Asgard, Day One

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Marie-Ange lands in Odin's meadhall, at Odin's feet. She makes a deal, learns to fight, gets a temporary pet bird and a lot of bruises.



The grinding headache in Marie-Ange's skull was doing nothing for her ability to think clearly. She was -very- aware that something had happened, that she was not on the baseball field, but somewhere colder, quieter, and apparently with a stone floor, if she was guessing what she was sprawled on. She would have opened her eyes to check, but the throbbing in her skull was directing her to keep them squeezed shut.  If this was Clarice's fault, she thought, she was definitely going to have very loud words with her. After the headache went away.

"HAH! Someone has left me a present!" a booming voice called out, and a very large pair of leather boots appeared next to Marie-Ange's head. "It's a little scrawny..." said the same booming voice, and then a hand gripped Marie-Ange by the scruff of her neck and _lifted_.

Stifling her first instinct, which was to shriek, kick wildly and demand to be put down, Marie-Ange still struggled against the grip on her neck and shoulders - completely and utterly in vain.  Peeling one eye open to see a positively huge, white-haired and bearded man, in some kind of leather armor. Then she shrieked, kicked wildly, and demanded to be let down, now.

The white-haired man laughed again, and then without warning pulled Marie-Ange to her and kissed her. Thoroughly. When he was finished, he put her down and looked at her. "Want to tell me how you got in here?" he asked in perfectly normal accentless English.

Before speaking, Marie-Ange wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Whoever this old letch was, it was probably better to be polite.  "Sir, if it is not rude to ask, I am not quite sure where here -is-. I would answer your question, but I really have no idea. "

The white-haired man's eye (the other one was covered by a leather eyepatch) twinkled with amusement. "You're in my meadhall." he said, now with a perfect Lyon accent. He then looked at Marie-Ange, her baseball jersey and her shorts, and then laughed again. "Someone is in a great deal of trouble. What am I going to do with you, Midgardian?"

"Midgardian?"  Marie-Ange mouthed the word silently, trying to remember where she'd heard that term before.  Only after a few seconds of thinking on this did she even realize that the old man had switched languages, and then a few moments after that, the pieces of her mental puzzle fell into place.  Old man, one eye, huge raven on each shoulder..  "I..  would appreciate it if I could go back to Midgard, sir?"

Odin laughed again - a cruel, nasty laugh. For a brief second, he sounded a _lot_ like a particular Spaniard of Marie-Ange's acquaintance. "I'm afraid not." he said with a twisted grin. "You want to go home, my little seeress, you're going to have to _work_ for it."

Eyes wide with nervousness and fear, Marie-Ange took a step back, knowing that it was not going to get her anywhere, and still not able to stop herself.  "Work..  for it?"  ~ohgodpleasedon'tlethimaskforthat~

Odin grinned again. "Not my style, my little seeress. That's more of my son's thing. I will help you, but what will you give _me_ for it? I don't hand out help just because you've got a pretty mouth and you ask me nicely."

"I..  I am afraid I do not have very much to offer."  Marie-Ange said, almost in a whisper. She stared down at her feet, not sure what to say, or even think at this point.  The very fact that Odin seemed to be able to read her thoughts, and know who and -what- she was without effort was unsettling her in a major way.

"No. You don't. Which begs the question - what am I to do with you? You won't fight, you don't dance very well, and you would not do well as the wife of a warrior. Can you serve?" he asked her. "Or would you prefer to dance? Or maybe even take up the sword?"

That was a choice between a rock and a hard place.  Marie-Ange was positive that Odin's idea of dancing was -not- the ballroom and swing style dance that she had learned over the spring. She'd heard Manuel put exact same inflection on the word before, and make it mean something -entirely- different.  But the sword - that was not any better, though it certainly carried less risk of disease.  More risk of getting large holes poked in her, perhaps, but less risk of large scary men deciding to do bad things to her.  ~Either way, I will have to do something I hate. Better to choose the one that will not cause me to lose Doug. I will not have to continue to fight when I am home..~

Odin looked at Marie-Ange with amusement, but also some respect. "I see. Well, I'm certainly too busy to train you into shape, but I know _just_ the person to do it." He made a gesture, and then a black-haired woman of truly _herculean_ proportions stood in the hall next to Marie-Ange, looking -very- annoyed. "Why have you called me here?" she spit at Odin.

