In celebration of @vikingsevents ‘ Winter Solstice event, I’m finally getting around to posting for what has come to be my biggest fandom of the year!!! I’ve been obsessed with Vikings: Valhalla all year, and have been writing a ton for it—I just haven’t posted anything to Tumblr until now 😅 I’ll be posting a few chapters of the (extremely long) fic I’ve been working on this year, but you can find the full story on AO3 at any time, if you want to know who Brigid and Sveinn are, and how our characters got to this point. This chapter is for the prompt Snow—I know it kind of also meets body heat , buuut I have something else in mind for the 23rd, so stay tuned for that! As always, please let me know what you think of this chapter, and if you wind up checking it out on AO3, feel free to leave a review there and let me know what you think and how you found it!!!
Summary: After the attack on Kattegat, Leif and Harald find themselves on the run—along with their friend Brigid, and baby Sveinn—and spend some time camped out in the mountains while Harald begins to heal from his wounds. As winter snows loom on the horizons, they finally start the next leg of their journey: heading to meet Freydis in Uppsala.
Word count: 3,718
Disclaimer: I do not own Vikings Valhalla, or anything you may recognize from it, but I do own my OCs and this story itself! Also posted to Archive of our Own under the username ChocolatteKitty-Kat.
The morning after Harald woke up, Leif was once again woken by Svein stirring between himself and Harald. In an attempt to make sure Harald wouldn’t fall ill again, they had slept in the same arrangement as the previous nights—Brigid on Harald’s right, Leif on his left, with Sveinn between the two men. Leif picked Sveinn up, careful not to wake the others, and slipped out of the cave, taking the horses with them. They were running out of grass and shrubs to graze on; they’d have to start taking them further from the cave soon. He was walking back with an armful of firewood when the snow began to fall. He stopped and frowned up at the dark grey sky, then looked down at the baby. “Looks like we don’t have much time left, little one,” he sighed, adjusting Sveinn on his hip. The baby whined in response, waving tiny arms and chubby fists and grabbing for Leif’s beard. “I know. You don’t care about snow. Let’s get you breakfast.”
By the time Brigid woke up and joined Leif and Sveinn in the mouth of the cave, there was a dusting of snow on the ground. By the time Harald woke, the earth itself was no longer visible. Leif took two of the blankets to cover the horses with when he went to check his traps. When he returned to the cave, Harald and Sveinn were both asleep again, and Brigid was placing fresh wood on the fire. While he had been gone, she had made a small pile of firewood at the back of the cave. “I don’t want to run out of dry wood,” she shrugged. “We need the warmth from the fire.”
Leif nodded and sat down to skin the rabbits he had snared. He was still working when Harald woke and joined them at the front of the cave, still wrapped in an extra blanket. The prince scowled at the snow, falling heavier now than it had that morning. “We need to leave. This will block the passes, and we don’t have time to go around the mountains.”
Leif shook his head. “No. Not today. You’re still not strong enough.”
“We can at least get started,” Harald argued. “We can’t just sit here waiting around. We need to get to Uppsala, and meet Freydis.”
“I want to find her, too, but if we leave now, it will only be worse for you in the long run,” Leif insisted. “It would be far worse to leave early and have you get sick again, without somewhere safe and sheltered to hole up against bad weather and the cold.”
Harald’s scowl deepened, but he stopped arguing. As Leif skinned and gutted the rabbits he had caught, he passed pieces of meat to Brigid, who stuck them on skewers around the fire to cook. The last of the vegetables she had found were roasting in the coals at the edge of the flame, and she used a stick to keep them rolling and turning so they wouldn’t burn.
“We’ll spend another two days collecting food and preparing for the journey,” said Leif. “The hunting is good enough here, and it’s cold enough now to keep the meat from spoiling. Harald, you keep an eye on Sveinn; I’ll go hunting and fishing, and, Brigid, you can keep foraging.”
“I’ll have to go out further into the forest,” said Brigid. “Out of earshot. I’ve dug up everything edible around here.”
“I’ll stay as close as I can, in case anything happens,” said Leif. “Being so close to the stream helps; what few animals are around frequent it.”
