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‘He’s coming.’
‘Thórgestr. He shouldn’t be, though. He’s still too weak.’
‘Hurt… dead… almost dead. Should be dead. We saw him.’
From the wooden vardhus overlooking the cliffside seas where Senua sits aloft the briney spray of crashing waves, Thórgestr’s figure approaches. He is a black shift of shade ambling through fog and winter—a Draugr if not for time and the healing touch of the læknir. It had taken many a day and night to drag the dying-dead Northman to Ástríðr’s settlement against the shoreline, where the promise of someone—anyone but the viciously seething healer of the Borgarvirki—could save Thórgestr, for he’d shown Senua the rock beneath the moss… his soul beyond the flesh.
And, it was on those passes of moon and sun during their trek back to the sea cliffs of Sjavarrisi that she spoke to him. Of love—of Dillion—of home, fathers, mothers, and the hidden folk who still talk to her now. It had been easier then, back when he could not speak for the blood in his lungs and the infections that came and went without Thórgestr leaving for Helheim. But even in the nights, when time stretched long between the rattle of his inhale and the wheeze of his exhale, his eyes watched her. Those blue, odd depths, wet and red-rimmed, wait for Senua to speak again.
… and so she did. She spoke on small things, great things, and hidden things until Ástríðr brought them—at last—to her home by the cliffs.
The læknir that Ástríðr promised bore skills to bring back that which was nearing death and, in doing so, shook Senua.
‘Happily so.’
‘The tyrant that nearly pierced his heart. His own father. He, too, deserved to die…’
‘At first. Before. But not any longer.’
Now, the Northman lives, and with his voice returned, Senua speaks less. It is different when the audience of her tales and trials cannot comment in stride. It leaves her guarded now… distrustful, as though his winds will change and Senua will be a madwoman again, not a seer—not special.
She watches him from the lowest platform on the smallest vardhus as Thórgestr draws near, plodding on weakened legs with nothing but determination urging him forward. His ferocity to see her—to seek Senua out in the dark, in the cold—nourishes that distrust his waxing voice began.
Though it is winter, and though sea spray sprinkles from the crush and crash of waves upon the rocks below, Thórgestr appears chin held high, in bandages, leather brók… and little else. The muscles in Senua’s thigh—dangling from the platform overlooking the skerry—tense at the sight of skin and blood-daubed dressings. It is not like it was with Dillion… and yet…
‘He is nothing like her lover. Dead. Gone. Dead Dillion.’
‘No, nothing like him. Isn’t bad. Doesn’t have to be.’
Senua looks at the whole of him, then the pieces: strength beneath skin overgrown by vessels, rivers of moisture that coat curvature with love, a freshly shaven jawline with the raised welt of a shaky hand. She takes in these parts of him, then looks away as Thórgestr’s mouth curves upwards. He knows how her eyes linger in places, or perhaps it is that pleasantries are oddities, things Senua is unfamiliar with. These smiles, words, and looks freely given… as though he feels more for her than Senua does him… yet doesn’t mind—is patient—content to wait.
‘He will wait for her. She knows he is changed. She has changed him.’
‘And he likes to wait… they all do.’
‘You’re just a prize to be won now. A souvenir, like the Goði said.’
‘No. Senua is special…’
“It is cold,” Thórgestr says, a brisk tremor that is hot where the world is cold. He leans against the vardhus’ wooden post, unashamed—it would appear at first glance—of the weakness his wound lays over his shoulders, “Only getting colder.”
‘He doesn’t want you to freeze out here, Senua.’
And then, when Senua refuses to look at him, Thórgestr continues, “You know, as a boy, I would find the highest rock and sit, contemplating my purpose. Even then, my father found love in power. Control. I would do anything to be away from him then…”
‘He’s trying to reach out. Shared experiences… camaraderie… why does she push him away?!’
‘It’s no use. She doesn’t like him. Hates him!’
“I do not mind the cold,” Senua tells him, harsh and finite.
‘Tell him to go away. You don’t need him, Senua.’
She looks to the sea where the remnants of the giant’s fall have left the sea brackish and tumultuous with new disruptions that send foamy droplets up the landslip, wetting the cliff’s edge. Jagged, hunched rocks split waves like the onslaught of a raid, filling the coast with Aegir’s horrible lullabies. Only after a disagreement begins on the horizon between sea and sky does she look back to Thórgestr, whose gaze has not left Senua, though his eyes shift to meet hers.
‘Where was he looking?’
“It is you who should worry,” she scolds, “Unless you prefer to freeze. Bound to your sick bed.”
‘Look. He is warm, though. Not cold.’
‘Let him warm you, Senua.’
His lips tighten, then turn, one-sided and upward still. Some would call it a smug expression, but it’s not that. It is like a fire at night. The torch beneath the Earth. A familiar, comfortable curve, nothing like a blade.
‘He gave his life for you. For us. He’s nothing like his father.’
Her foot hangs close enough that, if he wished, Thórgestr might reach up with one bare arm, holding fingers of broken nails and bruises, and grasp her ankle. Closer now—this close—she can see the pallor of fever beneath angular lines of feasted hunger. Beads of moisture cling to his brow, not the fog or sea spray she assumed before, but of sweat.
‘He’s sick still.’
‘He is burning, Senua. Burning from the inside.’
“You are feverish,” Senua says on the wind, watching the moment her words find him through the turmoil of angry sea rock sagas.
His chin lifts higher, lips rolling inward with her insight. She is correct, but he is a stubborn one. Surviving her ax on the shore, the forest where his mind had been muddled—where he’d been so lost, tasked with something he could not see through—then his father's sword, which purged the dark rot from his body. All of this, he overcame.
A fever may not scare him much. Senua wonders if she could face anything without fear—if, without it, she could survive all she’s seen.
‘No. You’d be dead.’
“There are plenty worse off than I. That damned argr can coddle Horgar if he wishes it. I am cured, and this fever… is not so terrible. Not anymore.”
‘He means the rot. The fever is strong still.’
‘Could still die.’
“Maybe.’
‘Possibly.’
There’s a fire in his azure eyes, something she glimpses as the intensity of Thórgestr’s gaze turns to the sea. He remembers the giant, the same as she. He knows them better than even Senua. Has lived his life knowing what such a realm can bring—has brought. The slaves he’s ferried across—long before Saegierr became a monster… before even his father lusted for control so deeply he made giants to fear.
