Creating something new, day 14

North, colors and symbols

The wind have really picked up over the night and even worse is that the wind is heading in the wrong direction so bad sailing during the day. We make progress towards Skiringsalr, but its a lot of tacking which makes the actual average speed quite low. Exactly the same thing happened last time between Skiringsalr and Lysesund.

I can feel myself close to seasick as the ship rocks, but apparently the seafarers arranged proper hammocks during the extra days after to the duel, so they slept much better than us in the cabins in this weather. A bit ironic that I, as the hammock 'creator', slept worse because I have a cabin with a fairly large bed compared to the crew under the deck. Asta has apparently had one prepared and attached it in her cabin and really likes it, and that it can be removed during the day. Lucky for her that she is short otherwise it would have been harder to fit. But Asta made sure to arranged material for 12 extra hammocks for future passengers, and they're completing them. I put up the first two in my cabin.

I can't work in this wind, and my slight nausea makes it an easy decision. I've found a disadvantage with the hammock; harder to share with someone and hug. It can be done, but impractical. Lie there rocking, with my arms around Iselin thats lying half on top of me, and with Kari sitting on the bed and Ciara in the second hammock, and we discuss the future of the Academy and mansion, some of the amenities, the distribution of time for studies and different education levels. We discuss a flag, logo and colors. Turns out that lighter blue-green-yellow-red-brown scale and gray are the most durable colors. Cloth takes those colors better, and doesn't wash out as fast, or fade in the sun. Natural-colored beige is good uncoloured fabric, but its often look dirty. Black, purple and darker blue and red are harder and more expensive, but there are many really expensive colors, and they have had fun with my two pairs of purple underpants in thin fine fabric, but I also have gray, black and red with me.

For visibility, I should probably choose a large red flag with a blue or yellow logo on it, but red isn't my favorite color, and since I am Swedish, my proposal is a blue flag with a large yellow A framed by a triangle as the Academy's symbol. Checkered red and blue are also the pattern the royal family is known for, and red with broad green lines is Daes King's color. Red is the color that means strength, kinship and danger, so I shouldn't be suprised. Yellow is the sun, light and fire, so strongly means life, and knowledge, which is very fitting, especially combined with blue for the sky and sea; fertility and pure, stability and everlasting. Since I plan on conqurering the sea and hopefully the sky with knowledge and colonization, its very fitting. Well, atleast among the Norse. Colors mean other things for other cultures.

Its really quite interesting how words for colors have emerged in all the languages of the world, and if I remember correctly, white and black are the first colors that are given words in language after light and dark. Red is third, probably due to blood. The fourth and fifth word for colors is green or yellow in some order probably due to nature has green and yellow tones of the year. The sixth is generally blue and the seventh is usually brown, then comes some order of gray, purple, pink and orange. However, some languages may have a color that we in the Western world call green, but that they use their word for blue, or they use the same word for both colors - think the Japanese have had that phenomenon. But when does a color change from being called green to being called blue? When does green turn yellow? Huge color palettes are a relatively late invention, and in some languages there are no words for colors, only light or dark, which feels funny to know as a modern human being with our huge color palettes and colors everywhere. Norse language here doesn't come close to the amount of words for colors that modern Midgard has, simply because the exact shade and name of colors is quite unimportant in most lives, and they are content to combine words, much like modern Swedish usually does. Light red, dark red, bluer red, orange red, deep red, etc.

We continue to discuss a logo and a true A isn't a rune they have even though they have a similar with the left side vertical. My girlfriends like what we come up with, its clear and unique. Alternatively just a large blue A in triangle on natural white beige. But they prefer the blue flag, but big blue A can fit on white-beige sails. However, its probably not too expensive to color the sails light blue, and it is important to show wealth...

