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A Valhallan Interlude
‘Hoy-at-a-ho! … Hoy-a-ta-ho! …’ The voice echoed across the rooftops. The horse galloping its way across the night sky was clearly not of this world. Nor was the brass-clad young lady riding along on its back. However … well, it’s all very well singing in the moonlight like that, and she had a good voice for it, but she’d just never been able to get the proper … operatic feel for things.
‘That wasn’t bad,’ said the horse.
She sighed, deeply. Her brass outerwear clinked at the motion. ‘I wish I didn’t have to wear this thing.’
‘Listen, it may not be to your taste, but it is traditional.’
‘I’m not cut out to be—‘
‘Nonsense! Come on, one more go — maybe this time it’ll work.’
The girl sighed again. Only a little more sadly.
As the horse galloped along on thin air — and into a rather difficult air current — it had a little too much to keep its mind on to look back just then, but if he were a betting horse, he’d wager there was a sparkle of teardrops in the moonlight behind him.
‘It’s no good. I may as well pack it in,’ she said, trying to adjust the traditional brasswear. ‘Woooah—‘ — only some quick emergency manoeuvres by a flying horse of long experience stopped her from falling off — ‘—And I can’t ride worth a damn,’ she added as she got her grip on the reins again.
‘Your singing’s really coming along,’ said the horse gamely. ‘And I think—‘
‘And my complexion’s all wrong,’ she continued, oblivious. ‘I can’t get the iron and storm into my gaze. Who’s going to want a Valkyrie who looks like I do.’
The horse didn’t comment. For one thing, he could see that the girl on his back was obviously feeling extremely low, and for another—
‘It’s not as if this thing even fits,’ she said dejectedly.
He stayed quiet. Sometimes you can see that anything you can say is probably going to be the wrong thing at the wrong time.
‘You may as well take us down. Right over there.’
The horse peered. Looked like a bar. Bright neon lights flashing over it. He gave a sort of shrug.
‘Hey, watch it!’
‘Sorry. Okay … You’re the boss …’ He started his descent. For the record, he didn’t think this was a very good idea …
[Next –> Part 2: A Need for Mead.]
Published in Entertainment
Love your imagination @andrewmiller, please finish the story.
No great adventure starts in a restaurant specializing in salads.
Thank you! :)
Now, lemmee see here, where did I put that Norse scrying stone . . . (Blasted reception! Looks like there’s a storm coming in . . . Hey, does anyone remember how you tune this thing . . .)
Tune your mind, and the stone will follow.
Brass armor? Brass is more malleable than bronze. In other words, it is easier to hammer it in (and out) of shape. Shinier, almost as strong, brass is better for bells, horns, decorations, and a number of other applications, but by the time the metallurgists of antiquity were figuring out how to make it, iron and steel had surpassed it for armor.
Bronze is a copper/tin alloy, and brass is copper/zinc. It is likely that the first brass makers had no idea how they were doing it. The Assyrians seem to have left records indicating that “mountain” copper had different qualities than regular copper. This may have been due to zinc naturally appearing in the copper ore they were smelting.
But I guess if you’re a supernatural being, you could get away with brass armor.
There is no spoon.
*Tiiing!* “Hey! That’s not how you’re supposed to use a tuning fork!” Owww . . .
There may be mead served later . . .
No, no, no.
Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi! (hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi)
Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-! (hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee)
This story has a bit of the flavor of C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy, which in my opinion is a good thing.
No one ever said “Here. Hold my salad.”
Just bang it a few times and sacrifice a virgin of good character. At least I think that’s what the IKEA manual says.
Well, ya talked me into it . . .
A Valhallan Interlude, Part 2: A Need for Mead.
Lovely, Andrew. I saw your tags. And I am old, so:
Thank you! :)
These things come to us and are let fall, At the Drop of a Hat, so to speak. But you probably already gnu that:
lol. How do you do?