Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Warning: Contains offensive language. And other topics of offensiveness. Sorry... Like really sorry, I feel bad!

Chapter 24

They went to a nice place near the dance studio for dinner after she had washed, changed and got her reflection out for her homework – she was too busy for that rubbish and Crow was enjoying giving her extra work at the moment, making it too overwhelming a workload to do without it.

They all enjoyed dinner there, and had all seen her swim and dance, but not all at the same time. Crow was once again not present as he couldn't be seen but he was a big supporter of hers when she practised her solo at home. Valkyrie thought he secretly enjoyed pretending to be a dance coach too. Unfortunately, he was good at it and her dancing had improved. His ego inflated dramatically and she had little choice but to do what he said.

She ate a light dinner, had a milkshake, laughed with her friends, then went with them to the studio. She was in the group dance first – no one spoke to her, all going to another school and a bit older than her, so they had their own friendship group that didn't include her – and they practised that. She did backflips and silly things in the back with Tanith and got glared at by the instructor, the queue she needed to get in line with the nine other girls.

They did their well-rehearsed routine, focusing on their movements and each other's bodies to move fluidly in the contemporary dance they were doing. It was fun, despite the intensity of the music and pressure to perform, and she always found herself suddenly being taken over the movements, moving between and with the other girls in time and without thinking.

It was moments before she was done with those two hours of practice she loved the most, the most tiring part. The burn in her muscles, the music beating in her ears, her heartbeat thudding strongly. As the strongest they had in the group, she had to pick up one of the girls for a verse of the slow song they were using and stand on just one leg as she leaned forward and the girl leaned back, guiding them in what was meant to be a heart throbbing moment of the song where Valkyrie held the girl back from throwing herself into the 'lost sea' that was the others. It made her job that much more fun since she had a leading part. She was looking forward to performing it.

As soon as their instructor let them go, Valkyrie grinned and rushed over to her brothers and Tanith.

"How'd I do?"

"It was great," Tanith said enthusiastically. "It's even better than the last time I watched."

"You improved a lot over the month," Bear said. Valkyrie grinned at him, feeling the warmth he was looking at her with. He was always supportive.

Now she just needed to do the competitions!

.*****.

Those competitions came far too quickly. First was swimming, the last day of Year Eight at Secondary School, and Valkyrie was driven by the school to a big stadium in Dublin for it with the other two competitors. It was a boring drive and the pep talk was the worst yet, but they all got in their swimming gear and got themselves ready for their heats.

It would be a quick day, most of it waiting around as the female races were in the second half of the day and they only got one go at racing as there were so many heats and races due to all the schools and groups competing. Dozens of girls were waiting in the changing rooms, sitting on their towels on the floor, some of them having commandeered changing rooms for their little cliques to stay in, some of them having found a bench earlier. There were no teachers from any of their schools, leaving them to their own devices.

Sitting in front of her locker on a bench space she'd claimed for herself, she got out her phone and called Nadia.

"Hi," she whispered into the phone. "Are you here?"

"Yeah," Nadia said. Valkyrie could hear her smile. "I'm so excited. You're going to win, right?"

"Absolutely."

"Good. I got you something for afterwards, I think you'll like it. The leaflet says you start in half an hour."

"That's right. I think my teacher forgot about me though. He hasn't been in for ages."

"Oh, I think I can see him, in the red shirt right?"

"Yeah."

"He's flirting with one of the other school teachers."

"What, really?" Valkyrie said, laughing. "What school?"

"I think it's that private school that won the last round, Millennial Catholic School or whatever it is."

"I know that one," she said, rolling her eyes. The female competitors from that school, sitting on the other side of the room to her, were incredibly loud and annoying. "At least there's something to laugh about. I'm glad I don't have to listen to another one of his pep talks."

There was some muttering on the other end and then Nadia came back. "Tanith says we can celebrate if you win."

"Could I take you out if I win?" Valkyrie asked her.

"Who, me or Tanith?" Nadia asked.

"Both, either, I don't care."

Nadia snorted. "Sure, sure. And yeah, but where to?"

"A movie? And dinner? Just us, right?" Valkyrie suggested.

