sixthiterationlogs | Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

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Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 24th November
OPEN TO: E V E R Y O N E
WARNINGS: TBA
STATUS: OPEN

Aside from the days when she'd been too drunk or too hungover to get up, Kate's kept a farmer's hours all her life. Even in winter, when the bitterly cold winds that'd come up from the south and make its way through the cracks and holes in her ma's hut, she'd get up, get dressed, do her chores. But lately, it's been harder to extract herself from her bed. Benedict's been sharing her bed more often than not lately, and the chasteness of their interactions does nothing to change how warm and safe she feels. How little she wants to get up, get dressed, go out into the colder spaces of the Inn and do her work.

So, today, she's late getting out of bed - at least, by her standards. She's late getting down the stairs. She's late, so she's hurrying; she lazed in bed, and now she needs to start the fire in the main room. Start the fire, open the shutters, show that the Inn is standing and warm. And welcome, so she moves the -

No, Kate doesn't move the chairs stacked precariously at the front door as a rudimentary alarm of someone, something, coming through, because the chairs are gone. She neither dismisses it as one of the residents not getting the message, nor panics. Instead, she just opens the shutters to let in the dawn light and see if there are footprints, except, no, the snow has mostly cleared. The day is sunny. As welcome as it is, that doesn't help at all. Miss Hoppity jumps down from the foyer's desk to rub her face against Kate's skirt, apparently entirely unconcerned.

Kate eyes the cat for a moment, then approaches the closed doors leading to the main room. Closed, but with light coming through the cracks between door and floor, door and door frame. Cautiously, Kate opens one of the doors and peers in.

Then, she gapes.

The fire is blazing - hot, cheery - but so are the candles. The candles: candles on the unused candlesticks, candles clustered on tables, light up sideboards. Candles bobbing in bowls of water and apples. Candles white, yellow and red, when the village had none. Boughs of wheat, corn, decorate tables and the mantle over the fire, apples and pumpkins and collections of yellow, orange, red flowers seem to be everywhere.

And the food.

Each table is piled high with food. Roasted, baked, cooked on stoves and Kate knows how to cook, she knows how long this would all take, how many people, and it's impossible. What she's seeing is impossible to have done with the resources on hand: even an attempt would have woken up the whole building.

Disbelieving, Kate walks in. For a moment, she's entirely dumbfounded. Miss Hoppity, however, is nothing of the sort. The cat has leapt up onto the sideboard next to Kate and - well, Kate isn't sure what happens next. Just that suddenly there's movement and something large seems to lunge at her. Miss Hoppity yowls and speeds off: Kate screams as she battles something, falling backwards and hitting the floor along with a broken bowl of water, spilled apples and some tiny candles, and her attacker.

Pushing the food-turkey off her, Kate sits up and is, for once, entirely lost for words.

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He hadn't felt this relaxed in ages, since before the troubles came to the farm. The last time might have been the night Arnies had cooked for all of them. Even then he hadn't been permitted to really let go. He rarely even let himself let go anyway. It did bring a brighter side out of him though.

Taking another drink he smiled still. "Denmark is a lovely country. But, maybe after if you want I'll tell that to." He offered. He sat sat the beer down to life the cider this time.

"Well, a bit of set up so you can understand. I had spent my years since I was six in the company of a band of Danish warriors. Horrible people, but they were all close knit, all of them admired the leader, Askeladd. Now, I hated Askeladd, it was my hatred of that man was what kept me going all those years. It was the winter of our 10th year together, we had prince Canute in our possession aiming to return him to his father for whatever the fuck Askeladd was after. I never asked or cared back then. But, since I was closest to the princes age, I was assigned his Thegn, or guard." He explained with a wave of his hand.

"We had been chased from England, to Wales, to Mercia and anger crackled in the air. People whispering that luck had left Askeladd. We were being chased by Thorkell the tall and his band of 500. The tides were not in our favor with our 100 and mutiny growing on the lips of foul men." He told the set up with a bit of animated movement of his scarred hands. The cup nearly spilling once.

Peggy has to lean back when the cup starts to slosh a little, but she avoids having any spilled on her (thankfully), though she has to smile rather privately at Thorfinn's enthusiasm, thinking that it's rather unmatched at any other time as far as she knows. "Okay," she prods, not sure how the flying comes into the story in this. "I can imagine how that would be quite the tense situation," she says.

Perhaps all this time, all that Thorfinn has needed to feel truly comfortable and outspoken is a little alcohol. Who would have ever known?

A lot of alcohol, turning his filters off completely. He didn't like to let people hear him curse outside of the house. Jo and Kol both knew he curses like a sailor, but Jo knew the monster he had been years before. Kol was a monster, so it didn't really matter.

