l

-57-

Her world spun as her father carried her from the horse trailer. The vivid shapes and sounds that had once come so easily to her had faded and smeared into a hazy tapestry of near-shapes, blotchy colors, and muffled sounds masked by a sharp ringing in her ears. At some point in the long journey, her fatigue had gotten the better of her, and it now took effort and concentration just to focus her eyes or translate the noises into words.

An effort no longer worth pursuing.

She could smell her father though, and she latched onto that familiarity with the desperation of the drowning. She knew her father was carrying her but found it harder and harder to remember that. It was growing harder to distinguish between 'Pabba' and 'stranger' as more time passed, and though she was loath to admit it, it would not be long before she became unable to recognize her father at all.

Yet his smell...

While her father had been more often than not absent throughout her life, his scent had stayed with her since she'd first met him. A strong and strange scent from a time she scarcely remembered, when the world was still large and terrifying and she a stranger to it all. A smell that followed her home with foreign clothes after her first trips to Asgard. A smell that clung to gifts sent to her as she grew. An aroma, comforting and secure, that filled her stepmother's house when the inevitable decision was made to stay in Asgard as a goddess.

Smell was tied to memory, and Falkin in particular had a strong nose to help recognize their kin when they no longer wore a familiar form. She supposed that in a way, what with her heritage, she was much the same, for as she lay in his arms her father's smell overwhelmed everything else: the stranger who smelled of ice and deer, the trailer which smelled of horse, the wretched hounds that...were they not the ones who had chased her? And oh, by Yggdrasil, it hurt to think, hurt to remember, but...

She was just so tired.

Her father was here though... ash trees and steel. That comforting scent, that soothing scent... She would be okay if her Pabba was here. Pabba could chase away the hounds. Pabba could...

Muffled voices. A change in the air's temperature. A female's voice, distant and muffled. The rank odor of... animals. Cats. Rodents. Dogs which made her restless (her father's touch soothed her). Reptiles. Horses. Even a wolf or a coyote. Other animals she'd never smelled before. New humans. The dull murmur of other voices. The sensation of her lying down on something cold and hard. Bright lights blinding her. A pinch. Something squeezing her mouth open-hands?-from where the back of her jaw connected with her skull. Something long and tubular in her mouth and she was...

Fading...

Falling...

Falling up.

A red sea danced above her head, shimmering and dancing with distant stars and clustered galaxies, the enigmatic tide rising and falling with the sun and the moon. Far to the east she saw a white bear sit and watch her, its gaze two consuming black holes and it looked down-up?-at her. It watched her in silence, the only witness to her departure, and then she struck the red sea with a splash. With it came an abhorrent sense of disintegration, as if the spiritual vessel that struck the red sea had shattered on impact and had been absorbed by the dancing waves. She thought she screamed-some part of her, not her physical self but her spirit-yet found that impossible. The red sea took everything, devouring her spirit utterly and leaving not even the ego in its wake. Any sense of self was lost. Memories of what she once was were discarded, and as they were devoured a parting thought came: This is reincarnation.

There was no sense of time. Decades passed in the span of seconds. A minute turned into a millennium. The universe met its end and was reborn again in an instant. The veins of the universe. The Eye of Creation. The Eternal Spark. The Chaotic Flame. The Infinite Abyss.

An eternity passed in the blink of an eye, and the she surfaced once more, where she sucked in her first breath of the new world. Her right wrist-she had that now-burned with symbols unlike yet similar to the Elder Futhark of her grandfather, and the magic within, ancient and wild, called her fractured ego back to her. She coughed and sputtered, her lungs burning as she swam to the shore, where blue soil was covered with red grass. She climbed out of the pond, tried to rise, and then fell once more, overbalanced by the wings on her back and the change in her center of gravity. White tattoos against black skin-had she always had wings? Her hair was long and parted in two distinct shades, each reflecting the patterns on her skin. White on black.

That wasn't right though. Wasn't it supposed to be black on white?

It was hard to recall. She looked back at the pool and shuddered, the feathers on her back, wet and heavy with red water, rustling uneasy. It was hard to recall anything after her venture through the red sea.

The Hidden Truth. Was that what this form was? It was a familiar one-the colors, the wings, the tattoos...she thought she even had a name for it-Gudan-yet the name left a bad taste in her mouth, so she left it unspoken.

She ruffled her wings, shedding the water gathered in the feathers and watching with newborn curiosity as pearls of red glittered and danced like raindrops. With care, she climbed to her feet, wavered unsteadily, and then found her balance before observing her new surroundings. A forest of trees-their trunks many shades of blue, their foliage as red as the sea at her back, surrounded her. An orange sky with black-violet clouds towered above the tree line, with a lone trail, light blue and well-trodden, stretched before her.

A perception of wrongness danced in her head. She looked into the red water and saw her reflection, where a human-like face with dark skin stared back at her. Everything is wrong, she thought. Everything is inverted.

Ah, but such was the way of the Yakone. The inversion of life and death: Rebirth. Reincarnation. Where the chaotic flame burned darkest and where all truths were laid bare before those who would hide from them.

The Yakone though. Not the Green Trail but the Yakone. And she needed...Tanarak? Or was it Lind? No, no, Lind was Tanarak. They had spoken and Lind had sworn on her true name, just as she had. And now she was in the Yakone and Lind-Tanarak wasn't, and...how was she to get to the Green Trail in this land of reincarnation?

She looked down at her right hand, examining the tattoos that ran up the length of her forearm. They were different from the white-on-black (black-on-white?) markings that covered her form. They were an off-white, a shade slightly darker than that of her own skin. The tattoos were small but prominent, a series of horizontal lines and diagonal crosses stacked on top of each other. She rubbed the tattoo with her left hand, still adjusting to the new markings. A gift. From Li-Tanarak's mother. Like her own potions, a medicine to cure an ailment, but different because...because...

"Because we are born of many souls." She murmured. Yes, that had been how the old woman had explained it, hadn't she? That they were born of many pieces of many souls, stitched together to become a new soul? A strange concept, one she'd never heard before. "She said I'd been wounded too deeply." That her own trauma had loosened whatever kept these souls within her, and needed to be rebound to keep them from leaving her and preventing what was left from descending into madness.

The tattoos felt warm. Their temperature differed from her body, as if whatever wild magic had been used in production of the tattoos had been woven into her skin as well, as if it'd literally been stitched into her flesh. Her hand fell away. How a bunch of lines and diagonal crosses were supposed to keep her sane was beyond her. This was foreign magic-had they been runes of the Elder Futhark-the diagonal crosses 'Gebo' or 'Kenaz' or even 'Othala', the horizontal lines 'Isa', the patterns more interwoven into a structured bindrune, she might have understood their meaning-but never on her own skin, where it could not be washed off after the sought-after affect was achieved. Never in such a huge and lengthy design.

It made her uncomfortable. She didn't like foreign magic holding such a permanent place on her body.

