#vikings crossover

Part 2

You got up and stretched before you took off your dragon armor and dragon wool outer layers and lounged around your home away from home and made yourself something to eat before you got into bed in just your dragon silk under layers, what essentially looked like a tank top and leggings and got into your own bed and read from your ‘journal’ all the “history” you’d be changing if things went according to plan as the fire in your shelter stayed ever burning, keeping things comfortable which lulled you into sleep too before long. 

You woke up only moments before Bjorn did and barely had your dragon wool outer layers on by the time he opened his eyes. 

“Am I in Valhalla?” He asked as he looked around, this..didn’t look like Valhalla. Although he wasn’t in nearly as much pain as his mind told him he should be in, so maybe…

“No,” you shook your head no as you continued getting dressed and put your armor on over your wool layers because you didn’t trust him to not harm you yet. The way any wounded animal bites. 

“What is that?” He questioned as he gestured to what you were wearing. 

“It’s my armor.” You answered as you fastined it and ran your hands over it. 

“What’s it made out of?” He asked as he eyed it’s texture. 

“Dragon scales.” you beamed proudly. 

“What?” He shook his head in confusion. 

“I’m a Valkyrie from Asgard remember? Well, more specifically Neveah. Dragons still fly free there, they’ve died out here a long time ago. At home we’ve also domesticated them. Dragons are like…big scaley horses as far as temperament goes. When dragons shed their scales so that they can grow new, bigger ones, we collect them and make armor out of them. When they do, they reveal the dragon’s down, the way a duck or goose has down, like a soft fuzzy hair under each scale. However for some breeds of dragon, we’ve bred them so that the downy hair grows more abundantly instead of the scales, it grows like sheep’s wool, mare dragons, their down is much finer than a stud dragon’s is, mares grow what’s called dragon silk, stud dragon’s down is much thicker and it’s a bit rougher, they grow dragon’s wool. It’s really hard to dye to make different colors, ten times longer than it takes anything else to dye but once it dyes, the color never fades, ever. It’s also super durable while being breathable and depending on how you weave it, it can take the sweat off of you while not letting you get wet like if you’re out in the rain and it’s a bit stretchy. But it’s so tough that only dragon’s teeth can cut it decently well, Thankfully dragons regrow their teeth every shed and then once they reach full size, they regrow a new set every ten years or so. Baby dragons’ teeth, we use those for needles, medium teeth, perfect for small knives and scissors, the larger teeth, swords.” You explained as you pointed to the different layers of clothes you were wearing to show the differences in fabrics as Bjorn reached out to feel the fabric before you gestured to your dragon toothed sword on your hip before you handed him your dragon tooth knife to look at. It looked like rainbow titanium. It was always important to mix the truth in with the lies so that the whole was more believable because the truth was, back at home in the future medical science brought back dragons, all the varieties in ancient lore but with a twist of being domesticated. And you were really from an island nation called Neveah. 

“You really are a Valkyrie.” He breathed in awe before he handed the blade back to you. 

“Well on this plane I am, back home I’m a Dragoner.” You smiled proudly as you put the knife back in its place, and that was true, you and your whole family were Dragoners. Some of the best in Neveah. “Are you hungry?” you asked thoughtfully. As you got another pillow and helped him sit up in bed a bit better and more comfortably.  

“Yeah,” he nodded. 

“Ok, let me make you the dagmal then.” You offered as you began to make some breakfast for you both. You made him griddle cakes with berries in the batter, drizzled with honey and some ham and sausages, scrambled eggs along with making him a fresh loaf of bread from your breadseed. 

Breadseed was something special that grew only in the poles in your time, it was discovered when some of the ice caps melted and looked like super large milo plants when it grew in the dead of winter, sunlight tended to burn the leaves of the plant so it only grew in the light of the moon and from the northern lights when the temperatures were consistently -50°. Because anything above zero, the plant wilted and turned to mush, but when picked when you harvested the seeds and very carefully and very slowly brought it up to room temperature while you dehydrated it, they were fine, they made a delightful tea when steeped in hot water and was world renowned for its superb and surprisingly sweet and fruity flavor and longevity benefits. A handful of breadseed seeds looked like bronzer pearls, the more pearlescent the seed, the sweeter it was and came in varieties and flavors that most would recognize as bread and cake flavors. How the breadseed itself worked was you took a kernel which had a waterproof husk and once that was peeled away right before consuming since the husk kept it fresh, you put it into water, it expanded exponentially and grew very hot, baking itself and became something that mimicked and perfectly resembled a new loaf of bread and had all the health benefits that bread had and then some including added vitimins and minerals that were easy for everyone to digest, the loaves were the size of a soccer ball with a pocket, the size of your fist, on the inside in the middle, where still more breadseeds lined it. A handful of breadseed could feed an army. Back home they were international currency, but here and now they were just plain food. 

