Where Fear Cannot Decide

Posted on Tue May 5th, 2026 @ 9:43am by Skjoldr Jórundsson (Hrimstrand) & Kennedy Kelly
Edited on on Tue May 5th, 2026 @ 9:50am

9,921 words; about a 50 minute read

Mission: Episode 7: Pathogens and Contagions
Location: Stables, X-Mansion
Timeline: March X, 1992

The spring morning was cold and rain-soaked, leaving sky and earth washed in the same dull shade of gray. Low, lazy clouds clung close to the ground, drifting across the landscape as if staging a quiet protest against the warm sun that threatened to return any day now. Weather like this drove most people indoors, and as a result Xavier’s was louder and more crowded than usual. Students filled the halls and common rooms, restless from being cooped up. Only the few who were willing to braving the chill ventured outside, trading the noise of the mansion for a brief respite from the storm of activity within, at least for as long as they could tolerate the cold that seeped through clothes and threatened to settle deep in the bones.

Skjoldr and Varobjörn found the grounds surrounding the mansion nearly empty and unusually quiet. A thin, lingering fog hung along the edge of the woods, giving the land an eerie, almost haunted stillness, until the sharp whinny of a horse cut cleanly through the frosty air.

“Easy, Titian.” A woman’s soft voice followed the startled cry. “What’s gotten into you?”

As Skjoldr climbed the gentle rise of a hill, the mansion’s stables and training fields came into view. What had once been a thick stretch of forest east of the mansion had been cleared into a wide green pasture and a carefully groomed round pen. At its center sat a young woman astride a large, lean bay horse. The animal was nothing like the shaggy, sturdy work ponies Skjoldr had known in his village. Both horse and rider looked sleek and refined, their tack and attire suited for an elegant sport meant more for leisure rather than necessity.

The horse snorted and stamped nervously as Skjoldr and Varobjörn came into view, the sight of the massive white bear clearly unsettling it. The rider noticed a moment later, her gaze lifted as she continued to stroke the animal’s neck in a calming rhythm.

“He’s afraid of the bear,” she called out to Skjoldr.

As she looked toward him more clearly, he recognized her. She was the young woman he had seen during his first arrival at Xavier’s. When Alaric had initially opened the portal, she’d been guiding a group of students down the hall.

“He doesn’t understand,” she added, offering a small, apologetic smile as she soothed the horse beneath her. “He thinks you’re dangerous.”

Skjoldr stopped as soon as he understood the problem.

He didn’t take another step up the rise. Instead, he let the distance hold, his body angling just enough to make himself less direct in the horse’s eye. Beside him, Varðbjörn slowed too, the great pale bear reading the shift in Skjoldr before a word was spoken. The horse’s tension was plain enough even from here: the lifted head, the white at the eye, the stamping foreleg, the tightness running through the neck and shoulder like a drawn rope.

“Aye,” Skjoldr called back, calm and without offence. “I would be wary too, if I were him.”

His gaze stayed on the horse rather than the rider. He lowered one hand, open and easy at his side, and let his shoulders loosen. Nothing head-on. Nothing sudden. He knew enough of animals to understand that the wrong kind of attention could feel like pressure all by itself.

“He sees teeth and size,” he said, voice carrying just enough. “That’s fair sense in a horse.”

Varðbjörn stood quietly at his flank, breath steaming pale in the damp morning. The bear’s ears shifted once towards the bay, then settled back. When he spoke, it was low and unhurried, more like weather passing over stone than any human voice.

“I am not hunting him.”

Skjoldr’s mouth twitched faintly. “No,” he said, still watching the horse. “And he does not know that yet.”

He crouched then, slowly enough to give the animal time to follow the movement, making himself smaller in the way he would with a nervous hound or a young horse not yet sure of a man’s intent. One knee bent, forearm resting loose across it, posture settled and unthreatening. His eyes did not lock on the horse’s face, only drifted there and away again, the way calm hands and calm creatures tend to do.

“Let him look,” he said to the rider. “He’ll settle sooner if no one presses him.”

