Lad os Udforske!

The Fenni child was brought closer, wriggling in the loveless hold of one of Mathias' countrymen. It cried a shrill protest which made the mother restart her pleading wails, the noise growing louder with every step increasing the distance separating them. Maternal love; a bond so strange to Mathias and his brothers and yet one so common to the humans they represented. Sometimes, when starved of things to do or think about, Mathias would notice such displays of love and wonder how differently they may have turned out - Kristian, Berwald and himself - if they'd been born to parents instead of being raised by warlords (or, in Kristian's case, some highly unusual creatures). Warlords were not particularly permissive of seemingly eternal-children, already having their own brood of youngsters and a horde of Vikings to control. Neither were their wives, Mathias thought, remembering how a broad hand had made his cheek smart on many occasions throughout his childhood.

Sven, irritable at dawn, used his own broad hand to silence the mother's cries.

Of course, if they had been human children then the odds were that at least one of them would have died in childhood. Given Mathias' haphazard approach to personal safety, the chances were it would have been him.

Having breathed when he should have swallowed, Vainamoinen was finally done coughing up water. As soon as he had regained his breath the immortal began to talk. "Put him down! Now!" His voice sounded high and thin, betraying him as the boy he really was. "Can't you see he's just an infant?" Maybe in the Fenni lands Vainamoinen was used to having his orders obeyed; he appeared to be having difficulty breaking that habit.

The Dane carrying the chlid ignored the Fenni's yells. He simply kept moving in a steady, unhurried maner.

"Let him go!" The child knew better than to screech as much as Vainamoinen. "Don't touch him! Just leave him be and let him go back to his mother!" Dane and Fenni infant entered arms' reach. Mathias reached out. "If you feel obligated to hurt someone, take me! Leave the child alone!"

"Take you where?" Mathias inquired with mild interest, paying the greater portion of his attention to the child being transferred into his hands. Job done, the other Norseman returned to his breakfast. Mathias moved to sit on the edge of a nearby rowing bench. "Over the side of the boat?"

Fenni didn't weigh very much, the Dane thought, placing the youngster on his knee. He took in the streaming nose, the red-rimmed eyes, the wet, bawling mouth. This one could be no older than two or three years of age, or perhaps four if the Fenni were still significantly slighter in build even through childhood. It would be some time before a slave of this age would be useful. Mathias exhaled noisily through his nose.

"What use are you?" he murmured, eyes contemplating the boy's face.

The child was very young, prone to disease and illness which could claim it's life. It squirmed in his grasp, perhaps in an effort to get into Vainamoinen's more familiar, safer arms, but seemed to have lost its voice. To the average eye perhaps there was little to distinguish this child from any other northern toddler but Mathias could easily pick out what set this child apart from his own kind; the set of the eyes, the shape of the nose and mouth, the slightly different colouring. Unfamiliar though lovingly-made clothing. And, most importantly, the lack of unconditional affection rising within the immortal. Mathias could look at this child and feel nothing.

He pulled his eyes away and looked back at the boy that had tried to kill him yesterday. He would at some point have to repay that favour. Already his personal honour had taken a beating this expedition; placed on slave-watch, publicly chastised by Baldr. And, to top it off, Vainamoinen insisted on haranguing him as if he had some kind of authority. His face grew hard, an expression that was not often seen off the battle ground. If Mathias' King's plan was for him to stay in Baldr's division then Mathias was going to have to do something to earn some respect back. But King's were a relatively modern addition to Viking life, and Mathias still found them mystifying.

The child twisted on his knee again. Mathias tightened his hold and the next time the boy tried to wiggle free he didn't achieve any movement at all.

"Mathias..." Moldof spoke quietly but repressively, his eyes directed towards a particular growing smudge of land on the horizon. Annoyed, the younger man furrowed his brow and ignored the elder.

"One day," he said instead to his immortal captive, "you might escape. Maybe you'll find a way to evade me and my men, or maybe you'll find a way to kill yourself so you can wake up by whoever or whatever it is you call 'king', but this," he tugged the rope binding the toddler's hands, causing the boy to give a piteous yelp of pain, "is going to be mine for the rest of it's life. The rest of them, too. That whole village that was sheltering you now belongs to me."

The youngest Fenni had given up trying to loosen the Dane's unyielding hold and slip off of Mathias' lap by this point, and appeared to entreating Vainamoinen to pick him up with the use of his expressive, babyishly-large eyes.

"Some of the people I've encountered before," and here he used 'I' to refer to all Danes, "say I kill all the male children of our enemies so they can't seek revenge."

All the men, too.

It would be a messy business. And Mathias had woken up feeling so good, too.

"So, Vainamoinen." His lips crept back into a half-teasing curve as he began to pluck at the boy's wrists, slowly loosening the knots. "Do you place much stock in rumour?" It only took a few seconds when you knew what you were doing, and the boy's wrists were soon free. Mathias gripped the child's left arm and held it up for inspection. As he'd suspected, a night of tugging against tight bonds had left his wrists raw and weeping. Salt water would wash out the errant fibres from the rope and the inevitable boat-dirt as well as drying out the wound to promote healing, but it would also be painful. Still, the freshwater in the nearby skin should not be wasted for something as trivial as avoiding a slave's momentary discomfort. "Are we enemies?"

Väinämöinen’s heart leapt into his throat as soon as Mathias had his hands around the child’s lithe sides. How easy would it be for him with his strong hands to break the tiny ribs? The immortal had absolutely no desire to find out.

“Take you where? Over the side of the boat?”

This Viking was either the most literal man Väinämöinen had met in his long life, or he was an imbecile. All Fenni would have understood the gesture to be a volunteering for sacrifice. Maybe the Norse were so unused to gestures of kindness that the idea could not transcend cultural boundaries. A glance at the stony faces of any of the weathered men on the boat was enough to give one the idea that there was nothing but hatred in those wintery eyes. For a brief moment, Väinämöinen wondered if Mathias’ children had ever been picked up and held against the supple bosom of the mothers of his village to have their hair lovingly stroked as they drifted off to sleep.

Mathias mumbled something else, but Väinämöinen could not hear it over the creaking of the boat. He wondered if he’d attempted to speak to the boy, who had grown quiet, likely having tired itself out from bawling. The child had resorted to silently begging his familiar friend with teary eyes, pleading for Väinämöinen to do the impossible by freeing him. Looking absolutely hostile, Mathias inspected the boy’s reddened cheeks and puffy eyes, squeezing him a bit too hard.

“Mathias.”

By now, Väinämöinen had grown used to the foreign syllables and recognized it as his fellow immortal’s name. The elder at the front of the boat had called out to him, but the Fenni supposed Mathias didn’t hear.

The Dane stared at the toddler for a good and long time before looking again to Väinämöinen still bound on the floor.

“One day, you might escape. Maybe you’ll find a way to evade me and my men, or maybe you’ll find a way to kill yourself so you can wake up by whoever or whatever it is you call ‘king’…” Väinämöinen didn’t recognize this word. “…but this,” the Viking emphasized, pulling the rope even more taught around the child’s tiny wrists and continuing, “is going to be mine for the rest of its life. The rest of them, too. That whole village that was sheltering you now belongs to me.”

Väinämöinen could not stand it. The pressure of the rage at Mathias’ words and the panic at the truth behind them expanded inside his chest until he was sure he would burst. The creature in his lap was not a this like some dog, it was a human child with a soul and emotions and tiny, broken hands. His people did not belong to the Vikings like a strip of hunting grounds; they were their own nation with their own religion and language. One could not own people, it was simply impossible.

Fruitlessly, he tugged at his binds, shifting restlessly while the toddler pleadingly stared at him, waiting in discontent confusion to be rescued. What kind of a god could not even break a rope to save a baby?

“Some people I’ve encountered before say I kill all the male children of our enemies so they can’t seek revenge. So, Väinämöinen.”

An uneasiness crept into the young Fenni as that wolfish grin spread over Mathias’ face, but he realized something very confusing: the Dane seemed to be loosening the child’s ropes. The lad made a few grunts in protest, Väinämöinen silently praying for him to be still and not to bat at Mathias for fear he’d be tossed overboard.

“Do you place much stock in rumor?”

But the child was not tossed over. Mathias’ large hand was wrapped around the significantly smaller arm, but not to crush. He seemed to be inspecting the damage that had been done, almost like Väinämöinen had seen the Healing Man from the village doing with his friend, Ahti, when he’d gotten his foot snagged in a hunting trap. It was the gentlest any one of the Norsemen had seemed, and it almost felt surreal.

“Are we enemies?”

Gulping down his anxieties with a dry throat, Väinämöinen choked out almost without thinking, “You assaulted my people. You pillaged my homeland. You hurt my children. You’ve slain my men.” His words were the product of a nervous rage, spilling from his lips like a river over a cliff. “My people are but innocent prisoners. They want to go home. You’ve separated families by an expanse of sea greater than three forests and left mothers weeping for the return of their men and children. You left the shores of my home covered in my own peoples’ blood so that not even fungus shall ever grow there. And now! Now you speak of such, such… travesties,” It would be years before Väinämöinen would come to learn the word genocide. “Wiping out the males of my population so that we cannot breed a new line of “warriors” to take revenge when it was you, in the first place, who started this mess? You speak as if I’m the one to blame for this!” Väinämöinen shook his head adamantly, trembling despite his bold words. “You and I, Viking, shall never be anything but enemies.”

The boy in Mathias’ lap had taken to pathetically whimpering, calling for his äiti who could be of no use to him now, wanting her to kiss his wrists better the way mothers are so capable of doing. The woman across the boat only turned her face away, unable to bear the sight of her child being tortured so.

Väinämöinen nodded to the child. “For him. For his mother and father, and for the others. Mark my words, I will have my revenge.” With a fox’s cleverness, the blonde added, “You have already completed the first step. The knot you untied was around the wrist of a Fenni, and you should know that even the youngest of our kind are Summoners. A storm will come, now, and Ukko along with it to strike you down with his thunder. Your sunsets are numbered from this point on.”

Drained and terrified and unsure that his plan would work, Väinämöinen slumped a bit in the floor of the boat. The sky had lightened considerably, and it was becoming much easier to see. While he was thankful to see another day, the young man hope the sun would soon be swallowed up behind black clouds. Mathias was a stubborn one, but if a storm could just blow in from the boreal winds, Väinämöinen was sure he could save his people.

There was no other choice now.


