Aslaug's Axe Shed

The Character of Aslaug is Copyright Â? Joan Jacobsen

The Characters of Tigermark and TL are Â? Tigermark

The Character of Aramis Dagaz is Â? Aramis Dagaz

The Characters of Joe Latrans and Annie Latrans are Â? The Silver Coyote

All other characters appearing are Copyright Â? Joan Jacobsen

Characters are not to be used without prior written permission of their authors.

No part of this story may be reproduced or placed on any website without the written permission of the author.

This story is copyright Â? Aslaug, 2008

The road ahead

It was quiet in the car. Joe, Tigermark and Aramis were all somberly attired and sad-faced as they left the group of furs behind they had just spent the last three hours amongst. The three amigos had been strangers there. Everyone else seemed to know each other in some way. At least everyone had been decent enough to make polite conversation. It had not exactly been the most joyous of occasions. There had been a lot of ashen faces but surprisingly few tears.

“Y’know, I don’t think our friend back there won a lot of friends in her last job,” Joe said, gravely, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to the back of the long car.

It held a coffin, conspicuously devoid of any religious symbolism.

Tigermark raised an eyebrow and looked at the coyote. “Why would you say that?”

“Well, did you see any of the adults weeping for her passing?”

The large feline had to admit Joe had a point. There had been a lot of very serious looking furs, but the only adult who had shed any tears had been the principal. And it had been such an obvious case of acting that the coyote had felt like clapping and passing over the Academy Award for best supporting actor, right there on the spot.

Or maybe not. The Academy Awards went to furs who could act…and the principal certainly couldn’t.
Aramis smiled a little as he turned the car onto the main road. “Still, you have to admit this was a
pretty cool trick.”

“Yep, the best since Elvis,” Joe snickered and ran a paw through his hair.

Tigermark shot his two friends a look that told them it was grossly inappropriate to laugh or make merry. He looked out the window and scratched his chin. “Elvis isn’t dead,” he said, to end the debate before it got started. “Besides, while we may think this was a cool trick, I don’t need to remind you that while the adults didn’t weep, the kids did.”

Joe bit his tongue and nodded. As usual, his tall, striped friend touched the most tender issue with a point of a needle. The kids had seemed heartbroken. Then again, that was to be expected. The fur in the coffin had always been particularly good with children. Teenagers all over California owed a good deal of their sense of morals to what they had been taught by that fur.

“D’you think she knew?” Aramis asked, somberly. “That they would react that way, I mean?”

Tigermark shrugged and looked sidelong at his friend. “If I were to venture a guess, then yes. But it’s not as if she had much choice.”

Joe thought about that for a while. “I guess you’re right. Getting flattened by a speeding car full of drunk teenagers tends to be a terminal experience.”

“Speaking from experience, are you?” Aramis chuckled. He turned right at an intersection and headed down a little used road, between a lot of old warehouses.

Some of them looked like they were still in use for storage purposes. Most of them were just empty. Many were so run down that entering them would constitute a health-hazard. They stopped by such a warehouse and Aramis turned off the engine.

“What about the car?” Joe asked. “We can’t just leave it here.”

“I’ve arranged for someone to come get it,” Aramis explained as he popped the back hatch by pushing a button on the dashboard.

Tigermark didn’t speak. He just stepped out of the car and walked behind the vehicle, opening the hatch fully. There was a peculiar smell in the air. Like some of the warehouses had been abandoned without being completely emptied. It was that smell that came after something had long since rotted away. It wasn’t pleasant, especially not when mixed with the stench of chemicals. One or more of the buildings had apparently been used to store such things. The smell was still there and it made the large feline’s fur stand on end. He could only imagine what Joe, with his superior olfactory sense, was going through…but the coyote didn’t show any outward sign of discomfort.

Aramis headed to the large sliding doors of the warehouse they had parked by and opened them. A plane was waiting for them and he brushed his paws off against one another before heading back to the other two.

“I don’t feel like doing this…” Joe complained. “She’s heavy!!”

