Authors note: If the thing carries the way I planned (and there are still quite a few chapters) yes, it is likely that Sookie will spent a bad times when she is back... if she is back

Translator's note:

From here I will write Erik for the kid, and Eric for the adult. O.K. to prevent from mixing up.

I am trying to do my best in the translation, but sometimes is hard to figure out what the author is trying to say, because she jumps from present to past and forward in the same paragraph.

Every dialog is supposed to be in Old Norse, except the ones in italics, the ones that are in italics are in Latin or English. I will write a reference and a note at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 4

Those who recently returned sat at the long tables at Helga's and Halvar's house, while the other men who had remained in the village, due to illness, youth, old age or because simply it was their duty to stay in the village this time to defend it in case of attack, bombed the sailors with questions.

The women were fooling around with them and served them cold beer and mead in abundance, smoked tuna, boiled eggs, and roast beef. Audr was sitting on Eric's lap, Helga was on his right and his son Erik on his left, while Leif and Halvar sat opposite. I was standing behind him.

Eric had told something about a group of whales and a tuna's school that almost made them sink, and also about a village on France's coast which they had looted and from where they bring wine, olive oil, almonds, garlic and fruits (and a doll for Audr).

"Father, have you seen...?" Audr asked when Eric finished telling his story. I did not understand the last word of the girl's question. But I figured, by the response of my Viking, that his daughter had asked him if he had seen dragons in their journey. Eric made up a fantastic story and his sons didn't stop staring at him. Me neither. He was very different, with very long hair, beard and mustache. I was so used to him always the same, that I didn't thought it was him at all.

"Sookie" Helga called me. Eric turned and fixed his eyes on me for the first time "help the other women to serve men."

"Okay dokey" I said avoiding the gaze of the man who wasn't my vampire anymore, but a Viking.

"Serve my son" Halvar commanded me. I nodded embarrassed and I gave Eric a big jug of beer and a roasted rabbit. When Eric drank from the jug I stopped the air in my throat and when he bit the rabbit pulling a piece of meat from the leg, my pulse stopped and I whine like a fool, again. I never thought I would look him like this. He was gorgeous eating. He took another sip of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. That gesture that in any other would be repugnant, in him I found it cute.

While he ate, I heard Halvar and Helga explain Eric who I was, the circumstances in which it had appeared and that I was taking care of his children.

"Does she take good care of you?" Eric asked his children.

"Yes" Young Erik replied "but she forces us to bath every day, father" Eric and Halvar laughed and Leif joined to his little brother, complaints.

"Well, I won't change that" Eric said after his laughter had gone out. Audr had fallen asleep in his arms and Erik began to rub his eyes.

"Let's go home", I put my hand on the little one's shoulder "Is late."

"I'm not tired" Erik said while yawning, I smiled. I bent down and kissed him on the cheek "Let's go, Leif, you too"

"Leave Audr here with me" Eric said when I went to pick up the little girl from his arms "I'll take her to bed later", I took off the robe that was over my shoulders and wrapped the girl with it, so she wouldn't get cold. I took advantage of this and while I was settling the clothes, I touch Eric's shirt and lightly touch his skin. His flesh was warm and heart skipped a beat.

I lay in bed with Little Erik when I returned home. I shivered at the thought of lying down in the big bed such as had been doing till now. Where he slept.

Eric came to his house very late, must be close to dawn. He put the little girl to sleep in her bed and for a while he sat in front of the fire, staring at it. He left the house, went to the woodshed looking for timber and put a log in the hearth when he came in again. He took off his fur coat and left the sword from his belt. He hung from the wooden beams the various knives that he was taking out from different hideouts between his clothing and his body. He went out for a second and came back in with a bucket of water, poured it into the cauldron which he had placed over the fire. I saw him cleaning his sword and knives with grease. He picked up the steaming water from the chimney and went out through the door. The birds were singing and the day seemed to be cloudless. I carefully got up and had a look out through a crack in the door. Eric took another bucket from the well and left it on a wooden barrel. He had his back to me. He took off his boots, woolen tunic and trousers and stood completely naked. He took the bucket of cold water and threw it over him. Just then the sun came out and the first rays lit up his skin, tears welling up in my eyelashes and it gave me the chills. He soaped quickly with little attention to the hair and then threw over him the bucket of hot water. I wiped my cheeks when he took a cotton cloth and dried his arms, body and hair while looking at the horizon. The sunlight streamed down his face and chest. He got clean clothes, picked things from the floor and went into the house, where he caught me in front of the fire. I had been so absorbed last night and this morning I had not even seen the crates and barrels that had been unloaded from the boat and into the house.

"Sookie, right?"

"Yes."

"Set up breakfast for my children" he commanded. I was about to show him my tongue. But he had his hair soaked and the shirt sticking to his body. He still had the most wonderful neck in the world... probably the most wonderful neck ever. I wanted to jump on him and kiss him all over, lay him on the bed and see how tough the wooden platform was. But I just nodded and went toward the corral.