__________________________________________________________________________
A/N: And on this day, Tino finally grew a pair! Though a lot of it's a ruse!

"You assaulted my people." As he had previously displayed, Vainmoinen preferred long answers erring on the dramatic. Mathias half-listened, gesturing instead to the ever-watchful Moldof that he needed some sea water and clean rags. "You pillaged my homeland. You hurt my children. You've slain my men. My people are but innocent prisoners. They want to go home."

Fenni certainly knew how to go on. The child in Mathias' lap gave another half-hearted attempt and wiggling free. Once again, the only movement it achieved was in the legs.

"You’ve separated families by an expanse of sea greater than three forests and left mothers weeping for the return of their men and children. You left the shores of my home covered in my own peoples’ blood so that not even fungus shall ever grow there. And now! Now you speak of such, such… travesties... Wiping out the males of my population so that we cannot breed a new line of “warriors” to take revenge when it was you, in the first place, who started this mess? You speak as if I’m the one to blame for this!” The other immortal had built to a crecendo and shook his head firmly. “You and I, Viking, shall never be anything but enemies."

"Not a wise thing to say when I have one of your children on my knee." Hadn't Mathias just told him what apparently happened to the children of his enemies? So what if the rumours had been exaggerated in their telling, the Fenni was not to know. Did Vainamoinen not care? For someone who called the Danes barbaric, the Fenni did not seem dripping in human kindness either.

"For him. For his mother and father, and for the others. Mark my words, I will have my revenge."

"You're not doing a very good job of that, still trussed on the deck."

"You have already completed the first step," the Fenni countered. "The knot you untied was around the wrist of a Fenni, and you should know that even the youngest of our kind are Summoners."

A chill rippled down the Dane's back. Almost unnoticed, Moldof placed the items he had requested on the seat.

"A storm will come now, and Ukko along to strike you down with his thunder. Your sunsets are numbered from this point on."

Silence fell between the two, broken only by the toddler's whimpering.

"Danish rope tied and untied by Danish hands has never had that effect before..." Mathias spoke slowly, thinking aloud. Then again, he had never untied the bonds of a Fenni child before. But if what Vainamoinen was saying was true, then why hadn't they used this power against him on the Fenni shore? Why hadn't the storm came last night when the others had untied the Fenni woman for that short period before Mathias had distracted them?

With forced nonchalance, the young man took the skin Moldof had delivered and uncorked it. He tasted it almost automatically. Salt water, just as requested.

Your sunsets are numbered

It had been a clear dawn and - he checked again, just to make sure - there was still no hint of cloud. It didn't mean that Vainamoinen's words weren't true though, as there was no reason to expect a summoned storm to behave like a regular one. The sky could darken at any moment. The smudge on the horizon, the coast of Bornholm, was growing steadily closer. If needed they could stop there, but there would need to be an obvious reason to do so. Mathias' warning alone would probably not sway Baldr into what would appear to be a unwarranted stop so close to their destination.

Uneasy, he gripped the toddler's arm and held it tight in preparation of washing the wound. "Would you really call up a storm that would drown your people as well as mine?" But it wasn't Vainamoinen who was supposedly conjuring up the storm; it was this little boy. Could this seemingly normal child have such power? Kristian and Arthur were skilled in the occult, but they were both long-lived as Mathias himself. Could a human be gifted as well? "This is what happens when you try to be kind," he told the toddler, "This is why I should never be kind."

Your sunsets are numbered. What did he mean? Mathias was not easy to kill.

He avoided acknowledging Vainamoinen's presence and, to try to appear unruffled, continued with his plan to clean the boy's wounds while he thought.

He poured the salt water over the boy's wrists. As soon as the saline hit the broken skin the child flinched and began wailing, pulling away from the large hand holding his arm prone and into the Dane's chest. "Ja, I know it hurts." He scanned the the horizon again, searching for storm clouds. "But not as much as drowning." Around them were the other Danes, immersed in the task of preparing for their landing. Under the guise of thoroughly dousing the toddler's wrists, Mathias watched one particularly young Dane scratch the pale scruff growing in patches over his jaw. Another two were talking as they packed some things up. And, of course, Moldof stood in the prow.

Was it just him or had the temperature dropped considerably?

A Danish laugh rose raucously from the other side of the boat. Mathias bit the inside of his cheek. He did not want them all to die. Bornholm was close, true, but not within swimming distance. If a storm came with the purpose of drowing them it would have to be large.

By this point the child was sniffing miserably. "Ja, ja, I know. It's sore." He gave the boy an absent pat on the head, made kinder in his distraction.

But what had Vainamoinen said? That his days, Mathias' own, were numbered. What did that mean? Mathias had so far always awoken from mortal injuries. Could the Fenni magic somehow overcome his natural 'defences', if that is what they could be called. His 'rejuvenation' was beyond his control. Any storm that could kill him would have to be titanic.

There was also the niggling suspicion (or rather, the cold-ball-in-the-stomach suspicion) that if he were not around something terrible would or would have already happened to his people. They were linked, somehow. Could they live without him? Or, as he was beginning to suspect, would something have had to happen to them - all of them - to mean the next time he 'died' he stayed dead.

He had a sudden vivid image of a god-sized storm raising the waters until they covered his land completely and his people, in numbers that tore his heart, floating face down.

"I'd hoped we wouldn't be enemies," he said finally, voice oddly hoarse. The child wriggled again and Mathias put him on the deck of the boat, forgetting he had meant to use the clean rags as bandages to prevent the raw skin from getting dirty again.

Another compulsive check of the sky. How much longer? 'Now', Vainamoinen had said, "A storm will come now". But still the skies were clear.

"This storm. It hasn't arrived yet." The island of Bornholm was so close it was tantalising. Mathias felt he would be somehow safer once home. "I would prefer it if it didn't."

Somehow, Väinämöinen knew he had gotten through to the Norseman. It had taken plenty of wearing down, but just the way water entering into the tiniest crevasse in a boulder every autumn and turning into ice every winter will eventually split the stone, the Fenni had gotten inside. He could tell by the way Mathias’ argument had become limited to the same cycle – Väinämöinen was bound to the floor and was powerless. It was the same thing he’d been asserting all along; he couldn’t come up with anything new for rebuttal.

"Danish rope tied and untied by Danish hands has never had that effect before...”

And he could tell by the way the Dane’s voice came out strained as if he was holding his tongue in check. He was watching his words now, conscious of his actions. He’d messed up by touching the rope, and now, as far as he knew, the lives of his people were at stake. The way his eyes flitted around at the horizon where blue met blue, searching for some ominous shape in the sky – yes, Väinämöinen was definitely inside.

"Would you really call up a storm that would drown your people as well as mine?" The young immortal could hear him murmur something lowly to the child here, but could not understand what over the sloshing of water beneath him.

“My people would not die,” he added to the bluff. “We can control storms – do you think we would be foolish enough to let ourselves die in something of our own creation?” Väinämöinen didn’t think Mathias was listening anymore, engulfed in the task of pouring chilly brine over the toddler’s wrists. He was being tender with the child, having ceased the harsh, jerking motions he was using to control him previously. It was almost caring, like something a big brother or father would have done for one of the children in his village. The Fenni couldn’t quite understand the motive behind the gesture except that maybe Mathias was scared of angering the little one further and was now trying to make amends by cleaning his wounds.

Mathias was distracted, and Väinämöinen was drinking up his small victory through the disconcerted look on the elder’s face. The Dane was looking around at the occupants of the boat, scanning his own people. He must have been worried about them.

Väinämöinen had never been particularly muscular or brave, but if nothing else, he was intelligent. Sly. He’d taught himself to use his brain when the need arose. He knew how to play with the psyche like it was a doll made of woven river reeds. While Mathias began whispering once again to the toddler, presumably soothing the boy, the other immortal teasingly sang from the floor of the boat, “Too late…”

At long last, the child was set free. The toddler blinked and stared up at Mathias through wet eyes, too afraid of potential punishment to run back to the mother that was beckoning him over.

“I’d hoped we wouldn’t be enemies.”

“That’s funny,” Väinämöinen spat. “Do you normally make friends by killing their neighbors, tying them up, and taking them as war bounty in your boat?” Vikings were a dense lot, after all. Perhaps Mathias genuinely did believe friends were won through battle.

The other occupants of the boat were awake and stirring save for a few lazy young men and the oldest of the old (except Moldof who must have been immortal himself for looking so alert without sleep). It was more dangerous now to speak to the Norseman on what had been a relatively friendly basis with the others within earshot. He’d need to watch over his people more closely, as well, especially the child and the woman. Mathias had helped them once, but with the death thread laid out, Väinämöinen was sure he would do him no such kindness again.

“This storm,” Mathias began. His eyes were skyward. “It hasn’t arrived yet. I would prefer it if it didn’t.”

“Patience, Viking, patience,” the Fenni sang. “The storm is coming, but it will come when the moment is best – the moment when it can wash as many of yours into the ocean as possible. I wonder if the Danni are good swimmers?”

Väinämöinen would leave him to ruminate on that ominous note, shifting himself back onto his side with his back exposed and face towards a wall of the boat as if he was completely unfazed.

In reality, his head was throbbing from anxiety and a gnawing hunger was clawing its way into his stomach. He could hear the mother still calling the boy over, the toddler whimpering hesitantly. He was tired of the smell of seawater and sick from the sensation of the pitching boat, but at least now Mathias – if he was as gullible as the Fenni believed all Danni to be – would also be on edge. Väinämöinen hoped he was suffering.

“You can’t stop this, you know. Blood has already been spilt and the knot has come undone. But if you turn the boat around and take us home, you could lessen the punishment. Maybe Ukko will spare a man and a woman from your village. That would keep you alive, and you could rebuild your land. You could personally teach every generation to stay away from the lands of the East.” For a few moments, Väinämöinen peered back over his shoulder at the Dane. The boy was making his way back towards his mother at long last, trying to steer clear of the terrifying Vikings. “But you’re not that smart, are you?”

“Patience, Viking, patience.” The mocking, sing-song cadence brought back several unpleasant childhood memories. This feeling on helpless dread was not a sensation Mathias was familiar with, and it did not sit easily with him. “The storm is coming, but it will come when the moment is best – the moment when it can wash as many of yours into the ocean as possible. I wonder if the Danni are good swimmers?”

