A/N: Sometimes I wish I could draw. I have so many things to show all of you - the places and the people and the power here! But since I can barely draw a straight line, I'm instead trying to communicate it to you in words. Hopefully it's working. Before we begin, let me say that I so appreciate my beta, LeMasquerade, for all the work done amidst university deadlines. This little dream of mine couldn't be done without another critical eye.
Also, I now have a tumblr! I have no idea how to work it or where to begin, but I'd love it if you guys dropped me a line. Check my info if you want to chat.
Before we get too distracted here, I present to you Chapter 12! (I have a feeling you'll like what happens.)
Chapter 12
the storm is coming soon
it rolls in from the sea
September 2nd, 912
Four deaths.
It took four more deaths for Betar to finally acknowledge the superstitious cries of the surrounding villagers. He looks down upon the man before him, ruddy and out of breath, winded from having run the rôstir it took to reach Kaupang. His clothes are simple, smeared with brine that has permanently worked its way under his fingernails. A sailor with a family scared for their young and defenceless siblings.
"And their bodies?" Betar asks, one hand resting pensively on the pommel of his sword. His mighty brow has furrowed into deep lines as he paces the floorboards, charms swinging haphazardly, clinking against the buckles of his clothes.
He had been warned about this, earlier in the season. Bretagne had come to him with a pale Santana and explained what they saw together; when Santana would stumble in her wording Bretagne would guide her gently back on path, feeding off each other seamlessly until their whole tale had been laid out before him in gruesome detail. The jarl had been hesitant - his people were already stretched thin. To send them out to a tiny coastal town over a few killings and a völva's fevered dreams? He promised to look into it, but he saw the disappointment in dark eyes, how Santana had curled her smallest finger around Bretagne's own and silently led her away. Not for the first time, he wishes he had listened.
"Eaten, my jarl. Some of them." He speaks frankly, if perhaps a bit bluntly. "The woman had bites taken from her sides and face, but the two children had just one wound. They died easily."
"The father?"
He grimaces, a phantom of disgust rising up over his broad features. "Annihilated. Parts of him were scattered across the roads and into the trees."
Betar rubs his hand furiously across his eyes and huffs out a deep breath. "Mikhail!" The slender man rises like a ghost and steps silently to the side, awaiting his orders. Not for the first time Betar notices how tight his collar has become. "Fetch Bretagne and Santana. There is something they must do." Mikhail nods once and disappears as quickly as he had arrived, nothing but the creak of the floorboards giving away his presence.
He's waited too long - he feels it in the worried stares of mothers, how they keep their children close by their sides in the night. How they fall to their knees and pray to both the Father-God and the Valkyrja for mercy as the stars show their faces and the beginning of the long wait until dawn begins anew. Talk of demons in the moonlight have become a reality now, raised from its myth into a tangible thing that steals away the breath of life with nothing but a rattling moan.
Yngvarr will disapprove of waiting so long, surely. The Hammer of the North could have dispatched this threat in a matter of hours, a mighty blow of his weapon that brings false gods to their knees. But the warrior grows old - Betar sees how he limps, how Santana tenderly cares for the ankle gone swollen and stiff, how his boots have changed to accommodate his flesh. In time, when glorious battle is on the horizon and the fields are stained red with blood, the Hammer will land his final kills before being swept away to the halls of Valhalla, where his daughter awaits his touch once again. A sheild-maiden from birth until death - no other place would have settled for Bretagne's mother. A force of nature to be reckoned with.
(Just like her daughter.)
The sound stolen from the room announces the return of his servant. Those lined against the walls watch the two girls with a certain amount of awed trepidation; all have heard of the wound Santana healed with nothing but the heat of her palms, sewing broken flesh back together into its pristine, nubile state. Many have come to her begging aid, and all have been turned down. In her eyes is something hesitant that prevents her healing hands from laying themselves upon the injured.
"You called for us, faðir?" Bretagne's eyes are inquisitive as she stands in close to receive Santana's warmth. Things have not improved between father and daughter, but nor have they gotten worse. A stand-still and the truce before the slaughter.
They hold gazes for a moment before Betar looks away to watch the setting sun as it sinks below the mountains. The days have become shorter, the nights cold and unforgiving. Frost nips at the crops of the farmers, and the first frenzy as the men set out for loot to tide them over the long, hard winter to come. "Yes - the both of you are to go to Breiðvík, a half-sun's walk from Kaupang. The draugr walks the forests there." It's impossible not to see how Bretagne bends down minutely to translate into Santana's ear, her fingers brushing the raven-black locks from her slender shoulders, never taking her eyes off her father. Santana's littlest finger tightens around Bretagne's own at the mention of the beast - everything about her draws in until he can see nary the gleam of her eyes from underneath her feathered hood. "The both of you are to find it, and kill it. Do you understand?"
His daughter's hand brushes sub-consciously over the hilt of her axe before replying. (Truly his own child.) "How are we to find a monster in such an unfamiliar place?"
"This man here," he gently pushes the sailor towards Bretagne, "lives in Breiðvík, and will assist you with whatever you require."
Betar sees the hesitation in her face. There has always been something about the dead that Bretagne hates, ever since she was a little girl. It's impossible for her to explain in words (a burning town, lifeless corpses, bloodstained blonde) but it is shown in every shaky swipe of her spear, missing its target as her opponent stumbles closer on leaden limbs. She opens her mouth to object but before a single word comes out, Santana tugs her closer, rising up on her toes to mutter into her ear.
He hears something that suspiciously sounds like you promised the second before her resistance visibly crumples before his eyes, her lips turning into a helpless kind of amusement as she sighs and nods her agreement. Betar's eyebrows raise high upon his forehead as his daughter; his stubborn, free-willed daughter, clasps the hand of the sailor in greeting and asks for him to show them the way.
From under her hood, Santana smirks.
In reality, Ruaidhrí Flanagan is little more than a boy. At his current eighteen summers, he is all gangly limbs and a voice that refuses to settle with a mop of messy brown hair and curious eyes. They had sent him from his little town as he was the one with the longest stride and lasting wind - he could run for hours with nothing but the hiss of his own breathing and the gentle hum of nature to follow in his footsteps. Though the roads would do for horses, one must be wary of bandits on such an open place, and he chose instead to run through the lowlands by the sea, crossing once or twice through the gorges that the great fjords carved into the earth many years ago.
Though his family is not originally from this frozen place, he considers it his home as much as his father does Hibernia. He was one of the few to resist the missionaries as they came; their heritage as druids was notorious and proud. Ever since he was a babe he remembers his father garbed in blinding white, gathering the villagers from their tiny town nestled upon the lip of the mighty Aillte an Mhothair, cleaving sacred mistletoe from the tops of the trees before his sickle would cut the throats of two white bulls. It is vague now, blurred, but the scent of animal blood still gives him the awed feeling of watching his father, so powerful and in control as the ritual continues. Those cliffs used to dwarf him, but ever since arriving in Nor Veg and witnessing the massive mountains this land houses, he thinks less frequently of them now and the fresh air that would ruffle his hair into knots.
What remains the same is the hardiness of the people. Ruaidhrí sees much of his own kin in the fair-complexioned villagers that dwell in the hearts of the mountains and in the body of the plains. Though they suffer through devastating winters, looming threat of war, and even raids from their brothers, they carry on much like his town did (before the priests came).
He sees it in Bretagne now, the determined gleam to her eyes that turns them hard, like the sea frozen over into ice. In how she murmurs her absent-minded thanks as the strange man with the slanted eyes - Mikhail? what a strange name for a foreign man - hands her a pack and clasps her hands together briefly with his own, winding one arm around her neck to pull her into a tangled hug. She reciprocates without shame, holding him tight against her and brushing wistfully at his collar as she draws away. "That must hurt." He hears her say, sympathy great in her ice-water eyes. "When I return I will ask a new one for you."
His smile is grateful. "Always so kind."
The woman next to him hums her agreement. It is her that Ruaidhrí is both drawn to and repelled from at once. Everything about her is alluring; the curves readily visible under the grey of her robes, the night within her hair, the constant smirk twisted faintly upon her lips. But what truly draws him is the void of her eyes. She looks like the Morrígan does, knowing and powerful, feathers scattered about her head. The Phantom Queen, of whom his father only talked about in the most hushed of voices.
(But there is a darkness there. It eclipses the light and casts her shadow longer than should ever be seen.)
Bretagne approaches him then, spear secured firmly to her large pack, braid winding down the subtle strength of her right shoulder. "We leave whenever you wish, sailor." She pauses, running her tongue along her teeth. "Surely you have a different name? It would be strange to call you that for however long we stay in your home."
He smiles nervously - Bretagne towers over him and makes him feel like one of the Fae caught in their little holes. "Ruaidhri." One eyebrow raises in question. "That is my name, like you asked."
"Ruah-rhuaa-" The taller one frowns, twisting her lips at one side. "This must have been how you felt learning our tongue." She mutters to the priestess beside her, who snorts ungracefully into her palm.
"You could call me Rory?" (His mother is the sole one to have claim to that nickname, but she can have it if she wants. She can have everything.)
"Rory?" She mulls it over for a second before grinning brightly. "Yes, I like that. Rory. Well then, Rory, lead the way!" Santana beside her clicks her tongue in exasperation, tapping her long staff once on the ground as she nudges her friend in the ribs. "Forget something, Britt?"
Bretagne pauses for a moment in confusion, twisting backwards to glance at her pack. "... No?"
Santana sighs and turns to the mountains - a great inhale of breath sucks between her teeth, and at the right angle it seems she swells with its girth. "Sandalio!" Her yell echoes over the roofs of the low-lying houses, barrelling upwards and dispersing itself all over the village. Everyone pauses for a moment to eye the girl who has now retreated nervously under the hood of her cloak before resuming their tasks. Moments later, a small furry blur streaks towards them, pink tongue lolling excitedly from its mouth. Bretagne scratches the back of her neck sheepishly while her friend rolls her eyes fondly at the display.
"I knew that."
"Of course you did." She turns to Ruaidhri, who seems to shrink under her gaze. She frowns. "Are we go soon?"
