Word Count: 6028 before Author's Notes.

Author's Note: Before you begin reading this lengthy prologue, I ask you to consider a couple of things.

Firstly, I write somewhat long author's notes. For my readers on A03, this may be less of a hassle. However, I have received complaints about this before. FanFiction dot Net readers, there is a chance that the author's notes and guest replies will inflate the word count. If this bothers you enough that you feel the need to comment, please make your way over to A03, where you can skip right by them, or better yet read a different author's work.
Secondly, the author is not Scandinavian or even European. I'm sure y'all have already gathered this. I will do my best to be respectful of Scandinavian culture. Any errors related to the spelling of non-English words, culture, and history are completely my own, and I welcome correction. See the endnotes for further comment or historicity, the show's material, and so on. Thank you all for even giving me a click, and I hope you decide to stick around!


Prologue

There was a story among the Vikings about a man who hunts in the forests near his home. He lays snares in the way of potential prey and checks them daily to see if his efforts have borne fruit. For years, this is one of the ways he's provided for his family. Then, one day, his success diminishes without explanation.

It happens, now and again, that a predator stumbles across the prey caught in the snare before the hunter returns to check. This is normal, not completely unexpected when the trapped animal is left alone and vulnerable for hours. For this hunter, however, it begins to happen frequently. Each day, he goes to check his snares, and each day, he finds no animal to be found, dead or otherwise. Instead, he can see that the trap was triggered. Perhaps there is a little blood where the prey animal was stunned. It is clear enough to him that something was there. If it happens once, it might be an escape. If it happens twice, perhaps he needs to alter his snares. But when it begins happening every day, to half or more of his catch, it becomes clear to him that something else is at play.

The area is always undisturbed, at least by humans. The ground is not trampled down, and the plant life on the forest floor grows without interference. No man could reach the traps completely undetected without knowing where they were from the start.

It is more likely, anyways, that it is a predator, or a group of predators. But when the catch goes missing, the hunter can find no sign of any other animal. There is no sign of fur stuck to the shrubbery or fallen sticks, and no tracks left behind. Perhaps more significantly, the snares are never severely damaged beyond what is expected from their use. Whatever is stealing the catch removes it delicately, leaving no trace behind.

The hunter voices his complaints to neighbors, who at first suspect another animal themselves, and then suggest that it could be the álfar. It wasn't unheard of that they would interfere with livestock or a person's livelihood. Didn't he put butter out for them? Had he never participated in the álfablót sacrifices that helped appease their invisible neighbors?

No amount of sacrifices or gifts to the elves seemed to ease the hunter's misfortune. He never quit setting traps on his own land, but set time aside each day to thank the gods that he had friends willing to allow him to hunt on their own. Even with these resources available, he grew more and more frustrated. As the seasons passed, it seemed to him that whatever creature had been feeding off of his land should have been well satisfied and moved on. It never did.

Years into his struggles, the hunter is fed up. No god answers his pleas for peace and prosperity. The creature seems intent on bleeding him dry, as if it only grows hungrier with time. He knows with more certainty than he can remember knowing anything in his life that if he fails to fend it off, it may never leave. He begins to set traps again. These traps, however, are not meant for prey.

The very next day, the hunter experiences the most triumph he's felt in years, even including the riches he's collected from his efforts during the summer raids. There is still no animal, but there is blood. It's far too much to have been left behind by a creeping rodent or injured bird. It begins at the trap and sets a trail about ten minutes' walk from the site, where it diminishes. The offender has been less careful than usual. It seems to have torn the trap apart in an effort to free itself before making its getaway in a clumsy manner that the hunter hasn't yet seen. Even without the blood trail, its direction is obvious.

Nevertheless, there is no animal or hidden person where the trail finally disappears. And afterwards, though he continues to leave these larger traps, he catches nothing. He begins to collect smaller prey once again.

But the unknown nuisance is never forgotten. Stored away with the leftover spoils and savings of raids not yet spent are a few long, silvery hairs, banded together, from that final snare where the creature made its last escape.

