Blasphemy [Finan the Agile]

CHAPTER xxv. 'A Sea of Corpsed-Men'

ﾟ❁ུ۪ °ₒ 𓂂 ˚ 𓂂 ₒ ° ₒ 𓂂 ˚˖⋆

CHAPTER xxv. 'A Sea of Corpsed-Men'

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Freydis' bones rattled with a chill vigorous enough to fret a Kievan Rus. Following the tumultuous wave that capsized their ship, Freydis, Finan, and the rest of Uhtred's crew floated unceasingly clutched to the ropes, and splinters of the soggy alderwood mast. Never before had the Irish-rogue felt such mind-numbing exhaustion, not even when she would spend days up at Dunholm working relentlessly as Skjold Arinbjornsson's royal hostage. On multiple occasions she had to dunk her head in the water to ensure she wouldn't fall asleep, and drift into the afterlife that impatiently awaited her arrival. And on multiple other occasions, she had to dunk the boy's heads into the water to ensure they didn't drift into the afterlife. Whilst dying alone, and forsaken in Manannán's forlorn sea might have not been as easy as closing your eyes, and falling into a perpetual sleep, Freydis could feel the life quickly draining out of her in the few short hours they had been stranded in the freezing waters of the North Sea.

Freydis' agony began the moment she awoken ontop the wood of the mast with her body soaked, and belly full of egregious seawater. Her body shook like a victim of a head-injury in battle, and as she coughed up her latest drink, the Irish-rogue, at one moment, imagined an abhorrent creature of innumerable tentacles and untold reputation grappling itself up her esophagus. Nathless of what it truly was, whether it was imaginary or something she had actually swallowed upon their capsizing, whatever she had coughed up was soggy, and it only prolonged her puking-session into their surrounding waters.

Once she executed her last retch, she finally gained the strength and confidence to push herself up from the humiliating sick-stance she took during her episode. The first thing she noticed was the fact her legs were completely numb, with her lower extremities yearning to stretch despite their deprived state. The next thing she noticed was that her hair was being held up. She looked behind her to see her fellow Irishman leaning against the mast with most of his body in the water as his icy-white fist messily accumulated her knotted locks out of the way from her floating puke-water. The man was visibly wretched. His hair slacked against his clammy skin whereas his body mimicked an icy-hue in comparison to her red-blushed misery of inflamed dermis. She furthermore noticed that his lips wept like melted candlewax, and parts of his eyes were tinted yellow in contrast to their bloodshot hue. If her Irishman looked like this after hours of drifting along icy northern waters, the Irish–rogue could only wonder how she appeared after hours of being unconscious without movement.

Finan's teeth chattered as he spoke, and his knuckles struggled to elongate as he removed his hand from her discheveled locks. "Done?" He inquired, pronouncing the 'D' for every frostbit-finger Freydis was bound to have.

She nodded, shifting her hold on the mast so her upper-back was no longer drenched in seawater. "H-How long have w-w-we been out h-here?"

Finan looked toward the horizon, taking in the orange and red-hues that had been nowhere near their current displayal when Uhtred's ship was overtaken by Manannán's snare. "Four or f-five hours," he stated, "feels l-like it's been a-ages tho– o-oi, open yu'r e-eyes, Frey."