It's afternoon and I have temporarily put the work aside because Ciara thinks I need to rest and relax for a while, and we ended up in her room for a change. She would have preferred to have me in here all the time and every night.

I lie sweaty and naked on my back on Ciara's bed with Ciara naked next to me and as usual with her head on my chest and an arm around me, when there is a knock and Jane just opens the door and steps in; 'Ciara, can you ...' Panic rises and I try to throw on the blanket that Ciara is lying on, but Ciara doesn't care at all, so I throw my hands over my man parts and avoid looking at Jane. Jane spins around and says "I'll wait in your office." before she steps out and close the door behind her. So I sigh, put on my shirt and shorts, and kiss Ciara who sighs that I cannot continue to lie here with her, and go in to ask what Jane wanted. I find Jane examining my slate boards and paper schematics.

"I recognise this. You're planning something electrical."

"Yes. You can't say anything yet, but I'm trying to re-use a bit of what I brought with me to build a few things - Iselin's journey motivated me to get started. I want to upgrade the ship for future journeys."

"With what?! That's no steam engine and I'm no sailor, but even I understand that ship is bonkers for this age! I've seen how other sailors react to it, how they want to make love to the compass or crane." Jane looks at me with suspicious eyes. "Do I really want to know what you consider is an 'upgrade' for it? If you say GPS I'm going to hurt you."

"Don't be absurd. Don't you know how insane that is? GPS require atomic clocks, computors, advance and powerful radios, solar panels and dozens of satellites in precise orbits. Each one is an insane project. Just a high altitude liquid fuel rocket would be insane. Just an insane waste of resources and years just trying to make the machines to make the fuel, and then you have material science, along the stabilization and control problem that requires electronics, and without a usable payload... which is an even more waste of time and resources. Do you have any idea how large the United States and Soviets rocket programs were? How much time, money and effort they had to spend just to send something like Sputnik up, that just went beep-beep-beep for a few weeks? Over a few generations with a heck of a lot of money maybe something like the V2 rocket to send up something Sputnik like - but not in my lifetime. The first dozen rockets will most likely blow up too. There is a reason why 'rocket science' is synonymous with being hard. The highest altitude I can reach is probably with some kind of hydrogen filled animal bladder balloon, that might reach 10km or more if I am lucky, and space which starts 100km up cannot be reached by a normal balloon launch, and I need double that for Low Earth Orbit, and I need to accelerate the object to something like mach 20. The space race happened in the fifties and sixties for a reason, and was between two super powers."

"As fun as it is to see you go on a nerd rage tangent; quit stalling. What is this?"

"The ship isn't a 'millennium' eagle yet, more like 400 year eagle. So I'm trying to build long distance shortwave radios."

"Radios? Bloody Radio?! You're building radios, just because you can't talk to Iselin for three weeks?!"

"No! Not only. It would be nice if the ship is on a long distance voyage or I just want to know everything is alright, or you know; 'Please buy toilet paper' or something when the ship is in Borgarsandr. And it will help with the longitude problem for navigation, and clock calibration if I get enough range. Building a simple radio to just tick that of my list isn't a problem - long range and actual usefulness is."

Jane just sits there in my office chair and looks at me with an incredulous look. "Bloody radio. You're going to build radios - in the Viking age - just because you miss Iselin. You really love and miss her. Radios. Long distance radios." Jane looks away and it's an silent minute before she with a low voice ask; "What would you do if someone kidnapped Iselin or really hurt her? How far would you go?"

I sigh and sit in the extra chair Iselin or Ciara usually use, and I too look down at the floor.

"I don't know. I really hope to never find out. Not just for Iselins sake but for mine too. I fear I might get angry and loose it. We all have limits, but I pretty much don't get angry. I might get annoyed by things, but I usually don't really get angry. I can't remember the last time I was angry. Probably a decade or more. Since I grew up I have never screamed in some ones face, accused someone of things loudly or thrown insults just to feel better and ventilate or thrown or broken things. I can't remember that I ever did that in my teens. I never even heard if from my parents that I did it as a child. I was a quiet child.

I havn't been in a fight since lower school. I can remember the last time I used direct force against someone in a fight situation. I was probably about ten and it was in school and the bully came after me, so I sent him sailing between the benches with a shoulder throw. The bullying didn't become really physical after that, and I worked to limit situations where it could, so they used more shame, name calling and making themselves feel good at my expense. Sabotage. Stealing things. It was hard.

I was the shortest in my class when I was 13, and I didn't do sports because there was few options when you're small and skinny, although I tried a couple. All the girls where taller. Easier target for bullies. The parents and teachers where not prepared back then, but I don't blame my parents. Telling only made the bullies learn to be smarter, and that is part of the reason for my view on apologies, so now you know that too. Anyway, I hid in the library during breaks, avoided situations, avoided places where I could be cornered, got first to the shower room, was quick and left before they got much chance do or say much. Tried to defuse situations with diplomacy or not being there. I've never been one for crowds, but I guess bullying made it worse, and probably shaped my life and personality more than I like to admit. I will never know what my life could have been, so I don't think about it.

