Rowan awakes one summer morning to the realization that it has been two years to the day since the strange accident that brought her here. The sun is only just peeking through the window and, as usual, she's the only one awake. The other girls she shares the room with sleep as late as the can, especially when the King is away. Rowan, on the other hand, is up as early as possible. Time has become a precious commodity. She slips out of her cot, wincing as her bare feet touch the cold stone floor.

The water she pours into a basin feels like ice, and it shocks the last traces of sleep from her eyes. The reflection that looks back at her every morning is both strange and familiar at the same time. It's like looking at a younger sister who bears an uncanny resemblance to herself. She thinks this must be what celebrities feel when they see their own professional doubles. If she were to compare this face to a picture of herself as a preteen, even she might have trouble telling the difference.

She does a little dance for warmth as she opens the chest that sits at the foot of her small bed. Her possessions are few. The clothing of the women in Wessex is simple, a short-sleeved underdress of wool and a long-sleeved underdress of linen, belted at the waist.

She loosens her hair from the braid she wears at night and puts it up with one of the only precious things she owns, a bronze hairpin with a raven on one end that had belonged to the mother of the body she now inhabits. Unmarried girls are expected to wear their hair free, and married women wear two long braids, both styles designed to show off the length of their hair. Rowan, however, prefers to use the pin to pull her hair up into a secure bun, disguising the scar that crosses her scalp vertically from the center of her head to behind her right ear.

The only other thing she values lies at the bottom of the chest, and she runs her fingers over the large, leather bound book. Perhaps tonight she will find the time to write in it, in modern English, with the smallest, most cramped writing she can possibly manage. It is one of only two places where she can really speak freely.

Speaking of which, she hurries to close the chest and finish dressing herself. Oddune is waiting for her, and the old priest is crotchety enough when she hasn't done anything, admittedly usually on purpose, to annoy him.

The stone halls of the royal ville are still quiet as she goes to the kitchens to get an apple, a piece of yesterday's bread, and some cheese. Finally, she stops by the weaving house to retrieve her basket of work. Most of the people she passes pay her little attention. She is only Bothild, the poor orphan girl who hit her head while playing with the youngest prince and nearly drowned in the river, causing her to lose her memory. It is an image she has carefully protected and cultivated. More leeway is given to the potentially mentally damaged girl when it comes to strange behavior than would be given to a normal, healthy person.

It's this freedom that allows her to go to the archives every day for a few hours. Oddune is already there, as usual, and he greets her with a grunt. Rowan only smiles in response, sitting at her usual spot at on a stool. She sets her distaff into the crook of one arm and begins to spin a smooth, fine strand of wool as Oddune begins a lecture on verb tenses.

He has never told her exactly where or when he came from. All she knows is that when she woke with a screaming headache and a bad case of tinnitus, he was there. Even though he couldn't explain the exact how or why, he was at least able to tell her that she had awoken in the kingdom of Wessex in the Dark Ages, and that the same thing had happened to him some sixty years ago. Since then, he had been teaching her what she needed to know to survive in this new life, at least language-wise.

"What do you miss most about your old life?"

It is a question she asks often. Oddune used to complain that it was masochistic to dwell, but he seemed to recognize that it was important to her. In this life where she was most often working from sunup to sundown, her memories seemed to fade at an alarming rate. The massive cranial trauma probably didn't help, although the only obviously remaining sign was a vertical scar from the very center of her scalp to behind her right ear.

"It's your game," Oddune replies. His modern English has a noticeable German accent. "You tell me."

"Coffee." Rowan begins. "Chocolate. Potable water. Project Gutenberg. Metallica. Bicycles. Cat memes."

He gives her a distinctly judgmental look. Rowan only responds with a grin and continues. "Louis Vuitton. A mail service. Long hand letters with Ed."

She smiles at the memory for a moment, but the familiar pang of pain hits her square in the chest and the smile fades. Oddune straightens from the manuscript he's been looking at. He says nothing, watching her carefully.

"Learning to spin and weave with Mormor." She continues. "Reading books with dad. Shopping with mom. Going on long walks in the woods. My hiking boots."

They are both silent for a moment. He doesn't try to comfort her. He of all people knows that there is nothing he can say or do to make up for what she has lost, only listen patiently when her heart is breaking.

"It was two years ago."

"I know." He nods softly.

Rowan purses her lips and frowns at her work for a moment before speaking slowly, tentatively, choosing each word with care.

"My parents had a fight. That morning, I mean. They were breaking up. I never even knew it was that bad. They were always so careful not to fight in front of us. But it was my fault."

"I'm sure that's not true." He objects.

"Maybe not completely, but I was probably the straw that broke the camel's back. My whole breakdown and everything. After everything else that happened they just couldn't handle their other kid falling apart like that." She sniffles and wipes a tear away with a forced laugh. "Add antidepressants to my list, those were pretty nice too."

Oddune pats her hands awkwardly before she waves him away, signaling that she'll be alright and that they should both go back to their work.