Harald seemed decidedly unhappy about being left behind with the baby, but didn’t argue. He knew he would be no help anywhere else, and that, as Leif kept reminding him, pushing himself would only be worse in the long run. So, for the next two days, they settled into a routine. After breaking fast in the morning, Leif and Brigid would melt away into the forest, leaving Harald and Sveinn alone with the horses. By midday, they would be back with whatever they had managed to catch and gather, and after lunch they’d be gone again. Harald would skin and gut Leif’s findings, roasting meat and roots in and over the fire, and making broth with bones and vegetable skins for Sveinn. He cleaned the pelts thoroughly and laid them out to dry on the floor of the cave, stretched and pinned in place with rocks that they gathered; they didn’t have the time or materials to properly tan the hides, but the cold would help preserve them so they could make use of the pelts, even if only temporarily. Leif used the guts and inedible meat to bait his traps, hoping for larger animals like foxes, and spread the rest as far from the cave as he dared go to keep bears and wolves away.
At night, they continued to sleep in their little huddle. Leif came up with the idea to place rocks heated in the fire under the blankets by their feet and along his and Brigid’s backs for a little extra warmth, as they had to give up two of the blankets for the horses as the temperature dropped even further during the long nights. They wrapped Sveinn in the shawl to sleep in order to keep him warm enough through the night. Harald fashioned some crude needles from small bones, and the three of them used scraps from their old bloodied clothes, the bandages Brigid had managed to scrub at least mostly clean of blood in the stream, and threads unravelled from the edges of these fabrics to fashion a rough shirt for Leif to wear as an extra layer. It didn’t provide much warmth, with seams that gaped between the patchwork pieces, and made of thin cloth as it was, but at least it was something.
The third morning dawned grim and grey, but Sveinn woke them all with his crying. Harald built a final fire in the mouth of the cave to heat up the skin of broth for the baby while Leif and Brigid saddled the horses. They fastened the bags of provisions to Leif’s saddle and rolled up the dry firewood into two of the blankets to strap behind the saddles. The skins Harald had cleaned were laid over the bundles, fur-side up, to help keep them dry. Once they had eaten—a poor breakfast of cold meat and mashed vegetables, chased down with the last of the lukewarm broth so that they could wash and fill the waterskin—they mounted the horses. Brigid sat behind Harald now, letting him guide the horse, but with her arms firmly around his waist just above his wound in order to keep him from losing his balance, a blanket around each of their shoulders, while Leif took the smaller horse, Sveinn fastened to his chest with a harness made from the last scraps of stained cloth, and the final pair of blankets wrapped around them both.
They set off, leaving the cave behind, as the sun began to climb the sky above the clouds. The snow had died off slightly, now only flurrying, but had left enough of a coating to dampen the sounds of the world around them. All that was left to hear was the sound of the horses’ hooves crunching the crisp snow, and their own breath as it left their lungs in clouds of frost. They followed the river for a while, even its soft whispering as it flowed over rocks and other detritus dampened by the snow. It wound up the side of the mountain, but they soon had to abandon its path, not wanting to climb too high.They crossed at a naturally wide and shallow section of water, and then set off due east, planning to use the pass that Kelda had recommended, praying that the snow hadn’t blocked it just yet.
For the first few days, they stopped frequently—every two hours or so—to allow Harald to rest. During these stops, they would forage for more roots. At night, they sheltered at the base of cliffs or under trees, where the snow hadn’t covered the ground as deeply so that it was easier to clear. They used the dry firewood from the cave first, but that went quickly. After that, they gathered what wood they could at night and let it dry near the fire, then bundled it up in the morning for use the next night. Harald tended to fall asleep first, Sveinn nestled in his arm, while Brigid and Leif stayed up later to roast whatever roots they’d been able to gather during the day and mash them to eat later. Leif set snares overnight, often waking to find a rabbit or squirrel caught in them, but they weren’t able to replenish their provisions as quickly as they were eating them.
Harald was strong enough to ride through most of the day by the time they crossed the mountains, and no longer needed Brigid’s help to stay on the horse, so he and Leif switched mounts. Leif found himself grateful for the warmth of another body against his as the days grew nearly as cold as the nights, the snow falling more heavily now. Still, he spent most of the time shivering, and developed a cough that he couldn’t shake. Brigid made tea with the last of Kelda’s herbs, and forced him to sip it throughout the day, even when it had cooled. It helped a little, but Harald made him take the place in the center of their sleeping huddle to make sure he stayed warm at night. Now, they slept with Brigid pressed against Leif’s side, his arm around her back and hers across his stomach, and she would spread her heavy skirts over as much of him as she could. Sveinn would be nestled between Harald and Leif, tucked in the crook of Harald’s arm. The only time they unwrapped the baby from Brigid’s shawl was when he needed to be changed, and they did their best to do that next to a fire whenever possible.
