A/N -This is just a short tale that's been playing on my mind since I watched Vikings.

I think I'm actually the only person to have written a romance fanfic about the Seer. I think he's a very underestimated man. For somebody who'd clearly been mutilated and is extremely ugly, scary and moody, he's also confident, self assured and he doesn't take shit off anybody. He's not up himself or pretentious either, and throughout the seasons he laughs easily and demonstrates a keen intelligence and wisdom. I think he's the sort of man who's seen it all, which makes him interesting. So based on that perception, this story was born.

Enjoy. And remember...even the wrinklies need love ;)

The Apprentice

Chapter 1

Walking into a new town always caused Hella extreme anxiety. Her hands trembled uncontrollably because people were staring. She didn't want Eerika to notice her fear and be upset. The little girl was gripping Hella's hand so tightly that her fingers were nearly numb. Hella's stomach rolled, acidic, hot and empty. They wandered past a market stall draped in an embroidered green cloth, which suggested that Kattegat had some decent wealth. When Hella smelled the fresh bread, her stomach grumbled like the warning of an earthquake. She'd given the last of their dried supplies to Eerika the night before and her body was empty. She could feel the strength bleeding out of her feet.

Already the sun was getting low. Hella knew it would be a long night for them if they couldn't find shelter.

'It's cold,' Eerika said. 'Where will we sleep?'

'Don't worry so much,' Hella smiled at her, though she knew her eye was twitching the way it did when she lied. 'We'll find somewhere soon.'

'Like last time,' Eerika commented doubtfully, one eyebrow arched. She'd learned the gesture off a dry old man in the last town they'd been evicted from and Hella didn't like the way it twisted Eerika's face and made her look older than her six years. It was actually Eerika's fault that they had nowhere to live. She'd told the landlord his sins. Hella was still trying to force herself to forgive the girl because she couldn't control her gift. But she also insisted on telling people what she saw, even though she knew the trouble Hella faced because of it.

'They're staring at me,' Eerika complained, her dark curls brushing Hella's wrist. Hella had walked into five new towns in one year. Every time the locals gawked at her. It never got any easier to bear.

'Ignore them. They're just being nosy.'

In truth it made Hella nervous. She was a small girl, and Eerika was even smaller. The town was full of big, bearded fighting men and Hella knew very well what many of them wanted. It made her anxious.

Eerika's sloe-eyed gaze turned on a teenage girl who was herding pigs along the roadside. Inexorably, Eerika raised her left hand and pointed with a single, offensive little finger, her eyelids flickering strangely as they did whenever she read people's secrets.

'That one shares a bed with her brothers. Sometimes she had sex with them.'

'Eerika!' Hella grabbed the accusing finger as the farm girl spun to stare daggers at them. 'You can't say those things aloud!'

'But it's true!' Eerika shook Hella by the neck angrily. 'Why don't you believe me!'

'I do believe in your gifts, Eerika,' Hella said quickly, all too aware of how angry and spiteful Eerika could get if she felt wronged. Hella already had bruises to prove it. Just last month the girl had kicked a cat for biting her and the next morning, Hella had found it dead. Hella hated that tendency in Eerika, but the girl was stubborn, so she tried to be diplomatic; 'People don't want their secrets spilled in front of everyone. We've just come a new place. We want them to like us, don't we? Don't you want to stay this time?' Hella tried desperately.

Eric surveyed the villagers with her dark, quiet intelligence.

'Don't know.'

'OK, well...while you make up your mind...just try not to say what you see out loud. OK? Why don't you just whisper it to me instead?'

Eerika shrugged her skinny shoulders, playing with a lock of Hella's hair, apparently placated for now.

As they walked past an open shop window with its hanging, painted sign where a huge, fluffy hound the size of a small pony lolled, Hella smelled pork roasting. Her stomach gave another minor quake. Hella wondered at the answer to Eerika's question. Where would they sleep tonight? Maybe they'd find a barn. Anxiety crept up on Hella again, crushing the last desperate pieces of the childhood self she hid away inside. She'd have to find work, if there was any. It would probably mean being someone's servant again.

