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The only sounds Vinland heard when she woke up were the sounds of the forest. Whispers of the wind as it whipped through the trees, rustling of bushes as the breeze brushed through their branches, chirping of small animals perched in the trees above, and thumping of bigger animals that trampled through the leaves and twigs scatted on the forest floor. Nature. Life. Familiar and comforting and home .
Yet, as the little nation walked through that familiar forest, she ran across something rather peculiar. Humans, though certainly not the same humans that she already knew, were building…something in one of the stretching green meadows that ran along the coast. It resembled a house, built with a combination of wood and soot, but the style was foreign to her. She’d certainly never seen anything like it, or them. The pale newcomers themselves spoke rapidly in a harsh tongue she couldn’t recognize, and they were dressed in a weird mixture of brightly colored textiles.
Their presence should’ve felt as wrong as the strange, unfamiliar sight that she saw, but it didn’t. Instead, they just felt…off, as if they belonged there but in a different way. And rather than her instincts telling her to run away from the weird people, her curiosity drove her towards them. She hadn’t realized how close she’d gotten until a voice called out to her.
“Hvað ertu að gera hér, litli?” one of them said. Vinland whipped around to find the voice, only to see a young woman standing right next to her. Had she really been so absentminded that she hadn’t noticed her? “Halló?”
The young nation blinked owlishly at the woman, who was frowning slightly back at her, unsure of how to respond.
“Hver ertu? Hvar eru foreldrar þínir?” she asked, a slightly demanding tone slowly inching into her voice.
Panic started to bubble up in Vinland’s chest as the woman’s eyes narrowed. What would they do to her if the woman realized she was exactly like them? The other humans were her friends, they knew her, but she didn’t know these humans and they didn’t know her.
“Þú ættir ekki að vera hér einn. Komdu, ég skal hjálpa þér að finna foreldra þína,” she continued when the girl didn’t respond. The stranger extended her hand, and Vinland didn’t need an explanation to know that the woman wanted her to come with her. The thought alone made her soundly uncomfortable, and she glanced over her shoulder as subtly as she could to see if she could make it back to the forest behind her. When she saw the distance, she began to unconsciously chew on her lip.
Seeing this, the woman in front of her kneeled down to her height and smiled gently. “Þú veist ekki hvað ég er að segja, er það?”
She hummed knowingly when the girl didn’t respond, but continued again. “Ég þekkti einhvern heima eins og þig. Einn sem leit út eins og okkur, en er það ekki.” As she spoke, she reached into the bag strung around her shoulders and pulled out a piece of flatbread. The stranger held it out for her to take. “Hérna, taktu þetta og farðu ef þú vilt. Ég mun ekki halda þér hér ef þú vilt það ekki.”
Carefully, Vinland took the bread from her hands and nibbled at its edges, but refused to take her eyes off of the woman, watching for any sudden movements. Instead, the woman straightened up and brushed off her skirts.
“Haltu áfram, litli,” she said with a soft smile, gently waving her hands back towards the woods, “og megi guðirnir leiða þig á vegi þínum.”
After she was done speaking, the woman gave a small bow and turned to head back towards the strange buildings, leaving a stunned, and even more curious, Vinland behind. The little nation looked down at the bread in her hands, then back up at the quickly retreating woman, torn between returning to the woods or following her back to the buildings. From here, she could see the start of a large fire and hear the laughter of the men and women who had gathered around it.
Rather reluctantly, Vinland turned her back to the strangers and began to make the trek back to the forest, clutching her bread close to her chest. She still didn’t trust them, not really, but maybe, just maybe, she could learn to.
So as she disappeared back into the woods, Vinland made a promise to return, determined to figure out the newcomers on her shores.