A/N: I just have to say a HUGE thank you to everyone. I was so blown away by the response to the first chapter. You guys just blew me away! Thank you so much!
Also I'll say that I've been reading a lot of books about Scandinavia during the Viking period, but I'm an American girl so, if I get anything factually incorrect I mean no offense. I just love the period and Eric in the period, I couldn't resist.
Thanks as always to my FABULOUS beta Northman Maille. She is such a wonder! My biggest cheerleader, my most awesome brainstorming buddy. I would be lost without her!
Disclaimer: I own nothing…I'm just reserving a spot in the psych ward for poor Sookie.
"This World has Only One Sweet Moment Set Aside for Us"
Yep, if Sookie were a gambling woman, she would have cleaned out the house tonight. Not only had this evening been just as bad as last (if not worse), someone had indeed taken a shot at her. Only this time it had been with an arrow instead of bullet.
These little impredictabilities, they were the spice of life. Spice Sookie was coming to believe she no longer wanted. Plain toast with butter, that's what her life had been like once (well as close to it as a telepath could ever get) and she was beginning to want that back…badly.
It had turned out to be Quinn who'd jumped in front of the arrow, during the Queen's trial, saving her from death, most likely. Which was why he was lying in the infirmary now. It also had a good deal to do with why she was kissing him. That and to assure him bonding with Eric would not get in the way of this thing they were starting.
She'd admitted to Eric, after they'd taken Quinn away on a stretcher, that she had loved him when he'd had no memories. But she'd also told him she knew the truth: he wasn't really that person and she knew he'd never be again.
It had steeled her resolve to say the words out loud, especially to his face. Her Eric was gone… for good. He could never love her like he had then, and she would never settle for being his telepathic property and occasional sex toy, ignoring the truth just to feel his arms around her again.
Of course then they'd danced and she had felt his arms around her. His arms, strong and sure, held her tightly, possessively, almost lovingly. His scent invaded her senses. His eyes, bright and beautiful, all but glamoured her into forgetting all her righteous resolve without even trying. All as he twirled her two feet above the floor.
She'd come so close to losing herself in that moment. If someone had asked her, right then, where her boyfriend was or even who he was, she wouldn't have been able to say. It had fled her mind completely following right behind her reason. All she saw, all she felt, all she wanted was Eric.
Pulling back from Quinn, she examined his face. He was still hurt, of course, the wound from the arrow he'd taken for her would need another night or two to heal. But he didn't look teary anymore.
"I'm sorry." she said blushing furiously.
"Don't ever apologize for a kiss like that." He replied, a dreamy smile on his face. "We definitely have something going on, Sookie. I don't want Andre's Vampire crap ruining it."
"Me either." She responded feeling so relieved all the mess over the last forty-eight hours hadn't driven him away.
Turning to leave she reminded herself Quinn was a good man. One who understood this world she felt as though she were drowning in. One who could protect and guide her through it, yet still give her the normalcy she'd always longed for. She was glad he still seemed to want to.
She wouldn't, absolutely WOULD NOT, give away her chance at a happy, (semi)normal life for a breathless dance and a memory that might haunt her forever, but could never be a reality again.
Intent on getting back to the festivities so she could pay her respects to the Queen and then get herself the heck to bed, Sookie hurried down the hall to the elevator. The car was waiting for her when she pushed the button and she stepped in, hitting the floor number for the ballroom.
The ride took no more than a minute but when the doors opened….
"Two please." Sookie said, handing over her coins and putting her purchase in the basket her mother had given her.
She was just getting ready to move to the next stall. Taking her time to browse, even though she knew she had only enough coins for the things her mother had instructed her to buy.
She was looking at a roll of lovely yellow silk when she felt a tug on her braid. It wasn't hard and it didn't hurt, but it took her attention off all the lovely things she could make with that sunny silk and put it firmly on the face her hair puller. Which of course had been her hair puller's objective.