'I'm hungry,' Eerika demanded.

'I know. So am I.'

'It's getting dark,' Eerika whispered.

They'd found a place to sit on the grassy bank where a stream cut through the town. Hella watched the marketplace shut down. Hella wouldn't beg, not even for the scraps they threw to the pigs. She'd never get anywhere in this town if they thought she was a vagrant. The thought of another long, cold night ahead put a lead stone in her belly. They'd slept under the stars every night for a month on the road, then been robbed the night before they arrived by three men, who'd taken the only fur they had between them. Hella felt sure that the only reason she and Eerika hadn't been raped and killed was that Eerika told them their future, and it was a good future.

'It's cold here,' Eerika said pointedly. Hella suppressed the urge to tell the girl that she knew very well how cold it was and how much colder they were going to get. Home was still a fixture in the little girl's world, where slaves dressed her every morning and her Mother and Father indulged her every whim. It wasn't like that any more. Hella knew the past was dead, but Eerika wasn't old enough to understand that. Helpless and frustrated as Hella sometimes felt, she couldn't bring herself to shatter all the girls illusions just yet.

Thick skirts rustled by. Hella looked up to see an old lady in a thick shawl. Her eyes were as foggy as a Winter morning. If she wasn't blind, she was close to it.

'Old woman!' Hella stopped her. 'I have no home...do you know where I can find work?'

'You beggars?'

'No!' Hella said quickly. 'We just arrived in Kattegat. I just need a job.'

Eerika shivered, pressing close to Hella's ribs, wrapping her hands in the older girl's shawl. Eerika never said it, but Hella was sure she thought of her as a Mother, even though there were only ten years between them. Hella wasn't ready to be a Mother. She'd never really wanted to be. But when she'd found Eerika at the roadside, crying for her Mother, she'd realised there were choices in life that had to be made. So she'd bought the girl with her. They were both alone, and it made sense.

'Might be they have an opening at the docks...maybe some fish need gutting,' the old woman said. ''Orrible job, that, but they pays the women that does it. Ask in the morning.'

'Thank you.'

'Might be I need someone to help me chop these up,' the old lady held up a bunch of carrots. 'Can't see where my fingers go, see? Chopped the end of my pinky finger,' she held up her hand to show them. Hella's stomach rumbled to think of carrots, and Eerika gasped in horror at the stump. 'You come and cook them for me, you can share my hearth and supper.'

Hella pulled Eerika onto her hip quicker than lightning seeks to touch the ground.

'We'll gladly help you, right Eerika?'

Eerika, who'd spied food, nodded in absolute silence, her lips pressed together. She looked innocent when she did that, but Hella knew she only did it when she wanted to keep her incisive observations inside. Hella followed the shuffling old lady through the gathering dark.

Hella smiled at her and whispered; 'See? We've been lucky, haven't we?'

Eerika nodded.

'Come on, you,' Hella let the little girl slide down her body to the floor and took her hand. 'You can walk yourself now, and you're getting too big to carry.'

'I don't want to be big.'

'I know, but my back hurts. Just this once you can walk a bit.'

Hella sensed Eerika's frustration. She didn't like to be told NO, but the truth was, her bare feet were blistered so badly that the extra weight really hurt. Then Eerika ran headlong into a dark figure who was crossing their path, carrying a long stick topped with a skull and feathers. The man made an ungainly sound of surprise and tripped on the hem of his robe. As he caught himself with a sudden and surprisingly accurate jab of his stick into the corner angle of a horse trough, Eerika sprawled on her back, face already cracking into tears.

