The village shimmered with a kind of anticipation Astrid couldn't name.
It was the first morning of Blotnatt — the oldest festival in Løvlund, older than the church that stood half-buried in moss at the fjord's edge. Older than the language carved into the stones outside Widow Åse's house. A night when the village shed its clothing, its secrets, its separateness.
And Astrid was no longer a stranger.
She stood at the mirror in her grandmother's old room, watching herself in candlelight. Her reflection was all shadow and skin — bare shoulders, damp collarbone, her hair loose and untamed like the night outside.
The only thing she wore was a crown of herbs Ida had woven for her — sage, thyme, marigold. Protection. Awakening. Desire.
"You're not supposed to wear perfume tonight," Ida had said, licking the green string as she tied it. "The gods need to smell your fear."
The village square had transformed.
Torches in every window.A bonfire already rising.Children ran naked through the ferns, painted with red berries and ash.
Astrid walked slowly, barefoot, toward the center. She could feel the dirt between her toes, the heat from the flame, the collective pulse of the village rising like a second heartbeat.
Leif was already there.Shirtless, arms crossed, watching the fire like it owed him an answer.
He saw her. Smiled. Then bowed.
Not a flirt. Not a joke. A gesture.
"You made it," he said.
"I don't think I had a choice."
"You didn't."He nodded toward the fire."Blotnatt decides who stays."
The ceremony wasn't silent — it was loud with breath.
Not chanting. Not prayers. Just bodies moving through heat, paired off or clustered together, lips to necks, skin to skin, gasps swallowed and echoed.
Astrid had never seen anything like it.
Not an orgy. Not a frenzy. But worship.
Ida found her in the crowd, took her hand, and pulled her into the circle. Their fingers laced. Their eyes didn't look away.
Then Ida whispered, "There are no roles tonight. Only wants."
Astrid was touched everywhere.
By strangers. By villagers she'd passed at the market. By women she'd smiled at across fields. By men who offered their palms without pressure, only promise.
And through it all —She came back to Ida.Each time.
Their mouths met like thunder and water — soft then shattering.Their thighs moved like tides.And when Astrid came, it was on the earth itself, back arched against the moss and moonlight, Ida's mouth still open against her breast.
Blotnatt didn't end.It faded, slowly, into the damp hush of morning.
People slept in circles. Couples curled into trios. Even the fire burned down to embers without protest.
Astrid lay half-covered by Ida's arm, the weight of a blanket of leaves across her belly. Her body was sore, raw, holy.
She blinked at the sky — where the stars had disappeared, and the sun began to rise through a veil of fog.
And for the first time since arriving in Løvlund, she whispered to herself:
"I belong here."