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Between the Sea and Sky

History's first time traveler

By Jori T. SheppardPublished about a year ago 18 min read
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I invented time travel, a way to alter history, and I decided to stop the discovery of the Americas. You ever wonder why Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas first, not someone smarter or stronger or better. Well she almost made it, and if it wasn’t for her, that pig Columbus wouldn’t have made it so far either.

“The wind is looking great today. We sail, faster forward, YAAA”, Captain Mesera Vardim roared to the open deck under the snapping sails a thousand heads tall. Mast stiff, ropes and chains tamed, fibers strong sewn and iron kept, they tore across the sea of lightning and death.

“Captain. We have ventured far. Too far. Any moment we could sail to our doom over the edge of the world”, her first mate frets with fuzzy eyebrows a tilt and unshaven-ness aquiver.

“You said that days ago too. Repetition does not make fact, Sir, oh the devil knows it does not”, she yelled to the endless sky that she owned and the sea greedy for its color, when it should know that its color is none. Like that of meek drinking glasses and humble rivers who only borrow the reflection of the trees and buildings. The sea has no right to her sky and it knows it.

Hence why it has tried to sink her ship. With storms of demon’s strength and howls like angered wolves. Her mast almost broke under its fury and its tantrum had almost brought about the end to her ship. Alas, her work and her fury had been too much for it and she is on, still with her sky on her shoulders and the wind dutifully carrying her sails.

“AVAST. Land ahead”, shouted her look out who flings his binoculars to the wind in jubilation.

“End of the journey”, cried her crew to the sight of green just a spec in the naughty sea.

“End of the line”, the other half cried.

“To nonsense”, Captain Vardim roars to her foolish crew, “This is proof the earth is not a platter you fools. This shall be our new silk road over the seas. We will trade this olive oil, salt and wool for silk and gold and spice and a place in history forever. And from a woman no less. No husband to take my glory”.

She flung her wheel and steered her ship towards the batch of green.

“Watch the water for reefs. Steady the sails, pitch check the landing boats”, she yelled to her crew.

“AVAST another ship”, roared one of her crew.

“Excuse me”? She asked her lookout in bewilderment.

He pointed.

On the edge of her sky and the sea sat the undeniable shadow of a boat, yet it was strange. It approached fast, faster than she had ever seen. Still was it worth her time? Her task is to get to that land. Once there, she could deal with them later.

“Full sail ahead”, she roars, “Lets se how fast these people are”.

“There it is”, I growled under the hiss of the wind.

I am a time traveler. That ship and her crew was trying to make history, trying to discover the place you call America. But it had a name before that, a name not copied from the name of a man. It is Vinland.

“Ready your weapons”, I shout to my men and turn.

Blonde hair, scarred arms and fists, leather chest plates. Strength in their core and sweat on their lips. The fur of wolves padded our shoulders and chains protected our arms. We heaved and pulled our ship forward with our strength and the oars. Our round shields protected us from the wind, the spray and the enemy’s beady eyes. Our ship’s dragon head surged forward, scaring the waves out of our way.

“HAAAA”, they roar and the free handed men raise their mighty axes, swords and bows in the air. Twisted knots, curled vines, slashes in stone and iron in our names in runes as ancient as us.

That’s right. We have a new name with you as well. We call ourselves Ostmen, but you call us Vikings.

We ventured to Vinland with Leif Erikson, or Leif the lucky as we called him… because that fool was just lucky to find the beautiful land. A land that wasn’t being subjugated by the saxons or conquered by the danes. A land where blood wasn’t spilt in droves and people enslaved simply because they survived brutality.

Unlike him we weren’t as lucky. Our ship crashed upon a reef and we were strewn upon an island in the middle of the sea. There were far too many of us from that ship, we could not sail with the others to the blessed land. We were left behind on that island, me, my crew, their wives, their husbands, their children.

It was a nice island and we made our dues. We survived, though it wasn’t that hard. Compared to Iceland, that island was a walk on the beach. We even attempted to put the ship back together in a hope that one day we would join the rest in Vinland. It took many years to rebuild that ship. Many many years. In those years, something unusual happened. We did not age. Our beards grew no longer, our nails stayed short, much to Ormag’s dismay. He had a nasty ingrown toenail for ten full years. We grew no wrinkles, none of the women got pregnant no matter how much fornication we had. 15 years went by and we aged nothing the entire time.

