In the dead of winter there was not much to keep Katja warm at night. Were it not for the heat of her younger sister who lay curled up against her and the thick, fur coverlet draped across the both of them she would not be able to do much but shiver until dawn. Outside of the hut snow fell thick and heavy, piling up against the outside of the wood so high that, were she to stand in it, the blanket of frozen water would stop just above her ankles. Grateful to have their shelter, Katja nestled closer against Margit and felt her stir slightly in her sleep.
Rest would not come for Katja, whose thoughts were chaotic and frightened of the following day: her coming of age birthday, and the one her father had been waiting for to finally marry her off. She knew she should consider herself lucky to have made it through childhood without being made a bride, considering that all of her companions in youth had long since been married and had children. Within her tribe it was considered normal for girls as young as twelve to become brides and have children of their own shortly thereafter; a general understanding that, if she was old enough to bleed, then she was old enough to wed. Katja herself had developed her monthly courses when she was eleven but was spared the life of a child wife by her mother's request. Though she had died giving birth to Margit, her final wish was for their father to allow their daughters the childhood innocence she herself had been deprived of.
He had loved their mother so deeply that he granted her dying request. In preparation for his eldest child's coming of age Katja's father had arranged for her to marry the eldest son of the most prolific hunter in the village. Tallak was a boy she had known her whole life but never particularly cared for, even if he was considered to be attractive by all of the other girls. Many of them silently and even openly pleaded with their fathers to arrange a union with him but Ulf, Tallak's father, would not bend. He'd turned each would-be bride away until one night a month ago when he invited their family for supper. Katja and Margit were excited at the prospect, for a meal with Ulf and his brood meant full bellies. Their father, on the other hand, was dour the whole evening and it wasn't long until his daughters discovered why.
"Your eldest daughter comes of age soon I hear, Halvor," Ulf boomed jovially over the sounds of everyone feasting. A hush fell over the long table while Katja fidgeted nervously, suddenly and acutely aware of the placement of Tallak to her left side. Margit turned her head to stare wide-eyed at her older sister as their father took a deep swig of his ale.
"That she does," was all he said. Perhaps it was merely Katja's own edgy state leaking into her thought process, but she could have sworn she heard a trace of warning in her father's tone.
"It just so happens that Tallak has recently become a man. I'm seeking a bride for him and your Katja seems like she'd be a good, sturdy wife for my son. What say you, Halvor?"
Katja finally tore her eyes away from the half-finished plate of boar in front of her to stare in shock at Ulf's bearded face. There was no denying the fact that her family was considered beneath his in status. Her father was unable to hunt due to an injury he'd sustained long before she or her sister were born, and as such his only livelihood lay in the garden he kept; in the vegetables meant to trade for meat and furs to keep them all warm and healthy through the long, harsh winters.
"I'd say that she is not well-suited for such a hard life," her father replied evenly, spearing his meat with a knife. At his rebuttal Ulf's laughter filled the spacious hut, a trace of menace lining it that made the hair on the back of Katja's neck stand on end.
"She will have rather an easy life with Tallak. He is a good, strong hunter; any female should be lucky to have one of our bloodline for a husband."
To Katja's confusion, her father's face flushed crimson at these words and when he finally lifted his eyes to meet Ulf's she could plainly see that he was suppressing his temper. "Do you think to insult me simply because I am a guest in your home?"
"No insult meant!" Ulf exclaimed in mock surprise, lifting his hands wide in supplication even while a smirk tugged at his lips. "I merely state a fact. Your daughter would want for nothing if she wed my son. She'd have plenty of meat to keep her healthy while she bore him children."
At these words Halvor leapt to his feet, breathing heavily and glaring at the hunter. "You seek to torment me, Ulf. It's not enough to you that Dagmar died and left me alone, you must claim my daughter in revenge, is that it?"
Katja gaped at her father for a moment as a strained silence billowed in the hut before her eyes slowly turned towards her sister's. Margit gazed back, just as nonplused as she felt. At the end of the table a deep, rumbling chuckle began in Ulf's massive chest that had soon grown into tumultuous laughter while everyone in the room stared at him.
