By Firelight

Posted on Mon Jun 8th, 2026 @ 7:44am by Kennedy Kelly & Skjoldr Jórundsson (Hrimstrand)

4,851 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: Episode 8: Shadows Over Avalon
Location: Library, X-Mansion
Timeline: March 23, 1992

The chatter of a dozen students spilled down the halls of Xavier’s as they filed out of the library, each clutching a newly claimed book as they brushed past Skjoldr on their way upstairs to afternoon classes.

He waited for the flow to pass before rounding the corner. Inside the library, a stack of returned books sat in the middle of the table, and Kennedy stood over them, brow faintly furrowed as she began sorting them for reshelving. She didn’t notice him at first, not until he had stepped fully into the room and paused to watch her.

“Skjoldr! Hi.” She jumped slightly as he caught off guard. But she recovered quickly thanks to her practiced composure. “How are you?”

The question came out of habit, it was a reflex of politeness despite how carefully she’d avoided him since their conversation in the pasture. Now that he was standing in front of her, she found it harder than expected to slip away.

Her gaze flicked over him, taking in his slightly unfamiliar appearance. He wore modern clothes and none of his armor. It was the most acclimatized to this new world that she had seen from him.

“You look… nice,” Kennedy said, a hint of hesitation softening her voice as she tried not to linger too obviously on the breadth of his shoulders. “You even got a haircut. What’s the occasion?”

Skjoldr glanced down at himself, as though the clothes were still a matter under investigation.

They suited him well enough, at least from the outside. Dark jeans, heavy boots, a charcoal Henley stretched across his chest and shoulders, and a thick wool-lined jacket that looked rugged enough to survive him for more than a week. Someone had chosen carefully, or perhaps several someone had argued him into it. The colours were plain, the fit practical, and nothing about it looked foolish.

He still looked faintly betrayed by every seam.

“The occasion,” he said, tugging once at the cuff of his sleeve, “is that I was told wearing armour through the halls makes people nervous.”

There was no bite in it, only that dry, steady humour of his. He shifted his shoulders as if trying to settle the fabric into a place it had not yet earned. “This scratches. It bends in strange places. And there’s no honest weight to it.” His mouth twitched slightly. “But I was also told it helps a man look less like he expects a raid before breakfast.”

His eyes found hers then, warm but careful. He had noticed the avoidance. Of course he had. Skjoldr noticed when paths changed around him, when someone chose another hallway, when a greeting came from habit rather than ease. But he did not bring that into the room like a weapon.

“You look well, Kennedy,” he said instead.

Simple. True. Not polished enough to feel practised.

He moved nearer to the table, stopping on the opposite side of the stack of books so there was still a safe piece of furniture between them. His gaze dropped to the pile, then back to her. “I came to ask if there’s work here that needs doing. Carrying, shelves, sorting. I’m learning the house better when I’m useful in it.”

A pause.

Then, because he was not quite subtle enough to hide the whole truth, he added, “And I thought I might find you here.”

His hand rested lightly on the back of one chair, fingers broad against the polished wood. “If that’s unwelcome, say so. I won’t make it difficult.” His expression softened, just a little. “But I was glad to see you.”

She tucked a strand of golden blonde hair behind her ear and offered him a sheepish smile. Kennedy was always impeccably chic and refined, from the tailored lines of her clothes to the graceful precision of every movement she made. It often left her seeming cold, almost untouchable. Yet around him, that polished composure softened into something shy and uncertain, and he could already see warmth blooming pink across her cheeks.

“I wouldn’t mind some help. The younger kids get library time once a week and they absolutely destroy this place while hunting for new books.” Kennedy bit her lower lip, trying and failing to suppress a coy smile. “And if it makes you feel any better, I like the new clothes. They do make you look a little more… approachable.”

She stepped around the table and moved closer to him, tilting her head back slightly to meet his eyes. Kennedy smelled faintly of vanilla layered over something richer and unmistakably expensive.

“Do you think you can figure out where Little Women goes?” she asked, handing him a small leather bound book. Her fingers brushed lightly against his. “Or do you think you’ll need help?”

Skjoldr looked down at the little book in his hand as if she’d handed him a puzzle box.

The leather binding was fine, worn soft by many hands, but the marks across the spine meant nothing to him. Not words. Not yet. Just small black shapes arranged with more confidence than he had any right to share. He turned it slightly, checking the cover, then glanced back at Kennedy with a faintly rueful look.

“I can lift half this table if you ask me to,” he said, “but I cannot read this.”