She looked back to the path and found she was no longer alone. A bear watched her from the trail's path. It was a massive, peculiar beast; the long claws on its forepaws marked it as a brown bear, yet its coat was a misty blue. It wore a bone mask over its face, the markings holding an eerie resemblance to a human. The creature watched her in silence and then turned with a chuff and headed up the trail, pausing only at a bend in the trail to peer back at her.

With few options left to her, she followed after it.

The trees grew tall and densely packed as she trekked down the trail, their branches interweaving as if to blot out the sun as she went deeper into the forest. She heard creatures rustling in the bushes and on occasion a shadowy form bounding deeper into the brush, yet at no point could she distinguish what the creatures were. Some stood on two legs though, and others stood unimaginably tall on what she assumed was four. Ahead of her, the bear lumbered on at a slow and almost leisurely pace, pausing on occasion to look back at her and check that she was still following. Though the Yakone granted her a voice, she found herself unwilling to speak, as if by breaking the silence fostered between the bear, the forest, and herself, she would be breaking some kind of ceremony.

A mist began to spread as they went farther. Small and unnoticeable at first, crawling at her bare feet like a low fog, it gradually thickened and spread upward. At first, she thought that it was emanating from the ghost bear in front of her, only to discover too late that the creature was in fact leading her into the mist, where the edges of its form were growing harder and harder to define. A lump settled in her throat, and she began to walk faster, fearful that she might lose the guide along the trail as the mist grew heavier. Yet even as she increased her pace, the bear seemed to maintain its distance, and when she felt compelled to break into a run the creature vanished from the trail altogether.

Her throat locked in fear, and she came to an abrupt stop, looking around her and finding that the mist had consumed her entirely, devouring the trail, the bushes, and even the long trees with their interwoven branches. Everything had been consumed by the mist.

She wanted to scream in her frustration, in her fear, but suppressed the urge, instead spreading her wings out as far as they could go, searching for the trees that had once loomed so close to her person. As she half-expected, the wings bumped nothing, and it was through such means that she learned that once again, she'd been transported to another world.

"You are the one Aga sent?" A voice, deep and rough and intimidating, echoed throughout the mist. "A qallunaat? The very offspring of the nation which does not acknowledge the Inua?" Something whistled towards her from her left, and she dove to the ground, narrowly avoiding the bola as it soared over her wings. The weapon vanished back into the mist, and on high alert now, she clambered back to her feet. "You're worse than the soldier, and you're the one Aga sent to help The Runt? What was Sedna thinking?"

A form began to appear in the mist, this one more human in form, more masculine in nature. It was the bear from before, dressed now in the skin of a man, its mask transformed into an ivory brown bear. He wore a light, blue parka, the edges trimmed with mist, a quiver on his back, grizzly claws dangling in a long necklace and a grizzly's pelt, near matching in color to the parka, draped over his face. "Aga Sedna is growing senile in her old age if she's relying on someone like you to bring The Runt into the Yakone." The bear-man growled. "I suppose I should have expected that. She always thought you qallunaat could be buttered up with talk." The bear man snorted. "No matter. I have fought your people, Qallunaat, and I know you only respect battle." He fell into a fighting stance, and a spear, the pole made of black wood, the spearhead made of ivory, appeared in his hand. "So we shall battle. And you will show me why Aga Sedna chose you to intrude on this sacred land, or I shall splinter you and scatter your soul for the birds!"

XXX

As the sun moved higher in the sky, Bell adjusted her bag and decided it was a good thing that she was wearing long pants. Their trek had taken them decidedly off trail and through all manner of thorns, thistles, and stickers. Her legs would certainly have taken a beating if they had been exposed. In addition, the terrain had steadily gotten rougher as they progressed to wherever it was they were going. It was now considerably rockier than where they had been camping.

In front of her, George continued to move along at a brisk pace, talking the entire time. The subject had varied along with the terrain. Now he was complaining about some jerky company owing him royalties for appearances in their commercials. Apparently, they had decided that since he did not exist, they did not have to pay him.

Keiichi, for the most part, quietly followed behind. His silence, though, was unnerving her a little. A couple of times during the trip, she had tried to strike up a conversation with him, but he had either rebuffed her or ignored her completely as he marched along behind, leaving her to stew on the reasons why. She felt that maybe they had put some of the issues that had cropped up since Debra's death to bed the previous day when they had hiked in to their campsite, but now it seemed that was not the case.

Was it because of some of the things he had said to her after it happened? She had accepted that they had been said in the heat of the moment. Many hurtful things can slip out when emotions are running high. He had apologized for what he had said, but now she wondered if he had come to believe some of them? If he did, then maybe he was rethinking the status of their relationship? She knew it was on rocky ground as it was. Maybe he had reached that tipping point where he felt it was time to end it. That prospect scared the goddess so much that she did not realize that George had stopped, causing her to run right into him and get a face full of smelly fur.

Belldandy gagged and sputtered while trying to dislodge the hair that had ended up in her mouth, George turned and gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry 'bout that," he said as he tried to assist the goddess, who shooed him away since he was making matters worse.

Keiichi came up and looked past George and Bell and whistled. In front of them was a rocky cliff that was about thirty or so feet tall. It stretched in either direction for as far as anyone could see. "Looks like we have an issue," he quipped as he crossed his arms across his chest.

George stepped away from Belldandy and nodded as he looked back. "We're kind'a at an impasse as this here cliff is in the way." He turned and looked either way, then started stomping off in one direction, following the cliff face. "Stay here so that I can find a way around." A moment later, he disappeared around the corner.

Belldandy was still trying to fish hair from between her teeth when this happened, so she had no opportunity to protest or otherwise make a different suggestion. As she looked at the cliff face, she noted that there were plenty of nooks and crannies where someone could get a foot or a hand hold. It was also not straight up, angling into the last somewhat which would mean that if someone lost their grip, they would not immediately plummet to the ground. All in all, it should not be too difficult to climb. Unfortunately, George was already gone.

"You ok?"

The goddess jumped slightly as Keiichi came up beside her. "Um, yeah," she said as she looked away, embarrassed at the state she was in.

The dark-haired man chuckled as he reached up and plucked a dark brown hair off of Belldandy's shoulder. "This reminds me of something that happened when I first joined Team 12," he said as he reached up and snagged another hair. "You haven't ever met Morrison. He was our Chief before he retired and Piper was promoted. The man could double as a sasquatch. He was so hairy..."

There was an awkward silence that followed. Belldandy got the distinct impression that Keiichi was waiting for her to say something, but for the life of her she could not figure out what it was. Finally, he coughed and shook his head. "Sorry about that, bad joke," he said with a sheepish smile. "Anyway, his back was almost completely covered in hair. In fact, I think his whole body was like that. Think Mac with a beard and dark brown hair and that will get you close."

The goddess shook her head as an image of Lt. Commander McGuinness came to her as Keiichi had described him. It might have been the environment, but her imagination included him smiling wide as he rode a large, hoofed animal with horns branching out of the top of its head like a tree. She shook her head and giggled.

