Dead with the Vikings

A/N:

I do not own Eric or Sookie. I just brought Sookie to my where I live - to see Eric before he was turned. Eric and Sookie are the property of Charlaine Harris

This story may contain spoilers for all books and short stories in the SVM-series – including chapter 1 of Dead in the Family.

I have always been very intrigued by the Viking age, which is a central part of my heritage. I will do my best to have all facts correct and to avoid stupid mistakes like having the characters eat corn on the cob or giving them horns on their helmets. But I can unfortunately give no guaranties.

This story would be pretty silly if all conversation was written in old Norse so everything is "translated" into English. That includes the names Charlaine Harris has used in her books.

Thank you so much to Rascalthemutant for correcting all my mistakes in yet another story. I could not have published anything without you – and I`m looking forward to showing you Oslo!!

Also thank you to Peppermintyrose for the great discussions on Eric`s character and what kind of person he was before he was turned – and to her husband for being a back-up on historical facts.

Dead with the Vikings – Chapter 1

"The babarians are coming."

I was pulled out of my sleep by sounds of commotion. I sat up in the bed. Someone had yelled and I heard doors being opened and closed. People were yelling and screaming and there was running.

I looked around and now fear really hit me. I wasn`t in the bedroom I had gone to sleep in last night. I wasn`t in my home in Bon Temps at all. I was somewhere else. Somewhere I had never been before.

The door to the room I was sleeping in was pulled open and a terrified girl peeked in. "The barbarians!" she cried out. "We have to flee. They are down by the beach."

She pointed to the window in my room. Only, it wasn`t really a window. It was a small hole in the stone wall.

I looked out and gasped. I did see some long and narrow boats pulling up on the beach and men pouring out of them, but what really made my heart skip a beat were the houses I could also see. They were more like huts and they looked like something out of a history book. When I looked back at the girl, she was gone.

I didn`t understand what was happening and started pinching my arm. It hurt the way pinching usually hurts and I figured I wasn`t dreaming.

I listened to the sounds and heard general panic. People were screaming in fear and it wasn`t until now I realized they weren`t speaking the usual Southern drawl of my hometown. This was something else. It bore resemblance to English, but it was something I had never heard before. The words were very different from what I was used to, but I still understood everything.

Everyone was fleeing. I could hear it in the building I was in and I could hear it outside. "To the forest," a loud male voice yelled. I tried to get up because it seemed like a wise thing to do, but I couldn`t. I was paralyzed. Not in the way some people in wheelchair are, but emotionally.

I had been through too much lately and being in a strange house, in a foreign village, being told that barbarians were coming, made my muscles immobile. I had always been a woman of action, but now my body wouldn`t listen.

I started hearing screams and metal against metal from the beach below. It sounded like fighting, but I couldn`t bring myself to look out again. I took a deep breath and hoped it would bring me back to my own bedroom again. A tear rolled down my cheek when that didn`t happen.

I pulled my knees up to my body and wrapped my arms around them. Why was this happening to me? Why was it happening now? I was starting to get my life back. My wounds were healing and I was in love with Eric. Amelia had left me, but I was starting to make a life on my own.

The fighting came closer and I started hearing rough male voices giving orders. I peeked out and instantly regretted it. Tall men wearing helmets were running towards the building I was in.

Inside the building, the voices and screaming were gone. Apparently everyone was wiser than me and had left. I was still sitting on my bed and more tears ran down my face.

"I can`t take any more," I whispered to myself and rocked back and forth.

I gasped when I heard men`s voices in the building. Doors were kicked in and there was scrambling of metal. I could hear them getting closer and I did nothing. I was a pig in a slaughterhouse, waiting for my destiny. After all I had been through, all the fights I had fought, I had now given up. I did not understand where I was, but I knew I was in danger. And still I did nothing.

I took a deep breath and felt something loosen inside me. I was suddenly given the strength to stand up and I walked out the door and started running down the hallway, away from the voices. It wasn`t until now I realized that I wasn`t wearing any shoes and only a rough dress on my body. For some reason, I didn`t even have any underwear on.

I was in a house made of stone and the floor was cold to my feet. I came to a huge wooden door and opened it carefully. It led to a small room, but at the other end of that room, an open door showed me the way out. I could see the forest people had apparently run to and decided to do the same.

Unfortunately I should have run the minute I was woken up. My panic had cost me valuable time and just as I set foot outside the door, three huge men in helmets came around the corner.

Soon they had me surrounded and I backed up and tried to go back inside, but then I heard voices from behind me too.

The men wore clothes taken out of a museum. Leather, linen and furs. And all of them wore helmets with protection for the eyes and nose area. They were all blond and I could see their blue eyes through the holes in the helmets. They were huge.

One of them was as tall as Eric and had the broad shoulders. I gasped. I would recognize that body anywhere.

"Eric?" I whispered, only it didn`t sound like `Eric` when it came out of my mouth. More like `Eirikur`. He stared at me and so did the other men. It WAS Eric. I smiled. "Oh, I`m so glad to see you!"

Everyone was quiet for a minute and then laughter broke out. Everyone apart from Eric, doubled over in roars and the guy next to him, hit his shoulder playfully.

"Your reputation precedes you, Eric," he laughed.

Eric stared at me and was the only one not laughing. I smiled at him, but then I realized what was wrong. He didn`t recognize me. My hand flew to my mouth.

"So Eric," one of the men said. "Are you going to share this little treat or do I have to fight you over her?"

He spoke the language I had only heard when Eric and I were in our more intimate moments. Or at least it sounded like that language. I had no problem understanding it this time, though, even if the language sounded different from the language spoken by the panicked people screaming and yelling just moments earlier.

Before I could see what was happening, the man was lying on his back in the dirt and Eric massaged the knuckles he had just used on him.

"She is mine." He growled.

A/N:
I hope you liked this beginning. It was shorter than the chapters I usually write, but I hope to be able to publish shorter chapters fairly often on this story.

If I`m jumping up and down in joy right now, it`s because my story Dust Bunnies and Christmas Presents was selected to the finale in the Naughty and Nice fanfic contest. I have not been able to stop smiling since I heard.

There are a lot of great fanfics in that contest and I would recommend that you read them all and vote for one of them: www . fanfiction . net/u/2163083/Naughty_or_Nice_List#