Settling into life within the castle hadn't been easy.  Like an animal in a cage, Víðarr spent much of his time pacing the stone floors, damn near beating his head against the wall.  Worse than being holed up in the Crypt, worse than being chained in some dark corner.  A prison of his own making, and worse than that.  A prison of the mind, if he had to think about it too long.  He'd rebuked one useless son, and been betrayed by another.  Keeping him here, within Hearthstone, was effectively an act of treason. 

But he couldn't lash out against Erik here.  Too many eyes.  Too many political hangups, in acting out within The Hallows.  Something about laying down arms within the walls of the castle, and something else about behaving himself.  Still, he stewed, he paced, he marinated in all of the poor feelings.  The viking king had fallen, and fallen by his son's hand. 

The earthquakes draw Víðarr from a sleep worse than death, though his head is still foggy from whatever they were drugging him with.  At least it kept the nightmares at bay.  Slipping out into the cool Auster night air, darkness wrapped around his shoulders, his gaze flickers to the blood red sky.  Haunting.  Horrifying.  Beautiful. 

Were the tales coming true?  Drawn northward, there's only one thing on Víðarr's mind-- Ragnarök.  It's time.  It's well past time.  Twilight of the gods, here and now.  Breaking into a dead run back north, it's more than time.  Ragnarök awaits. 

"Víðarr"

The old man was losing his fucking mind. Erik could see it, watching his father drain away day by day. It's enough to make his sides ache, make his head hurt, and grow the strange cold pit in his stomach. Fuck, he'd never even been much of a father. Absent through his childhood, treating him as little more than a gopher as he'd aged. The bastard son was never much to the viking king, but he'd stood by the man's side regardless. Something about duty, something else about... not really knowing what else to do. Duty. Necessity. They go hand in hand, especially now that ma had gone off back to her roots. Keeping the old man like a freak on a leash seemed wrong, but he didn't know what else to do.

Kanin had drawn him from restful sleep, rather insistently dragging him from bed long before the sun rose. Though things had been strange in the night, Erik wasn't going to worry about it until morning. Not until he had reason to worry about it. From his vantage point through a window, he could see Víðarr slipping off, into the cold night. The shadow had taken off at a dead run, and Erik was once again fueled by a strange responsibility.

Ripping off after his father, it takes some time to catch up. They're well into Boreas by the time he closes the distance, panting as he does. "You can't be doing this shit, old man." Erik speaks before he can stop himself, frustration coloring the words. There's no telling what religious zealotry would come out of Víðarr's mouth next... for as much as Erik believed, he also questioned. Blood red sky and strange atmosphere be damned, there was a rational and natural explanation for things. There had to be. And Víðarr needed to stop fucking running.

"Erik"

There's something happening. Something beautiful, something terrible. Víðarr can feel it in his bones, feel the way it swirls around his head. An energy he can't argue, a fire he can't put out. The gods are so near, the shadow can taste them. Feel their presence, feel something pulling him inward. Terrible and wonderful in equal measure. Beneath the red, starless sky, it's a religious experience.

One that's cut short. Clipped words, visible annoyance coloring his face as he casts a glance over his shoulder. "Go back to your castle boy," he shoots back, coldly, at his son. Lips twisted in a gruesome sneer, teeth flashing beneath dark lips. Hackles rising along his back and shoulders. The look in his eye is dire, deadly. There would be no interrupting this, no ending the journey for him. Not until he's found the source.

Though he considers stopping at the bifrost, taking it all in from here, something drives him to keep going. Keep going north, refusing to break pace. Erik would lose interest eventually. Not a true believer in the old ways-- was the boy even his son? There was some question in his mind. In light of recent betrayals, perhaps Erik had never been his own. North. He's continuing north, and nothing would stop him.

"Víðarr"

The tension is palpable, thick in the air between them. Erik wasn't letting the old man continue alone, and it's... well, it's becoming clearer that there was no rhyme or reason to the way he was acting. Lashing out, running. Since when did the hulking creature run like this, like a man possessed. Bristling as Víðarr's words drip venom, he's left to run in his father's wake.

North. Far north. So far north that his bones are aching, chest burning, the metallic tang in his throat rising back up. It's all too familiar. Erik wouldn't pay any of the bodily signs heed as they chase, push and pull. From what he can tell, they're in western Auster by the time his father's gait slows to a jog. Not far from the barren hills, on the other side of the dunes.

