Master of My Sea


I know, it's been 84 yeaaarrsss. It's been a very, work-stressed couple of months, and muse-killing as well. Not to mention chapter ten is like, 8,000 words long. Anyway, I want to thank you all for your patience, and for your amazing reviews! I nearly got discouraged, because for the longest time I got none after the last chapter.

Also, this is a forewarning - this chapter does not have Ivar in it. It is a 100% Kara chapter. I know for a fact that there is going to be two handfuls of my readers that are going to skip this chapter entirely, and I really, really, really, really, really wish you wont, because it's such an important chapter to me, and to the story. The prologue is explained in the chapter, and just overall it's a massive character development for the main OC.

Chapter ten is a massive chapter that has many stuff happening in it; full of feels, full of reveals. I'm excited about it. Hopefully I can finish chapter eleven fast enough so I can publish it.

Anyway, hope you enjoy. At the end of the chapter, I explain a few things that are mentioned in this chapter!

Oh, and one more thing - They will age up in 2-3ish chapters (i hope) after chapter 10.


chapter nine:
THE BLOOD MOON


The moon was full and red in the sky. It's false sunlight was her only light in the darkness of the night. No stars could be seen that evening; the clouds seemed to pile themselves in the sky in thick clusters. It was only the blood moon that could be seen glowing through the curtains of clouds. There was very little to help navigate the environment, especially in the forest. Kára had lost direction the moment she fled the Seer's hut with her arm clutching her stomach as if she had been stabbed. In her pain and hysterics, she didn't consider the direction she was going until she found herself in the eerie quietness of the forest. The red alder and birch trees jutted out of the earth like spikes in perfect alignment. Everything looked the same.

Kára stopped running and whipped her head around, expecting to see something she recognized. The left, the right, behind her, and in front of her all looked the same. White-barked trees surrounded her. She looked up and saw that the sky was nearly cloaked entirely in dark grey clouds; there were no stars to help her find her way back, the only thing left in the sky was the blood moon.

Pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes, she cursed herself at being so stupid. Kára let out a groan of pain as the scorching heat in her abdomen increased, causing her to buckle onto the floor on her knees.

What was this pain? Why was she feeling it? Was she dying?

Kára curled into herself on the floor with her hands between her legs, and whimpered and cried through the wave of pain. It felt like hot pokers were scraping her insides slowly and continuously. What was this curse? What was this disease? How could she make it stop? Her body was on fire, while being maimed and flayed from the inside out. And while her body was in pain, her mind was frantic with jumbles of thoughts and emotions. Words echoed in her mind while a headache bloomed at her temples, and with it came her anger and frustration.

With her teeth gnawing on her lip to stop herself from crying out in pain, Kára remained in the soil in a fetal position. Time had passed, but she didn't know for how long. She might have fallen asleep at some point, but she couldn't be sure. The pain had slowed down to a dull ache, but still too uncomfortable to warrant a move from her spot. Sleep must have taken her, because a crack of thunder had shook her to full consciousness. When her eyes snapped open, the forest was blanketed in fog and the wind that wafted through the alder and birch trees carried a dampness.

A storm was coming.

Kára uncurled herself from the ground and stood up slowly. Her entire body felt stiff and sore, but whether that was from her running for as long and as fast as she did, or from the assault on her organs, she didn't know. The girl took a deep breath and looked up at the sky once again, but it was still too hard to see. The moon lurked behind the moving clouds, but it was bright enough to see the light of its existence. The world might be filled with fog in that moment, but right now she was thinking a little bit more clearly.

The moon, where it stood, it was not centered. And the trees- there was moss growing on them from the spring showers. That was north. Now, all she had to do was follow the moon's direction, to the west, and she would find the river, or the lake.

