He had said there were reindeer around the other side of the mountain, and Bylgja was more than ready to take a reindeer. There were plenty of them, after all. She'd seen them herself on her travels up, and they were delightful creatures, if rather large. The tracks led close to Fenrir's Maw, the same rocky site she'd joined the pack at, and the reindeer cut a wide track around the mountain itself. However, one reindeer-- older than the rest, an elder -- had been spooked when it lingered too far behind. It had seen the two wolves, and bolted sharply up, up, up-- into the Maw itself. Bylgja laughed against the wind, hearty and hale. "Well, Strai!" Her voice booms. "We'll earn this one, won't we!" She doesn't sound like she doubts him at all. There's nothing in her voice but trust, confidence in the boy and his abilities. With a reverent growl, she slips her axe free of its back-band. "Onward!" And then the woman begins to prowl closer to the faltering elder reindeer. The old-body turns, bleats, and struggles on, as Bylgja begins to pick her way with ease through the treacherous terrain. "Bylgja"

Strai's scowl only grew in the face of his companions' delight. This hunt was already going terribly. They had caught the scent of the deer and tracked them through the mountain - only for their prey to catch sight of them before they could get into position. Now the hunt came down to determination and endurance. 


The pup's short legs did not lend him speed beside the full grown wolf, but he would never voice any discomfort. Besides, he knew this was a chance to increase his food stores. Having spent many days hungry, he was something of a hoarder when it came to food. He didn't know how much Bylgja would 'allow' him to take, but he'd cross that bridge when he got to it.


He hopped and jumped to get himself over a rocky section of terrain as they got closer to their prey. "We should--" he paused, struggling to keep his breathing even, relaxed. "Herd it towards the right, there's a sheer drop that will trap it"

He is a bit grouchy, yes, but Bylgja pays that no mind. They are working together, and he is smaller, even though one day Bylgja is sure he will not be. She does not rush him, though; instead, she listens. Her ear swivels back towards Strai, and she nods, once, before fanning out, watching her footsteps with the ease of one who knows their limits. She did not question his order-- instead, she reacts, following his command, using her larger size to break snow and begin to push the reindeer towards the right. The reindeer, of course, knew what the two approaching wolves meant for it, and it panicked, sprinting right, only to peel back and stagger away from a sheer drop. Bylgja eyed Strai, waiting for his signal -- she knew how to strike, but he was firmly in command of the situation, because she -- well. She wanted to see how he behaved under the duress of conditions. She doesn't loiter. The reindeer is slowly losing its ability to run, given the way it's being hemmed in. Let the boy have his blood, if he wants it. But if he wants her striking first, she shall. "Bylgja"

It surprised him how quickly Bylgja responded to his advice. Putting it into action in moments as she herded the reindeer towards the drop he had mentioned. His second surprise came when she paused just as they had cornered the reindeer. She looked to him - for his command? Why a full fledged adult member was waiting on the word of s child thrall he didn't know. 


He hesitated for only a moment, confusion leaking through, and then he took charge. "Take the left, distract it" he said, giving her a moment to comply. As she moved to that side, he moved to the right. Letting it see the larger wolf coming at it. As it turned to the right to attempt to flee around the cliff, he leaped. Using his feline like Claes to dog into its coat. The moment he landed it struggled and kicked, but he was already scrambling upwards. He latched onto its neck, and hoped his companion took the opening to strike as well.

Bylgja has her own instincts, but the boy wants to prove himself worthy, and as such, she wants him to earn that worthiness. To show the truth of himself. He's doing excellently. Again, Bylgja swells with pride, with the way he moves, the order given. She lurches into motion, even giving a brutal snarl to scare the reindeer further, the axe clenched tight, ready, ready -- -- the boy is on the reindeer, and Bylgja roars, laughs, swinging with her axe. It's a crescent. It's a killing strike-- it strikes the reindeer in the belly, the first blow ripping the thing open, spilling innards onto the earth as it rears up. Steaming warmth cascades up from the mess. As the reindeer staggers, Bylgja swings her axe a second time, slamming it into a legbone. She doesn't want to strike for the neck. Not while Strai is there. Spattered in blood, there is an unmistakable delight in her eyes. "Bylgja"

The reindeer struggled under him, kicking and thrashing. He could feel his heart in his throat, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He allowed himself a toothy grin as he reached the crest of the deer's head, pulling himself over its neck. The prey animal shook as a blow struck its belly. It was dying, and it knew it. It let out a plaintive bleat, and then Bylgjas next strike brought it to its knees. Strai almost fell at the sudden movement, his back legs swinging wildly free. He dug his teeth into its neck, pulling himself back on the deer until he could reach down and latch his teeth to its throat.