He took a drink of the cider while he waited for her to speak nodding to her observation. "Yes, it was. Tensions had been growing since the snow started. We always had the winters off, no one raids or wars in the winter... but we were on the run, and finally it happened. Askeladd called me and Bjorn to him. Bjorn was his second in command, a huge man. A berserker." He explained with another wave of his hand. Almost knocking the beer on the table over. "He told us to ride in the wagon with the prince. He warned us of the mutiny. Less than five minutes later a scream ripped through the air as a spear cut through three of the men standing by Askeladd. Thorkell and his men had reached us. Askeladd tried to calm the men but it was no use Bjorn cracked the whip and we were speeding off with the prince in the sled. He had taken a blow earlier in the week and was silent and withdrawn through all of this, so don't expect much on Canute." he added with a wave of a hand.

"Most of the men stayed aiming to kill Askeladd, but we were presued becuase they wanted to give the prince to Thorkell so he would spare their lives." He shift a bit moving both hands up. "We were going as fast as both horses could pull the sleed ten men chasing us, quick work with my throwing knives brought the number down fast." He spoke as if it was nothing to kill the men he had grown up around. "Unfortunately, Bjorn screamed at them they would have to kill us before they could have Canute... and one of them had half a brain and axed the left horse, it sent us all through the air. I didn't think of them though, just of ASkeladd who was not yet come after us. I managed to twist in the air right to kick Alti from his horse and turned fast riding back for the battle I could hear raging. That man wasn't allow to be killed." He spoke, more vibertently as he went on.

It sounds as if Thorfinn has seen far more battle than Peggy had given him credit for, which tells her that she shouldn't be so quick to judge anyone. She's been the victim of that more times than she enjoys thinking about, which is why she feels bad for thinking that of him. She wonders how much Thorfinn has had to drink in order to get so talkative, but she's enjoying learning more about him.

"Well?" she prods, eager to hear the end of the story. "And what happened next, after you kicked Alti from his horse?"

Thorfinn would have been happy to hear she had thought so, at least sober. He hated people seeing him and his scars and realizing exactly what and who he was. All he wanted in his older years was some peace.

"The whole wagon flipped so I assumed Bjorn and Canute were dead, best to get back to Askeladd." He explained rather heartlessly, but true to how he felt at that age. "The battle was already going ferice by the time I returned, and we have not been gone long. Thorkell and his goons had arrived and decided upon meeting Askeladd. Who had been shot in the legs by his own men, they hoped to trade him for Canute as they knew myself and Bjorn would never just hand over Canute without reason." For a man he had hated, Thorfinn had been very protective of his life. "Anyway, Thorkell demanded his men kill everyone but Askeladd."

He reached down taking another drink of one of the two drinks before going on. "I rode through the battle, no one cared about the boy in the horse as much as the slaughter. I was not so smart so I screamed at Thorkell to gain his attention. This wasn't the first time I had faced him." He added with a wave of his hand. "A big mistake on my part... that beast of a man punched the horse hard enough to kill it and send me through the air... And Thorkell again, was a fucking monster, over seven foot tall big as a bear. " Saying it aloud made it sound crazy but it had been something he lived.

"He greeted me like we were old friends when I finally landed on my feet, but again, I was in no mood for it and told him if he touched Askeladd I would kill him myself. It sent his men in a laughing uproar until it was decided we would duel for Askeladd's life." He chuckled a bit then and took another drink. "I was really stupid... and I'm getting to the flying." He added. he liked to give time in case there was questions.

"I don't think I've ever heard you swear before," Peggy remarks with teasing amusement, seeing as she hardly minds the profanity (if she did, she never would have lasted very long in the army). Still, Thorfinn had always seemed so restrained before, so to see him now in a position that he's loosened up enough to swear, she can't help but think the alcohol has had quite the effect.

"Don't worry, you have my full attention," she vows, wondering how the duel must have ended to have him flying.

He couldn't help a cheeky grin, like a child caught doing something they shouldn't be doing. "I try not to anymore, but I used to be quite bad about it." He spoke, it wasn't fully a lie. He was at least better than he used to be, but he still cursed under his breath quite a bit. Mostly in Norse so no one would know what he was grumbling. He had a feeling she wouldn't be that bothered, he remembered her mentioning working with an army.