With this plan in mind, Kára sighed a shaky breath and ran her fingers through her hair only to feel something wet once her tips touched her forehead. Slowly she brought hand down to eye level, but in the dark her hand appeared completely black. She rubbed her fingers together to feel the thick moist substance. It was just then that the clouds moved away from the pale light of the moon, which casted a perfect light upon her fingers, and the first thing Kára saw was red. Her entire hand was coated in clotted blood.

Kára's immediate reaction was that at some point she bumped her head without realizing it, so she went to reach her forehead with her other hand only for her to see the blood coated on that one as well. The pain gradually began to return to her stomach, and suddenly she felt the warmth drain from her veins. Slowly, she lowered her hands to between her legs and immediately felt the hot, soaking fabric of her trousers.

"No," she uttered. Panic began to pump her heart rapidly.

She was a healer's daughter. Most girls wouldn't know what was going on, but Kára knew where the blood was coming from. It wasn't an open wound, it wasn't from another creature.

"... on the night of the Blood Moon"

The girl's head whipped back at the moon, red as it ever was with a halo of light around it. The face of Máni engraved into the surface of the moon stared back at her through a veil of blood. As Kára stared back into the face of the god, she could hear a whisper at the back of her mind that wasn't her own voice.

They're coming…

In that moment, she heard in the distance a chorus of howls that came from the east.

Run.

Another crack of thunder vibrated the ground, and a groan in the clouds betrayed the sound of the first fall of rain.

Kára didn't question the voice, nor had any reason to linger. She immediately sprung into a sprint north-west, ignoring the pummelling of rain on the top of her head. The trees around her turned into white blurs, and the fog that enveloped the terrain whipped by her like smoke. It still blinded her, though, and on more than one occasion she nearly collided with a tree, or misplaced a step and found herself tumbling over a rock or raised earth. Not once did she fall, despite the ground becoming slick with water. She could hear the wolves' pads running through grass and mud behind her, with the smell of blood on their noses.

These are not normal wolves, she thought frantically. They sounded larger, they sounded faster, they sounded closer than they actually were. They were the ones who internally chased the chariots of Máni and Sól: Hati and Sköll.

The sound of her feet pounded against the moist earth, but in her mind the sound was akin to the trampling of racing horses, pulling a chariot at rapid speeds. The trees began to thicken and change from Alder and Birch to thick spruce trees, which meant she was closer north. The air became lighter as the earth began to rise well above the sea, which made Kára pump her legs harder to keep her pace. However, the floor suddenly depressed and with the fog blocking most of her view, and the rain and dirt mixing into slick mud, Kára slipped and slid and rolled down the hill and landed harshly into the prickly branches of a spruce.

Kára hissed in pain as her hand flew to her eyes to make sure they didn't get assaulted by the pricks of the tree. Aside from a few shallow scrapes on her cheeks and mud, her face was thankfully fine. However, her stomach still ached, her womanhood still bled through her trousers, and the fall had hit her bones and muscles harshly. The rumble of thunder through the sound of wind and rain brought her back to reality, and her eyes shot over to the overhang of ground where she had fell from. The flash of lightning betrayed their shadows against the wall of trees. Larger than horses. Teeth as long as daggers. Bodies thin and starved for a meal they have been hunting for since the dawn of time.

Her brain began to scramble as did her body. She threw herself into the mud and rolled around in it until she was covered in it from head to toe. Only her eyes shone through the dark brown muck that coated and shielded her from the wolves' eyes and noses. Kára then began to crawl away quickly until she was able to pull herself from all fours and continue sprinting. She had lost the moon in the thicket and clouds, but at this point she continued foreword regardless of what direction she was going. With the earth now completely soft, running was proving even more difficult, but the forest was beginning to thicken, the trees were larger, and it gave her more room for evasion.

What felt like an eternity went by when she started to feel the terrain begin to descend once again, and the sound of the rain hitting the surface of the water met her ears. It echoed, which meant it was a large body of water. Never in her life had she felt so exhilarated to see that god awful lake. At least now, she knew where she was, but, there was still one obstacle that remained.

