Knut had never heard such a queer and perposterious tale, but he could tell that the elf was not lying. She had been earnest since their meeting, hanging on the edge of the hot spring pool looking like a drowned rat. Now, she sat the table engaging them with her strange manner of speaking and exaggerated hand gestures. She was lean as a whip, her sleeveless top displaying her strong biceps which were covered in intricate tattoos that he found himself inspecting as she spoke animatedly. Her hair had dried and fell down her shoulders and back in an inky curtain of silk. In the dim lighting of the long hall, her eyes glinted like sapphires.

She had a scent like the ocean, cool and crisp, slightly salty, chased by the strong herbal aroma of sage. He found himself leaning toward her, trying to understand how an elf had lived her youth on Earth and suddenly been brought back to Terra to eclipse the war going on. On top of that, it seemed that the lycans had some sort of prophecy they believed her to be a part of. If there were 2 others, one of which was most certainly a druid, why would they put all their eggs in one basket?

"Then your quest is to find your human friend," Jarl Ragnar deduced after a series of questions had been asked to clarify.

Flora nodded. "The werewolves told me to forget about her, but how can I? She's the only family I have."

"They're not interested with anything off Tixwa. I can get you an audience with our portal guardian," Ragnar informed her easily, which startled Knut. His father wasn't generous or prone to charity.

Flora's brows shot up and she stiffened in her chair. "Really?" but her inquiry was cautious. It seems she wasn't as naive as he thought her, blue eyes narrowing at Ragnar. "What is it going to cost me?"

A laugh rumbled like thunder far off on the horizon in the back of the jarl's throat. He interlaced his fingers, planted his elbows on the table, and leaned forward. "I have my own gripes with the vampires. Few races like them. I detest them. If I do this favor, a favor is owed back to me."

"Quid pro quo," Flora determined, sitting back on her stool and nodding slowly in contemplation. "I'll swear my honor to you if you promise to help me recover my friend. I don't care about the cost."

Ok, she's not naive, she's foolhardy, Knut sighed mentally. He knew the trap had been laid for his father and that Ragnar would not pass up the opportunity to have an elf under his thumb, especially since she could understand their tongue and script.

"You would become one of my sworn swords?" Ragnar arched a brow, edging ever so closer to the trap she had set.

"Don't know how to use a sword, but yes, if it's a fighter you want, I am good at hand to hand combat. I'm still working on recovering my memories and the magic that comes with it. But you have to promise me that you'll do anything to help me get Cassie," Flora bartered.

"If you know how to fight, placing a blade in your palm will only take practice, but magic... Magic is very uncommon in our lands," Ragnar was now stroking his silver beard again, grinning ear to ear like Loki. "I swear on my honor that I will help you find your companion, no matter the cost. You must swear fealty to me, on your own honor, to never betray me. Then, you shall be accepted amongst our ranks and into our clan."

"Jarl Ragnar, I, Flora Fleetfoot, swear my fealty to you and your clan so long as we both live on the condition that in this alliance, every effort is made to recover my friend, Cassie O'Donnell," she stood up, stool screeching beneath her as she reached over the table and stuck out her hand to seal the deal.

Ragnar took his time to stand from his throne, casting his gaze out upon the great long hall. Drawing in a deep breath, his voice boomed over the din and chatter. "Let it be witnessed by the Dalr Clan, that I, Jarl Ragnar Flokissen, swear to uphold my promise to this elf in exchange for her fealty, as long as we both shall live," he declared, bending down and gripping Flora's forearm and dwarfing her. "Now drink to this union! Who knows when the fuck the last time vargr and elves were friends and not foes!" He seized his tankard and bellowed, echoed by the subjects seated in the hall, turning his drink up and draining it.

The oath was sworn. His eyes traced Flora's right wrist as the Jormungandr, the World Serpent and sigil on the Dalr shields, sizzled onto the elf's skin. She stared at the black ink, the testament to her promise and the inability to go against it should she decide she made a mistake later.

She was one of them.