You took the round loaf and split it, one half was two thirds of the loaf and the other was about a third of the size of the whole, you didn’t need to eat a lot, this poor man hasn’t had a good meal in a very long time, he would appreciate the larger half but the action helped you to get at the pocket in the middle and scooped the breadseeds out and added them to your breadseed pouch before you went back to Bjorn and served him his breakfast or simply, his day meal which is what the dagmal was to him- in bed. Using the little table you had attached to the bed to set everything on so he didn’t have to balance it all in his lap. 

“Here you go.” You offered before you got him a large cup of buttermilk. Vikings liked buttermilk to drink for their day meal. Or so you’ve read. 

“Why are you doing all of this for me? There were others there that deserve this more than I do.” He asked as he looked at all the food and hesitated in eating it. 

“Odin has a path for you, I’m here to help you find it, walk in it and follow it. Once you do, I’ll be gone as quickly as I came, because by then, you won’t need me or my guidance.“ You informed him. 

“What is the path?” He asked as he slowly started to eat. 

“I’m not allowed to tell you, because if I do, it won’t happen. But you’ll know it when it’s in front of you.” You gently urged before you gave him a reassuring squeeze of his shoulder with a gentle smile before you left back into the kitchen area of your tent as Bjorn thought over your words and brought your food over to the little table and one of the chairs and ate yourself, drinking your freshly squeezed orange juice and bacon and omelet with pancakes and sausage as you low key looked at him out of the corner of your eye and noticed how he suddenly seemed to try to eat everything all at once. 

“This is so good,” he praised between bulging mouthfuls. 

“Thank you.” You smiled proudly. 

“So what’s your name Valkyrie?” He asked curiously. 

“What would you like to call me?” You returned, knowing he’d probably like you better with a norse name rather than your own. 

“Astrid.” Bjorn decided since you were still, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life and that name suited you perfectly. 

“Astrid it is.” You smiled back.

After he ate, he fell back asleep and once he was out, you took away the dishes and put them in the sink before the automatic washer washed them for you before you pulled up his biometric readouts from him into the simulation model and were pleasantly surprised when he was healing at a much higher rate than estimated before you recalibrated your algorithms to get a better and more accurate prediction for when he would heal. He should be out for the next…2 hours or so. Plenty of time for you to get a bath because your deodorant was dying and you could use one since back on Neveah, you bathed twice a day. Once in the morning to be clean for the day and then again at night, usually a bath to relax and unwind before bed.  

You got undressed and went into the bathroom section of your tent where a large tub was already full of swirling hot water and you undressed and stepped into the water and blew out a breath of relief as you stepped into the hot water and sat down before a tray lifted from the side, showing you a bath bomb and a vile of bath oil. 

You happily took it and dropped the bathbomb in before you smelled the bath oil. Ooh, jasmine with hints of lilac and gardenia. Hell yeah, you poured it in before you took off your face mask that morphs your face to appear however you wanted it to look and took it off and put it on it’s holder before you took the headband off that made your hair take on the long blonde hair Vikings loved and revealed your blue razzberry blue hair in it’s ponytail and pulled your hair down before you took the universal translator out of your ears and the projected screen in front of your face so that to everyone looking on, your face moved with your ranslated words and set them down on the tray and blew out a breath of relief and flexed your face as you rubbed your eyes before you slipped under the water and relaxed for a moment before the inside of the bathtub lit up and alerted you Bjorn woke up early which had you coming up out of the water to hurriedly put on your disguise again before Bjorn hobbled into the room and you ducked back into the water to press the hatch at the bottom of the tub to release an emergency bathing suit which you quickly put on under the water before you emerged because you were running out of breath. 

“Bjorn?” You said as you wiped the water off your face and looked at him questioningly. “You should be in bed, do you need something?” You asked as you moved to be closer to him. 

“A…bath.” Bjorn offered as his mouth went dry because your bathing suit was strapless and it appeared that you were naked because the waters were milky white from the dissolved bath bomb. 

“Oh, uh, sure, yeah,” you nodded in agreement and stood up and noticed the small pout he made when it was revealed that you were not naked and stepped out of the water to help him out of all of his clothes except for his underwear before you helped him into the water before you handed him a bar of soap, a washcloth and a comb. 

“You could join me.” Bjorn suggested sheepishly. 

“Only if you swear not to touch me.” You returned a little warily. 

“On my honor.” He immediately agreed before you joined him but sat across from him in the large tub and watched as he lathered the soap and began to clean himself up. 

“So how did you become a Valkyrie?” He asked. 

“I was recruited and trained like any soldier.” You answered simply. 

“So do you have a family back on Asgard?” He questioned. 

