It was after the worst storm of the winter that he came to us. It had raged for three days, scouring the land with salt and bringing with it the howling of dead souls lost at sea. There had been ice in the wind and the wind had had teeth; it had torn up the twisted thorns trees along the strand and stolen another sixteen paces from the cliff edge. In the final morning, when the last of it was just fitful anger and gusts of bitter sea snow, I walked down to the beach and I found him.

I still don’t know why I went that day. I’d been safe enough from the storm weather in my stone house. There was plenty of firewood left in the stack, much of it washed up in the previous bout of bad weather. I had food too: smoked fish a plenty and slices of cheese, long strands of the dried seaweed harvested late in the year, and even a crock of flour hoarded like gold for festival days. There was nothing to drive me out into the wind and the cold and howl of the dying storm. Nevertheless I went.

And I found him.

Washed up he was, lying in a tangle of seaweed and twisted rope, sprawled out like an offering to the old gods, with the sea tugging at his heels. There were the remains of leather breeches clinging to his legs, torn and shredded so that the ragged strips were lost among the equally ragged weed that cushioned him. His feet, his torso and one arm were bare; the other was wrapped by yet more damaged leather. There was a metal cuff encircling his right wrist. Old metal, dark and heavy. Iron, not gold. Blood oozed out from the deep scratches that covered him, a pattern of scoring that matched the damage to his scant clothing. I remember staring down at him, blinking my eyes and wondering if this were truly a man or some creature of the sea, abandoned to the mercy of the land.

Ogan was out on the beach, checking his boat; Ogan and his sons, stout creatures carved from stone and weathered by hard work. It was Ogan who ran to see what I was staring at. He took one look and called to his blood to join him. We stood, the five of us, encircling this unexpected gift from the sea while the wind tugged at our cloaks and the rain began to fall.

Ogan’s eldest was all for throwing him back at once. "A dead soul," he claimed, making the sign of the eye to ward off evil and ill luck. "Belongs in the sea." Ogan poked at the silent form with his hook ended staff and the man stirred, a protest of pain that affirmed his life.

"Kill him anyway," the youngest said, reaching to tangle his hands in the sprawl of hair that emerged from the weed. "He’s raider’s get."

The man’s hair was stained with salt and water, but there were hints of straw in among its strands. The folk are by nature small and dark: dark hair, dark eyes and silent hearts, battered into strength by the harshness of our lives. The raiders are tall and fey creatures, their heads crowned with butter and straw and their eyes grey like the sea that spawns them. This man was scarcely taller than I - but his hair and skin were pale. A getling, then. Those that were born among us were always exposed to the sea once their bloodline was known. Very few survived the ordeal. Fewer still lived to adulthood. But this was a grown man. One fathered by force, perhaps; a slave from a raider’s ship, sunk in the storm.

"Aye," Ogan began to murmur. "Throw him back ..."

And then he opened his eyes.

Blue those eyes were. Bluer than the summer sky on a fair day. I remember how my heart skipped seeing them that first time. I will always remember that moment. I gazed into them so many times thereafter, and yet I never tired of their beauty. I saw them filled with pain and with wonder, witnessed them heavy with sorrow and bright with laughter. They were the eyes of a god, for only the gods can possess such true colours - and yet they belonged to a mortal man, one torn and dying in the aftermath of the storm.

"He is a gift," I said, and they looked at me, those weatherbeaten men, hearing the weight of power in my voice. I do not know if I spoke from my heart or from true prophecy, but I spoke and they listened, remembering who I was and what I was trained to be. "A sending from the old powers. Ill luck will fall if this gift is refused."

"So you say, old woman." Ogan was not one to be cowed by words. "And you may be right. But it is winter and there is little to spare for the mouths we have. This man is near death. Would you have us starve our families for one already marked for the deep journey? Jurgan is right. Dead souls belong to the sea. And he is not of the folk. None of us will take him in."

"I will take him in," I said. "I found him. I will care for him. If he dies I will send him on the journey with honour. And if he lives - " I bent to touch the man’s cheek, turning those wild eyes towards me. He blinked once, fought for focus and met my gaze with confusion and puzzlement. Help me, those eyes pleaded, then closed again, his body shuddering with cold and pain. "If he lives," I concluded, "then he will be as my son and I will shelter him."

Ogan frowned at me, knowing I made the orphan oath without knowing the soul I claimed. But it was my right. And making it, I bound that lost soul to myself, for good or for ill.

They brought him to my house and left him there. I battened the door and I stoked up the fire and I called on all the skills I had been gifted with. It took me seven days, but I saved him.

Not without a struggle. I had no name with which to call him back from the journeying. The cold and the sea had eaten into his strength and the wounds he carried were deep. That first day I washed the rents that marred his body and I marvelled at the sleekness of his skin, the tautness of his muscles. His hands were hardened, but not hard like those of the men I knew. His flesh had seen the sun, but it had painted him with gold, not withered him to old leather the way it did the folk as they grew through their youth. He was a man, not a child, but his face held the openness of the young and his body echoed their vitality. My hand trembled as I treated each cut and tear in his skin. This was not my own sent back to me, but I had claimed him as my son, and my heart demanded that I treat him as such.

I wrapped him in blankets and laid heated stones around his chilled frame. His eyes opened to panic and confusion, and I calmed him, holding him in my arms and soothing his fears. I fed him bitter ale laced with secret herbs and sang him to sleep with the old songs. I made my magics and I wove my spells, bidding the flesh to heal and the spirit to stay within it. I nursed him through fever and delirium, tending the disgraces of his body and comforting his distress. In his fever he cried out, speaking names I did not know. His dreams took him back to grief and he wrestled with it, calling on - calling on I know not what. His family? His lost companions? Or his gods?

I spoke to mine in the days that followed, praying that he be spared, asking that he be given the strength to live. A year, I begged, knowing better than to seek far beyond the moment. Give me a year at least ... Someone listened; his fever broke and he slept a healing sleep, for which I was grateful.

Seven days. On the morning of the eighth he woke and fixed me with those blue eyes, asking silent questions I could not answer, although admitting it near broke my heart. He was under an enchantment. That much I could determine at least. It clouded his memory, and locked away all that was past; he woke that day like a child new born, without even the words to ask his name.