"I like that. I'll let you go, your teachers on the move. Err, he might just be trying to flirt up another person though. I love you, good luck girlfriend!" Nadia said.

"I love you too, see you soon," Valkyrie said, hanging up. She put the phone away and sat back. One of the girls on the middle changing benches that seemed to have been dragged in just for this competition grinned over at her. She was older, spottier and had a cheeky look on her face.

"Was that your boyfriend? Sounds like you're going to be having a good night tonight," she said suggestively. The other girls laughed a little, but she didn't detect any maliciousness, which she had sort of expected for a competition. Maybe she was the mean one.

"No, it was my girlfriend," Valkyrie said when they quietened.

They sat forwards a little. "You have a girlfriend?" That first girl asked.

"Yeah," Valkyrie said, trying not to smile at their odd enthusiasm. "She's a year older than me."

"Who has to be the boy?" The first girl's friend asked.

Valkyrie frowned. "Well, neither of us, that's the whole point."

"Yeah, I get that," she said with a little attitude. "But there's always one of the two in a, you know, lesbian couple, who acts like the guy would."

Valkyrie shook her head. "Maybe for some people, but most girls who want to date girls just, you know, date girls. Lots of people have types and stuff, and some girls do like tomboy girls, but me and Nadia aren't like that. I guess she's more girly than I am but we both wear dresses, both do sport, both like going out. Neither of us is 'the guy'."

The girl put her nose up, but the first girl nodded excitedly. "My brother just came out to my parents," she said. "They didn't take it very well, so my grandparents told them off."

Valkyrie snorted. "I don't have any parents to tell but my adopted family don't care at all. I think my mother actually knew, thinking about it. She would always comment on my friends as a kid saying who was pretty and I was spending time with, teasing me and saying I had crushes on them. I think maybe she knew before I did."

"How did you come out to your family?" A girl sitting next to her said.

"Sort of by accident," Valkyrie said. "They had just adopted me and were taking me out to a party for my birthday and were all warning me about the boys and that I had to tell them if one of them so much as thought about me," she said, laughing. "But then I came over with one of the girls, who's my girlfriend now, and they were all laughing at themselves because they had set no rules up about it. So yeah, they're cool with it. They found it really funny."

A few of the organisers came in then and marked off who was swimming next, Valkyrie included. They left the locker and filed to their lane, shaking out and waiting to be called up and get ready to swim. The girl next to her nudged her harshly.

Valkyrie stopped looking for friends and family and turned to the girl.

Her eyes looked at her loathingly but she kept her face carefully blank. "You better not infect the water, lezzy," she muttered through her teeth.

Valkyrie stared at her, not entirely sure she'd heard correctly. "Excuse me?"

"It's gross and unholy," she continued, looking blankly at the water as the first girls and their school name got called. "You're probably not even into girls, people your age just do it for attention. It's disgusting."

Valkyrie huffed a laugh, not sure what else she was even meant to do. Who was this girl? She was as thin as a stick insect, barely as tall as Valkyrie's chin. Meanwhile, Valkyrie had the height, was significantly better looking and had a much, much better chance at winning just by the thickness of her arms and legs. She was better than whoever-her-face was, basically. "You're embarrassing yourself."

"You won't win this," the girl said. "Or else."

Valkyrie laughed properly and stepped forwards for her name and found her family as soon as she did. They looked a little concerned, but Valkyrie grinned and gave them the thumbs up. They smiled and hooted for her loudly. She'd win and show that bitch who's best. And infect the water while she was at it, apparently.

They were set, ready and after a moments silence, off, shooting through the water with speed. Valkyrie put everything she had into the powerful strokes, kicking hard in the water to dart to the far side and turned and kicked off the wall, no clue at all of her placing. Putting on as much speed as possible, she gritted her teeth and swam back the to the start, touching the wall and sticking the head out the water finally, sucking in a much-needed breath.

She looked around and saw several girls, she didn't know who won. But it was done after all that training and waiting.

It was sort of anticlimactic.

She pulled herself out and, breathing hard, looked over at the board. The judges slowly wrote out their times on slips and then stuck them in order on their board. All the girls watched, shuffling in the cold as their teachers and family watched, for their times. Turning the board for them, Valkyrie let out a cheer – she was first.

