We had spent a lot more time on the Holy Plane than I thought. The ever-present Mist made it not only difficult to see the constantly transforming environment on that plane but also made it extremely difficult to judge the passage of time properly. As a result, it was almost eleven o’clock at night when we finally returned to the Wings of the Sea on the Material Plane.

Considering that we had left not long after lunch, that meant that what I thought had been two or three hours spent meditating and then forging my andivapn was actually closer to ten. It was no wonder I was so tired and hungry. I was not looking forward to going through all the effort to cook us something for dinner, and it seemed that Aunt Lin felt the same way.

With that and the late hour in mind, my aunt decided to cheat for dinner, just for that one night. She called in a takeout order at a restaurant that I had become very familiar with during my date with Alice and then teleported there and back to pick it up. I guess that she was adept enough at travelling through the Holy Plane that she could just sort of pass through it without even having to stop there for a breather and to focus on her next destination, so we wouldn’t have to worry about our food or her clothes and such changing into something else on the way back.

I couldn’t wait to be able to do that myself. Not only would it save travel time, but when I did use that ability, I wanted to be able to do so while spending as little time on the Holy Plane as possible. The place gave me the creeps, and I was one of the few people it wouldn’t change. My aunt had stressed that only Divine elementals are immune to the effects of the Mist, and not even other people aligned to the Divine are safe.

Aunt Lin assured me that I would be getting plenty of practice with that, though, since my training would involve not only learning to use Penny and various other weapons effectively in battle, but a great many other things as well. This would include the use of all inherent Valkyrie abilities, combat tactics, battlefield awareness, using the terrain to one’s advantage, wilderness survival, aerial combat, and even using Divine magic. I might not be a magical powerhouse like my mother and aunt, but Aunt Lin said that I might be able to make up for that with raw talent, after how well I had done with manipulating the Mist on the Holy Plane.

While Aunt Lin was ordering and then going to pick up our dinner, I called home to let everyone know that we had arrived, my first day of training was over, and that everything was okay so far. I also took the opportunity to text back and forth with Alice for a bit since it hadn’t even been a day yet, and I already missed her. Dammit, I had it bad. Unfortunately, I had been sworn to secrecy, so I wasn’t able to tell Alice or the others what my training entailed.

Once Aunt Lin returned with our dinner of chicken, potato wedges, and pizza, dinner was strange. Not because we were eating on a yacht moored at an uninhabited island, or because we had spent the last ten hours or so on another plane of existence, where a supernatural mist constantly remade everything but us. It wasn’t even because my aunt just teleported back to Vancouver to get us takeout. No, things were strange because of Penny.

It wasn’t strange in a bad way, or even an unwelcome one; it was more like déjà vu, if I’m being entirely honest. And, in truth, that feeling began well before dinner, almost as soon as we returned from the Holy Plane, in fact. It was like I was seeing and experiencing everything for the first time when I knew that I wasn’t. Constantly hearing "What is that?" and various other questions in my mind about everything in sight, and having to come up with answers for all those questions, wasn’t really helping and just added to the sense of strangeness.

I guess it made sense, in a way. Penny had been trapped and isolated within the darkest depths of my soul for much of my life, and both sides of her were still very much children in a way, children who had never truly experienced anything but loneliness and fear or seen anything outside of the dark cloud that they were trapped within. Now, whenever they weren’t in their weapon form, they were in my head and sharing my senses. Everything that I saw, heard, smelled, felt, or tasted, they were experiencing as well, except for them, it was all new and amazing, so they wanted to know more.

I could feel their childlike wonder and amazement when we got back to the boat, when I used my phone, and especially when we ate dinner. I liked the food, and it made sense that they would too, since they were sharing my taste buds, but it was like I was experiencing it for the first time through them as well. They never even had a physical body before, so even normal bodily functions and processes were going to be something new to them. The dichotomy of it was a little strange to get used to.

So, I guess I might have been a little bit distracted as we ate and enjoyed the flavors a bit more than I usually would have. Penny was reeling from the flavours, and both halves of her were bubbling and happily making their enjoyment known to me, both through their feelings and their words, so it was a little difficult to focus on anything else. I had just made an audible moan of pleasure as I ate my first piece of chicken (which had always been one of my favorite foods) when I noticed Aunt Lin watching me from across the table with a faint smile on her face.

