Stavanger Bay i have an instinct that can never be reversed

@Qilaq i know you said you'd start this Mica but i had the muse so i went ahead and started it for us — i hope you don't mind! also, 'turo found what very little is left of ragnar's grave. xD

The morning was warm, but humid. It hung heavy in the air of the forest of the Bay, the moisture thick and salty from the brine that blew off the ocean and carried up the beach and into the forest. The gangster was certain that he would never completely wash the salt off of his coat. It had taken him so long to grow accustomed to being so near the sea when he'd grown up in a hollow so far from the sea. Riptide might have been sea-faring but Arturo was not. As the woman who called herself Lagertha had so graciously pointed out to the gangster: he didn't really belong here; but that wasn't her call to make. Arturo stayed out of his respect for Skellige, in need to continue honoring the alliance they'd struck with one another during the famine, but he also stayed because of his mental instability, because of Riptide. This was the best place for the sea witch until he ...left or Arturo healed or whatever the hell needed to happen for Riptide to be nothing but a distant and embarrassing memory to cringe and laugh about.

The sun was rising in the horizon, it's orange and golden rays reaching out to touch him through the ash trees which had thinned out as he neared a clearing. Nestled beneath the tallest ash tree was a small arrangement of gnawed bones and what appeared to the gangster to have once been a long hole in the ground. A small mound of dirt still remained, shielded from the rains and the wind but the grave had mostly been re-covered haphazardly by nature's hand, the markers scattered and some of it probably stolen. No doubt the corpse of the poor bastard had been stolen and eaten, too. For why else would it have been uncovered? “No fucking respect for the dead,” Arturo murmured under his breath, giving his head a shake. For a few moments Arturo stared at what he'd assumed to be a long since empty grave wondering whom it had been for. Probably someone important to someone because it was obvious from what scattered pieces remained that a lot of effort had gone into it. Yet, he didn't linger by it long.

Respect for the dead had been something that he'd always had; even if he didn't put much stock into the rituals that his mother had held for those who had passed away in the Hollow. He turned from the grave knowing that in a few more months nothing would remain of it. Very little remained of it now. It wasn't really his concern, anyway.