WHO Godric Gryffindor & Vogg Naemsson WHERE & WHEN Early this afternoon, in the fields. WHAT Talk about weird places to wake up. RATING Low/Complete/Done in Gdocs!
He pulled the slatted wooden door closed, shutting out some of the light from the hot Mediterranean sun outside. The ship rocked gently with the waves, but there was little rest inside of his heart. He watched the retreating shoreline of Alexandria with cautious eyes, looking for any sign that something might be amiss.
Well, there was a lot that was amiss, but with luck, it would be some time until that caught up with them. He had shielded the ship from strangers’ eyes with magic, but even though he trusted his spells to hold, he could not yet relax back into the silks draped over the back of his chair.
“How long until we reach Rome?”
Godric looked up at Isobel, who stood behind his chair, her now hands resting on his shoulders. “A few days,” he replied. “and that’s with magic.”
Isobel made a thoughtful sound. “You could’ve told me about that sooner, you know,” she teased. “Imagine all the fun we could have gotten up to -- sneaking around at night, unseen, doing anything we liked...”
“How does that differ at all from what we do already?” Godric laughed.
“It would be using magic,” Isobel scoffed, rolling her eyes. “That would make it better. But... I ought to thank you again. You saved my life. You saved my sister, and my parents...”
Her voice began to fade as she spoke, and her hands were lighter and lighter on his skin until he could hardly feel them at all. He heard the trickling sound of water become louder; there was something uncomfortable pressing into the space between his shoulderblades---
Godric awoke suddenly, and within moments he had jumped to his feet. Looking down and around, he saw a stream to his side, and wet rocks where he had been lying. What happened? Had they crashed? Sank? But he saw no boat, and he was too far upstream from any body of water that could have held them. “Isobel?” he called. After some moments with no response, he tried again. “Maia?”
He was soaked to the bone, or he felt like it at least, and -- he could not feel his sword at his side when he grasped for it, and neither could he feel the mjolnir pendant at his neck that had been given to him by Saeunn’s mother. Realizing someone must have found him before he awakened and stolen those items from him, he swore to get them back, no matter what the cost. Fucking thieves.
For what could have been hours, he walked through muddy earth (much like home, he thought) until he found himself in a field that looked as though it had seen much better days. There was a lingering foul stench about it, but it was not a scent he could identify from memory. Last time he had wandered into a stranger’s field, he had met a family of Vikings who had taken him in and completely changed his world. Idly he wondered if he might be that lucky again, but more realistically, he doubted it.
“Hello? Does anyone live here?” he called out into the field.
Vogg did not want to dwell on his sickness any more than he had. He’d taken the days that the healers had forced him into, but refused to listen to anyone else who told him to take it easy. The sickness had been awful, so much so he could barely explain, and the hallucinations, seeing people from home. It was too much for him, and it made him miss home even more. But there was no time to sit and whine. Too many things had happened this week, and he had crop to tend to. He’d discovered that most of the crops had been poisoned, and Vogg’s mind attempted to come up with a solution before food became an issue in the village.
He’s been tilling the soil all morning. He wasn’t sure how the poison would affect the soil, and could only hope that tossing the topsoil would balance out the nutrients from below and allow for proper growing. Perhaps even, he could get Godolfr to help him, there had to be some spell that allowed crops to grow in at a more rapid rate (and even though he was sure it would affect the quality, he’d rather have poor tasting crops rather than have anyone starve).
He was busy with his work that he’d almost not heard the voice call out to him. He’d seen him, out of the corner of his eye, and stopped his work to wipe the sweat off his brow. He paused, he knew that figure, that man and for a second, he worried that he was imagining people again. Discarding his tool quickly, he practically ran over to his brother.
“Godric?” His eyebrows furrowed as he looked at him. He’d died, they’d grieved over him, and here he was. There was a slight smirk on his face, “Should have known you’d be back.”
“Vogg?” Whatever Godric had been expecting, running into his old friend and brother Vogg had not been on the list. He stared at the familiar face skeptically. “Back? No -- Vogg -- have you seen a ship? I was on a ship...” Trailing off, Godric looked past Vogg and around again, trying to find it. “What are you doing in Rome? Is this even Rome? Corsica? Carthage? Where is my ship? Have you seen anyone else -- a woman with dark hair, and her sister?”
