Danika finished her translation and set the fabric back down onto the ground to stop her wringing hands from shredding through the fragile fabric. All of those words and none of them useful. It brought her no closer to figuring out the machine, or a way to return them home. Goodness knows how long those bones had been there, or if the version of the machine they had was even complete or functioning or anything! Her knees pulled into her chest, she hid her face. All of her thoughts began to spiral like a bad storm and like rain, she began to cry silent tears. Small splatter marks darkened the stone floor of the cave. I just want to go home…
Hvitserk descended behind her like a warm blanket. His long arms wound all the way around her body and her legs. He rested his chin on her right shoulder, enveloping her entirety like a large comforting koala. And he waited.
She lifted her head and set her chin on her knees, her face tear-streaked, but no longer crying. He pulled a few strands of her hair out of his face and tucked them behind her ear. She tilted her head, sandwiching his hand between her head and her shoulder.
"Might I have my hand back?" he whispered softly.
"No," her voice cracked slightly, like a child's when they are afraid. She nustled her cheek into the palm of his hand further, which comically smooshed her cheek out like a chipmunk. But Hvitserk, despite being Hvitserk, knew that this was not the time to laugh. Or maybe it was.
"What makes örlög mín so sad, heh?" Hvitserk's voice was always whispery, but now he made it a little bit extra gruff, a little more gravelly. Danika called it his storyteller voice, or his goat voice depending on her mood. She loved his storyteller voice. He got no reaction, so he started to lay it on a bit thicker.
"Surely a letter written by a sad little man has not made her so upset?" Still nothing.
"Well then, if this man has made her cry, then I must find him and kill him. Then she will be happy again." She turned her face away. Progress.
"Oh wait…" he put on his sly smile, "the man is already dead…" Danika scrunched up her mouth. His grin widened. He never failed to make her smile in the end.
"This means that first I must find a way to bring this unfortunate man back to life, then I will kill again more slowly for making örlög mín so sad." The corners of her lips began to turn up, but she turned to kiss his trapped hand, hiding it.
"Ah, but örlög mín is happy again. This saves me a lot of work." Now a chuckle managed to escape her, and he took the opportunity to yank his hand out of her clutches. She pouted.
"Please don't make me be the responsible one, you know it doesn't suit me," he jokingly pleaded.
"You are responsible, who are you kidding?" she responded. He brought his face right up next to hers placing kisses on her temple.
"Maybe." Kiss. "But you." Kiss. "Are the responsible one." Kiss. "So that I." Kiss. "Can have fun."
He went in for one more, but she turned her head at the last minute and caught it on the lips. He leaned back, looking cheated. "You didn't earn that one!"
"But you did. Thanks Hvitserk."
Not one to look the gift horse in the mouth, both his shoulders and eyebrows shrugged and he leaned back putting both hands behind his head. "So tell me now, why were you so sad?"
"You don't know?" she mocked.
"I am 627, a Viking, hopefully a good husband, but I am not a mind reader."
"I thought the time traveller's letter would tell us something useful, but it did not."
"Is that all?"
"Was there supposed to be something else?"
"From where I sit, there is something useful. There is always something useful. Even if it is what not to do. Do you know who taught me that?"
"Ragnar?"
"No."
"Ivar?"
"No."
"Bjorn?!"
He stood up. "No." He walked up to where she was leaning against the mouth of the cave. "You did."
"Liar."
"Maybe, but it made you feel better."
"You're not wrong, it was very poetic."
"AND, you will find something useful in there. You always find something."
"Or, you know, you could find something."
"I already did."
"What?"
"I was letting you have your moment-"
"What do you mean you already found something?!"
"-and I didn't want to interrupt-"
"Hvitserk!"
"-besides, there are other options-"
"HVITSERK!"
He shut up and held up the paintbrush that Leonarda had given them. She'd forgotten they'd even had it. There were a few ticks of silence.
"Hvitserk, you genius!"
They decided to hedge all their bets. They would only get one shot at this. They had drawn out the machine in as much detail as they could, but they didn't know how it was made beyond its appearance. Recreating it was not a problem they wanted to tackle. They trekked across the mountains to get salt water, since they had both been on the coast the first time they got zapped. They went over every detail again and again to make sure they hadn't missed any potential conditions for the damn thing to work. Then they waited, since they didn't want to have immortally frozen bruises or blisters, or hunger or tiredness. It was nearly two months in the Prehistoric for them now. And yet the day arrived. They woke up, bathed, ate, and redressed in all their Renaissance finery.
"You know we have a choice now," Danika said, affixing the clay sphere filled with sea water into its wooden frame.
"And what choice is that?" Hvitserk asked, "Don't tell me you're considering staying here with the dinosaurs forever?"
"No, of course not. But that bone-" she pointed to the handle of the paintbrush, "-should take us back to the Renaissance. But we could always go sometime else. It would hurt but we could, I don't know, pull out one of my teeth and get it to take us all the way back to my time. Or one of your teeth and we could go back to Kattegat! We could have that house on the beach you see in your dreams."
Passing on the easy joke about pulling teeth, Hvitserk saw what she was really trying to offer him: the opportunity to skip to the life they always talked about having. The one where they settle down. Have children. Grow old together.
