---

He had died.

He had been welcomed into Valhalla.

Welcomed, treated as a brother.

Day in and out, they were trained, they partied, they feasted. They prepared for Ragnarok, unknowing that Vitus -- now Valdís, the man changing his name at last upon his arrival -- was feeding knowledge to his grandfather in Hel.

Months passed, to him at least, his slim frame gaining bulk and muscle that he never grew in life. After all, he was a seer, focused on his visions, and here? They didn't need any, not from him at least, and here his visions were...troubling. Glimpses of the life he left behind, nieces and nephews he did not know but knew were kin. But Valhalla did not need those visions, they needed warriors, so he trained.

Trained for Ragnar and his future uprising.

But he was caught, of course he was caught, sneaking his way to Hel and her loving embrace. Valdís had run, when the Valkyries spotted him and sounded the alarm, run to Her, cradled by Her.

Her whispers were in their ear, warmth spreading through their body.

Sleep, she said.

And he did.

-----

And he woke, to a crack of thunder, to warmth, to the smell of mountain flowers and herbs. Baby blues shooting open, the man rising quickly from the curled ball of fur that he had been, looking around in a panic before he...recognized where he was.

The den he had been born in.

Ragnar's den, his shrine.

Valdís looked down at that bear skull, the centerpiece....before looking out the entrance of the cave, into the storm that was raging outside. The gods were furious, weren't they?

But he would have more to fear, when his sister found him alive!