"I am pleased to know." He replied before returning to the tale. "No one really lasted more than a handful of moments against Thorkell, he was a brute, who earlier in the year had broken my ribs by throwing me like a ragdoll into the edges of the London Bridge. I knew his hits could kill me, so I had to keep out of his range while still trying to stab for vital points or joints to slow him down. This kept on for some time. He fought with two axes, me with two short swords. It didn't take long to realize he was wearing chainmail under his coat, so any strikes I gave would prove pointless. He to knew of my temper it seemed, and he kept baiting me with my father, saying things about how much I was like him. Eventually I flat out asked what the deal was. Both keeping our distance from the other while the men roared around us. He made me promise if I kept him entertained he would tell me what his connection to my father was. I of course, the cocky boy I was then, told him he would be in no possession to speak by the time I finished with him. Everyone roared into laughter, the audacity I had to speak to the great Thorkell in such a way, I hadn't had a moment of fear until he struck down one of his own men for laughing at me. Everyone went silent as he pointed out the only man to ever defeat him before was my father. And to prove I was his son by doing the same. It was that moment I realized just how serious it was. Still, we both charged for the attack. I held my own well at least until I made a terrible mistake."

He reached out finishing the bottle in a drink, there had not been much left in it anyway, sitting back he picked at the label some. "Before my father's murder he had said the words a True warrior needs no blade. Those words haunted me, they still do if I am honest, but Thorkell in the mist of our fight mentioned my fighting lacked something, he asked me what I think a true warrior was. I saw red, as I often did when it came to those words. I didn't think I just ran at him as fast as I could. and he swung both axes out, but I was small and slid between his arms. The problem came when he kicked out. There was nothing I could do but be hit wrong and possibly die, or take the hit and bounce off it like a spring." He shrugged some.

"He kicked me so high." His eyes widened some. "Right out over the trees. I knew he would kick me high but not that high. That, that was the moment I flew Peggy, flying is easy, it is coming down that is hard." he lifted his arm on the side his cheek was scarred. "I nearly ruined my arm, it had to be splinted for a season or more. When I came down I fell through a tree."

"Well, now, that sounds less like you were flying and more that you were tumbling from the sky," she says, worrying over him even though he's clearly sitting in front of her and he's in good health. "You must have had quite the bruise. I can only imagine how bad it would have been if you had travelled that high," Peggy says, her eyes skirting down to his chest and wondering if there would have been a mark. "Did he leave a scar?"

She searches around to find another bottle of beer, holding it out to him as if to entice him to keep telling his stories, though she isn't actually trying to get him drunk.

"Same thing if you ask me." he gave a shrug. "I was pretty bruised for awhile, but, I kind of always was at that age." he shrugged some more. He reached over for the beer offered and took another drink. "Oh yeah, I have a couple from Thorkell. He liked me, thus he was always picking fights with me." After a drink he looked at the bottle. "While they strapped my arm to my chest so I could keep fighting and finish the duel, he told me a truth I had long been denied. I was blood related to that beast. He was my mother's uncle. My father's partner. Thorkell was an insane son of a bitch, but he was loyal when he wanted to be. When Canute reached us, he put a stop to the fight, managed to get Thorkell to join our cause and we marched to Denmark."

He spoke leaving it there for now as he took another drink. "My scars did not come from being a slave, Peggy, they came from before." He wasn't sure if he had told her his misfortune, but he was enough gone to not care. He wasn't ashamed just unsure.

"I'd hate to be in your world is liking means picking fights," Peggy remarks, though it's not really like she has much room to talk, given how Peggy has a very slight (just the slightest) tendency to find herself fights at any given day at any given time. At least she could stand behind her job and she thinks that she's been rather well behaved here. Then again, no one has really tried to attack her or arrest her, here."You sound like you've had quite the life," she says, shaking her head.

"Don't you find it boring here?" she wonders. "At home, you were fighting and flying and doing all kinds of incredible, dangerous things. Isn't it dull here/"

"Thorkell is insane, even by our standards, it is part of why he is famous as he is." He spoke as if it was basic knowledge, though in his time and place it was. Even as a boy he had heard the poems of Thorkell the Tall, even if he had no idea the future he and that madman had in store. He shrugged a bit as he took another drink.

"It's the path I choose. My father wanted better for me, but I was stubborn and I picked a bloody path. Like all norse boys, I wanted honor and valor in battle. If I could go back I tell tell that stubborn child to stay home, to not sneak onto the ship... History might have been very different." He added as he took another drink.

"Not at all, well. Yes a little, but after four years on Ketil's farm felling trees, this place is much more exciting. If I had the choice, yes I would be home. I have people waiting on me, but this place is not bad. Not in that way. I enjoy it. The things I did in my youth were not wise, they were not tought or good, no matter how my people view them. NO matter what they think of me back home, I was a terrible person Peggy. I aim to be better." He lifted his hand to his chest. "I want to make a better world for my children... whenever I get around to having children... That makes sense right?"

