2 months later

The smooth white sand feels unfamiliar beneath my feet. Back home, only harsh cliffs dip into the watery depths. I must say that this is a nice change of pace, as much as I appreciate my native polar shores.

Grabbing a towel, I sit down on the shore and use wrap the fabric around my shoulders. Water run down from my hair onto my forehead and I swipe with my hand to remove the drops. If I were home, on Greenland, plunging into the sea during late summer would soon put me in danger of hypothermia. But here, at Saga's family's summer house by the Baltic Sea, the waves are still at a comfortable temperature for an evening swim.

Yells and laughter come from the shallow waters, where Saga plays tag with her nieces Elvira and Hanna. Unable to keep up with the energetic kids for long, I need to catch my breath for a bit while admiring the surrounding nature, so unfamiliar to my eyes. The tones are much warmer here than at home. The trees fluctuate between soft green and bright yellow while the sea wavers in muted light blue. The cottages dotting the shoreline are picturesque painted in red with white trims. Fluffy white clouds, signaling neither rain nor storms, bob in the calm sky.

We've been in Sweden for a few days already, to visit Saga's family and also pack up her remaining things for Stefan's apartment. Luckily, her ex-fiance is abroad at a conference currently, which is why she found it a perfect time to come here.

So far, I've found nothing about these foreign shores to be truly terrifying, not even the bumpy plane ride. Whale safari tours sway much more than commercial airplanes anyway. And while the city of Stockholm teemed with people, the ability to actually disappear in a crowd kind of appealed to me. Here, no one will tell my mother exactly where I am at all times.

Speaking of my mother... I should probably send her a postcard, or maybe even facetime her. Otherwise, she may contact Interpol to research my whereabouts.

An email may suffice. Then she knows I'm well in current time, but I won't have to dodge annoying questions.

I do look forward to returning home eventually though. I will show my parents, Ina, and other relatives all our photographs from the trip. And then, my and Saga's life together will start for real. While the summer has been a whirlwind of romance the fall is promising to be a cozy haven of domestic bliss. While I continue to run whale safari tours, Saga is set to start a part-time job teaching programming at Nuuk's community college. The rest of her time she will spend assisting me in setting up a digital project about Greenland's past and present. Using my paintings as the backdrop, users will get to follow a polar bear called Björn through the last 600 years of the island's history. I bring the art, Saga brings the technical skills, and the island brings the history.

A splash of water disrupts my thoughts. "Are you cold?" Saga asks as she appears from the waters, her lime-colored bikini with a palm frond pattern hugging her body in a way that makes my mind wander into naughty territory. Considering her nieces are nearby, such urges need to wait until later though.

I evade the maneuver by moving backward toward the grass that surrounds the sand. "No," I lie, trying to hide the fact my teeth are chattering. The treacherous winds of August are chilling my still-damp skin."I'm from Greenland. I don't freeze."

"Then why are your lips blue?" my girlfriend asks, seeing right through my white lie as she walks closer.. Her warm and salty lips press against mine, heating my body temporarily.

"Just a slight chill," I mumble, pulling her closer for warmth.

"If you say so, tough guy." Saga bops my nose. "I think maybe you're not used to going swimming though."

"Not much swimming back home," I admit, grabbing something in the grass behind me, right where the beach meets the woodlands. Something in a familiar shade wavering between blue and purple has caught my eye.

"Are you nervous about tomorrow?" she asks, referring to our train trip to Copenhagen. The plan is to meet up with my ex-fiance Nora, who Saga has connected with on social media, there and then continue our travels across the continent for a few weeks before heading back home to Greenland.

"No," I reply, not lying this time. I actually look forward to catching up with Nora. We're both older and more mature now and hopefully, she will accept my apology. Since she's a successful marine biologist now, traveling around the world studying whale behavior, maybe she will agree that what happened was for the best, even if I should have gone about it in another manner.

