A dozen Dispatchers in mismatched business-casual groan in unison. Someone drops their iced latte; it splashes across the floor, narrowly missing a wheeled printer.

Another person mutters, “I swear to god, if that bird activates the firewall again-”

You flatten yourself against the check-in kiosk as the whole lobby scrambles.

Clipboards fly. Elevators ding open like startled animals. Three Dispatchers sprint past you toward the tech wing, one already pulling on protective gloves.

You glance at your orientation schedule.

REPORT TO ROBERT - 09:00DO NOT WANDER OFF.

You check the time.

09:01.

Great. Perfect. Fantastic.

You start edging your way around the room, trying not to get run over by emergency bird-containment protocols. A large digital sign pauses briefly on an HR safety tip: REMEMBER: FLAMBAE IS FIRE-RESISTANT. YOU ARE NOT.

A dispatcher with a headset nearly collides with you. “Sorry! Are you tech division? Bird specialists? Legal? Tell me you’re legal-”

“I’m… an intern?” you manage.

His expression flickers between disappointment and sympathy. “Oof. Good luck.” He jets off without further explanation.

This was supposed to be simple: arrive on time, report to Robert Robertson III, former Mecha Man, current dispatcher, avoid any major disasters. Instead you’re 60 seconds into the job and the building is descending into owl-related chaos.

You clutch your new ID badge, the one that says Intern in small print, as though the building might swallow you if you dare to breathe.

You wait. And wait, and keep waiting. No Robert. No welcome packet. Just you, your lanyard, and the Off-Brand Lobby Music that loops every forty seconds.

Then, from around a corner, you hear a slow crunch- heavy, deliberate footsteps that make the floor creak.

You brace yourself- and then see him: Golem.

He’s huge. Seven‑and‑a‑half feet of clay and rock, molded into a broad-shouldered frame, every inch of him made from dirt and stone. His eyes glow a warm, dull orange. Despite his size, there’s a gentleness in his posture, like he’s trying not to knock over a lamp just by breathing.

“Hey, intern, right?” Golem rumbles, his voice low but surprisingly soft. “I’m Golem.”

You nod, heart pounding a little. “Yes. I’m [Your Name]. I… Robert told me to check in here.”

He gives a little clay-muscle shrug.

Golem’s movements are almost slow‑motion, but you get the impression that everything in his world has to be steady, measured.

Before you can respond, the air hums faintly, and a shadow shifts.

He’s… odd in a way you can’t quite place.

In his human‑bat hybrid form, he’s tall and slender, but his head is unmistakably bat-like: big ears, sharp fangs, and pure white eyes. He’s dressed in a sharp navy suit with a red tie- looking like a very business-savvy, slightly predatory executive who may just happen to have wings sometimes.

“You must be the intern,” Sonar says, his voice slick and precise, like he’s giving a presentation. “Sonar. Pleasure.”

You swallow. “Yes, very nice to meet you.”

He leans forward slightly, as though studying the faintest tremor of your nerves. “Robert said you were coming. I’m… curious how someone survives this place their first day.”

Golem grins (or, well, the clay equivalent of a grin). “They’re doing pretty good so far.”

Sonar’s white eyes flick to the crate Golem set down. “Heavy stuff?”

Before Golem can respond, Flambae walks into the middle of the room balancing a mug of cocoa on a tiny flickering fire circle. Unfortunately, he notices you.

“Hey, new person!” he calls, waving with his free hand. A spark pops off his palm. “Welcome to the Z-Team! I promise I only accidentally set interns on fire like… twice.”

You take a full step back.

To you, it’s survival- because the spark that jumps off his hand arcs toward the ceiling, and your power surges so hard your fingertips burn cold. You clutch your lanyard tighter until the feeling fades.

Flambae’s smile collapses a little. He lowers the mug. “Oh. Uh. Sorry. I’ll… keep the fire stuff over here, then.”

You want to tell him it’s not you, it’s me, but that sounds like a breakup line and you’ve known him for ten seconds.

Robert, finally catching up, claps you on the shoulder, completely oblivious. “Right! Onward! Let’s get you settled at your station.”

Finally, Robert stops in front of a cluttered desk, piles of paperwork teetering like miniature skyscrapers. He gestures at a chair. “Sit. Here’s the command center.”

