Being in the wrong place at the wrong time was all it took for Adelasia's whole life to turn upside down. After being captured by the heathens raiding her city and taken all the way to the cold North, the youngest Ragnarsson takes an interest in her...
The winter passed by quicker than Alasia had expected and ever since she had made the dress for Margrethe's wedding, requests for pieces of clothing kept coming. She was glad for it, knowing it meant spending less time scrubbing the Great Hall till her hands were sore and flaming red. Most of her daily tasks now consisted of assisting Ivar in the mornings and evenings, sometimes accompanying him during the day to pour ale during one of the war councils with plans for the revenge of Ragnar Lothbrok, but mostly spending her time seaming clothes and stitching embrioderies.
"Have you made up your mind about my fate when you will go to England?" she asked softly as she combed the tangles out of his wild hair. It was a whole new skill she had needed to master, to sound interested, yet not too much, but she had managed it as the months passed, the snow started to melt and the ice broke. She knew the longboats would leave in a week's time, having heard so from the Viking bringing her the sails that would need mending, and she was anxious to know whether she was going to join him as he had intended before.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Ivar said, his voice sweet and childish. He was playing with a dagger, carelessly throwing it from one hand to the other, before suddenly turning his head around, almost causing her to poke him in the eye with the comb. He was regarding her with a blank look on his face, not wearing one of his treacherously happy expressions, but not revealing any other emotion either. "Tell me, do you wish to join me to England, hmm?"
She lowered the comb, carefully considering her words. "I have never been to England, but I have heard it's beautiful. Obviously not as much as my city, but worth of seeing still, my Prince," she said finally. Yes, I want to go to England. I want to be close to people I can understand, who share my religion and norms, who I can persuade to transport me to Naples for a large sum of money. I want to run away and never ever look back on this strange and cold and pagan Northern way of life. But even as the thoughts howled through her mind, she could feel the disagreement in her heart. Strangely enough, she had gotten used to the Northern way of life, even though she held tightly onto her Christian values, her only tie to home, and avoided any and all involvement with the heathen pracitces of the Vikings.
Ivar tilted his head slightly to the side, his eyes raking over her face with intense curiosity. "I have made up my mind about your place a long time ago," he continued after a moment of careful consideration. "And it will be by my side in England. Though I have learned the English tongue, you said you could translate as well and besides, it would just be too bothersome to teach another slave of the tasks that you perform."
