For a few glorious seconds, Björn just stood there with a baffled look, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. But then he got his bearings straight, and the girl winced as she felt his attention shift towards her. His eyes had a stern look in them, but a second later the tension dropped has his frown relaxed.

“Hello, I don’t believe we have met”, he said, smiling at her. Olof stared daggers at her due to the differential treatment.

The girl wasn’t one too waste a chance. Her hand shot forward in an earnest attempt to shake his hand. “Hello, I’m Hanna”, she said.

The man just looked at her hand and left it hanging. “Ehr…” He said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Björn”.

The girl slowly retracted her hand, feeling like an idiot. Apparently handshakes wasn’t a thing here. Nothing is a thing here, the girl thought.

“So, what’s with the getup?”, the man asked, giving her the up-and-down.

The girl search for an answer. How do you summarize the weirdness that was her life the last couple of days?

“She slew it herself!” Olof butted in. There was pride in his voice, as if he was the one who did it. When none of the others looked suitably impressed, he added: “With a rock!”

Björn raised an eyebrow at that. “Whit a rock? You killed a pig-otter with a rock?”

The girl didn’t know what to add to that. “Yep”, she said.

“Oh my! Congratulations then!” said Björn, clearly not believing her.

“She woke up in the valley with no recollection of how she got there!” Olof added. The way he said it was like he was quoting a horror movie.

“Really?” Said Björn incredulously, his other eyebrow rising up to join the first one. “She woke up in the valley, the one who’s only entrance is guarded by our village, with no memory of how she got there?”

“… yeah?” Said Olof, obviously beginning to notice the holes in the story. “At first, I thought she was the… you know” he continued, looking at Björn to gauge his reaction. Björn was just slowly shaking his head, the girl read it as: “Boy, don’t go there”. She looked at Olof, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

Olof took a deep breath to steady himself. He was obviously going there. “I thought she was the ghost of the valley”. His voice dropped down to almost a whisper, like he was sharing a big secret. Or it was just that he didn’t want the girl to hear him. His eyes had a manic look to them.

The girl didn’t know to react. How had they even gotten here?

Björn sighed deeply. “Boy, how many times have I told you this? There are no ghosts, it’s just stories!”

The boy barely let him finish. “But I’ve seen it before! It was on one of my earliest trips, but I saw it!”

“Enough of this!” Björn growled. “You were like ten at the time, it doesn’t mean anything. I’m sure you imagined it.” He clearly wasn’t a fan of the supernatural.

The girl decided that she had had enough and stepped in. “Look” she said. “Can we drop the ghost stories for a while. I think it’s rather obvious that I’m proper flesh and blood. No, I don’t know how I got here, but I’m in no way intending to stay. Could you possible help with that?”

Björn seemed to mull over something for a while. “Sure”, he eventually said. “We’ll cut this trip short and head back to the village”. Finally some progress, thought the girl. She was getting sick and tired of the woods.

Björn turned towards Olof. “Were you to busy flirting with ghosts, or did you actually manage to hunt a little?”, he said with the tiniest amount of glee in his voice.

Olof visibly shrunk. “No”, he said in a muted voice. This was supposed to be his chance to shine and join the rank of esteemed hunters. It had been an epic flop.

Björn dropped the act and gave him a reassuring but heavy pat on the shoulder. “You’ll get there boy, don’t worry.”

His words brought back some of the vigour in the boy, and they begun clearing the campsite under Björn’s directions.

She hadn’t seen it until then, but on the other side of the campsite, two deer and a bunch of rabbits was hanging from a tree branch, tied by ropes to their feet. Their necks had been cut, and on their fur and the ground beneath them were traces of the blood that had left them. Björn took them down from the tree with deft movements, while kicking dirt over the bloodied grounds with his feet.

Normally the hunters would carry their load on a sapling between them. Now that the girl was there to help they fastened one of the deer on Olof’s backpack and gave it to her, while they carried the rest of the haul in the normal manner.

As she stood up with the load on her back, Olof came over to her. “Let me know if it’s too heavy for you, I’m quite strong you know”, he said, tainting his attempt at chivalry with his bragging. After finding that the weight was almost negligible, the girl couldn’t help but mock Olof, even if she might come to regret it later.

“Isn’t this a bit too light?” She said. “Give me some more to steady the load!”

Olof frowned at this but was glad to decrease his own burden. He fastened the rabbits to the rucksack as she wore it, and the girl found that it really wasn’t too much. She felt certain that she would be able to carry this load for days at least.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Björn gave her a worried look. “Are you sure about this?” he said, as he and Olof hoisted their own load onto their shoulders.

The girl smiled and waved his worries away. “Yeah, no worries!” she said. To be honest, the girl was a bit troubled. Not by the weight per say, but rather her ability to lift it. She used to work out a lot and she considered herself fit. But not this fit. She was easily carrying close to half of the catch and it felt light as hell. This was not how she used to be before she woke up in the valley, that much was certain. The worrying conclusion to this was that not only was the world and the creatures all kinds of fucked up, but she was as well.

 It was a disheartening experience, not feeling at home in your own body. Judging by all the superhero movies that she had seen, a power-up should be a happy, confidence boosting event. Like Peter Parker when he made the switch from bullied nerd to standing up to his tormentors. But to her it just made her feel out of place and unsure of her capabilities. It also made her wonder what else could have changed in her body.

