My life, and someone else's life

It was fucking freezing.

Why was it so damn cold?

His paws, bigger than before he fell asleep but still small, padded through with winds biting at his face. Where was all the sand and distant ranges? He glared into the distance and only met with a flurry of both snow and debris. His ice colored eyes squinted, internally her swore and cursed his life.

After a while of walking however the cold was beginning to set into his core. His heart would flutter, and his movements slowed. The snow froze his paws numb, making his footsteps hesitant and unsure.

He truly despised this feeling of the unknown- of not being ready or not being capable. He had always been much more capable. 
Unbeknownst to the yearling, a rock or hard clump of snow would catch his sleeping paw- sending him into a tumble that ended harshly back on the ground- nearly knocking the wind from his lungs when he landed on his side.

The boy just lay there.

"This is pointless." He would mutter to himself.

And it was. He was far from the safety that The Eye and the white beast provided. His siblings could not run and get help(nor would he even want them to if they could.)

He was to die and strangely he was calm. So much had happened to such a young soul- to him a full life had been lived! To end now was a sorry sight- what a awfully bland and uneventful way to die but, the thought of no longer existing was okay.

So his eyes fluttered closed as he accepted the slow blanketing of snow over his meager frame.

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He had seen the boy from a distance, watched him fall and tumble into the snow, observed as he lay there and did not get up. Had he passed out? Had he hit his head on a rock and found some ungainly way to pass from this life? A hot blast of air was pushed from the Northerner's lungs, maroon eyes glancing to the raven that sat upon his shoulder, an ear twitching as Synin squawked and ruffled his feathers. “What do you think, friend?” He asked in his native tongue, something the bird had picked up on fairly quickly.

The affirmation to go investigate spurned the gilded wolf forward, moving down the mountain to the borders where the boy lay. The closer the pair moved, for Synin's talons gripped Stjörnuáti's flesh and fur to remain upon his perch, the more focused on his surrounding the vikingr became. The boy's scent, if he was alone, the direction of the wind, the depth of the snow. All things he gave mind to until he was satisfied with the information he had gathered. And by then, he was within a few feet of the scrawny boy.

His fur did not look thick, like Stjor's own, and he could observe a slight tremble; cold, possibly freezing. And to freeze was to die. There would be no death upon his borders unless it was by the teeth of Hrafsnvaktin.

“Up,” He commanded in a firm voice, nudging the boy's shoulder with the bridge of his muzzle. Moments after, the white wings of the avian would spread and flap twice as he would echo the wolf, "Up! Up!"

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Like cold tendrils of an icy siren, sleep slowly enraptured his brain.
"Just go asleep..."
She would whisper as she sank fangs into his heart. For a moment the cold did not feel cold but warm. Like sun on his face or a mother's embrace. The latter he hadn't felt since his mother was killed by the white beast so long ago. Such a strange feeling- to be interrupted by the crunching of snow under pawsteps.

His ear twitched weakly. Not yet dead.

A voice crept up on him suddenly, he would twitch slightly. A man's voice- deep with a slight grumble. Though it was not the voice of the white beast, which intrigued the young boy. Another voice followed, echoing the same words the man had spoken. This voice made the boy lift his head for a moment, eyes disturbed and confused.
He gazed at them, briefly, before plopping his head back down into the snow.

"I'm busy." His voice was hoarse and nearly a whisper.
"I was almost dead. Just give it a minute." 

Almost humorous if he were not serious.

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“No,” He would rumble gruffly, nudging more forcefully. “Death by the freeze is no way to die. Up.” Stjörnuáti would not take no for an answer, and as if spurned by the ice-wolf's movement, Synin fluttered down from the shoulder of the man and hopped around the boy's head. his pecks were by no means soft, but nor were they deep, spiteful pecks. His beak simply yanked out small tufts of her, trying to help annoy the young one and make him rise.

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The pecking scrunched up his face into a sour expression. The boy threw his paw forward, not intending to hurt the bird but he wouldn't care if he did. His eyes flew back open as he sat more upright, glaring. Death was so close! The world is such an annoying place, it would have been better anyway. Yet for some reason these two buffoons insisted he live. By what means? Slavery? Punishment? Some self-obligated place of reasoning, likely fueled by troubled past? Who knows.