"Yeah, you get it now," said Keiichi with a smile. "Anyway, we were in Iraq and had a little downtime, so we thought we would throw a football around. Some of the Iraqi regulars got curious because they never saw a football before. Anyway, after about fifteen minutes, we had some semblance of a football game going. In order to differentiate the teams, one side, which happened to be Giblets' side, took their shirts off."

When Belldandy frowned in confusion, Keiichi quickly added, "Giblets was Morrison's callsign." She nodded in understanding and he continued. "Anyway, we get this game started. Giblets is on one side with me, and Angel, Tank, and Piper are on the other with a bunch of locals to even out the teams. I know you know next to nothing about football, so I will just tell you that the basics of the game are to get the guy with the ball onto the ground. So, I hand it off to Giblets and he starts running, shrugging off a couple of Iraqis as he goes. Angel comes up from behind and tried to tackle him by jumping on Giblets' back!"

Belldandy frowned. While she did not seem to have any reference for this game they were playing, she did understand how to take down significantly larger opponents. "That doesn't make much sense. If Morrison is as big as McGuiness, then Sanchez should have gone for his legs."

"I know, right?" laughed Keiichi. "So here goes Giblets down the field and Angel is holding on for dear life as he is being dragged down the field on what amounted to a bucking bronco. And all this time, his face is buried in Giblet's back!"

It took a moment after Keiichi paused for the implication to set it. "Noooo!" exclaimed Belldandy as she smiled and covered her mouth in glee.

"Yes," replied Keiichi. "Angel was picking Giblet's back hair out of his teeth for a good two hours after that!"

Keiichi let out a good belly laugh as Belldandy smiled and shook her head. "That had to have been awful," she said after the dark-haired man calmed down for a moment.

"Oh yeah," replied Keiichi. "Angel tried to swear us to secrecy, but we weren't having it."

"That poor man," said the goddess as she shook her head.

The pair's attention was drawn to the path as they heard a stomping sound. After a moment, George appeared. He looked somewhat frustrated as he came close. However, he did not stop, instead, heading down the path alongside the cliff in the opposite direction he originally traveled. "Don't mind me," he said as he passed, "just checking the other side."

Belldandy looked around and found a flat boulder, which she stepped over to and sat upon. Keiichi followed suit, taking the spot next to her. When he did not say anything, it left Belldandy wondering once again about the rift that seemed to have developed between them. She had thought that his earlier story was an indicator that it was something in her imagination, but now her insecurities were getting the better of her again. Sure, he sat down next to her, that was something. But the fact he was silent was again bothering her.

"Um, Keiichi?"

Keiichi cocked his head in the goddess's direction. "Yeah Bell?"

"I-I want to let you know that... well, if you are still angry and all that I... I won't... uh... won't... I mean, I will leave when we get back."

Keiichi looked at her and frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well..." Yggdrasil this is hard! she thought to herself. But she needed to say something, whether it was favorable or not, she needed to know where she stood. "I know that there have been… well, issues since we arrived in California. That on top of what happened a couple weeks before." She sucked in a deep breath. "I just... I just feel like you may be ready to end our relationship.

Keiichi turned so that he fully faced the goddess. "What brought this on?"

"Well, you have been pretty quiet today." The words were coming out easier now. Once she got started, they started to flow. "I have been trying to engage you all day, but you were almost silent when I did. Here it is past noon and your story about Sanchez and Morrison was the most you have spoken to me since we left."

The dark haired-man leaned back and whistled. "Wow, umm, yeah, I'm sorry Bell, I didn't know it was bothering you so much." He reached back and scratched his head, a sign Belldandy understood as discomfort or nervousness.

"No, no, no! It's..." She paused and took a different track. "You don't need to apologize," she said as she looked away from him. "I have a lot I still need to atone for, and, well, while I would be sad, I would accept if you decided to end our relationship." There it was. As Keiichi might say, all her cards were on the table now. She actually felt pretty good having gotten that off her chest as truthfully, it had been bothering her for a long while.

She grew confused once more when Keiichi snorted and shook his head. "Bell, listen," he began. As he spoke, he pulled what the goddess had learned was called paracord from his pocket. On it were a number of brightly colored beads; a smaller set of nine on one side, and a larger set of five on the other. "I have been quiet because I have been concentrating on something else." He took what he had pulled out and showed it to her. "You see this string with all the beads on it?"

"Yes, I remember when you purchased them." Belldandy also remembered when he strung it together but had not asked its purpose.

"What I put together here is called a pace counter," said Keiichi. "We use these all the time, especially when we are out in the field and we need to get somewhere without our electronics." He took the string and held it up for the goddess to see. "Each of the smaller ones is one hundred meters, and each of the larger ones is one kilometer. I know approximately how many steps I take to reach one hundred meters. As we hiked, I was counting my steps and each time I reach that count, I move one of these smaller beads to the other side of the string." Keiichi demonstrated the action of moving the beads. "When I reach ten, I put these back and move one of the larger ones down." Again, a small demonstration of the gadget, and Belldandy understood. "Based on this, I can tell that so far, today, we have traveled six kilometers."

The device was genius as far as she was concerned. Typically, Valkyries and other soldier types in Asgard used their magic to determine how far one or a group had traveled. It required very low levels of power, so there was no need to worry about detection. "So... you have not been talking because you have been counting your steps in order to keep track of how far we have gone?" asked the goddess.

"Yes."

A feeling of relief filled her body, and the goddess leaned forward and hugged Keiichi tightly. "Thank you."

"For what?" asked the stunned mortal.

There was no response. Belldandy just sat there for a moment and enjoyed Keiichi's closeness for a moment. Keiichi tentatively placed his arms around her, and she sighed in contentment.

"Am I interrupting anything?"

Keiichi and Belldandy separated at the interruption and found George watching from the base of the cliff. Belldandy continued to smile while Keiichi scratched at the back of his head as he tried to look anywhere but at the Sasquatch. "Did you find anything?" asked the goddess.

George bobbed his head from side to side as if contemplating what he was going to say. "I have good news and bad news," he said after a moment. "The good news is that we are almost there." He smiled, and the goddess noted that it seemed almost apologetic.

"And the bad news?" asked Keiichi as he regained his composure.

"Well, you see," replied George tentatively. "We're going to have to climb this here cliff to get there."

Keiichi snorted as he stood up from the boulder he and Belldandy were on. "Well, ok then."

"Ok?" asked George as he furrowed his unibrow in confusion. "This is of no concern to you? I thought you would be all like; 'No friggen way that we can climb this!' And I was gonne be like; 'Well, you gotta to get to where we is going!' And then you would be like-"

"George!" exclaimed Belldandy as she rose to her feet as well. The Sasquatch blinked, stopped, and stared at the Goddess. "This should not be a problem," she proclaimed. Beside her, Keiichi nodded in agreement.

