Close to the shore, she sat facing north and cast the runestones into the soft earth. She watched the shapes roll and settle, their stony surfaces gathering a film of soft yellow dust. Then she studied the lines and drew her own conclusion from them.
She did not believe the stones had any magical power. She imagined that the gods perhaps nudged them one direction or another, with their knowing winds and earthly pull, but she cared little for the source of their design. No matter why they fell a certain way, the runes always spoke to her. Runa would always find a reflection of herself in the words and ideas they conjured. Often, her own interpretation of the runestones’ casting would reveal more about her inner hopes and fears than any other form of insight.
What she saw troubled her, so she closed her eyes and listened to the distant whisper of the ocean. She breathed deeply of its salty breeze. Her mind swam to the rhythm of the far-off crashing waves. She saw two different fortunes in her mind, but she did not understand how they could both be true, when in fact they strongly opposed each other. Two futures lay ahead of her, forged by her own decisions and willpower.
In one future she lived a settled life, in a single home, with a man who loved her and a community that supported her. She left the wildness of the fields and forests for the stability of a town and market. In her second future she traveled far, far away, further than she had ever imagined traveling, over the roiling ocean to some distant shore. She began a new life, doing whatever she willed, controlled by no group of people, inhibited by no man. She took what she wanted and left the rest to burn. She was a Viking.
She shuddered and opened her eyes again, steadying them on the knife-like edge of the horizon. Both futures excited and frightened her. She wanted both. She wanted neither.
And so she would not worry about them, she decided. She collected the runestones and returned them to her pouch. She stood and brushed the twigs from her dress. As she glanced at the ocean she thought of Thorkell the Tall, sailing the vast seas with his Viking army, gathering gold and reducing his enemies to puddles of fear. Bumps lifted along her arms, making her sensitive to every slight brush of the wind. She trembled and shoved him from her mind once more.
She slipped back into the woods, to the cave in which she lived alone, to the safe abode in which no one supported her, nor constricted her.