Walking on the Sun | Drabble
Length: 4.2K words
Warning: Some crass language but otherwise very safe for 13+
Synopsis: Brunnhilde and Aldrif are sent to Midgard, and nonsense ensues.
Aldrif wheezed a laugh still from the ground, and the pitiful sound had Brunn moving to extend her hand to help her up. “Still preferable to the chill of Hel and the dead,” the smaller woman informed her companion, dusting herself off, “though that could just be my newfound freedom talking.”
“Or a concussion.”
BLACK—the intermediary space between dimensions was black as pitch. No stars or cosmic light shone in this in-between, and the little light offered by Hel’s grey, misty skies was gone in a blink as the two women were pulled through space by what felt like tight, ether fingers squeezing around their ribcages and sucking them down, down, down this narrowing passage between worlds. One second passed, and then another, and just as the pressure began bearing down from above and the sides of them, a small portal of pale beige, brown, and blue glimmered below, and both women were sucked through the open pocket and spat out into another realm.
+++++++
MOJAVE DESERT
AUGUST 5
11:23 AM
“Oh, fuck!” Brunnhilde’s voice hissed as soon as air had filled her lungs again. Aldrif was still gasping for breath beside her, also having landed on her supplies, but was too winded to right herself just yet. Lain back, she brought a hand up to shield her eyes from the scorching light directly overhead. “You would think—” she took a long, rasping breath, “—they would give some warning.”
Beige dust was still swirling around the pair after their fall—and subsequent crash landing—from the sky. And as if choking in space and the hard earth breaking their fall weren’t enough, the dry dust they’d conjured both blew in their eyes and caught in their lungs, leaving the both of them sore, cranky, and hacking up clouds of the stuff.
“It was certainly no Bifrost trip,” Brunn grumbled out, attempting to turn on her side without grimacing. Shrugging off her supplies, she managed to pull herself upright off of the ground and sit herself on her knees with some effort. “Though I don’t think knowing how much it would hurt beforehand would at all have prevented the pain of directly hitting the ground.”
Aldrif still laid out on her back, breathing heavy and clenching her eyes closed beneath the direct light of the sun. “I suppose not,” she breathed, taking another moment before moving to prop herself up on her elbows in the dirt, “but it still would have been nice to know.”
Brunnhilde pushed herself from the ground and managed to stand, if slightly wobbly. She nodded a little at her friend’s comment before facing the beating sun with a hand over her brow. “Stars,” she huffed out the word, “it’s hotter than Surtur’s sack here.”
Aldrif wheezed a laugh still from the ground, and the pitiful sound had Brunn moving to extend her hand to help her up. “Still preferable to the chill of Hel and the dead,” the smaller woman informed her companion, dusting herself off, “though that could just be my newfound freedom talking.”
“Or a concussion,” Brunnhilde cut her glance sidelong to her friend’s smile in their strange situation before sighing out, her shoulders releasing her tension, and evaluating their supplies strewn across the desert floor. She knelt down to unlatch their bags and begin rifling through them.
“Anything damaged?” Aldrif loomed over her friend, not quite willing to fall back onto the ground just yet. Her shadow peered over to watch her work.
“You know,” Brunn began, “if you are certain you do not care to properly become a Valkyrie—formally rather than through mere upbringing—you would make the loveliest tree.” Her face tipped upward to appreciate the cool shade Aldrif’s shadow brought.
Aldrif made a scoffing noise, sidestepping out of her stance and letting blinding sunlight fall on her friend’s face.
“Agh!” Brunn’s serene expression immediately recoiled as bright, startling light shone through the thin skin of her eyelids. She blinked in a rapid succession, shaking her head to dispel the white bursting shapes flashing in her vision. “It was a compliment, you know!”
“You called me a tree!” Aldrif laughed out her incredulity.
Squinting, Brunnhilde spared a glance up to her friend. “No, I said that you would make a lovely tree, in terms of skill, not in appearance. You are very pleasantly woman-shaped,” she attempted to amend. “Besides, you are far too short to be an actual tree,” she turned back to inspecting their supply packs.
“‘Pleasantly woman-shaped?’” Aldrif shook her head, grinning, “Is anything damaged?” She tried again.