The rippling reflection of the moon reminded her of the animals that chased her. The rain had washed out any noise that the wolves could have made behind her, but as she halted at the water's edge, she looked behind her and saw absolutely nothing. No shadows, no movement, aside from the winds rustling the spruce branches. Sighing, Kára felt every muscle in her body relax and then ache as the adrenaline started to die down. Her mouth, contrary to the weather, was dry from her lungs pumping air through her nose and out of her mouth.

She stood in the clearing and leaned her head back with her mouth open, allowing the rain to fill it with water. After Kára finished nursing from the sky, she pulled her attention back at the lake, blacker and more alive than she had ever witnessed it. It was as if it was the bed of Jörmungandr himself, and he thrashed violently underneath from the sound of Thor's hammer beating the sky.

She needed shelter, Kára realized, but she could not hide in the trees. The lightning was close, and she couldn't risk the chance of getting hit if she climbed into a tree or being out in the open. Blinking wildly against the rain, she made a quick observation of the landscape, as hard as it was in the dark and rain. Her eyes adjusted by the nightfall, though, and still could see the forms of land against the backdrop of murky clouds. The land rose around the lake further south, she observed, which meant there must be some kind of cave or overhang at the water's edge.

Kára retreated back into the forest to shield herself from the rain, then slowly climbed the terrain that bordered the body of water. She kept low to the ground, making sure that her body didn't become a beacon for Thor's hammer. The girl looked up for a moment, and saw the moon high in the sky hidden behind a curtain of clouds, but its brightness shone through. The red colour came as an orange-yellow through the clouds, which casted an unearthly light on the slick black waters of the lake.

After some time, she had stopped when she met a dent in the grass where the storm water collected, creating a natural trough that lead into a small waterfall that cascaded over the rim of a large rock hidden under grass, earth, and roots. Kára scaled down the side of the overhang, her feet dipping into the shallows of the lake for a moment before she scrambled underneath the rock. Underneath was more spacious than she had thought would be there, but it was crowded with tangled roots and river rocks that had washed up underneath. However, it was as dry as she could possibly get, given the situation, and she had to make do. In an attempt to make it more comfortable, she clawed at the available soil and created something to rest her head, and then moved the river rocks around her body to help delay any rise of the water. Kára had no idea how well she would be able to sleep there, but the rock over her shielded her from the storm and from any predators that might be lurking in the forest still. Hopefully, come morning, she will have a better idea of where she is and how to get home, if she was even close to it.

With a sigh, Kára laid down in her uncomfortable makeshift bed and stared out at the lake through the curtain of water falling above her head. Her heart was still pumping from the chaotic night she had just endured, but under the security of the earth, her adrenaline began to leave her system. Eventually, she fell into an uneasy sleep to the sound of running water, and the lullaby of Thor's hammer breaking into the sky.

x x x

She watched him from the clouds, walking across that marble surface of the lake. His steps were slow, due to his bare feet protesting against the frozen terrain. A dance of wind and snow whipped through her hair and eyes, but from the balcony of Asgard, she could see all so clearly. She could see the face of Rán underneath the water with her net, ready and waiting for her next victim to reach the weakest part of the ice. The licks of shadows danced with her, opening up the entrance to Hel, to welcome it's newest arrival.

This was no battle, and this was no death worthy of Valhalla. She remained in the clouds, her anxiety fueling the raging storm that crippled Kattegat and it's residence. But, he walked through it, determined to allow the lake to consume him. The place of his solace, his sanctuary, where many days he floated on his back and stared at the clouds will become his final resting place. She could see the fight in him was over; he could no longer pull himself from the tentacles of his own personal kraken.

The gods had decided that this would be his fate, but it was not fitting to the man he was. She would not allow him to go, not yet. Gods be damned, she flew from her perch and cut through the clouds like a shooting star through the night sky, and landed gracefully upon her bare feet on the crystalline surface before him. She watched with tears collected in her eyelashes, as he opened his eyes and looked upon her. There was recognition in this deep, green eyes, but he held no surprise in them. They were red and dreary; the pain written in his irises told a story as old as he was. His dark hair was dusted by snow flakes, as were his eyelashes and eyebrows, and it blended well with his greying skin. He was halfway to death already.