He wanted to snap back that they were good swimmers – a pre-requisite for generations that had originally been dependent on the bounty of the sea – but what would that matter? Mathias’ lands were low-lying; there where no high peaks to swim to if Fenni waters began to rise with evil intent. Mathias grit his teeth at having his attempt to begin bartering for his people’s lives thrown back at him, and favoured the small blonde with a glower as Vainamoinen turned away from him.

Think, the Dane urged himself. If he had enough time he could try to reach Kristian and request his brother’s support – a galling but potentially life-saving move. Even if Kristian did not have the power to keep the storm at bay then perhaps he might at least be able to magic up a safe haven for the Danes. There was no doubt in Mathias’ mind that his brother would help him, but unfortunately Kristian was attending to his own people and Mathias was not sure where he was. Would there be enough time to search for him? Evacuation to higher ground was another possibility – if running away from a storm purpose-made to drown Danes was possible – but someone might claim his lands in his absence. Probably, Mathias thought with an odd combination of fondness and irritation, that someone would be Berwald.

What if, he mused, eyes drawn to the Fenni toddler making hesitant progress toward the mother, it’s possible to stop the storm at the source? Mathias could threaten to drown the child unless either the boy or Vainamoinen called off the storm. And if they refused, or claimed they were unable to, the toddler could be taken care of to see if the curse died with him.

It was more likely, Mathias thought with a sigh, that killing the boy would cause instant retribution. Either way, threatening, evacuating or asking for help, none of his ideas had a high probability of success.

“You can’t stop this, you know.” Vainamoinen appeared to be talking to the wall but the goading tone was clearly meant for just the Dane. “Blood has already been spilt and the knot has come undone.”

The bloody knot. He should have left the boy’s wounds to fester.

Then, a rush of irritation. Who said he couldn’t stop this? Vainamoinen didn’t have the slightest idea of what made Mathias who he was if the Fenni really thought he’d resign himself to the death of his people within minutes of the threat.

“But,” Mathias’ hopes rose, “if you turn the boat around and take us home, you could lessen the punishment. Maybe Ukko will spare a man and woman from your village. That would keep you alive, and you could rebuild your land. You could personally teach every generation to stay away from the lands of the East.”

Two survivors. His hope plummeted. The hurt of, say, 499,998 deaths would not be substantially less than wiping out all 500,000 Danes. And to say that a population of two would sustain him was ludicrous. The two unenviable survivors would be no doubt be rescued by one of his brothers – Kristian, presumably – and would easily assimilate into the similar ways of life. Assuming, naturally, some illness or other feud did not take their lives first. And, of course, Danmark itself would be under water. One generation, perhaps two, and then the lingering existence that should have ended with the genocide would finally be snuffed out.

But it was the loss of so many lives that darkened the Dane’s eyes, not the contemplation of a permanent death. Joining the 499,998 in Valhalla would be preferable to living as a broken wraith, the deaths of them all falling on his shoulders alone.

But you could save two people, part of him cried out. Isn’t that worth something?

But to lose so many… His mouth twisted in an expression of pain. There had to be a better way. Kristian would know what to do. If only he were here. But he wasn’t; Mathias would have to do his best, and rely on himself to get out of this mess of his own making.

“But you’re not that smart, are you?”

The words were strangely reminiscent of his brothers, whenever they tried to push him into doing something he would otherwise not want to do. Mathias knew that he not wise by any stretch of the imagination but he could not see how settling for two lives would be smart.

The goading sparked the usual irritation, but he was too sure of his own mind to fall into the trap. “You offer me instant death or at most a half-century of heartbreak, and think that not taking the second option would be the wisest? Danes do not fear death,” his voice had a queer touch of pride despite the situation, “and neither do I.”

He really didn’t, he was pleased to find out. Norsemen had always said it was how the responded to the threat of imminent death that separated them from their cowardly enemies. This was Mathias’ first real test. He was grimly pleased that he was not found wanting.

But he had no intention of being wiped out today. What would Kristian do?

The Dane thought, but nothing entered the blonde head. He really was going to have to do this on his own.

“Besides,” he admitted finally, “I have no authority on this boat. Baldr would have me thrown over or killed if I tried to take control of it. The attempt would count for nothing. There’s no turning this boat around.”

Bornholm was passing beside them now. They were so close to home. If only ‘home’ still meant ‘safe’. Nevertheless, he felt more confident being in his own waters.

“Make me a realistic offer,” he said suddenly, aiming for the same bored irritation he used with Arthur’s monks when they tried to bribe him to leave their monasteries alone and hoping his anxiety didn’t show too much. Under what was quite obviously a pretence of boredom he checked the clear skies again. “Tell me there’ll be no storm – call it off - and I’ll get your people home.”

Judging by Mathias’ change of expression, Väinämöinen had finally struck the right chord to get his foe into action.

“You offer me instant death or at most a half-century of heartbreak, and think that not taking the second option would be the wisest? Danes do not fear death, and neither do I.”

The Fenni could have gone on for hours about the differences between bravery and mindlessness. His own people were very proud of their sisu; even here on the boat, the only ones who had visibly displayed fear had been the young child and his mother, though her concern was over her baby’s wellbeing and not her own. Vikings, on the other hand, had bravery only in the sense that an animal could be brave – it was too stupid to understand danger (though that was, perhaps, giving animals too little credit, for Väinämöinen had often seen deer with their tails pricked and ears swiveling cautiously in search of danger before entering a clearing.)

It would have all been in vain, however, as surely only one or two words would have seeped through that thick skull.

“Besides.” Väinämöinen craned his neck around once more at the slight tonal change. He instantly regretted it, the headache circulating in his skull immediately trickling down his spine and into his shoulders. He shivered as the cramp attacked and dropped his cheek quickly back to the wooden floor. “I have no authority on this boat. Baldr would have me thrown over or killed if I tried to take control of it. The attempt would count for nothing. There’s no turning this boat around.”

Taking slow, shaky breaths, willing off the pain in his neck and the nausea in his stomach, Väinämöinen gleaned information from this new admission. Mathias’ people obviously thought he was a child; they had been fooled by the youthful appearance of his body. Had the Danish elders not connected the way Mathias had been well into his fifteenth year or more even when they themselves had been infants?

A dense lot, indeed, he reminded himself, the pain beginning to ebb and retreat back into his temples.

This Baldr, then, must have been the leader. It would do well to be in his favor for the time being.

“Make me a realistic offer.” The invitation had certainly been unexpected. Of all the actions Väinämöinen thought could happen next, negotiations weren’t one of them. “Tell me there’ll be no storm – call it off - and I’ll get your people home.”

Väinämöinen thought. Now could be his chance to back out of his empty promise. If he called off the storm now, the fact that he’d never actually summoned one in the first place would be covered up and his people would be released.

But without the storm, what was there to hold Mathias to his word? Without the storm, they’d just be a handful of helpless Fenni on a boat in unfamiliar waters. Mathias and his leader would continue to drag them further from their home until they reached the foreign shores.

No, the storm was their only weapon now. Väinämöinen couldn’t abandon it yet.

“No,” he said decisively. “Why should I place that level of trust in you? Why should I believe you’ll keep your word?” He wished to look Mathias in the eye, but was still afraid of attempting to turn after the last time, the aching still not completely gone from his shoulders. Facing the wall, he continued, “I have a proposition of my own. Listen well, Dane: You tell your leaders nothing. You do not alert them about the storm that is coming for them. What good would it do to admit your mistake, anyway?” He was banking on everything he had deduced about Mathias’ personality in the past short hours. If he made a miscalculation, his proposition would not be tempting and his people would be doomed. “The boat will land on your shores as planned. My people will go quietly as your slaves.” The boy’s people would trust his logic, certainly. He could make sure they stayed quiet. “You must take the woman into your dwelling right away. Convince your Palteri,” here he grossly mispronounced the bulky foreign words yet again, “that she is your prize and that you’re going to bed her. I want her kept safe, Viking, and I want you to guard her. The boy must stay with her, and you will take me as your translator.”

He paused to breathe, letting the first part of his plan sink in for the Dane and plotting out the second half. The sick feeling in his stomach was becoming rather unbearable, as if he was lying face-down with a rock under his belly. He’d never been on a boat in such an awkward position, and the motion was toying with his stomach.

“We will wait until the first safe nightfall, then – and I do promise you that the storm will not come before this time. At this time, in the darkness and once your leaders are asleep, you’ll take my people and me to a boat and row us back to our lands. Once we are safely on our own soils again, I will call off the storm. No harm shall befall you by Fenni hands if you fully comply.”

Swallowing thickly, Väinämöinen concluded, “This is the only way.”

To Mathias' immense relief, Väinämöinen appeared to be considering it. A few seconds passed by, elongated into hours by anxiety.

Then, in a certain-sounding voice, the Fenni told the deck "No." Mathias' spirits plummeted.

"Why should I place that level of trust in you? Why should I believe you'll keep your word?"

Mathias thought that should have been obvious. "Well, I don't want them all to die, so..."

"I have a proposition of my own. Listen well, Dane."

Mathias did, as he did he felt as if the dark cloud was passing by overhead. Tell his leaders nothing? As good as done. Strictly speaking, he wouldn't be reunited with his King until at least tomorrow, and as Väinämöinen pointed out there was little point in confessing his error until he had fixed it.

In truth, he did have difficulty in seeing how Väinämöinen's plan differed from his own in that both involved setting the Fenni free and saving the Danes, but Mathias held his tongue. Maybe Väinämöinen had thought he had planned to set the captives free by turfing them overboard. That said, the youngster's outline had more detail than his own and it sounded plausible. If doing what Väinämöinen wanted was what made him lift his flood-curse then that is what Mathias would do.

Convincing Baldr to let him take three slaves would be difficult but not impossible given his connections. "I might have to change that bit," was his only comment in response to Väinämöinen's plan that he claim the woman for himself. As he was not even usually going on raids at all, let alone with Baldr and his Vikings, Mathias had no authority to speak so boldly. Instead, he would tell Baldr that the King would be interested in interrogating a Fenni that could be conversed with, and perhaps in another wet nurse (his boss's wife was perpetually pregnant, a sign the that King was surely a great leader of men), and that should be the end of it. There were many other captive on the other Viking longboats that had left the Fenni shore before theirs, so it was not as if Mathias was taking the whole booty of the raid away with him. Well, until he actually did help them escape. The loss of a raid's worth of free labour would be disappointing, but an easy sacrifice when Danish lives were in peril.

