Chapter Text
Springtime in Iceland was a strange experience.
The days and nights worked strangely. Reynir had told him that, in winter, there were days when the sun didn’t rise at all, (Which sounded like a hunter’s nightmare to Emil. No wonder so many people had to move inland.) and didn’t set in summer.
But spring was a time where the sun actually behaved like a normal sun did. Mostly.
It was everything else that seemed strange.
The lack of trees had been throwing him off for the first two weeks. At first, Emil had been enthusiastic about finding some, for some, ahem, privacy, but there was only one grove right outside the village and it seemed everyone else had already thought of that. Including Reynir’s sister, Guđrun.
That had been one of the more awkward experiences of his life.
Lalli didn’t seem to mind. He was just fine with canoodling behind the nearest dirt mound with all the sheep and gods watching, and didn’t really understand Emil’s aversion to taking his pants off in a field filled with sheep dung. Emil, frankly, didn’t dare ask what the conditions over in Finland were like.
The less said about that time Onni had found them in the backyard, the better. At least they’d been wearing clothes that time.
Anyway. Privacy. Emil would really like some.
It soon became obvious it was not going to happen.
“Emil!” Reynir came bursting into his room at the ass-crack of dawn, because that was apparently when shepherds rose to herd sheep, and knelt down next to Emil’s bed, babbling something.
“No,” Emil pushed his face away, “Go away. Later.”
But Reynir wouldn’t be dissuaded. He poked and prodded at Emil until Emil figured there would be less damage if he heard Reynir out, preferably before Lalli woke up and bit him.
“Finally,” Reynir said when he noticed Emil’s eyes glowing purple, “You got a letter from the Academy?”
“Buh?” Emil’s eye narrowed.
“The Academy of Seidir!” Reynir waved a piece of paper in his face again, “It’s in Icelandic, so I can read it to you!”
“Mrrrh,” Emil let his head fall back on the pillow, “Do whatever you want.”
Reynir continued babbling in Icelandic. He sounded excited, but he was speaking so fast Emil didn’t manage to pick up on any Icelandic words he did know, so he didn’t even bother trying.
Finally, finally, Reynir gave up and went downstairs. Emil turned on his other side and went back to sleep.
Later, when it was time for decent people to get up, Emil got up, got dressed, brushed his hair and teeth, and went in search of some breakfast.
Mikkel and Sigrun were already at the table, looking a bit mussed but smug. If Emil wasn’t certain he would have burst into flames for doing it, he would have asked them where they did their canoodling, because they didn’t get caught even once!
“Emil!” Sigrun greeted him loudly, “Mikkel said you got accepted into mage training!”
“Huh?” Emil tried to remember what that was about.
“You got a letter this morning,” Mikkel waved said letter in his hand, “It caused quite a stir. Reynir was rather unhappy you got accepted into a military program and he didn’t.”
Emil frowned. “Well he can have it. I was going to drop out anyway.”
“Eh?” Sigrun looked shocked, “Why? Did you change your mind?”
“No,” Emil said, sitting down at the table and grabbing some bread from the basket, “There’s just no point. I’m not a mage, so there’s not really anything they can teach me.”
“You’re quite certain?” Mikkel raised an eyebrow, “This isn’t just your bad experiences with public school speaking?”
Emil spluttered. “What do you know about my public school experiences!?”
“Only what was in your file,” Mikkel shrugged, “And I figured you wouldn’t have dropped out if you had liked it there.”
Fair enough. “That has nothing to do with that!” Emil crossed his arms mutinously, “I’m not going because it’s pointless! I can’t use magic, not the way they teach it, anyway! We already tried runes and those rituals for prophetic dreams, and none of them worked even slightly. Not even those that Reynir could use.”
“Hmm,” Mikkel nodded, “That is a problem.”
“Damn,” Sigrun pouted, “Fine, guess we can just take you on as a regular hunter. But I don’t know what to do with Redbraid, then. Mom said that any mage I bring back needs to go through proper training, or they’re more a liability than help. And Braidy’s not immune, and they said they’re not taking any non-immune recruits. Not sure what job I can give him without any training.”
Oh, yeah, he remembered the Norwegians he’d met during his Cleanser days saying anyone going out into the field had to be immune. Not many Icelanders qualified for that, including Reynir.
“Hmmm,” Mikkel rubbed his sideburns contemplatively, “Emil, your ability doesn’t allow you to read Icelandic, correct?”
Emil frowned. “No, only understand speech. Why?”
“In that case,” the old Dane smiled in a way that meant Emil’s dignity was going to suffer shortly, “I believe I have a solution for both of you.”