"It's very simple." Odin said patiently, as if speaking to a small child. "I want the girl-child trained."

"What?" said the black-haired woman. "This one? Look at her - she'd be better off as a whore. No muscle, dressed worse than a common doxy ... is this another of your jokes?"

Marie-Ange couldn't help but snort in derision at the woman's insult.  Common -doxy- indeed. She had no idea what she was talking about, obviously.  Folding her arms, she stood up just a little straighter, and glared.  "I am no whore, nor will I be forced to become one. This is perfectly acceptable clothing for Midgard."

"You're not _in_ Midgard. Idiot." the black-haired woman said to Marie-Ange. "You're in the Golden Realm now, and you are _nothing_. No, worse than nothing. You're the shit that stains the floorboards. You're..."

"Sif, enough!" said Odin, and the black-haired woman choked back what she was about to say. "Take the girl. Train her. Do not break her overmuch. She is one of mine, in heart if not in mind or body." With Odin's words, one of the huge black birds on his shoulder removed its claws from Odin's flesh, and settled down on Marie-Ange's shoulder, the blood on its talons dripping down onto her shirt slowly.

As the bird landed on her shoulder, Marie-Ange's head whipped around to stare at it.  ~Thought.. or  Memory?~ she mused.  She had far too many questions - and a deep suspicion that she would get absolutely -no- answers..

Odin grinned at Marie-Ange. "You learn quickly, granddaughter." he told her, then waved his hand at Sif. "Take her and begone. Bring her to me in two moons' time. Do you think you can have her at least not likely to kill herself by accident by then, or is that too much for the mighty Sif to accomplish?"

----

Marie-Ange rubbed her shoulder gingerly, and scowled. "That -hurt-." she sighed, taking a step away from the woman opposite her. "And I suppose ice is not even an option right now, is it?"

Sif brushed a lock of raven-black hair back over her shoulder as she grounded one end of her staff.  "Hardly," she sniffed. "Pain is the best teacher."

"That explains Algebra." Marie-Ange muttered, and set her feet, again, trying to ignore the aches in her calves and shoulders.

Sif returned both hands to her staff and brought it whistling to a high guard position.  "Again, girl," she instructed, a complete lack of sympathy in her voice.

Marie-Ange gritted her teeth and swung out towards Sif, instinctively pulling her swing, her frustration with the older woman clashing directly with her pacifism.

Sif, on the other hand, was not pulling her strikes at all, and her strength and aim showed as she brought her staff downward to rap the back of Marie-Ange's hand smartly.  When the girl flinched backward, Sif stepped forward, using the other end of the staff to hook behind one of Marie-Ange's ankles and dump her gracelessly on the ground.

At least -this- time, Marie-Ange had a chance to catch herself before slamming her back into the stone floor. The bruises on her back thanked her for this, as they had met with the floor twice already in the last hour.  "You could give me a chance to -heal-," she said, standing unsteadily. "I have bruises on my bruises. At this rate, I will be purple from hip to ankle."

Sif grounded her staff and smoothed her hair again, the leisurely slowness of the gesture almost a taunting.  "If I coddle you, you will never learn, girl.  Besides, the healers are there for things more important than a few meager bruises.  Now, get up, stop trembling, and try and hit me!"

~Meager?~ Marie-Ange scoffed mentally, and shook her head. "I -have- been trying. I go to hit you, and you knock me on my back and laugh. What is that supposed to teach me?" She sighed, knowing the futility of the question and with an air of resignation, swung out again.

