Fighting, Honour and Valhalla || Vikings x The Originals x TVD

A Night to Remember

The hall descended into glorious chaos the moment Thorfinn lifted Freydis onto his shoulders. She squealed with delight and clutched fistfuls of his white hair as though it were reins, her small legs kicking the air while he turned in fast circles so she could survey the madness below like a queen on her throne. Rebekah stayed close at his side with one hand resting on his lower back and the other reaching up to steady their daughter whenever she leaned too far forward. Gyda pressed in on his other flank laughing so hard she had to brace herself against his arm, her cheeks flushed from ale.

Thorfinn grinned wide enough to show teeth and began to stamp his feet in time with the pounding drums. "Hold fast little one or you will fly off like a raven scared from its perch!"

Freydis giggled and tugged harder. "Faster Papa! Make the hall spin!"

He obliged her with longer strides that carried all three of them deeper into the press of dancers. Rebekah matched his rhythm step for step her skirt already hiked high enough to show the lines of her calves while Gyda spun away then spun back again linking arms with her mother and laughing into the air.

Across the open floor Floki had climbed onto one of the long tables scattering plates and horns in every direction. He stood naked from the waist up his lean body painted with fresh runes in charcoal and blood-red ochre. In each hand he held a burning torch snatched from a wall sconce and he whirled them in circles above his head while he howled verses of an old song at the top of his lungs. The flames licked close enough to singe the ends of the little hair he had but he paid them no mind. Helga danced beneath him barefoot and bare-breasted her arms raised high as she caught droplets of hot pitch that fell from the torches and smeared them across her own skin in wild patterns laughing all the while.

"See how the fire loves me!" Floki shouted down to no one in particular. "It kisses but never burns true! Come join us you milk-blooded farmers or I will set the whole roof ablaze to warm your arses!"

Men roared approval and several stripped their tunics off in answer throwing the wool into the growing pile near the central hearth until half the hall danced bare-chested or entirely naked. Torstein was already among them his breeches unlaced and hanging on his hips while he thrust his hips in crude imitation of a rutting boar and pulled two thrall girls against him at once. One rode his thigh with her head thrown back moaning loud enough to be heard over the drums while the other knelt before him working him with her mouth in full view of anyone who cared to look. He threw his head back and bellowed laughter between ragged breaths.

"By Thor's mighty cock this is how men should feast!" he roared. "Eat drink fuck and fight till the sun rises or till we drop whichever comes first!"

The Nubian had claimed the space near the musicians where he now led a line of dancers. He slapped his bare thighs with both hands in beat then leapt high and landed in a crouch only to spring up again spinning on one heel with arms flung wide. Every time he landed the floorboards groaned and the crowd answered with stomps and claps that shook hanging shields from their pegs.

A cluster of young women followed his every move shedding clothes as they went until they danced in nothing but skin and their silver arm-rings. One of them a tall Dane with freckles across her breasts grabbed The Nubian around the waist and kissed him hard enough to draw blood from his lip. He laughed into her mouth lifted her clean off her feet and spun her in a circle while she wrapped her legs around him and ground down shamelessly.

Sophia had also let loose completely. She stood atop a bench with her tunic unlaced to the navel and her dark hair around her shoulders. In one hand she held a drinking horn filled to the brim with mead while in the other she gripped a short axe she had borrowed from some warrior who now watched her with hungry eyes. She drank deep letting golden liquid spill down her chin and between her breasts then threw the empty horn aside and leapt down into the group of bodies.