As dusk settled in around the camp, the sound of conversation and laughter filled the air as the smell of freshly cooked stew with meat lured all the soldiers close to the cooking fires in the middle of the camp. Seeing families and soldiers huddled around campfires talking and drinking beer, brought back memories of nights with Ase, Thyra, Astrid, Hui-Ying, Gunhilf together with their two lost loved ones in Aros and Hui-Ying's sister Xiao Dan talking, laughing, drinking and eating around a campfire.
"Days long gone.." she whispered to herself as she continued surveying the camp to make sure everyone had their meal for the night, one of the duties that came with the position of the heart inside a lord family with an army.
The rest of the family were also making their rounds around the camp to converse and bond with the soldiers, but she did not have that luxury for she was still planning the logistical needs of the army, alongside a special event. For the army would be heading to the northern edges of their kingdom, to once again clear out the dangerous forests around the arctic owl territory. An event that happened every 10 years to cull the dangerous animals and in the process get their meat and any other needed material from their corpse.
"What are you thinking about chipmunk?" The voice of Thyra brought her out of her musings as she turned to her right in the direction the voice came from, only to find Thyra on her knees with one of her arms on a tree stump. Across from her was a giant of a man, taller than even Thyra's staggering 2 meter 40 height, in the same position as her.
"Arm wrestling once again for money Thyra? Why do you want to rob these poor soldiers from all their money?" she sighed as she squatted down to look at the two helmets filled with coins in front of the tree stump. The helmet closest to Thyra was filled to the brim with coins, while the one closest to the giant man was filled for around half. "Well not a surprise really, Thyra is famous all across the army for being an arm-wrestling monster" she mused to herself as she decided to stop for a second to watch the match.
The giant of a man was for sure impressive, being at the height of the 4th step along his path, one likely focused on strength if she were to go by his towering physique.
"Any more bets to place!?" a female soldier shouted as she walked around the tent and campfire. "Another impressive soldier at the height of the 4th step." she thought to herself as she took in the much smaller woman who was moving towards the giant of man. After she reached him, she squatted down next to him. "At least lose gracefully alright Hubby?" She spoke in a theatrical voice as she deposited coins in the helmet next to Thyra, and she then laughed along with the other surrounding soldiers.
"Hmph, I will be fine Yrsa" the man let out a snort of ridicule at his wife's words and set his focus wholly on Thyra.
"Adina, can you count down for us?" Thyra asked as her eyes turned serious and she also set her focus wholly on the giant of a man.
"Fine….on Remjir.. On Omus.. On Nueyr.. Go '' she recited the countdown of the three gods most commonly associated with arm-wrestling as Thyra and the large man went right at it, throwing all their strength into the fray from the very start.
"Get her Orm!" some of the surrounding soldiers started to cheer on the giant man as he was truly putting all his strength into winning.
"Look at all those guys around trying to cheer you on…what a shame you will never win. " Thyra grunted out as she once more went on the offensive to put the man's hand down.
"I.. won't lose that easily…." Orm grunted back as he tried his best to resist the force from Thyra. His forehead dripped with sweat and his shirt was completely soaked from the sweat, however as he looked at Thyra, he noticed she wasn't in any better condition as her forehead was continuously dripping sweat.
The back and forth continued for a while longer until finally.. "aaaaaarrrrrrrghhhhhhh" Thyra jumped up as she yelled out in victory. She had finally won against Orm and took her share of coins from the helmet next to the man, leaving the rest for the people who bet on her to divide.
"It was a good battle Orm!" Thyra shouted as she walked over to the large man and gave him a pat on the back to grab his attention.
"Indeed it was general Thyra." Orm responded in his well-known deep voice as he reciprocated the greeting from Thyra by giving her a pat on the back as well.
"How is that village of yours doing Orm? I think we passed it on the first day of traveling, right?" Thyra continued as she sat down and cast a brief glance to Adina standing next to the cook overlooking the camp once again.
"Yes we did. The village hasn't moved in hundreds of years, Thyra… It is like 2 kilometers away from your family castle. And we're doing extremely well, we had an overabundance of Laga fruits grown this year. I've also heard from the other villages that they as well had an excellent harvest period, so the festival after the great hunt will be a record year of children taking part of the course and setting up their bodies to be strong enough to walk along their future paths." Orm replied as he cast a pleading look to his wife who sat next to him.
"Oh you big baby! Signe will be fine, while she is just seven years old, she is already showing signs she wants to follow in our footsteps. And who are we to deny her that right? She might also change her mind in the future, she is just 10 years old after all." Yrsa replied as she leaned against her husband and looked up at him with loving eyes.
"Well, I will let you two love birds to your own" Thyra interrupted their moment before she stood up and, exhausted, made her way to Adina. "You never answered my question Adina, what are you thinking about?" Thyra asked once more as she took a bowl of stew from the nearby cook and moved to stand next to Adina.
