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At first glance, the notru training hall looked nearly identical to the jatta one, at least in size and structure. There was a single large room with several smaller rooms off to the side, though one look was enough to show that the notru used their available space a little differently. As with the jatta, there were some fighting rings, but in this case, there were only two. However, the notru were also using their floor space for a large pond, a large sand box, and even a boulder that had a ten foot diameter.

It had been four days since I’d been given a tour of the jatta training hall, now I was being given one of the notru hall. Julie had escorted me inside where I was immediately met by two women, one of whom was a short haired blonde woman named Sharra, who was the notru equivalent of Ragnhild. She was not only the Val Kyr in charge of the notru, but also one of Freya’s three generals.

The other woman who’d met me upon entering was Natalie, who at 5 foot 6, was the shortest Val Kyr I’d seen, as well as the first black one. Natalie was built like a professional gymnast, compact with a lot of lean muscle, and as Julie had proudly announced when introducing her, she was also Julie’s mentor.

“Welcome to the notru hall, Michelle,” Sharra greeted me with a friendly smile. “Though you are not notru, I hope that we may help you learn to master your val.”

“Julie has mentioned you once or twice,” Natalie commented with a wry smile while Julie just blushed brightly.

Sharra nodded faintly, then told me, “That you were willing to sacrifice your life in order to save hers has earned you much goodwill from this hall.” She gestured to Natalie and added, “For today, Natalie will act as your escort.”

Once Sharra turned and walked away, Julie blurted out, “Isn’t this place awesome?”

“It is impressive,” I agreed, deciding not to mention that it had the exact same architecture as the jatta hall.

I looked around again, still a little surprised at receiving such a warm welcome. There were a lot of Val Kyr who kept giving me suspicious or disapproving looks, but admittedly, there seemed to be an increasing number who were willing to at least be friendly.

Nicole was one of the Val Kyr who’d seemed hostile at first but who was starting to become something of a friend. Over the last few days, she’d hung out with Julie and me a few times when we weren’t training, mostly just to talk about the modern world and things that the older Val Kyr didn’t understand. Until Julie and I had arrived, she’d been the youngest Val Kyr, and she was more than happy to be able to talk with people a little closer to her own age.

Natalie started the tour by taking me straight to the pool of water, which was about six inches deep. Without saying a word, she reached into the water, and as she touched it, I felt her releasing val. As her essence mixed with the water, waves formed and pushed away, then a column of water rose up about two feet before suddenly freezing into a column of ice.

“Every Val Kyr generates an amount of essence,” Natalie explained with a faint smile, “but we notru generate much more. We can infuse our essence into the environment and use that to manipulate it.”

“Except for things that are alive,” Julie added, obviously trying to show off something she’d already learned.

Natalie nodded at that. “We can’t control anything with a life force of its own. But things like stone or water…” She touched the column of ice, which immediately returned to liquid and fell back into the pool. “We use these arenas to practice our control.”

Julie reached to the water, putting the palm of her hand on the surface and releasing some essence the same way that Natalie had a moment earlier. Ice crystals formed over the surface of the water and spread out halfway across the pond, forming a thin layer of ice.

I was paying close attention to what Julie and Natalie had done, and after Julie made the ice melt, I asked, “Can I try?”

Natalie just smiled faintly and gestured for me to go ahead. So I reached for the water and tried to duplicate what I saw them doing, pushing my val energy out as essence and mixing it with the water. I spent about ten seconds with my hand in the water before I was able to release any essence at all, and when I did, ice crystals began to form in the water. I immediately pulled my hand back, remembering when Julie had tried to demonstrate that same trick in the baths and had accidentally frozen her hand in ice.

“Interesting,” Natalie commented, giving me a curious look. I didn’t understand until she explained, “Though every Val Kyr generates essence, it can take weeks of using a weapon before it is infused with enough essence to be noticeable. And this…” She gestured to the water. “Anyone not of the notru would have had to work for half an hour to form the ice crystals you just did.”

“Really?” I asked in surprise.

