Nobody had seen the storm coming. Not even old, experienced Drafnar, who prided himself on his ability to sense a coming change in the weather hours beforehand, had noticed until the wind suddenly picked up at an alarming rate.
Mere minutes later the sky turned near pitch black, and not long after that the rain came pouring down. Whipping over the boats while thunder clashed upon the dark skies.
The wolves had just barely gotten the sails down on time before the storm could tear their ships apart, and all they could do now was fight to stay afloat on top of the savage waves and pray to the gods.
Some had decided to throw a few thralls overboard as a sacriface in an attempt to appease the gods, but that only seemed to have made the storm worse.
Within seconds Krummi had become drenched to the bone, and despite her usual hardiness for the cold she felt how her entire body shuddered nonstop. She could barely feel her limbs, ears and muzzle anymore, and the chattering of her own teeth made her skull hurt.
She had never been this cold before, and just as she thought she couldn’t get any colder, a new wave would crash over the ship and drench them all again.
While she and the others held on to the oars for dear life, the remaining thralls had been ordered to scoop the water out. They were if possible even worse for wear at the time, but good thing they all seemed to fear death more than life in slavery as they all were working frenetically with shovelling the water up into buckets and dumping it back into the raging ocean.
“G-g-gods… m-must have been a-a-angered… s-somehow...” Someone behind her whimpered as an especially hard wave made their ship jolt so hard the wood creaked below their feet.
“Th… the gods… c-can suck… my t… tits!” Litlata immediately hissed back. Her usually so smooth and sultry voice was haorse and trembling from her cold shivering.
The blonde goddess of a wolf was sitting next to Krummi, her light hair was dangling in icy strips in front of her face as she glared at something over at the horizon. Focusing on a point somewhere far ahead to try to keep the focus off the cold and pain in her body.
Krummi silently wished she had Litlata’s resolve many times, and this was certainly one of them again. All she could think of and feel was the biting cold freezing her to her very bones.
She had to let go of the oars and try to rub life back into her hands… only for a few minutes.
Her hands trembled as she looked down at them.
She was sitting right next to the waterline, and if she let go, all it would take would be a single, hard hitting wave to knock her off her balance. And if she was knocked towards the edge of the ship… well… that’s why they all were tied with long ropes to the mast.
She gritted her teeth and gripped the edge tighter. Her body ached, including the parts she couldn’t even feel. The ship tossing and turning made her slam against the edge of the ship, she could barely hold back the yelps of pain as her stiff body got bruised.
But she managed to grit her teeth and endure it. But the cold…
She carefully let go with one hand and brought it up to her mouth. She was trembling so much she almost punched herself on the muzzle.
She tried to take a deep breath and breathe the air on her balled fist, but even her breath was cold.
Suddenly she felt the ship tilt and her eyes widened as alerting yells filled the ship. She looked up just in time to see the biggest wave yet tower over the ship for a split second, before it washed over them and made the ship jerk violently. Nearly causing a broad hulled longship to tip over.
She still managed to hold on with one hand when the initial wave rocked the boat, but when the boat wobbled in the afterwave, she felt her heart nearly stop when her hand slid of the oar.
She heard Litlata gasp and cry out her name as an seemingly invisible force jerked her off her seat and made her crash to the floor with a painful grunt. Just as Krummi managed to open her eyes and was about to quickly crawn back to her place, when she noticed that someone was off with her rope.
An axe had fallen on top of it, and it looked like it had been rubbed against the head of the axe while the ship had been tossing and turning.
But just as she reached for her seat, the ship once more jerked violently to the side. Making Krummi slam into the side again, and this time she saw black spots dance in front of her eyes as the back of her head hit the barrier.
She heard Litlata shout something at her, but she could barely focus any of her senses. That had been a harder hit than before, but just as she managed to catch the outline of Litlata reaching her hand out to Krummi, another wave must have hit the ship because the next second she found herself under water.
The wave washed over the ship, grabbing anything loose it could get, and pulled it into the ocean.
Krummi felt as if invisible hands grabbed onto her, and yanked her over the ship’s barrier, and pulled her down into the water.
