Ch.1 : Frigg’s Problem and Solution

The simplicity of the work calmed my overworked mind and nerves. I bent over holding my heavily pregnant belly and tended to the herbs for medicine salves. “Wife, always trying to push the limits to the end.” Ragnar gruffed as his bright blue eyes travelled across my frame. My body still held the muscles of a hard worker and Shield Maiden but I was never one to sit still either. My flaming hair fanned behind me from the edge of the ocean’s water.

“Husband. Nothing thou will happen to this child. If they wish to be born with the fresh air then the Gods and Goddesses command it. Stop with the worrying.” I pause as I pull some carrots and set them in the basket sitting next to me. My own eyes, as raging as the ocean’s current pull to Njoror, was the same feeling of being left behind on the raids. “Or Aresto will take the lead in the raidings because you have been caught in your wife’s plot.”

Ragnar lets out a booming laugh that still easily melts my heart for the man. He kicks off the house and marches towards me. He smiles down at me with a long scar across the left side of his face. He had almost entered Valhalla with such a wound. The Wise One, Leiah of the Western Winds, had explained against the orders of the Gods that it would be my love that would save him. That’s when I had found out about my pregnancy in the first place. Bowdin chased the hound around our little farm with a wooden sword. Our third child, I had whispered to Ragnar’s body, needs their father and mother or thou will follow my husband to the halls of Valhalla. Leiah had at that moment been stricken of her sight on this plane of existence in Yggdrasil. But, Ragnar had awoken.

“Aresto would just hand you the reins to my ships and men. Would you really refuse me, wife, if I asked nicely in the name of Odin?” Ragnar questioned as he leaned down next to me. Ragnar’s lips twitched at his words as I let out some laughter.

“I prefer my husband to beg for it,” I stated as I looked at Ragnar with a calm look on my face. Ragnar looked at me searching my face to see if I was joking or not. “You had to slay a boar, hound, and a forest cat before I would glance at the offerings for my hand, husband.”

Ragnar shook his head as his braids slapped his shoulders gently. “Always as twisting and turning as the tides in Thor’s anger.” I let out a small smile at Ragnar’s mutterings. He was correct, of course, but it was always freeing for us to drop our masks that we had curated out of necessity.

Ragnar leans on his knees in front of me as he places his gruff hands softly on my stomach. “Once out of your mother’s belly, she will be the one doing the begging then to go on the raids,” Ragnar said to my stomach. I slapped his shoulder in retaliation. “But, then my wife will only smell of my scent once more,” Ragnar stated as he looked at me.

My legs quivered at the thought of once again being completely wrapped within Ragnar’s arms. “And everyone will know the great Ragnar belongs solely to me,” I said with a teasing smile as I kissed Ragnar.

“Ew. Seriously you two? All I’ve asked is to do it where I won’t see it,” Bowdin complained loudly. I snorted at his words. He has my tack, that's for sure, I thought fondly.

Ragnar immediately stood up. “Getting big there boy. Maybe soon we should find a suitable match for you.” I just shake my head at Ragnar’s word.

“Mom would beat you up if you tried,” Bowdin retorted as he suddenly blocked the lunge Ragnar gave to him.

“Don’t step on the garden,” I call out as Ragnar switches to teaching Bowdin more about swords. Bowdin loved the thought of soon being allowed to go on his first raid. He was already eleven years here and yet to be on a raid. Maybe, Ragnar’s next raid he could go, I thought to myself as I stood up.

“Are you okay mom?” My oldest child, Norna, my baby girl, at thirteen years old asked me. I smiled at her curly red hair, just like mine. I groaned and gritted my teeth. Underneath me was a puddle. Norna looked down too. “DAD!”

Ragnar appeared out of my corner of my eye and swooped me into his arms like a treasure he couldn’t live without. “Right till the end Arika Gormsson,” Ragnar said as he easily carried me to the bed.

“I could’ve walked Ragnar son of Gorms,” I grumbled as Norna snorted and Bowdin hit her shoulder.

Norna just twirled around after grabbing a knife from Ragnar's strap and sliced Bowdin’s arm. “Try it again, Bowdin son of Ragnar,” Norna stated in a firm and stiff tone of voice. Bowdin recognized the very real threat and backed down from his teasing.

I groan as I open my legs. “Norna, give your father his knife, your sibling is coming,” I state through clenched teeth as I feel my head get light as the veins pop. I pushed as Ragnar set up the small room. We were lowly farmers to the king and couldn’t afford a midwife in these harsh times and lack of success with Ragnar’s raids. Ragnar was going to help deliver this child into this world just like he did for Norna and Bowdin.

