All right! This is the beginning of a series about Norway and those who once upon a time made up the Norwegian empire along the Atlantic rim. There will be: Norway, Greenland, Iceland, Faeroes, the Isle of Man, and possibly the Orkneys and the Hebrides. Most of these places are, obviously, OCs.
It is a standard, beautiful spring day in Oslo.
The city, free from winter's quiet white grip, is becoming greener every day. And all the green is especially vivid this day, after a day of good rain come up from the Baltic.
Norway is observing this renewed life from the lobby of the parliament building. The lawn is green, very green, like chlorophyll is the new Norwegian export. It's a treat for the eyes after hours of the parliament's sea of beige carpets. Several citizens have laid out towels and blankets to sit on. Two women are luxuriating in the sun, a third is watching a child—probably her own—flying a kite on a breeze none of them apparently feel. A couple of other people are merely hanging around but still on the grass. A single person is sitting between one of the lion statue's paws, with ear buds in and head shaking to a private beat.
Norway wonders about how dry the ground really is at this point.
Behind him some important men and women are talking together, one of them laughing now and then. Yes, he knew that laugh. It has to be Ødegaard. A small brown haired women, who wears a strange amount of eye shadow and throws her head back when she laughs at anything a man says. A woman of forty-one, who is going on forty-two and as of yet childless. An example of a human ticking clock Norway has seen over and over again but never had to understand, really.
Someone comes up behind Norway. The person stops short at an obviously respectable distance. "Mr. Wegerland" says the person, not quite requesting attention.
Norway—who has recently changed his name to something a bit more rustic—turns around and gives the slightest of acknowledgments, a raised brow.
"This is for you. It arrived when you were in the meeting," the person, who is a young man, says and holds forth an envelope of moderately rich paper. Norway gives the envelope a quick glance. The return address is an address in the Faroe Islands.
Norway then takes the envelope and says, "thanks".
He looks at the envelope again, this time for a moment longer. He sees the handwriting that must be Faeroe's, with the tell-tale curly letters she has only recently adopted in order to make her printing more impressive. Cursive is, as always, something somehow remaining elusive to her.
The stamps show various dramatic scenes in the Faeroese nature: the Witch's finger, cliffs that plunge without a hesitation into the sea.
Norway takes the letter and carefully puts it into his briefcase. He then returns to looking at the green lawn, for a while, letting the letter and what he suspects are its probable contents slip from his mind for a few minutes. He has just come from a political meeting—with things to sign, ideas to listen to, people to interact with, all in addition to dealing with the whole damned process of getting anything done.
He will get to her letter, and of course he will answer it with sound, prudent advice. But he will answer it after he has gotten home and done something else. The only things Faeroes writes to him about these days is national politics and Denmark, two things which he does not always feel up to dealing with right away.
For a moment he joins the crowd of talking people.
"Good job, Mr. Wegerland."
"Yeah. You too."
After the schmoozing and invitations to dinners, they leave the building.
Norway returns to the window.
Outside the little girl is struggling to get her kite up by herself. She will not accept help from the adult practically hovering over her. She seems to be yelling at the adult, snapping and fighting off all advice and aid. But then a second kid comes—what looks like her brother, same hair and posture—from nowhere, and a third kids who looks a lot less like her, and eventually together they manage to get it up in the air.
The kite is flying above the building, and Norway imagines the view from outside, the white kite and its blue, whipping tail near the swallow-tailed Norwegian flag. What a sight it must be on this cloudless day.