Astyr was starting to get used to picking herself up from the ground. She seemed to be landing there quite a bit lately.
The February weather was mild enough to let her practice her fighting skills outside. Glin had been forced to give up teaching her how to handle her Alfar powers after the incident with Hakon during the Christmas holidays but he insisted on working with her, and Hakon by extension, in other areas that he felt were important.
Laure had taken over teaching Astyr about how to manipulate energy and under her patient and experienced tutelage, Astyr had become passably proficient in doing many things that normal Alfar did on a regular basis without even thinking. Things like absorbing energy constantly and using it to pass through doors or make objects fly to her on a current of energy.
Glin, being the second-in-command of the Alfar Royal Guard, had decided, since he refused to sit back and have no hand in Astyr's training at all, that he would teach her how to protect herself. He had been slightly put out when he realized just how skilled she already was in martial arts, archery and swordplay; but he simply declared that she would have to practice daily for any of that to be of use.
This wasn't particularly difficult to manage since football season had ended and with it, the afterschool practices for the cheer squad and the football team.
And so, yet again, Astyr found herself getting up after being thrown to the ground by Glin.
"That was a good one," Jenny called out to Glin in a happy cheer.
Jenny was an almost constant presence now. Glin picked her up for school in the morning and she would come home with them afterwards, staying until it was almost suppertime. Her parents wouldn't allow her to stay later and Frey wasn't too happy about her being around all the time either. Frey had tried to bring up the matter with Glin, saying that it was reckless of Glin and indiscreet but Glin was Alfar royalty and far too used to doing what he pleased to listen to his host.
So every afternoon Astyr would find herself out on the patio in the backyard being attacked by her surly and distant cousin as his human girlfriend cheered him on and Hakon watched in displeasure from the side.
Hakon was not pleased with Glin's insistence on training Astyr and was always ready to step in whenever he felt the Alfar prince was being unnecessarily rough.
"That was not a good one." Hakon said in a menacing growl. "That was cheating." Hakon stepped over to Astyr and pulled her up to her feet before turning to face Glin.
"Keep it clean or you'll find yourself facing me instead." Hakon growled.
Glin just grinned, "Like that would bother me."
Astyr was tempted to zap Glin with a bolt of energy but she had to resist the urge with Jenny there. All of Astyr's "special" lessons had to be done inside, in the billiard room, while Glin made sure to keep Jenny out of the house. Astyr didn't even want to think of how he might be keeping her busy. They had become one of those couples that were annoying to even be around; they never went anywhere alone and they were almost always holding hands or worse.
Astyr brushed herself off and stepped in to diffuse the situation, "It's not a problem, Hakon." She put her hand on Hakon's shoulder and gave him a little pull away from Glin. "If I ever need to use any of this, it's not going to be with rules and referees." She gave Hakon a small smile that she used only for him and continued, "Glin's only making me better; don't worry about it."
Glin narrowed his eyes as Hakon smiled back at Astyr and took her hand from his shoulder and brought it up to his lips.
His green eyes were smoldering at her as he said, "I just worry about you, that's all. I don't want you to get hurt."
Astyr felt a jolt of heat rush through her at his touch. He was having this effect on her a lot lately and she knew he wasn't even using his powers on her. She had learned from Laure how to tell the difference. This was just plain old-fashioned chemistry between them.
Glin started coughing in annoyance to get her attention, "If you're done, can we get back to work here?"
"Fine," she said to Glin as she smiled up to Hakon, "just don't expect that to work a second time. You know I'm a fast learner."
Hakon laughed and moved back over to the chairs where Jenny was sitting as Glin and Astyr faced each other again.
Normally, Alfar warriors wouldn't bother with hand-to-hand combat; they were far too used to relying on their considerable powers to defeat enemies. Glin, however, as second-in-command of the elite Royal Guard felt that it was a great advantage to be able to fight even without using energy in battle. He had spent many centuries studying a wide range of martial arts and adapting them for use by the special forces who were under his direct command.
As much as Astyr disliked being forced to spend time with him, she couldn't deny that he was a gifted fighter and she did enjoy learning new things from sparring with him. Today they were practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu; Astyr had studied this style for quite a while and Glin was pretty good at it, too.
Jiu-Jitsu is a grappling style martial arts and so most of their moves were an attempt to get a hold on the opponent and get them to submit by applying pain. There was a mat spread out on the patio to protect them since most of the fighting took place on the ground. Astyr wasted no time in getting started and simply ran straight at him and jumped up onto him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and used her weight to bring him down onto the mat. As soon as her back hit the mat, she used her legs to push Glin up and over allowing his momentum from the fall to carry him over onto his back. As he was falling, she twisted around so that she could get a hold of his arm. She pulled it straight out and used one leg to hold down his chest and the other to hold down his head. She twisted Glin's wrist until it was close to snapping.
Glin struggled for a moment before tapping on her leg to signal submission.
Glin actually chuckled as he pulled himself up. "You really are a fast learner," he said with a smile.
He reached down to give her a hand up but Jenny came over with a frown on her face. "It's time to take me home," she grumbled, "if you're not too busy rolling around on the ground with Astyr."
Glin dropped the hand he had been holding out for Astyr and put it around Jenny instead, pulling her in for a hug.
"Don't be like that, baby." He said to her softly, "You know you're number one."
Astyr almost gagged as they walked off together. Hakon pulled her up and into his arms.
"Looks like Glin's found himself a diversion," Hakon said with a laugh.
Astyr's eyebrows shot up. "A diversion?" she asked in surprise, "You think he's just playing around with her?"
