Chapter Text
After their encounter with Hugi, everything seemed to become strange. With every hour of walking, the trees seemed to become bigger. Even though it was August, the air became almost cold. Jørn could have sworn that he saw an acorn the size of his head at the very least. Still, they pressed on. What other choice did they have?
“Jørn look at this!”
Jan sprinted toward a mushroom that went to his waist.
“What is that?”
“I think it’s a cep. Look that one’s even bigger!”
Jan climbed onto the smaller mushroom. A cloud of spores fell to out of the lamellas.
“Do you think we can eat these?”
“Probably if you stop walking all over them with your muddy shoes.”
Both of them began to cut chunks from the mushroom caps. They stuffed as much as they could into their bags and went on their way.
“Where do you think we are?”
“I have no clue, Jan. But I have a feeling that we didn’t change at all. Everything is just bigger here.”
“I think you’re right. These trees are huge, but I still feel like always.”
Not long after noon, they found a lake. It’s waters were dark and clean. They decided that this was their lake to stay at. After short deliberation, they decided to find a somewhat sheltered place to camp.
After walking along the lake shore for a bit, they found a small cabin. A few fish traps and a rack with drying fish stood in front of it. Without thinking, Jan walked up to the door and knocked. Jørn wanted to chew his friend out again for acting without thinking again when the door was opened. A stout old man with a thick gray beard stood before them.
“Hello?”
“Hello, old man. We’re travelers and we’re looking for a place to stay.”
The old fisher thought for a second.
“Have you ever gutted a fish? If you can help me with that, you can stay here for a while.”
Jørn wanted to open his mouth but Jan was faster again.
“Of course! I’ve helped my mother dress one or two fish when I was little.”
“Jan? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Without waiting, Jørn grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him behind a tree.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why?”
“Something is clearly wrong with these woods! I would be surprised if this guy didn’t try to eat us.”
“We barely have any food left and if we help him, he’ll give us some of the fish he caught. Besides, do you want to sleep outside or in a hut with a roof? These woods are weird. I don’t know if wolves or Hugi’s relatives live here and frankly, I don’t want to find out. We’re much stronger and quicker than this guy and we’re two people. We will be save.”
Jørn looked into the darkness of the forest on one side. After a few long steps, he could barely make out anything. On his other side was the lake. He could practically feel the cold radiating from it’s waters.
“Fine. But we have to be really careful. At the first sign of danger, we are out of here.”
“Okay.”
As he looked at his friend, something overcame Jan. He wrapped his arms around Jørn and held him tightly. Before Jørn could react, the hug was over again and Jan turned on his heel. As he walked back to the hut, Jan could feel his friend’s eyes on his back.
“Did you come to an agreement?”
“We can help you for a few days. What can I do?”
“Here’s a knife, be careful not to hit the guts. Where did your friend go?”
“Don’t worry about him.”
Jan quickly got the hang of it. The fish piled up next to him. When he brought a few of the fish to the drying rack, he saw Jørn walk towards them from the treeline. He took some of the fish and hung them on the wooden rack.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
It felt like the fish just kept coming. By the evening, Jan could barely hold the knife anymore. His clothes and hair smelled like fish and he hated it. He couldn’t decide whether to just curl up before the fireplace or wash himself first. Jørn felt just as awful. His legs felt stiffer than the dried fish.
Before they did anything else, they decided to sit down for a bit first.
“Why don’t you come inside and warm up a bit? You did pretty well.”
“Thank you very much.”
Jan staggered to his feet and pulled Jørn up as well. Inside, the fisher gave them some bread and dried fish.
“You really earned this, I have to say. You two are lucky, if you had come here tomorrow, I would have been gone.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Jørn let his eyes follow the old man as he crossed the room.
“I am going to head out tomorrow. I need some fresh flour and other provisions.”
“Wait, does that mean there are other people here?”
“Of course. There is a village not too far from here, just a few days away. You can stay here while I’m gone.”