There was an awkward silence as George stared back at the couple in confusion. He then straightened up and clapped his hands together. "Right then, let's get to it, shall we?" He moved to the cliff face, reached up, and with his massive hands he found a handhold and braced himself to start the climb. "I'll go first and help you up from the top." The huge creature scaled the wall with ease.

Both Belldandy and Keiichi stared up at George as he turned and looked down. "Come on then, chop chop! Can't leave this as a cliffhanger, can we?"

As the Sasquatch sniggered at his own joke, both Belldandy and Keiichi groaned. "I'll go first," the goddess announced.

"I'll be right behind you," replied the SEAL.

Belldandy reached down and grabbed a handful of dirt and rubbed it into her hands. She then stepped up to the cliff, located a good handhold, and grabbed onto it. She did the same with her other hand, and then found a crevice to stick her foot in. Before long, she was on her way, one hand or foot at a time. In spite of George's bad jokes, she felt light. Her chat with Keiichi had done wonders to put her mind at ease, his silence a result of his concentrating on mapping their path so that they could get back rather than any anger he felt towards her. As she neared the top, George got down on the ground and reached over the edge to pull her up. She reached to grab him.

And missed.

For a moment, she felt like she was suspended in the air. Then she began to slide back down the rock face. Desperately, she grabbed for any hand hold she could find, but could find purchase nowhere. She was about to scream when she landed on something. Or maybe a better description was that she had sat on something. She realized she was still halfway up the cliff and quickly found a good place to wedge her hand in to keep herself from falling any further. She turned and looked down just in time to see Keiichi, who had started his own way up and was just below her now, take the hand he had used to arrest her fall and grab onto his own handhold.

Did he just...?

"Are you all right?" asked Keiichi, interupting her thought.

"Um, yeah," she replied, quickly turning away to hide her embarrassment.

The rest of the climb was uneventful. When Belldandy neared the top, she made sure she was a little bit closer before she reached for George's paw, and ensured her grip was firm before she let the enormous creature pull her the rest of the way up. Afterward, she stepped back and took her bag off as she watched the Sasquatch pull Keiichi up. How embarrassing, Grandfather would be so disappointed. She knew the slip was her fault. If she had remembered what Odin had taught her, she would not have made such a mistake. The dark-haired man dusted himself off and then made eye contact with the goddess, who immediately looked away, a slight crimson glow forming on her face. Still, maybe not all bad?

To his credit, Keiichi did not comment on the incident or Belldandy's reaction. Instead he pulled out Keima's compass and opened it. "George, are we still heading in the same direction from here?" he asked as he walked closer into the treeline.

"Yeah, that's the way," replied the Sasquatch as he started to stand up.

Belldandy looked back at Keiichi as he started to take a bearing measurement just in time to notice some slight movement on the ground in front of him. "Keiichi!"

"Look out, ya idjut!"

Instantly, the goddess was in motion. Knowing that Keiichi would never be able to understand the language being spoken, she closed the gap between her and the SEAL in a flash. She grabbed him by the collar before he could react to her call and jerked him off his feet. In mid-air, she pulled him to her, and then pushed him to the ground away from the danger that had gone unseen to him. He landed with a thud on his stomach with the goddess on top.

Just inches from here he was about to step, a large, dark colored snake with light brown patches on its back rose from the leaf litter and looked down at the pair. "Sstupid humanss, never lookssing where they are walkssing." It looked like it would slither off, but when it met Belldandy's eyes, it changed course and came closer. Underneath her, Keiichi stared at the snake, but remained still, much to her relief. Looking down its length, she noted that the tip of its tail appeared to be broken.

"What'ss thiss? A godessss with not powerss?" It said as it approached striking distance, which was still several feet away due to the serpent's length. Belldandy began to shift on top of Keiichi in order to shield him better, causing the snake to stop. "Oh, how darlingss. The goddessss protectss the humanss." It opened its mouth and stretched its inch-long fangs. When it closed, the goddess almost caught a hint of a smile as it focused on Keiichi's exposed arm and cocked its head to the side. "Maybess I should bitess him and putss him out of hiss missseriess. Goddessssessss can be ssso much- HEY! WAIT!"

A gigantic paw reached down and grabbed the snake by the neck, just below its head leaving no room for it to turn and bite. Above Belldandy and Keiichi, George lifted the snake up and raised it up so that he could look it in the eyes. "Belinda Crotalus Viridis, you leave them alone!"

"I wass jusst trying to havess a little fun!" croaked the snake. "I wassn't really going to bitess! Honesst!"

"Somehow I doubt that," replied the Sasquatch. He then tossed Belinda away and into the underbrush where she slithered away with nothing hurt other than her pride. George turned and regarded the couple, who were still on the ground below him, both looking up with dumbfounded expressions. The creature shrugged. "Don't mind her, she got caught by a bunch of religious nuts when she was young. They brought her back and all, but they hurt her tail to where she cannot grow her rattle no more." George turned and started to walk off before turning again and regarding the couple. "I know you two are an item and all, but could you at least keep it in your pants until we are done here. OK? OK."

It took the couple a second to realize what he said. When it finally dawned on them, Belldandy scrambled off Keiichi while he rolled away from the goddess. They ended up a couple of feet from each other. A moment later, Keiichi started to laugh, and Belldandy followed suit. "That was... awkward," said Keiichi and he got to his feet.

"Yes it was," replied the goddess as she also stood.

"I, kind of got the impression that snake was going to bite one of us. That's weird because I was told they usually run away from humans," inquired Keiichi as he started gathering his things.

Belldandy looked around and located the bag she had been carrying and opened it. Inside, the kitten was still asleep despite the commotion that had been occurring around him. "She noticed my lack of powers," said Belldandy as she carefully closed the bag. "It... made her curious."

Keiichi furrowed his brows in confusion. "How do you know that?"

"I... can understand snakes," replied the goddess after a moment's hesitation. "Living with Urd, you kind of have to."

The confusion on Keiichi's face only deepened. Belldandy was about to explain, but was interrupted before she could. "Come on people!" yelled George from somewhere down the trail. "More Walky! Less Kissy!"

"I'll explain later," said Belldandy with a smile.

Keiichi nodded and started down the path George had used, but then stopped and surprised Belldandy by grabbing her hand and squeezing it. "Thanks," he said. "Looks like we're even."

The dark-haired man released her hand and started to walk away, leaving the goddess stunned and with steadily reddening cheeks. It took her a moment to regain her composure. "Yes, today we are even," she said as she started after him.

"But I still have a long way to go overall."

XXX

It'd felt like he'd been stuck down there for days now. He'd slept a lot-passed out more likely-and his sense of time's passage was askew. With no sundial or equipment to display the time, he had only the ring of light above his head to judge the sun's passing. Sometimes when he awoke it remained a bright silver outline. Other times its light was dimmed. Sometimes it was nonexistent.

