I had a dream, one of a unique kind. In a room of nothingness there were two people. Both were me. One represented the old me, the other was the new me; the face I had seen in the pond. The new me resembled the old me, but was upgraded from a less than handsome mortal to a, well, 'divine' entity. For starters, while I weighed about 93 Kg, the new one barely reached 71 Kg. The height was about the same, but with the increase of hair the new one seemed taller. As noted my hair had increased in volume and there was no sign anymore of premature balding as all males in my family suffer. The face was devoid of pimples and the three small scars and the one big scar I normally had on the front of my head. Instead on the front of my head there was a blue mark, I was pleased that it is my personal symbol, some know, the Unity Sigma. Basically it's the Greek letter Sigma, which resembles an E, but my version had been toppled over to resemble an M and was flattened. To me it has several reasons why this symbol is my personal one. First it resembles the M of my name, when upright it resembles the E of my nickname Eucep and in mathematics it stands for the sum of numbers, which is an equation version of my motto 'together we are strong'. I took a note then that my hair hadn't only grown a lot longer, it reaches my butt for crying out loud, it also had darkened to near black. The rest of the body was in fine health, even those scars due to life long overweight I had weren't there anymore. It also appeared that other physical problems I had were gone. My eyes remained grey-green and later I learned that I no longer needed glasses.
The new me disappeared and the old me looked at me. He spoke in a voice I didn't know yet, "Don't worry, in time you will be capable of calling me back." And he too vanished.
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I woke up looking up at a girl I didn't know, tough she had markings like Skuld.
As a guess I said when I woke up. "You're probably Urd." I grinned and she giggled.
"No, I'm Belldandy, Skuld called me over when she couldn't wake you up." She was loveliness personified.
I looked around and saw my mom talking with Skuld and my dad was sitting next to me. I never before had seen him so worried.
It took about two hours to explain to my mom and dad what had happened and what the results were, even if I myself didn't really know the latter. When I got back up on my feet I noticed something new: Dad was a bit taller than me, while I should be about a feet taller than him. This I hadn't noticed in the dream.
"Whaaat happened!? I've shrunk!" My wild-eyed face would probably even have scared Thor at that moment.
Skuld came up to me, she was more focused on her fingers, not wanting to look into my face. "Well, you remember the wish. I think it has been taken a bit more literal than normal. You have been reduced to my physical age." I could almost fall back into unconsciousness at that point. "Don't worry, you'll grow up again." Whispering "Even if it will take a few thousand years." That really made me feel better, yeah right.
"Skuld, Marc, we have to go. Kami-sama wants to speak with us." Belldandy looked apologetic at my parents.
"Dami-who?" My dad asked. He isn't used to any other religion than Christian faith and a bit of Islamite faith due to our Turkish neighbourhood friends.
"Kami-sama dad, it's an oriental name for the highest god, God himself, Odin or Wotan for those of Scandinavian faith, Allah for Islamites, Brahman for Hindus. HIM." I thought for a moment. "Or is it HER, you two should know."
"Both, Kami-sama can be what he or she wants to be." Belldandy smiles. "But we have to leave now, it was my pleasure to meet you two."
"Bye, I hope I'll see you two soon." And I followed Belldandy as she walked into the hallway. There she stopped before the mirror there. She held out her hand and I and Skuld took it. The next thing I know is that I had this weird feeling of well, water around me when we fell through the mirror.
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At the end of this ride I fell on some kind of soft marble. Yeah, I do mean the stone marble, but as soft as if walking on long grass. I looked up in some kind of open hallway loaded with statues of various people and paintings of many of histories most important moments, only they looked so life-like that I wasn't sure that they were statues and paintings. Though most of the images were really unknown to me, either by not knowing what historical facts that had happened, but others were just alien looking, not from earth. At the end of the hallway there was a big door made out of plain oak wood.
"Let me guess. The head office of HIM?" I looked up at Belldandy and was amazed at how she had transformed from common clothing to a very elaborate dress of white and blue. Besides that she floating, just like Skuld was doing. Skuld seemed a bit more confident when I looked at her face. Yup, had to be her home sweet home. Two beautifully dressed woman, and a guy in jeans. Not the way I expected to meet the maker.