Rain-dark wind moved over the pasture. Skjoldr breathed it in, along with the smells of wet earth, worked leather, horse sweat, and hay. Those things made more sense to him than half the mansion ever would. It softened something in him. For the first time that morning, he looked fully at the woman on horseback.

He recognised her, faintly. A face passed in a corridor, back when everything had been too bright and too full of doors and voices. She looked different here, more properly placed, seated high and balanced over the horse as if the two of them understood each other in a language older than speech.

“You sit him well,” Skjoldr said, and there was no flattery in it, only truth. “He trusts your hands. That matters more than whether he understands me yet.”

The horse snorted again, sharper this time, but did not back away. Skjoldr noticed the difference and stayed exactly where he was.

“In my home, our horses were built for work,” he said, quieter now, speaking as much for the horse as for her. “Broad-backed, strong through the chest, the sort that hauled timber, nets, and whatever else a hard season asked of them. They weren’t delicate things. They earned their keep same as any man.” A faint line of humour touched his face. “And they had opinions on being handled badly.”

Varðbjörn shifted his weight, careful and deliberate, then lowered his great head a little, offering the bay the side of his profile instead of the full front of him.

“He is right to be wary. Wary is not the same as wrong.”

“Aye,” Skjoldr murmured. Then, to the horse, in the same tone he might have used with any uncertain beast, “No harm. No chase. Just rain, grass, and strangers.”

He let the words sit, not expecting the horse to understand them, only the steadiness behind them.

Then he glanced back up at the rider. “If you’re willing, I can come closer and let him take my measure properly. Hand first. Head low. Let him feel that I’m calm.” His expression eased a fraction. “Only if you want it. He’s your horse.”

“He’s the school’s horse,” Kennedy corrected, though the way her hand lingered against his neck told him the truth. Her fingers moved with easy familiarity, smoothing along the horse's coat in a quiet show of affection. “But I think Jean bought him because she knew I needed a friend here. We can try.”

She leaned forward in the saddle, bringing her lips close to the horse’s ear. Her voice dropped to something softer, meant only for him, and after a few murmured reassurances Titan’s tension began to ebb. The rigid set of his body loosened, his ears flicking as he finally accepted that Skjoldr and Varobjörn were not a threat.

“Your name is Skjoldr, right?” Kennedy asked as she swung down from the saddle. The leather boots and tack creaked softly beneath her but her movement was fluid and controlled, as if she’d done it a thousand times before. “From the missing village?” She chuckled a little from her own comments, "Sorry, this place loves to gossip. It makes it easy to pickup on bits and pieces about everyone."

Skjoldr watched the horse more than the woman, and he saw the change come through her before it came through the reins. Not force. Not anything strange. Just trust. The kind that had been built up properly over time. He respected that straight away.

He only moved when Titan let him.

Hands open. Head a little lowered. Nothing sudden. He came in slow, the way you would with any horse that had good reason to be cautious. Even with the panic going out of him, Skjoldr didn’t rush it. Horses changed their minds fast if a man got stupid.

Kennedy’s question pulled a brief glance from him, and he caught the way she came down from the saddle too, smooth and easy, like she’d done it all her life.

“Aye,” he said. “That’s me. Skjoldr.” He tipped his head slightly towards the great pale bear at his side. “And this is Varðbjörn. Usually just Varð.”

The bear turned his broad head towards Kennedy, mist curling from his muzzle.

“I answer to both.”

That got the faintest pull at the corner of Skjoldr’s mouth. “When it suits him.”

He stopped when he was close enough for Titan to choose the rest. Let the horse stretch forward first. Let him take in the smell of him properly. Wet leather, cold air, wool, rain. When Titan didn’t pull away, Skjoldr lifted one hand slowly and offered the back of it first.

At Kennedy’s apology, he shook his head once. “No harm done. I’d rather people talk than stare and act like they haven’t heard anything.” A slight shrug. “And I don’t think I was ever going to arrive here quietly.”

