brave in the heart. vikings

CHAPTER TWENTY

Chapter twenty

The air was cool against her nose, so icy that Merida wouldn't have been surprised if it had been dripping with frost. Kattegat's winter was rough, far more harder than any she had encounter herself. But she braved the weather like everyone else in the city, carrying on as if nothing had changed.

Even the fast moving waters of the falls had succumbed to the ice, the edges blue. The pool below it- the one she had been swimming in only weeks before- was like tinted glass, clear but thick, the rocks and sticks frozen between layers painting pictures. Shards of ice stuck out at odd angles, as if frozen mid fall. Though they looked so delicate, they were as hard as the frigid ground and sharp enough for it to be used as a weapon.

The world around her was tinted blue, mixed in with swirls of whites and greens that were dark enough to look a charcoal black against the glare of the snow. It ran for miles and miles, as far as the eye could see, even when standing at the highest point of the city, of which walls she had barely ever passed. The trees that lined it were blanched too, looking flat and uninteresting against the starkness of the mountains that now seemed even more daunting with the harshness of the peaks.

For the first time, Kattegat had paled in comparison to the freshness of a winter in Dunbroch. It was one thing that her home came out triumphant in. Had she been there now, she would have been bathing in the icy water, as they did every year. It was healing, they believed, and she and her mother would remain quiet for the following day.

They had already begun to discuss their next conquests overseas for when the winter died down and the seas were sailable. Ragnar would sail to England, taking people who would stay there to live and farm.

Bjorn had asked Merida to join them. They had talked of travelling together before, but she had always believed it would be further than the land that her home dwelled on. She had hoped it would be far off lands filled with people and sights and weathers that neither of them could have imagined.

But Wessex seemed a good start. Her father had always talked of the unrest that lay south of his own lands and of the brutal leaders that had threatened his boarders more than once. She knew of all the wrongs they had committed against her own kingdom and would be happy to take it out against them. King Fergus would have pushed her to go. But it wasn't the raiding that she was so scared of- with the training from Lagertha she was more than competent, amazing actually. Merida was scared she would pass home. She was scared to see her family again if that happened.

The rustling of branches sent another wave of icy winds her way, a coolness that she felt down her back despite the thick furs that she was wrapped in. From across the pool, a bear-like figure appeared, a towering heap of furs. But they didn't move like an animal, and she recognised the hair, blonde enough to merge with the snow around him.

Bjorn dodged around trees, laughing as he chased something. Two boys hurried after him, giggling in their higher pitch and screaming for him to catch them. It was Ubbe that ran in front, surprisingly far. Far enough in front that she could motion with an arm without Bjorn seeing.

Ubbe skidded in path, heading quickly to the side as he came barrelling her way. She placed a finger against her lips, quieting they young boy as he hid behind her, tucked behind a mossy tree trunk. Bjorn ran forward, following the trail of tiny footprints, until he was mere feet away.

Merida jumped out, her hands landing on his chest as she pushed him backward. His hand clamped around hers, dragging her back with him as they landed in a pile of snow, just as she had predicted.

Bjorn spluttered our, shaking the frost that stuck to his hair. "Why did you do that?"

Merida was still laughing, lying against him in the snow. Her face was above his, an unflattering angle, but she didn't care, as she continued to chuckle at the sight of his red cheeks and icy hair.

"I had to get you back somehow," she said, as her laughing died down. "And I wasn't going to push you into the falls. It's iced over."

Bjorn smirked and shook his head, finally glancing up to notice how close her face was. Merida's eyes flitted away, but she didn't remove herself yet.

"Why were you here anyway?" He asked, his hands moving to ruffle her fiery hair, snow drifting from the mangled locks to rest on his shoulders. 

"I needed somewhere to think."

Merida breathed out, lifting herself up. Hands buried in the pile as she eventually rolled over, the sky glimpsing over head replaced by Ubbe and his younger brothers peering over her as they giggled. She rolled her eyes playfully, pulling them up under the shoulders as she always did with her own brothers when they were smaller than her, and spun them around, before falling back into the snow.

"You weren't supposed to bring me down with you," she said.

"I wasn't going down without a fight," Bjorn said.

Merida raised her brows- it always irked him, made him feel as if she wasn't impressed. Bjorn always found himself trying to faze her in anyway, whether he realised it or not. He shook it off on the idea that she was from a foreign kingdom, with different customs and such.

"And such a noble fight you made." Merida smirked as she watch him tut, ignoring her sarcastic comment as if she had never even said it.

"And you," he said, turning to Ubbe. "You sold me out! You better run before I catch you."

The boys were off running as they giggled before Merida could even pull the fur coat further into her shoulders.