We finished our boat, we set sail again and sailed away from that island, only to find…

“There is no settlement here”, I breathed ice in my words under a perfect summer sun.

The dead slept under grape vine encrusted stones under graves that had well grown over. The half built cabins remained half built in an endless eternity to rot with the dead. The only things missing were the ships they had all cobbled together once a long time ago By the looks of it Leif and the others had left long ago.

I raised a mug to my eye, a wooden one laid half sunken in the lush grass. How had such a tragedy befall such good strong men and women.

“Tyr, found something”, one of my men called.

I rushed over to Benhilda, the strongest woman in our group. She hefted a shield out of the growth and turned it to me. I knew that shield. I recognized that blue paint.

“That’s Gunnar’s shield”, I gasped, “His wife always paints his things with that blue”. I studied the wood and its surface. Something strange poked out of its wood. A small stone tied onto a small chunk of broken wood. There were several of these strange stones. I pulled a loose one out and study it.

“What is it”, a teenager asked and peeked over my shoulder.

“Tis an arrow”, I assessed. Then my hair stood on end. The rustle of the wind was no wind at all.

“TO COVER”, I yelled and raised the shield in front of Benhilda and the teenager.

My crew yelped in panic and dove under everything they could. Arrows struck places where they stood. Feathers on the arrow’s ends flared out as a warning all too late.

Another barrage came and thunked against my shield.

People with whoops and calls of fierce wildness filled my ears and on the slope above us, strangers lined up strong.

We drew our swords and axes. We had no archers in our midst. They had the high ground. We were screwed.

A woman, taller than all the others with eyes the color of deepest pitch spoke in a dialect I had never heard before. Her voice was filled with power.

“Go home. People of the sea. Go home”, an older man translated her words in choppy norse.

I looked to my crew. I looked to the people on the hill.

“Can’t do that”, I yelled, “We were marooned on an island. Our ship is only stable enough to make it this far. The sea will swallow us whole”.

The woman raised her bow and pulled back. The others followed her lead. Her obsidian hair blew in the wind and shone like steel in the sun. Beads were braided in it, a shock of color in the dark. Her arms were taught like that of her bow. Her taught skin was sun caressed and full of wild colors of soil and sand. She was the most magnificent woman I had ever seen. She spoke again and her voice was like the song of an owl.

“You no belong”, Her translator spat.

“We better go back to the island”, Benhilda tried to convince me.

“And do what? Live forever doing nothing? We must find a new purpose in our lives”.

I lowered my shield. I lowered my axe. I raised my hands in surrender.

“We want to live. We will do what it takes for it to stay that way”.

The woman’s terrible expression softened. Her eyes were smooth as sea meeting the sky.

We aged as we were captured by her and her tribe. We were taken to their village, a grand work of wood and animal. A place from the forest rather than plopped in it. We were kept in the village. We were their prisoners for many years. Children of ours were finally born, beards grew and nails grew. The people of Vinland were able to heal Ormag’s 15 year long ingrown toenail. And I got to fall in love.

We couldn’t understand each other. But we grew to know each other. Without a word we grew to love each other. She enjoyed my touch, the roughness of my voice, the hilarity of my mistakes. I loved her smell, her strength, her joy. She was a hunter. She was the best one of the group, hence why she could command the others. She had many suitors, but none could make goofy faces like me.

We eventually learned about their people. About their history with the land, and that they would never destroy it for things like power or glory. How fighting was rarely needed and wars were rarer. How they never enslaved. How they cared for Vinland, how magical of a land it was. It bore no such thing as gold, yet the skies boasted more of it than any parts of the world. The trees went on forever. The land gave them corn and plenty of fish, rain and snow, green and flowers. And tobacco. I love that plant tobacco.

This land was perfect, its people used it as little as possible, its spirits were much more peaceful than Gryla and her soup. My love, Authab, did not like the story of Gryla when I first told it to her when we were first able to understand each other.

We were released from custody after a couple years and were free to roam Vinland as we pleased. But Vinland was not our land. It was not ours to reap and force to care for our sheep, cut to build our ships. Vinland was magnificent and beautiful and should be protected forever. We went back to our island, Authab came with me and we lived in perfection for a hundred years.