"You wanted to hear of Canute, yes?"

Peggy does, but he's gone and said something that's made her think. "You don't think that we're going to be here long enough for anyone to actually have children, do you?" she wonders, perhaps a bit taken aback and fraught at the very possibility. After all, despite having been here for nearly half a year, she still thinks that tomorrow is going to be the day and she's going to get out of there. Tomorrow, is what she keeps telling herself. "No, you know what, let's talk about Canute instead," she says, because she doubts the line of thought about potential children in the village is one that she wants to pursue.

It implies a longevity that she hadn't truly ever considered before and even the mild prospect of it is, frankly, terrifying.

Thorfinn shrugged his shoulders some. "I was not in the other world even this long... but from the time we arrived to now, I would say yes. I do not think we should here, but if somehow we are stuck never to leave then why not?" he shrugged again. "My only concern is the dangers of this place. We are clearly watched."

He offered his thoughts before waving a hand and taking another drink. "About three weeks after the failed battle at London Bridge, we had taken over a small village near a town called Bath. The others were partying as they did but I was sick of the noise. I had gone up the hills to try and sleep away from the noise and of all people Askeladd was sitting there... This by the by is weeks and months before the time I flew." he felt the need to point out.

"We argued and spoke of his thoughts on age and those that came before us, the sun was rising by then and a horse rode fast our way, one of King Sweyn's messengers."

"I know Bath," Peggy shares, as well as London Bridge, so to hear the familiar names makes her smile and listen more thoughtfully, trying to picture Bath as a small village instead of the city she'd known it as, still amazed that some places could live for so long and change with the times. "What did the messenger have to say?" she wonders.

Thorfinn leaned crossed his arms, and tipped his head back a little looking at the ceiling. "Bath was nice, but I prefer Jarvik... York, York's the modern name." he commented. "Bigger cities were easier to deal with, less blood shed usually."

"The messneger came looking for King Swyen's troops, but Askeladd as I said let us deflect a bit and rest in Bath, the men were on edge and needed to blow off steam as the bastard liked to say." He explained unfolding one arm to wave a hand as if to say he didn't like it. "Prince Canute, with his Theng Lord Ragnar and their troops of nearly five hundred had been taken down by the madman Thorkell, he had the prince and Ragnar Hostage. He was looking for the main troops to save Canute." reaching out he lifted his drink again.

"Askeladd had a plan and I knew it the moment I saw him smirk. His sword swung fast and he beheaded the messenger, screaming for someone to bury the man and his horse, announcing that we would not seek help, we would save the prince ourselves and take whatever treasure the king had for ourselves. All the glory of saving the heir of the Danish throne. This sadly, was the beginning of the end for the man. The first in a string of bad choices." Taking a drink and placing the bottle back down he sat back.

"So move ahead a couple days, I am standing being soaked with buckets of water while the men light a forest a light. The plan was simple honestly, We knew Thorkell's men were traveling through the forest, so we burn the forest and chase them out, ASkeladd sends me in and I grab the prince and ride out. Simple... but nothing is ever that simple."

"No, nothing is ever quite simple, is it," Peggy says ruefully, thinking of all the plans that she had been part of and all the missions that ought to have been simple. She thinks of Howard's inventions and how many were supposed to be helpful little innovations to a daily routine and turned out to be disastrous and deadly.

How could anything ever truly be simple? "What happened when you went in to grab the prince?" She can only imagine what might have gone wrong and caused disasters, but she's sure that Thorfinn will manage to surprise her, no matter how wild she allows her imagination to get.

"It never is, if my life has taught me anything at all, it is when people say something is simple it will be a complete shitstorm." He spoke. The alcohol brought out his old manner of speech, the side of him he tried to hide from people. The boy who didn't care what people thought of him, a bit to feral and wild for people to really want to be close to. A warrior child raised by seasoned warriors to be a fine tuned killing machine. In a sober mind he tried to pretend his true nature didn't exist out of pure shame.

"Well, it was a bad idea to start, even soaked I could feel the flames growing around me, the horses tail caught on fire before we even got far in. They soaked me but didn't take a second to think about the steed.The smoke had caused the confusion we needed, but Thorkell's men still nearly recaptured the prince about the time I came through the flames. You must know I was a little smaller than I am now at the time, all who saw me always thought me much much younger, ask Jo, she thought I was a mere child when we met, and I was seventeen." He took another drink. "The men thought it was so funny to see a boy before them, taking bets on who got to kill me, but their ringleader swung his axe, I don't even remember moving just turning and sinking my blade into his neck. He fell dead to my feet. I told the prince to stay back, that I was there to save him... he looked like more of a woman than the royal prince of Denmark, but who was I to judge on looks? I did but thats besides the point." He waved a hand a little.