Sif easily caught the strike on her staff and returned a blow, which Marie-Ange actually managed to duck beneath.  "You have not been trying to hit me.  That strike was so weak and telegraphed my arthritic grandmother could have seen it and stopped it."  She slowly drove Marie-Ange backward, watching the small French girl sweat as she struggled to block the strikes Sif aimed at her.

"What I am _trying_ to teach you, girl, is that pacifism is a noble idea, but it has _no_ place in this realm.  If you step outside this palace, there will be bandits and warriors looking to take whatever they like at the tip of a sword.  Your money, your clothes, even your virtue.  And you must be prepared for that."

"I am so -tired- of hearing just how different this realm is. I -know-."  Marie-Ange said, rolling her eyes. "Give up everything I know about Midgard and learn as an Asgardian. I am tired of hearing it. I am -not- Asgardian."

Sif curled her lip in the beginning of a sneer.  "Then you must learn to _be_ Asgardian, girl.  Or do you still hold out that feeble hope that you will find a way to return to your home?  I told you, you are stuck here, so you had better begin learning to deal with it."

"I have a -life- at home. One that is certainly better than living here and dying at thirty of the plague." The words came out, but Marie-Ange's tone of voice was flat - after making the same protests for the last few weeks, she wasn't sure if she -could- believe in any idea of getting home.  "I have people to go home to. People worried about me."

Sif barked out a short laugh.  "And how do you plan on getting home, girl?  Or do you simply cling to some foolish hope that a way will provide itself to you?"

"My plans right now are not to get beaten bloody by -you-." Marie-Ange said, scowling. "No, I do not know how I will get home. I do not know how I got here in the first place, which you rightfully know. I will find a way. Even if I can only find a way to contact home and let them know what has happened."

Sif shook her head.  "Hope.  The refuge of the young and foolish.  Now, enough talking," she said, gripping her staff. "Again."

----

Sif stood in the training room as Marie-Ange entered. Her arms were folded across her chest, and if possible, she looked even more unamused than usual.  "Girl," she greeted Marie-Ange curtly.

After a truly uncountable number of 'classes' with Sif, Marie-Ange had learned that it did not -actually- matter if she was polite or rude, and had decided that in some cases, holding her tongue got her -more- of a bruising. "I have a -name-, you know." she said, frowning.

"And when you have earned it, I will call you by it," replied Sif.  "And as of yet, you have not come even close.  For instance, would you like to explain that?" she asked, indicating a pinstriped jersey with "ROCKIES" across the chest which hung over a chair.

"Oh -hell-." Marie-Ange whispered. She'd thought that the shirt had been -quite- well hidden. For all she knew, it had been and Sif had simply turned her room over looking for anything to get her in trouble.  "It is not -mine-. I do not have any right to destroy it."

Sif had not moved from her position, and she recrossed her arms.  "When I give an instruction, I am accustomed to having it obeyed, girl.  I have no interest in your sentimental attachments to an article of clothing.  In fact, that was _why_ I told you to destroy your Midgardian garments."

"It is -not- a sentimental attachment." Marie-Ange answered. "I destroyed those things that were -mine-. That is not mine, therefore, I did not destroy it." She crossed her arms, in a direct mimicking of Sif's pose. "I do not take liberties with other people's things."

Sif snorted.  "You don't have any sentimental attachment to it?  It belongs to your precious _Doug_," she snapped mockingly. "And he could get another if it meant so much to him."

Marie-Ange rolled her eyes. "Yes. It belongs to Doug. I borrowed it, I intend to return it, or at the least, -not- be responsible for its destruction."  She gripped the end of her staff tightly.  "Even if he got another, it is -still- not mine to destroy. I did -exactly- what you told me. I disposed of -my- Midgardian clothing."

Sif laughed.  "Why don't we talk about the real reason you keep it?  You keep the reminder of _him_.  You hold out hope that you will get home, and he will be there waiting for you with open arms."