The old man turned like a black tide to reveal a badly mutilated skull under the overhanging hood of a full-length cowl. He looked like his eyes had been gouged out and the skin sliced and stitched over the sockets. Eerika screamed, scrambling away to hide behind Hella, who managed to hold her ground as he approached. Her breath froze in her chest as he thumped the ground just short of her toes with his stick.

'Watch where you walk!' He snapped, his tone like an oncoming storm.

He was taller than anyone Hella had ever seen, but she sensed with the long experience of someone smaller than everyone else around, that for all he was fierce and angry, he wouldn't hurt them this time.

'I'm so sorry,' she managed to quell the natural fear of such a terrible face, reminding herself that under the scars was just a man. Judging by his black-stained lips, he was obviously the town's resident Seer, but Hella had never seen a man in that position before. Seers were usually women. She pushed her observations aside. 'Are you hurt? Forgive her...she's just a child and I don't think she's ever seen...someone like you.'

The old Seer turned his eyeless skull towards Eerika, who tugged so hard on Hella's skirt that it almost fell down. Hella had lost all her excess weight on their journey. The last time she'd caught sight of herself in a still puddle, she was horrified that she looked like an undernourished skeleton with an overabundance of red hair.

A torch mounted on the wall of a nearby house revealed the ridges and pits of his mutilation, all the more grotesque in the flickering light, but Hella noticed that the lower part of his face was untouched, like his full, bow-lips and smooth throat. His bare collarbones were covered in a tattoo. It looked like feathers, but she couldn't quite make out the details.

'Make him go away!' Eerika wept into Hella's skirt.

'Eerika!' Hella pleaded, touching the girl's curly hair. 'Be quiet...and be polite. He's a holy man.'

'I see you,' he bent to look at her closely. Hella shivered. His voice had gone softer, undercutting all other noise like gentle thunder. Hella's skin sensitized. The air between them crackled with unspent energy. 'And I see this is not your child. You are...innocence...in the grip of a darkness you fail to see.'

Hella rubbed the little girl's hair reassuringly.

'I think your sight has failed you this time, Wise One,' she said quietly. 'Because it's the other way around, in this case.'

His black lips twitched like he might smile, but the expression died suddenly. Hella bent to catch his wrist. She turned it over, surprised to see that his hands weren't wrinkled like an old man, just weathered.

'We apologise...for your injury.'

'I was not injured.'

'At any rate,' Hella said softly, licking his palm. He smiled, then bowed his head slightly in acceptance.

'Come and see me tomorrow,' he said, stepping back. Hella felt Eerika relax. 'We must...talk.'

The old lady turned at her front door, the carrots bunched in her papery fingers.

'Goodnight, old man,' she said lightly. 'Enjoy your indulgence.'

'And to you, Helga,' he replied, facing into the dark.

'Indulgence?' Hella asked, relenting and scooping up Eerika, cupping her skull.

'Ah, the odd cup of ale. Good for the heart and brain, though since he's dead...I can't think as it matters,' Helga opened up her home and let them in. 'Come on in, girls, for Freya's sake! Put the wood back in the hole!'

Hella smiled into Eerika's hair. Her Mother used to say that when visitors left the door open too long and let in the cold.

With her belly full from the soup and a hunk of bread Helga had given her, Hella felt closer to restful sleep than she had in weeks. Eerika was already gone, her mouth open, catching flies, eyelids flickering in the land of dreams. Hella hoped they were good ones this time. She needed a good night's sleep herself, not Eerika cheekily asking her to tell story after story until the wee hours.

'What happened to the Seer's eyes? I've seen Seers before...but they were all women.'

'Noone knows,' Helga said, the smoke from her tobacco pipe curling up under the eaves. It reminded Hella of her Father, but that was a long time ago. So long that it was silly to be upset about it now, but she couldn't help the sadness that coiled under her breastbone. They were all gone now. Even if she went back to her village, nothing would be the same.

'She's not yours, is she?' Helga asked.

