Translator's note: I am posting everything as it was in the first pen name.

I'm sorry that I take so long to update, but I had been writing my own stories, and to me it is double job. So please forgive me if I am slow.

I thank to ashmo2000, hitsrin, Skjoldmen, lunjul, saldred75, lacevas, Lara Kingsley, Bruja1775, kardamon, Perfecta999, nordiclover, Beertjes, Sookie-Eric, gleek987, topdog19, vampire696, EverlastingBeauty, GailJustGail, LizLizzy, Meekasa, Navidasti, RKandee13, TiaMalfoy1D, Ynaffit9885, bely1997bibi, erin1705, juliegh, mesmerizing and the viking's kittykat for all the cheering up, especially the ones who left reviews.

Chapter 2

The light came through my eyelids causing the pain in my head became intensified. I touched where I had been hit and bit my lip. I was cold and for some strange reason that I didn't want to think about I felt my back, buttocks and legs wet, as if I had slept throughout the night on wet grass. I heard a noise to my left, as a branch braking while you step on it and I wide opened my eyes. The sun over my head blinded me, with shock and panic I realized that was outdoors. I pulled my hands away from my face and leaned on the ground to get up. My fingers dug between wet and cold leaves. I sat up and looked around. It was in the middle of a field, or forest. It was very cold, trees were bare and brown, and the sky had some high clouds that caught glimpses of the sun that had awakened me.

I stood up and felt the urge to scream, but anybody who had taken me there could hear me and I didn't know their intentions. I started to walk, at least to warm up, after fifteen minutes I started to get really scared and tears began to appear. I didn't know where I was, but I for sure I knew, I wasn't in Louisiana. I am not an expert in flora and fauna, but I know the birches, oaks and beeches aren't characteristic trees from the south. The litter was so wet that not even crunched under my feet. I hadn't seen a single house or a car track, I hadn't walked by any road and not even by climbing a tree I managed to watch a light tower. Became increasingly convinced that wherever I was, I had been brought here by the fairies, Dermot had told me that some of them liked to live in the lush forests of the country, those forests where there is hardly any trace of civilization and where for hundreds of miles it is not anything than nature.

I heard a horse whinnying and voices. I breathed relieved and screamed.

"Here, here! Help, please!"

A group of men on horseback appeared from behind some trees. I was so scared and it was so cold that I didn't noticed their strange clothing until they approached. They looked like something out of a movie or a medieval fair. A tall blond man, with long hair, beard and mustache dismounted. He was wrapped in a brown wolf fur and wore tan boots of the same material. He told me something in a language I didn't understand and when he apart the wolf fur to take out one arm and extend his hand in a gesture that indicated he wanted me approach him, I realized that he was wearing a long sword gleaming steel attached to the waist. I took two steps back, but he was faster, held me by the arm and I struggled and screamed. He yelled at me, he was shouting, but I didn't understand him. Finally, for the second time in a few hours I lost consciousness again after, I suspect, he hit me with his fist.

When I woke up I was safe and warm in bed. I snuggled between the sheets and I kept my eyes closed because of the headache. I had pasty mouth, so I assumed it was not Eric who had discovered me at the foot of the stairs, because he would have given me his blood and I would have felt well to wake up.

Finally opened my eyes, I was expecting to see Jason, or perhaps Dermot or even Claude. But all I found was air, the air between my body on the bed and a roof of dark woods of different hues. I wake up in a hurry and I felt dizzy. Everything was made of wood, except the window glass. It was like an opaque glass, dirty, not as defined and clear crystal glasses: it was raining. The other source of light came from an oil lamp. It was in a huge bed, at least three feet wide, covered with wolf furs. I looked underneath and saw that I was completely naked. My eyes filled with tears. As I started to hyperventilate, a red shadow appeared in the doorway.

A beautiful woman, who wouldn't exceed her fifties, blonde, tall, with blue eyes and wearing a red velvet dress embroidered with golden threads, approached me. She didn't seem like a fairy, but certainly looked like something out of a tale.

She approached and offered me a clay glass of water. I drank greedily as she scrutinized me with a glare. Asked something in an unknown language. She kept talking and asking questions, or that's what I think, from the tone she used. At the end shook her head, left an ocher rag at the foot of my bed and went to the other side closing the door through which she had entered. I wore the dress with confidence and girded my waist with a piece of green cloth.

"Open up, open up, please! Open the door!" Shouted hitting and pulling a handle. I heard somebody took off the lock on the other side and soon I was in a large room, also made of wood, with a long table and benches on both sides; such as the picnic tables on a park.

I wiped the tears to see well. My feet were getting cold. Where I had been brought? When Eric found out he was going to rip their throats, and I would be his faithful audience.

