After dinner, as agreed.
Bj?rn cleared the table with the same unglamorous efficiency he applied to everything — three trips, no wasted motion — then laid the weapons across the scarred wood like he was dealing cards.
Axe on the left. Seax in the middle. Spear-head and shield strap beside it. Practice sword on the right.
Eirik blinked. “That is more than three.”
Bj?rn didn’t look up. “You’re old enough to be disappointed properly.”
Sigrid, passing with the wash basin, arched a brow at the spread. “Don’t break my table.”
“I won’t,” Bj?rn said.
“You say that every time.” She leaned down, kissed Eirik’s hair, and added softly, for only him: “Try not to break your wrists either.”
Then she left them to it.
· · · ? · · ·
“Most men here,” Bj?rn said, tapping the axe head with two fingers, “don’t carry swords.”
Eirik glanced toward the practice sword. “But you do.”
Bj?rn’s mouth twitched like it wanted to do something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I know how,” he said, and in the way he said it was a whole second meaning: I know more than I’m saying.
He pointed at the axe. “This is Járnvik. This is the fjord-country. Wood, bone, iron you can make and mend. An axe belongs to a man even when he’s not fighting.”
Then the spear-head. “This is a settlement’s weapon. Cheap to make. Easy to teach. One good spear line beats five brave men with pretty blades.”
Then the shield strap. “And this keeps you alive long enough to learn anything else.”
Eirik reached for the practice sword anyway, because he was Eirik and that was what he did.
Bj?rn caught his wrist — not hard, just stopping him.
“Order matters,” Bj?rn said.
Eirik sighed with great suffering, because he was six and drama was an important part of discipline. “Fine.”
Bj?rn released him. “Axe first.”
· · · ? · · ·
The axe felt like truth.
Not poetic truth. Practical truth. A weight that wanted to fall, a head that wanted to bite, a tool that didn’t pretend to be anything else.
Bj?rn handed it to him handle-first, balanced. Eirik took it and immediately felt how the weapon told you what kind of person it wanted: someone who committed. Someone who didn’t second-guess mid-swing.
Bj?rn walked him through the basics — stance, hip turn, the recovery arc so you didn’t finish open like a gift-wrapped idiot.
Eirik performed the motions cleanly.
And felt… nothing.
Not dislike. Not dislike at all. The axe made perfect sense.
But it wasn’t talking to him. It was just a job.
He handed it back without being asked.
Bj?rn took it with a small nod that meant you’re paying attention.
“Seax,” Bj?rn said, and offered the long knife.
This was more interesting.
The seax lived on economy. A weapon for cramped spaces, for sudden violence, for men who knew the world could collapse into arm’s length without warning. It asked for precision and nerve, for the ability to step inside danger instead of away from it.
Eirik moved through the first patterns and felt the appeal like a well-built mechanism: clean geometry, no wasted motion, everything having a reason.
He also felt the part of it that didn’t fit.
It wanted him small. Tight. Always close. Always inside someone’s breath.
He could do that.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to become it.
Bj?rn watched his grip, his shoulders, the way his weight settled.
“That suits you more than the axe,” Bj?rn said.
“I know,” Eirik admitted. “Which is annoying.”
“Why annoying?”
Eirik searched for the right shape of it. “Because I can see exactly what it would take,” he said, “and seeing it isn’t making me excited.”
Bj?rn made a quiet sound that was not quite approval and not quite amusement. “Good. That’s honest.”
He took the seax back.
Then — as if he was delaying the moment on purpose — Bj?rn picked up the spear-head, fitted it to a practice haft that leaned by the door, and handed the spear over.
Eirik’s eyes widened despite himself. “Oh.”
Bj?rn’s mouth finally did become a smile, just slightly. “Yes. Oh.”
The spear made immediate sense in a different way than the axe did.
It was distance. It was line and timing. It was refusing to let someone get close enough to make bravery matter. It was the weapon of settlements and warbands and men who couldn’t afford to lose.
Eirik tested the grip, felt how the leverage asked for whole-body control, not arm strength. He moved through the simplest thrust patterns.
The spear answered him cleanly.
It wasn’t his— but it was good.
Bj?rn watched him for a long moment. “If you lived and died in this valley,” Bj?rn said quietly, “you’d likely end up with that.”
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Eirik looked up. “But I’m not going to.”
Bj?rn didn’t answer.
Which was an answer.
He took the spear back and set it aside.
