Author's Note: I own nothing of the Ragnarok series. I think the most I own are books one through eleven that have come out in the stores… I'm just waiting for number twelve. Waiting for what seems an eternity… blah blah blah. Many thanks to yra for calling me a dork when I need it and when I say I like your story (:p ) and to Triggerhappy Sniper. I like reviews, and I'm just wondering who Sara needs later on in the story… I'm just not sure that Chaos is the right person. We'll have to see how it goes; maybe she will steal him away from her sister eventually. But anyways, there is some Norwegian in this chapter. The grammar's probably not right and I'm sorry, but I provide translations, so bear with me.

Chapter 6: Power Sparkle

Deliyyja sat there after her reminiscing for a while, massaging her own head, just thinking. Think, think, think, she ordered herself. How do I make Sara believe me? That girl is just so stubborn about some things! She stood up and paced around the brightly colored room.

"Aope." The bird flew to her quickly, anticipating an errand. She held out her hand and the bird landed on it, gracefully folding its wings beneath it.

"Aope, I need you to take this message to Century for me. He's going to have to go and talk to Sara again. I know he won't want to, but he still has the protections, so he'll be alright. Come right back to me after you're done. I'll have something waiting for you." She gave the note to Aope, and he flew off, going towards the wall on Deliyyja's right. Just when it seemed that he would run into the wall, he disappeared into a hidden passageway. Barely big enough for the bird, this passageway was part of a network that was used by the little lizards and birds and multitude of creatures that Deliyyja kept in her castle.

Sella and Mintu flashed through Deliyyja's mind; Sella especially. She could still hear him talking to her in the bar all those years ago, '…it's already changed you. Your hair is different, and you're so much more– I don't know how to describe it. But maybe it's showy. You have to be out in a crowd now, showing yourself off in some way.' She touched her hair and thought about how she'd colored it with streaks of purple in defiance of Freya. Freya had laughed when she'd seen it and commended her on her ingenuity.

"It's very difficult to get magicked hair to stay a different color than the one it was naturally. Well done, Deliyyja. Well done indeed." Deliyyja sighed and tried to calm down. Getting upset wouldn't help the situation. She needed to be calm to confront Sara Irine, Vættfang of the Valkyries. But even as she told herself this, the little lightning bolts were moving ever faster through her hair, causing it to lift up. Finally, she clamped her hands down over her hair and ran through the door into the hallway. Turning to the right, she went down the hallway, into another room, through a maze of doors and ended up what looked like a mirror image of the hot springs in Sara's suite. She raced to the springs and jumped in, clothes and all. The lightning died.

"Ahhh…" This spring was so much different from Sara's. Instead of just plain water, the water in Deliyyja's hot springs wouldn't conduct electricity, and so her sparks would die. In fact, these hot springs wouldn't conduct any type of magic but elemental energy, and Deliyyja had only met a handful of people who could wield the cosmic forces. And those people always burned out after a couple of years of handling the awesome energies. But she had managed to find one of those rare people susceptible to 'persuasion' a few years ago, and had had this spring made especially for her. It was a gods-send in times like these when other Valkyries were being difficult. She relaxed some more and then realized that she was still fully clothed.

"Oops. Can't have that. What'll the little ones say?" She undressed to her underwear and then enjoyed simply feeling; but never forgetting about her current predicament. Until this was resolved, it wouldn't do to forget that Sara was here and dangerous if underestimated.
Sara sat down on the ruined bed looking at her handiwork. She looked from the room to her hands, finally paying attention to the fact that she was still bleeding.

"Damn. I'd better do something about that." She reached with two fingers into her rune pouch and pulled out a healing rune. Concentrating, she rubbed those same two fingers down the rune seven times.

"Jeg kaller til De, av løpene…hør min bønn og gjør min vilje." (I call to you of the runes… hear my plea and do my will)

The cuts from Haeryongdo were healed, leaving her arms and hands bloodied but like new. The rune flared as her body was restored, then burst into flame and burned to cinders before falling through her fingers to the floor. She watched the ashes drift on the air currents, lazily making their way slowly down, before finally resting on the ground. She stomped on them, making sure (for some unknown reason) that none would start a fire in the room.

