ragnarök awaits

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"