“I take it that Penny is enjoying the meal,” my aunt commented with a bit of a smirk.

“Uh, yeah,” I responded sheepishly, feeling just a little self-conscious.

“Having an extra consciousness in our heads takes a bit of getting used to, and you essentially have two of them who haven’t experienced much of anything yet. You’ll get used to it in time, and it will get easier as they get more experience and everything normalizes for them,” she assured me. “You all have a lot to learn, and you’ll have to get used to working together.”

I considered her words as I finished devouring my first piece of chicken and some wedges, then I grabbed a slice of the meat lover’s pizza as I asked something that had been on my mind since Penny’s presence had settled in earlier, and Purity had tried to control the pale flames that manifested on their weapon form. ‘You said that it’s not common to be able to speak with them outside of a deep meditative state?”

My aunt laughed and shrugged, “Well, you can speak with them all you like in your mind, but it’s uncommon for them to be able to respond with anything more than feelings and a general sense of what they might want. That can be hard at first because they’re a part of our soul, and their feelings, likes, and dislikes will often reflect our own. Oddrún isn’t exactly a social girl at the best of times, but we’ve always been fairly in sync.”

“They spoke to me,” I told her bluntly, not sure how exactly to bring this up. I was a little worried that she might be jealous or that she wouldn’t believe me, but it wasn’t like I asked for this.

Aunt Lin’s eyebrows rose in surprise and keen interest, but it didn’t look like she took offense or anything, more like she was intrigued and considering how this might affect my training. Then she asked, “When? Have they spoken with you since?”

“Just after I finished forging them, while I was experimenting with their weapon form. One of them, I think it was Purity, said that she would try to control the flames, and she did it too. Then, when we got back here, they both started talking about everything in sight, and they haven’t really stopped since,” I reported.

Honestly, it was a little bit distracting having them both constantly talking in my head, but I didn’t want to say anything that might discourage them or make them think that I didn’t want them. They had spent quite enough time as silent and ignored prisoners in my soul, and I didn’t want them to feel unwelcome or like they were just a weapon to me. The feelings I had for them right now were that they were my little sisters who just happened to share my body at the moment, and I needed to be a good and patient big sister while they got all of this new shiny stuff out of their system.

My aunt’s eyebrows, which had only just lowered themselves to their usual position following my earlier revelation, darted back upward again in surprise. “Okay, that’s got to be a little bit distracting,” she muttered before a pensive expression settled upon her features.

“Just a little,” I admitted, understating it by a lot for Penny’s sake. “It’s to be expected, though. I mean, they’re kids, who up until now were imprisoned and only had each other from their perspective, and they’re seeing and experiencing everything for the first time, so of course they’re excited.”

“So, they’ve spoken to you in both their weapon form and while sharing your mind space, then?” Aunt Lin asked, prodding me for clarification. When I nodded in reply, she hummed thoughtfully before speaking again. “I’m not sure if that’s just something about you and your andivapn, if it’s something about how you used the Mist to give her form, or something else entirely, but this could be a benefit, so long as you don’t allow them to overwhelm you. You may need to be firm with them sometimes, and Penny, we will need to set some ground rules for you for whenever Raven is in combat.”

As I listened, I polished off my slice of pizza and washed it down with some cola, and as my aunt said the last part, I was hit by a wave of emotion from both Penny’s Purity and Demon halves. It felt like a child who was being disciplined and who wasn’t quite sure what they did wrong. “You’re not in trouble,” I gently assured them within our mental space, “it’s okay to be excited by all these new things. I think she just wants to make sure that we’re all focused and paying attention while she’s training us. This won’t just be training for me; we need to learn to work together as well.”

“Are you sure?” a pair of voices asked uncertainly.

“Yeah, I’m sure, so let’s just hear her out, okay?” I insisted, before forcing my attention once again outside of my own head and toward my aunt. “What kind of ground rules are you thinking, Aunt Lin?”

