The silent tide that left war's shores behind.

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~ The start of the Icelandic thaw, in the spring of 1002 CE. ~

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"Pa, come on! Please, please hurry up!" Cried a young boy with stars in his eyes. Little hands clutched at the frayed hem of his father's tunic with the gravest urgency a 6-year old faced in their life: returning to play soldier during the slim window of time all the kids were at the village square at once, before the night blizzard drifted into their little hamlet to bury the freshly-shoveled pathways.

The thaw always brought unpredictable weather. And for that, the kids played longer and the men toiled harder. They must; the two months of relative warmth was a time crunch for everyone.

"You must go easier on the other kids, Thorfinn. Your strength is different from theirs," Said the man. He was sitting on a stiff hay bale in front of their house, ankle-deep in snow he hadn't shoveled yet and bent over a little toy sword as his son paced back and forth in front of him. Even in a position so benign, the man had a stifling grandeur about him that even an ascetic anchorite would look upon and understand that this man, this mortal, was molded in Odin's greatest graces and grown from the seeds of Freyr's most bountiful harvest.

Thors Snorreson was a sinner, turned sower. And every day that he rose with the sun to engage in the easy tedium of domesticity, he was aware of it. Those qualities gleamed in his son and daughter, too. For better, or for worse.

"You'll shovel manure for the next month if another friend of yours comes crying to me with a broken arm." Thors spoke. He said it softly, but there was a dreadful finality in his words that made his youngest progeny flinch.

"Yes, father." Thorfinn replied. The boy's tone matched the solemn curve of his shoulders. He watched his father apply a mixture of tar and pitch to the handle of the sword, before tightly binding it with leather wraps for better grip. It was an upgrade that Thorfinn had hounded his father for for days, and when it was finally finished, he beamed and snatched it from his father before sauntering away.

"Thanks, Pa!" He squealed, already halfway down the trail. "Come on! Watch me fight!"

It was nigh twilight, but they were still a few hours off from the storm on the horizon. And so, what followed was an evening like all the others: watch the children play, round the kids home, feed and water the cattle, listen to Lief's latest's exploits, dinner, then prayer, reading practice, and bed.

But truthfully, Thors carried on more soberly than usual. No one else noticed it save for Helga. It had been days since the incident with the slave man. Dead and buried now, but Thors kept seeing that runaway everywhere in his periphery - 'runaway', because 'slave' was an ugly word venerated by ugly men. That skin-and-bones figure still existed in the shadows and in the corners of Thors's vision despite the cold light of day.

The day the runaway was found, the chains had been easy to cut; frozen solid and made brittle by the chill. But it had been all for naught. By the time Thors had finished his final examination of the body, a middling-sized crowd had formed at his family's door, staring at the dead man lying among the tangled furs which had been the last thing he'd ever rearranged in this world. Now, after having passed onto the next, the husk he left behind in this realm would be rearranged as well; into a shallow grave. Had there ever been a clearer omen in all of Thors's time in this desolate and beautiful cold? Surely not. The world was changing, he could feel it. And things were surely coming. After Halfdan and his chains, what next?

Helga - Freyja bless her loving soul - was the only one on this earth who understood Thors better than himself and even the gods. He cared deeply for her, cherished her as the mother of his children. And Helga adored him with a shocking gratefulness that Thors had fulfilled the base threshold of fatherhood, and so much more. But they did not love each other. The twine of normal, waking existence had come unclipped, spilling reality beads every which way, and his wife was holding the scissors and smiling at him, loving and understanding as always. Good for her.

Now, in the present, it was twilight, and Thors was standing easily beside the fire alongside the other men. An ale horn was in his hand and he sipped good-naturedly as one of the elders recalled the Sagas with a loud and lilting tone. Nearby, Thorfinn was squealing and cawing as he and the children swung their swords.

But then a sudden chill, all too familiar, all too honed from his years as a damnable sinner, alerted him to something in the distance.

Thors turned stiffly, looking out into the great black beyond, squinting against the first white whisps of snowfall. But he sensed the presence before seeing it. Someone was out there. And whoever they were, they were trudging closer.

Thoughtlessly, his hands tensed towards his belt for a sword that wasn't there. A muscle memory, jerked into action like a bear clawing its way out of hibernation beneath layers of softness and warmth and peace.

"Pa, what is it?" Said Ylva as Thors furrowed a brow towards the snow and winds. His daughter was sitting nearby, stubbornly shivering because she'd rather be cold than turn in early and miss the stories.

"Someone is coming."

"H-Huh?" Her eyes widened before squinting up at her father. "What do you mean?" She craned her neck, then gasped, leaping to her feet. "Oh, I see it! Another slave?"

"Not sure. Hard to tell from this distance." A clenched jaw accompanied Thors's response. He took a step forward in the snow, and that was all he needed to finally see the foggy silhouette of a cloak, whipping in the wind like a battered flag. Hard to discern against the backdrop of night indeed, unless one was looking straight at it.

Perhaps it was another slave. Or perhaps something else. Experience taught him to be ready for anything, even monsters. Especially monsters. Thors was not so naïve to think that Odin wouldn't send one of Hel's dogs up to cause havoc for a reason so cruel and incredulous it would elude a mortal's comprehension. Why? Because monsters were a boon to gods. Imagine the number of prayers just one would incite.

But was the figure that approached now, a monster?

"You there, identify yourself!" The command was automatic, and Thors cringed at his own accusing tone. A prerogative honed from his time with the Jomsvikings. The shout garnered him some attention from the surrounding men and kids, who did not yet see the figure but also leapt to attention. Then, bringing his hands up to cup around his mouth, Thors tried again, "It's a cold evening to travel! Are you alright, stranger?"

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