Chapter Text
YEAR 98
The nest that had plagued Dalsnes for decades was finally gone. The giant in the cave was dead, along with all the trolls and beasts who had nested beside it for so many years.
But the cost was high. Dalsnes Special Defense Team 1 was dead too. Fifty of Norway's finest, gone.
The boy who had bathed the cave in cleansing fire had been the last. He'd turned, given his General a smile and a thumbs up where she lay, then fallen twenty feet off the giant's body onto snow-covered rocks and never moved again.
Two hours later, General Sigrun Madsen-Eide, lying atop the mass of quickly-freezing flesh, used her one remaining arm to pull the last of her four children to her breast.
"I always wanted a daughter," she murmured into the baby's still-wet, strawberry blonde hair. "You know what your name is, right?"
The baby screeched and headbutted Sigrun in the nose.
"That's my girl!" she chuckled. "I'm already proud, little Tuuri."
Sigrun curled her tall, lean body around the tiny baby, whispering to the little one as she fed.
"You'll like your dad. And your brothers! Gods, they're a pain in the ass! But they're good boys. They'll be coming to get you any minute now."
The baby gurgled and looked up at Sigrun with a question in her eyes.
"No, kid," Sigrun told her daughter as she felt the strength flow out of her. "I won't be coming with you."
She glanced at the stump of her left arm. The makeshift tourniquet was oozing slower now, dripping rather than spurting into the crimson pool on the dead giant's enormous flank. It was getting hard to talk. Hard to think. Hard to feel anything but the creeping cold...
The baby chomped her nipple with all her toothless strength, then giggled.
"Ow! Heh. You're a fighter. That's good. We'll see each other again one day. I promise."
Sigrun could hear shouts now. A rescue party, probably led by Mikkel and Tyr.
She hoped they would understand.
She kissed her daughter and let her eyes drift shut for just a moment...
...and opened them again to a roaring cheer from a million grinning warriors and every tankard of ale in Valhalla raised in welcome.
"Sigrun," Lalli whispered against the frosted window.
Emil didn't hear him. He was too focused on trying not to barge into the room where Anna was giving birth.
It wasn't that Emil was upset about his youngest cousin getting knocked up at 14. Okay, not JUST that. He'd been plenty upset at first, but then the father had disappeared into the Navy and Anna had agreed to give the baby to Emil and his husband and pretend the whole awkward, messy thing never happened. In fact, it had been her idea.
"Emil, you like kids, right? Well, I don't. You want mine? I think it's a girl."
"We'll name her Tuuri!" he'd blurted when he told Lalli the news. But Lalli had given him The Look and hadn't talked for the rest of the day, so apparently he didn't like that idea.
Anna screamed.
Emil started to leap up--to do SOMETHING--but his lap was suddenly full of Lalli.
"No," his husband said, then stroked his hair and kissed him on the forehead. "Shush. Wait."
"But--!"
Lalli grabbed his shoulders and stared into his eyes as someone in the delivery room exclaimed, "It's crowning!"
Emil relaxed, then noticed the tear streaks on his husband's face.
"Oh, honey, what...?"
Lalli was off him and staring out the window again in a second.
Emil sighed, threw a nervous glance at the door to the delivery room, then carefully approached and rested his hand on his husband's shoulder.
"Lalli. We've talked about this. You can't freeze me out."
Lalli growled softly, then leaned into Emil's touch.
"What's going on, sweetheart? Come on, communicate. You can do it."
Lalli growled again, grabbed Emil's hand as if to fling it off, but clung to it instead.
"Sigrun."
"Wha-"
The unmistakable cry of a newborn erupted from the delivery room. Not a cute little whimper, not a sweet hello to the world, but a big, lusty yell that said IT'S COLD AND BRIGHT AND LOUD OUT HERE AND I HATE IT.
Emil and Lalli both spun around, then looked at each other, looked at the door, looked at each other again, and had just started forward when a grinning nurse banged out.
"Congratulations, gentlemen! It's a healthy, beautiful baby girl!"
Lalli looked at Emil one more time and smiled.
"Sigrun," he said.