𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐧𝐞𝐝 | 𝐯𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬

ᴇɪɴɴ.

The sun has barley bled before the Norsemen arrive, their shouts sprouting fear against the night.

Not even the rain could quell the shrieks of death, the clangour of wood against metal as unsuspecting clergymen and townsfolk battle for their lives against the savages. Before their demise, the innocents had ran for the church—the shimmering cross above it a beacon amongst the bloodshed—only to find its doors firmly shut. The nameless girl only watches from her open window as the people are ravaged, her feet numb and unmoving as the final body falls.

For her, this has not been the first time to see the Norsemen. She was born in a nunnery on the other side of the town, out of wedlock, to a slave found on the side of the road during a terrible storm, harsh and unceasing. The mother who the nuns spoke of was tainted with sin and, due to her birth, so was she, bound to hard work for as long she remembered to repent for the shames brought upon her by her mother. The nuns refused to name her. Slaves without mothers did not deserve a name. And so, she was the nameless girl, the girl furthest away from the grace of God.

Yet God had seemingly spared her when the savages first came, brightened her path towards his holy ground as she sought refuge at the place where the light had taken her. The church. She told them then about the raid on the nunnary: how they had killed all the women bar a few who had escaped, how she had escaped with them too until they cursed at her not to follow. The men had merely laughed. They had not heard the screams of the holy women as they died in the prayer room. But they took her in anyhow despite their scepticism and her life from then on stays the same as her previous, long and arduous, doing as she is bid to be rid of her sins.

They are unprepared just like last time. The unassuming priests had been too conceited to believe the Norsemen would dare raid the small yet prosperous town of Lyminge despite her pleas for them to believe her that it had happened before. It is their ignorance which makes them so vulnerable, which makes the walls of the church so easy to climb and the flimsy wooden door so easy to break.

The bitter cold prickles goosebumps against her skin as the wind rakes it's harsh fingers down her back, it's trail making her whole body shiver in a silent fight to keep warm. She could not squeal. She could not think. All she could do was stroke her fingers through the scarlet hair of the girl huddled between her legs, her sobs and shivers more violent than she ever allowed her own to be. The small girl, named Rousse, after her flowing red hair, is only four—far too young to be called a slave yet born into the role anyhow—and only knows the tale of the Norsemen through bedtime lullabies.

Compared to the nameless girl, she is unused to the cruelty of the world, from the raiders and the priests who swore to protect them. She is favoured despite her birth but that favour would be lost tonight. The savages did not care for hair nor beauty, only gold and slaughter and pillage and Rousse could not bring them any of that and nor could she.

What warrior would have use for two Christian slave girls whose only value was that they were the property of someone else?

It is a burden they will always bare. The brand of the cross on her left wrist a reminder of her status forever. It is also the one thing both she and Rousse share and she finds it difficult to ever hate the girl despite the clear power imbalance placed between them by their masters. She is both her protector and her servant, her teacher and her sister, in all sense but blood.