Actually, it is the logo itself that is most important, not the color. Bomerke, House marks in English, are still the norm here, and was so quite late in Scandinavia. A symbol of some shape that is a signature or a symbol of a farm etc, that can be marked on a person's property to tell who the owner is, and branded on animals and other things. I need to have a forged branding iron made in a couple of sizes, and should probably make a personal symbol for me too, maybe a R in a triangle or something. I need to check what people nearby have so no one already has such a symbol, but most Bomerke are made of lines and maybe a curved section, and neither Kari nor Iselin know of any Bomerke with a form of rune inside a shape.

Asta seeks me out and we discuss more about navigation, ships and sails in the afternoon, and the talk about signal flags turn our discussion to a real flag. She asks if she should try to arrange it on the sails when they arrive at Skiringsalr and I give her the go ahead. She will also try and have a couple of larger flags made and we discuss measurements. I let Asta, as the ship's Captain, also have a small ring sundial, and Gunhild gives her the silver Hillevi kept, to use as the ship's cashbox. I give Asta the task of keeping an accounting book, that she as a literate merchant's daughter, can do. I will have to create a list of signal flags in the future, but it is one of those things that will take time to introduce, and without binoculars it has quite a limited viewing distance.

I trying to complete one of the big sundials. It's actually just to fit the parts together and assemble it, but I feel that I'm starting to get nauseaus again, so spend more time just lying rocking in the hammock and bored.

Ciara manages to get me in a better mood by showing how much she appreciates her jeweled plug and together we discover that certain specific positions works in the hammock if you balance and doesn't take the sex too serious. Ciaras looks healthier, even when she is naked, but she still needs at least 10kg but has gotten a little better, and she can eat normally, which is impressive in a month. That she no longer works in the same way, likes honey and that I let her spread it on crispbread and she eats it as sweets, certainly contributes.

I don't like that she pierced herself in the belief that it would make her more 'attractive' to me, but quite honestly, her breasts and their rings that slowly rock are quite nice and attractive, and she seem to enjoy them. I mostly like her facial expressions of sexual pleasure, and how she happily closes her eyes and sometimes tries to pinch her lips so that her moans arn't heard all over the ship, and how she occasionally fails miserably and gets embarrassed, and those beautiful purple-blue eyes when they intensely looks at me, filled with desire. I just enjoy the sensation and view, while playing with her clitoris and kissing her legs, since they're by my face. When we're done, I don't want her to leave, so we just lie there, under a blanket I janked from the bed, while I hold her and feel our bodies rock from side to side in the hammock while we listen to the sounds of the ship and sea. She doesn't care at all that at least I'm a little sweaty. There is a second round about half an hour later when I lack self-control over where my hands wander, and Ciara quickly and happily answers under my exploration. This is a reality I can accept.

Its quite late in the evening when we arrive at Skiringsalr, and too late to do anything but moor and sleep. I can at least sleep in the cabin bed again and cuddle with Iselin, so we listen to some music again with headphones and I show her how she controls the MP3 player, and what different things mean. When I understand that the song she's asking for is 'Asche zu Asche' it surprises me, but it's so obvious that she likes its 'sharp sound' and tempo and tries to move her body to the beat while lying in bed, and she wants the volume loud, so I let her have the MP3 player by herself and tell her to dance if she wants to. Soon I have an adorable sight as Iselin tries to dance to the songs in the cabin's limited space, while wearing a nightgown with her red hair fluttering to the music I can faintly hear from her earbuds, when its not completely drowned out by the creaking of the ship or the sound of the sea and wind.

She may not be able to dance like Lindsey, but that seems to suit her better and it's sexier. I don't complain at all about the energy that Iselin has built up when she enthusiastically and happily joins me in bed. With my own earplugs connected via the Y splitter, she slowly gets in to position and sinks down on me as we listen to the calmer intro to 'Feuer Frei' where she just smiles and slowly grinds his abdomen waiting for the song to really start, and then her ride gets wild. My life has become so damn absurd, since she's an Elf in a Viking world, but its so damn wonderful too.