'She lost her family to a great fire. I lost mine to marauders. We have more in common that a lot of sisters but no...we're not related. She's mine now anyway. I take care of her.'

'A heavy burden, you bear.'

'Sometimes,' Hella agreed, very quietly, in case Eerika had awoken. Hella didn't want the girl to think she was a burden, but the truth was, sometimes it felt that way.

000

Light filtered through Hella's closed lids, staining her internal world peach. She could feel Eerika's warmth pressed to her back. Helga was asleep beside them, facing away. During the night, the old woman let out protracted farts that wafted up from the sheets like the choking hand of death.

Hella's stomach had long since emptied of their evening meal. In the presence of sufficient food the night before, her body suddenly became insistent, demanding as much as humanly possible to eat. Before Helga or Eerika woke, Hella wandered down to the shoreline where a skinny man with a grey beard was reeling in nets. A woman sat there on an upturned pot, passing a wooden needle in and out of them, fixing holes. She had the biggest chest Hella had ever seen.

'I need work,' she told the man. 'Do you know any I could do?'

He pointed silently to a broad-chested man with beads in his beard who was gutting fish, pulling out stringy, bulbous organs and tossing them into a bucket. He looked unhappy with his job. Hella shivered, nervous.

'I need work,' she told him anxiously. 'I have a girl to feed.'

The man pointed a bloody knife point her way and eyed her like a curious parrot.

'Can you gully a fish?' he asked.

'Yes,' she said.

'Can you gully...that many fish?' he pointed to six oak barrels of fresh fish, some still wriggling. Hella nodded. He stuck the knife point down in the pock-marked wooden table he was working on and gestured to her to pick it up, and demonstrate. Hella pulled the knife free, picked up a wriggling fish by the gills and nervously, her hands shaking with worry he might find her work too messy, she gutted the fish and opened the empty cavity, unspoiled by the blade, to show him. He nodded.

'Carry on, then. Three silver pieces at week's end if you make it.'

Hella knew she would. Three silver pieces was a good wage and it wasn't hard to gut fish. Just stinky and foul. No worse than starving.

The man's name was Tamas, which she learned from the big-chested Bridgit who moved her stool closer when his back was turned so that they could talk. Tamas gave Bridgit a look for that, but he said nothing when she continued to work diligently. Tamas came back at midday to inspect Hella's work. Worry squirmed under her breastbone. The market was in full swing, the streets had grown steadily busier. She didn't want to be shamed for sloppy work in front of so many people, but Tamas nodded his approval. Hella sighed out all the tension she'd been storing up and finally began to relax, hope kindling.

At lunch time, Helga and Eerika appeared through the crowd. Eerika flung herself at Hella, who stopped her before she could hug her bloody, stinking apron. Hella smiled at the old woman gratefully.

'I'm so sorry to leave her with you like that. Tamas gave me a job and I couldn't get away.'

'She's been...relatively little trouble,' Helga said with a smile, to which Eerika gave a sneaky little grin that Hella knew all too well. It meant she had been trouble, and Hella felt a surge of gratitude to the old lady for her patience.

'I'll pay you back twice over for what you did for us, Helga, I promise-'

Helga waved her away. 'Don't be ridiculous. But you can always cook me my supper,' she grinned.

'Supper it is, then,' Hella agreed. 'My grown son's are both gone...the old room in the loft needs a good clean. I'll rent it to you cheap, if you cook.'

Hella smiled. She pointed to the beach. 'Eerika. Look, I see children with wooden swords and sticks. Go and play with them.'

When the girl ran off, Hella turned to Helga.

'Thank you.'

Helga smiled. 'I have noone to talk to now except for some senile old Grandfathers who stay behind during raiding season, and that dusty old Ancient One. A little excitement in the bones...it's like new life.'

Hella leaned over and kissed her cheek. 'We've been all over, to so many towns, and noone's ever been as kind as you.'