‘You see. See how much Thórgestr has grown…’
‘You are different too.’
Senua cannot remember the hate she felt before when she assumed he was nothing but a coward. But he is not his father, and neither is she.
‘A different man then.’
‘Once a coward, always so.’
“Your wound,” she mentions, nodding at his bound chest where moisture clings to naked skin, matting chest hair and turning numerous scale-silver scarring a pale shimmer, “A sword through your chest. Your worst yet, is it?”
“Closest I’ve come to death,” he admits. There are words left unspoken, where his nostrils flare in old fear—the fear of death, one that never came to be.
Senua ignores a drop of rain as it hits her cheek, sliding between her lips to quench a thirst, though water does nothing to abate the sight of him—the feelings he stokes. And with that comes guilt so strong she feels rage.
“You are lucky,” she says, harsh as a wave but brine-less—teeth pulled, “You should be dead.”
Thórgestr hums in thought, though it sounds more like a growl, low like the felling of a tree trunk. His words fall like timber, “I swear… I saw you before I crossed over. Before and… afterwards. Your face. Your eyes. Your hand…”
His voice cracks but does not break. “I reached out… afraid, and you took mine. Held me.”
‘You did.’
‘She did. We told her to hold him. ‘
‘He was brave. He chose you. And you held him.’
“You were kind… when I died,” he pauses to wipe sweat from his brow where more gathers in its wake and leans further into the pole. Exhaustion weighs him down. He looks up after a hooded, distant glimpse of nothingness—at sea—then up at Senua… as if seeing a God in her face… and heat flows through her… something like power.
“I saw no Valkyries—no meadows of Fólkvangr. No one… no one but you. The stars while I laid on my back in that carriage, the moon, clouds… shadows behind my eyes… even in that læknir’s ugly face when I woke here, I saw you in everything.”
‘He is consumed by you, Senua.’
‘You have made him your thrall…’
“I thought you had died with me,” he goes on, uncorked mead quick to spoil unless drank deep and quick, “Saw you standing by the fire tonight and thought you a ghost. And yet here you are, an ending only Brynhildr could hope for.”
‘Do not listen to him! He lies!’
‘He’s in love. Love like Dillion. He’d have thrown himself on your pyre. He nearly said so!’
Senua draws her leg up to rest with the other, safe from Thórgestr on the vardhus, though he is far too weak to yank her off—to do something to her—something he hasn’t yet done. Nor will he, but she felt more in control when he had his sword to her throat, seething… frothing like seafoam to slit her open, than now. She was far less wary when she assumed he was too far gone to hear her speak at ease on their journey here.
“You should go back inside, Thórgestr. I wouldn’t enjoy seeing you die again.”
She ought to join him—not on the pyre, but inside—though a rash of petulance gives her pause. Even as he silently obeys her suggestion (command), nodding with eyes open for her, his blue markings unburdened by furrows—even as he trudges back to the longhouse—even as rain begins to fatten from the fog, soaking her clothes—Senua burns. She lingers there on the vardhus, hair hanging heavy with rain. Filth from the day finally runs clear down her arms and calves as the storm picks up, and still, she does not heed the call of a hearth.
‘She hesitates? Desire burns her. But what is she waiting for?’
‘He’s no Dillion—no Sigurd!’
Senua grows cold, just as Thórgestr warned, but the heat does not fully fade, merely shifting, filling crevices that make her ache, drawing her eyes to his fading figure, which moves ungainly into the hungry darkness. Smoke stacks stretch up into the disgruntled sky where the longhouse waits. Senua takes a deep breath. A flicker of light in the sky as Thor swings Mjölnir from cloud to cloud, reenacting the battle of giants below, makes her flinch. The Northman has laid her bare, and she is raw now…
“What do I do?”
‘Throw yourself off the cliff.’
‘Go to him. You need one another.’
‘No… taste your own hand before you return. He is useless. Good for nothing.’
Thoughts of them both, entwined and naked, stir her. That bare ember burns between her thighs. It has been so long since she’s tended that fire. Senua stars at her legs, bony knees, shins, and up where her apex ends and begins. Thórgestr will be safer away from the bite of chill and rain… from her, but perhaps so would she. He had said he would find the highest point to contemplate—to be away and find himself. Could that have involved that ancient gift Dillion showed her so long before?
Here, up high, there is—was—privacy… by the skerries. Now, with the storm, there will be less eyes to see. Less chance to be seen.
‘She’s weary. Hungry.’
‘If you need to feast, then do it here. No one will see.’
‘You’re safe here. Nothing can harm you here.’
Senua shifts across the wood, which creaks, laying prone as rain sprinkles her face, her body… wetting through clothes that weigh thickly. Above, the Gods' battles reign. More clashes of Mjölnir that bathed the land in light. A near-endless rumble of Thor’s chariot, wheels churning clouds into dark, gray wisps—the sound enough to blot the whimper Senua makes when her fingers slide beneath… to where she is warmest. Yet, something feels…
‘No, not right. Doesn’t feel good.’
It is uncomfortable, however. Everything is far too constrained and sticky, with layers that tighten as the rain seeps further. Senua bares her teeth to the rain and stumbles through soggy linen, leather, and buckles, shedding her clothes in favor of stark nakedness. For once, the darkness is welcome.
‘Better. Alive. Free.’
‘She is vulnerable! Anyone could see—could snatch her up. Foist her on a sail and chart her depths… It is wicked. Disgusting!’
‘No. It is beautiful.’
Each droplet of rain is ice on hot, bare skin. Grime washes free to reveal fragile, pale skin. Old sweat and memories of the dark rot cleansed, not just by touch but by the storm they used to fear—the relentless wrath of a guilt-stricken Saegierr. The sky falls awash in daylight once more, revealing a body of ignored scars, fine baby hairs, and so much skin… beneath that, blood that sloshes like an angry sea, each heartbeat and wave soaking the sand. Senua reaches down again and revels in how everything slowly melts: her body into the vardhus, fascia for joints, muscles around bone, and somewhere, lost in her mind's eyes, she searches for the face of her beloved Dillion.
‘He’s dead—dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.’
‘Gone. A head without a body. Cracked open and splayed for eagles. Sunshine to pick and peel.’
Senua recoils, curling inward, then… another face—the Northman, Thórgestr—and Senua relaxes into wet timber and bends a knee, finding solace in self-love as betrayal moves her faster, hoping to find completion soon so she can forget and forgive herself. It’s a carnal dance, though… where each attempted rush pulls her further from her cliff.