The legend ends there for the hunter, whose snares are violated no longer but who never sees the same prosperity as he had before. For everyone else, the story continues. Whatever pest had been stealing from him hadn't vanished. It had only moved on. It left the farm and migrated to a nearby village, where the enslaved claimed it destroyed laundry and the women accused of managing to steal fresh bread from the home, even as they were within it. Meat left on the roof to dry disappeared in the night. Even the lightest of sleepers seemed not to have been disturbed by its movements. The creature seemed to make its way in total silence and subtlety, and it rarely ever left any evidence that it had ever been there at all.

Of course, the village was larger and less remote than the area in which the hunter laid its traps. With the damage spread between different households and the foodstuffs that were taken being insignificant in quantity given the circumstances, its actions garnered far less attention there. For the hunter, it had been the bane of his existence. For the villagers, it was a kind or neighborhood pest. The time that it would take for any single man to track it down was worth more to him than the meager losses of his household. Still, people noticed the rare, nearly undetectable signs of its presence. The ruined textiles were thrown out and quickly vanished from the woods. On a single roof, snagged in the thatching, it left a small deposit of dull, rusty fur. For those who cared, this settled the matter. It was an animal after all. A lucky one, of course, but the stories of silvery-blonde hairs in a lone hunter's snare must have been just that: stories.

Even still, the thief's legend seemed to spread between villages and small towns, and eventually to cities and ports of trade. Not all of the stories could be true. No matter how sly the thing seemed, it could hardly have been breaking into the grain stores at Hedeby and drinking its way through a Swede's ale in the night within the same week. Its actions were inconsequential, but people seemed to carry its stories as if they were. This was particularly true when travellers began to claim that acting against the mysterious creature seemed to cause rather undesirable consequences. The hunter, people whispered, only caught the smallest of rodents in his snares now. Hardly a meal. Someone else claimed to have caught on to its presence and hung the food stores out of its reach. The next day, they told everyone, foods which should have been long preserved were all rotten, stinking up the house. People heard tales of a farmer who chased off an animal hidden in the grass with a shovel, so that if he caught it he could sever its head with the blade. That night, he woke up late to find that his prize sow, the best producer among the lot, had been killed. There were no marks on its body, but it lay collapsed, and had crushed its last litter of piglets.

Most seemed to take it as a cautionary tale. If they hadn't one yet, they began a ritual of leaving butter and the finest table scraps for the invisible people who might take the same vengeance on them. Having animals attacked or gone missing was part of being a farmer, and having food stolen when it was left out seemed part and parcel with living in the presence of their gods and the wild. There was little to be done about it. If anything changed at all, it was minor. The most superstitious folk, in a whimsical moment, might find themselves looking for hair at the site of an incident. In the original story, it was blond hair that seemed to go faintly silver in the faint light of the forest. Now, on the rare occasion that the little folk tale was mentioned, it was said to be hairs made of silver or gold, thread of the finest textiles and silk, or even the hair of the gods. Not surprisingly, no one looking for hair of this description ever found anything.


Life was a blur when you were an animal. It seemed that the mind failed to retain memories in quite the same way that the fox remembered from its youth. Indeed, even those memories of youth had been corrupted. In the body of an animal that wouldn't normally live to see a decade, whatever had happened years and years ago was nearly irrelevant. Sometimes the memories came to it in sleep, as horribly surreal, incomplete dreams of a time and place that were so different from its fresher reality that it could hardly discern whether they were real or not. It always woke up afterwards wracked with pain, as if its fur had been brushed with nettles and that horrible rude housewife had returned to beat it over the head with a broomstick. But even at the most peaceable times of year, the wild was dangerous, and the fox had no time to piddle around. It would leave its resting place as if the dream had never happened. It was inconceivable, anyways, that it had.

Luckily for the fox, today was not one of those days. It woke up in an old burrow left behind by another family of foxes. It felt lucky to have come upon it while it was empty, because often such structures were occupied with creatures less than willing to share their space. It was away from the dangers of the surface of the ground and required no adventurous use of the environment—or worse, switching forms—to wrangle its way up a tree. And in these warmer months, it was as good as any cave at moderating any heat from above. Still, it smelled of dead flesh and fresh blood and dog, a horrible stink. This was part of what made it so safe. The odor meant that a human hunter had recently cleared it out, which meant he wouldn't come back looking so soon. It also reeked to high heaven, and it was difficult for the fox to fall asleep in the midst of it.