Belldandy nodded to my question. "You are expected, Skuld too."
So both of us went in to meet with Kami-sama.
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When I saw Kami-sama, I was sure that he had overheard my question about the him/her thing. For the human in front of me was beautiful and androgynous and was smiling at me. Yes Kami-sama loves subtle practical jokes.
"It seems that my daughter has gotten herself and you into a bit of a problem." The daughter part sank in rapidly, made me wonder if there isn't any god not directly related to the creator.
"Oh Lord. Let's rephrase that, she totally messed up my life. For better or worse is still to be proven." Skuld was now giving me the eye like 'as if it's all my fault'. "So what exactly has happened, did she turn me into a god or something?"
"No, you are not a god. To fulfill the task of debugging assistant you have been changed into a spirit of the level of an angel."
"ANGEL!" I had to look up whether I would see a halo and at my back for wings. There weren't any.
"Your wings aren't present, I'll reveal them to you." He waved with his hands (I refer to HIM for reading convenience). At that moment I felt as if I had gained two extra arms on my back and the sides of my head felt more weighted. I quickly had to balance myself by grabbing onto the desk.
"EEEKKK, he, he, is no angel, he is a devil." Skuld wailed and ran away from me.
I looked around again and saw no feathery white wings, but skin colored bat wings. My reflection on the smooth marble floor showed that the wings were really huge, large enough to allow true physical flight. Just above my ears I saw small backwards pointing silver colored horns. I could agree with Skuld, I didn't look divine indeed, but demonic. I looked at Him for an answer. I felt a tap to my ankle and looked down to see a long tail as well which had come out as well, strangely not ripping my clothing, it was like a lizards, but without scales.
"Ahem, apparently your own mind does not see angels as the true celestial heralds, it appears you regard dragons to be higher beings than angels. As thus your sub consciousness turned you into a dragon instead of an angel." He smiled and laughed. "It's really a thing that happens only to someone like Skuld, rebellious even with this."
"Can he breath fire then?" Skuld now walked around me, curious as she had not seen that many dragons before I later learned. And none of them were friendly.
"I do not know if I can breath fire, personally I really don't hope so. Eh, could I change back, to a more human form?"
A quick lesson in shape changing learned me how to transform into a dragon-man form at will, well make that more like Snap fingers and code in the knowledge. Then Kami-sama continued.
"You are hereby apprenticed to Skuld, she will teach you about debugging and the ways of heaven. Belldandy and Urd will teach you how to call upon magic and other spirits."
Skulds eyes widened. "Not Urd, please. She'll turn him into a second spell casting disaster." She really looked scared, was Urd that bad? Well I knew from legend that Urd was more a warrior than a spell caster.
"You can leave now." We left, not wanting to question the most supreme being in the universe, both quite shocked.
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Outside the room Belldandy was waiting for us together with a dark-skinned woman of untold beauty. But then I started to come back upon those thoughts. My mind started to revert back from adult to adolescent. No, beauty wasn't the word, more the ultimate sexual fantasy. I got kicked from behind and fell to the floor.
Skuld growled. "Boys!" I actually had been drooling at the sight of Skulds sister Urd.
"And who turned me into a 'boy' in the first place!" I really was starting to act like a youngster again.
"Will you two quit it. Well, you must be Marc. I'm Skulds sister Urd." I made the gesture of dusting off my clothing, I still wore my old raggy clothing, which was too large for me. "Let's get your assistant some better suited garb and equipment Skuld, come along." And she walked away, a huge grin on her face. Both me and Skuld were fuming with her haughty behavior.
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The sight of heaven is simply put to unearthly to describe, lets just say it looks really pretty and is a bit confusing as flight is something all deities use freely. As such all things there are more three dimensional there. I must say that after a year I still don't like it, even tough I can fly it uses a lot of energy, unlike the gods and goddesses I have to use physical flight instead of magical flight. I will note that this is the description from someone looking as a human does, I wasn't able to see beyond that yet. When I later on learned to see more, the sight was even more impressive.