As her frustration grows and her fingers prune, she feels fingers on the back of her hand. There is no one there, nothing in the dark. Just memories, but Senua chases them, moving as Dillion showed her—something she’d only done with his guidance.
‘Your body can be kind.’
‘She doesn’t need to be shown now.’
When Thórgestr’s visage appears as her fingers slip, easing in and out at a lapping pace, Senua doesn’t hide. She’s ashamed that it’s so easy to conjure him where before she had grieved so profoundly that Helheim seemed reachable for the one she loved—for revenge. But the Furies are right; Dillion is dead and gone. And there is…
‘Something about Thórgestr.’
‘Similar but different. Strong. A man that bends but doesn’t break.’
‘A Northman. Wasn’t him… but could have been…’
“Dillion,” she mourns, tracing pathways he had worn into her soul through skin and moans. Trails well known—adored—with wildflowers edging her well-tended borders. Now, Senua’s fingers struggle to find the markers her lover left behind, as though time has eroded them. Either she must uncover the trails or make new ones… but both feel beyond her now. Still, Senua sits up, welcoming the storm, sweeping herself clean with rain, finding little licks of pleasure in the shiver and tacky hitch of skin unsoiled.
‘It’s so sweet.’
‘A rare occurrence.’
‘To be able to enjoy moments of reprieve.’
When her hair is unbound—beaded bone and cerulean trinkets free to swing wet across her spine and shoulders—Senua reaches back between her thighs and finds herself… so very wanting…
‘You could find him.’
‘Find him and take him.’
‘He would like that.’
Just the thought elicits a deep pang in her belly, settling further and growing as she imagines Thórgestr soured by his wounds, arguing with the læknir as he lowers himself to the hearth rather than a bed. A part of Senua splits apart as her fingers stroke and swirl. She wants to be on the shore with him, swords drawn… wants to be on the outskirts of Jarnvior’s forest where his eyes seemed hollow until they found hers… wants to be beneath him, above him, swept behind him when danger is afoot and left to fight alone because he knows she’s just as strong as him. No…
‘Better. You’re better than him.’
‘He’d like to think he is stronger but isn’t.’
She imagines them on the beach, his leg bleeding from her ax swing—the sudden shift in unspoken hate—that leaves that spear of flesh unsheathed and her bare, the both of them locked, writhing and rowing in all that misery and pleasure until Thórgestr’s above her and Senua doesn’t mind the stones in her back because his breath is her breath and he can taste her might on her teeth.
A hiss escapes her, the memory of him between her thighs, the moment before she spared him, suddenly frosted with spring, where before had been only hate: purposeful hatred. Now, she wants again… something lost…
‘But found.’
Senua braces herself on the vardhus, arm straight behind her—the pull—the pressure—a promise. Pleasure grows and swells through the channel between her hipbones. The waves wash upon her but aren’t drawn back to sea; they rise. It’s so good that she shakes, leaning back on heels that ache with knees wider than her hips, plucking herself like a lyre until she’s…
‘Yes. Yes… yes, yes, yes.’
‘It’s happening!’
Thórgestr has her folded and held, hands on her face, hips slapping with sweat, sea, and rain. His nose shoves hard in the edge of hers as their violence matches, taking every beating as he goads her into relenting—backing down, giving up—but she doesn’t, and… as she crests, their lips meet… tongues touching with fired opposition. The Earth shakes inside her, and Senua cries with the race of Thor’s chariot, battering down monsters—darkness—old memories and pain.
‘… is she okay?’
‘She’s grieving.’
‘No. She’s letting go.’
By the time the battle above reaches a fervor, the rain has left Senua’s linens smelling of winter sprawls, hair hanging in free dreads that leave her mind unclouded. Her clothes now feel heavy, but something within has lifted, a tension no longer there. It’s nothing like the sweaty aftermath of her times with Dillion, but it’s something to ease the soreness in body and mind. She misses him, but not so much as before…
The walk back to Ástríðr’s home takes Senua by the longhouse where Thórgestr has been housed. He’s no doubt pondering his death and recovering by the dry warmth of its heart, frustration seeping from the threshold like the fire’s glow. She chooses to give it a wide berth, for now, all of everything too fresh to face him.
Inside Ástríðr’s home, Senua finds the Northwoman whittling by her own fire. Her nose is running with snot, a sign of the cold and the wet having seeped into her bones as she guided Senua and Thórgestr here. When Senua lingers in the threshold, the Ástríðr looks up, squints against the heat of her fire, and offers a smile.
“You might want to reconsider sleeping with me tonight, Senua. It is mild, this fever, but could spread… easily.”
‘Sick?’
‘She’s dying…’
Senua has never gained a sickness she could not hold a blade to, even if the affliction began from inside, but she’d instead not come down with a chill. Not if she can help it. However, she is not keen to sleep within the same walls as the Northman. Outside, it was different to lay with him in the carriage bed, to use his body heat and his hers.
“At least that Bjorg bastard’s fever won’t jump to you. It would be best if you stayed with him. I hear he’s been stabled like a goat,” Ástríðr laughs, but Senua just snorts.
‘Him? No. Can’t. Not him.’
‘Not tonight. He will know. He’ll know you thought of him!’
“Will you be alright?” Senua asks when the humor has fled the walls.
Sweat beads upon Ástríðr’s brow, but her eyes lack the depth of a fever deep enough it could burn the carrier from the inside out. “… it’s just the journey. I haven’t felt right since Jarnvior.”
‘Not just that.’
‘Something else is troubling her.’
“You’re sure?” Senua presses, eyes drifting across the room where a broken spear sits with others that remain whole, cups made of etched bone lining a shelf of timber, a table with a mug still steaming yarrow tea, yellow residue lingering in a mortar and pestle.
‘Yarrow for the fever. Yes, she’ll be fine.’
“Don’t worry, the læknir saw me before the storm started. I’ve been like this before. Even as a child, I was prone to fevers. My mind… always seems to make them worse.”
There, finally, in her gaze, is a lethargy. Not sick. Sedated. Ástríðr will be fine because Senua can understand the ache of a body invaded by a fearful mind. But, Senua doesn’t want to sleep in the same hall as Thórgestr—not when the way she soothed her burden on the vardhus is still so raw. Her nerves feel good, freshly rolled out, even now.
‘He’ll know you thought of him too.’
‘Betrayer!’
