A/N: As always, I do not own Vikings nor take credit for any of it's characters.

Contains some strong language, mature content and violence.

I haven't tried to write anything in a long time, so please bear with me for any errors - feedback is always welcome!

Here's my attempt at giving Harald the love I thought he deserved and Gyda the story she never got to have!

xx

Chapter One

- Silly Dreams and Desires.

The clearing was quiet, as it always was, apart from the rustling of wildlife and the gentle sloshing of the lake. I came here every morning to bathe and never had to worry about my bareness as I stripped away my clothing and submerged into the icy water. People rarely travelled this far out into the mountains and when they did, they didn't come to wash in the lake. They came to find out their fate.

"Girl!"

I flinched at his distant voice, jolted out of my absent-mindedness. It was like that man sensed when I was having a moment for myself. He was no doubt older than the grisly mountains looking down on us yet he never missed a trick. Sighing, I pushed myself up from the bank and scooped up the bucket of fish by the handle beside me. I walked back through the clearing towards the hut, already wishing I had just five more minutes at the lake.

"I'm back," I called when I arrived, animal bones clattering together on chimes as I pushed the door open. I dropped the bucket on the table and unfastened my cloak. "I caught some fish."

"I know," came his croaking tones from the dark corner. He was sat in the chair, almost unseen to an untrained eye by the dark cloak that covered him. "Bring me to the table."

I hung my cloak on the antler nailed into the wall and made my way over to him. He grabbed onto my arm as I hooked my other behind him and guided him up. His long nails dug into my flesh but the sleeve of my dress dulled the pain. I lowered him into a chair at the crooked table in the centre of the room and he released his grip, his hands falling to his lap. Sitting closer to the window and in the dull light that poured through, his face was more visible under his hood.

There was a time, when I was young, that the Seers disfigured face frightened me. To a child, it was a thing of nightmares. But now as an adult, I barely even recognised the deep tearing scars and planes of mottled flesh were eyes should be as anything unfamiliar. I wondered if there was anything that would shock me nowadays.

I grabbed a fish and took it to the counter, pulling the small knife from my belt. I could feel him watching me, an eyeless stare boring into my back as I began to gut our dinner. He had way of making you feel watched despite his blindness but that was a discomfort I'd also had to get used to quick. I took his silence as perhaps not an invite, but an opportunity to talk.

"So," I didn't dare to turn round as I spoke, "have the gods spoken to you recently?"

He didn't answer for a long moment and there was just the noise of my knife chopping against the counter. "They speak to me often," he rasped finally.

I swallowed. I hadn't worded my question right. "Have they...spoke anything of me?" I paused. "If I am ready to return to Kattegat?" I tried to sound casual but I could feel my knife moving quicker now.

"The gods will make their will known, when they deem you ready. Until then you will appreciate the gift you have been blessed with and not question their plans," he scolded.

My gift. People always had insisted I had been blessed, touched by the gods themselves. Yet I had always felt guilt that I didn't feel particularly favoured. It suddenly and very quickly felt more like a curse the day I cried as I watched my parents and brother descend down back through the forest, leaving me to a fate with the old blind man. It had been decided that I would stay with him, up near the mountains, until I had honed my gift. But I had never been able to control my dreams or force the gut feelings that sometimes came over me. With each day, week, month that had passed, it felt like I'd been sentenced to live here simply to be his servant.

"But when will they deem me ready?" I knew I should stop but I couldn't. "So many winters and summers have passed. I've done everything you've asked, I want only-"

"What you want is not important," he snapped. "Your fate is to be the vessel through which the gods speak. Your silly dreams and desires do not matter."

This wasn't the first time he'd told me this of course, but my eyes stung with tears regardless. I wanted to fling the fish carcass in his grotesque face and tell him to fend for himself. Why would the gods chose me, only to condemn me to a miserable existence? I sunk my teeth into my lip as I held back my tears and I continued preparing the food in silence.

Waves thrashed against the side of the long ship, sea water dousing men as they hacked and slashed at each other. There was an orchestra of screams – those of battle cries and of pain. Bodies flailed all around, toppling over the edge of the boat to be dragged into the sea and falling with sickening thuds to the deck. A flock of crows swooped in circles above freckling the grey sky, their squawking getting louder and louder until I could barely hear anything else.

I turned and someone was before me who hadn't been a moment ago. He stood, oddly calm and still despite the chaos around us. Blood smeared his face like hellish war paint. I blinked and when I looked again, blood was streaming down his features now, without a source but flowing so quickly it dripped onto his bare chest and trickled down.

"Rollo?" I whispered.

He stared down at me tilting his head, the whites of his eyes contrasting against the red of his face. His expression was so blank that at first I thought he couldn't see me. I stepped forward, reaching out my fingertips to touch him.

Then his face contorted and twisted into a look so violent I was sure he wanted to kill me. His arm flexed and his axe glinted above his head. He was going to kill me. I lurched back as the steel came down through the air towards me and then I was falling. I didn't stop falling for a long moment. Then the sharp iciness of the sea rushed through me, into my ears, my nose and what felt like my lungs and I was submerged. I felt as if a rock weight was pulling me downwards as the rippling light at the surface grew dimmer and dimmer.

I woke with a gasp, shooting upright in my cot. My hair stuck to my face with cold sweat and I pushed it back roughly as I looked around the shadows of the room. The Seer was still snoring and muttering in his sleep next door. I released the breath that had been lodged in my chest and leant back against the wall.

The dreams weren't always so bad but they always, even still, jolted me awake with such sharpness that my heart hammered painfully against my chest. That was the part I hated. I'd never witnessed the Seer jerking awake in panic – he just mumbled incessantly in his sleep. Maybe for him, after so many years they seem like fleeting daydreams. Maybe they were all he saw every moment he closed his eyes.

I couldn't recollect a time in the last few years I had seen my uncle in my dreams. And it had been many years since I last saw him in the flesh. Yet in my dream under all the blood and beard, Rollo was older than I remembered him as being. I thought hard, but I couldn't come up with a reason why he would be relevant, or why the gods would want me to see what I did.

If I was truly honest with myself, I mulled over a lot of the dreams I had and could never really seem to piece together the meaning of them. I'd make a feckless Seeress. Maybe they would start to make sense soon, maybe their messages would be more obvious. Maybe by that point I'd just make my own interpretations up. I smiled to myself at the thought and slid back down into the furs.