If his ship had crashed and his belongings had been stolen, he would need help to get them back, and then find Isobel and her sister. It hardly even made sense that he should find his brother from the far north this far south. Suddenly, Godric pinched himself, to test if he was indeed awake, or if he was in a waking dream, imagining this entire scenario. There was simply no logic to be found here. “What is going on?”
Vogg couldn’t help but grin, Godric was here. He’d forgotten his time, it’d seem, but he was back. Godolfr would be thrilled--and then of course it occurred to him that he would not know of his own son, and his lips twitched slightly. “There is much to discuss,” He said softly after a moment, gesturing for Godric to follow him over to a small cooler he’d had set under a tree.
“It seems like a good time to break for lunch.” He said, pulling it open, gesturing for Godric to take any of the food he desired as he pulled out a bottle of water, and settling at the base of it’s tree. “Many things here, Godric, will make no sense to you. Many people know you, and know you well, because either they were here before or because they are familiar with you in your future. Yes, the future. There are men and women here from as far as the 21st century, and their customs are strange, but their technology is glorious.” Vogg was grinning now, “I have been here since January, it is now late in the eighth month. You’ve showed me my way here, because you were here before, and I will do the same for you if you’d like.”
Godric watched Vogg move about and explain things -- or rather, he heard the words that Vogg said, but he did not understand the point, and any significance they were supposed to have had flew right past him. “No, wait.” he interrupted. “Where is here? Where is my ship? My friends were on it, and we--hey!” he followed after Vogg in frustration, but he could not sit with him or even think about food or drink -- and in such an odd flask, it was -- until he had solid answers. Indeed, Godric had a one-track mind in some circumstances. “If this is not Uppsala, what are you doing here? Answer me. Please.”
He could still not believe that this was not some odd sort of dream. “I must be asleep. This is too strange to be real.”
“Your friends are safely where you left them just some time ago. Just like I am still at home in Uppsala, like Rowena and Salazar still at Hogwarts, or the Duke Ravenclaw in his estate, but we are all still here. Two places at once, the strange impossibilities of magic.” Vogg shrugged a little, “This town is made of some powerful magic that I don’t understand, by a boy fleeing death and his twin. We are both home, and here. You are with your friend and her sister, you are on your boat. And you are here.” He shrugged.
“I… know that it is strange, but that is how this place is. It is strange. A man could die here in his forties and come back in his twenties. We all come from different years, I myself come from 977. And in my real life, I never leave my home at Uppsala, and yet here I am.”
Even though he knew that Vogg had encountered magic before (much to his own cause, he reminded himself blithely), Godric could not quite get over the perplexity of his Muggle brother explaining a circumstance of magic to him. It was not that he didn’t trust Vogg to tell him the truth -- it was that he did not understand what was being presented to him as the truth. “That’s not possible,” Godric protested. “I’ve never -- that isn’t -- that was ten years ago. I do not understand.” Then something hit him. “You said I was here? I have come back? How could I have been here, left, and returned, if I have no memory of this place? When was I here? Why did I leave? And where is my sword?”
He paced still, trying to put all of his questions into words that would make any sort of sense. “And this boy and his twin -- who are they? What do they want from us?”
“It was not ten years ago for me, merely a handful of months.” Vogg said matter-of-factly, as he began to chew at an apple. “I cannot begin to discuss the logistics of the magic with you, nor debate its likely hood, that is a job for Salazar or Rowena, all I can tell you is what I know.”
“The Weasley twins, the men who run this place, they seem to want nothing in return. Though occasionally they seek your counsel. Something about being in your house at school, I believe, but they respect you greatly. No one comes or goes willingly from this place, and honestly, we thought you were dead and …” Vogg frowned again. “Everyone will be glad to see you again. Though there are some important things to discuss before you go back into town.”
This was going to be the hardest part to discuss, the fact that Godric had lived several years without knowing of his son. “There is a boy here, a man really, but he is yours Godric. He is a child between you and my sister, Saeunn. He was born many months after you left Uppsala, and while you meet in the future, it is not until much later in your life. His name is Godolfr. He is here now though, and… if you’re going to deny him, because you cannot yet wrap your head around it, I would rather you not speak to him at all.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Godric held out a hand to Vogg, signaling for him to pause in his explanation for a moment. “What you are telling me is that not only do you know Salazar and Rowena -- both of whom I met after leaving Uppsala with my sister -- but that --- the school? What, Hogwarts? We have not even built it yet, we have only thought of it --- its inception has been delayed on my part, because --- my friend in Cairo --- you thought I was dead? Why would I be dead?” His mind was rushing trying to keep up with the information being laid down upon him. “I’ll --- I’ll ask Rowena. She’s --- skilled at explaining things. She is here? Are we all here? Do you know of Helga, and Helena? Either of Salazar’s children?”