Then his attention settled back on Titan, his voice dropping without him even thinking about it. “There you go,” he murmured. “That’s it. Easy.”

He kept his hand easy for Titan, letting the horse settle around him before he looked back to Kennedy properly.

“You’ve a good way with him,” he said. No flourish, no charm to it, just plain truth. “He listens because he trusts you. Not everyone earns that.” A small pause, then a faint pull at one corner of his mouth. “You make it look easy.”

“Well, we’re both a bit cavalier and beautiful so I think we understand one another,” Kennedy replied, her tone perfectly deadpan as she studied the horse’s elegant profile and long, arched neck. The animal had settled enough to lower his head, his attention drifting to grazing on the early spring grass in the pasture.

“Come on,” she added, giving a gentle tug on the reins for both Skjoldr and Titan. “Let’s walk back to the barn.”

Her red riding jacket cut sharply through the gray mist and brooding sky, a vivid streak against the muted greens, making her easy to follow as they strolled at an unhurried pace.

“So… the bear,” she ventured after a few steps, bold curiosity slipping into her voice. “He’s your pet?”

That got a look out of Skjoldr. Not confusion this time, but the faintest sign that he’d caught the joke and appreciated the way she delivered it. His eyes moved to her properly as she turned Titan back towards the barn, and there was no denying she cut a striking figure against the washed-out morning. The red jacket, the easy seat she’d had in the saddle, the confidence in the way she carried herself. Beautiful, aye, but that wasn’t what held his attention most.

He fell into step beside Titan, keeping to the horse’s shoulder rather than crowding either of them. Varðbjörn moved on Skjoldr’s far side, great pale shape ghosting through the mist with the sort of quiet presence that made the morning feel even stiller around him.

“Aye,” Skjoldr said, a faint smile touching one corner of his mouth. “I’ve known that kind of answer before.” His glance slid her way again, warmer now. “Usually from women who know exactly what they’re about and don’t need to say it twice.”

At her question, the bear gave a low, offended huff.

“I am no pet.”

That pulled a quiet breath of amusement from Skjoldr. “No,” he said. “He’d take that badly.”

He looked ahead again as they walked. “He’s my Vardr. Where I’m from, everyone comes into one when they’re old enough. Not all bears. All sorts. It’s not ownership.” He took a moment, looking for the shape of it in words she’d understand. “He’s part of me, and not part of me. A companion, but more than that. If you could take a piece of yourself, give it teeth and thought, and have it walk beside you, that would be closer.”

Varðbjörn lifted his head a little at that, apparently satisfied.

Skjoldr glanced back at Kennedy, then at Titan. “And you do sit him well,” he added, quieter. “A horse tells the truth about a person faster than most people will. He’s calm with you. That says enough.”

“I suppose so,” she said with a slight shrug, it was the closest thing to humility she was willing to offer in response to his compliments. Kennedy treated flattery as an expectation, not an exception. “The carrots I bring him every day probably help.”

“So he’s… like your friend?” she asked, leaning forward to study Varobjörn more closely, her curiosity plain as she tried to make sense of the phantom bear. She didn’t speak to him as if he were truly sentient and she didn’t quite accept Varobjörn as Skjoldr’s companion. This distinction would have been striking to anyone from his village, where a varn was simply understood and respected.

“Is he with you all the time?” she pressed. “Do you sleep together and do everything together?”

Skjoldr caught the way she looked at Varðbjörn, the curiosity in it, but also the gap. Not disrespect exactly. Just not understanding yet.

He slowed a little and laid a hand against the thick white fur at Varð’s shoulder. His voice dropped into his own tongue then, low and familiar, the sort of cadence that belonged to old halls and winter fires rather than wet English pasture.

“Farðu mjúkt, vinur minn. Hvíldu.”

Varðbjörn’s great head turned towards him first, pale eyes holding his for a beat. Then the bear gave a slow, rumbling breath and the solid weight of him began to soften. Frost-light thinned along the edges of his form, his body losing substance like snow in mist, until he was gone completely and only the cool of him seemed to linger in the damp air.

