Iris’s P.O.V.
I was flying about, choosing warriors to take back to Valhalla, when out of nowhere a beam of light came and struck me out of the sky. I was probably in free fall for a good 10 minutes before I hit the ground. My vision was blurry and fading, but I looked around. I was on a rocky shoreline. There was a man dressed in white and purple robes. Those colors are usually used to signify a king. There were 4 other people with the same robes. It must be a council or an oligarchy. And oligarchy… oh great, I’m on ‘the island’. Let’s see how long I’ll be able to survive this time. My vision fades, and everything goes black.

2 weeks later:

I woke up in a medical bed, with tubes running to and from a medicine pouch into me. I don’t know what happened, but if they needed to hook a warrior of the gods up to a life support system, then something huge had gone down. I tried to speak but it ended up coming out as a faint hello. A boy that looked about my age turned around and looked at me. He immediately dropped what he was doing, which blew up upon touching the floor, and sat down next to my bed. “Welcome back to the world of the living.” He said. I had seen just about every boy in Midgard, except for this one. He was tall, around 5’9, or 5’8 because of his bad posture. He had blonde hair, which was in a complete mess by the way, and teal eyes. He was wearing a black T-shirt, a pair of grey jeans, and a red and black jacket over it. “Can you move?” The boy asked. I tried to lift my arm and slap him for taking me somewhere against my will, but I was barely able to lift a finger. “Well, that’s understandable. You hit the ground at nearly 100 miles per hour. That’s like being shot in the head with a Beret 50 caliber. When we found you, the oligarchs were doing some kind of experiments on you. We don’t know exactly what they did yet, but we know that it had something to do with foxes.” He said. “How.. long?” I managed to ask. I hated this! For the first time since I became a Valkyrie, I feel completely helpless! “You’ve been out for two weeks.” The boy said. Oh gods. I’m really late. Odin is going to kill me! I tried to use my wings to stand up, but I was met with excruciating pain. Where I once had a proud pair of wings, I now have only two stumps. SOME DEAD MAN TOOK MY WINGS!! I managed to stop screaming when the boy put some kind of numbing gel over the stumps. I laid down again, trying to recover from shock. I looked at the boy. “Where am I?” I asked. “You are in Nōritān No Machi.” The boy said. Damn it! The boy liked to the door of the room to see a girl holding a food tray. She set it on the table beside my bed. This girl was unlike any that I had ever seen before. She had bright orange hair, but also a bushy fox tail and orange fox ears. “This is Hope. She will be taking care of you wile you recover.” The boy said. “Hello.” Hope said. The boy got up and Hope sat in the chair. The boy left the room after handing Hope some papers, presumably when to change out my medicine pouch and what medicine to use and stuff like that. Once the boy had left Hope started talking. “That was Ian. He is an alchemist. We are hoping that if we find your wings, he can reattach them to you. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll just have to turn to other forms of magic.” Hope said.
