I stood hesitantly outside of the house in the unnamed village in northern Asgard, staring at the large door.
"Are you seriously more intimidated by having a talk with my parents than you are making demands of Skyfathers and Elder Gods?" Kelda asked me incredulously.
"...I don't think I've met any Elder Gods," I corrected petulantly, "I don't exactly need Thor or Venus's approval."
"But you need my parent's approval?" Kelda asked. "You, the audacious mortal-turned-skymistress who does what she wants?"
"I'm trying to be more considerate of other people," I insisted. "Also, the conventional wisdom of Midgard is that your significant other's parents can and will make your life difficult if they don't like you, so..."
"You live in a different realm than they do," Kelda pointed out. "And I seriously doubt they'll forbid me from seeing you given that... I'm a goddess now. My parents or not, social convention dictates a bit of fealty."
"I don't think abusing being a higher-order being is a valid solution to every problem," I admitted.
"Well obviously, I wouldn't feel good about it but..." Kelda shrugged. "Anyway, we're just chasing worst-case scenarios right now. You won't know until we go in."
I stepped forward to knock before Kelda stopped me and just opened the door. "Mother, father, I'm home. And I brought Maria."
Kelda led me into what I presumed to be a sitting room where Rose and Reinier were sitting with an older Asgardian woman with dark skin and hair and...
"Grandmother!" Kelda greeted and rushed over to the woman I hadn't met yet, who stood and embraced the muscular girl. Okay, I guess Kelda's Aesir side was 'black Asgardian,' though again I'm not really sure that human ethnic categories apply to divine beings. "I didn't expect you."
"When my favorite grandchild becomes a goddess," the older woman replied, "I take notice. And I understand that you're courting someone?"
"I'm your only grandchild," Kelda declared with a laugh. "And yes, this is Maria of Midgard."
Kelda came back over to me and sort of presented me as it were and her grandmother's eyes focused on me as if she were inspecting a sculpture.
"Hello, um, Ma'am..." I began awkwardly.
This prompted a bark of laughter from Kelda's mother Rose, and a smile from her grandmother.
"Don't be so nervous, child," the matriarch said. "I'm not one to disapprove so readily. I just want to get a good look at the match my grandchild has made for herself."
Kelda's mother got up and came up behind me, placing a very strong pat on my back with her massive hand. "Yeah. I'll admit, Reinier and I were a bit concerned at first, no one is ready for their daughter to come home after a day of questing boasting of being the Earthmother of a new tribe of gods and having snagged a bride."
The heat went to my face. "Um, we're electing to ignore that last bit. It holds no legal standing, for all matters non-metaphysical we're just courting."
"That's not what she said when she first came home," Rose countered.
"We um... Didn't really talk about it that day," I explained. "The quest took all evening and our apotheoses were quite the emotionally exhausting process so..."
"Mother, you're making her uncomfortable," Kelda insisted. "Maria," she reassured me, "she's just teasing."
"Alright, fine," Rose declared before patting me on the back again. "Take a seat, we just want to talk."
I sat down in a reasonably comfortable chair in the sitting room and Kelda's father, who I still swear sounds like the mayor of Munchkin Land, spoke up.
"Now, Rose and I are not opposed to the relationship," Reinier began, "we know firsthand about love at first sight and the story as our Kelda tells it certainly seems suitably romantic. We're just a little concerned that... Even by Midgard standards, it seems to be progressing quickly."
"I'm sorry," I replied. "This wasn't really something we planned on. It just sort of happened and..." It was really hard to form the words.
"Kelda's spent almost every night at your home since returning from your quest," Rose added. "Reinier and I waited a few months before that, after the ceremony wherein my mother wrestled with his."
I blinked. "Is that a tradition?"
"In Jotunheim, yes," Rose confirmed. "Never expected a little woman like Astrid here to hold her own against a woman a dozen times her size," she said while pointing a thumb at Kelda's grandmother.
"We're built differently in Asgard, deary," was the reply from the older woman.
"Well um, you're going to be disappointed in that regard," I said awkwardly. "Both of my parents are dead."
You could have heard a pin drop.
"Kelda did not share that," Reinier replied.
"It's not my tale to tell," Kelda defended.
"Have you any other family?" Rose asked me.
"No," I replied. "Or if I do, they're distant enough that I've never met them."
There was an awkward pause.
"Do humans drink mead?" The giantess asked after a moment.
"Yes, but it doesn't do anything for me." One night at the palace in Asgardia one mug somehow turned into a drinking contest with the Warriors Three. I don't know how, but Thor was both impressed and bemused by the results.
"Well it can't hurt then, can it?" Rose replied.
A few moments later we all had mugs of mead.
