Wapun Meadow cast by their grave-beseeming ornaments

As she repeats the word for ‘the story’ back to him Wardruna gives a soft nod of encouragement though he hesitates a few seconds afterwords, wondering if she understands but nevertheless accepts the answer she provides him with as story enough. Ultimately, it tells him what he desires to know above all: that she has nothing, that she is alone. “þú þarft ekki að vera einn,” He assures her in northerner and then because he suspects that she struggles with it a way similar to how he struggles with the common tongue translates it for her. “You do have to be alone.” To him, the common tongue is inelegant and it’s sounds are not match for the attractive sounds of his native tongue. They threaten to trip off his tongue which feels heavy from using them but he feels a common translation is needed: so she understands what he is offering her. He is not sure what path yet he will take if she accepts aside from the one that he has already chosen. Not Easthollow. It is a fool’s errand to depart the pack with winter having begun but he will figure it out.

Wardruna smiles and lets out a soft laugh ( not the laugh of making fun but a genuine thing ) when she says greets him. “Halló.” He parrots back to her in northerner. For an unknown reason he finds that moment oddly endearing. He would offer to hunt something for her but his moods revolving around his ability to execute a hunt vary from hour to hour and if he is surly about it then his chances of actually catching something are slim to none. Wardruna’s not sure why but he doesn’t have the urge to coerce Sif into anything: perhaps he’s learned his lesson from Noma. Or perhaps his thrall simply wants to die and he’s forcing her to live against her will and that is why she’s still so distant. Admittedly, that situation has not gone how he’d meant it to. He can only fight a brick wall for so long until he must yield: the skin of his knuckles is split and bleeding and his bones ache. Despite the insult and dread at the thought of freeing Noma Wardruna realizes that he has unwittingly been beaten. She will be free of him, can be free of life if that is what she truly wishes for.

For now, Wardruna turns those thoughts away in favor of focusing upon the woman before him.

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