“Whose?”
“Yours.”
First came the sweet, then the bitter ...
Drifa was sitting on a bench in the back garden with his daughter. They were waiting for him.
He’d washed his face and changed his bloody tunic, not wanting to shock or repulse the child. He stood frozen, taking in the sight.
The child cocked her head to the side, listening to words Drifa spoke to her softly. He thought he heard the little girl say, “But Mother ...”
My daughter calls Drifa Mother, he mused. For some reason, that did not bother him as much as it might have at one time.
He was filled with so much joy, and fear, and anger. Emotions shot around his head and in his heart, confusing him. He had not expected to feel so much.
At a prodding from Drifa, the little girl rose and started to walk toward him, hesitantly. She wore a bright green gunna with a pale green, open-sided apron over it. Her reddish-brown braids hung midway down her back. When she smiled tentatively at him, he saw she had two missing front teeth. She seemed rather tall for four and a half years, but he knew little about children in general and nothing about girls.
As she drew closer, he dropped down to his haunches to put himself at her level. The pain in his thigh caused him to teeter for a moment, which prompted a giggle from his daughter.
“Are you my father?” she asked.
“I am,” he answered without hesitation, his heart thundering with such a strong feeling of possession. Mine, he kept thinking. Mine.
“Where you been? Dint you want me?”
“Oh, sweetling, I have always wanted you.”
“Mother says you were lost.”
He chuckled. Lost. As good a word as any, he supposed. “I guess you could say that, but I’m not lost anymore.”
“Did you bring me a present?”
He laughed, having been forewarned long ago by Drifa that it would be the first thing Runa asked.
“Let me think. I might have brought one present. Or ... hmmm, could it be five presents?”
Runa’s eyes, mirror images of his own gray-green ones, went wide as she silently marked the numbers on the fingers of one hand: one, two, three, four, five. “I love presents.”
“I guessed that was the case.” He smiled at her.
“You have red on your teeth,” she pointed out.
He’d thought his mouth had stopped bleeding, but mayhap not. He rolled his tongue over his teeth. “I bit my tongue today.”
She nodded knowingly. “I bit my tongue one time when I was skipping too fast. Can you skip?”
“I do not know. I haven’t done it since I was a boyling.”
“I could show you how.”
Wonderful! A Viking warrior skipping. “That would be ... delightful.”
“My mother doesn’t like to skip because it makes her bosoms jiggle.”
He was sure Drifa would appreciate Runa having shared that. He thought about telling Runa that he liked jiggling bosoms, but decided it would not be appropriate. He would have to do that a lot from now on, question whether something was appropriate or not.
“Can I give you a hug?” Runa asked suddenly.