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A cool, moist air settled across the land, obscuring both the intact and the ruined huts with a thick blanket of fog. It was still dim, right before the dawn. A bunch of drunk Vikings lay scattered around the village, some near the smouldering campfires, others under the roof of an open shed, unfazed by the proximity to stiffened corpses of men, women or children.
Askeladd stepped outside to a singular street connecting all the houses together, and fixed his green, embroidered cowl. There was plenty of digging ahead of them. The dead villagers must be buried, lest they won't stand staying here for a couple more days. His eyes scanned the aftermaths of the raid, the pictures of blood and death clashed with the pleasant sound of singing birds and a faint, earthy smell coming from the riverbank. It was just another day. Another daybreak despite the events of the night. He turned towards the shore at a leisurely gait.
The fog here was much denser, reducing visibility to a point where he had almost walked over one of his snoozing men. Askeladd stopped to look at his face. The mercenary's mouth was shut, but his eyes remained wide open, frozen in something akin to panic. He waited a few seconds before pushing his shoe into the man's side, watching him twitch and blabber something about showing mercy to his brother.
The blonde man frowned and looked to the side, locating another one of his pawns. His state was similar, although instead of being prone, he sat with his back hunched, staring off past the longship to the far end of the river. It wasn't any form of a typical intoxication, Askeladd knew as much, but only when the singing of birds ceased—or rather turned into echoing sounds of clashing swords and chains—he had realised something must've been spreading through the air.
He ducked his head, cautiously avoiding the thickest layer of the fog hanging above him and covered his nose with his grey sleeve. He grasped the collar of the nearest Viking and tossed him away from the shore, then rolled another one with the help of his boot.
"Askeladd!" one of them rasped, suddenly becoming animated.
"Cover your mouth and drag the others away," he ordered, vanishing towards the shore.
He had no particular intentions of helping each of his trapped men out of the fog, but he did throw a few of them out on his way to one of the ships.
"Thorfinn!" he called, passing between the shrubs overgrowing the shore. "Boy! Get out of the fog if you're here!" he ordered, risking inhaling more of the now heavy, herbal scent.
A few branches snapped below his feet, the altered senses turning the normally firm sensation to a soft, cushioned one, making him stop just a few paces next to the Thors' longship. Askeladd looked down. The twigs seemed to move; their brown bark darkened, sprouting out a few needle-like shapes. They remained small and outstretched for a while, then coiled towards their centres, gradually losing their saturated tinge, turning into swollen shapes mimicking dry leaves.
There was a movement at the bow of the ship, a figure much taller than Thorfinn, yet unintelligible even from a few paces away. He looked towards it, just as the dull clumps cracked open beneath his feet, revealing beautiful wings which spread out and without hesitation soared into the sky. He stepped closer to the shore, eyes set on the figure guarding the ship. A familiar sight of a blonde goatee, elongated face and bushy eyebrows made his hand shoot towards the handle of his sword, until a split second later he noticed a much shorter hairstyle and a sharper look nesting in the cold eyes. It was him. He was looking at himself. The sound of chains died away.
Askeladd quirked his eyebrow, the figure reacting to it with a content smirk, unbothered by a deep wound leading right to the depths of its still heart. The man climbed on board the longship, silently observed by the reflection of himself. Behind the vision was a boy... No, a young man. His hair was short and for once neatly combed, complexion decorated with two scars. His face was peaceful and kind, far-off from the expression of the Thorfinn he knew, yet not a single doubt surfaced in his mind when he watched the former warrior resting on his knees, hands clenched as if holding onto fistfuls of fabric. It had to be him.
The leader leaned forward and gave the boy a few pats on the shoulder, trying to get him out of the trance.
"I offer your heart to the spirit of my father," Thorfinn snapped at the the deck of the ship.
Askeladd grasped the boy by his side and dragged him to the starboard, careful not to bump his head on one of the rowing benches, but not feeling charitable enough to scoop him in his arms. He took a deep breath from the crook of his elbow, then jumped to the shore and tugged at Thorfinn's hood, pulling him to the moist sand.
He began walking away, his gaze remaining focused on Thorfinn's eyes and their enchanting look, so similar to the one he had once seen on Thor's face. Each step erased more sophisticated contours of the young, amicable man, replacing them with harsh, angry lines of a glaring teenager. The peaceful smile was nowhere to be found, giving way to a nasty smirk of a hunter, who had finally caught his fleeing prey.
When the boy's eyes blinked, bringing forth some sense of clarity to his confused mind, Askeladd let go of his collar and dropped his head to the the grass. Thorfinn frowned and lowered his outstretched arms, realizing that whatever he had been holding this whole time was not the body of his opponent who apparently had been alive and quite well.
"You will be fine," Askeladd declared with a mild look on his face. Thorfinn blinked twice, clearing away what surely must've been an illusion. "Just stay out of the fog," the older man added and strolled over to the village.