Skjoldr looked back to Kennedy. “He isn’t always with me like that,” he said. “Not unless I call him, or there’s reason for him to be here.” His eyes flicked briefly to the space Varð had occupied, then back to her. “He’s not a pet, and not just a friend either. Where I’m from, a Vardr is understood for what it is. Part of you, but still itself. A thing with its own mind. You don’t own it any more than you own your own shadow.”

He walked a few more paces beside Titan before speaking again, more easily now. “So no, we don’t do everything together. I don’t think either of us would survive that.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “He’s got his own temper, and I’m told mine is enough to manage already.”

“Wow,” Kennedy breathed, the word slipping out in quiet awe. She had seen her share of mutant abilities that could manifest things into reality, like herself, who could pull the intangible into something more, but this was different. This was a whole separate presence, something alive and deliberate, able to appear and vanish at his command. “That’s… actually incredible. And everyone where you’re from can do that?”

With the bear gone, Skjoldr stepped closer, no longer kept at a distance by Titan’s unease. It brought him nearer to the horse and to her, it was only then did Kennedy fully register just how tall he was.

“Why a bear?” she asked, leaning forward slightly to peer around Titan’s broad, muscled frame. A faint smile tugged at her lips, curiosity bright in her blue eyes. “Was that your choice?”

Skjoldr stepped in carefully once Varðbjörn was gone, letting Titan decide how much closer he was willing to allow. The horse had softened enough now that he could come near without setting him off again, and when Skjoldr finally laid a hand against his neck it was slow, steady, and easy. Titan’s coat was warm under the damp chill of the morning, strong muscle shifting beneath the skin.

“Aye,” he said, answering her first question while his hand moved once along the horse’s neck. “Everyone where I’m from has one. Not all the same. Not all bears. But everyone comes into a Vardr in time.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “Back home it’s nothing worth remarking on. Here, apparently, it’s a fine way to make an entrance.”

At the question of the bear, he glanced over at her properly. She was still looking at him with that open, bright curiosity of hers, and it drew something a little easier out of him.

“No, I didn’t choose him,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way. The Vardr is… you, in another shape. Not exactly your soul, but close enough that most people wouldn’t argue the difference. It carries the parts of you that are easiest to recognise once they’ve got teeth and fur and eyes looking back at you.”

He gave Titan’s neck another slow stroke, thinking as he spoke. “A bear makes sense for me, I suppose. They’re steady. Hard to frighten. Harder to move once they’ve planted themselves. They’ll weather a storm, stand their ground, and protect what’s theirs without making a song of it.” His mouth twitched again, this time with a bit more life in it. “They’re also stubborn, too fond of their own mind, and not always as patient as they should be. So… aye. It fits.”

Titan snorted softly and lowered his head another inch, no longer bothered by Skjoldr’s hand. Skjoldr noticed, and the approval in his face was quiet but plain. Then he looked back to Kennedy.

“What about you?” he asked. “If it worked that way here, what do you think would be walking beside you?”

“I don’t really know,” Kennedy admitted with a soft, uneasy laugh as a faint puff of warmth slipped from her lips into the cool air. “Half the time, I’m not even sure who I am anymore. Just when I start to think I’ve figured it out something comes along and turns it all upside down.”

She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the thoughts before they could take hold. “I don’t think there’s an animal out there dealing with that kind of identity crisis,” she added, a hint of wry humor returning. “But it’s a nice idea.”

Kennedy's gaze lingered on him as he remained focused on earning the horse’s trust, Skjoldr seemed so steady and unbothered.

“I’ll admit,” she said after a moment her tone much quieter now, “I’m a little envious of how sure of yourself you seem.”

Skjoldr looked at her properly then, his attention settling on her in a way that felt steady rather than heavy. “Feeling pulled in different directions doesn’t mean you’re lost,” he said. “It usually means life has asked too much of you in too short a time.”

“You have no idea,” Kennedy muttered as she listened to his words of wisdom.

