---

out on the ice, nearing storm’s reach.

She didn’t know what had possessed her. Only that she had been walking the shore one day, and able to see clear across the sea the next, it felt. Sure, time may have melted away from her, and she may not have known what to do with her wolfish shape. And maybe she had thrown up when she’d eaten a rabbit the first time because the fine hairs had an awful texture, but everything was fine. It had been going fine.

Her ribs may have stuck out more and more but she was. Completely. Fine.

Steren started out her journey over the ice in good spirits. Loping across the ice field, at that ground eating clip she’d seen other wolves do. It felt easy, natural, with the sun smiling on her cheeks and her eyes on that distant island. It had been taunting her with its distance, and she had always been ever so curious. Curiosity had killed the cat, and had killed her in a frankly funny turn of events. It occurred to her only briefly that it shouldn’t be funny she’d been burned for a crime known only as study, but she was too far into giggling about it to care much.

And then the storm came.

Snow crusted her eyes together, her eyelashes frozen. Her paws throbbed from the cold, and her ears were quickly falling number and number. Steren was no stranger to frostbite, but speeding up didn’t seem like an option. She couldn’t even maintain her stumbling walk, head down against the swirl of snow in her face. She couldn’t see more than two feet in front of her own face, but lying down was no option. Forging through the storm was all she had.

It left her as she neared the island. The snow still swirled, but she could actually see. Unfortunately, her vision was darkening at the edges, and her legs were wobbling, and every part of her felt frosty and chilled through. Steren forged ahead, until finally, one of her legs gave way, and she landed chin first on the ice with a yelp.

After that, well. She struggled to regain the strength to get back up, even as the ice seared through to her bones.

---

Týr

「 Skill Point ― n/a 」

The cold front had come as he'd predicted, in waves at first until the snow had began to fall harder. He'd watched the clouds form behind the mountains and slowly begin their descent across the water, bringing within a blinding shield of white. When the snow fell, the norseman knew he didn't have much of a chance to navigate across the ice back to the isle. Experience however lead him to believe he would be fine travelling the field of frozen water. Skyr would no doubt be around to help if he somehow fell through, right?

He didn't give the thought the chance to blossom into panic, instead burying deep within his mind until all he felt was his instincts. He moved at a steady trot, on a mission with tightly bundled muscles and a hunched form. He knew the general direction, even as the cold bit into his skin and threatened to numb his face. Steady breaths passed through his nose, the scent of his home drawing him across the salt water. It was hard to follow and at times he had to pause to find it again.

It was during one of those pauses that the cry of the stranger caught his attention, his body reacting in an instant as he followed the direction of the noise.

Was someone else out on the ice with him? Who? It couldn't be one of the children right?

It wasn't a far distance before a silhouette formed ahead, splayed across the ice in a heap slowly being consumed by the waves of heavy snow.

Hello? he called, mildly panicked as he quickened his pace. The ground between them was gone quickly, the larger male crowding the body of the woman he didn't recognise as he bent down to give her a slight nudge.

Hey, can you hear me? he spoke with an urgent tone, trying to speak over the winds. She looked... terrible, he observed as he began to push the snow from her body.

It would be so easy. The dark reaching for her, the cold suddenly feeling warm. It would be easy to sink below, to that place where she would sit in the quiet and the dark, and perhaps never open her eyes again. It would be pitifully easy. Part of her recognized that if she did that, she would die. Die here, again, as a wolf. Never able to chart those new stars. Never able to do anything, sent back as starstuff to those who had crafted her gently with sweeps of clay. Return her back to a sister she did not remember, who she would never remember.

But something stopped that. A nose, nudged against her shoulder. Steren groaned, voice low as it hummed from her mouth.

Na, mam, gadewch i mi gysgu (No, mom, let me sleep) She moaned out, imagining raising her arm to swat at the woman. But, she remembered attending her funeral only a few years shy of adulthood, and one of her eyes cracked through the layer of ice keeping it closed. Wind howled, snow fell across her back, and there was a wolf in front of her. Black split with sun-gold. She half-giggled.

I am never going to get used to wolves being able to talk. It was meant to be an inside thought, but it left her mouth all the same.

Yes, I can hear you. It’s still very odd. Everything felt so heavy beneath the blanket of snow, and she blinked a few times to reconcile the image around her into one instead of several floating shapes.

「 Skill Point ― Orator」

The wolf stirred, but her tongue was foreign to him. It sounded similar to the celts he'd once pillaged, but one of it's own kind. He was unfortunately not fluent. Finally, when common words fell from the wolf's mouth, Tyr breathed a sigh of relief - and a soft chuckle. She was alive, she could hear him, but she still didn't look great. At least she retained a sense of humour though.

Trust me, it only gets weirder from there. he hummed in response, beginning to maneuver the woman's body. She looked weak, was that why she was laying on the ice in the middle of a blizzard.

Come on, let's get you up. There's no using dying out on the ice. Think you can lift yourself enough for me to get under you? he asked, hoping that he'd be able to cart the small body off of the water and onto the island that he called home. Lilja would be able to look at the woman and treat her, perhaps one of the children could help. It wasn't often they had outsiders come out onto the ice in the first place, let alone one that looked like she needed an entire year's worth of venison.

Seren’s response, a throaty Ha!, sounded like it had been torn from her chest. But she was still breathing, somehow, and wasn’t that all that mattered? Even if she did feel about seven seconds away from dropping to the ice.