"Are you really willing to go back to Kattegat? To Ivar and Bjorn and all the problems me and my brothers had? You'd never see Gideon or your family again."
"For the past two months I've had to face the possibility of never seeing them again. You are my home and if it would make you happy-I promised you I wouldn't let going back get in the way of us being happy." He sighed and smiled. She looked so serious, prepared to risk everything to give him this.
"Dani, what would jumping backward or forward accomplish? We go backward and we are immortal again anyway, reliving the same 605 years over, wish would surely 'break history' as you so often scold me. We go forward and I will have no clue what to do. I do not understand your world enough."
In one quick motion he snapped the handle off the brush and put the polished bone into the sphere of water.
"If we wait, then we will have that life either way. Let us not deny ourselves what exciting adventures may await us in the meantime. You promised me 1200 years. Don't cheat me now. Not to mention that the only bones we've seen work with this thing are from dead things. We are, thankfully, not dead."
"Good point."
"Are you ready?"
"Hell yes."
Together they lifted up the machine over their heads. They took one last look around, feeling as though this were momentous, that this forgotten world needed to be remembered. But then they spotted an oncoming pack of theropods and decided that things were momentous enough. They dropped the machine. They heard the clay crack and felt the water fly over them. They held their breath.
Noise. There was noise. Hooves on dirt. People talking. People talking! They opened their eyes to find themselves back in Florence. It looked like the Florence they had left, but that could be Florence give or take fifty years. They were in a stable, beside the body of a dead horse, which had spared them magically appearing in the middle of piazza. They took in their surroundings and then burst into cheers of joy, albeit quiet ones.
"We're back!" Danika whisper shouted.
"Oh thank God!" Hvitserk said.
"Says the man who was preparing to end his days in the Jurassic if we didn't figure this out!"
"Just because I was preparing to, does not mean I wanted to!"
"Should've known. The cuisine didn't suit you," she teased.
"Who are you?! What are you doing in here?!" a stable boy appeared from through a doorway, and noticed the strangers speaking a strange language." Oh great, now I need to remember how to speak Italian, Hvitserk thought, floundering a moment before the words returned to him.
"Our apologies, my lovely wife here," Danika curtsied, playing the sensitive lady, "saw that your horse here seemed to be in pain and I could not stop her from coming to comfort it, though I tried." He gave Danika a stern look, and she tried so hard not to laugh and look appropriately ashamed. The stable boy was unsure what to do. These people were dressed well above his station, and so it would be rude to question them, even if they were in the stable he was responsible for. It would also be rude to not know who they are, although he didn't recognize them. He nervously looked around. They didn't appear to have damaged or stolen anything. And that old horse was expected to die any day anyhow. The tall man smiled and said something, pressing a coin into the boy's hand as they hurried out. The stable boy resolved not to tell anyone and hoped it didn't end up with him getting a lashing.
Containing their excitement, Danika dn Hvitserk made their way into the streets, with all the posture and pomp which accompanied their fashion. People inclined their heads as they passed and they talked once more in hushed whispers, although in Italian once more.
"Well we can't go home just yet." Danika said. Hvitserk frowned.
"Why not?" I was looking forward to cooking something with proper ingredients.
"Leonardo gave the brush with the bone tomorrow. The horse we appeared next to just died. We technically are still in our villa," she thought for a moment, "and if I remember correctly-"
"I remember just fine." Hvitserk muttered, disappointed, "Are you saying there are two of me and you in Florence right now?"
"Yes. Which means the most important thing is that the other us does NOT see us and especially doesn't touch us."
"Touch us?"
"It's a lot of theoretical, at least it was theoretical before I met you, physics that won't be discussed for another 600 years that culminates in the world as we know it imploding if they touch us. That would quite literally break history as in this would be the end of it. I can teach it to you if you like?"
Hvitserk's eyebrows flew up and he waved his hands in front of him, "No touching, got it. And yes, I'd like that, but after we figure out where to hide until tomorrow, because I'm hungry."
"You're always hungry."
"But you love me anyway."
"I know," she sighed. They entered a tavern, where they ate dinner, before realizing that they didn't have any money on them. The food was good, perhaps extra good because they didn't need to fight a dinosaur for it and they could've bought it on credit, but they'd need to out themselves as Biancos to do that. The tavern was pretty empty, and the innkeeper was trying desperately to keep it afloat. He did not have any highborn regulars to increase the reputation of the establishment and he'd inherited it in an already sorry state. All he could do was make the food as delicious as he could in hopes of comensating. He probably would have asked for the money upfront anyway. Danika however offered a solution.
"Friend, if I can bring more people into the tavern, would you consider us settled?" she asked.
"If you could do that, I would." The poor man looked so worn out that she could only sympathize. She put a hand on his shoulder, and stood up. She winked at Hvitserk. Smiling, he stood up and opened the doors and windows of the tavern, with the innkeeper looking increasingly confused. The night was comfortably cool.
"What are you doing? How will this help?" he followed Hvitserk, the plump innkeeper's face going red from stress.
