Big Red & Little Red

I can't say I was all to happy. I showed such by tossing my brothers good boots in the cooking hearth sending those wench of bond maidens running off crying for him as they were mere targets when they got close. My Father was dead from a duel with...a Merchant! The shame, and the anguish. A skilled swordsmen gone Merchant. Nasty little Southern secret I suppose. Liars, all of them. Big Red is in love with the fool. Though she is lucky he didn't enslave her. It was his right, but the lying fool was in love with her also. My Father refused to part with his favorite Daughter to be dragged to the soiled ways of the South, he was afraid, she would lose her fire. They don't honor their women like the North does, I would hear him argue with Big Red she when spoke of the Merchant. Our Mother had died long ago, birthing a huge boy named Von. My youngest brother, my best friend, was out with the Verr. He didn't need to be, but he found solace with them. I had been out there with him also, but became so angry at his pain, I decided I needed to burn some boots. We were not of the richest halls but we were very comfortable and wanted for nothing. We had a large number of bosk, verr, and our gardens were rich with dirt we would bring over by the wagons full from the warmer lands traveled, that we would keep moist in travel with water, and fertile with flatted bosk dung. It was a form my Father's Father's Father had discovered that made the fruit tree's grow more bountiful and the beets the reddest over all of the land. How sparse was good farming land, but we were lucky. Every year since I can remember my Father would go Dirt Hunting. Him and my eldest brother Claes, who I was very angry with right now. It could have been many things that triggered my fury. Could have been Claes's companion Ollah, I could smell the smoke from my Fathers burnt ship still in the air and she was already wearing my Mothers key's and shears at her belt. I was shocked the very haughty Ollah didn't ask for me and Big Red's keys as soon as she latched my Mothers to her waist. I found out why soon enough. With a new head Mistress, and the saving of my sister's freedom, we were both being sent South with the Merchant. Ollah had talked my brother into it. Is said if Odin wished us parted, he wouldn't have had us born as such. For me and Big Red were twins. She wished not the hall with its new Jarl to face Odin's Fury if the parted which was Odin's wish to keep together. I loved my home, the land, the smell and the work. My sister might be suited for the South, she savored the pampered ways my Father allowed her. I myself with Von would be out seeing who could jar honey first without being stung, or shear the wool from Verr faster, dug the most holes to plant cabbage. Yes, we would hear the cheers of the Bond's trying to get us to go faster, for in all honesty our contest really did get in the way of their work. Father's favored girl, Blushes, was a big strong girl, who honestly became our motherly figure after Mother sailed with ashes and smoke to the wind. Big Red and I, were only three, and Claes was seven. Blushes nursed Von, for Father kept her with milk, Blushes would joke to say the reason was, he liked it warm at all times, and yes, to her namesake...she would blush. I never, when I got older and wiser asked any questions about this. Blushes made Father happy, and took very good care of us all, though Claes wasn't very kind to her, not cruel, but never wanted her in the same room with him. Yes, strange, perhaps a pit of emptiness, as she was with Father now, together, a golden bracelet she wore I placed in the mix of the many around my wrist. As we washed and prepared Father for his journey, she handed it to me. Said it was a gift my Father gave her when her milk first came in. He was so pleased. I didn't need to wonder anymore, every little secret was told in its finely carved band, a bracelet of a Lady of the North. I figured, she must have submitted after Claes was born, no wonder his hair wasn't red like mine, Big Red's or Von's. It was a lighter hue of Blushes. I kissed her cheek, and told her thank you. Though she called me Mistress, she was the best Mother I could remember. I heard Claes stalking down the steps with weeping Bond's scared of his anger. I simply walked out the kitchen towards my chambers with Alvis at my heels. Alvis was young, given, no, I picked him at birth. Runt, and not very aggressive. Not that miniature house sleen got very aggressive, it was bred out of them carefully, but it was still here. Can't fight all of nature. I fattened him up on sweet thick verr milk and cooked meats. Nothing triggers nature like raw meat and blood. His small silky body stayed close to me. Father said he should have been destroyed. If he had come from a private breeder he would have, but he was born in our own pens. Bred from a line of my Mother's house sleen. Her family were famous for the small silky sleen. Good for roaming the halls, and tracking hiding girls, smelling anyone trying to come close to windows or doors that didn't smell of our people or those of our land. He was the fifth pup which made him rare also, probably a runt cause he was squished. Most sleen, big and small only have four. I would be taking Alvis with me. We were leaving tomorrow morning, I should start to pack. Or at least allow the Bond's in my room that were sleeping by the door with dried tears cause I wouldn't allow them in. "Vivica, stop being a brat and try to make the most out of this. It will be a great change for both of us" Big Red would tell me. She had to be the only one that used my birth name. Everyone called me Little Red. Not cause I was second born, but because my twin was taller and bigger then me. She was beautiful, and sometimes I envied her height. We had Bond's taller then me, though the Foolish Lying Merchant would tease, I would blend in well in Ar, for my height is common in the South. I would just give a sassy little tone of indifference back to my twin of "Treena, not all of us are so humbled and soft as you to be ready for this life of paved streets and little tea cafe's" at this point I would run and duck for I knew she would be throwing something at me. I loved my sister. In a way, I was happy to be going, for I knew she would be sad without me. She liked to Mother me also, though we were the same age, and yes, she was a lot calmer then me. I loved adventure and new things. I also loved mead as me and Von had been sipping it out on the ledge of the fence wall to block the wind from the Bosk on the harsher of snow flurries, since we were old enough to sneak it out. One of the Bond's at the door was brave enough to walk in, in her hand was a small cup, warmed mead, I could smell it before she got there. She slipped beside me, after I took it from her hands, and hugged me. "I shall miss you Vivica, my beloved Little Red" she said. I told her never to call me Mistress, in private, she was my best friend growing up, and she had been so in love with my older brother. So much so... to submit. "Ingrid, I shall miss you more" Finally I laid my head on her shoulder, and cried.