It all had happened so fast she had barely been able to register it until she found herself getting pulled down into the dark, cold water by the strong currents.
There was no air to breathe. The water’s pressure was squeezing her like a rag as she sunk.
It only took a few seconds for her to get over the initial shock, before she began to work her way back up.
She was kicking and clawing towards the surface while her lungs stung and craved air, but she felt as if she made no progress at all. Like she was wriggling like a helpless worm in a void space.
The salt water burned in her eyes so she closed them, trying to hold back a scream to not take in any more water.
But suddenly she felt her paws break the surface and she shot her head up and took a deep breath. However, the air she managed to fill her lungs with vanished just as quickly as she began to cough and sputter, trying to clear her lungs again. She must have swallowed even more water than she thought, as she kept coughing while struggling to stay afloat among the violently crashing waves.
She tried to open her eyes, but felt fear grip her very soul when she looked around her. There were no signs of any of the ships.
She was alone.
Did the entire ship capsize? Did the fleet get separated? Were the others drowning as well?
She tried to take another breath, only to be rewarded with another mouthful of water. And while spitting it out, she felt herself get pulled back again, and she looked up just as she saw another wave raise up above her. Not quite as big as the one that hit the ship and knocked her off her seat, but it didn’t have to be. She was all exposed in the water, with nothing to hold on to and stay afloat, and nowhere to flee.
She closed her eyes again and managed to fill her lungs with some air before the wave hit, and once again pulled her under the water.
Despite that her body hurt and screamed with exhaustion, and it felt like she was swimming in syrup, she immediately began to claw for the surface again.
But this time she felt how she slowly kept being dragged downwards, despite her kicking.
She saw nothing, but it felt like a draugr was holding on to her and pulling her down into the depths. Deadset on making her one of them.
But she refused. She knew that unless one of the ships by some miracle found her and pulled her onboard again, she was doomed. But still, her stubborness refused to allow her to give in to the greedy sea.
She wasn’t going to let it end like this. Her father was still waiting for her to come back. He was counting on her. She was so close to clearing his name, she just knew it. She couldn’t let the real murderer win and get away with what he had done…
Fuck. She needed to breathe again…
Everything hurt, and she felt body drain of strength more and more by the second.
She couldn’t feel if she was climbing or not, but suddenly she felt one of her tiredly flailing arms touch something solid.
Instantly her hands reached for the hard surface, trying to make sure she wasn’t just imagining things. And she felt a glimmer of hope when her palm touched the object again.
It had a hard and rough, slightly slimy, texture, and it didn’t budge as she clung to it. A rock? Was she closer to land than she thought?
Maybe she could climb up against the rock, back up over the surface, and spot land? If the land was within reach, she could survive…
Her claws fumbled around until the could find a crevice or crack to use as footing, and once she did she begun to climb. Ignoring the pain in her body and her lungs, stubbornly holding on to her consciousness until…
Her head broke through the surface again with a loud gasp. She dug her claws into the cracks in the rock as she alternated between coughing and breathing. Tears were mixing with the heavy rain as their ran from her stinging eyes, and her nose and throat burned from all the salt water.
But she was still alive.
By the gods, she was still alive.
Still with her eyes closed she used what she had left of her strength to pull herself up over the rock and cling to watever footing she could find to stay on top of it.
She breathed heavily, sobbing from the pain inbetween her breaths as she focused a few seconds on recovering.
It seemed like the rock wasn’t tall at all and barely reached over the surface of the waves, but it was all she needed. She was lucky to have found it. Without it she would’ve probably been gone by now.
But suddenly she realized that something about the rock was… off. Her eyes carefully fluttered open.
It was like the rock wasn’t attached to the bottom, it was gently bobbing along with the raging waves as if it was floating. But rocks doesn’t float.
Krummi raised her head slowly. It was hard to see with her fogged up vision and the dark, but soon her eyes adjusted and she followed the rock. It continued in a straight line until it vanished into the dark waves. The cracks she had used as footings seemed to form a pattern along the entire surface, until she realized what sort of pattern it resembled.
It looked like scales. Enormous scales.
