King Elk Forest heart the keeper

The panic that had seized her chest began to uncoil, loosened by the stranger’s sudden calm. He did not pose as a threat; he stood like a sentry.

‘Eolh’ as in ‘elgur’; the word rasped against the cold air, rough and guttural. It was not the polished tongue of the noble courts she had fled, nor was it the sharp, rolling cadence of her husband’s people, yet it struck a chord between them. The cognate rang clear in her mind, bridging the divide. It was a stag; a beast of the earth, not a monster of the dark.

Linda watched him, her pale head tilting slightly. He understood norse, she could hear it in the thickness of his voice, yet he was clearly of this land. When he beckoned her with safety, the intent pierced through her caution.

The pale woman stepped from the brambles, but she did not lower herself to the ground in fear this time. Instead, she moved with the quiet, drifting grace of a soul looking for a harbor. She cast a wary glance toward the hidden stag, then turned her full attention to the scarred male who showed no fear of it.

While she was not born from the North, she kept it hidden, locked away behind a wall of grief, and offered him the only part of herself that still felt real. „Já... Elgur,” she murmured, her voice soft and melodic against his roughness. She looked at him, her green eyes searching his face, acknowledging that he was the more dangerous beast in this clearing: „Sterkur.”