Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Corrival – Pa

Chapter 97

"Please don't make me do this," Valkyrie whined.

"It'll be fun," Tanith said as if that were a reasonable statement.

"It won't be," she told her for the millionth time. "They're all going to be crowding around the twins saying, 'oh, how pretty, how perfect, how girly' and I'll be standing there getting ignored. I doubt anyone even knows what I look like. It's mostly going to be Beryl's family."

"Then make friends. You're always saying how many extended cousins you have," her sister said.

Valkyrie groaned as they pulled up outside the golf club. "Do I really have to?"

"Yes. Now, here. Don't forget the presents and remember young lady. No swearing, no hitting, no spitting, no mean words and most of all, if there's cake, bring me some. Understand?" Tanith said, looking into the back of Gordon's old car. Wolf smirked and looked at her in the mirror from the driver's seat.

"Yes, Mum," she said and jumped out of the car.

"I love you!" Tanith shouted through the window.

"Love you too," she said, waving and walking to the lobby.

"Have fun!" Tanith shouted loudly as Wolf drove her away.

Valkyrie shook her head. Her sister was an idiot, but it made her smile. She had made sure to be ten minutes after when she was meant to be there, so all the setting up was done and she wasn't the first there. She actually saw quite a few relatives she recognised which was mostly second cousins and their children. Which she was pretty certain were her third cousins. Then there was her great-aunts and great uncles. Her paternal grandparents had died before even her parents.

"Stephanie?" Someone said. She turned and saw an older second or third cousin – she didn't keep track – she had used to get on with as a young child. He was tall, about the same size as her, with sandy hair like Gordon but his own mother's blue eyes. She almost had to take a step back, because other than the cheekbones, eyes and being obviously younger and fitter, he looked strikingly like Gordon.

"Err, yeah, that's me," she said awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name."

He smiled as awkwardly as she felt. "It's Mark. We haven't seen each other since Gordon's funeral some years ago."

"Oh, yes," she said, not remembering him being there at all. "Err, do you know where Crystal and Carol are?"

He pulled a face. "On the balcony, I think."

"Thanks," she muttered and walked away quickly. She hoped she didn't have to talk to him much tonight. Thankfully, the party was only meant to be two hours which was bearable, kind of.

She went to the balcony as Mark told her and stepped out into the cool evening to find, as he said, her twin cousins leaning against the railing with their chins on their hands. One of them was smoking, but Valkyrie honestly forgot which one was which from the back, and they were different sizes too. One had remained somewhat overweight as she'd been her whole life, while the smoking one had lost a significant amount of weight, so much so Valkyrie thought she looked smaller than Nadia from the back, and she knew she could see Nadia's ribs. She held her breath a little and put on a smile.

"Crystal, Carol," she said and watched them jump and turn around. "Happy birthday."

Both of them gaped at her. "Stephanie?" The larger one said, and Valkyrie had a feeling that one was Crystal.

Carol dug her cigarette into the bannister and kept glancing at it and back at her. "You came," she said, the shock evident in her voice.

"Yes, obviously," Valkyrie said without too much sass and held the unnamed presents forward. "Here."

They took them, Carol a little faster than Crystal who honestly seemed kind of jittery with her around, and Valkyrie watched with Crystal as Carol ripped through the paper to the present within.

"I wasn't really sure what to get," Valkyrie explained.

"I like it," she said, holding up the clutch bag Valkyrie had got her. She looked inside and pulled out the silver shoulder chain, and thin voucher to a cinema nearby. "Thank you, Stephanie."

She shrugged. "It's fine. I'm glad you like it."

"Crystal, open yours," Carol demanded.

Crystal seemed to very nearly flinch at the sudden attention but did carefully unseal the tape and pull out another clutch, this one a shiny silver bag, and it had the same voucher inside. She smiled at Valkyrie. "Thank you. I actually really needed a bag like this," she said a little quietly, but Valkyrie saw the gratitude in her eyes and shrugged again.

"It's fine." They stood there silently for a moment, both of them scrunching up the paper and holding their new bags before Valkyrie broke it again. "So. Beryl said you got some good grades at college, Crystal. Are you going to uni?"

She grimaced. "I guess," she said uncertainly.

