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stressfossil · 3 years
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Vid strandkanten by John Bauer a different take on his own painting Agneta och sjökungen
Text in image roughly translates to: In memory of Bunn and John B. and the boy. 12 March 1911.
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cookieek · 4 years
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Chapter 11: In which things get a bit wet
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Epilogue Ao3 Wattpad
Arthur rushed back towards the river. He couldn’t believe that he had forgotten to put her charm back on when he was redressing! It was a gift from her and he had just thrown it on the ground and forgotten about it!
There was no point it beating himself up over it though, he was going to get it back. He still remembered roughly where they had sat down and the charm had hopefully not been moved by anything during the time they were away. He was going to get it back and then return to Edda like nothing had ever happened.
It was as he started hearing the sound of water as he suddenly found himself stopping in his tracks. A strange melody entered his ears, it was a light airy tune that slipped through the trees, and danced around him. 
It was the most beautiful sound Arthur had ever heard in his entire life.
He had to get closer to it.
As he exited out of the foliage, and reached the spot he and Edda had been at, he spotted a silhouette on top of the rushing water, it was holding a shiny violin in it’s hand which it gracefully played.
The music moved around him like a soft breeze, pulling him closer. It was still to faint, he had to hear it better.
He walked closer to the river, his eyes never moving from the source of the melody that played in his ears. Not paying a single mind to where he was putting his feet, yet still somehow not tripping on a single thing.
And not noticing or caring as his boots kicked something light and sent it into the water with a plop.
He was almost by the edge of the river, but he wasn’t close enough. He had to get c-
There was a loud shrieking sound from behind him, making him completely snap out of the trance he was in, but only for a moment. The silhouette seemed a bit startled, stopping it’s playing, but them returning to it, with a more overpowering melody to block out the screaming sound that was growing louder and louder.
He moved forward again, the urge to hear the music better once again gripping him. And then there was no more land to put his foot on.
Arthur finally realised what he was doing, but it was too late, he was already toppling forward. 
And he began falling.
Towards the rushing water.
And the ragged stones, waiting to break him, beneath it.
A hand gripped the back of his collar, pulling him away just as he was going to touch the water and into a warm embrace. He could feel the person who was holding him breath hasty breaths as their arms tightened around him.
There was a voice coming from above him, speaking words he couldn’t quite make out, his head feeling fuzzy and the melody still wrapping itself around his brain like a snake.
He looked to see the silhouette, now standing up turned towards him, still playing the violin, but now also speaking words he couldn’t make out, while looking above him.
The silhouette was a man, almost nude where it not for the water flora that draped itself across his body, making it look like he just had stepped out of the river after playing with it’s weeds. The man looked distinctly human, but there was something off about him, something strange that nagged at Arthur’s fuzzy brain.
The man smiled to something above Arthur, but the smile never reached his eyes, which looked cold and dull, strangely reminiscent of those of a dead fish.
Arthur felt hands touch his face, attempting to pull his gaze away from the, now frankly sort of terrifying, man. He struggled against the hands, he needed to keep his eyes on the source of that music, what if it disappeared when he wasn’t looking!
Someone yelled, what exactly he could not hear, nor did he care.
Then someone moved in front of him blocking his view of the horrible man. Arthur was about to move to the side, but then felt the stem of a flower being put into his hair.
And everything was suddenly clear again. The music still played, but the hold it had had was completely gone. 
Arthur saw the worried eyes of Edda before him and he felt her hand holding the side of his face.
The music stopped and a voice spoke, finally clear enough to hear.
“Well, if that’s how you wish to play, flicka lilla.”
There was a loud splash and then, silence.
“Are you okay?” Edda asked, taking his face in both of her hands, her thumbs softly caressing his cheeks. “What happened to your charm? It should have stopped you from getting entranced by his music.”
“I, uh-” Arthur did not want to admit his carelessness, and opted to focus on how nice her hands felt as they held him.
Edda threw a worried look back at the water, and stood up.