“Listen up, whippersnappers!” a grizzled old woman with silver hair pulled into a very tight bun, who still stood with parade-perfect posture, bellowed at them, “Let’s get one thing straight: I am not your mama! I am not your granny! I will not coddle you! You are here to learn how to survive being attacked by trolls, and if you’re not complete failures, how to defend your squad against anything they can’t shoot and burn! And because my superiors are idiots, they’ve given me less than three months to whip you into some sort of shape!”
Emil, standing with a dozen or so women with backs so straight they hurt, was having some vivid flashbacks to his boot camp days.
The sergeant, and Emil would have bet his whole Silent World paycheck that she was indeed a sergeant, snapped a horsewhip on her palm while glaring at all of them. “Let me make it absolutely clear right now: if you do not study, you will fail. Because if you do not learn everything I am going to teach you here, and you still go into the military, you will die. That is not a ‘maybe’, that is not an ‘if’, that is a fucking certainty. You will die out there if you face a troll unprepared. And it is my job to make sure your parents do not attend your funerals and blame me for it. So mark my words, if you have any aspirations about being in the military, you will do everything I say, exactly as I say it ! Is that clear!?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Emil obediently shouted. A second later he realized he was the only one to do so and the women next to him were giving him startled looks.
Mercifully, the Sergeant just nodded. “Good, seems we have some actual military personnel here. You’re that Swedish kid, right?”
“Emil Västerström, ma’am,” Emil said, still keeping his posture.
She snapped her whip against her palm and nodded again. Then she turned to his side. “And your… Translator, I take it?”
“Um,” Reynir twitched, struggling to hold the ‘at attention’ pose Emil had quickly elbowed him into, “Reynir Arnason. Ma’am.”
“Hmmm,” Sergeant looked him up and down, “Margrét said you’re in her classes, correct?”
“Um, if you mean Margrét Ragnadottir, yeah, she’s my instructor for the-”
“Farm magic, I’m aware,” Sergeant frowned, “You’re not immune, are you?”
“No,” Reynir said. Emil elbowed him. “Ma’am.”
Sergeant frowned even harder. “I do hope you realize you will be getting no extra credit for completing this course, the Norwegian Armed Forces don’t take non-immunes. While offering to help your friend on top of your own coursework is admirable, passing this course will give you a piece of paper you can’t do anything with. Are you sure you want to proceed with this class as a regular attendant?”
“Ma’am,” Emil cut in, “Permission to speak freely.”
“Granted,” Sergeant nodded.
“Considering the kind of luck Reynir had demonstrated so far, making him able to defend himself in any way he can will only serve him well.”
Sergeant’s lip twitched at Emil all but parroting Mikkel’s words. “Yes, I’ve read the paper about you two. You ended up in a crate headed for the Silent World, didn’t you?”
“...Yes, ma’am,” Reynir admitted, lowering his head. Emil elbowed him back into proper posture again.
“Hmmm,” she snapped her whip against her hand again, “I suppose knowledge is never wasted. However,” she suddenly pointed the whip at the underside of Reynir’s chin, “If you think I will treat you more gently just because you’re a civilian, you are mistaken. You have signed up for this course, and it is my job to make sure you regret it. Is that clear?”
“Crystal, Ma’am,” Reynir did not quite whimper, but it was a close thing.
“Good,” Sergeant nodded, and took her whip back, “My name is Gunnhildur Groásdottir. You will address me as Sergeant. When I order you to do something, you answer ‘Yes, Ma’am!’ No ifs, ands or buts about it, or you get the whip. Is that clear!?”
“Yes, Ma’am!” this time, everybody in class yelled in unison.
“Good,” Sergeant Gunnhildur nodded, “Now take your seats. We are going to go over the basics of troll anatomy and weaknesses, and I expect you to take notes!”
Emil and his classmates wisely scrambled.
The difference between his basic magic classes and his military magic classes was giving Reynir whiplash.
Teacher Margrét nearly sang as she taught him runes and individual components of magical staves. Sergeant Gunnhildur called him an idiot for not constructing the Dreprun in under a minute after showing it to him yesterday.
“This is like the worst possible combination of boot camp and public school,” Emil sighed after the end of their classes. Reynir had no end of admiration for how he could endure Sergeant Gunnhildur screaming in his face without so much as twitching. Reynir had literally started crying the first time she did it.
He was starting to think he wasn’t cut out for this whole ‘battle mage’ business, after all. Facing actual trolls had been less harrowing.
“Oh, definitely,” Emil agreed when Reynir shared his opinion, “I think it’s supposed to be like exposure therapy? Like, they scare us so bad that by the time we actually face a troll, we are too numb to actually panic and do something stupid.”