Carol nodded. "We're going to a uni down south this September. It's close to the army base my boyfriend's at."

Valkyrie nodded slowly. "Well, I think I'm going to get something to eat," she said, knowing full well she didn't want to know a thing about this boyfriend.

Carol nodded and turned away, not interested anymore, and reaching into her jean pockets for her packet of cigarettes. Crystal took a step forward and said quietly, "I'll come too."

They walked together through the busy hall of elderly relatives and a couple of kids running around until they got to the buffet and Valkyrie looked over it carefully before picking up some pizza, garlic bread, a few crisps and a few carrot sticks to pretend she was healthy. Crystal had chosen about the same as her, and they sat together at an empty spot on a table and bench.

"So," Valkyrie started after they'd had a few bits. "How's life?"

Crystal shrugged, her arms lowering more than before. "It's alright. I got a summer job lined up in a few weeks, so that's good. Are you working?"

"I have an apprentice with my adoptive father," she said easily. "He's training me to be a detective."

She smiled a little. "That sounds fun."

"It has been. And it's only a year and a half till I'm eighteen too, and then I'll have to deal with my biological dad's business and some of the other bits Gordon dabbled in," she said. "I don't think I'm even going to go to college."

"I think you have to be in school till you're eighteen," she said uncertainly.

"Not with an apprenticeship, at least full time. Either way, I won't be going. I'm so busy with work," she said, leaning in like it was admitting something. "I'm really bad at written exams. I'd end up failing anyway."

Crystal laughed a little. "So am I. I didn't think I'd ever get through college."

Valkyrie smiled and sat back. "Hey, you did it, though. Your mum said you did really well. Congratulations."

She blushed. "I did pretty good, yeah."

"So what about friends? Do you have a boyfriend squirrelled away in an army base too?" She asked teasingly.

Her shoulders dropped once more, but this time Valkyrie saw the defensiveness. "No, not really. Do you?"

"Actually, I just got back with my girlfriend," she said a little softer. "We broke up for seven months and just got together again. Do you remember Nadia?"

"The girl you brought to the reunion? Yes, she was pretty," Crystal said, taking a deep breath. "Why did you break up?"

"Her family didn't like me and kind of pressured her into it, which sucked. She thought if she gave in they might not send her abroad for school, and they'd be happy again, but it didn't work out like that. She was pulled from school two months ago or something for health reasons and we were able to talk and got together again."

She smiled. "Aw, that's sweet that you still like her. How long have you been dating? Without the seven months."

"Without the breakup, two and a half years, ish," Valkyrie said. "It feel's way longer, I can tell you that."

Crystal looked over her shoulder and around them before leaning in. "Can you tell me something?"

"Yeah?" Valkyrie said, leaning in too.

"Erm, if you really liked your friend, and she was a girl, but you didn't know if she liked girls too, what would you do?" Crystal asked, biting her lip after in a much too hard way.

Valkyrie breathed a laugh and grinned. "I'd be honest. You don't want to lie about it or be left guessing. I mean, most people our age kind of conform to just thinking they like the opposite sex, so she might say no because she hasn't thought about it yet, but you never know. When I told my brother Anton I liked girls, he warned me of that. And even if someone that says no now might decide differently in a few years' time when they're older," she explained. "So you know, be honest and hope for the best, I guess. You might be rejected, but at least you'll have an answer."

Crystal took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. I think I might do that."

"That's good," she grinned, and then looked around the room. "So, why aren't you talking to anyone else?"

She grimaced again. "Me and Carol weren't nice when we were kids," she said quietly. "Carol still isn't that nice I guess. And I just follow her around."

Valkyrie shrugged. "Well, it's your birthday. You might as well go have fun and talk to someone."

"Who?" She asked uncertainty.

Valkyrie rolled her eyes and stood, taking her half eaten plate with her. "Come on. I'll reintroduce you to your family."

.*****.

The party wasn't as bad as it could have been, and she ended up talking with Crystal and a few of her cousins from Beryl's side that weren't that bad and where deeply interest in internet culture which was fun for Valkyrie because she didn't get much time to look at those things. She ended up staying half an hour longer than the party just to talk and then took a taxi home.

Inside the house, she almost sagged with relief that she could take off the shoes that were rubbing blisters into her heels.

