Fox's Glade a poem in which i am neither a monster nor a martyr

i had trouble trying to decide on what i wanted wardruna to call her, lmao.

It seems she is to be like Noms: the quiet type. It would appear that Wardruna is attracted to that trait in his thralls as well. No, that wasn’t precisely true. Thralls are meant to be possessions, yes, but also companions and even in a pack full of wolves Wardruna is easily lonely so far removed from the life and culture he has known and still adheres to. He is still a northerner, still a heathen even though he is an exile, even though he is no longer fit to be the commander of the mighty rage warriors. He stills holds the skill but they’re of no use to him for they are skills learned and memorized when he had the function of both eyes and the loss of vision in his left eye — though it had taken away the, at times, unbearable agony ( times when he begged the gods to end his life ) the hyphema caused — he can no longer judge distance and depth as he once had. It is taking him too much time to readjust to and he knows that even if he adjusts to it he’d be too vulnerable on his blindside. Oh! How the seething self-loathing and bitterness tastes as if he’s just drank liquid metal. It is sour and metallic upon his tongue and he threatens to choke on it for a moment.

The alabaster woman shakes her head at him and repeats his own name back at him. Another without a name. That is fine, he thinks. He will just give her a name. He needs something to call her, after all. “I will call you Hella,” one of the many names of the goddess of the dead, fitting in and of itself because that is who she strikes an unbearable resemblance to if Wardruna were to give the goddess a form of flesh. A little bit tortured looking and a little bit ethereal at the same time. “I will take you to the border and we will talk to my leader.” Wardruna informed her, heading in the direction of Easthollow’s borders, still unsure how exactly he’s going to explain her and why it’s necessary that she stay in his den with Noma, but he has the feeling of dread that the presence of a second woman that clearly needs healing will mean that Valette will be much more pressing in the aid of the pack …if she accepts her at all. Yet, Wardruna wants Hella, he’s already claimed her, because perhaps she is a test. Perhaps she is the goddess in flesh form. Many travelers through their clan had claimed of coming across the gods in flesh form so this wasn’t an unheard of tale, after all.