He'd stopped worrying about the demon after the first three times he'd passed out. Each time, he'd awoken, still alive and whole, with no sign of the demon having approached him while he was unconscious. Sometimes, when he cast his magic to check on his own condition he would spy her asleep as well, her face pallid and dotted with sweat in what he assumed was a fever. Sometimes a bleary violet eye would open and glare at him, and she would mutter and turn her back to him. Other times she snarled at him, rising to her feet only to collapse once more. It was apparent that she was in a worse state than he, and for that, he was grateful; had it been the opposite way around, his life would have very likely already been over.

Now, with great effort, he reached into one of his cargo pockets, withdrawing one of the magicked storage capsules that contained his water rations. The battlefield above had been a hot and scorching desert after the Aesir had pushed back the initial waves of demons, but though they'd been victorious, it come with a price, given the sudden and harsh change of the battlefield's climate. The Aesir were Northerners through and through, and though a couple of them had visited areas like Muspelheim, none of their training had prepared them for battle in such a miserably hot climate. Water capsules were handed out by the dozens to prevent soldiers from passing out in the heat, and Tyr found himself thankful that the cave he'd fallen into was so cool by comparison.

Still though...he'd gone through six of his own dozen before stepping on the mine. He needed to regulate what remained. His throat was dry though, and he hadn't drunk anything since the initial fall so...he punched down on the device, puncturing the tiny capsule and breaking the magical seal that compressed the water sack. The magic leaked out of the capsule in a long hiss, and at once he heard his 'friend' stir at the noise. A water bladder remained where once the capsule was, big enough and heavy enough that he needed to hold it with two hands. Unscrewing the rubber top, he brought the bladder to his lips and drank deeply, savoring the clear taste the water brought with it.

The demon was watching him when he finished. Her eyes glowed in the darkness, and it was the first time she'd openly stared at him without thought to hide the glow. He returned the look with equal curiosity as he screwed back on the rubber head, and then asked, "Do you have water?"

The woman grunted.

The man frowned, then hoisted the water bladder up for her to see. "Water." He said the word slowly, then pointed at the demon. "Do you have any?"

Another grunt, and with a sigh, the man lowered the bladder and called his personal magic back into existence. As had become ritual, the demon hissed as the light struck her eyes. The tone of it had changed though. Less of a 'I consider this an affront to my personal existence' as it was originally and more of a 'your light annoys me' tone. Tyr couldn't really blame her. After spending so much time in the dark, the fire in his hands was starting to hurt his eyes as well.

When the demon looked back at him he repeated the initial gesture, pointing to the bladder, saying 'water', and then gesturing to her. Again, the woman grunted, but this time she supplied it with gestures, something he'd missed in his blindness without the light. The woman pointed to the bladder in his hand, and then gestured to herself.

"You don't have any then?"

The woman stared at him.

Tyr sighed. Well, there went one water reserve. Demons didn't share. With a grunt of his own, he lobbed the bladder over to the demon, who flinched, then grabbed it and drew it close. She unscrewed the top, sniffed it, and then sent a sidelong look at Tyr. What is this? The look seemed to ask, before the woman took a small and cautious sip. Her eyes widened, and the demon made an exclamation in her native tongue. She pulled the bladder from her lips, looked at it, then looked at Tyr. "A'dug?!" She cried, and hoisted the bladder above her head. "A'dug?" She tapped the bladder with two fingers, then said another long sentence in Falken.

Tyr nodded. "Water." He repeated. "Water...A'doog?"

The demon stared at him and nodded. "A'dug," She repeated. "Wha-tar." She muttered beneath her breath, a scowl spreading across her lips as she stared down at the bladder, then back to Tyr. This time she first hefted the bag, then gestured to herself, "Ge Wha-tar?"

Tyr nodded, taken aback by the unexpected display of exhilaration. "It's yours." He said, "Ah...Falk-en A'doog?"

"Falkin A'dug." The demon repeated, staring down as if mystified by the water bladder. Perhaps she was. Aesir military intelligence and Vanir scholars hypothesized the reasons behind the Falkin invasion of Asgard had been for resources like streams and lakes due to how little water was in Niflheim itself. An irony: The Land of Mists, with few if any open water sources from which to form the mists.

"Ge Falkin," She gestured to herself, then pursed her lips. "Ge...Wha-tar."

Tyr stared. "What?"

The woman paused, seeing his confusion before scowling. "Ge Falkin." She repeated, slower this time before gesturing to Tyr. "Za Din'gir." The man recognized the Falken word for Aesir. Again she gestured to herself. "Ge Wha-tar." She repeated, and this time gesturing to Tyr began, "Za-"

"My name is Tyr." He interrupted the woman, and paid for it as the demon recoiled, snarling. The man flinched back, uncertain what offense he'd committed, and snarling in her native tongue the demon raised two fingers to her lips, falling silent as she patted the tips. The glare she cast him was strong enough to peel paint. "Na na na na na!" She rattled, shaking her head next and moving her hands to her ears. Another glower, and this time once more the demon repeated the odd phrase, "Ge Wha-tar." A gesture to herself. "Za A'dug." This time she pointed to Tyr directly, scrutinizing the man to see if he understood.

Tyr wasn't certain he did. "My name isn't water though." He said, and watched the demon's lips peel back in irritation. Her eyes flashed a heated red, different from the nocturnal green so often reflected by the light of his magic and more reminiscent of the demons the warrior faced on the battlefield above. Yet even as Tyr flinched away from the diabolical sight, the glow faded, and the woman sighed, her head thunking to the ground in such exaggerated weariness that Tyr felt a small smidgen of guilt. She muttered something, sending a half-lidded glare his way that seemed to question his intelligence, and with a moan began again. "Wha'tar." She thumbed toward herself. "A'dug." She pointed to Tyr.

The man frowned. "No, not 'A'doog'." He said. "Ty-" The woman clamped her hands over her ears, glaring at him miserably. Tyr stopped.

"A'dug." The demon repeated.

"...A'doog." Tyr repeated, this time gesturing to himself. The demon nodded. "A'doog. Me. You're-we're using fake names now?" He stared at her perplexed before realization struck him. "Wait, to protect each other?" He asked, "You want us to work together but want us to use fake names to protect each other's identity?"

The woman grunted.

Tyr stared. It was an ingenious idea, when he thought about it. Two injured enemy combatants with little hope of surviving on their own pairing up to help each other-if Tyr was correct in his assumption-and using false names-that of 'water', as the first item shared between them, to protect the identity of the other for when...if...they made it back to their separate sides. A presumptuous idea, to be sure, yet there was a spark cold intelligence in that woman's violet eyes, and Tyr found himself believing his own assumption in spite of the fact that there was little else to go by. "So... you scratch my back, I scratch yours?" He ventured, pointing between the two of them and, as an afterthought, adding, "Water?"

The demon smiled in delight, an action that lit up the entirety of her face in a way that was almost warm. Excited Falken flew from her lips, and still chatting amiably, she reached towards a leather bag Tyr hadn't noticed before and opened it, withdrawing something dark and vaguely tubular in shape. The woman held it up towards Tyr's light for him to see, and found it was a root of some sort in Water's hands. His gaze captured, the woman brought the root to her lips, took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. "Harub." She said, then offered it to him.