Going by statistics I was probably the smartest in my school. I did a couple of IQ test later in life due to other things, but I never told anyone the real results, and I won't tell you. I didn't really care - still don't - and I learned young that being smart and telling or showing it isn't helpful. For me it is only really good for being quick to understand complex thing, learning faster, see patterns and handle complex decision trees in games and thinking ahead. Fading in the background and not draw attention was better, but it did kind of mess up my life as an adult. I will say I could join Mensa but I never saw the point, and that the military conscription tests I took places you in ranks on a bell curve, and it was easy to be placed in the highest in the intelligence test, and electronics test. I didn't do bad in physical either - I was biking and swimming a lot back then, and mopeds and such was never really my thing.

I know how to hurt people. It's mostly just book knowledge and I never used it, and I don't just talk about using force or traps. Force and violence is primitive and I don't like it - it feels caveman. The bully way. Throwing or destroying things in an anger fueled temper tantrum is a very effective way of making me loose respect for someone, and I mostly don't care if you have one of the common diagnoses. Especially if it is used as an excuse, instead of trying to improve, which is often the case. Saying 'Sorry' after will not fix what was broken, and I don't really accept excuses that you didn't think or couldn't control yourself. Accept your mistakes and learn. Never do anything like that with malice. Do that, and you will not live here any more.

I didn't want to do martial arts or something, some bully's did, and there were few options where I grew up. But more important I really didn't want to know how to hurt someone and practice using violence, because I might be tempted to use it. Learning how to defend is close to hurting, and it wouldn't end well. There is also the fact that someone who never trained anything physical will have an slightly easier time trying to claim accidental death if shit happens, especially when they're young, small and skinny. That, and that I really didn't want to use violence, is one reason that a bully never needed to learning to live as a blind person after accidentally loosing both eyes while bullying the weak kid.

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But anyway, there are two people living and probably having good lives never even thinking how close they were to 'accidents' or 'getting sick'. No one would probably be able to bind me to it. This was way back when forensic shows wasn't a thing, before every child had a mobile, and it was a small town in southern Sweden. I would have alibi. You don't make a huge police investigation over simple stupid accident for a young boy or accidental poisoning, when there don't seem to be any foul play at all. Very sad, but shit happens.

That's one thing about reading books in a library; who would be able to say what was being read if you didn't check out the books and you didn't need help finding them? Just because you sit in the technical section and usually read a crazy amount of technical things, doesn't mean every book you read are from there, and the library people were used to me being there reading and not asking for help. Hell, I knew some parts of the library better than them. There is a saying: If nerds ruled the world there wouldn't be any wars, just a lot of weird freak accidents.

But one of the main reason I never actually did anything? No one could know. Ever. So one bully might die. Very sad for his family and friends. But it wouldn't stop the bullying. It might make it worse since the others might miss their friend, and need to take it out on someone weaker. The usual victim. Me. I would never even be able to use it to frighten another bully - never even hint at it even by mistake. And more accidents? Two would be pushing it, even if spread over say a year, and completely different, or at the same time so the blame would fall on the other. I was very careful. Learning to watch your back makes that, and the fear that it would be known was of course there. Shit happens, no plan survive contact with reality.

Understand that I didn't care about myself, and I was a minor anyway, but it would make my family sad - it was a small town. People would talk. I didn't want to put my family through the possibility of rumours, and maybe forcing them to change their lives or move. It's pretty much my empathy and compassion that stopped those bullies that didn't have empathy or compassion, from having 'accidents' - isn't that ironic?

Same with suicide, which I did think about and even made plans to seem like murder and blame a bully. But I didn't want to hurt my family and make them sad. But later in life? Even in Midgård? I'm happy I never got pushed, that no-one really hurt someone I cared for too much. It also helps that technology and forensics are powerful, and I respect a skilled interrogator enough that I would do my best to never co-operate, even if innocent. It's their home field and they're the professionals, but they might still be wrong. I would see an interrogation or 'interview' as a hostile action, and I would try to shut up, or use the military response: 'I can't answer that question', and wait for a lawyer. It helps that I don't really get angry or confrontational, even when I've had angry people yelling in my face, pushing me and trying to start a fight, or make me lash out or feel insulted. Shutting the fuck up and just letting my mind wander will help.

But here? Where it is so easy to use 'magic' and 'curse' someone or make people believe that the Gods caused it? Here; where I can make crazy preparations that no one but you might guess? It wouldn't be hard to get away with murder and more, and that's ignoring that I now can use the laws to my advantage. The only thing that would really protect people is my aversion to violence and my focus, and I wouldn't want to hurt guards doing their job or innocent people, but I can live with a few as collateral damage. If I am 'motivated' that count would increase fast, and I don't want to know if I was angry. I might give an expensive sword as a tribute or the payoff but having it being radioactive, but that is much harder than just biological or chemical warfare. Poisons like ricin, methanol, hydrogen cyanide, heavy metals, booby traps of all sorts combined with poisons, electrical weapons or torture, poisoning or gassing a house or castle, suffocating them with nitrogen, carbon monoxide or dioxide. Fun fact, the body doesn't have an alarm for lack of oxygen. Or I could just blowing someone up with blackpowder or hydrogen or shooting them from a distance with a rifle. Maybe silenced or an airgun.

