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Orkladalen, Norway, in the sixth year of the reign of Harald Fairhair

The long nights were nearly on the town of Neddal and the farm laborers were busy bringing in the last of the harvest, while the women of the town dried, smoked, and pickled anything that would hold still long enough. They were far enough from the Orkla that fish had to be traded for, but almost every farmstead had at least a pig to provide some meat through the winter. The husbandman Hakon’s steading did not have a pig, just an irritable nanny goat and three geese, and two of those had stopped laying. He and Alris his wife did have four children, from ten to nineteen years of age. With no dowry to speak of, there was also no suitor for the eldest, Asdis, despite her fair face and talent for weaving.

The neighbors chattered, but they could not spare the time to worry about them when the winter was nearly come and the six of them without enough stores to last the months til the light returned. Alris muttered, but her hands were busy and her brow was creased as she packed the turnips and parsnips into a box, layering them in damp sand to make them last. Asdis traded some fine-woven bands of red and green wool for more milk than the nanny could give so they would have butter and whey, and the neighbor’s bondswoman slipped her some honeycomb with it to sweeten the family’s temper.

One evening, as the family settled in for the night, a stranger came tapping on the door, looking for hospitality. She was a fussy, hand-wringing person, wearing fine, but old-fashioned clothing.

They brought her in by the laws of hospitality and shared the family meal with her, and they spoke of the winter and their troubles, the stranger nodding and making sympathetic noises as she listened. After Alris and the children had gone to bed, Hakon made up a pallet for the stranger by the fire. She settled on it, then grasped his arm.

“Now,” she said. “Your hospitality has been generous, so I have a message for you in thanks. If you wish to turn your fortune, the next knock you get on the door, no matter how odd or frightening the thing on the other side, you should show the same hospitality that you’ve shown me. Be generous, be kind, and be...er, open-minded. Understand?”

Hakon knew that gods and spirits sometimes walked the land and gave boons to those who treated them kindly and laid curses on those who used them ill, so he agreed and thanked the stranger for the warning.

“When did you get this gig?” Crowley asked, sniggering.  She sat on the edge of the well, swinging her legs and her blonde braid, and flicking pebbles at the chickens that clustered around her feet, pecking and squawking. Aziraphale, short and dark, and fussy as always in the current body, sniffed.

“None of your business. I’m sure I’ll be sent back to someplace civilized soon. Chang’an may have been a little...bureaucratic and there were certainly some troubling political concerns, but I’m sure the uprising will smooth over any day now. I certainly don’t want to lose access to those libraries.” Aziraphale wrung her hands a little.

“So what you’re trying not to say is you accidentally helped foment a rebellion in China and your superiors are unhappy about it,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale made a noncommittal noise, which was something of a confession in itself.

“Anyway, what’re you up to over at Hakon’s farm? The family’s virtuous enough, I guess.”

“A little test of faith and courage, I suppose.”

“Oh, great , mythmaking.”

“...A bit, yes.”

“How much of ‘a bit’.”

Aziraphale’s face scrunched up uncomfortably. “A giant enchanted bear is showing up tonight.”

“Angel.”

Aziraphale winced. “Yes, well, it wasn’t my idea. Apparently we’re overlapping with some other people’s journey to humility.”

Crowley rolled her eyes. “Have fun. I’m going to go miracle some floors clean and pretend I scrubbed them. Got to maintain appearances.”

“Why are you here?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley just sauntered back to the hall, waving lazily.

The whole of Orkladalen exploded into gossip a few days later. Asdis Hakonsdotter had disappeared, Alris had thrown her husband out of the house for a week with winter nearly there, and the local lads found the tracks of a giant bear near Hakon’s steading. Crowley was smack in the middle of it, speculating and sliding suggestions of mischief into fertile ears.

Aziraphale hung around the edges, avoiding Alris assiduously and listening to Crowley’s increasing mirth with irritation.

“I don’t care what you were going for,” Crowley confided at one point. “This is the most fun I’ve had since I tied feathers to the end of the jarl’s cloak and had six cats following him around trying to attack them.”