Tyr, his own curiosity getting the better of him, nodded, and watched in disbelief as the demon tossed the root in his direction. It landed less then a foot away from him, and Tyr looked between it and the woman in shock. "For me?" He asked, doubt thick in his voice. "You-a demon-you're giving this to me?!"

In response, the woman mimed biting. "Harub." She repeated.

"Hair-ub." Tyr sounded out, and earned another delighted smile from the demon. "Root." The man said in turn, and as he dragged himself towards the root, he heard the woman reply.

"Ru'ut."

"Good enough for the military." Tyr grunted, and then his left hand wrapped around the root. He drew it close and felt his hand start to burn, and paused, wondering if it was having an allergic reaction to the unknown root. The burning spread down his forearm, and the warrior hissed, dropping the root as he clutched his hand.

"Wha-tar?" He thought he heard the woman call in offering. "Wha'tar? Za Wha'tar Wonderbread?"

"Wonderbread, you okay? You need some water?" He felt a light pat on his shoulder, "Tyr? Odinson?" Hey, C'mon Boss, come back to me."

Tyr's eyes fluttered, and then the man grimaced as the voice in his memory grew masculine. "Wha'tar?" He slurred.

A female voice rose in the background "Do you want me to call a paramedic?" She sounded distant and indistinct. "Your friend doesn't look too good Mister. His hand is bleeding pretty badly."

"It's okay, it's just a small scrape." Aaja-that's who the voice belonged to, Aaja, called back to the woman. "He's okay, really, just had a bit too much exposure to the elements is all. You know how the tourists are this time a' year. They overestimate their abilities. He'll be fine once he gets some water in him.

"Are you sure?" The woman sounded unconvinced.

"Yep!" The man called, and in a lower voice to Tyr said, "C'mon Bud, lets get you up. You fainted in the middle of Hafez's waiting room."

"I did no such thing." Tyr tried to argue, "I just closed my eyes a moment." A pair of hands slipped under his arms. A moment later, and Tyr's world exploded into stars as he was lifted and then set down on a chair. When had he ended up on the floor? The pain in his left hand had grown to the point of excruciating, and it was all Tyr could do not to scream. He sucked in a sharp breath instead, biting down against the pain, and earned a worried look from Aaja.

"Me thinks you should let Hafez look at that hand a' yours." The man confessed. "He can fix it right, I think. Human forms ain't too different from animal forms, you know? And in the end humans are just another type a' animal." As if by magic, a plastic water bottle appeared in Aaja's hand, and unscrewing the cap the man offered it to Tyr. Tyr reached for it with his left hand, and Aaja jerked the bottle back. "Nah Bud, you ain't fooling me. Put your hand down."

With a grunt, Tyr complied with the Spirit's instructions. Aaja raised the water bottle to Tyr's lips, then tilted it back. The water wasted clear and cool, and Tyr drank deeply, somewhat surprised by how thirsty he was. After a moment, Aaja pulled the water back. "You drinking too fast Bud." He said, "You gotta slow down. You'll get yourself sick like that, given the shape you're in."

"I'm fine." Tyr said, and his voice was harsh enough to make both Aaja and himself wince.

"You sure don't sound like it." Aaja retorted, and then, after a moment said, "You're in shock, Odinson."

"Nonsense." Tyr dismissed the comment as if it were a bothersome fly. "I don't have time to be in shock."

"This coming from the man who passed out in a vet's clinic." Aaja sent him a flat look. Tyr held his silence. "Look, I know you're worried 'bout your girl, but you need help too. How long you been traveling with a busted hand? How long you been out in the elements? I've been watching you closely, and I hate to say it, but you got a shake, man. You're trembling like a wet cub in the snow, and you haven't had yourself checked out at all."

Tyr frowned. "While I appreciate your concern, I'd rather you saved it for your sister." He growled. "I'll worry about myself when I'm certain Urd is stable. Until then, I'll be fine."

Aaja took a seat beside him and leaned back into the plastic backing. "By the Great Sea, you're a stubborn mule." He muttered. "I've worked with donkeys that are more agreeable than you."

"I prefer the idea of having one's priorities sorted." Tyr retorted, sucking in a long breath and releasing it slowly. "Urd is my top priority right now, and once I know she's okay, I'll look into my own wounds."

"You won't be helping her or anybody if you don't look after yourself too, you know." Aaja sent him a sidelong glance.

Tyr returned it with a glare of his own. "I believe," He said slowly, "That you should be prioritizing your sister's well-being rather than my own."

Aaja looked at him with a start, then gave the god a pensive frown. "And there you go talking about stuff you don't understand again." He retorted.

"Then explain it to me." Tyr replied, "I admit that my understanding of your people and your culture is limited. So educate me. Make me understand, so that if nothing else I can stop wondering why a man like you would leave his sister in the back seat of his truck while he lets a stranger and his daughter receive treatment from a man touched with the Healing Spark."

Aaja scowled then, and it was a dark and angry look that Tyr had never seen worn by the man before. Just for a moment, the soft, friendly man who'd met Tyr in the middle of a snowbank with his daughter and a dying Valkyrie was gone, replaced by a perfect stranger that made Tyr's hackles rise. "And just why should I bother with a man like you? " He asked. "You introduced yourself to me as Daitenkaicho Tyr. Daitenkaicho. Ruler of Gods. Ruler of Asgard, the very land that has for centuries suppressed our people, where we are treated as deviants and rebels in border skirmishes rather than what we are: The Native people just trying to live out our lives in the borderlands you and Jotenheim refuse to acknowledge as separate territory." He hawked and almost spat, then seemed to remember his surroundings and thought better of it. "If you do not listen to us as one voice crying out for recognition, what hope would you have of listening to us as individual voices speaking on our culture and our traditions?" The man's watery eyes held a depth of hardness to them. "What hope would you have of realizing that I am not worried about my sister because I am not trying to save her? When you already hold the misconception that my sister, who has given her life to you foreigners, needs to be cared for, needs to be nursed back to health in a broken shell of a body that has a fucking hole the size of my fist in it?"

The Spirit scowled, and there was something painful in the act that made Tyr look away. "You are a people who glorify death and battle and conquest. Who believe the best death granted is the one found on a battlefield rather surrounded by your tribe where they can see your soul off to the next incarnation. Now you question why I spend no time caring for my sister, who taught me how to skin a seal and how to survive a blizzard while alone on the Tundra? Well then listen closely, Daitenkaicho. Keep your ears open and your mouth shut, and I will tell you."

The man gritted his teeth, and a moment of painful emotion overwhelmed his face. "Tanarak is dead, Odinson."

A sensation like ice punched him in the gut, and Tyr felt the color drain from his face. "She's what?"

