#little-tortoise

This was bad omen. She didn’t want this man under her roof. There was something – what? – in him that made her blood curl. The malevolent glint in his green eyes. The way he carried himself, like he was royalty. The dark, graveling voice he had used when he told his name. That name. Hveðrungr. (Or: Loki finds himself deprived of his powers, kept on a rocky island in the middle of the sea.)

Note: (I've recently begun new employment and everything has really gotten worse from there! No time to do much of anything so please excuse my brevity here.) Enthralled has been a bright spot in my weeks lately, as a new chpter is posted regularly on Fridays. I confess I know very little about the author other than I've enjoyed reading this work, and I look forward to where it will end up. It tends toward Nordic Historical Drama rather than SciFi/Romance, be mindful of potential discomfort or triggers.

- Author's Page on AO3 -

She was standing on the deck with the other women, watching the langskip coming deeper into the fjord, her rowers using their oars in cadence. The wind had slightly calmed down, but the rain was still pouring, and she clutched a hand on her cloak to make sure it kept closed over her chest, and over her precious load. The tiny little boy who she was waiting with. Who she was about to introduce to his father. Who was to be officially named by his father, even though she had started to think of him as Eskil, after her own father. She held him tighter against her heart, sharing her warmth with him. He was sound asleep, comforted by her presence and the smell of her skin and of her milk. Dagbjört, her sister-in-law, was standing next to her, holding her daughter by the hand, her youngest son perched on her hip. She caught her eye and gave an encouraging smile, her cheeks round and red from the cold air. “Ásgeir is going to be so proud when he sees his son”, she said. She nodded, smiling. I miss him, she thought.