Isgred was excited. This land looked so similar, yet so different from their own, she couldn’t wait to see its people. She had heard a lot of stories, of course. It seemed like people were basically owned almost like slaves, forced to live their lives where their liege lord orders them to, never being free to do whatever they want. And what was worse, their women were treated like second-class citizens, forced to serve their fathers or husbands and being beaten if they disobeyed them.
 
Shivers ran down Isgred’s spine with the image of never being free, never being able to choose her own destiny. Maybe it’s because of the strange god they have here. THE God, as if their was the only god in the world. Such blasphemy and arrogance to think that. From what Isgred knew, their God was rather restrictive one – ‘guiding’ the people in almost every aspect of their lives, forbidding them to resist to their lords, blaming women for everything wrong in the world, because of some tale about a ‘sin’. They even managed to take away most of the joys of making love, and that is some accomplishment.
 
Isgred shook her head. These people were just strange, she couldn’t wait to see them in battle. Of course, she won’t be going directly into fight and rather stay behind the lines with other healers. But as she had learned before, that didn’t necessarily mean that she wouldn’t get close to the battle. She looked around and realized that she had strayed a bit from the outpost. Originally, she just wanted to take a walk and clear her head, because she was tired, spending most of her afternoon checking on the few wounded men in the original crew of the outpost. They didn’t have a proper healer, so most injuries were just stitched together and bandaged, but none of them seemed to be very serious. There was one man, whose cut leg was stitched by someone who had most likely never held a needle in his hand before - the stitches were huge and uneven, fulfilling their purpose, but they will leave a huge and ugly scar behind. But having scars was a part of Viking life, and uglier the scar, the more fame you gained from it, so the man wasn’t complaining.
 
Some twig snapped not far from her. Isgred turned her head, and for a moment she thought she could see something, maybe a small figure hiding in the bushes, watching her. But when she looked closer, there was nothing. She smiled, her imagination probably running a bit too wild. In any case, she realized she shouldn’t be wandering around here alone and nearly unarmed, this was after all an enemy territory. She turned and headed back towards the camp, hearing sounds of a celebration. She had to laugh. For her people, any reason was good to celebrate, and there wasn’t a better one than an upcoming battle.

Harek had been enjoying a nice drink while watching the others dancing.  He began to think about the days to come.  To him they might seem like a blur, all fighting was like that to him.  It was a drug that constantly drew him back in no matter how far he strayed.  When he was in the fight he enjoyed it unlike like anything else, but when he was resting like he was now he struggled to not see the screaming faces of those he killed.  Harek shook his head and tried to focus on having fun.  He took another drink from the mug and stood up, looking around.  Taking a deep breath he began to look around for something to distract him from the dark thoughts in the back of his mind.  He saw the priestess, who had led the ritual back at the port, across the field and decided that she would be an interesting character.  On his way he grabbed more drinks, one for him and one for her.  As he approached her he nodded his head in greeting and smiled.

[color=8882be]“Good day, come to join the party?”[/color]

Isgred was smiling and nodding her head in the same rhythm as the music, lost in her mind a little bit. She turned to the man that came to her and her smile got even wider. She remembered him from the sacrificial ceremony, he was hard to miss, even more now with his wolfskin covering most of his face. While she didn’t know him in person, she knew who he was – the pelt marked him as one of the personal warriors of Odin, which was something Isgred deeply respected and admired.
 
[color=0072bc]“Good evening. Yes, I believe there is never a bad time to enjoy some music and a mug of ale. And night before a battle seems even better time for enjoying pleasures that life can offer,”[/color] she answered, rocking to the rhythm of the song. [color=0072bc]“But I imagine you know all about that. My name is Isgred.[/color]”

[color=8882be]“There is not much that is more true.  My name is Harek.”[/color]  He handed a drink to her and smiled.  [color=8882be]“It is always good to have a holy person on a raid.  I always seem to be stabbed less at least.”[/color]  Harek took a long drink from his mug and set it down.  He held out his hand towards Isgred, [color=8882be]“Wanna dance?”[/color]  Eh Harek knew he was pretty drunk and he was no poet sober, so he decided to just go for it.
 
Isgred took a long sip from her drink. She was quite surprised that Harek had asked her to dance, people were usually keeping their distance from her. While she loved the life in service of the Gods, sometimes she did feel a bit lonely. [i]‘Well, what the hell,’[/i] she thought and smiled. [color=0072bc]“Of course.”[/color] She grabbed his hand and let him guide her to the other dancing raiders. [color=0072bc]“It is an honor to meet a true warrior of Odin.”[/color] She put one hand on his shoulder, feeling the strong muscles under his shirt. The music was loud, so were the people around, all jumping around and singing and drinking. Isgred smiled and closed her eyes to enjoy the music.