Rowan is grateful for it, and for Oddune's droning voice as he goes back to his favorite topic, words. She's allowed to spend an unusual amount of time here with him because of his knowledge of language. He had volunteered early on to teach her how to speak their language. Only he had gotten an odd glint in his eye when he had learned that her father had been a scholar of ancient manuscripts, and it had quickly morphed into a general tutoring on speaking, reading, and writing the ancient languages he knew. He had been the one to give her the blank book, one that he had personally made himself.

"How much Norse did my – I mean, Bothild's – mother teach you?" Rowan interrupts him.

"Not much more than I've taught you." He replies with a shrug. "King Ecbert wanted her to teach me, but she didn't have much time. She was very busy caring for Bothild and working. She didn't have much help from the other women."

"Even though she converted?"

"They were mistrustful. Many doubted the sincerity of her faith."

Rowan is silent for a time, before asking, "What about you? Do you think she was sincere?"

Oddune puts down his quill with a sigh and turns to her. "Hildegunn was perhaps unusual in the strength of her belief. The average person here has neither the time nor the inclination to put into the amount of study she did before she asked to be baptized." He smirks. "She also had the unusual tendency to practice the commandments of Christ instead of simply repeating them."

"I wish I could've met her." Rowan smiles.

"She loved her daughter dearly. I think she would have found you…" He pauses. "Interesting."

She laughs. "Oh, gee, thanks! High praise, that!"

"Never mind. It is time for you to be off now, little tree." He orders her, flicking the feather of his pen in her general direction.

He's right, as usual. She gathers her things back into their basket, but is halted midstride when Oddune breaks out into a body-shaking fit of coughing. She hurries to his side to pour him a cup of weak and rub his back until it passes. When he finally takes a few deep breathes in a row, he mumbles his thanks to her and shoos her away once more. Despite her concern, she obeys, and leaves him with the apple and a quick peck on one weathered cheek.

~…~

The other women have gathered in the weaving house by now, and Rowan finds herself hurrying back through the winding halls, now busy with all manner of people going about their daily business. While the King is not in residence, away on some other part of his perpetual tour of the kingdom, his son and his family are. With three growing boys in the royal household, the women are never at a loss for work making various items of clothing.

They pay little attention as Rowan slips in and starts working at her spinning again. She has become skilled at becoming a shadow in a corner. After two years of practice, it is now easy for her to spin while listening in on the gossip and songs of the women around her.

The songs. If anything is good about her new life, it is the chance to hear and learn ballads older than any ever recorded. The time passes quickly as they sing of faeries, betrayed lovers and, more often than not, murder.

Today, though, she has difficulty paying enough attention to the voices around her to decipher their words. Her thoughts dwell on Oddune and his cough. It wasn't new, growing steadily worse and more frequent since she had known him. This latest episode had been the worse yet, and her gut is still clenched in an unpleasant knot from it.

Her gloomy thoughts are interrupted by a commotion outside. Everyone in the room turns to the open doorway, craning their necks to see if they can see anything. Willa, the matronly woman who rules the weaving house with an iron fist, snaps for them all to get back to their work and never mind what is going on outside. Rowan imagines that the second coming of Christ himself would not stop Willa from making sure that the little princes' new trousers were finished before they outgrew their old ones. God forbid their royal posteriors wear slightly-too-small garments for even a second.

Still, she can't control curiosity, and the topic of the day quickly becomes what might be going on outside. The noise had been coming from the outer courtyard, and had eventually approached and then passed by in the direction of the prison cells. Rowan begins to feel a familiar itch. The urge to snoop. When Willa announces that they may go to midday meal, she instantly crumbles before the temptation.

One benefit of being so small is that it greatly improves her ability to sneak. The halls are filled with soldiers talking amongst themselves, but they are talking much too quickly for Rowan to decipher anything useful. She does manage to learn that there are, as she suspected, two new prisoners. From the excitement around her, it seems that they are something pretty special as well. She slips through the halls unnoticed, or possibly not worthy of notice, down to the underground cells.

There are more soldiers, and Rowan has to roll her eyes at herself for even trying to see over tall, armor-clad shoulders by standing on her tippy toes. They are mostly centered in front of one huge wooden door that is already closed and barred, but she notices another cell door at the opposite end of the hall that is still open. Target acquired, she ducks low and manages to slip in between and through until she can get past the crowd and take a peek into the room.

At first, all she sees is a group of three guards clustered in front of the rickety cot on one side of the room. They seem to be debating what measures to take with their prisoner. It seems that this one doesn't inspire quite the same level of precaution as the other. They finally shrug and turn to leave, and as they part, Rowan is able to lean over and catch her first glimpse of the prisoner.

He is young, more a boy than a man really. Rowan barely notices that he is dressed in rough but sturdy clothing, meant for long travelling, or that his hands are covered with strange leather bracers that she's never seen before.

What she does see is that he is angry. It's in every line of his face, in the twist of his mouth. In the downward tilt of his chin, and in the burning fire in his bright blue eyes. He is possibly the angriest person Rowan has ever seen, and that's a remarkable accomplishment.

And that terrible glare is currently looking directly at her.

