Fate Rebellion

1057 — Nidaros, Norway 

Suddenly, the entirety of his previous life flashed through Rurik's mind. Finally, all the disconnected knowledge and memories connected and the gaps filled in. The one piece he'd been missing turned out to be Luna. 

Next to him, he felt his mother, Elisev, stir, her sleep disturbed by his movement and voice. But the moment he had that realization; he felt strange about it. She wasn't his mother… or was she? 

Regardless, Elisev soon settled down again, and Rurik's thoughts had long since drifted away from her. He slowly sank back into the furs of their bed as the reality of his situation, as well as the circumstances of his death, began to sink in. 

A confused and pained frown drifted across his brows, "We… died? But how in Odin's name did I end up in the past?" He barely noticed how he was calling out to the Norse gods. Although he had his memories back, his life among the Vikings had still shaped his current mind. 

"More importantly… what happened to Luna?" he muttered, a hint of fear in his voice. "Gods, I don't understand any of this," he groaned as rubbed his face. 

Finally, he crawled out of bed, careful not to wake the others, put on some warm clothes, and stepped out into the cold of night. He couldn't just sit still after realizing the magnitude of what happened to him. 

Once there, he took a deep breath and beheld the silent, mostly empty compound before him. A few guards were up, keeping watch, but almost everyone was asleep. He shivered slightly, and instantly cursed the weakness of his child body. 

He hadn't been this weak in a long time, and he hated it. 

But not even that took his mind of Luna. "Mark…" he growled furiously. Even now, he couldn't understand why he'd betrayed them. Grief, anger, and despair filled his mind, but most of all, he felt helpless and sad. 

Luna was dead, and he had no idea what his life looked like without her. The two of them had been practically inseparable since their first meeting in that orphanage, and now he was all alone, in an unfamiliar world, as his nine-year-old self. 

He sagged down to the frozen ground in front of his cottage, and leaned against the wall. The moon, backed by a galaxy of stars, shone their light down on his solitary figure. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back. He felt the cold seep into his bones, but he didn't care. 

For an hour he sat there. He didn't think about his situation, but simply grieved the love of his life… because that was all he could do. Mark was already dead, or yet to be born, depending on how you looked at it, which meant there was no one for him to take revenge on. 

All he had now were the memories that just returned to him… And so, he spent an hour recalling them, savouring them. 

By the end, he was shivering from the cold. His fingers, hands, and face started prickling with pain, but he ignored it. He knew his young, relatively untrained body couldn't handle these freezing temperatures, despite the thick, fur-lined clothing he wore, but he didn't care right now. 

He wanted to feel the pain. He wanted the outside to match the inside. While his body may not yet be the powerful temple he once cultivated on Earth, his mind still had the steely discipline of someone who crawled his way to the top of a world-spanning criminal enterprise during the height of the late 20th century. 

He was no stranger to enduring pain. But… he still needed a moment to come to terms with his beloved's fate. They'd always known that one or both of them might die at any time, in any number of ways, due to the life they lived, but that didn't make it easy. 

Yet, despite his pain, he had no desire to die. Once, after they'd had their first brush with death, he and Luna promised each other they would continue to live on, even if the other died. 

Thus, when his hour of mourning was over, he dragged his numb, stiff, sensitive body back inside. Fortunately, no guards had noticed their young lord nearly froze to death. At least, in this case. He wouldn't have wanted to be disturbed. 

Inside, a small fire crackled and drove away the cold, the smoke of which twirled up, and left through a tented hole in the roof. With difficulty, he dragged his body over the to the fire and sat himself down in front of it with a sigh. 

Meticulously and deliberately, he began to stretch and massage his fingers, a hard look in his eyes. 

"I don't know how I ended up in this situation, Luna," he muttered into the fire. "Neither of us ever believed in a higher power. Admittedly, I also didn't think much about it, but I was sure we'd simply return to dust, and the only way to keep existing afterwards is to leave a lasting legacy… Which we did." 

"But now…" he continued with a sigh as he looked around the wooden walls, furs, Viking symbolism, and ancient furniture that littered the room. "Now I've not only been reborn, but I've travelled back in time? I don't know what to think anymore." 

He took a deep breath, before his lips suddenly turned up into a small smile, "But I know what you'd say about all this. You'd tell me to stop worrying about the how, and instead start making the most of the situation." 

"And so, I will!" he exclaimed softly, but with powerful conviction as his small smile turned into a wide grin. "I will build an even larger legacy than we did before, and I'll dedicate it to you! I'll keep your memory alive for as long as I live, and if you somehow live on somewhere like I am right now, then I'll find you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not twenty years from now, but someday! This, I vow in your name!" 

Little did he know that the legacy he'd create would not only be far larger and grander than he expected, but also entirely different. 

More importantly, however, the thread of fate that bound him together with Luna had not yet reached its end…