"I don't seek your daughter, Halvor. I seek Dagmar's." At this Ulf took a moment to pause and rake his eyes over Katja's chestnut brown hair that tumbled in waves around her pale skin. "Should you deny my son Katja as his bride, I'm sorry to say that we will have a problem."
Utter silence greeted this proclamation. Though Ulf's threat could have been considered mild to any outside source listening in, they sent Halvor reeling backwards and Margit's hand to dart beneath the table and clench Katja's. Ulf and his sons supplied meat to nearly everyone in the village: at his word they could all retract any dealings with Halvor, leaving them ruined. In her peripheral vision Katja saw Tallak stirring listlessly at his food, as if the proceedings at the table bored him.
For a long while her father remained silent, the vein in his neck pulsing as he struggled to contain his rage and humiliation. Then all at once the fury ebbed and he deflated before her very eyes, arms hanging by his sides and head drooping. "Then so be it."
"Excellent," Ulf grinned as he leaned back in his chair, dark eyes shifting to gaze hungrily at Katja. In that moment many horrors struck her all at once: she was to be married to a pompous boy whom she had never once spoken to; her father opposed strongly to the union and was being blackmailed into it; that everyone had always told her how strikingly she resembled her mother; and Ulf's reputation of never giving up the chase until he has conquered his prey. The look in his eyes explained everything that had been left unanswered by the night's events.
Ulf was not marrying Katja to Tallak for his son's benefit. He was marrying her into his family so that he himself could have access to her…to Dagmar, the prey who had gotten away. Katja was to not have one husband, but two.
Since that night her father had said little, even when the village tailor came to fit Katja for a wedding dress. It was a simple, cream garment with no decoration but was crafted from silk, a material that neither sister had before touched. Margit sighed at the supple fabric but Katja felt nothing but sadness. She knew this not to be any gesture of goodwill towards her on Ulf's part but merely another way to demean her father, a man who could barely afford the simplest of woolen dresses for his daughters. As Katja stood in the center of their small hut to be fitted, she couldn't help but watch as her father's eyes watered slightly. "You are your mother, Katja. She looked exactly as you do now on our wedding day." And with those words he had turned and limped outside to his garden, the one place she knew he found solace.
Across the hut her father grunted in his sleep and Katja heard the sound of his wooden cot creaking as he shifted his weight. A knot rose in her throat as she contemplated the fact that this was her last night in her father's home, and her last night under his protection as one of his two maiden daughters. She knew the mechanics of what she must do the following evening and the thought filled her with dread. Tallak was attractive and close to her age so the thought of him taking her wasn't particularly upsetting—it was that of his father, Ulf. A beast of a man every bit as grizzled as the bears he was famous for killing and, she was certain of it, eager to take a daughter of the woman who had spurned him.
Katja snuggled closer to her sister and buried her face in Margit's dirty blonde hair. Of the two of them she resembled their father most closely, and it was perhaps because of this that she would be spared the fate reserved for Katja herself. If she was lucky she would marry the son of a man who bore no ill will towards their family and would live the comfortable existence of a woman able to remain faithful to her husband.
Outside a strange, sharp cracking sound echoed in the night and sent Katja's eyelids snapping open. Beside her Margit slept on and, judging by the rhythmic snores coming from her father, she was the only person who heard it. Hovering on the milky line between wake and sleep, she wondered if perhaps she had merely imagined the sound when it again shattered the silence, followed by an anguished scream that almost immediately faded away. The sound was so gut-wrenching that Katja sat up in bed, heart racing. She reached over and shook Margit's shoulder.
"Wake up! Something is outside!" she hissed as Margit moaned sleepily, trying to brush off her hand. "Wake up!"
"Katja I'm tired, go to bed—" her voice died as the cracking noise echoed again, only closer this time. Her sister jumped up beside Katja, eyes wide and alert. "What was that?"
"I don't know," Katja confessed quietly before slipping out from beneath the fur coverlet. Immediately her bare feet were assailed by the icy earth of their hut but she ignored the cold, tugging the woolen nightdress more tightly around herself as she rushed over to their father's cot. "Papa, Papa wake up—" she implored, falling to her knees and shaking his heavy arm. He didn't stir but snored on, continuing to remain unresponsive until another crack sounded from close by. Then his eyes finally opened and focused on her, he too bolting upright.