"What are you doing?"

Her voice was a gentle bell to his ears; a comforting sound to the beating of the wind in his ear. Her warmth and presence tinted his cheeks pink, and he wanted nothing more than to embrace her, and bring her light into his heart. She waited for him to answer, hoping that her interference would somehow make him turn back. However, his answer was just as hollowing as the tears that streamed down the lines of his face like rivers.

"I don't know."

Her long arm extended to him, her fingers ready to brush off those tears and take him into her arms and bring him to the warm hearth of Valhalla, whether approved by Odin or not. But Rán had other ideas. The ice broke beneath his feet and the lake swallowed him whole. She felt the cold in her veins when she saw his wide, panicked eyes look into hers just before the mouth of death swallowed him.

The winds of winter picked up viciously around her, and she could feel the warning of the gods bellowing her name from the skies. She ignored them, and plunged into the lake with her arms stretched out towards him. Rán's net flourished underneath his sinking body, snaking around his limbs slowly. She was just out of reach.

His blue lips parted, his last breath and last word slipping out in bubbles that drifted up and got caught in her eyelashes.

"Sigrún…"

x x x

A spasm in her muscles caused Kára to rouse from her sleep. For a moment, her vision was blurry, but that was because she had dried tears gluing her lids together. Once she blinked out the dust from her eyes, she knew exactly where she was, and her muscles suddenly felt even more sore than a moment before. Her entire body ached, including her womanhood, which felt like it was on fire. But in comparison of the night prior, Kára could not complain about that.

The water that spilled over the overhang had died down to a drizzle, and the lake receded farther away from the earth. Everything was still soaking wet, including herself, but the sun was out, and the sky did not have a single cloud in it, as if the storm was merely an illusion she made for herself. When Kára pulled herself up, she was now able to get a good look at the state of herself now that there was light. She was covered in mud from head to toe, and a dark stain built up between her legs. With a great sigh, she began to crawl from under the overhang and towards the lake, biting down her instincts to avoid the water.

She felt filthy in a way that she had never felt before. Yes, there were times where she had avoided a bath for weeks at a time, and had got away with wearing dirty clothes, tangled, lice ridden hair, and bare feet that had gone black and green from grass and dirt. Aside from the lice, none of that really had bothered her, but right now it was a new kind of filthy. Her insides were on her outsides, pooling and soiling her thighs and trousers to the point where the smell was just as strong as the smell of mud and earthworms. Once the girl reached the water, she groaned at the feeling of the cold water meeting her sore muscles. Lake water was never the warmest, but she had no luxury of choice. With chattering teeth, she pulled her body like a baby learning how to crawl until the surface reached her chin. Once she pulled her legs flat underneath, she started to peel off articles of clothing, one at a time, until she was completely naked.

After some time, the water was no longer an issue. Her skin became numb to the temperature, and it even killed off the pain that her muscles were in. The first thing she had done was dunk her head under the water, and immediately pull her face out in a gasp. She felt her heart race, thinking at any moment something was going to grab her ankle and pull her further into the lake to lay it next to the corpse of her father. With that morbid thought, she grabbed onto a rock for some kind of false sense of security. After she had finished cleaning her body as much as she could, she took her clothes and began to scrub out the mud from the fabric with a rough sided rock. The dirt leaked from it easily, but the red stains in her trousers did not.

"Shit," Kára cursed in frustration. The back of her hand rubbed her nose as she began to feel it tingle, betraying the sensation of tears developing. Taking a deep breath, she laid out her clothes on a large rock to dry, and then crawled back under the safety of the overhang. There, she waited, with her knees pulled to her chin and her muscles quivering and shaking from the chill of being naked and cold. After some time, whether it was long enough for her garments to completely dry or not no longer mattered, Kára came back out, quickly grabbed her clothes and brought them back in with her.