Eventually I got introduced to one of the Japanese goddesses, Amaterasu. She is the one who creates all the clothing for the powers. A really nice person who exactly knows what looks good on a person. She also knew very well what would be very appropriate for me. She gave me something that resembled Skulds divine garb, but mine had trousers instead of a skirt and the red was purple and the pink was lavender. The boots were more like soldiers boots and were interwoven with the trousers. Where on Skulds clothing there were half orbs, I had none. Luckily she didn't pass me any of the jewelry Skuld wore.
The next stop was at Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge. Like the legends say he is indeed malformed, but not as bad as they describe. He actually looked better than I did as a mortal, but apparently this was an illusion. I was glad tough that his wife, Aphrodite, wasn't along for two reasons. One, my juvenile mind would go bunkers. Two, according to Haephaestos she would have insisted that my hammer would be pink or something similar silly.
After that we told him that we needed a debugging hammer he asked how all this came to be (and many others afterward asked me too). Urd showed him what had happened using her 'past' powers. As he saw the event of my first indirect debugging Hephaestus got the inspiration he needed.
About ten minutes later (he is VERY fast), he came back with something that resembled a slightly enlarged version of the sledgehammer that I used to clobber the bug. Only this one was purple like my clothing and made out of some sort of steel. In general it looked like Skulds hammer blown out of proportions. When I took it I noted it to weigh about half that of the original so it was a lot faster.
We took some time to talk some about my current status, but Skuld really wanted to go, she wasn't to comfortable with her 'screwup'. So we soon left the forgeroom and headed out.
After a while of walking we would go through the norse area of where the powers that be live to be able to get to a place to safely head back to earth.
Unfortunately this was also the point where I met Thor. God of thunder, the god with a pet hammer called Mjolnir who was on his way to work at the forgeroom on plans for his new armor he'd use for some kind of games soon to come. And he wasn't so glad to see someone with a bigger hammer than him. He dashed towards us and looked sternly at me, a 'kid' with a hammer larger than the kid himself.
Thor, envision a guy wrapped in way to much skins of various kinds of deer, sporting a short red beard and moustage and the face of 'annoy me, make my day'. Add to that huge muscles and pants of black leather. "Who is this shrimp?"
"Oh, hia Thor, this is Marc, he is my apprentice."
I had a good clue due to his name why he was displeased so I made the notion of being unstable while trying to lift the hammer, which wasn't true as I could handle the hammer with the biggest of ease. "Uhm, hello. Are you a relative of my boss?" Skuld blushed at the title I gave her.
"Apprentice ehy, this little twerp, he's no god that I know about."
Belldandy laid her hand on Thors shoulder. "He's no god, he's an independent spirit angel appointed to Skuld."
I had to correct her. "I'm no angel Belldandy, I'm a dragon. Didn't Kami-sama inform you?" And I revealed my wings.
Of course I didn't know that Thor isn't that fond of scaly folk, especially worms to which dragons are related. That due to Nidghog chewing on Yggdrassils roots I saw him turning red so I changed back immediately. He was still turning red so I decided that 'RUN' was a good action.
I got away for a bit, but he threw Mjolnir after me. The Norns couldn't stop him at all, so they cried out that I should duck. Something in my mind told me not to do so, so I didn't. I turned around and grabbed Mjolnir out of the air and thus stopped it from hitting me. Even tough it crackled a bit with electricity I didn't feel a thing of it. I swore that I could hear jaws drop. I looked at a wild-eyed Thor, a smiling Belldandy, a proud Skuld and a confused Urd.
"Impossible." The only thing Thor could say.
I looked at the hammer and realized what I had done. What I knew from legend it took the strength of a giant to lift Mjolnir. Thor himself used an enchanted belt to be strong enough to lift Mjolnir (which looks at the moment like a simple belt with a Harley Davidson symbol on it). And I was lifting it without any trouble at all. Besides that, anyone who is an enemy of Odin's pantheon will get zapped by the hammer if he wields it.
I walked back and handed Thor his hammer back. "Are you now convinced that I have no bad intend?"
"A KID holding my hammer, and a dragon at that?" His face twitched a bit, once again giving me the instinctive feeling of RUN.
"Hold it right there you, you're not going to throw that piece of junk at that kid again!" A woman's voice thundered.