I asked the stones to name him for me, calling on the old gods to give me guidance. Elfir was the name that came as my answer, kin, the cast of the stones said, to the sleek otters that danced in the fringes of the sea. He accepted it without question - accepted everything I said without question. As the days passed I taught him to speak again and marveled at the stubborn determination he brought to the task. His words were halting, each one a struggle, and he rationed them like treasures, smiling at each one learned as if it were a precious thing indeed. His strength returned quicker than his speech, which was rare in all the days I had him to myself. I found him tasks to do and he did them willingly, learning how to knot raw twine into net, to tend the fire and help me at my loom. I dressed him in the fashion of the folk, with breeches of soft sealskin, a shirt of woven wool and a warm sweater patterned with the mysteries. I even cut him boots from the old goatskin that had hung over my door and wove a new hanging to take its place. His hands were quick as they wrapped the shuttles for my task; he laughed as I told him the weaver’s tales, just as I had once told them to my own blood, under that same roof.

They were cold days, bitter with the last snows of winter. And yet they were filled with warmth and joy for the first time in so many years. He was like a child in so many ways; marveling at each new thing, laughing at life, enjoying everything that came. He was no getling, sired with lust and treated with contempt. He was more like a warrior from the old tales, like one of the lesser gods come back to earth. His hair was not butter or straw but pure spun gold; it tumbled around his face like the surface of the sea, filled with restless waves and wild currents. The beard that grew to match it was just as unruly and I took to shearing it as if he were one of my sheep, trimming it to a certain neatness only to watch it curl and tangle again, almost in front of my eyes.

Good days. Deceiving days. I told him that he was my son and he believed me. I told myself that this could last - and I believed that it would, although a place in my heart told me otherwise. Oh, he was happy enough, especially when I loosed him free of the house to explore the beach or take out line and net to catch fresh fish for our supper. But there were times I caught him gazing out to sea with pensive eyes, those blue depths haunted with knowing that he should know and yet somehow knowing nothing.

Of his old life only the metal band remained. It had rusted tight about his wrist, the loop that held it in place seared shut by the salt of the sea. I tried polishing at it, but while the surface came to shimmer with a dark sheen like the coats of the otters I had named him for, the hinge remained tight and the loop never moved. He wore it like a trophy, his fingers exploring it whenever he sat and stared at the sea, and I hated it with a passion I could not explain. It was a slave band, a mark of ownership. While he wore it, he would never truly be free.

And sometimes I wondered if it were that that cast the spell and imprisoned him from his true self.

Time moved on. The spring came and the folk began to gather again. Elfir walked beside me to those gatherings, learning to greet the elders with respect, and earning himself admiring smiles from some of the younger women. The folk were closed to him at first; he was a stranger and the story of his arrival had whispered around the settlement until it had become a true tale rather than simple news. But my new son had an open heart and a generous smile - and the people knew me and most trusted my gifts. In the end they made him welcome, although many of the men treated him as a simpleton, mistaking his halting words for lost wits. He suffered a little because of it; he was an easy target for jokes and he lacked the skill to answer taunts with well-woven retorts. I praised him for his patience, admiring the way he kept this temper at such times, even though the anger flared in his eyes and his hands clenched with frustration.

"I - might - hurt - them," he explained after one such incident, stumbling over the words the way he always did. I nodded and pressed his arm to show I understood. I had watched him chop wood for my fire, haul the long line and the net it supported up the beach, and seen him challenge his body for the sheer joy of using it. He could tumble with acrobatic skill, turning cartwheels and somersaults, dancing and spinning with quicksilver moves much like the otters I had named him for. He was gifted with an easy strength and a speed that none of the folk had a hope of matching. They were tough, and sturdy, well used to hauling in their nets or bending their strength to the oar, but they were not warriors, and he was. His heart could not remember, but he knew his body would. He held back from physical retaliation, afraid that he might do something he would later regret.

I was proud of him for that.

Oh, I loved him, my Elfir, my Otterkin, sent to me by the sea. He was the son I had lost, the grandchild I had never known. He filled my cold house with laughter and my heart with happiness. As the spring turned into summer he took his place with the other men of the folk, herding my sheep up the slopes in search of better pasture, rowing out to the fishing grounds to cast the deep nets, and joining in the building work. He hewed stone from the mountain, cut steps and channels, and built walls with the best of them. They welcomed his help; he laboured without complaint, and when I could I would sit with the other women and watch him work, a young god beside the old men, clean limbed and blessed with beauty.

I had work of my own, and I pursued it with a glad heart that season. There were herbs to harvest and set to dry. Wool to gather and comb. My smoke house was wreathed in fragrance almost every day. And the women came to me seeking charms and tokens, asking after their futures and begging medicines for their children. That summer not a few came with excuses rather than reasons. They came to see my golden child, walking down the salt strand with an easy stride and his upper body bare to the summer sun. They lingered to smile at him as he gathered wood for the winter pile or unloaded a catch of fish ready for the smoke house. One or two were bold enough to ask his favour on the festival days - and they got it, although afterwards he would slink back to my side and give me a sheepish look of apology.

I loved him for that too. Loved him for the way he treated my sex with tenderness rather than need. The men of the folk are solid and dependable types, who treat their women with fierce joy and guard them with jealousy. They say little to the fairer sex, but they cherish them, and he had that way about him, my Elfir, for all his raider-born looks.

Six months went by. The year turned. The old gods heard our prayers and filled the world with the bounties of harvest time.

And I began to be afraid.

My son was a constant joy to me - and a constant worry. Words had grown no easier for him and he wrestled to express even the simplest phrase. I knew that there was something bothering him, but while he tried to explain the matter to me, all he succeeded in doing was growing angry at his own limitations. "Someone," he said, packing importance into that one word. His hand moved to cover his heart. "Empty," was the second thought he spoke. That wasn’t quite right. He shook his head and tried again. "Incomplete," he managed, and smiled with a mixture of triumph and frustration. His eyes turned seawards, gazing out at the far horizon as if it held all the answers he needed. Perhaps it did.

"Needed," he concluded, turning back to me with pleading eyes. I couldn’t explain the way he felt. I knew he couldn’t either, and that was what bothered him so much.

"I’m sorry," I told him and pulled him into a hug, loving him with all my heart. He was incomplete. A man lost to himself, and I had no power to help him find his way again. He hugged back, I remember. I remember so many little things.

"Little mother?" he asked on another day, this one a rich evening when the sun dipped into the sea like a cauldron of pure copper. My heart sang when he called me that.

"Yes?" I answered lightly, looking up from my weaving to meet his eyes. Blue eyes. They hadn’t changed.

"Not - folk," he questioned, touching - first his own sun touched locks, then my own hair. It had been dark once, dark as a raven’s wing, but now it is gray like cygnet feathers, and it was gray then, a brittle dryness weathered, like me, by age and the wind. "What?"