There were several people in the room, the woman I had seen before and, sitting on a throne like presiding at Fangtasia, the same man who had hit me. He spoke with two other men and the woman scrutinized me with her eyes. He spoke to me and I shook my head. His talkers, who were standing around, also tried. They were human, I could hear their heads buzzing on mine, their thoughts running through their brain at full speed. But I didn't understand a word of them. For a moment I thought it was German or Dutch and that I could be in Pennsylvania, but that didn't explain their outfits.

"¿Quis es?"[1] She asked me. I looked at her and frowned "¿Quis es?" I shook my head, trying to clear it and put it in order "¿Unde venis?. ¿Latin, scis?"[2] I nodded at last. In high school I enrolled in Latin and Greek. Dead languages classes were empty and I didn't have to endure the horrible buzzing thoughts from the rest of my classmates, I could concentrate and got very good grades. I never thought I had a chance to use the Latin beyond words to guess in game shows.

"Intellego. Sic..."[3] The woman looked at the man on the throne and nodded.

"Hoc. ¿An servus?"[4] I tried to clear my head and she pressed on the issue. Males have huge swords knotted the belt and thought it was much better someone apparently harmless.

"Hoc. Sic. Ego sum servus[5]" She said something to the man on the throne, who nodded and waved his hand. The remaining men were relaxed and one even pulled his hand from his sword hilt. I breathed in relief.

"¿Fugit?"[6] She asked. I bit my lip, not knowing what to say. I'd to tell them that I'd fled, but from where? I didn't answer and that seemed to give them an answer.

They continue talking to each other, the chief stood up and held a huge knife against my neck. When Eric show up the first one to be punished would be him, that if he was lucky that I didn't get rid from them before. I looked into his eyes and shrank the air in my chest. He had a familiar resemblance with Eric: eyes, forehead and the shape of the lips that I hadn't noticed due to being hidden behind the lush blond beard. He said something in his language and suddenly I thought I heard a word I had heard sometime in my vampire mouth. The woman approached and pulled away with sweet but sure hand, the knife in my throat. She didn't stop looking in the man's eyes at any time. He turned away, muttering and she looked at me with an air of superiority.

"Helga" said pointing to her chest with the palm of the hand. Then pointed toward the man "Halvar".

"Sookie" I said. She tilted her head and I realized that, in my capacity as declared slave must tilt even more. My gut echoed by hunger, she raised an eyebrow in a gesture very known to me, and I thought I saw Eric's nose in her, and some of his gestures. She took my arm but was interrupted by King Halvar. I think it's her husband. They said things quietly and in the end she lowered her head and nodded. I don't know of what they had been talking about, but until now it had seemed that she won every discussions but this. She drove me to the fire and pointed the ash, a straw broom without a handle beside the ash and a wood dustpan, then she made me an indication that made me realize that she intended me to collect the ashes extinct fires from the household. I knew how it worked. Then she took me out of the house. I was creeped out when my feet trod the cold mud around the house from which we had come out. I could see that I was in a strange town. There were many wooden houses, the bigger was Helga's and Halvar's. Everything smelled cold, sea salt, forest and wood burning from the fireplaces. There were barking dogs, extremely blond and redhead children playing, laughing and chattering women and men going to and fro.

Helga stood beside a well and waited until I focus my attention back to her. She grabbed the bucket of yew wood and metal attached to the rope down to the water and that, for its size, must be able to contain about eight liters[7] of water and with her hand indicated that I had to take out three buckets of water.

"No alimenta"[8] she said putting her hand to her mouth and making the universal gesture of eating "ad finem tripaliare"[9] So they wouldn't give me food until I pick up the ashes and take out the three buckets of water. There wasn't a heavy and long work, her intention wasn't other than to emphasize my status as a slave. If I wanted to eat, bed or protection, I would have to work. I didn't dislike. Also, I didn't understand a word of those running through her brain and that relieved me. At least while I was here until Eric finds me or I find out how to get home, I will have peace.

I ate hungrily what they gave me. Goat cheese on warm bread, a piece of bacon and half grilled onion accompanied by goat's milk. As I finished my glass of milk three children came through the door. They began to shout with joy to Helga who clapped and they silenced. She approached them to me and said my name and something more. She ordered them from highest to lowest and introduced them by putting her hands on their shoulders. I stared at the medium boy and I thought I was going crazy. Somebody would have to skin me alive if that child wasn't Eric, my Eric. Helga was his mother.

"Leif" introduced Helga. He was a blond, sturdy, with a strong resemblance to his mother. He must have been about ten years.

"Audr" She was blonde also, but not like Leif. She wore lovely braids clasped with green ties. She came to me and took my hand. I smiled and sat her on my knees. She wouldn't have been older than five years.

"Eric" Helga said. I held out my hand and stroked his jaw tenderly. Couple of tears sled out while looking at him more closely. He had lighter hair and darker eyes and, of course, the skin was pinker. He must haven't turned eight years.

"You are very handsome", I kissed the girl on the cheek when she started chattering, I didn't understand anything, I laughed.