The tree of them traversed the forest at a good pace, and as they followed the brook out of the woods it steadily grew. By the time the trees begun to thin out, the brook was more or less the same size as the creek she had gather oysters in.

When they finally left the forest behind them, the girl saw a gap in the mountains that seemed to be what they were heading towards. The water snaked its way towards the gap, growing bigger and bigger in the distance.

Björn saw the girl look at it and offered some background information. “The surrounding mountain drop off their water into this valley, this creek is always flowing”, he said. “The water is always drinkable, that’s why we built our village next to it”, he added.

“So the village is nearby?” The girl asked and looked around.

“Sure” Said Björn and chuckled. “It’s just outside the pass over there” he added. It was hard to judge distance in the empty valley that was between the forest and the pass. If not for the many times Björn had travelled this way he would have sworn that it was only an hour away. Sadly, it was the longest and dullest part of the journey, several hours of stupidly walking along the creek, with no change in scenery. Still, they had made great time so far thanks to the girl and was almost an hour ahead of schedule.

That girl really was a mystery. Showing up in the middle of night in an empty valley who’s only known entrance was guarded by their village. On top of that she looked like she had walked through hell and just barely survived. She was skinny to the point of looking sick and her long brown hair looked like it hadn’t ever been cut. And she was barefoot, but it was hard to tell from just looking at her feet. They seemed to have adapted to their punishment to such a degree that they had begun to look like shoes. On top of all that she carried almost as much as he and Olof, and she wore the skin of a pig-otter. He would never have bought her story of killing the vicious predator, if not for the ill prepared skin that constituted her only clothing.

The three of them stopped for dinner when it was about an hour left of the journey. It was the usual fair of dried meet. It wasn’t really to Björn’s taste, but the girl devoured it with great appetite. It was something about her that felt off, and that was apart from her physical oddities. It might have just been her weird dialect, or the strange words that she liked throwing around. He just felt like she was fundamentally different from normal people. Lucky for him, he wouldn’t have to deal with the mess that would no doubt follow in her wake. That was for the village elders to deal with.

Once they had finished lunch and Olof had done the dishes, they once again took off towards the village. It was an uneventful walk and only Olof kept talking. Eventually the village came into view. The girl couldn’t help but stop to admire the view. The village was located on the very edge of the valley, and in the middle of the village was a road that continued down the slope outside of the valley. Alongside the road winded the creek as it steadily picked up speed. It wasn’t a terribly big village, just fifty or so houses that was nestled into the mountainside, bundled up on the sides of the road and the creek. Small bridges littered the creek, allowing passage at strategic locations.

Down on the far away ground she could just about make out what looked like the worn-down ruins of a small city. Surrounding it on all sides was a huge forest that more or less dominated the view.

The girl turned around to ask Björn about the village, but him and Olof hadn’t noticed her stopping, and they were already far away. She saved her question and left the view and its splendour to its own devices. She caught up with the two just about as they stopped by one of the outlying buildings of the village. Björn and Olof begun unloading the animals that they had carried, and when they were done they removed the girls load as well.

“When this is taken care of you will need to speak to the village elders” Björn said and addressed the girl. “For now, you can help us and maybe learn a thing or two” he continued. As soon as the animals had been unloaded, the rabbits that they had caught was sent away to be cooked immediately. Björn and Olof grabbed an animal each and began skinning them right away. Afterwards they used a curved tool with two handles to rapidly remove the fat and meat that was stuck on the inside of the skin. The rest of the animal had quickly been picked up by some kid in an apron, who shot curious glances at the girl. She felt a hint of irritation as she watched the two hunters make short work of something that had taken her a full day.

“Make sure to memorize the way I do it” Olof said gleefully as he noticed her irritation.

His gleeful face turned annoyed as Björn slapped him lightly in the back of the head. “Don’t talk so much boy!” He said. “Don’t forget that this is about the only thing you are somewhat good at”. Olof regained some of his energy when he heard the last part. The admittance from Björn was the most praise he had gotten in ages.

When the girl got tired of watching Olof show off she joined in just to quicken the process. They wouldn’t let her skin the animals, so instead she got stuck on washing the skins. When the skins were scraped and washed they got strung up on wooden frames and left to dry. Processing the animals had taken a long time, and the girl was looking forward to maybe sleeping in an actual bed for once.

“Ok kiddo, let’s go!” Björn said to the girl as soon as they had finished the last the skins. He seemed eager to leave. The girl shot a glance at the man and thought she caught a longing look in his eyes. Was there perhaps someone waiting for him somewhere?

The walk to the elders lead them straight through the village. The road they walked on was made of larger stones and mud in between. The houses that lined the road was placed haphazardly and was made from thin logs standing up. They had no windows and the roofs were flat. It looked as if someone had tried rebuilding a Viking village.

“Here we are”, Björn said as they approached a house that was slightly longer than the rest. It wasn’t really better made or nicer, it was just longer. He opened the door without knocking and stepped inside. The girl followed without being invited and shut the door. Inside it was smoky to the point of tearing her eyes, and it was so dark that she could only barely make out the other people that was inside. Björn had walked quickly towards them and they now had a quiet conversation. The girl felt quite self-conscious as she was obviously the topic of their conversation. Before she had noticed, their conversation had ended and Björn was making his way out of the building with a definite spring in his step. He slapped a hand on her shoulder and wished her good luck a second before slamming the door shut.

The girl watched him go before she turned around towards the so-called elders. She was met with curious and calculating eyes. “Sit down dear”, one of the elders said.