An Angel Called Eternity

To Bet on Losing Dogs - Kætil III: Immortal For One Night

Kætil III: Immortal For One Night

The Eighteenth Day of the Fifth Moon, 873 AD.
Dyfed's Warcamp, Hoarsoil Valleys, Scelopyrea.

They'd spent a lot of time together this last month, he and Svaltha. They'd sparred for a good portion of it, and drank for even more. A great many nights had been spent in a red-eyed haze as they inhaled the smoke of burning hemp flowers, the two of them talking well into the hour of the wolf. They'd grown close in the short time they'd known each other, and already Kætil felt as though he wasn't sure what he'd do without her. She was a boundless source of companionship and entertainment, not to mention the fact that she'd been able to sneak him and their friends a few of the moonflowers that the druids used for ritual purposes. He was pretty sure the druids called them 'thornapples', which was odd since they looked nothing like an apple, but to be honest so long as he was able to use them again he wasn't really sure he cared what he had to call them. Fuck, now that had been a fun night; he wasn't sure exactly what had been real and what had been imagined, only that Syren had endured a particularly nasty bout of vomiting afterwards. If anyone asked they'd all been extremely worried after their friend had eaten some bad food, but in truth?

The other three of them, he, Svaltha, and Krai, had been nearly pissing themselves laughing as Syren wailed at some unseen assailant in the shadows. The odd young man had punched him quite hard when he'd heard of that after recovering, but given that he was laughing almost as much as they all had been Kætil was pretty sure there were no hard feelings.

She'd been raised in the druidic order to a full-on druid now, rather than the novice she had been before, and as a result she had a little more freedom when it came to what she did in her day-to-day life. She did have to attend far more meetings with her new equals and old superiors, but he reckoned that was par for the course. She'd need to be getting more involved in the happenings of the druidic orders if she wanted to make anything of her new rank, and by the Raven-God he knew that she did. Not just for herself, he suspected, but also for him and their friends. She was odd like that, Svaltha.

With all that said, she had been acting strange these last few days. This last week, in honesty. She was certainly already a little strange beforehand, what with her hearing the voice of a vengeful god in her head, but then he supposed that if she hadn't been strange then she might not have fit in with the rest of them quite so well.

They weren't exactly normal, after all. All told they formed quite the eclectic band; a woman more skilled in combat than any he'd met who also happened to hear a deity in her mind, a man with an absurdly high pain tolerance and seemingly unending luck, someone who'd attached the bones of his first horse to his armour, and then there was himself. He was obviously the one that stood out the most, what with being marked for greatness by Krakevasil himself and the chosen champion of the druids amongst his father's supporters, but he supposed that at a glance he may have appeared to be the most normal of them all.

But anyway, Svaltha had been acting strange recently. She'd mentioned once or twice that she might be able to help him with increasing his bond with their glorious god through rune carving, and that if he wished it she would speak to a few people to make sure that she could get it right. She said that she knew how to make them more powerful, more potent, than even runes carved on amber.

Ah well, he couldn't dwell on that now. He needed to speak with father.

Walking up to the tent he nodded at the two silent guards at the entrance, both of whom parted to allow him through before moving back into their original positions as he passed.