“Are you insinuating something?” Aramis asked, smiling slyly.

Joe shook his head. “Just that muscle weighs more than fat! And she’s all muscle.”

“Quit complaining, Joe Latrans, and lend me a paw here,” Tigermark grumbled and took hold of the coffin. “Dammit, this is a job for four or six furs…not three.”

“Oh, so you can complain but I can’t??” Joe moped, shooting out his bottom lip.

Aramis groaned and rolled his eyes. “The whole teenage schoolgirl look doesn’t work for you, Joe…honestly!”

Deflating, Joe mumbled something about felines that probably wasn’t quotable. Then he grabbed the other side of the coffin and started lifting. Aramis tried to help the others by steadying the long box. All in all, it was a difficult task, but amidst much huffing and puffing, they managed to get it into the makeshift hangar. There, they placed it temporarily on the ground, while Aramis opened the cargo hold of the plane. Then he went and closed the sliding doors.

“There is no way I’m lifting that thing onto the plane with her still in it!” he said and prodded the coffin with one of his shoes.

Joe looked like he’d forgotten something, and gesturing to the others to wait, he ran to a small door and left the warehouse.

Tigermark looked confused. “Where’s he going?” he asked. “Anyway, I agree completely. She’s too heavy to lift on board, just the three of us. And besides, the coffin weighs a lot in itself, and I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“Yeah, you hear that?” Aramis asked and prodded the coffin again. “Lose some weight, filly!”

It took a moment, then a muffled voice came from within the box. “I heard that,” it said.

Tigermark looked at Aramis as if to tell his friend that he was in grave, deep trouble, but Aramis didn’t stop. Instead, his smile grew twice as wide and he prodded the coffin yet again. “Oh yeah? And whaddya gonna do about it? You’re in there, and we’re out here!” he teased.

“I’m going to break this box apart from the inside and chase after you with the biggest splinter, that’s what,” the muffled voice said. It sounded irritable.

For a brief moment, Aramis actually looked worried. Then he grinned again and leaned down to open the locks on the coffin. “Alright, alright…” he said, “I’ll behave.”

Joe came back, holding a bag in his left law, just as Tigermark and Aramis lifted the lid off the coffin.
Aslaug sat upright, rubbing her neck. “Christians,” she grumbled. “Not only do you put your dead in a small box without room to move, but you can’t even make it comfortable in there. That pillow felt like concrete!”

“I’m sure you’ve had worse,” Tigermark said with a crooked smile, offering the equine a paw up.

Grabbing it, Aslaug got to her hooves and nodded. “I have. Doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it,” she said sourly. “I couldn’t even fall asleep in there. Can you just imagine…suddenly, during the funeral, the corpse starts to snore!”

Joe did his best to keep a straight face, holding out the bag for Aslaug to take. “This is for you,” he said. He wanted to be serious. This was a serious moment, after all.

Aslaug took it, but didn’t look inside the bag immediately. She nodded and rubbed her neck again. “Well, shall we get the coffin on board and me into this…thing…so we can get going?”

The others nodded and between them, getting the coffin into the small cargo hold of the plane was no problem at all. Aramis pushed a button on a remote control to open the door and let down the ramp and Joe and Tigermark boarded immediately. Aslaug was more reluctant.

“I don’t like flying…” she muttered, “It’s not natural.”

“…said the tenth century shieldmaiden when speaking of a modern airplane,” Aramis chided. “Now get on board and stop whining.”

Aslaug glared at the feline in a way that spoke volumes of potential pain and anguish for the male, but Aramis had known her long enough not to be bothered. He’d seen that glare so many times he’d stopped counting, although usually it wasn’t directed at him. When it came to her friends, Aslaug’s bark was considerably worse than her bite and Aramis knew it. However, she’d always be gruff and short-tempered. That was just the way she was.

