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�Better living than not living.
Only the living hold wealth.
I saw a fire blaze up in a rich man�s home,
But death stood outside the door.
A cripple can ride,
An armless man herd sheep;
A deaf man fight well enough.
Better blind than burnt on the pyre.
What good is a corpse to anyone?�
- Havamal Verses (~13th century)
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'Limestone stood proudly bright around the dark green valley. The ring of stones was a crude formation to reflect the importance of the langskip, but this boat had only one passenger to take to the dominion of death. She had stood at the prow for ho s into the night. This was one more daughter lost to Hel's embrace rather than her own.
Her link to mortality was fading and it was not even two hundred years past her birth and death. When her own daughter had passed it had been a cold time. She had fallen for a few years and traveled to the northern mountains. Among the Finnas people he had grown warm again and had the chance to visit with her granddaughter before that worthy woman met her fate as well. Many of her daughters had been taken from her, Unn would be gone in short span of mortal years with no child to take her place.
She ran a cold, white hand over the upraised stone. It was ending. She would go to Unn, visit the Iceland she had heard the warrior peoples speak of, and they would speak one last time.'
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The house was still warm in the early morning, the embers of the firepit glowing a dull red. It was nearly time to leave though there was little point in moving from the building. There were no windows to accidentally let in sunlight and the caves we far less comfortable. They only offered the privacy she had learned to appreciate among the southern tribes.
She gathered her shawl around her shoulders, clasping the ancient brooch under her throat. Unn would understand, they had talked long about the ways she followed. It was her test, and it was near finished. Synneve stooped quickly at the entrance to s ibble a few small blessing runes in the wooden planks that made the door.