Post by Svanhildur on Aug 22, 2011 21:15:14 GMT
NAME: Svanhildur Eydís Óðinsdóttir.
NICKNAMES: Svana. Svana Hall is the name she uses to navigate the human world. In times gone by she was known by several different titles; Silver Lady, Throneless Queen and the Dragon are amongst them.
RACE: Lycanthrope; turned.
OCCUPATION: Rogue; Owner of Hariasa, a homeopathic and curios shop where Svana specialises in traditional Nordic remedies and jewellery as well as casting runes and divining the futures of humans who come in. Not that she’s a prophetess, but she believes she once had a gift for it as the spiritual leader of her people and that it has stayed with her over the centuries.
GENDER: Female.
SKIN COLOUR: Caucasian, very pale.
NATIONALITY: Icelandic.
AGE: 508. Svanhildur passes for her mid-twenties.
CLOTHING: It’s something of an annoyance that she can’t dress as regally as she would like from day to day, but when she’s not working or running errands Svana clothes herself in fine dresses and silks that remind her of home, she sleeps under furs and insists upon rough hewn carpets, all things that recall to her the days of her Icelandic upbringing. It is never more evident in her clothing around her home; though she is more comfortable in colder climates the Los Angelean heat at least allows her to dress in the light feminine clothes that befit her birth-rank. While working she has to settle for normal, boring, modern human clothes; understand though that she wouldn’t be seen dead in jeans and a t-shirt and will almost always go for the best materials even if she has to pay obscene prices for them. Often times, much to Theon’s enduring annoyance, Svanhildur turns the air conditioning in their house on full and then lights a fire in the heart; it’s mostly sentimental but she prefers the artificial cold to the natural heat of the city and can usually be found bound up in fur blankets with a book when it’s pushing one-hundred degrees outside.
HEIGHT: 5'4"
WEIGHT: 134lbs.
TATTOOS: None.
PIERCINGS: None.
JEWELLRY: Over the years Svana has, unfortunately, had to part with many pieces of jewellery; it’s not easy for someone like her to do so, but it’s not easy to buy travel around the globe on little more than a pretty face. Stripped of standing and title she had to sell her bracelets, diadems and rings and honestly it broke her heart to do so. At this point in time she has two rings and one bracelet: the first ring is simple and knotted; in old Norse mythology it was believed that knots were a symbol of Love, Commitment and Strength, the second shows the heads of two dragons, a creature her people believed to exist in the old north. Svana’s bracelet is inscribed with the runes of her family line and is worn on her upper arm.
BODY MODIFICATIONS: Scars from her turning fan out over the nape of her neck, they’re faint now but still evident to those who know what they’re looking for.
WOLF FORM
BUILD: Sturdy and powerful without becoming bulky or clumsy. Svana is strangely proud of her wolf form, it allows for brief spates of bipedal motion, it is fast and strong and she feels ruthless when inhabiting this skin, perhaps even more so than when she’s human. With very large paws she holds her balance extremely well, making her a stable opponent difficult to wrong-foot. If anything Svana is surprisingly thin underneath all the fur of her wolf form, making her much lighter than she would first appear. This makes it easier for her to move quickly and through smaller, narrower spaces that might be inaccessible to bigger, more bulky wolves.
HEIGHT: 4’3” quadrupedal. 8’1” bipedal.
WEIGHT:
HAIR: Thick and white, much like her human head of hair.
EYES: Yellow.
DEFINING MARKS: Masses of white fur clothe her neck, shoulders, spine and tail. Svanhildur also sports a white nose while in wolf form which is very distinctive.
PACK
PACK: Rogue.
POSITION: N/A.
TERRITORY: N/A.
HAIR
LENGTH: Long. Svana rarely cuts her hair, she only trims it to keep it a manageable length but she certainly doesn’t let anyone else touch her silver locks.
STYLE: Even while working she hair is worn loose, though often with the front sections braided back away from her face in intricate, traditional knots and patterns. It naturally carries a light wave and honestly Svana loathes wearing her hair back.
COLOUR: Blonde, though extremely pale so as to look white.
FACIAL HAIR
LENGTH: N/A.
STYLE: N/A.
EYES
COLOUR: Green.
ODDITIES: All members of Svana’s species can change their eye colour to that of their wolf either voluntarily or not so. In her case, Svana is more likely to allow the bright colour of her wolfen eyes through to intimidate and threaten than anything else.
PERSONALITY: Svanhildur has a heart of iron and she’s proud of it. In her own words she is not gentle woman and her actions back up such brazen words; there is as much blood upon her hands as any man could boast. As a young woman she was expected to continue the family line on her own with no brothers to speak of from her father’s first wife, a lot of pressure to put on a young girl in a world dominated by men, at least on the battlefield. Svanhildur took after her father much more than her mother either as a result of the fact that she was in a unique position or simply as a blessing from the Gods, the latter being that which her father preached to all who would listen. Óðin had great faith in his daughter and bolstered a confidence in her that has stayed with her throughout her life, turning her from a young waif gifted with the second sight, according to their culture, to a Dragon, feared by many for her terrible wrath and the harshness of her justice. Svanhildur sees things in black and white, right and wrong; honour and dignity are the things that she values in herself and in others and will simply not give the time of day to someone she does not respect. Without her own honour, dignity and nobility she would simply cease to be anything of worth in her own eyes, an Old World sense of duty and loyalty and justice being the most important things anyone could ever hope to own.