The sun sits high in the sky, beaming the last of its fading warmth upon the trio. Winter has ever so slowly begun to crawl into the edges of the land, biting upon the roots of the crops and the noses of the livestock. Though it is bright and chases away the darkness, a crisp wind blows past - Santana shudders and winds her cloak tighter around herself. If there is something she misses most dearly about Iberia, it would be the unchanging warmth of the seasons. She remembers her surprise when she stepped foot into Aarhus and witnessed blankets of white coating the land with nary a speck of dirt in sight. (It took an unfortunate tumble for her to learn that snow, white beautiful, is rather unpleasant.)
"If we set out now, it is possible to make it back to Breiðvík by nightfall. With the rumours, it would be... unwise to spend the night in the forest."
(Santana remembers the darkness and Brittany remembers the blood. They shiver in unison and nod with mutual agreement.)
Brittany beckons with her hand - Santana winds her littlest finger with the other girl's and looks expectantly at Rory, who hurries to catch up as they begin the trek from the town. Sandalio bounds at their heels, whipping excitedly from one place to another, barking at all the oddities and bustling people. Eyja waves from her little house that rises above the ground like a sleeping giant. When Santana waves in return, her rune throbs softly at her hip.
They meet a road that winds its way through the mountains, curving around its base with the imprint of horse hooves clear upon the ground. Though Santana has never been out of Kaupang's boundaries it is obvious the trail is well-loved, uneven wheel-treads showing the route of many a merchant.
However, Rory pulls them to the side not even a half rôst from departure and gestures to the forest flanking them to either side. "We will travel unseen through here." He says, brushing away branches and ducking through low-hanging leaves. "There is talk of bandits upon the main trails, and we are few to their many."
The density of their foliage is something Santana has never before seen. Great angry scores mark the trunks of the whimpering trees, some even bent over on their side from the force of impact. Auroch, Brittany informs her as her fingers go to touch the weeping wounds, rubbed raw and split open from massive horns. In her mind's eye she sees a mighty beast of brown pelt snorting from the depths of its chest, eyes open and glaring. The native people here, far to the North with their thick furs and faces cracked from the cold, have learned to respect the beast and give it the distance it requires - many of their hunting dogs have been claimed by its mighty hooves and glistening horns.
Santana blinks as its virile rage seeps in through the marks it has left behind; her pulse races and her breathing stutters momentarily as she sucks in the scent of its fury.
"Okay?" Brittany murmurs close enough so that Rory doesn't hear. (Meant for them alone.)
The priestess shakes her head once to clear herself of the animalistic fog. "Fine." To distract herself from the life seething around her, she turns instead to the nervous sailor who trails behind. "How long in forest? Danger here."
Rory glances around to avoid her gaze. (Is it something she said?) "It would be better if we stayed here until we reach home. I almost got caught in a bandit passing earlier, and they were busy taking the goods from a few men," he grimaces subtly, "and their wives."
Santana brows furrow in concern but Brittany shakes her head and distracts him instead. "Tell us about Breiðvík, Rory. Surely there is a reason the draugr has chosen your town as its target."
He frowns. "You mean to say we do something wrong?"
"No, no. I mean yes, but... no." She sends a pleading look to Santana who simply shrugs and whistles for Sandalio absently. "Forget what I say. What is Breiðvík like, sailor?"
It's hard for him to accurately sum up a sleepy little town in as many words as its population. Kaupang is by the sea, surely - but can he describe the salt upon the air and the gentle hush of the waves against their sandy shores, or the soft chime of the boats as they rock upon the midnight tide? They scarcely receive any visit of much renown. Being tucked away upon the edge of a fjord, small yet magnificent, keeps them from the prying eyes of any seeking jarls or marauding thieves. Fishing ships sail away into the rising kiss of the sun and return with its last breath of the day. It is a simple life; his father can practice in quiet and without fear, their religion meshing seamlessly with their gods and goddesses into something else entirely - he glances left to Santana, where every footstep she takes is shadowed by so many ghosts of all different sizes and intent.
(A woman, beautiful and serene. A black void, whispering its thoughts. Countless dead, moaning for respite.)
"It is much like your town, simply smaller. We have trade. Fishermen. Warriors. We are not a fighting village, but we will defend what is ours."
Years ago a raid sailed fast into the little port, surprising the occupants by unloading fair-skinned men with roaring voices and flashing swords. The water stained red with blood before the people of the village drove them back into the ocean, howling curses and complaints with the jab of an angry spear. Since then the tides have been calm, sweeping in no new enemies for them to defeat. Instead, the fear haunts the forest.
"We refuse to go into the forests for fear of what we will find. It harms both our people and our faith..." he looks at her then, whom he has captured so intensely within his portrayed city of wood and brine, "they are good men, much like the ones of Kaupang. Honest men."
Bretagne's face falls momentarily and Santana opens her mouth to rebuke, but he sweeps onward, incensed by the plight they have all suffered. "I do not know why the gods have burdened us with such pain, but you can fix it, yes? They say you have the fastest strike in all of Nor Veg! Surely a single draugr stands no match for you and your weapon."
The way he looks at her, with such a sense of pure hope, sends a shot of anxiety down Brittany's spine. Her jaw moves once, twice, but no sound comes out. Santana's voice instead fills the void. "You doubt? Draugr have no chance." She grins at her friend. "Like centaur said, yes?"
The weight of the snake pendant against Brittany's breastbone feels all too heavy at once. She hesitated before grabbing the amulet from her room, stuffing it down the collar of her tunic to thump softly against the smooth skin of her torso. Its weight feels reminiscent of the centaur's hand she held as he died, his promise passed along into this one piece of jewelry that Brittany alone guards. There are whispers, rumours of a centaur encampment upon the end of one of these very same fjords, melting into the forest to disappear in a rush of hard hooves. No one has dared to venture so far into the wilderness, so far that all civilization disappears into untamed savagery where even the tribes of the land dare not go. For it is only there that the creatures dwell.
"Just like he said." Brittany says quietly, rotating her neck to let the necklace fall easier upon her shoulders. (It doesn't.)
Rory stares at them both as if they've talked of slaying dragons. "You... the centaurs exist? Have you seen one?"
"They exist just as dragons do. And unicorns." She could never forget the unicorns, Santana thinks with a roll of her eyes.
"But... how?"
Brittany waves him off, coming to a stop to adjust her thick leather boots. "For a later time. We should rest now to regain our strength." A low growl comes from her, and she pouts. "We passed lunch long ago, and I'm starved."
When Santana sits on a large rock to rest her aching feet, Brittany nudges her aside until they share the same space. Amused, Santana tries to push back, but Brittany's bulk is superior to hers - lean muscle refuses to move. Instead she huffs and perches upon the edge of her seat, snatching deer meat ground together with juniper and flattened into strips from her friend when she leans in to take a bite. Brittany stares at her empty hands for a second, slowly turning to Santana who chews innocently with a mischievous smirk curling the corners of her lips.
"Did you-"
"Mhm."
"But-"
"No, none for you."
Blue eyes narrow for a moment before Santana feels long arms wrap around her waist; she squeals in alarm when Brittany sits her down upon her lap, one limb secured firmly against her hips and the other used to pluck the remaining meal from her fingers. Her warmth through the thick material of her robe is blinding, and she squirms nervously for a moment before hot breath ghosts by her ear.
"Stay a while. It feels wrong to have you so far away." Her breath smells sweet and tastes even finer - Santana hesitantly leans into the strength of Brittany's shoulder and fishes through the pack upon her back. Rory watches them both with curious eyes, noting how the slightest shift in Santana's body is compensated by an adjustment in Brittany's stance, or how Brittany wordlessly holds out her hand and Santana places the water-skin in her palm without having to look. Their communication is silent if not strange. In the sun, the red of her staff fractures to shine patterns over the planes of their faces.
Eventually Santana half-sleeps with her head against Brittany's neck, playing with the soft, wispy hairs floating out of her braid. Brittany likes Santana like this - not that she likes the other Santanas less, there will always be an infinite amount of affection for whatever persona she so chooses to wear - lax with sleep, loose with sparkling eyes and a lazy smile. Sometimes she wakes and Santana is still near, sprawled out in Brittany's own bed, her mouth parted and so inviting. It takes all she has not to simply close her lips with a kiss.
"How far are we from Breiðvík?" Her voice is hushed, both arms looped to settle against the small of Santana's back. The delicate curl of her spine makes her feel so small, fragile in Brittany's hold. An artifact of immeasurable worth, unable to simply be put upon a shelf to watch, lest she forgets the ridges of her form.
Ever since the nightmares, Santana seems to desire her touch to ward away the demons. Brittany doesn't mind, is happy to lend her warmth to her friend whenever she would so desire it, but she worries. Only her embrace wound so tightly is able to chase the constant shadows away. Still, her eyes are dark from exhaustion, laying awake and listening to Brittany's rhythmic inhalations.
"A little over halfway." Rory muses thoughtfully, glancing around the forests for markers. "If we hurry, we could make it before nightfall."
Though not at its peak, the sun still sheds its light upon the trio. Shadows have begun to deepen, darker with the intent of the night. It is through mutual consensus that they rise and finish their journey.
As Brittany goes to wake Santana, they hear the clamour of voices upon the main path. All three halt in their steps - Santana raises her head sharply from her resting position and scans the break in the trees for any sign of danger. With the language - crudely spoken Norse, jeering - comes the ring of metal and the undeniable taunts coupled with the scream of a woman. Rory kneels, hand hovering over his axe, while Santana stretches out her hand towards their hound.
"Go," she whispers, eyes flashing blue for a moment before closing. When they open again she is lower to the ground, all senses tingling as her vessel stealthily makes his way through the undergrowth, snaking around plants with careful steps. She hears every whisper of the wind and the quiet chatter of the animals - each is a song of their own, bombarding her as they come in from all sides. Here, mistress, comes Sandalio's answer to bring her into the present, crouched upon the edge of the forest to peer into the road.
Santana smells the eight before she sees them in all their monochrome glory, adorned in dirty cloth and patched furs. Their beards are wild and tangled like brambles and their smiles cruel as they point spears and swords at the hapless travellers - their short, squat horses snort nervously as the foreign men advance upon them with unfriendly eyes. Their stench is overpowering, stunning the priestess into momentary inaction as they backhand one of the two merchants; his blood, grey from her borrowed eyes, splatters into the dirt beside him. The woman she believes to be his wife gasps and runs to him, touching the split portions of his face with tender care.
