"Look away," Mother warns as Father takes an axe to the man's back. Finn obeys. I do not. I can't. My eyes refuse to move, glued to the scene before me. The first strike of the axe echoes through the clearing, the sound of a heavy blade chopping through flesh, and later, bone. The man screams. He screams for mercy. Screams for the Gods to help him. They don't. He has brought this on himself. This much I know.
A man cannot force himself on a free woman without consequence. This is his, as decided by our laws.
The woman in question, a young pretty thing named Ingrid, can't seem to tear her eyes off her attacker either. She watches with a stone-cold face, though something akin to satisfaction gleams in her gaze whenever Father delivers a new strike.
Father is spattered in blood. His face is almost entirely red, even his beard. Finn hides his face in his hands. Mother grimaces. I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue.
My heart is beating quickly, though not from fear. Something else. Something I don't quite understand or can remember having experienced before.
The man wails one last time before his head slumps forward onto his chest, and all that can be heard is the sound of his ribs being broken and peeled back, like brittle twigs. It seems like hard work. Father's face is strained. But he manages.
He pulls something out of the man. Organs. I recognize this from our last harvest when I watched Father slaughter our pigs. I cannot name them but I know they are vital for a man to live. Father places them atop the man's shoulders.
His work seems to be done. He gives a nod to the tall man behind the Ingrid. That is /her/ father. The man nods back, satisfied.
The crowd disperses, leaving the scene to return to the village. Back to work.
The man's corpse will remain here for all to witness. It will bring him shame in the afterlife.
"Come, Freya," Mother calls as she ushers Finn away, following the rest of the villagers back home. I don't go. I'm still mesmerized.
Father is the last to leave and he gathers me in his arms and carries me down the path to our house. The blood on his skin and clothing rubs against my own, staining me in crimson. Father apologises for this when he sets me down on my feet inside. He tells me to wash up and go to bed. It is late. He thinks I am frightened. I am not.
I don't wash, but I do go to bed. Finn is not here. He is sitting between mother and father out in the evening sun. He doesn't understand what has happened, and they must try to make sense of it for him or else he will not sleep.
I listen to the sound of their voices for a while, running my fingers over the bloody patches on my skin, watching the deep, rich colour in the remnants of light that seeps through the cracks in the wall. I smell it, taste it, rub it between my fingers curiously.
When my hand reaches the junction between my thighs, I am utterly surprised to find a foreign kind of pleasure there. My fingers explore until they settle in a pattern that makes my skin feel warm and my heart race. It is remarkable to me how I have managed to find such a sensation in my own body, hidden away all this time.
My thoughts return to the man hanging in the forest, to his mutilated body and his screams...
And suddenly, with disconcerting abruptness, a delicious commotion rushes over me, making me whimper into the animal pelts beneath me.
YOU ARE READING
The Freya Mikaelson Stories
FanfictionA collection of stories from Freya Mikaelson's past, starting with her traumatizing childhood, her attempts at escaping Dahlia, as well as some of the people she met along the way. Rated M for sexual content and graphic violence.
