A/N WOW I'm absolutely astounded by the response to the last chapter... Thank you all so much 3
Now for this one there is a specific chapter warning for torture of the last third, just as a quick warning now.
It involves Bellatrix so yeah... anyway enjoy!
{Hermione}
The smell of the sea air was the first thing that abused her senses when she awoke. The harsh smell of salt and of damp wood forced her into a mild panic. The abrasions on her wrists made her acutely aware of what had happened. Her eyes opened wide as she tried to adjust to the daylight hanging over the sea air, it took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the light and to take in the sight before her.
The North Sea roared over the side of the longboat, the water crashing into the wooden side and causing the boat to rock. Not that it had changed the course of the ship or that it was even noticeable to the men, who carried on rowing, ploughing through the waves and west. Before her stood two men, the others sat either side of them down the length of the boat. The taller of the two men was stood ever so slightly closer to her had blonde long hair, which had, like most of the men's hair, become matted with the sea air and through helmet wear. He and the man beside him were the only two not wearing their helmets, instead holding them at their sides. The man beside him had much darker hair, and although it had been bleached by the summer sun it was still the colour of burnt wood.
She noted to herself that if her thoughts were already reaching this point she was surely going stir crazy already. She groaned and ran a bound hand down her face. The sun glared in her eyes, reflecting off of the waves and no matter where she looked to avoid the brightness, it didn't matter. It was still too bright.
"Princess." The blonde Viking whose voice she now recognised was crouched before her, his hands holding her wrists. "Please stay calm." He spoke in rather broken and heavily accented English, but English nonetheless. She smiled, he was trying in some way to keep her calm. It astounded her that he would even bother.
"Where am I?" She asked, pressing her back to the hard wood of the ship and curving into it. It allowed her to keep back from him somewhat, but also meant that she was avoiding the wind and eyes of the men on the ship. It was calming to be so far from it, that she could curl in on herself and just listen to the sea.
"Nearing my home." He said, frowning slightly at his own words. She wasn't sure if he had known what to really say to her to comfort her, or if he really was trying to comfort her. She highly doubted that he was in anyway trying to comfort her. He knelt down before her, examining her wrists carefully. The ropes were slowly removed and unknotted, the rope dropped to the floor of the ship.
She took the moment to automatically run from the man, attempting to reach the edge to escape the ship. When she was around half way down the boat, however, she was frozen in place once again as she had been before. Her feet frozen to the wood below her as the blonde man reached her, pulling her up and hoisting her over his shoulder. "Stop it, Princess." He sat her down at the end of the longboat once again.
"You're going to need to keep an eye on her Finn," The brown haired man laughed towards the blonde, and Hermione glared towards him. Her scowl was noticed by the blonde, who smirked at her. She sighed and tuned her gaze from the men to focus on the sights around her.
The water carved a specific path through the mountains which lay either side of them, the grey rock faces grimaced out over the water line, water falling in cascades down different areas of mountains. She slowly moved to stand to look out at the landscape around her, watching as the waves rocked against the edges of the ship, rebounding back towards the grass topped mountains.
Just in the distance she could make out a village at one of the edges of the mountain side. A boy saw the ship and ran from the edge of the village towards one of the larger huts. The ship slowly made its way towards the village, slowing towards a cove where a series of other long boats waited, empty.
"Welcome, Princess." The blonde grinned before grabbing her wrists together once more, his hand resting against the grip as the rope tied itself around her wrists. "Not risking you running away." He frowned at her for a moment before hoisting her over his shoulder once again. She spent her time focusing on trying to swing from his shoulder, something the man found funny for a few moments before pulling on the rope to tighten its grip on her wrists.
Due to how she was being held, she was highly aware of the strength the man had. It terrified her. She could see the patterns painted onto his skin on the arm holding her to his shoulder. She was becoming persistently aware of the weaponry attached to his back; the axe with the pommel her face was pressing against if she leant too close to him, the wooden shield that she pressed against her stomach. It made her very conscious as she knew he didn't need any of this, he had an ability to channel his magic and stop her even before she could get away from him.