"What of it if I do? It is not any of your business what I hope to return to. I am -going- to find a way home."  Marie-Ange grit her teeth. Doug was, some days, the only reason she was dragging her bruised self out of a perfectly good pile of furs and putting up with this psychotic bitch. "If a reminder of ..  " she struggled for a moment, Norse not having the right words..  "of my beloved means that I keep putting up with -you-, than what problem do you have?"

"It makes you _weak_, girl."  Sif shook her head slowly. "You cannot afford weakness.  Besides, you have been here, what, nearly two turnings of the moon?  You really think that, even if you _did_ find a way home, that a man of that age would _wait_?  With other women right there for the asking?"

"Why on earth would he not wait?" Marie-Ange asked, quietly. "There are no other women... " she added, cutting herself off with thoughts of Marie. It was October, she could very well be back, and .. what if Logan had not returned with her?

Sif, for her part, saw the expression on Marie-Ange's face.  "But there is someone, isn't there?" she asked softly.

Forgetting herself, and reverting back, not to English, but to French, Marie-Ange answered "Oui." quietly, then corrected.  "Yes. But... " she sighed.

One of Sif's eyebrows raised curiously.  "But?  You really think that he's foolish enough to hold out for you when there's someone else right there?"

"Doug loves me." Marie-Ange said weakly. "He would not ..  he would not stray just because I was missing."

Sif snorted.  "And if you tell yourself that enough, girl, you might actually sound like you believe it.  He is a man, and all men of that age think with the sword in their trousers."

"Not Doug. He...  he is not that kind of man."  Marie-Ange folded her arms and scowled. Doug would wait. At least for a while, which was why it was so important for her to get done with this and find a way home. Setting an end of her staff on the ground, she leaned against it.  "He will wait." 

"You do not sound very confident of that, girl," Sif rejoined.  "Still, I am finding myself suddenly feeling a touch of generosity."  Bringing her own staff to its customary high guard, she grinned mirthlessly.  "Land one strike on me and you may keep the tunic."

"It is hard to sound like anything other than exhausted with you waking me at all hours to run me ragged. "  Tiredly, Marie-Ange hefted her own staff and gripped it as tightly as she could. Fighting all the time was getting -so- hard, and she was so damned tired...

Sif slowly began to circle Marie-Ange, probing at the chinks in the girl's emotional armor as she simultaneously feinted with her staff.  "When you arrived in Asgard, you were weak and soft.  I can forge you into a blade that will not break under pressure, but only if you cease holding on to your girlish sentimentality."

"Forge me into a blade?" Marie-Ange shook her head slowly and stared at Sif.  "Is that before or after you let me heal from the bruises and scrapes and likely concussions?"  She took a half-hearted swing at the woman's shoulder, knowing already that it would be blocked.  "My sentimentality is my own business. "

Sif blocked easily and returned a strike that would leave yet another bruise on Marie-Ange's arm.  "You are no better than a sniveling milkmaid," she sneered.  "No fire, no steel, nothing.  You are weak, soft, and spoiled.  In fact, I begin to doubt you are even worth my time."  Grounding her staff, Sif turned her back contemptuously with a sniff.

"You. Know. Nothing." Marie-Ange spat, gritting her teeth. "You have no idea what I have done, you have no idea what my life is like."  Glancing over her shoulder at one of the tapestries hanging against the wall, she shuddered.  Swords.  She wasn't sure what was scarier - the idea of using one, or that it was not the first time she thought about manifesting one.

Keeping her back turned, Sif mocked Marie-Ange's words.  "You have no idea what my life is like," she said in a whiny, wheedling tone of voice.  "Girl, I don't _care_ what your life is like, I don't care what you have done.  Your pitiful mewlings bore me."

Watching Sif carefully, Marie-Ange took a careful step forward and swung, aiming for the small of the older woman's back. She was starting to get very tired of the constant taunting and mocking, the endless comments on how weak and sad and pathetic she was. She was -not- weak, she was not pathetic. She just wanted to go the hell home.

