Among the Asgardians: The Goddess of Love

Tigress

The room was gray the next morning as I opened my eyes. The sun was just beginning to poke through the curtains; no one should have been up, but I heard rustling in the corner of the room. Jacob.

“What time is it?” I mumbled, still groggy from the best night’s sleep I’d had in years.

“Time for you to go back to sleep, kitten,” Jacob laughed as he walked to my side and bent over to kiss me on the cheek. “I’m going back to my room before the others realize I’m gone and get the wrong idea about me coming in here.”

“Can you stay until I go back to sleep?” I asked.

“Of course,” he replied, lying next to me again and putting his arm over me protectively until I succumbed, once again, to drowsiness.

When I awoke again, Hela was bouncing happily on my bed. “Wake up! Wake up!” she chirped like a two-year-old. Pepper was hot on her heels with Natasha and Patsy, dressed in a canary yellow cocktail dress with her hair done up in a gorgeous up do. All three of the bridesmaids already looked fabulous in their bridesmaid dresses of a sea-green color I had chosen to match the beach setting, and had already woven their hair into flawless waves down their backs, with the exception of Natasha whose hair was too short to wave. She had straightened it as flat as a board.

“You need to get up, Kathryn,” Pepper sighed. “It’s almost noon.”

“What?” I asked, springing up and out of bed. “You mean I’m-.”

“Getting married in about three hours, yeah,” Hela smiled. “We’re already dressed, and now it’s your turn to wake up and let us make you pretty.”

I sighed and held out my hands in surrender. “You got me.” Natasha smiled and led me out of the room, still in my nightclothes. First, the girls paraded me into the bathroom.

Patsy shoved a towel into my hands, along with some shampoo and conditioner. “Bathe,” she ordered, “Now.”

After my shower, Natasha blow-dried my hair into its normal soft, honey-blond waves. Then, Pepper took over. Her expert hands began to carefully comb through my hair with shine serum. “Hela chose your hairstyle,” Pepper grinned. “We decided to go with the Viking spirit of things, and she told me you’re very into the TV show on the History Channel about them. This is based on Lagertha’s hair.”

“Perfect,” I replied. “Hela, you know me so well.”

“Don’t I?” she smiled at me from the corner. “It’s my job to know people. I have to decide whether to send them to hell or not, for Odin’s sake! You’d think I’d have at least a few mundane people skills.”

Patsy snorted. “And you do, so please stop talking about dead people.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Pepper laughed. “It’s creepy.” Her hands began to shape one side of my head into a braid. I knew the very hairstyle she was going to do, and I was glad it was one I liked.

“I hardly think that’s fair,” Hela countered. “My culture is different from yours, but that is no excuse for you to treat me with any less respect than you treat your fellows. I talk about what I know, and what I know is death. I know all about dying. I suppose in retrospect it’s not something one wants to hear about, especially your kind. The Asgardians and the Vikings, however, looked at death as a good thing. Why do you think they were so fearsome? They were not afraid to die because dying in battle was the only way to reach Valhalla. Yet you people fear death. Why? Because you are so superficial you are only concerned with mundane things like beauty and not honor. Honor is the only way to reach Valhalla. I know. I was trained as a Valkyrie.”