Larksong Grotto echoes of the past

not me stealing almost your every open thread ahahah

The norseman stepped from the tree line, his heavy paws breaking the frozen crust of the snow. He didn't bother with stealth. His coat was thick, matted, and stiff with patches of dried, brown blood from a previous kill. He smelled of old iron and wet earth.
He stopped a few feet away, his yellow eyes fixing on the woman and the white bone in her lap. A low, guttural grunt vibrated in his chest, not a threat, just a sound of confusion. He watched her lips move against the skull.
„Bein,” he grunted, gesturing with a blunt chin toward the caribou. „Dauðr.” He stepped closer, the scent of his unwashed fur and stale blood thickening the air. He didn't understand why she sat still in the dark. Silence in the winter was a trap.
„Hmph.” He looked at her pale face, then at the frost forming on the bark behind her. „Kuldi drepur,” he rasped, his common broken and thick with a norse accent. „Cold... kill. You... move.” He didn't offer a hand. He simply stood there, a ragged wall of fur, waiting to see if she had enough sense to get up before the night froze her heart.