"Hi Sif." Skuld smiled at the wife of Thor, a beautiful gold haired woman.
"Uhm, hi honny. But, but, Mjolnir isn't junk." His voice reminded me of a mouse now. It appeared that the younger form I had now had saved me.
Sif walked over to the Norns and gave all of them a big hug. Yep friendly type. And then she walked over to me. "And you are?"
"Marc, I'm Skulds debugging assistant. At least that is what Skuld wished for." I looked down now. "I hope I can live up to that task." It was only later that I started to wonder why I had accepted my fate so fast. As far as I now know it's because the one who made the wish was a goddess of fate and this was part of my fate.
After this we went back to earth, the Norns decided that my study should start on earth.
The new me disappeared and the old me looked at me. He spoke in a voice I didn't know yet, "Don't worry, in time you will be capable of calling me back." And he too vanished.
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I woke up looking up at a girl I didn't know, tough she had markings like Skuld.
As a guess I said when I woke up. "You're probably Urd." I grinned and she giggled.
"No, I'm Belldandy, Skuld called me over when she couldn't wake you up." She was loveliness personified.
I looked around and saw my mom talking with Skuld and my dad was sitting next to me. I never before had seen him so worried.
It took about two hours to explain to my mom and dad what had happened and what the results were, even if I myself didn't really know the latter. When I got back up on my feet I noticed something new: Dad was a bit taller than me, while I should be about a feet taller than him. This I hadn't noticed in the dream.
"Whaaat happened!? I've shrunk!" My wild-eyed face would probably even have scared Thor at that moment.
Skuld came up to me, she was more focused on her fingers, not wanting to look into my face. "Well, you remember the wish. I think it has been taken a bit more literal than normal. You have been reduced to my physical age." I could almost fall back into unconsciousness at that point. "Don't worry, you'll grow up again." Whispering "Even if it will take a few thousand years." That really made me feel better, yeah right.
"Skuld, Marc, we have to go. Kami-sama wants to speak with us." Belldandy looked apologetic at my parents.
"Dami-who?" My dad asked. He isn't used to any other religion than Christian faith and a bit of Islamite faith due to our Turkish neighbourhood friends.
"Kami-sama dad, it's an oriental name for the highest god, God himself, Odin or Wotan for those of Scandinavian faith, Allah for Islamites, Brahman for Hindus. HIM." I thought for a moment. "Or is it HER, you two should know."
"Both, Kami-sama can be what he or she wants to be." Belldandy smiles. "But we have to leave now, it was my pleasure to meet you two."
"Bye, I hope I'll see you two soon." And I followed Belldandy as she walked into the hallway. There she stopped before the mirror there. She held out her hand and I and Skuld took it. The next thing I know is that I had this weird feeling of well, water around me when we fell through the mirror.
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At the end of this ride I fell on some kind of soft marble. Yeah, I do mean the stone marble, but as soft as if walking on long grass. I looked up in some kind of open hallway loaded with statues of various people and paintings of many of histories most important moments, only they looked so life-like that I wasn't sure that they were statues and paintings. Though most of the images were really unknown to me, either by not knowing what historical facts that had happened, but others were just alien looking, not from earth. At the end of the hallway there was a big door made out of plain oak wood.
"Let me guess. The head office of HIM?" I looked up at Belldandy and was amazed at how she had transformed from common clothing to a very elaborate dress of white and blue. Besides that she floating, just like Skuld was doing. Skuld seemed a bit more confident when I looked at her face. Yup, had to be her home sweet home. Two beautifully dressed woman, and a guy in jeans. Not the way I expected to meet the maker.
Belldandy nodded to my question. "You are expected, Skuld too."
So both of us went in to meet with Kami-sama.
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When I saw Kami-sama, I was sure that he had overheard my question about the him/her thing. For the human in front of me was beautiful and androgynous and was smiling at me. Yes Kami-sama loves subtle practical jokes.
"It seems that my daughter has gotten herself and you into a bit of a problem." The daughter part sank in rapidly, made me wonder if there isn't any god not directly related to the creator.
"Oh Lord. Let's rephrase that, she totally messed up my life. For better or worse is still to be proven." Skuld was now giving me the eye like 'as if it's all my fault'. "So what exactly has happened, did she turn me into a god or something?"