"Now I suppose that I'd better go take another bath. The last one didn't do me any good. The stink of blood isn't going to go away until I wash my clothes, either. Damn. This stink is gonna bring every scavenger within a hundred miles if I don't get this off of me, and I don't have the time to fight them off." She grimaced and moved towards the hot springs.

The hot springs welcomed her once again, and Sara took her time going back in, bringing her clothes in with her. She stood half in and half out of the water, washing her garments, and then got out briefly to lay them out before fully submerging herself in the warm, bubbly water. She paused briefly as she sensed that same sparkle of power she had that morning when she had first been 'invited' to Deliyyja's castle; the one that had followed Century and her all the way from the meeting point. Hmm… I wonder…

She rolled over under water and swam lazily along the bottom of the springs, all the while thinking of the sparkle of power. It could be Deliyyja, but I doubt it. I don't think that she would do something so foolish after I just traced her power signature back to her. Hmmm… Sara slowly drifted from the bottom to the surface. Leisurely raising her hand above the water, she sent a passive spell towards the power sparkle.

"Finn en skaper... ødelegger et liv (find a maker… ruin a life), finn sjelen... gir meg kraften finne kilden (find the soul... give me the power to find the source)." The spell shot towards the power sparkle, and Sara leaned back again in the water. She listened as the spell moved and could tell the exact moment it encountered the sparkle. There was a slight crackle before her spell fizzled out.

"So it's somebody with some power at least. Deliyyja would have been weakened somewhat by my last attack. I still think I need to do something about that though." She shook her head. It's not good having it there, watching me, when I don't know who it is, and why it's here. But how do I distract it so it can't follow me?" She floated on her back, gliding along the water for what seemed like hours, pondering over her dilemma.

Half an hour later, she stood up, and looked at her body. I look like a prune.

"Oops. I stayed in longer than I thought I would." Getting out of the springs, she turned around quickly, wrapping a towel around herself. The towel had appeared while she had been bathing, and she suspected that 'the little ones' that Deliyyja had spoken of were responsible for it. Her clothing was still damp, so she left it to continue drying in the sun, pausing only to pick up her swords and rune pouch. As she walked back into her rooms with only her swords and runes as protections, Sara mentally configured a simple binding spell. Easily triggered, but hard to get out, the spell would bind but not harm, and the power sparkle would be kept in one spot until she uttered the release phrase. That's unlikely though, until I know who sent it, and what it's doing here.

"Restraining Lies!" she whispered after she had the spell readied. The spell worked with the mystical as well as the physical, allowing her to control what the sparkle would perceive as long as it remained under her hold.

Unlike the last spell, when this one hit the power sparkle, it seemed to wrap around it and pull it to the ground. Sara walked over to where the two had collided, and she could see a visible glow then. The restraining spell condensed until it was about the size of one of her larger runes. She picked it up gingerly, wincing slightly at the shock from the pulse of energy from the sparkle and put it on a chair in one of the rooms in her suite. The sparkle shook the spell, trying to get loose, but unable to. Sara watched it, willing it not to break loose. If it broke loose… she'd have no idea what to do after that, besides maybe go to De– No… bad idea… you know you can't trust her. She killed a frost giant and drove off the rest. How do you know that this isn't one of her minions doing this?

She watched the power sparkle until it stopped struggling, then she sighed in relief. She reached behind her to finger her hair, and walked over to the door rubbing her head. She knelt down and poked her pinkie finger in the lock and immediately felt a stinging sensation. Of course she would Valkyrie-proof the lock. What else would I expect from a Valkyrie? She ignored the stinging though, and kept probing, finally deciding that it would do no good to try and blast through the door.

"Hmph." She took her finger out of the lock and stood back, rubbing it, damning herself the entire time. How did I get myself in this situation?

A flurry of activity to her right caught her attention, and she whirled around; too late, unfortunately, because her clothes had disappeared.

"Deliyyja!" she shrieked. She ran back outside to where she had left them and found nothing. She sprinted back inside to make sure that her swords were still there, and to her relief, they were. She stood there, panting. Her hands clenched and unclenched as she struggled to control herself. Keep calm… there's nothing to destroy and you need to get out of here. Just keep calm. But then she looked to where her clothes had been again.

"Ahhhh!" she screamed and screamed…