I was still wondering about what shot me down. “Can I ask you something?” I asked. “yes.” Hope responded. “Did you or Ian see what shot me out of the sky?” I asked. “No. I’m sorry but we only saw you when you were falling, not when you got hit.” Hope answered. “Oh. Thanks anyway.” I said. I looked around the room. It was cozy, but not in a cramped sense. It had a wooden floor with a rug under the bed. The walls were similar but made from a slightly lighter wood. The wall on the opposite side of the room was made out of glass with a sliding door that lead out to a small balcony. The room was illuminated by a stand-alone lamp in the corner. “Do you and Ian live here?” I asked. “Ian does. I don’t.” Hope said. I heard a baa coming from the balcony. “Oh. That’s probably Blobby. He is Sophia’s sheep.” Hope said. I managed to stand up and saunter towards the glass wall. Below the balcony was a yard. In that yard was a little girl playing with a sheep. She almost reminded me of my younger self in a way. I looked at Hope. I guesses that I could outrun her, but I was in no condition to go anywhere. On top of that, there was the obvious issue that my wings were gone. Ian walked into the room. “just checking in on you guys.” He said. “Well, it looks like she can walk.” Hope said. “Just barely.” I Said. I tried to walk back to my bed, but I tripped, and Hope caught me. “How about we give you crutches next time?” Hope suggested. “Yeah. I see where your coming from.” I said, my face just inches from hitting the ground. Hope helped me back into my bed. Ian looked at us and smiled. “See Hope, I told you that she wouldn’t be any trouble.” He said. “Oh, I’ll be trouble when I want to be.” I said. I noticed that Ian had something in his hands. “Hey, what’s that?” I asked. “It’s a variety of herbs that should help you regain your strength.” Ian said. He put the tray on the table. It had a tea pot and a small ceramic cup. He poured the tea into the cup and handed it to me. “Be careful. It’s hot.” Ian said. “No duh.” I said, taking a small sip. It tasted kind of like mint leaves. I suspect that he mixed those in to make it taste better. “Did you make this?” I asked. “No. My friend did.” Ian said. I followed his gaze to a picture on the wall. You could clearly see Ian in it, but he wasn’t the person in the center. Instead, he was one of three people. In the middle was a girl, not as tall as Ian, but had better posture than him. She had brown hair that went down to part of her back and was wearing a pair of cat ears. She had a pink and white coat on and a skirt over a pair of leggings. The other person was a boy, also with brown hair, but lighter than the girl’s. He had a grey hat on and a black jacket. He was on the right side of the girl wile Ian was on the left. The girl was holding up some kind of trophy above her head and had a gleaming smile. The trophy read “EMS girls cross country - varsity – 1st place.” I guess Ian saw that I was staring at it because he was looking back at me now. “Sorry. It’s just that you kind of remind me of Megan.” Ian said. “So that’s the girl’s name?” I asked. “Yeah. We used to be friends, but we didn’t see each other again after I moved schools.” Ian said. “Oh.” Was all that I said. Hope cleared her through. “Sorry to wake you two, but there are 5 men with government uniforms coming up the road!” Hope said. “Hope, hide her.” Ian said. It pained me to do this. This was the first time in a year that I had run from a fight. But I knew that I was in no shape to walk, let alone take on 5 people unarmed. Hope removed the boards in the floor to reveal a set of saris. She didn’t wait for me to stand, instead just picking me up and carrying me down. Inside was a safehouse of sorts. Hope put me down on one of the four beds. She ran back upstairs and put the boards back, concealing me and the passageway. I could hear muffled voices, though not clear enough to make out who’s who. “…Have you seen this woman……Royal experiment……No sir…” I heard the footsteps of 10 feet waling away, and then it stayed silent for a few minutes. Hope opened the floor and got me out. “Sorry about that. The oligarchs have been getting more and more paranoid ever since you went missing from their lab.” Hope said. I could see the shadows of five figures holding what looked like spears through the curtains. “Wait, if I’m a wanted escapee, then why are you guys helping me?” I asked. “Because the oligarchs are going mad with power.” Ian said. “Last week I was planning to go visit family out of country, but the oligarch council had made it so that we couldn’t leave so they could “inspect us” before the UN got involved and pressured them into opening their boarders. There’s no telling what they’re going to try next.” A girl said. She had just come through the door. It was the same girl that I saw earlier playing with that sheep. “I’m Sophia.” She said, holding out her hand. I shook her hand. “I’m Iris.” I said. She looked at my back. “Where did those stumps come from?” She asked. I sighed. Sophia looked like she was around 14, but she acted like she was 6. “That’s a long story.” I said. I heard a baa and some muffled chewing sounds. “No!! blobby, don’t eat the rug!” Sophia yelled as she ran in the direction that the chewing sound came from. We all laughed. I wanted to see the rest of the house, but I could still barely walk. I looked around and sighed. Ever since I became a Valkyrie I thought that all people in this place were the same. Greedy, corrupt, and xenophobic. But all this time, there have been people like that. People who are caring and loving. They were willing to be the good Samaritan and take me in when nobody else would. I lied down in the bed and drifted off to sleep.