Brunn sorted through the first bag quickly—extra sets of clothes, waterskin and food, copious amounts of gold coin. All sat undisturbed for the most part, if slightly squished. Nimble fingers turned the second bag over next, the leather warm and smooth in her grasp, and its contents largely the same. Clothing, water, food, coin. All in decent condition.
“Nothing broken or leaking to report,” Brunnhilde moved to stand, throwing a braid behind her back and hefting the first pack over her shoulder. She dusted off the other before handing it Aldrif’s way.
“Wonderful, thank you,” her friend murmured, reluctantly taking the bag and adjusted it to fit somewhat comfortably at her back, though the weight of the coins had the strap digging into her skin no matter what.
Brunnhilde readjusted the pack on her own shoulder for what must have been the fifth time since leaving Folkvangr, Freyja’s personal hall. “Where did Freyja even get all of this Midgardian gold anyway?” she muttered under the strain.
Aldrif tried to shrug. “She claims the Midgardians offered it to her as a gift when last she was here. That would have been centuries and centuries ago on this realm, though.”
“And they just gave it to her?” Brunn gave a disbelieving look at that. This had not even been the extent of it all, merely what they had managed to carry with them.
Aldrif could only shrug again. “Really, I am less worried about where it came from than if it is still used as some kind of viable currency today.” Her mother had not seemed to want it, at any rate.
“Even if it is antiquated and out of use, surely it must be worth something,” Brunn argued lightly. “Worth more, even, if it holds some historical significance for the people here,” she mused. “My only concern is how we will be able to sell centuries-old coins without drawing attention to ourselves.”
“Draw more attention than emerging from within a desert without proper supplies, you mean?” Aldrif quipped.
Brunnhilde gave a sigh, long-suffering and deep. “Let’s start walking.”
+++++++
TRADER’S PAWN SHOP
AUGUST 5
2:57 PM
A bell chimed their entrance as they pushed open the door of the dusty brick shopfront. Brunnhilde and Aldrif all but fell inside, their rush to escape the scourge of heat that was the full afternoon sun was so desperate. Both looked about for the shopkeeper (for who else would the bell alert?) but found no one waiting—only shelves.
There must have been over a hundred shelves—lining the walls, stacked back to back, and wedged into any free space the small room that comprised the store had. With each stocked top to bottom with what could reasonably be considered junk, the shelves twined this way and that in a narrow, warren path that led further into the heart of the cluttered shop.
“I almost like it better outside,” Brunnhilde wiped at some of the sweat on her brow with her sleeve.
The two women exchanged a glance before Brunn removed one of the small bags of coin to loop around her waist and entered the nearest strait between two shelves holding some kind of mechanical equipment. Aldrif’s eyes followed the geometric lines of the devices as she passed, most of the rectangular things peppered with rounds dials and empty wire ports. Some were stamped with VCR or AM’s and FM’s, but all sat undisturbed beneath a coat of dust. A curious noise hummed at the back of her throat, but she continued on, keeping pace with her sword-sister as they forged ahead.
It was slower moving than they were used to in order to avoid knocking into the shelves, but it was steady. As the light from the front windows faded and withdrew their shadows, the humming fluorescent lights above head guided their path through the maze—an unfortunately apt description considering how many dead ends they had come across already in navigating the shop.
“Do you think all of Midgard’s shops are just as bestrewn as this?” Her gaze fell over a line of frayed boots, all of varying styles and colors and all inexplicably missing their match.
“Stars, I hope not,” Brunnhilde breathed, pulling in an elbow to keep from knocking it into a tower of kitchen pans leaning precariously over their ledge. “I’ll stack these damned shelves upon one another and climb my way back to Hel if they are.”
Aldrif huffed out a laugh. “And break the terms of your banishment?” she lowered her tone to something scandalized, “oh Brunn, when will this delinquent streak of yours end? Not that I am complaining, of course,” she was quick to follow up with, “for if you had not been banished for a cycle, I would not have had an excuse to leave Valhalla.”
“I am glad that one of us has found the light in this situation,” Brunnhilde glanced back to scoff at her friend’s teasing, only to have her smile drop as she turned and saw that they’d come to yet another dead end.
“Damn,” she sighed at the wall of dusty luggage. Dropping her pack to the floor with a hard clank, Brunn rolled her shoulder back, massaging at the tension built from the weight of her bag.
