Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Do you remember when we met, Elin?" I asked my only friend. Her hypnotic brown eyes gazed over at me with a warmth that had long disappeared from within me. Once I had a fire, I had passion even if it was in the form of rage and hatred. But now? Now I felt hollow, empty. I was ice, no warmth... Only sorrow where kindness used to be.
She smiled fondly at the memory, nodding in recognition. "How could I forget, my lady?" She chuckled. "You saved my life."
"Do you remember what I told you?" I asked again, my voice barely above a whisper this time. I could see the concern in Elin's eyes but there was something between us... This wall that I had built around myself that could not be broken. My impenetrable fortress of self loathing.
"Burn the tower!" I yelled, my sword soaked in the blood of my enemies. I charged through the city, cutting men down at every turn, until finding a tiny stone house. It was windowless, the roof burning. Inside,I could hear quiet screams for helps that echoed violently. My eyes glowed as the fire dimmed, allowing me to enter the dungeon like room. There, chained against the wall, I saw a girl. She was some years younger than me, her braided hair long and as dark as my own. In her terrified eyes, I could see my own scared reflection. Deep down, behind all the anger and pain, I was still just a frightened little girl just as she.
"It's okay." I spoke gently as she whimpered, cutting her free from her shackles. "You're safe now. You're under my protection." And though to her, it seemed that I was the saviour - it was the other way around.
The girl was a free woman, she was a noblewoman. Those men had no right to chain her up, to do all that they'd done to her. And yet, they had. But the truth of the matter is, I did not defend her because she was of noble birth. I defended her because I spent years locked away in darkness, tortured and humiliated - because I knew what it was like. And the world I was fighting for had no place for such treatment. No place for such cruelty.
"The men that we fight with, are just men." I told her, taking her hand in my own. "And if they betray us, we will prevail."
"But why help them, Gwen?" She pleaded, disappointment and confusion evident in her features. "Why begin yet another war?"
"Because!" I began in a yell that startled her. "Because when I met you, I was fighting for a better world. I was fighting for a world where magic isn't feared, where people aren't locked away for being different. I was trying to make a change. And change cannot come from remaining here as I've done for too long, it cannot come from peace and serenity. Change comes through fighting, through war, through a show of strength. And what better chance have we gotten than this? If we fight with The Great Heathen Army, who can defy us?"
Elin paused for a moment, taking in my words. She composed herself, her speech elequent and calm as always. She did not speak out of temper, she did not speak without thinking. All that she ever said was thought through to perfection. "But how can you change the world if you cannot even trust them?" She asked.
"Perhaps," I began, looking over at the three Ragnarssons in the adjacent room. "Perhaps not all of them are bad."
