The day after their wedding had ended, Frida woke up covered in sweat and with a beating heart.
Her dreams had been filled with vivid images, scenarios in which she had to use all of her strength and courage to push herself through a cloud of pain. A female voice still sounded for her ears, as it had done during the night, that she should look past the pain and rejoice over what came after. That when she would pass over the bridge, she would finally have reached her designated destination.
It had been cold in her dream, colder than anything she had ever imagined, and for her eyes she still sensed a white brightness burning sharply. Frida blinked a couple of times, adjusting her sore eyes to the light of her bedroom, and she immediately swayed her arms over her big belly, sensing her child kicking lively beneath her skin.
A smile grew over her lips as she was trying to calm her breath. It could not be long before she would lay her eyes upon the love that grew inside of her. She could not wait.
"Frida, love, come and…" Ragnar's voice sounded in exhilaration, as the door to the bedroom swung open loudly, her husband's eyes shining at her with life and eagerness.
His voice died off when their eyes connected, and he quickly strode across the floor and reached his arm up to cup her face, a line already carving his forehead.
"What is it?" he asked, concern thick in his voice.
Frida shook her head and smiled up at him, reaching her hand up to cup his. "Nothing to worry about, I just had another dream."
Ragnar sat down on the bed and gazed at her for a while, and she knew that he would not let her go that easily. She sighed.
"I was passing a bridge, a painful bridge. But a voice told me that I had to cross it, so that I would reach where I had to be."
She watched as Ragnar's eyes fell to the floor, and the line over his forehead grew deeper. Frida started to bite on the nail on her thumb, awaiting his response.
The laughter of children was heard from outside the longhouse.
"Bifrost," Ragnar suddenly breathed, "Is the bridge between our world and that of the gods. Did the bridge contain all the colors of the world?"
Frida furrowed her brows and shook her head lightly. "No, it was a bright white. Brighter than anything I have ever seen."
Ragnar widened his eyes before piercing her with them. She felt a chilling shiver run down her spine as she saw something unfamiliar travel over his eyes.
Ragnar stood up and reached his hand out for her to grab. There was something strange about his air, something that she could not easily put her finger on. She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Come, I want to show you…" he started, but he was soon interrupted.
"The first snow has fallen!" a loud childish voice suddenly rang for their ears, "Hurry, Frida, come and see!"
Frida and Ragnar both turned their eyes to see Hvitserk standing in the door with big eyes and pink cheeks, a huge smile over his lips and a small shield in his hands. Ubbe too peeped his head in and looked at them with wild eyes, and Frida could not help but to chuckle when she saw the passion that was shining from both their faces.
She heard Ragnar sigh out heavily, and she turned her gaze to see him rolling his eyes at the boys, chuckling in a small breath too.
"That is what I wanted to show you. Out, both of you!" he laughed while waving his hand at the boys in the door, and it was not long before she and Ragnar joined Ubbe and Hvitserk outside.
As Frida exited the long-hall, she had to cover her eyes. The brightness of the landscape in front of her was overpowering. She felt a slight nudging in her stomach, and she took Ragnar's hand as he led her through the door.
A thin layer of snow had covered the ground of Kattegat, and from the skies fell thousands of small flakes of white, adding even more to the powdery fluff on the ground. Frida blinked continuously with her eyes as she felt the cold surrounding her like a winter blanket.
She let out a quick laugh.
The village before her eyes seemed to have changed completely in the course of the night. Where colors of green and brown had yesterday covered the ground and the rooftops of the wooden buildings surrounding them now lay a fine white color of snow.
Frida looked up into the skies and sighed out in admiration as she saw the many snowflakes fall from the white clouds above her, and she felt their cold and wet traces on her cheeks as they fell upon her skin, melting away immediately.
She felt Ragnar swooping his arms around her from behind, and he breathed laughingly into her ear as she stuck out her tongue to taste the snowy flakes.
They both turned around as the door behind them was opened again, and Bjørn greeted them with a smile on his lips as he stepped out into the winter weather with a huge fur wrapped around his torso.
"Yeah, this is the North for you, alright," he grinned before he set into a run, roaring at Ubbe and Hvitserk. Both boys cried out in surprise, and they barely escaped his grip by throwing themselves onto the ground, laughing hysterically.