"She was already dead by the time I met you." Aaja's voice had fallen into a quiet whisper. "And so now I am taking my elder sister home to be buried with the proper funeral rites, so that her soul may be free to reincarnate and join us again.

"How…?" Tyr's swallowed. His mouth felt suddenly too dry.

"How did she die or how did you not realize she had already departed?" Aaja demanded, and his voice was loud enough to cause the secretary behind the desk-the same one who'd voiced her concerns over Tyr, to look over at the two of them in concern. The spirit winced reflexively and lowered his voice. "You already know how Tanarak died: the hole in her chest, the exposure, the lack of proper medical care…roll some dice, pick a number, no matter what you choose the results are the same. And as for how you didn't realize it…" Here the man paused, taking a long breath before continuing. "You were both in too much shock to realize it. At least, that's what I want to believe."

Tyr drew in a slow, calming breath. "I made a promise to her." He whispered. "I asked her where she wanted to die. I was trying to bring her back to you." He grimaced. "Yggdrasil, when Urd finds out… she fought so hard to keep Lind… to keep Tanarak alive. This will-" He stopped himself, then turned to look at Aaja. "Forgive me, Aaja. Had I been a more capable man, perhaps I would have been able to keep her alive."

"Don't apologize." Aaja replied, looking at Tyr with an expression which alluded the god. "And…perhaps I was too harsh with you. You personally brought one of Chugach's children back to the homeland at great risk not only to yourself but to your daughter as well." He sighed, and looked away. "Your actions were sincere, though you no doubt knew nothing behind the intent of the action."

"I asked her where she wanted to die." Tyr whispered. "When I met her, she was already in death's shadow."

"And she said Chugach."

"Yes."

Aaja nodded, unsurprised. "Then know that you completed her dying wish. She didn't pass in Canada. I've wrapped her to keep her warm and safe, and when we return to Chugach the rest of our tribe will gather her and send her off. The Yakone is waiting to bear her away, and with her passing you will speak with Aja Sedna and the other Elders."

Tyr nodded, flexing the fingers that remained in his left hand. It hurt, but the pain kept him grounded, kept his mind from floating off in the wake of this new information.

Finally, he asked, "May I tell you a secret?"

Aaja furrowed his brows in confusion. "If you wish."

"I do." Tyr replied. "Especially after you—now that Tanarak has passed." He fell silent for a moment, staring out across the linoleum tiles that made up the clinic's floors. Tiny floral patterns had been painted onto the individual tiles, which were now faded with age and scraped away in some areas from the abuse of clawed paws or cloven hooves reluctant to visit the vet. "I have the Sight." Tyr confessed. "It is an ability that allows me to see a great many things. Futures that may be realized or may never be realized. Events which could happen today or in a thousand years or never at all."

"One time, as I was going about my business, the Sight enveloped me without any warning in a rift tide of possibility, and when I say that, I need you to understand that the images I saw were not of one possible future, not two possible futures, or three, or five, or ten or even twenty. When the rift tide enveloped me that day, I saw billions of possible futures, and it terrified me, Aaja. The consequences of seeing ten at a time is enough to make an untrained god mad, and here this rift tide came to me without my summoning and with no preparation on my part. I feared drowning in the depths, unable to return to my own mind and sanity. But I feared greater the future possibilities which so attempted to drown me, for in each and every one, two characters remained constant to me: a serpent of thunder and lightning and a bear of an icy tundra."

"In every vision that struck me, the serpent and the bear met. In every version, they battled. In every image, they warred with a rage so deep that it rattled the foundation of Midgard. Sometimes, the serpent came out victorious, the bear dead from the poison in its fangs. Other times, the bear came out as victor, the serpent torn to pieces at its feet. More often then not though, there was no victor, for when they dueled the serpent would bite the bear and poison it, and the bear would tear it to shreds before the poison succeeded in killing it." Tyr glanced at his companion, unsurprised to find Aaja listening with close intent, his face grave and thoughtful.

"When it finally released me, I realized the Sight had deemed it fit to warn me about a future that was impossible to prevent, for in all of those close kept possibilities not once did the Tundra Bear not meet the Storm serpent. Not once did your sister not meet my daughter, and become rivals. Enemies even. And so I took it upon myself to watch for it, to search for anyone who interacted with my daughter and might fit the description of the Tundra Bear I began to worry over." He snorted. "Yet in my efforts at foresight, I neglected to think of Valkyries. Valkyries, of whom close to half are made up of foreign gods and spirits searching for Asgardian citizenship. Valkyries, who as a means of tricking our Niflheimian enemies came up with the strategy of sharing names, so that at any time there might be five 'Linds' or twenty 'Rotas' or sixteen 'Skulds', the last of which my youngest daughter shares, a name bestowed by luck and out of honor for a Valkyrie who once sacrificed her life for me when I still served. I neglected to see the Tundra Bear who had been assigned to monitor my daughter's attempts at defying her younger sister's non-contact order, for at the time I had suspected my middle coerced by demons but was unable to prove it. I had need back then of a Valkyrie who would not be taken from her standard duties to watch my little storm serpent because it was my belief that, if anyone would find a way to Belldandy, it was Urd. I had spoken to Lind's… Tanarak's leadership, and had learned that she was still recovering from a trauma that left her unfit for deployments or traditional Valkyrie duties."

"Yet in my own foolishness… in my own concern over Belldandy, in my own confidence in the capability of this lone Valkyrie, I took it all at face value. I did no further research, and indeed, indeed, to a certain extent, dehumanized the entire situation in my mind, as would any general setting about his pawns to conquer a kingdom and knowing that some would be sacrificed for the greater good. My concern was saved for my middle daughter and seeing to her freedom, while in the process arranging for the discovery of what I feared most: demon influence that had led to the imprisonment of one of my own children."

Tyr sighed, glaring down at the tile with heated blue eyes. "In my own idiocy, I arranged the very meeting I had previously fought so hard to prevent."

Aaja remained silent for a long time, his expression aa careful neutral as he digested the god's words. Finally he said, "Tanarak and your daughter were not enemies, though."

"No," Tyr agreed, "They are…were not." Another moment of thoughtful silence was shared between the two, and then Tyr sighed, looking down at his bandaged left hand and the stump of his right in disdain. Licking his lips, he continued.

"In all the visions I saw of Urd and Tanarak's meeting…every millions of billions of visions…the serpent killing the bear, the bear killing the serpent, them both falling to each other… in all of my time in that rift tide of madness, for I assure you, seeing your own daughter die time and time again in so many ways will drive any father insane… in all those instances, there were but four times in which the outcome was different. Four times in billions: One where the two never met. One where they met but held no exchanges. One where they quarreled but became neither rivals nor enemies. And one lone, lone vision where they found not hatred in their differences but camaraderie instead."

"One vision out of billions, Aaja. Never in my life would I have thought that the odds would so…perfectly go against the design of fate. One instant, one chance, and what it led to was the defeat of an Ultimate Destruction Program that would have destroyed Midgard. Would have destroyed Canada, and this very clinic that even now is treating my daughter, whom I fear still suffers from the wounds of not only that battle, but the one that awaited her upon her return to Asgard."

