a shadow over the land

Hackles laced down his back as his ears pinned to his head, a snarl peeling from his lips as Sk?ll shifted to block his patch. His little brother might be bigger than him now but that didn't mean Baldur was going to back down from a fight if the pest kept pushing. Though he supposed he could always turn around and go the other way. He just didn't like showing his back to certain members of his family. Though he was almost willing to risk it.


His own icy eyes narrowed at Sk?ll. "I can tolerate some of my family. The rest can go to hell for all I care." He'd let the younger wolf figure out which category he was going to quickly be thrown in after this encounter. Even then, however, his hatred for any of his siblings was still not as great as his loathing of Vili and Ve who he'd occasionally pray to the gods they were named after would be swiftly taken from the world. Not that he believed in them which probably didn't help.


Baldur started to turn to head back down to the bottom when Sk?ll next string of words made him freeze. A solid lump caught in his throat. Hodr. Sk?ll's blabbering of the family back again in some sort of rainbow-butterfly-bullshit meant nothing to him. But Hodr. His relationship with his twin was complicated at best but he still cared about the other deeply, how could he not? He had hoped that Hodr would leave as well and he kept expecting the other to turn up in Alacritis somewhere.


"?safer for poor old Hodr, who has been so very lonely since you left him behind."

Baldur felt suddenly sick to his stomach and yet furious at the same time. It was not his fault. He'd never meant to leave Hodr behind, he was driven off. Guilt. He could have gone back, he could've gone back at any point and instead here he was frolicking about in Alacritis. Denail. But Hodr was a grown wolf! Surely he could have left at any point of his own accord. Baldur didn't need to babysit him. Cruelty. Vili and Ve were cruel, depraved in ways he didn't expect anyone outside the family could understand. Would they have done something to Hodr in retaliation for Baldur's outburst? He tried to stop the shiver that was kissing it's way down his back like a ghost. Hodr, the blind one. It would just be like his uncles to take his twins eyes. He had to go back.


Baldur's eyes squeezed shut. He would go back? but not with Sk?ll in tow. Lips peeled back revealing ivory fangs. "And you think you can lead them? I'd be more impressed if any of our siblings were actually following you but here you stand alone. Now be gone from me and leave the past alone." He didn't feel Sk?ll had any right to preach to him about it when he'd gone and left the others behind as well.


Body tense, hackles still raised, Baldur turned to head down the mountain, a plan forming in his heated mind.


"Speech"