I own nothing to do with True Blood.

Thank you all so much. Hope you enjoy this one :)

Don't worry, Sookie will show she can be "every bit the man". I hope I don't offend anyone by what Eric says about women- I think in that time, they regarded women mostly as ones that stay at home in the village. It isn't my thoughts, as a woman myself lol. And Eric will settle down and redeem himself as a loyal man; He isn't as much as a man-whore as he tries to seem. Thank you guys so much.

Chapter Five

She felt a relief she hadn't ever truly known when he sheathed his sword and held a hand out to her. She accepted his hand and he helped guide her back up onto her feet. Sookie was glad her body didn't hurt anywhere from their little wrestle on the ground. Her gown was no doubt covered in dirt, but it was of little consequence compared to what could have happened if he had actually gone ahead and used his sword on her.

She was pleased that it seemed his initial distrust and disbelief in what she was telling him had evaporated. She could tell he believed her and saw her words as truth- at least she hoped so. But when he stood closer near her, their bodies almost touching and him looming over her, it felt a threatening gesture. Sookie had to fight the urge to step back to create some distance between them, but instead she stood her ground.

His hot breath washed over her face, and she swallowed thickly, fighting with effort not to let her fears show.

"You swear on not only your own life but also your families lives that you weren't the ones who killed my family?" The mistrust in his low, gruff voice did not escape her. His eyes searched around her face solemnly.

"I swear on both my life and theirs," she vowed vehemently. Of course, she couldn't be completely sure. But she knew and trusted with all her heart that her Grandfather wasn't the type of man who made a habit of setting wolves on another man's family in order to kill them and steal something that belonged to them. It would have gone against everything her Grandfather had taught her over the years. "I know I can help you find those who were responsible, not only to help you but to also clear my families name. I can go with you."

Viking Eric seemed amused by her suggestion. "Go with me, you say?" He shook his head, and something about him seemed faintly mocking. "You think you can help me find who was responsible for killing my family? You, sweetling, when you are just a woman?"

She held her chin up, defiant. "I know I can," she said confidently. "Besides I hardly see why my gender has anything to do with my capabilities?"

"You are a woman, a girl, and that means everything," he said dryly. "You would just be a burden for me and for my men if you come with us. I plan to take you back to my village, in Öland, where you will stay until I return from slicing the heads off those murderers who slaughtered my family. Where we plan to go and what we intend to do isn't the right place for a woman to join us."

Sookie's hands balled up into tight fists. She couldn't believe the nerve he had; So she was a girl, almost a woman, at sixteen. She lacked the strength of men and she had no skills in warfare. But did that really matter? Not when she had mastered her skills; Some him and all of his men had never dreamed of her having.

"You're... you're a... a pig," she stuttered.

Rather instead of wounding the man on some deep level, a ghost of a smile simply flitted across his face.

He shrugged, untouched by her insult. "Yes, and proudly," he muttered under his breath. He turned to leave, to enter back to where his men were surrounding the fire, but she caught his arm and wrenched him back with all the strength a sixteen year old girl could muster.

"The fact that I'm a girl has nothing to do with anything," she insisted, feeling hurt. "I know I can help you find those who killed your parents. Besides, you saw what I just did with my hands!"

In a flamboyantly insulting manner, he imitated holding his hands out, as if he was holding a ball of light himself, while Sookie looked on in anger.

"Don't underestimate me and my powers," she exclaimed stiffly. "Let me come with you."

"And what? Make you a burden on myself and my men?"

"I won't be a burden and I'll be of some use," she insisted. "I can be of great value to all of you!"

"Of great value?" He laughed. "Even now, you have only been here less than a night and already, you are a burden."

"I'm not, and if you don't let me go with you, it'll be your biggest mistake."

He considered in silence for a few beats of time. His hair moved in the wind, and his eyes were dark shining circles in the moonlight. "Women don't have a place for what happens in this world. Blood will be spilled and even some of my men's lives may be lost. Including my own, dare I say it." He was speaking through gritted teeth. "You come with us, then they will only regard you as an easy target. Do you really want that for yourself?"

Sookie stared up at him defiantly. "I can take care of my own hide."

"They see a woman along with us then they will go straight for you. You will be considered the easiest one of us to knock down."

Sookie shrugged. "I don't care," she said. "I know I can take care of myself."

"Since you're a woman, some may even want to... get inside you," he went on, but she tried with all her might not to flinch from the truth. "Do you really want to risk getting raped?"

It sounded horrible but she was certain he was only just playing it on thickly to sway her mind. "I'll take that risk then. I have never been afraid of death or danger." Truth was, Sookie was playing it up herself. Death had always been something she had feared, particularly when it came to those she cared about the most. And the idea of having to hurt people, even if in defence for herself, made her blood curdle.

But she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing her real fears.

"Well, you should be afraid," he said. "One who doesn't fear death has no hope at all in surviving. One who doesn't fear death is a careless fool."

She supposed he was right. Still, she wouldn't dare give him the satisfaction.

"Do you have some fair idea who might have done it?" she asked quietly.

"Up until now, I thought I did." A muscle in his cheek twitched as he clenched his teeth, and Sookie could feel the rage radiating from every inch of him.

"Yes," she said softly, knowing immediately who and what he was referring to. "You have been under some misapprehension for years in thinking that it was my kind that did it to you, when we didn't. I bet it doesn't feel too good now to know that you waged a war on the wrong people, does it? All my kinfolks lives you have taken... and then us taking lives in return. And for what? All for nothing! All those lives, unnecessary blood spilled... violence."

"I know what I did," he said tersely. She could tell he wasn't very happy with her pointing out what was probably obvious. "There is no need to rub it in my face, woman."