Then he slid the shield strap forward and handed Eirik a light training shield.
Eirik took it, braced, and immediately understood why every sensible person here loved shields like family.
It forgave mistakes. It turned panic into survival. It made a small boy feel… less small.
Bj?rn stepped in and tapped the rim. “This is why swords aren’t popular here. A sword wants room and timing and clean hands. A shield lets a farmer live through a bad day.”
Eirik raised an eyebrow. “Swords sound needy.”
Bj?rn’s mouth twitched. “They are.”
Then, finally, Bj?rn nodded toward the practice sword.
“Sword,” he said.
· · · ? · · ·
The practice sword was old and honest about it.
Dulled edge, worn grip-wrap, a small crack in the wood near the pommel that someone had sanded smooth rather than truly repairing. It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t try to be.
Eirik picked it up and immediately felt the strange contradiction: heavier than he expected and lighter than he expected at the same time — because the balance was doing work. Someone had put thought into where the weight should live.
He held it.
And the sword asked him a question.
Not in words. Not in a way he could explain without sounding like he’d been dropped on his head.
It was more like a pressure in the shape of Are you going to grow into this or not?
It wanted both hands. It wanted him taller. It wanted him further along than he was.
Not not enough.
Just… not yet.
Eirik adjusted his grip twice, then found the place where it settled.
He set his feet.
Breathed.
Let his ?nd drop to the earth the way Bj?rn had hammered into his bones.
Then he moved through the first pattern.
It was harder than the axe. Harder than the seax. Harder than the spear, in a different way.
Because the sword didn’t let you bully it.
You couldn’t strong-arm it. You couldn’t cheat with cleverness. You couldn’t treat it like a tool.
It demanded partnership: your whole body, your full attention, your weight committed into each motion. It demanded that your stance be true and your hips honest and your recovery clean.
By the second pattern, he understood why Bj?rn had waited.
Foundation first. Unarmed first. Years of building the body’s language before handing him an object that spoke in sentences instead of single words.
Without that groundwork, you just swung a sword.
With it… you could at least begin to talk back.
By the third pattern, Eirik was sweating in a way that had nothing to do with exertion.
It was the sweat of focus. Of being seen.
Bj?rn stopped him with two fingers on the blade flat.
Silence held for a moment.
Bj?rn’s face wasn’t pride. Not quite.
It was something older.
Something that made Eirik’s stomach tighten a little, because he suddenly realized: Bj?rn hadn’t been wondering what would happen.
He’d been waiting for it.
“There it is,” Bj?rn said.
Three words.
And the way he said them made Eirik understand this wasn’t the beginning of the conversation — it was the moment the conversation had been organized around.
Eirik swallowed. “How long?”
Bj?rn’s gaze sharpened. “Until what?”
“Until I’m what it’s asking for.”
Bj?rn considered him with that brutal, clean honesty he saved for things that mattered. “Longer than you want at the start,” he said, “and shorter than you’ll believe once you’re moving.”
He took the sword gently, like it was not just a training tool but a promise. “Swords don’t have a ceiling,” Bj?rn added. “Which is why most people here don’t bother. Axe and spear get you home. Sword asks you to leave home behind.”
Eirik looked up, trying to catch the implication and also trying not to look like he was trying.
Bj?rn met his eyes and, just for a breath, something slipped through the cracks — something that didn’t belong to fjord-country or settlement life.
A man who had seen a different kind of world.
Then it was gone again, and Bj?rn was simply Bj?rn, putting weapons away.
“Tomorrow,” Bj?rn said. “We start integrating. Sword with feet. Sword with breath. Sword with shield.”
Eirik nodded. “So… more suffering.”
Bj?rn looked mildly offended. “More work.”
Eirik sighed, deeply, as if the world had wronged him. “Tragic.”
Bj?rn made a sound that might have been a laugh if he’d been a different kind of man.
· · · ? · · ·
The Greywater pair were still there the next morning.
Sigvald had, by Eirik’s best estimate, become Leif’s captive audience permanently. Leif was explaining something about beetles with the solemn authority of a scholar. Sigvald was nodding like the beetle’s opinion mattered.
Halvard came to the yard alone.
He brought his own sword — newer, better wrapped, from a maker who knew their craft — and stood at the edge with a look that tried to be casual and failed.
Eirik was already running his basic pattern, because if you were going to be stared at, you might as well earn it.
“You got a weapon,” Halvard said.
“Practice sword,” Eirik said. “First day.”