There truly is something of the Old World about Svanhildur, it’s not hard for persons she meets to notices that she looks on them the way a great-grandmother might consider a very small child, with knowing in her eyes and a terrible kind of pity. Five centuries have taken their toll on her and though she looks to be in her mid-twenties physically it doesn’t take a genius to look into Svanhildur’s eyes and see an old soul behind them. Her people have disappeared, her religion has been decimated, the Gods called nothing more than myth, legend and superstition and a desperate loneliness has been kindled within her for all these things. It is that, most likely, that forces her to tolerate one Theon Júnssonur. An enemy of old, once her prisoner and oft times her rescuer , Svanhildur has come to accept that his presence in her life is unchanging now, a constant and though she would die before admitting it to the man himself without him she would be truly alone, the last of her kind and that loneliness would swallow her completely. Theon is something of an enigma to her, however, even after all these years. Most of the time she tolerates him, sometimes she wants to put a curse on him and wait for their Gods to strike him down (though she would never really go that far). In the very beginning keeping him alive was a matter of pride and principle, a strategic idea that he might become useful or have information she might need, but as time wore on and their paths crossed frequently that changed dramatically. In truth, and no one would likely hear her say such a thing, Svanhildur believes that destiny brought them together, that fate has intertwined their lives from the very beginning and she would be a fool to overlook that. Svanhildur cares about him in her own way, she would rather he didn’t die and takes pains to make sure that doesn’t happen, but she is equally as likely to treat him as though her means less than nothing to her, as though he is an annoyance and a burden upon her time. It would make her feel weak to admit that she needs him even in some small way.
For all her hardness, all her brittle words and thunderous visage she is also a healer. Svanhildur learnt the traditional arts of tending wounds of the body and of the mind and soul with herbal remedies from her nursemaid and the old women of the village she grew up in and has held them dear to her through the centuries. Without the need for her to have a warrior’s heart, many said, she would gave grown into a gentle, giving woman and, most likely, would have become one of the Völva, a travelling prophetess who would bring wisdom and guidance to the Goði leaders with a retinue of young priestesses at her heels. In some ways it was perhaps these women that understood Svana better than anyone else did; they saw the way she could soothe a person with her hands and her voice, just by speaking taking an injured warrior’s troubles away. All that was soft in her had to be guarded, however; mercy could be easily seen as a weakness in those days, from a man it might be gracious and levelheaded but from a woman it would speak to her inability to command her men, a weakness stemming from her inherent femaleness and so Svanhildur betrayed it very little over the years and to this days shields her softer parts from anyone who might come prying for a way through her armour. Most people who cross her are lucky if they escape with their hands and genitals intact.
Her loyalty is at least equal to, if not deeper than, her pride, however. If she is traditional it is because she is loyal to the ways of her house and the memories of her family, those she admired and loved, their generosity and ferocious love they bore one another. Earning her trust gains a person someone who will fight to the death on their behalf, someone who loves intensely and forcefully. These are things she aspires to but equally fears. Svanhildur does, in fact, feel deeply though she rarely betrays as much. If she is spitting with rage it is because she feels passionately; she is a woman of extremes, she can be the kindest and most loyal woman a person has ever known or she can be the most terrible enemy imaginable. It bothers her that she is so inherently human, she strives for perfection within herself, aspiring to an all but unattainable standard and fears failure deeply; her father’s expectations of great things from her have lingered with her as a second shadow over the many years she has lived.
Svanhildur is a traditionalist in the truest sense of the world; she worships the Old Gods and keeps her religion close to her heart, she prays and makes offerings to the Norse pantheon as though she was still living in Iceland in the middle-ages. To her thinking the world has simply forgotten who they have to thank for their existence, that technology and ease of life has lulled humans into being stupid, fat and lazy and that one day, possibly soon, they are going to pay for that. Christianity is a particular irritation to her because of this; her religion was extinguished centuries ago by the Christians who came to her homeland with Bibles and their One God. Suffice to say Svanhildur does not believe in any writings in the bible and if often liable to pity those who do. If anything the knowledge that monsters like vampires and werewolves exist has only strengthened her position; do the Christians believe in supernatural being? No. Yet they walk the Earth just as humans do. So which religion is more accurate? In her mind she knows who made the world, who her true fathers and mothers are and nothing will change her mind on that. When she dies, if she has been worthy in life, she will be granted a place in Valhalla with her father and later husband and all the ancestors she grew up hearing stories about.
WEAKNESSES: Lycanthropes, for all their vast qualities and strengths, have several weaknesses that hold universally true and it is no different for Svana; deathly allergic to silver should it enter her bloodstream, the metal will burn on contact with her skin and force nausea upon her if kept in close proximity. If anything her more potent and destructive weaknesses come from her personality: Pride comes before a fall and Svanhildur has a lot of pride; she finds it all but impossible to admit fault or to apologise for wrongs she has done to another not because she does not feel badly about what she may have done or said but because being anything less than perfect is unacceptable in her eyes. Giving herself a break, as humans say, cutting herself some slack, is not part of her vocabulary; Svanhildur will work herself to the bone and drive herself to the brink in order to achieve her goals or to attain what she perceives as an ideal that is expected of her; allowing herself to feel fear or longing or anything other than the cold, hard metal of her justice feels so much like a betrayal of all the things she was taught as a young woman. Loyal and determined as she is her sharp tongue often, if not always, keeps people away from her because they have been hurt or fear such a thing from her and Svanhildur would hardly begrudge them such a thing, in fact it makes life a little easier of her not to be surrounded by people that she may let down in some way later on.
