where innocence is burned in flames. I'm frozen to the bones, I am...

"Sio!" he screamed into the pitch black void. "Sio answer me!" his words were swept from his opened maw and lost in the torrential down pour. His panicked heart hammered against his ribs as he tried to find them. Sigurdr. Lily. Skadi... He shook the water from his eyes as he squinted against the ocean spray and the torrential rains that lashed him. In the pitch darkness all he could see was the unending void and his heart sank at the thought of losing them. He could not ignore the feeling that Njord had swallowed his family and into the ocean's depths forever gone.

"Sio," he deliriously whispered, as if her crimson face was once more right in front of him. The youthful glow in her honey eyes reflected back her generous kind soul. A soft smile tugged at her whiskered lips as he gently pressed his own against hers. "Please forgive me," he tenderly whispers. He had failed her in so many ways, and each time she had forgiven him. Not once had he ever deserved her forgiveness nor the unconditional love she selflessly offered to him. He swallowed back the growing lump in his throat. How could he ever live in a world where she didn't brighten his doorstep or where he couldn't feel her embrace? "Sio..." the words are garbled as a wave crashed over his head and pressed down on him threatening to drown him. His hooves and legs work in unison to push him back to the surface.

Sputtering he gasped for air as the cold air hit his face. Panicked he draws haggard breathes through flaring nostrils. He knew that if he stayed out here in the frigid waters - that soon - he too, would find himself at the bottom of the ocean. Turning his glacial blue eyes back to where he thought that they had come from, he began the trek to the Isles... back to a world that would NEVER be the same.

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Wearily he pulled himself from the ocean's grasp and onto the unfamiliar sands. His sides heaved and his heart raced against his ribs, he cared little for where he had washed up. All that mattered his that he no longer struggled against the current and that his weary bones could rest. Without any further thoughts - it overtook him and he fell into a feverish sleep. He shivered against the cool spring winds, and despite his winter coat; he could feel the cold stab him with each gust that swept across his damp pelt. A painful moan left his whiskered lips, it wasn't just the weariness in his bones that pained him - it is the deep, painful loss that haunts him the most.

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The darkness begins to fade into the pale pinks and soft oranges of the early sun as it rises. It washes the silent world in its warm color and with it it's rays; awakens every creeping and crawling creature. Another groan leaves his cracked, parched lips in protest of the morning sun's rude awakening. If it was up to him, he would sleep on this sandy shore until Valhalla's call. Every muscle in his body protests his movement as he draws his legs beneath him, and stumbles to his hooves. His muscles quiver and shake, threatening to collapse beneath his weight. He knows that he has to move his body or else he would soon be food for the buzzards. So, he pushes past the aching, screaming pains and into the grassy lands beyond. It seems as if the gods still hold some favor for him.

The salt in his eyes stings and blurs his vision as he half blindly stumbles across the grassy land, only drawn by the sweet promise of fresh water just over the hill. His quivering nostrils draw in the mixture of a familiar musk, and fresh water. If he were to be caught by the owner of this land, he would offer up an explanation - perhaps they would take mercy on the disheveled, broken once Bear King.

He stumbles into the cool fresh waters of a still pool, greedily he plunges his muzzle into the waters and drinks... and drinks... and drinks until all he feels is the water sloshing around in his belly. NOT the heartache of losing his family. NOT the gnawing loneliness that threatens to crush him beneath its weight. NO. Just the uncomfortable feeling of his belly being too full of water. He stands silently, knee deep in the cool waters, his glacial blue eyes trained on the blurry image of a once king.

How far the great have fallen...