Creeping around in darkness sounded like a bit of a lark, reminiscent of something he and Berwald might done in their youth before they were both old enough to be involved in 'actual business'. He was less enamoured with the notion of rowing Vainamoinen and his people back to their lands. Again, he reminded himself it was a small price to pay for his people's safety.

"This is the only way," the boy asserted.

"Whatever you say." Mathias strived for a noncommital tone but the sudden illumination of his face seemed to brighten his voice as well. He had just saved his people from death by flood - well, negotiated the deal that would save them from flood, if it counted as negotiating when one party simply agreed with the other - and, damn it, he felt entitled to enjoy it for a bit.

He stretched, buoyed up. The sky seemed brighter now, somehow.

"We're nearly there." The Vikings had already made the transition from slumberous to industrious; the sail was being taken down, rowing benches being filled by yawning young men rubbing their wrists. The other boats, having roughly an hour's headstart, were probably already coasting into Køge, maybe some of the faster boats were even unpacking. Without warning, he pulled his knife from its leather thong and set to work sawing through the rope binding the Fenni's ankles. "It will be busy once we reach the bay. You'll need to move quickly to keep up." So would Mathias; it would be catastrophic if Väinämöinen, the boy or the mother were to be separated from him in the press of people unloading.


"Warn your people. I need to talk to mine," he added, sheathing the knife as the passing bulk of Baldr caught his eye. Baldr looked happy, pleased to have made it home with new artifacts, slaves and all of his men more-or-less unscathed - the time to put forward Väinämöinen's request was now. Wordlessly, Mathias stood and begun to wind his way through his countrymen.

Getting the young warrior’s full compliance was beyond what the captive had been expecting, and so, needless to say, he was enthralled with this turn of events. Mathias had said he’d need to make some changes, but surely they would be nothing major. He wouldn’t risk ruining the plan when his peoples’ lives were riding on the original.

“Whatever you say.”

Exactly what he wanted to hear.

Mathias looked some degree happier now, and though Väinämöinen felt likewise, his stomach still ailed him too much to display it. He swallowed down the little remaining moisture in his mouth and closed his eyes, intent on sleeping until they reached land. His nap was spoiled before it even began.

“We’re nearly there.”

The Fenni got the announcement just seconds before the boat shook with Mathias’ footsteps, and shortly after that, a large hand was around the boy’s leg. Acting on pure instinct, Väinämöinen sat up quick as a bolt and reached to stop Mathias from touching him (or attempted, but the strength of the ropes around his wrists were more than strong enough to keep his arms lodged behind his back), only to see the sharp blade of a knife firmly in his grip. He gulped nervously.

I thought we had an agreement! He needs me! He wouldn’t dare kill me now!

Wide eyes fixed on the knife edging closer to his skin until at long last the sharp metal made contact and the sick sound of blade against solid object could be heard. He wasn’t sure whether he should attempt to kick away the larger boy or plead for his life. Finally, Väinämöinen turned his head away, prepared for the churning, searing pain of having his foot sawed through.

Of course it didn’t take long for the boy to realize that while he could feel the knife doing its work, there was no pain in his legs, or anywhere in his body. He dared to look back. Mathias was sawing away at his ropes, the fibers of the binds snapping and unraveling and finally falling clear from his slender ankles.

Mathias wasn’t taking his foot, he realized, but freeing him.

“It will be busy once we reach the bay,” Mathias informed him. “You’ll need to move quickly to keep up.”

Testing his legs, Väinämöinen could feel his joints creaking in long-awaited movement. There were deep purple-red grooves around each ankle where the skin had been crushed and rubbed raw by the coarse ropes. He wiggled his toes experimentally, rolled his ankles, and bent and stretched his knees. All seemed to be in proper working condition save for some stiffness. It felt good to be able to have his legs apart for a while, and the salty air of the morning cooled the spots where his legs had been pressed together to leave his leggings damp with sweat. His seasickness had even been staved off a bit.

Surely, today would be much better than yesterday.

When the Viking had finished with Väinämöinen’s binds, he commanded, “Warn your people. I need to talk to mine.”

Not at all convinced it was safe to stand, he asked, “How do I know it will be safe? Your men will likely tackle me again if they see that I’m free of the ropes.”

There was clearly nothing Mathias wished to warn him about as he slid his blade into its sheath and made his way towards the big bear-man that had commanded yesterday’s invasion. Väinämöinen again reminded himself that the Dane would not jeopardize the mission by risking the boy’s life. He would know that death for the Fenni boy meant a rebirth back on his own soils, away from the boat that would get his people back to their homeland and out of commission for stopping the flood he’d promised.

Scrambling to his feet, and shortly thereafter fighting a small struggle to keep his balance in the pitching vessel, Väinämöinen surveyed the horizon. There was indeed land and they were indeed moving closer to it. His home was nowhere to be seen, nothing but the blue-green of the ocean to the north. Nothing here looked familiar, and the Fenni knew he’d never travelled this far before.

There was no time to dawdle, so the little immortal made his way quickly to his people, kneeling by them and making sure no one was coming to bother them. In their tongue, he told them of the agreement he’d made with the Dane. He assured them that it would work and promised that none of them would die if all went according to plan.

Väinämöinen knew they had their doubts; some thought him to be his divine namesake, but many saw that he had the body of a child and could never bring themselves to fully trust his judgment. Out here in the open water, the captives didn’t see where they had much of a choice. Their protest died on their tongues and they agreed to the plan.

“No one must speak of this plan,” Väinämöinen warned. “Not to me, nor to the Vikings. Act as if you’ve never heard it.”

With that, he waited for Mathias to retrieve him, simply scanning what he could see of the horizon. For one brief moment, he locked gazes with the old man in the bow. Though passing, the glance was meaningful. Something sparkled behind his eyes, keen despite their age. The elder Viking must have been suspicious. Väinämöinen knew he must take extra caution here surrounded like a sheep in a pack of wolves. His people and his own life depended on it.

Vainamoinen's words were lost behind him as Mathias made a beeline for Baldr, dodging other Vikings as they hurried to pull in the sail and ready the oars for navigating the final part of the journey. The older Dane stood in the far end of the boat, an expression of contentment smoothing his forehead as he overlooked the boat's industry.

"Baldr," Mathias began as he came up alongside him.

"Mathi!" Baldr turned to face him. "How's that wound? Norsemen had little concept of personal space amongst their own kind, as soon as the words had left Baldr's mouth his hand was on Mathias' chest, pulling at the rough woollen shirt to check the slash Vainamoinen had given him. "You father would not forgive me if I let you get badly damaged," he continued, lifting the shirt over the edge of the cut

The mark, fading to pink against his pale skin, was well on its way to healing. The momentary confusion on Baldr's face saved Mathias from having to comment on Baldr's incorrect assumptions about his lineage.

"Good". The grey brows, which had moved in surprise, settled back into their usual position. The chief dropped his hand. "It must've looked worse than it was."

"Baldr," Mathias started again, pulling down his shirt. "About the Fenni." He began to outline his argument to the other man, stressing the importance of Vainamoinen, the woman and the child. He laboured his point and, sensing his speech was not effective, used large gestures for support until Baldr put his hand up to stem the young man's words.

"Mathi.

Does he have to use that nickname?

Baldr spoke kindly but firmly as he pointed out that the three Fenni that had been singled out could easily stay in the pens with the others until it was time to go to the King.

A small wave of panic rose within his chest. Vainamoinen had very clear that the woman and child were to stay with him. "But-"

"Mathias." Firmer this time. "You're one of the youngest on this boat. You do not get three slaves to yourself, the only woman being one of them."

Baldr considered the matter finished. He went to move away, but Mathias placed himself solidly in the other's way. Expression earnest, Mathias tried again. Baldr continued to try to move around him to join the Vikings in preparing the boat but Mathias was there at every turn blocking him, trying to persuade him. Eventually, the older man threw his hands up and said, "Fine. But for the gods' sake, be discreet."

Relief.

"I will," he promised, backing away.

"And do some damn work!"

At the opposite end of the boat Vainamoinen sat in the huddle of Fenni. Despite the small size of the craft there were several obstacles between the two immortals. After only a few steps, Mathias was intercepted by the youngest Dane - the one struggling to grow more than blonde peach-fuzz on his chin - begging for assistance with knotting the ropes to secure the rolled-down sail. Unable to come up with a proper excuse, Mathias had no choice but to comply. His fingers tugged and pulled at the coarse rope and every now and then he cast glances toward the captives, making sure they were still were he'd left them.

As soon as the sail had been tied down, the two young Vikings were corraled into another task. And then another. It wasn't until the harbour of Køge was around them, their longboat nosing into a berth beside its raid-mates, that Mathias finally managed to excuse himself and squeeze throw his countrymen to where Vainamoinen waited.

"We're here," he said, rubbing his aching fingers and looking out at the port. Køge was bustling with the raiding fleet unloading alongside the regular merchant ships. On dry ground, local Danes bartered, chatted, or scanned the arriving boats for their loved ones. It was, as expected, busy. Mathias was so busy drinking in the sight of his own town that he did not pay any attention to the dark looks he was receiving from Vainamoinen's fellow captives.

The boat was secured. Baldr gave the call to disembark. "Time to go."

The fastest way was simply over the side. "Overboard. He gestured for the other immortal to jump over the side - not an easy task considering Mathias had only freed his ankles, not his wrists - and assisted him by grabbing the back of his shirt. Once Vainamoinen had splashed down and regained his footing, Mathias held his hands out for the toddler. The boy was clutching to his mother, who looked at him with undisguised distrust.

"Give him to me, Mathias ordered impatiently, taking hold of the boy by the waist and wresting him away. The child started wailing as Mathias hoisted him over the side of the boat and shoved him towards Vainamoinen. The child took hold of the Fenni's thin shoulders and clung on.

Then it was the mother's turn, and as Mathias stepped toward the bound woman the Fenni men moved closer as well. Intimidating, but he had to take her. Once the three Fenni were standing in the knee-high water, Mathias swung himself and his raiding gear over the side. The other Danes were only just beginning to take packages off the boat by the time Mathias and his followers were completely out of the water.

Only one person had noticed them so far. Moldof did not miss much.

"Follow me," Mathias said, reaching out for the toddler. Once he had a good grip on the child, he lead his unlikely band through Køge's winding dirt streets to the longhouse he could temporarily call his own. They would be greeted by the few animals that came with the house; two sheep, three chickens, a goat. As happy as he was to be back on solid ground he moved through the streets as quickly as possible without drawing attention to himself and did not allow himself the time to drink in his new surroundings. "In here." He opened the door and ushered them in, closing it tightly behind them.

