“You ready to go?” Drew asked her girlfriend. Billie stuck her head up from her plant boxed and nodded.
“Yeah, let’s just get this into the car, and we should be all good.”
I want to move to the country
Do nothing but drink wine and bake bread
Drew’s dad had bought her a station wagon for her eighteenth birthday and now she was using it to take all hers and Billie’s things to their new cabin. It was isolated enough for the both of them, while in reach of the city for their jobs, just a few miles out of Albany.
Don't give a shit 'bout the others
'Cause they do what the government says
She managed to spill some earth down her shirt and cursed rather creatively in Japanese. It wasn’t like she had been expecting to stay clean, she was wearing the ugly orange shirts anyway (they were awful with her complexion) but now it was down her bra and on her chest. Never mind, at least she’d have an excuse to take the first shower at their new place then. In three and a half hours. She sighed and resigned herself to being uncomfortable for that time.
It's you and me and anarchy, my dear
We'll have two cats and a corgi
But when she looked up at Billie’s face shining with happiness and anticipation, she felt she could put up with that. “Have you got all your makeup? It would suck if you left it behind by accident.”
Drew fished out her checklist and, while she took a minute with her dyslexia, made sure it was crossed off. “I think that’s it then.”
“Huh.” She climbed in the passenger seat beside Billie. “Is it me or did you never think we’d leave this place either?”
“Half of all demigods make it to the mortal world, right?”
“I mean, we didn’t get lucky. Only a handful of us are actually still alive, right? Us and like ten others.”
“I try not to think too much about it. At least we’re not big three right?”
Billie laughed, a note of apprehension in her voice, “There’s that. Anyways, I got all these weapons ready and you’ve got your knives, so we’re ready regardless. You’re a pretty good fighter.”
“I thought you were just letting me win so I’d pin you down.”
“I- Maybe but you did beat Malcolm and Sherman.”
Drew conceded and took the compliment, “Okay, I did do that.”
Grow sustainable plants in the front yard
Buy an old guitar for the aesthetic
Billie started the engine, a juddering loud thing, and, at the bottom of Half Blood Hill, they looked back for what might be the last time.
But never learn it 'cause that shit's too hard
Not that it would matter anyway
As she saw the retreating camp, she was strangely sad. It was weird, for ages she hadn’t even liked the place, but after the Giant War and all the shit that came with that, she had decided to give the bitchy hyperfemme persona that she had thought had to be there for a daughter of Aphrodite.
It boiled down to Silena, really, Silena was nice, so she wasn’t, Silena’s appearance was effortless, so hers was an hours long process. Silena was a traitor, in the basest sense, so she was loyal. Whatever she was, however horrible she’d been, she was upfront about her intentions at least.
Because, my dear, I'd love you just the same
But then she let it go. Chilled out. Yeah, she was still a bitch if someone was a bitch to her, eye for an eye and all that, but she made her apologies and repaid her debts. It was literally the bare minimum.
Woah
Woah
Woah
Not that people wanted much to do with her anyway and she still didn’t like those big swords or capture the flag or getting messy. But her fear powered her through it. She didn’t want to die and that was enough to make her train hard and now that Piper wasn’t coming back, she’d retaken her role as counsellor, not that anyone else was able to do it. Lacy and Mitchell were the next in line but still too young.
Love you just the same
Woah
Woah
Woah
She’d teamed up with Billie for Capture the Flag, when Miranda left. Two underestimated cabins made a good surprise attack. Billie didn’t ask for anything she’d thought she’d want: not their shower slot, not taking their hard chores, not giving up their good activities. No, she wanted Drew to come with her and do stuff with her in return.
Love you just the same
Gardening. Obviously, Drew was nothing to her, Billie had a bit of a genetic advantage but it was nice to get her hands dirty for once, once she’d given up on looking so clean and perfect all the time.
We could watch the news and writе letters
To a congressman wе both hate
And now they were moving in with each other. It wasn’t a new decision, they’d been together for years and among Camp alumni, it was pretty common to have a roommate from there after years of living together, or at the very least, someone to watch their backs.
Slowly steeping in our disappointment
Realize that you can't escape from it
Billie gripped her hand, calluses against her soft skin, and kissed her at their first red light and all of her worries and fears dissolved into nothing. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Drew flicked on the old tape she had made up and they were yelling the lyrics out into the air all the way from New York City to Albany. Three and a half hours felt like nothing after all.
