This is dedicated to absolutely no one. No references in this chapter whatsoever. Promise.

Chapter 187

Due to their actions, Valkyrie wasn't allowed to go back to the Dead Men immediately, so she chose to stay in Ireland with Nadia. She did visit with the help of Fletcher, and they all hugged, but it wasn't anything fun. They were all just relieved to see each other looking healthy and well.

Tanith remained with them, not wanting to be away from Laila for a single second, and not wanting to deprive Ghastly of his child either. It did have one silver lining though – after being taken prisoner by the English Sanctuary, Tanith's parents decided it was best for Laila, who was struggling without Mummy and Daddy, to go back to the Dead Men where she was much happier, and Ghastly had become an even better father. He was certainly good at his job before his week and a half single-father time, but Tanith had taken on at least seventy-five percent of all duties since birth, so now he was a lot better practised at childrearing, and it showed in the way he confidently carried Laila and knew what was wrong with her from a different room just by her cry. It was very touching.

Nadia sighed and rested her head on Valkyrie's shoulder. "I really missed you."

"I know baby," Valkyrie whispered, squeezing her tightly. "The house looks really nice."

"It does. They've almost finished with the extensions," Nadia commented, not moving from their position. They were sitting on a felled tree in on the west side of the garden, looking at the extension and grounds of Grimwood Manor. The new trees and shrubs at the front of the property kept all the new work fairly hidden from passing cars and people walking, but there were a few spots people could look in. They would have to be corrected. The house itself looked really good though, and felt twice the size from the outside by its pretty cream-ish stone bricks, freshly cleaned of centuries of grime, the roof had been done up and solar panels plastered over the back side of the roof, they had a new front door and the front steps into the house had been switched from brick to a more fitting, matching cream-ish stone. It was bright, fresh, and felt like an entirely different property. She liked it.

The library extension was built on the outside with a few bits of tarp for the windows which were apparently going in very soon, and the inside had nothing but scaffolding and structural supports, but it felt very done from where the young women sat together. The garden had been all torn up and was a muddy, frozen mess, but some movement had happened with the slope to make tiers with the ground so they would have dedicated running and playing places and areas for flower beds. Nadia had told Valkyrie all about it and shown her a nice little sketch, and Valkyrie was excited. They were going to have a pond that was entirely self-sustaining with native fish as well, plus a porch with built-in outside kitchen, gazebo, barbeque, smokehouse, all sorts of fun things her family had wanted to include to satisfy their many and varied interests.

"I can't wait for the inside to be done," Nadia said, wrapping her other mitten covered hand around Valkyrie's bicep. "The original fireplace has been restored and prettied up, and it works through all the rooms it passes through again. We don't have a fireplace in our room, but it's going to be really nice to have a real wood fire downstairs."

"I can see the appeal of one right now," she teased, blowing air into her hands. She had lost her gloves but at least she had her Bespoke coat. "When are they going to be ready for interior decorating then?"

"Well, I got to start a little bit. The kitchen and bathrooms are almost entirely prepared and ready to go, we just need to decide flooring, tiles and paint. The worktops are being cut at the moment, I think. All the appliances have already been bought and are in holding with all the furniture from the house. Some of the paint colours and wallpapers have been picked, but not all of them. Luckily, we were able to save some of the original hardwood, but a lot of it is really badly tarnished from use, and some of it was ruined by other flooring being put down on top of it, but we worked it in a handful of places where it would be okay to have the new and old seem seamless enough. I'm excited to see the results honestly. Oh, and the built-in blinds are all picked. I think most of the house has been measured except for the new parts which can't be, but they're making what they can already so they don't get held up. It's all coming together nicely."

"It seems like it," she smiled, leaning over and kissing Nadia on the head. "Thank you for putting so much time and effort into our house. It's going to be so nice when it's done."

"It's okay. I've really enjoyed it. And honestly, Erskine did a lot of the hard grafting, I just picked what I liked best of his ideas," she explained.

Valkyrie nodded and they spent a little while longer there before they gave in to the cold and decided to get going. It had been two days since Valkyrie and Tanith had destroyed the God Weapons, but this was the first day where just Valkyrie and Nadia were together.

Back in the car, they put their hands up to the heaters before Valkyrie got ready to drive. "Where to then? We need to see a lot of people."

"I don't want to do Dead Men stuff today," Nadia admitted with a quiet voice. "I want to do us things. Maybe we could see Crystal?"

Valkyrie grimaced but took off from the curb outside the property in the direction of Haggard. "But we have to see Beryl."

"It's good to spend time with family," Nadia said simply in a quiet voice, looking away and out the window. Valkyrie sighed silently and put a hand on Nadia's thigh, knowing she was feeling down about her parents again. She could understand why.