He was older this time, thirteen or fourteen, and even more beautiful. He might have been still mostly a boy, but he already had the height of a full grown man. His shoulders were broad and muscled from hours practicing with a sword. His stance had the confidence of someone who was special and knew it, but his eyes, there was no swagger there, no smirk. They were soft and warm and seemed filled with affection.
Somehow Sookie knew that affection was genuine. Just as she knew they were friends, the best of friends. Catching sight of herself in a silver tray mounted on one of the walls of a stall, she realized she was older now too, eleven perhaps twelve years of age. Again her face was exactly the way it had been when she was really that age, but everything else was different.
"Are you free?" He asked her, drawing her attention again.
She smiled at him indulgently, adoringly.
"I will be once I finish getting everything my mother sent me for." She answered, picking up her basket and beginning to walk. Only this time she bypassed several merchants displaying jewelry and other pretty things and went straight to the next item on her list.
Eric seemed content to follow along with her and with him there, miraculously, the price of everything she'd been sent for suddenly decreased significantly. She didn't know if it was the fact no one would dare to try and cheat the son of the Chieftain, or if it was because most of the vendors were girls and women of various ages. They all seemed terribly distracted by his handsomeness. Maybe they simply weren't paying attention to anything as trite as the cost of their wares. In fact they seemed to ignore her and her money altogether unless it was to pin her with looks of envy.
Sookie had to stifle a laugh. They were always so jealous and she had no idea why. It was true Eric didn't seem to pay any attention to the other girls in the village, only to her, but that was because they were friends. While she'd often wished they could be more (She wasn't any more immune to him than anyone else, perhaps even less so since she knew him and knew his physical beauty was only the icing on the cake.), she wasn't stupid.
Even if Eric could ever feel like that for her, something she sincerely doubted, he was also the second son of a Chieftain. That meant he would be expected to make a good match when the time came, not too far off now, for him to marry.
None of the girls from the village would be good enough. He would be expected to make an alliance with another Chieftain's daughter to further their people's well-being and prosperity. Just as his elder brother was doing later on this summer, when he married Aude the eldest daughter of the Chieftain of their closest neighbors to the south.
Sookie had always assumed this was why Eric never paid attention to any of the other girls, even as they started to mature into beautiful young women. He knew what was expected of him and he was ready and waiting to do his duty.
Shaking off her silly thoughts, Sookie realized she had everything she'd been sent for and started to head back towards her family's house. She didn't make it five steps before Eric grabbed her basket in one hand and her wrist in the other and began striding, all but dragging her right along with him, towards the woods.
They walked, or rather he walked and she trotted to keep up with him since he still hadn't let go of her hand, until they got to their favorite spot, the great hollow tree trunk in the woods. Setting her basket down carefully, Eric perched on the trunk, his eyes bright and excited.
"My father has finally said yes!" Eric blurted out, pride swelling his chest.
Sookie smiled wide knowing he wanted her to be happy for him, proud of him, even if the truth was she was a little scared as well. Eric had been begging his father for two summers already to let him go a Viking with the other men of the village. Technically Eric had already been a 'man' for two years, but his father was always, rightfully so she supposed, wary with the lives of his two eldest sons. The younger Sverri was the elder Sverri's heir and Eric was…well the spare. Still, Sookie knew Eric's father didn't see it in that cynical light. Eric was every bit as loved as his brother, perhaps more.
It was why Sverri hadn't wanted Eric to go just yet. But Eric, ever too smart for everyone else's good, had argued eloquently for his right. Even if he were the second son, he still held a place of honor in their tiny community and no man worth his metal would follow an inexperienced boy no matter what his station. If Eric were to take his place among his people he needed to earn it and the only way to do that was to fight and raid right along with them.
"How soon do you leave?" She asked, trying hard to maintain her smile.
Normally she would know these things, but her father had been injured last summer, losing his sword arm at the elbow. He was lucky to be alive, but there would certainly be no more Viking for him.