He was from a society where manilness was everything. "The tree's started to break with the flames as Thorkell came out of the thick of it, calling out to me. We had already fought once by this point at London Bridge, so he made a crack at his men telling them they would not best me, because I was Thors' son. Of course even these bastards knew of my father they muttered how I looked nothing like him. Which is simply because I am my mother's spitting image. But there was no time for talking the fire was growing worse, and none of us cared to die in a fire, there was no honor in that. Thorkell told me to take the prince that we would meet again and settle the score. I quickly lead the prince and his men out of the fire to Askeladd. Where the man promised he would return the prince safely to his father... though at the time we had no idea that Canute was meant to die there. The king wanted him dead, the boys father harbored no love for him."

She liked the profanity, honestly. It reminds her of when the Howlies had grown comfortable enough around Peggy to let their hair down and speak of all topics, with profanity laden jokes about women and sexual encounters, and the sort of thing that might make you blush, but Peggy is made of sterner stuff. To her, it had meant her inclusion into the group, and even now, she smiles with more sincerity to hear it.

"And what happened? What changed?" she coaxes. "How did you know that the plan wasn't going to work the way everyone had intended?"

Thorfinn no longer wished to be the person he had once been. Though letting her see the side of him he hide, even under the influence meant a lot, or it would once he sobered up in the morning, and got done being embarrassed at himself. The Howlies and Askeladd's band likely were alike in many ways, but very different in others.

"What happened was Thorkell still, he chased us all the way through Wales and Mercia... It was deep winter by the time we all knew the end was coming. By then I was Canute's personal guard. Askeladd said it was because we were the same age. In truth, at least what i think to be the truth it was because he trusted me. When I knew the plan wasn't going to work though, myself, was after the mutiny and Thorkell joining the cause." He looked down at his drink looking a little less vibrant a little more sad. "In Jarvik everything changed. Askeladd made another bad choice, one that cost him his life. He was cut down before me and becuase of that choice he made the man I hated and devoted my life to killing died in front of me. Killed by Canute of all people. He died in my arms asking me what I was going to do with him dead."

He was still looking in his drink. "I never found that answer... And I am no longer who I was."

Peggy understands what it's like to be shaped by someone's death, but she likes to think that hers is positive and that Michael would like what she's become. It's what he would have wanted, she knows that, but she wishes that he hadn't needed to die for her to discover that. Heartbroken, she gives his hand a squeeze, feeling a great deal of empathy for him.

"I'm sorry," she offers. "I know it's not easy, losing someone like that." And she'd had to go through it so many times, having lost Steve and so many of the others, and then even Colleen back in New York, all because of her.

He looked up from his drink when she squeezed his hand, shaking his head some. "It's... not that easy Peggy. I hated him, I lived and breathed for the chance to kill that man..." He pulled his hand back pushing his hair from his eyes.

"Let me share one last tale before I am done. Show some light into the fucked up situation that was my becoming one of Askeladd's trusted." He looked down at the table crossing his arms over his chest. "Unless I already told you that... did I, I do not recall anymore." Maybe he was more gone than he realized.

Peggy can't help her amused smile. "Thorfinn, I think perhaps you need to save some more stories for the next feast we have," she says, as if they're going to have one more. "I want to hear all your stories, but for right now, I think it's more important for you to get some rest." She has a feeling that he's going to feel this in the morning, so she wants to see if she can get some water in him.

If only she had Jarvis here, who had quite the lengthy experience in sobering up drunk men. "Come along, then," she summons. "Some water and then we'll find a place for you to curl up."

"If we have another." He spoke, just a bit of a downer, he didn't take things like these for granted. Mostly because despite being a pagan he didn't trust a lot of magic after living on the magic islands.

Thorfinn nodded, understanding, he pushed himself up, a hand moving over his eyes a moment. "I can make it home, it's not far." He motioned to the backdoor of the inn. It was a straight shot from the back door to his own home, well Kol's home. "Thank you all the same, Peggy. I can go myself." Feeling the dizziness he had a feeling that maybe she was right.

"If we don't have another, I'll bribe someone to use the materials we have and cook us a second," she promises, because she knows that she's useless as a chef herself. Still, there's plenty of people here that would likely be willing to help them out and she likes the idea of another feast, though made by themselves.

"Be safe, Thorfinn," Peggy insists firmly. "And sleep well."

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Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

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cw; mentions of death both human and animal alike

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