Though her inability to shift still bothered Valkyrie, she did her best not to let it show. Perhaps she was more like her family who couldn’t - it made her feel a little bit better to discover that there was both a grandfather and a grandmother who couldn’t, and there was nothing wrong with them. And she was never made to feel like she was less because of it - but she still wouldn’t have minded. There was a little flutter in her heart every time she watched an eagle take flight from one of Hyaline’s pines, or when she imagined the minuscule world that a frog might live in. Even if it was just one single shift, just the chance to see something a little different.

And she tried not to be jealous, she really did. She kept that sour feeling locked up tight with the flutter, fretting over how it made her seem ungrateful for the happy life she had.

The promise of a feast thrown by the Baltians was a welcome excitement, and the plants provided by the strange little frogs ensured that she wouldn’t even need to shift in order to join in. Myrna did not complain about having to travel by land, though Valkyrie felt guilty about it anyway, and she had just about worked herself into being in a sour mood because of the imagined bitterness that, once they finally arrived on the shore, she almost didn’t want to go at all.

But it is hard to be in a bad mood around her sisters, and when she looks to Myrna for guidance before entering the water she can feel the grip of jealousy ease a little.

“Are you ready?” She asks her older sister, though really the question is more directed at herself.