[i]'Oh Eyja... '[/i]

Svala bit her lower lip, frowning with a hint of frustration as she watched her little sister run to the healing house, to Raudr and the quiet man of Ragnar's, the one who'd earned her smile. Oh, it wasn't that Eyja was doing or being anything other than her most Eyja-like self this morning. Svala knew very well, her sister's heart was as large and bright as the summer sun in a cloudless sky. But in the end she was only ever just a little girl, and could neither know nor see all things, after all, nor understand how brittle Madir's iron strength was slowly becoming. 

The young woman cast a sideways glance to her mother. None of these people in Trellesborg knew Hallerna Halfdannarsdottir as she and Eyja did. Oh, Madir had [i]always[/i] been unnaturally strong, a hard, unrelenting worker and a shrewd manager of house and hearth, never a woman to be taken lightly. But no one here knew how easily and naturally the wide, pretty smile on her face had once appeared; how her laughter could carry the length of the longhouse, to dance out the door and across the yard to the fields on the very breezes. No one had yet heard how lovely her Madir's voice was when she sang, low and warm and comforting as her embrace.

All Svala could see now was the dark, bruised looking skin under her mother's eyes, and the shadows just beginning to haunt the hollows of her cheeks. Even when Madir slept, she did not truly dream. Not anymore. Thin as Orran's precious paper was her rest, clutching Eyja close beneath the furs as if she feared to let her vigilance fall, should anything come in the night once more. She ate, but never as much as she should, always pushing the best of what was to be had onto Eyja's plate, or her own, as if Svala couldn't see what she was doing well enough.

Yesterday she had done the work of any man in the village, and then did so all over at Trellesborg when they returned with their cargo. She had tended to those in the healing house, had sewn Tora's ghastly wounds - and at the end of the day, discovered that all her effort was for naught, if the sanctuary she thought they had found here was only the thinnest veneer of safety. Her eldest daughter had to kill a man to defend her life, and now would learn swordplay under the tutelage of the Christian foreigner who had saved them. 

And the final blow to what small peace of mind she had thought to carve out for them here in Trellesborg: the remnants of her family must avail themselves of the kindness of the housekarl Loker for their safety, possibly for their very lives. Svala had watched her mother wrap the keys to their lost farmstead, the home they would likely never see again, knowing that in Hallerna's eyes, even the pretense of hope had become more burden than she could shoulder anymore. No, her Madir's loss was no more nor less than that of many refugees in Trellesborg, husband and son and home - but that did not mean the grief cost her any less to bear. 

Madir[i] never[/i] snapped at Eyja. Not ever. Svala saw her mother wince, the near instant regret in those deep blue eyes the moment those sharp words left her tongue. And the fact Hallerna had to pretend to look to the skies for a long moment when Eyja slipped away to Raudr, to blink back tears she would never allow to fall in front of her daughters, only troubled Svala's heart all the more. 

"I will fetch her," Svala said as she took her mother's hand in her own, squeezing those strong, calloused fingers with as sweet and genuine smile as she could muster. The young woman shouldered the bag she carried easily, catching Hallerna's tight, thin attempt at an approving smile, and kept it close for what is was.

Still, the young woman's smile could not help but grow as she approached the healing house, amazed that even with her arms full of unspeakably lazy cat, Eyja still somehow managed to appear ready to burst into song or flight, Svala was never truly sure which. She lay her free hand on her little sister's shoulder, tapping her gently for her attention. 

"Eyja, come away - you can play later. Madir is waiting on us," Svala bent to whisper before standing to her full height once more. 

"Good morning Raudr," she said kindly, noting the proud light in his eyes and the fine blade Svala knew very well was not in the boy's possession only yesterday. "You are looking [i]quite[/i] impressive today." 

Her gaze turned to the tall, darker man standing beside the boy. "And to you as well... I mean, the 'good morning' of course," Svala added hastily, "Not the looking impressive - though you do! I didn't mean that you [i]don't[/i], only that... "

Svala began to laugh, at herself of course, at her own foolishness, her cheeks blushing nearly as bright a red as the dress she wore. She likely should have stuck with the "simply smiling." Apparently that tack worked far better for her than actual conversation.

"Only that I am making a terrible mess of this. There was precious little time last night to say as much, but we thank you for yesterday. Truly."