Oath Bound: Day 5

Word Count: 30,088

Summary of Events:

Aðalbjörn woke up feeling frightfully cold, and found neither sun, fire, nor clothes could warm him, so he went to the vitki for help; she was surprised by his chilling, but engaged in a treatment that rendered him unconscious. Friðljót's mother came into her room to try and order her out to see the king of Uppodlingland off, but Friðljót refused, although after the confrontation her resolve to resist wavered. 

Excerpt of the Day:

A soft bed was underneath his back, the designs the vitki had made still stung his abdomen, chest, and arms, and a dull pain still lingered in his chest, almost as if he’d been run through with a sword, but yet the wound had healed.

Aðalbjörn opened his eyes and rubbed them before turning his head to see the vitki seated beside him, looking resplendent in her white gown, with her hair styled neatly, as opposed to the looseness of the day before.

“Are you now warm my lord?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” Aðalbjörn replied, nodding, he felt much more comfortably normal now, and he was grateful for that.

“Very good,” she said quietly.

“But it still hurts,” Aðalbjörn said, indicating his chest where the pain lingered.

“As it should,” she said.

“It should?” Aðalbjörn asked.

“Yes, it should,” she replied.

“But why?” Aðalbjörn asked.

“Because I have imparted the snow-stone into you,” she replied.

“But that’s–”

“My lord, at peace,” she said, her hand arresting Aðalbjörn’s efforts to scramble up in a panic. “The stone is still in your pouch, as it ought to be, you will be able to give it to Mærvalr as you intend, I have merely given a share of its power to you.”

Aðalbjörn lowered his head down to the pillow again and slid his hand to the pouch, which he could tell the stone was within from the outside. He felt relieved.

“Your chilling, I believe, was because it is a snow-stone,” she said. “But it has now been reversed and you will be fine.”

“But what about the pain?” Aðalbjörn asked. “Will I always have it?”

“No,” she replied. “But until it fades there are treatments to lessen it.”

“What are they?” Aðalbjörn asked.

She gave him merely a soft smile and produced a small jar with a lid. She removed the lid and ran her fingers through an ointment that had a subtle pleasant smell to it — it certainly smelled far better than most ointments did, for most of them were made of animal fat in order to get the texture, and the odour of that fat made them rarely smell pleasant at all.

Aðalbjörn turned onto his side when she lifted at his shoulder and didn’t feel at all bothered by the removal of the blanket from his shoulder, which caught him by surprise, as usually when a person was recovering from a chill removing the warming layers from overtop them led to them feeling quite cold.

Vigorously she rubbed the ointment into the sore spot just by the edge of his shoulder blade and it didn’t take him long to feel the pain dull; he appreciated the ointment immensely.

Once she was finished he laid back again and she scrubbed the ointment — which he could now smell fully and pleasantly — onto his chest with the same vigour as she’d rubbed it onto his back. 

Pronunciation:

Mærvalr: myrevahlr