You take a seat and your gaze immediately lands on a framed photo propped against the monitor.

Flambae’s flame-hands hover too close to Robert, Prism has photobombed herself not once, but twice, stretching her grin across the picture, and someone put googly eyes on Sonar.

Robert leans back in his chair, clearly aware but unwilling to disturb the chaos of the display. Around the edges of the photo, little notes in sloppy handwriting mark incidents: “Mug set on fire- Flambé,” “Camera hacked- Vis,” “Bat-scream incident- Sonar.” A coffee ring smudges the bottom corner of that one.

But there didn’t seem to be a lot to do today.  His tutors were overseeing the classes, and though they would eventually return to teaching him, he had directed them to give the academy all their energies for the first few weeks. So he found himself pacing the halls of the castle, walking on the grounds, and taking entirely unnecessary trips to the stables and other outbuildings to see if he could find a way and a reason to talk to Iduna again. Though it was a brisk January day, he took a book with him to the castle grounds and sat under a tree to read. He hoped from that vantage point he would be able to see Iduna and the others as they took a midday break, and that he might have the chance to talk to her. The story was really interesting; a respite from what his tutors usually had him read.  It was about a mermaid who came to live on land out of love for a prince – a mermaid who he pictured looking remarkably like Iduna. He must have been captivated by it because he was completely shocked when Iduna fell out of the tree, landed gracefully on her feet, and laughed at his surprise.

“Iduna!”

“What are you reading, Your Majesty?” She was flushed, probably from hanging upside down from a tree, but not out of breath or at all nervous to be talking to a king.

Agnarr, startled and pleased, tried to answer in a voice that wouldn’t betray his excitement at seeing her or horror at being caught unaware while he was thinking about her. “Oh, some new Danish author.”

“We’re reading a lot for the academy. I like all the books on plants. You have plants here that I’d never heard of before. Like, look,” she grabbed his hand, and pulled him towards a holly bush, further along the path to the castle proper. ‘We don’t have these where I’m from.” Agnarr willed his hand not to sweat as she continued to hold it, pointing out foxglove here, a spruce tree over there, a pine up ahead. Iduna seemed completely unaware that he was very aware of their hands touching, and eventually she dropped it to wave to some of the other children from Eir’s.

“Our teacher, Mr. Botner, says we’ll go collecting on the skerries one day. I’ve never done that before, we weren’t close to the ocean where I’m from.  I didn’t know what he was talking about and thought they were floating islands of fruits!” She laughed.  “We have rivers and lakes, but not saltwater. So I just know there will be a lot to learn about the animals too! Mr. Botner said there are six kinds of reptiles, and most live on the shoreline, and we’ll try to catch them soon to study. I’ve seen some snakes before but he told us about a something called a loggerhead sea turtle! It’s as big as a wagon wheel! Have you seen one?”

Agnarr shook his head. “No, they are pretty rare.  No ocean? I thought you came here from far away? You didn’t travel by boat?”

“No, I – “ her demeanor immediately changed. Her face, earlier animated and eager to share what she was learning, seemed fearful, maybe even panicked.  Agnarr raised a hand to reassure her, but then put it back down.  She had grasped his hand comfortably, but he wasn’t sure where to touch her.  Her shoulder? Her hand? Instead he clapped it back down on his own thigh, wincing at the awkwardness of it.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to tell me. I’m sure wherever you came from it was hard getting here. We’ve had loss here too, and I should have known better than to ask you that.”

Iduna was recovering, finding words again “That’s alright. I don’t really know how to explain getting here. I don’t like thinking about it.” She reached to her hair, rearranging some tendrils that had escaped, smoothed her skirt, and kept her eyes on the nearby foxglove.

“I’m sorry you had to leave your home. Did you go to school before? Where you came from?” He immediately wished he hadn’t, she visibly winced and her smile faltered. “I’m sorry, forgive me, that’s something else best left alone. You’re here now, and you don’t need to tell me anything about where you were before.  We’ll just learn about here together.  I had no idea plants were so interesting.”

Iduna let out a breath, feeling her panic subside. She noticed the others from Eir’s waving to her again. “They’re about to eat before the next class starts.  You should come join us. Everyone really likes the school. They could tell you about it.”

Agnarr couldn’t make his voice sound as calm this time as he answered her, and he cringed as his voice cracked “Well I didn’t bring any food out here, but give me a moment and I can bring something out.”