Santana. Brittany's far away whisper brings Sandalio's head back to their hiding spot where she retreats, melting just as swiftly into the foliage as she had appeared. His consciousness slips away from her - Brittany's face is the next thing she sees, hovering worriedly above her own. Rory watches with great uncertainty visible in the movements he makes.
"Bandits." She says hoarsely, greedily drinking from the water-skin offered. "Eight. Merchants on road?" Rory curses with his tongue between his teeth, running one hand through his messy brown hair.
"If we are quiet, we can sneak past them. Few come down here when they have such a prize waiting for them up above." A decent plan, surely. But he knows not of them, what they do. Even before he finishes she sees Brittany's head shaking back and forth in denial.
"And do what, leave those poor people to their fate?"
"You heard Santana, there are eight of them, but only three of us! If we try, they'll surely take our carcasses as victory spoils."
Brittany stands up - since when were they on the ground? - and reaches for her spear, already shouldering off her pack to lay it upon the leaf-strewn floor. She checks her leather bracers carefully, opening a hand and keeping a little smile to herself when Santana wordlessly lays her skullcap in her palm. "If you cannot help them, I will," she asserts fiercely, turning to climb the small slope, "for I am Brittany Piersson, daughter of Jarl Betar Silver-Spear, and we do not let our people suffer for the cowardice of others."
She turns only once, raising expectant eyebrows at her friend. After a moment's hesitation, Santana sighs and gathers her staff to join her in the trek upwards.
Once surfaced, it's obvious loot is the furthest thing on their minds. Two guard the caravan while the others take turns pushing the other men around, laughing when they stumble and plant their faces in the dirt. Bile churns in both throats when they see the flailing legs of a women, her dress ripped and hiked far above her knees, vainly fighting off the bear of an attacker. Brittany's grip turns knuckle-white, and all pleading to go about this rationally disappears.
Her hand flashes to the throwing axes set down beside her. A moment later, one falls as the blade buries itself in the back of his head, skull splitting with a mighty crack to spill brain matter down the fabric of his tunic. All laughter stops when Brittany emerges from the bush, her jaw set angrily and eyes nothing but two burning pools of slate. "Leave, skreyja meyja!" Her spear thumps hard on the ground for emphasis. "Stealing like dogs? Fitting, isn't it?"
One, equally as repulsive as the others, steps forward with a scoff. "And you can tell us to do different, girl? No man takes orders from a wench disguised as a warrior."
Brittany frowns, readying her stance. "Good thing I wear nothing but my own skin, then. It seems I have no choice but to change your ways."
His lips pull back into a snarl and a moment later he unsheathes from his belt a crude axe, the blade nicked upon the edges but still deadly. She eyes his weapon as it gleams in the dying daylight of the sun, catching the briefest glimpse of Santana's ruby before her mirror is moved by a wild swing to her face. She sweeps to the left, jabbing downwards. His feet jerk out the way just in time, but his momentum brings him into her upraised leg which plants itself in his soft under-belly. With a grunt she shoves him away, bringing her spear up to strike, pushing past feeble skin and bulky muscle to crunch through the bone of his shoulder.
Maim, Brittany repeats to herself as she has flashes of Aarhus, only maim.
The other six circle her silently. They only see the spear clutched within her hands and the danger she possesses, smooth and sharp, a cold river flowing under the unmoving ice. Nothing of the way her eyes flicker to the crippled man on the ground with something resembling regret, eyeing the maggot-white bone protruding from his tunic. Certainly not how she lingers on the unmoving corpse with the grey matter leaking out into the soil.
Three come at once - she ducks the first, blocks the second, and jams the end of her spear into the third before he reaches her. Her feet create thick clouds of dust as she twirls, cracking the shaft of her weapon over one bald head as she lunges forward to roll out the way. Brittany has so little room to move, stuck in a constant motion of weaving through storms of metal, feeling each impact reverberate through her arms and up to her spine. Her spear manages to find itself in the abdomen of one, rending the flesh open before she's knocked over, twisting onto her back at the last moment and deflecting what could have been a fatal blow to her neck.
"Santana, may I have some help?" Tendons strain under her skin as she attempts to force away the imposing body of the bandit from her face - his muscles bulge, and soon her shaft is pressing hard into the hollow of her throat. "Santana!"
A burst of blue from the corner of her eye; wisps of it slither around the arms of the unsuspecting men and drag them far away, flinging them into the trunks of trees and high up into the sky. Santana bares her teeth angrily and roars with the power of the nether, lifting her attacker up by the ankles and slamming him down into the dirt. There is something inside her, something primal, that reacts so very violently to Brittany's legs kicking against the ground - though her eyes are blue, the anger inside her is as white as vicious lightning.
They get up, dazed and bruised, but certainly not finished. As Brittany scrambles up from her prone position they all turn slowly to the priestess - sweat rolls down her temples as she struggles to keep them in her sights. Ataecina whispers to her, but this dragon roiling within her sternum cuts her hearing; before their eyes, her power wavers.
"Get her!" Santana backs up fearfully, heels tripping upon the immobile body of one merchant.
Her palm goes out. The blue flickers once and dies.
I need more! She cries out in her head, frantically amassing everything in her reserve. Give me more, goddess! Please!
The first man draws near enough to receive a mouthful of her staff. Teeth crack under the weight of her swing and he howls in agony, cupping one hand over his bleeding mouth where his blood splatters below. Something dark within her stirs, but she fights it away valiantly. "You know what we do to bitches who think themselves heroes?" They snarl from around her, steadily advancing. "We fuck them like the animals they are, and then we slit their throats so all their little friends can see!"
Stay away from her!
A rage fills her. It is foreign, not coming from her chest - instead it travels through her arm, setting the blood aflame, rattling her bones and burning her skin. The ruby glows blindingly bright and she barely has time to register Brittany crying out in pain, sinking to one knee and clutching her chest, before it takes over the essence of her. The feeling seats itself in the crown of Santana's forehead as the ground around her explodes into blue waves, pulsating and uprooting the trees so unlucky to be near her form. She is a hurricane unleashed, sweeping through the wilderness, her breath a screaming gale that shatters eardrums; bodies fly like empty barrels as her hand arcs out and knocks them from their feet. Ataecina shadows her steps as well as another - she tastes spearmint in her mouth as the booming death of the trees echo the snapping of feeble spines.
When the dust settles, they are the only ones remaining.
Brittany rises as Santana falls to her knees, drained but no longer in pain. Her ruby dims once again with the return of her thoughts. She hurries over to her friend, looping her arm around Santana's hips and brushing bangs from her eyes. "Are you alright? What happened?"
The touch of Brittany's hand sparks that same feeling from earlier, but in such a different way. Her heart thrums faster within the confines of her chest and everything comes back to life - her breathing erratic, Santana is so close that she can count the stars in Brittany's eyes. They stare at each other for a second, and Brittany can feel Santana's heavy breath sweep across her face in a gentle wind.
"It was you." Quiet, Santana runs her fingers along the strength of Brittany's jaw. Such a simple action sends chills throughout her body and confirms her thoughts.
Brittany's nose scrunches in confusion. "What was me?"
"You were the one that I felt," Santana says, pressing one of her friend's hands to her chest, "in here. You gave me power."
Brittany recalls the spike of pain through her being the moment Santana doubled her force. Though unmoving, she felt like she was flying, spreading her arms and shifting the world with a single touch. Moving with Santana. They both glance at the ruby, the physical representation of a bond that defies all known logic - connected as they now are, with Brittany's hand resting dangerously low on her chest, they share not the same self they previously had.
It is many hours more to Breiðvík. Carefully, she lifts Santana up until she stands, lingering for a moment before pulling away. Santana flips her hood back over her eyes and attempts to mask the way her hands tremble as they always do after such a blow to her stamina. Sandalio nudges her palm worriedly, huffing his relief to his mistress. Rory comes jogging up to them a moment later with his axe stained red with blood. "Is anyone injured?"
Brittany opens her mouth to deny, but before she can, his face turns alarmed. "Bretagne, what happened? You look like a ghost."
And she does. Such an unexpected drain has taken its toll on Brittany. With a brief glimpse into Santana's world comes the weight of seeing the beyond, and her being is heavy with all the lifetimes she has yet to live. "You have no need to worry. It was just... a bit sudden. Fighting always does that to me." She avoids the suspicious dark eyes drilling into the side of her temple, instead urging the group forwards. "We need to arrive by nightfall, no?"
He scans her for a moment, but reluctantly nods. "Right. This way, then."
When he turns back to the front, Santana leans up close until her lips are inches away from Brittany's ear. "Are you sure? You shake."
Brittany clenches her hands before swallowing, cautiously turning to face her friend. "Can... can I hold your hand? I feel better when you are close to me." Santana gives her the shyest smile and nervously offers her palm, open and giving, to Brittany; she grabs it tenderly and intertwines their fingers until they settle naturally, as if they fit all along. A gentle murmuring fills her ears - later, she will realize it is Santana's heartbeat resounding in her head from where her wrist brushes against her veins. Sated and suddenly energized, she smiles back and tugs her along.
With Sandalio at their heels and Rory leading the way, they resume the long road to Breiðvík, the setting sun warm on their backs.
The first thing Santana notices about Breiðvík is that, despite the twilight that has fallen and ushered the villagers into their homes, it is eerily still. At this hour houses would be lit and loud with the bustling of families inside, smoke billowing from their chimneys, the soft glow of lanterns and the bright fire spilling out through the cracks of their homes. But instead, nothing sounds except the lap of the sea and the occasional yowl of a stray cat. Any semblance of life has been swallowed by the inky darkness that crawls about their ankles. Santana swallows and inches closer to Brittany.
Brittany, for her part, feels nothing except the biting cold and the constant feeling of eyes on her back. She looks around suspiciously, one hand lingering near her axe, bringing Santana closer to her with her other. She can feel her friend's unease in waves, blanketing her in similar distress.
"Bad here." Santana mutters, whispering a quiet word so her baubles spring to life. "Too dark."
Bad dark.
