[ONC 2021 Grand Winner] After the events of Ragnarök, the God Vidar has settled in the nice and quiet city of Antwerp where he keeps an eye on the local paranormal community. Nearly a millennium later, Vidar is a grumbling bookstore owner by day and a lazy paranormal detective by night (albeit a slightly furry one during a full moon). The morning after a particularly rough transition, the young teenage girl who normally wastes her days on the skatepark across the street enters his shop, fervently looking for a book on the legend of Brabo and Antigonus. As she struggles to pay, she reveals that the bronze giant has disappeared from the statue on the town square. At the foot of the fountain now lies a body that has been dead for three hundred years. Prompts chosen: (25) The war has ended, and thus the immortals return to their natural state: forgotten, hiding in the shadows until humankind is in need of them once more. They did not expect to be stumbled upon by a young farm apprentice. (*) (60) Rumours of a mysterious dark force under the earth have spread around the city. You are sent to investigate. (*) To fit the plot I have in mind, the young farm apprentice will become a bookstore "apprentice"

***The wrong girl is sometimes The Right One.*** Charlotte Samuels thought she'd be stuck waiting tables at Marlow's until all her debts are paid off-in about ten thousand years or so. She definitely didn't expect a marriage proposal from the arrogant Brandon Maxfield who was blackmailed by his father to make her his wife if he didn't want his least favorite cousin to run Maxfield Industries. Charlotte's instinct was to say HELL NO! but she's stumped by a few obstacles: 1.) His old man Martin Maxfield is dear to her heart and has been recently deteriorating in health. 2.) She gets a million dollars if she stays married to Brandon for a year. 3.) She would rather like the opportunity to teach the attractive but awfully rude man a few lessons he didn't think he needed from a 'teenage gold-digger' which was his term of endearment for her on their first date-er, business meeting. So what's a girl got to do, right? Sure, she's young and a little rough around the edges but there's something her would-be husband didn't know about her yet-she's nothing like he ever expected. Thrust into the glitzy world a standard-issue Mrs. Maxfield would fit perfectly and rule with impeccable social grace, Charlotte will either have to force herself into the mold or break free of it, risking what little she has left for everything that she can gain. *** Copyright © 2014 by Nina Tippett. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Nina Tippett. This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Images, music and videos used in the cover art and any of the multimedia content posted in this story are the sole property of their respective owners.