The current brought us waste from the sea. Anything from ships nearby would land on our island, booze bottles, clothing, even bodies ended up on our shores and that was the sea warning us that there were intruders coming to our land.

We are time travelers, we travel through time, untouched by its passing, and protect the history of this land from being defiled by the filth from our homeland.

“YAAARRGG”, I yelled and leaped from the bow of my ship to the side of theirs. Their ship was massive, its wood was strong. I impaled my short blades into its side and clung to its body. I hefted myself over the edge of the ship into the fray of people. Its whole deck could carry my whole boat, it was massive and covered in endless ropes and filthy people.

My crew climbed over the sides and into the ship and swung their weapons. Ormag smirked at them. The crew pulled out long, knifelike swords and raised them in the path of his ax. The axe fell and the swords shattered under its power and the ax found its mark in the skull of a sailor. Ormag swung the ax around and flung the man at the crew who attempted to pull a massive iron phallus towards our ship.

They were left sprawling in blood. Arrows landed in their bodies from above. Our archers had taken to the nets on the main sail and perched superior to the fray. The crow’s nest occupant swung down, only to find a feather deep in his chest and his own body crashing through their majestic sheet.

Our powerful swords swung stronger than their entire bodies and wiped out what they could reach. Some of their sailors dodged and aimed strikes at the chest plates of my crewmates. Benhilda saw the tip of a sword impale her under her arm. She laughed at the fool’s stupidity. There happened to be plated armor where he hit. It barely tore the leather that covered the metal beneath. She landed a punch in the center of that man’s face and sent him flying into the large black phalluses that lined the deck.

I charged forward and tossed aside a sailor. His small cylindrical machine clicked and failed. He fell over the edge of the ship.

“NOT so fast”, a voice like that of a growling wolf yelled. I looked above, only to see the heel of a boot plant into my face. I tumbled backwards onto the planks. The boot slipped off my snoz and fell to the ground, steadying the person above. Blood poured out of my face. I looked up into the sky and at the chin of a smirk like that of Loki’s trickery.

“Aren’t you an ugly one”, she said in a tounge I didn’t understand. Her eyes were black and filled with blood and unrelenting rage. Her smile adorned her lack of humanity and the safety she kept herself in.

“You are the lead creature. Funny, I thought your kind had killed off all your women”, I roared and swung my ax. She moved back, her hair flew in the way of the ax and slipped away from the blade. It was not sharp enough to chop it off.

She pulled a blade from her belt and sliced it through the wind. I turned and my cheek was grazed. I spit a wad of blood toward her.

She dodged the blood and in that moment of her moving her weight, I grabbed her ankle. She yelped in freight and toppled over. I rose from my knee and stood with her leg in my hands. She reached for her dropped sword. I pulled her away. Her chin slid on the deck and skidded the peach fuzz off it. She twisted and kicked out. I attempted to grab her foot, but I slipped. She yanked her leg into the center of my chest and kicked my ribs. It was a strong kick and I lost my composure for a single moment.

She sliped her foot free, darted back and retrieved her blade. She held it at the ready.

“I don’t think Chinamen are supposed to look like you. The books I’ve read say they are subhuman. You look pretty human to me”, she panted and aimed her sword at me, “No matter. All I need to do is get you out of my way, then I will have riches beyond imagining”.

“I have no idea what you are saying, but let's make this quick. I’ve been fighting you people for hundreds of years. I want to go home and be with my love”, I roared and rushed at her.

She slid beneath me and slipped her little sword along the underside of my arm. Blood poured out of my wound and onto the deck below. I roared with fury and I clutched my arm to my side. It stung and it was deep in my muscle. I could move my arm, no longer.

“You snake”, I yelled and threw the weapon from my injured hand at her. She moved out of the way and the knife thunked into the mast of her ship. With that distraction I sent the blunt part of the ax into her shoulder. She was knocked aside and into the railing of her ship. A crack split through the air from her shoulder. She screamed in pain and clutched the railing with her remaining good arm. The other arm was limp and crushed to her ribcage. She vomited over the railing. Below her the ship rolled on peaceful teal.

“First mate. Turn the ship to starboard”, she roared.

A man to her left, who stood alone in the blood and the fray, nodes and tore up the stairs.