“I understand her reasoning,” she started, “and the purpose of the particular law. The Valkyrior are sisters bonded through trust; we train together, we fight together, and we are sworn to protect one another. To court a fellow Valkyrie, to elevate that romantic bond over those of your sworn sisters, potentially endangers the Valkyrior as a whole, especially during battle, if you are more concerned for your lover than your other sisters.” Brunn shook her shoulder out one more time before loading up her bag again and heading back out to retrace their steps.
“And to have a higher-ranking sister seen to be breaking the rules without punishment … that is chaos waiting to happen,” she shook her head, turning a corner where before they had traveled straight through. “I do not regret it, cannot regret what I have with Kàra … but I understand Freyja’s position and the precautions she took. It’s logical.”
“It’s hypocritical,” Aldrif pursed her lips. “She writes her own rules for others to follow but does not have a care to follow them herself—”
“Aldrif—” Brunn’s voice was soft but a warning.
“No, no, I know. Not the place or time,” she waved off the excuse with a roll of her eyes. “In any case, I argued against banishment on your behalf, to no avail. As per usual, Mother would not listen.”
Brunnhilde did not have to look behind her to picture the sour expression twisting the other woman’s mouth. Rather, she merely rounded the next corner and laughed lightly to herself, “I never had a doubt that you would,” she said, “however unnecessary it would be.”
Brunn’s paused at the next turn. Rather than another set of bookcases, the winding labyrinth had finally ended, and they came out to what must have been the back of the store. Cramped still, there was at least enough room for three people to walk shoulder-to-shoulder without knocking anything over, a welcome improvement over having to walk single-file. There were still bookcases lining the open space of the room, all stocked with the first books they had seen since first entering the shop, but while there was the odd loose-leaf parchment sheet or scroll, most were bound in leather and embossed at the spine with the work’s title.
More prominently, however, were the glass cases occupying the center of the space. Separate from those of the inhabitants lining the shelves behind them, these items were clearly being cared for, their cases carefully dusted and glass shined.
The first item to draw Aldrif’s gaze was a set of silver gauntlets. They appeared sturdy and, if she had to guess, Thanagarian. The distinctive nth metal barely glinted in the light but thrummed with trapped energy, as if in reaction to having been seen. She dragged her gaze down the line of cases, noting even more items of extraterrestrial origin: a rusted Tamaranian tiara, a ring-sized, intact Zamaron crystal, and a small, glowing cybernetic eye that blinked at irregular intervals. Aldrif gave a smile and wave to the blinking thing, and Pegas the Pirate King’s eye followed the pair of women as they continued past the case.
“How curious,” she mused lightly, “I wonder where they would have found these.” The Midgardians had not yet connected with other cosmic life that they were aware of.
Brunnhilde was more concerned, however, with the man behind the case, who had yet to speak but stared with dark, observant eyes at the two of them. His face was craggy, obviously weathered by time, but rather than grey hair, the wiry strands atop his head were a shocking, violent orange. He moved to offer a greeting, and Brunnhilde drew her dagger, a natural extension of her arm, and struck it out between them.
“Hello,” the man’s demeanor seemed unbothered, bemused even, as he eyed the patterns on the blade of her dagger still upraised. His eyes flicked from the Valkyrior blade to Brunn and Aldrif before flicking back to the patterns on the blade. His lips curved into a small smile. “Are we to exchange pleasantries, or had you planned on threatening me all afternoon?”
The women said nothing, and Brunnhilde’s blade never lowered.
“If not pleasantries, we should at least exchange names,” the man argued without concern. His demeanor relaxed, he folded his arms behind his back as he continued eyeing them up.
The motion had Brunn drawing another blade from her belt.
“All right, all right,” he brought his hands up in defense, “I shall start introductions then.” Small, pallid hands rose to straighten the fabric of his cape thrown over his shoulders. A preparatory breath, and another for drama’s sake. “My name … is Trader.”
Aldrif blinked, waiting for more of an explanation, and furrowed her brow as silence settled once more between the three of them without one. “Trader?” she scoffed, “Surely that is not a name but your occupation.”
“It is a name,” Trader defended. His hand fell from its delicate placement at his chest to drop by his side in annoyance, “and it is the name all of my clientele use.”
“What clientele?” It was Brunnhilde’s turn for disbelief. “All of your shelves are full and seemingly untouched—it doesn’t appear that you sell anything to anybody.”
