Greenland, present day

The world outside is marvelously huge. It's like I've been living in a snow globe and first now, in Greenland, do I dare to step outside of my sheltered bubble to gaze up at the vast sky. Miles upon miles of blue nothingness stretch out above me. I almost get vertigo from trying to comprehend the scale of it.

The sun approaches the horizon and its golden sheen turns the freezing waves into warm amber. Mikk's hand still envelops mine as we sit down on the rocky shore, overlooking the constantly moving sea. It feels right to be here, between clucking water and whisking air, as I divulge the impossible tale that has been taking over my mind.

"Here." Mikk gently puts a blanket over my shoulders. I recognize the bear pattern from the other night when he saved me from a creature much more terrifying than the cuddly creatures dancing on the fabric. "I brought this from the car in case you got cold. It takes a while to get used to this climate, even in summer."

"I'm fine," I reply but still pull the fleece item snug around me. The scent of Mikk lingers on its fibers: fresh paint and salty air. "I'm from Sweden, which is hardly a tropical paradise. I can handle a bit of cold."

I smile and he smiles back. My heart wobbles in my chest.

I didn't come here for this... I didn't...

My mantra from this morning echoes in the back of my mind, fainter and fainter each time. Because what does it matter what I came here for? I'm here now. With him.

Red sky. Blue waves. Warm eyes. It's not what I came for but it's what I found.

"I suppose you're right about Sweden," Mikk chuckles. "Although most places are tropical paradises compared to Greenland. Not that I've been anywhere else though. I've only seen sandy beaches and tropical heat in movies."

"You never left the island?" I ask, flabbergasted. It's just so far from my own hectic life of conferences in Tokyo and weekend getaways to London. But I suppose when you live so far from everything, it's not exactly easy to leave. Besides, it's not like my travels really brought me anything more than jetlag, passport stamps, and Instagram posts, as I was too busy and self-possessed to truly take in anything I saw, just like those tourists Mikk bus around daily.

He shakes his head in reply, looking down into the clear water. Perhaps my surprised reaction embarrassed him. I squeeze his hand to try to show him that I'm not judging him. If anything, I judge myself for my frivolous traveling, which isn't exactly climate smart.

"It's not like I planned it that way," he mumbles. "It just hasn't happened. Many of my friends went to Denmark for uni, but I wasn't smart enough for that."

"You speak three languages," I counter. "Most people who call themselves smart can't master that."

"True..." he admits, hiding a blush behind his fur-rimmed hoodie. "I guess I don't think about it that way. I just picked them up because I had to. I never even finished gymnasium, or whatever you would call it in English, high school?"

"I think so," I reply. "Although gymnasium is the same word in Sweden, so I know what you mean."

"Well, I didn't see the point of graduating, since I wasn't going to uni anyway. So I got a job in the harbor--most of my English and Danish skills come from there rather than school since many of my coworkers didn't speak my language--and started to save up money, to perhaps travel abroad someday. But then my grandma got sick and I stayed around for her. I suppose there's nothing stopping me now... but maybe I'm just too set in my ways."

"It's never too late," I reply, preventing myself from throwing out an invite to come see Sweden with me. That's probably too early. But I can't help but imagine him by my side as I show him my Sweden, a place I have almost forgotten myself. We would visit the red-painted cottage with white trimmings where my family spend our summers. We would watch the blossoming cherry trees in Kungsträdgården. We would walk the shoreline of Kungsholmen toward City Hall, breathing in the sea air and watching the boats go by.

"Perhaps not," Mikk replies, giving me a smile that makes me suspect that he knows what I'm thinking. "So... you said you wanted to show me something?"

I nod, taking a deep breath as I prepare to explain something that really can't be explained. "I found this," I start, putting my hand into the pocket where the perhaps-ancient treasure is hidden. Unable to find more words, I hold out my palm with the beartooth balancing on it. The runes sparkle in the glowing light of the lingering sun.

Mikk looks at the artifact, probably not understanding its meaning from my sparse explanation.

