Qeya River outstretched arm, and upturned hand

it appeared that the word that wardruna sought escaped imrathil too as the northerner's gaze flickered to a small chunk of ice that drifted lackadaisically past them, carried along by the river's current. it would nag at wardruna's mind for a while, especially if imrathil was not able to produce the translation but 'big ice' was a simple enough translation that imrathil appeared to understand. glacier. the word finally came to imrathil and wardruna's singular gaze flickered back to the ankyrian with a noise of acknowledgement in his throat. yes, that's it the noise communicates. "guh-lay-shur," wardruna repeats the word slowly, forcing his tongue to sound it out. the word feels clumsy and soft. "common tongue is so soft." he mutters his absentminded complaint under his breath.

wardruna turned his head, allowing his gaze to focus on the ice floe in lieu of imrathil, though the scarred ankyrian remained within the edge of his peripheral. wardruna liked to keep him in his line of sight, in a manner that is not meant as controlling ( as it had been for his ex-wives ) and more for his own private comfort. those abandonment ( and exile ) issues were rough. beyond that, keeping his companions in his line of sight in some form or another was also merely out of habit. he might've pretended like he could still see out of the eye with permanent hyphema whose surrounding flesh is scarred but it was all a show. a lovingly crafted deception in order to keep the ex-berserker's intimidation level up.

wardruna is quiet for a long moment as he pre-contemplates through his words. "i have never seen it in a river," he agrees with a soft pause, recollecting his thoughts and the messy translations crossing wires in his head. "but in the élivágar sea close to jötunn spine chunks from a ...gla — jökull — was common." the black beaches and icy waters of wardruna's homeland(s) was a stretch of territories that appeared to be plucked straight from niflheim itself and he thinks of them with a bittersweet fondness. the gods have barred him from them. that was the price of their continued favor: he could never return and he paid it. not because he was noble and it was the way of their culture but because he was, at his core, a selfish beast.