There was no shame in the admission, only plain fact. “Not your letters. I know runes. Marks cut into stone, wood, iron. The kind made to last weather and years.” His thumb brushed carefully over the edge of the cover. “These are… smaller. Quieter. I’m told they behave if you learn them properly, but I haven’t had the pleasure yet.”

Her fingers had brushed his when she passed the book over, and he’d noticed. Of course he had. He noticed the scent of vanilla and expensive perfume, the pink at her cheeks, the way her polish seemed to loosen around him into something warmer and less guarded. He noticed the coy edge to her smile too, and though he was new to much of this world, he was not new to the language beneath words.

His eyes lifted to hers, steady, with the faintest warmth tucked into the corner of his mouth.

“So yes,” he said, holding the book back out between them, “I think I’ll need help.”

The words sat there a little longer than they needed to.

Then he looked down at himself, tugging once at the front of the Henley. “And I’m glad you like these clothes. I still don’t understand why they make me less worrying.” He glanced at the jacket, then back at her. “Armour tells you plainly what a man is carrying. This hides knives, bruises, bad intentions, all sorts.” A beat, dry as old timber. “But apparently soft cloth makes people feel safer.”

Kennedy watched as he tugged at his clothes, adjusting them with unfamiliar self consciousness. Each restless movement hinted at the toned lines beneath the fabric and it drew her attention more than she cared to admit. An impulsive thought flickered through her mind of what it might feel like to trace those lines for herself. The suddenness of her lurid thought made her heart quicken, and she tightened her grip on the book in her hands until her knuckles blanched.

He shifted closer to the stack of books, careful not to crowd her even as the space between them had already changed. “Show me where they go, and I’ll carry as many as you can pile in my arms. You guide. I’ll be useful.”

A small pause followed, his gaze catching hers again before dropping back to the book. He turned it over once, studying the title as though the letters might decide to be helpful if he stared long enough.

“And perhaps, if you’re patient, you can teach me which of these little marks means Little Women.” His brow furrowed slightly. “Is it about dwarven women?” A beat, entirely sincere. “Or are they little in some other way?”

“It’s a coming of age story about four sisters,” Kennedy said with a soft, fluttery giggle. He hadn’t heard her laugh before, it was a light and airy sound, like something delicate taking flight. “They grow up during the American Civil War. It touches on poverty, the expectations placed on women, and the tension between personal ambition and family duty.”

Her explanation leaned more academic than he might have expected, but Skjoldr noticed the way she handled the books in a careful, almost reverent manner. There was no mistaking it, Kennedy loved them.

“I love to help you learn to read.” The shy note returned to her voice as she offered him her assistance, her gaze dipping for a moment before lifting again. “Books are wonderful, they contain wisdom and knowledge, they can take you to new places you’ve never dreamed of, they can make you laugh or cry.” A note of passion filled her tone and Skjoldr started to see what excited her, what fueled her heart. “What’s something that interests you? We can try to find a book on the topic. It helps if you’re invested in the subject matter.”

Skjoldr listened closely, though some of Kennedy’s words clearly had to find their place in him before they settled.

“War, I know,” he said, holding the little book with more care than confidence. “Family duty, too. That was the spine of my village. Everyone had work that belonged to them. Men, women, children, elders. Some work was chosen. Some was given before you were old enough to argue.” His mouth shifted slightly. “Women carried more than people admitted. They kept stores, births, sickness, deaths, weather signs, old grudges, songs. Men liked to think we held the walls. Often it was women keeping the roof from falling.”

He looked down at the book again, studying the cover as if the title might change now that Kennedy had explained it.

“So it is about sisters growing into the shape the world allows them,” he said, slower now, finding his own way through it. “And maybe pushing at that shape when it is too tight.” His thumb brushed the edge of the leather binding. “That I understand better than dwarven women.”

There was the faintest lift at the corner of his mouth, not a joke flung for laughter, more a dry little ember offered to her because he liked the sound of her laugh.

Then he noticed her hands.

The way she touched the books was familiar, even if the books themselves were strange to him. Careful. Fond. Not just objects to be moved, then. Something more. Something that mattered.

“You love these,” he said, simple and soft enough that it didn’t need to be a question.

He looked around the library with new attention. Shelves and shelves of bound pages, all quiet, all waiting. The room had seemed like storage when he first entered. Now, seeing her inside it, it felt closer to a hall full of sleeping voices.