"I don’t know, my son." There was a part of me that did not want to know. What if he was raider’s get, the child of a princeling, or even the son of the man that killed mine? The raiders are a cruel race and they know no gentleness. "You were a gift, given to me by the sea. Perhaps the gods made you. Perhaps there is no other man like you, in all the races of the world."

I was wrong. So wrong. But I did not know that then. He was mine and I loved him. That was all I needed to know.

Traders came up the stone way, their donkeys laden with trinkets and their eyes greedy for what we had to offer them. Furs and skins we traded, exchanging the white coats of the winter seals for ironwork and sharp steel knives. Elfir had been keeping secrets; he coaxed treasures out of one wily trader with a pouch full of shimmering pearls, offering them up one by one until the man’s eyes were as wide as cauldron lids. He’d been diving out in the bay, I knew that. Swimming deep into clear water while other men lazed at the end of their nets. His exercise had profited him well; it bought him a sharp knife to replace the blunt iron one I’d found for him, a new buckle for the belt that graced his hips, and gifts a plenty for the folk he called his friends.

To Ogan and his sons he gave a length of heavy canvas, enough to craft a new sail for their boat. Ogan was astonished, I recall, lost for words, for all he was the wordsmith then and best spoken of all of us. The canvas was a precious thing indeed, oil soaked and waterproofed. The old man had been eyeing the bolt all day, but his trade had been in salt and steel; he’d not the furs to buy the fabric. Elfir had waited until he’d turned away, certain then that the canvas lay unclaimed - and then he’d bought it, counting fat pearls into an eager hand with an amused grin.

There were other gifts too; trinkets of beads to grace the wrists and throats of women who’d smiled at him on Midsummer’s eve; tiny casks of precious spices to charm their mothers lest the gifts offend; and for me - a barrel of salt, a brand new iron cooking pot, a whole bolt of soft linen, and three silver bangles which he slid onto my wrist despite my protests at his foolish generosity. "Nothing for yourself?" I complained and he showed me the knife and the buckle and I forgave him. Just a little. I had a gift for him too; one purchased with the rare herbs that I had gathered. I’d noted the hole that pierced his earlobe almost from the first day - now, months later, I had the ring to fill it, a heavy gold loop, enough to pay a freeman’s passage on the day he took the deep journey.

He let me twist it into place and frowned a little, his eyes taking on a haunted look, as if the weight and sensation were somehow both familiar and strange. But afterwards he wore it with pleasured pride; the ring glinted at the next gathering, and earned him a line in the reckoning song. Elfir’s gifts of gold and pleasure ... The words hit the target they were aimed at; not my son on that occasion, but those who’d earned his generosity. There were at least four flushed faces in among the women’s circle that I could see; maybe there were more. My child was not short of admirers, and it was hard for him to say no ...

Hard for him to say anything at all. Once again he passed in the riddle game, and refused to speak in the praise song. Men boasted of their prowess at sea, their skill with net and line, their success at hunting. But Elfir sighed and waved the speaking staff away, having to sit and listen as others made their outrageous claims.

The traders left, carrying tales back to the southlands, tales of the sea scoured beaches and the hardy folk that dwelt there. Tales too, of the man with golden hair and eyes the colour of the summer sky; I heard the things they said, the guesses they made before they walked away. A prince of the fair folk bound to the mortal realm by cold iron, was one suggestion. It worried me.

Mostly because I feared that it might be true.

More time passed. The days grew shorter, and the nights began to feel cold. Autumn was nearly upon us - and on the morning of a new day, almost before the folk had begun to be about their chores, the raiders came.

One ship. Thirty men. It was rarely more than that. The high prowed vessel slid onto the beach out of a low fog, warriors leaping into the shallow surf with gleaming eyes and wolfish grins. They carried swords and axes and they strode ashore as if they owned the world. Which they did - that day.

Pandemonium erupted. Men and women snatched up their most precious things and made a run for it. Dogs barked. Children cried in terror. I caught Elfir by the arm and tried to drag him away.

"Quick, oh quick," I pleaded, tugging at him for speed. "If we hurry we can make the caves before they come."

He looked down at me - I remember that, since he was not that much taller than I and we had always looked each other eye to eye before. But he looked down; his shoulders had lifted and a fey light had come to his eyes. "Go," he ordered. The word offered no argument. I let go of his arm and my heart quailed.

Elfir ...

My true son had been killed in a raid. He’d been playing on the beach when the boat came and he hadn’t run quick enough to escape the advance. He’d tried to hide among the sheep and a sword had struck him down. I’d found him there, covered in his own blood while the old ewe butted at him, wondering why he wouldn’t move.

Oh, Elfir!

He walked away from me. Towards the beach. He snatched up a polehook to use as a weapon and took up a defensive stance right in the middle of the storm steps. A brave, a foolish, gesture. The raiders were coming. And they’d sweep him off his feet and trample him underfoot as if he were nothing.

"Go!" he ordered a second time. a command, not just to me, but all of the folk that swirled behind him. Women snatched up their children and ran. Ogan grabbed my arm and dragged me away.

"Foolish simpleton," he complained, glancing back with a shake of his head. "Who does he think he is?"

He doesn’t know.

But then neither did the raiders.

They hit a wall of fury that day. Five men were knocked senseless in the fight and more went home nursing bloody noses and damaged pride. My Elfir, my otterkin, beat the sword out of the first man’s hand and used it to defend the steps, holding back the advance until all the women and children were safely secured in the twisting depths of our hidden caves. He fought, Jurgan said afterwards, like a warrior from a song. Jurgan was hiding in a overturned boat, watchman for the day. He saw the raiders hit the rising steps like a wave, and saw them stumble back, cursing and swearing as one man - and one man alone - made them pay passage.

It was a brave stand. It bought time and it saved both lives and honour. The raiders do not attack our settlement for gold or other precious things. They come to take slaves, to rape our women and steal our children. They got neither that day. A golden haired whirlwind defended us. They’d come expecting easy pickings and they left with little more than brusied heads and stung pride.

They left us a warning.

He’d held the steps as long as he could but, on that day, not even he could hold back the tide forever. The raiders had rushed him again and again and, finally, they had overwhelmed him. While half their remaining force scoured the now deserted settlement, our wild eyed defender had paid the cost of his defiance.

They didn’t kill him. That would have been too honourable a reward. They beat him into insensibility, pierced holes in his wrists and ankles and strung him up by his heels on the racks where we dried the nets. Then they used him for target practice, throwing knives and stones while they betted on each other’s accuracy. He was bleeding in more than a dozen places by the time Jurgan cut him down. That was hours later; the pebbles of the beach carried a crimson stain through the next three high water storms.