"And so I want you to know, Aaja, that while I may not have listened to the One Voice of your people before…while past Daitenkaichos may have suppressed your people and denied your claim to a land you have held for so long, that out of respect for this strange and dare I say miraculous friendship born between my daughter and your sister, I am willing to listen."

Aaja was silent for a long moment, his face scrunched up in a scowl as he considered Tyr's words. Tyr's gaze never left the young man's face, though he could hear Hafez's voice drawing near as the mortal approached them. He watched Aaja's brow furrow, his gaze long and distant before coming to an abrupt focus as Hafez approached. A part of Tyr, the Father, not the Diplomat, was desperate to turn and see the mortal, impatient to learn his daughter's status.

Yet Tyr was nothing if not disciplined, and though Hafez approached he made no rush to interrupt to two otherworldly entities, and so Tyr maintained his attention on Aaja. He watched as the spirit furrowed his brow, pursed his lips, scrunched his nose before finally closing his eye with a resigned sigh. "You say you will listen?" The man asked, "Then prove it to me. Hafez, who I see as a close and dear personal friend to me, stands beside you. Let him look at your hand."

It was only now that Tyr acknowledged the mortal who'd come to wait patiently beside him, moved just enough behind and away from Try so as to give the god and spirit a bit of privacy without interrupting them. The look on the poor man's face was both surprised and objective, and before Tyr had the chance to voice his mind Hafez already began protesting, "No… no no no!" The man cried. "I am not a doctor, I am a vet! I cannot treat such injuries!"

"You are a doctor of animals." Aaja replied, "And more importantly, a doctor of spirits. You can treat Odinson."

Tyr ignored him. "How is Urd?"

The man grimaced, sending a glare to Aaja before looking back at Tyr. "I have disinfected her wounds and stitched them up." He said, "There is a bad infection in two of the wounds-the bites-and so I have put her on antibiotics to clear it up." He hesitated a moment, looked at Aaja, and then back at Tyr. "I have used antibiotics on jinn before and have never had any issues. It is my hope that this time will be no different."

"Hafez can apply medicines from this physical plane and apply them to the spiritual plane." Aaja explained.

"I do not know how I do it." Hafez said.

"He doesn't know how he does it." Aaja echoed.

"Continue." Tyr said.

"I did some additional examinations on her as well and have found that she is worryingly malnourished." Hafez continued, "I fear it may be the reason the infection from the bites took so easily. What has her diet been?"

"Snow." Tyr replied with a shrug cast more in anger rather than indifference. "I was unable to get her to eat any of the food offered to us on our journey."

"And what kind of food was this, if I may pry?"

Tyr pursed his lips. "Jerky mostly." He said. "Seal, caribou-" He looked over at Aaja, "Sorry," Aaja waved him off, "cooked fish, deer, moose…"

"And these were whole animals?"

"No. They were mostly strips of meat. A roasted salmon, on one occasion."

Hafez hummed under his breath, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Nothing whole though." He stated.

"Nothing whole." Tyr agreed. "Except the fish, which Urd on principle refuses to eat. Fish are not a part of her diet."

"Yes, yes, it is only the rare snake that feasts on fish." Hafez agreed, "And have you considered this aspect? That she is…that she may have diet constraints like that of a snake, as her appearance is one of a serpent?"

"Diet constraints." Tyr stared at Hafez as if he'd grown another head.

Hafez raised his hands. "I mean no offense, Abn'Awdyn," He said, "I will be the first to admit to you that my knowledge in all of this is rudimentary, at best."

Tyr didn't hear him. "Diet constraints." Something about that term sent out a spark of recognition deep within his brain. "Diet constraints." Urd was not allowed to have fish due to her connection to Niflheim. Yet there was more. Due to…Yggdrasil, what had it been. Some past event, something that had led her and Skuld to-

All at once the man grimaced. "Ah." He said. "I remember now. Urd stopped eating meat three years ago."

"Stopped eating…" Hafez stared at Tyr in open disbelief. Even Aaja was staring at him in confusion. "She is a serpent though." The mortal continued. "Why would she…"

"She would not elaborate." Tyr replied. "Not her or her youngest sister, Skuld, either. It was as if one day they awakened repulsed by the thought of meat."

"And there was no explanation." Hafez prompted, "Nothing to explain… she was not bitten by say, a tick, or had fallen sick from bad meat or…anything?"

Here Tyr paused, looking at Hafez with fresh consideration. "She had fallen ill." He said. "Gravely ill; the last time I saw a person so ill they were on their death bed. She recovered eventually, but afterwards…she would not touch any meat." The god pursed his lips. "She and Skuld both…" He trailed off, turning the thought over and over in his mind. Skuld had shown none of the same symptoms as Urd throughout the time Urd had been ill, and then, one day they had both announced that-

"Will she eat anything else? Eggs at least?" Hafez pressed.

"Eggs." He abandoned his trail of thought, and then looked at Hafez in surprise. "Yes, Urd will eat eggs. It has always been a favored food of hers."

Hafez pursed his lips. "So she once ate meat but not will not… when she is stronger, I recommend providing her eggs as a meal. I have a drip attached to her right now to replace the nutrients and calories she lacks, but if you will allow me an observation, I do not believe you wish your child to stay here overnight."

"You would be correct." Said Tyr.

"I can stop at the grocery here in town and pick up a half-dozen eggs." Aaja spoke up. "There's one a five minute walk from here. I can go and grab some while you give the pups their shots or," He directed an imploring glare at both Tyr and Hafez, "while you take a look at Odinson's hand."

"You will not let up on this, will you, Son of a Boot?" Hafez asked.

"You heal Spirits." Aaja replied, "or Djinn, if that's your term. Odinson here is just as much one as I am or the girl you worked on or the pups you still need to give shots to." Hafez sighed, and Aaja looked at Tyr, "Your girl is stable now, right?" He said. "You heard it from the good doctor here yourself-all cleaned up, stitched up, and wrapped up. She's safe now, got some antibiotics in her, and ought to be on the road to recovery now. You don't have any excuses now, so how about showing Hafez the damage to your hand?"

Tyr and Hafez glowered at Aaja for a long moment. The man, apparently immune to glares from both mortals and gods, did nothing outside of smile. It was Hafez who gave in first. "If you would, please come with me, Abn'Awdyn." He said, "I will show you your child, and then I will look at your hand." Under his breath, more to himself rather than Tyr, the veterinarian muttered, "He will need stitches if he lost a finger… I do not have any painkillers suitable for a man… would it be wise to give a jinn disguised as a man painkillers designed for animals?" The man began to walk towards the back of the clinic, still muttering to himself. Tyr, with a final glance at Aaja, looked down at his left hand, stood, and followed after the vet.

The next hour would be a painful one for the Daitenkaicho.