Fur, feather and mane

He heard the laboured wheeze escape from the mans lungs and found the strength to even bear his shield had waned shortly before it slipped from his grasp and landed with a thud on the grass. His feet felt as if they had become mountains as he trudged forward and his mouth agape at the sight that had set before him, his fingers loosing the axe he once held with what he believed to be the might of his forebears. He knelt before the broken shell of a man he once knew as his brother, the man who visted him and kept watch over him while he stayed in the villages of the North.

The chains around Urses' hands had been situated to where they pulled his arms up just slightly above his shoulders which at this point, he was hanging by. His legs from his thighs down had been broken, his knees clearly shattered and bones protruding from his calves. His beard and head had been shorn crudely, runes of the tongues of darkness scribbled haphazardly sprawling across the top and sides of his head, though they hadn't taken him from this world yet. Though labored and heavy, there was still breath in the man.

Ioranir leaned forward and pressed his forehead to his brothers, his voice faltering and his eyes beginning to fill with tears as he wrapped his arms around Urses' neck. "My brother, my brother please forgive me.. Even in my haste I failed to be at your side." Ioranir whispered through sobs as he held his brother in his arms, moving to undo the shackles keeping him held up. The lumbering beast of a man laid helplessly in his brothers arms, his lips peeling back in the closest thing he could bring to a smile. "My baby brother... Little runt, my how you've grown.." Urses placed a shivering hand upon Ioranir's face, his thumb brushing through his beard. 


"Its going to be alright, I brought the herbs from home.. I can fix you. I can make you right.." Ioranir tried to reassure his brother who simply shook his head and took Ioranir's hand in his own and squeezed it.  "You.. You reforged Da's axe? Then you are the weilder, you are the Lion. You have done what I could not.."  The Bear nodded and gripped Ioranir's hand firmly before continuing. "There was nothing you could do, my beloved brother. This was my time and my day, not even the roots of the mountain or the tears of the clouds could have stayed my feet to this place. Do not appologize for my leaving.. Rejoice, as I will be reunited with our people..." The two sat in silence for several moments while Ioranir embraced his brother and continued to sob and shake his head. "I wasn't ready, I still have much to learn." 

"And you shall learn it.. You're no longer the little cub.. You are the Lion, just as your name. Leijona. No more tears.. Would you sing me the song? The one dad used to sing?" Urses asked, the smile still pulling at his lips while he simply laid in his brothers arms listening to him sing.

"The sky is dark and the hills are white, as the snow-king speeds from the north tonight. As over the world his cloak he flings, sleep, sleep little one, sleep; he ruffles his wings and gruffly sings: Sleep, little one, sleep. On yonder mountain-side a vine clings at the foot of a mother pine. The tree bends over the trembling thing, and only the vine can hear her sing: Sleep, little one sleep. What shall you fear when I am here? Sleep, little one sleep. The King may sing in his bitter flight, The tree may croon to the vine tonight. But the snowflake at my chest, liketh the song I song the best; Sleep, little one, sleep.  Weary thou art, anext my heart, sleep, little one sleep."*

Ioranir's voice broke with the last words as he pulled his brothers body closer to his in a hug, his eyes beginning to well again at the lifeless husk within his arms before shutting his eyes and whispering softly between them. "Sleep, little one sleep."










((''*Norse Lullaby" by Eugene Field (1850 - 1895.))