She got on board, muttering something about how much fun he thought it’d be if she pulled out her axe and started taking the plane apart while cruising at 25.000 feet. Aramis just shooed her inside with a crooked smile. Then he headed towards the other end of the warehouse and opened the doors there. The paved road leading up to the makeshift hangar made for a short, but serviceable runway. Nonetheless, it would take an expert pilot to land on it or take off from it. Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem. Tigermark was an outstanding pilot.

He hurried back towards the plane and got on board, pulling the door shut behind himself. Then he turned around and looked at his friends with a smile. Joe had already gotten comfortable in one of the seats.

“A good long flight ahead of us, good friends next to me, a private jet…what more can I wi…oh…hey, where’s the air hostess?” the coyote said, grinning.

Aslaug just looked at him. It was the kind of look that spoke absolute volumes.

“I don’t think he meant you,” Aramis said, hurrying to calm down the situation.

Joe shook his head. “Nahh…somehow, Aslaug wouldn’t look all that good in one of those nice, pale blue outfits…”

“I’m sure Annie would love to hear all about this,” the equine said, grouchily.

Joe whistled innocently. “Who’s to say I haven’t seen her in one already?”

For a moment, it looked like Aslaug’s brain was going to emigrate through her ears. “I’m not going to give that any further thought!” she said, in a very definitive tone of voice.

Joe’s smirk told the others that he’d be wagging his tail if he hadn’t been sitting on it. He was about to speak up when the plane started moving. Tigermark was powering up the engines.

“You know, filly…next time you decide to do an Olympic trampoline routine over someone else’s car, could you give us fair warning in advance?” Aramis chuckled. “Do you have any idea the amount of trouble it is to get you out of here in such a way that no one sees you, without you having to spend the next several hours in a coffin in the cargo hold of a plane? Going by regular airlines wasn’t much of an option!”

Aslaug shrugged and sighed. “It was hardly something I did by choice.”

“I know, I know…” Aramis said and reached over and gave the equine’s shoulder a squeeze. “Hey, are you alright?”

Nodding, Aslaug leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to relax as the plane very rapidly picked up speed. “I’m okay. I just…hate this part of flying,” she said.

“No need to be afrai…” Joe began and instantly regretted his choice of words. He hadn’t meant it as a jibe but Aslaug was already on edge and she clearly didn’t take it well.

“I fear nothing, Joe, except Surt himself!” she growled.

Joe nodded, smiling disarmingly. “I’m sorry. Bad choice of words there. I know you, my friend…”

“It’s just that it feels like my stomach is being forced down into my hooves and the blood in my head tries to leave through my eyeballs whenever we take off…oh crap…here we go!”

The plane lifted off and hammered upwards at a breakneck pace. Taking off like this was only possible because Tigermark knew the air lanes like the back of his own paw. He would be airborne and reach cruising height without risking a collision, in just a few minutes. A less experienced pilot would be in a lot of trouble. With the law too. Fortunately, the amigos had certain…arrangements…that took care of minor details like that.

Aslaug still hated getting off the ground. It just felt weird.

Finally the plane started leveling out. No one had said a word for several minutes before the door to the cockpit opened and Tigermark joined them.

“It’s on autopilot and we’re going in a direction and at a height where we are not going to get into contact with any kind of air traffic for at least an hour if not more,” he said.

The plane had the latest in autopilot systems. It could practically fly the plane from takeoff to landing, but Tigermark did not feel safe about taking off from such a short runway on an automated system.

The others made room for him and Joe looked at the bag he’d given Aslaug before taking off.

“Are you going to look in that?” he asked, smiling again.

Nodding, Aslaug picked it up and opened it, looking inside. She blinked once…then drew a sharp breath and looked up.

“What is it?” Aramis asked.

Instead of answering, Aslaug took out a football and looked at it with something akin to disbelief on her face. She looked at the others, knowing full well they wouldn’t understand the full meaning of it, and she barely knew how to explain it.

For the first time in years, she felt that strange, burning sensation in her eyes that told her she had to fight back tears.