“Try it again,” Natalie instructed me, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “I want to see how much essence you can impart into the water…”

I turned my attention back to the water, feeling nervous and excited at the same time. I was finally learning how to do something with my val, or at least something other than boosting my strength and healing my bruises. As I repeated the exercise with the essence, I was able to feel the water almost as though it was a part of me, though only the area near my hand, no more than a foot away at most. I tried stretching it further but didn’t have enough essence.

Finally, I pulled my hand out of the water, though I did keep hold of some of the water. It was in the palm of my hand, held together in a sphere by my essence so that it looked like a crystal ball. This seemed to be about the limit of what I could do with my essence, but it was still pretty impressive to me. I grinned as I threw it back into the water, though it broke up immediately after leaving my hand.

“You aren’t generating nearly the amount of essence that a notru does,” Natalie said, “but you are generating enough to be noticeable.”

“Awesome,” Julie exclaimed, suddenly giving me a hug. “Isn’t it cool being able to do that?”

“Chill with the puns,” I responded, only to have Julie giggle.

“As you can see,” Natalie said as she gestured to the sand box and the boulder, “we practice with other materials as well. In fact, it was the notru who built most of Val Halla using that technique.”

“It’s pretty cool,” I agreed, only to wince as I realized that I’d inadvertently made the same pun Julie had. Julie grinned and stuck her tongue out at me.

Natalie held up her spear for me to get a better look at, then commented, “You may have noticed that spears are a preferred weapon of the notru.”

I paused to look around the hall, noticing that most of the women present were armed with spears, pikes, or polearms, though a number of them also had daggers and swords on their belts. I knew that Julie was practicing with a spear, and she had said that this was what notru usually used.

“Why is that?” I asked.

Natalie merely smiled and reached out with her spear, touching the tip of it into the water. As she did this, I felt her sending essence into the spear, then channeling it all the way through to the tip, which turned the water into ice.

“Spears, in their various forms, can be quite effective as weapons,” Natalie explained. “But they also allow us to channel our essence more effectively, letting us do such things as taking control of the ground beneath an opponent without having to get within their reach.”

“Got it,” I said, definitely seeing the advantages of that.

After this, we continued the tour, letting me see the various notru training exercises and methods. One thing that especially caught my attention was that there were a couple women in the corner, sculpting stone statues…with their bare hands. They were molding stone as though it was clay, just to practice fine control.

Then we went to the sand box, where two women were sparring, using both their spears and their essence. I watched in amazement as they lunged back and forth, using the sand as a weapon just as much as their spears, often by trying to yank the ground out from beneath each other and manipulate the battlefield.

“Okay, we don’t have a patronus or anything like that,” Julie told me, looking just a little smug, “but this is still really cool.”

“Yeah, it is,” I told her, feeling a little jealous that she’d be able to do that kind of thing once she had a bit more practice. Sure I had a little bit of essence, but not enough to really do anything with.

We watched the sparring for a little longer, then Natalie decided to put me through some spear training along with Julie. Julie was excited and kept sticking her tongue out at me, mostly because she was well ahead of me in this class. Not only had she already been practicing with the spear, but she also had a lot more essence to work with. I didn’t like that I was obviously at the bottom of the class, but I did appreciate the fact that Natalie was trying to teach me anyway.

“Shall we spar?” Natalie finally asked me, which immediately got Julie to giggling.

“This should be fun,” Julie said, giving me a broad grin.

We went into the large stand box, where Natalie proceeded to kick my ass. At first, she just showed me what she could do with a spear, then she began using her essence as well. I’d lunge at her and she’d sweep the ground, sending a wall of sand up into the air between us. Then her entire spear burst into flame and she came at me with that. It was pretty obvious that I was outmatched, and it pissed me off a little that she’d go through so much trouble just to humiliate me. However, I refused give in did my best to beat her, not that it did much good.

When Natalie was finished, Julie blurted out, “She did that to me the first time I sparred with her too… She really likes to show off…”

“I was merely trying to demonstrate exactly what the notru offer to a triad,” Natalie explained, though she was smirking faintly. “I don’t know what your role will be, but you will need to understand what your team is capable of and how you can work with them.”