The shock on Beryl's face wasn't any more pretty or enjoyable the second time to a month or so prior on their last visit, but she did recover quickly and they both took a cup of tea to warm themselves. Fergus was at work, thankfully, and they had called in the car so Crystal came home from whatever she was doing only ten minutes after they got there.

"Stephanie!" Crystal cried, and they hugged each other closely. It was so weird responding to that name. "Nadia, it's so good to see you both. How are you?"

"We're doing okay," Valkyrie said with a grim smile, tipping Crystal off easily to the fact things were not entirely okay.

"How about we go to lunch and talk about it?" Crystal immediately suggested.

"Crystal, that's rude, asking our guests to leave so soon after they arrived!" Beryl said, appearing over Nadia's shoulder. "And you haven't even taken your shoes off, where are your manners?"

"Sorry Mum, but it would be nice to catch up with Va-Stephanie and Nadia over lunch. I'm really tired from my walk and–"

"Nonsense," Beryl said, talking over Crystal, and went on to say more but Valkyrie quickly intercepted.

"Actually, Beryl, we came over to see Crystal specifically, and we would actually quite like to go to lunch. Perhaps we can catch up another time," Valkyrie stated. Nadia dipped between her and Crystal to get her shoes back on.

"Oh, well, if you're sure. It's just that we never get to see you, and it's always so fleeting when we do. You haven't even said how your family is doing. How's you adopted father? And his," she hesitated to say it, "partner?"

"Skulduggery has had to go away for medical reasons for the last few months," she said simply, "but Solomon is well and staying with my family. My brothers are doing good too. Tanith has taken really well to motherhood."

"Ah, that's wonderful! Do you have any baby pictures? Crystal and Carol were just wonderful children, I can't wait for them to have their own. What's the little one's name?"

Valkyrie should have expected that question over Laila's name, seeing as how non-magic people didn't have the same rules about names as mages, but she still ended up pausing for a moment. She grabbed her shoes to cover and pulled them on as she spoke to cover it. "We've just been calling her Little Baby most of the time, to be honest. I'll show you a picture," she said, finally getting her boots on properly, and pulled out her phone and showed her aunt the phone screen, which was of Erskine and Laila when Laila was only about three weeks old. "This was a few months ago now. She's trying to sit up by herself and everything now, and she's only four months."

"That's so sweet. And it's so nice how her parents let this nice man hold their baby, even with all his differences," Beryl said in a simpering way.

Valkyrie froze for a moment and then looked at her aunt. "What?"

"Well, I remember him, don't you, from when I visited your house. He has some disabilities, I know you haven't spoken about them to me, but it's quite obvious. But I think it's lovely how the other people you live with have taken care of him for so many years and that they trust him to hold such a small baby. It's heart-warming."

Valkyrie, for the life of her, didn't know what to do. A part of her felt like bursting out laughing. Another part felt like curling in a ball and crying. The other part was angry. "What?" She said more harshly.

Beryl reared back. "What's wrong? I didn't say anything wrong did I? I try to keep up with this whole political correctness thing, but I know I get it wrong something. I'm sorry if I said the wrong thing. But I really do think it's nice that he gets to hold such a small baby. Don't act so silly about it."

Valkyrie took a deep breath and put her palms together, feeling the stupidity of the woman decay her own ability to function with every word she said. "Beryl. My brother Erskine isn't disabled. He had a panic attack when he saw you because when he was a soldier, he was taken prisoner by a group of terrorists and tortured to the point he forgot his own name and thought he was one of them. He is a fully functioning, healthy, loving man who sometimes has bad PTSD days but is otherwise very happy and cheerful. You coming unannounced to my home without my permission did not trigger his PTSD into giving him a panic attack, but it did set one off. Honestly, it wasn't even that bad of an attack. He just had a little breakdown because he had spent the last few days in a bad place which gave him nightmares. I don't understand how you thought him having a panic attack, knowing he was once a soldier, has made you think he's somehow mentally deficient. And even if it was a disability, the way you spoke about it is awful."

Beryl had the decency to look embarrassed and blushed. "I didn't realise he was also a soldier before."

"They're all still doing the same work as when they were specialist soldiers, except just in Ireland now. In fact, they're all in America on a special mission. They wouldn't send someone with a disability as bad as the one you were insinuating to do work like Erskine does every day. It's not wrong for people to have disabilities, but it's very wrong for you to just assume someone does because of a little panic attack. Anyone can get panic attacks. It's honestly none of your business anyway."

Beryl looked very uncomfortable and Valkyrie huffed and walked out the door behind Crystal and Nadia, closing it forcefully behind her. They were in the car before any of them spoke.

