Moonstone Quarry Starving where the ground has froze

AW but maybe @Raedwulf, rank up?

the quarry held a hush to it this morning.

not the hush of peace, but the kind that settled after something old had died and been buried beneath stone. wind moved slow across the ridge, dragging dust in long fingers across the pit floor, where clawmarks had scored the earth again and again. a place of proving. a place of bone.

sólhárr stood above it.

his breath hung thick from his nostrils, curling through his fur, tangling with the pale threads along his shoulders. the sun did not touch the blind side of his face. the socket beneath the torn lid held no warmth, no sight. only memory.

he had dreamed again—of war, of sons he had not sired, of blood that ran red as the lake he no longer called home. the gods did not visit him now. not since she disappeared. only silence, and the slow ache of winter in his joints.

but raedwulf—that one had promise. strength beneath stillness. restraint sharpened by conviction. he’d watched him in the last scuffle—had measured him.