"What are you reading, Your Majesty?" Iduna asked as she approached Agnarr in the courtyard.
"Some new Danish author," he replied.
Iduna looked at the cover.
"Mermaids?"
Agnarr nodded and kept reading.
Iduna sat down in the grass nearby, not wanting to interrupt his reading, but watched him as he read. It was a short book, and he finished the book fairly quickly.
"Well, that was depressing," he sighed, closing the book.
"What do you mean?" Iduna asked.
"It's not a long book, you could read it yourself," he suggested, handing the book over to her.
She took it, turning it around and examining it. "Thank you," she said quietly.
Agnarr looked at her expectantly. "So, are you going to read it?"
"Right now?" she asked.
"Of course!" he exclaimed. "If you want to talk about it, you should read it."
"What are you going to do right now?"
"I'm still thinking about the story."
"Oh," she said, opening up the book. He was still sitting in the same spot, staring off into the distance.
The story seemed simple enough. There was a mermaid who admired a human, and she made a deal with a sea witch so that she could meet him. As Iduna read on, she kept expecting something to happen, or someone to come in and turn things around. But it never happened. She got to the end, and after a pause, closed the book.
"That's it?" she asked.
Agnarr was still sitting in the same spot. He gave a nod.
"It is supposed to be a happy ending, you know," he said a moment later.
"Happy? How?"
"She gets a soul, after all."
"Why wouldn't she have one in the first place? That's absurd!"
"I'd have to ask the bishop," Agnarr shrugged. "I don't know."
"Well, I don't know, either, but it reads more like a tragedy to me, and I don't think I like tragedies. Do you have anything that's got an actual happy ending?"
"Let's go to the library!" Agnarr suggested.
He hopped up, and reached for Iduna's hand. She smiled and followed.