"What did you do?"
I was startled by Sigrun's voice, falling on my ass. Looking back at her, I answered, "What do you mean?"
"What did you do for Lord Valin to make such a proclamation?" she asked, visibly worried.
She looked me over and noticed the new pair of boots. Her eyes grew wide and impossibly round, and a few motes of power danced in front of them; somehow, I knew she was appraising them, just like when she saw me lift Balmung up in the air for the first time.
It was now her turn to fall on her knees, surprise and fear painted on her exquisite face.
She unfurled her wings and joined her hands in what looked like prayer. Her wings shone brightly for a moment, then she regained her composure.
"Please tell me everything, don't leave out a single word." She commanded.
I told her everything, from the wyrm's nest to when Vali beamed me back to Valhalla. Her mouth was open, incredulous, her eyes betraying her. She did not want to believe my tale, but then she saw my boots. She knew I had gained four levels almost instantly and held the powered Uru Orb in her hands. She had to believe me.
"Why are you so surprised, Sigrun? You knew one of them would die if they accepted our plea for help to power up Valhalla once more. You told me that, so I don't understand your confusion," I told her.
"I need to remind myself that you are ignorant of many things, young William," she answered, finally composing herself, her regal demeanor in full swing.
"The Odinson brothers have helped us in more ways than I could have ever predicted and granted us more boons than you are currently aware of," she said, "It is not that one of them must pass to power the Orb, their power is almost entirely spent these days, but who and why."
"Wait a minute," I interrupted her, "Do you mean to say that all that power I felt, the suffocating aura suppressing me, the sensation that I was about to die and my heart about to jump out of my chest, was just a fraction of their former selves?"
"More an insignificant sliver, less a fraction, William. Had I sent you to their presence as they were in the old days, you would have probably disintegrated in their presence."
That was so not reassuring! What if she had been wrong? I did not know that I was in mortal peril up there.
"Back in our time, any Aesir would have been able to power up the orb without so much as growing a bit tired," she said.
Holy mackerel! That said a lot about what the Aesir used to be and our dire straits now.
"Let me tell it to you straight, William, you not only accomplished your mission successfully, convincing the brothers to power up the Orb was already a tall order, their task far more urgent than ours, on the surface at least, but you also somehow convinced Lord Vidar to do it himself, instead of Lord Vali, and then he even deemed you worthy of challenging his trial, which you not only passed but even went ahead and dealt a mortal blow to the memory of Fenrir. You only needed to witness the events, you know?"
"What?" I exclaimed, frustrated; someone should tell me these things.
"And to top it all off, you made an Oath in front of the current ruler of Asgard, making him your liege lord, one so pleasing to his ears that he forego of his duties for a moment to deliver a proclamation that pretty much declared you his successor! It was heard across the Nine Realms to boot." She said, losing a bit of her regality in the agitation of retelling the story from her point of view.
My face was blank, and I was unable to process it.
"Come again?" I asked, deadpan face and in a monotone.
"Aesir blood now runs through your veins, just like in mine, in a lesser amount, but enough to say it is there. You are Lord Vidar's chosen heir since you now carry his lineage. Vali has proclaimed to every living thing in Asgard and the Nine Realms that he has sent you to conquer them as his representative and probably his successor. DO.YOU.UNDERSTAND?" She said, exasperated at the density of my skull.
"No," was all I could say, "but please don't get me wrong. I hear what you are saying, and I seem to understand your meaning, but I simply cannot fathom why or the implications of all of this. It is not every day a mortal man is adopted into divinity." I answered. Her face softened a bit, and a little smile crept up her lips.
"Sigh, you are right, William; I cannot expect you to understand or even know what you did. But congratulations are in order; you will get to realize in time that the events at the top of the mountain will have repercussions for you for years to come. And just how deep your destiny is now woven to these lands."
"That sounds ominous," I said, a bit livid.
"Let me worry about it. It's not bad if we play it just right, William." Her voice was calming. Lord Vali has given us a task, and he might have made it harder or easier, depending on how we go about it."
She remained silent for a while, looking at the Uru Orb in her hands, but she was far away at the same time. I would have assumed that she was overwhelmed if I didn't know better.