But they didn’t kill him. They left him to die, that much was certain. They also pissed in our water barrels and spoiled what food they could find - but they left empty handed, which was something that had never happened, in all the long history that the folk could remember. By the time we crept, wary eyed and trembling from our hiding places, the boat was gone, and Jurgan was crouched in the meeting hall, dabbing at open wounds and weeping white hot tears of fury.

My own were cold. Elfir’s face was battered into bloody ruin. His body was torn and broken, and the blood ran red from too many wounds, the worst of which were the rope burned holes where they’d dragged raw hemp through savage swords thrusts. Yes, he had hurt them but he had not killed – and it had been in defence of the innocent. He’d faced them as a warrior and they’d honoured that with abuse and torture.

"He was like a song," Jurgan kept saying. "A song."

The settlement was divided; half wanted to give thanks for the deed, the other half cursing it, fearing that it would bring back anger and fire on all our heads. I ignored them both. The only thing in my heart was my son, and he was closer to death that day than he’d ever been that first time on the beach. Ogan and his sons brought him home a second time. They helped me gather my medicines, they helped me wash his broken body, they helped me bandage and stitch his wounds, and they helped me watch him through all that long night and the next.

"Like a song. A hero from a song."

A hero ...

I didn’t want a hero. I wanted my Elfir, my golden son, my Otterkin. I watched him for four nights, bathing the blood from his face, making magic as best I could and praying to each and every god I knew. On the morning of the fourth day he finally opened his eyes.

Blue eyes.

He tried to smile at me, and it was then I knew I hadn’t lost him.

But he was hurt. Oh, so badly hurt. It was days before he could feed himself, weeks before he was strong enough to lift himself from the bed and attend to his own personal needs. I tended him all that time, watching each wound like a hawk lest it take infection and fester. He endured my attentions without complaint, though I knew the barest movement pained him. I felt each wince, suffered each soft moan, and wept inwardly at the bravery of his heart. The time he took to heal was bitter frustration to him; he tired easily and spent most of those days neither asleep nor awake but in a drowsy state part way between. Perhaps the herbal teas I gave him helped a little with that.

The folk put a watch on the sea, but the raiders did not return. Not that month, nor the next. As the days went by their anger died, and they came to thank the man who had saved them. Not all at once, but they did come, bearing tokens of gratitude, offering what help they could. Other women stacked the wood and fish in my smoke house. Gathered my herbs. Milked my ewes. I was focused purely on my son, on the laughter he had brought to my heart and the need to see it there again.

And at the end of the second month, sitting up in my old rocking chair with a blanket tucked warmly around him, Elfir turned to me and said: "I’m - sorry - little mother."

They were the first words he’d spoken since the day of the raid. I didn’t know how to answer them. I took his hand in mine and held it, and his finger closed over mine, seeking forgiveness. I gave it to him with all my heart. Knowing - as I did so - that when the raiders came again he would be there, defending me. Defending all of us. Because, if he didn’t know who he was, then he did know what he was.

A hero.

Like in the old songs.

A few days later a stranger arrived in the settlement. He came up the stone road, the one the traders use, although autumn was well on by now and the weather was unsettled and travelling a miserable task at best. Jurgan came to tell me about it and I shooed him out into the herb room because Elfir was sleeping and I was hoping it would be a healing sleep.

"Old woman," Ogan’s son said, his eyes bright with excitement. "There is a man come to the folk, unlike any I have ever seen before. He’s tall and - "

"A raider," I interrupted, casting an anxious glance at my curtained doorway. Jurgan shook his head.

"No. No, he’s no raider. He doesn’t carry any weapon. Or trade goods. Not even a pack on his shoulder. But you should see him, Kirkell. It’s like he’s cut from the mountain. Solid. But graceful with it - like that mountain cat that father killed three years back? He’s tall - like I said - a good head over everyone, and his hair is - is warm, like old honey."

"Honey?" I echoed. A tightness was building in my chest. Foreboding came to sit on my shoulder and I had no power to banish it. I had asked for a year, all those months ago, and given it little thought since then. But the year was drawing to a close ...

"Honey," Jurgan confirmed and grinned behind the darkness of his beard. "And guess what, old woman. His eyes are blue."

Blue.

Blue like the summer sky painting the air over ripening corn. Blue like the tiny flowers that speckled the meadows at the end of spring. Blue like the waters of the high mountain lake, so deep it reflected stars, even in the middle of the day.

And blue like the eyes of my son, quietly haunted by the emptiness in his own heart.

For whom did I save him?

For my self, my selfish, foolish self, wanting what old women want, wanting to chain him as surely as the iron chains him still?

Or for another, for another purpose, another destiny?

Who comes, seeking my gift from the sea?

An enemy?

I would throw myself on a raider’s blade before I would give him up. Before I handed him back to slavery, or worse, to death.

Or a friend?

"He’s looking for Elfir," I said, hearing the weariness in my voice, wondering how I was so sure. Jurgan frowned at me.

"Yes," he said, watching my face, looking for guidance. "No one has said anything yet. He’s one of us, old woman. He’s your son. You must decide."

"I will deal with this," I decided, reaching for my shawl with a trembling hand. "He sleeps, and his strength is returning. Stay with him?"

"I will."

I walked from my house and across the beach, following the path that led to the storm steps although I didn’t see it. My eyes were full of tears. Perhaps there is no other man like you, in all the races of the world.

I was wrong.

The stranger was sitting in the meeting hall, a mug of guesting ale between his broad hands and a polite, if frustrated, smile on his face. Jurgan had not exaggerated. He was - solid. And tall - a man whose presence filled the low ceilinged room and whose head would have brushed its stone beams had he been standing up.

But he was sitting. I had time to study him from my place in the doorway; study the shape of his face, and the kindly lines that supported his smile. He was handsome in his own way, less golden than my otterkin, but very much of the same wreaking. A tanned skin, an open, expressive face - clean shaven, the way Elfir had first come to me - and an air of controlled strength, a power that he wore with patience rather than pride.

He was dressed a little strangely; his breeches were tight, made up from layers of leather woven in intricate patterns. His shirt was made of soft linen and he wore a leather jerkin over it, a sleeveless thing as soft as the fabric underneath. There were leather bands along each forearm, decorated with metal - and there was a dark jade amulet hanging above his breastbone.

There was also a bearskin cloak tumbled by his booted feet, which was the only thing about him that really made any sense.

"Hi," he greeted me, standing up with automatic politeness then ducking a little self-consciously. "Are you here to speak to me, or have you just come to stare, like all the rest?"

"I am Kirkell, wise woman of the folk, keeper of the old secrets. Who are you, and why have you come to us?"