"Sorry about Mum," Crystal said.

"It's not your fault. I just can't understand how she is able to function in daily life when her thought processing ability is so delusional," Valkyrie said honestly.

"Neither do I most of the time," Crystal said and then laughed, breaking the ice and getting them much happier. "Maybe we shouldn't tell Erskine about this."

"Are you kidding? I'm absolutely telling him, he'll get a laugh out of it," Valkyrie grinned. "Where do we want to eat?"

Crystal and Nadia chose a place only ten minutes' drive from Haggard, in which time Nadia and Valkyrie gave Crystal a very, very brief rundown of what had happened with them gathering a team, collecting the God Weapons which the Spiders were also trying to collect, getting all but the Sword and then being held prisoner. Nadia included how Valkyrie had been as good as tortured, which set off Nadia and Crystal to ask how she was and coo all over her which wasn't exactly fun for Valkyrie so she deflected and said how they had destroyed what they could and now at least only had a little more to go before they were finished. She tried to keep the guilty look off her face as she lied right to them about the Weapons. It was safest this way.

"Well, I'm glad you've recovered," Crystal said, hopping out of the car. "This is a really pretty colour by the way."

"Thank you," Nadia grinned. "This is my new car. Valkyrie got it for me for my birthday when she proposed to me."

"It's so nice," Crystal hyped, and Nadia preened a little before they went into the small café. They were seated and then spoke again. "I actually have something really exciting to tell you. I picked a name."

"What?!" Nadia and Valkyrie gushed at the same time. "Tell us!" Valkyrie demanded.

"Aine Ó'Caoimh," she smiled proudly.

"What does it mean?" Nadia asked instantly. "It's so pretty."

"Ó'Caoimh is the main part of the meaning for me," she explained, blushing darkly and lowering her voice so the other handful of patrons wouldn't hear them. "It means loveable and pretty, but also gentle. And it's so pretty to say, even if it's a bit of a weird spelling. I love it so much. And Aine, mostly because it means brightness and there are myths of a goddess of summer being called Aine. But also because of some other myths, were she comes out on top," Aine said with a small, but sad smile.

Valkyrie nodded. "I don't know those myths."

"Neither did I until I started roaming the internet for names I liked," she laughed slightly. "But I'm really happy with what I found."

"What were the myths?" Nadia asked. Valkyrie looked at Aine too, intrigued.

Aine looked at them uncomfortably for a moment and then leaned in and whispered, "Well, it's about how the goddess was taken advantage of but came out on top. It just reminded me of, you know. Him. Hagan."

That felt like a blow to Valkyrie's stomach. That piece of shit, filthy man had hurt her cousin too. She had thought so, when the topic had come up with Aine before, but she hadn't heard her say it aloud. It really, physically hurt to hear it. "Oh," she said simply.

Nadia put a hand on her arm comfortingly but spoke to Aine. "That's a really strong thing to do," she smiled. "I think it sounds powerful and beautiful, and it still soft and sweet. It really fits you. Super Irish too."

Aine brightened and smiled happily, going off on a ramble about how much she had been researching and preparing and how she had had the name for only a week but wanted to share it with them in person. Valkyrie took a few long gulps of her drink when the waitress dropped them off and got herself together.

"How has your tutoring been going?" She asked when there was a lull in the conversation.

"Really well," Aine nodded. "Mr Pinnelli has been really patient with me but has pushed me really hard to get all this done. I decided to quit my job to focus entirely on what he's teaching me. He's just kept to the basic stuff that you showed me," referring to Nadia showing her Elemental magic, "because I'm too old to try and successfully get a grasp on anything else in time for you-know-what, but I honestly love it."

"That's good," Valkyrie nodded.

"It is. And I've been to China's library a few times, and Mr Pinnelli took me to a few places like Roarhaven and some shops. It was fun."

"I'm really happy for you," Valkyrie smiled. "And I'm really glad you get to know all this stuff with me. It's nice to have some more family with me."

Aine smiled happily back, a calmer sureness in her eyes that had been hidden by anxiety only a few weeks ago when they last saw each other. "Me too, Val."

It's nice to have a cuter chapter back out, these fight scenes are too heavy man. Who knew writing about an upcoming war would be so dark? Not me.

Make sure to send me a review, it really does help me keep motivated to keep writing.

In case anyone is reading my wedding saga, I was meant to be married a few days ago on 26th June, but it was obviously cancelled for Corona. We are waiting a few years for the party part, but I'm going to be getting legally married soon when the offices open back up in a few days. So I'll be a Mrs soon enough! Maybe I'll change my username ;)