I had no idea what he was trying to pull, but I ran after him. My arm spewed blood and an ax raised. He screamed in terror and stumbled onto the wood. I pulled my weight back into the strike.

BANG. The sound was like the earth had split open and Fenrir would crawl out. I felt a searing in my shoulder. I turned around, eyes ablaze.

The machine in her hand clicked and clicked again.

“HELL”, she yelled and smacked the small device.

Rage filled me with fire. I ran for her.

Her eyes widened with fear. She tried to run, but I grabbed her by her coat and slammed her into the railing. I wrapped my hands around her neck and squeezed hard. Pearls dug into my palms, her soft flesh yielded under my strength. I was so angry, I crushed her so hard I felt her neck bones. She opened her mouth and gasped in no air. A horrible sound like a duck escaped her. Her eyes strained in their sockets.

“You will never touch that land. Die and I can go back to my love”, I demanded.

She could no longer speak, but her eyes said something wicked to me.

She reached up with her hand, past my shoulder, past my face, to the sky above. She seemed to not see me, but it instead. On her lips, a breathless word escaped.

“MINE”.

CRASH, splinters. I fell. I was sent tumbling over the side of the ship and splashed down into water. Orange blood pooled around me in amounts I couldn’t even imagine, stark with the blue, shone yellow in the sun. Wood in large and small splinters landed on top of me and pushed me into the world's sharpest stones.

The air was gone from my chest. My back seared with pain. The wood leaned on me and tried to drag me down further into the water.

Up and down mixed together and I was lost in the sea. I felt my lungs break, shatter into little pieces inside of me. My blood screamed. The black closed on my vision.

“Hey”, I heard her say to me.

“Is it time”, I asked. My hands were on her body, her magnificent skin stretched round and solid. A line from her belly button moved down to her naval. The world beneath churned against the confines of her skin.

“I feel like it is”, she said, “Today should be the day”.

“Today is the day we are going to fight the people from my land. But I want to be here”. I nuzzled her shoulder. After four hundred years of being together. That would be my first child. It was very tricky to stay on the mainland for healing, for growing, for creating new life. So much could go wrong when we weren’t on the island of eternity.

“Don’t worry. She will be here when you are back. I will understand. You want to keep the world safe for her. Don’t rush it”, she warned.

I yanked my body out of the water and gasped in the open air. I climbed up onto the coral and coughed. I pulled the wood out of my chest and abdomen. I was injured badly.

Like a mighty beast, the ship had broken itself upon the rocks and settled around the coral in pieces. The blood was its cargo, some kind of oil, bits of wool, the blood of its sailors. The captain was nowhere to be seen.

“Hang on, let me help you”, Benhilda rushed over and with her vast strength, she helped me out of the water. I flopped onto land and breathed the air.

We have won, but many of us are dead. Our ship had turned into driftwood with the ship.

“H-how far are we from land”, I ask after a while of laying in the sun, letting my wounds bleed and a friend close them with fire.

“Not too far. The Vinland people and your wife should notice that we haven’t come back and send a canoe along. Might be a day or two”.

“No”, I insisted. I sat up off the coral and looked at the sea. The land was not too far away. I could swim there and run to her if I had to. I couldn’t miss it. I needed to be there.

“No, stay down. Your injuries are too great. We must be patient”.

I pushed them aside. I dived into the water.

I rose to the surface and pushed the waves aside. I swam. I swam with all my might. My breath felt like sand. I gasped, but no energy returned to me. The land grew closer and closer. Then I could no longer feel my body. The water fell over my head. The end came for me.

I washed up on the island of eternity, same as the trash from those ships. The others found me and figured the worst. I was buried before I met my daughter. Authab rowed back to the island soon after and sat by my side. She and my daughter sleep by my side, ever unchanging, ever still. Columbus passed us by, the colonizers passed us by. We got their trash on our island. They killed, they burned, they tore that beautiful land to ruin.

One day, when they finally learn the message of Vinland, when peace finally falls over the land again. My daughter will be able to grow up. We wait patiently for that day.

Historical
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About the Creator

Jori T. Sheppard

I make my own cover art to my stories. I don't follow the traditional approach, I need to challenge myself by putting a twist on the prompts I am given. The only rule I follow is "Don't be bad", and that gives me a A LOT of wiggle room

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