The rudder scraped against the shallows and several Vikings rushed ashore to tie the boat into place. Combined with the commotion coming from the port, Väinämöinen knew they were there even before Mathias alerted him. The Fenni wondered what this town was called, if Viking lands had names like his own lands.

The bigger Viking that had tackled him before made another moose-bellow and the rest of the Norsemen jumped into action, clamoring over the sides of the boat with their sacks of loot shouldered proudly.

“Time to go.” Väinämöinen had only just opened his mouth to question how he was to move in his current state when Mathias continued and answered for him, “Overboard.”

The little blond edged his way to the side of the boat and climbed onto one of the rowing benches. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he managed to get a leg over the side of the boat before Mathias expedited his process by grabbing the back of his tunic and hauling him out and over the shore. If the shifting wet sand and his sea-legs weren’t enough to topple him, the solid body bumping into him roughly from behind secured his fate. Salt water chilled him up to his chest as he went down onto his knees, but the side of the boat was there to prevent him from going face-first.

Picking himself out of the water, Väinämöinen became aware of something hanging over his head. It was the child, dangling from Mathias’ grip. Saying nothing, the Dane hung the littlest Fenni around Väinämöinen’s shoulders like a wailing rucksack.

“Shush,” the older Fenni pleaded, trying to find a way to position his body so that the toddler would have some jut or curve on which to sit.

Before the child had a chance to slip, Mathias had splashed into the water beside him and ordered, “Follow me.”

With all the excitement of being in a foreign land, Väinämöinen didn’t even notice the order until the toddler had been wrest away from him once again. He shot a glare at the Dane, but upon seeing that the child was being held safely and gently, the glower softened. Mathias didn’t intend to hurt the youngling, nor any of them, at least for the time being.

With the Danni immortal to lead them, the small crew took off towards the town. Väinämöinen felt completely overwhelmed by the new sights, sounds and smells of this land. He saw a long row of wooden booths and leather-covered tents where men were selling freshly caught fish and what looked to be iron tools. Danni women rushed to greet their husbands and sons and congratulate them on their great haul. Little southern children whispered and gawked at the Fenni group’s odd dress. The houses in this town were tightly clustered, some made of stone and many made of mud-packed log huts with roofs woven from reeds. It was greatly different than the tents to which Väinämöinen’s nomadic herders were accustomed.

After a short jaunt through the narrow streets of the village, Mathias led the small group to a farmhouse and commanded as he tugged the rope handle of the door, “In here.” The wooden door creaked open and Väinämöinen tentatively stepped into the dwelling. It was dim, and his eyes were ill-adjusted to the light, but the floor of the home was open and he was able to walk without stumbling. Behind him, the immortal heard his people and the Viking step inside, and the light spilling in through the door was cut off with the creaking of hinges.

Väinämöinen blinked to adjust his vision, and then he took a careful look around the new dwelling. There were two long walls and two short, and there was little decoration save for a few axes and knives hung on the walls, but even those looked to have been in recent use. A table sat far from the door under a window and a shelf full of plates and bowls was mounted near it. Two stools were placed on either side of the table and a third was pushed up against the corner, and judging by that, Mathias rarely had visitors. On one of the long walls near the door, a deep hearth had been installed with a vent above it to let out the smoke. A wrought iron pot hung over the charred remains of a fire that had long been cold. An exact duplicate of the fireplace sans the pot sat on the opposite end of the same wall, and adjacent from it was a pile of straw, furs and cloths which must have been Mathias’ bed.

“Thank you,” Väinämöinen murmured before he could stop himself. Being invited into someone’s home was always an honor in his land, and showing gratitude was second nature for him. The fact that he was entering this house as a prisoner didn’t register right away.

The Fenni woman approached Mathias in a stroke of boldness, though the shy manner in which she carried her body – hunched forward and arms clutched to her chest – would not have hinted her bravery. With a soft voice, she pleaded with him in her native tongue and carefully reached her arms towards the Dane.

“She needs to feed her child,” Väinämöinen translated. “He still takes only milk. He gets colicky when he goes without nursing. She and I will be okay, but the baby must eat.”

After he was sure that the child would be taken care of, the boy nodded for the woman to move over to a corner where she could be out of Mathias' way and moved himself over to Mathias' side like a shadow. "We will be safe here? What will you do in case your elders come to check in on you? Where can we be hidden?"


---
A/N: I decorated Den's house for him. Hope I'm not too far off from your vision; I have little idea how Vikings decorated their homes.

With being closed up for the past few days the house had developed a musty smell. Though perhaps they had actually brought the aroma in with them. The Fenni, like him, were in the same sweat-stained, torn and dirtied clothes they had been wearing on the Fenni shore when the raiding parties and the locals had clashed. They also had the added indignity of being tied up for the journey, unable to attend to some of the baser aspects of hygiene. It all added up to a very unpleasant musk.

Hitching the scant weight of the toddler higher against his side, Mathias watched the Fenni as they took in the new surroundings. Väinämöinen murmured his thanks as his keen eyes roved over the inside of the dwelling, seeming to linger over the spare weapons where they hung on the walls, but possibly that was just the Dane's interpretation. Having never before had a potential enemy in his house, it had not occurred to him that there were many available weapons. The boy's hands were still tied though, and as they needed each other Mathias supposed there was no great danger.

In contrast, the woman barely glanced about. Her eyes were focussed on her child. Mathias looked at her, seeing her clearly for the first time. She was not so old, a handful of years older than Mathias' physical appearance. He wondered briefly in the infant was her first child. A Danish girl might be onto her second or third by that age, but different areas had different ideas on when marriage and childbirth became appropriate. Her cheek bore the mark of Sven's hand from the scene at dawn, a purplish blue blush. Her eyes were obscured by a loose lock of hair, both darker than his own.

She approached him now, hunched submissively. Her hands, still bound together at the wrist, reached toward him in supplication as she made noises Mathias could not understand.

"She needs to feed her child," Väinämöinen supplied. "He still takes only milk." The other immortal continued, renouncing sustainance for the woman and himself if only the child were able to feed.

"Certainly," he murmured, lifting the small child and placing him carefully in her arms. She had enough movement of her upper limbs to cradle the boy safely and retreated to the stool in the corner to feed him without asking Mathias to undo the ropes.

Awkwardly, she pulled at her clothing to reveal pale skin and pressed the boy's face to her chest. She must have not been able, probably for a multitude of reasons, to feed the child during the journey on the boat and now, made fussy by hunger and fear, the boy was having trouble taking to the teat. Gentle Finnish murmurs and lots of repositioning, until finally both mother and child had relaxed enough to settle into a rhythm. The mother did not look relaxed, however. She assiduously avoided Mathias and his gaze, and her posture was akin to an ill-treated dog's. Väinämöinen had suggested he tell Baldr the woman was his prize and he would bed her. Now that she was here in the house the recollection came back to him. An intriguing notion. He was, after all, victorious in some ways, and any victory deserved celebration.

As if sensing his thoughts, Väinämöinen slipped beside him. "We will be safe here?" A torrent of questions spilled from the Fenni's lips. Clearly he, too, was unnerved at being in a foreign land. "We will be safe here? What will you do in case your elders come to check in on you? Where can we be hidden?"

"You have no need to hide," Mathias said, answering the last question first. Presumably bedding the woman would void his agreement with Väinämöinen that the woman and child would not be harmed. He tore his eyes off of her and her creamy, partially-exposed breast, turning his attentions instead to his belongings brought home from the boat. Hoisting his shield above his head, he placed it on one of the iron pegs on the wall next to the other weapons. There were spaces for his breiðöx and seax too, but both axe and knife required attention before being stored. The chain mail had links requiring specialist repair, so he tossed it onto his sleeping pallet for later consideration. "My elders believe you are awaiting transport to my King. You are as safe here as you can be anywhere in Denmark, though your woman in particular should probably avoid my men, if she can. We have an interest in the," an appropriate word was difficult to find, "exotic. But no one will enter here without my permission."


There was a pause, in which Mathias scratched under his hair. His fingers were repeatedly drawn to the crunchy spike at his temple, and he recalled the angry Fenni who had grazed him there. The spirited strike had been meant for his eyes, and when that blow had been deflected a second had followed, aiming this time for the side of his neck. This second attempt had been even less successful, easily blocked by the round shield while Mathias' dagger had found a fleshy home under the man's ribcage. He had underestimated the feistiness of his brother's neighbours but fortunately his brute strength had compensated for his misassumption.

His hand fell to his side. Not only was there that bit of blood in his hair but dirt and sweat, creating a thick layer of grime. And if his hair was bad, it was nothing compared to the boggy mire of his armpits and groin. Despite the threat of being wiped out, it had to be concluded the raid, on the whole, had been successfully; accordingly he felt proudly smug, manly, and somewhat in need of a bath.

But first things first.

"Sit down. He himself took hold of some ready rags before taking a seat at the table. Starting with the seax, he held the small knife by its hilt with one hand and careful rubbed the blade with the other, flaking off flecks of dried blood that the quick wipe on the grass back on the Fenni shore had missed. It did not occur to him that it might be insensitive to clean the blade that had killed one of Väinämöinen's men in front of him. When that blade was clean to the great axe. His gaze alternated between his work, the young immortal, and the woman."You said you do not need to eat, but if you are hungry," he offered, displaying the extent of his generosity, "there is some bread and a pitcher of water. Both are two days old." He himself had a hunger that wouldn't be satisfied by stale bread, and it was likely that the town would be celebrating tonight with hearty food. "Fresh food will have to wait until I am finished here, and until after I have washed."

It was refreshing to see the ease with which Mathias handed over the baby, whose little hands fisted instantly in his mother’s tunic. His chubby wrists still looked terribly swollen and raw, but Väinämöinen knew that children bounced back from such injuries much more quickly than most warriors. Perhaps it was only because they were unable to derive from it any sort of battle story. Wounds tended to live longer when a man could put a story, fictional or otherwise, behind it. One day, the little immortal was certain, the boy would be covered in a mapping of scars and bruises like the rest of his kinsmen and a small remnant of the time he was made a bargaining chip in Danni territory in the form of a nick on his wrist would be lost.