He looked relieved. "My name," he said, sinking back onto his stool, "is Hercules. I’ve come all the way from Greece - actually," he corrected with an almost embarrassed shrug, "my uncle brought me, so I can’t claim to have actually traveled the whole distance - but I have walked a long way today. I’ve stopped in every village along this coast and - I’m beginning to think I’m chasing a dream. I’m looking for a friend." The statement was soft, but the pain behind it was almost tangible. "My best friend. We were - in a place we shouldn’t have been, trying to steal back something that shouldn’t have been stolen in the first place. Everything was fine until - " He looked up from his hands and at my expressionless face, and he sighed, perhaps thinking that his explanation would make no sense to me. It wouldn’t have done. Not then. I didn’t know him then. "Anyway, we were separated and I only just managed to get out the way we’d got in, and he - I don’t know how he managed to escape, only that he did, and I - I should have been with him, because it was my fault we were there in the first place  ..." He tailed off, perhaps realising he was only expressing his sense of guilt, and not the reason he was sitting in our meeting hall, talking to me. "I’ve been looking for him ever since." His hand curled around the amulet over his breastbone, a curiously gentle gesture. "Nearly a month now."

A month?

The tightness around my heart relaxed and I breathed a quiet prayer of thanks under my breath. It wasn’t Elfir he was searching for. It couldn’t be. Nine months he had been my son. Nine long months.

"There is no one here but the folk," I said. I said it gently. This man carried a great weight in his heart, a weight of guilt and anxiety for someone he cared for very deeply. I understood that. I had learnt to love my son with the same kind of strength. The man named Hercules sighed.

"Yeah," he breathed. "That’s what they all say. Listen - if you see him - well, he’s about so tall - " The gesture measured Elfir’s height exactly. My breath caught in my throat. "Blond hair, blue eyes - he’d be kinda hard to miss around here, I guess. Talks a lot. Fights like a whirlwind."

"Are you a hero?" I asked, the question tumbling out of me almost in desperation. It couldn’t be Elfir, it couldn’t be. But in my heart I knew it was and I didn’t know what to do about it.

Tell him to go, one part of my mind insisted. Elfir need never know ...

But the other part was remembering blue eyes and the struggle that lay within them. There had been a sense of duty unfulfilled. Someone, he’d said. Was this the someone he needed to remember?

"Some people say so." Hercules was looking vaguely embarrassed. "I just - do what I have to, really."

"Would he say so? Your friend, I mean."

He chuckled, glancing down at the jade that still nestled in his hand. "Probably. Look - I’ve taken up enough of your time. If my friend isn’t here, then I’ll - just have to move on. Keep looking, you know?" He stood up as he spoke, remembering this time to duck his head as he did so. I stared up at him, measuring the sorrow in his eyes.

"Why did you think he was here?" I queried. He gave me a thoughtful look.

"Because," he announced with measured certainty, "Hades - the Lord of the Underworld - told me he wasn’t dead, and the Fates assured me he was nowhere in Greece. Poseidon asked the voices of the sea and the whisper came back from the North that a mortal man had fallen into their embrace, carrying the scent of Morpheus’s realm. My uncle brought me here, where the voices were strongest, and I’ll search this entire coast until I find him."

I blinked. That hadn’t been the answer I was expecting.

"Oh," I responded. "I see ..."

"No, you don’t," he smiled. "But it doesn’t really matter. Thank you for your time." He made to leave, ducking under the lintel of the wide doorway, the one that led out to the storm steps and the path back up to the cliff.

"Wait," I called after him. His words hadn’t made much sense to me, but I had known one of the names he’d mentioned. Morpheus’s realm. Morpheus was lord of the dreamworld. And what was Elfir if not in a waking dream, lost within himself? I didn’t want to lose him, but nor did I wish to deny him a chance to be free of the spell that held him in thrall.

And if Elfir was not his friend, then I would have lost nothing. Nothing at all.

"I think you’d better come with me."

Hercules followed me down the steps, his long stride taking them two at a time. I think he fought against a desire to help me; I was an old woman even then and used a stick to support my uneven gait. Elfir had always helped me, letting me lean on his arm as we climbed the steps. It had been a strong arm he offered me.

And will be again, I remember thinking fiercely.

It began to rain as we crossed the beach. Hercules threw his cloak around his shoulders, then moved to walk beside me, holding it out to shelter us both. I was amused to find myself so close to him; he moved with an easy grace, so unlike the other men I knew.

And so like my Elfir, my son, my Otterkin.

Like a song. A hero from a song ...

He had to duck to enter my house. The doorway was deliberately set low to offset the impact of the winter wind. Inside he straightened up and looked around with curious eyes. I wondered if they had houses like mine in Greece.

"You’re the wise woman," he recalled, looking at my bunches of herbs, the many pots that held my lotions and oils, and the other odd things that cluttered my shelves. "You make potions and medicines? Do you also speak for your gods?"

" I talk to them," I told him bluntly. "They don’t talk back to me."

"Lucky you," he considered wryly and I felt a shiver go down my spine. The Lord of the Underworld told me he wasn’t dead ...

What sort of man had I brought to my house? What was I doing?

Jurgan came out from the bedroom when he heard our voices. He stood in the doorway as if defending it, and in my heart I thanked him for that. Perhaps witnessing that fight against the raiders had inspired him a little. It was certain that witnessing what came after had given him nightmares for days.

"You brought him."

" I did. Is Elfir still sleeping?"

Jurgan smiled behind his beard. "No. We’ve been playing tally stones. I’m winning."

"You cheat. Jurgan, this is Hercules. Hercules, this is Jurgan Olganson."

"Pleased to meet you," Hercules noted. He sounded like he meant it. Jurgan merely grunted.

"My son, Elfir, is in the next room. I want you to meet him."

He shrugged. "Sure. You think he might have seen my friend?"

I nodded to Jurgan, who lifted the curtain with a florish. "No." I whispered, understanding that this was the point of no return. "I think he is your friend ..."

If I had doubted, if I had wished it be not so, all those doubts and hopes fled at the look that passed across Hercules’s face. He was the son of Zeus, I was to learn later, child of a god and blessed with divine strength; but he had a mortal heart and it was that that wrote that look on his expressive features. Recognition. Delight. Relief. And a sense of love so deep it could have taken root at the heart of the world.

"Iolaus - " he breathed, naming my son with his true name, speaking it like a litany, weighing it with gratitude. My heart broke. Just a little. I loved my Elfir, my son, my Otterkin. But it was an older love that had come to claim him, and I had no power to deny it. No wish to, either. Not after that look.