If any one person is a weakness for Svanhildur then it is obviously Theon Júnssonur. For centuries they have crossed paths, travelled together and driven one another to utter rage and ruin but the fact remains that he has saved her life on several occasions; scooping her out of the water before she drowned, helping her escape her captors and those who would rape and enslave her. Putting him in danger is the quickest way to enrage her, threatening him earns a wrath unlike any other and this puts her at easy risk of being manipulated. Svanhildur could not care less, however; she hates being in debt to Theon but she would rather that than have him dead. In truth Theon can be in her thoughts so much that she is driven to distraction, he is insufferable and infuriating and she would not be complete without him. That, in the end of the day, is more dangerous than any other weakness she bears.
ABILITIES: As a lycanthrope Svanhildur has a great many natural abilities; she is faster, stronger and more resilient than any human could ever wish to be, with better reflexes and senses that outshine most animals, and at her age she is even able to control her change so that she is no longer enslaved to the moon as she once was. In addition she can leap large distances, climb walls and right herself through falls that would shatter a human’s bones. Svanhildur is also an ages old warrior, a woman who had a sword pressed into her hand almost as soon as she could walk and was taught to wield it with deadly ferocity and precision. While she has not branched out over the centuries to other weapons, mainly out of pure stubbornness, she had handle a dagger as well as a sword and either of these weapons is good enough to get her out of most situations. Svanhildur is not squeamish in the least and will gladly cleave off any part of a man to gain the advantage.
These days divination and prophetising are looked down upon as silly superstitions by the modern world but Svanhildur believes in their authenticity absolutely; she was once considered to be a powerful seeress amongst her people and would often be called upon to cast runes and read the future; women would come to her and ask her aid in falling pregnant or what the sex of their unborn babies might be, men asked for her blessing in battle, for runes to be inscribed on their blades or for her to grant them a small kiss before they rode into battle. It angers and frustrates Svanhildur that these things are now looked down on by humans, she sees it as nearsightedness and narrow-mindedness that has served only to reduce the human race instead of expanding it over the centuries. To this day she maintains what she considers to be her Gods given gifts, she has often (sometimes secretly) blessed Theon when she senses trouble approaching or when a battle looms.
WEAPONS: Most would say her sharp tongue is her greatest weapon, most would also say she’s something of a harpie. Svana can cut a person down with words as quickly as she might with a sword. Make no mistake she was trained the ways of the blade as a young human woman and could cleave a man’s head from his shoulders in the blink of an eye. In fact the only weapon she has or needs is a sword she brought with her from Iceland. It resides in her shop, behind the counter and in easy reach should she need it.
PRIZED POSSESSIONS: There is nothing Svanhildur values as much as the objects she has carried with her through the centuries; her jewellery and her sword are the only things that remain of her homeland and her clan. While it might not seems to be the case to a casual observer Svana counts Theon Júnssonur amongst her valued possessions; though she knows better than to refer to him as anything remotely like an object, or even hers in any way she has and will kill to protect his life. If anyone’s going to kill Theon it’s going to be her.
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[/center]HOME(S): Svanhildur shares a home with Theon Júnssonur in the suburbs of Los Angeles.
HISTORY: Once upon a time there lived a silver haired princess. No really, Svanhildur Óðinsdóttir was born to an Icelandic Goði, the chieftan of a large area of land in the north of her home country. They were a well respected and powerful group and Svanhildur was poised to inherit the seat of power in the region as the only surviving child of her parents Odin and Eydís, someone of considerable prophetic gifts according to their culture. It was not something that was to be handed to her on a silver platter, though. Svanhildur had to earn the right to call herself Gyðja. From an early age she was taught how to wield a sword and a shield and to fight like a man, in other parts of the world it might have been seen as grossly inappropriate but things were different in the North of Iceland and they still held to the old ways and believed in the Old Gods. At fourteen she was married off to Vilhjálmur Baldursson, a warrior and a match that made sense and one that was widely felt would bring good fortune to the godord, the land that belonged to her father and their people. Svanhildur had no illusions or aspirations to things such as love, it was out of reach for most women in her experience and especially of her standing; she was not exactly a commodity, her father would never dare to call her such a thing, but she was important to the family line, she carried their blood and to have strong children and continue their reign she had to have a strong husband whom the Gods would look favourably upon, someone who would be a strong hand if she should ever need one. Not that anyone felt that Svanhildur needed a man to carry out the less seemly jobs of monarchy; from the first day she picked up a sword it was evident to any who saw her that she was as ruthless as any man and twice as vicious.
Still when war came it was not her place to be on the battlefield and Svanhildur was not stupid enough at even her young age to think otherwise. Another Goði, a man who’s territory bordered their own, has rallied his people up in arms and were bent on attacking Óðin and his people. It was a long standing rivalry and on the back of several years of peace it was still hardly a shock when war came to their lands. The only response was, of course, to muster their own armies and fight back. Svanhildur’s father and husband both went to war. It was not quickly fought or one, both armies were entrenched for several months but Svanhildur lost Vilhjálmur within the first, supposedly as he put himself between her father and a blade meant for his heart. It would be wrong to say Svanhildur didn’t mourn him, she did, as much as was proper at least but in a loveless, arranged marriage that she had gone into for the good of the people and not for the strength of her own feelings she shed few real tears and instead turned her anger at the situation onto thoughts of the future.