“Go on, Senua,” Ástríðr urges, “There are not enough hands for you to hold until tomorrow. Go, get some sleep. Nothing can be done until this storm passes.”
“It won’t be what your people have endured with the giants. Saegierr is gone.” Senua whispers as though they might be summoned again if she were louder.
Ástríðr smiles, something small but grateful, before returning to her whittled wood curls toasting in the hearth. “True. But a storm’s still a storm, Senua.” She gives Senua another glance, smirks, and adds, “Go. Put some dry clothes on. We can’t have you bogged down by illness, too.”
‘She’s right.’
‘What would happen to everyone if you couldn’t fight?’
‘They’d all die.’
Senua leaves the Northwoman to break her fever by her fire, bracing the dark, roiling halls of a clouded battlefield as the storm rages. She licks away rain from her lips and holds herself about the chest, stepping half-blind now that the gales have snuffed out the torches that’d keep her on the proper pathways. Yet, despite the gloom, she steps with sure footing as though she’s walked these winding trails her whole life, finding herself stepping through the doorstep of the longhouse where, despite his wounds, Thórgestr sits upon a straw mat, made comfortable by piles of woven blankets stitched in symbols and banners from here and farther.
‘Stolen.’
The hall is empty save for Thórgestr and Senua, and he does not look her way.
‘He knows. He knows.’
‘He saw you.’
“Where is the læknir?” She asks, dripping wet, stepping further within. Each step leaves her lighter—calmer—as heat from the hearth kisses what skin she’s left bare. The Furies urge her into fear, but she ignores them, standing near, watching the fire flicker in his eyes.
“I told you. Many here are worse off than I,” and then quieter, Thórgestr adds, “He told me I must have bargained my soul to be alive now… but laughed when I told him you were the one that saved me from an eternity in Sessrúmnir.”
‘Did she?’
‘Saved one where she failed to save another.’
“It wasn’t your time to die,” she tells him, a conviction in each word that feels hollow in this room filled with only the two of them. “There’s still more to do. Your father's greed needs to be undone.”
Thórgestr doesn’t look up; he just watches the fire; flames lick into the wet of his eyes, turning their bluestone opalescent. Senua likes them… his eyes. They seem so filled with emotion now that she questions how she ever assumed him soulless before. Much like his perceived cowardice and crudeness, it was just a mask… nothing more…
“Thórgestr…” she whispers like the hiss of the Earth before Loki’s tremor of pain.
The Northman blinks away something Senua cannot see and turns to look at her. His hard, uncut lapis lazuli stones become smooth as a pebble, staring at her now. It’s the barest he’s seen her; even when his kin brought her aboard their well-used Knarr, she wore more clothes.
Thórgestr’s lips part, but he does not speak, simply stares, looking—drawing her contours to memory—and she knows he is because it’s how she looked at him after he threw his spear into Illtauga… as if seeing him for the first time.
‘He saved you.’
‘Saved us.’
She’s watched him change since then, and more so as time has passed—as more giant’s names have been uncovered—even more since his father shoved that sword through his chest. The madness of fathers… the pain they inflict on their children. Generation by generation. And he, like Senua, broke the cycle.
“Your hair…” he says, then quiets his following words, whatever they may have been.
‘He doesn’t like it.’
‘He hates it!’
‘Why should she care? Him? He means nothing.’
There’s something in his face, like red clover, despite the sheen of a broken fever. It couldn’t be anything else but admiration or…
‘Could it be? No, she doesn’t want that.’
Senua is a foreigner to these lands. There are traditions she doesn’t ascribe—won’t—but if not some unknown custom, then it is a unique focus of Thórgestr’s to be stricken silent by her hair being unbound. A simple thing, really, but… perhaps not to a Northman like him.
‘He doesn’t like it down.’
‘No. He loves it. Look.’
Senua looks but finds nothing else except the strange lift of his knee and uncertain eyes that shift back to the flames, its glow covering the flush of his cheeks. Still, there is something there, but she’s no more ready to name it than she is her own curiosity. However, try as she might sift through folded linens for something dry to replace the wet, Thórgestr’s hidden stare burns, distracting her… but… instilling something powerful as well…
‘He wants you, Senua.’
‘No, she’s not ready…’
“There’s a clean skyrta over there, underneath my sword…” his voice is broken, bowed… shredded with longing that’d been there before, just unseen until now, “It is mine. Won’t fit you right but it’s well-made. You are welcome to it.”
“Thank you.” And he is right. The fabric is soft, pooling in her hands—a large swath of taupe and gray colors with spooled trim.
Senua looks to the threshold of the longhouse and searches the shadows but still finds only Thórgestr. To lay oneself bare before an enemy is treacherous, but a friend? She doesn’t shy away once the remembrance sinks in—does not hesitate to lift her sodden hangerock over head, her bare back given to the Northman’s eyes… if he looks at all.
‘You know he is.’
‘Feasting eyes. His body is hungry. He eats up what she shows him.’
The warmth in his gaze, like fingers down her spine, is as impressive as the heat of the hearth, tracing scars that run as rivers would through her valleys. Senua does not rush, either—refuses to look unnerved—while wringing dry her dreads and knots, swinging them over a shoulder to clack and slide cold upon skin well soothed by firelight. She should feel vulnerable, being half-naked. No armor… no hiding, but—with Thórgestr—she doesn’t feel so bare.
And then he says, “You don’t… fear me, do you?”
Senua turns to face him, his skyrta bunched around her chest, barely covering the swell of naked breasts and chill-puckered nipples as she faces him. Her eyes find his greedy gaze, though it moves swiftly from her body to her face. Much more swiftly than she would have assumed…
‘He’s been staring all along.’
‘Of course he has.’
‘Disappointing.’
“No.” An honest word… and yet…
‘The things he makes her feel are frightening.’
His mouth twitches. Thórgestr smiles, but it’s a light thing, something Senua never expected to see on a Northman’s face, yet he’s given her such a look several times now.
“I am glad.” With a great sigh, he relaxes into the pile of blankets, propped on an elbow, looking for something unseen in the embers. “Knowing that, it warms my heart.”
Senua has no words to convey her feelings, not even sounds, so she smooths his skyrta over her stomach and unfastens the ties beneath her navel, stepping out of soaked linens where the slick wet of rain leaves her legs shined by fire.
Thórgestr says no more and does not look from the flames as she sits cross-legged beside him, elbows on her knees.
‘She’s too close.’
