The banging at the door of Bonnie's keep snatched her out of a much stalked after slumber. It had taken several hours of tossing and turning to finally snooze off into the second cycle of sleep. So, who the hell was pounding on her door fucking over all her earnest effort? She slid out of her bed and wrapped a displaced black silk robe around her. Once covered, she hurried over to the door, and then snatched it open. Bjorn damn near fell in her arms.

And if he didn't smell like the catch of the sea, then her ass wasn't from the twenty-first century.

"Bjorn! What the hell are you doing here at the hoeing hour?" She snapped, surprised she managed to keep them both up with ease. "Not to mention smelling like a fish market that's been flooded out by soured ale?"

"Why do you refuse me, Mystical One," he slurred, resting his head on her breasts. "Why do you refuse to allow me into your heart?"

Bonnie saw a few stragglers transform into slow walk-by looky loos. Tea sippers!

No matter where you found yourself in history you'd always run across a few professional tongue waggers willing to spill a kettle. Rolling her eyes, she dragged him into her keep and slammed the door. Inside, she nearly carried him to the stone table, and then dumped him on the dining bench. After unloading her burden she grabbed a cup and filled it with water.

She slammed the cup down in front of him, "Drink!"

"Please," he reached for her hand, but she snatched it from his reach, "you have to hear-,"

"Drink!" She bellowed, and the cup vibrated against the table.

Bjorn's eyes rolled as he lifted the cup to his lips. "Alright, ack!"

The tension in her shoulders relaxed watching him drink the water. Yet, another set of knuckles slamming against her door knotted and twisted her muscles worse than an overworked pretzel. Her glare discovered Bjorn's and confusion went pound for pound with intoxication in his eyes. Without a word, she turned to open the door. Ubbe lingered on her welcome mat with raw lust searing the hell out of his eye sockets.

Wrong motherfucking time!

"My slumber wouldn't come," he said. His voice low and thick. "All I could do was lie upon my bench and think of how you felt in my arms. The honeyed taste of your tongue, hmm...and the pleasing scent of your-,"

"Why are you here?" Bjorn questioned, as he damn near knocked everything in his path to the floor in an attempt of getting to the door. "And what are you babbling about? Has Torvi sent you for me?"

"Yes," Bonnie said, answering for Ubbe all while visually daring him to contradict her. "So, gather yourself and allow your brother to help you home to your wife."

"But we have much to discuss, you and I," He said taking hold of her upper arms to steady himself.

Her eyes slipped closed as she counted backwards from five. "Not now we don't. I refuse to put any energy into you while you're like this, Bjorn." She spun in his hold to place a hand to his cheek. "You wanna talk? Fine we will, but not until you're sober and don't smell like the rancid fishiness between an overworked street stalker's legs."

Bonnie maneuvered Bjorn into Ubbe's arms who still lingered outside on her walkway. Once assured they were on stable footing she slammed the door in both their faces.

Men, ugh! Even worse than that, Viking men!

****

After Bonnie dressed, she gathered her things to leave her keep. Her one mission for the day...locate Floki's keep and discover anything he may know on her being tossed back in time. Everything he spoke to her the night before more than confirmed his knowledge on the subject. She just hoped him to be more forthcoming than Ayanna. When she crossed over briefly, the ancestors were not very trusting of her motives. Even the Ayanna from the Otherside was side eyeing the hell out of her Antics. So, if she couldn't trust a Bennett, one of the first in fact to claim the name, then did she have any hope in finding someone in which to place her faith?

Moments later, she stepped outside and pulled her fur lined cloak closed around her body. Two shield maidens in training who couldn't be any older than seventeen, were organizing the assortment of offerings and farm animals.

Bonnie's eyes nearly crossed. Everything appeared to have doubled since the night before. What the absolute fuckery? How could she make them stop without offending anyone?

"Good morning," the girls paused in their arranging to stare at each other before straightening to look at her. "What're your names?"

"Blida, Goddess," the tall golden blonde uttered.

The shorter strawberry blonde cleared her throat. "Hilda, Goddess."

"Hmm," Bonnie smiled in attempts to push down her annoyance. "Blida, Hilda, first let me just make one thing clear, I'm not a god. So please don't refer to me as one. You both may call me Bonnie."