Unnatural forces were afoot, messengers told her. There was something moving in from the uninhabited North that they could identify, could barely see. That was the first and last Svanhildur heard of the creatures. Word stopped coming from the battlefront and she took it upon herself to travel with a retinue of men to the battle herself to investigate the silence. When she arrives it is to one of the most horrifying things she ever has or will see; the field is soaked in the blood, the snow is all but arbitrarily pink, broken by patches of near-black. Svanhildur knows in her guts that something truly awful and otherwordly has taken place and immediately sends the men she has brought with her to scour the bodies, half-buried in snow as they might be. Svanhildur takes to the search herself, also. They find only one man breathing and she comes rushing to his side as the men dig him out of the fresh fallen snow; upon turning him over she realises that he is one of the enemy, not a man that she recognises; he wears the insignia of a wolf that she knows belongs to a noble house of her enemies. While she works to revive him, using the healing supplies she brought with her for her father, she sends the men to continue searching the half-eaten corpses. Svanhildur revives the man they found and he tells them that everyone is dead, some monster or another came for them in the night, decimating the soldiers, tearing their throats out and drinking their blood. While at the time she did not know it the opposing force had struck a bargain with vampires decades ago; the creatures had been terrorising their land, butchering their way through homesteads and forcing the Goði into a terrible deal. If, he said, they would so to sleep, hibernate for the next few decades, enough for their people to recover, he would lead them into a battle where they could gorge themselves on the opposing army and take their land instead. The vampires agreed. At the battle Svanhildur’s father fell in the vampires had swept down upon the men and, in their bloodlust, decimated both armies, leaving none but Theon alive.
There was no trace of her father but his helmet, spattered in blood and horribly dented. As night closed in about them Svanhildur ordered the men back to the horses and their return to the village empty handed. Theon, she ordered, was to be brought with them and wrapped in furs they strapped him to the back of a horse for the journey. As they began to climb their saddles the creatures stirred in the darkness. Red eyes peered from the snow and shadows and the scent of death permeated the freezing air. They gave chase to Svanhildur and her men, toying with them and spooking the horses though all escaped their their lives that night tales of the battle that was won by monsters spread through the region.
Svanhildur took up the mantle of leader; she was already known to be as fierce as any man, they already called her the Dragon in answer to her fiery rage that they whispered could fell a man quick as any blade. There was no one who could challenge her, either, she could best all men of standing with a sword and was by far more intelligent than most of the warriors when it came to strategy and leadership; her father had taught her well, and though the respect of the people for their late King was great in the beginning Svanhildur proved that she, too, was a capable and strong Queen; she led them in mourning whilst nursing her own bitter grief at the loss of her beloved father. As for Theon, she kept him alive, having him tended to when they returned from the battlefront. It was mostly out of spite, of having a piece of the army that had killed so many of her kinsmen, but there was so much to do upon her return that she barely gave him much thought. That did not stop her from intervening when she came across some of her men beating him, however; coming close to liberating one man of his head for the affront. At Theon’s gratitude she struck him, reminding him that she did not, in fact, care about him or his situation, only that he belonged to her as her prisoner. Soon after, when he had healed from the short but vicious beating, the young man escaped. Svanhildur sent out search parties to bring him back, partly out of pride and partly because clinging to the last scrap of the battle that took her father and husband seems important at the time. When he is finally caught and brought before her he’s in a fairly terrible state; pneumonia had claimed his lungs in the wilderness and as a result of his exertion through snowdrifts many feet higher than him he had sweated himself to near starvation. Svanhildur sat on her throne and watched him silently for a time as he shivered, as though deciding what to do with him. At last she settled on spending her considerable healing talents to keep him alive once more.
It took a good week or more to purge the fever out of him and longer than that to force the rattling cough from his lungs but she did it anyway and refused to give a reason if asked. One night, as the evening meal came to a close, one man went so far as to raise the question of why she had bothered to waste time, energy and resources on this scrap of a man. Svanhildur had his tongue cut out with hot pincers for daring to second-guess her. That was the last time anyone speaks to Svanhildur of Theon.
For several months all was quiet. Svanhildur worked tirelessly to rebuild her people and restore their faith, she kept her faith staunchly, often asking the Gods for guidance and in turn she was looked to for guidance by her people who had come to love her in the time since her father’s demise and not just because they could see her father in her so strongly. Thoughts of her father plauged her often in those days. It was of great concern to her that her father’s allies had not come to his aid when needed; they had been sent for to aid him in the battle that carried him to Valhalla, Eyvindur Halldórsson was the son of a great friend to Svanhildur’s father and had been in charge of bringing the forces to ther battle, she had known him for many years, since they had both been children and the idea that he, or his father, could betray her family was not a pleasant one. Svanhildur had never shied away from unpleasant thoughts before, but she could see no reason for such a betrayal other than outright greed and desire for what were now her lands. All too soon her answer to this riddle came upon her and her people. Eyvindur led his men to her doorstep, they overwhelmed the defences with their vastly superior numbers, numbers that had not suffered a heavy blow as Svanhildur’s had. It was the leader they had come for and as they burned and hacked and slashed their way through buildings she was dragged out by her pretty white hair, her guards dead, her sword arm broken to disable her. Eyvindur claimed Svanhildur as his trophy wife, the woman he had always wanted but never had.