More importantly, the presence of the hunter meant that there was some kind of human civilization nearby. And if the hunter was going after foxes, which could indeed be eaten but were more likely killed for their furs, it was likely that there was a city or town with a thriving market within reasonable walking distance. It was always easier to eat without hunting in those places, where everyone was so busy that a small animal could easily go unnoticed. Even better, warm shelters abounded during the winter. It could tuck itself away, under the roof where the people stored their food. Heat gathered there, especially above the sleeping spaces, where all the humans and their large bodies and the hearth put off enough heat to sleep in. When staying in the house, it sometimes had to go a little hungry. But the winter was always hungry, and it was a better alternative to sleeping inside.

When the fox had discovered the burrow a few weeks before, it had decided that it could explore the area for a while yet, and progress towards the town and the market as the season came to its end if there was no suitable shelter here. Sometimes the stables where humans put their slaves and livestock to bed could be suitable as well, especially if they didn't keep the dogs there as well. Sometimes one could only sleep in the rafters for so long before some mangy mutt with no sense of solidarity sniffed you out and forced you to flee into the frigid winter outside.

It was nice, the fox mused, to have plans for the next six or seven moon cycles. Just weeks ago, it had none, because the people at its previous residence had suspiciously stopped leaving their scraps outside and started leaving their dogs out. While some other animals seemed to have a certain sense that they should be wary of the fox, these dogs most certainly had not, and it had received a startling nip on its left flank to prove it before it managed to flee. And flee it had—so startled by the situation was the fox that when it stopped, its leg was ablaze, and days later it woke up with vague memories of having switched forms, and had travelled quite a ways.

Now it was left to carefully monitor everything it could sense around it, because it would be the smells of a homestead and the salt-fresh scent of the ocean that would guide it towards the humans, their food, and the scratchy cloth that was useful to have around just in case. Perhaps if the fox felt a rare pang of loneliness, it could sneak into the stables and nestle into the momentary company of whatever stupid beasts were left in there, or even toy with the with the small humans. It hadn't hunted last night. Maybe there was food. Maybe these people kept that bizarre habit of putting butter or lard on their doorstep that seemed so common in this region.

And so it crept a little ways before it began to smell those familiar smells, keeping an ear out for crunching footsteps and a wary eye and paths that had been stomped through the forest floor. It was close, at first, and then with blinding speed it was there. Night was beginning to fall, and so fewer people were outside, but the fox could see with certainty that the place was populated. Along the slight hills and just off the beach, dotted along the spaces ahead, were a few small houses, a stable, and a slightly larger house with some fencing around its front. This one seemed more private from the rest, as its yard and doorway were hidden from view by a second building and a lot of greenery. Sneaking through the shrubs, the fox could see hides stretched out, already clean of any flesh, and in front of the two doorways, two dogs. It stayed in the safety of the bushes as it made its way closer, but the dogs were alerted anyway. One lifted its shaggy head and peered directly into the fox's unusually intelligent eyes, holding its gaze for several long moments before resting back down. These dogs, then, were the respectable sort.

The fox could smell and taste in the air that the humans had already cooked their supper. Smoke poured from the front door. But the noise inside told it well enough that its inhabitants were still awake. It could parse out a few different voices: the low tone of a man, the moderating voice of a woman, and a noisier, unnecessarily loud voice that could only be one of the small ones—so obnoxious that it was undoubtedly a boy. That place, at least at the moment, wasn't really a safe space to find food. Maybe when the humans were asleep or distracted. For now, the fox crept around the house to find the little supply of butter. The fox thought to itself that the elves must not mind sharing, for he had never seen an elf actually dig into it. Resting by the butter was a little surprise, the likes of which the fox had never seen among the humans' paltry offerings. It had seen butter, lard, and even cream left out before; when these were unavailable, on rare occasions, people placed baked sweets there, alcohol (which was wholly unsuitable for a fox), or even lumps of metal or pieces of glass. Here, there lay butter, but to the side were two small eggs. Quail, perhaps. The fox nuzzled them, mouth suddenly watering. Eggs, it decided, would be a good dinner.

