Queen of Asgard (NaNoWriMo2018, Completed!)

13: Inside The Vault

"Mhm! I got it when Thor and I were married ten years ago and when we divorced, he was kind enough to let me keep it." She pulled back the door with ease I knew would have escaped me. "Step inside and please don't touch anything until I'm with you."

I wouldn't have done that anyways. Having grown up around guns my whole life, I knew the importance of not handling any sort of weapon unless you knew how to safely do it. Since magic had been fake for me until a little over a week ago I was not going to anything without Sif's direction. I stepped inside the small room, the long, narrow walls lined with floating shelves of dark wood and back lit by some unknown source of light. Probably magic if I had to guess, given how I didn't see any LED strips. The only space not covered in weaponry was a small space at the back of the rectangle shaped room. I wondered why that was, but didn't think it was worth commenting on. Perhaps she just hadn't needed it yet.

"So," Sif said, coming up behind me and the door shutting with a loud clang. "What'dya think?"

I looked around again, noting the many short swords, iron-tipped spears, staves, bows and arrows and daggers on the walls. They looked ordinary to me. Not at all what I was expecting. "They kind of look like they could be in a museum," I said after a minute, searching for the right words but even that failed as I saw the confusion frown on her face. "It's a building sort of thing on Earth that collects items from the past, preserves them and displays them for the public to see."

"Neat," she said cheerfully. "Though these are not suited to a museum, as you called it." She stood on her toes and grabbed a crossbow and bolt from a shelf on the right wall and came near me, pulling back the string and setting the bolt in place. "Watch this."

She stood parallel to the wall at the back and as though an invisible painter was moving, the wall became ringed with target lines. I watched as Sif narrowed her eyes at her target and pulled the trigger and then as it flew through the air, I yelped. The bolt caught fire in mid-air and landed sqaure in the center, still burning brightly.

"Sorry," she laughed, "I suppose I should've warned you," she held out another bolt to me. "See the inscription?"

It was another rune, shaped like a capital Y, save for the small, shorter prong right in the middle. "What does it mean? Fire?"

"No," Sif shook her head. "'Defense from enemies' and in this case, the enemy is a Jotun."

"But how does it light on fire?" I asked, awed and freaked out at the same thing. "'Defense from enemies is really broad."

Sif shrugged. "We don't know. It's dwarf magic. If imagine a Jotun as my opponent, then the weapon will utilize the fire, one of the best ways to foil their attacks. If it's a fenrir, then it becomes silver-tipped."

"Fenrir?" I repeated the strange word and Sif waved her hand.

"We have very large, vicious wolves in some parts of our realm, we call them fenrirs. Though humans took that and thought it was the name of one wolf who'd kill Odin at the end of the world."

"That's a huge deviation from the source material."

"That happened a lot with the stories, you should read them sometime, just for laughs. It's quite hilarious. And occasionally insulting." The last bit had a weight of bitterness to it and I had a feeling Sif had been a topic that the Viking people had failed to represent correctly in their stories.

"If this rune just adapts based on what you're target is, why not just use a spell or something to attack Jotun? Why do you need weapons?"

"For one thing, spells are harder to cast under pressure, they require clarity of mind and the slightest deviation can have serious implications. Casting spells onto objects and imbuing them with the magic is safer, especially in combat. And then there's the giants themselves. They don't have much magic past conjuring ice and making themselves Asgardian sized, but they're biology is different. They're more durable. A spell alone isn't enough to really get at them but combining magic with physical attacks wears them down sooner."

"Okay," I said slowly as I absorbed the new information. "I guess that makes sense." I handed back the bolt. "How many giants are there?"

Sif shrugged. "We have no idea, their numbers are always fluctuating. They're very violent so they kill each other just as often as we kill them. I'm always hoping they'll just finish themselves off for us, but sadly they're not that stupid."

"How disappointing," I mumbled and Sif nodded at me.

"Right? We're able to hold our own against them but it takes five of our best to take down one of their worst. That's the tricky part. It's hard to know when they'll find their way here and when they do, it's not always a sure thing that you'll have the numbers you need."

"I can't even imagine." I'd been up against the wall in a few confrontations where the odds weren't in my favor but even then, they hadn't been nearly as bad as that. Even so, the topic was a bit depressing and I was eager to leave it behind. "So, are all these weapons enchanted like this?"

"Most are, but others," she indicated some spun glass spheres on a lower shelf that had a soft yellow light pulsing inside. "These are solar bombs. Giants hate bright light, this is a great way to stun them."

"How do you kill a Jotun?" I asked. From what I'd heard already, I couldn't imagine it would be simple.

"The usual ways. Problem is the size of them, it's hard to cut a throat when it's twenty feet above you."

I winced, the mental image turning my already queasy stomach. "How'd you get all these?"

"Wedding gifts mostly, when we divorced, Thor said I could keep them."

"That's generous." I didn't know much about weaponry, but from what Sif had already told me about dwarf metalwork, I knew these had to be very valuable items.

"He is generous." Sif said.

I didn't know if that was true, or just Sif trying to talk up the guy she was trying to set me up with. "So, do these things just sit here and collect dust? Seems a bit of a shame."

"As of late they do," Sif said, sounding wistful. "I've been preoccupied with finding a candidate for the trials."

Hearing that brought the combat trial to my attention. "Could we use these to train me?" I asked. "Even if it's not real combat, at least they're being put to use right?"

She beamed at the suggestion. "When do you want to start?"

"Right now." I only had a month and I'd need all the training I could get.

Sif nodded, grining widely and stood on her toes to grab two shiny metal staves from the display. "Catch."

She tossed one to me and I reached out, catching it easily. The metal was cool and smooth under my hand. "Um, Sif, what are you doing? We can't spar in here for one thing and I don't even know how to use this. Staves are kind of outdated on E-Midgard." I corrected myself, knowing it would take some time before I got used to the new terminology but I was better off practicing now. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

"I know we can't spar in here," she said frankly. "I'm taking you to the sparring ring and we're bringing these with us. It's my personal belief that if you can master a staff, you can master any weapon."

"What's the logic with that?"

"I'll explain later," Sif said, puling open the golden doors. "Are you coming or not?"

I planted one end of the staff down onto the floor. I knew I training would probably be a good idea, but even so I was apprehensive. "Do I have to teleport there too?"

"Yes."

I groaned.

"Don't worry," Sif was by my side faster than I could blink, patting my arm. "You got everything out of your system already. I think you'll be okay."

"How reassuring," I said sarcastically, "just be on stand by with a bucket okay?"

"You got it." She was at the door again, holding it open for me. "After you."

********************************

New chapter! Sif and Suzume are about to start training! As always, feedback is welcome!

Writer on! :)