Norns

The ball was flush with enchanted fey foods - boar's heads with jellied eyes, lamb pot pies, honey baked salmon, fingerling potatoes roasted to perfection, venison from the Isa's mountain reindeer herds, r****h cakes, apples, pears, persimmons, citrons, and blackberries and raspberries grown in Maren's enchanted gardens, all carried about by short and stout duergar of dwarven stock. I helped myself to the feast, but Rosy helped herself more.

Above all, there was frenzied dancing in a great cavernous ballroom lit by a cosmic shatterglass diamond that grew from the lofty, twisted ceiling - the walls were draped in tapestries depicting Queen Jarngrimr's great lindworm hunts, boar slayings, solving of riddles of enchanted castles to gather bounty, and her fighting King Hakkon. The huldre and Isa pounded out a quadrille that was maddening in its speed.

"Isn't this marvelous?" Fylja asked, taking a deep whiff of marzipan cake that Maren and Rosy had prepared. "And look! Silje and Yuri made Isa dresses for the three of you - I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to Aslaugh!" Fylja took a bit of yule log cake from a passing duergar and gently ate it with her serrated fangs, the chocolate getting on her plump lips. She smiled mischievously. "You are a vision, Queen Jarngrimr atop her bone throne cannot take her eyes off of you... look at how her hungry looks drink you down."

I fingered the white fox fur dress I was in, trimmed with black sable and a velvet cloak. My fine Isa slippers were of rabbit down laced with pearls. I squeezed Fylja's hand and pet Gullinkambi atop my shoulder, looking under lidded eyes upon my Beast.

Jarnja sat a shipslength away atop another lindworm throne, this one her most massive yet, dyed gold to the marrow. She wore a flowing black cape and iron mask like her namesake. She was drinking me down like honey wine, it was true, toying with her cape as her predatory gaze pinned me like one of Yuri's collected butterflies on a board.

Jarnja mouthed a "Hello" and raised her bloody drinking horn to me, etched with runefire, in toast. She looked pleased as pudding with the festivities, but furthermore, with me, her bride – whether I wanted it or not. And oh – did I want it...

Heith sat atop a volva chair to her right. Heith said something to make Jarnja laugh, and they both strayed with their gazes to Yuri and Dominic, who were dancing up a storm as the Watermen clapped along to a tune of Shiva and Parvati's love dance.

Oh no - it was a proposal dance! That scoundrel Dominic - who I had given all my courting pointers too on the Maroon Sea, was stealing my little sister away!

"Filly, follow me, quick, I must put a stop to this at once!" I crowed, speeding to Yuri's side as Dominic wrapped white and pink ribbons around her like a Maypole and sprinkled her with kumkum powder. The Watermen and Waterwomen had formed a protective, festive barrier around the lovers, abreast with flowers to offer to the intended bride.

As I pushed through a stocky Indrajit swainswoman, I saw Rosy dancing as the flower girl, spreading gardenia petals and baby's breath at Yuri's twirling feet. Yuri laughed and began to sing, a song of Shiva and Parvati that Dominic had spent long nights by the shores of the Maroon Sea teaching her when they took their nightly past times. Dominic sang baritone, Shiva courting Parvati, and released the ribbons' tensions. Yuri came unspooling and fluttering about like a butterfly, her plump curves abreast in a wolfskin tribal dress, trimmed in yellow fur that paired like fine Periland wine with her amber eyes. The mara and Watermen and Rosy clapped, but I would have none of it, as Dominic scooped his bride to be up into his arms. The instant Dominic was about to carry off Yuri to the marriage chamber, I blocked his way, frowning mightily, and his ecstatic smile fell away.

Yuri fumed.

"Turry, don't be a stone in the river! Father would never let me marry sweet Domni, seeing as he hates Watermen - but now, we are not in Arcadia anymore, are we? This place is sacred and protected, the Northern Holds of dear mama. She would want us to be happy. Oh please, can't you let me be happy?"

Dominic attempted to smile, but looked like he had a toothache. He hoisted Yuri even higher. "Turry, you are not the only sister who can love. Please, I will cherish Yuri with my troth and my life. She will want for nothing in my house and in my arms."

I bit my lower lip, and Gullinkambi paced the flagstones, pecking at Dominic's leather shoes. He sighed, expectant.

"It's just, Yuri - you're so young," I finally said. "I don't want you two to rush into this now that we finally are free of father's restrictions."

Yuri looked at me with bright yellow eyes. "This is my most blessed choice, sister dearest. I would have had my debut ball already, wouldn't I? Engaged to some foreign prince I did not love. Sixteen is the time Arcadians get married and settle down. You have dear Jarnja-"

"I don't!" I said quickly, stumbling over my words, then letting loose a sigh. "I mean, I, I – I don't know her, not really."