"Now you're getting washed!" Bjørn roared, and Ragnar sighed out affectionately as Bjørn wrestled his brothers in the snow.
Frida giggled at them.
"Washed?" she raised at Ragnar, who shrugged his shoulders lightly as he hugged her even tighter, his hands gently cupping her big stomach.
"To be washed is to have snow put everywhere, on your face, under your clothes… It is quite excruciating, really."
Frida's eyes widened when she saw smugness flushing Ragnar's face and a curl in the corner of his mouth.
She slowly started to shake her head at him, as she could feel his arms tensing around her. She could feel the child inside her stomach kicking her wildly as she watched her husband in horror, how he calculated their position compared to the biggest heap of snow around them.
"No, Ragnar," she whispered in a quick breath before she felt his arms leaving her.
"No!" she laughed out hysterically when he bent down to pick up some of the snow with his hands, and she quickly broke into a run, barely escaping the little white ball he threw at her.
Frida ran along the fence of the path leading to the marketplace, and she could feel childish panic filling her stomach as she heard his footsteps behind her. The snow beneath their feet made their footsteps even louder, soft crackling sounding below them as they both ran along the path. Frida felt her blood pumping happily in her veins, and she whined out in surprise when she almost crashed herself into a villager that was shoveling some of the snow away from his door.
But she did not stop when the villager shouted at her, she did not even hear what he said, as she quickly turned down a little alley. But she came to a sudden stop when she realized that the alley had been blocked by several barrels in front of her, and she turned around with terror stricken eyes.
A smug curl on Ragnar's lips had her open her mouth, but she knew that she could say nothing to stop him.
His eyes shone brightly at her, and he moved slowly towards her in his personal predatory manner, closing in on her with his breath clouding from his lips in the frozen cold air.
"Don't even think about it," she breathed as she saw him picking up another ball of snow while raising an eyebrow at her.
She felt her baby kick once more under her stretched out skin, and she took a few steps backwards, a smile slowly spreading over her lips.
Ragnar chuckled smugly.
"You cannot claim to be a true Norseman, if you have not tried to be washed," he smiled, steadily closing in on her, "What will the others say when they discover that their queen has not felt snow… under her armpits?"
Frida widened her eyes as she imagined the sensation, and she wrapped her arms around herself, while Ragnar laughed heartwarmingly at her.
In a quick movement, Ragnar slid to the side and threw a fast white ball at her.
Frida was way too slow to dive under it, and she cried out in surprise when she felt the coolness of the snow hit her face. She tasted the whiteness on her tongue, and she stumbled on something on the ground, falling down to dip her bottom into the powder on the ground.
She heard Ragnar laugh out and closing in on her, but just as she reached her hand up to wipe the snow away from her eyes, a sharp pain shot up her body from her pelvis.
She sucked in a quick breath when she felt a stream of wetness warming between her legs, and she looked down to see a rosy color clouding the snow around her. Panic flashed before her eyes as she turned to stare up at Ragnar, another sharp pain shooting through her body.
"What?" he laughed at her with warm eyes, but when he noticed the rosiness streaming from between her legs too, his face immediately fell.
Frida felt her heart rate fastening, the baby in her tummy stirring lively, and she felt her throat tightening, fear traveling over her like a shadow.
"By all the gods," Ragnar whispered in horror, "She is coming."
Frida did not know whether it was a statement or not, but as another pain flushed over her body, she heard herself cry out in helplessness.
Now?
The baby was coming now?
Ragnar rushed over to pull her from the ground, but she could do very little to move by herself, as the pain had almost paralyzed her legs already.
"Help!" Ragnar shouted loudly from the small alley, and Frida felt her heart sink a little when she heard the panic in his voice.
What was she going to do?
How was she going to do this?
How could she ever…
An indescribable and unimaginable pain waved over her body now, and she felt constrictions down in her pelvis, causing her to suck in a hard breath between her clenched teeth.
She sensed that someone came to her side, someone lifted her up, but she could not see anything through the white pain that had blurred her vision. Male voices hazed in her ears, but she could not tell what they were saying.
She only sensed the pain that repeatedly shot through her body like icy swords slicing through her flesh.
The only sentence she could make out behind the clouds of pain was the words: "Freyja, lay with her now, help her."