For now, though, he was still quite upset over today’s ordeal, refusing at first to nurse until his mother coaxed his mouth open with soft persuasion. Though Väinämöinen never had a mother, he knew this sort of interaction was supposed to be soothing for both parties. The toddler became less and less fussy as he latched and suckled, occasionally grunting when his mother seemed to be losing her precarious grip on him. They would be fine for now.

“You have no need to hide,” Mathias had responded promptly to quell his fears. If that were true, it certainly would save them plenty of worry. Väinämöinen might even be able to catch a decent amount of honest sleep tonight before they began the rough journey home. The thought of being on a boat pitching up and down in the waves for even half a day longer made his still-turgid stomach pitch and knot. This seasickness was starting to become something of a nuisance and the young man was beginning to doubt that it was even seasickness at all.

Väinämöinen looked up to meet Mathias’ eyes. To his discontent, he found the other to be inspecting the young mother’s exposed breast. Though young, the Fenni immortal knew that look and its implications very well – the way a shepherd might know the way a hungry wolf looks as it bears down on a straggling runt fawn. Mathias was like any other young man, and judging by the lack of items to fill his home, he was a bachelor. Probably a lonely one at that.

Although Väinämöinen, just forging the treacherous path of puberty himself, understood basic urges, he did not sympathize with his fellow immortal at this moment. He would use the weapons on the walls to remove Mathias’ manhood personally if he violated the woman in front of her own baby.

“My elders believe you are awaiting transport to my King,” the Viking explained, clearly not noticing Väinämöinen’s disapproval, or perhaps just not caring. “You are as safe here as you can be anywhere in Denmark, though your woman in particular should probably avoid my men, if she can. We have an interest in the exotic.” The Fenni wasn’t a fan of the way Mathias drawled out that last word. He wasn’t stupid; he knew what the Viking meant. “But no one will enter here without my permission.”

“Good,” the younger man retorted, sounding none too pleased. “Though I find it rather hard to believe your people understand the concept of boundaries or personal space.”

Mathias looked to have already had his attentions drawn by a scab near his hairline, which suited Väinämöinen just fine. Better for the captives that the young Viking be distracted by his throbbing head than his throbbing… well.

The light inside the longhouse changed a bit and Väinämöinen looked up to the vent over one of the fire pits. A cloud, fluffy and nonthreatening, had drifted in front of the sun and blocked the light. It was hard to tell what time of day it was. Mathias’ windows faced the north and south, so the light did not spill through one more than the other, and with the door mostly closed, none of the furniture casted much shadow. If Väinämöinen were to guess, it was some time before midday.

Restlessness was beginning to take its hold. Back home, the rest of Väinämöinen’s clan was probably still rebuilding their homes and grieving the loss of their kin. The elders would have given a speech of mourning for those lost at the hands of the invaders and would be rousing the Fenni, his kansa, to be solidified and to stand together next time the need arose. They would be herding the deer and fishing and trying to return to the status quo after yesterday’s disruption.

“Sit down.”

Even here, captive in Mathias’ home, things were eerily normal. The Norseman had taken out his blade to polish it clean from the dried Fenni blood that coated the metal. Things were quiet save for the occasional bleat of a goat or distant shout from a Viking. Strange birdsong carried through the windows on the seabreeze. The little one had nearly suckled himself to sleep, his small fingers going loose in the fabric of his mother’s shirt. Milk dribbled lazily down the corners of his mouth as he snuggled close to her chest for a nap.

Despite the relaxed air, Väinämöinen took his seat cautiously across from Mathias, watching the knife in his hands with unwavering focus.

“You said you do not need to eat, but if you are hungry, there is some bread and a pitcher of water.” This was odd. What more could Mathias hope to gain? He’d already cooperated thus far; his people, as far as he knew, would be spared from the flood. “Both are two days old. Fresh food will have to wait until I am finished here, and until after I have washed.”

Two days old was not so very old at all for bread, the young man thought. It wasn’t uncommon that his people would store bitter rye bread for months at a time until it became crisp and brittle. Freshly baked bread was a rare treat saved for weddings and Midsummer celebrations.

“Not to question your generosity, but why would you feed us?” the Fenni asked as he shifted uncomfortably, wishing he could lean against his elbows. His tone was not accusatory, merely inquisitive. “We’re your prisoners, aren’t we?” He did have to admit that bread, fresh or not, didn’t sound terrible. The woman would probably be in need of food after nursing her baby. “You can offer it to her,” Väinämöinen said, nodding to the mother. “If she leaves any, I’ll take it. I’m not hungry now, and you know our kind can go without.” The crusted blood on Mathias’ knife was rather unappetizing when Väinämöinen remembered that it probably meant a few Fenni were dead.

“But,” he mulled, “If you’re going to bathe, and it's not too much trouble, I would appreciate it if I could join you.” The salt water from the bay that had mostly dried in his clothes was itchy and pulled against his skin, and he was coated in sweat from the journey. “If your home is as safe as you claim, those two would be better off staying here.” He thought about asking Mathias to offer his bed to them, but Väinämöinen didn’t want to become too used to pressing his luck. Making such bold requests might ruin what little relationship he had with his captor, and he’d rather the woman and child be treated well for the duration.

The soft material of the polishing cloth dragged against the roughness of his fingerprints as he rubbed slow circles around the axe head. Cathartic though the process of cleaning his weapons was, he wouldn't feel truly 'at home' until the pungent grime he had brought home with him had been washed away. First things first, though - it would be a tragedy if the blood caused the blade to tarnish.

"Not to question your generosity, but why would you feed us?"

Focused on his work, Mathias did not look up. "Why not?" The last pass of the cloth came away clean. He folded the material in half, giving a few hard swipes down the length of the edge to buff the silver.

"We're your prisoners, aren't we?"

Mathias did finally look up, half-questioning, but the youth seemed honestly perplexed. If anyone was anyone's prisoner at this point in time, Mathias would have been the Fenni's. Väinämöinen and the suckling toddler wielded the threat of a cataclysmic flood that could destroy the southern Norsemen, though if they had forgot their own power then the Dane was not about to remind them. "Habit, I guess," he said, dropping his gaze and leaning back to inspect the axe head from a different angle. "No point in a starving or ill-treated slave. Besides, most decide to become Dani when they earn their freedom. I'm half-fond of them already."

Satisfied the weapon had been returned to its regular condition, Mathias gave it a final pass over with the cloth before standing and heaving the axe overhead to its postion on the wall. Wiping his hands on his thights, he stopped to admire it for a few seconds. It was his very favourite weapon. It had been at his side through many victories.

Behind him, Väinämöinen accepted the explanation with a nod. "You can offer it to her," he said, gesturing to the woman. She was resting her head against the wall of the longhouse, son slung diagonally across her chest. "If she leaves any, I'll take it. I'm not hungry now, and you know our kind can go without."

The Dane acquiesced, crossing the length of the long house to the pot above the fire. He had hurriedly stashed the greater part of a leftover loaf of bread there the morning they had embarked for Väinämöinen's homeland. As he approached the pot and lifted the lid, the younger blonde added, "But, if you're going to bathe, and it's not too much trouble, I would appreciate it if I could join you."

"What about them?" The loaf of bread, minus one corner, looked the same as ever and quite edible.

"If your home is as safe as you claim, those two would be better off staying here."

"If you say so," the Dane agreed, hoping that the weapons were hanging either too high or were too heavy for the Fenni woman to get hold of. He had no desire to be greeted by a knife on his return. He picked up the small loaf, feeling the staleness in its stiff sides, and had a sudden recollection of how he had been too excited about going viking to eat more than a couple of mouthfuls. If only he had known what the journey held in store, he would have been fair too impatient to stop for even one bite. It was lucky that the bread was not going to waste.

As he began to approach her, the Fenni woman jolted. Eyes wide, she clutched her boy and drew herself back, as if trying to blend into the wall. Her gaze flicked towards the loaf of bread and then away again, as if she had taken it for some kind of weapon. Contrary to his earlier brief interest, Mathias felt a sudden flush of irritation. "It's just bread," he said impatiently, half-expecting her to understand him. He thrust the bread in her face. "Do you want it or not?"

Under his unsympathetic eyes the woman slowly unwound an arm from around her child and finally took hold of the loaf. As soon as her fingers gripped, he let go and turned away from her. Being a task more than a plaything, she held little interest for him at present. "Bathing, well fine. We'll go now. I'm itchy."

It did not take long before Mathias had stuffed his pocket with the hard cube of lye-infused tallow and tucked fresh clothes under his arm. "There's a small swimming hole, we'll go there," he decided. The regular spots would be full of Vikings whose wives demanded clean bedfellows before administering a proper welcome home, and Mathias had an inkling that perhaps he should not be seen to be too chummy with the Fenni if he wanted to be able to come back to the village after he helped for Väinämöinen escape. "It's a bit further away than usual, but fewer people."

At the door, he paused and pointed at the two Fenni staying behind. "Don't go anywhere," he warned, though they could not possibly understand his words. "And don't touch anything. Especially not," his eyes passed over the weapons, "those. Come on, Vaino, this way."

Warily, the woman dared to undo the protective clutch she held around her child in favor of taking the loaf of bread. Like a cat cornered and made to strike, her arm shot out and retracted in one smooth motion. Her eyes narrowed, half of her trying to understand the odd sounds Mathias was growling at her and the other, like Väinämöinen, trying to determine the source of his sudden charity. The Dane seemed to hold little interest in her and as soon as his back was turned, she began a thorough inspection of the loaf, tearing off a small bit and then crumbling it into smaller pieces in search of needles or sharp splinters of wood meant to kill dumb Fenni who were quick to give in to the desires of their stomachs.

Though unnoticed, Väinämöinen nodded to her. It was okay to eat it. Mathias wouldn’t hurt them; he couldn’t afford to, and aside from that, if the Fenni were in a position to believe their captor, it was not his tradition to ill-treat his prisoners.

If they were in a position to believe him. If.

“Bathing,” the young Viking sighed, sounding rather uninterested in the domesticities of tending to slaves. “Well fine. We’ll go now. I’m itchy.”

“Fine,” the boy nodded in agreement and with a bit of struggle without the added balance from his arms managed to get his footing. It would have felt wonderful to have his hands free, but this was the price one paid for an attempted assault in full view of his captor’s allies. He supposed Mathias would have to undo the binds once they reached the water or he would be forced to clean Väinämöinen himself.

