Larksong Grotto Ankärr

Nord. This word Skorpa uses with wondrous power, sprung from the pride of his own blood. His orange eyes blaze with delight and she thinks either she has chosen wrong— or right.
For Ayovi had never known a calling like the piercing chill of winter; had never felt more alive than treading kootsin trailways in a frozen storm. Pale bare uplands, frozen gulches, the evergreen coppice rimed in frost. In this serene solitude her heart was yoked.
“Nord,” a nod; universal.
Skorpa would lead Ayovi to his natal lands.
She watches the northman’s face— finding those shrouded expressions to be the most explicit look into his mind. Her heart discovers a more heedless canter. Enlivened.
As Skorpa smiles, so too does Ayovi.