Each scale was about the size of a roundshield, if not bigger, and only slightly overlapped with each other. Letting her see the hints of a rough, sandpaper-like skin inbetween.
This wasn’t a rock. It was something alive. Something big.
Realizing that she had her claws buried between two scales made her gulp as she had her suspicions, but she didn’t let go.
A wave crashed over her again, but this time she barely even budged. She didn’t want to believe what her senses were telling her, but the icy cold water kept reminding her that she was lucid. There was only one creature in the world who even came near to this size.
Krummi didn’t know why, but for some reason she felt a sudden urge to turn her head. She tried to fight it, not daring to see what could be behind her. But bit by bit she lost the struggle, and when she looked over her shoulder her heart once again came at a standstill.
The head was too big for her to be able to see, so all she could see was the massive, fire red eyed she came face to face with. The thin slit of a pupil seemed to stare right at her, and as much as she wanted to she just couldn’t turn her eyes away.
“J… Jörmungandr...” She whispered hoarsely, in fear and disbelief.
The world serpent was a well known beast whose stories she had heard countless of times as a pup, it was said that it was so big that it was able to wrap around the world and bite itself in the tail.
While she had heard the other clansmen tell stories of when they allegedly had seen the serpent for themselves, and some even claimed to have seen it when the serpent swallowed their ships whole in one bite, she had never in her life expected to see if for herself. Even less at this distance.
Well, at least she wouldn’t be claimed by the sea and turn into a draugr…
For what felt like an eternity, Krummi and Jörmungandr didn’t budge as they stared at each other. Krummi out of sheer, paralyzing fear, betting that Jörmungandr was simply sizing her up for a snack.
The staredown ended suddenly when Jörmungandr moved and his large eye slowly closed as he pulled his head down under the water again. Krummi could finally turn her head back forward again, and not knowing what else to do she just gripped on to the scale tighter. Fighting the tears of fear as she prepared to be swallowed up by the world serpent.
Suddenly the body moved again, and trembled a little before slowly starting to sink below the waves again.
“NO!” Krummi managed to cry out before she was forced to take a quick, deep breath. Right before her head vanished below the water surface again.
For some reason she still tried to hold on to the serpent’s scales, but her exhausted body couldn’t take anymore. Every body has its limits.
The world serpent slipped out of her grip, and the pressure it created as it sunk down towards the pitch black depths kept pulling her down with it and spun her around helplessly. Until she couldn’t even tell what was up or down.
She struggled to swim in any direction, but her heavy limbs couldn’t move. They felt heavy like lid, weighing her down for the sea to swallow.
Her lungs burned, and again she felt her consciousness fade.
This couldn’t be it… it just couldn’t.
But it was…
***
The first thing she felt when her mind slowly returned was pain. Pain, cold, and a burning sensation in her throat and lungs. She subconsciously tried to take a breath to ease the burning, and that was when she was forced to wake up as her body was launched into a violent coughing fit.
Krummi jolted up right and lurched over her lap as she half coughed, half threw up the water that was filling her lungs. Her claws dug into the sand as she struggled to move to all fours, still hulking and sputtering.
Her body was shuddering with pain and cold, her head was throbbing and it didn’t take long until she felt how all the salt water she swallowed had dried her out, and soon thirst was the only thing she could focus on.
Still heaving between coughing, she slowly turned her head to look around.
She was on a beach, whose black sand seemed to stretch on towards the horizon. The sky was still dark and a light rain drizzled over her, but the storm seemed to have withdrawn. The sea hadn’t calmed down fully yet, as waves still clashed against each other as far out as she could see.
Thunder still rumbled, but it sounded much further away.
Krummi stood still on her hands and knees and just stared at the ocean as she fought to recover. Smaller waves reached the shores would sometimes reach up around her hands, but she was already soaked to the bone so she didn’t care.
Piece by piece she tried to put together the events that led to her waking up here.
She remembered that they were heading home from the raids, and all she could think of was going to their neighboring islands to see Isvindur again and boast with her loot. But suddenly a storm had come upon them, and she recalled how she had gotten knocked off the bench by a wave, and while struggling to get up she had discovered that her tether had been worn down by grinding against an axe.