Self-preservation is a largely foreign instinct for Rowan, having long ago lost a war of attrition against the overwhelming force of her depression. Yet, in this moment, something sparks in her. A forgotten glimmer of something deeply instinctual.

She turns.

She runs.

*.*.*

Oddune just gave me this book. He says that it would be good for me to write anything I can't say to him. Seems like a good idea. If I write in very, very small letters, it could probably last the rest of my life. Probably took him ages to make. Kind of awesome.

Where to begin? First, a Connecticut Yankee wouldn't have had a damn clue what anyone was saying, because these people don't speak English. Actually makes me wish I'd payed more attention to Dad's lectures on the evolution of the language. As it is, I'm pretty much learning from scratch. Oddune did a good job covering for me. Amnesia from a head injury is even plausible to me. Speaking of which, OW.

As for 'my' new history, here are the facts as far as I've been able to figure them out. Bothild (you have to be f**king kidding me) is an orphan. Technically, her guardian is her uncle, who shall heretofore be referred to as Lord Cat-Butt-Face, but he's a personal soldier for the king, so he's away most of the time. Her mother was from a Viking (yeah, yeah, not technically the right word and blah-blah-blah moving on) settlement. At some point she was seduced by a Saxon man, Lord Cat-Butt-Face's older brother. Her family found out and was about to commit bloody murder, but for the timely intervention of both the King of Wessex and the woman who was the leader of the settlers.

So the Saxon, Botwine, and the Viking, Hildigunn got married. She converted to Christianity, and eventually gave birth to a baby girl, Bothild. She died a few years later from a sickness, and he died not long after of a wound. Lord Cat-Butt-Face isn't too happy about the whole thing, what with mother being a pagan and all, so he sort of fobbed the kid off on the royal ville here, which is sort of attached to the village where she was raised.

So here I am, living in a little room with a couple of other single girls. When I'm more recovered, my main job will be helping with the spinning and weaving. At least I have a pretty good idea of how to do that, so, yeah, thanks Mormor! Bet you never thought that skill would turn out to be literally necessary for my life!

In hindsight, waking up for the first time was strikingly similar to a scene from Freaky Friday (This isn't mine. These aren't mine. *Grabs chest* Gasp! Those definitely aren't mine!). If it wasn't bad enough I'm over a thousand years into the past, I had also ended up in the body of an extremely small twelve-year-old. Puberty, round two, here I come!

~…~

Already sick of lacing up my dress. It's fiddly, and it's obnoxious. Seriously thinking of f***king with archaeologists and inventing the button. Then I remember Mark Twain and think I should maybe take the warning and avoid any potential unforeseen consequences. But then I remember that Mark Twain never actually travelled and time and had to deal with this BS because he lived in the 20th century and HAD F***KING BUTTONS.

The only other alternative is brooches, and as Lord Cat Butt Face holds the purse strings and I would probably have to invent the Jaws of Life to get him to open those, I'm stuck with lacing s**t up every day.

~…~

This bitch has a better voice than I do. Feeling slightly pleased that she's dead.

~…~

Didn't mean that. Totally uncalled for. Just feeling generally pissed about life in general.

~…~

Shockingly cold at night here. May have to make some mittens or else lose my fingers to frostbite.

~…~

Knitting not invented yet. Will soon perish. This will likely be my last entry.

~…~

Started swimming in the river when able. This skinny bitch has no muscle mass. Been such a long time. 7+ years now? Forgot how good it feels. Still not going near horses. F**k that noise.

~…~

King and family arrived today. One year anniversary of 'my' a.k.a Bothild's accident. Alfred remembered and gave me a sweet bread. Said thank you for saving him again and sorry you slipped and fell in instead, how's the head feel? It's fine, I told him. People seem pretty tolerant of me wearing my hair up to hide the scar.

His mother also asked me how I was and if there was anything I needed. Haven't grown in past year and clothes not worn out, so no, not really. She said I was a very sweet girl and she was happy Alfred had someone close to his age to play with when they're here. Lord Cat-Butt-Face royally cat-butt-faced and spent the rest of the time they were here ignoring me. I bite my tongue and don't tell him what I really think of him. Not really a point in the long run.

~…~

Beginning to translate modern songs I remember into ancient languages to pass time. Nerdiness lvl approaching critical. Something interesting needs to happen around here before irreversible damage done to coolness.

~…~

Yeah, Row, you really wrote that. Juuust contemplate that for a hot second.

Dumb bitch.

Eep! The first real chapter is here!

I tend to like to do this thing with my writing where I post some questions at the end of each chapter for people to think about and hopefully respond to before the next chapter. It's kind of fun, and helps me figure out if things are coming across the way I intend. Not sure if anyone is very interested in something like that, but here's a couple just in case.

What do you think Ivar's first reaction to Rowan is going to be like? What could he think about her technically being half-Norse?

What do you think of Rowan's journal entries? I'm going to have more or less have something at the end of each chapter, because I'm trying to keep the main story slightly remote, like a third person observer, with most details coming out in an organic manner through the narrative. So my hope is that having her internal monologue at the end gives this unusual, sometimes surprising, insight into the thoughts and feelings that couldn't be perceived just by looking at her.