"Two weeks if the weather holds." Eric answered, the excitement evident in his voice.
Sookie only nodded. She knew it would be bad luck to tell him to be careful as she wanted to. It would lead him and perhaps any of the gods that might be listening to believe she didn't have faith in him and his ability to fight and protect himself.
"Will you miss me while I'm away?" He asked, his smile turning from pride to mischief.
Sookie only snorted. She loved him, she did, more than she should, but she'd never been one to inflate 'the prince's ego. There were far too many others who were willing to do it on a daily basis. She'd come to think of it as her job to keep his feet on the ground and his head out of the clouds.
"I don't know if I'll find the time." She sighed in a put upon way. "Kjell and his father visited our house last night to make an offer for my hand. I may very well be preparing for a wedding while you're gone."
In truth she was worried the offer might go somewhere. Kjell's family were merchants, wealthy, landowning and safe. Exactly what her father wanted for her. She knew when the time came the choice wouldn't be hers, but she had hoped to have a little more time before she became someone's wife. After all when it finally happened there would be no more carefree hours spent in the woods with Eric. Still Eric didn't need to know how much she was dreading it. It would be good for him to know she wasn't simply his simpering shadow.
"Are you happy about this?" He asked her, all the enthusiasm suddenly gone from his voice as his face fell, shadows clouding over his bright smile.
Sookie could only shrug.
"He wrote me a lovely poem." She answered, as nonchalantly as possible.
"Does your father know?" Eric was suddenly up from his wood seat and pacing the forest floor.
"Of course not!" She answered indignant now, that he thought her so stupid. Such things were unseemly. If anyone found out Kjell had written her such a thing and she'd accepted it, they would have been betrothed on the spot, they would have had to be. Her honor would have been compromised. "I hid it in my sleeve and waited for everyone to fall asleep. Then I burned it." She said matter-of-factly. "It was still a nice poem though." She added when she saw his puzzling relief.
That seemed to upset him all over again and he turned from her, kicking a few stones that lay near his feet as though he were attempting to injure them.
"Eric what on earth is wrong with you?" She asked coming up behind him, attempting to put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched away at the last moment.
"Do you want to marry Kjell?" He asked her, his voice rough and angry, even as he refused to look at her.
Huffing, Sookie shrugged again. She wasn't sure what he wanted her to say.
"Does it matter? Kjell is…nice and he comes from a good family. What else is there? Things like this aren't for us to decide, you know that. Your marriage won't be either."
Eric's back remained to her and finally she gave up and decided she'd wasted enough time if all they were going to do was argue, especially when she didn't understand why they were.
"And if it was?" She heard him ask, just as she grabbed her basket.
Straightening up she turned to him again. He was facing her this time a look she couldn't place on his face. She could feel herself panicking. What did he want her to say? That she loved him? That she only wanted him?
It was the truth, of course. It had been since that day when she was four and he was six and she'd been following after her brother, who was riding out with some of the other boys to play. She'd wanted to go to, but her brother wouldn't let her. They didn't want to play with a baby, he said!
Sookie had been left standing there, tears she refused to let fall, stinging her eyes as she watched her brother and the other boys ride off. It was almost a full minute before she realized one of the boys hadn't gone. He trotted his horse, a beautiful white gelding, over to her and without a word grabbed her arm and lifted her up to sit in front of him on his saddle.
The horse was already moving when she'd found her voice.
"Why didn't you ride off with the others?" She asked, her words still shaking a little.
"You know who I am?" He asked, looking down on her, confident his horse knew where to take them.
Sookie nodded.
"My father would be disappointed if I blindly followed someone just because they were older, or because everyone else was. Besides, the only reason your brother doesn't want to play with you is because you're already better at all the games than he is." His voice was filled with the kind of confidence a six year old shouldn't have acquired yet.
"But don't you want to play with my brother and the others?" She asked, her voice cracking at the end with her cautious hope.