It was the mention of Saeunn and a son that put a hold on his rambling, and he froze mid-pace with his hands in front of his face to stop and peer over at Vogg. “What?” Something about that bit of knowledge made him pause. It had been some twelve years since he had seen Saeunn, but he’d never heard anything about a son. “Wait. Wait. I have a son?” He had never thought about a son before; long had he watched Salazar’s family grow and longer had he kept private any envy that he, too, wanted a family of his own. He did not know what he felt. “How? No, I mean --- I mean, why do I not know this already? Why did you or Ragnar not tell me? I...” The idea was strange to him, as was everything else in that Vogg was telling him, but it was somehow exciting at the same time, but the smile fell from his face a bit when it dawned on him that he had a son who had grown into a man and he had not been there for any of it. “I need a minute.” And a minute he took, to mutter something incomprehensible under his breath in his own language, instead of the Norse he had been using just now with Vogg.
“Does -- does he like me? How old is he? What does he look like?” Then, more seriously, “Does he have magic? Is he happy?” Strained though his relationship with his own father might have been, Godric had nonetheless learned a few things upon his old man’s death. He had no idea how to be a father. He had no idea what to say or do at all, but -- “Can I meet him? Should I.. wait? No, I do not want to wait. I have known the others for years, they can wait some time yet,” Godric insisted.
“Yes. I’ve met them here, people who I would likely never meet. Salazar, Rowena and her husband Edwyn, their daughter Helena. Lady Helga who is quite the master at honey cakes, and Salazar’s daughter… she’s here just recent, Ava I believe? They are all here, and they will look forward to seeing you I’m sure.” He grinned, there were very few people he was sure, who wouldn’t be happy to see him. Godric had always had that way about him.
“We tried.” He said with a bit of a sigh. “We had made plans to ride out after you, to bring you back or something, but Saeunn forbid it, threatened to follow us carrying child and all if we’d tried to leave. But the boy finds you in his own time.” Vogg couldn’t help to be a little proud of that fact, of the person his nephew had grown to become.
“He’s a brilliant man.” Vogg assured him with a nod, “And you are nearly infallible in his eyes, though he is the single most stubborn child I’ve ever dealt with. He’s definitely got your looks, and your travel lust. Luckily, he handles his sword like I—speaking of which, I believe he’s in possession of yours—and yes, wields a wand. And is about as happy as any other man. You have a good thing here, you’ll see.”
Vogg finished his apple and tossed away the core, “Yeah, I’ll take you to meet him if you want. He’ll be happy to see you.”
Godric brought his eyebrows together in momentary confusion. “Edwyn Ravenclaw? Thought he was dead. Illness, or something similar.” He didn’t say this with malice or even any real sentiment other than surprise, as he had remembered being told that fact not too long ago, but -- “Well. Given the circumstances.” Chewing on his lip as he listened to Vogg speak about his son -- Godolfr -- he made up his mind that he would meet him, and they would go on from there. He chuckled lightly. “Can’t be more stubborn than I am,” but there was still that lingering sense of discomfort that maybe he was not able to be the father Godolfr wanted or needed at this age, and that he had not been there to raise his own son. Still, damn if he was not going to try.
“Why did she forbid it? We would’ve come back... I would’ve come back. Whatever pursuers were left, to hell with them.” Though he spoke these words, Godric knew in his heart that he loved the life he had had for the past twelve years. And he would have gone back, had he known, had word reached him -- some way or other. He still did not know how to feel. Now that he had lived this life, it would have been difficult to surrender it, but had he not wanted a family with Saeunn? It tore at him, but in the end, he knew that his loyalty and sense of honor would have brought him back to Uppsala, adventures or not.