“Erhm…it’s a football, since you ask…” Tigermark said, answering Aramis’ question. “But from the look on the filly’s face, I’m not sure that’s all it is.”

Joe smiled a little. “I guess you didn’t notice that equine kid putting it next to the coffin, guys. He looked like he was fighting very hard not to cry openly.”

“Gods, Kale…you didn’t have to do this,” Aslaug whispered and looked at the ball in her paws.

“Would you mind telling me what this is all about?” Tigermark asked. He was rather curious and while curiosity killed various felines every day, he really wanted to know.

Aslaug ran a paw through her hair and tried to find the right words. “Kale’s the quarterback of the team I coached…”

“Oooh, that was him? I saw some of that game on TV…” Aramis said and smiled. “Didn’t recognize him without his gear on. And what’s with the scar on his face! That looked fresh. Is he trying to emulate you or something…?”

The feline pointed a finger towards the middle and side of Aslaug’s muzzle where an ancient scar still showed clearly.

She shook her head in reply. “He got shot…a few days after that game. Long story. He’s…the best kid I’ve ever coached. Perhaps the best player, but definitely the best kid…and I’ve coached a few good ones.”

Joe looked at his equine friend in silence for a few long moments. Aslaug had coached football teams for various high schools for years. She’d long known that she needed to move on, but she had kept putting it off. She’d kept signing on for one more year, or moving to another part of the state. By now, it was long overdue and if she had stayed on any longer, she’d risked furs starting to ask uncomfortable questions about why she didn’t age. She had tried to stay out of the public eye. She hadn’t done interviews, even for local newspapers and she refused to have her picture taken. The problem was that she stuck out, and anyone who’d met her once would be able to recognize her quite readily. The scars and her distinctive blonde coat and mane made her extremely hard to miss.

As she sat there, turning the ball over in her paws, it struck Joe that she was at a crossroad in her existence. A point where she had to choose what to do next. She could, conceivably, go ‘home’. But Aslaug had changed too, from when he first met her. Then, she had been bitter and resentful that she had been ‘cheated’ out of her seat at the long table. That was many years ago now, though, and while he and the other amigos had grown older, Aslaug stayed the same. He knew it caused her a considerable amount of discomfort to watch everyone she knew age naturally. She’d have to watch them pass away, eventually.

Eventually, she’d be the only one remaining.

What would she do then? Go back to Folkvang, or find new challenges?

Joe wasn’t sure, and he knew that both Aramis and Tigermark had entertained similar thoughts. It was the greatest tragedy surrounding the equine. He didn’t envy her. Not for a moment in fact. There were hundreds of reasons why most furs would want immortality. Most had to do with fear of the unknown. For the Amigos, there was no unknown. They’d seen it all, and it took some of the mystery out of the post-death experience.

Aslaug’s immortality was not a blessing, however. She could still feel pain and she could still get hurt, but she’d always recover. Joe had seen her practically torn asunder on more than one occasion, suffering wounds and injuries no fur could possibly survive, and she’d always recovered in short order. He didn’t want to consider how it felt to suffer injuries so serious that any sane fur would just want the release of death to end the agony…only to know there could be no release.

But much worse than that was the certain knowledge of impending loneliness.

She would enjoy the comradeship and the friendships she made for a finite period of time, and then…her friends would be gone. She would make new friends, enjoy their company…and watch them die too. Over and over again. Eventually, she would stop making friends…to spare herself the pain of the loss. And when that happened, she’d just be lonely.

She could go back to Asgaard, but the problem was that she didn’t feel quite at home there anymore. She had been charged to ‘make a difference’ for a few furs along the road she walked…and she’d lived up to her responsibility and then some. How would she fit in at the long table now?

Despite not wanting to, Joe couldn’t help but pity the Valkyrie.

“What are you going to do now?” Aramis asked, as if he had been entertaining the exact same train of thought as Joe. “I mean, where we are headed you won’t find a lot of football teams to coach…”

Aslaug nodded, without taking her eyes off the ball. “I know. I guess it’ll be many years before I coach a team again,” she said, quietly. “I think I’ll work on my crafts for a while. Build myself a house,
probably. Maybe do a bit of hunting. I don’t know yet.”

