Larksong Grotto Sangilak

Njord was not a hot-headed man. Nor was he a violent man. He was a kind and gentle soul. A romantic. A singer. A father. A friend.

But something about the past year had whittled his spirit down to a sharp point. There had been a bear. Many deaths. Rejections. Defeats. Children who weren’t really his.

And here he was, on the trail to nurture a budding light in his life, only to find the man who had bloodied him, full of contempt, in his path. Each successive laugh unstitched a new thread from Njord’s tenuous composer and he met Kigipigak’s defiant look with a flash of fangs.

“Ye disgrace yer clans with yer words!” Njord boomed, sick of the other man’s gloating. “‘Tis not me they’d angry at… knowin’ one of their own were hootin’ and hollerin’ and insultin’ tha locals like some damn fool.” His posture stiffened and he advanced onto Kigipigak with a few square steps, red tail rigid behind him. “M’given ya one last chance, Kigi,” he growled, eyes devoid of any humor.