Rory checks the locks on all the houses as they go by, having quiet exchanges with a few people through the boards. They see how happy he is to get home despite the tension that has settled itself over his town, how he limps with blistered feet at the ends of his strides. Upon the horizon they see a quaint little church watching over the town.
Some protection, Santana thinks in her head as they continue their journey onwards. Brittany starts for a second before looking to her and giving her a disapproving frown, as if she simply heard her thoughts out loud.
They creep silently through the abandoned streets, approaching a little house upon the end of the row. It droops ever so slightly to the right and is hobbled like an old man - its cane is a tired wooden beam holding a portion of its faded wall upright, whatever it smokes in its little pipe gives off a foul odour as it wisps feebly out into the dark night sky. Rory knocks once, then three times in succession with a pause between the two. A moment later the sound of scraping locks is heard; the old man groans as he welcomes his children back into the warmth of his heart.
Brittany and Santana are herded into a house that looked like it originally could be called a longhouse, but it lost its way somewhere on the track. A long hallway splits off into several different rooms that are separated with animal skins; in the center hums a cheery little fire roasting an undoubtedly fishy meal, spreading its warmth into the cold corners of the house. Instantly, the dark lightens from around their shoulders and they can breathe, smiling back at the curious faces that peek out at them from the folds of their mother's skirt. They all look like Rory - identical mops of messy brown hair and shallow jaws. Yet they stay rooted by the fire as if it would chase away all the monsters in the night.
Rory is immediately swept up into a hug by a worrying mother, clucking over the stray hairs swept up and smoothing them down with a swipe of her hand. Brittany feels a sort of melancholy for something she never got to experience, and Santana swallows as she remembers all she left behind.
(Maybe it's just her imagination, but the throbbing against her breastbone feels quicker than usual.)
"Ma, really, nothing happened!" Rory laughs, ducking out of her embrace and sub-consciously re-ruffling his hair. Brittany looks a cross between amused and perplexed while Santana simply looks out of place, eyes darting but never resting, searching for something that only she can find. He notes with some surprise that their hands have not unclasped since the scuffle with the highwaymen hours ago. "This is Bretagne, blood of Jarl Betar, and this is Santana, a priestess of..." The boy eyes her sheepishly. "Sorry, what was her name?"
"Ataecina." Santana says quietly, tapping her staff once upon the ground to extinguish her jewels. The children gasp in delight.
"Yes, Ataecina. They will be the ones that hunt down the draugr for us."
His oldest brother, no more than thirteen summers, looks at them sceptically. "Them? You went all the way to Kaupang to come back with a couple of girls?"
Rory goes to smack him on the back of the head, but before he can move there is a rustle of movement, and the tip of Brittany's bloodied spear rests upon the crown of his forehead. She smiles and it is free of anger or indignation, simply that carefree and floaty thing Santana has seen a handful of times upon confrontation with the boys in town. It looks wrong on her, vacant. A defence mechanism she doesn't even know she uses.
"Are you sure you want to call us just a couple of girls?" Only when he shakes his head rapidly does Brittany allow herself a hint of a smirk.
She drops her pack, tugging Santana along with her. Santana, for her part, is fascinated by the memories she sees within these walls; family gatherings around the fire, hauls of fish and game after a long day's work, a father dressed in white pacing about the rooms, spreading some type of leaf across the ground. Spicy but foreign. So this is what a family must look like. It looks none too different from the nights she spent with her mother, preparing the herbs and looking after the people Botaya sheltered. She grimaces, forcefully pushing herself away from the past and into the present.
"Come now, you must be hungry from the road." Rory's mother is a round little woman with rosy cheeks and a perpetual strand of hair escaping from her bun. They both take a liking to her immediately, even more so when she places a rich soup in their hands, the wooden bowls hot to their cold skin. "I apologize the place is in such a bad state - with the attacks, the town has been focused on gathering hunting parties and protecting the people more than actually helping do their jobs." She rolls her eyes, shuffling a pile of dishes out of the way so they can sit themselves upon a roughly constructed bench and warm their feet. "Not that we can blame them. That last attack... it took a lot out of all of us."
Santana sees flashes of a room splattered with blood, little children limp and dead and a mother that tried valiantly to protect them until their final breath. All that remains of the husband is a torso, limbs torn from his body and strewn about the floor. She coughs mid-swallow and hastily puts down her bowl.
A hand thumps her on the back until she can breathe, and she nods gratefully at Brittany before snagging the water from her friend's belt and drinking until the tears go away. It takes a minute to notice that those around the fire are staring. "Sorry, just swallowed it wrong." They nod sympathetically - when they distract themselves, she pours the rest of her meal into Brittany's bowl.
Blue eyes turn to her in question. "Later." She mumbles, finding the ground rather interesting. "Not hungry." She offers the remaining scraps to Sandalio who grumbles in such pleasure she thinks he hasn't eaten in days. A small smile plays at her lips as she buries her cold hands in his wiry fur.
"So, Santana," Rory's mother wipes her mouth before winking and also giving the dog the rest of her bowl, "how long have you been in Nor Veg? Not from around here, I assume."
"I, ah, been here..." she trails off, counting in her head. There was snow when she first stepped foot onto these frozen lands, melting off within the first moon to make way for the infernal muck and constant wet of her then-ragged shoes. Little after that was when she met Brittany and her band of raiders, sweeping her off into a journey she'll never forget. She's survived the summer of Nor Veg, conquered the dragon inside of her and awakened something else within the span of seasons, tasting the first hint of darkness when the days themselves grew blacker. It is frightening how fast time has gone in the constant companionship Brittany offers. "seven moons? More, maybe? Hard tell. Left home long ago."
"Oh, I know about leaving home..." she sighs wistfully, undoubtedly thinking of the rolling hills of Hibernia, "where do you hail from?"
"Iberia."
"The land of the south, that gets nothing but sun year-long?"
"Yes, that one."
Brittany sees the tightening muscles in Santana's jaw from undoubtedly thinking too much of her past. She knows she misses her mother, sees it etched on her face in the interactions other children have with their parents. She knows nothing of Santana's father, but knows enough not to dwell on it. Instead, she makes an exaggerated yawn and drapes one long arm across stiff shoulders, leaning into Santana's warmth and pressing her forehead to a knotted temple.
"I apologize for the suddenness, but would you mind if we retired for the night? It was a long walk from Kaupang."
The large woman bustles up hastily, almost as if forgetting herself. "Oh, of course, of course! You poor things must be exhausted. Come on then, right this way."
(Santana shoots her a thankful smile when nobody's looking and wonders how she knows her so well. It's a blessing more than a curse.)
They are led to the back, where a deerskin is pushed aside to reveal a small but thankfully clean bed with a night table and water-basin tucked into the corner. Brittany groans and all but throws herself upon the woollen blanket, spreading herself out like the curious starfish Santana once found upon the beach. "We only had one to spare, the town has taken what we don't need up to the town hall to house the militia. I think you will see that you can fit more in that bed than what meets the eye! Goodnight to you both, and again, thank you so much for coming to finally bring peace to this little home of ours. It means more than you know."
She leaves, and they are left alone.
Only a moment's hesitation before Brittany sleepily raises one arm to beckon and Santana crawls in beside her, relaxing almost instantly in the warm, cozy sheets. She idly scratches behind her hound's ears, who has taken up position below the edge of the bed, splayed out and instantly asleep.
Brittany is a force of nature, Santana thinks as she's inevitably pulled flush against Brittany's side, her leg slung loosely around both of hers and her head resting upon the taller girl's shoulder. Ever since the nightmares have come she has found herself in Brittany's bed one way or another, curled up against her to ward away the shadows. With her body wrapped around her so completely that there is nowhere not touched by Brittany's skin, the bad dreams cease both in number and in severity. (Brittany simply enjoys Santana sleeping with her, her little body so fragile in her hands.) She stretches once, languidly, releasing with a tired huff and toeing off her dusty boots. They thump to the floor and she instantly settles back, nudging Brittany's neck with her nose until she turns her head to meet her.
"Hi." Santana whispers quietly with a smile.
"Hi." Brittany responds. Judging from the way her eyebrows crease in concentration it's obvious that Santana wants to say something that her mouth refuses to let her speak, whether it be through her own personal doubts or the language block that still, even after all these moons, separate them both. Brittany ducks down minutely and rests her forehead against Santana's, stifling a gasp as their bond connects fully with an almost audible click and they lose themselves in the depths of each other.
What do you see?
Dark. All dark. There is something bad in this town.
Show me.
A massacred room, a lumbering monstrosity, a shattered community. Brittany memorizes its gait and the brutal gashes upon its arms, how its legs are still untouched but its torso ravaged by the desperate attempts of so many dying men.
Is it here?
Not now. But these shadows... they smother us. No matter where I turn all I can feel is fear and pain.
Santana feeds it through and Brittany shakes under the oppressive weight of the mist, lets it drown her only to be brought back up by Santana's guiding touch. She knows now, more than ever, that this thing must be stopped before the whole village is paralysed by its own terror.
There is hope that they can live again, but it needs to be killed. Without that, nothing can be done.
I understand. You worry that I will break my promise?
Never. I... I trust you.
(Brittany's smile prints itself in the quickness of her blood.)
As I you.
They pull themselves apart with reluctance, cold in the reaches of their heart even though they are entwined so fully it's difficult for them to move without disturbing the other. Brittany drags the blanket over them both and rolls until she traps one of Santana's legs in hers, drawing her so incredibly close.
"Goodnight, San." She mumbles sleepily, breath low and lethargic.
"Goodnight, Britt."
September 8th, 912
Days pass. Trees begin to explode into a plethora of colour and the woods are alive with sound as rutting animals clash for the right to mate. Birds flock overhead and fill the air with their noisy chatter, sometimes skimming low to the water in search of easy prey. The shriek and howl of nature is a comforting thing to the people of Breiðvík, whose days are filled with weapon drills and false alarms and paranoia, scanning the endless sprawl of trees for a shuffle out of place, a drifting moan, or a rumble of rattling chains. Despite the fact that winter has not yet fallen and the country should still experience days with almost no night, there is a perpetual cloud hanging over the town; not quite a fog, but something obscure that blocks the otherwise blinding light of the sun.