“There’s always a need for lumberjacks, you know,” Joe tried, hoping to lighten the mood a little.

Aslaug actually smiled a crooked smile at the comment. “Oh, I can’t really see myself doing that. I don’t like chainsaws. It feels like cheating. Besides, that’s very much a male’s world. I doubt they’d let me in.”

“Oh come on, filly…” Joe teased, prodding the equine’s ribs with a finger. “I can just see you in a lumberjack’s shirt. All you’d need is to buzz that mane of yours and…”

Aslaug laughed and nodded. “Oh yeah, I can see it already. All I’d need would be a can of Budweiser in one paw and my other arm around the shoulders of some empty-headed bimbo in a skirt three inches too short for decency, and I’d pretty much fit the stereotype of a lesbian, wouldn’t I?”

Joe grinned widely. At least the mood wasn’t so tense Aslaug hadn’t lost her sense of humor. Besides, Aslaug knew well enough that a lot of furs mistook her for a homosexual because of her demeanor and way of carrying herself. The truth, of course, was that she didn’t have any interest in a love-life of any kind.

For a while, none of them said anything. Finally, Tigermark cleared his throat. “What’s the story of that ball then?” he asked.

“It’s the game ball from the game Aramis saw some of on TV,” Aslaug answered. “From the Hall of Fame football field in Canton. I…”

The others gave her a moment to recover her senses and she was grateful for their silence. Kalen didn’t have to do this for her, but it struck home with her in a way few other things had. She prided herself on giving the children she had worked with some decent pointers on how to be good furs in life, but what Kalen had just done had driven home just how much of an impact she might have. She thought about it from time to time. Would any of the children she had coached remember what she’d tried to teach them, ten years down the line? What Kalen had just done told her, beyond all doubt, that he at least would.

“I told them,” she continued, “before going onto the field, that they faced their own, private Super Bowl. That in all likelihood, many of them would never play a bigger game. Their opponents played to win. They played dirty…”

“With all due respect, filly…you don’t exactly pull your punches yourself,” Aramis said and put his paws behind his neck, leaning back in the comfortable seat.

Aslaug shook her head. “That’s different.”

“How so?”

“First of all, when I punch someone, I usually intend for them to stay down, permanently. Football is just a game. It’s a game I love, but it’s just a game. Secondly, I taught every player I’ve coached the same thing: play as hard as you can…but play fair. I’ve kicked exactly twenty eight players off different teams I’ve coached, for refusing to understand that concept. I won’t see deliberate fouls. I won’t see low hits, meant to injure on purpose. Once the game is over, I want both teams to be able to walk off the field with their heads held high…”

“Even the losers?” Joe asked.

Nodding, Aslaug looked up. “Especially the losers. Sometimes, my kids would lose too…and what then? I want them to walk off the field, knowing they lost fair and square and with their self-respect intact. It’s with football as it is with life in general, Joe…if you run up the score to humiliate a weaker opponent, just to prove you are superior, you come across as an asshole. And no one respects an asshole. At least no one whose respect is worth having.”

“A bit of football Zen from the Norse valkyrie,” Aramis said with a crooked smile of his own. “You’re a walking set of contradictions, Aslaug…”

Aslaug smiled again and shrugged as she gently put the football back in the bag. She’d cherish it. Not because of her memories of the game, but because of the sentiment that lay behind Kalen placing it by the coffin. For a moment, she felt bad about having deceived the young equine and the rest of the team, but what choice did she have?

How would it have looked if she had suddenly popped out of the coffin at an opportune moment, going “Hello, don’t worry, I’m really okay but I have to fake my own death so no one suspects I’m really a deathless agent of greater powers”?

Hilarious as the thought might seem, it was also completely out of the question. The car full of drunk teenagers had ensured that she had no choice but to pretend to be dead.

