiaq was full and sleepy in the sun, and felt no need to hide or sneak or stalk. Black touch red, better off dead-Nimiàiaq was angry or had scented blood and wanted a kill; its bite would lead to agony before death, which would come as a relief to the victim after the seizures finally faded.
The puzzle pieces came together in a giant picture, and Cool Mint at last understood what her mind was attempting to communicate with her.
Urd was Azag Uru'mir. The Great Serpent that writhes in Thunderstorms.
Azag Uru'mir was Nimiàiaq.
And Nimiàiaq was World of Elegance (like an angel but not) in the sun. Passive. Confused, but passive, despite the provoking shrieks of the Rabishu at their back. Passive until angered, until-
She knew what she needed to do. By Yggdrasil and the Yakone (may it cradle Rota in peace), she knew what she needed to do. Her heart rammed in her chest as the gravity of what she was about to do sank in, and the angel risked a glance back at her host.
The tide was turning in the angel eater's favor. Lind was pinned to the floor by the creature's tail, screaming and writhing in an attempt to dislodge it. Not far from her was Urd, kneeling on the ground, her face a grimace of pain as she cradled her head with one hand and fired off one Urd Bolt after another in futile repetition. The Rabishu screamed again, and this time Urd screamed with it, abandoning her attack in favor of clutching her ears as World of Elegance writhed in (Thunderstorms) agony and Spear Mint struggled mindlessly.
Cool Mint fended off most of Spear Mint's attacks, yet this time... only for this one time, she let her elder sibling wound her. A scratch made by dull, short nails not designed as a weapon but still deep enough to draw blood. A single, small scratch that stung, but hurt less than the bruises Spear Mint was inflicting on her person through her wild blows. A single thought, a single prayer entered the angel's mind in that moment: By the Luna Spirit, Sweet Mother, let this work, and then Cool Mint spun on her feet and tossed Spear Mint over her shoulder. She saw her sibling's eyes meet hers- wild and chaotic and primal- and then Spear Mint crashed into World of Elegance, knocking them both far away from the distracted Rabishu.
Cool Mint followed their crash, her heart in her throat as she clawed at her scratch, expanding it, deepening it, bringing more blood to the surface and into a free-flowing trickle that smeared her skin. Red stained her nails. The sting began to burn. Tears welled in her eyes and some small inner voice began to scream- Lind began to scream, in pain now- and her lips peeled back in a fearful grimace. She tackled the two angels as Spear Mint began to rise from World of Elegance, and wiped her bloody arm on the first bit of World of Elegance she could touch: the angel's right cheek, where (white touch red, better off dead) the angel in question stiffened.
Something flickered in World of Elegance's eyes in that moment. Something wicked. Something ominous. Something primal. (Like an angel but not. Like a Ssaratu but not.) Something that Cool Mint would not in a million years be able to put into words, but which filled her with such grim foreboding that the angel grabbed her sister and sprang away, as quick as a rabbit escaping the strike of a snake.
World of Elegance slowly sat up from where she'd been knocked over, and snarled.
Cool Mint did not recall seeing canines quite so long against the angel's top jaw before.
The angel looked around, her actions slow, deliberate, like a predator on the trail of prey, and Cool Mint felt her heart quicken as a pair of dark eyes-one so dark as to almost be called black (Black touch white, you'll be all right, right? Right?) came to rest on her and Spear Mint. Drawn to movement, drawn to heat. Cool Mint thought. Oh, sweet gudan. She thought. Please see us as your own. Cool Mint's blood stained World of Elegance's cheek like gross war paint, and the look on the angel's face did not fill the one-winged entity with ease.
Spear Mint broke Cool Mint's grip on her shoulders, then, and World of Elegance lunged at them both, shattering what hope Cool Mint had of getting Nimiàiaq- that was all World of Elegance could be at this point-onto their side. The black-winged angel collided with Spear Mint first, which knocked the older sister down on top of the younger, leaving them both pinned. A hand, large and ogreish, wrapped around Cool Mint's neck, and the angel's face was buried painfully into the hot, black asphalt of their battlefield. She closed her eyes, terrified, and what her eyes missed her imagination more than made up for her as her other senses were amplified in her fear. She felt a heavy weight press down on her. Felt the useless flutter of a lone wing not her own against her back, and heard a long, drawn-out hiss from somewhere high above her head. The heated asphalt burned into her cheek, smelling of dirt and rock and pollution, and above her head came another cry from the angel eater- this one again in pain rather than bait, as Lind or perhaps Urd scored a lucky strike against it. She heard her sister's rasping breaths. She felt her own breath against her knuckles, the pain from her self-inflicted injury, and then another breath, hot and damp which smelled faintly of lavender and jasmine, against her cheek. She tensed, her eyes screwing tighter, and then...