They were still damp, but they were no longer soaked. She looked pitifully at the red stain at the crotch and cursed again, knowing that it would just grow and become dirty again once she put them on. After some deliberating, she took her tunic and ripped off her sleeves, stretched out the fabric, and managed to craft a pair of undergarments by tying one sleeve around her waist, and one underneath her. After, she immediately put on her trousers and tunic, but opted to keep it untucked as to hide the stain, as if it mattered.

Walking along the shore line of the lake, Kára became acutely aware of just how tired her body was every time she moved her feet across uneven ground. It didn't help that she was getting hungry, but had no means of getting food. She couldn't find any mushrooms, those that were edible anyway, but she saw plenty of minnows swimming in schools in the shallows of the lake. After some time walking, she found herself in the presence of a fishing shack that looked older than her own mother. The small dock was reduced to only poles sticking out of the water, with rotted wood nearly disappearing into the earth as it reached dry land. The shack was more of a skeleton of one. A small tree grew right through it, the roof was in shambles, and the door was pushed out of the way by a fallen tree behind it. The earth was retaking it, and to anyone else, it would simply appear like a pile of garbage, but to Kára it was a sight for sore eyes.

"Thank Thor," she breathed and ran to it, as if it was going to vanish. She squeezed through the the small opening underneath the fallen tree, and began to inspect what little provisions it still had. There wasn't much. There was an cast iron pot in the corner that was housing a family of worms in soil. There was a broken fishing pole with no string, a fishing net, rusted fish hooks scattered on the floor, and a small leather pouch. Immediately Kára grabbed it, hoping there was some fishing string inside, but there wasn't. Inside, however, was flint and steel, with some wool bundled inside. Everything seemed to be dry, which was a miracle, given the storm last night.

Having to make do, Kára began the preparations for what she could do. Digging a pit, barricading it with large rocks, and scrounging up as many dry leaves and branches she could find, which wasn't much. At a point, she took some and laid them out in the sun to dry out. She dumped out the worms and dirt from the cast iron pot, and grabbed the fishing net. Given the high population of minnows, it was not surprising that the net was tightly woven, which meant that who ever owned this shack often caught the small fish, most likely for bait. However, for Kára, she had planned on eating them. With no boat, no proper fishing pole, there was no way she would be able to catch a fish properly. At the very least, she can smoke the minnows and sear them til they were crispy enough to be eaten.

She waded into the shallows until it reached her knees and immediately the fish began to swim away, so the girl remained utterly still with the pot in one hand, and the net in the other. For what felt like an hour, she stood completely still, waiting for the moment that the minnows returned. The silence calmed her; the only sounds were the birds and the gentle lapping of the lake against solid earth. Being as concentrated as she was on the task at hand, her guard was completely down, so the moment she heard the sound of someone walking on the lake rocks along the shore, her blood ran cold in unwanted surprise. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. Whatever it was, whoever it was, was behind her, and had stopped walking. Kára didn't want to let them know that she knew that they were there; so she bent down as if to scoop up something from the water with her net, but low enough that her head went passed her waist so she could peek between her legs.

The first thing she saw was the bare feet of a man; his soles were dirty and green, and the legs of his trousers were soaking wet. His body was facing the lake as he slowly he bent down and reached into the water with cupped hands and began to drink. The grip Kára had on the iron pot tightened as she slowly pulled herself up. He was close enough that with a well aimed throw, she could hit him with the heavy object and knock him out, and if that didn't do the trick, she would wrap the net around his neck and choke him until he did. However, the moment she turned around, what she saw caused her to yelp in surprise and stumble back in the water with a splash.

