King Agnarr's Journal

Iduna's Biggest Fear

What many may not know is that I served in the royal navy as a young man. From about the age of 15 to 18. I know that seems like a young age to start and to be honest, it is. My uncle wanted me to get experience in combat as soon as physically possible. So he ordered that the navy make a minor adjustment to the age requirement which allowed me to join. I loved it, mainly because I got to be away from my uncle. The crew was not the biggest fan of me but I cannot blame them, I was a scrawny teenager who knew nothing about ships.

Anyhow, I learned to love the open ocean and the sea. There was just something magical about it. But when Iduna and I married, she confessed her biggest fear to me which was the fear of drowning. Unlike myself, Iduna was not raised by the ocean or really any large bodies of water so she found no comfort in its presence. Actually quite the opposite if I'm honest. Now, I should say that Iduna was not scared of swimming. She and I would swim in ponds and small lakes near the castle but she had to be in water where she could see the bottom.

This hindered our travels greatly because she did not want to take a ship out into the ocean. I did my best to comply with her wishes, but after about a year into our marriage, we needed to go down to one of our trade partners in the Mediterranean. Iduna refused to go at first, it took me almost a month to convince her that we would be safe. We had to go slow at first, I would take her down to the docks and have her get on the royal ship for a few minutes. At first, she clung to my body and squeezed me so hard that I had a hard time breathing. The fear of bottomless water was just her worst nightmare.

Luckily, after many trips to the docks and hours on the royal shop, she finally felt comfortable enough to go for a quick sail. So we went out for just a few minutes, needless to say it did not go very well. She had a full blown panic attack and begged me to return to shore. So, of course I brought the ship back and she ran off the boat as fast as she could. It absolutely broke my heart to see her so afraid and there was nothing that I could do to make her feel better. So later that day, I told her that we would just not go on the trip. But we would have to figure something else out. She then said that she wanted to not he afraid of the ocean and that we needed to do more practice runs. I was surprised by this, considering her reaction that afternoon. But she was determined and ready to face her fears. It took us about a month to get her comfortable with being on a ship in the ocean. Several small trips were done before we did the big one to the Mediterranean. I was and am still so proud of her for conquering her fears. I hope that one day with her help, I can overcome a fear of mine. She inspires me everyday, I can only hope that I do the same for her.