Believe me, I’m learning just how weird it can get. Between the eating raw rabbit and the being able to smell everything even when she desperately didn’t want to, so far life as a wolf had yet to impress her. Steren glanced down at her legs, tucked beneath her, then back up at the split-faced man with a thoughtful frown. Well, he was either going to believe her insane or commiserate when she explained, so she could save that for when she wasn’t dying on the ice.

I think so, let me.. She pulled her legs back enough to stake her claws into the ice, then hauled herself up into a wobbly sit. Her legs threatened to give way with every gust of wind, but she braced enough for the man to be able to haul her onto his shoulder.

Might I know your name? If you’re going to haul me over your shoulder and all. That had to be some form of common courtesy, not that she would know. She’d been shut up in a tower her entire adult life.

「 Skill Point ― Orator」

She was quite the woman, he thought to himself. On the brink of death and still with such a quick tongue. He almost envied her until he thought of his battlefield feats. No fear of death, laughing at danger while adrenaline coursed through his veins. It was not an unfamiliar feeling.

As the woman tried to lift herself, Tyr remained available incase she stumbled back to the ice below. Thankfully she seemed to channel that strong will to her movements and remained high up enough for him to tuck himself beneath her ribs. He tried to rise as gently as possible, adjusting his body as he needed by rolling his shoulders and shifting his spine until she lay comfortable ontop, forelimbs either side of his neck with her hind legs in a similar position on his hips.

I suppose you may, he laughed, blinking the snow away from his eyes as he took a deep breath into his nose. He was trying to find the island again, so for a moment there was silence before he spoke again.

Tyr fra Stjernene, he offered smoothly, beginning to treck across the ice in a slow walk, you'll get used to this wolfish body soon enough when the instincts kick in, I promise, he almost laughed again, but thought better of it in case the motion threw her off his back. Even the image of that brought a tickle of humour to his mind, a snort following from his nose.

Tyr? Why did that sound so familiar? Had she read it before? Steren raked through the coals of her memory, inspecting and discarding pieces as they became of no use. Up until-.

Like the Northern men’s god of war? It finally clicked. Steren’s little hovel wasn’t important enough to be raided, their only church was a traveling priest who came through every month, but she had met a few of the men, who mostly sought the freshwater of the lake her tower sat by. She’d almost found them good company, if a bit edgy. But, well, she was believed to be a witch by the village, so perhaps that had made them a little nervy around her. Either way, they were miles better than the men of the village in terms of willingness to speak to her, and cleanliness to boot.

Either way, well met. I’m Steren. And I feel like I’ve been here a month, but those instincts haven’t done me much good. Because of the aforementioned rabbit mishap. But she rested her head between his shoulder blades and watched the snow fall.

You live on the island, then? That was the way they were pointing, it seemed.

「 Skill Point ― Orator」

He couldn't help but pulled a wicked grin at her admittance.

So you've heard of me? he couldn't help but feel his ego inflate, a warmth brewing in his stomach, All good things I hope. the god teased, casting a look behind him at the casualty on his back. He winked, before turning back to fight the wind and snow that sought to ruin their fun.

A pleasure, Steren. Maybe my friend might help find what works for you, it seemed that she'd been doing little than surviving on whatever she could find then, and he doubted there was much in the middle of winter so far north.

Storm Reach, I am the king of the pack that resides there, though I prefer to be called Skǫrungr. he offered simply, but he was far more interested in his half starved she-wolf that seemed to have quite the interesting double life.

Where do you hail from Steren?

You’ve heard of me? Well, someone had quite the ego it seemed. Steren huffed a short laugh.

Well, they seemed equally terrified and in awe when I asked of your namesake, so I suppose all good things of the war-like kind. She snarked back, feeling the tug of a smile on her exhausted face. Her limbs swung uselessly with his motions, but her tongue had never quite tired. Tyr went on to explain to her he was the king of a pack on the island, and wasn’t that what wolves were grouped into? Considering herself a moment, she quipped again in reply.

A king? Why, should I have bowed? She tucked one of her legs up, and nestled her chin further into Tyr’s neck ruff in an unmoving approximation of a courtly bow. Even doing the motion made her give a snicker, half hearted and loopy from cold. He may have given off warmth like a furnace, but the cold was biting.

I’m from Cymru. Near the Britains. I had a tower beside a lake, where I charted the stars. Steren missed her tower so ferociously it hurt, a throbbing ache that she felt so keenly in that moment a breath shuddered from her like she’d been struck.

It was peaceful. Just me, the grasses, the wildlife, occasional visitor.

「 Skill Point ― Orator」

The man couldn't help but laugh despite trying his hardest to control it.

I don't think you could've gotten any lower to the ground even if you tried, he quipped, trying to sooth his laugh so that the woman did not go flying back onto the ice. He was enjoying her company so much that he allowed himself to ponder whether he invite her to stay. Mayhap after she recovers and puts some more meat on her bones no?

Ahh, Bretland. I do not understand your native tongue but I know the place. I believe they called it Wales the last time I was in human skin. A beautiful place, if I remember rightly. he would leave out the raiding in his recalling. Still, he did agree, it was a beautiful country.

I do not doubt you miss it. Perhaps when you are stronger, I can take you up the mountain to chart the skies of this world. They are similar and yet... so different.