"Good," Saga. "Nora has promised to tell me all about how wild you were in your youth, so I'm looking forward to meeting her."

Okay, maybe I'm a bit nervous now.

"Let's get inside before you freeze to death out here." Saga takes my hand to pull me up from the sand. "You look like you need a warm shower."

A warm shower does sound kind of heavenly. Especially if Saga is there with me.

"Just hold on." I tap her hip to make her turn around. "I wanted to give you this first."

I thread the delicate bluebell I've picked into her swimming-messy hair. "This is for you," I proclaim, before pressing my lips to hers in an embrace of hot and cold. "It reminds me of home."

***

The white sand feels wondrous under my feet after weeks on the sea. After sailing along the coastline for days, I, Björn, our daughter, and the rest of the remaining Norsemen--who were a bit skeptical about Björn's presence but luckily have faith in my word--have finally made landfall on an empty beach. Signs of civilization have marked our route since the glass device Björn brought from the future guided us toward land. Smoke over the treeline has warned us of already established settlements--whose territory we don't want to infringe on--but this peninsula, filled with lush greenery so unlike the shores we left, appears unpopulated.

"Come here," I urge Björn, waving to him to disembark the ship and join me on the shore. For so long he's longed for these lands, but now, when we're here, something seems to hold him back. Perhaps he can't believe he finally made it here, after six-hundred years.

I always knew he would come with me, but I couldn't tell him how long it would take for fear of changing the saga of time.

Björn turns, flashing a smile in my direction. But every smile is tinted by years of suffering.

I can't take away those years, but I can give him years of happiness to shade them.

A cry erupts, strong and decisive as only the outburst of a child can be. I had hoped Signy would remain asleep while we investigated the shoreline. I should have known that wouldn't be the case, as children rarely sleep when you want them to.

Before I can climb back onto the ship, Björn has bent down to lift our daughter from her cot before. He beams into a joyful smile at the sight of her. When looking at her, he seems to forget the long years spent on the road of time.

With Signy safely in his arms, he walks ashore on the plank laid out for us to disembark on this foreign shore. While they walk toward me, I bend down and press my hand on the soft sand. I sense it. This is the spot.

While Björn has lived through the future, I can have seen it in my dreams. At least bits and pieces of it. The gods, whoever they are, never give me the full scope. But I know this place will bring us happiness and joy for many years. It will bless us with long summers and short winters. It will grant us crops and game to hunt. It will unite us with strange neighbors, with customs and languages unlike our own, in bartering and friendship.

I also see darker times of war and hunger. I see friends turn to enemies and crops turn to dust.

But before then, these lands will grant us children. I've seen another child in the future for me and Björn. Another girl. Her name will be Saga. And she will be the one to steer a ship away from these shores, many moons from now. She'll sail back toward where we came from. Not to Greenland, not to Iceland, but even further. One day our descendants will stand on the shores of our ancestors.

I know it because I've seen it. I've seen Saga, and I've seen her descendant, who will share her name. That's how I could speak through her because she carries my blood.

Saga--both our daughter and the daughter of the future--could never be unless Björn came back to me. Saga is the reason we're here and we're the reason she will come to be as well. The saga of time never begins and never ends.

As I rise from the white sands, Björn stands before me. Cupping my cheek in his hand, he places a gentle kiss on my lips. "It's just like I dreamt of," he says. "No snow. No ice. No hunger. No children dying." He rocks the once again sleeping Signy in his arms. "We're actually here. Vinland. It's true. It's not just a saga."

I won't tell him about the bad times that will come. We will be both gone then anyway. For us, this place will be good.

"It's not a saga," I say, returning his kiss. "It's real, Björn."

Gently handing Signy to me, making sure she doesn't wake, he bends down into the grassy hill where the beach meets the woodlands above, picking something off the ground. "This is for you," he proclaims, grazing my skin with his hand as he places a small delicate bluebell in my hair. "It reminds me of home."

The End