Another tag game: Post a snippet from a current WIP of yours. The lovely @checkeredmice tagged me like a bajillion years ago and I’m just now getting to it ‘cause… well… I ain’t really been workin’ on my WIP. This is from my Gorzsasz/Zsaszlepot Gotham Viking AU thingie, The Raven and the Wolf on AO3.
I’m inviting anyone who wants to play along to play along. Just poke me and lemme know if you did so I can peep your WIP! 👀🤗 I love you guys!
====================================================
As Vígnir rouses, his gaze gradually focuses on the rays of morning sun piercing the darkness of the longhouse. For the first time in months, his sleep was deep. Restful. He didn’t spend half the night pacing or waking with a terrible start, met with Ǫssurr’s large, sympathetic eyes and attentive soothing. This morning, Ǫssurr lies curled beside him, sleeping soundly.
Vígnir gently drags his fingertips along the curves and dips of Ǫssurr’s body, now clean of the blood from his secret rituals and vision journey the night prior. Ǫssurr was so exhausted, he surrendered himself to Vígnir’s care, allowing Vígnir to bathe him in the springs and help him back to the longhouse while Sól watched on amidst the burning sky.
Vígnir absently fingers the runes scored into the enamel of the wolf fangs dangling from his leather cord around his neck. Though its subtle weight is still unfamiliar, it is already oddly comforting against his chest.
“All of Midgard will tremble in fear of you,
Hel’s wolf on earth, Úlfhamr.”
Ǫssurr’s soft sigh returns him to his senses and the lateness of the morning. His animals cannot tend to themselves. Vígnir silently gathers his breeches and strokes Ǫssurr’s soft black hair, a corner of his mouth subtly rising when Ǫssurr bores further into the warmth of the bed.
Vígnir slips into his calfskin boots and tosses a tunic over his shoulder, fastening his breeches as he heads for the door. The moment he emerges from the longhouse, he stops at the sound of a familiar voice.
Vígnir forgets the closure of his breeches and blinks, finding himself face-to-face with Jarl for the first time since his attack, back when he could barely sit up in own bed unaided. He regards the future earl, so much closer now than when Vígnir and his pack looked out from the ceremonial platform the night before.
Last night, Jarl was too far away to properly appraise among the nobility and their honored guests. They were the last to emerge from the main hall, where Jarl stood alongside Harði and his betrothed, Earl Elof’s daughter. Now, Jarl stands mere inches away in his embroidered finery, his golden hair shimmering in the morning sun. Vígnir swallows at the subtle but familiar ache in his chest when he meets those bright blue eyes as endless as the sky overhead.
Though Jarl knew of Vígnir’s dramatically altered appearance with his return to the village, he is still struck by it. The impish glint in Vígnir’s eyes has sharpened to something darker and penetrating, unyielding. Vígnir's mop of dark ringlets is now shorn to his scalp, where some bald patches are now visible. Jarl’s gaze dips past the curve of Vígnir’s lips and jaw, to his scar-riddled torso, where his musculature is considerably more defined. Vígnir's recovery is nothing short of miraculous.
His thoughts are interrupted by Vígnir's voice, which has an edge of suspicion.
“Since you visit my home without Harði or the Svínfylking, I take it I’m not to be brought before the tribunal for killing the bear shirts.”