He ripped, and suddenly he was drenched in a spray or blood, and the deer crashed down. His victory was short lived as its heavy head pinned him to the earth with enough force to drive his breath from his lungs. He drew in some desperate lung fills, panic causing him to thrash.

It is triumph, until it isn't. The reindeer falls. And Strai is beneath it. Bylgja drops her axe to the snow, and lets it steam there. She lurches forward, catching the reindeer by the side of the face, her canine teeth squelching into its eyes as she strains. She doesn't realize that when she saw it happen, she screamed his name in raw, brutal panic. She doesn't realize. Adrenaline courses through her. This is an age-old strength: mothers, able to lift impossible weights, when their children are in danger. The blade is steaming and blood and guts slick the snow and Bylgja adjusts her grip, heaving, pulling at the reindeer, forcing it up, forcing it to roll in its dying moments. Forcing it off of Strai with the raw, bone-deep horror-strength of a caretaker, even now. Her muscles strain, and she jerks her body in furious movements, snarling and screaming against its skull, matched only by the horrific bleating of the dying animal, until she has pulled the reindeer off of the boy. Until she is left, bent, panting, shuddering with exertion, blood on her coat, her teeth. Her heart thuds so heavily, so brutally, it feels as if it will burst from her ribs. "Strai!" Her voice, raw. She rounds the deer. She moves to him, to pull him up, to help him free. "I've got you, Strai!" Without question. She had helped him without question. "Bylgja"

Never had an adult fought for him the way she did in that moment. Certainly his mother had never uttered his name in such a panicked cry. The weight on his chest was gone in an instant and he could pull a proper breath into his lungs. 


He only had time for one, and then Bylgja was pulling him up, checking him over. His eyes were wide and shocked as he looked at her. Not from being trapped by the deer, but by whatever instinct had driven her. He looked at her with awe and fear. Her axe discarded in the snow, like there was only one thing important to her here - and the axe wasn't it.


Suddenly, panic took him and he struggled free of her, putting some distance between them. He looked at her like she was something unpredictable, something to fear. "Why did… what…" he wasn't even sure he knew how to put his thoughts into words. Wasn't even sure he knew the words. "You don't know me."

Bylgja had not been able to hide the panic, the raw terror. The reindeer, dying on the snow behind her, twitched and spasmed, but she paid it no mind as she began to investigate the boy for wounds. She nudged along his ribs, his shoulders, his neck. She searched for breaks. Her touch was simple, but clearly evaluating, even as the youth panted at her. "Eh?" A nudge against one of his vertebrae. Just to make sure nothing had gotten hurt. "I know you. You are Strai, and you are a Thrall, and I will speak for you at the Thing and try to bargain your freedom." Her head cocks to one side. "I know you made me an axe. I know you leapt on the reindeer. You were very brave." Her voice, gravelly. Quiet. "...I know you are young. And there is life ahead of you." She says this, solemnly. "Your life has been hard. You must have made mistakes. But mistakes are... in the past. I will speak for you, and when you are free, I will make you a shield myself, using the sinews and hide of this reindeer that crushed you." Her paw settles upon the corpse. "This is what I know, Strai." There is something fierce in her eyes, then. "Anything else, you can tell me in time. Your secrets are your own to share." She looks down at the body, then at Strai. She dips her head to him, gore-slick, aching, exhausted. "This is the way of things. I am an honest woman, Strai. And I could not let you be crushed. It is simple." Perhaps it isn't, to him. But it is to her. "Bylgja"

She closed the distance between them again, and he felt much like a cornered animal. She spoke, her words coming from a place deep inside of her. They only increased his panic. "Don't look at me like that!" He said sharply, his voice rising. "You don't know me!" He was yelling now, and he couldn't stop. "You don't know me!" Affection was dangerous, it got you killed. He broke all of his mother's painful lessons when he befriended Delphi, but the way Bylgja was looking at him was even more terrifying. Vulnerable. He didn't even know her!