"Ase is planning to build Eric and Estrid's body up. For that we need to get the ingredients we bought five years ago from our home. While the camp is still close to our home, it would take a while for them to gather the ingredients and escort it back here. So I was racking my brain on how to solve that issue, but a plan just came to me." Adina replied as she took a look at Thyra and a smile began to form.
"You're not fucking thinking about what I think you're thinking about right?" Thyra asked as she started to back off slightly.
Adina continued to smile as she stared at Thyra who eventually just gave up. "Fine…. am I supposed to get all of them? Thyra asked as she heaved a deep sigh at having to run several kilometers back to their home.
"Might as well, some of the prominent members of our armies have brought their children along with them, so we can have all of them begin their journey after the great hunt in the northern camp, and at the same time put their parents in our debt." Adina answered as she took a moment to think about something.
"Why not take Gunhilf and Astrid with you? While I doubt that there are any assassins around that can threaten you, it pays off to be careful." she continued as Thyra grew a smile of her own.
"Awhh are you worried about old me Adina?" Thyra teased as she threw her arms around Adina and dragged her little chipmunk in for a hug. "Don't worry, I will do as you say and take Gunhilf and Astrid with me. With the three of us being at the 5th step, I doubt we will face any issues. Even the secret ingredients?" She asked as she whispered into Adina's ears.
"..yes." Adina whispered back and wormed herself out of Thyra's grasp. "Also, isn't Erik supposed to be with you?" she asked as she threw a questioning gaze at Thyra.
"Eh, he went off to play with Signe, Estrid and some other children around camp." Thyra shrugged as she started to look around the campsite.
"Why would you let him run out of your sight?" Adina continued as she gave a deadstare to Thyra.
"Children must be children, if we deny his freedom at this young of an age, he will just be a bitter old fart when he gets children of his own. So just let him be a child." Thyra answered as she continued to look around camp in a relaxing manner. "Gunhilf, Astrid and I will go and pick up the stuff during the night when everyone is asleep. We should be back before the crack of dawn." She followed up as she started to walk away in search of Erik.
"Wait, I will come as well to find Erik!" Adina shouted as she almost took off after Thyra before she got interrupted by a call from behind.
"We will come along as well, they ran away with our children as well. So they're likely still together, and if Birger and Eira are to be believed, they likely ran to a specific hill just outside camp to look over the other camps in the region." The deep voice of Orm caused her to halt for a split second. And as she turned around, she found Orm, Ysra, Birger, Eira, Inghard and Tove moving to her as a group with smiles on their faces.
"Hurry up you old farts! We got some little brats to catch!" Thyra shouted back to them as she was still making her way into the camp.
"Well, we should go then. If you would lead the way." Adina gestured with her hand as a smile started to bloom across her face, being delighted at having the job of finding Erik and Estrid made that much easier.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Come on Estrid!" a boy shouted as he ran throughout the campsite, looking in awe at all the people he had never seen before. Astrid, one of his mothers, revealed that this is just a small temporary camp, as soldiers from all over the country would be congregating to the north, with the sole exception of those who are responsible for defending the border cities. And the sight of seeing so many soldiers only served to excite him even more at the idea of how large the final camp would be.
Running at a more leisurely pace behind him was Estrid who was a copy paste of her mother from what Erik could tell, with the sole exception of her brown hair, the same color as her dad's hair. Throughout the years, she had been with him almost every single day. Whether that be being taught how to write and do mathematics from their mothers to just having fun and playing and sleeping at night, she was always there with him. It became such a normal occurrence to always having her around, that he would be missing her dearly when she wasn't around.
From their mothers and Svend to the maids and butlers, they always grouped them together as brother and sister, and so he had always called her his sister.
Running next to his right was a girl he met today, somebody named Signe. When they arrived in the early evening, Estrid and him decided to go with Thyra and explore the camp as the rest of the gunnulf family had other duties to attend to, and they would go around camp later on their own.
As Estrid and he followed Thyra around camp, they eventually arrived at what Thyra dubbed "The crazy lunatics" tent group. A collection of around 7 tents that each housed a couple or a family. Three of those tents belonged to families that brought along their children on what his mother Ase called "The great hunt". What that was and entailed, he didn't know yet, but he was told they would explain it later to him and Estrid.
Signe was the daughter of an extremely tall man called Orm and a woman named Yrsa, whom Thyra said were two of the strongest people in the entire country, being at the height of the 4th step and likely becoming a 5th step powerhouse in a few years with his family's support. What that meant, he did not know, but he was told that only very few talented people would ever make it into the 5th step, meaning that the couple was a force to be reckoned with.
"Signe, where do you and your parents live?" As curiosity got the better of him, he decided to ask where she lives with her parents. He had been told it was close, but never precisely where.
"My parents and I live in a village called sofavǫllr, it is extremely close to your family's castle and the megin forest." She answered with a smile on her face as she turned towards Erik. Her gray eyes locked into Erik's blue eyes as they kept running. "What is the megin forest?" Erik followed up as he watched her turn her face forward to keep track of the two boys in front of them.