Mathias had shoved something into his pocket and gathered up a fresh set of clothes before making for the door. “There’s a small swimming hole, we’ll go there. It’s a bit further away than usual, but fewer people.”

Again, Väinämöinen responded without trepidation. “Fine.” Fewer people meant fewer sets of eyes around to witness should Mathias take Väinämöinen’s own blade to his throat, but again, the boy had no reason to believe the Dane would sabotage what he believed to be his only chances for survival by doing something as stupid as attacking an immortal.

Perhaps Mathias had not yet died, Väinämöinen contemplated for a moment, studying what exposed skin he could see for any scars that appeared fatal. Maybe he didn’t know how their kind was able to die in one place and wake elsewhere, surrounded by the head village elders. But no, he remembered now, on the boat, Mathias had told him. Stolen puukko in hand, he had suggested that if Väinämöinen had drowned himself, he would have woken somewhere else. The Viking knew how it worked.

As the two passed through the doorway, Mathias stopped and turned back, eyes set hard on the woman and finger pointing at her. “Don’t go anywhere.” The scene was what one would expect to see as a man trains his dog, but it was a rather harsh way to address a young mother. “And don’t touch anything. Especially not those.” Mathias acknowledged the weapons mounted on the wall overhead with a flick of the eyes before turning back towards the outside world. “Come on, Vaino, this way.”

Hanging behind for a moment, Väinämöinen watched the woman, meeting her gaze. Slowly, she lifted her head, staring straight up at a heavy axe suspended just temptingly out of her reach. If she stood on a stool or table, she would probably be able to grasp it. With a calm, blank expression, she returned her gaze to Väinämöinen’s eyes. Though her mouth did not twitch into a grin nor brows furrow into a scowl, the stern steel of her gaze spoke volumes in the silence. The young boy, just as calmly intense, shook his head, nodded to the sleeping baby curled in the woman’s lap, turned, and followed Mathias.

The trek to the water was lengthy, just as the Dane had warned, but it was not a hard trip. In comparison to the mountainous north and rolling south of Väinämöinen’s homeland, Danni lands seemed to be almost completely flat. The foliage was similar, lots of pines and some smaller trees with broad leaves. It was so much like Suomi but so very foreign.

As the two walked on, captor pushing captive in front of him with a firm grip on his binds just in case someone should happen upon them, Väinämöinen became increasingly thankful that he declined the Viking’s offer of food. The little blonde’s stomach was knotted up uncomfortably and the sides of his head throbbed. With every step he took, he began to even notice a nagging dizziness that came in waves. He wrote it off as a lack of sleep and the discomfort of having his arms pinned back for hours on end and convinced himself he’d feel better just getting the salt and sweat off of his body. A visit to the sauna would have been wonderful, the boiling steam melting the pain away from his muscles. Unfortunately, it was unlikely that Mathias’ people would have saunas. A dip in the river would have to do.

Mostly spent in silence – for what did one say to someone after they’d threatened their entire people? – the two reached their destination when the sun had already swung to its highest point. The bank of the river was lined with wiry pines and small saplings. To get to the water’s edge would require a bit of a decline. With Mathias still forcing him forward, Väinämöinen was guided to a pebbly path that had been worn bare. In a place as abandoned as this, the Fenni expected it to be a deer run. After a moment of slipping and sliding and almost losing his balance on multiple occasions, the boy splashed ankle-deep into the chilly water.

As he tested the ground below to gauge the depth, Väinämöinen reminded his fellow immortal, “I’ll need my ropes undone or I’ll need you to wash me.” It seemed that Mathias had already begun to pull off his own clothes. As he waited for assistance, or perhaps he was only waiting to be denied, the boy mulled aloud, “It’s not often I meet someone like us. It’s almost unfortunate we have to be enemies now.”

He shut the door behind them. For the sake of appearances, Mathias steered Väinämöinen in front of him, a firm grip on the child's wrists.

They did not talk, not even after passing the last house of the village where the chances of being observed for slim. For Mathias, it was a comfortable silence. Preferring as he did to bathe by swimming rather than the more convenient bucket-of-water method, the route was so familiar that his feet found their own path and left his mind to wander in inconsequential circles. His eyes alighted on each tree, stone, and bird, and he could not help thinking that by making this deal with the Fenni he had procured its safety. That was, after all, his function in life.

Every now and then the niggling realisation that he had nearly single-handedly destroyed it all in a moment of carelessness came to mind, but he was able to ignore that reality for the most part.

In time, the trees became sparser and their path made the transition from soil into rocky pebbles. The track, which navigated a sloping bank down to the slow-moving water, had been worn fairly smooth by generations of Danish feet. Despite that, Väinämöinen seemed to lose his footing at the last moment, tottering a few paces into the shallows before regaining his balance and coming to a stop. Mathias glanced both ways and smiled, pleased to find that they were indeed the only ones out here.

Instantly, he released his grip on the young boy to undo various buckles and began to pull the itchy, smelly tunic over his head.

”I'll need my ropes undone or I'll need you to wash me.”

Mathias laughed into the undershirt covering his head as he continued to undress. He, Danmark, wash this Fenni? I think not.

When his clothing had been peeled off, Mathias secured them under a heavy rock in the shallows which, he hoped, would allow them to soak while he bathed but prevent them from floating downriver. The fresh set of clothes he left higher up on the bank, near the tree line.

Naked, he stretched, savouring libration from the confines of dirty fabric. Finally.

Väinämöinen was looking over to the far bank. ”It's not often I meet someone like us,” he commented. ”It's almost unfortunate we have to be enemies now.”

”Unfortunate for you,” Mathias retorted, frowning mid-stretch. As a born explorer, he enjoyed meeting someone new and squaring off against them. He had almost grown fond of Väinämöinen's prickly company, and even if the little Fenni wasn't of a sunny disposition there was also joy in speaking that private language again.

But the younger blonde was right. With the Fenni's ability to destroy Mathias' people with a mere piece of twine it was clear that this new threat must be dealt with swiftly and decisively. As to the logistics... well, it would be tricky to defeat an enemy who could so quickly commit genocide, but Mathias was not without friends.


Norja. Nor can use his abilities to stop Vaino from being able to call up a storm, and in the meantime Sve and I attack from two directions, and kill all of them.

As a rudimentary plan, Mathias figured it was a go. And, bonus, he would be able to 'play' with his best friends, which could only be fun.

Poor Väinämöinen, Mathias thought with a grin. One against three was hardly fair, especially when the three were used to working as a pack. It was going to be brilliant.

But that was later, and this was now. With no specific ill-will – at least, none presently - Mathias reached down to pick up Väinämöinen's knife. "I always come out on top, one way or the other."

When the bonds were cut, he tossed the knife onto the pile of clean clothes and rooted out the soap. "But I don't really want to think about how I'm going to kill you right now. Swimming hole's this way.”

He took a few steps to the right, where the water was bluer, and soon it was up to his waist. Another few steps and it was at his chest. ”Brr,” he commented, rubbing the soap to create a thick lather.

Somehow, rid of his clothes, Mathias looked less intimidating. It was easier for Väinämöinen to accept that despite being a Viking warrior, and despite being the embodiment of an entire race, this was just a young man not unlike himself. The two had the same pale skin and the same flaxen hair, ten fingers, ten toes and a belly like any human’s. Stripped of their steel and iron weapons, the two were equal in fist and tooth. Väinämöinen considered strangling the other while he was distracted, but the problem of his hands being tied remained. Besides, as much as he’d like revenge, he needed someone to get them a boat.

“Unfortunate for you,” the Danni quipped.

In a murmur hushed by the slosh of the water, Väinämöinen responded, “Yes, that was the implication. You’re not the one in bonds, after all.”

The swimming hole was fed clear, cold water by a body too narrow to be a river and yet too broad to be a stream. For someone of the young Fenni’s stature, the gentle current made bathing easier, taking away the worry of an undertow. The noise, however, made it difficult to listen for approaching footfall or the snap of twigs in the surrounding forests.

Väinämöinen, in his efforts to keep his guard up, had not heard the threat coming from the Viking’s lips. Nor had he noticed that Mathias had approached him, puukko in hand and poised to slice, until the elder was a mere hair’s breadth from him.

“Ei!” he shrieked in his own language, sure all at once that he would be killed by his own blade in total seclusion.

There was a clumsy effort by Väinämöinen to double over, protecting his soft underside from the bloodthirsty immortal hovering over him. Finding purchase on the slimy, mossy rocks on the riverbed was a chore and the Fenni only succeeded in creating a bit of a splash.

But Mathias went for the boy’s wrists, and not his neck, and it wasn’t his hands that were being sawed through, but the coarse ropes; he was freeing him.

“But I don’t really want to think about how I’m going to kill you right now.”

At long last, Väinämöinen could move his arms. The limbs fell from his back and into the water like rotted branches on a dead tree, completely numbed and seemingly void of life. The sensation of the chilly water rushing past his broken skin was not felt. The only pain, at least primarily, came in his shoulders and the knotted sinews of his neck from having held them back for so long. With a whimper, he watched his arms move in the water, watched his fingers flex though he could not feel them, nor could he feel himself causing their movement. His skin looked ghostly white, but where the binds had once been had left marks the color of crushed late-summer blueberries. Once feeling had been restored, the wounds would be sore, but they were not serious. In fact, the raw bands around his ankles were already much less swollen and tender, and it had only been hours since Mathias had undone his ropes.

“Swimming hole’s this way.”

Not wanting to be left behind as easy prey for another, sturdier Viking, Väinämöinen inelegantly maneuvered his clothes off, scrubbed the fabric together under the flow of the water, and scrambled over to the water’s edge to leave them out to dry. Mathias had already made his way into the deep, so the Fenni hurriedly took after him, careful not to turn an ankle on the uneven bed. Soon the ground gave way and Väinämöinen found himself up to his neck in clean water, and it became necessary for him to paddle to keep himself afloat. His fellow immortal had already busied himself with scrubbing down with a small cake of something that looked not unlike the cakes of ashes and lard they used when washing.

Unsure of whether or not he’d be offered any soap, the Fenni contented himself with diving and paddling around, and finally just floating on his back when he became too nervous that his swimming might be seen as an attempted escape. The breeze rushing across his wet skin made him shiver, but he was glad to realize that he could feel the sensation in his arms, watching as goosebumps formed under the yet downy hair.

