Fuck me, I thought as the professor moved faster than my hand could take notes.

"Lilith?" I jerked my head up. "Can you answer the question?"

"Um," I mumbled stupidly. Shit. "Do you think you could maybe repeat it?" Dr. Brown's face looked slightly disappointed. "Sorry, sir."

"Never mind. Moving on." Are you kidding me? My heart was beating a tad quicker than usual, and my nails were digging into my palm. What was that? You know what? It's fine. Fuck that. I centered my focus back to the presentation.

After about half an hour, I scrambled to collect my things and leave as quickly as possible. I walked as fast as I could back to my dorm room. I locked the door behind me and leaned my back on it.

"Bad day?"

"Fuck!" I practically jumped five feet in the air. "You scared the shit out of me."

"You're welcome." I plopped down on my bed and looked over to my roommate, Elisa. She's basically my best and only friend. "How was class?"

"Aside from my little panic attack? Fine, I guess. You?"

"Pretty good." She turned her attention back to her book. I pulled out my laptop and began working on one of my assignments. At least, that was the plan. What I really did was open a blank document and stare at it until I decided to watch YouTube instead.

Next thing I knew, it was dark out, and Elisa had fallen asleep. I quietly closed my laptop and went into the bathroom.

As I looked at my reflection, something felt wrong. I stared at myself, wondering what it could possibly be. After a few minutes, the reflection kind of warped. What the—? I gently touched the mirror. "It must be really late." I figured I was just tired, but when I tried to pull my hand away, it was stuck. "Well, shit." I tugged my hand as hard as I could. "It would be nice if you would let go now," I said, hoping this was maybe just a dream. "Please?" Like an idiot, I put my other hand on the mirror in an attempt to pull the first one away. I bet you can figure out what happened next. Yeah, it got stuck, too.

"Great. Just great." I considered yelling to Elisa for help, but I didn't want to wake her up. College can be tiring. You're too damn polite. Any other person probably would have already been screaming. Then again, I'm not really any other person. After a few more minutes of pulling, I gave up. I looked up at myself. "What do you want from me? Stupid mirror. I swear if this isn't some freaky dream, I'll—"

"You'll what?" My reflection just talked to me.

"Pardon?" I had to be dreaming.

"What will you do?"

"Apparently have a heart attack. Is that was this is? Am I having a stroke?" I felt like I should be a bit more panicked, but for some reason, I wasn't. "Can I just ask why my hands are stuck? I'd like to go to bed now."

"Just step in the mirror."

"Yeah, sure. Let me just walk through glass."

"Step into the mirror." I actually almost laughed.

"You really think I'm going to listen to my reflection and crawl into a fucking mirror? I don't know what's going on but that's not gonna happen."

"Oh, for crying out loud." Mirror me's hand reached out and grabbed my wrists.

"Of course you can do that." She smirked at me before jerking me in. "Holy—"

And then I think I blacked out.

"Is she awake yet?" I jerked upward.

"—shit." I realized I was somewhere completely different. At least I finished my sentence, right? "Umm, hi?" Two girls stood over me. the one on the left was rather pale with orange hair and freckles. The other was more tan with brown hair and green eyes that stood out from her other features. "What's going on? Where am I?" The pale one giggled.

"I'm Alma." Her Irish accent was the first thing I noticed. She offered me her hand and helped me off the floor. "So, how'd you get here?"

"What?" She looked at me expectantly.

"You idiot she doesn't know what here is," the other girl scolded her. She turned to me. "I'm Ilia. What's your name?"

"I'm Lilith. Nice to meet you, I think." I tried to smile, but I was too freaked out to have a nice one. "Where am I?"

"Oh, right," Ilia said. "Well, this is Valhalla."

"Am I dead?" Oh fuck, I'm dead. "Wait, how did I die? And how did I get here?" They looked at each other and laughed.

"Yer not dead," Alma said. "You've been chosen."

"For what? I don't remember signing up for anything."

"Nobody signs up to be a Valkyrie. It just happens." A Valkyrie? "Welcome to the club."

"No. There must be a mistake. There's no way I was chosen to be a Valkyrie." Ilia looked surprised. "What?"

"Well, most people's first thoughts are 'There's no such thing as a Valkyrie.' Or even 'what drugs are you on?' Something like that."

"I hadn't even thought of that. Are you sure I'm not dreaming or something. I have to get some sleep. I have a test tomorrow."

"Don't worry, it's part time," Alma assured me.

"For now," Ilia added. Alma hit her arm.

"Shut up." Alma turned back to me. "For today, we'll just show you the basic stuff. Like touring the place, showing how things work, stuff like that. And choosing yer weapon! That's the best part."

"A weapon? I've never held a weapon in my life. How can I just choose one?"

"You'll know." That part was freaky because they said it simultaneously. This whole thing was freaky, but I was apparently taking it well.

"Okay. I'll know," I repeated. "So, if this is Valhalla, does that mean that all of the Norse gods and stuff are real?"

"Yep," Alma said. "Every single one. We don't really get to see them, though. The one we see most often is Odin. Occasionally Thor. Even then, he doesn't do much. He just kinda checks in now and then."

Right. Thor. He was involved with the whole Avengers thing from a while ago.

"So, what exactly am I supposed to do?" I asked.

"You've got a lot of questions," Ilia said. "Just wait. That's what we're about to show you." We walked down a pretty long hall, passing by many, many doors. The structure of the building was a work of art itself. And this was only a hallway. I couldn't help but look around in awe.

"Sorry. This place is beautiful." Alma looked around and smiled.

