"You!" he blustered, pointing a finger at Siegfried. "This is all your fault!"
"Because I didn't want to marry my aunt?" Siegfried must have decided to face the god down, because he waggled his eyebrows at the old man. "You really do need to get your sense of proportion straight."
Wotan stood there with his mouth hanging open. Clearly he had expected to intimidate Siegfried, at least.
But the last straw was when a raven, one of two that was up in the tree with the firebird, snickered, breaking the stunned silence.
He glanced up sharply. "Which one of you did that? Hunin? Munin?"
They both snickered.
He threw up his hands. "Bah! Ungrateful! All of you! Go ahead, discard your Wyrd, see if I care! I'll be sitting on my throne in Vallahalia, drinking mead, while you are — are — are — "
"Alive?" suggested Brunnhilde. "Enjoying ourselves? Seeing the world? Having adventures? Having families? Ruling a peaceful kingdom? Which none of us would be thanks to that Wyrd? I'll be going into adventuring, and I'll have you know that Leo thinks I make the perfect fighting wife!"
"Bah!" He turned to his — well, it was hard to call something with that many legs a horse. Mount. He hauled himself up into the saddle, and kicked it in the side, unnecessarily hard. The thing took a few moments to sort its legs out, then it began lumbering clumsily up an invisible slope of air, as if it was lumbering up a steep hill.
"Oh and by the way, old man? Besides my having a job on my own? Leo makes love like a tiger! "
"I — can't — hear — you — !" came the desperate reply on the breeze. Then Wotan, his beast and, finally, his two ravens, vanished into a cloud and were gone.
At last they could all let go of the laughter that they had been holding in.
When they all got control of themselves, Siegfried clapped his friend on the back. "Are you sure we can't persuade you to stay?" he asked.
Both Leopold and Brurmhilde shook their heads. "Too dull!" Leopold said cheerfully. "Things are going to be far too peaceful around here. Poor Hilde has been sleeping years away, and before that — "
"Before that it was the same damn thing, day after day. Fly to the battlefield. Pick up the dead man. Ferry the dead man to Vallahalia. Play serving wench to the dead man, his dead friends, his new dead friends, and my father and his drinking buddies all night long," Brunnhilde said with disgust. "Next day, do it all over again. I was nothing more than a transportation service and barmaid. I know how to fight, but I never got a chance to! Now I do."
"Uh — I think I've had all the fighting I ever want to see," said Siegfried.
"Boring! We're going to get into as much trouble as we can, aren't we, lover?" Leopold smirked. "First thing we're going to do is drop in on my father and brother and scare them into thinking I've come to steal the throne. And from there?"
"I know of a really evil dragon that needs killing," said Brunnhilde. "Whoever kills him and takes a sword and helmet in his hoard is supposed to save a Kingdom for its rightful heir and topple the usurper from the throne. That Dwarven chain mail you gave both of us as a wedding present is going to come in very handy for that." She beamed at the King and Queen. "I don't think we can ever thank you enough for sending Leo to wake me up."
As Rosa recalled...it had been quite an awakening. Leo hadn't learned his lesson about taking liberties, but Hilde not only hadn't minded, she'd been pretty enthusiastic about her awakening...ah...kiss. If it hadn't been for the armor, it might well have turned into a lot more than just a kiss.
"See, now that's more like it — dragons to kill, heirs to restore!" Leopold nodded. "You just keep track of us in those mirrors of yours and warn us if we're getting into any doomy situations, all right?"
"We will," Rosa promised as Brunnhilde put her fingers to her mouth and gave a shrill whistle. Two stunningly beautiful snow-white horses appeared from another part of the garden and waited patiently for them to mount.
"All right, we're off," said Leopold, as their mounts curveted restlessly.
"You're sure — " Rosa persisted.
"Of course we're sure." Leopold beamed at them, then as his new bride spurred her horse off into the orchard, followed after her, calling back over his shoulder, "You two are going to live happily ever after! Where's the excitement in that?"
"I don't know, love," Siegfried said, shaking his head. "You make happily ever after exciting enough for me."
And that was exactly what Rosa wanted to hear. "We have some time before we have to show ourselves at the celebration," she pointed out. "Wasn't there something you wanted to do?" He grinned.
"I'm so forgetful. Remind me?"
And so she did.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mercedes Lackeyis the acclaimed author of more than fifty novels and many works of short fiction. In her "spare" time she is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator. Mercedes lives in Oklahoma with her husband and frequent collaborator, the artist Larry Dixon, and their flock of parrots.
Copyright © 2010 by Mercedes Lackey
ISBN: 978-0-373-80315-6