Atypical (A Magnus Chase fan novel)

A Big Blue Bird

     A huge blue macaw sat on my head triumphantly, looking around at my friends. He was a magnificent cobalt blue, and had yellow markings around his eyes and beak. I lowered my arms, and tried to look up at it. It looked at me upside down, and cawed in my face.

      "Hello," it croaked. Even its voice was large. I nervously reached up to pet his head, and he let me, hopping down onto my shoulder. I turned towards my friends, no doubt the look on my face priceless the way Alex was sniggering.

     "So, I'm guessing this is not our person?" I asked.

     "Of course not Magnus, not everyone here is a child of Loki sent to make your life miserable," she chided.

     "You don't make, uh, I mean just cause you're a child of Loki," I stuttered, but she cut me off by holding her arm out to the bird, who hopped on. She walked into the room behind everyone else, the macaw's deep blue plumage clashing magnificently with her pink and green sweater vest.

     I shook off my stuttering and walked inside reluctantly. My friends had no respect for privacy. They stood in the middle of the room, with an open-air atrium very similar but much different than mine. Trees stood to the side on four corners, not in the middle, and a netting covered the top so that the room wasn't completely open to the branches of Yggdrasil. The trees were more lush and the wood was darker in color. Long branches stuck out forming a canopy, like a jungle. I half expected a tiger to jump out of nowhere. Beautiful thick green grass blanketed the floor.

     But the rest of the room didn't carry on with the natural stuff, and was more of a quiet, modern style. The kitchen was clean and tidy, though part of it was taken up by a large, open- roofed birdcage with a vast assortment of bird toys and perches, kind of defeating the neat part. The living room and bedroom had a white and grey neutral theme, with soft pink accent pillows. Everything looked cozy and fluffy, and also kind of round, with bean bags mixed in with the sofas, and the bed a round daybed with a little canopy. Next to a tall bookshelf, an awesome glass bubble chair hung in the corner from the rafters, which were spears like the rest of Vallhala. I guess you couldn't have everything your way.

     I sensed something weird in the room, like a familiar feeling, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

     On my neck in pendant form, Jack buzzed. Look up. So, I did. Who's gonna argue with the talking sword?

     I gazed up at the ceiling, and when something in the rafters moved, and I flinched. A small figure was curled up on one of the wooden planks that were intermixed with the spears, hidden behind a tree branch. Now that the figure had moved, I could actually see them. She was wearing a headscarf, like Samirah's but not like Samirah's. Hers was purple, and wrapped around her head in a different style, more snug, and a little glint of white shone on her head, like it was secured with a pin. She was wearing black cargo pants, a black windbreaker, and a white shirt, from what I could see anyway.

     The girl looked like a mini Sam, with her tanned skin, but very, very frightened. Her grey eyes met mine, widening. She bit her lip nervously. I suddenly noticed a light pink-and-grey prayer rug on the floor next to the bed, half-folded, pointing southeast.

     Oh jeez.

     "What's wrong Magnus?" Alex asked, noticing I had flinched. Her eyes drifted to where I had been looking but I hastily got her attention.

     "Nothing! Maybe we should come back later, Sam will come to get her anyway."

     Wow. I'm great at being inconspicuous. Alex raised her eyebrow slightly, but then shrugged.

     "Well, I'm gonna go sign up for my pottery class for tomorrow. Anyone want to come with?" she asked. Mallory shrugged and nodded,

     "Yeah, I haven't really got anything else to do. Come on, you oaf," she said, punching Halfborn. Because that's how those two show love. T.J, however, shook his head and said that he was going to polish his bayonet before dinner, a nighttime ritual of his.

     "Magnus?" Alex asked.

     "Uh, I might come, but I gotta do something first, don't wait for me."

     "Fine. I'll sign you up too then." Before I could protest that I really wasn't interested (pottery to the death often involved getting thrown into a fiery kiln, as I may have mentioned previously), she held out her arm for the bird, who was still sitting on her contentedly, and he flew off to a perch. We filed out of the room, and I hurried to my own, shutting the door behind me, while everyone went off to do their designated activities.

     I took Jack's pendant off my necklace, and he sprang into sword form.

     "Did you see that?" he said, his runes flashing blue and green excitedly. "I mean her? I wonder what Sam was thinking, huh?" To be honest, I was thinking the exact same thing. Why would Sam play with her emotions like that? Putting a Muslim in Valhalla? Amara would be going through some serious thought processing right now. And, she seemed a lot younger than the kids in our grouping of Valhalla, maybe thirteen, fourteen? Sam said that she had to do some serious soul-searching when she found out about the Nine Worlds, but at least she was still living. This girl found out when she died. Who knows what's going through her head right now?