A storm had came upon Drageda and though Eske knows it has nothing to do with her mood but she likes to feel like it is an apparition of her grief. Losing Kendra still hurts and the Cheka cannot help but fear that the pain may never vanish. She doesn’t know who to talk to about it. She does not know who else has lost someone they loved so dearly before. She knows Gyda lost Ragnar but her mother is many, many miles away and Eske has no desire to leave Drageda. So, she does what she knows: turns her grief into aggression and aims it towards her duties as Cheka. She would fight the world if she could but she knows that no matter how many fights she throws herself into that none of them will bring Kendra miraculously back to her. Eske has never expected to fall in love but cannot help but feel quite bitter about the fact that when she begun to live for someone other than herself that life stole her away. Eske is indifferent to the storm, unbothered and numb against the rain that pelts her. She does not even flinch as thunder cracks through the sky like an electric whip — according to her mother it was Thor’s wrath, the sparks from his mighty anvil as he strikes it against his forge. Eske does not readily believe in her mother’s deities but she feels like she understands Thor’s fury. She can relate to it. Perhaps her mother cursed her when she named her spear of the gods; perhaps as her namesake suggests it does not make her strong but instead has pushed her down a path that is meant for the lonely. She is a warrior and perhaps battle can be her only love.

Ears slick back to rest against her skull as her steps pause and slow to an eventual stop near Heda; though she does not break her silence. She assumes the Commander knows she is there without needing to announce her presence. She is always near, after all. Not always seen, but she is never far, ready to give to fight, ready to give her life for her Commander if that is what is necessary.