---

Elli, Ezra, and Amunet brought Vitus's body home around 4/18-4/20, funeral behind the scenes since no one made a thread

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!

The storm hit quickly and heavily but Wardruna was already high along the rise by the time the rains poured down on her, by the time the winds threatened to toss her from the rocky slopes. She would seek shelter where she knew she might quickly find it and so made her way to the shrine of her father, a remembrance of his legacy here and his rise to godlihood in the afterlife.

Swiftly she turned alone the ledges and up, some few bounds away from the mouth of the cavern until a vision stopped her short - a ghost of her more recent past. Vitus…? But he wasn't any ghost. He was flesh and bone and fur and his scent was the same and very much real and alive.

Your back… She is breathless and filled with uncertainty, confusion and happiness all the same. Blinking the heavy rainfall from her eyes, she moves into his direction, sniffing, reaching for him. The gods have returned you to us. Are you- are you okay? She rather doubted he cared for many inside his immediate bubble but she came into it either way, lifting a foreleg to wrap it around his nape and try to pull him close as she sat in front of him to give the full embrace. We've missed you. His words, his religious guidance, his wisdom in spite of his youthfulness.