My England

ᚦᛖ᛫ᛞᚨᚱᚲᚾᛖᛋᛋ᛫ᛟᚠ᛫ᛚᛟᚡᛖ

A gelicide had swept through the woodland groves making it now almost impossible to see even one's own hand in front of their face.

The prince still pressed on through his wounds now starting to bleed again and the pain of hunger and thirst for he had not eaten anything at all and he was growing weaker and weaker by the minute.

Frostbite attacked his skin until he lost all feeling in his fingers and toes but still he tried to carry on but his body was far more valuable than his will.

He was beyond desperate to find his sweet little boy and father but he felt his head go light and his vision became blurry until all he saw was the world falling away from him as he fell backward into the hard icy snow.

His men all crowded around him and propped him up out of the snow and even sacrificed their own warmth by giving him their own pelts to try and help him but it was no use his body was broken.

As the world faded into blackness he cried out desperately for his son in requiem. 

"...my boy! My baby! I failed you!... I never even got to name you!...my sweetest love you shalt never know how dearfuly I loved thee!"

He fell back into his men's arms unconscious and cold to the touch covered in his own half-frozen blood with teary eyes and his lugent men lowered their heads in grief and defeat around him many even loudly weeping.

They admired his heroism and selfless devotion and praised him for these things fondly as they cried for him until they were distracted by a sudden cacophony erupting from the snow blinded sky above.

The snow was blown away by a powerful force of silver blaze and a pale figure appeared from the greyish blur riding upon a white stag with his long dark hair flowing behind him and cold dark eyes gone soft upon the sight of the fallen prince.

The men at first feared him but he spoke to them in a voice that sent them to their knees.

"Fools do you not remember the teachings of your völva! Do you no longer know me the Gæianð Vålo!"

They all bowed to him as he stepped down off the stag and walked over to the prince laying welmish in the bloody snow and then he took a knee next to the fair-haired berserker and gingerly lifted his flaxen head out of the arms of the men and took the prince into his arms.

With a spark from his long pale fingers, Vålo awoke the prince and at the sight of him Siftrethörn was startled but Vålo told him to be calm and that Vålo himself would heal him.

"Behold dear prince you are found favorable by the spirits and by the gods but also by myself as well for your love! So just as a mother gives her weak babe the milk of her breast to give him strength I too shall nurse you my essence to give you back your strength!"  He said softly then he brought his own wrist to his lips and bite into the pale flesh until blood dripped down his arm and dropped onto the snow below.

He then brought his blood-spewing wrist to the prince's blued lips and let the blood fill the prince's mouth until the magic of his blood healed the prince's wounds up almost internally and gave him back his strength.

Then Vålo pulled his hand away but the prince shot up and riped his shoe lining.

"Wait great one your blood is not to be spilled!"

He said as he wrapped the bloody wrist in the cotton and thanked Vålo wholeheartedly.

"You are indeed an honourable man Fyjanrrson and shall indeed make a good father!"

But to this, the prince suddenly broke down in tears as he wailed for his child.

"Forgive my great one but I shall never be a father for by now my son is surely killed...and by my father's own hand! I was too late!"

Vålo smiled softly as he with a gentle hand raised the princes weeping face up to meet his eyes.

"Dear honourable prince do not weep for your child is well! And he is blessed!"

Siftrethörn dried his eyes and spoke up with a hopeful voice.

"...what!"

"Your father is corrupted by grief! The same grief that you felt just a few moments ago do not harbor hatred for him!"

"...he...he tried to kill my child!"

"Yes, and you were prepared to kill your father in order to save your child! The love of a child holds a power unlike any other over the human heart and love can bring out both the best and the worst in men!" 

The prince felt the rage fade from his fists as the met Vålo's eyes once more just as Vålo went on.

"However the best in men and the worst in men is a choice those men make for themselves! Everyone has a choice and at times it can be hard to know if one is truly making the wrong one or the right and if forgiveness were an easy task it would be meaningless but perhaps in the darkest hours is when forgiveness and love means the dearest prince!"

Vålo stood and helped the prince to stand at his side where the pale one continued on a different note.

"Tell three of your men to make spears out of white birch and to throw them passed the largest pine tree!"  He ordered and the men did so and came back with three large bears each with enough meat on them to feed the troop of famished men.

As the men made camp and ponasked as much of the bear meat as they could with a fire started in part thanks to Vålo’s silver flame the Gæianð and the prince spoke confidentially a few paces from the other men with Vålo relaying the events concerning the prince’s son.

“You mean to tell me in fact that my little nestling laddie has been made in fact...an appointed Seiðberendr!” said the prince with so many emotions swirling in his belly that he didn’t know just what to say.

“Fyjanrrson I can tell that this one is truly cherished by you!”

“Oh yes, I do! As I rocked him back at the shipwreck I dreamed of all the things I would do with my sweet little poppet!”  he said dotingly with a smile spread over his cheeks and a soft giggle as he spoke again.

“I must confess that only about a fortnight ago I thought that to be happy was to be exalted, to be illustrious, to be triumphant yet here I am at my woe but still despite it all when I close my eyes and dream of showing him the tree I played in as a boy I feel a joy like no other I have ever felt and it’s terrifying...I could never let go of him even if I wished! Perhaps my love for him is what makes me worry so...you see...”

“I know that he may be young but it is his path my prince even with his adynamia!”

“...I know but still, I fear for my boy...I fear I may not be able to protect him!”

“Sometimes in the effect of protecting we forget about loving dear prince! On your journey of fatherhood never forget that!  The Gæianð said with a firm hand on the prince’s shoulder as they both got up and made their way with the rest of the men.

The troop now led by the Gæianð all marched together through the thick woodland and snowy forest until a white horse stopped in front of them and king Håldr stumbled off the ghostly steed and ran to his son where he fell to his feet.

   

Siftrethörn looked down to the once-proud man now groveling before him in the snow weeping out of guilt as criminal on trial and in this moment the prince was torn between the two parts of his conscience for one the first hand this man had ceased to be a father to him the moment he dared to lay a hand on his child and if it had been any other man stealing another man’s progeny like Lar had done than that transgressor would have been put to death yet, on the other hand, he felt the words of Vålo ring true.

As he looked to the man that had once been his father he felt pity for him and perhaps even a little empathy for his madness but in a moment where he closed his eyes to think it was ultimately the image of his little boy’s face that made him make up his mind for as angry as he knew he himself would be he knew that he would need the help of Håldr to bring his son home and he did not want to explain to his mother why he would have to behead his father.