"Katja, what's happening?" he mumbled, reaching up to wipe the sleep from his eyes while Margit hurried over to stand beside them both.
"I don't know, I have been hearing that sound for a few minutes now and—and I heard a loud scream for a moment that died just as swiftly as it came."
Without a word Halvor swung his legs over the side of his straw mattress and rose to his impressive height, eyes narrowing towards the door of their hut. Even with the injury to his leg he made a daunting figure as he reached over to grab his axe from against the wall and let it hang rigidly by his side. When Katja realized what he was planning to do she grabbed his free hand from where she still knelt on the ground. "Papa, don't go out there, please—"
Halvor turned his head to gaze at his two daughters, Margit standing closely by Katja's side and gripping onto her shoulder. For the briefest of moments his eyes softened and he freed his hand from the latter's to stroke them both on the cheek. "I need to make sure there are no threats to the village. Take care of each other and don't leave this hut, do you understand?" Both girls nodded and he managed a smile for them, the grey so recently mixed in with the blond in his beard barely discernible in the dim moonlight peeking through the cracks in the walls.
Then he exited the hut, leaving the sisters alone. For what felt like an eternity they remained as they were, the sharp cracks gaining more frequency and volume until out of nowhere Katja heard a loud bellow she recognized as her father's in the distance. "Men at arms, the village is under attack!" Instantly there was movement from outside and, after a few minutes, a full-blown uproar. Bellows of rage were cut short by more of the ominous cracking sounds and soon followed by cries of shock and agony that instantly fell silent.
"What do we do?" Margit squeaked by Katja's side and she started, turning to look up at the younger sister who still held her shoulder in a death grip. The sight of her innocent face livid with terror brought the present firmly into focus and Katja got to her feet, conflicting arguments racing through her mind. Their father had instructed them to stay put but that was before he had known whatever might be out there to be a true threat, and the sounds of open battle now filling the air fought against every instinct for Katja to stay hidden in their hut.
"Get your coat and boots on—hurry!" she hissed when Margit remained frozen, trembling from both the cold and fear. Seeing Katja already pulling on her riding boots, her sister finally rushed over to do the same; they were both slipping into their thickest woolen cloaks when the front door burst open. Margit shrieked and Katja stepped protectively between her and the shadowy figure in the threshold until a familiar voice called out to them.
"The village is under attack, you need to hide," Tallak commanded, motioning with his sword for the girls to precede him out. Margit gripping tightly onto Katja's hand, they hurried out of their hut and into the biting winter air. That night the wind chill was strong and they immediately began to shiver, clutching their meager cloaks to retain the insufficient warmth supplied by their simple woolen night dresses. Tallak led them to the edge of the forest and waved towards the shadowy depths. "Find a place in the woods to hide for now and don't return until we've defended the village. Do you understand?"
Though Katja bristled at the way Tallak spoke to her, she had planned to do the same anyway so merely nodded once before turning into the darkness, tugging Margit along with her. Behind them the screams and strange noises faded into white noise as they wove in between the trees, Margit sobbing quietly while Katja followed a path she had known since childhood. After a few minutes they arrived at the ancient, gnarled tree in which the sisters had often sought shelter from the elements and played within as young girls. "Get in," Katja instructed and Margit obeyed at once, dropping to her hands and knees to squeeze her way inside the hollowed out trunk. Katja followed and only just managed to find room to fit inside; they had both nearly doubled in size since the last time they were there.
Hours seemed to drag by with excruciating slowness, even though Katja knew it had only been a matter of minutes since they took shelter. From the direction of their village the sounds of warfare had without warning dwindled away into silence, yet no one came for them. Unable to remain still, Katja moved towards the opening of the tree and instructed for Margit to stay hidden, only to find her hand suddenly in her sister's viselike grip. "Don't leave me, please," she begged before choking on a fresh wave of tears. Pushing back her own fear Katja reached out a hand to stroke Margit's cheek, just as their father had done before vanishing into the night.