‘It’s dangerous… don’t let him in.’
Shapes. Signs. Sigils of old come and go through the flames that lick upward, sending hot crackle embers to float and burn out before they can uncover the darkness overhead. And, outside the longhouse, the storm rages on, leaving the hearth a more precious thing than even in the blackest of nights.
“You saw Ástríðr before coming here. She seemed… unwell,” Thórgestr makes conversation.
“Something she picked up on our way here. She is strong. She will be fine.”
He nods, “Good. I am… glad.”
They warm themselves by the hearth for a time until Thórgestr shifts. The swift breath he sucks in is one of pain and plight.
‘He’s still hurt.’
‘You can see the blood there, still so close to death.’
Hues of muddy red blot his bandages, but it’s old blood. The danger has passed. If she wanted, Senua could straddle him, replacing the memory of holding the rock over his head on the shoreline—of raising the stone above the Goði, both memories stained in death and stoked by violence. So, Senua turns to Thórgestr, her bare legs bending beneath, a knee in his thigh… the skyrta hem sliding in her lap. She grasps the arm he lays over his stomach and watches the muscles beneath it flex and tighten—his breath laboring in turn.
‘His skin… so soft where the rot once laid.’
‘Just like you, Senua. So soft. No one knows how soft.’
She has touched him many times since being captured, bound, and bonded through strife and survival. There have been blades clashing between them, and nails in skin on the end of cries for bloodshed, arms bulging around one another… desperate for the upper hand. But there were softer moments, too: of his palm over her hand where she thrust a battle ax to his chest amid battle—where she’d felt his heart pounding while they fought together rather than against. All those times after Áleifr turned to stone, where she touched his face, felt the stubble, laid beside him at night while hoping the hidden folk kept him alive. But this… the way she cradles his forearm over her upper thigh, tracing the ball and tendon down his wrist where bruised knuckles flex beneath faded blue markings of the Björg. Senua looks but finds no more dark rot. Not even a trace.
“I saw it grow when Áleifr would not see reason. I saw it fade when you told him ‘no.’ It disappeared again when I brought you back here.”
“I feared it would eat me alive.”
“It would have,” she whispers, confirming his fears. She sees them rise in his eyes before fading, latched onto her own. Senua searches for traces of the Northman that toyed with her on the beach in all that rain but finds as much of that monster as she does the dark rot, which isn’t there.
And as she holds his hand to her stomach—where it has gradually crept—she feels the fingers of his other nudge beneath her chin. Pain burrows between his eyes as he shifts upward, spine straight with such great effort, but Senua is already there in his eyes. Thórgestr does not need to lift her from downcast sorrows again; instead… he draws her close… close enough that she can feel the heat of his breath. The smell of nettle and willow bark, so pungent and robust, but…
“I heard each word,” he enunciates, hoarse as burnt timber, “on the journey to Sjavarrisi… your stories—your father—mother… your lover…”
‘You said his name. Dillion. Why doesn’t Thórgestr say his name?’
‘He doesn’t want to open her wounds. He doesn’t know how deep they go…’
Senua frowns, upper lip twitching, holding back sorrow, “He is dead, and I could not save him.”
“You cannot save everyone.”
“I saved you,” she says, so viciously it makes her pull away, only to follow the lure of Thórgestr’s arm in her hands, drawing her back, even closer now than before. “I kept my promise to my people… and to him. I could not let them down.”
“Facing Giants, this cruel land… my father…” his warm tone bellies the fire, “You have done more than you promised. And you have done more than save me. No longer must I stand in his shadow, waiting to fill it… to take his place. I never wanted… any of that.”
“I know.”
‘She knows it now.’
‘You can trust him, Senua. You spared him—saved him—and he is grateful. He will do as you command.’
Senua’s grip upon his forearm tightens, sensing a shift. Thórgestr bows his head until the clammy heat of his temple lays against her own. His lips are wet, shining against the yellow sweep of firelight. Moons hang in each eye, watching her beneath ashen lashes.
‘He’s waiting.’
‘You need only give him permission.’
‘But can she? Should she?’
‘What about-‘
Senua is not so healed to freely press her lips to Thórgestr’s but closes her eyes instead and slides her nose to the corner of his. It’s as far as she dares, this crossroads imbued with unknowns.
“Do you want me to-“
“Yes,” Senua breathes, given no time to consider that her agreement could mean something else—a question not of touch and taste but of anything at all… yet the Furies are left speechless as Thórgestr tilt her to the side, cradles her tenderly and… kisses her.
His lips press gently, resting, but she wants more.
Senua is a woman of teeth and violence, and Thórgestr is right to be cautious, but she can love just like anyone else. Given proper care and acceptance, she can love more than most… enough to risk the gates of Hel. To prove so, she rises to his kiss with a sound of unabated yearning. Beneath her hand, his heart races, enticed there by his breath's uneven rise and fall. A growl rumbles from that blood-soaked soil—the roots of his heart trembling—as Senua sags against him, lips unsealed where his tongue quickly licks between.
‘You could rip his tongue out if you wanted.’
‘She could own him, mayhaps. With a kiss, possess him.’
Willow bark, brewed into a bitter tea, tastes strong in his mouth, but Senua never cared for sweet things. Thórgestr is palatable enough without honey, and Senua opens her mouth for more… wider now… to swallow his spirit. Hot air escapes her nostrils with each smack of their lips, a saga within these halls that changes the very air around them.
‘Take him. Take him. Take him!’
‘Bend him to your will.’
Senua crawls into his lap, thighs bracketing narrow hips unadorned but for brók leather and wrapped boots. The bare heat of her core weighs firmly over his groin, her center preworked by her own hand, contrary to his hard, neglected cock. Thórgestr’s growl—such a shattered sound like Thor’s cries—comes on tormented passion. Strong hands grip her hips, thumbs sweeping beneath the skyrta’s hem to feel Senua’s nakedness.
‘He’s brazen. Touching you where you give no permission…’
‘You could overpower him easily. He knows this… yet you want it. We know you do.’
Thórgestr’s exhale is hot on her face, ragged and eager. Each kiss–-touch—wrenching Senua’s heart open. With every squeeze of his roughened hands and swipe of his tongue, she is laid bare as a shattered body by a skerry… or as a woman by their lover.