He suddenly dropped her to her feet outside a larger building than the others surrounding them, she was stuck facing him and chose to glare at him to avoid turning around or facing the other people around her. Though as she was glaring up at him she could still see people crowding to look at them and then men behind the blonde, carrying crates of gold from their haul. She frowned. She recognised some of the items. Her gaze went straight back to the blonde and her glare worsened.
"Thorfinn, what have you brought me." A male voice drawled from behind her as she froze up, turning her head slowly to see the man standing there. He was thinner than the blond, and had long black hair that was pulled back tight, and he was older than the others, and wore more fur than the men on the ship had.
"Niece of the King of Northumbria, Sir." The blond, Thorfinn, said. And she was shocked at the words that she could recognise. He knew who she was? So this wasn't a random encounter? She glared up at him once again. "And she is a witch."
[Thorfinn]
He hoped that she wouldn't question or really recognise what he was saying. But he was sure she could. The little spitfire hellion had been glaring at him since he had placed her down and whilst it was quite funny to start with, it was irritating him somewhat; with his Jarl there, as well, it was becoming increasingly obvious of the dragoness' temper. "The kin of Northumbria is some gift, Thorfinn." The man grinned over the girl's head, calming Rowle's nerves somewhat.
Riddle was pleased. That was something that gave Thorfinn some hope about the situation. "And a hoard as well." Riddle preened at the sight. "Well you have been busy."
Thorfinn almost scoffed at his Jarl's words. He was used to some level of condescension and recently this was becoming more and more common place for him and his men; who were receiving little reward for their work as Riddle preferred to continue to treat the Lestranges and Blacks – still. "We will speak inside, Thorfinn." Riddle smiled at him and motioned towards the hall, before pausing once more. "Lestrange, have your wife see to the girl."
Finn froze as the girl seemed blissfully unaware, even happy at the fact that she would be away from him. He couldn't say anything to counter what his chief had said but it still worried him immensely of what the woman would do with no one to stop her, especially because Riddle would give her free reign of her own actions. Finn pulled the girl to the side for a moment before following his leader into the building. "Princess, do not give her any reason to harm you." Her face dropped as she registered the concern on his face.
"What would she do?" The girl asked in a hushed whisper, her eyes widening before the glare returned momentarily. "Could she do worse than you?"
He sighed for a moment, his eyes closing for a few seconds before reopening to look at her squarely in the eyes. He wished that she would not be so temperamental and argumentative about this already. "A lot worse than me."
Bella Lestrange now stood in the doorway of the hall, grinning wildly at Thorfinn before her gaze turned to the girl – her grin widening and her eyes lighting up at the prospect. He felt his stomach drop seeing her there. This was going to be very wrong, and he knew it. And he knew he couldn't stop it. "Tonin, watch over her." He directed before walking through the doorway and past Lestrange's wife. Her smile discouraged him.
"What do you want from the hoard?" Thorfinn was weary of the question, it was too loaded a question for it not to be noticed by him. He knew he had to tread carefully through the ideas of it.
"What you are prepared to give me, chief."
"The girl?"
He was more than taken aback by the sheer idea of that. "She is a prize." Thorfinn could feel his voice becoming almost wistful at the thought of her, he was agreeing with his chief but without saying it explicitly. He couldn't. If he did that then she would probably end up being given to someone else, probably Lestrange or maybe the Malfoys.
"A powerful one," Riddle agreed, smiling at the blonde. "Would you want her?" It was a loaded question at the end of the day. Would he want her? He took her for his own personal gain, but if he could gain more from it, would it be so bad to advance his lot further?
Thorfinn was unsure how to react. He knew he would have to be truthful in some element. "If you are prepared for me to have her." He admitted and glanced towards the doorway.