“You know what? We should probably leave that conversation for later,” she said turning back to him. “We need to mo-“
There was another splash of water as a wet hand grabbed a hold of Eddas leg, throwing her off her balance and pulling her so both her lower legs where submerged under water.
Arthur immediately moved to grab a hold of Edda to pull against the hand dragging her, wrapping his arms around her waist, or at least doing his best to do so with his short dwarf arms.
Edda let out a long string of loud curses as she kicked against the water and held him in a tight, panicked, hug.
Even with their powers combined Arthur could still feel his hands slipping against the pull of the creature in the water, who despite appearing as weak and skinny at first glance seemed to have the strength of a thousand men behind him. If only Arthur could get a proper grip on Edda, if only he wasn’t a tiny dwarf! If we was a human his arms would definitely be long enough to grasp her properly...
He could feel Eddas hold of him slowly starting to slip as well, her kicking doing nothing to stop her descent into the rushing water.
“Miss Edda! Close your eyes!” He shouted to her.
“What!?” Edda shouted back in between her volley of curse words.
“Close your eyes! I need to be human!” He struggled as his grip slipped more and more.
“Wha- Okay!” 
Arthur looked down at his now human arms, and lunged forward a bit to fully wrap them around Edda, pulling her completely against his chest. 
The tug-of-war continued, but with his improved grip he found himself able to pull her up just enough for her feet to be above water.
Both of her feet’s was now in the grasp of the creature, who dug his fingers deep into the leather of her boots.
He could now make out the tell tale sound of pained breathing in between Eddas swearing, the creature’s grip was hurting her.
“Let her go you bastard!” He shouted down at the water.
“F- the sword- cut!” Edda stammered into his shoulder, followed up by a few more synonyms of the word cut.
It was risky, he would have to let go of her with one hand to be able to pull his sword in the first place, but he was nothing but a risk taker and it was starting to look like they were running out of any other options. He had to be quick though.
“Hold on tight Edda.” He said as he tightened his grip on her with one of his arms as he let go with his other.
“I am!” Edda hissed out, her voice growing a bit hoarse.
Arthur just nodded as he dragged Excalibur out of it’s sheath, and, using that momentum, performed a large swing with it against the creatures exposed arms.
There was yet another sound of water splashing and Eddas feet finally found solid ground as the hands pulling them had disappeared. Lifting his sword up Arthur saw not a single stain of blood as he had expected, but simply one big Red water lily along with it’s wet and clingy stem hanging around the rock on his blade.
“Ow, shit”, Edda hissed against his shoulder, before she started pushing against him. “Move, distance from the murder river!”
Arthur nodded, despite knowing that her eyes was still closed, and walked backwards as quick as he could, while still holding on to Edda tightly. She had almost died, just like he had almost died a moment before that. He couldn’t let his eyes leave the river, it was still in there, the creature, the monster, who was behind all of this.
For a second he could see the creature stick it’s head up above the water, it’s long hair floating around it, before it once again dipped below the surface and disappeared without a trace.
“Fucking shit, are we at a safe distance?” Edda asked.
Arthur sheathed Excalibur, and lifted his free hand to caress the back of her head. Doing his best to make her feel safe.
“We are now, M’lady.” His chest swelled in pride as he felt her relax in his arms.
Edda moved back a bit and opened her eyes. 
And then he was the one hanging onto her, as his arms once again became short and stumpy. Edda let out a startled shout as she lost her balance and fell to her side, with him held tightly to her chest.
“Ah, shit,” she hissed through her teeth as she pushed herself up with her elbow, letting go of him. “Sorry, you okay?”
“Am I okay?” He said a bit flabbergasted, she had, regrettably, been the one that took the brunt of the fall, and she was asking if he was okay? “Are you okay Miss Edda?”
She moved up to a sitting position.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I legitimately thought I would die for a moment there, so it could definitely have gone way worse.” She let out a short laughter. “That’s one hell of a story to tell though, ‘Näcken has me in his grasp and I somehow didn’t end up dead’, gonna tell that story next time those farm kids come by the hut.”
