Stone Circle Willful darling, please listen.

She was clearing out the hull of her den, dust and roots spilling out over the edge in heaps behind her. She had plans to plie the base with grass and moss, something softer to curl up on at night. And to widen out the frame, too, in the case Skáld may choose to visit her and appraise her treatment of the quartz, which gleamed from its shallow earthen shelf.

A tread through the birch betrays an approaching wolf and she quits her burrowing to seek for a familiar face among the leaves.

“Gunnar!” She calls in greeting when his tawny figure appears. Though, he carries a serious look. She clicks her teeth nervously and parts through the dirt to meet him.