[center][h2]Saga of Astrid - Year 1 Day 78[/h2][/center]

Things had been... tolerable, since Astrid's engagement with Chief Vilkas. She had been worried that this would be a distracting and painful affair, especially since the man already had two wives, but things had gone surprisingly well. The first wife, Bela, was about as old as Astrid and the least cooperative. She was extremely proud of her status as the first wife, always reminding the others that she was on top, that her son would be the chief one day, she was the daughter of another chief on the island and thus high born. The second wife was named Cidri and was actually a very nice girl. Cidri was half their age and one of the most beautiful girl Astrid had ever seen, even in modern days she could have been on a magasine, so it was easy to see why Vilkas married her. She was however only a commoner and just happy to live her life and help Astrid adapt, showing nothing but kindness since 'girls had to look out for each other'. 

And then there were the men of the house, which were easily handled as for better or worst, women were almost invisible to them. Another thing that worked especially in Astrid's favor was that with the wealth she had bought their town, Vilkas had decided to work on his own ambition: Conquest. He had bought the best bronze gear and armor money could buy, even hired some mercenaries as he went out to expand his domain. He was also surprisingly cunning about it, using piracy as a pretext to punish those who 'gave them shelter', forge alliances and compel others to swear fealty to him, all with a generous amount of bribes to cement his power.

This meant Vilkas was constantly away with his brothers and sons (he did not trust them to rule in his absence) and he left Bela to rule in his stead. Only thing, she was a disinterested and also incompetent ruler, meaning people mostly went over to Astrid for judgement, for they knew it was sound and that she would usually convince Vilkas to go along with it.

And so, Astrid maintained her power in a discreet and feminine way. One of her most useful knowledge was actually unique to the female gender as despite not being the most sexually active person back home, well, lets just say that modern people are on average much more exposed to these kind of activities through the media so she had quite a few tricks to show. As much as possible she did not perform said tricks, finding them mostly disgusting, but Bela and Cidri were always eager to find way to get their husband's affection and were thus very eager students. They were happy, Vilkas was very happy, everyone was happy.

At some point however, Astrid had no choice but to step up and was made to understand that she would perform wifely duties. And so, perhaps it was inevitable that one morning, a problem arose.

"Oh god, I think I'm dying." Astrid said with dejection before she began puking her guts out in a bucket. Behind her, Cidri massaged her back as she held Astrid's blonde hair out of the way with a sympathetic smile. "Oh Strid, you aren't dying. Quite the contrary in fact." A tired Astrid looked back to her with confusion. Cidri had come to understand the body language of her fellow wife and laughed it all off. "Life is growing within you Strid, you're pregnant, silly! Haven't you kept track of your cycle?"

Astrid looked at Cidri like she was the grim reaper. Pregnant? No, she couldn't be! Her doctors had always told her that she should be very careful with any pregnancy since she'd almost certainly have to deliver by C-section.

[center][h2]Saga of Astrid - Year 1 Day 91[/h2][/center]

Astrid wasn't sure about this as she looked down on the bowl with a greenish elixir inside it. She was a chemist sure and if she had the exact measurements -or hell, if she was sure of what she was actually mixing together here!- she'd be confident she could make something to... kill [i]it[/i], without killing herself. But here she was, playing the amateur poisoner with nothing but folk remedies and knowledge. She figured the earlier the better it was to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy, waiting to import an expert from egypt where she heard some people with this knowledge could be found might take too long.

Steeling her resolve, she quickly rose the bowl and drank its content down. It should be mild enough not to kill her, but strong enough to induce a failed pregnancy. Hopefully. She sat down comfortably, closing her eyes, taking deep breath as she waited for the effect to take hold. All of a sudden, a sharp pain in her stomach came! Astrid's eyes opened wide as she clenched her fingers on the armrest of the chair and she tried to hold in a scream. After a moment however she couldn't hold it back, did she overdo it?!

"AAAAAAHHHHHGHGH-"

Moments later Cidri ran inside the room. Ever since Astrid had found she was pregnant, Cidri had insisted to be with her every moment to comfort her, it was annoying but it was done. "Strid, what's wrong?!" She asked, coming in to hold her hand with concern. For just this moment, Astrid lost her composure and her eyes turned toward the small table with the empty bowl and various containers. Maybe she had grown to look at people around her with contempt, but it had not even cross Astrid's mind that her scheme would be discovered, she did experiments all the time, her having these kind of things was normal. Yet, her concerns, what she did today was oh so very human, something all women of any point in time could relate with.

Cidri looked at the bowl and back to Astrid with sadness. "Oh Strid, what have you done..."

___________

If anything one could call the reaction to Astrid's attempt as very sympathetic. Cidri explained Astrid's fear to the others and Vilkas scoured the land to find every wise women and doctors he could, making sure someone was with Astrid at all time so she could not try to hurt herself or the baby again. It was annoying actually, how they prevented her from working on her experiments by fear she'd try something else, forcing her take it easy and prepare. She was not very enthusiastic at first, Amatro, her priest friend, said he prayed and made offerings for her regularly. Was this the caliber of help she could expect?

It took one old wise woman to convince her maybe there was hope.

'You are a very smart woman lady Strid, yet I see that when you wish for some strange device to be crafted for you, you ask for a smith to do it. Obviously, you understand the smith who has spent all his life knows how to do at least some things better than you do. Well Lady Strid, I have given birth to 15 children myself and helped hundreds more be delivered. I won't lie, it won't be easy, but your death is not certain either. I only wish I was a smith because bronze doesn't talk back when it is being shaped, so please stop worrying, eat up and do these exercises. You have two more seasons until you give birth, it is time enough to become stronger and more resilient. It's all you can do now.'

There was little more indeed. Well, there was a few more things. Astrid had papyrus imported, lots and lots of it, and in her free time, she thought Amatro to read and write her latin letters, that is she did whenever she was not writing down everything that she could. Everything about modern science and law that she could recall, anything that she thought might be useful if... the worst should happen. 

[b]TL;DR
- Astrid gets comfortable in her marriage and grows in influence behind the scene.
- Her husband uses the wealth she is creating to try and conquer the island.
- She learns she is pregnant and tries to terminate the pregnancy by self poisoning, she fails.
- As the delivery approaches, she teaches an intelligent friend of hers about latin letters and writing and writes down all she can on imported papyrus.[/b]