“He is really a bear though,” Aziraphale said, listing tipsily against Crowley in the hay-shed. “I thought, oh well, metaphor, large fur-wearing barbarian-type...overcome first impressions to show a gentle heart et cetera et cetera, and then I get to the place where they said to meet him and it’s an ACTUAL giant white bear.”

Crowley took the jar of beer back. “How is that even going to work, marrying a bear?” Crowley asked, concern oozing through the curiosity. “I mean, there’s...size considerations.”

“No, no, he was originally a human man, see, and the curse is only active during daylight.  And I’m assured that he’s a decent fellow who won’t press his...er, suit...unless she’s agreeable.”

“To a giant BEAR. That turns into a human at night. Well, I hope he’s handsome at least,” Crowley mused.

“Errr… She’s not allowed to look at him, you see, that’s part of the curse-breaking, she has to be his faithful wife and not see him in the light until they’ve been wed a year.”

Crowley sighed. “That seems like asking a lot.”

Aziraphale shifted uneasily. “A bit, perhaps.”

Crowley poked her in the side. “Bet you a honey-nut cake she peeks.”

“I haven’t got any of those,” Aziraphale grumbled. “And she’s a patient young lady. I’m sure it’s going to be fine.”

“I bet you.”

“Oh fine, be that way.” 

A month later, just in time for the hubbub to have died down, Asdis returned and set the whole valley back to gossiping like mad. She came on a white pony with fine white leather tack and a basket on its back, wearing clothes fit for a jarlskona and silver arm-rings. All the neighbors, dying of curiosity, sent bondsmen and women on errands to the steading on the pretext of offering gifts in celebration of Asdis’ return. Crowley was one of those sent to try to learn more of what strangeness was afoot. Crowley, who knew perfectly well what was going on, offered her mistress’s congratulations to Alris on her daughter’s marriage, then expressed private concern about the husband’s absence. 

“He must be a very important fellow, that he has too much business to visit his wife’s family with her,” Crowley said admiringly. “Is he one of Harald’s men? Is he quite handsome? My mistress said she can’t imagine but he’d be handsome. What color hair has he?”

Alris smiled fixedly and agreed that Asdis’ husband was indeed very powerful and very handsome, and ignored the question about hair color, and soon enough Crowley was hurried out of the house.

Aziraphale found her snickering.  “Now what have you done?”

“Just got Alris fit to be tied over not knowing what her daughter’s man looks like. Well, mostly a man. She’ll be thinking he’s some hideous goblin tricking her daughter into marriage and she’ll make mischief of it for sure.”

“Now you’re just making more work for me,” Aziraphale groaned. 

“Wiles to thwart, and so on,” Crowley agreed cheerfully. “It’s good for you. Keeps you on your toes.”

Asdis left after only a few days and Aziraphale, reluctantly, followed. Crowley waited about a half hour, then edged out of the consciousness of Orkladalen. Spreading tawny wings and jumping into the air, she angled into a thermal and rose until Asdis and her pony were a white blob heading for the horizon. 

Crowley followed for a day and a night and a day, until the pony was trudging slow and Asdis drooping in the saddle, but on the second evening, she came to a fine hall. The pony was taken by men to a stable, while a girl helped Asdis into the hall, taking her bag and cloak. Crowley lighted on the roof and slid into snake form, coiling down small through it and into the roofbeams.

Aziraphale was hanging around awkwardly, making everyone who saw her forget that she existed. Crowley dropped on her head, which made her jump and say something unangelic. 

“Sssooo, how’s it going?” Crowley asked, curling into the collar of Aziraphale’s coat. “Stop squirming, I’m cold.”

“ Yes , I can tell !” Aziraphale groused. “You know as much as me.”

“Not quite,” Crowley said. “Is that blocked off section the bear-fellow’s chamber?”

“Yes. It’s made so that no moonlight from outside or firelight from the main hall can enter. It’s quite cosy, if you’d like to remove your cold scales from my neck.”

“No, I’m comfy, thanks. So he’ll enter at dark?”

“A bit before. He changes shape inside.”

Crowley squirmed reluctantly. “Oh, then I actually should sneak in there if I want to see what’s going to happen.”

