line, I remember my first love. The thorns are aflam

first love, once mortal, now a h

ow my tal

ut time for me, and my soon to

panion, the stable lass Yolanda, glimmering under Mani's moonlight like a Valkyrie of Mother F

and free and wild as she rode aback her stallion like a sunburst s

wn eyes sparkling, sienna Tuniska skin alight, and as we raced in laughter

red ancestors of old, all faring brightly forth upon Aurvandil's boat to bless our blossoming love. In the constellations and auror

futzing about: fighting and drinking and gambling with the berserkers and shieldmaidens, as per your usual vices?" Yolanda dismounted her steed Niksandriel and set out rye bread, apples, cured lamb, and a wheel of goat's cheese

banner and lay my sword's steel down in battle for our love every joust! The troubadours will sing your nam

princess of ill mien. For shame! Lady Freida is my beloved, and I shall serve as her Valkyrie when I die – not waste away as courtesan in the immortal court of a scoundrel like you, Turry, a lady knight trying to steal my heart away with her sword's slicing, brutish motions. As if that is any w

ice field out of my skirts pockets and dismounting Marnier. I petted his chestnut and white splotched flank and tied him close besides Niksandriel to a birch tree. Forge

grinned wide from ear to ear. "Ah, your usual gifts of courting

e moonlight like an unparalleled Periland diamond, this most precious of gems?" I took Yolanda's fine burnished red bronze colored hand and gave her a shiny amethyst raw of the makin

ed with crimson nixie roses and tucked the pathetic daisies behind her lotus shaped ears. "You truly are as romantic as your father Hakkon was with Queen Aslaugh, which is to say, you would slaughter a boar in front of me, dearest Turry, and give me its still beating heart – but come evenings of poetry, mead, and song, a

th my unusually sharp teeth. She laughed to high Valhal

mp hips and ripe belly weighing me down, and my lass began to tickle me. The moon was a silver knife, and it cut me to the bone, drawing feverish love from my wounds as I kissed my curvaceous girlf

yst? My rough edges, flaws, and all?" I breathed, pawing at her breast

s underthings, and wore men

h you. All of you,

own a witching in Mymyr's sacred well, spelling out a strange fate for the odd pair we had become. I could not ken what the Sister Fates had in store for us in the mercury of Yolanda's

Salmons of wisdom, s

the huldrefolk, meant for stealing a changeling baby away to the lap of the Grim Troll Queen. I looked at her flawless, earthen sienna skin in

for you and witch for you, and you shall raise the chickens, goats, and horses of our lands. Us who flee the sword are not safe in the faith of the Latinate gods that have driven my father up the chicken coop. You and I will cook the finest foods between us to keep our bell

nningfolk. Some of us are Arcadia born, of green pastures and the Black Forest of Greater Germania, and not of the land of the midnight sun…" she soothed, kissing my small, barely pronounced br

e last

rs and rain, then, suddenly, went q

reida's Valkyries, gave a sorrowful look, blew a hunting hor

yst flare

kille

our twisted jokes?" I held my true love in my a

. Chill

are you doing this cruel trick. Yola

and fury rising like Ran's sea s

n's blue death blooming on her wan flesh like snowfla

p, passionate kiss – my

rom late last autumn, finally realizing th

please, my great huntress, help me!" I screamed, but only

my child, I am so sorry. I had no idea Aslaugh's curse would… work this way. I thought it meant something quite different, of a bargain of old and roses rotted through to the root. Your father cannot have any evidenc

f my stuffed, ceaselessly running nose as my tears fell onto my true love's dead, navy, cold br

one to be a

nodded

my Isa poi

ed, fingering the ivory whale bone dagger mama had

nged the sharp claw of the dagger

t and burning like the Latinate god L

, unleashed by true love's kiss, had

d, spilled in my red tears as it

e back to the palace, but not before I dressed, sobbing, bleeding on

landa's decayed corpse, and g

landa my heart, my on

been a Beas

yond Germania, and awaken my Valkyrie with the slumbering stone – only I d

over me, and always, Yolanda haun

it

assed, and st

e Livin