Hey, just want to dedicate this chapter to @Neeksforevs, please go on over and check her acc, she's awesome and her stories are a serious laugh.
-Magnus-
I had just woken up from dying for the thousandth time. No, actually, I had lost count of how many times I had died. Should I congratulate myself on that instead? Whatever.
I sat up, my skin slightly tingly from burning to the death this afternoon. Some idiot brought matches and oil to the battlefield today, and me and a few hundred einherjar had been torched in a flash fire. The prankster had trickled the oil in and around a copse of trees next to a fake little village, and ended up burning the whole area. As I have probably mentioned previously, burning to the death is one of my least favorite ways to die.
A weird cawing sound shook me out of my unpleasant reminiscence. I sat up. It didn't sound like the usual ravens swooping through the corridors. No, this was, if possible, louder than the crows of the black birds. This was a different animal.
I walked over to get Jack off his hook, and slid him around my neck. Before I could go out to investigate, someone knocked on my door, and I opened it to see a slightly intrigued looking Alex.
I started, "Hey, you're up early-"
"Yeah, yeah, did you hear about the new kid?" she cut off. Yes, right now she was female. "On our floor? In our hall! They're not answering the door." I stepped out of my room and was greeted with the cawing sound again, coming from the end of the hall next to the elevator, seemingly from a door that had not been there before.
To me, it seemed that when someone doesn't open the door they don't want to be bothered, but the rest of my hallmates were waiting for me in front of the new kid's door, knocking.
"Hey, you in there! Amara!" Halfborn was shouting. I had no clue how he had gotten her name. The plaque on the door only read her initals; A S.
"How do you know her name?" I asked, but as usual, I was ignored. Though not completely.
"Sam brought her in this morning," T.J. supplied. "We didn't know until later."
Mallory was frowning at Halfborn. "Shut up, you oaf, can't you try to be quieter? You'll be scaring the poor girl." But even through Halfborn's efforts, or anybody else's, no one answered the door. The weird cawing sound did though, louder, and it definitely was coming from her room. To be honest, my first thought was that the kid was another child of Loki, that just liked being a bird. And, um, I assumed that we had come to the conclusion that the kid was a she, because Amara was not a guy's name. I would know if it was because Alex would have objected. In case you didn't know, she was touchy about labeling someone's gender.
"I mean, she's got to come out sometime. Dinner is soon, shouldn't we take her?" T.J. asked. Mallory shrugged and took out one of her knives.
"Mallory..." I warned. She ignored me and slid it in the lock, effectively breaking it, and pushed the door open with her index finger, smiling slightly at the excuse to use her knives for damage. Her passion for violence was almost amusing. Almost.
A rush of blue feathers and intense squawking shot out into the corridor like it had been launched. We all ducked, and by we I mean everyone except me. I covered my face with my arms, but still felt clawing like small talons, and something heavy on me. When the rush had stopped, I opened my eyes and my friends stood up. They burst out laughing. As usual.
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?