Excelsior: Loki

Chapter 3

The carriage took Katja right back to her front door and as soon as she stepped onto the ground, it disappeared, the only reminder of her wonderful night. She quietly opened the door, since her sister may still be sleeping, and stepped inside, taking her weapons that she left by the door and entered her shared room with her sister, taking off her clothes from the night before and changing into her normal attire, which consisted of dark green and brown tunics, leggings, boots, and a cloak. Something twinkled out of her dress pocket and onto the ground, making a pure and light ding. Katja worried that her sister may have woken up, but Ingenbjorn was still sleeping on the other side of the room, her loud snores drowning out the crickets that played outside. Katja bent down to observe what had fallen and she remembered that it was what Prince Charming gave her. A golden ring, in the shape of a snake, whose tail coiled around her finger, its eyes, emeralds. On the inside was engraved: to do a great right, do a little wrong. Katja recognized the line, Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. She tried it on her fingers but found that it only fit on her ring finger. She slipped it onto her right hand, for she could get blisters from holding her bow if it were on her left. She admired it for a while, before falling asleep, thinking of the best night of her life and her prince charming.

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When Katja woke up, she could hear her hungover father's groans. She slipped on her arm guard that she made herself out of deer hide, strapped on her daggers around her waist, and slung her bow and quiver over her shoulder. Looking over, she saw that Ingenbjorn was still sleeping and thanked Valhalla. She peeked into the living room and saw her father whining, his head buried in his arms that lay on the table where the invitation was not a day before. She reached into the room to open a cabinet when its hinges creaked. Orvar's head snapped up and he glared at her, and then his eyes shifted toward her hand. Katja immediately let go of the cabinet, hiding her right hand behind her. He walked over to where Ingenbjorn keeps the knives, and Katja was surprised that he knew where they were, considering how little time he spends in the kitchen. He grabs a carving knife, the same one that Ingenbjorn uses when she makes fowl. He held it tightly in his fist, knuckles going white.

"Father, what are you doing with that knife?" Katja asked nervously, her father rarely made good decisions while sober, and he made especially terrible ones while hungover.

"I'll put it away as soon as you tell me where you got that ring." He growled. Katja shifted her stance, hiding her right arm behind her, keeping her left shoulder in line with her father's right side, knees bent, shoulder length apart; she was in her defensive position, mastered through years of fending off wild predators.

"I found it while hunting." The two circled around the room, never breaking eye contact.

"Liar!" Orvar yelled as he lunged towards his daughter. She dodged his attack and placed herself behind the table. She did not want to hurt her father unless she had to.

He kept swinging blindly at her, giving her a deep cut as his force splintered the wooden chair Katja was using as a defence. His yelling and smashing had awoken Ingenbjorn, who suddenly appeared in the doorway, her father's back to her so she couldn't see what he was holding. Katja, surprised to see her there, got distracted and didn't notice that her father had swung at her until she felt a harsh burning in her left eye, and then incredible pain as he pulled his arm back. Katja was stunned, unable to see what had happened out of her left eye, it was pitch black, but her right could see something white at the end of her father's knife. Ingenbjorn screamed as she saw what in her father's hand that was now poised well above his head. Katja used this to her advantage and slit his large stomach wide open with her dagger and eventually slit his throat as well. A large pool of blood gathered around her, and much more fell from her face. As soon as her sister saw her, she ran out of the house crying.