We want our voices to be heard
To make the world outside a little better
The car pulled up at their new home, in the middle of the woods, away from anyone who might bother them. Just them and whoever they wanted to come. Drew knew Billie was close with most of her siblings, and while she wasn’t as close with hers, she’d be willing to extend an invitation at the very least.
Overthrow a tyrant, start a riot
And babe you know I'm with you for whatever
“Our new home.”
“It’s perfect,” said Drew. “You want to go inside or unpack everything now?”
She stretched up dramatically, almost as tall as Drew. Almost. “Let’s get it over with now and then I’m going to bed.”
“Do you snore?” Billie threw her a mock-dirty look.
“Yes.” Obviously Drew knew that already, she’d fallen asleep in her lap too many times in the strawberry fields for her to not notice. She snored like a foghorn. Drew had slept through monster attacks, fire alarms and earthquakes before so it worked between them.
Nothing you could do would ever change-
(And I will tell you as many times as you need to hear it)
Their cabin was cute. Small, but they had a garden with space for flowers and vegetables and trees and a big covered south facing porch to sit on in the evening like a pair of pensioners. Inside was pretty spacious, just five rooms: kitchen, living room, their bedroom, bathroom and a guest room. And it was full of light for all of their house plants to thrive. Or just for Drew to lay on the ground and bathe in the sun, like a cat but with better eyeliner.
I will always love you just the same
(It's you and me against the world, bunny. Let's go!)
“We made it. We actually made it.”
Woah
Woah
Woah
“Of course we made it, I refuse to die with acne. I would definitely demand a closed casket for that.” Billie rolled her eyes at her.
Love you just the same
“Would you believe I was trying to have a moment here?”
Drew kissed her as an apology, “Go get all your plants settled. I’ll see what we can do for dinner. Something light?”
Woah
Woah
Woah
“Sounds great.” And with that, Billie Ng was out the door and it was just Drew Tanaka in an empty house.
What was it again? Dinner. She just looked around at the bags of groceries they'd sent ahead. No meat since both of them were vegetarians, just vegetables, milk, oat milk and eggs.
Love you just the same
She shrugged and turned on the stove, heating it up, while she made her omelettes. Another thing she’d gotten good at at camp: cooking. Chef and kitchen cooking, gourmet cooking, baking and pastry making, wilderness cooking? It was kinda her thing.
When she was making up apologies for people, she liked to bring them bread and pies. And when she was pissed off, kneading dough over and over was better than biting out insults or forcing charmspeak.
And we'll watch the world from our front porch
Remember all our plans
Maybe the things people said about putting love into food made it taste better was true. Aphrodite was all about love so Drew could put her love into her food. She hoped her mother liked that concept at least.
For making vegan brunch on Sundays
And playin' Rockaband with our friends
Billie was out back, digging into the ground, commanding soil to her will, when Drew brought the food out. She set a tree into its place and pressed her hands to the trunk, doing some magic plant thing to help it settle or something before running up to the poarch to get her food.
Will that fantasy survive?
Will it have to step aside
When there's so much more to fight for
Once everything was done, it was long dark and the fire they had built and the moon were the only sources of light around. Drew would’ve suggested stargazing like they did at camp but the midges biting her skin said otherwise so they went inside to sit on their battered secondhand settee instead.
Woah
Woah
Drew couldn’t see her in the dark but she could still trace her form anywhere, feel her where she couldn’t see, hear her even if she was invisible.
Woah
One, two, three, four!
It wasn’t hard, where Drew was sitting straight on, Billie had strewn herself over the couch, and over her, legs crossing legs, arms touching arms, hands holding hands.
Woah
Woah
Woah
Love you just the same
The dirt under Billie’s nails cast onto Drew’s hands, a thick earthy smell in the air and Drew still had dirt down her shirt from earlier.
It would’ve been a pretty standard day for her. Killing people here, killing people there, getting killed herself, waking up, doing other stuff until she went to sleep and repeated it all.
It was a Tuesday too, free for all fighting, the best kind. No stupid wyrms to mess things up, no seige warfare where she got hit by missles or killed by stupid hyperactive diseases.
No, today was just good old fighting, dodging falling bodies and flying axes and hoping her knives would find their mark somewhere in another einherji’s throat, or at least an important artery.
It was kind of awkward when they took a while to die and were just looking up at you all betrayed and in agony.
Unfortunately her moronic hallmates, her so-called “shield brothers” had gotten themselves killed already. Halfborn took an axe straight to the dick and she just ended it quickly for him because his squealing was uncomfortable to be around and T.J. decided to try and charge a legion of Thor’s children from Floor 35 and fell unlucky from being fried with lightning.