“That’t that things name? Nacken?” He shot another look at the river, making sure that the monster still was gone.
“Well,” she moved her legs closer to herself and hissed a bit. “It’s one of them, the one most common around here at least. There’s also the good old ‘Bäckamannen’ or ’Strömkarlen’ and a few more that I can’t remember at the moment.”
Arthur was only half listening as he noticed the pained expression that crossed her face as she moved her feet, and then how her eyes was strangely red and wet, as if she had been crying.
“Sometimes, he doesn’t look like a guy, but a horse, and then he’s usually called ‘Bäckahästen’.” She shrugged a bit. “Asshole is a perfectly fitting name for him, whatever form he takes, though.”
“Miss Edda?” Arthur stood up and put his palm on the side of her face, feeling the slight dampness of it. “Are you sure you’re alright? It seemed like it was, hurting you, really bad.” So bad she had started crying, how had he not heard her cry?
She looked at him in surprise, her hand shooting up to hover above his for a few seconds before she dropped it back down again and adverted her eyes.
“Heh, yeah it hurt as hell, but,” she threw her hands up. “I’m fine now! It’s not like he’s still gripping my legs anymore.” She shot him a crooked grin, as she tried to conspicuously remove his hand away from her cheek.
“Miss Edda-“ He started, growing more and more concerned as she tried to bat away at his worry, but she cut him off.
“Thanks for that by the way, saved my life! Thought I guess that’s just a normal occurrence for you, Mr Hero.” She playfully nudged her fist against his chest. “Saving damsels from dragons all the time and all that.”
“Miss Edda!” He tried again, there clearly was something wrong.
“This was probably not the same as a dragon though.” She moved her face away to look at the river, but the way she rubbed her face with the arm of her shirt made it pretty clear what she was actually doing. “Water is supposedly the polar opposite of fire after all.” She looked at him again, smiling.
“Edda please!” Arthur put both his palms on the sides of her face and looked straight into her eyes. “I’m worried about you.”
She froze, but then she lifted her hands and removed his palms again. 
“There’s nothing to worry about, you worry wart.” She snickered, moving to stand up. “I’m perfectly fih-“
Her entire body jolted as she properly stood up, making her freeze in place as she gritted her teeth. She took a deep breath.
“Fine, I’m fine.” She said under her breath, almost like she wasn’t talking to him anymore.
After taking a few seconds standing up, she sat down again.
“Miss Edda, you are clearly not fine!” He said, hovering his hands over her. “If you can’t walk, then I can carry you!”
“It’s fine!” She said grabbing a hold of her boot. “Something probably just got inside my shoe when it was underwater! It’s really nothing to worry-“
She pulled off her shoe, her wet sock coming off with it, to reveal a dark red hand mark around her ankle, just where the creature had held on to her. Arthur looked at it in shock. The creature had held into her foot so hard that he had somehow marked her skin trough her boot!
Edda just smacked her lips.
“So I guess he left me a little souvenir huh?” She let out a short nervous laughter.
Arthur tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest and gritted his teeth, how dare that monster hurt her like that! He snapped his head to glower at the river, only to once again be reminded that the creature wasn’t there anymore. He took a deep breath, while he wished nothing but to tear that creature out of it’s hiding place with his bare fists and slice it’s head of, he knew that that couldn’t be the top priority right now. There was a maiden in pain, and he had to be there for her, in any way he could.
“Miss Edda?” He spoke as gently as he could, lifting his hand towards her face again, but freezing as he remembered how she had removed his hands before.
As Edda turned to look at him, she spotted his hand and, to his surprise, lightly pressed her cheek against it, closing her eyes as she did. She hummed for a few seconds before she opened her eyes again and looked at him.
Arthur had found his breath caught in his throat as he felt his hand make contact with her face again, but taking her move as a encourager, he moved and put his other hand on her other cheek.
