Gunnvor Skaeringsdóttir

General
Name: Gunnvor Skaeringsdóttir
Meaning: From the Old Norse name Gunnvör meaning “cautious in war” from gunnr what means ‘war’ combined with vor what means ‘vigilant, cautious’.
Age: 36 years old
Place of Birth: Skagen
Place of residents: Skagerrak
Rank: Countess, former Shield maiden

Parents: Arndis Hafsdóttir x Skaering Styrbiarnasson
Siblings: None
Husband: Rigas Fenarifksson
Children: Freyr Rigasson

Appearance
Eye Color: A very vivid distinct green
Hair color: Black
Hair style: Very straight, long, doesn’t braid it much
Build: Gunnvor is very slim build, she looks likes she can’t handle something small but she actually can. Don’t mistake her slim posture for weakness; she is driven to prove you otherwise.
Tattoo: There runs a tattoo over her entire spine down.

Personality
Her whole live is based on honesty, for that you won’t caught her on a lie. She builds her relationships on the honesty, trust and that makes her a very steady personality to be around … if you know her. To people she doesn’t know she can be very distant, silent even. Often she will be the one sitting and observing rather than talking but let her silence don’t fool you. Gunnvor has a keen eye for details and you rather don’t have her interfering in a problem, not if it involves something she believes in or roots for, like her family. To Rigas she is the most loyal, around him she will always be the steady, confident one in the eyes of others. Trusting every word he says and every steps he takes. In a neutral look Gunnvor looks stern, keeping more people away than she wants. So, if you don’t know her good enough you would find her to be more evil looking, unpredictable, she loves to make a statement from time to time. For the people who know her she is a stable woman, honest, friendly but with an edge. You are not 100 percent sure how you have her but you can always rest on her council whatever the nature. She can make a joke here and there and holds all her vulnerability and playfulness away only for her husband and son. For them she goes through the fire if needed, she hates it that Rigas is so protective and Freyr probably hates it that she is so protective over him. In that way the circle is complete. She and Rigas often have an argument but it’s purely to entertain themselves because everything always turns out in the end. One bad habit she always will have is her lust for vengeance, she loves to take revenge … on everything. It is therefore way to not get in her way because she may look like a slim person, she is a fighter in heart and body and she surly knows how to handle a weapon.

History
Gunnvor is born as the only daughter of Arndis and Skaering in Skagen. Her mother lost a son before, had multiple miscarriages before Gunnvor was born. In that way Skaering, over the love of his wife, decided to not push true for another son to take his place if he came to die as the earl of Skagen. Gunnvor her family goes way back in the leadership of Skagen, Skaering his father was an earl, he became one after his death. And in every member of the family Skagen lived under one true rule, honesty. The rule that Skaering had wasn’t any different, same rules, same respect, same connections. Her father was a proud one, a good one, but he always wanted a son so he made Gunnvor in the image of one. Knowing that a woman couldn’t rule by the Gods he tried to prove them otherwise by pushing his daughter up through her life. Gunnvor grew up in the first few years as the daughter of an earl, she was respected, adored and admired. She lived without any fear, free, conscious, she became one gorgeous child.

Around the age of fourteen her father started to learn her to fight. Although she knew already so much, survival skills, strategies kills, the working of Skagen but never the actually fighting. Her training was hard, under the eye of her father and the high ranks Skagen had Gunnvor changed from a child they admired to a young woman they feared. Gunnvor gets so taken in with the trainings that she pushes herself to the next limit and the next after, become not only the best shield maiden Skagen had but also a beloved and proud daughter to her parents. She was hardly sixteen when her father took her with him in all over his raids and diplomatic journeys, she went to Kattegat, she saw places as Uddevalla and saw the first glimpse of the wolfs in Skagerrak. In that way her father hoped that the people put aside their belief that a woman wasn’t fit to rule and let Gunnvor take the throne. That was if her father died … not when somebody else took over.

Gunnvor is eighteen when the impossible happened. A large force under rule of King Harald invaded Skagen. Gunnvor was training the morning the first shouts of fear filled the air, one of the improvised watchtowers caught fire. By the time she ran away from the shore back to the great hall all hell broke loose. Gunnvor didn’t hesitate, not in a second, she grabbed her sword and started to fight alongside the other Vikings and shield maiden. But even how strong they fought, even her keen eye saw they were lost in numbers. So she went inside, looking for her parents in the safety of the great hall. ‘You can’t be here Gunnvor.’ Her father said as soon as she found them. ‘You need to go, run, go to another village. If there is any hope that Skagen will be yours someday you have to go now.’ He insisted. Gunnvor never broke any of her promises and now she had to, she had to leave her parents she promised to protect forever. She would remember that face everywhere, King Harald, that name was captivate in her thought when he and his brother take over Skagen. Gunnvor never left in those first hours. She cloaked herself under the common people waiting for whatever that should come. Harald and Halfdan never brought Skagen to their knees, they simple took over the village like it was their plan for years. She heard the screams from her mother before they killed her father for the public to see. Her father was dead, her mother probably to … soon. Her mother always said that if she would fall into wrong hands that she would take her own life to safe herself. Trusting that there was nothing for Gunnvor to stay, certainly not when Harald putted a bounty on her head.

She found some place near the borders of Skagerrak. A village that took her and her weapons in. Knowing she wouldn’t be save in places as did she stayed here hardly a week, just enough to gather her thoughts and think about her next move. Her father was dead … her mother to … Skagen was taken over and all she could think of was taking it back. She needed to take it back, she needed to take vengeance, she wanted it so badly she forgot the world around her. It was the fifth night in that village when she waked up by the alarms shouted out by  the poor farmers that lived there. As soon as she came outside and her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw the attack, a raid … like she did on her young age to. Not owning this fight but also didn’t want to leave this poor village undefended she started to fight those Vikings. Wounding and killing the one after the other until she came at him … Rigas. First instinct he came between her and another Viking. Although he was young and handsome, his fighting was deadly and so she fought back with the same deadly broken spirit she owned on that moment. But he didn’t fight to kill, he fought just in defense and nothing more. She saw it as some sort of a outgo for her sorrow over the loose of her parents she fought to kill and in some way he saw that. He dismantled her from her weapons and took her captive.

Never been imprisoned before she landed in Skagerrak, under an earl where Rigas was an Hersir. She didn’t said a word in the time he kept her imprisoned, treating her with a certain kindness others didn’t got. He knew she never belonged in that village and after weeks she finally crack under her rage and imprisonment, spilling everything. He offered her a place as a shield maiden and Gunnvor settled into Skagerrak, fell in love with the Hersir himself. It didn’t go all fairytale alike, they fought each other more than they fought the enemy but in time the only thing getting those two through battle was each other. Gunnvor became pregnant when she was 21 years, giving birth to a gorgeous son, Freyr Rigasson. Years after that where calmer for her, being more home for Freyr when his father went to the raids.

Being the supportive wife she knew that Rigas was planning on challenging the earl of Skagerrak, witch he did, killing him in one swift battle, making him the earl to rule Skagerrak. Gunnvor saw it as a step closes, never forgetting the vengeance she wanted for the death of her parents. She adjusted quite easily in her new life with her husband as an earl. Could she feel more proud, no … could she feel more powerful, no … could she love somebody else more, no.