The setting sun cast an eerie glow to the Witches' Marsh, dull with it's drab greys and olives. The shrubbery was lackluster as the muck that was the marsh's floor. It smelled wretched — like partially digested lunch of a giant of the sagas. It's filth carved a disgusted grimace upon scarred lips yet he did not turn or deign to retreat around the marsh. Through it was undoubtedly the quickest way. To double back now would waste what precious light of the witching hour lingered. The devourer moved through the slick muck, snapping his sharp teeth together in belated annoyance each time he (occasionally) found a paw stuck in the sticky sludge and pulled up with force, splattering his marred face with droplets of mud (and other things he shuddered to think), a loud sucking noise accompanying the brief swell of relief that the freedom brought with it. Eventually, he found a path of solid earth, the dirty moss pliable and soft underfoot and followed it instead.

Ragnar's legacy bespoke to him across the distance, tales of his father falling had reached his ears even in Svartalfheim. As the rightful heir to the legend's throne as any, Rigr came prepared to conquer. Led by the calling of the Norns as they whispered in his dreams, weaving their visions of glory, fame and power. Whispering in his slumber that he, as a true Viking son, deserved the bloodied, ash tree and bone crown more than any of his brothers or sisters. He glimpsed about, bi-colored eyes staking out his path with unhindered hyper-vigilance, alert and unsettled. Rigr spared a glimpse over his shoulder once as his hackles bristled. He was assured that, for the moment, he was alone and yet he got the distinct feel of eyes on him. Perhaps it was the Gods, the Norns or the dead. Regardless, he kept pushing forth hoping to be gone from the marsh within the hour.

The unsettled feeling did not ebb, instead kept his hackles bristled in a display of warning though to whom Rigr did not know. Would he not have been an instinctual beast he might have thought it silly. As far as his senses told him — albeit dulled as the marsh made them — he was alone. He was not afraid but the eeriness steeled itself within his gut, washed over him, making him feel so on edge that he was a taut as a bow string. Even his heightened hyper-vigilance was leading him astray. A rustle of tall marsh grasses to his left drew the viking's fierce stare, his lips curling back over his teeth. He could not shake the feeling. If anything the further he moved into the marsh, the more heightened it became. Someone was watching him and there was no way it was the Gods or the legion of dead. Not even the Norns had ever made him feel so utterly uncomfortable.

There was an itch seething beneath his skin, an eagerness to spill blood. The excitement tickled with the rush of adrenaline, the sound of his heart beat and rushing blood in his ears as they rose, alert atop his skull. His tail gave a warning flick before he turned, abruptly, a low snarl tearing from his curled and terse lips. There was no one as far as he could see and yet he did not rely on his eyes, nor even his ears or nose. The marsh was blinding the senses that he relied on so heavily to live. This was a test orchestrated by Odin, perhaps, he considered. A test of his intellect. Was the Allfather's goal to drive him mad? Or to see if he could break the chains of madness as they threatened to settle upon him like a binding weight?

“hver er þar?” He demanded, the guttural words of his native tongue calling into the marsh, swallowed by it. “Show yourself.” Next came the command, this time in the heavy flow of the common tongue, foreign and wrong upon his tongue. He did not use it much in Svartalfheim. It occurred to him that he was likely talking only to ghosts, to nothing but he took the chance nevertheless. Whether it was growing paranoia or his intuition was correct Rigr was determined to find out.