“I… Guess that makes sense?” Reynir grimaced. He certainly wasn’t feeling very encouraged by the endless screaming. He had no idea how the girls in their class were coping. The youngest was only 17, and the oldest 25. Two of them had dropped out before Reynir even got the chance to learn their names.
“Yeah, they’ll try to chase you away in the first few weeks or so,” Emil shrugged, “They figure that if you can’t handle some normal humans yelling at you, you’ll only become troll bait in the actual field, and they don’t want your death on their conscience.”
That… Did make a depressing amount of sense. Reynir still didn’t like it.
His farm classes, which he’d signed up for mostly as a cover for the military classes, ended up being far more useful than he anticipated. The same runes used in the construction of staves to ward off foxes were used in the Vegvisir stave, for clearing an area of fog and driving away bad weather. By practicing one, Reynir was also getting the experience of composing the other. The workload was double what anyone else had to go through, but Reynir did have to admit, he was learning a lot.
Classes done for the day, Reynir and Emil walked over to the bus stop. Hólmavík, the village where their Magic Academy was located, was nearly two hours away by horse carriage, but was attended by enough people that there were regular bus routes going there and back. The way back to Reynir’s village was two hours one way, but it was cheaper than paying for lodgings while they were there. Still, it was better than attending the Academy in Reykjavik, where they really would have needed to rent dorm rooms.
Emil stretched when they made it to the bus stop. “Finally, freedom!” he turned to shoot a sharp look at Reynir, “I hope you’re getting all of this, because if we went through all this trouble for nothing, I will end you.”
Reynir help up his hands apologetically. “Sorry, sorry! But really, thanks for going through this for me! I know Sigrun would have taken you in regardless of having a diploma or not, but this really means a lot to me!”
“I know,” Emil sighed and crossed his arms, “I agreed to this whole humiliation ritual because you really needed a proper education. I’m saying you better not waste it.”
Reynir had a sneaking suspicion Emil still felt he owed him for the whole ‘Taking a lightning strike for him’ deal. He’d told Emil that there were no debts owed, but Emil’s face still went very gloomy whenever Reynir changed his clothes.
“Emil!” one of the girls, Vigdis, ran up to them right before they reached the bus stop, “Wait for me!”
Vigdis was a year older than Reynir, came from a family that had also participated in the Dagrenning program, and also had several accomplished siblings, and was hoping to take after them by joining the military. She was also, rather obviously and blatantly, carrying a torch for Emil.
Emil, who only had eyes for Lalli, didn’t seem to notice Vigdis’ admiration was anything more than hero-worship for being featured in a newspaper. He had a weirdly blase attitude about the whole thing, even saying something about how she wouldn’t even notice Emil if it wasn’t for his recent fame, which was just baffling to Reynir. He had returned from the Silent World too, and had his face printed in the newspaper, yet Vigdis didn’t even seem to notice him! It was clear to literally everyone with eyes she had a crush on Emil!
“Hi, Vigdis,” Emil greeted her with a polite smile.
“Hi!” Vigdis beamed at him, her chin-length red hair practically fluffing up with her joy, “So what do you think of our next week’s classes? Have you ever Dream-walked before?”
“Yeah,” Emil said, “It’s a little confusing in the beginning, because it doesn’t seem like you’re dreaming until something snaps you out of it, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really easy.”
There seemed to be stars in Vigdis’ eyes. Reynir was steadily resigning himself to having to take her aside to explain that Emil was just being polite, he had a boyfriend, and the boyfriend would bite her if she crossed a line.
He was not looking forward to it. Emil better appreciate everything Reynir did for him!
Vigdis got a few more minutes of attempted flirting by asking Emil for tips on Dreamwalking, but then her bus came and Reynir had seen her getting on it too many times for her to pretend it wasn’t the one she was waiting for.
“Finally,” Emil sighed, “Hey, I’m going to turn this off for a while, can you just make sure we get on the right carriage?”
“Sure,” Reynir patted him on the shoulder the way he’d seen Lalli do, “You can catch a nap, I’ll watch out for anyone else who wants to chat.”
“Thanks,” Emil sighed, and then his eyes dimmed into normal blue. And then fell closed, head lolling against the wall of the bus stop.
With nothing better to do but wait, Reynir took out his notebook and started practicing his staves. The next week’s classes would require them to actually go to Reykjavik, since they would need to use the dorms for the dream classes. Since Dreamwalking was the one bit of magic Reynir had already mastered, he figured he ought to use the extra time to practice his runes.
After all, this was just a class. It’s not like he was going to be attacked by trolls there!