The boy looked up at the man with a scowl.
"Why do you care if I die?" His face had flattened a bit at the question, it was much less a childish inquiry and more of a genuine curiosity. Why did this man and his bird give a rat's ass?

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Synin fluttered out of the way, cawing loudly in his annoyance at the paw that had flung toward him. Another caw, just as loud, for good measure. It all worked, though, watching the boy sit more upright as he stepped back. “Why do you not?” Answering a question with a question was something Stjörnuáti had always had a habit of doing. “Take Death by your teeth, strákur — boy.” Accepting death so weakly was poorly seen in the viking's eyes, and he would not allow this whelp to welcome it so quickly.

“Now up. On feet.” Stjörnuáti gave no quarter, sharp eyes glued to the younger wolf's form with expectancy. “When is last time strákur ate?”

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The question visibly bothered him, his eyebrows furrowed and his once focused vision had a hard time finding a spot. He would look down at the snow, then into the sky, searching the external world as well as his internal one for an answer.

He had always been strange. Where his siblings cried and wined over the loss of their mother, he felt nothing. When Nyra had thrown a living coyote into a brush fire, he felt nothing. Was something wrong with him?

The deeper into the question he drew, the harder it became to answer. Yet the man saved him from the embarrassment of not knowing and continued to speak despite his lack of response.

Perhaps his mere surprise with being presented with an unanswerable question made his stubborn nature subside, for quickly after receiving the command he did stand. Albeit slowly, and with much struggle.

It hurt. All of his body hurt. Everything was painful all the way up to the tip of his ears. He let the snow continue to lay on his fur, too tired to shake it off. It almost hurt to breathe but, he did so anyway. Mindlessly and by instinct.

He would stare at the snow for a second before his attention was directed back up to the man by another question.

The boy wasn’t sure what “strakur” meant but, he could only assume it was likely something along the lines of “idiot” or “moron”. He didn’t care much, it wasn’t his name so he didn’t have to respond to it.
The actual meat and potatoes of the question, however, gave the young canid a contorted expression as he attempted to recall.

“I don’t know” He shrugged. The tone in his voice revealing that he didn’t really care much anyway.

Back in The Eye, only the strongest were allowed to eat. They would make them spar and only the winners would be able to eat dinner first, whatever was left over (if anything) was what the losers would get.

But they hadn’t made them spar in a while, nor had they brought anything back from hunting.

It didn’t much matter now, they were gone and so was he.

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Stjörnuáti made no judgements insofar as the boy's intelligence, for that was not what was up for question at the moment. It was his will to live — lack of will, really — that Stjörnuáti questioned. And it seemed that his prodding forced the boy to question it as well. He had no answer to give the gilded man and when the Northerner had had enough, he commanded the boy to his feet.

Overall, it was taken better than to be expected from a down and out child and they made progress quickly. If he noticed that the young wolf took offense to the northern word that he used to describe him, the Jarl of Hrafnsvaktin gave no sign, simply flicking his tail to the side for a moment, eyes glancing at @Sýnin before returning to the boy who was currently trying to figure out if he had eaten or not. If he needed to think so hard, then it was plain to see that he needed to put something in his stomach.

“Come,” He would command again, not giving the child any slack so that he could decide to lay in the snow and wait for Death to come and steal his from this world. Stjörnuáti would have none of that on his mountain. It was a mild pace that the man stayed at, leading him towards a cache that the stareater had stocked himself. It would take a handful of minutes to dig through the dirt so that he might retrieve his stashed meal, eventually pulling free the leg of a deer that he had scavenged a few days prior.

“Eat.”

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He hated the involuntary movement his body would cause when he shivered. To not have control over the feeling left him deeply frustrated. He would bite the wind back if it had a face.

The strange man didn’t move all that quickly through the snow, but he did go much quicker than the half frozen boy. But the lad didn’t mind trailing behind him, for the beast did leave a pathway carved out in his wake.

His small, short haired paws that once struggled to adjust to the heat, now stepped patternless and painfully through the snow. He felt like he could cry, maybe, but he wasn’t sure what that was like. All he knew was that it hurt, and while his face scrunched up and winced to the pain, he otherwise didn’t make a sound.