Halvard paused. “Show me.”
Not a challenge. Not prove it.
Just show me.
Eirik ran the pattern again. Cleaner than yesterday. Still young. Still raw. Still very much in the early mud of it.
Halvard watched in silence, then said the kind of thing boys said when they wanted to sound older than they were. “Your footwork is better than your sword work.”
Eirik looked at him. “I hope so. I’ve had feet longer.”
Astrid, from the yard edge, laughed outright.
Halvard flushed and then, to his credit, grinned back like he’d been hit clean and knew it.
He stepped into the yard and ran his own pattern.
It was more advanced than Eirik’s — smoother transitions, cleaner angles, years of repetition showing. Weapon-first training. Good training.
And Eirik could see the gaps too — not because Halvard was bad, but because the foundation had grown around the sword instead of under it.
Halvard finished and looked at Eirik like he was waiting for judgment.
Eirik didn’t offer judgment.
He offered information.
“Try setting your rear foot a little more open on the third transition,” Eirik said. “You’re pinching your hips there.”
Halvard’s chin lifted. Defensive. Then he hesitated — because he had actually felt that pinch.
He adjusted.
Ran it again.
The transition smoothed.
Halvard stopped and stared at his own feet like they’d betrayed him.
“Hm,” he said.
Astrid leaned toward Leif and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, “He made the sound my dad makes when he realizes he did something wrong.”
Leif whispered back even louder, “That means it’s working.”
Halvard ignored them, which was also working.
They drilled in parallel for an hour. Not together. Not sparring.
Just two boys doing the work side by side, learning without needing to admit they were learning.
It wasn’t friendship.
Not yet.
But it was something better than posturing.
It was seriousness recognizing seriousness.
· · · ? · · ·
Bj?rn said nothing until late afternoon, during the stretching routine he had adopted months ago and still refused to acknowledge existed.
“The Greywater boy,” Bj?rn said.
“Halvard,” Eirik corrected.
“He came to see if you were real,” Bj?rn said, rolling his shoulder through a slow rotation.
Eirik didn’t deny it.
Bj?rn continued, voice even. “Most in his position test once and decide. He came back and worked. That’s worth noting.”
“He tried the footwork.”
“I saw.” Bj?rn paused. “Whether it survives going home is another matter. People revert when their world reverts.”
Eirik thought about Halvard’s “hm.” About the way he’d actually adjusted instead of pretending. “Maybe,” Eirik said. “He’s at least genuinely curious.”
Bj?rn nodded once. “Curiosity with teeth becomes skill. Curiosity without it becomes gossip.”
He stood, done. “And you,” he added, turning slightly, “stop trying to impress people by suffering harder.”
Eirik blinked, scandalized. “I would never.”
Bj?rn’s eyes narrowed in the mildest possible way. “You would.”
Eirik tried to look innocent and failed.
Bj?rn went inside.
The compliment was in there somewhere, wrapped in warning like that was his love language.
· · · ? · · ·
Eirik stayed in the yard after everyone else had gone in, long enough for the light to thin and the post’s shadow to stretch across the packed earth.
He picked up the practice sword again.
Not to drill.
Just to hold it. To let the weight settle into his hands. To let his body learn the feel of it without rushing to use it.
The sword asked its question.
He held the question without answering.
That felt like progress.
Then he set it carefully against the post and went inside.
Rí was in the middle of a passionate argument about why she deserved the entire bread crust.
Sigrid was listening like a judge who already knew the verdict.
Bj?rn was pretending he wasn’t smiling.
Eirik sat down, took his half of the bread crust, and said solemnly, “I support your case.”
Rí pointed at him triumphantly. “See!”
Sigrid gave Eirik a look that promised consequences later.
Eirik ate his bread crust and thought, briefly, about swords and spears and axes — about a world where most men carried what they could mend, and about his father, who carried knowledge that didn’t quite belong to this fjord.
Tomorrow the sword would still be waiting.
That was fine.
So was he.
· · · ? · · ·
? Congratulations! ?
? Rúna Acquired: Blade Sense (Lv. 1) ?
Blade Sense (Lv. 1) — [Grár | Common]
You can feel balance, edge alignment, and “intent” in a blade’s movement — not as a thought, but as a bodily knowing.
Lv. 1 means the conversation has begun.
It does not mean you’re good. It means you’re listening.
S?fnun gained.
The Wyrd notes: swords are not common here for good reasons.
You are, apparently, not common either.