That looked like it hurt. Poor T.J.
So she was all alone, just standing behind a tree a few minutes after T.J. died, trying to gauge where she could make the most effect, when she realised she’d been spotted.
Now, she wasn’t hiding. There was a difference. She was being strategic, clever, all that. If she was a coward, she would’ve just left. Or never arrived. Or just not in Valhalla at all. They were “Odin’s chosen warriors” after all. Except her hallmates. They were just Odin’s chosen idiots.
The fucker with the eyepatch and the axe was there. Mallory hated him. He talked too much and was just so smarmy and annoying and thought he was so much better than anyone just because his mom was Frigg. What an arsehole.
“Keen!” Oh great he’d spotted her, “How’s it going?”
“Shut the fuck up, let’s just get this over with.” She drew her knives but even they weren’t much compared to the entire group of sheep with Eyepatch and their purposefully deadly weapons.
“Let’s-” He was suddenly cut off by a sparking flying hammer to the head, bursting his skull open in a way which was almost artistic, if it wasn’t plain disgusting.
Mallory couldn’t see far enough down the hill to see who had killed him but Eyepatch’s group could and did, since they all turned tail up to her and started running away. And chasing after them, at the bottom of the hill, holding a matching sparking hammer, in full armour and already bloodied, was the woman, the legend herself: Gunilla.
She gulped and took up a fighting stance, ready to meet her. If anyone was taking her down today, it would be the most beautiful and most terrifying woman Mallory had ever met.
Gunilla didn’t look interested in fighting her though. She went for the stragglers, people who were running away from her, just not fast enough. When she reached her, she stopped clean in front of her.
“Well? Aren’t you going to help me kill them? They were going to kill you.” She was so tall, Mallory had to crane her neck to see her face properly. The sparking and lightning had gone but in her icy blue eyes, there were still tinges of it firing away, like synapses in a brain.
“Oh! Of course, uh, let’s- let’s go.”
“Come on.” Gunilla grabbed her wrist, despite Mallory’s complaining and lifted her off the ground and onto her back, charging right to where the rest of the einherjar were hiding or trying to escape.
The problem was, this hill had a bottleneck entrance into this basin, where there was a lake. Outside of battle, it was probably very beautiful, but at the moment, there were too many corpses, or soon to be corpses, lying around, for Mallory to appreciate it properly. “Lemme down!” She kicked Gunilla’s back and was dropped onto the ground immediately.
“You’re welcome for the lift.”
“Thanks? Now can we please deal with them.” She pointed at them, trying to find another exit. There wasn’t one. She’d discovered that the hard way when she and her hallmates got chased in there, about five years ago and ended up drowning because of it, pushed in by some dickhead from floor 29.
“My pleasure, you stop them escaping, I deal with them?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Mallory felt herself blush from Gunilla’s rare grin, probably matching her hair.
She marched off, cornering a few quickly while the worst of them jumped into the lake, trying to escape her by water since her armour would probably drown her before she caught them.
Mallory grimaced. That was a poor mistake to make.
As soon as all the einherjar on land were dealt with, bloodily and bodily, Gunilla set her sights on the lake.
She left her post at the bottleneck and joined Gunilla at the edge, who was looking at the water, almost gleefully. “So, you’re going to do your zappy thing and kill them?”
“Yes. It’s gonna be fun.”
“I like your style.” She cocked her head to the side, “But why do I never actually see you out here so often. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen you on the battlefield.”
“Huh,” Gunilla looked up. At her. Like, right at her. “I’m just busy. Lotta paperwork with the valkyries and the thanes and all that. Figured I deserve a break. And I’m looking for a new sparring partner, I don’t want to feel like I’m getting out of practice, you know?” She flexed her biceps and Mallory couldn’t resist it. She just felt it, only for a minute.
“Sorry! Sorry. I-”
“It’s fine. You fight good though. What you doing next Saturday?”
“You want me to spar with you?”
“If you want to.” She looked… nervous?
“Course I do.” She finally tore her gaze away from Gunilla’s face, to the einherjar trying to escape the lake now, furiously swimming to the side now that they were apparently distracted. “You wanna deal with them now?”
“With pleasure.” She focused for a few seconds and her hammer started sparking away and she slammed it down on the water, being careful to let go in enough time, just in case and both her and Mallory took a steady step back.
Once it was over, they were both still standing there, looking at Gunilla’s hammer, which was sitting in the shallow part albeit, covered in water, still sparking away.