"No, you are not a god. To fulfill the task of debugging assistant you have been changed into a spirit of the level of an angel."
"ANGEL!" I had to look up whether I would see a halo and at my back for wings. There weren't any.
"Your wings aren't present, I'll reveal them to you." He waved with his hands (I refer to HIM for reading convenience). At that moment I felt as if I had gained two extra arms on my back and the sides of my head felt more weighted. I quickly had to balance myself by grabbing onto the desk.
"EEEKKK, he, he, is no angel, he is a devil." Skuld wailed and ran away from me.
I looked around again and saw no feathery white wings, but skin colored bat wings. My reflection on the smooth marble floor showed that the wings were really huge, large enough to allow true physical flight. Just above my ears I saw small backwards pointing silver colored horns. I could agree with Skuld, I didn't look divine indeed, but demonic. I looked at Him for an answer. I felt a tap to my ankle and looked down to see a long tail as well which had come out as well, strangely not ripping my clothing, it was like a lizards, but without scales.
"Ahem, apparently your own mind does not see angels as the true celestial heralds, it appears you regard dragons to be higher beings than angels. As thus your sub consciousness turned you into a dragon instead of an angel." He smiled and laughed. "It's really a thing that happens only to someone like Skuld, rebellious even with this."
"Can he breath fire then?" Skuld now walked around me, curious as she had not seen that many dragons before I later learned. And none of them were friendly.
"I do not know if I can breath fire, personally I really don't hope so. Eh, could I change back, to a more human form?"
A quick lesson in shape changing learned me how to transform into a dragon-man form at will, well make that more like Snap fingers and code in the knowledge. Then Kami-sama continued.
"You are hereby apprenticed to Skuld, she will teach you about debugging and the ways of heaven. Belldandy and Urd will teach you how to call upon magic and other spirits."
Skulds eyes widened. "Not Urd, please. She'll turn him into a second spell casting disaster." She really looked scared, was Urd that bad? Well I knew from legend that Urd was more a warrior than a spell caster.
"You can leave now." We left, not wanting to question the most supreme being in the universe, both quite shocked.
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Outside the room Belldandy was waiting for us together with a dark-skinned woman of untold beauty. But then I started to come back upon those thoughts. My mind started to revert back from adult to adolescent. No, beauty wasn't the word, more the ultimate sexual fantasy. I got kicked from behind and fell to the floor.
Skuld growled. "Boys!" I actually had been drooling at the sight of Skulds sister Urd.
"And who turned me into a 'boy' in the first place!" I really was starting to act like a youngster again.
"Will you two quit it. Well, you must be Marc. I'm Skulds sister Urd." I made the gesture of dusting off my clothing, I still wore my old raggy clothing, which was too large for me. "Let's get your assistant some better suited garb and equipment Skuld, come along." And she walked away, a huge grin on her face. Both me and Skuld were fuming with her haughty behavior.
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The sight of heaven is simply put to unearthly to describe, lets just say it looks really pretty and is a bit confusing as flight is something all deities use freely. As such all things there are more three dimensional there. I must say that after a year I still don't like it, even tough I can fly it uses a lot of energy, unlike the gods and goddesses I have to use physical flight instead of magical flight. I will note that this is the description from someone looking as a human does, I wasn't able to see beyond that yet. When I later on learned to see more, the sight was even more impressive.
Eventually I got introduced to one of the Japanese goddesses, Amaterasu. She is the one who creates all the clothing for the powers. A really nice person who exactly knows what looks good on a person. She also knew very well what would be very appropriate for me. She gave me something that resembled Skulds divine garb, but mine had trousers instead of a skirt and the red was purple and the pink was lavender. The boots were more like soldiers boots and were interwoven with the trousers. Where on Skulds clothing there were half orbs, I had none. Luckily she didn't pass me any of the jewelry Skuld wore.
The next stop was at Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge. Like the legends say he is indeed malformed, but not as bad as they describe. He actually looked better than I did as a mortal, but apparently this was an illusion. I was glad tough that his wife, Aphrodite, wasn't along for two reasons. One, my juvenile mind would go bunkers. Two, according to Haephaestos she would have insisted that my hammer would be pink or something similar silly.