Her body is not as it once was when she danced with Dillion. Now, scars pucker and contour what curves of youth remain, both bony and soft with fat from before her capture. An uncommon luxury in lands plagued by a conquered tyrant. But she is stronger too, muscled where softness had once been… more than enough to push the Northman on his back—more experienced now to dismiss the wince between his brows—because his hands speak for him. And Thórgestr’s trace her stomach and up, sweeping ribs until his knuckles dent the underside of her breasts. Her spine bows in response, bending them into his palms, sighing as he gropes, cups, and lifts each one… until his thumbs are plucking her nipples, pinching throngs of pleasure down her belly.
“I knew you would be soft as sheep’s wool,” Thórgestr murmurs into her lips, pausing his kisses to feed her words of sweetness with each wet latch and lick, “Soft. Supple. Hard… strong.”
‘Pretty, hollow words. He’s a Northman, he must be lying.’
‘No, look at him. Feel him. He’s drunk off you, Senua.’
‘Thórgestr has admired your strength… now he honors your body.’
Senua gasps, turns her head to catch a breath, and succumbs to the onslaught of kisses Thórgestr burns across her cheek, down her jawline and neck… into the crook where his teeth scrape and lips suck. To overwhelm is a battle of fire—surrender is a blade at her eye—yet Senua gives everything she is willing to lend him, feeling the worship wash upon her as a wave awash with love—Thórgestr’s love.
Under his skyrta—hers now—his hands swallow her bust, pressing each globe together, tugging on sensitive nipples gone hot by his affections. With his kisses at her collar and their sudden shift down her throat, further… pushing into her sternum through the worn-well linen, Senua feels clouded… as a castaway at sea, lost but found. Her muscles are strained, but…
‘She likes it.’
‘Loves it.’
You want more, don’t you, Senua.’
‘You want him where you burn, kissing where Northmen would never—where only Dillion has.’
The Furies distract her. Loud chirping like a murder of crows on her shoulders, that, by the time Senua is brought back by the press of Thórgestr’s lips on her bare nipple, she is unprepared for the warm latch of his mouth on her. The winter storms outside have wrinkled her areolas into tight peaks, hard enough that his front teeth hook, springing stiff buds with a hang of his head before sucking it back into his mouth. Nerves draw from sensation as roots do water, nourishing things that grow, and her things sprout as moans, tearing even softer sounds from her that Senua has few memories of making.
“I want,” she hisses, her hands traveling up his chest, avoiding the blood-stained patch to hold him by throat and jaw to her chest, “you to kiss me.”
Thórgestr groans—shaking the timber latches overhead—and releases her nipple, licking up… tongue dragging with it bunched linen over the heft of her breasts, but Senua holds his face, halting him at her chin where her teeth are bare. Fire bounces from her eyes to the golden-blue of his. He is confused.
‘And intoxicated. You must tell him.’
‘Show him. Show him what we want!’
“No… not here,” she shakes her head, grasping his cheeks and flicks her gaze from his to her lap, “down there. I want you to kiss me where you want to fuck me.”
‘More. Tell him more!’
‘He need only be shown!’
“Will you submit to me, Thórgestr? Do as I say?”
Sigils arise in his irises: shame, revulsion, despair, want… so much that Senua’s lips twitch, forming a smile that makes all those symbols of blue turn into a fiery zeal.
“Yes.” He vows. “But… my wound. I fear - I am… my strength, it is… I fear I would fail you.”
“Don’t fret, Thórgestr. Just lay back,” Senua instructs, tracing his lower lip with two fingers, “and I will do the rest.”
He nods, pupils wide and black and waiting.
‘Such a good man, our Thórgestr.’
Senua helps him ease over the blankets, adjusting support where he will need it as she had on their trek here to Sjavarrisi, and sits up, standing, towering over him with bare feet on either side. She watches him lay there, panting heavily. Long shadows cast his desire up his laces into the naked dip of his navel. It is empowering, as much as defeating Giants, to see someone who once kicked her knees out on the shoreline, eager to bring her worse than death, submit to her pleasure.
Just a few moments more—to savor the moment—and then Senua is pulling his oversized skyrta overhead, tossing it aside, revealing to him her body, stripped and naked.
“Senua,” he mutters as prayer, and then darker, he rasps, “Bring that cunt to my mouth, then. Feed me.”
And she does. Her knees drop to border his self-satisfied face. Such pride must be doused, as his thirst will be quenched. But there is fear there, too. Senua doesn’t need to ask if he’s done this before, for he is as readable as a man in the face of death… yet, his hands slide up her thighs, grasping her hips, and pulls her down where his mouth is open... so hot, so hungry. Thórgestr is unafraid of a women’s cunt...
There is no skill—no training for this, however. The Northman is all enthusiasm brought to life by teeth, tongue, and suckle. Sloppy kisses that only spark what she wants from him. Senua knows this, remembers how good it can feel, and trembles as her weight settles all the same. Here, Thórgestr’s thumbs dip inward, palm-web hugging hip bones to pull her mons up, exposing more folded wetness to his mouth of uncoordinated probing. His tongue eventually flicks up, twanging a nerve cluster that takes her breath away, but only for a moment.
‘A taste, but nothing more!’
Thórgestr gives her more—tries so hard. He slurps Senua between his lips, spears her center with a pointed tongue… and yet…
‘Not good enough. She’s not… satisfied.’
Senua knows enough that the man beneath her wears precision as he does strength, but here, he lacks much. He does not know her or see through her eyes—he doesn’t feel with her body, where her senses burn with yearning.
‘Show him.’
With his tongue searching her wrinkles for what makes her quiver, Senua reaches down to grasp damp strands, swept back but askew atop his crown, and steers his focus where she needs. Thórgestr exhales—surprised—but with a slow swirl… and another shift of her hips, her hand guiding him, he is-
‘There! Yes!’
Senua arches, crying out, dreads swaying as her Northman finds it… right there…
‘See. We told you. All he needs is orders—to be told.’
Thórgestr’s jaw unlocks, swallowing around her where the heat of her coats his tongue. He’s enraptured—stolen—a mere thrall—and threads fingers to cup her lower belly, prying Senua open while holding her down. He exhales a hungry snarl and thrashes his tongue where she desires it.
“Yes…” she whimpers, “Do not stop… not until I say.”
With each sound of bliss Senua gives him, Thórgestr’s efforts rise within—against—her tenfold.
‘He likes it.’
‘A man who enjoys being led by a woman.’
‘No, just you, Senua.’
