#es entry

I have prepared to re-enter civilization when the long winter comes. By targeting trading vessels, I help myself to their goods, loading my clothes with coins and trinkets before taking my victim overboard.

It is easy work to divide my spoils such that selling them does not arouse suspicion. Once I had been able to steal finery that disguised my throat wound, I could even move among traders as a wan - but living - broker.

Only once have I been caught - while selling a signet ring, a money man noted that he recognized it, that it belonged to some Norman nobleman who had thrown himself to sharks. It occurred to me to weep, and I fabricated a tragedy of him bedding me and then threatening me with death after I found out he was wed already, and it's so good to know that he can't turn up again asking what I did with his ring. This got the nosy man to shut up quite fast.

I discovered the too-bright mirror of my long-winter hunting. In summer as the days grow long I am forced to live in darkness. I can fill my lungs with ice-cold water and sink, or I can seek a dwelling-place with no living soul inside. Most days, I find it easiest to sink.

I suspect I've slipped quite a ways into monstrosity. The longest days I've torn fish apart, lapping at their salty blood in the already-salty water. My clothes have fallen to shreds. But I find calm in the depths, too.

It took time to repair Sigyn's Kiss, but she was once-again seaworthy. So to the sea she was taken.

At night, I could move silently, slipping up alongside longer boats. Some of them were unfamiliar, with multiple sails and masts, and no oars to speak of. Usually foreigners are on these ships. I could be in and out of one of those ships in moments, diving overboard with a man and tearing his throat apart under the water. By the time his body could be recovered, the sharks would have done far worse, and I would be far out of sight.

I am a predator first and foremost. I must stay fed. I can't let that loss happen again. It has been at least a hundred years since I died. My Ragnhild is gone.

I do not understand what happened. It vanished in an instant. We found a place where we can not be found, and I came to a stop.

It's a blur. I remember Ragnhilde plying me with food, begging me to rest, and then - she stopped. Why did she stop? I am so hungry now. Why can't I find her? I've listened for her voice for days, and there is nothing. I hiked into the village at night. The people are dressed strangely.

I know that I must move among them in silence. It is the time of year when the sun does not rise - the same as when we set sail - so it can not have been long.

I was mistaken. It has been some time. Sigyn's Kiss was intact, but barely. And I sated my hunger with blood. I was mad with lust for it. The wound at my throat bled anew. I have found that I can't recall where it came from.

Karsi could not allow me the decency of a quiet death - I was found by Ragnhild, who tried to stop the bleeding and called for help. When I did not stop wailing even as my body ran out of blood, the cries of help turned to horror, and the good folk turned on me.

My Ragnhild was smart. She got us away from the quickly growing mob and onto Sigyn's Kiss. We sailed South.

Here I will be Drifa Brandottir. We do not know what is in store for us here. I do not know what is to become of me, with no blood, no heart, a wight made flesh. But Ragnhild - she does not mind my corpse-cold touch. It is more than I could have hoped for.