#wolfkiss

she’s beginning to feel like a prisoner of the longhouse. they all have their parts to play in the success of ravensthorpe, but it seems only her part involves being shackled to a table. she tries not to think of it that way. with sigurd and eivor away forging alliances, the day to day management of the settlement falls to her. but they have not grown so large in such a short time that the demands on her include more than settling the occasional dispute. she tells herself it’s sigurd’s will she executes, her husband and her jarl, but she wonders if that’s the truth. if she knows him well enough to be able to say one way or the other. randvi knows every one of the villagers by name, knows their feuds, their squabbles. her hand is in the stream that feeds the life of ravensthorpe and she can feel which way the current carries.

and it’s not sigurd she shares this information with. the notes she leaves are for eivor. every piece of potentially useful information gathered by her scouts made from her lips to eivor’s ear, even with the knowledge that it would carry eivor away again. to forge another alliance. (she wonders exactly how many alliances eivor has forged). she was not so naive, so stupid as to want the wolf-kissed bound to ravensthorpe as she was. eivor had a warrior’s heart, and randvi’s duty was to advise. but there was a part of her that she bound as tightly as odin had bound fenrir that wanted to go with her. 

“the skalds sing of your adventures, your glory, eivor, and you act as if i have nothing to be jealous of.”

there’s an anticipation, an excitement that buzzes through the village when the ships are spotted. the worries that have plagued those left behind since the ocean steeds took their clansmen a viking are quelled and heightened in the same breath. soon they will have stories, if not spoils. riches and glory did not come without cost, and did not always come. but the return of a longship did always bring news. 

she cannot claim a stake as high as some in fornburg. sigurd’s voyage had taken him to the east and there was no telling when he would return.... yet randvi still finds herself distracted by the incoming ship, one which has been gone longer than promised. she bids styrbjorn to repeat the question he’s asked of her, having realized his words have passed through her ears without making an impact. he does not. instead his expression shifts to one that randvi recognizes as typically reserved for sigurd, and, in his absence, for eivor– annoyance tempered by a hearty mix of amusement. go, he commands, and so she does. finds herself on the dock that is already lively with energy, air thick with speculation and gossip. 

if she could not feel that the wind was favorable, surely the sentiment observed aloud every few minutes would have informed her. the winds bring the longship, bring eivor, back to her and once the warrior’s feet have carried her the rest of the way, randvi embraces her, takes in the scent of salt, sun, and sweat of the summer raids. 

“i thought the wolf had returned for another taste.”

you can’t get rid of me that easy.

sigurd’s anger burns hot. though not without prompting, randvi worries that it has caused him to jump too quickly to judgement. his mind seems to have shifted like the wind... although perhaps she does not know her husband well enough after his two years away to say so. perhaps his sights had been set on england before he had once again set foot on norse soil, styrbjorn’s decision only ensuring it was more than vikingr sailing with him. 

still... change would not be unwelcome. england came with the promise of new challenges and the wildling in her that she had been forced to temper to broker peace between clans stirred at the prospect of it, made it easy for her to accept sigurd’s assertions that there was a place for them still in england, if only they would claim it. 

she packs as quickly and sparingly as she’d bid the rest of their splinter of the raven clan. in truth there’s not much she takes for herself alone. a reoccurring theme. it must be fate, or freyja’s will, that the one thing she wants travels, as always, on sigurd’s heels. how eivor manages without her brother’s shadow falling over her comes as no surprise to randvi. eivor is more compelling by far and her presence, especially in sigurd’s absence, has been a boon. and a temptation.