Yuri smiled kindly. "It is clear as day, dear Turiel. You are smitten. But you are stubborn, so it will take you some time to realize that you are in love."

I looked down at my rabbit's fur slippers. "In love with a Troll Queen?... I - I. Okay, I bless you two. Give me many fine nieces and nephews of mama's magick so that I may have witch and wizard pupils aplenty!"

Yuri got down from Dominic's broad arms and kissed my cheek. "Thank you," she whispered, and then giggling, rushed off behind the tapestry curtains with Dominic behind her. They were thick as wild marauders.

Rosy gazed after them with puppy dog eyes. "Do I have to marry a nasty man? They all smell of pig sop, every single one of them..." Rosy muttered, tugging at my skirts. She herself was dressed in a fox pelt dress with green trim, her ginger hair glancing off the candlelight in red fractals, merry blue eyes perplexed.

"Women are better lovers," I whispered secretly to her as the Watermen dispersed, the wedding passion play over.

"I only like food," Rosy declared. "Oh, look, Maren has salmon cakes! I want some!" She darted off through the crowds, leaving Fylja and I alone with Gullinkambi. Fylja scooped up my fetch and smiled softly.

"I will watch the chicken. It looks like our queen has need of you," Fylja said kindly, petting Gullinkambi's warm breast feathers. "I wonder what you taste like, Mr. God Chicken? Barbecue, maybe?"

Gullinkambi squawked, then began preening Fylja's smoky black storm cloud hair. The beautiful mara laughed.

I peered through the huldre reel to see Queen Jarngrimr of the Sorrows standing atop her throne, wings outstretched. She took to the air and then in one fell swoop alighted to my side, then bowed low, her black cowl brushing my skirts.

"A dance, fair maiden?" Jarnja purred, a thick, drowning sound that made me shiver in delight.

"In return for your reddest of roses - I have magick I want to experiment on those with."

"They make excellent pigments on my enchanted canvasses," Jarnja drawled, scooping me into her arms and beginning to dance a waltz with me. My skirts belled out and the stations of dance I had trained for all my life for in court life suddenly seemed useful - a way of earning legendary love.

"You paint with them?" I gasped as she turned me out in a princess turn then bowed me over in a Skadhi bend. Her supple, thick muscles were warm against my furs.

"And cook with them, too. Delicacies and desserts. They are quite useful in the kitchen - did you know Aslaugh gave me the first rose I cultivated the rest from, for eighteen years after, building up my seat of power?" Jarnja whispered, her lips brushing my ear. I trembled in delight as she held me close and the fiddle fell into a slow dance. She swayed her powerful pistons of hips with my waifish frame, and I felt like a toothpick about to break in her powerful arms.

"Mama gave you the rose? From where?"

Jarnja kissed my forehead, and the world seemed to slow to Ginnungagap as she cradled me to her triumphant breast. "That is better left for the dead. A secret of secrets. Perhaps, someday, I shall tell you..." Jarnja twirled me, then scooped me up in her arms and took me sailing in a ballerina lift across the ballroom, as if she were the berth of my ship.

The sea of dancers parted, and she reassumed her perch on her throne, me on her lap. She put a protective arm around me, and Heith gave a great laugh. I blushed furiously, squirming, but my Beast would have none of it. She simply laughed heartily and plaited my blonde mane.

"After we sup, you shall face the Test of your Discipline," Jarnja soothed, tracing my knees under the fur of my dress.

"I choose art," I said fiercely, stealing an apple from Jarnja's pocket and taking a predatory bite in. I snarled in mock play. "Look, I have become a bergresar."

Jarnja chuckled. "You are the farthest thing from a troll as Loki is from common sense, my little snowflower."

I settled into the warmth of her lap and squeezed shut my eyes as the fossegrim fiddled on. "Tell me, Jarnja, do you think Valhalla awaits you, Helheim, Folkvangr, or yet another Aesir or Vanir hall when you die?"

Jarnja's ruby eyes pulsated. "I have already been to all nine realms in my quests, dear princess," she said sultrily, toying with my earrings of amber. "Vanaheim suits me best. I would like a little farm and little wee babes with you. Once this endless war is over, and we have solved the bale of the Gods."

I blushed. Heith winked at me.

"Once this is all over... I may like that," I admitted, blushing furiously, looking at her wolf's feet. The shadow of her ram's horn was inky darkness on my lap. "Once, that is, I get to know you, dear Beast."