Child of Chaos
When Five awakes, all he can focus on is the blaring throb of a pounding headache. Have I been drinking? The traveller strains to remember.
Rather than returning to his family and figuring out how to avert the Apocalypse, Five stumbles onto the eastern shores of a people lost to the ages. More precisely, four harvests have passed since he fell through the headman’s roof. It happens on Samhain Eve and, when the heavens tear, he appears to the tribe as a strangely dressed elderman — youth restored — struggling to get free of a desolate land. The thinning of the veil is brief but deafening. Welcomed among the Picts as Flett, by the time Five is honoured as a Wolfwalker, he’s instrumental to the community’s survival.
A prickling chill overtakes Five as salty air floods his senses. I hear seabirds. His pulse quickens, intensifying the bulging beat in his addled grey matter. He opens his eyes and jolts upright, only to be blinded by the light.
Fuck.
He’s on a ship. A Norsemen's ship. His limbs are bound, and he’s surrounded by the meagre valuables of his relations. When he's able to see, he sees no other captives. The chieftain, Aodh, is like a father to him.
Was like a father.
The memory of their last stand lands like a kick to the gut, causing a tearful retching as Five gags on a foul rag covering his mouth. His jarring movements pull back his hood and draw unwanted attention.
Beneath a fringed short brown cloak Five wears a dark blue chequered tunic fastened by a knotwork brooch, his deep green half trousers tucked into once cream coloured leg wrappings. Leather boots still hold to his feet, but two empty scabbards hang from his belt and his silver pelt is missing. Whereas Five has reached adulthood (again), he is uncommonly clean shaven with cerulean-stain markings that run the length of his left side. The brunette’s fierce features, plump cheeks, and piercing green eyes scream Otherworldliness.
Five struggles against the rough braid digging into his wrists, a growl emanating from deep within his chest. Several of the gawkers edge away, but one steps closer. The blond blur is laughing. There’s a disorienting assault on his eardrums as they ruffle his hair, the back half of which is caked in blood, and return the cowl to his head. Five's thoughts get a little clearer as the shade settles.
My journals are gone. Thirty years of calculations up in smoke. I have no way home, no one left to live for. I want to close my eyes and have the next thing I see be a breathing Klaus.
Five contemplates pitching himself over the side and waiting it out for a thousand years. Because I definitely have unfinished business to attend to. Despite his desire to see the sorely missed séance, he slumps himself against the ship’s hull with a groaning thud. It's unwise to sleep with a head injury, but the lulling pull of dreamlessness is too alluring and he's been through so much already. He’s heartbroken. Utterly exhausted. Plus his hip is shrieking — as if a wound had to be cauterised — but he couldn't have been that badly hurt. Or could he? His most recent memories are also the hardest to piece together, so he sleeps away the pain and saves his strength for dry land.
The Norsemen have seen him skywalk in a howling frenzy of bloodlust. He even remains unharmed until battle fatigue robs him of his powers. Only then is Jarl Harald’s horde able to ensnare the ferocious lad and subdue him with a blunt sword hilt to the back of the skull. The scoundrels believe him to be a wordweaver, which is why they unsheathe their blades whenever the Jarl hand-feeds him bits of stale bread or dribbles strong mead over parched lips. While the warrior understands just fragments of the repugnant man’s babble, his glances and lingering touches speak volumes. It’s nauseating.
There’s many rough days with heavy swells followed by untold weeks held mute in a cold dungeon. Five’s sole companion during his confinement is an enslaved woman, the only person fluent in his acquired tongue, who acts as his attendant. Angrboda possesses sad but kind eyes and a gentle voice. She reminds him of Grace. Five tolerates his stint as a flesh and blood Delores. The gommy naff is mostly absent, little is expected when he visits, and Angrboda excels at guessing his no-handed charades. But then the ludicrous universe decides a priest can enthral Five’s powers with a runic-inscribed gold circlet shaped like a snake eating its own tail.
Fuck. Getting home just got a lot harder.