"I found it in the water," I start my story. "Right before we first met. That's why I was out there, or well..." I sigh, realizing I might have to explain what really brought me to wade into unknown polar waters. "I threw something in there first. An engagement ring."

"You're engaged?" Mikk asks, quickly enough to make my heart thump. His grip on my hand loosens slightly.

"I was," I reply, emphasizing the present tense of the romantic connection. "It... didn't work out."

"But you went into the waters after the ring anyway?"

"I did because I realized I was perhaps being hasty. Not about the relationship, which is definitely over, but about throwing something away that I could throw in his face instead." I smile widely, perhaps a bit too widely, and inch closer to Mikk on the smooth rock.

Mikk gives me a wide smile in return. God, that smile does things to my insides. Things I had forgotten that a mere twitch of lips could cause. "I can understand that..." he concurs, gripping my hand firmly once again. "I was engaged once too. It... didn't work out either. Although I might be the one who deserves something thrown in his face for that."

I don't ask what happened with his former love--although I am curious--and he doesn't ask about mine. Those stories are in the past and ours is in the present. Perhaps one day they will be told. But another story, from another, much more distant, past needs to be told now.

"Right before I met you, I saw a woman in the water," I continue my story. "She reached out for me before disappearing and then the bear was there instead. She called for Björn, just as you did when you tried to warn me of the beast. Ever since I saw her, I've been having dreams where I see events from another time. I see Greenland right before the Vikings vanished. I see their saga. I see the love story between the woman in the water, Gudrun, and a man called Björn the Bearslayer."

Once I've started, I cannot stop the avalanche of words. It's like they've been waiting to escape my mind. I tell Mikk the saga that the beartooth has whispered so far. I tell him of bluebells, blackberry bushes, and bubbling mountain creeks. I tell him of forbidden kisses in the dusky morning light. I tell him of a love that cannot be, but also cannot die. I tell him of frozen passageways stopping all dreams of escape.

Mikk doesn't interrupt or question my words. Throughout the unbelievable story, he squeezes my hand in his. He nods sometimes to show that he listens and understands.

At the end of the story, he dislodges his hand from mine. I feel lost for a moment but soon find my bearings again as his arm cradles my back, rocking me softly in tune with the clucking waves.

He believes me. Just like I knew he would. He believes what I can barely believe myself.

"So that's why you were so interested in the Vikings at the museum," he whispers close to my hair, which must be tickling his face in its current frizzy state--the Greenland winds have not exactly been a good replacement for my usual hair regimen.

I nod, reveling in having his strong arm patting my back and feeling his scent surrounding me. "I didn't mean to ignore your people," I explain. "I just needed to know more to make sense of things, I guess. I wanted to figure out if the story is real or if it's just my mind playing tricks on me."

"It must be overwhelming. I mean, you only just got here, then you got attacked by a bear, and now you have Vikings talking in your head. This island can definitely be a lot to handle..."

I chuckle at his way of putting it. He's right though. It's a lot. But I don't want the story to stop. I want to know how it ends.

"And then there's also this really persistent guy who won't just let me go get myself killed on a glacier..." I interlace our hands to further tie us to each other and let my thumb stroke his, exploring faint paint splotches on the tough skin.

"He does sound really annoying," Mikk agrees. "Don't tell me he forced you to look at his dumb paintings too?"

"Yep, such a jerk." Leaning my head on his shoulder, I feel completely at peace. For once, everything is right in the world. Every puzzle piece is in the right place. The sky is endless above us and so are the possibilities right now before it all begins.

Because we both know what's coming. It's inevitably at this point. To pull away now would be like trying to stop snow from falling on Greenland's shores in winter. Our pull toward each other is a force as powerful as nature.

We stay there for a moment. Hands interlaced. My head on his shoulder. His arm on my back. We cannot unentangle from each other now, nor do we want to.

Red sky above. Blue waves below. We're in the middle of everything.