He let that sit a moment before going on. “A person changes when the world puts a hand to them. That’s just the truth of it. Some are lucky enough to change slowly, with room to think on it. Others get turned round hard and fast and have to find their footing while the ground’s still moving.” His mouth shifted faintly. “That doesn’t make them weak. It means they’re still becoming.”

His gaze stayed on hers, calm and clear. “And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you envy the right thing.” A beat. “I’m not as sure as I probably look. Where I come from, there wasn’t much room to be anything but what was needed. Work, weather, family, survival. You learn to stand where you’re put, and after enough years people start calling that certainty.” His expression softened, just a little. “A lot of the time, it’s only habit. Sometimes it’s just what’s left when there was never room to be uncertain out loud.”

Then, quieter, with a warmth that sat easy between them, he added, “I think there’s more courage in asking who you are than pretending you settled it years ago.”

“So you felt trapped by the limitations of your situation?” She nodded her head in agreement with this statement, it was an idea that she could more than relate to. “I know that feeling all too well. When I was younger, my life was mapped out for me. I knew exactly who I was supposed to be and how it was to be done. The choices were made on my behalf, and back then… I believed they were right.”

“Then it was all taken away. That life… those plans… they’re just… gone.” Kennedy sighed softly as she recalled the events that followed, the past year and a half had carved its way through her, leaving marks that hadn’t fully faded. Once, those memories would have unraveled her completely, now they only ached in a deep and persistent manner.

“I decided I deserved more than what was left of that,” she continued. “That happiness wasn’t something I should just… surrender.” A faint smile tugged at her lips. “Turns out I’m too stubborn to quit so I kept clawing my way back.”

She let out a quiet, self-aware laugh. “I went back to what made me feel like myself again, reading for fun, dancing, spending time with Titan. If I was going to rebuild anything, it had to be on my terms. Not anyone else’s.”
Kennedy lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “Maybe that counts as courage.”

Her eyes returned to his, sharper now and once more curious. “What about you? You came from a place where everything was small and contained and now you’ve seen more of the world than you ever expected.” She tilted her head slightly. “Do you think you could really go back to that… like none of this ever happened?”

Skjoldr was quiet for a few steps after that, not because he had no answer, but because hers deserved to settle first.

“Aye,” he said at last. “I know that feeling well enough.” His voice stayed low, easy, carried more by the damp air than by force. “Where I came from, elders decided much of a life before you were old enough to call it yours. What work you’d take. What was expected of your hands. Who you’d stand beside when hard years came. There wasn’t much room to ask if something else might suit you better.” A faint breath left him, not quite a laugh. “No one called it trapping. It was just life.”

He kept his eyes ahead for a moment, watching the mist shift low across the pasture. “I was betrothed once. That would have been my road. Forge-work, duty, family, the village, all of it laid out clear enough that I never had to wonder overmuch who I was meant to be. Then she was killed, and after that…” He shook his head once. “Things changed. Then changed again when my people vanished. So no, I don’t think what I had was certainty, not really. I think it was a life with firm edges, and I knew how to live inside them.”

That turned him back towards her. “What you’re describing sounds like courage to me. Not the kind that shouts about itself. The better kind. The kind that hurts and keeps going anyway.” His expression softened, just a fraction. “You lost the shape other people built for you, and instead of folding yourself into whatever scraps were left, you chose to build something of your own. That takes more will than most people ever have to find out they’re missing.”

Her question stayed with him a moment longer. When he answered, there was no rush in it. “My world wasn’t small to me,” he said. “It was harsh at times, and plain by your standards, maybe. But it was home. My family was there. My place was there. I knew who I was when I stood on that ground.” He glanced out across the mansion grounds, the stables, the fences, the strange breadth of this new life. “Could I go back as though none of this happened? No. I don’t think so. Not now. I’ve seen too much that I didn’t know existed. People with gifts I’d never imagined. People with none at all, just living their lives without Vardr or anything like it. This world’s made me more unsure than I’ve ever been in my life.” That earned the faintest, rueful curve of his mouth. “So I suppose there’s your answer. If I went back, I’d still be carrying all of this with me.”