“The girl’s exhausted, she’s going to fall asleep before he even gets here,” Aziraphale said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself. “She’ll talk to him tomorrow, remember how much she likes him, and not make any mistakes.

“You keep on believing that,” Crowley said. “I’m going in there.” 

Sliding down Aziraphale’s dress (and eliciting muffled squawks along the way), she hit the floor and slithered as fast as possible for the warm promise of the private room. Asdis was already there with the serving girl, being helped out of her damp traveling clothes and fed warm drinks. Crowley curled into a corner beneath a chest and waited.

Sure enough, that evening, the great bear came into the room and when the door was shut and it was dark as dark, turned into a human man. Asdis greeted her husband and when he asked after her visit home, she thanked him prettily for the time and told him how good it was to see the full storerooms her family had now for the winter.

“Did you heed my warning?” the bear-man asked. “Did you avoid speaking alone with your mother? For if you did and listened to her advice, ill luck will take us both.”

“Of course,” Asdis replied.

Crowley flicked her tail at the lie. There would be consequences to it for sure.

“Well, I am glad of your joy in seeing them,” he said, and settled into the bed beside her, and kissed her hand, and both of them went to sleep.

Only Crowley, who had stayed awake, curled in the comfortable warmth of the room, heard a pause in her breathing. Asdis, carefully and quietly, slipped out of the bed. Stumbling only slightly, she made her way over to the bag she had brought from home and fumbled in it for a moment. Then, there was the spark of flint on steel, a nearly inaudible crackle of tinder, and an ember that turned into flame. Cupped in her hand was a tiny soapstone lamp, with the lit wick floating in a tiny bit of oil.

“Sso much for that plan,” Crowley hissed to herself.

The light wasn’t much, but it was enough to illuminate the sleeping man in the bed. He was beautiful - his face fine and strong with a mouth curved for smiling, hair lustrous, and the limbs beneath his shirt well-formed. Asdis’ hand went to her mouth, her cheeks flushed red. She took a little step forward, bending down to see him better, but as she did, the lamp tilted and three drops of oil spilled and fell drip-drip-drip onto his shoulder.

He woke in an instant, eyes flying open and face creasing in distress. “Oh, my love, you have doomed me,” he cried. “If you could have waited and trusted, I would have been free of my bear curse and free of a wicked sorcerer, but now I’m bound to marry her cruel daughter and never shall see you again.”

“Well, that seems overdramatic,” Crowley sighed. 

Asdis, weeping, asked how to fix it and the man gave her geographically improbable directions to the sorcerer’s castle, then turned into a bear again and vanished with a gust of frigid air and a cry of anguish.

Then the whole hall disappeared.

Crowley blessed. She slithered out of the slushy hollow she’d landed in and looked around wildly, but the only other things in sight besides trees and snowy ground were Asdis and Aziraphale and the pack Asdis had brought from home. Aziraphale looked alarmed, and vanished from Asdis’s sight. Crowley made a beeline for her and hissed imperiously until she was picked up and tucked under Aziraphale’s collar. Asdis was sobbing.

“Let me guess,” Crowley said in Aziraphale’s ear. “Quest time.”

“Once she...composes herself,” Aziraphale said resignedly.

“You owe me a honey-nut cake.”

“Well, I still don’t have any.”

The quest was at the same time dull as ditchwater and deeply weird. 

Asdis pulled herself together around sunrise, scrubbed her face clean with snow, and, checking the position of the rising sun and the sliver of the moon, headed northeast. She walked and they flew above and behind her. That afternoon, she reached a rock outcropping with an old person sitting below it, tossing a golden apple up in the air and catching it. Nearby, a yellow horse nosed snow away to get at the grass underneath. Aziraphale sucked in a startled breath and pushed Crowley behind a tree. 

“That’s an angel! I don’t recognize them, but they’ll know you for a demon if you get close.”

“So nice of you to care,” Crowley grumped, rubbing her shoulder where a branch had smacked it.

“I didn’t know there was anyone else assigned to this,” Aziraphale fretted. 

