Chapter Text
Gloucester, Kingdom of Mercia, 887 AD
As she had expected, Aethelflaed woke up in her Gloucester palace, lying on the great bed she had shared with Aethelred. Gudrun was already awake and busying herself about, giving orders.
"How long have we been away?" the princess asked groggily.
"A couple of hours. I find it very pleasing to be back in my younger body." Observed her maid. Aethelflaed laughed and held out her arm, "Indeed, and I think I have lost weight as well! Time to get back into my old clothes."
These were folded in the oak chest, exactly as they had been left on the previous day, nearly forty years ago, still smelling freshly laundered. Aethelflaed flexed her limbs, rejoicing in her suppleness and youth.
Had it really been only a short while ago that she had held Erik in her arms for the last time? They were both old then. She shut her eyes and remembered. Erik, her beloved enemy and husband. She was nineteen again, but had lived nearly sixty years. An old head in a young body. In her mind she saw him as he was when they first met, all those years ago, a few weeks ago. Erik waking up from drugged sleep, heaving into a latrine. Erik standing naked on the beach, proud and unashamed, like Apollo or Baldur. He had been so beautiful - he was always beautiful, even in later life. Women still noticed him and he was flattered by it, but his heart was hers. His last words to her had been of hope. "Go, and fight for your land," he had told her, "make it a place where everyone can live in peace." And so she would. She would use the knowledge and experience she had gained on the other side to bring about her father's dream. England would be a place where trade and next year's crops could grow. For that they needed peace.
The messenger had been efficient. Sigurd and Ingrid and their families had been found quarters nearby and would soon be taken into the royal household. In time, they would have land of their own. It seemed strange to have children who looked and indeed were, older than oneself. Never having lived on this side, the children had no younger selves to return to. The nineteen-year old Aethelflaed would take her forty-year-old son as an advisor. She used her memory of her time in Eriksdale to fortify the young burhs and to build up her army and the local militia.
Aethelflaed let her army in a series of victories against the invaders. She pushed back the borders of Mercia until the Danelaw became a narrow strip along the eastern edge of the land. Many Danish settlers joined her men and fought alongside them. Such was the power and charisma of Alfred's daughter that even the Viking city of York - Jorvik, Eoferwic - was prepared to accept her rule.
All Erik's children had been brought up with stories about Wessex and Mercia, and when they were grown up they learned about the messengers and the other side. Sigurd had always been very close to his mother and there was never any doubt as to where he would choose to go. Unlike Einar, he was dark, with his mother's grey eyes. He had the height of a Dane and the thoughtful nature of both Erik and his Saxon grandfather. Only the youngest, Gudrun, had inherited her mother's golden hair, and she and her sister Friedrun had decided never to mention their parents' adventures to their husbands, but to live happily as Norse people. Friedrun was more serious like her Saxon grandmother, but Gudrun had the high spirits and strong will of her mother. The two daughters told the local people that their mother had gone back to her people as Eriksdale reminded her too much of Erik.
Aethelflaed never did become a messenger. It was decided that she was too public a person to function properly in this role, so Gudrun was chosen instead. The Norsewoman never spoke of what she saw and heard. One day she took her mistress aside to tell her that the experiment was being closed, and there would be no more people taken. The other side would be just another part of our world, and the Stribes would fly across the skies to find other worlds to interfere with.
Ingrid took the Saxon name of Aelfwynn and took over when her mother died in her late forties. It was only a transitional period and she was glad to hand over to her uncle Edward and return to her family in Mercia. Her cousin Aethelstan would eventually become king over all of England.
Historians believe Aelfwynn was forced into a nunnery, but the alternative universe shows what really happened.