“We had stories,” he said. “Not like this. Mostly spoken. By the fire, while hands were mending nets or sharpening blades. Tales of gods, foolish kings, clever women, beasts in winter, children who did not listen and then regretted it.” A small breath of humour left him. “Many stories for children are really warnings wearing nicer clothes.”

His gaze returned to her. “Those I would like. Tales first, maybe. Something with a road I can follow. Then…” He glanced towards the ceiling, where the bright glass things gave their steady fireless glow. “Then books that tell how your world does its tricks. How warmth comes from walls. How those little suns burn above us without smoke. How water climbs stairs without buckets.” He shook his head faintly, still half-amused by it all. “This house is full of quiet servants no one seems to see.”

He set Little Women down gently, as if returning it to her care.

“I’m not afraid of learning,” he said. “Only of being handed too much fog at once.” His eyes met hers again, warmer now. “If you teach me, I think I’ll find the path quicker.”

“I think I know where we can start, or at least I’ve got a few ideas.” Kennedy gathered a small stack of returned books from the table and drifted off between the tall shelves of the school library.

The library was rarely used by the students and residents of Xavier’s. Most of the younger crowd preferred the lure of the Sega and the big-screen TV, or the lake and the endless outdoor distractions. Few chose to spend their downtime among towering shelves of aging classics, most of them assigned more for study than pleasure. Still, the room carried a quiet serenity as sunlight poured in through the large windows at the far end, illuminating reading tables and offering a view of the manicured grounds beyond and the pool outside still covered and closed for the season.

“Here we go,” Kennedy said as she reappeared. She stepped in close beside him, close enough that they could look at the books together, and she began presenting them to Skjoldr one by one.

“I’d probably start with this one, once you’ve got a better handle on the alphabet and phonetics.” She handed him a book with a drawing of a crow on the cover, a pebble clutched in its beak as it approached a tall, narrow pot. “These are Aesop’s Fables. They were supposedly written by a Greek slave hundreds of years ago. They are short stories about animals and people but each one has a lesson at the end. They’re a lot like the fireside stories you’re used to.”

She shifted to the next book. This one showed a giant man with an axe slung over his shoulder and a massive blue ox walking at his side in a dense forest of tiny trees. “That’s Paul Bunyan. He’s an American folk hero, this book covers him and a few others like Johnny Appleseed. More short stories, but they’ll give you a feel for the history and landscape of this country.”

Kennedy hesitated slightly before picking up the last book. “This one… I’m not sure if you’ll like it.” The cover showed a man in finely crafted armor, a massive hammer raised overhead as storm clouds churned around him, lightning splitting the sky. “It’s Norse mythology, and that’s the god Thor.”

Skjoldr followed her between the shelves with the careful quiet of a man used to moving through places where noise carried. The library still felt strange to him, but less so with Kennedy in it. She moved through the rows as if they were familiar paths, gathering books with easy certainty, and when she came back to stand close beside him, close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed his arm, he felt the warmth of her before he looked down.

It was a foolish thing to notice, maybe, but he noticed it all the same.

He kept his eyes on the books because that was safer.

“Alphabet,” he repeated after her, the word sitting oddly in his mouth. “Phonetics.” His brow drew in, not annoyed, only honest in his confusion. “Those are new words. I’m guessing one means your marks, and the other means how they’re meant to sound?” A faint, dry look touched him. “If I’m wrong, don’t tell me too harshly. I’ve only just learned your soft benches are not traps.”

He took the first book when she handed it to him, studying the crow with the pebble and the narrow pot. “A bird solving a problem,” he said, and that seemed to sit better with him. “That I understand. Animals are good teachers if people are not too proud to listen.” He glanced at Kennedy, then back to the cover. “Greek slave,” he echoed, slower this time. “I don’t know what Greek means yet, but a slave with stories people still keep… that sounds like someone worth hearing.”

The next cover made him pause.

The huge man, the axe, the blue ox standing beside him. Skjoldr’s expression shifted into something between interest and mild suspicion, as though the book had challenged him without meaning to.

“Paul Bunyan,” he said carefully. “Johnny Appleseed.” He looked to Kennedy. “Your heroes have strange names.” There was a glint of humour there now. “One sounds like a man who wrestles trees for sport. The other sounds like he lost a fight with a basket of fruit.”

He turned the book slightly in his hands, taking in the tiny trees, the giant shape of the man, the ox at his side. “American,” he added, testing that word too. “I’ve heard that one from the little speaking box in the common room. The one that shows people arguing, selling things, and kissing badly.” His mouth pulled faintly at one corner. “I wasn’t sure if it was a people, a place, or a kind of shouting.”

