Yanulf's Den

49 A.C.
Hallbjorn's eyes are wide and twitchy. He's stone-still, staring heavily at the skull Yanulf has fastened to his shoulder. The leather straps make the sweaty skin beneath them itch, like ants running up and down Yanulf's hide.

"Who's that?" Hallbjorn rasps. He's small, for once, underneath all his furs. Yanulf eyes him lazily and just shrugs, sighing as his tail beats into the ground. When it's clear Yanulf isn't going to answer him, Hallbjorn flicks his gaze up to Yanulf's blackened eyes, and implores, "You don't need to go."

Yanulf sneers disbelievingly, shifting onto his bruised shoulder. His opposite shoulder's skull provides mock protection. He should lie. Should say he killed someone, took their hide, tanned their skull. Yanulf lies; Yanulf doesn't lie to Hallbjorn; Yanulf lies bleeding and deathly ill and petrified; Yanulf doesn't lie to Hallbjorn.

"They want my fucking head, Bjorn," Yanulf snaps instead of answering, and Hallbjorn's jaw tightens. His dark mane, finally growing out, is braided and Yanulf did not put those plaits there. Yanulf's spine prickles, hackles raised, gut coiled in knots and teeth poised to strike. "Do you want me dead too?"

Hallbjorn hisses, "You know I don't."

Tell me you know that, Yanulf reads, underneath the defensive anger and the aggressive fear. Yanulf's resolve hardens, thick and scaly and painful. Hallbjorn's well-hidden fretting is blatant in that way only Yanulf can sense as he studies Yanulf's eyes. Before Hallbjorn gets the chance to ask about the increasingly obvious infestation of blackness in Yanulf's form, in his flesh and bones, weeks and weeks of building tenseness, Yanulf forces himself in a lurch to his paws. Grits his pearly teeth around the cough of pain.

Yanulf stalks past Hallbjorn who, unlike a lifetime ago, doesn't stop him. Yanulf relishes in the violent misery that tears through his lungs, shoulder aching and every limb throbbing. The half-scabbed over slashes on his face burn. It's too late for Hallbjorn's concern.

Yanulf can't tell him anything anymore. It kills them both just the same.