“Mostly, I just want you all to stay focused while we’re training,” she replied, echoing my thoughts. “Inattention while training can cause accidents, and I would rather avoid that, even if you do have Demon regeneration. In combat, distractions can get you killed, so all of you will have to be able to stay focused on the fight and what’s going on around you, and that’s especially important for Penny.”

“Why is that?” My question was mostly because it kind of sounded like she was singling Penny out, and it had to be for a good reason, but I didn’t want Penny (either of her) to feel like she was being hard on them for no good reason. I thought that an explanation would do all of us some good, and once the question was asked, I started nomming on some more chicken and potato wedges as I settled in to listen to her answer.

I was glad that I was eating during this, because the explanation ended up being somewhat long, and I liked my food warm. I did ensure that my attention, and Penny’s, were focused on what she was saying, though, mostly eating on autopilot. It basically came down to what I suspected, that I wasn’t the only one who had a lot of learning to do during our training. Penny had important things to learn, too, especially when her ‘body’ was manifested.

My andivapn is Penny’s body, and while I might be the one who wields it, they can control it, beyond me just swinging that big sword around. Penny’s Purity side manipulating those strange silver and white flames demonstrated that well enough. In fact, my aunt explained that andivapns are more than just mere weapons for us to summon, they are magical entities while in their weapon forms. They have a will, and as such, have some form of agency over their bodies, even if it was only to choose when they could be moved and when they could not.

Some could do more than that, and my aunt suspected that Penny might be one of those. Which was part of the reason that Penny would also be training, having a weapon that could move on its own during a fight was a major advantage, especially with that chain and smaller angel wing blade attached to the massive demonic sword. So, Penny would have to get familiar with their new body and experiment with how much control they could exert over the various parts of it. They would need to get used to their senses in that form as well.

Aunt Lin explained that while they may not have eyes and ears and such in their weapon form to observe the world around them, they would still have access to mine, even if the effect is diluted while they were not sharing my mind space, and they have a form of magical awareness as well. She said that Oddrún has used this sense before to warn her of dangers that she wasn’t aware of while in a fight by sending her strong pushes of emotion, usually danger. Since Penny could actually speak with me, they could give me far more accurate warnings.

This was part of the reason why Aunt Lin wanted them to be able to stay focused and relatively quiet in a fight. They could still communicate with me while we were in combat, but my aunt wanted to get them into a pattern where anything that they said while we were in combat was important enough that it would have my immediate attention. If they were warning me about something, then I would know to act on it immediately.

My aunt could understand them being interested in everything around them since it was all new to them, but she wanted to make it clear to all of us from the start that training time, and thus combat as well, was the time to be serious and focused on what we were doing. Taking my suggestion that Penny’s two halves were very much like children, she tried to explain it as carefully as possible and in a way that wouldn’t make them feel like they were being picked on. She did a pretty good job of it, too, since I didn’t think she dealt with kids very often. Or maybe she did have some experience; she was over a thousand years old after all.

Still, it was late when we started eating dinner, and it was after midnight by the time we finished dinner and the somewhat serious discussion on training. It had been a very long day by then, and I was practically falling asleep at the table by the end of that discussion. Since my aunt expected us to be awake with the sun in the morning to scout out the island and begin our first true day of training bright and early, I was more than ready to head directly to bed once our little talk was over. Thankfully, Penny seemed as tired as I was by that point, now that the excitement of existing seemed to have worn off a little, so I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit my pillow.

I really didn’t want to get out of bed when my alarm rang for day one of training. There were only two reasons that I forced myself to crawl out of that bed, turn the damn thing off, and go take a shower to properly wake myself up. The first reason was that I had two young minds attached to my own who were complaining about all the noise, and as reluctant to wake up as I was.

Reason two was that if I didn’t get up and out of bed on my own, I was sure my aunt would make sure I did, as family tradition dictated. She had told me far too many horror stories of how my mother would wake her up by picking her up and tossing her in a glacier-filled lake, and while we might not have one of those available, we were on a boat, and the ocean was just outside. I wouldn’t put it past Aunt Lin to throw me off the boat to get a little bit of good-natured payback for what my mother put her through when she was the student and my mother the teacher.

