imrathil ventures ahead of him, limping as they breach into the boundaries of the teekon wilds. wardruna does not rush even when his ward's steps quicken. his pride of losing his wives ( despite that it was largely his own fault ) still stings despite that he spent his time licking those wounds as he nursed imrathil back to health. since his failed fight to the death where he lost but did not die, resulting in the scar, hyphema and blindness in and over his left eye and exile from jötunn spine for the rest of his life he has nothing and no one. nothing but his unwavering fury at the world ...and many times his gods. yet, he supposes sometimes they take pity on him in their own way. they took his wives from him but they gave him imrathil. even as broken as he'd been when the northerner had found him and pulled him into safety away from the furious bear's reach. and oh, how the mighty beast had bellowed and screamed in his fury at his loss. it was a fury to match ...if not out-match the once berseker's own. imrathil was family now.

it is not likely something that wardruna will forget and on principle he intends to stay far away from the mighty ursidae's presumed domain ...if he still lingers here. wardruna eventually catches up to imrathil, his single, functioning eye sweeping over him where his heavily scarred companion looks over his shoulder towards him. there is transparent and bitter disappointment in imrathil's expression. wardruna's ears taper back for a moment and he thinks that he should say something. communicating was never a strong point for the northerner, whom still struggles with common tongue.

"you are auðmýkja," wardruna muses as he steps to his companion's side. "ah...what is the word dis .... disa — point... disappoint?" it still does not sound right to him but his tongue is stubborn and does not want to form the word correctly; and somewhere along the line, the translation got crossed in wardruna's mind and while it landed in the general vicinity of words meaning a similar thing they are not the same. the common feels too heavy ( even after all this time ), too easy for him to get tongue-tied but it is a shared language ...and wardruna thinks 'disappoint' is close enough to what he means.

wardruna looks out at the valley spread before them, stony and stalwart, after imrathil gives him a ghost of a smile. wardruna does not know what to offer him in words and is not quite sure how to process the fact that he wants to offer comfort. comfort falls just beneath the northerner's area of knowledge...as was evidenced with his (ex) wives. he is not exactly a nurturing beast. at least where 'feelings' were concerned. wrath, he understands well. lust. jealousy and pain. but concern and affection are still foreign to him. that was how he'd grown up though. one of many sons all striving for the same goal: to be better than the other. better than the father. there hadn't been room to feel affection, not when you were in constant competition.

"hmph." the northerner lets out with a roll of his eye in blatant disbelief as imrathil tells him — with bitterness — that it is nothing. "það er ekki neitt ef þú finnur það." wardruna counters under his breath and then speaks in common for his companion's benefit. "it is not nothing if you feel disappoint." wardruna's grammar is wrong but he doesn't care enough to try to amend it. imrathil knows what he means to say. beyond that, wardruna doesn't push. if imrathil wishes to speak of it further, the northerner assumes that he will.

his functioning eye scours the valley below then, yawning wide like an invitation for the duo. "it is haust...the harvest." wardruna speaks, musing out loud. which meant that prey would begin to migrate and their likelihood of survival would dip to a low. it is not yet cold and they have some time yet to figure it out. "the frost has not come. but it will. we have time to ah...expl — explore." he stumbles over the common word but acts as if he hadn't. wardruna isn't willing to gamble with either of their lives. "we join a pack. or we make one. or take one." the possibilities were endless and wardruna hails from a place of raiders. of conquerors. and this outlook does not strike him as barbaric in the slightest. "for now, we see what is new and go from there." wardruna concludes. he has a bit of a reputation ( or, rather, he assumes he does ) and while he isn't sure about imrathil as far as 'reputation' goes ...getting a feel for what has changed seems a good place to start to wardruna.

wardruna ponders his own words for a long moment. it sounds grand. it sounds easy ...but if there is one thing wardruna has learned in his life this far: it's that nothing is ever easy. wardruna glimpses at imrathil out of the corner of his right eye when his companion offers an affirmation and wardruna makes to offer in return a bump of his shoulder against the dark and scarred male's own, mindful not to hurt him if imrathil allowed the contact. there are only three places wardruna wishes to avoid at all and every cost ...two for his own selfish reasons and one for imrathil's sake. but three territories out of the uncounted number that stretch before them is insignificant and would hardly impact their journey. they stand in the northern reaches of the wilds and south or west seems like two of the most logical directions to take. "west or south?" wardruna asks for imrathil's opinion, swinging his head around to face the scarred male in full. it is habit, despite that he is sure to orient himself so that imrathil is always in the line of sight of his functioning eye.

west imrathil decides and wardruna's pumpkin orange gaze focuses on the direction with an unbridled intensity. west would guide them towards the coast ...which wardruna does not hold issue with but too far south along the coast and they would be in the mighty ursidae's domain...if he still remained. like with wandering for too long once the frosts come wardruna isn't willing to play fast and loose with their lives to risk finding out of the beast remains. there is not much in the world wardruna fears but death by the mighty ursidae is one of the rare things he does. he is not the berserker he'd once been ...and even if he would have been there is an unlikely chance he'd survive a one-on-one tussle with a bear.

"then we go west." wardruna concludes, drawing in a breath and letting it out as he tucks thoughts away of how he'd found imrathil and the danger they'd narrowly escaped. wardruna takes a step forward, breaking from his place beside imrathil and heading deeper into the valley. the deeper he ventures — expecting imrathil to not be too far behind — the more aware of permanent game trails formed by deep ruts in the soil he grows. it's a relatively open shrubland with a snaking river cutting through it in the distance. "gott veiði," wardruna murmurs out loud nonchalantly, more to himself and doesn't realize at first he uses northern. "good hunting here." he adds in common, reminding himself to try to make a point to use it more. he knows few wolves know his native tongue in these wilds. temporary shelter was a secondary priority along with finding a territory that offered decent and recent hunting trails. "not much skjól...ah, hmm cover?" perhaps, wardruna considers as he spares a glimpse over his right shoulder looking for imrathil, a neighboring territory might offer something better for shelter.