"Stand."
She knew that voice. Had come to know it very well over the past several months, in fact, and the angel opened her eyes. She peered up, and found World of Elegance mere inches from her face, her expression scrunched up in a snarl that was as much confusion as it was aggression.
"Stand." The angel breathed again, and the snarl on her lips began to subside, as if by some way, some how, World of Elegance had reached the conclusion that the two angels before her were not the prey Nimiàiaq scented.
Yet the confusion remained, and she stared at Cool Mint expectantly, as though seeking the angel's advice. Direction. She rose away from the two angels, and her eyes seemed to glitter in the afternoon sun like a pair of dark and sinister stars.
And Cool Mint was all too happy to steer her on the right path.
She pointed behind Nimiàiaq, towards the angel eater, and World of Elegance turned, her lips pulling back once more in a snarl as a hiss emerged from deep in her throat. It seemed the rabishu, monster that it was, had found an enemy in serpents as well as angels.
Cool Mint crawled out from beneath Spear Mint, who lay panting and exhausted on her right side. Blood was starting to weep from her ears, and when Cool Mint brought a hand to her own ears she found much the same. A closer observation of World of Elegance also revealed blood. The angel eater was taking its toll on all of them.
World of Elegance began to stalk towards the angel eater. Not rush, not run, not propel towards it blindly, but stalk. Like a snake in the bush or a cat in the grass. Cool Mint looked around and spotted Lind's fallen halberd resting on the ground not too far from where Rota had died. It rested a mere three feet away, and Cool Mint wondered if it'd always lain there or if the angels by some strange turn of fate had come to lie near it. With a quick glance to Elegance, the angel rushed to pick it up. She hoisted it in front of her at an angle that felt natural in (Lind's) her hands, and fell into step at Elegance's side.
They didn't speak. There was no discussion of plans or objectives or desires. It was as if, in that moment, with the one-winged angel that imitated her host and Nimiàiaq, (white on red, better off dead) were united in their hearts, their minds, and their souls. In that one unique moment, their thoughts were shared, where one knew the actions of the other, and need only wait for their individual opportunity.
It was time for the angel eater to die.
The rabishu reared its false head up at their approach, the circular jaw on its true head expanding and contracting as it released Lind from its grasp. Lind crawled away, and she left a bloody trail in her wake as she put distance between herself and it, evidence of the damage this version, this latest and greatest iteration (version 3.0? 4.0? Who knew? Cabatu?) had managed to inflict on the warrior who had destroyed its predecessor. Its carapace remained undamaged, still soft and rubbery as if by design rather than hard and brittle like its ancestors. Its tail bobbed aggressively, the false mouth housing the stinger opening and closing, opening and closing in imitation of a threatening beast.
It shrieked, and Cool Mint did not flinch. It screeched, and Nimiàiaq did not move. It screamed, and Spear Mint, fatigued and winded from her battle against her sister, rushed anew towards the rabishu. Its tail arched higher and higher against the sky, a scorpion about to sting its prey as Spear Mint soared to meet it, and it was as she passed that Cool Mint launched herself forward. With halberd in hand, she leapt for the rabishu's true head, and brought the spear head down upon it, using gravity's pull to add power to her thrust. The blade indented the creature's head, formed a crater around itself...and then Cool Mint succeeded in puncturing its carapace where Lind had failed. The beast let loose a shriek so great Cool Mint feared she'd lose her hearing, yet wasted no time to stop and check. With the weapon driven into the thing's soft gray matter, the one-winged angel grabbed her sister and bolted away from the beast not a moment too soon.
They 'heard' World of Elegance shriek in their minds, and a bolt of lightning, so large and so bright as to leave the wicked curve of a serpent imprinted against their eyes, struck the exposed metal shaft like a lightning rod. Electricity surged across the monster's body, and abruptly the angel eater's cries were cut off. Its body began to seize. Its carapace began to smolder. Like a voracious snake the lightning feasted upon its body, and in its wake, black, charred burn spots remained. It went on for an untold length of time, jerking and wriggling and thrashing until finally the arcs of white-violet that assaulted its body began to fade. With it, so too did the seizures, until even those faded, leaving a black, dead shell where once there was life.
For a time, there was silence. Nothing but the labored breath of the combatants could be heard from the immediate area, and in the distance came sounds of the ocean crashing on the docks and the sound of cars on the main road of San Francisco. Somewhere far off, a trolley rang its bell, and from farther still came the distinct ring of a railroad crossing warning travelers of an oncoming train.
