Neverwinter Forest i wonder where that young boy has gone

because i believe i promised you a thread on sunday. <3

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Coming to the terms of Scimitar's death was ...easier than coming to terms with the fact that in little more than a month he would be a father. But ...Kjalarr knew how to deal with death. He knew how to process it, how he should approach it. It helped that in his culture it was known that death led to one of the sixteen Halls of the Gods. In this sense, death was a celebrated thing. Yet, it was hard to celebrate when the departed left a hollow absence within where their presence had lingered. Stepping up alongside his aunt Kaskara gave Kjalarr something familiar to focus upon. He poured his grief out on hunts, on patrols of the borders and allowed his fears of fatherhood to fester. Surely there was nothing more terrifying than tiny, squirming newborns so fragile and utterly dependent! Coupled by the knowledge that he was charged with raising, providing for and protecting them. The fear rose up and seized his throat, causing him to struggle to draw breath for a moment as if fear had become a palpable entity and it's wretched jaws had wrapped around his throat, teeth slicing into his wind pipe. Being strong for the Frostfur's he could do, leading he could do. Fatherhood? Was such an unknown element to the Viking.

The paternal instincts that had begun to awaken the further into her pregnancy Ondine grew were utterly foreign to him. Kjalarr held onto the foolish hope that his instincts might just know what to do but somehow he doubted they worked like that. Instincts were not an outlet of knowledge — they were precursors to preserve and create life and little more. Desperately, he wished that Scimitar lived still so that he might turn to his adoptive father for advice. He supposed that he could ask his aunt Kaskara but as he was not sure how different being a mother was to being a father Kjalarr hesitated on it, though likely at some point it was likely he would express his concerns (that was putting it mildly) even in the hopes that she might be able to assuage some of his anxiety and trepidation on what was to come.

His grip re-adjusted on the fawn he'd managed to take down, fortunate that it had managed to lose it's mother in the catacombs of trees and coppice as he drug it towards the den he'd settled in with @Ondine — his mate which was a whole other matter. He had claimed her as such on their journey here from Ankyra Sound without much thought and only for the sake that it would make their unsanctioned union sound much better. Was it a lie? Not truly. They had mated and he had no choice but to try to be a father to their children — thus logically Ondine was his mate. Not out of love but out of duty and loyalty which was something, at least; and as Kjalarr understood it exactly how Ragnar and his mother had begun their own mateship (under the same pretenses even). He dropped the haunch he'd been dragging the fawn by when he reached the mouth of the den hoping that Ondine might still be within and let out a low chuff, taking a few steps back to allow her room to exit and to take what she wanted from the fawn ...if she was hungry.

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