The question of where exactly here was still nagged at him, though, and though he knew Vogg could only tell him so much, that did not stop him from nearly overflowing with questions. “So... when you say that I am here, but I am also back home... bah.” No, there was no way he would be able to understand it all, or even accept it all in one day, even though he trusted Vogg to tell him the truth. Godric needed a better understanding of it, and if Rowena was here, then he knew that understanding would come from her.
“Vogg, you did not tell me -- the part where you thought I was dead?”
“Ah yes, I’d heard a bit about that, for he arrived near the time I did. But he was brought from a time before the illness had taken him so completely. You’ll find many now, in a similar boat. Children taken from some war, my Jasper amongst them, and one of the rulers… the youngest one now, and the entire Potter family I believe was killed by other wizards. Most were saved when brought here, sick and wounded ith the modern medicine here things that once claimed the mightiest warriors seems to have a cure now. And what with magic!” Vogg laughed then, rather loudly, always amused and fascinated with the force he did not quite understand. From his chest then, he pulled a sandwich, and another bottle of water before tossing them at his brother. “Sit with me.”
Vogg sat in a slight silence for some moments, he knew exactly why his sister had not wanted to tell Godric, and while he would never say he quite agreed, he always understood it. “Godric, there are some people who are not meant to stay in one place for too long. You and Alfarrin and Godolfr, people so unlike my sister and I. You would come back, yes, but what life would that be for you? Practically a kiss of death, you were meant for adventure, meant for all the fame and glory you supposedly recieve, and to start your school. Godric, you trigger an effect that changes the world. You have a Chocolate Frog card... which I’ve been told is a pretty big deal.” Vogg smirked again. “She did not want to be the reason you gave that all up, your entire life, to be a burden.”
Vogg looked for another item in his box to snack on, finding a cookie. “And yes, your boy has all of your stubbornness, with Saeunn’s spirit. It’s the worst and best combination.”
It was then that he thought to look elsewhere, to the field in front of him as he spoke. “This... was once crop that stood as tall as I’d ever seen on our farm in Uppsala. I was actually fairly proud of the work I’d done here. But some sort of... beasts attacked the town. Poisoned the ground, made people sick. Many were injured. Several dead... but you... you fell from such a height. We weren’t sure what would happen. You protected a girl when the castle was attacked, and she brought forth the news, and your necklace to Godolfr.”
Godric caught the food and drink that was tossed to him, though he was still buzzing with too many questions and a general sense of discomfort that made him want to continue standing, to allow a freer range of motion. If he did sit down, he was back up standing again before he finished his first sentence. “Jasper?” He questioned, for he did not know if Vogg was married yet, but he did not remember him being in the process of it last time they had seen each other. But as Vogg talked about how Godric was not meant to stay in one place, one word caught his attention, and it made him feel a little dirty inside. “A burden,” he repeated in disbelief. “How could...” Godric shook his head. “How is she? Saeunn? Is she -- happy? Is she here?” Not often did he feel overwhelmed, but it was beginning to feel this way right now as he picked at the sandwich. He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t thirsty.
Staring at the ground, Godric listened to Vogg speak about his death. This was the part that seemed so impossible to him: Not that he had a son, not that Vogg and the other three and their children were somehow in the same place at the same time (though the part of Godric’s brain that preferred things to be compartmentalized was still sorting that bit out), but that he had been here, in this place he could not explain, and he had -- died? “I don’t understand,” he said simply, for it was that inconceivable to him. Idly he reached up to his neck where his pendant had hung and he felt naked without it, for he had worn it for over ten years by now. “though that...”
“The school -- it...” but he could hardly think about that too right now, though that was one of the more conceivable things. No, he knew Hogwarts was going to change the world, but whatever significance a Chocolate Frog card had or what it meant, he did not know, and he would likely make an inquiry later, but he was still stuck on some very important questions.
Making a frustrated sound, Godric tossed his hands up in the air. “Enough,” he said, though it was almost more like a command to himself than anything else. “I cannot think any more of this. Not until I speak with Rowena, at least.... Thank you,” he mumbled to Vogg, even if his mind was still too strung up in confusion to have everything Vogg had said sink in.
“So... If I am to be here,” he said, trying to change the topic of conversation towards something more familiar, something he could understand better. “what should I know? What should I expect?”
