Valkyrie of Desire

26. Eeffae City

Laughter is pain

Pain is laughter

—Ishkur Inshushinak Ishtaran

Wet and naked on a grassy shore, Hildr shivers and coughs. Sickness creeps through her. An invisible monster, it follows her string of poor decisions, the final being riding their overburdened griffin into the river.

Stupid. Hildr bows her head. Fate may owe her a favorable roll, but that bitch gets to pick the time. She rubs her belly and shakes away the river's chill. Recklessness is a dream of foolish loners, and it is past time she woke up.

A piercing caw echoes across the water. Her exhausted griffin responds with growls and squawks at the river's edge. Peggy's wings are folded tight, like a feathered blanket atop her saddle. The black shadow of the taunting crow glides over the water and settles on a piece of wood floating down river, a piece of the watermill torn free from when Peggy failed to fly.

Hildr straightens and frowns at Dap as the crow continues to caw with the tone of a jester confronting royalty.

"Meepsin, tell your bird to stop pestering Peggy, and send him ahead." She flaps her hands. "Find out how far the city is. I must get warm and fed."

The brownie steps between her bare knees with her missing underwear wrapped around his wrists. He holds the pink cloth up and twists until water dribbles into his tiny green mouth.

Hildr scrunches her face. "Even for a fae boy, that's disgusting."

Meepsin hands Hildr her undergarments. "Not so clean tasting, but not so dirty. Okay to wear now. Better laundry, how?"

Hildr pats his mossy head, and he trills like a purring kitten. The brownie has come a long way as a companion since poisoning her soup.

"Thank you, Meeps, for your work." She shakes her clothes out. "Now about Dap?"

Meepsin bangs his twig-like arms together and caws. His crow caws back and launches off the wooden debris to fly further down river.

Behind her, there is a groan and the crackle of old bones.

Apple says, "This is all farmland. No more hills to leap off of, but we are close. Half a day or less to Eeffae."

"Perhaps, we should have pressed on." Hildr winces as she tugs her undergarments on. "Nothing worse than putting these on wet."

"Oh, I don't know." The old man twists his robe until a steady stream of water dribbles. "Crashing our griffin into a river when wearing a thick wool robe was a shit log of a time."

She stretches her thin cloth and blows on it. "Good thing fat floats."

Apple frowns, and Hildr winces. The insult was instinctive. Attack and attack. Never regret, and blame the weakness of others. This has been her habit, but this abuse endangers the shaman's loyalty. It is also tribute to the abuses of her mother and demigoddess, bitches on par with fate.

She licks her lips. "Look, I—"

"Smooth shaved head and thin cream clothes soaked enough to see through, whatever will city folk think of ya? Maybe we should change your story from whore wife with lice to a riverboat rescue."

Hildr smiles. Thick skin and the wit to riposte, she should appreciate him more.

She says, "It's a sunny day. I'll dry on the walk, and I'll be carrying most of our money. I'm no more or less than someone in need of an expensive dress." She rubs her head. "And maybe a mountainous blonde wig, something to rival that Uonna girl. That would be a fitting costume for when I meet that Scarlet lover of hers."