Knut did not cheer with the rest of the hall. Instead, he pitied the elf who had so foolishly signed up for a tumultuous ride based on the back of his father's ambition. With an elf he could do so much more. What was one little promise to help her find her friend in Tenebris?

The celebrations went on into the night. Beorn was shit faced by dusk, women were swarming around the tables, particularly eying him, but Knut's mind was fixated on his new ally. Flora had gone from outspoken to silent, thumbing the marking on her wrist, brows snared together, and contemplative.

He knew that the elf's wellbeing would fall under his responsibilities. His father wouldn't micromanage everything that needed to be done to make her feel welcome and comfortable. Knut arranged for a small guest chamber to be refreshed for the elf, but didn't know what she may want in there. She was from Earth... what comforts did they have there?

When the night did not hint at winding down anytime soon, he leaned toward her. "Would you like to retire for the evening?"

She gave him a weary glance, a bit reproachful as if he should have warned her about what mess she had gotten herself into, and then let her tense shoulders sag before nodding. Knut stood, motioning for her to go before him as he escorted her out of the great hall and away from the cacophony of drinking. Taking the hallway adjacent to the gathering area, he led her deeper into the castle, hands clasped behind his back.

Up a set of stairs and toward the guest wing on the north side of the keep, he stopped at the door that had been prepared for her. "This is where you will be staying," he informed her discreetly, opening it for her. Within, there was a large bed covered with furs, a chest at the foot, and a simple hearth across from it with a fire already roaring in it. The accommodations were simple; a wardrobe, desk, and bench were the only other pieces of furniture.

Flora did not seem to mind as she crossed the stone floor and pulled her leather sack off from where she had slung it across her back.

Knut remained in the doorway, the same glacial scent of the elf wafting toward him as she rubbed her face, clearly exhausted by what had transpired that day. He felt a twinge, a strange allure that wanted to tug him toward her. In the dim glow of the fire illuminated room, her eyes were as dark as a stormy ocean. She was comely. Not in the faint, willowy, ethereal way that all other elves he'd met were. No, she was sturdier and more tangible. Where sylvan and high elves were hewn of marble and magic, she was wild like the mountains and hewn of salt and ice.

"I need a few days to gather my thoughts," Flora told him, finally shattering the silence with her mellow, rasping voice. She had such a strange accent, unlike any he'd heard before. "I still need to see if I can recover any more memories about how to control my magic."

"Then you shall begin your drills next week," Knut decided, respecting the elf's request. Even if she fell under his scope for training, she was not a subordinate. A Jarl would not make such a promise to a mere soldier or grunt. Whilst Flora did not know it yet, she held a position of power that many other vargr would envy and dislike her for - as the prejudice against elves ran deep. "You will learn how to wield a weapon. Unless you have a more powerful form than a fox, you are at a great disadvantage trying to fight any warg in that skin."

"Noted," she muttered. "Goodnight, Knut."

"Goodnight, Fleetfoot."

–

She had royally fucked up.

Flora had not been thinking that a promise would result in her words becoming law, branded upon her flesh in the same endless serpent that was emblazoned on the majority of the shields in the keep. Of course, she should have expected some sort of shady magic fuckery, but she had been too rash and comfortable amongst the wargs. They were gruff, but they were honest, forward, and offered her a solution whereas the lycans had dismissed her mission to save Cassie. While she was cross with herself for being so hasty, she also had more faith in Jarl Ragnar's promise.

Nothing was free. She could not expect the Jarl to do this out of the kindness of his heart. This world seemed tough and cold. Flora had to work for what she wanted and Ragnar had offered her a path to do so. She did not know what it entailed, but she supposed she would find out soon enough.

Taking advantage of the time she had allotted to sorting her shit out, Flora meditated on the disjunct memories she had, trying to piece them together and dwell on what portions were still missing. As she had thought, her brain was trying to compensate and fill in what she didn't truly recall. With the ushering of Hakan and Dyani, she had put in false memories.

