Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“The Little Viking”  (this prompt inspired by a little Viking figurine in my office, as pictured.)

It wasn’t easy for Olie to be the littlest Viking in his boat. Big Thorvald stood two heads taller than him, and most of the others stood at least one head taller. Olie even had a special sword made to be lighter and shorter for him. The others were mostly polite to his face, respecting his moniker of “mad herring”, but they laughed when they thought he couldn’t hear. He heard.

There were advantages to his stature. He knew that, he just wished he could convince the others of it. Once in battle, his enemy, a great hulking man with braided red hair, took a mighty swipe with his sword. Fortunately, Olie was so low the blow only took one horn from his helmet. And then he stabbed the red-haired man and danced on his corpse. But did his boat-mates remember that? No, they laughed at his one-horned helmet.

Then one voyage, Olie spotted a tiny Viking on another boat. Here was a man who could understand him, perhaps teach him battle techniques. At the very least, here was a man who he could drink a lot of mead with. When the boats landed in the trading town, Olie immediately rushed to the other ship, neglecting his duties, but not caring.

The other tiny Viking turned around—it was a lady. Olie’s village used to have women on the boats, but when there were enough men, they opted not to. Here, finally, was a Viking he stood over. He smiled broadly at her.

“Don’t get any ideas,” the woman said, smiling back. “I might be as little as you, but you know as well as I do how hard we fight to make up the difference.”

Her eyes glinted, and Olie saw that she probably would punch him as easily and effectively as any of his boatmates. “This is true. Let’s drink now and save the fighting for later.”