From the wasteland, something strange, something horrible opens up. A yawning maw cracking the earth, stone floor spreading as far as they eye can see. Within it? Were those... trees? Trees with no branches, reaching toward the sky. Yearning for something. Erik is speechless, watching with wide eyes. Like nothing he'd ever seen before. A horror movie unfolding before his eyes.

"Erik"

The lands shift and change, though he skirts the sand. An old dog following the same path he'd walked time and time again, staying far away from the desert. Though there was no sun to warm the sand, it would only slow his progress. The boy flanking him little more than an annoyance, though Víðarr is left to stew on all the bad feelings kicking up in his throat. Was that really his boy? Had he ever been? Showing nowhere near the aptitude that Akito had, and maintaining none of the connection he'd had to Morganna... maybe Erik wasn't his son at all. He'd simply been the one to attach to the viking king, and should have been turned away sooner. Was the child, grown as he was, even worthy of his name? The thoughts in his head quiet, though, when they reach a break in the landscape. Something that certainly hadn't been here before. Stone, though wildly different from the marble wash. It's cool against his paws, as Víðarr slows first to a jog, then a walk. Weaving his way through the spires, gaze intense on each one. Rising mighty and tall, growing proud and massive within the space. "Ragnarök," the only word on his lips, spoken like an omen. Nearing one of the spires and looking up in reverence, tracing its path to the red sky. A dastardly smile spreading across his face, Víðarr can't help himself. It's true. All of it has been true, for as long as he's known. Every word of the stories, the tales, the things they'd been told... everything had been spoken into existence. Generations of tradition, it's all as it was foretold. "Víðarr"

Erik knows, perhaps better than anyone, that there's no use arguing with Víðarr when he gets like this. Even before the decline, in matters of religion, his word couldn't be challenged. If nothing else, the shadow was strong in his convictions. It seemed they'd only gotten stronger as things had become... worse. Slipping by the day, reverting back to something Erik didn't recognize. It must have been the way Víðarr had arrived here, or even before he'd left their homeland. Far to the west, across the sea. Things that would only build his paranoia, his strong convictions, his... strange ways.

"It's... shit," though he begins to speak, the words die on his lips. Why hadn't he brought along some of the medication the Hallows had been feeding the old man? With no time to prepare, he'd simply rushed out the door. Though Erik had some mind to send Fisk back for it, there would be no time now. They'd gone so far, and run for so long. That, and he wasn't pulling any of the Hallows wolves into this. There's nothing they can do that he can't, and it would just be putting others in danger.

No arguing. Reaching into his memory for the stories told around the altars high on the mountain, Erik thinks of the tales. Ragnarök. Surely it's... not. The rational parts of his brain are holding tightly to that idea, that it truly wasn't the end coming. Erik hasn't always been the most rational-- happens, for a boy cursed by the gods. "If the floods are coming, we shouldn't be on low ground." At least if they moved toward Hemlock, back toward familiarity, there would be some comfort. He could sleep off whatever was happening in the Crypt, and usher Víðarr back to relative captivity when this all passed.

As he follows his father's winding paths through the trees, Erik is met with the realization that they aren't trees at all. Cold spires, reaching up from the ground. No branches, only haunting inscriptions. The pit in his stomach grew heavier.

"Erik"

Víðarr is careful, as he inspects the carved spires. Enchanted by them, drawn in. The giants must have placed them, stuck them deep in the ground... remnants from the last time? If Ragnarök was a memory of old, then it would be coming again. A great cycle, one that would spin them all in circles. Etched within the spires, faces. Staring back at him, though not truly seeing. Something had been trapped within them, and the viking king could only make guesses as to what.

A macabre beauty to this place, slinking through it and drinking in what he could see. Erik's words bring a stark laugh breaking through his throat. Whatever trickster Loki had replaced his son with, it surely wasn't a bright one. "There's no saving us from the floods, boy. The fates led us here for a reason." A sinister gleam in his eye as his gaze narrows, trains on Erik.

"Run if you want. You'll miss the action." The words of a madman, perhaps. Víðarr had only grown more unstable by the day, without Tenshi to keep him steady. Oh his beautiful wife... he'd see her soon. Reaching the end of the red thread that had strung them together, perhaps. There's no telling if the sound rippling through the prominence was real or a trick of his imagination, but it's horrible. High pitched, shattering the relative calm. It's coming.