Helga wandered home, leaving Hella to learn how to fold the mended nets. Hella's hands hurt, her thumbs were blistered from the knife, but the barrels of fresh fish were empty now. A skinny woman who'd only grunted to Hella so far hung them over a beach-front fire to dry.

When the mast shadows touched the shore, Tamas let them go. Eerika came bounding up the beach to see her. Hella picked her up even though her hands and feet hurt. She felt weak from the day without food, though she'd been given drinking water. She was glad to know she'd get more soup tonight, because she didn't think she could work another day without a meal.

'You're going the wrong way,' Eerika said giving her an irritated push as they walked home through the town.

'Eerika, stop doing that,' Hella corrected her. Eerika's habit of expressing herself with force was wearing thin. 'We're going to see the Seer.'

'You can't!' Eerika smacked her hands on Hella's collarbones. Hella put her down.

'Stop hitting me when you want things,' she said, a bit more sharply. No matter how hard she worked or tried, sometimes the girl was plain spoiled. 'If you can't use words first, then I'm not carrying you any more.'

Eerika started to cry, standing in the street like a pathetic vision. It had begun to rain. Hella knelt down, the rain wicking up her dress, wetting her shin, making her shiver. She felt dog tired, her very bones aching. She just wanted to eat and sleep.

'We have to try.'

'I...don't...WANT...to!' Eerika wailed, loudly enough to attract attention. Hella wanted to smack her, but she wasn't sure it'd do any good. Eerika just wasn't old enough to understand. 'He's ugly!' the little girl added.

'Yes. He is. But we need his help. We have to find a future here, Eerika. We can't keep moving from town to town,' Every time you mess it up, she wanted to add, but stopped herself. 'We have to find a home. If we don't, we'll have to sleep outside again. Wet and cold every night. Eerika. I want to live in a house. Not under a tree. Don't you?'

Eerika stamped her foot, raising both her fists for another attack. Hella caught them.

'It's not FAIR!' Eerika screamed.

'Stop it!' Hella finally yelled. 'You're nearly seven now. It's time to stop behaving like a baby. You can't always have everything you want. Sometimes you have to think about others. About me. And how hard I have to work to keep us both safe. About how I always have to carry you because you won't use your own feet,' Hella stood up, guilt warring with her frustration and anger. 'You have to start helping me, Eerika, and soon. I'm not a slave. You have to come in there with me and ask for his help or you're going to be doing favours for men for your dinner for the rest of your life!'

Eerika scrubbed at her eyes, looking blank and broken.

'It means doing very bad things, with very naughty, bad men. People who want to hurt us both. Do you want me to get hurt?'

'N-No,' Eerika finally whispered. I know, Hella thought, because if I get hurt you'll starve, or die of cold like the other orphan kids. It's not about me, Eerika. It's about you feeling safe, it's always about YOU. Hella sucked in a deep breath and tried to reign in her anger.

'You've got to try and be brave then,' Hella finally said, diplomatically.

Eerika followed her into the old man's house with her eyes shut tight, gripping the back of her skirt so that Hella had to hold it up to keep her modesty. The girl cried silently until Hella put her on her lap and surreptitiously covered the girls eyes under the guise of stroking her hair. The Ancient One was toying with a the tiny, polished skull of a bird, his dry, smooth fingertips exploring the crevices of its empty sockets. He looked directly at her face. Hella found his attention off-putting, but she didn't let it show. She didn't want to offend him.

'Ahhh,' his black lips stretched into a smile. 'You came to see me.'

'Yes,' Hella agreed. He sat on the edge of a wide bed that clearly doubled as his chair. The house was full of bones and in the corners, Hella could see gifts of food and fabric.

Hella stroked Eerika's hair.

'I see...a farm. And a father five score years...who left you an orphan,' the Seer said.

'Yes,' Hella agreed nervously.

'And I see you have nothing to ask me...about your own future. You are only interested in the girl's.'

'Of the two of us, she has the gifts, not me.'