Sif's staff left its spot on the floor and smacked sharply into Marie-Ange's staff, sending it spinning across the floor.  "Still weak.  What would your precious Doug want with such a weakling, especially when there are other women there to share his furs?"

The metal hilt of the sword in her hand sent a chill up her arm, and Marie-Ange's fingers tightened around it automatically. Before she was entirely aware of her actions, she had stepped to the side, swinging at Sif's hip. All the fatigue and exhaustion in her face was replaced with a grimace of anger. "I am not -weak-, and even if Doug is sleeping with Marie or Paige or Amanda or anyone, I am still going home, and you are not going to convince me otherwise."

Sif was momentarily startled by the appearance of the sword, but well-honed combat reflexes took over and the blade took a small chip out of the staff rather than a piece of Sif's leg.  "So, you have some fire in there after all.  Resourcefulness, too.  This I can work with."  She smiled, and bringing her hands close to the center of the staff, twirled it around, attempting to smack the flat of the sword's blade and disarm Marie-Ange again.

Anger had pushed Marie-Ange to the point where all she saw was Sif and the staff. Lunging forward, she took the blow from the staff on her upper arm, rather than losing her sword, and grunted.  Another step forward, and she ducked, driving her shoulder into Sif's side.  "You can go to hell, is what you can do." she snarled.

Sif grinned as she rocked backwards, just slightly. "Nice." she said with a grin, and then kicked the French girl's legs out from under her. With the same motion, she twirled the staff and brought it, butt end first, down onto Marie-Ange's spine as the French girl stumbled forward. "Get up. Now that I know you can do this, we will try it again."
----


Instinct told Marie-Ange that a summon by the All Father was not to be ignored, scoffed at, or anything to be even the barest second late to. Even if he had not specified a time. In that case, she assumed "Get there as fast as possible, even if it meant crossing the entirety of Asgard City at a dead run."  It seemed like a safe and healthy assumption to make.

At the same time, arriving out of breath, flushed and sweaty might not have been such a good idea either. Especially to a -crowded- meadhall, with several dozen warriors all staring, or possibly ogling her.

Odin, surrounded by a dozen women dressed all in flowing white dresses, looked up at the disruption. "About damned time." he muttered under his breath. "Bring her forward!" he bellowed to the Aes in the hall, who reluctantly parted to allow her passage. All save for one - a youth, nearly beardless, with red hair and reeking of mead. "No." the youth said, the fumes nearly igniting the candles on the table.

Marie-Ange shook her head and gave the young man a long, cold stare. "You have indulged -far- too much, if you are willing to stand between me and a summons from Odin."  She gestured at an empty spot at a nearby bench.  "If you please, sit down and let me pass."

One of the women in white lifted back her hood, and in addition to snow white hair she had no eyes - merely grown-over eyesockets filled with scar tissue. "She will fall. Falling, I see." Still another, this one a redhead and with jade-green eyes, shook her head. "She will defeat the boy." she intoned in a sing-song voice. Odin looked at the two with a mixture of fondness and irritation. "Stop your croakings." he ordered the women, who fell silent obediently. He then settled back into his chair to watch.

The boy took another deep swallow from his cup, and then put the cup down unsteadily on the nearest table. "You want to talk to the All-Father, then you've gotta go through me." he said, full of drunken bravado. "If you do not pass, then you are mine."

Taking a step back - not out of cowardice, but more to distance herself from the boy's reeking breath, Marie-Ange shook her head, and scowled. "I am not -anyone's-, except my own."  Unfolding her arms, and rubbing her wrists gently, she looked up, gauging just how dilated the boy's eyes were, and how unsteady he was on his feet.  "Please. If you do not mind, sit down. You are too drunk to fight."

"Too drunk to fight? TOO DRUNK TO FIGHT? Impossible!" roared the boy, tugging at the shortsword at his belt. He nearly spun himself in a circle, but he got the sword out of its sheath, and pointed it at Marie-Ange. "I'll show you!" he screamed, his voice cracking on the last word, and hacked at her with his blade.