Watching her melt into his hands made him almost completely loose track of what he was going to ask. He moved his thumbs in a gentle, soothing motion and just looked into her soft eyes.
Then she jolted in pain, and they were back in reality.
Right, her foot.
He looked down to her feet, as they both moved away from the intimate position.
“How’s the other foot? Does it hurt as well?” The creature had been holding both of her legs at one point after all.
“Not, really?” Edda said, but after a short pause she moved to remove the second boot anyway. Revealing that there thankfully wasn’t any mark there as well.
Arthur felt somewhat relieved, at least the monster hadn’t marked both of her feet.
“Maybe he didn’t get enough time to fuck up this one,” Edda said as she touched her unharmed foot. “I think he grabbed the other one first.”
Arthur brought his attention back to the marked foot, kneeling by it to get a closer look. The mark was such a dark colour, especially around the indents of the finger tips.
“You think you can heal this Miss Edda?” He looked up at her. “You can make some more of that red potion right?”
“Yeah, no. That potion requires water and I’m not going to use our drinking water for that, nor am I walking any step closer to that,” she pointed at the river, “death trap today.”
He stood up.
“I can get you the water Miss Edda, if you’re in such pain than the potion would help!” He moved as to get closer to the river, but was stopped by her grabbing his arm.
“Are you-!” She took a deep breath, before sending a strict but soft look at him. “I am not letting you risk your life any more today, we can just get the water from one of the water pumps by the road.”
He turned to her.
“But another pump could be who knows how far away! I can’t have you walk all that way with your foot being like that!”
Edda did not let go of his arm as she looked at him, expression stern, and with eyes filled with barely hidden worry and concern. Worry for him. 
Arthur sighed.
“Fine, then I’ll carry you til we find a water pump.”
She shook her head.
“No it’s fine, I can probably throw together something that’ll keep me upright for the time being. It’s to risky for you to carry me considering that we might end up crossing paths with other people on the road anyways.” Edda let go of his arm, pulled up her bag and started rummaging through it.
“But Miss Edda...” Arthur started, but found himself trailing off, not sure what he should say.
Edda smiled at him and lifted her hand to touch something in his hair. Oh right, she had placed something there, he had completely forgotten about that.
“Don’t worry so much, you have done all you can, which is quite a lot. I wasn’t kidding before, surviving that sort of encounter with Näcken is a pretty impressive feat, and I have you to thank for that.” She snickered a little bit. “I need to get you a new charm as well, I hope you can work with this one for now though.” 
She removed her hand from his hair.
“Hopefully your image can handle having a flower in your hair for a little while.” She teased him, her lips spread into a genuine and happy grin.
And despite all his worries, Arthur found himself smiling back. Yeah, if it was a gift from her, then maybe his image could handle a little flower.
-
Edda ended up making a sort of makeshift cast with the rags she had in her bag, along with some thin slices of bloodroot and leaves from johns wort that were in direct contact with the bruise. It wasn’t the best solution, but it was the most she could do in the situation and it worked just fine, there was only the occasion aches from her foot now as she walked. All things considered though, it could definitely be worse.
They had looked at the map before departing, right after Edda curiously pocketed the red water lily that got caught on Arthur’s sword, so they had a rough idea of when they would see the next water pump. They were usually located around roadside inns and public resting spots, which tended to be pretty generously scattered around, and according to the map they were only about a few kilometres away from one public resting spot.
So it was just to get over there, get her foot fixed, make a new charm for Arthur, and then continue making their way to Bergeleva. 
It was just starting to dawn on her just how much of a mess this day had been so far, and as she looked at the sun slowly nearing the horizon she started to accept that they probably wouldn’t be able to get to an inn before night fall, she could only hope they where able to reach the water pump before then. 
On the positive side, Arthur did look really nice with the John’s wort on his hair.