“Where are we? I have never seen a place like this forest.”
“What do you mean? Everything is completely normal, this is like any other forest. If there was anything strange, I would have noticed, I’ve lived here my whole life.”
Jan almost wanted to ask how long was exactly. On second thought, he was sure that the fisher would kick them out if he did.
“I will leave very early tomorrow. It’s unlikely that you will wake up early enough to say good bye.”
During the night, Jørn heard the wind rattle at the hut. He wanted to just ditch Jan here and head back home. The hike wouldn’t be too difficult or long. It had taken them about a day to get here. The thing was that he didn’t even know if the village was even in the same world as he was.
As he was lying next to Jan, he could almost feel that something was off about him. Or rather, he felt nothing at all. Over the years, it had become less and less noticeable, but there was always something off about Jan. A kind of energy that told anyone that he didn’t really belong in the village. Now, in this dark, stormy night, in this strange forest… it was gone.
The old man didn’t lie. The next morning, he was gone and so was most of the fish. On the drying rack were one trout and a salmon. Another two trouts were in a fishtrap. Enough for two days, maybe three and a half if they stretched it.
“Are you hungry?”
“That can wait. I need to wash myself right now.”
Jan grabbed a metal pot and filled it with water. Jørn began to stack wood in the fireplace. Soon, they could warm themselves on the fire and heat up some water. After they had washed themselves, they threw their clothes in the still hot water in hopes that it would get the stench out.
The fire crackled as they ate some of the roasted mushrooms they had collected. Jørn couldn’t help but sneak some glances at his friend. A few dark curls adorned his chest. His torso was meaty but it still had a somewhat defined waist. Jørn concluded that he should probably explore that when they were safe again.
At this point in time, there were more pressing matters anyways. Jørn still couldn’t quite believe that they had not only met but killed a real troll. In his mind, trolls and the stories told about them were just a way to keep children away from the woods.
When he was little, a girl had vanished. The adults searched for her, but couldn’t find even the smallest trace of her. His parents had sat him down and told him that she was eaten by a troll and that he should never ever go into the woods alone, if at all.
“Do you think anything else is real? Besides the trolls I mean.”
Jan stared at the trouts as they roasted over the fire.
“Probably. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
It was almost scary how calm Jan was. He seemed like a completely different person. Jørn guessed that it was the lack of alcohol and the cold nights. Even though it was summer, the nights were chill to say the least. Jørn knew it was entirely Jan’s fault, but he somehow couldn’t be mad at him anymore. As the sun slowly disappeared behind the trees yet again, it finally seemed like Jan had learned to appreciate the village and maybe he was even willing to live by it’s laws from now on.
“I want to go home.”
“We’ve been hiding for a few days and we didn’t do anything super bad anyways. I would say we can go home again.”
Jan poked the burning wood with a stick.
“What if we don’t find our way back? It doesn’t even seem like we are still in midgard.”
“We’ll just walk westward. At some point, we will stumble across the coast and then we will find our village in no time. It will be okay.”
“When we’re back we will still be friends, right?”
“Of course. Why not?”
“You’re the only friend that stuck by me even with all of the shit I did.”
“I’ve known you since we were kids and it seems like you learned your lesson.”
“But what if I didn’t? What if I’m going to return to how I was before when we get back? I’m not drunk because there is nothing to get drunk from here but at home, there’s all the beer and mead I could want.”
“Look, Jan, I’m sure that you’re a smarter man by now. You’ve proven that you’re more than a drunk asshole.”
Jørn put his hand on Jan’s bare shoulder.
“I’ll keep you away from alcohol, I promise.”
Jan wrapped his arm around his friend’s waist. Since their adventure began, Jan wanted to stay as close to Jørn as possible. Maybe it was the general loneliness or the fear of losing sight of him in the forest or something entirely different. He couldn’t tell and in his mind, it didn’t matter anyways.
Their trouts were done. Their meat was soft and the herbs they found gave the fish a bit of taste.