"So Kelda," Astrid, Kelda's grandmother, began, "what is it like being a proper goddess?"
"Amazing!" Kelda declared without hesitation. "Everything I ever imagined and more. I'm so much stronger now... I feel like if I wanted to I could dance on the surface of a star and..." I sort of tuned her out as she kept explaining things to her grandmother, happy that she at least was satisfied. The truth was, after getting over the initial 'high' of it all... I was more aware of myself, I felt more whole, more like I understood myself, but... Apotheosis for me was less getting more powerful and more consolidating the power I already had. Everything all coming together as one thing. I'm still not sure what it is I'm the god of. Or where that greater understanding that Thor and Loki had talked about was supposed to come from.
...I hope the power I have now is enough for when Carnage turns up. I'm not sure it feels like enough, but given what I've been through... Trauma turned into a hollowed-out, broken me... Maybe... Maybe I'm just empty and broken now and no amount of power will feel like enough?
"The most interesting thing," I heard Kelda say as I tuned back in, "is what happens outside of me. As I work my forge now it's like my tools and the building itself are infused with my power, becoming part of me and me part of them. I feel like if I willed it, I could move the whole building to some other location just by willing it. It's also grown larger on the inside, I can light my forge furnace by will alone, and when lit the furnace fills with magma and... I'm not sure how I can describe the rest."
"Why don't you show me?" Astrid asked her grandaughter, which prompted Kelda to lead her grandmother out back to where her forge was located.
"So, if our Kelda didn't spend so much time with you...?" Rose began.
"I'd be spending most days alone," I replied. "I have things to do but... I've spent a long time alone and it makes me make bad choices. I didn't ask her to do this, but... I appreciate it."
"Well, that was our only real objection," Reinier replied. "And you're welcome in our home any time."
"Thank you."
Call Me Massacre
Later that night, I lay in bed. Kelda was joining me, as she often did, and being held in her strong arms was a great comfort but...
"Kelda? Do you think we're moving too fast?"
Kelda chucked. "I mean, most people don't start courting within hours of meeting, but I've never been like most people. Are you concerned?"
"I don't know, maybe?" I replied. "I mean, it's not like we've done anything inappropriate. Just cuddles and kisses, it's just... Maybe your parents had a point?"
"Are you still anxious about that?" Kelda asked. "Trust me, they like you. I still don't know what you said to my mother that day a few weeks ago but you clearly made a good first impression on her."
"I know, it's just..." It'd been bugging me, tickling in the back of my head. "There's something I have to tell you. When we met with Venus, her little tests, it was—"
"Offering me up to you like a piece of meat?" Kelda asked.
"You knew?"
"There are only so many things that a Goddess of Love and Beauty can tempt people with," Kelda replied. "It occurred to me what she may have offered after things calmed down from our ascension, based on... Well, your love confession and how strongly you reacted to the test. And what she said about it. Are you worried that she went behind your back and did it anyway?"
I didn't answer.
"Maria, I started to fall for you at the palace in Asgardia, after seeing your audacity and determination firsthand," Kelda reassured. "Well before we met Venus. And truthfully, as you are a Skyistress and I an Earthmistress now I do believe that had we desired to break any such enchantments that even that of a fellow royal deity could not withstand the will of our determination." Kelda laughed again. "Look at me, we don't even have a realm of our own yet and I'm already thinking of myself as royal. Forge Queen has a nice ring to it, don't you think, my King?" She finished playfully.
I'd decided that I didn't mind being called a King of Gods, as long as the formal title remained Skymistress. There are plenty of fictional examples of female monarchs being called kings.
"Of course, my Queen," I replied with a smile.
"Now... Do you think we're going too fast?" Kelda asked.
"I don't know. I don't really know how any of this is supposed to work, I've just been playing it by ear." I'd asked Reinier and Rose for advice on how to make a relationship that started with love and first sight last long term and they'd basically said that everyone was different.
"Well, where we are now," Kelda asked me. "Are you comfortable here?"
"Yeah," I replied. "I just... Venus said that part of making a relationship work is knowing who you are when you're apart and... I don't know who I am anymore at all."
Kelda held me tighter. "Well, I'm here for you while you figure that out."
"Thank you, Love."
It went quiet for a few more moments.
"I think we need pet names for each other," Kelda said suddenly.
"Why?"
"It just seems how things are done here on Midgard," she replied.
"I can't think of anything for you right now," I said. "Sorry."
"It's alright," Kelda reassured. Then she hummed. "I suppose I could call you my sweet potato?"
I froze, then rolled my eyes. "I knew introducing you to the Disney Channel was a mistake."
Kelda laughed, then kissed me on the top of the head. "Goodnight Love."
"Goodnight, Love."
I tried my best to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be another big day.