#gonna post another text for 3rd October and then a LIL SOMETHING to ease my bleeding heart

[hel-phoenyx]

2) Dancing

The first thing you taught me was to dance.

It was not usual. Even girls, in the country you bore, had to learn how to fight. Leif and Ivar had an axe in the hand before they even learnt how to read. But for me, you wanted something else. You wanted me, your youngest daughter, to choose.

You wanted me to have what you never could achieve.

So you let me have my way and my way was dancing. I didn't even learn how to read before my feet touched the ground in grace and precision.

You told me that if I could carry on like that soon I could take on my own learning. I could learn how to read on my own terms, and since Leif and Ivar preferred the axe, it would be ma that would wield the Bane of Life, our family's most precious heirloom.

I didn't have the time to learn.

I remember the blood. I remember him holding out your lifeless body, your blonde curls tainted in red. I remember the tears when I saw the mangled bodies of my older brothers, destroyed by the hate of the people.

I remember my hands holding something cold, something metallic. An earring and a sword.

They wanted to kill me, but she refused. Your most trusted councelor, Brynhild von Zanaderstrassen, the Coast's only vampire, rumored grandaughter of the Ocean himself.

She gave me a chance at life and put me under her care. I was her daughter, at least for a while, while I wanted to. And I stopped wanted to because there was him. I don't remember ever have been approached by other children, they were all afraid of the princes and the princess, but he held my hand with a smile and he told me it was okay to cry.

I never learned how to read, and I stopped dancing. I never stopped living.

You wanted me to live.

I grew up alone, without my brothers, my father, my mother. But he eased the loneliness at least for a second. A second that looked like an eternity.

So when he took my hand, my feet started to move, to move again, and my heart started beating only for him. One step, two steps, and I was dancing.

He didn't mock me, he didn't try to court me under the traditions of the Kraken Coast, he just took my hand and followed my dancing. One step at a time he brought back the sun in my heart.

I fell in love without even noticing and he married me without even caring.

On the day of our wedding we danced until the end of night.

He's born, wailing in my arms, my son, my precious baby. The sun kisses his face and my daughter, my sweet girl, is poking the scales on his face with unhidden curiosity. Harald is not here, he is talking with the midwives. Giving birth was complicated, I almost lost my ability to bear children, yet here I am, with the most precious gifts life gave me.

I know they are in danger, both of them. Such small children, such threats to the crown, especially know that the heiress is rumored to be crazy. I know he won't kill them, but what about her ?

My hands brush his infant fuzz, already so vibrant, shining like the sun. His scales shine even harder and I know, from the time I took to let him be born to the seastorm raging outside, that he inherited both Brynhild's and your gifts.

He is my opportunity for revenge.

But not today, not now. Now I just lift him in my arms, towards the sun, and let him dance under the sunlight.

I'm dying.

I'm sorry, my children. I was so focused on hardening you that I softened myself.

Please, don't take my death too much by heart. I will finally dance with my family again.

The day may come when you join us, but I hope, Kriss, that in the meantime you will continue dancing with your beloved.

and I hope for you, my dear Tyrfing, that one day you get to dance under the sun with the person most precious to you, like I did once I held you in my arms.

I love you both.

And I'd much rather die in love than live in hatred.