"Of course he is," Hakon said evenly, "it's not like there's a future for them. She's human, he's not. It's not unusual for our kind to take human companions from time to time. It gets lonely sometimes, you know."
Astyr tilted her head to the side and looked closely at Hakon. "Have you taken a companion before?" she asked, torn between feeling amusement and jealousy.
"Yeah, I have," he answered truthfully, "but it's hard to really be with someone when you know you have to leave them before they start to notice you're not ageing. You find yourself holding back so much that it's almost over before it even starts."
"I don't really know that much about you, do I?" Astyr said softly. "You've never told me anything about your life before you came back home when Gunnar was born. I don't know where you were born or where you've lived or anything."
Hakon gave a soft chuckle and pulled her over to the chairs. He sat her down and pulled another chair up right in front of her so he could sit facing her. He took her hands in his and looked up at her with a smile.
"There isn't anything you could ask that I won't answer, Astyr." He told her, "What do you want to know."
"Well," she said hesitantly, "just start at the beginning."
"Ok," he answered, "that's easy. I was born in the Republic of Venice in 1598. My parents were living there at the time doing business but the beginning of the 17th century was the end of Venice's golden era. So my dad went to Amsterdam when I was four and helped found the Dutch East India Company with the plan that my mother and I would follow him as soon as we could. The problem was that there was a major war going on in Europe at the time; Spain was fighting France, the Netherlands and England at the same time. The Spanish Hapsburgs were bankrupt and corrupt and the entire continent was in a religious upheaval, so we ended up staying in Venice for a couple of decades.
"Venice was a pretty weird place to grow up in. There were laws that dictated what part of the city you could enter depending on what class you were in and everyone dressed up in costumes to get around those laws. Women flocked to Venice to try to make a life as a courtesan and get away from the drudgery of marriage or having to work as a servant so there were women all over the place throwing themselves at any young man who looked like he could afford their services." He ducked his head and was actually blushing a little at this part. "It's not like I was a bad guy, trust me; it's just how things were at the time. It caused me to have a pretty big culture shock when we got to Amsterdam. The North was full of puritans and Lutherans and you almost couldn't look at someone of the opposite sex if they weren't a member of your immediate family."
Astyr laughed out loud, breaking into his story, "You poor thing! What did you do?"
He laughed, too, at the way her face lit up with amusement, before he went on. "Well, I did what any young man would do; I ran away to join a pirate fleet."
Astyr's jaw dropped open in astonishment. "You were a pirate?" she asked loudly.
"Yes," he replied, laughing, "I was a pirate. I set sail in 1628 from the Netherlands with Pieter Ita to attack the Spanish and Portuguese ships that were bringing back treasures from the New World. When I finished sailing with Ita, I stuck around and jumped from ship to ship doing the odd privateering job for the Dutch companies that were taking over the dying Spanish colonies at the time. Later, in 1674, the English took over New Amsterdam, what you call New York, and I moved up there to look after some landholdings that were still held by the family in the Hudson River Valley. I couldn't stay around for more than a decade or two, though, so I took off into the wilderness just before the turn of the Eighteenth Century.
"I traveled through the backwoods for years, living among the Indians when I ran into them or just camping out in the wild if I had to. You should have seen this country when it was still wild and new. I mean, the Indians had settled a lot of places along the Mississippi river that were completely gone by the time Europeans made it that far west, but the forests and wildlife were so thick and abundant. It was amazing just making the trip out to the Pacific coast and back. That was one of my favorite times, just traveling by myself across the continent."
"So what brought you back?" Astyr asked, completely absorbed by his story.
"War," he answered, "it was causing the native people to migrate west so I heard all kinds of stories of the invasion by the people from the Old World. Some of the braves I knew wanted to travel east to join up with tribes like the Mohawk and the Iroquois Nation, thinking they were going to push the Europeans off the land and back to where they came from, so they talked me into acting as a guide for them. When we got back, we found that the Iroquois were fighting with the French against the English; it was too late to get rid of the newcomers. I went to Boston to see my parents, they had finally come over, and I got roped into sailing on trade ships for dad's company for a while. Trade started to get difficult when the Revolution started so I came back and joined up with the continental army."
Astyr interrupted again, "First a pirate, then a rebel. I'm starting to see a pattern here, Hakon."
He laughed, "Yeah, I was always drawn to the more exciting occupations. After the war, I was a trail guide for a few years, helping people to settle in the woods I had travelled through years before. Then I joined the army again when the south tried to secede. And before you ask, I was fighting for the Union; my family lived in the North, remember. After that was all done, I went back to sea again. I went around the globe a few times and traveled through some more wild places like South Africa and Southeast Asia. Those were some really interesting times, but time passes quickly when you're running around on your own and all too soon my parents told me they were expecting a baby. I came back to Boston to be with my family again and that's how I ended up here, with you."
He leaned forward a little and gave her a quick peck on her lips.
"I'm glad you made it here," she said with a small laugh. "Do you miss all the traveling, though?" she added.
He shook his head, "Not yet, I don't. It's only been sixteen years and I've finally found something worth sticking around for."
Astyr looked at him in pleasant surprise. He was talking about her and she couldn't believe how happy that made her. She didn't think that she would feel like this again after Randy had betrayed her but she had known Hakon longer and knew him better than she had ever known Randy. She knew that the feelings she was starting to have for him were real and based on truth and she couldn't stop herself from leaning towards him and closing her eyes as she let her lips meet his in a soft celebration of joy.
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