In the seats, her family shouted their victory on their feet, and Dexter had pulled Nadia onto his shoulders. Nadia blew her a kiss and Valkyrie pretended to catch it and waved at them as she was herded back to the locker so the next heat could swim. That was her done for the day, unfortunately. But she'd won and now she could go on a date!

She was congratulated by the others she'd met earlier and she shook the second-place girl's hand – she didn't look happy but was gracious Valkyrie supposed – and went back to her bag where the other girls she had been talking to before were still there, as they were in different races to her. They stopped muttering when she got there.

"Who won then?" The spotty girl asked her.

Valkyrie turned around from her bag, having taken her towel and a pre-folded bundle of clothes out, and grinned at her. "I won of course. I want that date."

A teacher came in calling new names and Valkyrie slipped over to the showers and washed off, struggling hopefully for the last time in a long time to get the horrible swimming cap off. She showered slowly – no one was allowed to leave until everyone was done but they could go to another room with nice seating – and carefully used her magic to help her hair dry just a little so it wasn't dripping down her back but wouldn't be obviously dry to anyone else.

Dressing, she packed her stuff in the bag and came out of the cubical.

Three girls stood silently there.

"Hi," Valkyrie said conversely, trying to zip up her bag. She tried a smile. "No autographs."

One of them huffed at her and reached to grab her but Valkyrie moved out the way to leave, not wanting to have the day end badly, and got blocked by the other two. One of them was the girl insulting her earlier, whom she raced with. Some other girls were around but avoided looking at them.

"What do you think you're doing?" The loser competitor asked. "I warned you not to."

"You're a dirty lesbian," one of them said. She had to be the oldest, ugliest and most disgusted. The competitor was angry and the last just looked happy to be in a fight.

"Look, listen," Valkyrie said, pulling her 'Edgley' bag higher on her shoulder to leave. "I just came to win and leave, alright? You don't like me, that's great, have fun with that, but the only thing keeping this horrible, disgusting lesbian near you is yourselves. So fuck off."

The girl pushed her, and Valkyrie almost fell over on the wet floor, steadying herself on a cubical door as she grew angry. One of them stamped on her foot and though it didn't hurt, it did make her look down like an idiot and the angry loser competitor yanked her hair down and Valkyrie slipped to the floor.

It just all took her completely by surprise.

They tried to kick her and although some did get through, she was able to push the competitor down and grab the leg of the youngest, pulling her down and, with angry ferocity, pulled on the leg and dislocated the knee.

She started screaming and the other two – both standing now – looked at her more warily.

"See!" The competitor said to the others that were crowding and watching them. "Look at her – she's a dyke rolling around on the floor attacking people! Look what she did to Megan! Fucking lumpy armed gimp!"

Valkyrie glared and stood up slowly. The others were mostly watching, muttering and seemed to be stuck in the headlights as Megan screamed in pain. Her knee would be fixed in a few weeks, and Valkyrie knew from experience she was only screaming that loud for attention. It would have barely ached!

Baring her teeth, she jumped forwards and punched the loser competitor in the face, blood spurting on her hand, and the other, maybe sixteen-year-old, girl grabbed her arm.

"You're a disgusting freak," she snarled in Valkyrie's face, then spat on her and threw her on top of Megan. Valkyrie hadn't expected her to be so much stronger than she looked and got stamped in the abdomen and curled up in pain, not able to get up when Megan was hitting her from beneath and wiggling so she couldn't move. She got a shoe between her legs suddenly, making her scream in agony.

She pressed her legs together but that left her getting a foot in the face and the world went black.

Oh no... oh no... please don't hurt me for hurting Val... the poor girl had a lot of good things going for her so something bad needed to happen but don't kill me for it! I actually feel really bad writing it and the whole point was to make something bad happen (since she has the girlfriend, family, mansion, job etc) but I feel bad still! Hopefully, that means it's written correctly but I'm not a horrible person so maybe not. I will be honest though, 'lump armed gimp' did amuse me just for the wording - it's too tame but made me laugh when I read it through so it stays despite the flaw!

Also, please fav and review, it'll make me post the next chapter with the love and Nadia and nice stuff faster! :D