***

“The King is coming! I see him riding up the hill!” Eydis Runde ran in to the kitchen, breathless, and pulled on Eir’s apron strings. “He’s coming! Do you think he has more presents?”

Eir wiped her hands on her apron, and then on Eydis’ shoulders to make the little girl laugh. “Let’s go find out, shall we?”

By the time the king and his palace guard arrived and dismounted, the children at Eir’s were outside, watching with curiosity. Some of the younger children watched while also hiding behind their older siblings. Iduna, holding Stig’s and Iggy’s hands so they wouldn’t throw themselves in front of a horse or try to grab a soldier’s sword, stayed on the porch.

“Welcome, King Agnarr. Come inside before the cold gets to you.  You too,” she directed, motioning for the children to go back inside.

The guards found themselves pulled in different directions by some of the less reserved children.

“Come look at my bell! It still works!”

“What do you feed your horse?”

“Can I feed your horse?”

“I didn’t mean to cause a fuss,” Agnarr said, once he and Iduna were in a sitting room, holding cups of glogg that neither was drinking. “I didn’t mean for the little ones to get cold outside.”

“Most of them like the excitement of a visitor. It makes them feel important.  Like they haven’t been forgotten.”

Agnarr wanted to say something about how she was important, and how he could never forget her, and that he was excited whenever he saw her, and was she excited too?

Instead he said “I brought you something. I thought you could use it for school, for all of the field work you will be doing.” He unstrapped a leather bag from his shoulder and handed it to her.  It was well-made, soft and dark, with a strap that could be made short or long with a clasp. It was small enough that she could use it to collect plants or even a few insect species while on a walk without being overburdened.  She could probably even fit in some other supplies, like a flint or water skin.

“It’s beautiful!”

He wanted to say “You’re beautiful,” but instead he smiled, pleased that his gift pleased her, and pleased she would say so.

***

“Iduna,” Eir stood in the doorway.   “Come speak with me for a moment before bed.” Iduna finished tucking Iggy into bed, with a promise that she would tell him all about her classes at the academy when she got home the next day. She followed Eir to the kitchen and sat on a stool, hoping she wasn’t in for an evening of peeling potatoes or cutting onions.

“King Agnarr visited you today.”

Iduna nodded.

“The king is your age, but he is king. And though you might dress like a boy when you are here, you are a young lady and I believe you need to start thinking about acting like one.” Her words were firm, but there was a kindness in her voice, a deep concern in her eyes.

Iduna felt heat rise to her cheeks, and she wasn’t sure why.

“We should wear your dresses here too, not just in town, and we can get shoes that fit made before too long. You should make an effort to be less…distinct.”

Iduna looked into Eir’s eyes, and wondered if there was a hidden message there. Did Eir know why she dressed the way she did? Had she heard of Northuldra, of the man killed in the woods, of a people who had betrayed and killed King Runegard?  Iduna couldn’t read any of that in her gaze, and looked away, confused.

“Being a friend of the king is a good thing to be, but holding his hand, sitting alone with him in a room…you’re not young enough or old enough for that to happen without comment from others. Comments that you will suffer for, not him.”

That night, Iduna had a hard time falling asleep.  She kept thinking about Agnarr’s gift, the thoughtfulness it showed, and their time together on the castle grounds. He had seemed like the boy she met in the woods, not the sad, distant king she had seen on her first visit in to town. He had asked questions about her past, but hadn’t pressed when she hadn’t answered. She wanted to be his friend, she wanted to trust him. She wanted to spend time with someone who had been with the Northuldra, played with the Wind Spirit, seen the river pooled up at the mighty dam, even if he couldn’t remember. She wanted a connection to her home and her people. And it seemed her clothing was one more way she would have to give them up.

She turned over in bed and looked at the dress Eir had laid out for her. She thought of her boots, and how Eydis had laughed at her stuffing them with water sedge and how Jac had asked so many questions about what it was and why she was using it that she realized it was not a normal way Arendellians insulated their boots. She would wear the right clothes and the right shoes. She could stop holding the king’s hand in public when they talked.  She could never be alone in a room with him.  She could do all of that to stay safe, to avoid being seen as different. If the cost was being left for dead in the woods, she could live with the changes.