The two girls exchanged confusion filled glances before turning back to her and saying in name in unison, "Bonnie."

"What were you girls out here doing before?" Bonnie waved a hand at the stuff cluttering the path to her door. "Someone send you to take all of this away?"

"No, God-," Blida gulped, "B-Bonnie. We were sent to maintain your altar and serve."

Bonnie's pointer and middle fingers pressed circles against her temples. "By whom?"

"Our lady Lagertha," Hilda supplied.

Damn! To release them from service would be a sign of disrespect to Lagertha. The last thing she wanted was to agitate the truce between them. "Fine, continue on with what you were doing. I'll be out for the rest of the morn. If you get hungry throughout the day, feel free to partake in whatever you see there."

Bonnie spun on her heels and headed to Kattegat's stables. The entire walk people parted to clear a path for her. Some even went as far as to bow. Everything about the experience danced along the lines of wild as hell. Why were they all behaving like she was the second coming? Surely, Floki and that crazy seeker with blatant hygiene issues didn't provoke this kind of reaction in the normally indifferent population of Kattegat.

At the stables, she approached a man in the process of loading a wagon. "Excuse me, will you be passing by Floki's keep on your way out of the city."

"Yes, but-," he began turning to face her, and then looked to almost swallow his tongue when he saw her standing there. "Goddess, I didn't realize..."

"Once again, I'm not a goddess. My name's Bonnie and I need a ride to Floki's keep," she said, darting her gaze to the people who'd begun to crowd around. Lifting her leather pouch, she continued, "if payment is an issue I'd be more-,"

"No, god-Bonnie," he raised his hands and swung his head from side to side, "I'd be honored to escort you to Floki's."

"Thank you...," Bonnie waited for him to insert a name.

He inclined his head, "I'm Ake."

"I'm grateful for your kindness, Ake," she said grabbing his forearm, and then climbing into the front of his wagon.

On the way to Floki's Ake spoke to her about how he came to Kattegat to trade some things to help him, and his family make it through the winter. He told her about his land not yielding any crop that season and how he worried they would starve. By the time they made it to Floki's keep she'd promised to visit his farm in the spring and to personally bless the soil. Her blessing, however, would be a little magical intervention. Also, to help him and his family get through the winter she gave him the entire contents of her leather pouch. A pile of gold coins she'd pilfered from Klaus' Hall of Thievery collection from back home. She wasn't the least worried. There was plenty more where that came from.

Once she thanked and bid goodbye to Ake she moved down the beach front toward Floki's keep. She saw Helga wading around in the shallow part of the water, while Floki tinkered with a fleet of model long boats that bounced about in place on the waves. When they saw her approach, they both trudged out of the water to greet her.

"Bonnie Bennett of Mystic Falls! I'm so glad you've come to visit," Helga said, pulling her into a snug hug. "Come, we have some stew left over from first meal and a bit of ale too."

"Thank you, Helga," Bonnie smiled and allowed herself to be guided towards the open home further back from the beach.

Once they were settled around the hearth spooning in mouthfuls of stew, Bonnie glanced to Floki, "Before when Bjorn introduced us, you looked to recognize my name. Then what you said about the saga I told everyone...,"

"Is there something you would like to ask me Bonnie Bennett of Mystic Falls?" Floki asked in that lyrical lilt unique to him.

She studied him for a moment as she contemplated on whether or not to crash or pump brakes. Crash it is. She raised her chin and stared him directly in the pupils. "What time period are you from Floki?"

Floki and Helga exchanged glances.

He then released that high pitch tinkle of a laugh. "You're very direct. Speak your mind, you're a lot like Sheila in that respect."

"You knew my grandmother?" Bonnie questioned, so stunned she fumbled her bowl and nearly dumped the entire contents of stew in her lap.

He tittered before his face took on a forlorn expression. "She was my mentor and...my dear friend. The supernatural world bore a great loss when she crossed over to the other side."

"Wow, she never...I mean, she..." Bonnie shook her head not knowing where to begin to tell Floki that her grandmother never mentioned him, ever. But that was Grams. She had so many secrets she made the White House situation room look like an anything goes Wendy Williams interview.

"It's fine Bonnie, I know she never spoke of me to you," He sniffed and smiled. Helga slid closer to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "She promised your father that she'd not involve you in the supernatural side of our world. It always bothered her, but if she hadn't respected his wishes then he would've kept you away from her."

