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------------------------------ Weeping Lily Meadow, Asgard - Early Morning - ------------------------------ 'Don't feel bad. He's far stronger than anyone else we've fought. Who can blame you?' I blame myself, Hrist thought to herself grimly, staring out across the night-shrouded field of lilies. Sunrise wasn't far off. It seemed absurd, to subject /any/ part of Asgard to the same cycle as the world of humans, but this place... perhaps it was appropriate. Heaven's parallel to Midgard would have to reflect that place, wouldn't it? 'Don't do that, Mistress. Lord Odin and Freya have forgiven you, so please don't torture yourself about this. You'll have another chance.' "I shouldn't /need/ another chance!" she snapped aloud, forgetting for a moment who was speaking to her. Isolde could hear her quite well without the encumberment of the spoken word - such was the strength of the link between valkyrie and einherjar. Or in Isolde's rather unusual case, einherjar-turned-handmaiden. It was a rare honor. 'Indeed, Mistress.' There was a pause. 'It is almost time for us to sleep. Can we not just let the darkness overcome us? Everything will be taken care of in time.' Let the sleep overcome her... By morning, she would be nothing more than a memory until Freya saw fit to wake her again. Perhaps Lenneth would awaken with the sun. With their sister in the hands of that... Hrist clenched her fists, metal scraping against metal. Damn him. Lord of the Undead, was he? Not for much longer... 'Mistress... calm yourself. Sleeping with such sentiments in your heart will only lead to unpleasant dreams.' "Gods do not dream," the valkyrie whispered through clenched teeth, the sound grating out. "We only sleep and awaken again. My dear Brahms will find that my regard for him has not changed in the slightest, when we meet again. Sleep without Silmeria will not sit well with us." 'The sun is setting on his time too, Mistress. Rising on ours.' Throat clenched as tightly as her fists, Hrist lowered her head and closed her eyes, facing the lightening horizon of the sky beyond the field. The darkness was her solace, a blanket concealing everything churning within her mind that she did not want to think about: tears she refused to shed, hate for that disgusting vampire, hate for her own inability. Once daylight stretched its hands over the sky she would fade away, but that knot of unpleasantness would remain with her until she was called again. 'You're still a sentimental fool, Isolde,' Hrist finally replied to her handmaiden, forcing her fingers to relax and her hands to stretch flat upon her thighs. 'You'll have to work on that before we finish him off.' There was a note of understanding in Isolde's regard of her from within - just a hint. 'It comes, Mistress. The bells will lull us into slumber.' The pale gray light, still faint, glinted on the silvery chimes of Asgard in the distance. They were entities unto themselves, perched atop a shadowy chapel that had the look of a place forbidden and lost. Or perhaps the view was simply changing to her whim, as it often did when she gazed beneath the rim of her helmet in half-sleep. A waking dreamscape. 'Good night, Mistress. Sleep well.' The bells gleamed as they were drawn back, pulled by the one charged with the duty of greeting the morning with sound. Sunrise. . . The harmonious chimes of Asgard tolled, a melody of both simplicity and otherworldly beauty. Their shiver reached through the air with trembling fingers, to touch the morning... A snow storm of petals drifted on the invisible currents of the wind. It was all drawn out, moving as if through water, slow and ponderous. She was awake. An unspoken command had drawn her out of slumber as surely as a mother's hand might drag her children out of bed to work. Her air lifted on the breeze, and her skin chilled, all invisible; she always closed her eyes after her first glimpse of the field, to remember. It had been a sad dream... different than the others. There were so many between her waking hours that it was hard to remember them at all, but there was something about the tragic, the mournful, that always left its shadow even /after/ the dreams themselves were gone. Many a day had been ruined due to nightmares and the nervous workings of sentient minds. It was the lot for humans, but even gods sometimes suffered from similar ailments. But what was she doing, blathering to herself about dreams? Duty was calling. Lenneth opened her eyes, and the windswept panorama of Asgard greeted her once again, familiar, almost like home but not quite. That feeling was as much a part of her as any - unlike the other gods, the Valkyrie lived too many lives and traveled too many worlds to truly have a place to call home. 