Amidst the biting winds and volcanic landscapes of Iceland, two neighbouring stallholders find their professional boundaries dissolving in the heat of a private sanctuary. As a storm surges outside, the friction between them ignites a fire that no subarctic chill can extinguish.
"The wind is turning," Ingrid says.
The words are barely audible over the rhythmic whistle of the wind through the basalt columns. Sofie turns her head. The steam from a nearby geothermal vent curls upward, white and thick, momentarily obscuring the horizon where the black sand meets the churning grey of the Atlantic. The air is sharp, tasting of salt and ancient, volcanic earth.
Sofie shifts her weight. The heavy wool of her coat brushes against the edge of the wooden stall. Beside her, Ingrid is a silhouette of dark layers and grit. There is a smudge of grey, drying clay on Ingrid’s knuckles, a stark contrast to the dark, wet sheen of the lava field visible through the market's perimeter.
The market stalls are packed tightly, a row of timber structures glowing with amber light against the deepening twilight. They are neighbours, assigned side-by-side for the spring festival, two small islands of heat in the vast, cold expanse of Þingvellir. On one side, Sofie’s collection of hand-carved wooden tokens and grave-markers; on the other, Ingrid’s heavy, tactile ceramics.
The scent of dried fish and the sharp, aniseed bite of brennivín drift from a nearby stall. The aurora begins as a pale, ghostly smear across the sky, a flicker of green that the subarctic wind tries to tear away.
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18+, consenting adults, fiction.