Once he has become acquainted with the bud between his lips, Senua rocks softly over his face, buried as it is between her thighs. It is there, in the longhouse, all alone, that he whets his appetite on her. The clarity of such a moment does as much to eat her fears away as Thórgestr does the tension inside… and how, with every swipe and suck, she is brought-
‘No! Thrusted!’
-against the cliff face. Its own rocky maw open for her as Senua grinds her nerves downward against tongue, chin, lips, and… and…
‘Let go, Senua.’
‘You are safe here. He will not shun you for the very thing he craves.’
And so Senua bows forward, hands buried in the blankets beneath the Northman’s head as his eager sup churns her waves, splashed into droplets and foam where she had been whole before. Then, as she trembles and his hands slide up to cup her backside, securing the curve of her spine—holding her steady as she comes undone—Senua so too becomes the cliff where her waves break…
Barely mended from Thórgestr’s obedience, she lifts herself off and back, taking great care despite trembling muscles. She avoids his healing chest and finds a seat on his stomach, where he quivers just as badly, sucking in great lungfuls of air.
Her body blocks much of the firelight, but his features still shine—glisten with her. The wheeze of breath in his lungs worries her, but when Senua rests a soft palm on his breastbone, his quickly covers hers, squeezing her smaller hand… blue marking toiling over tendons and veins. Thórgestr presses her lifeline to the beat of his heart and smirks.
‘See. A willing thrall for your pleasure.’
‘No. An equal. Not a slave.’
‘Maybe… but he can be both. Can’t he?’
Senua’s eyes travel across his face, outlining blue Björg markings, fine wrinkles, and scars. The hand, not held tightly by his own, cups his cheekbone, fingers rubbing her slick into his skin and swiping a thick layer off his upper lip before dipping down. She kisses him carefully—a silent thank you for submitting to her needs…
“Senua,” he labors beneath their kiss, wanting something, perhaps, but quickly forgets as her tongue tastes herself off his own. She is bitter and salty, like the sea, though there is something cloyingly sweet there, too—such a strange flavor. Not even when Dillion brought her pleasure with his mouth did she sample herself from him after, and yet here she is… lost, anchored, overcome… So much so that she is still locked in the ebb and flow of Thórgestr’s lips when she moans, finding herself drawn into his lap by his hands, rocked and rolled over his own longing; a stiff line notched just underneath her cunt, which aches still.
“Senua,” Thórgestr begs again, breathless, “… just a bit more. I’m… I am almost there.”
She turns away to look over her shoulder at the way his legs have straightened, straining with the effort to hold fast as he grinds her body over his confined cock.
‘He doesn't want more?’
‘Why not? Is he afraid to ask?’
‘He holds her on a pedestal that is too high. She’s a woman, not a God.’
Senua’s stomach tightens, her thighs tense, and he is far too weak to fight her back into a rhythm without help. Beneath her, he pulses, throbs, and twitches—all manner of squirming without words.
‘You can feel it, can’t you?’
‘Ride him! Fuck him!’
‘No. Don’t. What about-’
Senua reaches down to his laces, turning her gaze to his pools of blue; Thórgestr’s eyes widen, then narrow in understanding. His hands work alongside her own, lifting her up where her thighs are still so weak, yanking down leather and adjusting the angle, lining himself up before her strength gives out, letting him pierce her cunt.
‘Bigger… thicker…’
‘It hurts. Why does it hurt?’
‘It’s been too long… just relax, Senua.’
It doesn’t hurt much, though. Not terrible—nothing like anything else has before. The pain feels as fresh as crisp mead in summer, as dull as a farmer's hoe… yet Senua sinks further, stabbed so deeply. A dull pulse swells, pulling breath and blood into her navel. She gasps and throws her head back as Thórgestr thrusts… thrusts again… and again… until Senua has swallowed him to the hilt.
“Thórgestr,” Senua cries.
His returning grunt punches further than his cock manages, though it goes farther still, settling like a rich weight under—inside—her. He bucks up again, and again his name rolls off her teeth; then, as he strikes upwards once more, rougher now that Senua must plant a hand on his abdomen to steady herself, does she begin to ride him.
‘So good. So sweet.’
‘He fits so perfectly.’
‘But what about-’
‘No. No. Not now… it feels too good.’
It’s a dance older than the Gods, brought to being by Búri and perfected by his son and his sons after him. The motions feel primordial, even in her bones, where memories have been interred like treasures under a burial mound. Still, her hips rock, and her body lifts, following the guidance of Thórgestr’s firm hands that tighten, pulling her down into the plunder of his great, heavy cock.
“Soon,” Thórgestr rasps, a drowning sound filled with salt and conviction, “when I am fully healed… I’m going to fuck you properly.”
“Quiet,” Senua hisses, “For now, you are mine, Thórgestr.”
‘Bring him to heel.’
Her claim upon him pulls Thórgestr’s face into furrows of pleasure, upper lip raised, eyes tightly winched close. His fingers bruise in her skin, a rough thumb pains a hip bone that juts with each undulation, but there is no pleasure without a struggle—nothing given for free. So, Senua digs her nails into his belly, where bandages pile with sweat, and rocks her body with his cock firmly held inside.
“And I’ll fuck you properly,” she grins—a promise as much a warning.
“I’d…” he begins to goad, stuttering, cheeks flushed with ignominy he doesn’t deserve to feel, “like to see you try.”
Like the sea, towing rocks into a polish, Senua smooths his cock within her as it betrays his talk with eager jerks. Each movement draws her stomach taut, relaxing then tight again, riding the wave of his grip inward. The hard girth inside her drags through ribbed muscles that have longed for a worthwhile burn. It’s an ache that she sees mirrored in Thórgestr’s face as his lips stretch over teeth, licking away sweat and love from his upper lip, brows drawing tight before flattening in pleasure. He is an ever-shifting landscape of expressions: anguish, bliss, fulfillment, conflict… and gratitude.
‘Look at him. He is all you once feared, and now… he is all you love.’
“He is overcome with it. He won’t last.’
‘No. He is strong. He is holding himself back… he doesn’t want to disappoint you.’
Whether Thórgestr loses the battle of wills, Senua decides she will have her pleasure again, snatching grunts and groans from him with each snap of her hips. She overtakes his rhythm and throws him back to the blankets as rain pelts the rooftop above. Fire crackles behind her, its heat stoking her own flames as Thórgestr arches under her, body poised.
‘That’s it. He is close.’
‘Make him bow before you.’
