New Shores ➳ The Last Kingdom | Finan the Agile (The Northman's Daughter 1)

COMING BACK HOME

Shaylee sat on a tree trunk on the riverbank and stared into the distance. The Temes flowed quietly past her. Now that winter was slowly changing into spring, the river carried a fair amount of water. The murmur of the waters drowned out all other sounds. Shaylee enjoyed this monotonous murmur.

Her thoughts wandered away to the days gone by. After we had decided to travel to Coccham instead of Glestingaburg. They had ridden through Wessex and set up their new camp in the forest near Coccham. On the very first evening, Finan had sneaked into the village and sent a messenger to Winchester. After that, all they could do was wait.

And even now, more than a week after their arrival, they were still waiting. Strangely enough, Shaylee didn't mind the waiting. She enjoyed the time out here in the woods even though the weather hadn't been the best. But the fact that Shaylee and Finan were spending this time together didn't make it all that bad. For the first time, they spent all their time together. They hunted together and spent the rainy hours in the small tent that Finan had brought from Coccham.

Today she had left Finan back at her camp and was now sitting on the river with an improvised fishing rod, enjoying the peace and quiet. She doubted she would catch anything, but she and Finan had a bet going on. It had all started at the fire the previous day. They had been talking about how they had learned how to hunt as Shaylee mentioned that she never had tried fishing, but she couldn't imagine that it could be that difficult. Finan had started to laugh and meant that it was more complicated than it looked. Shaylee didn't really know how it got to it. But at the end of the discussion, she bet Finan that she would catch a fish the next day. And this was the reason why she was sitting here on that tree.

Now, after a few hours on the banks of the Temes and she was more and more sure that she had been wrong, and this whole fishing thing was really not that easy. She was about to pack up her things when the string on her was stretched. Excited, she started to reel in the line, and indeed, a little later, she was standing on the bank with a fish in her hand that would feed them for more than a day.

She was still grinning when she stepped back into the clearing where her tent was sheltered under a big fir tree. A small fire flickered in front of the tent. Finan sat in front of it and looked up with a grin as she stepped into the clearing and held the fish triumphantly in the air: "Look what a monster I caught. I told you that I would catch something."

Finan laughed and applauded: "Impressive, but I never doubted you."

Shaylee rolled her eyes, laughing. She knew perfectly well that they both had about equal confidence in her fishing skills. She threw the fish to Finan, who scaled her prey with quick movements while Shaylee leaned her rod on the nearby fir tree.

As in the previous days, their dinner was rather monotonous. Although the fish was different for a change, the rest of the stew was the same as previous days. Some grain that Finan had also brought from the village and some herbs that Shaylee had found in the surrounding forest. But it fed them, and Shaylee was not fussy as long as she could snuggle up with Finan wrapped in her skins after dinner. They talked about this and that. Shaylee had learned to love these evenings. They had nothing else to do but sit by the fire, look up into the sky and talk. Okay, sometimes they didn't speak either but kissed. Shaylee would have liked to claim that she would have had enough of Finan's lips one day, but she honestly could not imagine it.

But she also liked the conversations. She had the feeling of getting to know Finan even better than they had known each other before. It was just the two of them, and without any eavesdroppers, they could be more honest with each other than ever before. They talked about all kinds of things. About their wishes and dreams, about Ireland and their past, even if they still left out the darker chapters. It was not that they deliberately avoided these topics. It was merely that they had always found other topics to talk about that were a little less gloomy.