Icy spray struck Haldor’s face as he looked up at the sails. Beside him, Jutta looked on with equal awe. The longship sat, suspended on plinths of concrete and steel. Though the oars no longer moved, they could both hear the crashing waves echo in their memory. The ocean beat against the shore behind them, hurling salty tears against the pair.

“They did a good job. It almost looks new again,” Haldor spoke without looking at Jutta. She glanced at him, catching his smile as it fled his lips.

“The figurehead isn’t right. We painted it blue. The smell from the berries we used as pigment never went away,” Jutta pointed as she spoke, tracing the sweeping neck of the dragon which formed the front of the narrow vessel.

“Its been buried for centuries. Its a miracle they pieced it back together at all,” Haldor said as he seated himself on the park bench behind him, “Asgard preserves its warriors better than the vessels that bore them.”

Jutta sat next to Haldor and sighed. Midgard was both a strange and familiar place. An entire life lived here, and yet nothing was recognizable. Even so, the past lived on, here, in mortal minds.

 

Written as part of Sunday Photo Fiction.

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