Bound by Blood

The Viking - I

900 A.D.

The brightened sun beamed into the child's wooden room, decorated by only a small dresser, a bed, and a white wolf pelt on the ground for a carpet. Its walls were almost barren, with the exception of a wooden shield and two axes crossed under it above the child's bed. On the shield was the clan's crest, a deadly looking vulture feeding its young ones within its nest. A faint feminine voice is heard from outside the door. "No, I understand," she begins, "He just should not be alive. But it is by Odin's will he still breathes. And who am I to deny the All-Father of his wishes. I can only hope the same fate fell upon the shoulders of his siblings." A masculine voice is heard giving her a reply, but speaks too low to make out what was said. She lets out a sigh and opens the door, greeting her child with a warm smile.

"Mother!" The child leaps from the bed and into his mother's arms, kicking the blankets onto the floor.

"My dear Asmund! How are you this fine morning? Does Sol's bright light shine too much for you this early," Solveig jests to her son. 

He giggles and nods in response. "Mother?"

"Yes, dear, what is it?" She places him down on his feet then kneels down to meet him eye to eye.

"I had a weird dream." The statement alone beckons her interest. She signals the male figure to come in closer and listen. "Father was there too." In that instant, Brynjar's face was also lit in confusion as well as interest. He gestures to his son to continue. "I was in a big fortress. And there was a woman I fought with. I almost killed her but you pulled me off of her at the last moment." 

Brynjar takes a moment to register what he just heard. "Son. What did this woman look like?"

"She had curly brown hair, and she was dressed in a knight's shiny armor. Like those angel sacks in people!" Asmund observed the faces of his parents. "Oh no. You don't look happy."

Brynjar read his wife's face and says aloud what they are both thinking. "Come, my son. You must see Treyst." With a bit of hesitation, Asmund takes hold of his father's hand and together they walk out of the longhouse.

Solveig stays behind in Asmund's room, looking around whilst pacing back and forth. She comes to a slow halt and gazes out of the window where she see her son walking with Brynjar to a hut down by the river. Children can be seen playing with their families, as dogs prance around the rough patches of grass. Solveig's small grin fades away when her attention is shifted to the hut neighboring the river downhill. She is called back to a memory that she wishes she could forget, soon following the tragic events of the longship's wreckage.

894 A.D.

Solveig, in a fit of panic twirls a knife around her fingers to keep her mind occupied while sitting on the dock overlooking the river. She closes her eyes and takes several deep breaths, in attempt to calm herself. Clutching the knife, she lays back and lets the remaining rays of the sunset beam down onto her skin. Ravens caw in the distance. The rush of the river grows louder, yet remains steady. The excited barking of dogs from uphill can be heard behind her. Solveig finds herself in tune with nature and everything around her. She has been finding it really hard to rest fully since that day. It was her ship. Her crew. Her sister. Her children, that she lost. The combined feeling of guilt, sorrow, and rage did not blend together well, for it concocted a terrible mixture of self-hatred and inner agony that no one else around her could comprehend. 

As were someone to yank her hair, Solveig shot up and opened her eyes, darting her vision to her left. In comes a small rowboat, packed to the heavens with a skinny woman at its command. The woman was decorated in clothing that was adorned by bones, including her cap with dark feathers and a vulture's skull in the middle. Solveig comes to a full stand and calls in the woman as if she knows her. "Treyst! About time you show up." The boat comes to a stop at the dock as Solveig hops in to help with the boxes and bring them to the hut. "The retreat; how did you fair?"