Chapter 193
Solomon really meant it. First thing in the morning, barely oh-six-hundred, he was knocking on Valkyrie and Nadia's bedroom door and waking them up. Nadia, holding back tears, holding Valkyrie tightly, asked to come with her to help with her 'procedure'. Valkyrie had asked Solomon, practically begged, but he had categorically said no. There was absolutely no way Nadia could come with them. She could stay with the Dead Men and Tanith, with Valkyrie's aunt and uncle, with friends, she could even try and stay with Tanith's parents, but there was no way she could travel with Valkyrie even just for her getting her eggs removed. Nadia had cried into Valkyrie's shoulder up until the very last second.
Fletcher had very quietly teleported Valkyrie and Solomon away. Valkyrie's last image of Nadia for possibly months was of her in tears, wearing Valkyrie's ratty old t-shirt and shorts, both way too big on her, arms wrapped around herself and nails digging into her skin. She tried to smile at her fiancée, but the tears in her own eyes didn't seem to help.
"It'll be over soon," Solomon said quietly as soon as Fletcher had teleported away, leaving them wherever they were. Valkyrie's hadn't even looked at him.
"I know," she whispered, holding back the tears.
"She's safer where she is."
"I don't even know where she's going to stay."
Solomon stayed silent, letting Valkyrie have her moment, before she eventually turned, picked up her small leather backpack and nodded.
"We have a two days travel," he told her. "We're on the outskirts of Sweden. Fletcher hasn't been near where we need to go, unfortunately, and we must travel without drawing attention to ourselves. We can still use some magic, thankfully, as the world is not quite at that point, but we really have to be careful of being recognised."
Valkyrie nodded despondently.
"Buck up, Valkyrie," Solomon said, wrapping his arm around her as they left the small public restroom that was thankfully deserted, getting some freaked out looks from the early morning locals walking their kids to school, probably worried about the young girl coming out of the men's restroom crying. She didn't look at them, instead focusing on wrapping her thick Bespoke coat tightly around her body to fight the frozen temperatures. "I know you are worried about Nadia, and I understand entirely, but she's a smart girl. She'll find somewhere safe, and Fletcher will make sure she makes it there before he leaves."
.*****.
Three days later
It took them two days and one night to get to Uppsala, a city not drastically far from Stockholm, where Fletcher had left them. Solomon had kept her busy, getting her to use her magic in small capacities again and again, trying to improve on the aim of her strikes, the level of power, what body part it came from. Valkyrie personally wanted to make the magic come out of her eyeballs so she could shoot eye laser beams at criminals and fry them, but Solomon had given her a look of disappointment at her lack of serious attitude and that little bit of humour she'd found vanished.
She'd also had to abandon her phone. She had it, just turned off, for emergencies but she wasn't allowed to use it. She thought a lot about Nadia as they walked.
They slept an extra night in Uppsala before Valkyrie was admitted to a small local clinic by Solomon. The doctor had not looked at Valkyrie once, only speaking in broken English to Solomon, and had refused to let her talk to him before the operation. Solomon had briefed her before going in that it was a simple operation. Usually a woman, or other person with ovaries, would have to go on medication for around ten days before the 'egg retrieval' as only mature eggs that had a certain hormone Valkyrie couldn't remember the name of could be collected. Normally the hormone was released before ovulation to mature the eggs ready for their unfruitful journey down Valkyrie's lesbian fallopian tubes, ready to be fertilised by something Valkyrie never wished to touch. But in this case, they would be collected three hours after an injection of something that made Valkyrie's arm tingle and gave her a feeling akin to horrible period pain. It obviously affected more than just her uterus too as her breasts felt tender to the point of painful, her nipples felt as if they were uncomfortable swollen and she felt nauseous. The collection process would leave her "sore" – Solomon's words – as the eggs would be retrieved vaginally, rather than surgically.
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Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain
Fanfiction(This story is written as a fanfiction, but can be read as a story without having read any of the books.) Valkyrie Cain, the adoptive daughter of the Dead Men, has had a life full of love and magic. But as she gets older, times become scarier and sh...