A few minutes later, I was sparring again, but this time against Julie, who was much closer to my level, though still more experienced with both using a spear and with her essence. She had a new confidence, a kind that I wasn’t used to seeing from her, but it suited her. For the first time, I could suddenly imagine what she’d be in a hundred years. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t picture that for myself.

As Natalie had already demonstrated, and which Julie continued to do, though much less effectively, going against the notru was quite different from facing a jatta. The jatta tended to come straight at me, using attacks that took full advantage of their massive strength, while the notru tended to hold back and work at keeping me off balance, then striking when they had the right opportunity. In video game terms, the jatta were the tanks and warriors while the notru seemed to focus largely on crowd control.

By the time we were finished, Julie was quite pleased with herself, or at least at having had the chance to show off her new skills. “Consider this payback for my wrist,” Julie told me smugly.

“Yeah,” I responded wryly, rubbing my tailbone which had been bruised a bit when she’d hit me with a massive burst of wind that caught me off balance and knocked me on my ass. “I kind of feel like I came to a sword fight armed with a salami…”

“Mmmmm…salami,” Julie said, doing a bad impression of Homer Simpson.

“Yeah, you’re becoming a real badass,” I told Julie, who just grinned at that. I tried not to let her see that I was actually a little jealous since she was doing so well in her pillar and I didn’t even have one. It was nice that they were letting me train with them, and that certainly helped, but it also reminded me that I just didn’t have what it took to be notru or keep up with them.

“I wish I could show everyone at school,” Julie admitted, looking a little sad. “I mean, I’m probably a lot stronger than Buff now, so it would be awesome to see the look on his face when I lifted more than him in the gym…” I chuckled at the mental image, agreeing that it would be fun.

“And I bet Shelly Nelson would be jealous of you too,” I pointed out, thinking about the girl who used to try picking on Julie and wondering how she’d react to seeing just how much Julie had developed in such a short time. That just made Julie’s grin even broader, and I could see the wheels turning in her mind. I was pretty sure that she was trying to figure out of it would be possible to go home for a visit, just so she could show off for Shelly. However, my mood dimmed as I realized that Shelly would now be jealous of me as well.

“You still have a lot to learn,” Natalie reminded Julie, though a moment later, she admitted, “Though you are doing pretty good.”

Natalie and Julie escorted me to the exit, and to my surprise, Sharra came over as well. She stared at me with an odd look, then gave me a gentle smile. “You are welcome back anytime, Michelle. There is much you may learn from the notru.”

“Thank you,” I responded, feeling a bit confused by the mixed reactions I was getting among the Val Kyr…among the other Val Kyr. A lot of them seemed to dislike me on general principal, but Sharra was being surprisingly friendly. She was one of the oldest Val Kyr, so I would have expected her to be bothered by the fact that I was only a Val Kyr because Lindrell had broken several major rules.

“I have something new to show you,” Natalie told Julie, leading her back into the hall while I left.

I felt just a little dazed as I walked through the hall, still feeling like an outsider, but not quite as much. Both the notru and jatta had made me feel welcome in their training halls, when I wasn’t even with either pillar. And from what I’d been told, I’d have a chance to train with the kaern as well. I’d already had a little experience with kaern fighting, thanks to sparring with Shannon, but I was curious to see the inside of their hall.

“Enough with that,” I muttered, deciding that since I was done for the day, I didn’t want to think about my training any more. Instead, I wanted to focus on something much nicer…like a bath. Though I wasn’t nearly as bruised as I would have been after sparring with Lindrell, I was still a bit sore and tired, so the thought of soaking in hot water was definitely appealing.

I had mixed feelings as I arrived at the bath house, which was no surprise since I still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of bathing in front of a bunch of strangers. However, none of them treated it as anything strange and the baths did feel good. So as soon as I arrived, I got undressed then hurried as quickly as I could to an empty pool. I tried to act as though I wasn’t bothered by everyone seeing me naked, though I wasn’t sure how well I succeeded. But once I climbed into the massive tub, I closed my eyes, let out a long sigh, and just savored the hot water.

While I just sat there soaking, I listened to the noise around me, realizing that I could actually make out every conversation that was taking place in the bath house. One woman was talking about a former lover…in enough graphic detail to make me blush. Two other women were whispering sweet nothings to each other, which not only made me blush, but also tempted me to try getting a look at them.