“I do. I have my parents and a sister and two brothers.” You revealed. 

“Is your sister a Valkyrie too?” He prodded, trying to get to know you. 

“No, she cares for the bloodlines of the family dragons as well as helping them lay successful clutches of eggs. My brothers handle the training of the dragons so they can take riders when they’re juveniles while my grandparents mainly care for all the grandchildren of the family and the baby dragons. My mother makes jewelry out of the shed scales of the babies as they grow while my father builds armor as do my brothers when they’re not training. That armor that I wear, my father built it just for me and it has never failed me.” You revealed with a fond smile. 

“Do you have a husband and children of your own?” Bjorn asked. 

“No, as a Valkyrie, I’m not allowed to have a husband or birth any children unless I retire first and I’m nowhere near retirement age.” You answered. 

“Do you want them?” He posed. 

“I’m sure I will eventually. But not at the moment.” You shook your head no. 

“What about you? Do you have a family back home that you’re anxious to return to?” You asked curiously as you tilted your head to the side. 

“I have a sister and her family are back in Kattegat. I haven’t seen her in a year, everyone else is dead.” He answered. “I was hoping to gain a fortune on this raid but so far there hasn’t been much to gain.” Bjorn explained. 

“The places you raid are learning and adapting to you and your tactics and word spreads faster than wildfire.” You surmised as Bjorn found himself nodding in agreement to that. “It means in order to get what you want, you may have to change your tactics.” You hinted which caused you to grin. “By the way, moving forward. There are rules for keeping my company. First, I am your guide to your path so that means when I give you advice, it would be best if you followed it because my purpose in giving it to begin with, is keeping you alive and keeping you safe but if you grow reckless, and abuse my help and support, I’ll call in a replacement and she will not be nearly as nice or as pretty as I am or worse yet, I’ll go back in time and leave you to die the way I found you. I’m as good as it gets. Second. I am not your slave, or thrall as you would call it or anything like that. You don’t boss me around. Third, this is as close as we get. I don’t mind being your friend on your journey, but anything more than that, especially anything romantic is out of the question and if you even hint at anything like that, I’m out and I’ll be replaced. Fourth, anyone who touches me without my consent, they loose their hands, including you. You can walk on your path with just one hand. Understood?” You proposed as you leveled him with a look. 

“Understood.” Bjorn nodded with a gulp. 

“Let’s shake on it.” You suggested before you shook hands with him as your materializer made him new clothes and armour. 

After that the conversation flowed much easier and you both got a better sense of who the other person was in terms of character until the water grew cold and you decided to get out. 

“Here, new clothes for you.” You said as you handed him the freshly made clothes made out a blend of dragon silk and dragon wool with dragon silk boxers which he had to get changed into himself. 

“This is really nice.” Bjorn said as he felt the fabric, nothing he had ever put on his skin had ever felt this good before. 

“Now, when you’re all healed up, I have new armor for you. It’s not dragon scale like mine, because giving you dragon scale is forbidden by The Code, but it’s the toughest thing in this world. Way down south of here, in a place called Africa, is a large lizard that they call the crocodile, it’s large enough that it can kill and eat people. This is it’s hide. It’ll stop most weapons. It’s the best I can give you.” You offered as you showed him his suit of armor. 

Getting him travel ready only took you four days rather than the seven you thought it would at first because he took the serums you injected into him better than anticipated and continued to make improvements and he surprised you every day by how well he was able to progress. This mission may take less time than you anticipated. 

Once he was ready, you set up a neural link between both of you, that way you could keep communicating without talking which would come in handy if you were in a form other than human and  transformed back into a horse, your tent changing in appearance to that of a normal tent of the time period from the outside and you were able to make it so that Bjorn could easily set it up and take it down before he put it on your saddle and rode you back to the camp where some of the survivors were and still nursing their own wounds and regrouping. 

“What happened to you?” They asked Bjorn. 

“I got caught in this horse’s reins and it dragged me north, I was able to tame it a little since she’s still green broke and half wild but obviously I was able to bring her back.” Bjorn answered since that was the answer both of you had agreed upon would be the most believable as he got off of you and lead you towards the rest of camp. 

“What are you wearing?” They asked as they eyed what he was wearing now. 

“Oh, this is what the dead fucker that was tied to her saddle was wearing, once I got him off of her and got her settled down, I saw that it was still good, I tried it on and it fit and it was better than what I was wearing.” Bjorn shrugged. “I think he was deserting the fight because she was packed with a tent and a bedroll and food.” He explained as he gestured to everything on your saddle. 

“Serves him right, filthy coward.” his surviving friends sneered but beamed proudly at Bjorn as they eyed you appreciatively as the shield maidens who had survived came over to you curiously as you greeted them sweetly and endeared yourself to them.