It was over a week before the snow finally stopped, and the weather warmed up ever so slightly. The sun came out again, warming them during their long rides and melting at least some of the snow. This, unfortunately, came to be a problem, as it created dangerous slews of mud under the remaining snow that caused the horses to slip and slide. The only solution they could find was for Harald to ride the destrier, as it was stronger than the gelding, with Sveinn, and for Leif and Brigid to lead the horses, moving slowly to try and find the safest path through the slippery mud. They did their fair share of falling, and wound up covered in mud, soaked from the melted snow, and thoroughly bruised from the falls—not to mention horribly cranky. Overnight, the melted snow would refreeze, turning into even more deadly patches of ice, often invisible under the snow. Brigid slipped on one of these and nearly took the horse down with her when she fell, cracking her head on the frozen ground and slicing her cheek open on a rock.
That night, after Harald and Sveinn were asleep, Leif and Brigid sat by the fire, arms around each other and wrapped in a blanket. Brigid’s cheek stung where it had been cut; Leif had done his best to clean it with a scrap of wet cloth wrapped around snow, but that had mostly just hurt and left the wound raw and aching in the cold. She felt a single tear escape and swiped it away before Leif could see it. Almost as if he knew anyways, he tightened his grip on her, squeezing her even closer to him, and kissed the top of her head before resting his chin on it.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked abruptly.
Brigid snorted. “Hardly.” She remembered the last time Leif had asked that question, and a small smile played across her lips, a flash of warmth blooming in her stomach and chest at the memory. She pulled the blanket more tightly around them, even as Leif shuffled around, wrapping his legs around her hips and resting his chin on her shoulder. He kissed her jaw and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
“Better?”
“A little.” Brigid could feel the heat of the fire on her face, and Leif’s body heat against her back, but she could also feel him shivering against her. She pressed herself back into him, trying to share as much of her own warmth as she could, and he seemed to still slightly.
Brigid rubbed her hands slowly over Leif’s legs, draping her skirts over them where they peeked out from under the blanket. He turned his head away and coughed, then turned back to bury his face against her back, his forehead resting in the crook of her neck. A few moments later, he began to hum. Brigid smiled to herself. It had been so long since she had heard his voice like this, and she listened for a while before finally pulling away. Leif released her reluctantly, and she stood, grabbing his hands and pulling him up to stand with her, before reaching up to wrap her arms around his shoulders and pull him down into a kiss. He rested his hands on her waist and stepped backwards, pulling her with him, until they had faded back in the trees, just far enough for a little privacy and tucked under a huge evergreen tree with boughs so dense that the ground beneath it was dry. Leif had to crouch to keep his hair from getting tangled in the tree’s branches and dropped to his knees, pulling Brigid with him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and leaned in to kiss him.
When they broke apart, Brigid rested her forehead against his, their breath mingling in the cold air to float away in puffs of steam. She hiked her skirts up, fumbling to unlace her trousers. Leif helped her, and helped her push them down off her hips. She pulled away, squirming around as she struggled to get her pants off under her skirts and over her boots. Leif had to stifle a chuckle as she grew frustrated, finally falling back on her rear as she lost her balance. She finally got them off and tossed the offending garment aside, then rolled back onto her knees in front of him.
Slowly and carefully, Leif laid back, guiding Brigid on top of him so that she was straddling his hips. Fingers trembling between the cold and her nerves, she hiked her skirts up around her hips, shoving the bulk of the material behind her, then set to work on the lacing at the front of her bodice. While she did so, Leif unlaced his trousers, lifting his hips up to push them down. When he was done, he pushed her hands away from her bodice and finished unlacing it himself, then grabbed onto it and pulled her down until their lips met, hard enough to bruise, as he kissed her hungrily. Brigid felt something sharp against her lower lip and tasted blood as it split.
Leif slipped a hand under Brigid’s bodice and her layers of clothing to take hold of her breast. He massaged it, rubbing his thumb gently over the nipple, and she moaned softly against his mouth. He responded by swiping his thumb over it again, earning another tiny sound.
Brigid’s hands found their way under Leif’s shirt, roaming his torso. She rocked her hips gently, feeling him growing hard between her legs. She pulled away from the kiss, resting her forehead against his to catch her breath for a moment, then kissed him on his cheek before moving lower, tracing a path down his jawline and neck. She paused to pull his shirt aside so that she could continue moving lower, nipping at his collarbone before moving to press kisses along the scars over his heart.