“You know…I’m going to have to do something I thought I’d never do…” she said and looked at her friends.

Tigermark raised an eyebrow and made a paw-gesture to tell her to go on.

“I’m going to have to dye my fur and mane.”

The three amigos all looked at the equine as if she’d just told them she had incontrovertible proof that the moon was made from Swiss cheese and that the Earth was flat. If incredulity had been a solid thing, one could have cut it out of the air in huge chunks.

“Yeaaaah…riiiiight,” Joe said, nodding slowly. “Damned, you nearly had me there, filly…”

Aramis looked momentarily relieved, going along with Joe’s estimate that the equine had just been joking. “Don’t do that to us, Aslaug…I nearly swallowed my tongue.”

“That can’t have tasted very nice?” the valkyrie said, dryly. “I’m serious though. I need to lay low and my scars are hard enough to hide as it is. And besides, I don’t want to hide those. I’ll have to think up a good story to explain them…”

“How about telling others that you got hit by a car full of drunk teenagers and that you took the engine block of your motorcycle in the face after being slung through the front window?” Tigermark said, smiling mirthfully. “At least it’d be the truth.”

Aslaug reached out and mock-slapped the tiger across the ears. “Very funny. I want it to be believable. I don’t enjoy lying but in this case it’s necessary.”

Flicking his ears a few times, Tigermark nodded. He could see Aslaug’s point. She had always hated lying, even when necessity called for it, but there really was no way she could tell the truth in this case. But for her to go to such extremes as to dye her fur and mane…
He’d just never thought he’d see the day.

He looked out the window. The clouds beneath them were serene and beautiful. From this far up, everything below seemed small and insignificant. There wasn’t a plane in the sky within sight, and the autopilot would pick up anything within a two hundred and fifty mile radius, and adjust course to compensate. These days, autopilots were superior to what some pilots could do behind the stick, but Tigermark was old-school. He didn’t really enjoy leaving it to computers to do his flying, but this was a special kind of trip and he wanted to spend as much time in the company of his friends as he could. The landscape beneath them was changing. The ocean was already vanishing behind the horizon.

They had a long way to go yet.

###

“C’mon…this isn’t fair! I wasn’t going to tease her, honestly!”

Loke looked very unhappy with the situation. Three tall, well armed females were glaring at him, while leaning on their long spears. Another two were guarding the door. He could vanish the moment he wanted to, and he knew that the valkyries were aware of this, but he also knew they’d be waiting for him when he came home and he really didn’t want to have to face five pissed off choosers of the slain any time in the foreseeable future.

“Look, this is highly irregular!” he complained. “I’ll let Odin know about this. I am his blood-brother you know!”

Oddkatla nodded, raising an eyebrow in a show of supreme indifference. “Go tell the boss you can’t take care of five females, Loke…I’d really love to hear the roar of laughter. I’m sure we could hear it all the way from Valhalla itself!”

Loke deflated even further and muttered something about impertinent females with pointy objects and sat down. “What’s with you anyway? What’s so special about this that I can’t go pay my respects?”
Oddkatla looked at her two fellow valkyries and chuckled. “Oh nothing. We’re doing this for your own protection, really.”

“My WHAT??!” Loke burst out, indignantly. “I’ll have you know…”

“You don’t need to,” one of the two junior valkyries said with a smile. “We already know.”

Loke wanted to say something else. He knew that particular valkyrie’s name was Gunl?¸d, and that she had a particularly wicked tongue. Somehow, though, he couldn’t help feeling slightly curious.
“Why my protection?” he finally asked.

“Aslaug is more than 25.000 feet above the ground and she’s just had to say goodbye for good to a bunch of children she cared for like they were her own,” Gunl?¸d explained, shrugging.

“So…your point is?”

“If you turn up…knowing her level of patience with your antics…how long do you think it’d take for her to rip out the door of that plane and take you for a nice, short walk?” Oddkatla asked.