"No. I want to play with you. " He said. "I like a challenge." He added a smirk lighting his face.
They'd gone off in a different direction than the others and spent the whole day in the forest, hunting rabbits and playing hide and seek. It had been the best day of Sookie's life up till then and she'd admitted long ago, at least to herself, she'd been in love with Eric from that moment on.
Still, they weren't children anymore and what she wanted, no matter how much she wanted it, would never be a possibility.
"We should get back." She said, her tone firm as she began to walk. "We're getting too old, to be playing in the woods anymore. Besides, you might not, but I have to think of my reputation." The words hurt her to say, but they were necessary. No matter how much she hated them.
She was about to pass Eric by, without even looking at him when she felt his hand on her arm, stopping her from moving.
His eyes were big, dark and intense and then suddenly her basket dropped as he took hold of her other arm and hauled her against him. The first touch of his lips on hers was fierce, demanding and needy all at the same time. But it didn't last long. Their feelings for each other…they weren't angry or dark. They were everything that was good in the world, even if they were too young to understand that.
Within a moment Eric had freed Sookie's arms and she'd wound them around his neck. His own came up to band around her middle as they'd done so many times before when they'd innocently hugged each other. Only this time his hands splayed wide on her back, touching as much of her as he could, caressing her with something stronger than simple affection.
Where their mouths met there was nothing but sweetness, his gentle on hers, his tongue playing softly at the seam of her lips, begging her to let him in. How could she refuse? She'd never refused him anything.
They stood there like that for long moments until they had to break to breathe. Still, Eric didn't let go and neither did she.
"I love you Sookie." His voice breathless but sure. "I always have. You can't marry Kjell or anyone else. I want you to marry me! Will you?"
Her mind might have been stunned, but it didn't matter, her head was more than happy to nod her assent without waiting for instructions.
"Say it Sookie." He whispered into her ear as he bent to kiss the shell of it, before letting his lips slide down the column of her throat.
Sookie's head fell back and her knees seemed to buckle, but it didn't matter, Eric was holding her tight.
"Yes." She breathed. "Yes, I'll marry you!" She saw the bright flash of his eyes, one more time before his lips were on hers again and everything else seemed to cease existing….
Shaking her head viciously, still able to feel the phantom press of his kiss on her lips, Sookie came back to herself. She stumbled out of the elevator, trying to find her footing as her mind reeled.
What the holy eff was going on? Dreams where one thing, but this…this was something else entirely! She'd just had a…(what?) a daydream a vision here in the hotel elevator while wide awake!
Was this because of Eric's blood, like catching snippets of Vampire thoughts? Or was she simply going mad? All the stress and pressure finally pushing her over the edge into a fantasy world where she could have everything she'd ever wanted, as long as she checked her sanity at the door.
Looking up ahead of her she saw Clovache, the Britlingen, standing guard in front of the ballroom. Sookie walked up to her, nodding in greeting.
"He seems like a good man." Clovache said, without preamble, in her harsh accent. Sookie got the impression she wasn't a woman for subtlety.
At first it took Sookie a moment to remember everything that happened before her vision and realize the warrior woman was talking about Quinn. Yes, Clovache was right, Sookie thought to herself in a firm inner voice, Quinn WAS a good man. And he was her boyfriend to boot. She shouldn't be thinking about any other man, no less daydreaming about marrying one who'd been dead a thousand years.
"He seems that way to me too." Sookie answered, trying to keep the guilt out of her voice.
"While Vampires, by definition, are twisty and deceptive."
Sookie wondered briefly if she weren't the only telepath in the hall. Had Clovache known she was thinking about Eric? How she'd been thinking about Eric?
"By definition? You mean without exceptions?" She found herself asking.
"I do." Clovache answered, her voice hard.
Sookie kept silent, not knowing why Clovache had felt the need to tell her that and not able to handle trying to figuring it out.