“Daemons are starting to build up outside the walls again,” one Val Kyr told the women she was with. “At the rate they’re building, I think we can expect another siege soon…”

“That will be annoying,” one of her companions responded. I actually recognized the woman speaking as someone I’d met while training with the jatta. “But at least the daemons will be gathered in one place. What I’m concerned about is the number of incursions we’ve been seeing on Earth. You remember the last time we had a spike in daemon incursions…”

“How could I forget?” the first woman responded with a snort. “You don’t think someone is trying to organize the daemonites again, do you?”

However, before I could hear the response, someone else joined them and the topic of conversation changed to a discussion about which decades had the best clothing fashions. I just shook my head at that, finding it amusing that even near immortal Val Kyr would succumb to the stereotype of talking about fashion.

Then another conversation caught my attention as one woman commented, “I don’t understand why Freya is letting that convert stay…”

“Men are brutish, selfish, and lazy,” the woman with her stated as though that was a simple fact. “I refuse to fight alongside one…or with someone who used to be one. After what happened with Estrid, I would have thought Lindrell would know better than to try converting one of THEM into Val Kyr.”

I continued listening to their conversation, hoping that I could get more information on this Estrid person I’d heard mentioned a couple times, but unfortunately, they didn’t provide any information. Instead, they just complained about men in general, and not just the complaints that every woman had. It was clear that these women had nothing but hatred and contempt for men, which made me very uncomfortable while listening to them.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by such militant feminist views, especially since Val Halla was basically a feminist utopia. There were no men and all the women were superhuman immortals, so I would have thought that women like that would be happy. Then again, here I was, a former man who was ‘invading’ their utopia, at least from their perspective. I was just glad that not everyone in Val Halla felt the same way.

Once I’d listened to their venom enough, I turned my attention away from them and just tried to focus on how good the hot water felt on my body. My new body still felt a bit weird to me, but at that moment, I didn’t really mind. In fact, having my breasts sort of bobbing a little in the water was actually sort of pleasant.

I’d been in the bath for nearly twenty minutes when another woman climbed into the same pool I was using, not even going to the other side. Though I was trying hard not to look at the naked woman who sat down a short distance away from me, I couldn’t help but notice that she had a nice body and long brown hair.

“You’re Michelle, right?” she asked.

“Um…yeah,” I responded self-consciously, blushing brightly and sinking a little further into the water.

“I’m Fleur,” she introduced herself pleasantly, surprising me a little by the way she was casually talking to me in the bath, as though it was completely normal. Then again, considering that all the other women seemed to do the same thing, it probably was normal for this place. “I meant to talk to you when you first arrived, but I got called away on a daemon hunt and didn’t return until last night.”

That made me curious and I took another look at the woman, realizing that she looked vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place where at first. Then it dawned on me where I’d seen her. During my meeting with Freya, Fleur was the woman who’d spoken up on my behalf.

“I remember you,” I blurted out in surprise. “You said you were a convert too…”

“Oui,” Fleur responded with a friendly smile. “There are still a few of us around, though we usually don’t speak of it.” She gestured in the direction of the women who’d been badmouthing men. “There are too many Val Kyr who share those attitudes…”

I squirmed uncomfortably, realizing that she knew I’d been listening in on their conversation. However, Fleur didn’t seem the least bothered by that.

“Why?” I asked. Ever since I’d arrived, I wanted to know why so many Val Kyr didn’t like converts, but there were always so many things going on that I’d never really asked, or at least I hadn’t gotten a straight answer from Lindrell when I did.

Fleur was silent for a moment, looking a little sad as she finally answered, “Because most of the Val Kyr were born in a world very different from the one you know, one where women were often thought of as being inferior…or even property. Some of our sisters were married off without say in the matter, when they were little more than children themselves. Some were raped or forced into life as whores. Then one day, they were chosen as Val Kyr. They suddenly become stronger and more powerful than any of the men in their lives.”

“Damn,” I gasped, not sure what else I could say to something like that. I’d known that life had been pretty rough in the past, but I hadn’t really considered what it would have been for the women who lived in those times.