"For now, let's concentrate on what we can do and power up the hall," she said, standing up. "Come now, William, I will need your help down there."
We descended a hatch behind the three thrones in the Great Hall.
Lights went up whenever Sigrun walked, and a vast corridor took us down. Since I thought we were going to be walking for a little while yet, I asked Sigrun a question that had been nagging me for some time.
"Lady Sigrun," I said with deference, "May I ask you something?"
"Please do, William; your lack of knowledge about Asgard and the system is considerable, so much so that I do not know where to start filling in the blanks, so it's better if you forward your questions to me as you come up with them." She was not condescending nor patronizing, just truthful, and I did not feel offended.
"It's just that I have noticed that time over here is wack, like, I don't get it. How much time has passed since we arrived?" I asked her, hoping she knew.
"For me, about a full day, almost, for you, around 4 days. A little over a week has gone in Midgard's time." She answered.
That was a load of crap if I have ever heard one. How could time be different for two people in the same place? How does that even work?
"I can see in your face that my answer has riddled you with more questions. Allow me to elaborate, then," she started.
"Please go ahead, Lady Sigrun."
"This plane of existence, where Asgard and the Nine Realms are located, is not a different dimension than Midgard's; the Bifrost is not a 'space' portal, well, not merely a space portal, but a time one. Time in Asgard moves slower than in Midgard; we are a steady point in space, at one point between Midgard and its Moon, where gravity is equal between them, so we are fixed in relative position to both. We don't move; your Earth and the Moon do. Asgard and the Nine Realms are 'phased' out of Midgard's timeline, which is the universal timeline."
If I understood her correctly, Asgard was floating at a Lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon, sharing one dimension but just out of synch with Earth's timeline. But then, how come we have never seen it? We have great telescopes, and it's not like NASA has not researched Lagrange points.
"But then, how..."
Sigrun kept me from finishing. "Come now, William, you are smarter than that. Can you see the future?" She said.
"I… oh!...of course!" The penny dropped, "Asgard and the Nine Realms are at least a millisecond out of synch into the future!" I said triumphantly.
"Well done, William," She answered with a smile, some pride visible in her eyes.
"But that does not explain why it has been a little over a day for you and 4 days for me," I asked, trying to better understand the whole concept of time in Asgard.
"That is because time here moves differently for the individual; let me put it like this, all beings have an internal clock, right? So a lifetime for you, around 60 Midgard years, is an eternity for a Cicada that lives around a month. So even though the same 'time' has passed for both of us, I perceive it differently than you do. To my internal clock, it has been a day; for yours, it has been around four days; and for Arngrim, your brother, it's been a bit over a week. It's the same concept as to why little children are so impatient but with real consequences."
That made sense? In a way. I should better ask Maeve and Matt about this, they are fluent in technobabble. Zoey was more mystique-y, and Joe and Raulin, well, can speak the language of the strong. I was about to correct her on human and cicada life spans, but better not; Matt and Maeve can induct her into current science and shit when the time comes, and I had more pressing questions, like why she called my brother Arngrim instead of Raulin.
"As you get more attuned to life in Asgard, the passage of time will hinder you less and less. Especially now with your Divine Lineage." She added.
"Basically, time here is compressed," I replied. And the level of said compression is directly proportional to how much Aesir blood you have running in your veins or how many ties you have to this land. Am I at least in the ballpark?"
"I worry about you, young William. You are below ground, in a hallway close to the heart of Valhalla. There are no balls and no parks here. Other than that, you are surprisingly on point," she said, with genuine worry in her voice.
"I can live with that; now tell me, what are the Nine Realms?"
She sighed and said, "William, I will give you a very short answer on that one. I don't want to get into politics, but in a nutshell, the Nine Realms were just kingdoms floating around Midgard, out of synch, just like Asgard, and you needed the Bifrost or a very potent ship to reach them. They have conjoined with Asgard now, or the Dokkalfar could have never reached Valhalla. How did this happen? I have no idea; I was dead at the time."