"Dad told me that it is a forest filled with extremely strong animals, though luckily they haven't attacked the village in over 200 years, ever since the Gunnulf family took up residence close by. He told me that back when he was just a child, some animals would come out of the forest and attack the village for food, taking away either cattle or crops and sometimes even people. The megin forest is the main reason my dad joined the Gunnulf family early on when they were recruiting soldiers to fight a war of unification. All so that he could become strong and protect the village for as long as he lived." Signe answered as if she had told this story countless times over the past few days.
And as Erik was indulging in the answer and his subsequent imaginations of the animals that lived there, two other voices called out to him.
"Come on you slowies! Hurry it up, we're almost there!" the two boys in front of him shouted back at them. They were the sons of the two other families, aged 2 years older than him, Estrid and Signe and this was their second great hunt. The boy on the right side was named Asger and he was the son of the Birger and Eira, another couple at the height of the 4th step. The boy on the left side was named Inghardsson the third and he was the son of Inghard and Tove, a couple that ruled over the city of Ing.
At their taunting words, Estrid, Signe and Erik decided to speed up and run up the hill that was the border of their camp, and what they saw was something they would never forget.
"wow…." Estrid, Signe and Erik all said at once, for they saw countless camps and campfires lighting up the air for miles ahead, and due to that, they saw so many people eating and drinking to their heart's content. Eventually they decided to sit down to continue to look with Erik on the far left side and Signe next to his right. Estrid decided to sit a bit further away from Signe's right.
"Amazing right?" Asger asked as he stood next to Estrid's right with excitement written across his face. When he and Inghardsson found this hill last year, they knew this hill would give the perfect view of the camp during the great hunt for it was a well known stopping point. And he desperately wanted to show it to them, but more specifically, his blue eyes were focused on Estrid rather than the other two.
The reaction he got from her was something he was looking forward to when he and Inghardsson met Erik and Estrid for the first time a few hours ago, and together they planned this little escape from their parents. And as he turned to Inghardsson, he found his green eyes were as focused on Estrid as his were a second ago. And as he nudged Inghardsson in his side, he made a gesture to him for them to sit on both sides of Estrid overlooking the various camps.
Their watch over the camps continued for several minutes in silence until all of them got a pair of arms wrapped around them.
"AAHH" they all cried out in shock and fear at the sudden embrace. "So this is where the little brats ran off to." A gentle voice called out and as Erik turned around, he found Thyra looking at him with a big smile on her face.
"You scared me mother Thyra!" Erik cried out in protest and anger across his face. His heart had jumped out of his chest when he first felt a pair of arms embracing him. And as he looked at his friends, he found his expression matched in all of them as they also got hug scared by their parents.
Cuddling and embracing Inghardsson the third was a woman around the same height of Adina with a pair of green eyes, blond hair that went to her mid back and she was wearing a traditional mage outfit much like Bodil usually wore. From the light of the campfires, he could barely see her straight nose, thin lips and a more kite-like facial shape. Playing with Inghardsson the third's hair was a man of equal height to Ase, standing around the 1.90 meters tall, with his back to Erik, but he could still see the shoulder length blonde hair and the man's white woolen tunic and linen trousers with brown leather boots.
Asger was being cuddled in much the same manner by a woman as tall as Astrid, being around the 1.80 meters mark, with dark-blonde hair that was flowing freely to her lower back. Her face had a more round shape to it with the same straight nose that was so prominent in the Gunnulf kingdom. Her blue eyes were filled with questioning looks directed at her son, Inghardsson and Estrid. Next to her was a guy as tall as Gunhilf, around the 2.00 meter mark, with the same dark brown hair as Asger and a triangle shaped face that Asger seemed to have inherited as well. His blue eyes were locked upon Inghardsson's father.
Closest to him were Ysra holding Signe in her embrace as she was still kneeling on the earth and whispering something into Signe's ear. Much like the other woman around, she shared their round facial shape with straight nose, but unlike them she had dark-red hair and gray eyes, an older copy of Signe now that he could compare to the two of them. Standing behind his wife was Orm with a smile on his face. He had a broad forehead, strong cheekbones and an angular jaw. He had dark brown hair that was cut quite short and his blue eyes had a loving look to them as he looked down at his wife and daughter.
Estrid was being hugged by Adina who had a more stern look to her than all the other parents, and she seemed to be berating Estrid silently, which Estrid noticed as her head was faced downwards. "Oh stop it Adina, let her be a child" and it seemed Thyra had noticed it as well as she turned towards Adina and Estrid and jumped to Estrid's defense.
After a minute or so the parents took their children into their embrace and sat down on the ground, in the same spots that their children just occupied and they joined them silently looking over the camps.
"No wonder you kids ran off, this is quite the sight" Orm said in his deep voice, a sentiment shared by the other parents as they either gave affirmative nods or small grunts indicating that they agreed.
"How about we stay here and just look for a while?" Eira's husky voice sounded out as she was still cuddling with Asger and overlooking the other camps.
"Fine by me" Thyra answered and at that point it fell completely silent as everyone took in the sights.. until the children fell asleep.