Edda had asked Arthur about his charm as they had begun walking, to which he had sheepishly explained him loosing it, followed by an apology, at which point she reassured him that it was ok. Hell he was hardly the worst person she had met when it came to keeping track on ones amulet, there was a guy that would come to her hut every week for a new charm since he’d always loose his, and he was a local!
Arthur seemed a bit more cheered up and they continued walking, occasionally stopping to pick some herbs by the side of the road. It almost like they had gone back to when they where making their way to Hävelösa, almost.
Arthur had been walking really close, his hand occasionally resting on her hip whenever she made any indication of feeling discomfort, probably in an attempt at supporting her. It mostly just succeeded in making her feel a bit weird and warm, but she was not about to tell him that, so she just rolled with it.
She had even taken the opportunity of him being so close to add on the flowers she would pick into his hair, she wasn’t entirely sure why he was letting her do that. What happened to the whole image thing? 
“Okay, maybe I should stop doing this,” she though out loud as she had turned with yet another John’s wort in her hand to realise that there was practically more flowers on his head than hair at this point.
“Huh, why so Miss Edda?” Arthur tilted his head, threatening one of the more loose flowers to fall off.
She couldn’t help but grin at the sight of him, it was sort of, adorable?
“I don’t know why you’re not the one stoping me here, there’s no more space on your head,” she laughed a bit.
Arthur shrugged. 
“If you refuse to let me carry you then the least I can do is help carry any other weight that might heavy you down,” he said with a stupid looking grin on his face. “Even if your weights are... flowers.”
She couldn’t help but smile in return, he was being ridiculous again, but with all that had happened today she found herself welcoming it way more. 
“Alright then, Mr weight bearer, where am I supposed to put this flower then?” She snickered. “In the front of your shirt?” She added in a joking tone.
Arthur’s grin got somehow even larger. 
“If that’s what you desire, my fair lady.” He said, puffing out his chest.
What came out from Edda after that was a bit more than a snort, as she lost her balance in her laughter. Her face hurt from the excessive grinning as she wheezed and practically cackled on the road. The whole thing was way to ridiculous for her to be able to keep face.
“Edda, are you alright!?” She felt his hands under her back, pulling her up to a sitting position.
“Y-yeah,” she took a few steady breaths as she dried the tears that had collected around her eyes. “I’m fine, you’re just, too much sometimes.” She looked at him through squinting eyes.
“Oh,” He said with a puzzled expression. “Is that good or bad?”
“It’s good.” She said, moving her head to properly face him. “I don’t think I’ve laughed this much with anyone else in my entire life.” She lifted her free hand to pat his cheek. “You’re good.”
Arthur smiled at her, not the self assured grin from before, but a soft and sweet one, that made her heart almost stop. 
“Thank you Edda.” He said, taking the flower from her loose grip and putting it behind her ear. “You’re pretty amazing yourself.”
Oh crap, they were so close to each other, why were they so close to each other, abort mission, abort mission!
“Thanks.” Was the only thing she was able to squeak out before she hurriedly got herself up again, laughing nervously. “We should probably keep walking now though, won’t get anywhere by just laying on the ground right?” She said, maybe a bit to loudly. “We have been doing that way to much today.”
“I guess you’re right.” Arthur agreed taking his spot besides her again as they continued their trek to Bergeleva.
The sky was turning a sweet shade of pink, as they finally reached the resting spot with the water pump. Knowing that the healing of her foot and the making of new charm could take a while and that the inn was still a fair bit away, prompted them to just set up camp by the resting spot instead of risking anything.
The healing of her foot ended up involving a bit more of John’s wort then the healing of Arthur’s wounds had, considering the supernatural nature of the creature behind the bruise. The use of John’s wort in the makeshift cast had helped a lot in reducing the magic needed to heal the bruise, but even then she found herself having to get a new cast that included both John’s wort and Catsfoot in order for the last bit of maliciousness that had been put in the bruise to dissipate, which would have to happen overnight.
Arthur had insisted on helping her with her foot so it had been him who bound the cast for her, which he did pretty well, though maybe him kissing the cast after he was done was a little to much.