"Thorfinn, you are my kin," Riddle placed his hand on Thorfinn's shoulder, smiling as he spoke. "She is yours as long as you tell me of how you came across her." Riddle led him towards one of the long tables, encouraging him to sit down opposite him. With the wood dividing them, Thorfinn felt a slight more comfortable. He wasn't quite as conscious about what he was about to say,
"We were coming back from the villages out at in Northumbria." Thorfinn recounted, remembering how the ship had originally passed by the village without a sound. Without a second thought. "One of the boys mentioned that they had seen a girl doing magic when we were passing there the first time." He remembered the Malfoy boy talking about the 'wild girl' at the top of the rocks. "I recognised the village as one where the king of Northumbria used to reside, so I thought that we should check it out." That and the idea of finding more of a hoard. Only she had become more valuable than most of that hoard. "Her father was protesting my taking of her."
"So what did you do?" Riddle asked, smiling as he watched the man's eyes glaze over slightly.
"I burned down the village." Thorfinn replied before blinking heavily his eyes refocusing on the man before him before he smiled slightly. "Does that explain everything, chief?"
{Hermione}
The dark haired man followed behind her all of the time she was with the woman. The woman grinning wildly at her whenever she had the chance to. Hermione kept glancing back to the man, 'Tonin' was what the blonde had called him. He seemed strangely protective of her, spending his time concentrating on her and glancing wearily at the woman.
"Antonin, you cannot stay with us whilst I bathe her." The woman, Bella, turned to the man. He raised an eyebrow towards her and frowned.
"I will wait out here. If you try anything it's not Thorfinn or I you will be dealing with." He growled and placed his hand on the girl's shoulder. She shied away slightly before he released her and allowed her to follow the woman towards the Fjord.
Hermione looked at the woman carefully, trying to keep a constant eye on her as they moved through the tree line so they were just out of sight of the man who had been tasked to watch them. "Off." The woman managed to say in English, motioning towards the dirtied dress that Hermione was wearing and glaring as she did so. Hermione was slow to follow through, fearful of the colder are pressing against her skin if she followed her command – but she did anyway, attempting to stay quiet and follow what the blonde Viking had said.
When she'd dropped her clothing she moved towards the water and stepped into the water. Allowing herself to become immersed in the cooler water. It did not feel any colder than the Humber did on a similar day. She swam close to the shore, treading the water so that she allowed the tide to brush over her body. After a while she swam to the edge and moved to push herself out of the water, only to find herself being pulled back by the water itself.
She panicked, attempting to kick herself out of the water only to have herself pulled deeper and deeper into it. Her lungs began to burn at the feeling, her head becoming fuzzy with the feeling. Everything was fading.
Her throat burned. Her eyes faded.
She was suddenly pulled from the water. And her screams could not echo through the trees. Nothing was coming out of her open mouth. Her eyes became wide as she saw the woman looming over her, a blade in her hand.
Hermione tried to squirm away, only to found herself frozen in place. The woman then took her arm and carved a series of runes into it. Hermione could only feel the blinding pain of it all, the damage to herself meant nothing as she was becoming numb it all. Tears welled in her eyes and she continued to scream out, to yell out for the man who was unable to see them both.
When she was done, the woman cackled and skipped off. A few moments passed as Hermione still lay there, watching her blood seep onto the grass from the word carved into her arm. She curled into it, letting the tears fall from her face.
"Princess." She could hear the man calling for her from the tree line. She wanted to be left there, to curl in on herself. Tears fell freely down her cheeks as her sobs became audible. "Oh fuck." She heard the voice from nearby before two arms lifted her cold, limp body into the arms of the dark-haired Viking.
"What does it say?" She asked first in shaken English. The man seemed too distracted to understand her, trying to dress her in her clothes from before and examining the wound on her arm. "What does it say?" She repeated, in a broken tone of the Vikings.
He paused. Looking over her face to be sure that she had truly spoken to him in Norse, before he registered what she had asked. He gulped. "Thrall." He lifted her fully into his arms before taking her back to the main hall.
"Rest, Princess." The man said as another dark haired man approached. This one had long hair and rather pointed features. He didn't say anything to her, only focusing on the wound on her arm. He poured a clear liquid over it, causing it to sting for a moment but stopping the bleeding.
She sighed. The pain taking over once more before her body relaxed and she allowed her head to rest against the man's chest. In her mind she began planning how she would seek her revenge on each of them for what that woman had done.