Warmth was the only thing tying him to Rökkvi as they walked shoulder-to-shoulder through the night, a slow and casual pace with no real direction to guide them; at least, that was what he thought they had been doing. In a sudden call to reality, Seiya found himself engulfed in wind. For a brief moment he caught a glimpse of the sky: glimmering night illuminated by a full moon, with shooting stars dancing across the—

Rökkvi! he shouted as his friend's falling silhouette blacked out the meteors.

But then he was consumed by cold, suffocating waters and his world disappeared. Panic, confusion, and shock raced through his blood as he struggling to right himself and breathe air again. After swallowing several mouthfuls of water, he surfaced, choking and spitting; and then Rökkvi's body doused him in a splash. Adrenaline fueled him and he burst forward, kicking through the once-calm waters that now rippled and foamed with his frantic swimming. There wasn't even time for him to try and process what had happened or why, but he knew he'd need to bring Rökkvi to shore. Without any explanation, he grabbed his friend by the thick mane on his neck and began half-pulling, half-guiding him to the edge of the river. Gods, Rökkvi was heavy, but the water helped to aid in their movement and it was not long before Seiya's paws found purchase on rocks beneath him, and then the crisp, cold snow of the shore.

His heart must have been ready to explode. He couldn't remember the last time he put this much effort into something. When he was sure Rökkvi was able to find ground for his paws, Seiya took a brief respite to quickly judge their surroundings. Nothing too strange until he glanced back up to the meteor shower. Had there been one before...? Were they even near this forest before...? But he shook all of those thoughts aside, his attention wholly on Rökkvi.

Are you okay? What the hell even happened?

Oh, the water he had swallowed... Seiya turned aside to retch. Delightful.

Without warning, the substrate beneath his paws vanished. Rökkvi was sure they had chosen to chart a path over solid ground, especially as his companion was presumably quite experienced in sight-based decisions. Suspended in the limbo of mid-air, Rökkvi deliberated over the trustworthiness of his friend, second-guessing all the time they had spent together, before the alarm of falling actually kicked in. Kæri afi, er ég að fara að deyja?

Where was the ground? How long would it be before his body slammed into rocks and broke? Rökkvi heard plenty of stories of wolves tumbling down mountains, cracking their skulls, shattering their bones; mostly in the form of warnings from his family, and very much emphasized to him in particular, so he knew what to expect. Well--he knew to expect an explosive end. He hadn't expected the way the air was sucked out of his lungs, or how his paws swam helplessly in search of purchase, or the agony of waiting for impact.

Then it came--not with a crack, but with a splash. Cold shocked his body. Rökkvi sank like a stone, stunned, before it occurred to him that he was still alive and had to breathe. He thrashed until his guardian angel plucked him from the current and heaved him onto a crisp, cold shoreline. Snow. Familiar and welcome--they hadn't been walking on snow before, had they? He lay sprawled for long seconds, gasping, struggling to wrap his mind around what happened just then. Seiya's voice drew him back to reality. Was this reality? Are we dead? he asked, voice hoarse and waterlogged. He didn't bother trying to stand, he knew where Seiya was from the sound of him retching. Rökkvi was scared to move in case he would find that some part of his body did in fact break. Wide, unseeing eyes probed the darkness, not searching for answers; his senses were elsewhere, trying to rationalize his entire being.

After his body had heaved the last bit of uninvited water from his stomach, he hissed a single-breathed laugh through his nose and turned to inspect Rökkvi. He was splayed across the snow but seemed otherwise unharmed, thankfully.

Honestly... I don't know. Where he might have lied to a stranger, Seiya would be nothing but honest with his drowned brethren. Truly, he did not know. Again he glanced the treeline but it was completely alien to him. Though his nose was still burning from the upturned water, he tried to scent the air and found nothing familiar in it either. Finally he looked toward he sky and, beyond all the things that clouded his mind with worry at that precise moment, felt a tinge of sadness that Rökkvi would never see the flare and flash of meteors arching through the night.

Did he black out? How did they get here? Pale yellow gaze settled back on his friend and he frowned, though Rökkvi wouldn't see it. He took a careful step forward to sniff the brown lump before him and was relieved when there was no blood-scent. Still, a heavy weight of guilt swallowed him whole and he struggled to put their situation into words.

I'm... sorry. I don't know where we are. I don't know what happened, Rökkvi, he stammered, his voice quiet and cracked. It was then that the fear of the unknown wrapped its jaws around his throat, closing it and cutting off his words. What were they supposed to do now?

As the sound and smell of his companion’s sickness passed, Seiya’s unhelpful answer permeated Rökkvi‘s brain. He didn’t know if they were dead or not! Well, Rökkvi took a moment to assess his own body status and, based on the rapid thrum of his heart in his ears and his lungs catching wetly on the water he inhaled, he had to guess they were in fact still alive. How… that was another matter entirely. Gingerly, he raised his head and found no pain in his neck, shoulders, and spine. Nothing in his hips or ribs or limbs, no discomfort save for a chilling cold that bit through his fur. He hadn’t broken anything. Maybe they didn’t fall from too high? Maybe the water broke their fall. He didn’t remember the sound, or that they’d been traveling near water in the first place.

The weight of Seiya’s paws drawn closer prompted Rökkvi to sit up proper. He swallowed, searching the faint, blurry darkness until a moonlit cloud denoted Seiya before him. Rökkvi‘s ears turned to regard his apology. Sensitive to the fearful strain in his friend’s voice, Rökkvi rumbled his unspoken forgiveness, a reassurance first that no matter what, he and Seiya were still together and he didn’t blame the other wolf for what happened. There was no explanation it seemed, not even to Seiya.

We must have fallen through… something… The ground? Ice? The veil between the living and dead? Rökkvi couldn’t claim to know what, just that something had collapsed and sent them hurtling into water below. He coughed and cleared his throat. Did the water take us far? From the mountains, that is. Rökkvi tried to never stray far from home. It would worry his family if he was gone for long.

Seiya allowed himself a small amount of relief when Rökkvi ultimately appeared unharmed and sat upright. A wave of his tail brought new alarm and he whipped his head around to view a tailtip wrapped tightly with several red ribbons; a nagging feeling in his right ear caused it to twitch, and he lifted a paw to feel it. Where had he gotten ribbons!? Were these... red strings of Fate?

But Rökkvi's question pulled at him and he glanced the length of the river, at least that which he could see, following the moon's sparkling signature on the water. He didn't recognize anything that way so he looked downstream—just in case, right?—but everything that way was foreign, too. The water couldn't have carried them too far, though. He was sure he made quick work of getting them to shore. His search turned upward but all he could see, again, was the night sky. They hadn't fallen off of or through anything. They just... fell.

There's nothing, Rökkvi, he said quietly, his gaze empty and lost as he continued to confirm, visually, that they were nowhere near where they should have been. The horizon was jagged with mountains, but not their mountain. Chill set to his blood when he realized the ruptured fang's silhouette was missing from the skyline.

It's gone, Seiya managed, his voice catching in his throat. With cold realization flushing through him, he clarified, The Jawbone is gone.