~ where innocences burn in flames.
It all happened so fast. One moment he stalked through the Forest, his glacial eyes scanned the night searching for Lily. Her scent wafted on the breeze, and he followed it until he found her. She laid in a pile on the forest floor with blood clinging to her gilded coat. A strangled cry had pushed itself through parted lip, as closed the distance between them. He only wanted to feel her touch against his and to comfort her in her pain.
But he had barely stepped through the mist and into the clearing when Ruger's bugle ripped through the night air. His heart stuttered as he realized the man had come for her, he wanted his precious Tígrisdýr for himself. He turned on the man with all the malice in his heart, but it was too much. He had fought with cunning and skill, yet the amber eyed beast had bested him. He stumbled away with his hind leg dragging behind him and his heart shattering.
"Ruger, I will come for her," he growled into the space between them. A voice broke the tense air and he swiveled his head to look upon his Tígrisdýr.
Just go. She pleaded with him. He paused, his heart thundered in his chest as she turned to leave, and she never looked back. He choked back a groan and covered his pain with a stoic warrior's mask. He knew that he was defeated and despite not wanting to leave; he drug himself from the clearing and into the bubbling surf.
-
The angry sea tosses his body and he can feel her wrath with each tug and pull of his body. She desires to drag him into her depths, but he protests with a few feeble kicks and strokes with his fatiguing legs. He does not know long he struggles in the sea all he knows is that time continues to pass. His heart hammers wildly against his ribs and panic begins to creep into his mind. You failed. She is gone. You are pathetic. The voice is unkind and menacing as it speaks.
The distant dull roar of the sea on the sandy shore washes him with relief. In that moment, the sea convulses and throws him up onto his home's pristine silvery beach. A grown slips from between his pink lips and he drags himself from the water; his legs give out from beneath him and he crumples in a pile on the sand. He wreathes and kicks feebly, as the fever begins to wrack his body.
"She's gone," he chokes out, his throat swollen from gulping down sea water in his feeble attempt to return home. "You mock me and I curse you," he growls into the night sky. A few lone stars twinkle overhead, as if no-one even realizes the king has fallen.
Is this the fate the Norns have weaved for him?
Björn - Icelandic mutt - 10 years old - Grullo Sabino
Bera Konung of the Ridge