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Hal Mikkelson

Karina's son, Hal

Karina Mikkelswife is the mother of Hal Mikkelson and widow of Mikkel Fastblade. She owns an eating-house in Hallasholm.[2]

Description[]

Karina was a small woman[3] with strikingly good looks.[4] She was known to be calm and confident, even in high-stress situations, such as when she was captured as a slave.[5] She also is from Araluen which is where she was captured from.

History[]

Karina was born in Araluen somewhere on the western coast, where she was eventually captured and taken as a slave during a Skandian raid. When she was taken back to Hallasholm, she immediately caught the eye of Mikkel Fastblade. He brought her and set her free immediately.[5]

Both Thorn and Mikkel had fallen in love with Karina,[6] though she ended up marrying Mikkel and, in 635 C.E., bore a son, Hal.[7] Mikkel was later killed in 639 C.E.[8] when he and Erak's crew attempted a raid in Santa Sebilla. With the funds he left behind for his beloved, Karina was able to buy an eating house to support herself and Hal and became a respected member of Hallasholm's community, maintaining a friendship with many of her husband's old comrades and friends, such as Sigurd, Svengal and Oberjarl Erak, as well as struck up a close friendship with Hannah Olafswife, who's son, Stig, would go on to become Karina's own son's best friend.[9] For years after Mikkel's death, she continued to receive suitors, though she rebuffed them all.[10]

After the Skandians' slaves were convinced by Halt and Will to aid in defending Hallasholm from the Temujai, Karina took it upon herself to partake in ensuring success for her adopted homeland, rallying her fellow Araluen woman together to create more arrows for the training archers. During the Battle for Hallasholm, Karina took it up herself to deliver fresh arrows for the former slaves, risking the arrows of the Eastern Riders in the process.

The Outcasts[]

Six years after Mikkel's death, Karina found Thorn Hammerhand passed out in the lee of her eating house. With Hal's help, she roused him and brought him inside, where she berated him for his self-destructive behavior. On her suggestion, Thorn agreed to work in the eating house and move into the lean-to behind the house, allowing him to help support Hal, thus making good on his promise to Mikkel. However, she required that he stop drinking, and he agreed.

Six years later, while Karina was at the market, Thorn, Hal, and Stig Olafson had built a water cask in her kitchen. However, it collapsed due to inadequate support, flooding the kitchen just as she arrived home. Later that year, Hal had a falling out with Thorn when Hal revealed Thorn's former status as Maktig to Stig. She and Hal had a heart to heart, with Karina explaining Thorn's perspective.

When the Herons left with Thorn to retrieve the Andomal, she informed Erak Starfollower of their plan, and accused him of being to hard on them. Erak, however, gently revealed that he had hoped they would go to retrieve it, as it was their only chance at a normal life in Skandia.

References[]

  1. In The Outcasts, chapter 2, it is stated that Karina was thirty-eight. As The Outcasts takes place in 645 C.E., that places her years of birth in 607 C.E.
  2. The Outcasts, chapter 2 - "'The eating house is a good business and it’s growing.'"
  3. The Outcasts, chapter 2 - "And perhaps it might not be wise for a small woman in her sixties and her ten-year-old son to throw water on such a person—at least not without an escape route planned."
  4. The Outcasts, chapter 2 - "She was slight compared with the more full-figured Skandian women, but she had strikingly beautiful looks."
  5. 5.0 5.1 The Outcasts, chapter 2 - "More than that, she had a calmness and a confidence about her, even when she had first arrived in Hallasholm as a slave, captured on a raid in Araluen. And that’s when she had taken the eye of Mikkel Fastblade, one of Skandia’s foremost warriors. Once Mikkel had bought her from the man who had captured her, he immediately set her free."
  6. The Invaders, chapter 30 - "'Are you going to try to pretend that you didn’t fancy Karina when you first laid eyes on her? [...] It was pretty obvious. Everyone knew. You mooned around for days, especially when you realized that Mikkel fancied her too— and that she had eyes for him.'"
  7. Hal is 16 as of The Outcasts, placing his birth at 635.
  8. The Outcasts, chapter 2 - "That had been six years ago—it was now twelve years since the raid that had cost Hal’s father his life, and Hal was almost sixteen." As The Outcasts takes place in 651 C.E., that places Mikkel's death at 639 C.E..
  9. The Outcasts, chapter 4 - "And while Hal’s mother had been left well provided for after Mikkel died, and had been able to buy a small eating house—which had since become one of the most popular eating houses in Hallasholm thanks to Karina’s excellent cooking—Stig’s mother was forced to earn a living as a laundrywoman, taking in washing for other families in Hallasholm."
  10. The Outcasts, chapter 2 - "Even now, Karina was still considered a beauty in Hallasholm and in the past year alone had refused four would-be suitors."
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