Bread, Thorns, and Stormcloaks

The 19th year begins

The next day went by quickly.

The house was a fluster of food and wine and extra chairs and decoration - mother rushed around, pink-cheeked and short-tempered, and we all did our best to keep out of the way.

I'd been banned from helping - it being my birthday - so Raoul and I spent most of our time down by the stream with Jofthor and Solveigg, to keep them out of trouble. Jofthor couldn't swim as well as the rest of us, so I kept a hand under his lean little stomach as his legs worked furiously in the water. I asked Raoul if he would keep up Jofthor's lessons for me when I left, but he didn't hear me. A few times after though, I caught him staring at me with an expression I couldn't understand. Something like confusion. I didn't ask him what was wrong - I didn't want to know.

Freya, Ingrid, and Alfgeir joined us at midday, bringing berries and mead. We all sat together, there on the bank, the way we used to after one of father's lessons. Raoul and Alf started a game of Sorcerer's and the rest of us watched, laughing as they splashed water at eachother, pretending to control the waves. In truth, none of us were blessed with any skill in Magick, but as children, throwing soil was just as effective as manipulating rock and stone in our eyes.
We hadn't played the game in years, certainly not with Jofthor, but before long we were all in the water splashing and fighting and laughing.
When a bear roared in the distance, temporarily halting us in our game, I realised that Freya hadn't joined us in the water - she'd remained on the bank.
I stopped then.
She was right. I'm too old for this now.

We went to Hild's to get ready.
Storm clouds, solid as forged steel, and darker than any I had ever seen, suffocated the sky beyond the South-Westerly mountains and Orphan Rock. But in the opposite direction, stretching from Eastmarch to High Hrothgar was a canvas of pale lilac, a fresh bruise. The air was soft, still alight with the day's warmth; through the window I could see the street lamps being lit by Wilhelm, the owner of Ivarstead's sole Inn, as the silver glow of the sun was muted behind the curtain of impending storm.
Hilda pulled at the strings of my corset until my breath escaped me in a strangled gasp.

The Rains-Hands had arrived soon after we'd returned from the stream. Bjorn's mother, Nurte, had immediately swept me up into a hug and pinched my cheeks as if they were dough that needed stretching. His father, a friend of my own before he had passed, offered me a small inclination of the head.
And then Bjorn was jumping down from the wagon - he hadn't rode here - and coming towards me. He hadn't changed since I'd last seen him; same wheat-coloured hair, same whispy moustache which refused to grow out, same stocky build, same blue eyes, same pudgey face, same flushed cheeks, same leather tunic, same, same, same. 
"Hello Eira," He'd said. 
"Hello Bjorn," I'd replied, and he kissed me on both cheeks before moving to greet my sisters. 

Freya patted my cheeks with some berry juice and lined my eyes with kohl, making the gold in my irises glow.
Ingrid finished plaiting my hair; the top half was split into four plaits, which joined at the back of my head and fell as one thick, dark plait down the rest of my hair. She pushed a sprig of dark blue flowers into the place where the plaits met, and shifted the loose hair so that it covered my ears - aware that the pointed tips of them made me feel self conscious. 
I looked at my reflection. 
I looked nice - beautiful maybe, though not in the effortless way my sisters were. 

Freya squeezed my hand and gave me an excited smile.
"Ready?"
I could only nod, and followed her out of Hilda's hut. 

The thrum of conversation and the heady smell of wine reached us long before we came up to the garden gate. Lanterns had been lit all along the garden's boundary; bunting made from worn cloth (no doubt provided by Hilda) was woven in and out of the wooden fence which separated our farm from the Skyrim wilderness beyond it.
Lynly, the bard from Vilemyr Inn, was plucking at lute strings on a space cleared out for her infront of the house, with Solveigg watching her, mesmerised. Beyond them, Raoul slouched comfortably on a wooden bench, talking quietly to Temba Wide-Arm, outstretched knee touching hers (Something which she apparently did not object to). Alfgeir was chugging down mead with a couple of Bjorn's city-cousins; Jofthor was being fussed by Bjorn's Aunt Gret; and mother, dressed in her finest dress of shell-pink linen, glowed as she fluttered around her guests, her neighbours, her friends. 

And there in the centre of the garden, standing at our long, spruce dining table that Raoul, Alfgeir, and I had gone to great lengths to carry outside yesterday, was Bjorn. He stood with his mother and several of our neighbours, smiling and at ease, with a cup of wine in his hand.
I watched him for a moment, before I felt a gentle tug at my hand and realised Freya was pulling me through the gate, and into my party.