“Just kissing it better.” He had said with a grin as Edda tried her best to hide the swell of emotions that had came when he had done that. This guy was going to be the death of her at this point, but not in the way that she had first expected when she had met him.
The resting spot did seem to have a campfire spot along a small pile of firewood, so they thankfully didn’t have to go and look for any. Edda was happy about that because that meant she didn’t have to stress as much when creating a new charm for Arthur, the flowers in his hair was nice, but she doubted that they wouldn’t become a nuisance when getting fire wood, and she did not want him to go anywhere without any protective charms of any kind. She, of course, still had to finish the charm before the sun went, since it was way less troublesome to make the Catsfoot circle when there was still some natural light.
Speaking of the Catsfoot, Edda sure hoped she would get the chance to refill it soon enough, as the amount she had in the bottle was shrinking real fast, being used for both the cast, Arthur’s charm and the circle in only one day. She did get a bunch of John’s wort today, but a fair share of that had also been used. 
Maybe she could get some more in Bergeleva, they would be able to reach it tomorrow anyway so she probably didn’t have to use more of it until then.
She finished making the charm, it was almost the same as the old one except she had put some John’s wort flower petals inside of it as well. She looked up at Arthur who was occupied with the fireplace, he was squinting and pouting in concentration as he tried to work up the small sparks of flame into a fire. She had taken most of the flowers out of his hair when she had started to work on his charm, leaving only one resting on his ear. 
How on earth was it that no one had kissed him yet?
Wait what.
Edda shook her head, where the hell did that come from? 
Trying to ignore the strange feeling in her chest, that at this point was starting to become a normal occurrence, she stood up and walked to Arthur, who didn’t seem to notice her as the fire started taking off. 
“Congratulations! You have started a fire! Take this fire starting medal as a reminder of this great occasion!” She shouted, dropping the charm around his neck.
Arthur jolted and spun around in surprise, hand on the grip of his sword.
“Whoa, stand down warrior!” Edda said, holding her hand up to him.
“Oh, it’s you Miss Edda.” He said, letting go of the sword, the now free hand traveling down to touch the charm that now dangled on top of his chest.
“Yeah,” Maybe sneaking up behind him hadn’t been that good of an idea, even if it was sort If a split second one. “Sorry about startling you like that.”
Arthur just ginned a bit. 
“It’s fine, but should you really be walking around with the foot like that?” He cocked his head to the side in concern.
“Come on, it’s by far better than it was earlier today, I can walk around just fine.” She said with a snort.
“If you say so.” Arthur said, lifting the charm up to his face to look at it better. “Hey, isn’t those yellow bits-?”
“John’s worts petals? Yes, they do have a protecting ability after all and also...” She leaned in a bit to him to touch the John’s wort in his hair. “They did seem to really fit you.”
Arthur looked at her with wide eyes. 
Oh no. 
She had said that out loud. And touched him. 
Crap.
Edda immediately moved away from Arthur, adverting her eyes to look at the sky, the tree’s, the water pump, anything but him.
“So yeah,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Hope you like that. I’m going to do the protection circle now!” And then she rushed back to her bag to get the bottle of Catsfoot.
The evening soon drew to a close, night falling around them, they had spent most of it in comfortable silence or with one of them babbling about a topic that interested them, be it fights with monsters or powerful spells. 
It was as she was sitting in her nightgown going trough her notebook, looking at the rune spells that she had written down at Hävelösa, and carefully practicing carving them into some sticks she had found by the campsite, as Arthur sheepishly walked up to her with his blanket.
“Miss Edda?” He asked, making her look up from her carving. “What if I ruin the circle again? I do move a lot when sleeping.” He looked away from her as he spoke.
Edda wasn’t sure how to answer, there was a possibility that he would roll out, she could not deny that, but what could she really do about it?
“I could... hammer a pole into the ground and bind you to it?” She replied.
“I would easily tear it from the ground.” He said, matter of factly.
