a dream where the fallout lies {Beowulf}

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It had recently occurred to Sunny that maybe she shouldn't always rely on her teeth and cunning to get her out of certain situations. Her teeth had been very useful when she'd been younger...when they'd been sharper and extraordinarily strong, but now she had almost normal teeth. She liked to chew on things still, and she liked to pretend to be a dinosaur, but she was coming to the conclusion that maybe gnashing her teeth just wasn't going to cut it as a means of self-defense anymore.

Having reached that conclusion, she decided that she had two options. Three, really, but the third one involved writing her brother and sister and asking them to bring her home where she wouldn't have to worry about evil foes anymore. Anyway, the other two options, the more viable ones, were either a. finding a bodyguard, or b. finding someone to teach her how to defend herself.

She contemplated the matter over a batch of brownies, some really delightful ones from a recipe she'd made herself that included caramel and marshmallows inside a lovely fudgey brownie base, and just as the brownies were cooling, she came up with an idea.

Beowulf. The one who'd saved her from whatever had been chasing her in that awful alleyway before. Maybe he could teach her all those...Viking warrior skills and everything. Maybe brownies were a good enough trade. Did Vikings eat brownies? For an instant, she wished she'd put something more Viking-y in them, like...goat cheese, or maybe some kind of meat roasted on a spit. But the brownies were done now, and she thought they smelled rather lovely, so she wrapped up half of the batch on a paper plate, grabbed her sweater, and headed out of the kitchen.

After a lot of really confusing directions from some people who couldn't seem to figure out why she was lurking behind potted plants in the boys' dorm, she finally located his door. And then, being Sunny and having a set of rather peculiar tendencies, she set the plate of brownies down in front of the door, knocked three times with one small fist, then darted behind the nearest potted plant and hid there, waiting for him to open the door.

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Beowulf was in his room. He’d been in his room all day, except to eat. He’d gone and eaten, but the food here was not what he was used to. He hardly knew if it was edible. Was it strange that so much of his life he had spent hating eating a diet of mostly fish and then finding himself missing it? He was rather disturbed by the lack of fish here. Instead there was all this other food that looked and smelled different. He really only ate it because he was hungry. Not because he was oddly fascinated by it. Of course not.

Anyway, he was sitting in his room. It was mostly out of habit. He had been hiding out most of his life in the comfort and safety of the indoors. His peers had called him meek and quiet because he wasn’t as aggressive as the other boys. But he’d show them who the meek one was. When Geatland was called into battle, he, Beowulf, would fight and conquer the enemy. Then they’d see who the meek one was.

He grabbed his battle axe, fondly named Hel, from where he’d left it by the door and began to clean it. It didn’t really need to be cleaned, but it could use the polish. It was the second best weapon he owned, only outranked by his spear, which was also leaning by the door. But Beowulf preferred the axe. You had to be much more precise to kill a man in one stroke. If you threw a spear hard enough into the line of oncoming enemies it would hit someone and the chances were high that the man would be severely injured. The axe was a much different story.

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts and the polishing of the axe that he was surprised when he heard a knock on the door. It took him a moment to realize that someone had knocked on his door. No one knocked on his door because Beowulf had made it perfectly clear to people that he did not wish to be bothered. A bit grumpily he put his beloved Hel aside and went to answer the door. And when he opened it no one was there.

He looked around to see if there was anyone around, but there wasn’t. And then he saw the plate in front of his door so he picked it up. Whatever was on the plate smelled good, but different. But it was odd that someone would just leave him food. Beowulf was quite sure he had no friends, but a couple of enemies. Would they try and poison him with small brown cakish-looking squares? It was a difficult question. But instead of trying to answer it, he poked the brownies. Had to make sure there wasn’t anything in them that seemed poisonous or otherwise bad for his health.

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She waited for a moment to make sure he was going to come out of the room - it was entirely possible, after all, that someone might have given her the wrong room number, and an agent of Olaf could be waiting in the room. It could all be a trap. When she finally saw Beowulf come out of the room himself and pick up the brownies, she moved out from behind the potted plant (why was there a potted plant there, anyway? Boys rarely cared about potted greenery).

"Brownies!" she announced, matter-of-factly. That should have been obvious, but he was looking a little worried by them, and to be honest, she couldn't blame him. If somebody had left brownies outside her door, she probably would have assumed they were sent from Olaf and had them screened for toxins. Or just thrown them away. So maybe she shouldn't really judge him for wondering why there were brownies on the ground outside his door.