The little quail eggs were a worthy offering. The fox opened them up and licked out the insides, especially enjoying the rich, fatty yolk. It was so atypical that it wondered if a small one had left them. Surely not the loud boy? If it was, the fox would have to revise its judgement. Even as it lapped up some of the butter, it couldn't vanish the thought of the eggs. Two little eggs and a dab of butter. A nice gesture on the part of the humans, but a little more wouldn't hurt. Keeping the dogs in mind, it circled the house again. Perhaps the farmer had chickens or ducks.

Once again, as it passed by, the dogs seemed well aware of its presence and had the wise but uncanny sense that they should keep their distance from it. It was a sense that only some animals had, but whenever the fox encountered them, it wondered why. Was it not like any other predator, a threat to the livestock, by all appearances? This was something that puzzled it but seemed far beyond explanation. Typically, it would be content to count its blessings until after it served itself. Then, later, it would mull over the strange behaviors until it grew hungry again and had more important things in mind.

Sure enough, as it scented out the smell of the barn animals, their waste, pig slop, and wet hay, it came to what looked to be a chicken coop. Chickens were always more difficult than ducks, and were one of the animals which never seemed to catch on to its nature. They saw only a fox, and became frenzied and unbearably loud all at once. This was annoying, but fair, as the fox could not deny feasting on chickens in times past.

The fox slid under the fencing, taking care not to get caught up in it, and slowly—quietly—made its way into the coop. Inside, the smell was a little unbearable, as chickens often were, and the creatures were still. Asleep, or mostly asleep, with the only sound among them being the occasional ruffling of feathers, the chickens seemed blissfully unaware of the fox's unwelcome presence. It stayed quiet, using the dim light from outside to first inspect the empty nests for eggs left behind. It had seen no sign of a rooster, but fertilized or not, an egg or two would make quite a nice meal for now. Eventually, it found a lone egg sitting in the far corner of the coop and took it in its mouth. It looked at the birds and considered disturbing them to get another, but its fur stood on end at the very thought. Not worth it. Not even a little. Maybe for three extra eggs, or a whole chicken. Otherwise, it was putting up with a fit for practically nothing.

Instead, the fox made its way around the house again and laid its bounty on the ground near the demolished quail eggs. Gently nosing it around until it sat up properly, the fox began to gently press its teeth into the smooth surface, just enough to force a hairline crack and puncture a tiny hole through the membrane. It eagerly licked at the whites as they leaked out until the flow stopped, then used its teeth to manipulate the egg until the crack ran deeper and the top snapped off in its mouth to be gently deposited into the grass. Then it licked clean the remaining bowl, savoring the yolk again. It was, thought the fox, indisputably the best part of the egg. The chickens had been healthy and well cared for, too; it was rich, and creamy, with that slightly salty, sulfurous taste—it was probably the best thing the fox had eaten since those other eggs an hour before.

Its stomach sufficiently full, the fox evaluated its environment and decided that it was simply too late to make its way back to the burrow, and it would be forced to explore the farm and rest there. Even for a creature that unfortunately stood out more than it liked, there were plenty of places to stay out of sight when the humans woke up and made themselves busy. It opted to stay near the house, tucked within a bush so leafy and thick it could hardly see out, much less expect a human with their unobservant eyes to see in. It yawned, circled its chosen spot, and stretched out—the required ritual—before laying down, curling in on itself, and enjoying the quiet.


The next morning, the quiet ended very abruptly and all at once. The fox had noticed several years ago that this tended to happen on farms; the very moment there was light the people eagerly set themselves to work. It seemed that the slaves were always the first to rise, closely followed by the man of the house and perhaps his wife. The children were sometimes allowed to sleep slightly later, but often awoke on their own anyways. The racket would continue until shortly before dark, or sometimes after it. In the summers, this meant a very long day. In this season, the days seemed to grow shorter and shorter.

Perhaps because it had been so long in the wild, the fox had decided to stay and observe the workings of the farm for a few days. Somehow this land made it feel even more intimately tied to the humans that lived there than the cities, where everyone lived so close together. The fox found it difficult to admit that after years and years of being alone, its solitude was getting old. It had gone through at least one natural life as a fox without any real company. It was hopeful that its time on the farm might ease these uncomfortable feelings long enough to let them grow numb once again.

