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The war with Lagertha drew ever closer. We'd already readied ourselves and we'd be leaving within the next day or so to make camp. Ivar didn't want me anywhere near the battle but I'd managed to convince him that they would need as many healers as they could get and no one would hurt me while I was attending the wounded. Though reluctant still, he finally agreed. But I was to stay close beside him at all times, was the one proviso. Not that I minded. Sitting in his chariot with his arm around me vastly outweighed walking in the rain. Plus, it wasn't like we'd had a wedding similar to ones in my time.
I didn't know much about Viking weddings, in truth, but I supposed there was no such thing as a honeymoon. Either that or Ivar had opted to take me on a romantic trip to kill his mother's murderer for our honeymoon.
But there was something I needed to do before all else.
Hildr had gathered a boat, supplies, and a means to return to York. From there, her plan was for both of us to go through the stone and return to our own times. Her to the 40s, me to the 60s - the 1960s this time, as oppose to the 860s. I hadn't had the heart to tell her that I wouldn't be going. But, finally, it was the evening of her departure. I couldn't just stay behind and ignore her. I had to say goodbye, to tell her that this was where I belonged now - even if that meant death.
She looked so happy when she saw me, eyes lighting up in that way they always did when I returned home from college. God this was going to hurt.
How did you say goodbye to the person that brought you into this world? How do you tell them that you're choosing to leave them for someone else because you're happier here? Happier than you were even with them.
"What's wrong, Iris?" Her brows knitted together, worry fading away her bright smile as she noticed the expression on my face - the tears that were already running freely down my cheeks. A part of me wished I'd told Ivar about all this, just so I might have some comfort from him when this inevitably broke my heart. But it was better this way. He didn't need to be distracted by my problems, not with a war coming. So I simply weathered the storm - like a good queen must.
"M-" my breath caught in my throat, lips trembling almost as much as my knees and I felt as though I might just collapse there and then. "Ma, I-I can't come with you."
She laughed, smiling at what she thought to be a joke, "of course you can, what do you mean?" But her face began to grow sorrowful as she noticed how devastated I looked. How utterly broken.
"I don't know why I ended up here. But I did. And I tried to make the best of a bad situation. I didn't expect that I would fall in love, but I have. And now I have to do what's right for both me and my child." She looked down at my belly and straight back to my face, eyes alight, as I mentioned the baby. "I love you and dad so much." I cried, feeling myself becoming overwhelmed by emotions. "But I never really belonged until I came here. I want you both to know that I was happy - no matter what happens. I want you to know that this is my home now. I'll never forget you and I love you both more than life, but I have to stay. I have to stay with Ivar."
A tear ran down her cheek as she looked at me, gently taking my hand in her own. "You're here because every woman in our family travels. They all go to different times, different places, but they also always come home. And now you're going to be the last of us to travel." She smiled, engulfing me in the most loving embrace - one that I simply had to return. With my head buried in the crook of the neck, tears pouring down my face, Hildr gently soothed me in the way she always had when I was a child. "Maybe this was fate. Maybe you've done what one of us was meant to do long ago - truly fall in love. But we'll look for you, your father and I. He doesn't particularly enjoy studying the Normans-"
"Normans?" I pulled away, cracking a half smile through my tears. She nodded, not quite understanding, but do much quickly made sense to me. "His area of expertise was the Danelaw and the Great Heathen Army." I laughed, wiping away the water from my cheeks. "Nobody knew more about Ivar The Boneless than Pa did." We both exchanged a smile at the realisation, my heart welling as I thought of my dad. "He was looking for me - to make sure I was okay."
Hildr gave me another short hug, gently kissing my cheek, before she began clambering into her ship. I took in every detail of her departure, every moment of it. Her face, her hair, the blue tones of the sky reflected in the clear water. Everything. Every last tiny drop, like it was a photograph forever burned into my brain.
"Please don't try to stop me leaving." I told her, holding onto her hand as the boat prepared to drift away into the sea. "The year will be 1965. I will want to go to York for my 18th birthday and at some point during that trip, I'll disappear. Don't worry about me, please. I'm safe and I'm happy." Or at least I was now, not so much earlier in my trip into the past. "I love you."
She smiled, waving as our hands were pulled apart by the ship moving away from the shore. "I love you too." She answered, making my heart feel as if it grew a thousand sizes and engulfed me whole.
And there it was. I said goodbye to the two people that had always been there for me, the two people that had mattered most to me my whole life. And why?