"I'll be fine but I have to see what's happening. Don't leave this tree, Margit," she insisted evenly, and Margit hesitated for only a heartbeat's length before nodding her head. Satisfied, Katja prised herself from the trunk and slipped back into the darkness, directing her feet towards the forest line. As she moved even the smallest of sounds sent her heart leaping into her throat and chills racing through her body while she inspected her surroundings for any sign of watching life. None made themselves known and, though thoroughly shaken, she arrived at the edge of the village safely. From a distance she could hear men's angry voices laced with terror but was unable to distinguish what they said; silently she snuck further into the town limits, taking refuge behind shadowed huts as she went.
Upon arriving near the center of the village a horrible sight met her eyes; where she had expected scores of invaders to have caused such chaos, Ulf stood before a single man… a man the likes of which Katja had never laid eyes upon. He was tall, taller even than the burly men standing before him, and wore armor crafted of gold that glinted in the moonlight. On his head was a helmet adorned with long, curved antlers, beneath which fell thick curtains of black hair and in his hand was a staff topped with a glowing blue orb; it was this which was pointed directly at Ulf's chest.
"You mortals never fail to disappoint me. I offer you the chance to join my army and this is the gratitude you show?" the man murmured in amusement with a voice that sent a shiver through Katja's spine. Though he spoke their tongue fluently his accent was unfamiliar and he referred to them all as "mortals," classifying them as somehow separate. Scrutinizing the man's profile, she realized as well that he appeared rather young and, had she not seen Ulf keeping his distance from the man's staff, she'd have thought easily overpowered by them all.
"You come into our village and murder each person who refuses your demands!" Ulf bellowed, massive fists clenched at his sides. Katja had never seen him frightened of anything in her entire life and yet there stood their elder before this stranger, eyes widened with fear.
"They shouldn't have disobeyed me," the man answered carelessly, his voice as smooth and merciless as the ice around them. "Now I give you the choice: will you join me when I rule this realm? Or will you attempt to rise against Loki of Asgard?"
"We fight for no one but ourselves, invader," Ulf retorted, spitting in the man's face. Katja watched, frozen in fear, as the man called Loki reached up a gloved hand to wipe the glob from his face and smeared it on his thigh. He stared at Ulf for a moment, a dangerous smirk thinning his lips before his hand lashed out towards him with the cracking noise she had heard from the hut. Had Katja blinked she might have been able to believe she had imagined what happened next, but she saw it plain as day: the man's hand glowed bright blue and from the palm shot a long, thin spear of ice that impaled Ulf in his left eye.
Tallak's scream of horror and rage shattered the heavy silence as his father collapsed to his knees and fell forward, blood gushing from beneath the imbedded ice and staining the white snow crimson. His legs and arms moved even in death and Katja had to cover her mouth to keep from making a sound as Loki stretched out a long leg to kick over the twitching corpse of her elder onto its side and out of his path. She watched, silent with shock, as Tallak raced forward to avenge his father and fell on the receiving end of a short, dagger like ice shard in the man's hand that eviscerated him with ease. Entrails and blood tumbled out of her betrothed's abdomen but Katja knew no revulsion for, in that moment, she realized that her father had been kneeling behind where Url stood, clutching his bad leg in the way she knew meant it had cramped up and would not support his weight. Loki was now bearing down on him, a murderous glint in his eye—
Without conscious thought Katja came rushing out of her hiding place and took a stance in front of her father, finding herself face to face with the man who had overpowered the strongest she had ever known as if he were naught but inconsequential livestock. Surprise flickered on his face as he gazed upon Katja and, from behind where she stood, she felt her father gripping onto her boot. "Katja, what are you doing?" he croaked out through the agony of his leg; she reached a hand down to grip his and raised their joined fingers to hang by her hip.
"This man would have killed you even though you are incapacitated, Papa—a dishonorable death," she answered with a voice that, miraculously, managed to convey none of the terror she felt inside. Loki's dark eyebrows arched beneath his helm as he inspected the girl, one hand still clutching the bloody dagger while the other held onto the staff resting against the snowy ground.
"And what do you know of honor in death, girl?" he asked with a malicious smile. He loomed over Katja by over a foot and she was keenly aware of the fact that she had but a layer of wool between her vulnerable abdomen and the dagger still dripping the blood of the man meant to be her husband. When she found the courage to speak again it was in a tone of utter calm.