"Have a little faith," Hvitserk said, clapping the man on the back, before nodding at Danika who stood up on an overturned box in the corner. Humming slightly to find her key, she quietly began the opening lines of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It was in modern English, but a majority of the common folk would probably just assume it was Latin, which they didn't understand anyway. She was willing to risk it and it was a crowd favorite, no matter the era.
I heard there was a secret chord…
The tavern slowly fell silent. The remaining murmurs were hissed into silence by their neighbors who strained to hear the song. Danika slowly began to sing louder and the sound carried out from the tavern and into the streets. Hvitserk for his part popped outside now and again, acting like an excited messenger. "There's a woman singing at the Florentine Flower! There's music!" People began to congregate, and in staying to listen, ordered food and drink. The innkeeper was busier than he'd ever been, even summoning the daughter who'd gone to bed for lack of work to help with the crowd.
Danika would intersperse well known songs with modern ones. The crowd would sing along when the could, and some even began dancing. A street musician appeared somewhere along the line and improvised alongside. Hvitserk sat contently in the corner. It was like seeing her from the old days. His Dani would pick up skills wherever and whenever they went, but she had always been a creature of music. No matter what art she turned to the decade, she would always return to her songs.
"Sing me a song." he asked.
"Which one this time?" she asked in turn, as they lounged by the river in the countryside.
"One about how you feel right now," he replied.
The night got on and eventually the innkeeper was telling people that they needed to close. People filed out and Hvitserk put his hands on Danika's waist, lifting her off her box and spinning her around before setting her back on the floor. The innkeeper shuffled up, breathless from running between all the tables.
"You brought in enough for your meal and then some. If you need a place to stay tonight, I'd be happy to oblige you."
They took him up on it.
The following morning they left before the rest of the inn was even awake. Altering their wardrobe to look less conspicuous, they made their way out into the streets. Danika sang in the square prompting people to dance in the streets near the fountain. Wandering the markets and taking the time to enjoy the fact they were back in civilization, the suddenly found sunset creeping in on them.
"We should head home. If we don't reappear as promptly as we disappeared, poor Alessio will panic." Hvitserk said, tucking a flower into Danika's hair.
"You're right. Today was so much fun though and I'm not sure why. We could do this any day we please for the most part, but it felt like today was special."
"Well we are the first people to live the same day twice. And it was a nice break. We are constantly reminded of the passing of time. I think today was a chance for us to be timeless," Hvitserk pondered.
"More timeless than we already are?"
"Like it or not, being wealthy comes with responsibility."
"Mmmmm, yes, today did remind me of the old days. Just us, adventuring."
"We go through our phases, don't we?"
"Indeed. And we are certainly nostalgic today aren't we?"
"We have just returned from the furthest past I can think of. I think it warranted," Hvitserk said.
The torches illuminating their front door cast shadows as they approached. They were about to knock when someone came out of the door, barrelling right into them. Leonardo Da Vinci! On his way to the Medici house. He saw their same clothes, but all cut up and dirty, Danika's hair undone.
"Signore! Signora!" he looked behind himself and then back, eyes as wide as saucers. "You were just-"
"Leonardo, the machine you brought today-" Hvitserk began. The genius refocused and suddenly hung on every word.
"Yes?!"
"Time travel machine." Danika finished. Da Vinci looked like he could've cried with joy. He clasped his hands as if her were sending silent praises to heaven.
"I wish to ask so many questions!"
Danika held up a hand, "which we will answer, just not tonight. Come tomorrow. And Leonardo-"
"Yes?!"
"Anything will tell you can never be written down. Never shared. It is for your mind alone. Can you understand that?"
Da Vinci looked like someone had popped his balloon, deflated. But he saw their pleading faces, a weariness which had not been there on the couple inside the house. He remembered what the old time traveller had said about abuse of power. He thought of the noble families which governed the world. The Medici, Pazzi, Soderini...
He saw the wisdom of their words.
"If it satisfies the curiosity of my mind alone, I will die happy, and never having shared a word," he responded. Both Danika and Hvitserk sighed with relief, before bidding him goodnight and slipping inside. As they shut the door, they heard the crash in the workshop. Looking at each other, they began to sprint through the house, as Alessio's shout could be heard. Bursting through the doors, Alessio turned to see the masters of the house appear when previously they had just vanished.
He fainted, Danika catching him. Hvitserk grabbed a knife and sliced open his hand. Danika grabbed his hand like he was nuts, but the cut unhappened with a shimmer. They sighed for what felt like the millionth time.
"Just checking."
To answer the question about why Danika and Hvitserk became mortal in the Jurassic, think of their immortality like a light switch. When Danika got hit by the wave in Maine, it turned on. Same with Hvitserk in Kattegat. Same for all the objects they had on them. Each time they get hit, the switch flips. So they went to the Jurassic and their bodies flipped immortality from on to off. But their clothes were not frozen and therefore switched from off to on. Does that make sense?
Guest Review Response: I would've shown velociraptors but they were a few million years later in the late Cretaceous period with the T-Rex. It was very tempting though.
Not much else to say about this chapter, so thoughts?
SONG) JURASSIC JAUNT: Cannon in D Minor by TSFH