After that we told him that we needed a debugging hammer he asked how all this came to be (and many others afterward asked me too). Urd showed him what had happened using her 'past' powers. As he saw the event of my first indirect debugging Hephaestus got the inspiration he needed.
About ten minutes later (he is VERY fast), he came back with something that resembled a slightly enlarged version of the sledgehammer that I used to clobber the bug. Only this one was purple like my clothing and made out of some sort of steel. In general it looked like Skulds hammer blown out of proportions. When I took it I noted it to weigh about half that of the original so it was a lot faster.
We took some time to talk some about my current status, but Skuld really wanted to go, she wasn't to comfortable with her 'screwup'. So we soon left the forgeroom and headed out.
After a while of walking we would go through the norse area of where the powers that be live to be able to get to a place to safely head back to earth.
Unfortunately this was also the point where I met Thor. God of thunder, the god with a pet hammer called Mjolnir who was on his way to work at the forgeroom on plans for his new armor he'd use for some kind of games soon to come. And he wasn't so glad to see someone with a bigger hammer than him. He dashed towards us and looked sternly at me, a 'kid' with a hammer larger than the kid himself.
Thor, envision a guy wrapped in way to much skins of various kinds of deer, sporting a short red beard and moustage and the face of 'annoy me, make my day'. Add to that huge muscles and pants of black leather. "Who is this shrimp?"
"Oh, hia Thor, this is Marc, he is my apprentice."
I had a good clue due to his name why he was displeased so I made the notion of being unstable while trying to lift the hammer, which wasn't true as I could handle the hammer with the biggest of ease. "Uhm, hello. Are you a relative of my boss?" Skuld blushed at the title I gave her.
"Apprentice ehy, this little twerp, he's no god that I know about."
Belldandy laid her hand on Thors shoulder. "He's no god, he's an independent spirit angel appointed to Skuld."
I had to correct her. "I'm no angel Belldandy, I'm a dragon. Didn't Kami-sama inform you?" And I revealed my wings.
Of course I didn't know that Thor isn't that fond of scaly folk, especially worms to which dragons are related. That due to Nidghog chewing on Yggdrassils roots I saw him turning red so I changed back immediately. He was still turning red so I decided that 'RUN' was a good action.
I got away for a bit, but he threw Mjolnir after me. The Norns couldn't stop him at all, so they cried out that I should duck. Something in my mind told me not to do so, so I didn't. I turned around and grabbed Mjolnir out of the air and thus stopped it from hitting me. Even tough it crackled a bit with electricity I didn't feel a thing of it. I swore that I could hear jaws drop. I looked at a wild-eyed Thor, a smiling Belldandy, a proud Skuld and a confused Urd.
"Impossible." The only thing Thor could say.
I looked at the hammer and realized what I had done. What I knew from legend it took the strength of a giant to lift Mjolnir. Thor himself used an enchanted belt to be strong enough to lift Mjolnir (which looks at the moment like a simple belt with a Harley Davidson symbol on it). And I was lifting it without any trouble at all. Besides that, anyone who is an enemy of Odin's pantheon will get zapped by the hammer if he wields it.
I walked back and handed Thor his hammer back. "Are you now convinced that I have no bad intend?"
"A KID holding my hammer, and a dragon at that?" His face twitched a bit, once again giving me the instinctive feeling of RUN.
"Hold it right there you, you're not going to throw that piece of junk at that kid again!" A woman's voice thundered.
"Hi Sif." Skuld smiled at the wife of Thor, a beautiful gold haired woman.
"Uhm, hi honny. But, but, Mjolnir isn't junk." His voice reminded me of a mouse now. It appeared that the younger form I had now had saved me.
Sif walked over to the Norns and gave all of them a big hug. Yep friendly type. And then she walked over to me. "And you are?"
"Marc, I'm Skulds debugging assistant. At least that is what Skuld wished for." I looked down now. "I hope I can live up to that task." It was only later that I started to wonder why I had accepted my fate so fast. As far as I now know it's because the one who made the wish was a goddess of fate and this was part of my fate.
After this we went back to earth, the Norns decided that my study should start on earth.