But Thórgestr does not break, as his survival has proven. Instead of snapping beneath Senua’s hurried pace, his fingers dig in. His muscles strain, veins bulging tighten, and then… Senua is flipped—swift and grudgingly—on her back, fucked just as he promised.
Senua snarls, hands beating into him as he stifles sounds of pain, blowing it through clenched teeth and billowing cheeks but, as though he knew all along, Senua gives herself over to the firm, slapping sheath of him, rocking her whole body across damp linen. He strikes a spot that makes her wail, wrapping her legs, arms, and soul around him… too lost in the soak of bliss that drowns her now to listen to the Furies as they scream at her to rise… to ride and conquer… as though this is a battle to be won.
“This,” Senua growls, “proves nothing. I am not a mare… to be bred…”
“No,” Thórgestr agrees readily, forehead wet upon her own, “you are… so much more.”
‘Don’t listen to him!’
‘He lies. They all do. All except-‘
The Furies quiet as Thórgestr’s pace slows, trading the thwack of moist skin—the bounce of muscles and fat—with deep strokes that douse her brush fire for soaked soil and new seedlings… bursting up from his touch like spring. Sun in his eyes. Blinding. Beautiful.
Thórgestr leans in, kisses her and her flowers begin to bloom despite the storm.
She sees it again now, in the exchange of air and skim of lips. Senua sees the worship in his eyes—how he sees her compared to all else: a slayer of Giants, a seer… a woman deserving of love yet again. Perhaps, he sees a Goddess.
‘No, something far greater.’
Senua looks away from it, filled with strange rage and agony, having seen such a look in Dillion’s eyes many times before. Now, it’s a different man—a Northman. She grits her teeth and fights it, chasing away the pang of love that hurts more than the kiss of blades, axes, swords, and sacrifice. But then…
…a palm, and then another. Thórgestr's kisses are warm, rough, and firm. He cups Senua's cheeks where moisture has run like rivers through her cracks, tugging her back to his eyes. She’s not worthy of such love...
‘Of course you are. You’ve felled giants, Senua!’
‘Overcome every burden. Saved them. You kept your promise. Is it any wonder he worships you?’
‘She must know by now.’
‘Thórgestr… he needs to show her. Now she must be shown.’
“Don’t worry. I’ve got you,” he promises, fingers slipping around her ears, through dreaded locks, and around to pull her forehead closer to his, “I’ve got you, Senua.”
It is with her fingers in the back of his neck, in his sweaty strands, teeth bared against his panting breath, that Senua lets go, overwhelmed and overstimulated. His wet kiss steals a sob, guiding her to warm waters where she begins to tremble—where the Earth shakes. She is caught up in the tremors of pleasure she’s been lost without.
Exhaustion follows her, sucking strength as Hel might her soul, ferried away to Helheim where she’ll have no use for earthly muscles, tendon, or blood… where perhaps she will find Dillion afterall… or wait for Thórgestr in the cold.
“Senua,” he groans, thrusting liquid smooth now; she is oil upon his sword.
As his pace slows to a crawl, his body sinks as an anchored ship into her, and with a hiss, he slips from her carved-out crevasse, taking himself in hand. She uses the last of her strength to hold him aloft, palms under his shoulders, propping him up as he hitches with a moan, hisses, and stifles a cry, stroking himself with lazy strides until he’s filling the dip of her navel in warm seed. Heat dribbles to the blankets beneath, wasted, but…
“I have you,” Senua whispers, as hoarse as his first words were on the journey here.
Now, he is speechless for another reason, not just blood clots and betrayal, but of mirrored bliss and intimacy. Senua refuses to speak more, choosing to listen as the Northman rubs his flaccid cock into her mons, spilling to her his soul. Thórgestr whispers words of love, feasts, and found family—he gives her apologies and praise, lowered whispers filled with blasphemy where he admits the things his eyes see, but no one else does because he can trust her.
‘He worships you, Senua.’
‘The same. Both of you.’
It isn’t until they are laying side by side, listening to Thor’s clamor across the skies with the steady pound of rain and dying spit of the hearth at their feet, that Senua speaks, “What was it you saw, in Jarnvior. The thing you were supposed to do.”
Somewhere between the last roar of thunder and a split of timber in the fire, their hands found each other, now clasped, resting against her stomach. Thórgestr squeezes her hand now and turns to watch her profile, her gaze on the wooden arches and growing darkness above, but she sees him all the same.
“I betrayed you.” He says, and continues, words rumbling in tone to the noises of the storm, “You, Fargrimr, Ástríðr, and then the rest. I did not want to, but I did it… for my father.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because of you,” Thórgestr says without pause or conflict, "You showed me another way… a better way.”
Senua turns to see his solemn expression turn wry, amused, if not woefully so: “I suppose I was taken with you before then; a souvenir on your travels. But I was too stubborn—too afraid to see the truth. The forest showed me that.”
Then even quieter than all his words before, Thórgestr asks, “What did Jarnvior show you?”
‘It spared you. Just this one time.’
‘But not before.’
Senua rolls to face him, shifting closer, a hand on his breastbone where the blood has blossomed freshly, though he promised her it does not hurt. Senua presses her lips together, afraid momentarily, then remembers every look given—every gesture and word. She is about to speak, though it pains her, when Thórgestr brings their clasped hands to his bandaged chest, “No matter. If it hurts to remember… you do not have to say.”
‘He does not make demands. Will not pry.’
“It is because of you that I was able to kill the tyrant,” Senua tells him instead. “You gave me his name. Without you, Thórgestr, we might all be dead.”
His smile is tender, and now it seems less strange to see on a Northman because Thórgestr is not simply a Northman… or a slaver… not just a killer, not even a man meant to choose between his father and what is right, but… just… himself—just Thórgestr.
Senua sees that now. Although it has taken miles, monsters, death, and destruction, she sees herself in his eyes too, and finds his darkness gone. One day, she hopes he will look at her and see hers gone just the same.
‘Maybe he already does. He is her, and she is he… both darknesses… gone.’
‘Senua—Thórgestr.’
He pulls her close, a hand on her back, and rests his nose on her crown, breathing in whatever scent Senua bears. He exhales a tired sigh, content and pleased. It will take many more storms and nights between for Senua to feel similarly, but for now—brief and momentary—she finds a smile curling her lips and buries herself in Thórgestr’s heat, where the smell of his blood and sweat makes her cheeks ache.
For now, Senua can rest.