‧. .✦ʚ♡ɞ✦. .‧

“Vaaaaal, I’m hooooome!” Maya giddily entered her apartment and kicked off her shoes, flinging them across the corridor. She placed her bag on a nearby chair and went through the broken door of the bathroom to wash her hands. 

She practically skipped through the rooms, humming a cheery tune. It had been a long time since Maya last looked forward to getting home and having homemade cooking that wasn’t hers. Except for the Draugr attack—the month since she first found Val was pure bliss.

Not even her university projects and papers, which piled up on her desktop like a little Mount Everest, could pull her down.

Afro first, Maya popped her head into the living room. “Val, are you here?” 

No one there. 

“Maybe the kitchen?”.

But no signs of the Valkyrie either. Maya couldn’t hear a single sound in her apartment—except for the long drawn-out pattering of her bathroom sink.

A nervous drop of sweat rolled down Maya’s cheek. “Maybe she went jogging, and she’s not home yet?” She checked her watch. “4 pm… Guess I’ll work on my paper until she comes back.” 

Setting up the kettle, Maya poured herself a cup of tea and opted for a light biscuit to assuage her appetite until Val returned. Caffeine worked up her hunger. Gotta cut back on it anyway. 

Her fingers typed away fast on her keyboard, flashing from one page to the next. The constant clacking of her keyboard accompanied her as she reviewed the notes in her pad. English, Dutch, a bit of German and other Germanic or Frankish languages and sentences littered her notes. 

Linguistics ran in their family.

Her mom and grandpa loved to tell Maya stories about her famous great-grandmother. A foreigner and black woman from French and Haitian descent, who came to New-York in the early 1920 to work as a professor.

Not that Maya ever met her, but apparently she had the same talent for languages as her ancestor did, though mostly for ancient and cryptic languages.

Maya’s studies focused on the connections between old languages and their contemporary and modern counterparts. She specifically had a knack for Germanic languages and did a year abroad in Germany. 

However, her visit wasn’t as great as she imagined it to be. After a talk with her pen pal from Sweden, she switched focuses on Scandinavian Studies later on.

Though, unlike Austin, who was an expert in Norse Mythology, Maya barely knew anything about the culture or history. All she knew were random and obscure details he shared with her. 

Then she remembered something Val said to her a few weeks ago.

‘Dúllan mín.’ 

Rubbing a finger over her lips, Maya wondered about its meaning. Some words still confused her, and after a quick look up at the local search engine, Maya was even more confused. 

Her head steamed and covered her face. “She called me ‘Sweetie’?”

A tingle wandered over her lips and Maya could barely suppress a squeal from delight.

“Ah, no no,that can’t be right, right? There’s no way she called me that, did she?” Maya rubbed her reddened cheeks, but her smile persisted. 

Maya made the mistake of pushing her work aside and browsing the internet for deeper meaning of the words. She heard from Austin and her pen pal that the Scandinavian languages had peculiarities when they developed from their common root—Norse.

The word she looked up was Icelandic and more commonly used as a sort of endearment between girls—with a less romantic feel to it than Maya first thought. 

“Ah, fiddlesticks, misinterpreted it.” Maya let out a strained laugh. The edges of her mouth twitched. The smile dropped. “Ah… I’m crashing. I seriously need my coffee now.” 

The chair screeched as the legs ground against the wooden floor. Maya pushed herself out of the chair and briskly walked into the kitchen. 

While the coffee maker made its typical annoying sound of half dying and half exploding, Maya checked the time. 

6:30 pm. 

“Where is she?” Maya wondered and took a quick look outside her balcony, hoping to spot the Valkyrie jogging home before the coffee was ready. 

She didn’t find her, and the coffee maker was ready.

Sighing loudly, Maya got herself a cup and took a quick sip. She bit her lips from the taste, scrunching her nose. She felt agitated and peckish, a poor combination paired with her pent-up stress.

Checking the time again, barely five minutes past. Maya paced the kitchen with her cup half drained. She checked the time again, not even two minutes passed. One more time, she checked outside. The jitters started.

I can’t take it anymore!

Maya raided her pantry. She deliberately kept it locked with the key hidden far away from reach above the cupboards. It was the only way to control her hunger so she wouldn’t check on her snacks every breathing moment.

Out of sight, out of mind, but it rarely worked.

Snacks now covered her desk, drowning out all her lecture books and papers. She worked through half the mountain in under 20 minutes as she worked, grinding through at least four pages in a go. 

Editing work was her least favourite, taking too much time, energy and motivation. She could hook herself up on an IV with coffee, but wouldn’t be as fast as she would be while nibbling on something.

By the time the clock hit 8 pm, Maya had finished one of her assignments, downed three cups of coffee and half her pantry of sugar, salt, cheese, or whatever other grub she had at hand. 

There was no sense of accomplishment. Merely a sickness in the pit of her stomach. Maya felt sick, awfully full and disgusted with herself. Shame clogged her brain. And more than anything, she was upset Val was still not back.

She promised to make something special today. I came back earlier for her.

Maya suppressed the disgusting urge to burp and let out a groan. Val’s food was to die for, but Maya enjoyed her presence even more. She felt sad about her predicament and sighed. The blue screen of her laptop blinked back at her, humming a silent robotic tune.

“Might as well keep working. One more cup and I’ll be done with the last assignment for this month.” Maya groggily walked over to the kitchen and held her bloated stomach. It grumbled at her in defiance while stretching out her pants. “Shut up. I know my mistake. One cup, I swear. And maybe a leftover box of doughnuts before I—” 

Suddenly, Maya heard the front door unlocking and creaking open. 

There were only so many possibilities on who opened the door, and Maya could count it down on one hand and subtract it by three. 

Heat rose into her face, and all the agitation dissipated when she saw Val return home, beaming at Maya in return.