In the chaos Theon managed to escape his captivity, little to Svanhildur’s knowledge as she was all but carried away and quickly found herself in a hell worse than the one she imagined beneath her feet. Eyvindur married them against her will and had taken to calling her wife at every chance he was given. He took her when he wanted her and kept her locked in a bare room when he did not. Svanhildur was the jewel on his arm and he wore her proudly whenever he could. Svanhildur nursed her hate for him carefully. In the end she did not get the chance to kill him she was waiting for. instead she was broken free of her cell by a group of men who had been paid to pass her along to another man who wanted his turn with the Silver Lady, the Throneless Queen. Over the course of several months Svanhildur was fought over and passed around like a commodity; men would fight and die for the chance to be with her not because of extraordinary beauty or her womanly talents but because of what she represented; a strong, proud women that men felt they could break, a woman of standing with title and lands, though Eyvindur held onto those even if he had lost his lady wife; they wanted her bloodline, her children and the status she would grant them if she were theirs. It was maddening to Eyvindur and after hearing he stories of the battle he had abandoned Svanhildur’s father to, the monsters that had ravaged the men with their superior strength and speed he went to the barren wastelands to seek them out, there he made a pact with them; if they made him one of them if they turned him into a vampire he would give them the army he had not wasted in the battle along with Svanhildur’s lands and all the people thereon. They agreed. Eyvindur became a vampire.
As a result of being passed around like cattle Svanhildur found herself with Theon’s people, those who had slaughtered her father and husband both. It was here that she finally managed to escape.
Night was barely falling when she was shoved, tired and bruised into a room to await her new lord and master. Svanhildur did as she did each time this happened; she scanned the room for weapons or escape routes. They never let her near anything sharp, her reputation proceeded her even as a disgraced, fallen monarch, but that night she found herself looking into a mirror, her reflection of tousled, braid-less white hair and shadowed, sunken eyes. Svanhildur smashed it, swept the fragments under the bed and took one or a suitable size for herself, hiding it in her skirts. When the man came for her she sat on the bed, docile as a lamb and let him come to her, putting his large, sweaty hands on her, pushing her back on the bed and then she attacked. Svanhildur tore her hands to ribbons on the shard of mirror, gouging his eye out and spraying her with blood. Svanhildur left him screaming in agony and wormed her way out from beneath him. In the hallway she fought brutally and won herself a sword. That was all she needed. With a weapon in hand she was all but unstoppable; thin though she was, weak from mistreatment, she bested any man she came across, slaughtering every single one of them. Soaked in blood, matted hair and sweat she broke out into the village proper where she was finally overwhelmed and outnumbered. They pinned her until her the man with one eye stumbled to join them. In a fit of rage at his lost sight and at being bested by a mere woman he began to beat her. Svanhildur fought back as best she was able, spitting in his face, but even she had no hope against so many men. A crowd gathered, jeering and calling her names, spitting at her feet, tossing rotted meat or vegetables at her if they had them.
It was Theon who came to her defence.
Drawing his own sword he turned on Svanhildurs attacker, coming between him and the female. Everything became silent. Even then, dazed as she was on the ground, bleading and battered Svanhildur knew that this was a disgrace to Theon’s people, that he was risking everything to stop her from being beaten to death. They told Theon to stop, to step away, that he was defending a sworn enemy, a woman who had held him captive for months on end and he returns that she also saved his life more than once, that she came to the battlefield when no one else did and had she not he would have frozen to death. They attacked him, not heeding his words in the slightest. Theon held the off long enough to let Svanhildur get away, cleaving her a gap in their frenzied mobbing to give her a way free, yelling for her to go; she commandeered a horse and rode hard to freedom.
Naturally Svanhildur returned to her home. All she wanted by this point was to be with her mother and her family, those she might not be related to by blood but those she considered her family. Even before she reached her destination Svanhildur saw the smoke rising from the buildings and her heart sank into her stomach. There was no one left alive. Shivering viciously Svanhildur went from building to building, through blood-soaked snow and stuff corpses and found nothing by a deepening sorrow, a grief so deep it soaked her bones to the marrow. Her mother she found butchered in the square, her jaw shattered, her teeth sprinkling the snow all around her, fingernails torn from fighting and blood everywhere, blood and bite marks. It broke something deep down inside the young female to see such horror, she sank into the snow beside her mother and wept bitter, long tears, she knew in that moment she could not go on living, she had nothing left. In the tales of old, she had read and loved, those struck with grief as terrible as hers gave themselves over to death. Svanhildur was tired; she had been beaten and abused, her family was dead and her home destroyed and thoughts of both had been all that kept her going; she went to the lake she had played in as a girl and stood on the shoreline, gazing into the grey waters. After a prayer to the Gods she began to wade out into the freezing lake, intent on killing herself so that she might be with her people again, with her family. As the water rose to her chest she heard her name called from the shore. Svanhildur didn’t need to turn her head to know it was Theon again, somehow. It was the splashing of water she didn’t expect as he waded in after her, shouting her name again and again. With arms much stronger than her, bruised as they were and sore, he scooped her up by the waste before she was completely submerged and dragged her back to shore. Svanhildur fought against him but could not break free until the beach was beneath her feet again. There she all but screamed at him to leave her be, that she wanted to die, that she was the last of her people and had nothing left to live for, her honour and dignity were gone, her lands decimated and her pride shattered, she had been taken by men, passed around as a trophy and she was so tired. Theon returned that if she was so good with a sword she should take up hers again and claim vengeance for herself and for her people, she should take her honour back by force if she had to. In all her years, even as the Dragon of the North, Svanhildur had never before released such a force of emotion, sorrow and anger fuelling her impassioned argument. Though the thought of taking up arms and seeking this vengeance was exhausting to her she knew Theon was right and, eventually, conceded.