Loke shrugged. “I could vanish…return here in the blink of an eye. I’d never hit the ground and even if I did, I’m just as immortal as her.”

“If she’s hanging on to you, Loke…she’d return here with you and you’d just have to face her while she’s got backup.”

Loke swallowed. That was a prospect that promised immediate pain or at least grave humiliation. He wasn’t quite sure which one was worse. Nodding, he frowned deeply.

“Damnit all to Muspelheim and back…” he grumbled.

“Don’t look so glum. I’ll let you wipe the floor with me at hnefatafl instead!” Gunl?¸d offered and pointed to a checkered game-board on a table nearby.

Perking up instantly, Loke smiled a wry smile and cracked his knuckles. “Well, it’s been a while since I played. I guess I could do with brushing up on my skills. What say you we make this more interesting with a little bet…?”

###

Aslaug got out of the car and slung her axe across her shoulder. The woods around her were deep and the ground was rolling and hilly. There were sounds of birds and insects all around her and further away, she could hear something bigger trudging through the forest. Something walking on all fours. It was a beautiful place. The entire area was covered in pines and she took in a few deep lungfuls of air, feeling revitalized almost instantly.

“This looks a lot like home, I take it?” Aramis asked, stepping up beside her.

She shook her head, smiling. “No…no my home was flat. Completely flat land with barely any hills that furs hadn’t made themselves…”

“Furs making hills…?” Joe asked, before slapping a paw against his forehead. “Ahh…burial mounds.”

Aslaug nodded and took a few steps forward. “Exactly,” she said and ran a paw down the trunk of a large pine-tree.

“Still, you look like you like the place,” Aramis pointed out, sticking his paws in his pockets. He liked seeing his odd and usually rather moody friend smile like this.

“I do. I like it a lot. I could make a home for myself here…” she said and looked over her shoulder. “In fact…I think I will.”

Tigermark nodded. “This land…anything within half a day’s walk in any direction…belongs to you now. I’ve got the paperwork in the car. It’s all taken care of.”

Aslaug blinked. “Whu…You…” she began, blinking in surprise.

“Congratulations, Tiger…you stumped the filly!” Joe said with a wide grin. “Mark the day in the calendar.”

He dodged a pine-cone coming at him from the equine, his grin growing even wider.

“Not me,” Tigermark said with a smile. “Christopher took care of it. Let’s just say the three of us asked really nicely, and leave it at that, shall we?”

Aslaug nodded. Slowly. Then she approached the three amigos and hugged each of them in turn. Then she stood back and nodded, solemnly. “Thank you. And…say thanks to your boss for me to. I do appreciate this.”

“Oh, I think it’s only fair. You’ve helped out on more of our missions than the other way around,” Joe said.

Aslaug shook her head. “That’s only because my mission went from dimension- and time-hopping to helping out where I actually lived. Making a difference locally instead of interdimensionally. You’d have done the same for me as I’ve done for you…”

“Yeah, we would have but we never got a chance. I think this is a reasonable way of saying ‘thanks for all the help so far’…”

Aslaug nodded. She reached down and picked up a pawful of moss from the ground. She sniffed it, deeply and smiled…before, with one last nod to her friends, she turned around and started walking in between the trees.

The amigos waited, quietly as she grew more and more distant. Finally, they couldn’t see her anymore.
“It’s pretty amazing how someone as tall and muscular as her can move that quietly in a forest,”

Aramis said after what felt like at least half an hour. It was probably only five or six minutes but they had crept along at a snail’s pace.

Joe nodded, solemnly. “Yeah. Anyway…do you think we’ll see her again?”

Tigermark nodded after a moment. “She’s got to walk the road ahead of her alone for a while, though. We’ll see her again…otherwise, she’d have said goodbye…”

Aramis smiled a little and stuck his paws back in his pockets. “Yep. But it’s going to be a long while before she turns back up, guys.”

Sighing a little, Joe nodded. He knew his friend needed this time away from it all. She had needed it for many, many years. Almost as long as he’d known her.

But he’d still miss her.