You Are My Romeo

Chapter 2: Oleander

~Astrid~

" — and then, I chopped the dragon's head clean off! Thor, you should have seen the spray of blood from that dragon's throat! Took me ages to scrub it all off, but I got this wicked scar on my arm to remember it by, as well as the head of the dragon!" A roaring laughter erupted from Dagur as he presented the pink and jagged scar that stretched from the top of his shoulder all the way down to the crook of his elbow to my father, who forced a polite chuckle, but was probably in the midst of devising some plan to save me from the claws of that terrifying man.

My knife cut deeply into the steak before me as I tried my best to remain unnoticed, which wasn't a specifically hard feat for a woman in my time and day. Fortunately for me, I had been born into a tribe in which the difference between women and men are for the most part what you've got between your legs — but if you were a warrior, like me, you would be respected in the same way that a man was. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case in all tribes, like the Berserker tribe. If I ended up marrying Dagur, I would never get the chance to become a shield maiden, I would never be able to fight on a battlefield; I would be stuck at home, baking bread all day whilst having to comfort a small army of crying children. A shiver shot down my spine at the very though of that future. Gods, how I hoped I would manage to find some way out of that horrid bethrotal.

Whilst I had been silently predicting a horrible future for myself, my father's general, Ulfric, had been talking my ear off with stories from his early dragon-killing days. As a little girl, his stories had always fascinated and amazed me, but as I grew older I had heard them all a thousand times and could probably recite each and every one from memory. Gods, did Ulfric need some action.

It seemed like the gods had been listening to my light suggestion seeing as suddenly, violent coughing erupted from beside me. I turned to face my father so quickly a loud 'pop!' sounded from my neck.

The sight I was met with as I faced my father however, was one that I was certain I would be seeing in my nightmares for years to come. The Great Chief of Averon was white as freshly fallen snow and slowly swaying from side to side, making him look like a deer attempting to stand on its own four legs for the first time and failing terribly at doing so. I didn't even have the chance to react before his eyes crossed and he fell face-first into the stew before him, his entire body going unnaturally still moments after.

A wave of nausea washed over me as my hands unwillingly began to shake. In a rather panicked state, I threw myself over my father before anyone else had the chance to get close to him and pulled him up from the stew in which he had landed, face dripping with its contents as I violently shook him in a desperate attempt to bring him back to a conscious state. "Dad? Daddy?"

"What are you oafs all standing around and moping for?" Ulfric shot up from his seat and roared at the gaping crowd like a grizzly bear that had just been woken from its slumber. "Fetch the healer! Our Chief is ill!"

Ulfric's gentle words of encouragement seemed to have knocked some sense back into some of the villagers, who scrambled out of their seats and hurried to go find the healer.

A moment later, realization seemed to have settled over the remaining villagers, who went into a full on frenzy at the sight of their fearless and mighty Chief being momentarily incapacitated. With a flurry of curse words, Ulfric jumped over the table and ran off to help calm down some of the villagers, leaving me alone with my father and ... Dagur.

The Berserker Chief picked up the bowl my father's face had been in mere moments before, studying like it was some ancient artifact from some lost civilization that had just been dug up and handed to him. A sigh escaped Dagur as he slowly shook his head. "Purple oleander ... my, this most certainly does not bode well for your father, my dear Astrid."