Hercules strode past Jurgan and ducked through the archway, moving to stand at the bedside. I followed him, smiling reassurance at my son as I did so. His expression was confused and his eyes filled with puzzlement. His friend looked down at him and a frown of equal puzzlement settled on his face. It was clear that Elfir did not know him - or if he did, had no place to put him in his thoughts.

It was a crisp day. Jurgan had lit a fire in the hearth which drove a little of the chill from the air. Elfir was bundled up with blankets, and warmly clad in the thick jumper I had knitted for him while I held vigil at his side. His hair was rumpled from sleep, and his beard was in need of a trim; he looked a little like a lost orphan lamb.

"Who -?" he managed, staring at the stranger with wide eyes. I wondered how to answer him.

"Don’t you know me?" Hercules asked, crouching down so that their eyes were on a common level. "Iolaus? It’s me. Hercules? Remember?"

"Yes," Elfir answered - and then his face fell. "No," my son admitted reluctantly. "No." He shook his head and lifted his hand to scrub blearily at his eyes. He felt weary, I knew; since the fight sleep had had little power to refresh him, although he was recovering slowly. The action slid the jumper sleeve back from his wrist revealing the rawness of the wound that was healing there - and the iron cuff that still clasped his arm, its surface gleaming as it reflected the firelight.

"Gods," Hercules cursed, reaching out his own hand so fast neither Jurgan or I saw it move. One minute Elfir was rubbing at his eyes - and the next he was staring down at the hand that encircled his, offering no protest as the man who claimed to be his friend carefully turned the injured wrist towards him. The stranger’s lips tightened and his free hand traced the damage with gentle fingers. Sword thrust, I saw him assess, putting the matter to one side for later consideration. It wasn’t that that had shocked him, however angered he was to find it there. It was the metal band. His fingers pushed the sleeve away, exposing the whole of it and his eyes closed in brief, and decidedly shaken, comprehension.

"When we agreed to make the journey," he murmured, his eyes fixing themselves on the matching blue that watched him with wary confusion, "Hephaestus himself forged a chain that would bind us both into the dream world, hoping it would enable us to reach our destination. It was to link us together and stop us from waking before we wanted to."

My own eyes went wide. Not a slave chain as I’d long thought, but a lifeline. One forged by a god, if I read the words aright.

"It worked too well. It made us part of the dreamscape, drew us into it entire, complete. When we were attacked, we discovered how vulnerable we were - and it hampered our ability to fight and defend ourselves. We were in a tight spot. I had no choice. I broke the chain to save both our lives. And that was when I lost you.

"I was wrong," he breathed, an admission of painful guilt. "I should have snapped the cuff, woken you up, sent you back to the mortal world. But I was in a hurry and I broke the chain; it let Morpheus’ creatures get between us - and then everything around me shifted and changed, and you were gone. I searched for hours, but I ran out of time. I had to go back, had to return the talisman to the real world before the sun rose. So I opened the cuff on my wrist - and woke up alone. You weren’t there," he explained, a memory he had difficulty facing even now. "Just this - " His free hand touched the amulet around his neck, "lying where you’d been sleeping. I didn’t understand at first - and then I realised that you’d tried to send me a message. To let me know you were all right. I don’t know what you did, Iolaus, but somehow you fought free of the dreamscape. Somehow you came here ...."

"A gift," I whispered. "I thought he was a gift."

"He was," Jurgan interrupted fiercely. "He held back the raiders. He saved us, old woman. He saved us all."

"Raiders?" Hercules broke that intense contact for a minute to throw Olgan’s son a wary glance. "Hence the - "

"Yes," I answered. "He held the storm steps until the folk were safe away. He knocked the fight out of five of them, but the rest prevailed in the end. They took a savage revenge."

"Five ..." Those steel blue eyes widened with quiet amazement. "By the gods," he reacted, turning back to stare at his friend with decided astonishment. "How do you manage it, huh? Five men - holding off however many more ... While you’re still asleep?"

Asleep?

I drew in a gasp, suddenly understanding what he meant. The iron had been meant to bind them from waking, and it had done just that. It had locked Elfir’s mind in an endless slumber; even though he had escaped the dreamscape he had not escaped the chain. All these months, fighting to master even the simplest word ... I had been sheltering a man condemned to sleepwalk through his life. If he could offer so much life and fire while in that state, what sort of man would he be awake?

And will he remember me, or will what we have shared be nothing but a dream to him?

Hercules was laughing softly, amused at the situation, admiring of his friend’s remarkable achievement. Five men. In his sleep. Suddenly I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the man he truly was.

"Time to wake up, buddy." Strong hands curled over solid iron. Fingers flexed. Something gave with a noticeable snap, and then the iron cuff simply melted away, leaving nothing behind. Elfir blinked. Shook his head. Stared at Hercules - and then curled up with a sudden realisation of pain.

"Ow," he complained, hugging wounded wrists to his chest and adopting a look of petulant protest. "Ow. Ow, ow, ow ow, ow." He paused, mentally numbering the sources of his discontent, then added a final, "Oohwow, ow," with determined objection. I’d taken a half step forward at the first cry, but stopped in total disconcertion at the rest of it. Hercules simply looked at him.

"Feel better?" he asked warmly. Elfir - no, Iolaus - rolled back against the pillows and grinned at him.

"Now I do," he said, no hint of effort or hesitation in his voice. "Thanks, Herc. I was beginning to think I’d never wake up."

"My fault," Hercules acknowledged, pulling over a stool and sitting on it. "You knew? You - were aware you weren’t awake?"

"Kind of. It was like I - I was trapped in my own perceptions. I was dreaming, but - I was dreaming reality. Weird. And uh - " he lifted one hand to consider the tenderness that lingered at his wrist, "boy, do I get myself in trouble sleepwalking."

"I noticed." The comment sounded unsurprised - almost as if Hercules expected his friend to get into trouble on a regular basis. Then the look on the tall mans’ face changed; the banter dropped into more serious tones as he studied his companion with concerned eyes. "You okay?"

The man I had claimed as my son thought the question over very carefully. He took a more serious look at the half healed wound - along with the band of pale skin below it where the iron band had sat for so long - and his eyes narrowed for a moment. Then he smiled; that quiet smile I knew so well, one tainted with mischief and the sheer joy of living. "Yeah," he breathed with confidence. "I’m okay." Their eyes met. Unspoken words were exchanged. They brought the smile back to Hercules’ handsome face, and found voice in the sudden giggle that his friend could not suppress.

I’d always liked that sound; I found I was smiling despite the weight that had come to roost in my heart. You knew you wouldn’t hold onto him forever, I reminded myself sorrowfully. He’s whole. That’s what you wanted. Don’t weep for that, old woman …

But I did. A tear crept down my cheek and washed away my smile. I quickly stepped back into the outer room to hide it, making a show of taking off my shawl and chivying Jurgan to fetch a draft of the guesting ale from my store.