“Were you able to sleep at all with the sea spray wetting your face all last night, Viking?” Väinämöinen pondered aloud, finding himself being lulled to sleep by the warm sun and gently rocking pool. “Your people seem to like the water. Perhaps you are a race of fish-men. Maybe you even have gills. Are your people born underwater?”

Such a calmness overfell Väinämöinen in the routine calmness of a midday bath that he found it hard to believe he was a captive. Reasoning with himself, he could almost completely convince himself that there was no need to fret – he had the upper hand in this case. Mathias could do little more than bend to his will or have his entire culture destroyed, thereby killing himself. Perhaps if some village leader caught wind of a subordinate young Viking keeping three slaves all for himself, then there could be repercussions, but Mathias had already assured him that no one would come to check on him in his home.

Feeling brave, he continued, “My people are born in the ice, a place where the sun doesn’t rise at all during the cold season. Some of our mountains have gone nine hundred whole moons without the snow melting.” Rolling onto his belly and swimming closer to the other, Väinämöinen grinned. “You may have the water as your advantage, but we have the mountains and the snow as ours. Next time you come, we’ll be ready.”

It took a few moments to scrub the grime off of his body but eventually all that was left of the dirt and sweat were a few suds disappearing downstream. His hair dripped into his eyes, heavy with water, making him blink as he gave himself a quick inspection. Even his nails were clean, a tribute to just how much lathering had been needed to wash himself. That will do.

While he had been washing, Vainamoinen had been swimming. The Fenni had taken to the water with a confident whirl of lean limbs, ducking under the water and resurfacing some feet from the point where he had disappeared. Like the Danes, the Fenni must be comfortable in the water. Perhaps they, like him, made good use of lakes, streams and seas. The Fenni darted around, probably enjoying the feeling of having free use of his arms. Confident he would not go too far, Mathias leaned back until the water took his weight and his feet left the pebbled streambed.

He was drifting slowly with the current, scrutinising the sky in a moment of rare calm - there was a solitary whispy cloud that looked like a fish - and fantasising about how much power he himself would have accumulated if he had some of the Fenni's power when Väinämöinen to think aloud. ”Were you able to sleep at all with the sea spray wetting your face all last night, Viking?”

’I have a name, you don’t have to call me by a description… weak, scrawny boy.”

Wouldn't it be fantastic? Give me all your valuables or I'll call up so much rain your courtyard will turn into a lake. You could get creative with it. Invent some punishments, impress your friends. Everyone would race to be his ally - you'd want the one person who could start or end a drought on your side, even without the ability to create end-of-the-world floods.

’Your people seem to like the water. Perhaps you are a race of fish-men. Maybe you even have gills. Are your people born underwater?”
Mathias could not help but smile. He had a passion for the sea in particular, upon which he had relied for as long as he could remember to provide his people with food or take them somewhere that could. It very rarely let them down. His towns were dotted all along her coast, nestled close to the side of reliable life-source, which suited Mathias quite well as both sight and sound of the waves was precious to him. This had prompted his bosses to observe that if the sea were a woman he would probably be hopelessly in love with her, with a strong fondness for her fresh-water sisters. Mathias imagined, not for the first time, being able to breathe underwater, and sighed.

If they could, they wouldn't have to fear the Fenni storms, for one. Imagine being able to flood a country and then swim under the water for days at a time. Maybe create some underwater villages.

”My people are born in the ice, a place where the sun doesn’t rise at all during the cold season. Some of our mountains have gone nine hundred whole moons without the snow melting.”

That was not something worth boasting about, Mathias thought, as according to his worldview a people would only be forced to inhospitable corners of the earth if they were not strong enough to claim a more temperate clime. He imagined Väinämöinen's people huddled together around a sorry-looking fire, walled-in by solid, unthawing ice, and gave a grunt in reply.

It was a far cry from what he imagined he would do if he had an ounce of the Fennis' power.

A small amount of freshwater splashed in his face as the young boy came closer. "You may have the water as your advantage, but we have the mountains and the snow as ours. Next time you come, we'll be ready."

Mathias rolled over to face the smiling boy, eyebrows raising. "Ice?" He noted the younger nation had swum within what Mathais estimated to be arm's length. "I'd stick with your magic, if I was you. That's a bit more impressive than ice. Think about it. You could trap your enemies in a pit and call over a rain cloud to keeping raining until they drowned."

He tread water, wondering why the Fenni had led with such a weak threat. If Väinämöin was concerned about ongoing raids, now was the time to drive home the threat of magical catastrophes. His people could conjure floods, storms, tidal waves, gales... and Väinämöinen had gone with 'it's icy here'. Something about that just did not seem right. No wonder the Fenni were trapped in their nearly inhabitable lands; they clearly had no backbone.

Maybe he wouldn't need Norja to help block his magic after all.

With half-closed eyes, he regarded the boy. "Ice? Snow? Really? No imagination at all," Mathias scoffed. It was almost like a joke. "Ah, you're trying to tell me it's not worth raiding you because your land is useless?" he guessed, trying out the truth of the statement. "You're right we didn't get the haul we would have from other places, but every now and then you want to try something new for a bit of fun."

The fish-shaped cloud floated behind a tree, leaving a clear sky.

"With your magic and my raiding skills, we would make a good team, you know. You clearly have no imagination if you haven't turned this power your people have into actual power and wealth, I can help you there. With my help you wouldn't need to cower up in the ice. Tell you what, you call me over a rain cloud, maybe throw in some thunder, and not only will I not raid your people again but we'll become allies." He scanned the horizon again. "Hardly a cloud up there. Come on, Vaino, you know it's a good deal. I'll even throw in freeing all the Fenni slaves that are in the docks."

Judging by his objection to Väinämöinen’s nomenclature, Mathias seemed to be just as ignorant of Finnish naming traditions as he was tetchy. The more northern of the two peoples had always been prone to calling things by their descriptors whether because of their language of limited new words or because of their religion that forbade speaking the names of some people and objects. Väinämöinen was almost sure that they would never have been able to distinguish all the animals of the forest and fens without such practical terms as wide-brow and upright-ear. How bulky, to have an arbitrary word for each thing.

“You are a Viking,” the boy shrugged, slicking his hair back with the water on his hands. “And ‘boy’, yes, but weak and scrawny…” The Finn shrugged once more and motioned to the healing scratch on Mathias’ chest. Such a minuscule nick wasn’t much of a battle wound, but Väinämöinen had been the one to leave it on the oh-so strong and brawny Mathias. “Then that must have been very embarrassing.”

There had been a smile from the older of the two when Väinämöinen had posed the question about coming from the sea, but his threats about the chilling powers of his own homeland came up short and Mathias met them with an uninterested expression.

“Ice? I'd stick with your magic, if I was you. That's a bit more impressive than ice. Think about it. You could trap your enemies in a pit and call over a rain cloud to keeping raining until they drowned.”

Väinämöinen shrugged. When at times he chose to live in the northern regions with his people that spoke in a different tongue than the normal fair-haired Fenni of the swamplands, he’d seen plenty of outsiders who wished to take his people’s possessions stopped dead in their tracks by a wall of arctic wind, literally frozen where they stood. He wasn’t sure if the land was protecting him or he the land, both of them intertwined in ways the young man hadn’t fully come to understand.

“Ice? Snow? Really? No imagination at all.”

“If you’re not intimidated, then you’re free to pay me a visit in the winter. I can tell from the way your sun shines that you’ve never experienced a winter without sunlight.”

Something crossed the Dane’s mind and he concluded, “Ah, you're trying to tell me it's not worth raiding you because your land is useless? You're right we didn't get the haul we would have from other places, but every now and then you want to try something new for a bit of fun."

“New?” the Fenni questioned, sounding a bit shocked. “Your raids are nothing new; we’ve been dealing with Vikings for years now. It’s easier to get rid of mosquitoes.” The fruits his land yielded on a frequent basis, the veritable sampo of his southlands, were not worth mentioning; no point in making them attractive to the Norsemen.

“With your magic and my raiding skills, we would make a good team, you know.”

A nearby animal scurrying along the crunchy, dead leaves of the forest floor alerted Väinämöinen, the boy sinking down into the water until he was concealed up to his nose. His heart had lurched at the sound and every muscle felt ready to make a mad scramble for the shore if need be. It was obvious after his initial panic that the sound was far too light to be the footfall of a human, and so he let himself resurface and relax.

“Team?”

“You clearly have no imagination if you haven't turned this power your people have into actual power and wealth, I can help you there. With my help you wouldn't need to cower up in the ice.”

The Fenni harrumphed, water bubbling under his nose. As if he needed or desired a berserker’s help.

“Tell you what, you call me over a rain cloud, maybe throw in some thunder, and not only will I not raid your people again but we'll become allies.”

Mathias looked serious, but there was no way that he could be. Was there? Väinämöinen gave him the most unimpressed look he could muster, brows arched, eyes half lidded, and lips drawn straight to complete the look that begged of Mathias, Are you just stupid?

“Hardly a cloud up there. Come on, Vaino, you know it's a good deal. I'll even throw in freeing all the Fenni slaves that are in the docks.”

With a sigh, the smaller of the two paddled towards the shore, walking once his toes brushed the pebbled bed, to stretch his legs more and to dry off under the sun. “You must think I’m as unwise as you are if you think I’d fall for something like that.” He scoffed as he bent low to check himself foot-to-head for leeches on the dry rocks. Casting a glance back over his shoulder, he repeated, just to be sure he had the bizarre offer straight, “Team up? You and I? No deal, Mathias.” He clipped the syllables carefully – mah-tee-ahss. He could use proper names, too. “Sure, it might work out for a year or two. Our people could live in peace, hunt together, raid together. But yours would become greedy.” Naked, but drier, Väinämöinen sat himself on a small boulder and combed through his hair with his fingers, arms sore without the cold water to freeze the pain and stiffness.

With a smirk directed at the other, he proclaimed, “I know how you Vikings work – you force outsider women to have your babies and then teach those babies your language and your religion. They become Vikings, whether they were Fenni or Slav before. Dropping our guard would just be assisting your quest for slaves.” His smirk turned into a low titter. “And I might not be able to speak your language, but I understand your elders’ tones well enough. They don’t consider you very high up in the chain of command, right? To make a deal with a lower ranking member of the village, well…” The boy shrugged, voice having taken on a condescending tone. “I wouldn’t stoop that low.”

The boy held up his hands, fingers parallel with the horizon to measure how many hours of daylight were left. "I want to check on the woman. I don't feel good about leaving her alone."