Somehow, it slept past the humans and well into the morning until a small pair of booted feet made its way out of the home and towards the stables. It decided to stay in its spot until it had a greater awareness of where the others were, and if anyone else would see it creep past the door or around the house. It especially wanted to avoid the man, because in its mind's eye the fox could vividly see its own pelt joining the two out front.

The house seemed quiet enough, but just as the fox made to get up the crunching of the little boots drifted closer towards the stable until it could see the bottoms of the small feet once again. It was not noisy enough to be the boy, it decided, who must be helping its father.

To the fox's surprise, the little one, who was really not all that little and unfortunately looked big enough to know that she should not be playing with wild foxes, made her way around the house instead of inside it. It could track the sound around the building until it seemed to come almost full circle, when it stopped. Right where the butter dish lay, the fox speculated. It listened again for the girl's delighted inhale before she made her way around the building again. "Mother!" she said, a quiet, girlish voice the fox hadn't heard last night. She sounded so excited. Perhaps she could be entertaining.

"Gyda?" The moderating voice from last night. The woman. The mother, clearly.

"The elves came! Look, they took the eggs! A little bit of the butter, too."

A pause. "I see they left the shells. In fine condition, too." The fox could hear the surprise in the woman's voice, but when she next spoke, the fox could hear her smile. "They must have been pleased with your offering, Gyda. I see they found a chicken egg, too." The woman seemed sly as a fox herself, all of a sudden. "Did you leave it for them as well?"

"No," answered the girl bashfully. "But I saw to the hens earlier. They are all fine. Maybe they just got hungry again?"

The woman hummed. She had a very nice voice, and it was somewhat familiar, which bothered the fox for reasons it couldn't recall. "If they are visiting, we must treat them. Perhaps you can leave some of your cheese tonight."

"Really?" Gyda replied, sounding fascinated with the possibility. The fox agreed—it was an excellent idea. The "elves" would love to feast on some of Gyda's cheese. It couldn't imagine someone the size of Gyda messing with the cow. It must be goat cheese, the fox decided. It could taste it already.

"Really," the woman replied. "This is how we keep our peace with the àlfar. They may even bless the farm." She paused again. "We may leave an egg outside. Or perhaps some meat scraps. I wouldn't want to risk the elves finding themselves at odds with the chickens."

The fox felt as if it was being talked at. Gyda giggled.


That evening the fox found that the family had indeed left out goat cheese and some kind of sweet jelly with the topped-up butter. There was no egg, but there were a few cuts of raw meat, something tender and gamey that it suspected to be some kind of deer or elk, something too large for a fox to hunt. It was a kind of feast the little beast was unused to. Since the little Gyda had so delighted in the exquisitely cut eggshells, the fox left for the forest and returned with a gently held limb from a gooseberry bush. It struggled a little to force them off the vine, but was eventually successful. The fruit was a little beaten, but probably still edible. They were left in a little pile in the grass, and looked quite winning to the fox, who left to find a new hiding space for the next morning.

It did not typically leave gifts. In fact, it did not leave any gifts ever. The elves usually didn't either, and the fox was quite content for people to suspect them. Leaving gifts set the fox too far apart, in an area of dangerous scrutiny. Even leaving the little eggshells had been a mistake; it had merely forgotten to collect them. But for some reason, it found itself fixated on the small human's happiness. Perhaps it sang of better days, or perhaps it did soothe the loneliness once more.


Gyda was delighted with the fox's gift. So excited was she, in fact, that she had woken earlier in the morning than even her father, and she roused her brother to wake him. The fox had discovered that this was the loud one, because "Björn" proceeded to wake everyone else in the house once he saw proof of the "elves'" work right in front of his own eyes.

"What shall we leave for them tonight?" he said excitedly, and so loud.

"Björn," Gyda hushed. "I don't know. There is plenty of cheese left. Perhaps we can leave a bowl of milk."

"Or a fish!" Bjorn said just as loudly. It was barely light outside. The fox could hear some grumbling from inside the house.

