She Walked Along the Docks |2|

Come back

Rán was laughing like a madwoman. She looked at the well dressed woman before her before she lunged and gripped her throat. "You-" she seethed. "You took everything!" She yelled out in agony.

In one movement Skuld had Rán knocked on her back and gasping. "It was never meant to be yours to begin with." She walked around the wheezing woman gazing down at her in pity. "I told you to stay detached, do your duty and then leave. In the end you knew you would have to leave. Now there is nothing you can do, what has happened has been over with for many years." Skuld watched as Rán closed her eyes and grips onto a fist full of sand. "Best thing now is to go home and forget it all."

"Its in the past for you, but for me just moments ago I was being thrown from Ivar's boat." She opened her eyes and slowly got to her feet looking Skuld in the eyes. "I will be haunted by the memories that you have given me, and I will hate you for it until I die." She turned away from her and walked back to her rented house without another word. As she was now the only one walking along the sand.

When she arrived at the house it soon dawned on her she didnt have the key, so she simply just picked the lock on one of the windows and crawled inside. She trudged up to her room and pulled off all of her armor and clothes taking special care to fold it and put it in a pile before taking a quick shower. In the span of 3 hours she packed her things, booked a one way flight to her home town and quit  the research team and her job at the tattoo shop.

The next morning she was one her way home. What really hurt was the amount of people that asked her if she was okay. Her answer normally was just her saying she was tired, or a small faked smile, but an idiot could tell she was hurting as she clutched as silk scarf to her chest as she absently looked out of the airplane window.

"What was his name?"

Rán looked over to the older asian woman sitting beside her in confusion, as it had been a long time since she had heard her native tongue.

"What do you mean?" Though her Chinese was a little rough.

The woman held her hand and gave it a pat. "When my husband died I had the same look on my face." She admitted. "You only get that look when you loose someone you love."

Rán held the silk closer giving her hand a squeeze. "Not only did I loose him, but I lost a lot more." Rán added vaguely.

"What was his name?" She asked as she continued to hold her hand.

Rán smiled as she imagined his face. "His name was Hvitserk. He was an idiot, but gods did I love him." She chuckled as she wiped her cheeks.

"I bet he loved you just as much." The old woman soothed as she saw how much pain Rán was in.

"What was your husband's name?" Rán sniffled.

The old woman looked to be lost in a reverie "His name was Henri. We met while I was studying in France as a young woman, probably around your age." She chuckled. "He was an artist, I had actually met him at one of his gallery openings. We started talking and he asked me to dinner that night. What about you?"

Rán let out a dry laugh as she tried to work around the fact that he was a viking. "He ran a business with his brothers. We just happen to run into each other at the right moment. It was a little rocky at first, there was another woman and he was a little misguided, but in the end he really showed how much he cared for me. This was the first gift he had ever given me." She held out the scarf to the woman who held it with care as she looked at the patterns.

"It's beautiful and suits you well." She handed it back as the old woman would speak about her husband, while Rán produced lie after lie considering if she told this poor woman the truth, it would probably terrify her. By the time the plane hand landed Rán knew all about Henri and May's marriage.