Gunnar took over the tour and led Astyr downstairs and back into the main part of the house. They passed through the kitchen and entered the rotunda with its stained glass dome above and the sweeping staircase circling up the wall to the second floor. The upstairs contained a game room and Gunnar's room and three extra rooms that were currently unoccupied. Part of the upstairs space was open to the billiard room below. The tour bypassed most of this and concentrated on the game room and Gunnar's room.

The game room was directly above the formal living room where Gunnar's parents were sitting with Grima and both rooms had the same generous dimensions. There were three tall French doors opening onto the rear balcony that overlooked the swimming pool and patio in the back yard. This room had one long sofa facing the wall on which was mounted an enormous flat-screen television. The console below was filled with an array of gaming consoles and the coffee table was decorated with the same flotsam as Hakon's coffee table. There was a foosball table in one corner and a small table set with a chess set in the other.

Two doors led off from the game room and one of these led to Gunnar's bedroom. It was a very large room with views of the swimming pool decorated in very expensive leather covered furniture.

Hakon and Astyr sat on the sleek two-seater sofa against the wall and Gunnar threw himself down onto the low king-sized bed.

"So this is home-sweet-home." Gunnar said, "What do you think?"

"I think this might be the biggest building I've ever been in in my entire life," she answered laughing. "How many more people live here?"

Hakon chuckled and said, "It's just us, but sometimes we have guests stay over." The way he looked at her as he said that made her wonder just what kind of guests he meant. Apparently, Astyr wasn't the only one who noticed that look because Gunnar jumped up off the bed and grabbed Astyr's hand pulling her up.

"Come on, you two," he said, "It's time we went down to dinner."

So they went back down the staircase and instead of turning back towards the living room, headed to the entryway in the front. There was an open door to the left that led to a library. The wall to the right was open and led into a large dining room with a roaring fire in the fireplace at the far end and French doors leading to the wide front porch on one wall. These were covered with luxurious taffeta curtains in a rich wine color and the walls were covered in expensive wood paneling. Opposite to the windows was a small door that led to the butler's pantry but the main focal point of the room was the enormous polished wooden table in the center of the room. There were twelve carved wood chairs around it and they were covered in gold colored silk damask fabric.

Frey, Gerda and Grima joined them and they sat down to dinner. Dinner was a casual affair and though the food was rich, the conversation was light.

Later, as Grima and Astyr were saying their goodbyes, Gunnar came up to Astyr and gave her a quick, but tight, hug. "You know, you can call me anytime you want to talk about any of this." He said letting go. Astyr smiled in thanks to him and walked to the car with Grima.

The next morning, Astyr woke early to get in a jog. She had too much to think about and the physical exertion would do her good. So as the mist was just starting to burn off, Astyr stretched her muscles and headed off down the driveway. As she reached the end where it connected with the pitted dirt road, she heard the sound of running feet. The mist was still too thick to see very far so Astyr moved back against the trunk of a tree and waited to see who was coming. Shortly after, she caught a glimpse of a large man running along the road. It was the same man she had jogged with yesterday and she almost laughed at loud in relief.

Just as he was passing the driveway, she jogged out to the road to join him. "Hi Randy." She said. "Hey Astyr," he replied. "I didn't think you'd be out this early."

She told him that she just happened to get up early that morning and since there was no school, she felt like a jog.

"Well, lucky for me then." He said.

Well, maybe lucky for me, Astyr thought glancing at him from the corner of her eyes. He was wearing a pair of white basketball shorts and the color was doing a great job of showing off his tan skin. His chest was smooth and his abs were rock-hard with an 8-pack. Even the oblique muscles on his sides were chiseled and formed a ridge that could be followed down to the waistband of his shorts and beyond. That was as far as Astyr let her eyes wander and she told herself to concentrate on her running.

Astyr had never had a boyfriend before, it was hard to get close to someone when looking into their eyes was not possible, but that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the beauty of a fit male form. It even crossed her mind that since she could now control the visions she suffered from, maybe she could think about dating. It was something to think about but she decided now wasn't the time. Running right beside a man who could be a model was very likely to bias her opinion, so she put these thoughts aside.

She discovered during the jog that Randy was eighteen, had graduated the year before and moved here with his father over the summer. He was working as a mechanic in town for now, taking some time before college to spend time with his dad. He didn't mention his mother but Astyr got the feeling there was a story about that, possibly painful.

As they got closer to Grima's driveway again, he pointed out an almost overgrown driveway. "That's our place." he said. "Feel free to stop by if you need a cup of sugar." His light brown eyes almost smoldered as he said that and Astyr felt a shiver run down her spine.

They continued on past his driveway, he said he wanted to do another lap around the block, and she wished him a good day at her driveway and headed home. She wasn't sure if the jog had cleared her mind or given her too much more to think about so she went to take a hot shower in an effort to not have to think about any of it.

As she was dressing, she heard the roar of Hakon's engine and looked out the window to see his shiny black Camaro coming towards the house. By the time she was decent, they were sitting at the dining table having coffee with Grima. Astyr poured herself a cup and sat with them. "Good morning," she said "I'm starting to wonder if you guys are stalking me." They all laughed at that but Gunnar added "You're the one who came to our house last night, you know, maybe you're stalking me."

"Maybe I am, Gunnar." She answered. "So if you're not stalking me, what brings you guys over this early in the morning?"

Grima decided to answer this, "Hakon is going to teach you how to shoot an arrow."

"Hakon is going to what?" she said in disbelief. "Why on earth do I need to learn archery?"

"Well," Grima started, "It's considered something of an art-form among our kind. And it's sometimes useful." Astyr couldn't imagine anything less useful at the moment so she tried to think of some other aspect of the strangeness. "Ok," she said, "but why Hakon? Why can't you teach me like you taught me with the sticks?"

"Hakon is an excellent archer." Grima said. "And the boys really want to help you out, dear. Please give them a chance." She added.

Oh well, Astyr thought, maybe it would be like Kendo and give her another way of focusing while fighting. But somehow she couldn't imagine shooting with a bow and arrow to be anything like sword fighting.

The rest of the day proved her wrong. Archery turned out to be far more demanding than she had thought, both mentally and physically. Her shoulders, back and abs were burning from the constant strain of stretching back the bowstring while trying to steady an arrow and aim at the same time. Her mind was reeling because while Gunnar had kept up a steady string of friendly flirtation, Hakon had been in near constant physical contact with her the entire day; touching her wrist to adjust her aim, gripping her elbow to steady her grasp on the bowstring, and the worst of all, standing behind her with one hand over hers gripping the bow and the other pressed flat against her belly to encourage her to have the proper posture. His body was warm and she could feel him next to her even when he wasn't touching her. It was almost as distracting as Gunnar's constant chatter and by the time they called it a day, she had managed to shoot only one bull's-eye in the target set up in the yard. She had never before had trouble learning anything, especially when it came to martial arts and sports, and she was really disgusted with herself for letting her standards down just because there were two boys around.

When they finally left after lunch, she grabbed the old-fashioned longbow that Hakon had given her and the quiver full of arrows and headed back out into the yard. She took a deep breath and took into herself the stillness of the woods around her. She notched an arrow and pulled back the bowstring and just stood and held it ready waiting for the moment to be right. She felt a deep sense of peace and as she sighted down the arrow towards the target, she knew that there was no way she could miss. Letting go of the string, she watched as the brightly fletched arrow soared in a perfect arc and slammed straight into the dead center of the target.

Great, she thought, now I just need to learn how to do that with those two around.

She spent the rest of the afternoon alone in the yard shooting arrow after arrow into the center of the target, absolutely not thinking of a certain three guys.