They parted ways there, Svanhildur was desperate to be alone again, to cradle her grief in private once more and the embarrassment she felt at how emotional she had been and allowing Theon to see that had her moving quickly from the area. First of all she had to heal and regain her strength; Svana found her sword in the rubble of the township and took it with her, cleaning and caring for it, nursing her wounds and repairing herself, building her defences again, the cold, hard exterior that would never again allow her to be hurt as deeply as she had been so recently. It was the anniversary of the battle that she began her quest for retribution; Svanhildur went to the battlefield to pay her respects, to pray and say goodbye to her father and her first husband; she did not expect to meet Theon there again. Nor did she expect to once again see the creatures whose eyes had chased her and her men from the snowy wasteland. They came out of nowhere and two humans had no hope of defending themselves against such creatures. Svanhildur’s memories of that night are hazy at best; she remembered snow and blood and the shape of great wolves coming out of the darkness to the aid of herself and Theon. Despite the intervention of the creatures they were badly injured, hot blood meeting cold snow, steam rising in the darkening air.
Svanhildur awoke to unfamiliar faces and her hand immediately reached for her sword only to find it out of her reach. Theon, she learned was safe also and she demanded to see him with her own eyes before she would listen to anything they had to say. They told her that they were werewolves, lyancathropes, men and women who could change their shape into that of a great, powerful beast and that now she and Theon were the same. They had been attacked by vampires, the wolves told them, and the only way to save theirs lives had been to turn them. It was now, finally, that Svanhildur heard the full tale of what had happened at the battle, how the leader of Theon’s people had made a bargain with the creatures, how they had been given Svanhildur’s land and people by Eyvindur so that he might become like them, too, immortal and powerful. Consumed with anger so raw Svanhildur could only lie prone as she healed, waiting for her body to regain its strength so that she could go after her husband and kill him with her bare hands. When she was finally strong enough she leaves without a word, not even waiting to say goodbye to Theon who she shared a bond with now that they had been turned by the same wolf at the same time.
Svanhildur traversed Europe hunting for Eyvindur. In Romania she came across a group of bandits picking on a small human boy of just eight. Cold and ruthless she might have been to many but Svanhildur was not soulless or heartless and the plight of so small a boy tugged at her heartstrings. She fought off the men, sending those she did not kill running off into the trees. Nicu was young, frightened and alone, his mother lay dead in the road, the bandits had slit her throat for a coin purse. Svanhildur took the crying boy to her arms and set him atop her horse, she walked him away from the scene, singing softly in Icelandic under her breath as she went, a hand on his where it gripped the saddle. They came to an inn and Svanhildur had food brought for the boy into the room where she sat in the corner silently and watched him with careful green eyes. When he had calmed some and she had gotten him into the bed so that he could sleep she drew the covers to his chin, leaning over him, and asked him if he had more family. Nicu told her yes, he did and where. Svanhildur stroked his hair and told him that in the morning she would take him to his uncle’s house and that all would be well. That night she stayed awake to watch over him .
In the morning she was true to her promise and took Nicu to the town he told her his uncle lived in with his cousins only to find on arrival that it had been ravaged by typhus and his family were all dead. Every single one of them. Svanhildur felt such pity for the boy she could not bear to part him from her company and so told him that if he had a mind to he could stay with her,that she was hunting a very bad man and he would have to do as she asked if things because too dangerous but Nicu readily agreed, already finding such affection in Svana’s company that he had no wish to part from her at all. They left the town but were barely a day’s ride from it when Nicu was struck down by the disease too, his fragile human form unable to fight it off. Svanhildur spent the next month tending to the small child as though he were her own, nursing him back to full strength.
Ten years slid by. Nicu grew into a man of eighteen and he grew to love Svanhildur deeply for all her cold fronts and faults; he noted how she hadn’t aged a day since she had rescued him from the roadside and she told him that was because she was a creature of myth, a wolf on the inside. This news neither shocked nor frightened Nicu who found her more fascinating than before, he called her his Silver Lady and longed to be with her always. Svanhildur was, she admitted to herself and herself alone, lonely without company and found that Nicu was an amiable companion who didn’t mind her changeable moods and her violent streak, but she had no feelings for him, she wasn’t sure that she was even capable of feeling any longer, not after what had happened to her home and family and what he been done to her. Nicu didn’t care. He was eighteen when he died; a fire broke out in one of the freehouses they had been staying in, it swept the dry wood up quickly and Nicu gave his life to save hers, pushing her out of the top-most window, knowing she could survive the fall and as a result the fire consumed him. Svanhildur hit the ground and righted herself easily as he had anticipated but Nicu was still within and in that moment it was all she knew or cared about, that the little boy she had saved by the roadside, who she had all but raised, cared for when he had fallen sick and taught to wield a blade to defend himself, the boy who had made her laugh, who had asked her to tell him the old stories of Iceland, that boy was in the fire and she was alive because of him. Screaming his name she launched herself at the burning pyre only to find hands grabbing her wrists from behind, bending her arms into her body and pressing her back against a firm chest.
Theon.