When the man stopped, the scrawny boy’s ears lifted in surprise- curious. Watching, blank faced, as the man dug around in the dirt.
He thought about questioning him but, something told him that if he just waited the answer would reveal itself anyway. So he did, shivering like a leaf in the wind as he stood there.

When the man yanked out the leg of an animal, he could do nothing else but look confused. But the man’s command was simple and clear, despite everything he was meant to eat it.

The boy’s eyes stared down at it for a moment, determining both where he should start and also building up the courage. It was surprisingly not frozen but, it was cold, and stiffer than a log.

Peckishly he began, nibbling at where the leg had been severed, his eyes scrunched up as he tried his best to ignore the freezing touch to his teeth.
As his belly slowly filled, the boy was shocked to notice that he didn’t feel as cold. Though his body still shivered, his core was beginning to warm.

Or this was just the song of freezing death coming back to him, trying to make him fall asleep again. What a bitch.

The meal sadly didn’t put any meat on the skinny boy’s bones but, when he was finished he looked back up at the man. His expression was blank but, behind his eyes was a curiosity.

”Why do you have a bird?” He would look to the bird as if to point before back at the man.

There may have been better fitting questions but, this one had the young man most curious.

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There was no pity for the boy, no soft spot for the child who had tempted death. He would either live, or he would die. He would not, however, choose the borders of Hrafnsvaktin to give his life upon. He did not deserve the mountain that sat at the foot of Valhalla, he did not deserve death in the home and halls of the Vikings. Not yet. Could he? Stjörnuáti could not say, but nor would he deny the boy the chance to try and earn such a place among them.

The stareater sat in silence as the meal was not devoured but nibbled upon. Whether because he was slow for his brush with the loss of his life, or because he had little energy, it was all for the better anyway. To eat quickly now, to shove pieces of the meal down his meager throat with little chance to breathe, was to invite the possibility of regurgitation. This would have been a loss, and a poor one at that.

The question brought maroon eyes around again to refocus upon him, a glance given to the pale raven who preened his feathers near by. “This one does not have raven. This has raven friend. Vinur. Raven name is Sýnin. What is strákur's name?”

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He still remained perplexed, the space between his eyebrows squished together and furrowed. But it faded quickly, the man spoke as if it were normal and that the boy should just get used to it. So his face did return to its normal flatness.

When inquired of his own name, the yearling only stared, longingly and beyond the man. Though he gazed at the beast, it appeared more like he was looking right through him.

To himself, he was only in a mere thoughtful gaze but, to the onlooker he probably looked half dead.

He dove into the building library that was his list of names. It was only two for now, but having two was 1 more than any one person needed.

Neither name suited him anymore. They were both given by unsuitable parents. One of those parents, his birth mother, died in the desert she so foolishly got herself lost in. They were starving for weeks before the second parent, Nyra, had found them. She did well while she was around but, she couldn’t have been all that great if one of her adoptive children wound up in the middle of a frozen wasteland. Surely he would’ve died if not for this man.

He drew a breath, almost as if preparing the space for important news but-

“I don’t have one.”

-was the only thing that came out.

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Ever patient, ever quiet, the Jarl would await an answer from the boy he had seemingly rescued. He was not pressed for time, as he was not pressed for an answer. Neither changed the outcome of this shared event, nor the circumstances of their meeting. Fate had decided this moment and all the players within it. What happened now would only change their trajectory. Would this be a one time meeting? Or would their lives remain intertwined?

No name. His head tiled slightly, mimicking the movement of Sýnin himself before nodding once. “Then strákur will earn name. You start out as Einn.” One. As if he had been born in a litter upon Hrafnsvaktin's slopes. “In time, Einn will discover own name. Ja?”

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’Einn’?

The boy looked surprised. This man intended to keep him, then?

He looked off again into the frozen wasteland. It was only a mere moment, but in his head it felt like an eternity. Watching the wind kick up the powdery snow, completely blinding them from the distance beyond 20 feet. The way it blanketed the ground, already beginning to cover the tracks that led their way here.

He could never hope to get home. At least not now, not as this blizzard stormed through.

The boy nodded his head when he looked back at the man, agreeing with his terms.

Maybe he’ll earn a name worth keeping.

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