They both peered around the tree. Asdis and the angel chatted for a bit, then the angel whistled to the horse and gave its reins and the apple to her. She mounted the horse and tucked the apple into her bag, and was off again, quicker this time. The two of them waited. Once Asdis was out of sight, the angel disappeared. Crowley and Aziraphale took off, flying up to catch sight of her once more. 

That evening Asdis found another disguised angel, this one carding wool with a golden carding comb. The first horse was sent on its way and after a little conversation, she was given use of the second horse, a grey the colour of smoke, and the golden comb.

Again, Aziraphale and Crowley hid until the angel disappeared, then flew after Asdis. She seemed set to travel straight through the night. 

“So, apparently Up There set this girl a stupidly difficult task, but now they’re giving her a fairly straightforward second chance?” Crowley asked, a little out of breath. “This is just...weird. They’re not even asking any particular tasks of her besides a little conversation. Don’t these things usually involve giving bread to old ladies and rescuing animals from traps?”

“Yes, I don’t know,” Aziraphale groaned. “I suppose there must be something at the end, that sorcerer, that they think she’ll be useful for thwarting.”

The pattern repeated a third time at first light the next morning with a golden drop spindle and a rust-colored horse.

“What do you think, same angel in a different guise or three different ones?” Crowley asked.

“Same one, I think. They’ll notice if I get close enough to check for sure, though.”

This time, Asdis ended up at a long, gaily-painted hall, decorated with animal designs in the Scythian style. She knocked on the door and it opened for her, but nobody appeared to be there. They edged close enough to hear voices, but when Asdis came back out, she seemed to be alone. Then a massive wind picked her up like a leaf and swirled her out of sight almost faster than they could react. Crowley and Aziraphale raced into the air, and flew, reshaping their wings into peregrine falcons’ as they went, losing the broad thermal-catching pinions they’d been using to match her slower pace with the least effort. 

“What in the name of Noah’s shit-covered sandals is that ?”

“I don’t know , do shut up and fly.”

When Asdis dropped lightly in front of another fine hall, this one decorated with images of the sea and with the swirling designs of Irish knotwork, they dropped down on the roof and peered in the smoke hole. Asdis was inside, speaking with someone who answered, but wasn’t visible. The wind whipping around inside the building made it impossible to catch their words. When Asdis headed for the door, Aziraphale and Crowley readied themselves and this time, when she was picked up by an even stronger wind, they were in the air immediately. 

The third hall they reached was painted with flowers and the geometries of Al-Andalus. They didn’t even bother trying to eavesdrop. The roaring of the wind was audible from outside the house. Crowley rolled her shoulders and got into a sprinter’s stance on the edge of the roof. 

“Ready, angel?”

Aziraphale tried to rearrange her skirts into some kind of order. “Ready,” she agreed.

They flew, following Asdis on the wind.

When she dropped again in front of another hall, decorated in blue, yellow, and red Sámi patterns, the wind roared up a gale, but Asdis went into the hall anyway and this time she didn’t come out. The wind died to a murmur. After a moment, Aziraphale went and stuck her head down the smokehole. 

“Oh, well, I suppose she needs it.” she said. “Crowley, she’s sleeping. I think we can rest the night.”

“Good. I haven’t flown that long in ages and I want a nap. You’ll be all right?”

“Yes, yes, go on. I’ll entertain myself,” Aziraphale assured her.

At first light, the wind started up again. Crowley roused and Aziraphale shook out her wings, and sure enough, out came Asdis and they were off. All day they flew, fast and far and below them the wind knocked down whole stands of trees and drove the snow before it. They went north and east, so far that they hit open sea. And below them, eventually, they saw an island, with a stone castle upon it and a river, and an orchard. There, Asdis dropped down, as gently as a feather. She ate a little, then made herself a little shelter of her cloak against the castle wall, then settled down to sleep.

“Well, apparently this is ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’,” Crowley said. “Seems like overly-complicated directions to me.”

Aziraphale looked uneasy. “I’m not exactly sure where we are. I mean, we are still on Earth, right?”

Crowley looked around, then reached out with all her other senses. “I’m...not sure either. It’s weird, wherever it is. Feels off.”

“It feels malevolent.”

“Yeah…”

“Well, I think I’ll explore the castle and see what new, er-”

“Weirdness?”