"I brought them for you-u," she said, her voice wobbling slightly there at the end of the sentence (she still faltered a little whne it came to speaking in complete sentences). "Rescued." She took a deep breath and jammed her hands into the pockets of her sweater, fiercely wishing she could think of more than a string of one-word explanations as to why she was standing here.

"Proposition." she finally added. "Business proposition, I have one."

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Beowulf looked up in surprise as Sunny popped out from behind a plant. That was odd, mostly because he didn’t recall ever seeing the plant before. Something about Sunny didn’t really surprise him too much that she was popping out from behind plants that he didn’t know was there to begin with. But what she said surprised him. Brownies. These cakeish-looking brown squares were called brownies. And apparently she had made them for him.

He hadn’t expected to be brought brownies for looking out for Sunny. That was just what he did. He expected no rewards. Oddly, he found that he was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected gift. Though he was very careful not to let it show. He did not approve of emotion. At all. So he merely nodded once. “Thank you.”

But this was interesting. She had a business proposition. He waved her into his room and shut the door behind her. Beowulf quickly grabbed Hel, the axe, and propped her back up by the door with the rest of his weapons; his sword and his spear and his hunting knife. Then he gestured towards the chair, silently inviting Sunny to sit. He himself sat on the trunk at the foot of his bed. Then he looked expectantly at Sunny, waiting for this proposition.

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For some reason, she was worried that he might throw the brownies on the floor and stomp on them, or do something else violent and viking-like to them. She was pleasantly surprised when he appeared to accept the offering, and invited her in. As she stepped through the door, she was intrigued by the weapons he had by the entry. Not surprised that he had weapons - she would have hoped for and expected as much from the person she was hoping might be her protector, but they were very interesting weapons, and she cast them a fascinated glance as she moved towards the chair he indicated.

It hadn't occurred to her up until now that in order to communicate her request to him, she was going to have to use a whole lot more than just a couple sentences roughly strung together. She was going to have to come up with an entire conversation here, and while she'd done it before, she immediately wished she'd written a script or something.

She laced her fingers together, then pulled them apart, and repeated the action a couple times while she tried to put her thoughts into words.

"You saved me," she began (stating facts was easier). "And...I need saving sometimes." That sounded silly even to her, and obviously he already knew it - he'd been there for one of those times, as she'd just said. "Because there are people looking for me. Bad people. Chasing me. Brother, sister, me, always, since I was..." She held her palm out, flat, approximately a foot from the floor in an indication of her own size at the time her problems had begun. "Because of the money."

She paused, chewing on her lip and glancing over at him, trying to determine whether he was following this.

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Beowulf saw the look Sunny gave his weapons and he was glad he’d polished them and kept them in fighting condition. They were the things he was most proud of. Not to mention they also showed that he was fairly well off economically. Not that that part really mattered. Beowulf only cared about how the condition in which his weapons were kept. If there was one thing he had learned from his father it was that a man should keep his weapons in fighting condition.

He watched Sunny in silence. She seemed to be trying to get her thoughts together, so he waited patiently. And when she did speak it was facts. He nodded. He knew that he had rescued her and he knew that was in trouble. She’d already told him that.

Beowulf frowned as she continued. People had been looking for her since she was a small child. That was most disturbing, in part because the pursuer was obviously relentless and wouldn’t give up. It was also disturbing because Beowulf felt somewhat responsible for Sunny and wanted to protect her. He would not take kindly to anyone harming his…something. He didn’t quite feel like he was her friend, but the gods had intended their paths to intertwine. It was Fated.

He leaned forward, intrigued by what Sunny was saying. Money was involved and that was never a good sign. It was usually a sign of greed. Beowulf knew all about what greed could do to a person. It could make someone like the King of Sweden send an army to take over Geatland and merge the two countries. The more land he had, the wealthier the wealthier the king.

Beowulf made a motion for Sunny to continue as she looked up at him. He was curious where this was going.

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He didn't talk a lot, Sunny thought. Not in a negative way, either, because she of all people could respect and appreciate the subtle things that one could intend to say without actually having the words to say them. He was listening to her...whether or not he was going to agree to her idea. She pressed on.

"Fire. In the house, and my parents were there. Inheritance, and then Olaf wanted it. So he chased us." She wasn't taking a terrible risk yet...she wanted passionately to believe that Beowulf was definitely not working for Olaf, but if he had been, he probably already would have known all this. "All over, because they wanted our money. Now...I need rescuing. Often."