'Yet you are gifted. You have kept her alive.'

Hella chewed her lip anxiously. Her belly grumbled. He caressed the bird's skull, his head tilted like the original owner, as though he was curious.

'The child...could be trained,' he said after a minute. 'To give prophecies. And insight. Let her use her gifts on me.'

'No, I don't think that'd be appropriate,' Hella said quickly. Eerika was so incisive that she frightened people.

'I say it is,' he insisted, rising from the cot. When he was almost upon them, he reached out to touch Eerika, who gasped in fright. 'Don't be frightened, child.'

'Please-' Hella started, because she knew how terrified Eerika was of his face.

'Sit,' he told Hella sharply. She did as he commanded, nervously fidgeting with the hem of her shawl as he plucked Eerika up, setting her on his hip so easily that Hella began to wonder if he was old at all. He seemed fit and able.

'It's no good feeding fears,' he rumbled. 'Open your eyes.'

Eerika shook her head vehemently, gripping his robe for all she was worth.

'Come now,' he sidled, smiling deviously. 'Open,' he murmured, touching her eyelids.

Eerika stiffened and Hella held her breath, certain the girl was going to scream and cry, and hit him like she had started doing with Hella. But Eerika opened her eyes suddenly and looked up. His black lips tilted up triumphantly as Eerika chewed her lip, then finally she smiled. Hella felt a surge of pride. Eerika had always been so brave and adaptable.

'Tell me what you see,' the old man encouraged.

Eerika touched the ring he wore at his collarbones, then investigated his hood. She smiled, cheeky and dark.

'There's a girl. You lie down with her. There,' Eerika pointed to the bed. 'Your face scares her, but she likes it anyway. You pay her.'

He grinned widely. 'You are very...perceptive. Go on.'

Eerika giggled.

'Why does she call you Papa?'

'That's a very...grown up game...and an answer for another time.'

Hella flushed so red her hairline tingled. Just like Eerika, to fish out a man's sins so plainly, all the more disturbing through the mouth of a child.

'Your children are all dead,' Eerika said suddenly.

His lips twitched, his smile fading. Hella stiffened in surprise.

'My children were taken from me,' he agreed. 'By bad men. Men who envied me my Sight.'

Eerika fidgeted with her hands. 'They...cut you,' she said, staring at his face. Hella had to force herself not to surge from the chair and take the girl back. 'They...peeled the skin off your back and stitched it to your face.'

'They were jealous that the Gods chose me, to be their messenger.'

Eerika's lip wobbled in worry. 'They're...hanging. Red. Like the rabbits before we cook them.'

Hella felt sick.

'They raped...and mangled my daughters. They cut my wife's throat. You know. You have seen it.'

'Stop this, please-' Hella jumped up.

'You don't have a say in this!' he snapped at Hella, his voice a whip-crack.

Hella took Eerika from his arms, ignoring his tone.

'She's just a child, you can't say those things to her!'

'It makes no difference what I say. She has Seen it!' He leaned in, his face close to Hella's. 'She has lived it, as though she were there. You must take her to the temple where they will teach her to control her gift. Or it will overcome her, and before three Winters pass, you will put her in the ground. If she does not put YOU there first.'

Hella went cold like a Winter midnight. She knew Eerika had problems. Sometimes the girl got so angry noone could control her. But Eerika wasn't like that deep down. Hella was sure of it.

'They screamed,' Eerika whispered, smiling softly as she grabbed Hella's hair. Hella backed towards the door.

'You must take her to the temple!' he called across the room. 'Her gift is also a curse-'

'No,' Hella yelled.

'You would be a fool not to heed me,' he promised.

'I don't care. I won't take her there. They sacrifice men and women alike and torment their followers with starvation and pain. I can't.'

'Wait!' he yelled, but Hella was already gone, fleeing up the hill to Helga's hearth and home, the back of her neck freezing cold with fear.

A/N - More to come. :)