“-awaits.”

Crowley shrugged. “All right, I’ll start in the cellars, you start in the tower, meet in the middle?”

The next morning, Asdis sat under the castle’s window, throwing the golden apple up into the air and singing. Before long, a young woman stuck her head out. Frowning, she called down, “Where did you get that beautiful apple? I want it. I’ll buy it from you.”

“It was a gift,” Asdis said, “and you shall not have it for gold nor silver.”

“Well, what do you want for it then?”

“Only give me a night in the bedchamber of the bear-man and you shall have it.”

The woman in the castle laughed. “You shall have it, though it shall do you no good. Now give it to me.”

Asdis tossed the golden apple up and up into the woman’s hands. She caught it with a cry of glee and disappeared back inside. That evening, Asdis presented herself at the door and was let inside. A silent serving woman guided her to a bed-chamber and left her there. Inside, sleeping, lay the beautiful man that the bear had turned into. She ran to him with a glad cry, but though she shook him and called to him and wept, he did not wake. 

Crowley sat cross-legged outside the bedroom, skirts bunched up around her, listening and frowning. Aziraphale leaned against the wall next to her, looking despondent.

Aziraphale sighed. “I found nothing of use. The sorcerer’s workshop is full of all the usual stuffed crocodiles and whatnot, but none of it seems specifically demonic.”

“Well, I’ll take a look tonight. The servants seem cowed and unhappy. Perhaps she’ll have luck there. How about the greedy twerp who wanted the apple? Am I right that she’s to marry the bear-man if Asdis can’t steal him back?”

“ Win him back, my dear.”

“Same thing,” Crowley said, waving a hand. “So, yes. I’ll nose around after the sorcerer’s things, you give Asdis heart or something sappy like that.”

“She shan’t need it, she’s quite brave already.” Aziraphale sniffed. “Yes, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Yes, yes, whatever.”

They went to their tasks. Crowley failed to find more than a bare hint of brimstone. She eavesdropped on the sorcerer and her daughter for a while, but their conversation was all about the wedding and the power they’d be consolidating with it.

The next morning was a repeat of the first, with the golden carding comb, and the same bargain. Crowley groaned. “Why do these things all have to go in threes? This is boring.”

“There were four winds,” Aziraphale pointed out.

“Nobody appreciates a pedant,” Crowley informed her.

That night went the same. Crowley slipped away as soon as it became clear that none of Asdis' efforts would have any effect, and headed for the servants’ hall.  Sliding into a chair, she chatted with the few people who seemed to have the energy for conversation. 

“That new fellow seems a lot less of a tyrant than the ladies of the castle,” she said.

That got more reaction that she expected. They were effusive in praise of the bear-man’s kindness and consideration. “He used to be young lord here, when his mother was alive,” a cook told her. “You’re new, you wouldn’t know. His stepmother, that is the lady now, her rule changed the place.”

“Perhaps if he had a word with that girl with the golden treasures,” a serving-girl sighed. “She’s different.”

“Maybe he should have the chance to,” the cook said. “Halla, you’ll be taking him his meal in the morning. Pass him a message for me.”

Crowley grinned and slipped away while they were planning.

The third morning, Asdis traded away the golden spindle and ate the last of her provisions. 

“Something’s bound to happen now,” Aziraphale said.

“If it doesn’t, we’ll be seeing how well she can fish with the thread from her dress and no bait but rotten apples,” Crowley replied. “So, she failed the patience test, which was entirely unreasonable in the first place. ‘Oh, marry this magic bear and if you go a whole year without worrying about what the man you married looks like, you get to keep him!’ She did make it all the way here without losing her nerve, so that does speak of courage and faithfulness to him. She’s stubborn, which I’ve always thought could go either way on the virtue-vice thing...”

“Steadfastness is a virtue,” Aziraphale said.

“Ehhhh… She definitely lied to bear-face, which is another one for the sin tally, but she did it on her mother's instructions, which is filial piety. This doesn’t seem like she’s demonstrating either great virtue or great wickedness.”

Aziraphale stared mournfully up at the sky. “I really don’t have any idea what the point of this whole adventure is. I wish you’d stop trying to make me help figure it out.”