“I think it’s because of the dust,” Aldrif muttered out, more to Brunn than to the man. “It really is unprofessional and doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in a buyer if you’re not committed to keeping your shop to at least the barest minimum level of hygiene.”
Brunnhilde nodded, knives still upraised.
Ire flashed in his dark eyes at their discourteous words, and both women noted the shaking of his hands and how the lights overhead seemed to flicker in unison as he balled his hands into pasty fists. His skin flushed purple until with a long, steadying breath, he smoothed his hands out over the glass.
“I believe I heard the unmistakable clinking of gold as you two tramped through my store, did I not? You’ll not find anyone that offers a better deal for historical artifacts in this city than myself—though I do not do business with those who will not reveal to me their names first.” He gave them a pointed look.
For a moment, all three of them were merely looking at one another—Trader to Brunnhilde’s blades with some interest, Brunnhilde to Aldrif with her suspicion, and finally Aldrif to Trader with impatience. Aldrif brought a hand to lower Brunn’s weapons herself.
“If introductions must be made then let us get them over and done with,” the girl huffed, “My name is Aldr—"
“Angela,” Brunnhilde cut in, sheathing her blades at last as she spoke again. “Angela and—” she cut a glance at the bookshelf behind them once more, “and Valerie.” Trader, as the man referred to himself, opened his mouth as if to dispute the validity of the names, but Brunn interrupted before he had the chance. “They are names,” she said, “the names that all of our friends use.”
Trader’s smile was small, a flash on his face before it disappeared, but genuine. “And we are to be friends now then?”
“If you can get us as good of a deal for this gold as you claim you can,” the first cloth bag clanked noisily on the glass-top counter as Brunnhilde tossed it before him, “we’ll be the best of friends.”
The glass had jumped beneath the weight of the bag being tossed down, jostling the items inside that segment of the glass cases and earning them a scowl from the small man. For a moment the bag sat untouched between the two of them, but as his eyes darted between them and the bag, Trader silently reached forwards to pull it toward him and untie the stays.
With the man preoccupied, his silver loupe and gold pieces in hand, Aldrif took the moment to turn back to Brunnhilde. “You brought your blades?” she mouthed to her, hardly even a whisper between the two of them. Brunn merely shrugged, and Aldrif scanned over her friend, noting now more places on her person that stashed weapons. She herself hadn’t even though to bring Xiphos.
“These are very old—and genuine,” Trader’s smile beamed at the latter bit of information. “10th century Viking and in wonderful condition for their age; the detail of the coins is still very clear. They were obviously well-kept.” He nodded his approval at the two women. “They’ll be very easy to sell.”
Aldrif leaned into the counter absentmindedly as her attention shifted and she watched him examine the coins piece by piece. “You’re not curious at all as to how we came by these?”
Trader made a noise of disinterest low in his throat, waving a hand at the idea. “Not important.”
“Oh? It doesn’t bother you that they might be stolen?” Aldrif persisted, earning a sharp elbow and pointed look from her friend.
“Most valuable artifacts are,” he shrugged, looking up at them from his work, “but it doesn’t affect the resale value, so …” he made a face as he trailed off.
Aldrif breathed a laugh at that. “Money before morals then?”
“Now you’re getting it,” Trader offered a grin for her comment, before gesturing to the long line of artifacts enclosed in glass beneath their hands, “though I much prefer to have … things. Rare, one-of-a-kind things, rather than money.”
She nodded, “I can see that.”
Conversation stilled as Trader finished his examination of the coins, noting on a separate sheet the number of coins and their grade and condition. He piled the gold pieces back into their bag and tied off their stays with a delicate bow before stowing the whole thing beneath the glass case and out of their site. The soft shuttering of a cabinet door sounded, then a lock, and finally he was back above-counter.
“Did you have a preference for payment?” He asked them, his pencil steadily scritching away at the paper he was finishing. As he reached the bottom of the receipt, he wrote out a lengthy number before turning the page around for the women to see. “How is this? Seem fair enough?”
Both Aldrif and Brunnhilde glanced down at the number, unsure how exactly the exchange rate between Midgard’s system and their own compared, but trusted the confidence he held in the offer, especially in lieu of having any other option.
Brunnhilde nodded, checking with Aldrif before clearing her throat and confirming aloud. “Seems fair.”