“Oh right, forgot I was dealing with a strong man here.” She said, maybe a bit to sarcastically, but it was pretty late, so much of her usual snark filter had dissipated at this point. She leaned her head back to stare at the starry sky in thought. 
“I could... tie you to me? I guess? I’m pretty hefty.” She joked.
Arthur seemed to do a double take, but then he smiled at her.
“You mean that I could hold you, like I did last time? That could work! I don’t think I moved at all after that!” He moved forward to her in excitement.
Edda froze. He took it seriously? What? Oh no.
“I meant like we could tie our hands together or something.” She blurted out in panic. “You don’t have to hold me that’s fine.” She wasn’t sure why he would want to in the first place, last time had been sort of an accident after all.
And yet he seemed to deflate somewhat at her words.
“Oh, well, holding hands could definitely also work.” He smiled at her again, but it didn’t seem to be as cheerful as it had been a moment prior. Had she hurt his feelings? She didn’t mean to do that.
Holding hands had also, not really been what she had meant, but part of her didn’t want to shoot him down again, and another part of her didn’t exactly mind the idea of them holding hands while sleeping. 
So she went with it, binding them together by their wrists, making sure that she didn’t bind to tightly around his wrist since it would get bigger as he turned back to a human, but then also intertwining their hands together as they laid down on the ground to sleep. 
Not wanting to risk Arthur catching her stare at him, she found herself laying on her back, staring at the constellations on the starry sky. She only really knew two of them, Cassiopeia and The Big Dipper, never having been that good at astrology. 
She looked at the night sky, looking for shooting stars like she had many times as a child, though she wasn’t sure why, none of her wishes to the stars had ever really come true. 
The soft snoring sound from Arthur broke her out of her trance, and as she looked over she found him curled up with both of his hands holding on to hers. 
There came the tugging in her chest again. She turned back to the night sky and her eye caught the sight of a quick line of light that disappeared as soon as it had appeared. She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt Arthur’s warmth all over her hand and arm, and once again made a wish, that he would be free from whatever harm that might try to reach them, that might try to reach her.
And then she fell asleep.
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stressfossil · 3 years
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Näcken, also known as bäckamannen or further north forskarl is a Nordic supernatural being often presenting as a man but is known to able to change shape. The image most have of Näcken is like the image above, a handsome naked man sitting by the rapids playing a fiddle, but this a relatively new portrayal of him. In the older stories of him people talked about an old man dressed in gray with a red woollen cap, he’s described as “ugly” with a crooked nose and grotesquely big eyes. It has also been told that he shape shifted into objects and animals like cats and dogs. This being was not limited to rapids or brooks, lakes and the sea were also their stomping grounds. The most famous part of Näcken is his wish to drown people which he often did with his magical songs usually played on a fiddle. The songs lured his victims to dance their way into the water, drowning as a result. Even if he’s generally seen as an evil being today, at the time of these stories most supernatural beings were neither seen as good nor evil, just beings of the earth just like humans. There are many stories of Näcken teaching humans to play the fiddle, plenty of them even portrays him as enthusiastic when doing it. Of course it wasn’t easy to come in contact with him the tales oftentimes describes complex rituals that varied between regions. There were dangers when learning from Näcken, as oftentimes is when asking favours from beings like him, the pupil constantly had to be on guard to make sure they weren’t drowned as Näcken was known to do this if he saw the opportunity. The melodies taught to them could also be dangerous, in some stories the newly trained fiddler could not stop playing and the people dancing to his music could not stop dancing. These tales oftentimes end with the dancer either dying from exhaustion or unable to dance as their legs turned into stumps. The melodies could also end up drowning both the dancers and the fiddler. In later stories Christian symbolism started to appear, the cross generally being the only thing that could stop him. Näcken was usually used as a way to scare children to behave around water but the adults still taught them ways to keep the being away, like putting a knife in the ground or throwing a stone in the water as a way to bind him. Source: Älvor, troll och talande träd by Ebbe Schön
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