He came from nowhere after ten years and stopped her from flinging herself into the fire to be killed alone with the boy, knowing somehow that she was in danger, that something was wrong and that she needed him. Svanhildur screamed and crumpled into a heap and Theon went with her, holding her tightly to him. They remained there as the fire died. Svanhildur was once more soaked with such grief she could barely function and Theon stayed with her for some time, perhaps concerned that she would once again try to fling herself into a freezing lake, or off a mountain or cliff. A year later they were still together and that was when Eyvindur found Svanhildur for the first time .
He had been looking for her all these long years and came upon both wolves as they traversed the wilderness of nothern Europe. There was a bloody battle when they met; Eyvindur was strong but he was against two wolves now, two experiences, fierce and trained fighters. He called Svanhildur his lovely wife and told her she would come with him and that they would unite the Northern people together and for his trouble Svanhildur all but cleaned free his left hand. He killed Theon’s wolf, the creature he had come to Svanhildur with a year earlier and who leapt to his master’s defence when Theon was directly threatened by the vampire. Eyvindur tossed the wolf aside and when Theon came at him stabbed the male with a silver blade. Both men were severely wounded; Eyvindur fled to lick his wounds and had Svanhildur followed she would have been able to catch and kill him, but Theon was dying, the wound was deep and the silver poisonous. Svanhildur stayed to treat him, to save his life again. When he was recovered enough to move of his own accord they buried D and Svanhildur said a sacred prayer for the animal who had meant so much to Theon. In the twilight of that day, standing over the freshly covered and blessed grave, she told Theon she was sorry for his lost, almost certainly the first truly kind and generous words she had given him .
Theon adopted Svanhildur’s mission as his own after that. They hunted Eyvindur together, following the trail all over Europe. In the tundra wastelands of Siberia in Russia they lost him completely. Svanhildur had never been able to deal with failure in any sense of the word and losing the man who had cost her so much, to whom she was so inexorably tied to as a wife was not something she could handle, brittle as she was in those days, the griefs of her life still clinging to her and making her soft beneath her icy armour. They argued bitterly and while Theon rode on ahead Svanhildur mounted her own horse and rode off in another direction without so much as a word.
It was another fifty years before they would cross paths again. In that time both reputations gained recognition and depth; stories of the Dragon and the Wolf, became widely told in taverns and around fireplaces, her with her fierce temper and brutality, and he with his loyalty and nobility. Svana saw Theon over the years, of course, they were following the same trail more or less and every so often she would catch a glimpse of familiar black curls and a stance she recognised, though she never approached him. In truth she saw him in almost every face on her journey, the way a man held his reins reminded her of Theon, a laugh from the back room of an inn recalled to her that rare sound from the man she had plucked up from the battlefield so long ago. Putting Theon behind her physically was one thing, but putting him out of her mind was quite another. In Ireland she saw him from a distance coaxing his horse down a narrow trail and thought to herself that it was better to leave the area before their paths crossed again. It was to the South of Ireland she intended to go and so stopped at a tavern along the way, climbing tiredly into the bed she had bought for the night. In the small hours of the morning she was roused suddenly from sleep by a feeling that she could not explain. It consumed her, this feeling, this notion of dread; something had happened to Theon. Without pause she grabbed her sword and went to find him.
Whether it was instinct, her senses of the Gods that drove her to the crypt she didn’t know, only that she found the men responsible for the feeling she had, Theon’s scent heavy in the air and their aimless chattering about the price they would get for him buzzing in her ears. Svanhildur cut them down to the last man in one of her rages, the Dragon setting her veins alight with anger at the idea they had captured Theon and thought to sell him like a commodity. She broke into the crypt, smashed her way through the blocked door and found Theon within, a blonde, cloaked body crumpled on the floor nearby, no doubt intended to be her. She went to him then, casting her sword down to take his face in her hands and turn it to her. “I am alive,” she told him. “Theon. I am here.”
After that they remained in one another’s company for a long time, the longest period they had spent together to date. For seven years they travelled in the same areas and shared stories with one another in a way they never had before. It was comfortable. It was safe. Svanhildur felt better around Theon and though they argued sometimes as they were always likely to do she didn’t leave as a result. In Scotland they came close to Eyvindur once more, at least they thought they did. They took up rooms in an inn so that they could rest. In the night the place was swarmed with vampires. They climbed the walls outside and burst in through the upper-windows. Svanhildur woke to fight, hand already grabbing for the hilt of her long-trusted sword in the darkness. Theon fought his way down the hall to her room, they dispatched any vampire that came for them, adrenaline pumping, skin slick with sweat and the powerful tang of wolf in the air leading them to one of the defining moments of Svana’s life. They stood close together as the fight came to a close, Svanhildur turned to him as he cut down the last vampire into ash and for a long moment they simply stared into one another’s eyes. Theon leaned towards her, brown eyes black in the gloom, and she raised her chin to meet him but just shy of their kiss something in Svanhildur snapped to attention and she leaned back, suddenly aware of what she was doing and feeling cold fear flood her veins where moments before there are been nothing but the pounding heat of desire. Svanhildur put a hand to his chest and pushed him back, telling Theon that she could not and nothing more. In the morning she is gone again.
It took most of a century to recover from that night and that almost-kiss.
