[ WP ] At your magic school graduation , all summon a familiar that takes the shape of the first non-human creature they see . Most of your friends have cats , dogs , or birds . You just summoned a copy of your mother .

I stood alone in the stone circle, rubbing the rune with my thumb. Cool, glassy edges pressed into the flesh, imprinting the mark I chiseled two weeks earlier at moondark with a burnt twig and cold steel. It was a simple casting, but an intimately person one, to summon one's soul servant. A familiar would give me status and rank I sought for all my young life. 
 
 Only seidr-masters and mistresses have familiars. No one in my family showed a lick of talent for magic, and the other students at seidr-master Hruki's school were quick to remind me of it. Tonight would be vindication as long as I performed the ritual aright. No more aspersions about my charmless blood, or unfated ancestors. 
 
 Skuld grant, my thread shone silver with the Norns' favour. 
 
 Within the hour, my fate would be decided by the casting of three runes and a short poem committed to heart. 
 
 I paced along the rocky ledge, snow and spots of ice clinging to its face. Below, a ragged carpet of pines and spruces surrendered to the smoke-wreathed bonfires at the village. A place denied me until I made my offering or surrendered. 
 
 The seidr-master's rules were clear, tolling through the hushed long hall. Call forth our familiars and be welcomed with open arms, or break our staves and walk away. It is a harsh practice, but we are a harsh people in Finnmark, shaped by unforgiving nature to be strong, enduring. 
 
 I gathered my rough cloak and skirt in one hand, then trudged back to the circle. Roughly opening the rune pouch with my left hand was hard, even though I practiced in the dark for two turns of the moon to master it. My prize shone by the weak verdant light streaming overhead in playful banners. Two more stones slid over the soft linen into my palm, and I closed my eyes. 
 
 No more claims of weak blood. No more ill treatment, like I was little better than a toothless peasant in an alpine valley. 
 
 `` Kelda am I, | and Andla my mother, 
 
 I call a servant with a heart that is whole. 
 
 What payment is paid | for the seidr-woman 
 
 So get ye hence to my steading.'' 
 
 I flung the trio up where their shining faces threw the coruscating light in watery bands of witchfire. A good omen, I hoped. End over end they tumbled while I repeated my chant, pouring out my energy into a proper seeing. A fox, maybe. Yes, small and sly and quick like me. 
 
 Thuds answered my wandering thoughts. I looked down onto the moss and the icy banks to complete my reading, and picked a path down. One stood upright, telling me of home, but the other two stood on their edges upright. Whatever could that foretell? 
 
 No time to muddle about wondering. I hurried upon my way back to the village. 
 * 
 The shouts and cries of excited students mingled to a menagerie of chirps, beats, and yelps echoing up the valley. Half the village turned out in their finest robes and dresses, and how not? A ceremony like this only happened once a long year. 
 
 I passed one of the watchers in the trees and raised my hand in silent salute. Ragnar, I think it was, waved back. 
 
 The snowy woods ought to be thick with wildlife summoned by the seidr-master. Hruki promised the land would provide, as long as we called. It has been this way since the gods broke free of the northern ice and shook the land free from the sea. 
 Deer and hares were plentiful, along with hawks and the most coveted of all, eagles. I heard their furtive presences long before I saw them on the woodland route. We had speculated all season long whether tales of bears and boars were true. 
 
 I crept along the game path and kept imagining the green weight of the stones glowing in my hand, though they rested in the pouch below my throat. **Come**, I called out wordlessly. **I have marked you and called you to be my familiar. Show your face. ** 
 
 `` Kelda!'' 
 
 I stumbled, and caught myself on the roots of a cedar. Stumbling into a bush, I put my hand on a tree and blinked. `` Eh?'' 
 
 `` Kelda, girl, you're going to tear your hem at this rate.'' 
 
 The voice was unmistakeably warm and piping, one called the fairest in Finnmark. At least outside my father's hearing, for it was widely known in the village he liked no compliments given to the sweet-voiced, dark-haired woman he took to wife. In dismay, Andla sounded lovely, but her expression promised a thrashing when we got home. 
 
 I sighed. `` Mother, you ca n't be here. You'll interrupt me on the search.'' 
 
 She raised her black brows and pursed her mouth into a rosebud. Father brought her one from his trade in the west, to Englelonde and Ralmark. But she did not move. 
 
 I shook my head and breezed along the path, hunting for any sign. My woodcraft is fine as any other girl in Hruki's study, but the birds do not like to come in the long night. Their plumage gleams like dark jewels to a sharp eye, and mine spied none though I trudged in circles for a quarter-hour and more. 
 
 Patience is the art of a seidr-master, but tramping in snow and last season's dead fall is no fun. Finally I espied a shape in the gloom, low and snuffling, giving off a rank scent. Oh no. 
 