His face was damp, and he wasn't sure how or why. His throat burned, and his chest ached from more than just the impact of the deer. "I can't do this, I release you from your debt." He said. His vision blurred, and he backed further away from her. Bringing him closer to the cliff's edge.

She's not sure that the boy knows what he's doing. He's yelling, and he's backing up, and he's blinded with his own emotion. Bylgja's eyes flick from his to the cliffside, the sharp drop below that's so lethal that even the reindeer had refused it, instead turning to the fangs of its killers. Bylgja moves forward quickly as Strai continues to edge away, closer to the side, to where the drop becomes a void, to -- She tries to clamp her jaws on his scruff and pull him closer, away from the ledge, and if that fails, she tries to get between him and the cliffside. "... you were going to fall," She grunts, gruffly. There's a cold breeze in her fur, and her face burns, too, wet around the corners of her eyes. "I would like to know you." Quiet, just barely audible over the screaming air around them. She wants to tell him it's okay to cry, but she doesn't think he knows he's crying at all. "Bylgja"

She struck like a snake, and before he knew it he was dangling from her jaws. Helpless and small in her grasp. Like a child. He stopped fighting her, hanging there, trembling. "You don't understand," he whispered. "She told me affection gets you killed. That day… they had me, and I called her name. She hesitated. It was only a moment, less than a second. But it was enough. It's my fault she's dead." He'd never told the full truth before, not even to Delphi. He'd shedded no tears over it either, not until now. 


The full impact of it hadn't hit him until Bylgja had looked at him like that. He could feel the way it pulled him into knots. The horror, the fear.

She lets him down, quietly, because the boy probably doesn't appreciate being held like that. But Bylgja doesn't move away from him in entirety; she raises a limb and brings it over his body, hugging the kid close, because for all of his bluster and his rage, he's a child. He's a boy. Bylgja lowers her head to set it atop his, chin resting on his skull. She holds him, carefully. Then she swallows. "My uncle, Gunnr... he... it was the same. I was scared. I was young. I called to him. And when he turned to face me..." She could see it all, still, when she focused on it; the way he had yelped as the creature dug into him with what was almost a stinger. "I... am sorry, Strai." A low, quiet murmur. "You may yell for me, if you need aid. I will come to you." She cannot offer him much, but she can offer him that. And then she holds him, quiet, letting the boy cry, or say what he needs to say. It's about time he had the chance. "Bylgja"

He only knew she was putting him down by the feel of the snow beneath him again. He couldn't see past the tears that streamed down his face. Weak, foolish, child. This was the child that had caused the death of a great wolf. The strongest Strai had ever known. He didn't pull away when Bylgja wrapped a paw around him, he didn't fight her. When she rested her chin against his head it was awkward, unfamiliar, and comforting. 


He wrapped his paws around his face, trying to stifle his tears. "I don't understand this world. None of it makes sense any more" he said, hiccuping as he spoke. It had been a long time since he had felt so young and vulnerable. He'd felt less vulnerable and weak when he had run from his parents' killers.

He's crying, really full-blown crying, now, and Bylgja just holds on to him, because she knows what it's like to be scared and mad at the world and do stupid shit because of it. She doesn't judge him, doesn't look at him. She just... sits, and her tail swishes in the snow, and she can smell the blood and meat nearby, and there's the shrill whistle of mountain air.

"It's scary when things don't make sense." She says. It's not patronizing. It's just... true, as Strai tries to wipe his tears. "But... not every day is scary. You will be free, soon, if my word is taken." It might not be, and she knew that, but still -- she had joined, and she was a voice, and that mattered. "But even before then, I will help you. You will grow up strong, Strai, and you will grow up loved." She trails, for a second, before--

"I will ask for you to be given my name, when I speak for you. This way you will be my son. The Konungr may be more amicable to that-- it will mean you have a family name to carry honor for. And you will not be alone." Solemn. That same strength she had before. Her mind, set to the task. "I have not had a son, before." But he has had a mother.

"Bylgja"

He stopped crying so fast it was like a switch flipped. He drew in one last snotty breath as his head shot up. Smacking into her chin, which he had forgotten rested on his head. He twisted awkwardly to turn and look at her. Slack jawed with astonishment as he stared at her. She was speaking a language he knew, but maybe he didn't know it as well as he thought. He couldn't have heard her right, there was some translation issue at play here.