Svanhildur spent many years during the next century in Iceland; returning to her home nation was mostly for her own spiritual comfort, to reconnect with her roots and to purge thoughts of Theon from her mind. For forty years she lived alone in a small cabin by one of the western lakes, far from what was once her home. Her time was occupied with swimming and hunting and reading, living a calm life and taking a desperately needed break from hunting Eyvindur. When she took the hunt up again it was because she was ready, rested and felt again strong enough to face her husband and this time, when she found him, claim his life.
There are rumours that Eyvindur too has returned to Iceland and for a while Svanhildur spends her time chasing down this gossip. It finally leads her to an abandoned farmhouse, the neighbouring farms having reported their animals being spooked by something, some of them going missing and others found dead. Svanhildur investigates the building only to find herself in a trap. Caught in a narrow, upstairs hallway, unable to wield her blade, unable to transform into her wolf form she is overwhelmed and outnumbered by Eyvindur’s young, freshly turned vampires. A vicious blow to the head dropped her defences enough for the vampires, in their frenzy, to get the upperhand over the female though she fought bitterly, until she could no longer stand. Svanhildur’s sword slid from her fingers, her knees gave way and she fell towards the floor. Theon caught her before she could sink all the way, scooping her up into his arms as unconsciousness dragged her under. For two days she slept, oblivious. Theon kept her in the farmhouse, the place deserted and safe and when Svana woke up in one of the farmhouse’s beds she could see him through the window, staring off towards the horizon. He had cleaned and bound her wounds, washed the blood from her silver hair and tucked her into a large, clean bed. It seemed like a dream, she could not believe that after all these years, after everything he had still come for her when she had needed him, when she had gotten into trouble. Sensing her watching him from inside Theon turns and for the first time in a century they look at one another.
As Svana began to get up from the bed Theon comes inside, telling her to stay still. He asked what happened, causing Svanhildur to turn immediately defensive. What do you think happened? They quickly begin to argue and yet despite that Theon stayed for a few weeks with her until she was strong enough and well enough to defend herself again. It was obvious in her actions that Svana was keeping him at more of a distance than ever before; she never mentioned the moment they came so close to kissing, pushing Theon away emotionally as well as physically, avoiding all physical contact at all costs. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see him or that she didn’t care or wasn’t grateful for the fact that he had saved her, but being so close to him only reminded her how close they had come to changing everything and the idea of being so close to someone only to lose him as she had lost everyone else in her life crushed her with fear, a fear so complete that it was easier to deny Theon any kind word than it was to admit to him that she was so frightened of losing him and that was why she had pushed him away. It was cowardly and it was weak and she hated herself for it. In the end Theon left, just a few weeks after their reunion but the relief she was expecting didn’t come, only more worry and a hole inside of her she was powerless to fill without him.
In the end of the day it was easier for her to be away from him, better for him as well. Svanhuldur decided to leave Iceland outright if he was going to stay there, thinking that being away from him completely would help. On her horse, riding out to the shoreline to take a ferry across the water, she felt a sudden pull, just under her ribs and in her middle and knew as she had known before that Theon was in trouble, that he needed her. She pulled her horse to a stop, breathing hard, turn him around and galloped back the way she had come, wishing he could hear her chanting that she was coming for him under her breath.
Even as she came upon the spot where she knew in her gut Theon was the scent of vampire threatened to overwhelm her. Eyvindur. Svanhildur was too late and she knew it; she unsheathed her sword as she rode and sliced through any vampire that tried to get between her and her goal. She rode her horse right between where Eyvindur and Theon were standing opposite one another, the air full of unintelligible cries of anguish; Svana slid from her horse before he even came to a complete halt, her sword hovering at Eyvindur’s throat resolutely. How he was there she didn’t know and didn’t care, only aware that Theon was in danger and there was blood on the air, strangely familiar blood. It was plain to her that Theon was stricken with grief, something she recognised, and understood then that his family had been butchers, those of his bloodline descended from his sister. She held him back as he slapped the horse to and it bolting and tried to pass her to get to the vampire, weaponless as he was. He would have been ripped apart and she shoved him back with her free hand. An arrow hit him from behind, in the shoulder before she was aware there were archers on the scene and she turned her gaze from the crumpled form of the male wolf to the smirking face of Eyvindur. It became clear there was no way of escaping this time and so Svana struck a deal with her husband-vampire. If he would give her a week to tend to Theon’s wounds and to the pain she would come freely to him, but Theon would forever be left alone after this night. Eyvindur knew her to be a woman of her word; Svanhildur had never said one thing and done another purposefully, and so he agreed, she could have her week with the wolf. He took his vampires and left.
Svanhildur treated Theon’s wounds easily, they were not so deep as she could not heal him and within hours he could at the very least move of his own accord. In the following days they gathered up the bodies of those Theon had lost and built a great funeral pyre for them. Svanhildur gave blessings over the bodies and recommended their souls to go with their ancestors, she sang a low dirge for them and they watched the pyre burn long into the night. The loss of his family reminded her of her own sorrows of old and she gave him her heartfelt condolences. Theon asked her where she had been when he needed her, what had taken her so long. Svanhildur had no real answer, nothing good enough at least, only that she had been far away and had ridden as hard and fast as she could and that she was sorry. Eventually Eyvindur came up; Theon wanted to know how she had gotten rid of him and Svanhildur told him about the deal, sparking another blistering argument. Theon was convinced there had to be a better way and convinced Svanhildur to double-cross her husband instead of giving herself to him for no good reason. Eyvindur had never played fair, so why they should was a mystery. Tired now, Svanhildur agreed. If it would end the constant hunting then she couldn’t say no.