So, while Penny went back to snoozing in the back of my mind, I hit the shower and started getting ready for what was likely to be another very long day. Apparently, they could tune out my senses if they wanted to, something that we learned last night that my aunt’s andivapn, Oddrún, does when she gets bored with watching whatever my aunt happens to be doing all day. Damn, they were lucky. I hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep, and I probably would have joined them for more if not for the looming threat of my aunt waking me more forcibly.

I ran the water just cold enough to wake me up without being completely frigid, and made my morning shower as quick as possible while trying to thoroughly clean both my body and hair. I had to shift my wings back into my body to fit in the small shower, but that was to be expected, and at least I wouldn’t have to dry them as well as my hair and body. If I let my aunt toss me into the ocean, I would have had to dry them as well, though at least my feathers slicked off water fairly well; otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to fly in the rain.

When I got dressed afterward and made my way to the galley to help make breakfast, I found my aunt waiting and already at the stove, frying up some sausages and scrambled eggs. She didn’t even have the decency to look half asleep like I was; she was almost cheerful, in fact. I tried not to be a grouch about it as I stifled a yawn and then called out, “Good morning. Is there anything I can help with?”

“Mornin’ Kiddo, and you too, Penny, if you’re awake,” she replied chipperly. “Why don’t you throw some bread in the toaster? You can also pour us some glasses of milk and orange juice… and grab the strawberries while you’re in the fridge. It’s not a perfect breakfast, but it’ll do out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“Penny decided that they needed more sleep. I probably would have done the same if I didn’t know you’d throw me in the ocean to wake me for shits and giggles,” I grumbled as I obediently put the bread in the toaster and retrieved some glasses for the juice.

She actually managed to look offended as she placed a hand over her heart, as if wounded, and asked far too innocently, “Would I do that to my wonderful niece?”

“You totally would, after the way you’ve complained about Mom’s wakeup methods while she was training you,” I asserted before diving into the fridge for the juice, milk, and strawberries.

We continued to playfully jibe each other until breakfast was all sorted and on the table, but we were both quiet as we devoured the meal in question. As soon as we were finished eating, we headed out to the deck, and my aunt scanned the ocean around us with a pair of binoculars for any sign of other vessels, to ensure that nobody was nearby and either spying or could accidentally witness what came next. That, of course, was me and Aunt Lin both letting out our wings and taking to the sky for a flyover of the island.

Larren Island was pretty big, at roughly thirty-six hectares, and almost entirely covered in forest. There were a couple of rocky beaches and some clearings that I thought might make good spots to land, and for Aunt Lin to teach me weapons combat and stuff, but the terrain was very hilly and thick with trees overall. It made me glad that we brought the boat since it looked like fresh water would be a problem if we were supposed to be camping here for months on end. I saw what I thought might be a stream through the canopy of trees, but the terrain looked pretty rough overall.

It took us a while to cover the entire island in a way that we would have a good enough view of any signs that anyone sentient, either other Paranormals or normies, were inhabiting what was supposed to be an uninhabited island. My aunt wanted to be especially thorough on that count, though, to keep Valkyrie secrets safe. With that in mind, it took us over an hour of searching by air in the early morning light to ensure that there was nobody there but us and that there were no other boats nearby either.

Eventually, though, my aunt cleared the island for use and had us land in one of the clearings that I had spotted from the air. By that time, Penny seemed to be awake, and their excitement at seeing the wilderness stretched out below us, and getting bigger as we closed in on the ground, was buzzing in the back of my mind and had my heart racing a little as one of them said, "It’s so beautiful."

Their excitement proved to be infectious, and I found myself eager to get started on this training. We were here for a reason, after all, and the sooner that we completed my training, the sooner we would be able to return home. As I touched down upon the forest floor, that made me wonder how they would react when we returned to Vancouver. There was going to be so much there that it was going to leave them in awe, the poor girls, and it made me think back to that first day that I met Jamie, and we saw my home city spread out beneath me for the first time.

So much had changed since then, and I had come such a long way. I still had a long way to go, though, as my aunt reminded me when she landed beside me and said, “Let’s get started, girls. Raven, summon Penny so I can see what you’re all made of.”