"Enough to know that striking down a man unable to defend himself is a victory one can only find shame in." Behind her Katja heard her father groan and his hand twitched in hers, as if pleading with her to remain silent. To her surprise, the invader merely smiled more broadly and took a step towards her, his weight pressing a black-booted foot into the snow with a crunch that reverberated in Katja's ears.
"Such wise words from a mortal child whose only experience with death is watching others die while safely hidden behind a wooden shanty," Loki mused, reaching out the bloody dagger to trace along her cheek. The chill of the blade burned her warm cheek and she couldn't hide the revulsion from showing on her features as the cooled blood of Tallak smeared across it. "You are quite correct…Katja, was it? Your father is indeed a kill that would add no glory to my name."
Katja's ears perked up at these words and her eyes widened in surprise. Instinctively she glanced over her shoulder at where her father still knelt, but saw no mirrored relief on his features. Instead she witnessed a dawning horror and watched as he struggled to get to his feet. "Kill me!" he shouted, shocking his eldest daughter into silence. "Do you hear me, invader?" he bellowed again, and Katja turned in time to see that Loki had closed the gap and now stood directly before her, their chests nearly touching.
Instinctively Katja took a step backwards but tripped over her father's massive form, falling onto her back in the snow. With a wave of his hand Loki had flung her father against the nearest hut, yanked back and held in place as if by an invisible rope that he futilely struggled against. Katja's eyes snapped back to the man who was now approaching slowly where she laid prone, his eyes focused intently upon her own. "You're brave, for a mortal girl," he said evenly as the dagger in his hand disappeared into thin air, the blue orb on his staff glowing brighter. She crawled along the snow, towards nothing and away from his ever-nearing gait. A few yards away her father began to scream in rage but for all the notice Loki paid him he might have been a whisper in the wind.
Katja's head struck wood and she knew she was cornered by Loki standing directly in front of her. She flinched and turned her face away from his sight; she prepared herself for death as much as she could but when the blow landed, it was not against her body but to the left of it. Startled, Katja opened her eyes in time to see the glow of the staff in the snow, well beyond her reach where Loki had tossed it. Before she could even begin to question this he had fallen onto his knees and placed his gloved hands on her ankles. She knew, then, what her punishment was to be.
"Take your filthy hands off of her! I swear on my ancestors I will not rest until I have ripped off your manhood with my bare hands if you defile my daught—" Halvor's voice was silenced by an impatient jerk of Loki's head, an unseen force adhering her father's lips together.
"You have shown more bravery tonight than all of these grown men combined, Katja. Without thought for your own well-being you placed yourself in harm's way to spare your father, even with no armor or weapons to defend you," Loki spoke the words in a voice of deceptive calm, luring Katja in even as she recognized there was no praise in what he said. "For that I will spare your life."
With a powerful yank of Loki's hands Katja was dragged forward on the snow until her ankles were well behind Loki's back, her nightgown and cloak ridden up so far that her bare thighs were exposed where they came to rest on either side of his hips. Her initial, incoherent thoughts were a realization that she was exceedingly cold and that she hoped Margit had remained safely hidden within their tree to keep out of the freezing air. Then her father's muffled screams of rage and thrashes against the wooden door where he was kept prisoner pierced through her confused thoughts; she met Loki's eyes just before he fell forward against her, pinning Katja to the ground with his considerable weight.
One of his hands slipped between them and she heard the distinct sound of fasteners coming undone. The shock of what was coming finally struck Katja and she began to writhe beneath Loki's chest, her legs flailing against him and her hands pushing uselessly against his shoulders. Only when she lashed out towards his face and attempted to scratch at his eyes did his other hand reach up and grab both of hers, pinning them to the snow high above her head. Unable to budge them an inch in either direction, Katja wriggled her torso and kicked at whatever part of Loki she could reach from her awkward angle beneath him. He merely chuckled humorlessly and, having released himself from his restraints, forced her legs wide apart with his thighs, then ripped off her cloth panties in one, swift motion. She felt something foreign—something long and thick—press against her entrance.
A strangled cry of terror escaped Katja as Loki guided his softened manhood up and down, hot against her bare flesh and nestled between her folds. As he moved against her she felt him stiffening to a size well beyond any she could have envisioned a man being able to possess, and she turned her face away to gaze at her father. Tears streamed freely down his stubbled cheeks as he watched, helpless to prevent his daughter from being violated before his very eyes. Katja's eyes were still fastened on her father's until Loki pointed himself directly at her entrance and plunged inside of her.