Mikk turns slightly, without letting his body stray from mine, and reaches for something in a crevasse of the rocky shore. Meanwhile, I gaze over glowing fjords. Burning lights dance on the waves, making them turn into every shade of fire. It's like looking into the mayfires lit at Valborg at home when we celebrate the coming of spring.

Home. It's so far away. Everything is so far away. My family. Work. Stefan.

I don't miss it. I don't miss anything at this moment. Everything I need to move forward is right here.

"For you." I rise my head from Mikk's shoulder at the sound of his melodic voice.

Between his rugged fingers rests a precious flower. A bluebell. Fragile but fervent it has made its way up between the rocks. I wish I was as hardy as the persistent flowers, blossoming yearly even on the most frozen shore. But perhaps I wouldn't be here if that was the case. I wouldn't have run so far if I was more durable.

Mikk's smile is nervous as he carefully places the gift behind my ear, letting it peek out between strands of messy hair.

The hand lingers, allowing warmth to spread across my cold-stung skin. I drown in dark eyes that reflect the burning glow of the sun. My head stops spinning, abandoning its usual whirl of anxious thoughts to be right here, at this moment.

I know what's happening. I've been here before. I'm scared. But I'm not running.

Instead, I tilt my head slightly to the right, allowing Mikk to come closer. With a quick movement of the tongue, I wet my lips in preparation.

Our lips don't crash together in a cataclysmic eruption, but rather unite like the waves on the ever-changing sea. The kiss is rhythmic and melodic, moving in the cadence of nature around us. We become part of the cliffs and the winds as all conscious thoughts disappear.

Red sky. Blue waves. My lips on his. His hand on my cheek.

We pause for a moment, smiling with our foreheads still pressed together as our minds catch up with our hearts.

Our noses nudge as we refuse to give up the skin-to-skin connection. I wonder if it's true that's how his people kiss, or if that's just a silly myth. Perhaps one day I will ask.

I dive into the alluring waves once again, letting my tongue graze his as I plunge deeper. Meanwhile, I let my hand wander into dark curls, as velvety smooth as I imagined. I twirl a strand between my fingers while pulling his stubbled chin even closer. My other hand still clasps the beartooth tightly, perhaps to ground me to this world as I appear to be floating away into a saga of my own making.

That's when something in the corner of my eye catches my attention. A brief movement of white on the cliffs across the bay. I turn toward it, without letting my lips leave his.

"What's that?" I whisper into kiss-soaked lips, pointing my hand toward the waters. "Is that a... polar bear?"

"Where?" Mikk's adoring gaze leaves me for a moment, looking toward where I'm pointing. "I don't see anything."

"There," I say, pointing at the still-visible white dot. Memories of having such a beast up close make me shiver. "Perhaps we should head inside?"

Mikk peers across the waters. "I can't see it. But if you say you saw something I believe you, Saga."

He always believes me.

"We should probably head to my parents anyway." Mikk pulls up his phone from his pocket. The display reveals that it's almost nine p.m, which is hard to tell when the sun never sets, and that he has a slew of new messages waiting for him. "We're... very late. Late enough for my mom to text me twelve times and apparently..." he scrolls through the wall of messages, "threaten to disinherit me if I don't show my ass there, with you in tow, within the hour." Judging from the amused smile on his face, he doesn't seem that faced by the threats.

"Your mom knows I'm here?"

Once again, he flashes one of those smiles that makes my insides wobble. "My mom knows everything," he states. "Just like my nana used to. And well... Greenland is a small place. People talk. She knows people who work at the museum. She knows everyone. It's just how it is."

Rising from the cliff, Mikk chivalrously reaches his hand toward me. I take it. With a quick look toward the shore, to make sure no bears are lurking, he puts his arm over my shoulder once again, placing himself between me and the dark waters as a bear shield. Letting his other hand cup my chin, he pulls me close once again.

"Just one more for the road," he murmurs into my lips as they unite with his once again.

Author's Note: Have you missed Björn? Or were you too busy shipping this couple? :) (they're cute cute together, aren't they?)

Well in the next chapter, Björn will be back again! (I think there may be a sequence of Björn chapters actually)