Leif reached down and grabbed Brigid’s legs, pulling them in to squeeze around his hips, then wrapped his arms around her back, pulling her body firmly against his. A moment later, he had rolled them both over, so that Brigid found herself suddenly on her back on the hard ground, staring up at the bright stars peeping through the tree canopy above them. Leif’s hands explored her body, working their way down from her open bodice to under her skirts, where they roamed her bare thighs. He found the heat and wetness between her open legs, and she bit back a moan as his calloused fingers probed her there. She grabbed the front of his shirt in her fists and pulled him down into another rough kiss. His teeth scraped over the fresh split in her lip, and she responded by biting his lower lip and tugging on it as they pulled apart. His eyes sparkled with some combination of laughter and something more mischievous as he kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, her cheek, and the corner of her mouth, then down her jaw and neck. She gasped as he bit down where her neck met her shoulder, sucking on the skin hard enough to bruise. One of her hands found its way to the back of his neck, and she tugged out the tie that kept his hair back, tangling her fingers through his curls once they were freed.
She was so preoccupied with everything else going on that she almost didn’t notice Leif slide his finger into her—almost. When he added a second, it was like everything else was gone, and all she could feel was his hand between her legs, fingers curling inside her, hitting all the right places to make her moan and arch her back and grab a fistful of his hair, tugging harder than she exactly meant to.
Leif spared a glance back towards the campsite. The bundle of blankets that was Harald and Sveinn was just barely visible as a silhouette in the firelight. He saw no sign of movement, and didn’t hear anything to indicate that either Harald or Sveinn had woken up, so he turned back to Brigid and kissed her again. He wrapped an arm behind her shoulders, cradling the back of her head and pulling her up to bury her face in his shoulder. “Quiet,” he whispered, using his other hand to line himself up with her entrance. “Ready?”
Brigid nodded. She squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her grip on Leif’s hair and shirt as he entered her. He was bigger than she had expected, and moved almost agonizingly slowly as he worked his way into her. While she knew this was to allow her to adjust to him, she almost wished that he would just hurry up and get it over with. She whimpered slightly into his shoulder, and he stroked her hair gently. “Tell me to stop.”
Brigid shook her head, biting her lip to keep further sounds from escaping. Leif pulled away and looked down at her. “If it hurts, I will stop.”
“No,” Brigid managed. “Just… slowly.”
Leif nodded, pulling her close again. Once he was fully inside of her, he stopped, holding them both in place while her body relaxed around him. His other arm settled around her hips, hand splayed across her lower back to give him more support. “Are you alright?”
Brigid nodded. “Yes,” she managed a moment later, her voice shaky. Her grip on his hair and shirt relaxed slightly as the burning stretch she had felt as he entered her faded into something far more pleasurable.
Leif began to move, slowly at first, keeping his movements small and gentle. As she grew more and more wet, he increased the speed and length of his thrusts, now sliding in and out of her easily. Brigid moaned into his shoulder, eyes watering as something built in her, below her stomach. He shifted his grip on her hips, letting them rest on the ground again, his hand settling on her thigh and gripping it firmly. Brigid released her grip on his shirt and ran her hand down his side, tugging the shirt up so she could rest her hand against his bare, warm skin.
The knot below her stomach grew taut as Leif began to lose his rhythm, panting in the frigid air. She began to whimper and gasp as the tension inside her built, before it finally burst and she cried into Leif’s shoulder, the muffled sound impossibly loud in the still night air. As she pulsed around him, Leif came, letting out a groan as he finished with a final few thrusts before he finally stilled, still clutching Brigid to him, both of them clinging to each other for dear life and warmth, bodies trembling as their breath rose in clouds of steam, both of them gasping to catch their breath.
Leif loosened his grip on Brigid and pulled out of her before rolling over, letting her lay on top of him. The heat they had created between them was beginning to abate already, and he could feel Brigid shivering on top of him, but he didn’t want to move. Eventually, the fire began to die, taking its light with it, and they reluctantly separated and climbed to their feet. Leif stopped to relace his trousers, and Brigid did the same with her bodice. Once they were collected, and with cold and exhaustion rapidly setting in, they snuck over to Harald and Sveinn, slipping under the blankets with them—and feeling oddly guilty for doing so—to settle in for the night. Leif stared up at the stars as Brigid pressed herself against him, wrapping her body around his. On his other side, Harald was snoring lightly, and Sveinn cooed in his sleep. Overhead, the stars wheeled in the dark sky. Despite the cold and discomfort he felt, he was oddly at peace. If this was their lot in life, at least for the time being, he was glad that they were together for it. Being alone would have been far worse.