The star-marked viking ghosted through the forest like a shadow, just another wisp of fog swirling through the melting snow. Moon-silver eyes stared unseeing through the mists, the gold flecks swirling through the irises all but invisible in the gloom. Tension showed through every line of her thin frame, but it was not her surroundings that brought her to this. No, the forest around her had been dismissed as meaningless. It was her thoughts that held her attention, that clenched her jaw in a motion much like pain.
She must go back.
No, not back to the bosom of the Finnvi family, where her uncle ruled and they spread a righteous fear as they went a-viking. Those days were behind her. She and Kapra, for better or worse, had settled in this new land. There was no going back.
She needed to go back to the way things were before, before Ebony had made her soft and weak. She cared deeply for Raisa, she would do anything for her, but she was unworthy of any affection returned to her. She could not simply be a hound lapping at the hand of its master and expect Raisa to view her as anything more than that. She had been consumed with the disappearance of Jaegar, battered by the loss of Yfir, and she was lessened by it.
Raisa said she was worthy.
Raisa lied.
Oh undoubtedly Raisa was doing it out of kindness rather than maliciousness... that was Raisa's way. She would likely find it too cruel to tell Katja the truth. Too cruel to tell her that she had failed Raisa, had failed Raisa's children, had failed the gods and lost their favor. Had lost the gods-given instincts that had always served her well and set her apart from the rabble. But it was Katja's responsibility to regain her footing, not Raisa's, and so the viking had set her path back to her old ways. Her mercenary ways. The way of a true viking.
That path had carried her here, just wandering as she regained her strength and toned her slim body once more. She could no longer afford to be soft - Virgil had made that quite clear. So she would be hard, diamond-hard and diamond-sharp and she would burn the world with her until she was reunited with Auora in Valhalla once more.
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