Page 25 of Alien Viking's Passion

I don’t think I’m good enough

At Garda to make poetry,”he recited as if on a stage. “Or is it intended more as an ending than a start? It is often important to know where we’re going. Yes, this is certainly better thanmyfirst attempts. I think you may have a gift for it. Go on.”

Aretha laughed and hung more branches on the teepee. “That wasn’t meant as a poem! But all right. Here’s one. Umm…

The prince was as cold as ice

Then hit his head, and now

Making poems and building a… hmm… a hut, I guess?

The only frosty thing about him is his markings.”

She couldn’t feel it, but she was sure the neural lace was helping with the language. It kept getting better, and she knew it couldn’t be normal to be completely fluent in an alien language after only a few weeks. Only she and Josie were, while the other girls without laces still struggled speaking Garda. Its many tenses and genders weren’t helping.

“Wonderful,” Craxon said, heaping big branches onto the teepee. “I wonder who that prince could possibly be. I would guess it might be me, but I was never as cold as ice.”

“You were before the trolls,” Aretha told him. “Or maybe you were just being cold tome.”

Craxon scratched one horn. “Strange. I am sometimes cold to shieldmaidens, because they can be annoying. But you’re neither. I wish I could remember it.”

“I am sometimes cold to shieldmaidens,”Aretha repeated quickly, getting revenge,

“Because they can be annoying.

But you’re neither.

Yes, it’s a start. But is it polite to talk about the shieldmaidens like that?”

Craxon laughed. “I deserved that. No, I wouldn’t tell them. They may be annoying when they feel frisky, but they’re also formidable in battle. Your turn.”

“Annoyed by shieldmaidens, the frosty princeFights trolls and then is suddenly nice to the alien

Does he really not remember what they did?”

It was an interesting way of communicating, Aretha found. The poem form placed a mental buffer layer between her and him, softening the point while still getting it across. And giving her deniability. It was just a verse, after all, completely innocent.

Craxon started chopping down a huge tree to get to its upper branches, where the foliage was extremely dense.

“The master bard speaks in riddles!”he yelled over the sound of the sword and the tree.

“Confusing the simple warrior

Busy with the building of shelter.”

Aretha didn’t doubt that his memory loss was real. He wasn’t the type to fake something like that. Or anything else, for that matter. Like the other Vikings she had met, he was straightforward and honest to a fault. And it wasn’t like heneeded to make things up. He was a prince, admired by everyone, even by Bragr. Aretha wasn’t really anyone here. Or on Earth, for that matter.

“The alien woman, abducted from her home,”she said softly,

Found peace and joy in the arms of the prince

But he had his fun and ran away

Then stayed in hiding like hunted prey.”

Craxon had wound up for a final chop at the tree, but now he froze and lowered his sword. “What?”

Aretha gave him a glance, then kept putting leafy branches on the teepee. “That’s too short to be a kvad.”

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