Astyr was waiting downstairs the next morning at seven when Randy pulled up on his motorcycle. She was wearing black jeans with black ankle boots and had a jacket on over her frilly sky-blue blouse, and she added Randy's spare black helmet to this ensemble before climbing on behind him with her bag slung over one shoulder. He drove slowly once again while they were on the dirt road and sped up quickly once they reached the pavement. Astyr was coming to enjoy the feeling of riding on his bike and was a little disappointed that they reached the school so fast.
He pulled up to the curb beside the student parking lot to let her off and dozens of eyes turned in their direction. Astyr pulled off the helmet and thanked him for the ride as he strapped the helmet down. "Maybe you can come over tonight?" Astyr kind of asked him. But he had to refuse saying that he was busy on weekday evenings. "But I'll definitely pick you up tomorrow, if it's okay."
"It's definitely ok, Randy. I really enjoyed this."
"Good," Randy said, "Because I like having you on my bike with me."
He said goodbye and pulled away and Astyr headed to the courtyard to meet her friends in the gazebo. Before she got across the street, however, she felt someone pull on her arm.
"Who was that and what were you doing on that motorcycle?" She looked up to find Hakon scowling down at her, with his hand holding her arm in a vice-like grip.
She jerked her arm to get him to let go and said, "Good morning to you, too, Hakon. Yes, I had a great weekend, how about you? And how's Gunnar."
Hakon sighed in frustration. "I'm sorry to be so gruff, Astyr, but you can't just ride around with a stranger on a motorcycle and not expect me to be concerned. And Gunnar is fine for now, thanks for asking."
"I'm glad Gunnar's okay; maybe you can take me to see him later." Astyr said. "But Randy isn't a stranger. He's my date for Homecoming and he lives right down the road. If Grima says it's alright, I don't think you have any room to make objections."
They were getting close to the gazebo but Hakon seemed to be taking smaller and smaller steps. "I still don't know why you had to agree to go with him." Hakon said fiercely. "You know I would have taken you if you had told me you wanted to go."
Astyr just rolled her eyes at that and said to him, "Maybe the point is that he did ask." Then she walked off to catch up with Jenny and Ginny to go to class.
Later at lunch she was sitting at the usual table answering questions about her mysterious biker friend when Hakon came and sat down between Astyr and Gwen. He didn't say anything to anyone and just waited patiently for Astyr to finish telling the rest of the cheer squad about their trip to the beach the previous day. When she was done, he turned to Gwen and said, "Gwen, I need a date to homecoming. Are you going with someone else or would you like to go with me?"
Gwen lit up and assured Hakon that she would love to go with him. He got up and left the table before she could say anything else and the girls all started talking at once to congratulate Gwen on getting him to ask her out. Astyr grabbed her bag and left since she knew that Hakon's asking her out had nothing to do with Gwen and she didn't want to have to lie and say that she was happy for her.
She kept to herself all through the rest of her classes and even during practice after school. She wasn't jealous; she and Hakon weren't going out, after all. And Astyr was seeing Randy. She liked Randy, he was warm and gorgeous and he understood that Astyr had a lot of sadness in her life. He was easy to talk to and she felt good when she was with him. No, she told herself, she really wasn't jealous. Hakon was nothing to her but a friend, or the older brother of her friend, really. There were no feelings between them, at all. But there were no feelings between Hakon and Gwen either. At least, not on Hakon's side, Astyr knew. Maybe that's what was bothering her so much. She knew that Hakon had nothing but contempt for Gwen; she was nothing but a human, after all. But he had asked her out anyway and Astyr didn't like that side of him that would use someone so coldly.
Astyr congratulated herself for figuring out what was getting under her skin and left the locker room to go find Hakon in the parking lot. She still had to ride home with him in the afternoons. She had offered to get a ride from someone else but Hakon had only gotten madder and told her not to be ridiculous. She climbed into the passenger seat while Hakon was trying to get Gwen to stop talking. He finally just told her that he had to go and got into the driver's seat, slamming the door shut.
"You had to know that asking her out would only encourage her." Astyr told him, trying not to laugh at him.
"I only asked her so that I would have an excuse to be at that dance and keep an eye on you and your mystery boyfriend." Hakon said matter-of-factly.
"Randy's not a mystery, Hakon." Astyr said to him. "He's a neighbor. And Grima says it's ok for me to go out with him, so what's your problem."
"My problem is that he's human." Hakon said coldly. "He's not our kind and nothing good can come from you spending time with him. You're better off with someone who knows you, and who can help you and protect you."
"Hakon, I'm only fifteen, I'm not about to run off with Randy or anything." Astyr told him. "I just like hanging out with him, he's nice and I've never been able to just be friends with someone. And as for him being human; so what? It seems to me that we live in this world with them so we may as well get along."
"We can't get along with them, Astyr." Hakon said. "Have you forgotten how all their stories about vampires and werewolves and witches end? As soon as they find out what we are, they bring out the torches and pitchforks and try to get rid of us. Nowadays, instead of angry villagers, we have secret government departments dedicated to finding us, studying us, and getting rid of us." He was completely serious and Astyr was shocked at what he was saying.
"Why would they do that? What have we done to make them do that?" She asked him in disbelief.