There was no man there. There was, instead, the largest wolf that she had ever encountered. His coat was a dark brown, dusted with whites and greys around his neck, large paws, tail and face. He was soaking wet, as if he was caught in the rain last night and the water just clung to his fur the entire time. Her scream and splash did not alert him at all. He drank his fill for a moment longer before pulling his large head from the lake and slowly turning towards the girl, who trembled in the water. Never in her entire life had she wanted to retreat further into the lake as much as she did now, just to add distance and protection between her and this beast.

But then… she met his eyes and froze. Many times she had looked into the eyes of wolves, and saw many kinds of colours. Silver, blue, amber, and olive green. However, this beast's was vibrant and green like a solarstone sitting on a bed of summer moss. The strangest thing was that the fear washed away from her nerves, and there was no unsettling sensation when she held the animal's stare. Instead, what she had was a sense of familiarity, of comfort, of warmth, of safety.

"Father?"


Right, so before I get into some history/mythology lessons you may or may not know about, I just want to announce something: I have a writing tumblr now! At the moment, it's mostly Viking drabbles (and smut) at the moment. Cant promise how often ill post in it, but if you ever need a fix, just take a read. I also reblog stories from other authors on tumblr that I enjoy, so other people can enjoy as well.

cncevpon dot tumblr dot com.


Blood moon - it's a full lunar eclipse that appears reddish in colour from the sun's filtered light through the earth's atmosphere. There was a big one recently!

Máni - or "Man in the moon" is the norse personification of the moon. Máni is used in this scenario, because the moon as a god/ess usually protects those in the night by lighting the way. Máni as the blood moon had lead Kára to the lake by making her chase him, and by warning her of the wolves. He comforts and shields her with the darkness of the night, making it hard for those to find her, while using his light to guide her.

Sól - the norse perfofincation of the sun. Sól is Máni's sister.

Árvakr and Alsviðr - These are the horses that pull Sól's chariot. I bring this up, because I wrote that kara's feet running sounded like horses pulling a chariot for a reason.

Hati & Sköll - are the wolves that chase the sun and moon. Ragnarok prophesies that the end of the world will happen when the wolves devour Sól and Máni. Kara's still a child, and in her delirium, she believes these famed wolves are the wolves that chase her. A lot of religious belief at this era stemmed from unstimulated minds and over imagination by primitive human beings, so it's completely justifiable that the environment mixed with her overflowing hormones and pain created the convincing illusion that these wolves were in fact the infamous wolves that were destined to kill the sun and the moon, and that was why the god Máni told her to run. But! that's if you're just a logical person. Maybe it was Hati and Sköll that was chasing her ;)

Rán - Is a sea goddess who is married to Ægir, a sea jötunn. Rán is known to drown men at sea using her fishing net, and also receives men who die at sea. The lake is obvious not the ocean, but I used her as the goddess who claimed Ulf's life in the lake. Since she's considered a dangerous goddess, it's not out of character for her to take advantage of the situation.

Looking between her legs - So the scene where Kara looks between her legs and see's the legs of her man is something I learned about a few months back. Seers and Volva used to have various ways to see into Asgard or beyond the veil. Volva would sometimes stand on high platforms and chairs in order to appear high enough to look into Asgard and see the gods. A muslim man (whose name escapes me) wrote about his experience with the vikings and described how a woman was bent over with her dress over her head and looking between the gap of her legs in order to see through the veil. Kara does this unknowingly, and by looking through the veil, she see's her father as a man, but when she looks at him normally in midgard, he appears to her as a wolf, which is his namesake. This is also a reference to the time that Ragnar points out that Kara was raised by wolves.

If you have anymore questions that don't spoil the story, feel free to send me an message on here or an ask on my tumblr for (almost) instant replies. Also, it's always important to do your own research. A lot of my information comes from Dr. Jackson Crawford, a professor of norse mythology at the university of colorado. He makes lecture videos about various topics about Viking culture, Norse language, and explaining the saga's in depth. I've learned quite a lot from him, so i recommend his videos for anyone who wants to learn more about it.