Then Kennedy showed him the last book.

That one changed the air a little.

Not because he feared it. Not because the image was strange. Quite the opposite. The hammer. The storm. The man in armour beneath a sky split open by lightning. Skjoldr’s gaze settled on the cover and stayed there, the humour easing from his face into something quieter.

“Thor,” he said, and this time the word needed no learning.

He reached for the book more slowly than he had the others, fingers resting against the cover with an odd care. “We had his stories,” he said. “Not written like this, but spoken. Thunderer. Giant-slayer. Strong arm, quick temper, quicker appetite. The one you call on when the sky is breaking and you need something stronger than fear in your chest.”

His thumb brushed over the painted hammer.

“Our elders said stories change when they travel. A god walks from one tongue to another and comes out wearing different clothes.” He glanced at Kennedy then, not offended, only thoughtful. “So I don’t know if this book will speak of him the way my people did. Maybe it will make him foolish. Maybe it will make him grander than he needs to be. But I would like to see what your world remembers of him.”

A small pause followed, and then that faint warmth returned to him.

“This one may be dangerous for teaching,” he said. “If I dislike how they tell it, I’ll stop every few lines to argue with a dead writer.”

He looked over the three books again: the crow, the giant woodsman, the thunder god. Different doors, all of them. Kennedy had chosen better than she perhaps knew.

“These are good starts,” he said, quieter now. “Small stories with teeth. That’s better than handing me a wall of words and telling me to climb it.” His eyes moved back to her, and the closeness between them felt less accidental than before. “You choose well, Ljósmær (light-maiden). I’ll trust your road through this.”

“Thanks.” The compliment immediately drew her back into bashfulness, and the familiar flutter of butterflies in her stomach made her nervously tuck the same strand of hair behind her ear once again.

How was she supposed to sit beside him day after day?

The thought sparked a sudden realization. After spending days carefully avoiding him, she had just eagerly agreed to meet with him every single day. Whatever magnetic pull she felt toward him was only growing harder to ignore, and Kennedy was beginning to seriously doubt the strength of her own willpower.

As he spoke in his native tongue, her attention drifted helplessly to his mouth, the unfamiliar syllables rolling from it in a deep, melodic cadence that made her knees feel weak.

“Yoh-ss-mair?” she attempted, absolutely butchering the pronunciation. Even so, there was something undeniably charming in the effort. Her brow pinched with concentration as an adorable strain crossed her features while she tried to shape the alien sounds correctly. “What does that mean?”

Skjoldr’s mouth softened at her attempt. He didn’t laugh. If anything, the effort seemed to catch him somewhere quiet.

“Close,” he said, his voice low. “Not quite. But close.”

He shifted the book in his hand, then said it again, slower for her. “Ljósmær. Lyohs-mair. The first sound is softer than you’re making it. Not sharp. More like…” His eyes flicked briefly towards the windows, where the pale daylight was spilling across the library floor. “Like light through fog.”

A small smile touched him then. “Though if you say it your way, I’ll still answer to it.”

He looked back at her, and whatever humour had been there gentled into something more open. For a moment he seemed to weigh the words before letting them go.

“It means light-maiden,” he said. “But not only because you’re beautiful.” A beat. “You are. I’d be blind to miss that.”

His gaze stayed with hers, steady but not pressing.

“I call you that because there’s a brightness in you, Kennedy. Even when you don’t seem to trust it. You walk into a room and people notice, aye, but it’s more than that. You care. You feel things deeply. You keep reaching for joy even when life has given you good reason to stop.”

His voice dropped a little, warmer now.

“That is what I see. Not just the pretty face, or the fine clothes, or the way you carry yourself like you were born knowing every eye might turn your way.” A faint smile returned. “Though that is hard to ignore too.”

He let that sit between them, simple and sincere.

“Ljósmær,” he said again, softer this time. “Someone who carries light, even when she doesn’t believe she does.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth.

“And if you keep saying it badly, I suppose I’ll have to keep teaching you.”

“I want you to teach me.” Her voice was soft, almost intoxicating in its sweetness, as she stepped closer. Kennedy could no longer pretend she didn’t feel that pull drawing her closer until she found herself slipping between him and the table.

Skjoldr carried himself with a quiet awareness. He was reserved yet perceptive, not only in how he saw her but in how he seemed to absorb this unfamiliar world around him. There was a steadiness to him, a calm that endured despite everything he had lost, and it called to her in a way she couldn’t quite explain.

Something in him felt grounded and unshakable. It made her want to lean closer, to trust him, to believe she could depend on him. It was a realization that stirred a quiet ache in her chest.