"Thank you for your tutelage, Lady Sigrun; I appreciate your time and patience," I was going to kiss her ass as much as needed to get back in her good graces and maybe get a Job change. "That explanation is more than sufficient, for now," I still wanted more detail. Still, future-William can get it, so I'll be okay with it.
As we were discussing the tapestries, which made Sigrun happy, telling me which god was represented on each one, we reached a massive set of iron doors; I recognized Uru metal now, having been acquainted with the Uru Orb long enough.
"I want to test something," Sigrun said, looking back at me. Please place your left hand on the doors and say, " Open," she asked.
As I reached the doors with my left hand, palm facing them, the Rune that Vali had carved on my palm shone faintly.
"Open."
The doors lit up and slowly, without noise, opened to welcome us into the Heart of Valhalla. It was a tremendous engine room—the only way I could describe it—full of levers and dials, reminiscent of the bridge of a space pirate anime from the 80s that Matt loved, having all the figurines and whatnot. Combined with the engine room of a World War 2 Battleship, it was all analog in design but beautiful nonetheless.
I was totally geeking out, by the way.
In the middle of the room, a small pedestal with a round receptacle was placed, overseeing the whole room, elevated by a four-step circular dais. Everything was black or dark blue except for the pedestal, which was ivory-white.
Sigrun had asked me to stand behind some railings for security reasons. She walked to the middle of the room, Orb in hand, and unceremoniously placed it on the pedestal.
It took a while, but the pedestal lit up. I noticed how streams of energy were filling conduits, one at each side, from its bottom. The conduits slowly took the energy to the dials and machines and finally reached a huge battery-looking vat at the far end of the room.
The room did not light up, and there were no lights other than the energy conduits and the dials on the machines, making everything look eerily beautiful. It was a bit creepy but beautiful.
The massive vat at the end was slowly being filled with energy while Sigrun stood behind the pedestal, arms akimbo, expectant.
After what felt like a couple of hours, the vat was finally full. A lone 'click' was heard, and the noise of a generator started somewhere. A screen of light appeared in front of Sigrun. She started moving her hands, and the runes before her changed until they reached whatever configuration she wanted.
The screen turned off, and Sigrun came walking back to me.
"It's done, William; Valhalla is powered back up; I have completed my first quest and can now send a message back to Midgard."
"And to whom are you going to send that message?" I said the first thing that came to my mind.
"Who else? To Arngrim, your brother."
My heart was racing. The possibility of sending a message back home was now a reality. "What are you going to tell him?"
"I only need him to know that we are going to Midgard and to prepare for our arrival. It would be best if you wrote the message. You can tell them whatever you want as well, just keep it very short. The power to do something like that is considerable, and I do not want to overexert myself."
We returned to the doors, preparing to leave the engine room, when the little Uru Orb started whistling and releasing steam like a teapot; we were both startled by this. Clearly, Sigrun was surprised to find something of the sort. She placed herself in front of me, protective, which was weird, and a huge ornate shield appeared in her left hand, a faint bluish light coming from it, protecting both of us.
The noise and the steam settled, and the Uru Orb opened, letting out the fluffiest-looking furball I had ever seen. It turned around, and we could see it had some kind of circular screen in the middle. And on that screen, a question mark?
The little fur ball took to the air, floating, looking around excitedly, going from machine to machine, and the little screen changed from a question mark to an exclamation mark every so often.
It then settled in front of Sigrun's face, shuddering as if excited to see her. The little screen changed to… a smiling emoji? And then to a celebration emoji? Whatever the little furball was, it was clearly happy to see the Valkyrja.
Then it looked at me and started flying around me, going in between my feet, up my back, below my arms, around my chest, to settle at my face, a little whistling noise coming out of it, the screen going over countless emojis real fast, like a sloth machine, to finally settling in a red heart, with a bit of bell noise.
It attacked me straight in the face. If you are a heartless bastard and consider the act of cuddling an attack. The little furball was snuggled against my cheek, making purring noises.
I did not know what to do or how to react, so looking back at Sigrun, I said, "Mm, Lady Sigrun… what's happening?"
Sigrun was as confused as me, her eyes wide, her mouth open, the shield long gone.
"Kara?" Is all she said before taking the cute little furball in her hands with utmost care, ignoring me.