Steel Meets Iron

Chapter 27

Swimming wasn't so bad. Raven liked it. She liked being in the water kicking her legs, feeling the current on her skin. She had never gone in the water since she was four, only for showers, baths and walking through rain but she had never gone to the beach, swam in a lake or been a swimming pool. She had been too scared, afraid of the distant memory connected with inescapable water, the massacre at her feet when she came to, but now she didn't feel so scared. As long as she wasn't in the deep part and Ylva and Eyolf nearby coaxing her.

Ylva had taken a shine to then on their little trip. She had nudged Raven into the water and guided her with her wet nose until the water was waist-high, she even licked her as an reward. Not only that she barked when she had tried to escape at first, unlike her former teachers who let her run off or evade the situation with a pitying sigh, Ylva would not have it. She was a wolf for the moment and had to be brave like a wolf, and wolves were not afraid of water.

It wasn't so bad. The water was gratefully cold which kept the vision of a bathtub in a poorly lit room distant and flickering. The sound of the trees rustling and the birds chirping filled the tense still ripples of water. Eyolf coaxing her blocked the stumbling fumbles of a man's rough hands and the pressure of a deliberately rough hold. Ylva's presence gave her no excuse to run at the slightest falter.

"That was so much fun!" Raven laughed. "I never went swimming before."'

She kicked at the water's edge. It was hardly a friendly kick out of boredom, she purposely treaded on the water. I beat you, she thought tauntingly. I can beat you. I did beat you. In truth Raven had not gone far she remained waist deep but she did doggy paddle, and she had never done that before. It made feel proud and tall like Thor and the Hulk combined.

Eyolf did her tenth cartwheel in a row. "This is so much fun! Can all people on Midgard do this?"

"Not everyone," Raven said. "But they can do a lot of other things like somersaults, back flips and stuff like that. We call it gymnastics."

Eyolf eyes were mystified. "You have a whole different realm than mine, don't you?"

"Pretty much."

Eyolf looked to the sky, "I can show you one more thing before we have to head back to the pack ground."

Raven was excited, "Really? What?"

"The cave of Hait and Sköll, the wolves that chased the sun and moon," Eyolf said dramatically. "Only the bravest of úlfrsons go in there."

"What's in there?" asked Raven incensed with curiosity.

Eyolf shrugged, "It has many things. The story of our people and the most ancient of things. Of our hopes and dreams. Prophecies. Stuff like that," she giggled at the use of the modern expression.

"That sounds important. Only the bravest go?"

"Well..." Eyolf went on, "my father says that only those worthy can enter and behold what's inside."

"Have you been inside before?"

"My father has taken me before, I saw the story of our people." She all but stuck out her chest in childish boasting.

"Was it nice?" Raven asked, she loved a good story.

Eyolf smiled, "It's a tale we all know." She took Raven's hand, "And now you will know it too."

With Ylva keeping watch they ran through the forest, chasing on another until they came to the cave. It was tall and massively wide like the one Ylva brought her to, this one was different though. Raven touched the frame of the cave, it was carved to be this wide, it was smoothed into swirls that no doubt went all around within the cave.