"So what took you so long?" Iolaus was asking. His friend sighed.

"You’re a hard man to find. I had no idea where to start. I checked all of our usual haunts and, of course, you weren’t in any of them. Then I started asking around – none of the Argonauts had seen you, and neither had Xena or Gabrielle. You weren’t in Attica; none of those second cousins and twice removed aunts of yours had caught sight of you, and your grandmother certainly hadn’t. I went to ask Hephaestus - since I was in the area - and he suggested I ask Poseidon. Which I did." A wry smile tugged at his lips as he spoke. "He owed me a favour. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the voices of the sea finally sent me here - with a little help from my uncle. Once he and Heph got back from talking to Morpheus. They both thought they ought to have a word with him before he misunderstood the situation entirely. That was the major delay. You know how time shifts in the dreamworld. They went for an hour or two and I waited a week. But I’m here now." The wry smile became an apologetic grin. "So - your wake-up call was a month late. You did say you wanted to sleep in ..."

"Not that long," came the amused retort. "But - hey. Wait a minute. A month? That can’t be right. I’ve been here - " He struggled to place time around his memories. "I’ve been here – ages," he concluded worriedly. My heart ached to hear the sudden note of distress in his voice. Had he no memory of it at all?

I have truly lost him, I remember thinking. My son is a stranger to me …

And then he lifted his head and his voice, and healed that wound in my heart with the words I had thought never to hear from him again.

"Little mother?" he called anxiously. "How long - ?"

"Nine months," I answered, perhaps too promptly not to be accused of eavesdropping. But I didn’t care. I came back through the curtain and he welcomed me with a grateful smile. "The last big storm of winter brought you," I reminded him. "It’s been nearly two since the raiders came."

Hercules was frowning in puzzlement. "Nine months?" he echoed. "But - "

"Like you said," Iolaus shrugged. "Time shifts in the dreamworld."

The frown didn’t go away. "That’s probably it. But even so – to be locked in sleep that long - Iolaus, it must have been a nightmare."

A nightmare ...

I thought of the summer; of days when he’d come home from the sea with nets laden with fish slung over his shoulder, of the days he’d spent working in the settlement with his tanned skin gleaming in the sunlight and the eyes of every woman of the folk on him - and of days when the evenings were warm and the work was finished early. He had sat with me while I worked at my loom or my tablets, listening to my stories and laughing as if he had no cares in all the world.

Do you remember? I wondered, watching the thoughtful look that now creased that familiar face. Is there still a place in your heart that is Elfir? Are you still my son, my Otterkin ...?

"Some of it was," he considered slowly. "Feeling trapped inside myself - that was weird. And - " His hand lifted, his fingers clenching as he looked at the half healed scars on his wrist. "There were moments I’d rather not remember ..."

Suspended and in pain. Weeping his life’s blood onto the beach, in payment for our safety while cruel men made sport of his defiance.

"But," he went on, his lips curling into a generous smile, "I can’t really complain about the rest of it. We had a - pretty good summer, didn’t we, little mother?"

"We did," I answered softly. I still wasn’t sure how things stood between us; this easy tumble of words was offered up by the voice of a stranger. A stranger with my son’s eyes and my son’s smile.

Jurgan chose that moment to return with the ale, my guesting tankard clasped formally between both his hands. I turned and took it from him, nodding my thanks, and then turned back, ready to speak the words and welcome my guest as I should have done. Two pairs of blue eyes were looking at me; one pair holding wary curiosity, the other pair threatening mischief.

"Little mother," came the question, filled with patient amusement. "What are you doing?"

"What I must," I replied. Had he forgotten the customs I had taught him? The way to treat a guest and how to acknowledge one who was not of the folk? He grinned at me, and my frown collapsed into confusion.

"Don’t be silly," he laughed. "Put that old thing away. Fetch the festival cups and put some decent mead into them. Herc's not a guest - he’s family."

"Family?" I echoed, glancing from one man to the other as I did so. Looking for my friend, Hercules had said. My friend, not my brother. There was a likeness between them both, but not so close as to think ...

"Oh yeah," that warm voice insisted, and the grin widened as he looked at the man beside him. "He is as kin to me, and all that is mine is his."

I caught back a breath. I had bound this man to me with an oath, spoken on a cold beach so many months before. I had made him my son, and taught him the ways of the folk; now he echoed that oath, speaking formal words of binding, and knowing full well that that was what he did.

He threw me a look at the end of his little speech; a look I knew well enough. It was one of those slightly sheepish apologies - the sort that boldly acknowledged responsibility for his deeds and yet sought forgiveness if there had been offence. The look warmed my heart and answered all my fears. Whoever this man was, he was still my son - and I knew that he loved me.

"Well," I said, handing Jurgan back the guesting tankard and smiling at the confusion on Hercules’ face. "In that case we will have to open the cask of mead. But you, my sweet Elfir, must drink no more than a cup or all my careful dosing will sour your stomach for sure." I threw Jurgan a nod of encouragement and he went with an eager step. The chances to share my mead on days other than the festival ones are rare indeed. The deed dispatched I turned back with an apology. "I have heard your true name, I should use it ... "

"Oh," wool clad shoulders shrugged, "don’t worry about it. You go on calling me whatever you want. I’ll answer to it. They had to find something to call me," he told his friend. "Because I - er - couldn’t exactly remember my name ... Not to tell anyone, anyway."

"It was how the stones named him," I explained. "Elfir. Kin to the otters that dance in the sea foam. It suited him."

"I can see why," Hercules laughed. He casually lifted the amulet from his neck and dropped it back into its owner’s lap before leaning his weight back against the wall and smiling at the two of us. "Looks like you fell into good hands, buddy."

Iolaus - who was still my Elfir and thereafter would always be so known among the folk - put out his hand and captured mine with a gentle touch. "The best," he breathed, and smiled at me.

So - for a time - I did not lose a son, but gained another. I told Hercules in no uncertain terms that Elfir was not yet fit enough for travel, especially with the autumn turning and winter on its way. He simply smiled and agreed with me, content, it seemed, to wait until I was ready to loose the ties with which I had bound his friend. They talked until sundown, speaking of places I had never heard of and people I would never meet - and afterwards, when I insisted that one of them, at least, needed his rest, Hercules sat with me for a spell, stirred my stewpot and heard the tale from my lips. He smiled and he laughed at most of it - all but the coming of the raiders and the cruel revenge they had wrought as the price of our people’s safety.