'Where are the handmaidens...?' Her gaze focused upon the spires in the distance, as her thoughts focused on a point, finally. She did not have an assistant as Hrist did, or at least, not a specified handmaiden just yet. It was impossible for Lenneth to tell if she was linked to another or not - she didn't have the advantage her elder sister did. But it would have been nice to walk with someone on her journey to Valhalla, with that remnant of her slumber still clinging to her shoulders. With a sigh she set off, wading through the dappled field toward the ivory hall in the distance, her feet obeying her Lord's command to return even if her mind was still lingering in that place on the grass. There was a strong feeling there, as if the last person to stand in that spot had suffered from some debilitating emotion. The Eldest, perhaps? There was a hole in Their being. Perhaps it bled out there. Her misgivings faded as Lenneth approached Valhalla, although they didn't disappear completely. But they turned from wondering about what she'd awakened from to what she was being called /for/... Despite their assured importance, Greater Valkyries were rarely ever called to duty unless cataclysm was on the horizon. There were other gods to take care of things, lesser valkyries to wander Midgard slaying demons and collecting the occasional worthy soul, and no need for Lenneth or her sisters. The gravity of the situation impressed itself on Lenneth quickly, and she quickened her step, taking advantage of the nature of the heavens to bend things a little so she might reach Odin's great hall faster than her feet normally carried her. She would have simply jumped from her awakening place to the doors, but it was impolite to approach so boldly. When her feet finally left the waving rushes and white-speckled grasses of the lily field to set down upon smooth stone, Lenneth breathed a soft sigh of relief. The nostalgia of the flowers and misty climes of the mountain were nice, but they weighed down on her this time, unlike her first awakening. She was still a child, wasn't she? Or was she passing into a later adolescence in Freya's eyes, this time? It was only the second call she had ever received in living memory, asleep or not... The first was a disaster, and she could not help wondering if she was regarded as a failure or a hapless child that still needed to be taught important lessons in the use of her skill. Or maybe she was just feeling the pressure of her role as the middle sister, trying to prove herself? Hrist's deeds were great, hard to live up to. Her failure to save Silmeria was far outclassed by Lenneth's part in causing her to be captured in the first place. Charging into that demon's lair had been a bit rash. Yes. If she had not been weakened... "Lenneth!" The valkyrie jolted to a halt as her first step clicked onto the bridge that led to Valhalla's doors, and she was immediately overcome by a blur of brown and gold, and an embrace that nearly squeezed the air out of her lungs. "You're back!" Frei's light-hearted laughter bounced off the doors, sounding in her ears far louder and sweeter than Asgard's tolling bells. "I've missed you so much, you wouldn't believe it! The others just aren't the same." Lenneth wrapped a hesitant arm around the young goddess's waist, the other pinned surely by the hug. "It hasn't been that long, has it? Just a few moments ago." Her companion drew back, wistfulness immediately overtaken by another smile. "You have all the luck, old friend... You get to sleep the years away, but waiting for your return is always hard on the rest of us." With her arm free, Lenneth returned the embrace, pecking the girl on the cheek. "I'm glad to see you again, Frei. Life is bland without you and Ashlin to lighten my days up." "That's more like it." With a grin bordering on insolent, she skipped back a few steps and gestured to the doors with a flourish. "Lord Odin is waiting for you inside, with Freya. Good luck." She paused, her mood growing serious. "We may not see each other for quite awhile... I wish you good luck on your journey." "Thank you, Frei." Lenneth stepped forth again with a parting smile and passed by the young goddess without looking back, her vision consumed with the parting of the grandiose doors to Odin's hall. The ominous note of her awakening had not gone away; she had the feeling Frei was right... they would not meet again for quite some time. ------------------------------------ "Lilywhite Snow" (Hrist, Lenneth) By Amber Michelle ------------------------------------ |