She paused. This was where she had to word things carefully. She didn't want him to think she was trying to commission some kind of lifelong bodyguard service or something, but she did want him to teach her how to protect herself.

"I could give you money," she offered, tentatively. "Not a lot all at once. I get some every now and then from my sister. She's the oldest. But if you could..."

She took a deep breath.

"Could you teach me?"

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This was probably the most he had heard Sunny speak. Beowulf had done most of the talking last time they had met, but now the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak. He was sitting mostly silent, while Sunny did all the talking.

Beowulf pieced all the information together to create her story. There had been a fire and he was guessing her parents had died. They had left an inheritance and that Olaf person had been chasing after her since she was very small. Beowulf frowned even more. He didn’t like this story one bit.

And now she was offering him money. He wanted to interject, but held his tongue. It wouldn’t do to say anything now when she hadn’t finished what she wanted to say. Then she might never finish and Beowulf was curious.

He was actually surprised by Sunny. He had expected that she would ask him to protect her, not to teach her. But he respected that, especially because she was a woman. There was obviously some kind of strength in her, instead of playing the helpless female. He would have protected her either way, but this made things different. He considered what he was going to say.

“I will teach you,” he said at last, with a curt nod. “But I don’t want your money.” He didn’t need her money and he wouldn’t take it. Money wasn’t important. Her safety was important. “We’ll need to get you weapons.”

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She sincerely hoped he was piecing this together all right. She was painfully aware that her manner of speaking resembled an outline at best, instead of the coherent flow of sentences that most people were probably used to in a conversation.

Whatever he'd understood, though, it was apparently enough that he was willing to agree to teach her. Sunny felt a wave of relief, followed by another rush of gratitude, and she beamed, her characteristically oversized smile spreading across her face.

"Ypperlig!" she exclaimed (a word which here means "oh, thank goodness you don't think I'm a lunatic even though I talk like one"). "Er, thank you, very much. And if you change your mind about money..." She waved her hands a little nervously, "Offer stands."

Weapons. He'd said they needed to get her some weapons. Sunny remembered the dagger he'd given her in the alley, remembered how she'd wondered if cutting a person was anything like cutting vegetables, and how she'd decided that it most likely wasn't anywhere near the same.

"Axe?" she wondered, glancing at his. "Or sword?" She held out her arms, looking at them as if sizing them up. "Small. I mean, I'm small. So the weapons should be small too, right?"

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Beowulf watched Sunny’s reaction with interest. Her exclamation sounded vaguely like something that a Norseman would say. That was strange. She hadn’t expected Sunny to know Norse, or anything remotely like it. Maybe he would teach her something.

He merely shook his head at the offer of money. He really didn’t want it. If this Olaf man was after Sunny and her brother and sister for their money, he would not take it. Besides, teaching was not something that was paid for back in Geatland. One learned because one had to.

Beowulf sized Sunny up. He wasn’t sure what kind of weapon she would work best with. She was small, but weapons could be made smaller and lighter and they would still have the same bite as a larger weapon. Often it was the smaller weapon that made the bigger impact.


He shrugged. “Whatever you want.” He was amused though, when she looked down at her arms. She was small, yes, but that was not really a problem. Beowulf was much smaller than most of the other young men his age. It didn’t seem to matter. “Ja, smaller and lighter.” For now anyway. Once she had practiced she would have more strength and they could make the weapon heavier. It wouldn’t throw off her center of gravity too much b making it heavier. But he would have to contemplate the size of the weapon. That could not change. That would throw off everything if she upgraded to a bigger weapon. But this was doable. Very doable.

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He was right; Sunny definitely didn't know Norse. She knew words in a large number of languages, but as far as being completely fluent, she was limited to English - and a rather peculiar knowledge that was. Nobody could quite figure out where she'd picked up the unique dialect she seemed to speak.

"Thank you." She said that solemnly, making a point to meet his eyes as she did, just so he'd know how absolutely serious she was about the whole thing. She didn't know if people might come up to him all the time and ask him to teach them cool Viking things, and she definitely didn't want him thinking she was taking this lightly or just asking so she could impress people. Anyway, she didn't have anybody she wanted to impress, or she would have baked them brownies or something.

"I want to learn," she reiterated, in an equally solemn tone. "So if you're not around, I can defend myself. I think I would like an axe." Once she'd gotten that axe idea into her head, she'd suddenly formed a mental image of herself walking around with a smallish version of that axe by Beowulf's door, and it was going to be hard to shake that idea. "And I will cook things. Do you like food?"