Brittany finds it not too different than Kaupang; it is certainly smaller and the people less varied, but charming in its own way. There's no way she could ever settle down and be chained to the life they would usually live, the consistency of doing one thing for the remainder of her life unbearable, but it's a welcome break from the tension throbbing between her and her father. She makes a friend in Rory - he's difficult to comprehend with the thick accent muddling his words, but for the longest time she was the only one able to understand Santana and the drawl that clung itself to the loops of her letters.
Santana, however, is having a bit of a harder time.
Not because of the people, no. They are equally welcoming of her as of the jarl's daughter. It took a few days to get over her dark skin and wildfire eyes and the mark upon her forehead, but when it was learned she was here to tame the nightmare descended upon their town, they embraced her with a smile and open arms. Sometimes the children are a bit shy, but she doesn't mind. She's never been a friendly person.
It's the aura around this town that drives her mad. Her sleep has been more fractured than ever before - Brittany often has to trap her between the wall and her own body in an effort to get her to stop flailing, chasing white shadows half-formed in the depths of her mind. Twice she's woken up the rest of the household with her meaningless howling, eyes open and blind as she clutched onto the collar of Brittany's thin shirt and kicked her heels against the flimsy wall. Only she sees the ghosts that walk this town, the memories of the people slain an imprint of blood and bad bones that will linger for however long their murderer roams the ground they once occupied. They stare at her with hollow eyes as she passes by until her forehead breaks out into a cold sweat and she has to duck into the nearest building, heart hammering in her throat and panic forming in her chest. Sometimes they whisper in her ear, too - things in snippets of a language she doesn't understand, equally confused when she repeats it back to Brittany and is informed with a knotted brow that it certainly isn't Norse she speaks.
(Santana had once heard of the Language of the Dead, but thought it was simply an old wives tale to be cast aside like so many other foolish superstitions.)
Exhaustion makes her question if the things she sees are real. Chin in her palm, she glares half-heartedly at the spectre that floats above the dirt roads, her ghostly dress swirling at her ankles as she goes. She's the only one that hasn't made it her mission to ensure Santana never sleeps again, but the constant humming that goes on is enough to drive her to the brink of madness.
"Will you stop?" She snaps, planting her staff down on the ground to create an angry thump. Her charms tinkle from where they hit the wood.
The girl turns to her - Santana can't resist the shudder when she stares into sockets with no eyes, simply dark holes with wispy shadow flickering dimly from within. "You refuse my help, so obviously you look not for attention. What is it you want? I could be trying to work on a way to banish the draugr, but instead I have to be stuck listening to your infernal singing at all manners of the night! I understand that you might be bored - it could be rather tedious, being dead - but bother someone else with it. I have no time to placate the restless dead. That is the job of your useless priest who sits atop his church growing larger by the second." Her mother tongue sounds foreign after months of using it so sparingly. People stare at her as they pass, but she simply huffs the bangs from her eyes and slouches from her position perched upon the banister.
For her part, the phantom stays where she is, curiously watching Santana with the eyes she does not possess. "What?"
A hint of a smile appears on translucent lips before she makes her way again in her eternal circle, singing all the while.
Santana sighs.
"Were you talking to Kolfinna?" She jolts at the voice next to her, so sudden and out of place. Next to her is a child, no older than ten summers, dark hair braided into two tails and swept over her collar with a messy dress caked with dust at the bottom.
"Who?" The girl is harmless, if a bit strange. There's this look about her, older than she appears - her stance is pointed and pin-straight, eyes sober and dark. Santana sees herself in her immediately.
"The girl, there." She gestures to where the ghost walks in her circle, arms out and humming a nameless tune that's lodged itself in her head for the past days. "Her name is Kolfinna. Used to live on the outskirts of town."
"You see them too?"
A shrug. "Sometimes. There are a lot of them recently with everybody scared. Even ones that were killed some other way seem to want to come out and play with the new dead."
The way she talks about it so easily has Santana wary. Even her, who has had dealings with ghosts and other creatures since she was young, is constantly on edge with so many ghostly faces skulking about the roads and haunting the buildings. "Why is she just moving in a circle all the time?"
"She was a bit... off in the head. Sweet girl, always kind. It was her favourite thing to do before she died, hopping in circles and singing songs. It..." Here she falters, biting her lip. "It was her screaming that woke the village, but it was too late. By the time they got there, everyone was dead."
Kolfinna turns her head at an unnatural angle to look at them while they talk, and the silent scream her mouth has morphed into sends dread shooting up Santana's spine. She tries to look away but she stays, mesmerized, as her jaw stretches and stretches until the grotesque picture sends such alarm bells shooting off in her mind that something else stirs, lighter that chases the shadows away. Santana? Brittany's voice echoes in the recesses of her skull and she frowns, looking around for that head of blonde hair. Are you okay?
Her ruby gleams with non-existent sunlight and her eyes narrow in consideration.
Where are you, Brittany?
By... by the docks. Is this really you, Santana?
We can find out.
"Come with me." She beckons the child with her, and turns around to get her bearings. Kolfinna has vanished with the rising breath of the wind. "Where docks?"
Santana follows her new friend down the gentle slope of the village until she can clearly hear the lapping of the waves against the rocky shore, the small fleet of fishing boats dark against the horizon. They step down onto the docks and Santana immediately knows where Brittany is; the arm holding onto her staff tugs at her body like she was on strings, and they jog quickly down the line until she spots her friend and rushes up to her. Brittany, for her part, drops the net she was helping with and doesn't hesitate to cup her jaw with both hands, as if checking for damage or flaws. (As usual, she finds none.)
"What was-"
"How did-"
They stop at the same time with matching sheepish grins. Santana tries again after soothingly circling her hand around Brittany's wrist. "Was that you? In my head?"
The taller girl bites at her lip with trepidation. "I-I think so. I was helping these boys at the docks and all of a sudden I got this really strange feeling, like I was panicking over something that someone else was seeing. It felt like last time... on the road, when you took my heart?"
Santana stalls for a moment but realizes quickly that Brittany doesn't talk figuratively, but literally. They both eye the gemstone - it does look suspiciously dark, like the blood that runs through their veins. Could it be? What happens if Brittany can hear all her thoughts? Is that even possible? Santana may share something special with the other girl, but she values her privacy above not much else - is she connected so completely that they share a mind?
(What in the world would sharing a head with Bretagne Piersson be like?)
So busy fretting that random images of unicorns will flit through her consciousness, she doesn't notice Brittany trying to get her attention until the ruby flares and she feels a touch prodding the shallows of her brain, attempting to get her to open up and allow her in. She relents after a moment - not soon after, Brittany's soothing chime appears inside her head.
You blocked me out.Her lips don't move, but Santana can hear the pout in her voice.
Sorry. That wasn't my intention.
Stop worrying. This is a good thing, right?
It is?
A grin. Surely! You get to speak to me whenever you want! Why, you must be the luckiest girl in the world.
Santana snorts and cracks a wry smile, shaking her head at her friend's antics. It's exhilarating in a way, to have their own silent language that no one else is privy to. She makes a mental note to ask Eyja about it - before that, however, something catches her attention.
"Britt, why you know Spanish?"
She feels her confusion more than she sees it. "What?"
"I speak Spanish. Inside?"
Brittany tilts her head to the side. "No..." is her drawn out response, nose scrunching adorably in confusion. "you speak Norse."
"Spanish."
"Norse."
Spanish.
Norse- no, stop that! Santana grins, keeping up the constant tirade of sound in her head until Brittany backs out of their bond with a wince and a budding headache. She pouts and rubs at her temple. "That was mean."
With an exaggerated eyeroll, Santana goes up on her toes and gently presses her lips to Brittany's aching head, patting her in the same spot (and being completely oblivious as to how her best friend's face resembles a deep sunburn moments after). "Better?" She asks shyly, suddenly looking down.
"Much."
Up above on its little rise the church bell tolls six, setting all the birds around into flight. They both glance up and eye the way the shadow has once again begun to roll into the town, sending all the villagers fleeing to their homes where they will lock up their doors and hunker down for yet another night of restless sleep. Santana crinkles her brow worriedly, itching to wipe off the shroud settled around her skin. Something is wrong - the unease booms through her blood and Brittany must feel it too, for she presses a steady hand between Santana's shoulder-blades and conveys her support the way they used to do everything. By touch.
"We should go." She agrees silently and eyes the trails the ghosts leave behind as they, too, begin their journey up to haunt the recesses of the church and its holy walls. Her foot is just upon the first step to lead them back to Rory's home when a small hand grabs her fingers and halts her in her tracks. Santana turns expectantly, bending down to the little girl who cups her hands around her ear to whisper to her.
"Be careful of the man in white."
Her brow knots.
"Who?"
"The thing in white that comes in the middle of the night. He killed my parents, and Kolfinna, and the family down the road." Santana swallows harshly as she finally understands the heaviness in the eyes before her.
"I will."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
She lets herself be pulled away by Brittany, up the stairs and the dirt path and into the comforting warmth of Rory's hearth. Her mind swirls and her friend senses her turmoil but not the cause, touching her shoulder with one hand as if to reassure herself that Santana is still real, here with her and not somewhere else entirely. "What was that?"
She shakes her head to rid herself of lingering ghosts. "Nothing. Come on, we need to eat."
It never ceases to amaze them both how such a small town can hold so many secrets. An honest people are the Norse, a kind people, but still human. They, like all other races, have an affinity for lies and half-truths that Santana sees in the memories imprinted in these walls - death and disease and deception. It is no wonder the draugr took such a place as its hunting ground. The unease alone could feed it for precious weeks, bloat its distended belly until it grew big and strong and unable to be killed. More time that passes the slimmer becomes their window of salvation.
(Something is wrong tonight. The sun has hidden itself behind opportunistic clouds and the birds have fallen silent. A breeze chills exposed skin, and the whisper of the wind sounds like the hum of countless voices.)
At the door they shake themselves, as if the action could rid their bodies of this infernal heaviness that weights on them, stepping over the threshold with an audible sigh of contentment. A line of salt spans the doorway to ward away the deeper dark that makes itself at home in the nooks of their town. They step inside to a blast of warmth, a blessing after spending dawn until dusk in the brisk autumn air. Niamh, Rory's mother, offers a smile and beckons them to sit around the fire to warm their frozen toes. "How goes the day, lassies?"
