Chapter 1

Lucky's POV

The cold water seemed to want to swallow me. The waves pulled and pushed me like this was a game to them. My life was insignificant to the ruler of the sea. No matter how desperately I tried to fight, it was like battling a giant.

A giant of Mother Nature.

The unforgiving and unkind. The resourceful and giving. The one who had kept my people alive for generations and took them back without mercy. The one we all loved and feared...

The ocean!

I didn’t know how it happened. Perhaps it grew tired of me and just tossed me aside. A wave grabbed me and the next thing I knew, I was being crushed against the seashore. Rocks and sand embraced my body while I frantically gasped for air.

I--- I was alive?

Shit!

Spoke too soon!

The sea had changed its mind and started to pull me back. As if I was pulled in by fire, I grabbed ahold of the shore. Stones and rocks crushed my fingers and scratched my skin. But somehow I managed to crawl far enough away to finally be free.

I was free…

I gasped for air as I turned back and watched the sun slowly sink into the boiling waters. In the distance, I could still see the mast of the ship from time to time. Like me, it too was still clinging to life. But it was too late. All around the shoreline, I could see pieces of what had once been my prison.

I was free!

I truly was free...!

for whatever reason, I suddenly started to laugh. It was a peal of sick and crazy laughter, but I couldn't help myself. My heart was racing. My body was shaking. I had been through hell and I lived.

I was alive!

I was alive...

And before I knew it, my laughter had turned into a steady stream of tears down my face.

I was alive…

It was a cold wind that brought me out of my trance. Yes, I was alive but alone and terrified. If I stayed here, I was going to die. I got up and started to walk. My dress was heavy, my hair was sticking to my face and I still had the taste of seawater in my mouth. My hands and face were bleeding from battling the shore and every muscle in my body was sore after fighting to survive. But if I stopped to pity myself...

I would die!

I tried to keep focused. Focused on what I needed to do, to live. I needed to find shelter from the storm. Get out of my wet clothes and get warm...

I looked up. The sun was setting, but even in the gloomy sunset, I couldn't see any lights or smoke from a chimney. I was in the middle of nowhere.

Well, I thought to myself. If I don’t know where I am, I can’t be lost!

I took a deep breath. New plan. I needed to find shelter, make a fire, dry my clothes, and survive the night. Finding shelter turned out to be the easy part. In the last light of the setting sun, I caught a glimpse of a small hut close to the shore. It was too small for someone to live in. Hell, it didn't look like anyone had been here for ages. The roof was leaking, and the door was barely hanging on by a thread. I got it open and got in.

Finding shelter: check!

My body was shivering, and it was hard to move. I was freezing. A quick look around the room revealed some old fishing tools and - as by some miracle - petroleum and a box of matches. I grabbed the box. Thank God, I thought with a smile. Tree matches left and even though the petroleum was almost all gone, I was used to less back home. There was no fireplace, but a broken iron cauldron. I grabbed anything that could burn, threw it in the cauldron, and lit a fire. The flames were hot and welcoming. I smiled.

Get warm: check!

I got out of my wet clothes finalizing my checklist. Got most of the water out of them before I hung them to dry close to the fireplace. I bent down and stood close to the fire. The wind was creeping through the holes and cracks in the walls and seemed to kiss me with icy lips, before moving on. My body was shivering, and my feet became numb.

Damn it, I thought to myself. This was going to kill me. I needed to keep warm. Then I saw my solution. Back home, I’d heard stories about how men who got lost in the mountains, kept warm by taking down and building back up a ‘varda’. A kind of directory in the mountains, showing the passageway between the villages.

I didn’t have one here, but---

I got up and went outside. The wind was still strong and the night was dark, but as always in summer, it never got that dark. Especially not this far north. At least not where I came from. I quickly found, what I was looking for and started to carry stone after stone back to the hut. By the time I had done this, the sweat was dripping from my forehead and even if I was naked, the icy kiss had lost its touch. Then I started building. One stone after another. It wasn’t big and tall or could be seen from a distance, like the ones back home, but big enough that I had to stand up straight to put the last rock on top. When I had finished, I went to see if my clothes were dry. Almost. Then I went back to my little project. Ripped out the bottom and watched my little masterpiece fall apart.

And so, I started over.

I was close to exhausted when I finished this time. The sun was getting up and even if the nights were short, I literally couldn’t remember the last time I slept.

Or ate for that matter...

I checked on my clothes. They were dry and I could get dressed. Finally. And to my surprise, they were warm too. They were not the traditional clothes the women back home would wear. It was a woven gray dress with long sleeves. It did nothing to compliment any of my figures and was considered simple; even the poor dressed better than this, my mother used to say, but in our household, it was my grandfather who set the standards. He was a priest, with a very liberated way of interpreting religion, but had an extremely conservative mindset about the place of the other sex. He had often been outraged, by the way my mother - probably the last princess of a Viking tribe in Norway - had raised her daughter to be a worrier, and not just a baby producer. He and my mother had often bumped heads, but in their own way, had always respected each other's different ways of living. My grandfather didn’t speak out against my mother in public, but defended her when people disapproved of her way of bringing up a child - and a girl, nevertheless - and Mother wore the clothes for herself and her daughter he considered appropriate. But it could also have been the fact that my father was the one giving him and my grandmother a roof over their head. And in more than one way, was their main source of food.

My father was an inventor or a sorcerer, as some proclaimed. He had thought of ways to improve things from fishing to mounting climbing, and it was always with such success, that he earned himself the nickname ‘The Sorcerer’. Many people from far and near came to buy his products or to ask him for advice and guidance. I remembered sitting in his workshop - when I wasn’t studying with Grandfather or training with Mother - listening to everything that was going through his head. Everything from small magic tricks of a disappearing coin to how to get untied if someone had tied your hands together. He taught me everything, and even my grandmother said that he raised me more like a boy, than a girl.

I suddenly awoke, when my head hit the floor. I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep. I couldn’t stay here. I needed to find someone who could help me to get back home. And, as a roar in my tummy revealed, I was hungry.

I got up and looked out. The sun was high in the sky and I estimated that it was around noon. The storm had settled and the sea looked peaceful and calm, while the light reflected the playful mind of the ocean.

It was as beautiful as it was deadly.

I took a deep breath and enjoyed the sweet salty air. I found some seaweed to eat, but I needed to wash it. I looked around and noticed a river close by. I drank the fresh water and washed my brakes fast. As I started to get some nourishment to my brain, I realized something: if I wasn’t mistaken, people always settled down close to rivers. If I followed it upstream, I would - in theory - run into people sooner or later. And just as easily as I’d made every other choice so far, I got up and started to walk along the river...