Those things I literally just thought about when speaking that, and I tried avoiding things that are harder to do, and to be honest I wouldn't tell you all. If I have time and real motivation... I really don't want to know. I don't think I would even try with stupidly dangerous things like nerve agents or Botulinum toxin which you probably know of as Botox. They're just absurdly dangerous and would probably kill me or the persons hired to make it. It takes like half a kilogram of Botulinum toxin to kill all seven billion humans on Earth, and takes just millions of a gram for a person inhaled or swallowed, but you could make it at home by accident if your unlucky or stupid. It happens, because the bacteria is pretty much everywhere in the soil, and it is why you have to be careful with canning food and other foodstuff, and one reason gardening gloves are a good idea. It's also one reason you shouldn't give honey to babies."

I know I talked too much, but I really needed to ventilate. When I look up I see Jane just staring at me with her mouth open, but I can not read her expression more than the shock. She probably doesn't know what to say, but I cannot help but continue a little more. I've never talk to anyone about this. Never. Just so that no one would know. The best kept secret is when only one person knows, and nothing is recorded. There is no second best.

"I do like backup plans, and I have made a few things already no one knows about - you're the first one that even know I have made something - and I like having surprises and backup plans. Not even Iselin will have a hint. Just because I could, or it would be fun to try. But they're not really that lethal or magical. I have many more ideas. Remember that you didn't realise my cane, my Boomstick, was a firearm. Do you have any idea how many things can be made to launch a projectile? Or all the ways to inject a poison covertly? Just the insane amount of poisons and all the different methods of exposure to make someone sick or insane. Someone here who don't even know the possibility, what would they see or understand? I don't remember who said it, but: 'everything is a poison, and there's poisons in everything. It is all a matter of dosage.'

So yes. I really hope I never find out what happens when I get really annoyed or angry. I will most likely not rage, and instead will be cold and detached, and make sure it's an effective and long term solution. I don't think I would rage and attack a farm or two over a few days; torturing, raping and killing in front of their family to make everyone know I was angry, and maybe start a blood feud or giving relatives a chance for revenge. That is not my style, and I just don't see any point in torture. It wouldn't give me anything, and I'm not that cruel. I hope I'm not, because there is so many horrible ways to torture people.

My style is probably more in getting precise info. Then quickly attack with overwhelming force, on multiple locations, and during one night exterminating a family tree quick and efficient with minimal suffering, burn everything, salt the ground and disappear without anyone knowing. I might just use the easy option of building or hiring an army and conquer the enemy place with might and technology. Go for 'Shock and Awe' and maybe combine with 'magic'. I might use money and knowledge to buy allies to turn everyone against the enemy for a more long term project.

If it is really bad, I dread I might go completely nuts and then people might learn what fear of the unknown is, because here a plague like the vengeance of the gods isn't impossible to create, but it might be impossible to stop until it has run its course. I would have to be nuts and not caring about anyone to even touch biological warfare, but during the 1300s the Black Plague killed about half of Europe's population over a few years, and that is without someone deliberately cultivating and spreading it."

I sit leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, and when I look up I see the shock in Jane's face. Definitely time to stop talking and I don't want her to say anything. I hope what I said does not change things between us too much, and that she don't see me as a monster. But that ventilation kind of felt good, even though I kept some things to myself and gave incorrect info. So I just leave the room, and go back in to Ciara who seems to just recently dressed and is still standing and straightening it. Ciara sees my face, my eyes, and she doesn't hesitate and just takes my outstretched hand and follows me into my bedroom without asking.

I just lie on the bed and hold Ciara while I try to avoid thinking. Ciara understands that something has made me depressed, but I stop her from trying to cheer me up in her usual way and we've just had sex and I'm not in the mood. I say it's just a bad day; memories and thoughts that have come up, and it's nobody's fault. I just want to lie there and hold my wonderful Ciara. I try to sleep to avoid thinking.

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The afternoon turn to evening and I still havn't come out of my depression, and they eat supper without me. Ciara doesn't like my depression and she sends Kari in with a tray of food, and Kari tries her best by being caring. I have several wonderful partners who really care about me, and I have a comfortable life even with Midgård's standards. I can honestly spend the rest of my life here in Alfheimr doing what ever the hell I want. There are no real demands or 'must' other than the ones I give myself, and as long as I continue to do something small now and then and have someone else teach navigation etc, I fulfill what I said to King Asbjörn as well. But I'm not that person, and my goal is not to get away with a minimal amount of work, and my hobbies can make this world take a leap forward in technology, and make life better for them. I should probably focus on getting shit done over winter and try to make the Academy take care of itself, and then take a long easier summer.