They gratefully take the food offered to them. "Slow," Santana offers, watching from the corner of her eye in amused disgust how Brittany shoves the food into her mouth without chewing, "met a girl. Small. Brown hair?"
"She had angry eyes." Brittany chimes in once she swallows, taking a gulp of the mead sitting in her cup. "Real dark, like Santana when somebody tells her she has a pretty face."
Santana reaches over without looking and thwacks her friend on the head, letting out a scoff to her surprised yelp. "Ignore her." She smirks at the grumble beside her and instead fixates her gaze on Niamh. "You know girl?"
Niamh nibbles her bottom lip worriedly, casting her eyes about. "My husband says it is in bad standards to talk about the dead so soon."
From his position on one of the benches, Rory scoffs into his plate. "Ma, that stems from nothing more than his own upbringing. The dead don't mind none, what with being dead an' all. What would they take offence to?"
"You watch your tone with me, young man." She warns before sighing and turning again to a curious Santana. "Aye, I know her. Nice lass. She seems to be the only survivor of any of the attacks - both her Ma and her Pa died less than a moon ago from the same beast. She done look none worse for wear, but she confessed to the pastor that she can see ghosts now. Erik and Ragnar and even little Kolfinna, all watchin' wherever she goes. Daithi - my husband - presided over the funerals... but none of the dead have been happy recently."
Santana taps the floor and sees flashes of a mighty man garbed in white with his voice full of smoke. Rain falling, dirt churned to filth, bodies being laid to rest. The picture is so clear she loses herself for a moment and stands underneath the breaking sky, fingers clasped in a smaller hand belonging to blank eyes and a quivering jaw. She goes to brush plastered bangs from the child's face, but the image disappears like the smoke the medicine-man blew out from between his parted lips.
Her head throbs angrily when reality returns. The necklace is hot against her chest and her heartbeat feels flighty, taken on too much emotion for such a small space. So much energy in one place overwhelms her.
"Excuse me, but feel sick now." She mumbles, gathering herself up only to sway uncertainly in one spot. Niamh rises worriedly but she waves her off with a weak attempt at a smile. "Be fine later. Thank you for food."
Something nudges at her consciousness.
Are you ill?
I believe so, this place is taxing on my health. I just wish to sleep a full night for once.
Santana vaguely hears Brittany explaining for her when she crawls into their still messy sheets, winding herself down until trapped within them. Sandalio nuzzles at the palm of her hand and she smiles the best she can with half her face smashed into the bedding. "It will be nothing, boy, you'll see. Just simple overexertion." Her eyes fall closed moments later; her unease carries through into her dreams.
A rustle in the endless bush. A shuffling step, a ragged groan. Milky eyes swivel in rotting sockets as the shadows bounce across the surface of the moving water. It is here - he can smell the flesh, salty and rough after days in the wild. He pulls in the scent of their sleep through his decaying throat and turns clumsily to meet the hush of the wind against his numb face. Soon, the gloom will subside and the shadow racing along his mind will retreat, and he will learn to breathe again.
What is his name? He knows not. Many days have passed since his creation and he sees his thoughts growing disorganized, frenzied and driven by nothing more than animal instinct. The little voice that used to whisper by his ear has all but vanished, devoured in his feral jaws as he claimed the lives of so many, so many dead and found and lost, rotting in the trees where their bones will feed the earth he, too, once lived upon. This planet and its countless gods have faded in time to the deterioration of his body. Sometimes he even feels little pieces of his soul falling away. What happens to those with no souls? They go... where do they go? To the place, the place with fire and anger and hatred. Anything would be better than this swirling medley of confusion and lust that he feels right down to his bitter bones, the only thing driving him onwards and to the flickering of the fire he sees between the trunks of the trees.
He has heard them, when they wake and are so very bright with life, telling them not to come into his forests. That a monster lurks here. But... what makes a monster? He simply does what his Master commands of him. At first he took so much guilty pleasure in feeling the flesh rip and tear. Their screams were music, drilling into the scattered remnants of his brain and left him craving more with the fire still flowing through the hollows of his veins. Yet he grows numb. Though Master tries to tie his flesh together, his limp grows with each passing day as the muscle in his feet decay and grow weak, being ripped away in tiny parts until one can see the maggot-white of his bones underneath the sinew. His moan is more of a throaty growl as his vocal chords crumple under the necrosis eating away his vessel.
In that tiny place that still houses feeling, he recognizes he is weary. A thing with no need for sleep should wander endlessly, but he tires. He wants nothing more than this existence to end but knows not enough of himself to recognize that, only that he yearns for something the flesh cannot give.
There is no time for contemplation of how long he will remain to serve. Now, in this moment, there is only the beating of the heart from inside another chest and how he longs to snuff out the intrusive sound. They are either brave or brainless to attempt such a thing after the leaves have been painted red by the blood of their brothers.
Fire feels strange on his skin. He passes his hand through the flame, watches how the waxen flesh curls and withers under the heat. It brings with it the smell of something once forgotten, cooked meat and smiles as he sat and ate to his heart's content. A flash of his life before when he was something greater than this. It prompts a flicker of unease within the pits of his chest, and he turns slowly away.
Only one man lay sleeping upon the ground. His robes a pristine white, he slumbers without worry. Broad-shouldered and dark-haired with a twig of mistletoe clutched in his massive hand.
Ignore him. There is another.
He raises his head to the breeze and grumbles his assent, shuffling away as clumsily as he had appeared. The darkness races along his skin and blocks out the tremulous sound of the man's heartbeat, focusing upon another simply a league away. Lighter, faster. The heart of a child.
You let her escape. Make not the same mistake once more.
Yes, yes - he remembers her family, how they screamed when he took their boy and ripped his spine through his chest. His mother sobbed and sobbed as he broke her neck with his powerful jaws, saw silently how the man dropped his sword in despair and fell to his knees to cradle the body of his murdered wife. He fought little, accepting his fate with eyes glazed over and destroyed by grief, nothing but a pained huff of air escaping as cold fingers found his head and broke the casing of his skull. Now that it has been said, he remembers little footsteps running out into the cold autumn night, voice raw from screaming - he had left the sound and the life and the pain of noise, vanishing into the dark and letting its embrace take him far away from there.
The town is silent when he appears. The mist that comes with his arrival shrouds even the tops of their houses until he uses his hearing to navigate through the streets, dragging his wounded leg along and creating little scrapes in the dirt. When he breathes in, he pauses - upon the air he scents something familiar to him, of spearmint and animal musk and juniper, that tugs at the part of his mind that has not entirely succumbed to the sultry song of the darkness. Memories try to get through, but nothing can break the cage his Master has set around him, so he shuffles forward again, drawing ever closer to his prize. His tongue swells and sticks from his mouth at the trembling exhale of her breath meets his ears; thick, cold drool seeping down his chin and splattering his soiled garments gone to rags with neglect.
Broken nails scrape against the wooden door. The heaviness of sleep in her limbs threatens to overwhelm him, but he has learned; he swallows down the moan that aches to burst free from the prison of his lungs. He is wise, so very wise, and leaves the locked door to instead try another way that would keep her firmly entrenched in dream until her final moments. He loves those - the realization that they are going to die. It is sweeter than the blood that dribbles down his throat and sates his parched insides.
Unknown intuition takes him to the cellar, closed but unlocked, waiting for him to find. His joints creak tortuously as he bends down, fingers curling in the iron hoop, tugging with all his unholy might until they are thrown open with a loud howl of metal. Around him, they stir but do not waken.
So close.
His feet stumble over the steps as he moves down into the pitch dark of the cellar, breathing fetid air into his stilted lungs to create the echo of rattling chains throughout the room. Simply above this flimsy wooden flooring is his prize, the little one with dark hair and darker eyes, who slumbers and will soon meet her parents in the void that awaits her...
Santana wakes and her limbs feel heavy with gore, her mouth full of imaginary rot and her eyes already perfectly accustomed to the silent dark. She lays listening for a moment, pushing away the shivers that rack her frame, but the intense feeling of disquiet causes her stomach to lurch again, fresh with the feeling of being in his skin.
She rolls over to the side of the bed and breathes heavily, eyes squeezed shut and cold sweat dripping from her brow. Surely it was but a dream. An omen? Dream has no time in the celestial plane; for all she knows it could be of seasons later, when they have long since abandoned the hunt and monsters come back out to play. But then, what could it be searching? And what was that voice in its head, so familiar and smooth that she tries desperately to put a feeling to the face and comes up with nought. Nothing but shadows haunt her.
Blood blooms in her mouth, thick and rich and coppery, and she retches violently onto the floor.
Something dark splatters from her mouth and the taste is overwhelming; bitter, cold and filled to the very brim with slime. It simply causes her to cough, more and more heaving up from her chest until the sound of it hitting the wooden floor causes Brittany to wake in a frenzy, disoriented, called from sleep by the fear she could feel in the waking world. Santana stops briefly to intake a shuddering breath - the scent of it stirs her nausea and it begins again, this time with less gut-tearing vigour.
Brittany shuffles over to her side, hastily lighting a lantern as she goes. "Santana, are you- oh gods, what is that?"
The priestess moans and heaves for the last time, already wiping her mouth and stumbling up from her hunched position on the bed. Long arms wrap around her waist and prevent her from moving. "San, stop, you aren't in any shape to go anywhere. Look how sick you are."
"N-no, Britt-" she pries helplessly at the strong hands clasped over her abdomen, "have to go. Now!" More of the dark, metal taste overpowers her tongue and she winces, clapping one hand over her mouth until the feeling passes. "It here!"
"What is here?"
"D-draugr! In town, I can feel it all over me, i-it-" Brittany soothes her but stands up regardless, carrying Santana over the mess she made and helping her gather her clothes. She, herself, shrugs on the heavy chain-mail reserved for battle. "Where, San? Can you tell me where?"
"I, uh," she closes her eyes and focuses in on the intense feeling of evil emmanating from a singular house, hearing the screams of the occupants within, "docks. By the docks."
