Shadowwyn Moor Broken Crown

Aw! Tagging @Sven for reference. An explanation of Ujurak's absence.

He remembered that it was still cold when he left. The creeks were bound by ice and the trees laden with snow.

Red rimmed the stone prince’s eyes, fatigue crept into his marrow.

He had taken too long.

It was all he could think as unknown territory was left behind. The familiar landscapes of the Rising Sun Valley eased his weeping heart, but the land had changed in his absence. The snow had melted into the earth, leading to thick swathes of mud across the moorland. The spring grass was rejuvenated with vibrant greens, and dotted by the closed buds of flowers promised to bloom. The clear skies revealed the long-missed sun with its warming rays.

An east-bound wind carried the bold scents of the Bearclaws and the distant scents of Swiftcurrent Creek. His lip quivered at the absence of Kvarsheim’s sweet, meadow scent. A faded remnant lingered on the wind, but it was stale and easily overwhelmed.

He had taken too long.

The ghost of his pack’s scent brought to mind the reason for his absence. His brow furrowed as he recalled the sudden illness that brought its own spectres. Fever dreams and the confusion that followed, it was miraculous that he had even left Kvarsheim’s territory. He reasoned that it was the strength of his longing that carried him so far. The hallucinated whispers of Astrid, Kristjan, and their mother, Taktuq, lured him away from his people. From Sven.

There was no sweeter siren song than the voices of loved ones, even if they were in fact conjured by the subconscious. Yet it did not absolve him of the shame he felt. He’d be lucky to be left with shambles given how weak Kvarsheim’s scent was.

But Ujurak was lucky to return at all. The past weeks were a haze upon his mind. Lost to the febrile state he had succumbed to, it was only the passing assistance of a stranger that kept him from the grave. The stranger had nursed him to some degree of coherency, before leaving Ujurak with the herbs to finish his treatment. He did not retrieve the stranger’s name, but he was grateful all the same.

Healed from his sickness, Ujurak was not without wear. The toll on his body left him drained, and the weight upon his soul nearly made him buckle. Pausing in the Shadowyn Moor, Ujurak crooned out a mournful note into the wind.

He did not know if he would be answered, but he made himself known. He had returned, but were there any who remained?

from the ridge above, the blonde man stood—still like stone, but eyes alive with sunfire and wind. he had heard the call, low and thick with something old. something broken. a sound of loss. it made his chest ache some, though he did not know why.
he came down slow, steady, no threat in his steps. just muscle and quiet.
you... call, he said, voice thick with an accent shaped by wind and canyon. he tilted his head, golden eyes sharp, but not unkind. i hear.
his head tipped toward the moor, then back to the man before him—thin, heavy-eyed, with soul dragging behind him like broken antler. coväh’s gaze flicked over him once more, slow.
you... not dead, he said finally. a small smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth, crooked. so maybe lucky.

ON his way not there yet.

 

It was purely happenstance that Sven just happened to hear the tail end of his brother's call. Ears went forward and head lifted. The starkness of his freckles showing up across is face. Slate grey eyes honing in onthe direction. It would take him some time, but he hoped.

He lifted back his head and howled out. Letting him know brother i'm coming. brother i'm here.

All he could hope and pray and wish was that Ujurak heard him. Sven had never been loud or boisterous. Always the quiet sibling. The one who stayed in the background and let the sun shine on those he loved. He liked it that way.

He began a heavy lope towards the way he had heard and hoped he was going in the right direction.

I am so sorry for this wall, y'all. Please don't feel the need to match it.

It was an odd emotion, to be surprised by the depths of your own sadness. The waver of his own voice rattled his resolve to continue standing, and his heart swelled with ache. The very earth seemed to move beneath his feet, leaving Ujurak swaying upon his paws. The stone prince bowed his head beneath the spring sun, eyes closing as he centered his balance.

It was in this moment that someone came to him.

The squelch of mud beneath the man’s feet announced his arrival before he spoke. Ujurak sucked in his breath to see the sandy blondes of the man’s coat. The dull, earthen tones reminiscent of the grayed brown fur his father, Gunnar, held in his final years. Were it not for the man’s hawkish gaze, Ujurak imagined if his father would have looked similar in his prime.