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Beowulf had been surprised that Sunny considered his Viking ways to be ‘cool’. Many, especially the Anglo-Saxons, hated the Vikings because of their ruthlessness in battle and regard for their own lives. And they refused to abandon their gods in favor of that Christ fellow they talked about. More of these heathens. Really, the Norsemen should be making them give up their God (really, what was only one God supposed to do?) and take up the Norse gods and goddesses. Then they wouldn’t be damned to spend the afterlife with Mistress Hel. Though Beowulf wouldn’t admit it, some of the heathens were worth saving.

Beowulf nodded at Sunny. He wanted to teach her because unless he moved in with her and followed her everywhere there was a chance that he wouldn’t be able to protect her. But if anyone hurt her, they would have to deal with the young Viking. That much was for sure. “Then we will get you an axe.” Secretly he was very pleased she had chosen as axe. Hel, his own axe, was by far his favorite and to be able to share that with Sunny would be nice.

And she was going to make food. There was a saying somewhere that the way to a man’s heart was through food. That was probably the case. Beowulf admired a good cook. His own mother had been a good cook and she’d taught him a couple of things, but he would never be as good as she was. So did he like food? He was a teenage boy. That went without saying. Beowulf looked Sunny straight in the eye. He wanted her to know he was just as serious as she had been. “Yes, I like food.” Beowulf took food very seriously.

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He didn't laugh at her. He didn't tell her she was too short or to weak to handle an axe, he actually told her they were going to get her one. Sunny suddenly had a mental image of herself as a Viking warrior, swinging a little axe with her waist-length hair in braids that whirled around her as she hacked at some unknown enemy. The idea gave her the strangest surge of excitement. Olaf's agents wouldn't even want to come near her, she would be so terrifying.

"Then I will cook tremendous amounts of it!" she burst out. She was delighted that he seemed to be taking her seriously. So many people had dismissed her as a threat simply because of her eccentricities. When she was little, people had thought she wasn't a danger because she was just a baby. She was fifteen years old now, and people still seemed to think she didn't pack much of a punch.

Unfortunately, for the most part, they were right. Her teeth, which had been unnaturally sharp when she was a baby, were now just normal teeth - good strong ones, but ordinary in shape and size. She could cook, and she was pretty clever, but when it came to physical scuffles, she was at a serious disadvantage. And that was not a good thing when you were probably still being chased by agents of the crazed man who had tried to kidnap you multiples times as an infant.

All of that, then, came together to equal Sunny being very grateful that someone was taking her seriously.

"When should we start?" she asked, and realized in retrospect that she had used two complete sentences in a row. That realization caused her to brighten up a little, and she tried to control the broad smile that threatened to spread across her face.

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Beowulf’s lips twitched upwards at Sunny’s outburst. He hadn’t meant to, but there was something about her excitement that was infectious. And it was the closest thing to a smile that anyone had seen from him in a very long time.

But she was just so excited. And he was excited to, though he would never have admitted that to anyone. But Sunny wanted to learn what he might be able to teach her. He didn’t know if he’d be a good teacher, but he would try. And she was going to make him food. This could turn out to be very enjoyable. “I look forward to your food.”

Beowulf was ready to turn Sunny into a little Viking. She may not be strong yet, but soon she could be fierce. He would instill in her a love for her weapon. Perhaps not the blood thirst that the Vikings were so well known for, but Sunny didn’t seem like the bloodthirsty type.

“Whenever we get you an axe,” Beowulf answered. “You’ll have to name it. So think of names,” he instructed. It was a Viking tradition. One’s most prized possessions were given names, which gave them a soul, making them even more valuable. He was going to make a Viking out of Sunny.

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Sunny might have suppressed the goofy grin she'd been trying to avoid, but the shine in her eyes was a dead giveaway. She was excited, and when Sunny was excited, it was extremely hard for her to hide it.

He looked forward to her food. And just like that, with that single statement, she was suddenly terribly nervous about what she was going to be able to cook that would please someone who was probably used to hunting and fixing his own food in some really manly way like roasting an entire wild boar over an open fire on a stick. She had a sinking feeling that he really wasn't the kind of boy she should make a cheese quiche for.

Her worry over whether to quiche or not to quiche was quickly overlooked in favor of thinking about the glorious axe he promised her.

"What sort of name?" she asked, intrigued. "Person name? Rick? Or thing name? Lightning, or storm, or..." She reached up and darted her hair away from her face impatiently as she tried to think. "What do you call yours?"