Her head is in a frenzy. She barely notices Brittany asking Niamh to clean the black slime from the floor before they're heading off in a sprint, hands linked, towards wherever Santana's gut tells them to go. They weave through the streets with determination hardly seen until they come to a stop at the small lodging. This is the one. I saw it. Brittany squares her shoulder and rams into the door - it doesn't budge. She grits her teeth and tries again; it rattles on its frame but the stubborn wood refuses to give in. The mounting panic from within sends a new kind of urgency through her, and she tugs her friend away. "Cellar!"
Brittany doesn't question her, doesn't doubt. They turn around and descend into the dark depths, trusting the light from Santana's staff as they set foot and the first wave of death hits them. Brittany clenches her jaw hard to stop the gag from coming forth - Santana, for her part, turns to a corner and retches more corruption onto the floor. Shuffling from overhead, the creak of heavy limbs. Blood drips from through the cracks.
Together?
Always.
The two of them slink up flimsy stairs, passing a bed soaked in red and a young man dead in the sheets. Santana presses his eyes closed and offers up a silent plea to her Goddess, her hand then coming to bunch in Brittany's chain-mail for comfort as they reach the main floor and witness the extent of the disaster.
Inside is in ruins.
Chairs are overturned, blankets strewn about, the fire scattered and smouldering. Blood is spattered along the walls to paint a grotesque picture, hand prints among the mess, frenzied marks in the dirt floor from where small feet have dug in to escape. Somehow the door to the wardrobe had been yanked off its sturdy hinges and broken into jagged pieces - inside the hollow of the space, a little body sits limp and dripping. Pieces of flesh are scattered around the corpse, hanging by threads; one can see the glint of bone in its jaw. It sways once before slumping to the side and a smear of blood follows its descent to the ground. All Santana sees is a mess of dark brown hair, released in sleep.
"No!" Her lips form the word but no sound bursts forth. Instead she rushes over to the child, the one that she had promised, promised that she would be ever vigilant, ever cautious. Her corpse is still warm in her arms, and her life-blood soaks through the grey sleeves of Santana's robe. "Oh, lo siento," she whispers, seeing the briefest flicker of life in dark eyes, "lo siento mucho, forgive me..." The seal of her mouth pops open and more crimson rushes from it, coating her fingers. She whispers something but it ends on a wheeze and Santana has to hunch to hear.
"B-be-hind you..."
A thump of bare feet and Santana throws herself from the floor just in time to miss the clumsy swipe of rotting hands. She scrabbles back to Brittany, regretfully leaving the body of the child where it lays, clutching onto one of Brittany's strong arms to help her up. Her friend holds her spear in a grip so tight she believes her to be breaking bones in her hands, point wavering in the air.
(Flashes of a burning village and scorched corpses and make it stop.)
The thing before them is but a mockery of a man. His skin is the grey clay that falls into the sea upon the cliffs, his breath the moan of dying trees. Once he could have been handsome with broad shoulders and large arms rotted down to bitter flesh and bone, but his nose has disintegrated from his face and his eyes are the colour of soured milk, listless and light as he scans them with but a modicum of intelligence. Hints of entrails are visible through the white of his ragged, filthy tunic and the equally soiled breeches that accompany it. His mouth gapes open in longing, trails of pink spittle pooling at his lopsided feet below.
Santana reaches for Ataecina, but she shakes so terribly it is impossible to sum up her strength. Her head pounds and her necklace burns wherever it touches. Brittany swallows thickly and raises her spear when it goes to move.
"Kill it!" Santana whispers urgently, soothing her hands over Brittany's frozen arms with worry. "What are you waiting for? It needs to die!"
In truth, she knows not what she waits for. There is a nagging in the back of her skull, an insistence to place a name to that terrible face that will haunt her dreams for weeks. Brittany scans the gashes on his arms and how his insides spill out from his distended belly, eyeing the cloth cap crudely tied around his skull, thick and crusted with stale blood. A hint of something peeks out from underneath that hat, and she is seized with a sudden doubt and a burst of speed.
Her spear goes out. He is no contestant for her quick reflexes, and the point of it snags the material before he even bothers to raise his arms. Brittany pulls, flicking the cap from his head.
Hair spills out, and all air seems to leave the room.
Impossible, Brittany whispers to herself, but she is hopelessly fixated on the way that shock of blond hair falls in the exact same manner she had once run her fingers through, until it was free of knots and caused him no more discomfort. She once again traces the lines of his face, backing up with disbelieving steps the more familiar features seem to surface; the green of his eyes hidden beneath the unseeing film, the sullied white of his sacrificial clothing, the wounds still visible on the flats of his hands. Her weapon trembles in her hands and Santana's nails nearly pierce the skin of her arm when she notices one of her charms still hanging loosely around his fleshy wrist.
"S-Sam?"
His neck swivels slowly until he stares at her blankly, frozen mid-step as he considers the tone of her voice. "Sam, this i-is Bretagne. Do you remember me?"
(There are memories slamming around the cage of his head and he remembers bright blue eyes and a charming laugh and soft soft skin, how his belly set aflame in a different way when he touched her and she smiled at him.)
"B-rrr-thaag?"
"Yes, Bretagne." With tears in her eyes she slowly inches forward, levelling her spear with his head. "I was-am, I am your friend. And Santana?" She asks, steps light. "Do you remember her too?"
(There's more and he's drowning in what he used to have, a friend with whirlwind eyes and who spoke like a thunderstorm, rich sandy skin and a sharp tongue but when she laughed it was like the heavens opened up and all was right with the world.)
"Sn-tnaaa?"
There's a choked noise from behind her and Santana is holding in harsh sobs, one hand clamped over her trembling mouth as she looks at the abomination their boy had become. Her heart beats so very fast under her skin and he is fascinated by it, how it gives him comfort instead of hunger and he stumbles to her, too fixated to notice the spear by his face.
Santana scrambles back, staff held over her body protectively, but before she can retaliate there is a resounding boom in her skull that sends her crashing to the floor, both hands over her ears. Samuel, too, flinches back, with nothing but a garbled moan of protest. Leave them.Cold and slick, the voice crawls down her spine and finds itself at home in all the deepest reaches of her, where the darkness has seated itself and begun to grow. Black dribbles from her nose and she gags on the stench, barely noticing when a dark wind whips up from nothingness and surrounds her once-friend.
You will not harm them. This is not your duty.
Only Brittany seems to be unaffected, crouching down next to Santana and squinting at the gale that surrounds Samuel - he lifts his arms up curiously, watching the shadow swallow his limbs without any fear. His stiff neck turns to them for a fleeting second and she sees almost regret behind his deadened gaze before it devours him in his entirely and nothing is left in his place. Vanished.
She stares blankly at the spot he once was. In his wake he leaves the dead and the wounded, injured not only by body but by mind. Her thoughts seethe in terror, only one making itself known from the mass.
I will have to kill my friend.
Brittany wipes hastily at the tears formed in her eyes, turning to Santana who writhes in agony upon the floor. Any attempt to touch her is warded away by the strange amulet that throbs with a blistering heat, scorching any skin touching it. Her friend's jaw grinds and pops as she looks into whatever void is presented.
Curious, Brittany hunches down next to her and presses their foreheads together.
With a horrified gasp, she sees.
"Hakka Pelle!"
The chant rises and crashes over him like waves over the bow of his longship.
The indecipherable grunts and chants that make up the northern language babbles around him as the leaders of a dozen tribes, clans, and cities ripples around him. Sami priests anoint their warriors with bear blood... men dressed in hides with frozen eyes and hair so fair it was white, but with cracked and windblown faces the color of tanned hides. They alone are silent, with the feral gaze of wolves. Fierce and fearless, these reindeer herders from the north of his father's empire have come for gold and the right to be left in peace. They, at least, he can understand. The milk-drinkers mill through the ranks giving blessings in the pompous language of those fat and content in the warm southern lands. How weak men can produce such strong warriors and worship a god who was taken by his enemies without a fight... but he can not deny the strength of their warriors. When the priest reached him, Harald had knelt automatically, letting him babble the meaningless words and dribble water across his brow.
"E Nomine patre, et filia, et spirito sancti," he intoned, mind vaguely recalling the confused explanation for how three gods can be one god he received when his brother had informed him that he, and all his thengs would be converting to Christianity. He closed his eyes in prayer; Odin had been good to his people, but it was the Christian god who gave them a rich land. "Father, grant us glory in battle. May these, our wayward brothers come to accept you, or seek your forgiveness and mercy in glorious death."
The missionary had returned with a bruised ego and a swollen eye, now the swath of grey in the distance that marks the smoke of the village ahead marks its burial shroud. His men mount horses, the Sami taking up a skirmishing position around the outsides of his ranks. They will not fight and die for him, but they will uncover ambushes, and make short work of skirmishers and whatever rabble these pagans may put up. He slips the helm over his head, the din of an army on the march muffled to manageable levels by the steel. He takes up position in the front, his nephew William beside him.
"Remember boyo, hold back till I give the word. A commander is no good if he becomes stuck in the fight. You have to see to act, otherwise you may win the battle and fight bravely, yet lose the war to pigheaded foolishness." William nodded solemnly, quiet for fourteen winters, with none of his father's penchant for bold exploits but a grave determination Harald recognized from his own father.
"No worries lad, I'll ensure you have your share of the glory today." Left unsaid were his own questions of the glory of bringing armed men against a village for the sake of a different god. Glory, plunder, women, these were all fine reasons to war, for if it weren't the plunder of fat and pampered villages in France his people would not have survived long enough to conquer it. He had heard much of Jesus and his teachings, but the priests had not explained how a man who preached peace and love and obedience would turn around and strike down pagans. Had it not been pagan soldiers who had seized him? Had he not forbidden his disciples from killing them in his defence? Too many questions, too many contradictions. Odin, he understood. Even Loki, he understood, as well as any man could understand a mad god. This strange god of the south, he would never comprehend.
He tapped the cross on his chest and willed his concerns to silence. Surely if God could forgive him a life spent spilling blood of innocents in the name of idols, he could be forgiven spilling it in His name.
Much as he did, some follow false gods that they refuse to relinquish.