It was Spear Mint who approached the carcass first. The blood in her ears had trickled down past her earlobes and dropped in tiny red plinks to the pavement. She stared at it in silence for a long moment, then raised her right foot and smashed it into the broken carapace of its head. The shell crumbled around her foot like ash, burping a hefty puff of black smoke into the air. She raised her foot and kicked it again. It crumbled. Again. It crumbled. Again and again and again, until Cool Mint rose to pull her away. Spear Mint shoved her away at first, her face a mask of pain, of anger, of a hurt and loss so deep that it could not be described. It was not until Cool Mint attempted to pull her away a second time, now with World of Elegance at her back as well, that Spear Mint gave in. What was left of her crumbling composition broke, and with a scream heard by only half of those present she fell to her knees, weeping for the first time in over one hundred years. Cool Mint joined her on the ground then, and enveloped her sister in a tight hug, allowing her own tears to fall for the loss of an angel she'd know only by the memories held by her sister. A pair of wings enveloped them, and World of Elegance, either as the angel or as Nimiàiaq, it didn't matter which, brought them both close to her side, allowing them both to mourn in peace.
Urd, exhausted, her magic spent and her mind and body overexerted, dragged herself to her feet and approached Lind, who'd come to kneel where Rota had last stood. The Valkyrie stared down at the spot, the blood that comprised it still with its final last sheen of red that had yet to dry. She didn't appear to notice the Norn's presence, and flinched when Urd rested a hand on her shoulder.
They stayed like that in silence for a long time before Lind finally found her voice. "She'd been missing for over a century." Her voice was a harsh whisper, and she visibly swallowed, as if the words hurt to speak. "I'd... forgotten her." She stopped and grit her teeth, then forced herself to continue. "And she was... a host. To that... that thing." She bit the words off one by one, as if in doing so would make them easier to chew, easier to swallow, easier to digest. "Like- like Iritif. And... I never knew. Never even considered..." Her voice rose and cracked, and her lips peeled back in a sorrowful grimace. "Oh... Yggdrasil..." She fought to draw breath, but for some reason the air wouldn't come. It avoided her lungs somehow, and it was not until Urd knelt to her level and wrapped her arms around her shoulders that Lind suddenly found her breath. She sucked it in, filling her lungs with air that tasted of smoke and fire and blood and electricity, and then released it in a high, painful wail. The Valkyrie dragged another painful breath into her lungs, and by the Icecaps, it hurt to mourn, felt alien to scream and cry even as another knell rang from her throat, and she just wanted to... just wanted to...
She grabbed hold of the woman at her side, desperate and afraid and feeling as if the emotions inside her were tearing her apart. Tearing her apart like the rabishu had Rota, and all she felt was pain. Her head throbbed. Her chest ached. Her heart hurt. Her very soul hurt and she just wanted it all to go away.
Urd said nothing throughout the ordeal, and for that Lind was grateful. She let the Valkyrie clutch her like a child, though she knew the position had to be uncomfortable. Yet if it was, Urd made no indication of it, merely holding her close and allowing herself to be held, allowing the pain to die down into something that was at least manageable. To Lind, it felt like they were there for hours. Days could have passed without her knowing it, yet the truth of the matter was that they were like that for only a few minutes.
They were only allotted a few minutes.
For it was as the two sects mourned: one of angels and one of gods, that it emerged. Something... something new, something small, something with wings like an angel, wings like Rota's Storm Bringer, burst from the crumbling remains of the rabishu. A parasite within a parasite, like a Russian nesting doll, it launched towards the angels before anyone realized what was happening. It struck World of Elegance square in the back as the closet target of opportunity and left the angel with a large, seeping hole spanning five inches in diameter. Blood, a poisonous mixture of black and red, back-sprayed onto the creature, and as the angel collapsed, as Urd began to convulse, the monster raced off.
"Urd?" Lind peeked up at the Norn and noticed too late that something was amiss. "Urd?!" The Norn fell to the ground, her body arching in spasmodic pain as her eyes rolled back in her head. "Urd, what's going on?!" Lind cried, "What's going on?!" The woman's foot kicked wildly and struck Lind in the kneecap, hard enough to send stars dancing across the Valkyrie's vision. Then came white-hot pain as another undirected kick crushed something in her leg, and Lind lost her grip on the Norn. The woman slid to the ground and her arms flailed violently against the asphalt. Lind grabbed them, trying to control the seizure, yet she could do little for the woman's head, which bashed against the ground with a force that terrified the Valkyrie.
