Fallen From Asgard

Prologue-- The Calm Before The Terror

"I would marry the ocean if I could."

I couldn't help it. Nat's solemnly spoken words made me giggle, the sound discarded by a sudden gust of sea air.

We stood at the brink of the ocean on our favorite beach, Campbell Cove. We loved it because if you poked one of the thousands of sea anemones, they would squirt water right back at you with a little popping noise. Not many people knew about this little clip of the coast besides we and the rest of the locals; it was pretty hidden.

"Good luck finding a wedding dress in that size," I quipped in response to his musings, my mussy chocolate waves waltzing with the breeze.

My giggle soon turned into a guffaw at Nat's expression. He turned his head slowly to me, with one eyebrow raised to kingdom come and his mouth screwed as tight as mussels to a rock. It was his typical are-you-seriously-making-fun-of-me look. And I received it often, let me tell you. But he teased me just as often, so I gave him my looks and he gave me his in an ongoing circle.

I answered him with another roll of laughter, his eyebrows quirking more and more in pretend annoyance.

We'd been friends since the fourth grade. Sometimes it felt like we had since birth, but honestly, I can't remember anything about my life before fourth grade. That's normal, right? My mom says that I went to Kindergarten in the next town over, even though I was born here in our beautiful ocean town of Bodega Bay.

I wish I remembered something, anything about my "firsts". Well, "we don't always get what we want." That's one of my dad's favorite sayings, unfortunately. I received that just as often as I got Nat's are-you-seriously-making-fun-of-me look.

Anyway, back to my reminiscence