"Will they come again?" he asked, his eyes bleak and his lips narrowed in anger. I shrugged.

"They usually do. At least once more before the winter truly comes."

He nodded thoughtfully and dipped his head to taste how the mutton was doing. "Then we’ll stay until winter," he said softly. "My uncle won’t fetch me back until I ask him to. And I always try and repay my debts."

I gave him a measured look. "You have been with us less than a day," I pointed out. "How could there be a debt between us?"

His smile was a knowing one. His eyes turned towards the curtained archway behind which one we both loved was sleeping. "You took him in. You fed him, cared for him - I owe you. Big time."

I laughed softly and shook my head. "You owe us nothing. He has already repaid his care a thousand fold. But I will not argue if you wish to stay a while. There is work to be done before the winter storms set in, and I am an old woman. Whose sons must earn their keep," I added, trying to sound stern about it. He laughed.

"I think we can do that." He wasn’t fooled; much as help with the work would be welcomed it was the gift he offered me that I cherished more. The rest of my year; my son beside me until the winter came again.

Or rather - my sons.

Hercules was true to his word; he helped with the work and the work was done almost before I could say what needed doing. He put his hands and his back to our needs with a will, and his strength served us as if ten men or more had come to dwell in my house. For a start he hauled Ogan’s deep water boat up onto the beach for its cleaning and caulking - he hauled it, his two broad hands on the rope while Jurgan and his brothers laid the rollers beneath the keel. Then he went with me into the caverns behind the settlement and we brought out four of the huge cheese wheels that had been maturing in the darkness. That usually took four trips and three men to each wheel; he did it in two, hefting a weight of cheese in each arm and bringing them down the storm steps with bold and confident strides. Children ran beside him, I remember, their eyes wide with wonder and awe – and his oath brother teased him for days afterwards, joking that he might have put down the cheeses, but their scent still lingered in his presence. The joke lasted until the day Hercules simply picked up his amused tormentor and tossed him, gently I should say, into the smoke house - where he was immediately inundated with a cascade of half smoked fish.

Another man might have read that as the starting point for a feud - but not my Elfir. He sat back in the deluge and howled with laughter, throwing fish at his friend - who promptly caught them and threw them back. It took great self control on my part to face them both with stern eyes; the fish was valuable and shouldn’t be wasted, but the sound of that laughter was worth far, far more to me.

Laughter.

My beach rang with it. With the sound of happy voices and the joy of being alive. I shall never know if it were the results of being loosed from the dream spell that had held him in thrall, the presence of his semi-divine friend, my own careful magics and herbs, or just his own restless energy and stubborn determination, but my son’s recovery was little short of miraculous. Not instant - far from it in fact - but every day saw him win back a little more of the strength and agility that had been beaten and ripped from his compact frame. Within a week of Hercules’s arrival he went from a few cautious steps away from his bedside to walking on the beach; by the end of the second he was running across it, and by the end of the third he was turning cartwheels.

It was he who begged me to cast the stones and bestow a second naming on his newly adopted brother. I was loath to do so, because the stones are sacred things and not meant for play, but in the end his smile persuaded me. I cleared the table and I brought out the stones and I made magic for the son of a god - who was also my son, in those precious days that we shared. Ulthanar, the stones named him; eagle’s child. It seemed apt; the eagle is a noble bird indeed, and gifted with great strength and speed. It came easily to my lips and he answered to it with a vaguely embarrassed smile.

They were grown men, those two heroes that had become my family, but once I had judged Elfir fit to leave his bed, they filled those autumn days as if they’d not yet spent all the coin of their youth. The work came first; every morning they would scour the shore, harvesting the kelp that lay washed to the tide line and gathering up any driftwood brought in from the sea. When it was needed they’d carry water down from the stream, filling my storage barrels. They would round up my sheep and help me milk the ewes, and one would pour the rich milk into the setting troughs while the other stirred in the mix that would make it curdle and turn it to cheese.

And after that, they were free to roam as they wished.

Some days they would stay to help me further; to pack the curd and seed it with salt, or perhaps to cut a newly woven length of cloth from my loom. On others they would head for the hills, exploring the land around the settlement. But mostly, they simply stayed on the beach. They helped Ogan and his sons re-caulk their boat. They helped lift the smaller craft up beyond the high tide line, and they helped fold and pack the nets for winter store. And they fished. A new kind of fishing for us; the folk have always hauled up the bounty of the sea in nets walked into the surf or dropped from the side of a boat. This was fishing done from the water’s edge with a line spaced with baited hooks and it caught a different kind of fish. Flat fish mostly, creatures with their eyes turned to the tops of their heads and their bodies mottled like stone. It was a sweet meat and very welcome on my table, but that wasn’t why they did it. This wasn’t work. This was play.

They challenged each other with it, competing for the quickest or the largest catch. They laughed and they joked as they cast their lines - and they fought the waves and the fish themselves for each prize, pitting their wits against the sea. I remember watching Elfir as he wrestled to bring in one particular catch, marveling at how he would let the line out a little to fool the fish and give him a chance to dance it closer to shore. This was a game of skill as well as strength and a cunning move brought home the prize more often than a strong tug on the line. Not that Ulthanar was any less skilled at it than his friend; he had a strong hand and a steady eye, and the eagle’s child made his catches with the patience that my otterkin lacked.

When they tired of fishing and the challenge of the sea they challenged each other instead. They competed for accuracy and distance, tossing stones into the sea or at cairns they raised against the cliff. They wrestled and they danced along the tide strand, conducting mock battles, most of which ended with Iolaus - my Elfir - lifted high over his oath brother’s head and the two of them laughing - one at the prospect of being tossed into the sea, the other with the tease of the threat. Hercules only carried it out, once or twice. I realise now that - no matter how much fun there might have been in those friendly conflicts - they possessed a serious purpose. They stretched strength and skill, honed reflex and speed, and bound the two of them together, reaffirming a bond of trust and confidence that had been forged by friendship and proven time and again in battle. They were not brothers in blood, these heroes, but they shared a brotherhood of the heart that nothing could shake or shatter.

I watched them play, sheltered, for a while, from the destiny that the two of them shared, and I breathed a silent prayer of thanks that such men did exist, in a world I had once thought wholly cruel. And I thanked the old gods that they had gifted an old woman with such wonderful sons – even if it were for so short a time.

'The Old Woman, the Otterkin, and the Eagle's Child' - Part One. Disclaimer:This story has been written for love rather than profit and is not intended to violate any copyrights held by Universal, Pacific Rennaisance, or any other holders of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys trademarks or copyrights.
© 1999. Written by Pythia. Reproduced by Penelope Hill