Vogg nodded slightly when Godric asked him about Jasper. “You’ll like him, he’s a good kid, or well, a man now. He was fifteen when I first met him, and has since put on some years due to... a hiccup in the magic. He has had a hard time in his life, but I have taken it upon myself to look out for him.” He enjoyed spending time with Jasper, and it showed in the way that he spoken about him.
“It’s not meant to offense,” Vogg said with a shrug, “She just didn’t want to keep you from the life you were meant to have.” He paused again, thinking of Bee. “That... is a complicated answer. No, Saeunn is not here. However, there is a girl, Bridget of the future, who has lived sometime in Uppsala... she looks like my sister, and speaks like her. They are like mirrors of each other, but they are not the same person, Godric. If you only hear one thing I say, is that she is not Saeunn and you cannot expect her to be.”
Vogg struggled to keep with Godric’s questions, and how quickly they came at him. He was about to attempt to explain it all again, when Godric had finally had enough. He sat then, thinking of the things that he thought that Godric would like to know.
“You’re a legend to many of the people here, especially those who lived in your house at the school. You’re quite popular here. Maybe people are from the future, and have all sorts of gadgets and things, Camrons that take portraits in seconds, and one person had a little magic square in which he attacks buildings with birds. It’s all quite amusing here.”
Godric was quiet for long moments when Vogg explained to him the girl who looked like Sæunn. The thought was unsettling somehow, but Vogg was his brother, and he had no reason to lie to him. "I don't understand, but I will trust your words." And in that moment he began separating the things he felt for Sæunn from the image of her face that was now at the forefront of his mind. She was beautiful, yes; but it was her heart that he loved, and it was her heart to which he would remain loyal in his own, as he always had.
"A legend?" He asked, a mischievous grin spreading instantly to his face. He was well-known around the world already as a skilled duelist, but that his name lived on into the future, even so far through the centuries, brought him a sense of accomplishment. He had always wanted to matter to more than just himself. "Tell me more."
Vogg couldn’t help but roll his eyes. That smirk, Odin help him, Vogg remembered that smirk, and how much trouble always accompanied that smirk. In that moment it simply reminded him how glad he was that his brother was back. Vogg answered with a grin of his own however, and after a moment stood, and patted Godric on the shoulder.
“You’d think you were Mímir himself coming to explain the strange meanings of the universe around us, with the way they hang on your every word.” He loved his brother, but sometimes the way the villagers talked of Godric was sometimes was unbelievable.
“We can head back into the town and you’ll see it for yourself.” He grinned a little bit then, and started to move when he very suddenly remembered something and his face lit up a little bit. From his pocket, Vogg pulled a silver cloak clasp, and proudly presented it to his friend. “Look! Proof you were here before!”
Godric had been about to comment on his alleged notoriety when Vogg suddenly held out his silver cloak clasp -- the one that had been given to him by Ceadda when he was a child, upon his departure from his village. “How in the seven hells did you get this here?” He took it from Vogg’s hand and examined it: Yes, this was the clasp precisely, and he reached into his pocket where he had been keeping it -- one did not wear heavy English winter cloaks in the Egyptian summer -- to find it was, indeed, missing. Had he dropped it somewhere? Was this a trick? No, but this was too far extended to be a simple prank, even for Vogg.
Another deluge of questions regarding this village and what it was and how it was bubbled up inside him, but he would ask Rowena later, he reminded himself. “Is there some sort of inn? I could use a drink. Perhaps more than one, if I am going to try and understand all of this tonight.” Looking out at the rest of the field, he added, “I am still not sure if this is some strange dream. I awoke on the shore of a river with stones pressing into my back. Above me there was a cliff, and the ruin of some building, and now you are here, giving me this clasp, and telling me all of these things.” With a detached sort of laugh, Godric shook his head. “Well, you are right; I will see it for myself soon, one way or the other. Let us go into town. But… you will need to lead the way.”
Vogg’s lips turned downward briefly. The rocks under the cliff near the greenhouse. It had been the spot in which Godric had died. He hadn’t found his friends body, no, but he’d found the items there, the sword and the clasp. Instead, he only nodded.
“Yes. That is where I found this, and the sword. Nearly a week ago.” Vogg said firmly. There was no need to remember then that his friend had died, not when he was so clearly alive in front of him. Instead, he plodded along the way, gesturing for Godric to follow him. “Into town, yes. The others will likely want to see you, and they can explain things better than I can.”