Loved. Given my name alien concepts. His mother had told him he was barely worthy of his father's name, and it was a good thing she was a woman because she certainly wouldn't have given him hers. She wanted to do a hell of a lot more than speak for him at The Thing. He wiped his eyes, still staring. "And if I refuse?" He asked. Because he wanted to know her threshold, see what he could push. He was yet to see her mad.

He smacked into her chin and she made a quiet little uhff noise, the kind that came from teeth clacking. Augh. Oof. But she moved, to give him a little bit of head space as he stared. She blinked -- Then her shoulders rose and fell. "If you refuse, it is the same. I speak at the Thing. Only difference is there is no family name to honor. You would be alone, still, and maybe this would make the Konungr hesitate. I cannot be sure. But I won't stop you from refusing." She isn't dismissive, really. She is ... aware. She is careful of him, and of his boundaries, and very much sure that she could overstep at any moment. But that does not mean she's ... not going to try. "It is up to you. I only ask you tell me before the Thing, so I do not embarrass myself by being refused before the pack." If she is putting her honor out like this, then it is no crime at all to ask for her own reputation to be considered at least somewhat. It makes sense to Bylgja. Why should she pressure the boy into joining her if he does not wish to? There are years, still. Time. Plenty of time, should the Gods be willing to grant her many years of life. "Bylgja"

He was still staring at her. Watching her expression, looking for any sign or annoyance or agitation. He still didn't understand. There was strength in family, in not being alone. It was why he had made a deal with her in the first place. But this… 


He swallowed, the unfamiliar emotions were painful. "I won't call you mum." It wasn't an agreement exactly, it skirted it without the words. And he wasn't ready to put such a title to her. Maybe he never would be. "I'll be denning with Delphi." What works the rules be? How would this work? Would she try to lay down the law, and rule him? He'd been independent too long now.

She -- It's a tender moment, and she shouldn't, but she laughs, and it's deep, and -- "Good! I am-- I am Bylgja! I am not so old to be called mum!" Neither of them are saying it out loud, but it's an understanding, nonetheless. Bylgja gives him a bit of a nudge with a paw. Not a jab, but a little nudge. "Den with who you please. I am no... eh. Overbearing parent." The words feel so strange on her lips, but she says them. Her breath is deep, when she inhales again. Exhale. It is only now that she shows how tense, how worried, she had truly been, and it only comes in the exhale, the way she shudders when she breathes. Deep, deep, down, where she could hide it, there had been fear. But her smile is... still present. And bright. "I ask you hunt with me, some days. Tell me when things happen to you. Help me forage for herbs, to heal. But it is not an order. This is family, instead." She wishes she had a shield, to bash with her axe, so she could proclaim her triumph to the world. "My shield for you, my son." The way she says it-- an oath, more than anything else. Family in a way that is not precisely mother and son, but-- something else. Guardian and ward, perhaps. She doesn't know. She doesn't think about it. "Bylgja"

He pushed, looking for the chains, the cage, and finding only open air. Every time he pushed, she gave. He wasn’t sure he knew how to handle that, either. Why did she want him? What did she get out of this? There had to be something. Some catch he wasn’t seeing. His eyes were weary, and still he watched her.

She laughed so easily, and took everything in stride. She was so cheerful and easy with life. He wondered for a moment what it would be like, to be like her. He took in a slow breath himself, partly timing it against her exhale. “You told me your last name, but I don’t remember it” he admitted, a little embarrassed. It hadn’t been important before. Now she was giving it to him. It was something of his own, when he scrambled and struggled to lay claim to anything as Thrall.

“I’ll do that. Maybe… somedays, I’ll stay in your den?” He ducked his head, still unaccustomed to the emotions. Then he raised his head again, and there was something else in his eyes. Determination. “There’s one more… favour, I would ask.” The words were uncomfortable on his lips. “There’s a dagger. My dagger. My mums before me. Vidarr… sto--took it, when he claimed me. It’s all I have left of her. I… would you ask him, for me?” He couldn’t keep his eyes on her, they dropped to his paws. Too much vulnerability. Too much weakness he was showing her. Telling her about something that mattered.

"Speech"