“Well I’m curious, angel. Is she even the person who’s being tested, or is it the bear or the sorcerer’s daughter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Since when are the winds four distinct entities who can apparently be negotiated with or cozened?”

“I don’t know .”

“How did the sorcerer turn that man into a bear in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” groaned Aziraphale, scrubbing fingers through her hair and disarranging her braid. “Can we please just wait and see what happens and hope that answers some of your questions?”

“Ugh, fine. I’m going to eavesdrop.”

Crowley went inside to practice lurking. 

The day was long and boring. Crowley amused herself by going invisible and turning everything in the sorcerer's workroom upside down, one piece at a time, while she was in it. She didn't rage and storm as Crowley expected, but hissed malefactions that would have inspired Duke Hastur. 

Aziraphale explored the very few castle bookshelves that were not devoted to grimoires and ended up with a book of hours that had very odd ideas of holy days. 

She was roused from her reading by Crowley. "It's nearly sundown," she said, "And tonight should be more interesting."

"I hope so."

Asdis was shown into the bedchamber where her husband slept. Tonight, when she touched him, he opened his eyes and clasped her hands and kissed her. 

"I did not drink the sleeping draught they gave me," he said. "Now quickly, let me advise you."

Aziraphale nearly cheered.

The next day, the castle was buzzing. Aziraphale and Crowley went among the servants and learned that the young lord had finally agreed to marry the lady of the house if she could prove her skills.

"She's never laundered a shirt in her life," once of the serving men said. "He'll be lucky if he gets it back whole." 

Sure enough, when the young lady scrubbed the white shirt with three small oil stains on the shoulder, the stains only spread. They grew bigger and darker and her hands redder and aching until she was spitting mad. She threw it back at him. 

"No one could wash this out!" she cried. "This shirt is spoiled and worthless."

"Nevertheless, I'll not marry a woman who can't do so simple a task. If there's anyone who can wash my shirt clean, I'll surely marry her."

"It's impossible," the lady declared. "If someone cares to do that drudgery, I'll let her."

The sorcerer raised her head to protest, but before she could, Asdis stepped forward. "I will try, with your leave."

"Of course," he said.

And sure enough, when Asdis set her hand to the washing, the shirt was pretty and clean as milk in less time than it takes to tell it. 

The sorcerer cried out in frustration, but her daughter's careless words had lost her the power to force him into marriage. 

Asdis clasped her husband in her arms and joy bloomed upon both their faces. The servants erupted in happy cheers and the sorcerer and her daughter vanished in a cloud of impotent anger. Asdis’ ragged traveling clothes were changed at once for finery. Then, the lord raised his arms and the island itself gave a little shift. 

(Aziraphale and Crowley both jumped as their sense of space returned. 

“We’re...off the coast of Norway?” Crowley said. “That’s why it felt so odd. That sorcerer had displaced the whole island.”)

The joy turned into a celebration and the lord gave orders for boats and horses to go fetch Asdis’ family to belatedly feast their wedding. And the two of them went, arm in arm, to behold their home.

“So," Aziraphale said, standing on the beach beside Crowley and watching the humans depart. "Her penitence for her error and her love for him washed the shirt clean. The other young lady didn't love him, she just wanted power and was too proud to put in proper work."

Crowley snorted. "So chores are the best way to break a curse, fantastic, please say this is finished. I'm sick of the whole lot of them and want to go back to trying to figure out lichens."

"Oh, is that what you were doing back in Orkladalen?"

"Yes, they're weird and I don't remember anyone inventing them. I certainly don't remember any in the Garden."

"I'm not sure," Aziraphale said, watching absently as Asdis and her former bear-man kissed again. "They do come in nice colors. How do you grow them?"

Crowley grinned. "You don't! I have no idea how they work. I just know they take ages and aren't quite plants."

"That sounds lovely. I'm glad you have a project."

"Say, since you're done here, do you want to head over to the Waskaran mountains? There's some different species over there that I want a look at."

Aziraphale pursed her lips. "Well, I don't know."

"Come on, angel. I'll make you some of that coca drink."

"Well, yes, all right. I've got to keep an eye on you, after all."