"Sookie" Helga called. She motioned for me to follow and I got along with the children. She took me to a house almost adjoining the palace (that's how it should be called compared with the rest of the huts). It was a dream house, slightly sunken in the ground, all wood. It was covered by a blanket of fat grass that made it look like Tolkien's hobbits' houses. Leif opened the door and stepped inside. The children released my hands and began to play, the two boys with wooden swords and girl holding a rag doll and miniature wooden horse in front of the fire. There were several beds on one side and a table with benches around near the fireplace: copper pans, pewter pots, vases, jars and pottery utensils and knives. I saw a wooden ladder, such as painters, although not so vertical and with thicker steps, rising to a wooden platform. Upstairs was a huge bed like the one I had awakened after Halvar left me knockout. Helga opened the trunk that lay at the foot of the bed and pulled out several wool dresses. She stuck them to my chest and then gestured to me to tell me they were for me. I wanted to protest when I saw she drew out the colorful and prettiest fabrics and shook her head, setting them apart to take them after she had shown me everything.

We went down again where the children played and she led me to one side of the house, where she opened a door and showed me several bags and containers. She opened a hatch, grabbed an oil lamp and went down the hatch. We faced a cold room with ice where several foods were preserved, but mostly onions, meat and smoked fish. We went back up and she showed me the contents of the bags and vessels: oat, barley, rye, oil and wine. She opened a bag of greyish color and put some grain in my hand, then she took my arm and pulled me out to the street and we walked around the house and into the fence and inside the fenced I saw three pigs and several chickens. Helga took my hand and led me throwing grain to the birds.

"Cotidie"[10] she said. I nodded. I must feed the chickens every day. I pointed pigs and she shook her head and pointed her chest. I guess those animals were too important to be left under my care. Good, because they made me a little scared. They were black and huge, at least 150[11] kilos, the smallest.

We entered into a wooden pen in which there were three goats and a horse and various farm implements. Helga pointed out to me the straw, the watering hole that I must keep full of clean, fresh water, and the metal bucket that should be used to collect milk when I milked the goats. She handed it to me so I could show her how I did it and approaching the bench wooden animal, I placed the bucket under its udders and as I had been taught at the farm school that my grandmother sent me every year hoping it would make my life more normal, I started to get milk. She smiled, got an egg from the pile of straw where the hens rested during the night and we came back into the house when I got enough milk for dinner.

She hugged her children and returned to tell them something about me, I realized that Helga thought that I was a nice person and that I seemed a very harmless to Halvar if they left me to care for their children. She pointed at me, then pointed to the children and finally approached two fingers to her eyes, telling me that my main task was to take care and watch over the kids.

I inspected the house as soon as she was gone, examining every nook. Settled the beds as I like them and prepared things for dinner. I was beginning to doubt that the fairies had set me up. I feel good and I am not in pain, so it's possible that this is a very real dream or a hallucination that I am having after falling from stairs and brake my head. In the first case, I just have to wait to wake up. If they have been fairies, I had noticed all fireplace tools are made of iron, and I bet the fairies don't like to meet them in the face. And if this is a hallucination caused by a cerebral coma, I just have to wait for Eric to come home, find me and provide his healing blood. I wake up in my bed, with the metallic taste of blood on my tongue, completely naked with my boyfriend by my side ready to make love to me. The other possibility, which I wanted to rule out but I couldn't, is that my fall down the stairs have acted as my own private Delorian, and that it would have led me to a trip back in time (and space) and I am now in Northern Europe, probably future Sweden, at some indeterminate time between 900 and 1100 I stopped thinking about nonsense and prepared for what was living; dream or reality.

I gave the children dinner and before bedtime, I forced them to pee (for which we had to leave home) and brush their teeth (they didn't understand and I had to do it with my fingers. Eric was already showing his manners because he bit my finger and ran toward the house bending in laughter)

"Believe me you want to keep your teeth!" I yelled "You're going to need them the next thousand years."

I went back to the house and saw that they were already in bed. I approached Audr and I sang a song as she closed her eyes and slept. I found that Eric also paid attention to me and smiled.

I put a few more logs on the fire so that the heat would last all night, I stuck a thorn and I had to get it out with my teeth. It bled and stung horrors. In dreams there was no pain, and within hours I had suffered migraine, I had pricked my finger and felt the burning pain of being punch in my neck by a six-foot Viking. I inspected the children were well clothed with furs and was kissing them one by one. I smiled at the beautiful picture Audr was, and because of the nerves of checking that I, Sookie Stackhouse, was living my own Viking nightmare. The man of my life, human at the end, was only a child of eight years. I wiped a tear and kissed on the cheek to my little Eric.

[1] Who are you?

[2] Where do you come from? ¿do you understand Latin?

[3] I understand. So ...

[4] This. ¿Are you a slave?

[5] This. So. I am

[6] ¿Fled?

[7] 2.113 gallons

[8] No feeding

[9] Al terminar el trabajo

[10] Daily

[11] 330.7 pounds

Translator's note: Next chapter in 3 days I promise.