"It is, isn't it?" She looked forward again only to see a man with a sword right in front of her. "Watch where yer pointing that thing. Not all of us are immortal here." She pushed his blade down and motioned for me to keep walking. "That was Erik. He's a bit clumsy. He's an einherjar."

"A what?"

"One of Odin's dead warriors," Ilia blurted, almost as if she was annoyed. I was probably being annoying with all my stupid questions.

"Right. Sorry." We entered a room full of tables. It was magnificent. I had never seen anything like it. The tables were perfectly carved, each lit by beautiful candelabras. I barely noticed my jaw drop. This place felt like a fairytale. "Wow." I looked around at this beautiful room, and all I could say was "wow." I am so incredibly stupid.

"This is the dining hall. Each night, the einherji come here for their great feast. Let me just say, it looks delicious. Unfortunately, we don't get any of it. Yeah, it sucks." Alma seemed truly disappointed. I could tell she really wanted that food. I could go for a bite, too, honestly.

We left the room and ended up in a beautiful courtyard. There were other women. Valkyries I'm guessing, sparring with one another. Their ages varied. Some were teens, many were adults. The youngest looked about seventeen. The oldest seemed barely over forty. Okay, this is kinda cool. "This is where we train. You'll be spending a lot of time here, especially since you're new." I couldn't tell if I should be offended by the way Ilia said that. I decided not to think too much into it. A few other girls close to my age came over.

"Is this the new one?" one of them asked excitedly. She turned toward the girl to her left. "She's cute," she whispered. I couldn't help but blush.

"Ignore them," Ilia said abruptly. "Okay, moving on." The other girls looked sad to see us go. I wondered if Ilia was always this mean. Probably. "This is the weapons vault." We stood in front of a closed door.

"Are we gonna go in?" Alma asked.

"I'm trying to wait until she decides to pay attention. Lilith, are you ready?" I jerked my head towards her.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Great, now I felt bad. Ilia pushed the large doors open and breathed in the air of the vault. "Woah."

"This is one of my favorite rooms. You'll never see anything like it anywhere else." She actually seemed happy for once. "Go ahead. Walk in. We'll be right here."

"Ooh, I'm so excited! I wonder what it'll be." Alma gave me a reassuring look. I didn't know where to look first.

"What are your weapons? If you don't mind me asking."

"Oh! I have a battle axe! It's really great and I—"

"I have a sword. Basic, but powerful," Ilia interrupted. Alma gave her a grumpy, pouty look.

"Those both sound pretty cool. I guess I should find mine now." I turned around and looked at the weapons. I shifted towards the left side of the room. There were all kinds of daggers delicately aligned on the first table. I ran my hand across the tops of them, not feeling anything special.

I moved to the second table. This one was covered in staffs and spears. Nothing. The next table had an assortment of axes. I could feel Alma's excitement as I approached this table. I felt kind of sad since I didn't feel anything here, either. I was beginning to think I wouldn't find anything. That I'd be a weaponless Valkyrie.

I walked up to a table of weapons that came in pairs. This time, something felt different. It felt warm. As a brushed my hand across the table, it froze over a pair of beautiful daggers. Their design was absolutely stunning. It looked like it came straight out of a fantasy novel. "I think I found it." Alma rushed over like a little puppy. Ilia took her time, but I could tell she was at least a little excited. "I think it's the daggers." Alma squealed rather loudly in my ear.

"They're so pretty! Go on, pick 'em up." I did so and I felt a rush of power flow through me.

"Yup, definitely these." I ran my hand along the side of the blade, careful to avoid the edge of it. There were beautiful marks etched into the side. The handle itself was a work of art. It was mostly black with streaks of deep blue in it.

"Alright, I know it's great when you get your weapon but we're on a bit of a time crunch so we've got to move on." Ilia nodded at Alma and Alma handed me a leather harness.

"Put this on yer waist. For now, use this for yer blades. You'll get another one later." I nodded as I strapped it on. As soon as I finished, we walked out. Ilia carefully secured the room.

"Okay, we're pretty much out of time. But here's the deal. Tomorrow, you will be busy. You'll start your training and you'll be expected to train a bit on your own. When you arrive tomorrow, you'll receive your uniform. After that, you'll need to have it every night when you report in. Tomorrow you will learn how to use your wings and a few basic rules of combat. Got it?" Ilia asked.

"Yeah. Wait, wings? I have wings? That's amazing."

"Before you go," Alma started, "how did you get here?"

"What do you mean?"

"I got pulled through a pond. You?"

"My hands got stuck in my mirror and my reflection got tired of my shit so it pulled me through."

"Nice."

"What about you?" I asked Ilia. Her eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry. Should I not have asked?"

"A toilet. I got pulled through a toilet." She looked to the floor.

"That actually sounds a lot more fun than being pulled through a mirror. It was actually pretty uncomfortable. And it took forever. I should just stop now."

"Probably." She looked at her wrist. "You're about to go, so just remember everything I told you. I'll see you here tomorrow. Okay?"

"Yeah. Wait, how do I get back here?"

"You don't have to worry about that yet. See you tomorrow. Bye."

"Bye!" Alma gave me a hug and held me at an arm's distance. "I cannot wait to teach you how to fly!" And that was the last thing I heard before everything went black.

******

{A/N} I'm currently revising this story again. I don't plan to make any major changes other than fixing the writing a bit. I mostly just need something to do in my spare time and instead of working on my other story, I've apparently decided to do this. (Also, if you haven't already, go check out my story Daughter of Lies.)

Anyways, if you just start reading this and some details don't quite line up, know that it's being worked on.

Thanks,

Cheyenne

Editing start date: 7/10/22

Editing end date: n/a