Just hearing about her Gram's made her chest ache. Even after all these years, her grandmother's loss still managed to snatch the breath from her lungs. "How'd you and she meet?"

"At Whitmore College. I was an adjunct professor of occult influence on paganism," he extended an arm and dipped his head in a courtly bow. "Sensed her magic before I saw her. That's the way of Bennett magic. Once you've encountered it, you'll never misplace the feeling. Not even in a thousand lifetimes."

"You were a witch once," Bonnie stated, "but not anymore. Though I since something supernatural about you, I don't sense any magic. What happened?"

"You're right," he laughed through a watery gaze, "I used to be a witch once. My line descended from the Debenhams."

"Esther and Thalia?" Bonnie murmured astonished to find other witches outside the Mikaelson line.

"Yes," he said with a lift of the chin, "seems one of the babes Thalia thought to sacrifice was spared by a servant. A pig was slaughtered in the child's place and the old bitch wasn't the wiser."

"Knowing this about you, my Grams decided to mentor you?" Bonnie watched Floki through the flames develop a stare that appeared to be delving into the distant past.

His head swung from side to side slowly as he stared into the fire. "Not at first, no." A genuine smile touched his lips. "She thought me forward, a preternatural product of my generation. My radical ideas and the way I flaunted my magic put her at odds with my very presence at Whitmore."

"Grams was stubborn," Bonnie laughed at the memory of the arch brow that decorated Sheila Bennett's dogged expression when her mind was made up about something or someone. "How'd you win her over after she decided not to fool with you."

"Over a shared disdain," Floki's face puckered.

"Vampires," Bonnie and he said in unison.

"Yes, one had taken to recruiting vampires to slaughter Whitmore's descendants," he took a sip of ale, "in creative and gory ways."

"Damon," Bonnie mumbled under her breath.

"We used our joint magic to cast a spell that would protect the future Whitmore descendants, and curse any vampire that would conspire to do them harm," Floki exhaled another of his high-pitched giggles.

"But when she died and you...," Bonnie's voice trailed off.

The glee drained from Floki's face. "The spell?"

Bonnie stare dropped to her lap as she gave her head a slow shake. "The last Whitmore heir was killed a few years before I fell through time." Her gaze rose to meet Floki's, "What happened to bring you here?"

"After Sheila died, I was incapacitated with grief. One moment she was there, and then...anything that ever meant something to me never mattered again. For nearly seven years I only existed," He shrugged. "Then I became angry! With Sheila, with myself, and even with you. So, I did something. It was something I promised her to never do."

"What did you do?" Bonnie uttered just above a whisper.

"Why the same thing you thought to do, Bonnie Bennett." He placed his cup down and templed his fingers under his chin. The flicker of the flames placed a twinkle in his eye.

"You invoked the eternal witch spell," she said.

He snickered. "Alas, I didn't yield the same results as you. My magic wasn't sufficient enough to bring the spell to fruition. Though it granted me immortality the price for such an endowment was my magic."

"I don't understand," she picked up her cup and drained it.

"Of course you do," Floki gave her an, oh come now, expression. "There can only be one. One eternal witch whose magic is powerful enough to invoke the spell and it wasn't me. And I think Sheila always knew this to be true. She always knew it would be you."

"None of this makes any sense to me, Floki," she jumped from her perch near the hearth and began to pace the small expanse of the hall. "Yes, I may still have magic, but it doesn't feel the same, or manifest the same."

"That's because not only your magic flows through you," Floki sprung up, and then grabbed her hands. "You have dominion over all magic now. You're not just the supreme of the Bennett line, you're the supreme of the entire supernatural world." He began to twirl them around in circles. "Bonnie Bennett of Mystic Falls you're to super nature what Mother Flora is to nature. It will not be easy having your authority recognized. Others' sorcery will always recognize your dominion over it, but mystical energy is often at odds with its host's human nature."

Shaking her head, she snatched her hands away, "But why here? Why would the spell toss me back in the freaking Viking era?"

"Because this is when the first line of magic fractured," Floki watched her as if she should've already known the history of her family's failure, "And this is where the immortal witch must begin to fight, bleed, kill, and win her right to rule."