While milking the black and white goat I saw him going up the hill that was behind the fence of the house and beyond, outside the fence that surrounded the town. There was a lot of movement to be so early in the morning.

Eric came when we had almost finished breakfast. He sat with us after stoke the home fires.

"Do you know how to treat meat and fish?" he asked me.

"What?"

"Do you know how to preserve them with smoke and salt?" I shook my head and he chuckled "Then you are useless" I looked at him surprised at the harshness of his tone and his words. "Leif, Erik... we have to rush to preserve all fish and meat that comes in the ship's storage. If we let it rot we won't have anything to eat this winter.

"Can I help? Audr said. Eric smiled and stroked a braid.

"Don't talk nonsense, you're afraid to catch fish and you always end up letting it fall to the ground. Like when you let that hake to be swallowed by a dog!" Leif scolded her.

"Audr sing for us and bring us something to drink" Eric defended her. "Okay?"

"What about me?" I asked in a childlike voice. Everyone at the table turned to look at me, as if they had forgotten I was there. Eric sighed and slouched in his seat.

"Start giving me breakfast" I snorted and looked at him with hatred. He hadn't changed even a little bit in a thousand years.

Unbearable jerk. I got up and I put him a big bowl of milk with porridge, a piece of smoked bacon and a dry herring. Okay, yes, I hated him for being a jerk Viking, but in a thousand years I fall for him like crazy! I had to help him gain the weight with which I'll end up knowing him in Shreveport. I couldn't let that he come to me he skinny and scrawny.

I hated being a stupid, in love and softy woman, because when I saw him throwing the food into his mouth my eyes filled with tears again, as the previous night. He made several pleasure noises while chewing, and I felt a knot in my stomach and a tingle down even further, because they were very similar or the same as emitted when he bit me and sucked my blood. And he always did it when we were having sex.

"There are things to accommodate" he said between bites "The trunks are filled with fabrics, utensils, tools and other things. It was a good trip. Don't touch the barrels and the oil pots, they are heavy and could fall. I'll keep them when I have time tonight. Do you know how to sew?" I know I blushed. Why I couldn't do anything he asked? He shook his head and snorted again.

"I brought furs and fabrics. You've grown a lot, Leif, and those pants will be so short at the time when it start to snow."

"I have also grown" Audr said. Eric smiled.

"And I brought you some beautiful dresses and a new doll" her face brightened and she jumped to her dad. Eric continued eating with Audr now ensconced in his lap. She chattered about the puppies Dalla's dog had bred (Dalla better known to me as 'the woman of the geese') which had been born two days ago. Eric silenced her occasionally by giving her a spoonful of porridge or a mouthful of herring.

"Can I have a puppy, pleeease?"

"We'll see," Eric said while covered with furs to go outside. He and Leif headed for the boats while Erik hitched the horse to the cart. Half an hour later they returned laden with the proportion of fish that belonged to Eric. Erik downloaded as big a barrel of salt that scared me to think that, if it fall over him, he would be crushed. Eric and Leif brought pieces of oak, my future vampire complaining because there wasn't enough wood.

"It had been cold" I defended myself "We spent a lot of wood, but recently went out to collect more."

"Where's the ox?" he asked, while hammering to sink a stake into the ground. He was kissable hammer in hand, beard and all.

"It died a few weeks after you left" His eldest son said. Eric cursed. Hit another stick, and bent it to the first one, and then repeated the process on the other side.

"I hoped it to live at least one more winter" he lamented.

"What should we do?"

"At this moment, bring me these branches" Eric said me. I obeyed and he put them in the structure that had stood before, putting together a sort of grill on high.

"We recently went to collect firewood with the horse" I told him.

"My horse is a war horse" he informed me indignantly and looking as if I was stupid.

"O.K. But, can it replace the ox?" Eric looked at me like my neck just grown a second head.

"It isn't to pull the plow or the cart, woman, but to cut heads" he spat.

"You ... stupid Viking!" I cursed him in English. Everyone looked at me and Eric guffawed. I got very blushed "Moron" I whispered. He didn't seemed to care…

"I don't know what you've said, but I can imagine. I will figure a way to handle things without the ox" He calm us down "And my horse let you tied it to cart?" I nodded. He finished fixing the wood under the wooden structure he had put together, "You must have very strong hands to have succeeded."

"It tried to give me a kick" Leif said him "But she got it right away. And it didn't even protested" I helped Audr to jump a puddle of water. Eric picked her up and sat her on a high step like the one on a ladder. He approached me, he was so close, if I deep aspired surely my breasts rub his.

"I hope you're not softening it with your woman kindness" he winked at me and smiled. I showed him my tongue and he laughed out loud. He was thinking that I smelled good and had great tits. I pulled my chest out and coughed to get his attention. He looked at me and then turned his attention back on the job.