“Wonderful,” Trader wrote out his signature at the bottom of the transaction’s receipt in a rich flourish before looking up once more. “And … payment preference?”
Brunn looked to Aldrif for an answer, who only mirrored back her own confusion at the question with a slight shake of her head.
“In … in currency?” Aldrif tried.
Trader paused, blinking once as he read the body language exchanged between the two. The woman’s answer had him sighing out, leaning back from the counter, and pinching the bridge of his nose.
“You are not familiar with the various forms of currency here.” It was a statement, not a question. “Some of my more … foreign, non-existent clientele,” his eyes cut to Brunnhilde for her earlier comment, “are similarly ignorant … though—” he brought a hand to cover over his mouth as he thought, “—I really do not have the time now to offer a thorough breakdown of the current monetary system here, with an upcoming appointment arriving soon.”
Aldrif threw a cautious, sidelong glance back to the maze of bookshelves, the way they had come into the latter half of the store and the only clear exit should a stranger or strangers ambush them while they were unprepared. Brunnhilde, with similar thoughts, moved to rest her hands at the hilt of her blades at the mention of others arriving.
“You will not need those,” Trader removed his hand to say, catching the slight movement. “The kind I deal with are interested more in trades and profit than in battle, though draw a blade on them, and I cannot say they will react as well as I did.”
“The same kind that stole those cosmic relics for you?” Aldrif leveled a wary look at him.
Trader tapped his knuckles on the counter, seemingly ignoring the harsh accusation altogether. “I really do not want to have to trade one of my own things.” His voice hitched a small whine at the thought. “I like my things.”
“And believe me, we do not want anything of them,” Brunn assured the man for his worry.
Another round of finger tapping against glass, a disgruntled purse of his lips, and Trader was sighing out again. “I suppose, in the interim, I can lend you my card to use until you’ve been properly educated in cash.” His figure bent below the display cases once more, and the sound of cabinet doors sounded once more, before a lock unhitching, and another, and then a small, metallic card was slapped on the countertop with a plastic thwack.
“Do not lend it to anyone else,” he warned, his dark copper brows lowering seriously over his eyes as he slid the thing across to them, “and do not lose it.”
Aldrif took the card from the glass-top with some curiosity, turning it over in her hands and feeling the cool smoothness of it. “And this is money?” She looked back up to him.
“It’s for charging your purchase, like a running tab,” Trader nodded, “but it is connected to my own personal banking account and money, which is why you are going to take great care to ensure it remains in your possession and out of the hands of thieves.” He patronized.
The sharp singing of metal rang from Brunnhilde’s waist as she unsheathed a blade from her belt once more to flourish through the air in show. “It will be worse for the thief that attempts to steal from us, undoubtedly.”
“Fair enough,” he snorted his amusement before thinning his expression again. “Though, while on the subject of thievery, have you secured any kind of housing accommodation or hotel for your stay here already?”
“Well, no,” Aldrif answered, “though now with the means—” she held up the card, but Trader was already raising his hand to interrupt her before she could continue further.
“I’ll not have you two running off to the first flea-bitten motel you come across to offer up my information on a golden platter to some thieving rogue. No, no,” with a shake of his head, Trader was moving again, bending over and rifling through an extraordinarily cluttered drawer for a pen and paper. “I keep an open room on-hand at a luxury hotel on the Strip,” he glanced up as he shook the ink pen a moment. “It’s convenient for lodging new, affluent clientele I want to make a point to impress, though you two are free to squat there until any clients of that nature come along.” He grinned.
Brunnhilde could not contain the roll of her eyes to the back of her head. “We are ever grateful,” her tone was dry, “for trusting us with both your money and property.”
“Oh, it’s a rented room,” Trader’s smile bared his teeth a little at her reaction. “Better for collecting collateral, too, should you fail to safeguard my card and allow my information to fall into another’s lap.”
Aldrif furrowed her brow. “Collateral?”
“The other bags of gold coin,” he gestured to their packs resting farther back behind them. “I know I heard the clinking of many, many more like the bag you sold me today. So long as my account is safe from thieves, your coin is safe from myself—unless you decide to sell off more of it, of course.” He looked between the two of them. “Fair?”
“Fair enough,” Brunnhilde gave a short nod.
“Good,” he finished writing out the address and directions, sliding the paper across the countertop. “Angela, Valerie—I do think you might recognize the place.”