There was a giggle from the top of the stairs and Valkyrie's head snapped up. It was Fletcher's girlfriend. She'd seen her around a few times in the house, mostly doing chores like washing and occasionally she came downstairs to the bigger kitchen and baked. She seemed nice but Valkyrie didn't like her much. It wasn't nice having a virtual stranger in her house, and since Myra had become Fletcher's girlfriend, they hadn't exactly seen Fletcher. Which they didn't mind but Valkyrie had still been wanting to make up a little of the damage she'd caused to their friendship when she shot him. As it was, Myra was holding a basket of laundry and had some cooking supplies on top.

"I haven't seen you in a while," Myra smiled at her, slowly coming downstairs like a young lady in her own house. Valkyrie tried not to look like she was calling her a bitch in her mind. "Were you somewhere nice?"

She shrugged. "A cousins party. Shouldn't Fletcher be helping you with all that?"

"He's at work," she said with that same little smile and a delicate shrug of her small shoulders. "I don't have university today so I'm getting the chores done. Is anyone else home?"

She tried to accept that this might be Myra's home if she was here all the time. She tried to not dislike the way she said 'home'. "I think the others went out to dinner. Do you need help carrying all that?"

"Please," she said, and Valkyrie came over and grabbed the whole lot and carried it through to the kitchen where Myra took the cooking bits from the top and grabbed the basket of clothes. "You know, I once put a spoon in the washing machine without realising. I was really confused when I took it out and then I realised I'd used yours to bake and hadn't even noticed."

Valkyrie smiled. "It happens. What do you do all day in Fletcher's room? Except do chores and bake."

Myra didn't answer for a moment as she measured out how much washing powder she wanted and threw it in the machine. "I do my studying. I have a room rented at my friends I stay at sometimes and I go shopping or to the beach when I'm there. Fletcher gets his work done pretty fast most days which is why I don't do much around the house here, I just get my work done and then we spend time together. Isn't that how you spend time with your girlfriend?"

She shrugged. "Kind of. I've done my GCSE's now so I don't exactly need to go to school if I don't want to, so I just work at the Sanctuary and see her when I can."

Myra looked at her strangely. "Don't you take time off to see her?"

"I do when I can, but I can't exactly let someone blow half the world to smithereens by not being at work," she said with an eye roll. It was common knowledge what the Dead Men dealt with, surely people knew by now. Then again, Myra was mortal and relied on Fletcher for information. "What are you going to do after uni?"

Now Myra shrugged as she worked on her batter from memory. "I'm not really sure. Maybe I'll help Fletcher set up his business, or I'll be a baker."

Valkyrie didn't point out that Fletcher was a sorcerer and lived longer than her and it was incredibly unlikely for him to give up magic for her. She shrugged, nodded and decided to leave before she was mean.

TheBelowAverageAuthor: It didn't put your name on, triple check you're logged in and see if that helps, it shouldn't give you the option of a name if you're logged in because you have one (your own). Might not work, but worth a try. And I agree on the superiority-complex part, but a Given and Taken name is different, so maybe it's okay? Then again, I can't imagine naming any child of mine after a god so you might be right. I can't find any good names for Egyptian demi-gods, I'm pretty certain they have more of a higher and lesser system of gods, I can't find anything else other than Percy Jackson characters and I'd rather not copy. For the Norse side, I looked at Valkyrie's names but they're all female and I personally think it's too much like Valkyrie herself, plus I read the names are like about what the Valkyrie is like more than an individual thing. I don't much want to go into Greek side, but that doesn't mean I can't for Taken name later on, but it would have to be really good. Plus, I have a nagging thought that Tanith will want to name baby something classic or badass, maybe both, so perhaps I'll save the 'theme' names for later. I don't know, I'll only know when baby is born and I'm forced to pick haha!

Also, I looked at Valkyrie's, and found this: "The völva follows this with a list of six valkyries: Skuld (Old Norse, possibly "debt" or "future") who "bore a shield."" Now, I don't know about you, but I immediately think of when Valkyrie said to Skulduggery she wanted to be like him when she's older and essentially does that as much as someone can, and this Valkyrie has the start of his name and actually means future. I know Derek Landy had the names in his head before that, but STILL! Incredible coincidence.