Katja's screams of agony rent the silent wintery air, thick blood oozing out of her body and sliding down her backside to pool on the ground along with that of so many other victims of that night's brutality. Her fingers clenched desperately at the snow and dug all the way down into the frozen soil as Loki drove into her body without mercy, shredding the maidenhead which had been rightfully meant for Tallak. Delirium clouding her mind, Katja's eyes flickered to where her betrothed lay limp against the ground, intestines coiled beneath him in the snow. From far away she was vaguely aware of her father's sobbing but thought little of it as the pain between her legs came into sharper focus.
The initial blood of her virginity now soaking into the snow, there was nothing left within Katja's body to coat the thick shaft delving into her unprepared walls. Loki's skin rubbing against hers felt as rough as tree bark and she gasped with each withdrawal and thrust until her head spun, his chest pressing against hers aiding to stem the flow of oxygen into her lungs. She gasped for air against his ear and felt the hot exhalation of his own beside hers, followed by a lascivious grunt as he reached down his free hand to grab beneath her knee and press it near her head. Her pelvis now angled upwards and more easily accessible to him, Loki resumed his drives within her raw insides to a renewal of agonized cries from Katja.
From a haze of confusion she became aware that he was threatening to break through a barrier inside of her she hadn't even known existed; with each thrust he pressed against the wall that forcefully resisted him, the pressure of which pulled burning tears from Katja's eyes. She knew that if he wanted he could burst his way through the flesh, a notion reiterated by his hoarse whisper in her ear, "Tell me, mortal—is this honorable enough for you? I'm being positively gentle by my usual standards." He punctuated the admission with a deep, long-lasting drive that found him pressing tightly against her cervix until she could take it no longer.
"Yes," she breathed, earning the withdrawal of his shaft only to find him picking up his pace until he was slamming inside of her with the most force yet. Katja could do nothing but clench her nails into the earth and focus on breathing as Loki's own instincts seemed to overpower his need to terrorize her. His motions were becoming sporadic and primal, seeking the friction of her dry walls and the depth her tilted angle afforded him as his grunts of almost pained pleasure filled her senses. Her mouth opened wide in a silent scream of misery while he pummeled against her inflamed insides, his rhythm intensifying until his hips shoved hers into the cold earth, holding her steady as the first stream of his hot seed spurted forth. Loki groaned and withdrew slightly to gain the momentum to expel each subsequent, seemingly never-ending gush of liquid that was soon coating her womb. With a satisfied sigh he slid his receding length from Katja's battered body and sat up on his knees, tucking himself once more into his leather before rising to his feet.
Unable to move, Katja lay panting on the snow-covered earth, eyes closed in a reflexive attempt to block out the horrors she had endured that night. From between her legs she could feel a thick liquid pooling, though if it was her own blood or the invader's seed she was uncertain and uncaring of. All she wanted was her father, and it was to him she turned her face as the sound of wolves howling in the forest carried over the wind. Before she could even open her eyes a pair of strong arms enveloped Katja and lifted her bodily from the ground. She flailed weakly against Loki's grasp but might as well have a fly in his hand struggling for release as she was hoisted up and planted on the back of an ebony warhorse, followed immediately by Loki himself sliding into place behind her. He snapped the reigns once and wheeled the horse around, giving Katja one final view of her father.
Loki must have removed his magical barriers keeping him imprisoned to the hut, as he was then huddled on the snow and struggling to get to his feet. As they raced away into the night Katja heard the wolves' howls coming ever closer, drawn no doubt by the scent of so many fresh, bloody kills. She also knew that her father would not be strong enough to fend them off. Even more horrifying was when she remembered Margit alone in the forest, the nearest village at which she could take refuge being miles away in the worsening snow. Physically and emotionally exhausted, no longer able to support even her own weight, Katja collapsed backwards against Loki's chest and closed her eyes. She prayed silently to the gods to come to her aid, unaware that one of those to whom she prayed had already staked his claim on her and now sped away with Katja to the camp where his sizeable army lay in wait.
She was now merely a spoil of war.