After that, the farm became a place of plenty not only for the farmer, who seemed to have had a successful harvest, but for the fox, who reaped the rewards of being a suspected elf. Of course, the offerings of goat cheese, jam, meat, and fresh eggs could only last so long as the family worked to build their winter stores. But everyone at the farm had taken to leaving their scraps out.

The fox didn't stay there full time yet, but it had decided to creep into the stables come winter, and it visited from the forest frequently when prey seemed to run dry. Eventually, the offerings became nothing more than the normal butter, but this was acceptable since the farm now offered long-term shelter.

Still, the fox was as hungry as anyone. As the winter grew closer and the nights grew cold, it made a very poor decision.

It had its mind set on eggs. Not one egg, mind, but two, or maybe three. Three eggs was more than it could fit in its mouth at one time, which meant multiple trips in and out of the coop, then in and out of the fencing. And it had almost been successful.

That evening was quite cool, and even within the chicken coop they nested closer together. This meant disturbing one hen would immediately disturb all the others, but the crowding also meant there were more outliers, eggs left unattended around the edges. The fox had plucked two of them up easily and carried them outside by the fencing. The final egg, however, posed a challenge.

The fox stepped inside of the coop and noticed to its despair that a single hen had strayed from the flock and now covered the outliers. It considered the two eggs outside, but in the face of this adversity it decided it must have the third. The chicken appeared asleep, and surely it was possible to move it undetected.

The fox discovered immediately that this was not the case.

When it gently nudged the chicken to the right, the bird immediately began clucking and struggling against its unseen attacker. The fox moved to silence it, crushing its neck and head between its teeth and shaking until the animal went still, but it was already too late. The other birds were all squawking incessantly, attacking at the fox's eyes, ears and nose, the dogs were barking, and it could hear someone coming from the house. Only after making several frenzied movements did it escape the hens, and then once it made to hurry itself under the fencing, it found itself quite stuck. In that moment the fox realized that it had perhaps been eating too well, and it pictured Gyda wearing its fur over her prim shoulders. As the sound of footsteps grew closer, it scrambled with its back legs and made its escape, running out of sight and motivated by what it would later decide was a perfectly healthy dose of fear.

It felt the pull of the fencing against its skin and knew there would be hair and blood left behind. There was no convincing them anymore that the earlier culprits had been elves. They would be on the lookout now for some small creature with long, silver-white fur and there was no other such animal to take the blame. It seemed the fox would have to head for that market after all.

As it reached safety along the treeline, it could only just make out the shape of the man at the chicken coop, crouched down by the damaged fencing, not making a sound. Before he could look around, the fox pressed further into the woods, lest the man look toward the forest and see its pale body gleaming like a beacon in the dark. Still, it strayed not far from the farm. Something pulled it back in spite of itself, so the fox decided that if the man did enter the woods, it would change its shape to protect itself. Surely the man would be somewhat more reluctant to kill another person compared to an animal.

But the man never came. The woods were quiet, and the fox was safe.

It was time to leave, the creature knew. Not just the farm but also the burrow, somewhere that the man would not think to look. But in spite of itself, its desire to live, and the knowledge that the farming family was at least aware of it now, the fox found itself back on the farm the next day, watching it grow dark. It needed one more taste of fresh butter, it reasoned. One more night safe and warm in the stable. One last vision of the small ones who had soothed its wretched loneliness with their childish glee and naïveté. So it waited until the sky went dark, the noises from the house went quiet, and smoke didn't billow so freely from the entryway. Only then did it creep towards the house, crouched low to the ground, towards the coveted butter dish.

And there it was. It hadn't been removed. In spite of the discovery the farmer had made that morning, it seemed their faith in the álfar was not yet shaken. More shockingly, however, were the things that lay alongside it: a pair of eggs. Maybe even the ones the fox had left behind that morning.

It was hard to imagine why they would have put them out, knowing with clarity that the thing that had stolen the eggs and disturbed their animals was not an elf. There was no trap in sight. They laid their plainly against the timber that made up the home's construction, the same innocent pale gray and dirty green color that they had been this morning. The fox sniffed them tentatively. They did not appear altered. And because it was hungry, the fox ate them in its usual manner, leaving the clean shells behind.