"William!" He calls and his nephew answers, materializing silently beside him as if a ghost. Sometimes he wonders how one so silent could be blood to such a loud and ferocious warrior but his proficiency with the precious longsword of his father's father proves to be near legendary at such a tender age. Given a few years more under his guidance and he will be commanding armies that conquer nations and dominate the seas, utilizing his northern heritage to guide him over the frigid waters. His curls are damp and plastered under his cap, too big for his small head, but he seems to pay them no mind.
They make visit to their most interesting prisoner. Mere days ago they apprehended her upon the coasts of Heiðabýr and she has proved most trying. The fat men in their black robes babble and swell indignantly the longer she remains alive but he has stated to let her live on pain of their own death; they value their pathetic existence more so than one of a simple heathen. Always do they preach around her until their words melt into a singular stream. Perhaps in hope of converting her? He will never know. He almost smiles at the irritated expression on her face as she sits within the small cage, listening to the meaningless words he knows will never sway her.
Harald beckons one of the priests over. Sweat dots his upper lip despite the relative cold of the night and his lips are dry and cracked from reciting prayer. He has heard that once he had a son, but his distant brethren have long since taken him to their own gods. "What can you tell me?"
The man shrugs and he scratches his shortly cropped head of blond hair. His Norse is thick at best, too muddled in his native English tongue, but understandable. Long has he since shed the ties of his country, choosing instead to serve the Lord wherever it takes him. "Nothing new. She has not moved since you last came. I believe she may even be in some sort of trance."
Even as he says that, one reaches inside the bars in an attempt to cross her. She recoils, but another goes at her from behind. She shouts - her voice is unique, of honey left out in the sun - and claps her hands; the vibration ripples through the ranks and a whirlwind of blue engulfs her, drawing inwards once to blast outwards and throw the men from her vicinity. Its echo is so strong that even Harald wobbles where he stands, planting his feet firmly in the ground and bracing himself, but the priest at his side is knocked to the dirt. When the dust clears the bars are still intact but her face is twisted into an angry snarl, eyes devoured by the colour of the summer ocean. Her markings throb.
Somewhere in the air he senses another presence, heavy and sad.
"Be still!" He roared even as the soldiers scrambled for their weapons to subdue the stranger with skin of sand and hair of crow. Despite her age she was beautiful and he found himself intrigued by the eyes that glowed bright and cut through the gloom.
"It is a shame we have to meet this way, priestess." Upon her breast lay a small amulet. Of white stone, it throbbed with what he assumed to be her heartbeat. She snarled and raised her hands once more; at such a close proximity he could clearly discern the light that came not only from around her, but within her. Such a luminosity befitting a High Priestess. "Do not worry. You will not come to harm at this time. We may have need of you when we cross the seas to Nor Veg."
Her eyes dulled but she no longer looked at him. Instead she glanced upwards and traced something he could not see upon the air. William, too, looked up with an unreadable scrutiny on his face. The priests began their babble again but she paid them no heed, instead lifting her lips into a tired smile and mumbled a single name.
Santana.
"Mami!" Her hand reaches up and flings the pendant from around her neck; the scorching heat dies and she can think as clearly as she should, half-drunk from sickness and disbelief. The boom of the army still clashes all around her in waves of steel and sound - they had stretched out for leagues and the city of tents was low against the night sky lit orange by the flames of their fires. While Brittany lays on the floor in an attempt to come to grips with the enormity of such a force headed their way, Santana has only one thought in her mind.
I have to save her. She gets up, shaky, taking one last glimpse at the carnage around her. The girl has died and her spirit lingers sadly in the air, touching the remnants of the only home she had ever known. Santana whispers a quiet apology to her - there were so many she couldn't save. Samuel, Ricardo, all those who died in Aarhus. She will not make the same mistake again. Her fingers slip on the lock of the door as she tries once, twice, eventually getting it open and passing by the stunned villagers hoarded on the other side, making way for the diseased angel soaked in a solution of sin. The sleeves of her robes stick to her skin but she forcefully shoves the thought away, knowing that if she lingers too long over whose blood it is she will never leave this spot on the ground.
Mist crawls about her ankles as she breaks into a sprint. Where is Heiðabýr? It can't be in Northvegia; they would have known if an army that size sailed into their ports. Perhaps on the mainland below, then, near Taunmark. If her thoughts were fractured before, they are in tatters now, fishing for pieces of her vision to sew together into a map that will take her to her mother. For the life of her she is unable to erase the image of her in chains, surrounded by wealthy, stupid men that attempt to change perfection, and the man dressed in scale-mail that looks himself a god.
She makes her way around to the edge of a farmhouse with laboured breath, searching out the dark mare she saw earlier, grazing in the field. Upon the edge of the accursed forest is the beast, calmly taking its morning meal with nothing amiss. (The sun rises. Had she been gone for such a time?) Santana approaches her cautiously but with swiftness in her steps, pleased when she touches her velvety snout and a huff of warm air ghosts along her palm. "Hello girl," she coos, voice still rough and tremulous with strain, "are you going to be good for me?" The horse snorts and Santana strokes her rough cheek with a small smile, giving her a pat before fleeing towards the barn she spotted earlier in search of a saddle.
In her mind, she senses Brittany coming back to herself, shaking off the bonds of dream and rising to her feet. With a renewed sense of urgency she runs back into the pasture and drapes the saddle over her broad back, fumbling with the clasps as she works the straps under her stomach and secures them together. All she needs is to get to Kaupang - she can take the first boat to Taunmark upon dawn. Or is it past dawn? She rests her pounding head in her hand for a minute, groaning under the weight of all the unanswerable questions such a journey presents. Santana had no destination in mind when she first struck out north, simply an urgency to get away from her constant home of the south and begin anew, far from the armies the fat men bring. It seems ironic, that she rides off now into the heat of the fray, but she cannot find it in herself to care when her only remaining blood is in so much danger. Any sense of precaution or planning is thrown out in favour of reaching her mother; she secures the saddle to the mare and heaves herself into the seat, grasping the reins nervously with one hand and steadying herself with another. It has been a long time since she's rode a horse.
Before she can snap the reins and begin her journey, a voice calls out. Santana could recognize Brittany's voice anywhere, and steels herself when the pounding of footsteps becomes apparent. Despite her mind telling that if she were to simply look into those eyes she would never move again, she turns her head to face her friend who comes up, red in the face and panting after sprinting uphill. "W-where are you going?" Brittany huffs, placing both of her palms upon the flank of the mare, staring up at the priestess who simply seems that much smaller atop the beast.
"South." She says simply, pushing away the panic she sees on Brittany's graceful features. "Need to find Mami."
"Santana, she could be anywhere in that country, and how do you think you would get past the hundreds... nay, thousands of men that guard her? You think crooked from fear!"
"She is my blood!" Agitated, Santana runs a hand through her hair and glares into the slowly lightening sky; still dark with twilight, she knows Brittany can see the tears forming in her eyes. "I have to! Do you know how feels, to see family like that? I fail other people, but refuse to fail her."
A fair brow furrows. "You haven't failed anyone, San. You left because you had to. Her getting caught has nothing to do with you."
For the first time in their relationship, Santana is at a loss. She doesn't know how to make Brittany see that her whole being longs to go to her mother, no matter how foolish or farfetched the idea may be. She has to make an effort, a risk, something. It's the only way to block out the lost expression on Samuel's broken face or the empty, gaping gaze of the girl she failed to protect. Her fingers clench nervously around the reins as she stares into her friend's face, willing her to understand what cannot be put into words.
"I found this on the floor." Brittany opens one of her hands and pools the necklace in her palm; the heat from before has faded but the throb of her mother's heartbeat remains, strong and sure despite the circumstances that surround it. She smiles thankfully and it is returned, but when she pulls at the reins to go, it drops. One pale hand presses against her knee - she swallows and looks into Brittany's pleading eyes.
Please, stay with me.
Why?
What do you mean, why? Brittany is holding tight to her leg, refusing to let go, and the heat of her burns hotter than any fire ever could have.
Why do you want me here so badly?
Because... because I-
Even in thought Brittany has trouble with her words. For so long she has yearned to speak the truth to Santana, to spill out her feelings in vibrant soliloquies that paint the world as beautiful as her feelings towards the other girl. Brittany knows she isn't the smartest, that Santana could have anyone else with one look into those void-ridden eyes, but something in her heart stops her from giving up that simply. Perhaps it was the reassurance in Afi's smile as he touches her knee and promised her that love had no boundaries, or the rare sólarljós-bros that lit up her being and made her feel invincible like the mythical valkyrja that sweep off deserving warriors to the halls of Valhalla. She is not deserving of Santana's razor-blade radiance, that wounds at the same time that it attracts, but she will try her best to be everything she could ever ask of her.
So the next time Santana sadly goes to turn away, Brittany plants her right foot in the stirrup, hands clamping around the cured leather of the saddle. One of her palms cups Santana's cheek and turns her surprised gaze towards her, ignoring all thoughts and actions other than bringing her closer and pressing their lips together.
The effect is instantaneous. Her knees shake and her fingertips tremble, electricity coursing down from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. Brittany remembers nothing except the scent of Santana's skin and the softness of her lips and how she wants to live in the chasms between.
Santana gasps into her mouth and she takes the opportunity to bleed herself into their kiss, pouring everything she is and ever will be into their connection of self. Santana trembles with the intensity of emotion, an earthquake in her bones, and Brittany is there to catch her when she falters. In her head speaks all of the reasons for her to stay, and in each there is something so deceptively close to something better left unknown (an I love you, invisible to Santana who speaks not in love but in hurt) that it steals her breath away on the open wind.
Ever so slowly she responds until they are pulling each other closer, merging their skeletons together; Brittany thinks her leg is going to lock from holding all her weight upon it, and Santana feels her nails split and bleed with the strain, but it could never be more perfect. Santana tangles one hand at the base of Brittany's neck and feels all the moments that could have been between them become.
They separate. With flushed cheeks and swollen lips, Brittany looks beautiful as she leans her forehead on Santana and gathers her so close they breathe the same moment. "That," she murmurs quietly, hope laced through every letter, "is why I want you to stay. Please. Just... stay with me."
Santana swallows, and aftershocks are rolling through her in the wake of the storm, but her voice is equally soft when she agrees. "Okay."