 No. `` Not you,'' I groaned aloud, clutching my side. The feral pig turned a beady red eye upon me, its great thick crest rustling. Weals painted on its side marked battles in seasons past, scar tissue as vivid as our warriors' paint. 
 
 The shortest girl in the hall coming back with a prime boar would be not only cause for derision, but anger. Hunters and warriors alike coveted such a prize, but for a mere girl? 
 
 He lowered his head. I opened my palms and showed him my seidr marks tattooed in blue on my wrists and forearms. Hruki said nothing about a need to name. Fierce animals turned familiar would lay down at our feet. 
 
 Not scuff their hoof in the dirt. Not point their tusks at me. 
 
 I startled and backed up. `` Oh no. Freya and Faldar have favour, I called you. Kelda am I! Get ye to my steading.'' 
 
 The boar bolted. I whirled and fled, running as fast as I could. Air sawed through my burning lungs. Bushes snagged and tore my dress. The fear overwhelmed shame at my failure as I screamed to the watchers, `` Boar! Help, a boar!'' 
 
 The village would laugh, that Kelda Andlasdottir was chased off by a boar and gave the watchers some real sport instead of the ceremonial position. Tears stung my eyes in hot drops and I stumbled over a log, scrambling to find footing on slippery earth and needles. 
 
 Bushes rustled and rattled their mournful tune as it followed. Men crashed through the undergrowth, too far to help, calling the hunting shouts to one another. Maybe a spear would take it, but we used hounds and trained familiars to bring down such a beast. But a girl unarmed? 
 
 I limped away as it emerged from the scrub, and stared at me across the path. Five yards at a run. I had no chance. 
 
 My mother stepped in front of me, her hair rising off her shoulders and flames puddling in her hands. One took the shape of a long spear twice as high as her, the other a round shield. She strode swiftly forward and leveled the spear, not for a cast, but for a jab. 
 
 `` Mama! Please --!'' 
 
 `` Silence before you harm us both!'' she hissed. 
 
 I choked as she entered a short, brutal dance of war. The clash of arms the skalds sing resembles nothing like what I saw under the polar lights, ancestors watching. She spun and danced with that beast which rushed at her, always turning as it galloped past and leaping high over its back. Her spear plunged again and pierced its hide, the thick cooked scent syrup sweet on the air. 
 
 The men came too late for their claim, arrows drawn and spears loosed, swords useless at their side. They came to a clearing thick with blood and the old beast falling on its side, froth around its snout, great wounds scored. 
 
 Their eyes turned from the radiant vision, bloodied and unwounded, to me, slumped against a pine tree. 
 
 Hruki pushed past them and stared. I hung my head, breathing heavily, though it was Mother, not I, who fought. 
 
 `` More for the feast, then,'' he said. 
 
 Mother watched him shuffle past. Two younger warriors were dispatched to drag the boar by its hind legs, and he ordered ropes brought out. 
 
 I had n't found my courage, but I found my voice. `` Master, I'm sorry. I failed you.'' 
 
 He looked back over his shoulder. `` Come along and eat. Fixes everything plain as day.'' 
 
 `` I ca n't. Give me that much pride, not to see the others...'' I could n't finish. The shame held back by terror closed in tighter than any cloak, the sensation crawling up my chest on spider legs and rough fishscales. Panic must have told for Mother turned, scowling, a disapproving downturn to her mouth. Yet she said nothing. 
 
 `` You're snow dazzled, that's what.'' 
 
 `` Master, I wo n't go!'' 
 
 He spat on the snow. `` Oh, I see. Now you've summoned the valkyrja for your familiar, you're too good for old Hruki is it? You plan to go to the jarl's court and impress them all, half-trained as you are?'' 
 
 The collective hush nailed my feet to the ground. I slumped back against the tree again. 
 
 `` What?'' 
 
 Hruki said nothing. Mother banished her spear and shield, instead coming over to brace me with her hands on my shoulders. Such strength she had from manning the nets and chopping wood, proper efforts of a homesteader. I'd not noticed her lack of calluses before, or her smoothed skin. 
 
 The men were whispering, even as they cast fearful looks my way. 
 
 `` Mother, what's going on?'' 
 
 `` You summoned me,'' she said. `` Do n't think this means a break upon your chores, girl.'' 
 
 `` But how?'' 
 
 `` Do I needs must repeat myself?'' Hruki's beetld brows descended. `` She's a valkyrja. Now she is your problem.'' 
 
 `` Now Bjorn will insufferable. Your father has waited ever since you had a mind to go to that wretched school. I hope you're happy,'' Mother said. `` Now about your hem...'' 
 
 And so I became known as Kelda Valkyrdottir, the seidr mistress. 