"And there is no need to rub the fact that I am a woman into mine," she countered bitterly. "Why do you say it that way? As if to be a woman is an ailment?"

"I never realized I was."

"Men would be nothing without us," she said, mostly to herself. "If it weren't for us, there would hardly be anyone on this world. Without us, who is going to give you babies?" She remembered a part of what she had just seen in his mind, about that woman he was fooling around with before his parents were murdered. "Who was she? That lady in your thoughts?" she asked, feeling a lot more curious than she would have liked to be. She knew it was really none of her business.

"Her name was Bera," he said with cool nonchalance. "She worked with my father's goats."

"Did you love her?"

"I have never met a woman who I didn't love."

Sookie felt her mouth tighten in anger for some reason. "No, I mean... Did you truly, honestly love her?"

She saw him shrug. "It's all the same to me."

"You didn't truly love her," Sookie surmised under her breath. "She was just another one of the many women to you. You use women for their bodies, like a... a whore."

Eric exploded into laughter at her words. No one had ever called him a whore before. Especially not a woman no less. Something about the fact that she did was wildly entertaining to him. "If I am a whore, then I am one proudly," he said. "I don't see anything wrong in loving a woman's fine, warm body."

"Yet my Grandfather expects me to marry you," she pointed out. She felt upset, now that she had learned what he was truly like. How could she marry someone like that? "I guess there is some truth in the old tales my Grandfather has told me after all."

"What tales?"

"He used to tell me stories before I drifted off to sleep. He used to tell me about your people; how you travel from land to land, using women and stealing things."

She could tell he was insulted by the way he made a noise in protest. "I have heard worse tales about your people. When I was a young boy, my mother would tell me stories of how you people would poach mine and take them back to your realm. Your people would rape them and impregnate them."

"Well, that's not true," she said defensively. Not ever had she known of any of her kin doing something so horrid to anyone.

"Neither is there any truth in the stories you've heard about my people. We are both wrong then."

She felt a lot better then; She couldn't deny. She heard him draw his sword out from the sheath and the sound of scraping steel made her tremble. "Why do you carry that thing around?" she asked apprehensively. "Or do you always carry it with you?"

He appeared almost annoyed that she bothered to even ask. "Of course I carry it with me always," he said, stunned. "I would be a fool not to. I have killed many with this." He lifted his sword higher and it gleamed in the moonlight.

Why he felt it necessary to tell her that, Sookie had no idea. It only just made her feel more uneasy.

"I have taken many lives with this," he went on haughtily. "With this, I never lose. This was the first sword I ever owned. It belonged to my father, and he passed it down to me when I was a mere boy of eight."

"Eight is awfully young," she said in disgust.

"I was a man at eight, or so my father believed," he said proudly. "First man I killed, this blade went straight through him."

First man he ever killed was probably one of my kin, she thought sadly. It was all the more reason not to like that weapon. "Don't tell me such gross things," she said uneasily. "I really don't want to know how many men you've killed, like the beast that you are."

He chuckled quietly and she knew it was because of her uneasiness. "So now I'm not only a whore, but a beast? Is that it?" He hardly sounded offended in the slightest. She thought he was happy enough to wear those names as a badge of honour.

"Yes, you are," she said stoutly. "You're both, and I don't find that very attractive."

"Well, good. I don't want to seem attractive."

"And it shows," she retorted bitterly. "But if I'm going to have to marry you, I would like to at least consider the man I'm marrying valiant and attractive."

"I don't find you attractive either, sweetling," he said stiffly, and it wounded her more than she would have liked. "You are... stranger than most women."

"How so?" she asked, insulted. "What makes me so strange to you?"

"I don't know what it is," he said uncertainly. "But I can tell you are different from other women. The fact that you are a faery is probably half reason why."

"Well, I find you strange as well. You're different from the men in my world, and trust me; I don't mean that particularly in a good way."

"Then why are you still here?" He asked, and he didn't sound very happy anymore. Some of his offense showed through with the words. "Why don't you return back to where you came from?"

Now that was a thought that was very appealing on her. "You know I can't," she said helplessly. "I'm... duty-bound. I have to stay here."

A silence grew on them as Eric led the way through the opening of the trees. Beyond them, she saw all of his men resting and lying by the fire. Some cackled at their return into sight and she knew why; They assumed he had finally had her, and Eric did nothing to discourage it.

It was better that they thought that way, he probably believed.

Sookie didn't realize how much she regretted wearing just her gown, until now. It had grown colder, and the wind that breezed past her made her tremble. She hadn't realized her discomfort had been that noticeable, until the Viking Eric spoke to her again.

"You are shivering," he said, and he disappeared to go to the horses without a word.

She stood around anxiously, aware that his men were eying her speculatively from head to toe. Once he returned to her, he was holding a cloak of furs in his hands and he draped it over her shoulders. There was something about his expression that shocked her; His was gentle, soft, and he took her hair in his hands with great care and pushed it away from the cloak so he could fasten it to her securely with a brooch. The furs were heavy around her shoulders and weighed her down, but the warmth it provided against her skin was almost heavenly. She sighed her thanks and all the men around her started sniggering again.

"Shut up, all of you," Eric told his men in annoyance. "My woman never goes cold."

Sookie couldn't tell what he just told them all, but she noticed with pleasure that everything turned abruptly silent after that. He might have been a whore, but at least he was considerate enough to know when she was cold, she thought contently.

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading. I get antsy as hell about updating lol, it scares me. I hope this one was okay and that you enjoyed it. All your reviews and alerts are greatly appreciated. Thank you and hugs!