“Many of our sisters…overcompensate for their past lives,” Fleur told me sadly.

I stared at Fleur for a moment, no longer thinking about the fact that she was naked in the water, just six feet away from me. Then I glanced in the direction of the women I’d overheard talking earlier.

“And that’s why they don’t like converts?” I asked.

Fleur hesitated a moment, then responded, “One of the reasons.”

“And Estrid was another?” I asked, earning a faint wince from Fleur. “Who is Estrid? I’ve heard her name a few times, but…”

“Estrid wasn’t the start of the suspicion towards converts,” Fleur explained with a sigh. “Merely the final straw.”

I frowned, waiting for her to continue. I could see the thoughtful look on her face and knew that she was trying to decide how to phrase her answer.

“Once, converts were not so rare,” Fleur told me with a faint smile. “This was long before I became Val Kyr, but I was told that converts were honored for the sacrifice they made in order to join the war against daemons. But even then, becoming a woman was not easy…especially for those who were raised with the belief that women were inferior. Because of this, the only men who were converted were those who had already proven their courage and skill…warriors and soldiers.”

“The legends say that valkyries used to take fallen warriors to Valhalla,” I said, realizing that this was true, though not at all the way the legends suggested.

“Indeed,” Fleur agreed. “There were few warriors who also had a spark of the val sleeping within, but those who did were watched closely. As most would never sacrifice their manhood, the Val Kyr who watched over them waited until the right moment...usually when they were injured in battle. At that moment, they were far more likely to accept the honor of becoming Val Kyr…”

“Because it would save their lives,” I said in understanding. After all, that was exactly what Lindrell had done for me. She’d turned me into Val Kyr in order to save my life.

“This was how I became Val Kyr,” Fleur told me, smiling faintly. “Once, I was a young soldier in the service of France, but during my second battle, I fell to the enemy soldiers. I would have perished had Glinde not revealed herself to defeat the soldiers and convert me.” She paused for a moment before admitting, “At first, I thought she was an angel.”

I nodded at that, trying to imagine what it would have been like. If I hadn’t been saved by Lindrell the way I had, I probably wouldn’t have been able to picture it at all.

“So, what happened?” I asked Fleur.

“About seven hundred years ago,” Fleur explained, “A few centuries before I was born, a small group of converts conspired with some daemonites. I don’t know the details, but they allowed a breach into Val Halla…and a lot of Val Kyr died…including most of the converts.”

I just sat there for a moment, trying to absorb what she’d just told me. If a group of converts had betrayed the Val Kyr, then it was no wonder they were so suspicious of us. Then again, Fleur hadn’t said anything about this Estrid person.

“Afterwards,” Fleur continued, “the converts who remained where looked upon with suspicion and most Val Kyr were hesitant to convert more. Many converts had a difficult time adjusting, something made worse by this attitude. Some held to their old beliefs that women were inferior and came to believe that they were cursed, which only encouraged the ill feelings towards us.” She paused for a moment before adding, “Sadly, Estrid was one of these…”

“I’ve heard some people say that Estrid didn’t have a pillar,” I said quietly, trying to keep my voice steady. “Like me.”

Fleur nodded at that, frowning as she did so. “Estrid was converted a mere decade after myself. She had chosen to become Val Kyr, knowing what it meant, but came to regret the decision. Like you, she had no pillar, and she resented this lack of power even more, feeling that she’d sacrificed her manhood for nothing. Her anger and resentment became a poison to her soul.”

“What happened?” I asked, knowing that it wouldn’t be anything good.

“She murdered five of our sisters,” Fleur stated grimly. “Three of them converts like ourselves. Afterwards, she fled Val Halla, running into the mists where she was probably slaughtered by daemons.”

I didn’t know what I could possibly say to that, though it certainly explained all the hostility towards converted…and why so many were concerned about my not having a pillar. I gulped at that, thinking about my own anger and resentment…and just how easily it would have been to embrace those. If it hadn’t been for Julie and Lindrell, I probably would have.

“Being a woman is no curse,” Fleur told me with a reassuring smile. “It may be difficult to accept at first, but it is well worth doing so. Just remember, convert or not, you are Val Kyr…and you are not alone.”