"No, no, no, Flora! Not like that," the elder sighed for the umpteenth time, her cheeks burning as she held out her hand toward the flower. It had curled up, gone from sunset orange and crimson, to shriveled and wilted. "Come now, child, you are supposed to make it grow, not die. A druid's talent is in tempering nature, summoning it wherever we may need."

Desperately, her small fingers reached out for a second time, trying to will the next bud on the lily to bloom instead of die. She bit her lower lip, fighting back tears of frustration at her own repeated failures. However, just like the others, when she touched this flower, it wilted.

Why can't I get it right? It's so easy, even the druids younger than me can do it without trying!

"Flora..." the elder gave her a pitying look that made her want to curl up and die.

"Let me try again," Flora said quickly, reaching for the next bud.

"It's no use child, you have no affinity for wild magic."

"No, let me try again. I swear, I'll get it this time," she promised desperately.

"Flora, that's enough," he insisted sternly.

"Let me try!" she screamed, throwing her hands out as she pushed him away. The elder gasped in horror and when Flora opened her eyes, all around her the flowers and greenery had died, coated in a fine frost. She turned over her palms, hands quivering as she realized she had done that. "I'm sorry..." she whispered. "I'm so sorry! I'm sorry!" Before the elder could reach out to her, Flora spun on her heel and ran away, out of the Druids' Refuge and to where she had left her folded clothes.

"Flora?" Another girl appeared from the tunnel that led down into the cave. She had dual loops in her chocolate brown hair, ears pointing through them. "What's the matter?"

Flora was balling her eyes out, snot and tears streaking down her face. "I'm no druid. I can't even open a flower. I killed them all... I ruined an entire section of the sanctuary, Aewing."

"Flora!" the elder druid had caught up to her. "Child, please!"

"I'm sorry," she whined, scrunching her eyes shut and waiting for her punishment to be doled out.

He craned down, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Flora," he tempered soothingly. "You are not a druid."

She cried harder at his words.

"Hush now, it's not all bad news," he chided, squeezing reassuringly. "Once every blue moon, there are Lunar Elves like you born. As you know, our powers are gifted to us by the Moon Goddess. While the wild magic that druids possess is not unique to our kind, the gift of skinchanging is. You needn't be a druid to be able to shapeshift into your spirit animal. But you child, you are special in another way."

"That I kill everything?" Flora sniffled.

"No, no, that's not what happened at all. I am the one who should be apologizing. I didn't realize sooner that your talents were elsewhere," he confided. "You have the Moon Goddess' blessing. Just as the Goddess does, you too can push and pull the tide with your will. You too can summon the frost to chase away the spring or the rain to feed a parched desert. This gift is rare, Flora, and coveted. There are few mages in the world who have the ability to have such control of an element as you do."

Flora glanced down at her hands. She didn't want the ability to manipulate water, she wanted to be a druid like her mother and like Aewing. "Can you train me how to use it?"

"I am afraid not. A more suitable mentor would be in Eathlion. I will see to it that the arrangements are made with the Sylvan Elves to have you study under a proper master. Though, much of it will be up to you to figure out. An elementalist in Eathlion is still not precisely what you are."

"What am I?" Flora needed to know. If not a druid, what was she?

"A Tidecaller."

Flora gasped, hands shaking as she came out of the vision abruptly. She was not a druid, she was not the one that the lycan prophecy spoke of. Relief flooded her. It had to be Aewing who was the last druid. A bit of disappointment nipped at her. She had secretly been hoping that there was such a thing as fated love and that she did belong to Hakan. The last thing she wanted was to be some prophetic person who had to spend a good deal of time in the limelight. No, she was perfectly happy making this arrangement with Ragnar and working to find Cassie.

From the memories untrenched from the recesses of her mind, Flora wondered if she had such an easy affinity as the elder had described it. She hopped off her bed and approached the flagon of barley water set on her desk. All she had to do was will it, didn't she? Just as she could will turning into her spirit animal?

Cautiously, she touched the pitcher, the brush of her fingertips creating fractal blossoms until it had iced over completely. She stood, rooted to her spot for a few seconds before grinning like a lunatic.

"I'm Elsa, bitch."