stormaktstiden | > Thorfinn

....Okay she'll let him walk into that pillar if he really doesn't reroute his steps in time.

Or perhaps she shouldn't. Give her a moment to decide.

"Well, I now know that you are twelve." She shrugs and starts to dig for the sheet of paper in her bag again to look at the name of the first work of art that they're supposed to study.

And he will. Maybe. He was pretty good at noticing his surroundings when he wasn't pissed off. Though he was pissed so he just barely dodged it looking up to glare at the pillar like it was his mortal enemy.

"And that's all you need to know, girl."

"It's information that I didn't need to know. Your name would be practical, though."

She looks at the signs and paintings on the walls and then studies the paper before looking back up, and back down on the paper... Here.

She'll start walking without announcing where she's going this time.

Thorfinn rolled his eyes. "You..." He started to say something then just let it go. He noticed she was walking so, he just started following rather than asking.

"Thorfinn." He spoke after a second. "My name is Thorfinn." He didn't care about giving his first name, it was giving his father's name that would get in him trouble. He didn't want to be sent home. How could he face his family if they were still alive without having avenged his father? He did worry that maybe his mother had passed, he could recall her health was never great but his sister... she must be running the farm and married by now. He never was good with ages.

To be fair, she has seriously considered getting married before, even though at that point she was still legally too young. But it would have been a good way of getting an additional pair of hands for the farm at no additional cost, so...

"...Thorfinn." She frowns as she tries to remember why that sounds familiar. It's not that frequent a name, really, but... well, there are a few, sure. Maybe someone on TV? It feels awfully familiar...

"No last name?"

There was a deatheater in Harry Potter named Thorfinn. It was always possible. It was a common name in the old sagas. Which the boy knew well enough from killing time on the ship. Internet wasn't a thing he really had access to, but sometimes he would be tossed books.

"Yes Thorfinn, and no you can't call me Thor." That's been a question he's been asked one to many times since arriving in the US. "No, there is no last name." He was at least glad the girl knew nothing of him. It made life easier for him no one knowing where he had come from. At least the teachers were that kind. He stops walking, looking up at one of the paintings A ghost ship aside from arguing with her it was the first thing to catch his eye.

"Have you heard heard of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald?"

"...Probably."

Old Leif, the local weird old fairytale uncle TM, loved telling all kinds of adventure ship stories, so if this is one, she's probably heard it. For some reason he liked coming over to their house. The only reason that she could see back then was that he seemed to have a momentary calming effect on her later younger brother, if only in as much as the brat would stay relatively in one place while a story was ongoing...

Wait. Wasn't that kid called Thorfinn? Well, that explains why the name sounded familiar, at least. She hasn't thought about him in ages, has had no reason - the dead are dead, and one's strength is better spent thinking about things that will actually be of matter for the living - and her mother after a bit had fallen very quiet on her father and brother, too.

Are all Thorfinns brats? Maybe. Must come with the name, even if her brother and this kid don't really have anything else in common.

"What's up with it?"

She'll listen with only half an ear, searching for the picture detailed on sheet in the meanwhile.

"It was an American Freighter ship, it sank in 1975. She was one of the biggest ships in her time." He explained almost unimpassioned, yet something in the way he looked at the painting said he actually gave a damn about the story. "A winter storm hit early and took the ship down killing the whole crew of 29." He spoke almost like he knew a lot more of the tale but didn't want to bore her. He didn't have many healthy hobbies but ship wreaks were an obsession. They had been even before surviving one. After Old man Leif told him about the Titanic when he was young he had always had an interest, as a small boy he'd try to drown his toy ships in the tub before tracking water through the house to outrun his mother and sister since he never wanted to dress after he was out of the tub.

"This picture just reminds me of that story that's all. They say Lake Superior is haunted from it. At least that is what I was told as a boy." He could remember Leif wiggling his fingers trying to be spooky while he called the man a liar. He shook his head to try and forget the old man, he was likely dead to. "I'd like if the shop has one to get a print of it." Yes a ship wreak for his wall. It would be perfect. Most teenage boys had half naked women on their walls, not him.