Had she the time, Marie-Ange would have sighed, given the boy a long cold state, and made some kind of insulting comment.  As it was, she was a little busy pulling her own sword - far more smoothly than the boy - and blocking his wild swings.

The boy was an Asgardian warrior born and bred, but a very young one, and highly drunk to boot. His wild swings came nowhere near touching Marie-Ange's skin - not with her concentrating on nothing but defending herself from him. Eventually, a grey-bearded warrior got bored and clonked the drunken youth over the head lightly with a hammer, knocking him unconscious instantly. No one said a word, and no one else rose to bar her way.

Snorting out a quiet low laugh, Marie-Ange shook back her braids and stepped over the boy's prone form.  Sliding her sword back into the scabbard, and noting idly to herself that felt -far- too comfortable doing so - she crossed the floor of the meadhall and stood in front of Odin's throne.  "I apologize for my delay in arriving. I can only travel so fast on foot."

Odin looked at Marie-Ange, and laughed. "It doesn't matter." he said with merriment. "You have done well under Sif's tender mercies." he said, still grinning. "I am well-pleased."

Marie-Ange bowed slightly - curtseying being practically impossible in leather trousers, and doubly so with a sword on her belt.  "Thank you. I would offer pleasantries and say that I enjoyed it, but I would be lying, and blatantly so." 

Odin smirked back at her. "Good. I think I may have something a little more to your liking, granddaughter. You should come and be with my children, here." he said, expansively waving to the women in white dresses clustered around his chair.

Marie-Ange raised an eyebrow in surprise. After all that training with Sif, and the countless bruises and scrapes and what had felt like endless mornings learning to ride a damned horse, of all things, he was going to suggest that she do that? Now?  "No."  No matter of pretty words were going to make that any easier to say.  "I am not willing to cloister myself."

"Why not? It's a dangerous place out there. No one can protect you out there. And I don't need to remind you that Aes are stronger and tougher than even you mutants, right? You should stay." he said, propping his chin up on one hand.

He had a point, if she ignored certain nagging desires.  "This is not my home. I do not belong here. If you will not -send- me home, than I will have to find my own way."  Marie-Ange said, as calmly as she could manage.

Odin smiled. "A worthy answer. Go on, then. Get out of my meadhall. Take Memory with you - that damned bird could be very useful to you. And here, take this with you as well." He reached into a pocket, and tossed her a leather bag, currently tied closed. "A gift, from a concerned grandfather to his granddaughter."

Blinking in confusion, Marie-Ange fumbled to catch the bag, almost dropping it.  ~Well, at least I did not have to tell him to stick his white dress up his ass~.  The thought slipped out before she could stop it.  "Thank you. I..  did not expect this at all."  No sense in not being honest..

Odin quirked both his eyebrows at Marie-Ange. "You're welcome to try, but my ass is old and leathery, and you wouldn't like it much." he smirked at her, as the warriors in his meadhall joined in with a round of laughter. "Now go on, git!" he mock-roared at her.

The aura of palpable menace in the air had Marie-Ange taking several steps back even before Odin had stopped speaking. Biting the inside of her cheek to distract herself from the pounding in her head, she walked out of the meadhall as calmly as possible, which was something at more than a speedy walk, but less than a dead run. 

Only seconds after stepping outside, Marie-Ange heard a loud cawing, just before a set of sharp talons dug into her shoulder. Cursing her idiotic decision to forgo the heavy cloak she had acquired when the weather grew cold, she hissed in pain, both from the claws, and then from a searing heat in her left eye. Images, flashing faster than she could register passed through her thoughts. A man, in chain mail with a thick brown beard.  A winged pixie, caged and collared.  Wolves, running through thick snow. 

Odin looked at Marie-Ange with almost a look of pity, quickly hidden. He watched her go, and as soon as she left the warmth of his meadhall he turned to the assembled warriors and grinned. "It's a shame, she almost had some backbone. Now, bring on the food and drink! I hunger!"