“I want to learn your words,” she continued, her voice softening further. “The runes carved in stone… the stories told by firelight.” She still absentmindedly clutched her books to her chest, even as she closed the distance between them.

At last, she was close enough that her body brushed against his in a subtle, lingering connection. The gentle curves of her form met the solid line of his, hinting at a closeness that felt both natural and dangerous in equal measure.

“Will you teach me?” she asked this time, tilting her head to meet his gaze. The question was simple but it carried more weight than the words alone.

Skjoldr noticed.

Of course he noticed.

He noticed the way she stepped in between him and the table as if she had only meant to reach for space, when there had been plenty of space already. He noticed the books held to her chest, the softness in her voice, the way she asked the same question twice and made it mean something different the second time. He felt the brush of her against him and went still, not because he wanted distance, but because he was very aware of how little there was now.

For a moment, his eyes stayed on hers.

“Aye,” he said, voice lower than before. “I’ll teach you.”

The words were simple, but there was warmth under them now, something slower and more deliberate. He did not move away. He did not crowd her either. He let the closeness sit there between them, alive and unhurried.

“Runes first,” he said. “The ones for stone. For weather. For oath. Then stories, if you still want them after you learn how stubborn my tongue can be.” His gaze dipped briefly to her mouth, then returned to her eyes. Not hidden. Not careless either. “But if we’re doing it by firelight, there are rules.”

A faint smile touched him.

“There must be food. Something worth eating with your hands. Bread, cheese, meat if this house has any that hasn’t been made strange. And ale.” His brow shifted slightly, as if remembering something. “Though I’m told your people have rules about ale, age, permission, and other things that make less sense than they should. So perhaps tea, if the hall insists on being difficult.”

He leaned a fraction closer, just enough that his voice dropped into the smaller space she had made.

“And you’ll have to listen carefully, Ljósmær. Some words change shape if you hold them wrong.”

The tease was gentle, but there was no missing the pull beneath it. He let it linger for one breath, then reached slowly, giving her time to refuse, and took one of the books from where she held it against herself.

“Tonight, if you want,” he said. “Find us a fire, and I’ll bring what stories I can.” His thumb brushed the edge of the book, but his eyes stayed on her. “And if you ask me like that again, I may forget which lesson I meant to start with.”

“A fire?” Kennedy echoed, the words carrying a note of confusion and a flicker of disappointment at his suggestion to meet later, especially with the latest spark still smoldering between them. A campfire sounded simple enough in theory, but the Boston Brahmin had no real idea how to build one, or even where the best place might be. Her mind drifted back to Joey’s campfire safety course from a few weeks prior, and she found herself silently cursing both him and herself for dismissing it as a waste of time.

“I suppose we could make one…” The last time there had been a bond fire was the night Kurt arrived, a Halloween evening that felt both distant and sharply vivid. The memory pressed into her unexpectedly and it tugged at her chest for reasons that had nothing to do with the present. “I think I know a spot.”

Her gaze dropped to her hands. Her nails were long and perfectly manicured while being painted a soft blush pink. A diamond tennis bracelet circled her slender wrist, while her skin remained smooth and unmarked. They were the hands of someone raised in comfort and luxury. "I've never chopped wood before..."

Skjoldr caught the disappointment first, then the glance down at her hands.

He looked at them too, not in judgement, but with quiet interest. Fine hands. Soft skin. Pale nails kept neat, a bracelet at her wrist catching the library light in sharp little flashes. They were not hands made for splitting wood in rain or hauling rope through saltwater.

“No,” he said, a faint smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I can see that.”

There was no mockery in it. If anything, it sounded almost fond.

His gaze lifted back to hers, and this time there was a warmer edge in it, something that said he understood more than she had actually said. “Find the place,” he told her. “I’ll see to the wood.”

A small pause.

“You can watch, if you like.”

The words were simple enough, but his tone gave them a little weight. He did not step away from her. Not yet. “It’s good work. Honest work. And I’d hate to risk those hands on an axe before they’ve taught me my letters.”

His eyes flicked once to her nails, then back to her face.

“Tonight, then,” he said, lower now. “Your place. My fire.” A faint smile returned. “And if you still want runes after that, I’ll bring those too.”

He let the thought linger for a heartbeat, then added, quieter, “Where I come from, the best things are often found by the fire. Stories. Truth. Food shared when the night is cold.” His gaze held hers, steady but warm. “Sometimes other things, if the company is right.”

RSS Feed