"Your taste is deranged."

She lowers the sheet, though, and raises her eyes to look over at him.

"Stories of ships that didn't sink are way more interesting. Of discoveries, and dangerous journeys, and world records, and meeting new cultures and fighting great battles and making riches." Her eyes light up at the very last bit. As a little girl, her dream occupation had been becoming a viking. She'd been rather disappointed when she had realized that while the stories were amazing, it wasn't actually an option these days. She'd had brief aspirations to be a whale hunter, too, until she learned that modern whale hunters did a rather boring job compared to those in the stories.

"Shipwrecks just mean lots of dead people that can't come home anymore and make it harder for their families to keep the farm running, and cause a lot of financial trouble and medical issues because people get sick from grief." Rather idiotically, in her opinion. Just another reason to not linger on the sadness over the loss of people.

Edited 2016-09-20 16:28 (UTC)

"Yeah? And what do you like then, girl?"

He was minorly insulted and it showed in his face until she explained on. "You mean like the saga's of old? King Ragnar and his adventures, or Egil?" Oh he knew the stories of vikings. He used to pretend to be a viking when he would chill around the ship as long as no one caught him. In his head that was completely what he was. Smuggling wasn't so very different, there was enough brawls and races to get to international waters. It was as close as he would ever get himself. "Riches aren't exactly easy to come by these days, money is marked, and traceable." He spoke matter of factly, something he's heard Askeladd bitch about, problems 'they didn't have in the old days' Drugs, valuables, art and contraband were all worth more than actual robbery.

He looked up at her after she finished an he had spoke his peace, just a quiet second. "You lost someone in a ship wreak didn't you, girl?" He'd keep calling her girl as long as he didn't know her name. Plus, he felt he shouldn't have to ask./

"And that's why they're stories and nothing else. They don't got anything to do with reality." Stories are for children. She's long grown past them (or so she claims).

"...You know a lot about that, though." She narrows her eyes at him. What the fuck have you been up to, brat. "What were your parents, pirates?"

She shrugs at the question. "It happens where I'm from, coastal town with a lot of fishing and all that. My father and my brother stayed out at sea. That was years ago, though, we've figured out how to run the farm without them by now."

"Most saga's were based on people who really existed, so, not necessarily fiction." He replied, mostly because he liked the Saga's the ideas of them being real was just something he enjoyed.

"I know shit, I read a lot." Not really, but it sounded better than saying otherwise. But he felt his ire spike at her asking if his parents were pirates. "My father was a fishermen, he is dead as I said, the bastards I mentioned earlier were also seamen." he didn't mention his mother, though he said his parents are dead he really didn't have it in him to say his mothers dead. He wasn't certain and he didn't want to think about it.

Though as her words sank in he looked up at her. That was strange, she's to young to be his sister. It did sound alike though. "My home was a coastal fishing town to."

Anything else that their conversation included flies out of the window at his last comment and she looks at him, stares at him intensely for a moment and then declares: "You look nothing like my brother did."

...Okay, perhaps, "though he would have looked more like you at that age if we hadn't made him take a bath every so often." Yes, she just called Thorfinn filthy, why?

"I never said I had a sister." He retorts back. Though the moment he says it he regrets it, he'd not deny Ylfa, but this girl she couldn't be his sister. It's not possible. His sister was beautiful and probably a mother.

He makes a look like a cat shoved in water, sure he smells a little and may have some dirt in his hair but he's cleaner than he used to be. Though the old hoodie did him no favors. "Fuck you, I take baths! I never said I was your brother!" He turned and started stomping off again away from the ship wreak painting, his heart pounding in a way he wasn't used to. Something like fear. It wasn't possible.

She shoots back: "I didn't say that you were my brother, either, in case you were listening." And doesn't follow him.

She prefers working alone over group work anyway, you get more done. Especially if you partner is weird brat with issues.

"...And perhaps you should take baths more often than once a year, then!" This one is already said with a raised voice because he's some distance away already, and then she stomps off into the opposite direction.