Her attention focused on her fallen friend, Lind didn't notice the monster, the mite, fall onto her back until it was literally upon her. It writhed in fresh agony, its body smoking from where World of Elegance's blood had splattered upon it (black on red, better off dead) and in its death throes stabbed Lind in turn. Its stinger was long and smooth, empty of the venom that so paralyzed the victims of its host rabishu but still strong enough to kill, and in that respect it was well on its way to completing its job; to destroy what had destroyed its host, to kill in a flash of vengeance before falling, and the parasite's stinger went straight into Lind's back and through her chest like a knife through butter. Lind jerked forward as it tore through her chest, and for a moment she stared down at herself, her confusion comical as she looked at the stinger that had pierced her. Oh? What's this? Her expression seemed to say. This wasn't here a moment ago. Her body jerked again, and she watched the strange protrusion vanish back inside her.
It grew difficult for the Valkyrie to breathe in that moment, and Lind had the sneaking suspicion the reason behind that had little to do with the emotional damage imparted by Rota's death. She thought instead it had more to do with the fact that a lung had been punctured, the wound's squealing like a noisy balloon, Pepper. She tasted blood when she exhaled, and her throat felt obstructed; as if in the span of seconds she'd caught a cold that lined her throat with phlegm. She coughed experimentally, just to see what happens, and the taste of blood grew overwhelming. With it came the pain, and oh lordy did it hurt. It hurt more than anything she'd ever experienced in her long life, hurt more than her entire stay at the Clandestine Hotel 4210-you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave-enough to leave her breathless (but that's your lung, Silly! That's your lung with its hole making that high-pitched noise like a balloon leaking air! I bet if you tried real hard you could make it sound like a raspberry, like a big ol' juicy fart, like what Iansi used to do to you when you guys were kids! Just put his lips on your shoulder and blow a big ol' fat one!)
Cabatu and the scientists who'd developed the rabishu had indeed learned quite a bit in Lind's time at their facility.
Perhaps it was sheer irony that the vengeance killer, the mite, brought down the lone Valkyrie who had so inspired its design, right in its last moments of life as the poison in World of Elegance, the poison of Nimiàiaq, worked its magic and ended its short life. Lind fell forward and caught herself with an arm that was losing strength by the second. It trembled until she locked her elbow, and the fall forward brought with it liquid heat that began to seep into her uniform. Her mouth suddenly was filled with that liquid heat, that blood, and she spat it out, watching it join Rota's blood on the asphalt. She clutched at her wound, still wheezing its high squeal, and felt blood coat her hand. The edges of her vision began to grow dark, and in her final moments, the Valkyrie looked over to her friend.
Urd still lay writhing beside her, squirming and wriggling and writhing in agony. Her eyes bulged in their sockets, her lips were pulled back in a screaming rictus of pain, and blood - either her own blood or Lind's blood - smeared her face as her head crashed once more in agony. Scrapes covered her arms, and there were now signs of bruising there as well. Bruising in her arm with a left wrist that hung at an odd angle and with fingers to match; all broken from the uncontrolled abuse of her seizing body.
Lind beheld the sight in pity, and no small amount of regret. The black in her vision grew denser, creeping further up the edges of sight. A strange pulse came with it, quick and wild as her heart gave it the final go, and a wave of exhaustion rolled through her bones like a soft, warm blanket.
She was tired.
By the Yakone, she was so, so tired.
Her arm gave out beneath her, and Lind thought she heard a splash when her body impacted the earth. What a useless fucking way to die. Someone- perhaps her, perhaps someone else, perhaps even the Yakone Itself, whispered in her ears. Sorry Nimiàiaq. She thought with what was left of her strength, and as she angled her head to look at Urd, she thought she saw the woman staring at her in a final moment of lucidity, reaching for her with her broken fingers and her broken wrist that appeared to be darkening, growing black with bits of white like Nimiàiaq.
Yet that proved to be only her vision losing its last bit of sight, and with a final sigh Lind coughed, spat blood and fell still next to the woman who was her last friend, whose broken body gradually came to rest as well.
And so Hagall won another victory that day
A/N: Biggest. Chapter. Ever. (for now I guess)
Comments of a Madwoman: "Violence is life. There is only peace in death." -An old Falkin saying.
"Ni gis kas tag til nigin'zu,"-A grave Falken insult: "I offer my excrement/urine to quench your hunger/thirst," is a rough translation.
"Peh ninin nam'us-tal" Another grave Falken insult, usually exchanged among females: "May you miscarry a monster and die screaming," though this is not an exact translation.