Norna stayed after that statement as Bowdin went back to working the horses we owned. “Gods and giants,” I groan out as Norna helps to keep me cool with a wet cloth. Ragnar gave me a slight smirk. The sun slowly faded as I continued to push and pray to Frigg to protect my unborn child. Norna was patient in a way that shocked me. Soon she would be a woman and not my little girl anymore, I thought as I panted and gave one last push.

Ragnar cut the umbilical cord from the life force of my child and me. There were no cries though. No screams. Nothing but absolute silence that left me numb. I knew instinctually but I didn’t want to process it. Norna silently left Ragnar’s and I’s room. Ragnar just looked at me sadly. “Thoren only knew the best touch, wife and mother of my children.”

I stared at Ragnar as I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Thoren,” I whispered brokenly in a wrecked voice. “I need to hold him, Ragnar,” I said as calmly as I could. Ragnar didn’t question it and handed me Thoren. He was blue and had entered Hel’s realm from my womb.

“I will have Solveig build him a proper rest,” Ragnar stated in the candlelit room as the morning sun started to rise from the darkness. I stared at it for a long time. I couldn’t look at Ragnar. This was supposed to be the one, I thought. The last child I could grow inside of me with all the other losses. Ragnar left to go talk to Solveig, his best friend and ship creations that seem to tame the seas.

I finally looked down at Thoren. I wiped the blood from his eyelids as I noted how cold he felt to my warm body. I gently wrap a blanket I had painstakingly made. I wrapped him tightly like I had felt him only three days ago, moving. I gently lay Thoren at the edge of the bed and kiss his eyelids. The blood stained my skin as I grabbed my coat and headed into the forest and away from the farm.

The path was already memorized as my legs burned but my soul cried. I could feel the pain eating me alive. Thoren didn’t make it because I wasn’t strong enough. “Always thinking you know your own paths and choices you have,” Leiah stated as soon as I entered the cave. “It’s the way of the Gods and Goddesses, Arika. You bartered with them and they always collect in the most painful ways.”

I kneel before Leiah as she stretches a wrinkled hand to me that I drop a blood from my womb onto her hand. She immediately draws her hand to her mouth and licks the blood. “They took more than they bartered,” Leiah muttered before her white and sightless eyes seemed to lock onto my own. “A different God or Goddess is protecting you and demanding retribution for such a gift to this realm away, too early.”

“Thoren was supposed to survive?” I asked in slight anger, coating my tone of voice that I couldn’t hide.

“Yes,” Leiah stated blankly and bluntly. “But this powerful new entity is protecting you. Odin favors your husband and is often involved with communications between the two. This being doesn’t wish for anything but retribution and protecting you.” Leiah fanned the flames that roared between us causing smoke to quickly feel the breathable air. Yet, I could feel the burn but it didn’t hurt like it should.

“I am favored?” I asked quietly, humbly, and confused. Why me? I barely understood Odin’s relationship to my husband and now I had to understand this?

Leiah wacks me upside the head with her staff as I let out a groan, “Always twenty steps behind the workings physically yet, right on par with Odin emotionally.” Leiah just shakes her head. “This is new and dangerous,” Leiah continued to mutter.

“How can I be favored when Odin demands my son, Thoren, as the sacrifice for this path?” I asked as the anger quickly came back. The darkness of the cave and cool breeze cleared the air quickly as I stared at Leiah.

Leiah just chuckles darkly at me. “You’ve paid the price at least three confirmed times have you not, woman?” Leiah demanded and I couldn’t help but pause. It was true. How was this time any different than the last?

“Why let me meet him already dead then?” I asked instead softly as I realized the only difference was he had been alive three days ago and moving in my womb.

Leiah freezes at the question. “It must be…” Leiah trailed off before standing up and pointing at the opening of the cave. “Time to leave Arika Gormsson,” and all the candles went out. I nodded slowly in the darkness of the cave.

I slowly walk to the mouth of one of the places Leiah stays in. I turn back as the sunlight hits my back, instantly warming me up. “No more sacrifices, Wise One.” And in that moment when I had said that the wind blew and the Njoror and Mani seemed to agree with me. I turned and walked away.

The Wise One stared after me. “She might just be the one to break the cycle, Frigg. She’ll be the solution to the problem won’t she?” Leiah whispered to the wind. The wind blew harshly back into the Wise One’s face. “May you watch closely, Frigg. Her sacrifices have just begun for the problem to end. The fight coming will not be pretty.” Leiah shakes her head and vanishes from any sight.