Thorfinn didn't even look back he just stormed off. Going outside awhile, the outdoors always did help his moods, nothing like the sea but it was enough. He sat outside in the warmth of summer until it became to much, pushing up off the steps he went for a quick walk with an idea. He was getting that damned print.

Later he was sitting in the cafeteria, a bag sitting by his chair with a poster tube sticking out and a plate of food in front of him as he ate. His hood was pulled up to hide his face, but mostly to hide the bruise forming just under his right eye. He didn't care if he got in trouble, which was a lot of his problem, but he knew to keep his head low.

Ylva wanders into the cafeteria about an hour later, once she's done with the fieldwork. If asked, she'd quip that it was obvious that she would be faster if she did it alone, but if she's being honest a part of why she shows up here this quickly and doesn't look at other things - the shop, for something to send her mother, perhaps - before coming into the cafeteria is that brat.

Who's called Thorfinn, and is totally not her brother, but who has suspicious parallels. The way he's going about it she is 90% sure that he's not trying to impersonate her brother, but mostly because he doesn't seem bright enough for a plan that is that complicated.

"You look really shady and homeless when you have your hood over your head like that." She'll plop her butt down across the table from him and cross her arms over her chest, staring at him.

Thorfinn would have tried to help but temper of his was always his downfall. Aside from mugging some guy outside to get money for his poster and enough to buy himself some food he, had been eating and thinking about the things she had said. Aside from the bathing, he was clean enough, he bathed last week.

He peered up from under the hood, his half half covering his face, the forming bruise under his eye more visible when he did. "I do not look homeless." He didn't snap just responded matter-of-factly, but he did. the old hoodie had holes and stains on it. "What are you doing here? I assumed you would be leaving me alone until we get to leave."

"No, you look like you live in a garbage can."

The reply comes just as matter-of-factly as Thorfinn's statement.

"...What're your parents' names?"

Not that she is going to believe anything. But... he is the right age, and she can see similarities - more to her mother than to her brother, really, but that is also because she hasn't looked at a picture of him since leaving home and even before that she hasn't paid attention to one since the day when they did the memorial service. The name and proclaimed nationality fit too. And... there is a vague sense of duty towards her parents to figure it out.

"Fuck you." He grumbled as he returned to eating. He was a hungry growing boy so, he scarfed down not until she asked her question.

He thought about telling her to do a number a nasty things to herself in ultra colorful language, but he didn't. He just held the fork looking down into the bowl. Remembering Thors laughter and Helga's smile.

"Thors and Helga." He pushed his food away, for once he's lost his appetite.

...He could be pretending.

But at this point she has to admit that either he really is her brother, or he somehow pretends to be him while denying it. But there is a definite connection there. He's not just someone with the same first name.

"And you're from Bakkafjörður originally."

She sounds almost defeated. What the fuck.

He looked up at her. He had a annoyed look on his face. He didn't remember the name of the village. He sat back crossing his arms. "I don't remember, I was five when my father was killed." He might have known had he offered up his parents names but he didn't.

"Your her aren't you... You're Ylva." He just said what had been bouncing though his head. He didn't care that he had been rude. No he felt bad that he said his parents are dead and maybe just May be Helga wasn't.

"Ylva Thorsdottir."

She leans back, staring at him. Glaring almost. ...definitely glaring. The only thing that keeps her from picking him up again is the audience, really.

"And you still remember Mum and even so never bothered to get in touch and tell her that she maybe mourns you in vain?"

Thorfinn felt like the rug had been pulled from under him and all he could do was stare at the food he no longer wanted. Little made him lose his appitite but this did. After a second he pushed up from his seat.

"I need air." He left his rolled up poster beside his chair and started to walk for the door. Not really sure what to do, but he knew he needed outside.

"Oh for-"

Ylva considers staying here and grabbing him again later for a moment, but who knows about a kid like that.

If things don't go well (and she feels like that will generally be the case with such things for their family) he'll go away and get lost for another couple of years.

So she stomps after him.

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