Even while it ate, its guard was up, and it was tense with paranoia. It had just finished the second egg when it first heard a sound. Its head snapped up, ears alert, as it looked around it. At first glance, there was nothing to be seen.

At second glance, however, it detected movement behind the brush, not far from the place it had hidden on that first day. Suddenly it ached with more than hunger. The fox knew that it was no animal watching it now, and this meant that it had been caught at work by an over-curious person for the first time in at least five summers. All its care had gone to naught. But behind its despondency was a very different feeling. Because who would really set out those eggs for some animal, except the gracious, enthusiastic Gyda or the eager little man, Björn?

Feeling quite defeated, it moved towards the bushes. It had been more than five summers, many more, since it had purposely drawn itself so close to something else that… wasn't quite an animal.

It would see the little one's face then run. That would be it.

It turned out, though, that there was no one inside the bush. Rather they waited just behind it. This could only be a good thing, because the limbs offered the only protection at hand against the person who really had been watching the fox eat: the farmer.

It took an automatic step back, but the farmer did not move. He only looked at it, his eyes a clear piercing blue even in the dark. The fox felt as if it was being looked into, a violation, and not one it had received since… that time before. Those memories it could not grasp. When it looked into the farmer's eyes, it saw its own, and this is what finally forced it to move.

Somehow it knew that the farmer, a man who seemed massive in this form and probably would have in any other, would not give chase. Still, it made it to the treeline again before looking back, crouched down in the shelter of fallen leaves and dried sticks.

The farmer rose slowly from his spot. He didn't walk in the direction the fox had fled or even look towards it. Instead, he stooped down to pick up the empty eggshells, then disappeared around the corner with the fox's final gift to Gyda.

The fox waited a long time but the man never returned. The fox, too, left and never returned, knowing with certainty that it would never set foot on the farm again.


Author's Note: A note on historical accuracy:

You probably won't guess it from my writing here, but I actually am a historian with great enthusiasm about the history and the lives of the Vikings and many other people groups of times past. I would love to get everything right, but the reality is that this just isn't going to happen. Sadly I cannot read Old Norse or Old English, so I can only access translations of some of the primary resource material I would otherwise want to use to get a close look at what the Vikings' lives may have actually been outside of the legends. Instead, I am working with secondary resource material, like books and articles by respected historians and archaeologists, and visual aids made available by museums and universities. Even with these resources, I will make mistakes and I apologize in advance for them.
With that said, there will be some historical inaccuracies that will be included entirely on purpose. This is because I'm pulling from the show, which, while wildly entertaining, was absolutely full of them. I won't get into that too much, but if I wish to retain the integrity of the characters and some of the story, I can't pull from the show while also sticking to historical truths/what the real evidence suggests. Here's a big example: Ragnar Lothbrok in the show is a landowner under the domain of the Earl of Kattegat. Kattegat is a real place name, but it is not the place shown in the show. In fact, Kattegat in the show is set in Norway, The legend of Ragnar Lothbrok, however, seems to have been more of a Swedish and Danish legend than a Norweigan one, though he was obviously quite famous everywhere, lol.
All that is to say that in this case borrowing material from the show means fudging the history. The opposite is also true. Sometimes I will favor the history and fudge the show. If you like, I may comment on this when I do it.
I am also writing this for my own enjoyment, so some things I write will dismiss the history altogether. As a transgender menace with terrible religious trauma, I am choosing not to include some of the themes from the end of the show where, you know, Christianity wins. Honestly, it's an L for the culture. Themes of personal struggle with religion and spirituality were super relatable and drove the first half of the show, but the oncoming storm that is European Christianity and colonialism is not so fun. We're still living the consequences today. Since this is something I'm writing for fun and not as some kind of university project, I'm not writing about it. So there. (lol. The chill Christian fam is obviously welcome here. I know you're cool.)

By the way, if any of you are wondering, I did have work published on this platform before, under a different account. (This is not true for A03, where I am crossposting this under the same pseudonym.) Most of it is deleted now because I was very displeased with the quality. A lot of that writing is stuff I did over a decade ago and it may have been slightly embarrassing. I hope I've gotten a bit better since then. Cheers.