Perhaps he still had a fever to consider such a thing, but the gentle curve of Ujurak’s smile was genuine.

You call. I hear.

The raw emotion within his chest threatened to rip his heart in two. A maelstrom of grief turning into a wave of gratitude for a stranger’s kindness. The blonde man’s voice indicated that the common tongue was not his first. His accent was one unfamiliar to the stone prince. His voice was shaped by the unrelenting winds and world that gave away to its travel.

I welcome you. Ujurak wondered how his voice sounded to the man. Was it as warm as the hearth he was raised to keep? A voice of one so used to offering others respite that it may as well have been his purpose? Or did his voice hark back to the icy seas and wild fjords of his nordic ancestry? Or was it just the voice of a boy prince that found himself left all alone?

Greatly, Ujurak wished to know the answer, but he simultaneously lavished this moment. For he too was a stranger to this man. As he locked eyes with the stranger, he was not Ujurak Baldir Loðbrók. He was not the firstborn son of Gunnar, faðir of Kvarsheim. He was not the stone prince born to Taktuq. The legacies before him and his failures to maintain them were irrelevant in this moment.

For the first time in a long while, Ujurak was being seen with fresh eyes. And so, he laid his soul bare within his turquoise gaze. Standing vulnerable to the man before him, Ujurak shrugged his shoulders with a defeated laugh.

In many ways, I am lucky. His head tilted slightly. And in others, I am not.

It was then the eastern winds brought with them the voice of a third.

Brother, I am here.

Ujurak fell to his knees, water streaming from his eyes.

Sven.

He was here. He was home. He had stayed. And he was coming—!

Ujurak’s voice rose once more, his words were lost in his emotion but his warbling song was an acknowledgement for his littlest brother. I am here, Sven. I am here.

Ujurak’s breath hiked his shoulders. The smile remained on his lips as he blubbered to the stranger. Uncertain how the man perceived his change in emotion, but appreciative to ramble senselessly to someone all the same.

What really makes me lucky though, he sniffled through his words, is that I have someone I love so much it hurts. Ujurak lifted his head to the stranger, sadness, joy, and relief danced upon his face. He wished to know something about this man. Names be damned.

Do you have someone you love, friend?

the blonde hunter tilted his head, lips parting with a soft huff through his nose. it was not pity he wore, but a quiet sort of recognition.
you… love deep, he said, the words slow, strained through an accent thick with stone and wind. this… he gestured with his snout toward the man’s chest, where the pain clearly lived, this mean heart still beat strong.
a pause.
coväh did not sit, but shifted—weight rolled back into one hind foot, as though discomforted not by the emotion, but by the depth of it. his ear twitched. he thought of ayovi.
the way her laugh still tasted like salt. how her eyes were a storm that softened for no one but her own. he saw her every time he closed his eyes—sometimes a curse, sometimes a prayer. the only remnant of home. 
yes, he murmured, husky. woman. strong one. from home. his voice trailed off with a breath like bark stripped in winter. 
his head dipped in a slow nod. golden gaze flicking up.
he stepped closer, just enough for the wind to no longer separate them. voice gentled, words less broken. but… i stay. like you stay.
another pause.
this lucky, coväh said. to wait. to want. even if it hurt.
his shoulders rolled back and he offered the faintest smile, crooked and wolfish.
what name you?

On paws tired and weary for he had been traveling he raced. With gladness in his heart ofhearts it soared. He was racing to the remnant of his family. Something he could touch and hold and care about. Sven did not care that his brother had been away, well yes he did. But right now this did not matter. And it would not matter. His brother's reasons were his own and if he wanted to share them with the last born of Gunnar and Taktuq then so be it and if not that was okay too. All that mattered was his brother was here. He had returned and as luck would have it, before Sven departed the valley. 

His brother's warbling cry invoked deep emotions in his own chest. And his eyes of steel softened and teared and the edges. But he ran on. A gentle lope turning into the hardest canter he could muster. And as such he found his brother with another on shaky limbs and breathing fast. His sides heaving. He could not speak. His breathing was too hard. He simply threw himself at his brother. Which was funny to the other man he was certain two boys of similar stature and weight and one just tossing himself like a branch at the other.