Valkyrie of Desire

20. Don't Say Sorry

Sugar at dawn, noon, and sundown

No time to reflect or relax

Constantly consume or crash hard

The candle has wick but no wax

—Hildr Vas Trumurne

Community shame box by day, the simple rectangular platform opens up for a wider variety of entertainment in the evening. Hildr grips its knee-high edge and stuffs a burlap pillow under her brick-red robe. A bit of her orange hair gets in her mouth, and she brushes it back. The copper hairpin she wears is a poor replacement for her golden one.

On the stage, a woman slaps a man across the face with a fish to end a comedic set no one cheers for. Heads bowed they hop off the opposite side.

No other acts volunteer to go next, and Hildr raises her hand to claim the spot. She leans against the stage and digs her fingernails into the floor, peeling off a dart-sized splinter.

"Shit logs."

She wiggles her almost healed bare foot and stuffs the piece of wood up her sleeve. Her boots sit in the dirt, abandoned. Good protection, but heavy and take crucial moments to pull off. The escape plan is time and weight dependent. Quick and light or disaster.

The market square hums around the platform, and a crowd of curious townsfolk gather. Most are Lotus Hollow regulars, dressed in browns and grays. A few stand out in costumes, decorating the drab field like wildflowers. A few others stand out like thorns with blades ready to prick and rend. Those ones must be with Jax and Happy, berserkers ready to chase her if she runs, but they have no obvious ranged weapons, no recourse if she flies.

"Go on then, lady," says a gruff voice from behind her.

"What's she gonna do?" says another.

Hildr holds a smile and keeps her back to the impatient queries. Where is that winged shadow? This would be the perfect moment. Hop on stage and be swept up into the sky in the talons of her griffin. Not the show they expect, but a spectacular exit.

If Apple does not arrive griffin-ready by dark, the back up plan is no more than starting the show to buy him extra time. A simple escape plan. Fly away and let chaos reign between the three crusades vying to control her life and threatening her child—Well, two crusades and one berserker cult of personality aligned to Red and as fervent as true crusaders of that color.

Gulping, she paces in the dirt next to the stage as the sun sets and the crowd grows.

A whistle. Happy waves to her. He stands among a group of the thorny men. Someone sits behind them on a litter. A thin man with eyes glowing red, his face is shadowed and his posture is slumped, but there can be no mistaking the chill that travels through her. It is the monster that was Ajax, her first love, the man she was missioned to betray, to turn into a weapon serving her demigoddess. Stripped of memory but not of emotion, a mixing of love and hate created a dread walker that somehow has remained obsessed with her despite the passage of years and his skull-cracking head trauma.

Hildr nods to the dwarf as her heart thuds. Simple plans are supposed to succeed. Where is Apple? Was she too naive?

She glares up at the aviary tower that rises above all other buildings. Shaped like an over-sized lighthouse or a phallic monument, it has one window producing a smattering of light.

A tap on her shoulder.

"Excuse me," says a skinny man with a jester's hat. "So sorry to intrude upon your thoughts. If I may, I mean, if you are not quite ready to hop upon the stage, would you allow my humble self the opportunity? I promise no real talent or skill." He chuckles with rounded lips. "Let me bottom out their expectations and thus prime them for your dazzling skit."