Disclaimer: The characters Sookie Stackhouse, Adele Stackhouse, Jason Stackhouse, Arlene Fowler, and Eric Northman were created by Charlaine Harris. They are used without permission, but in the spirit of admiration and respect. No infringement of copyright is intended and no profit was made.
~ Set sometime before Dead and Gone
I walked in to Gran's kitchen, bone weary and dead tired as she used to say. To me it would always be her kitchen, filled with homey goodness. It was a place to get knees bandaged, help lattice a peach pie, and drink sweet tea. A room to hear Gran's lighthearted gossip with the other church ladies over the phone, even though they'd all just seen each other that morning. Anything else that had occurred here couldn't outweigh the happy times. There was comfort in that. Others couldn't understand it, even Jason, but it worked for me and I was the one who lived here.
It has been one of those days, some sort of spring fever making the customers cranky. Just like in any food service job, there's dry spells and there's rushes, usually off and on throughout the day. Today was all rush. Between the new cook in the kitchen screwing up orders and Arlene all twitterpated with thoughts of her current man, it left me to pull us through. Though I about lost it when the second truck driver of the day grabbed my ass, I managed to avoid a total meltdown. His draught beer wasn't so lucky, especially since I gave it a quick zap in the microwave. Really, you'd think people would be smarter than to try to manhandle their food handlers. Sam was in Baton Rouge, taking care of some business or other, but he'd be happy with the day's take. I was just happy to be done and home.
Pulling out my ponytail and massaging my aching scalp, I noticed in my rush to get to work I hadn't ripped off yesterday's Word of the Day.
Hells bells, but like they say better late…as I tore away bucolic to reveal Valhalla I felt his presence. Or maybe better to say I felt the void of his presence. I'd rescinded his invitation a while back, but we'd mended fences since then. That's not to say we still didn't have a passel of complications, among them our blood bond, his memory loss, and my resolution to stay out of the Supe world.
My exhaustion was still present, but now shoved behind a quickened heartbeat and the unfortunate sensation of being off balanced. Damn you Eric. Probably for the best that he wasn't a mind reader, even if he could sense my discomfort through our connection.
From behind me and more than a foot above he read the text aloud, but his perfect standard English had bled into such accented tones that it was nearly incomprehensible:
Valhalla~ 1:the great hall in Norse mythology where the souls of heroes slain in battle are received *2: a place of honor, glory, or happiness: heaven
I turned around and looked up, usually mischievous blue eyes were stormy. Our gazes locked, there was a haunted intensity in him I had never seen before. He was projecting a deep need through our bond, not for blood or sex, but for comfort. Puzzled and concerned, I reached up with both hands to cup his face. As my fingertips and palms registered the pleasant coolness of his skin, my senses were transported from Gran's worn kitchen to somewhere other.
A night sky overhead, he stood in a grassy clearing heavily surrounded by aspen and birch trees. A sliver of moon accompanied the stars to provide light, not that he needed it with his heightened senses, but it didn't matter anyway since he stared without truly seeing. His mind was over a hundred years in the past. A burial mound in the distance, now eroded by weather and covered with overgrowth the center of his thoughts…
I fought the vision, much like when I block or ignore patrons' thoughts at the bar. I came back to myself a little. Damn vampire shit, this had never happened to me before, it just wasn't the way my ability worked.
I wasn't reading his mind… it went beyond that. I was experiencing one of his memories, feeling his emotions and understanding thoughts in a language long passed.
And then I fell back into it.
"My blood rests in this field," he thought.
During the early years after his turning he had been ruled by bloodlust, killed scores of hapless villagers and unobservant travelers. Now, finally with some control over his appetites and freedom from his sire, he'd made his way back to this site.
He'd placed his wife Aude just there, clothed in an intricately embroidered tunic. A gold brooch at one breast, their stillborn child at the other. They lay next to two earlier children, both lost within hours of birth. His woman had never fought in a battle, but she'd waged her wars. Surly the gods would have seen her fierce warrior spirit and let her and the babes into Valhalla.
And a short distance away lay his nephew Egil. At twelve he'd been considered a man, but had fallen in his first battle to the enemy's long bow. Only weaklings would use such cowardly weapons. Even as he suffered a mortal arrow he managed to kill one of them with his two handed axe, cutting through the man's chainmail and into flesh. His soul must also rest in the great halls.
He and Aude had three living children, and they had children of their own. From time to time in his wanderings he has encountered those of his blood, he can sense them. They smell unique among the sea of humanity. He's started to keep track of some of them, their lives and deaths.
All that he's known has passed, and yet he continues on unchanged and in the shadows. A great heaviness descends upon his heart as he kneels by his woman's grave. Is this to be his existence?
My hands dropped away, I stood staring down, no longer able to make eye contact. The big clodhoppers he called feet were in nearly the spot where Gran's blood had pooled, were she'd fought and died alone, essentially because of my association with the likes of his kind.
In that moment I hated him, loved him, pitied him all wadded up in one big ball settling low in my belly. Not knowing what else to do, I wrapped my arms around his torso and placed my head on his chest. After a minute he dropped his head to rest on top of mine, his great arms emcompassing me.
We stood like that awhile, our identically blonde heads nestled together. Finally he pulled away, eyes once again clear of thunder clouds, merry and up to trouble. Of course he'd recover that quickly, vampires were nothing if not resilient. He didn't know what I'd experienced, and it was gonna stay that way.
"Thank you my lover, I just had a moment there." A pause and then, "I wanted to check in since the shifter is out of town. It is dangerous out here for you alone."
His words brought a familiar resentment, known to any single adult woman with interfering men in her life, supernatural or otherwise. And just like that we slipped into established roles, though something had irrevocablly shifted.
A/N~ So I own a Word of the Day calendar, bought with fond thoughts of Sookie. Valhalla really was a recent word. Even though I've never written for this genre, tribute to Eric had to be paid. : )