But she hadn’t gotten the time to fix it before a wave washed her off the ship and into the dark sea.
Krummi winced and rubbed a bump at the back of her head, that she must’ve gotten while she was thrashing on the ship’s floor.
She recalled seeing Litlata’s stretched out hand before the wave washed her off… was she trying to help her?
Krummi slowly leaned back, sitting back on her knees and glanced down at the rope around her waist. It was indeed torn off at an armslength away, and judging from the messy end it didn’t look like it had been cut.
She closed closed her eyes with a sigh. At least that meant that nobody had done it on purpose… maybe. That axe had been leaning against the mast by the time the storms had started and then fallen down on her rope. Making it hard to tell if it was planned by the owner to the axe or not.
In either case, this place didn’t look like Helheim so she must’ve survived. But how…?
Suddenly Krummi froze up as the memory of staring into the massive eye of an ancient beast popped up in her mind’s eye. She would never forget the cold, tense panic she had felt being eye to eye with Jörmungandr itself.
And yet, she had survived…
She looked back out at the ocean with a low gulp.
Why hadn’t Jörmungandr just eaten her? She had been right there, too exhausted to even attempt to flee. And even if she could’ve, there was no way she would actually succeed to outswim the world serpent itself, so why not eat her while it had the chance?
A sudden shriek made Krummi jump and growl defensively as her head spun around towards the source of the sound.
On a bank above her stood a blonde colored she wolf, standing with her sea blue eyes widely staring in shock with her hands clasped in front of her mouth.
“L… Litlata…?” Krummi tried to say, but with her dry mouth all she could manage was a faint, hoarse croak.
“Krummi? Are… are you…?” Litlata whimpered, and when she realized that it indeed was her friend she threw herself down the bank. It only took her a couple of quick steps before she reached Krummi, and she immediately threw her arms around her before she even had the time to flinch. “KRUMMIII! Fuck! J-just… one second you were there, and the next you… you were gone! I tried to go in after you b-but Eivar wouldn’t let me!”
Krummi was mute in surprise as Litlata sobbed against her shoulder, and just shifted awkwardly as Litlata hugged her tighter.
“I’m so sorry, Krummi! I… I was so scared that you were gone!”
Krummi finally managed to put her hands on Litlata’s shoulders and weakly pushed her away slightly. “Litlata… sh… shut the fuck up...” She managed to whisper through her cracked lips, and Litlata looked at her with tears in her eyes.
At first she looked hurt as she blinked silently at her, but then snorted and wiped the tears away from her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “Well, at least you seem to be just fine”
“W… water?” Krummi coughed, and Litlata nodded her head towards the way she had come from.
“Yeah, we managed to save one barrel of drinking water. Come on, let’s tell the others the good news” Litlata said as she got up to her feet again. Her dress had gotten wet and sandy from the beach, but she simply brushed it off quickly before helping Krummi up.
“We must’ve been saved by the gods themselves, friend! We managed to find this lil’ island by sheer dumb luck and took shelter here while the storm finishes up. Some of them must’ve looked after you too, because what are the odds of you washing ashore here as well?” Litlata continued as she wrapped her arm around Krummi and helped her support herself as they began to walk towards the ship and the rest of the crew, which had all been beached on the other side of the island.
Krummi silently looked down at her feet before throwing a glance at the sea again. “I… I think Jörmungandr saved me...”
Litlata suddenly stopped in their tracks and stared skeptically at her. “… Jörmungandr? The world serpent?”
Krummi nodded, and Litlata went silent for a few beats. But then she started chuckling and shook her head.
“Well, I thought I saw you hit your head pretty badly back there! C’mon, let’s get you some water and rest by a nice, warm fire. Sounds like you need it more than any of us!”
Krummi silently gritted her teeth but didn’t object. She could tell that Litlata didn’t believe her, but that didn’t matter. She knew what she had seen, and felt. And she would never forget it for as long as she lived.
----
Just a story i wrote along with this pic i drew a long time. Felt like posting as it still haven't for whatever reason lol
Keywords
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nordic
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3 years, 10 months ago
02 Jun 2020 20:38 CEST
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