The warrior's resolve

A young female Viking warrior, barely in her early 20s, stood on the muddy shoreline. Her long ash-blonde hair was braided and tied back, her pale skin reddened by the cold Nordic wind. Dressed in practical woolen tunic under a chainmail hauberk, she wore a fur-lined cloak clasped with a bronze brooch. Her worn leather boots crunched on the shore as she gripped her shield and a seax dagger from her belt. The overcast sky cast a cold light over the beached longship and her determined stance.