"Let's place the fishes" Eric said. Leif began to accommodate them and Erik helped him "why don't you sing a song, Audr?" The girl stood up and began to sing what sounded like a nursery rhyme. She asked me to get her down of the step where her father had put her and as she set foot on the ground, began to jump and dance around her brothers and Eric.

"Can I help?"

"Do you have anything else to do?" He asked me stumbling while trying to prevent a fish slipping from his hands and hit the ground.

"I have to grind oats for bread, but…"

"Then go to grind oats" Eric told me. He narrowed his eyes because the sun was hitting his eyes directly.

I held back, so I didn't reach out and kiss his eyelids "You smell too good to mess it with the fish" He smiled and the sun brightened his perfect teeth. Leif gave him a killer look, but when I tried to get into his thoughts he was already thinking about what he was doing. Their mother had been dead less than a year, and it shouldn't be easy for them to see their father flirting with another woman. I didn't want to hurt them, but wanted to be with Eric with all my strength. After he shaved, of course.

Eric started the fire and the smoke soon began working in the fish. Audr kept singing and playing while Leif and Erik buried some fish in salt to preserve them, my future husband put together a new structure to smoke the fish that remained to be preserved.

I kept the fireplace on, while grinding a few handfuls of oats, enough to make bread for the day.

Helga came to visit us at noon and I was intrigued watching her and Leif spoke apart, away from Eric. I was worried because Leif pointed in my direction and protested openly about something unknown to me.

We ate the same bread I had just done, with chunks of fresh grilled fish and boiled octopus. Helga told her son to follow her to the back and chatted there for a while, I suspect, about me. Did Leif had said something and now they will get me out of that house? The thought gave me a lump in my throat.

However, Helga left after that without saying anything else.

Eric spent the afternoon in the cold room accommodating the vessels of oil. He put away a gleaming ceramic pot that must have weighed about twelve kilos[1] and was filled with fragrant and dark honey. He took off his shirt because it was hot inside the house and almost gives me a fit. He went out to stoke the fire and cause more smoke and began to chop wood. I bit my lip as I peered through the window hidden. Drops of sweat fell from the tip of the nose and chin to the floor. Sweat ran down his back to get lost in his waistband, low enough to reveal his glorious dimples. Before I realized what I was doing had my hand between my legs. Dalla 'the woman of the geese' awaked me from my private fantasy, she approached to Eric and they were talking about the piece of fence near our homes and that offered little resistance and about the puppies her sheep-dog had. Eric wanted one to collect the chickens in the yard and to keep the geese, he thought to buy in the livestock fair to be held in spring in a nearby town.

We dined outdoors porridge with honey, and Eric had dinner with a piece of bacon and oat bread with roasted parsnip. We also ate some roasted chestnuts on the fire before going to bed. Audr insisted on staying with her father, but my Viking didn't let her. He would stay up all night to stoke the fire and the smoking process went well. I wanted to put a mead to warm him, although near the fire was not bad, but Eric was afraid that the alcohol made him sleepy. The kids went to bed and went to keep him company for a while, I felt comfortable with him overnight. I was engrossed watching him stare into the fire, it was almost like in those times when my vampire gets lost thinking or staring into space, watching the world spin around and change while he remains motionless and unchanging. But there was a big difference in his shining eyes and the way his breath turned to steam in contact with the cold atmosphere. He began to sing a song quietly, it talked about Freia and a pastor, and the Asgard, the Olympus of Viking gods. I never heard him humming and at first I was surprised and I smiled; but only until I got lost in his voice and in the history of the song. I felt his hand shake his shoulder shortly after.

"Go to sleep or you'll get sick," I had fallen asleep, "lie down on the big bed. I will not go."

"But..."

"Go" he forced me. I didn't want to leave him alone. He had arrived at dawn from his long, painful and eventful trip, he hadn't slept and had made unloading the ship and bring the groceries home, and then he had spent the morning and afternoon working just stopping to eat a little "Go" He insisted. I obeyed reluctantly. He got up and proceeded to flip the fish. I went to bed and fell asleep immediately. I heard him get into a couple of occasions to put wood on the fireplace to keep the house warm.

I woke up with the tip of the nose and ears cold, a dreadful feeling, if you ask me. I thought Eric maybe had slept and had neglected both home and outside fire. I heard a noise downstairs and I looked out the little round window that opened on where his big bed was. I saw nothing, not even Eric in front of the fire, but now that he had human needs that didn't mean anything, especially because the smoke was still rising strongly over the net of fish. I went to hear a dry blow, I went downstairs and I looked out the window for a better look and I discovered the reason for the noise: Eric and Dalla did it against the wooden wall of the house.

I put my hand to my mouth and I turned around closing heavily my eyes, trying to clear my mind of what I had seen. But another blow against the wood and a moan reminded it to me vividly. I grabbed the wooden ladder to climb back up, but I felt my hand burning. I couldn't sleep upstairs in his bed. I staggered to the bed and lay beside Erik, the Erik that for weeks I thought it was my Eric. Then I began to mourn.

[1] 26 pounds 7.2876 ounces