"Not all of us are happy to keep to ourselves and just live our lives, Astyr." He said. "There are some of our kind who believe that this world is ours and that humans are just another resource at our disposal. They are the ones who flaunt themselves in public, kill for no reason, and make humans scared of all of us. They are the reasons that humans have so many stories of us as monsters. You have to be careful, Astyr."
"Fine," she said, "I will, but I'm not going to stop being friends with Randy just because he's different."
"Fine," he answered with a smile, "then I'll just have to make you see that you're better off with your own kind, with someone you don't have to keep secrets from." He brushed his hand against her cheek lightly and Astyr felt a jolt of energy pass through her skin and down her spine. She closed her eyes as a shiver of pleasure passed through her. When Hakon removed his hand she looked up to find him staring at her. "What was that?" she asked him, "Did you do that?"
"Yeah," he answered, "It's just one of the little ways we can use energy. I thought you might like seeing something good we can do."
She laughed at that, "That was definitely good and you should definitely not do that again." She said goodbye as she scooped up her bag and got out of the car.
The rest of the week seemed to creep along slowly for Astyr. She enjoyed riding to school with Randy in the morning but sitting through classes without Gunnar was like torture. She was stuck with Jenny and Ginny non-stop and whenever she wasn't in class with them, she was stuck with Gwen. Hakon was her constant companion whenever she wasn't in class and Gwen never let Hakon out of her sights. She seemed to be under the impression that going to the dance with him meant that she was his girlfriend and she was extremely territorial, to the point that it was almost painful to sit with her and Hakon together.
Hakon didn't bother treating Gwen any better than he had before and this seemed to make her even more determined to get through to him, so much so that on Friday at lunch she tried to put her hand on his arm. As soon as her hand made contact with his skin, however, she jerked back with a squeal of surprise. "You shocked me!" she said, trying to laugh. Hakon just passed it off as static electricity and when it happened again, he said she should probably not keep trying. She pouted but kept her hand to herself after that.
Later, when Hakon was driving Astyr to his house to visit with Gunnar, she called him out on shocking Gwen. "That really wasn't nice, Hakon." She said. "If you can't stand her, you should just break up with her." Hakon actually growled at her and she couldn't stop herself from laughing out loud. "I can't break up with her because I am not dating her," he said tersely. That made Astyr laugh even harder and she could barely get her words out, "That's not what she thinks! She's already naming your kids." Hakon just grunted disgustedly and turned the music up louder to discourage Astyr from continuing on this subject.
When they arrived at the Falkor's house, Astyr almost ran up the stairs to see Gunnar. As she got to the entrance to the game room, she almost slid to a stop in shock. Gunnar was lying on the couch listlessly staring at the ceiling. It had been only one week since Astyr had seen him but he seemed to have aged a couple of years. He had always been taller than the rest of the boys in their class, but now he was just as tall as Hakon and his muscular frame was even more solid as she could plainly see since he was only wearing a pair of pajama bottoms. His hair was long enough to brush his shoulders now and he had a dark five o'clock shadow covering his chin.
"Wow, Gunnar," Astyr said, "You've really let yourself go."
He looked over to her and she could see a flash of recognition in his eyes. He gave her a weak hello but otherwise made no move. She rushed to his side in alarm and put her hand on his forehead. "Are you ok? What's wrong? Do you want me to call your parents?" she asked in a rush. He just shook his head slightly and gasped out, "Just tired. It'll pass." Astyr knew that this was supposed to be normal for Aesir when they were coming of age but seeing it happen to Gunnar made her scared. He was always so animated and happy and full of energy. To cover her shock and to give him time to rest she told him everything that had happened at school that week and by the time she had got to Hakon shocking Gwen at lunch, he was recovered enough to laugh and reach up to hold her hand.
"I really missed you, Gunnar." She said, "I can't believe you have another week of this to go through."
"I miss you, too, Astyr." He said. "I can't wait for my birthday next Sunday."
"Why do you look so different? Is this normal?" she asked.
Gunnar laughed, "Once we reach sixteen, we're fully grown. The last couple of weeks before our sixteenth birthday, our bodies aren't just maturing on the inside. How I look at the end of next week will be how I'll look for the next several thousand years."
"Well, if you're stuck like this, you'll be okay." She said with a laugh. "Has anything really horrible happened so far?"
"Not really," he said. "There was once when I was standing out on the balcony looking at the sky and the next thing I knew, I had turned into a falcon. I was flying over the pool and it freaked me out, I didn't know what had happened. Then I saw my mom and I flew down to her. She said something to me in the old language and I was myself again. It was amazing being up there in the sky but afterwards, I couldn't even move I was so tired."
"Wow," Astyr said. "I can't picture you as a bird. You must've been a giant one."
"Ha-ha, way to pick up the important parts of the conversation, Astyr." He said.
"I'm just kidding." She said, "Do you remember how you turned into a bird? Can you do it again?"
He took a moment before answering to think about it. "I don't remember doing anything specific, I was just thinking about the sky and I guess about a falcon I saw hunting once and then I was a falcon. I guess with practice I could figure it out again, but it really wiped me out. I definitely don't think I could do it again until after my birthday."
They spent the rest of the afternoon talking and by dinner time Gunnar was able to get up and get dressed. They ate in the kitchen with Hakon and his parents and afterwards, Hakon drove Astyr home. Before she left, Gunnar gave her a rib-cracking hug and made her promise to come see him again soon.
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