He looked at Kennedy properly then, steady and warm in a way that was starting to come easier around her. “What would make the difference,” he said, “is what waits for me either way. Home matters. So do people. If there’s still something for me there, I’d feel the pull of it. But if a man finds connection somewhere new, if he finds people he trusts, work that means something, reasons to stay…” He let the rest sit between them without dressing it up too much. “Then going back isn’t as simple as just turning around and pretending he never left.”

“The feeling of home is a powerful thing,” Kennedy replied as she took a few more slow steps forward. Titan was now lost to grazing and he seemed to care very little about the two of them. “The home I grew up in, it doesn’t exist anymore… and even if it did, I wouldn’t be welcomed there… I was disowned when they discovered I was a mutant. I’m old enough that I could leave Xavier’s and they are generous about supporting me in going to school, but the truth is that I don’t really want to go. The thought of being alone turns my stomach. So I stay here, in the closest thing I have to a home.”

She fell quiet, and Skjoldr noticed a shift in her. Kennedy’s shoulders tightened as she broke eye contact, and something guarded settled inside of her. Whether it was discomfort or caution, it was hard to tell. “I’m sorry about your…fiancée. I’ve experienced my fair share of loss in that area too. It’s a different kind of pain, like hope dies inside of you.”

Skjoldr walked with her in the quiet that followed, giving her words room rather than stepping over them.

“Aye,” he said after a moment. “Then we know something of the same ground, you and I.” His voice was low and even, shaped more by honesty than comfort. “The home I knew is still standing, as far as I know. The halls, the forge, the stone, the paths. But if my people are gone, then it isn’t the same place anymore. A house can stand and still stop being home.”

He glanced at her then, catching the tightness that had come into her shoulders. “And I don’t know this word you keep using for yourself,” he added, not blunt, just straightforward. “Mutant. It’s not how I’d speak of what I am. Where I come from, it’s simply the gift people carry, same as eye colour or a strong back or a bad temper. But I understand what you mean when you say people cast you out for it.” His mouth hardened slightly. “That’s uglier than ignorance. Choosing to turn away from your own blood for what they are.”

A breath passed between them, cool and damp. “So if this place is the nearest thing you have to home, then I can see why you’d hold on to it.” He looked ahead again, over the rain-dark ground and the shape of the stables beyond. “Truth told, it may be the nearest thing I have for now as well.”

When she spoke of his betrothed, he noticed the shift in her before the words themselves settled. He did not hurry to fill it. “We weren’t what you’d call…” He paused, searching for the shape of it in her world and giving up on finding a neat one. “It wasn’t a love story in the way people here seem to mean it. I’d known her all my life. Our families meant us to marry. It would have been a strong joining, good for both houses, good for the village. We understood one another. That was enough where I came from.” His expression grew quieter, but not closed. “And when she died, it still hurt.”

He rubbed a thumb once against the edge of his bracer, more thought than fidget. “I’ve lost others too. Winter takes some. Raids take some. Beasts take some. A hard life teaches you early that loving people does not mean keeping them.” Then his eyes returned to hers, steady and a little gentler than before. “But I know what you mean. There are some losses that don’t just leave a gap. They take the future that sat around them with it.”

He let that sit between them a beat, then added, quieter, “You don’t have to apologise for understanding it.”

“Yeah, life can be rough sometimes,” she said, “but I try to remember that it’s beautiful, too.” Her eyes met his for a fleeting moment before drifting back to Titan. “I’ve seen a lot of messed up things, and some truly ugly things have been done to me but I don’t want that darkness to define me. I won’t let it claim me.”

She had already spoken about her desire not just to live, but to thrive, and that conviction held steady even as the conversation turned heavier. After a brief pause, she reflected on how Skjoldr had described his lost relationship and the circumstances that had shaped it. Without realizing it, he had brushed against something she was still trying to untangle within herself.

“Your relationship… it sounds very practical,” she said carefully, settling on the closest word she could find. “Did you prefer it that way? Having other people decide something so important for you?”

Skjoldr was quiet for a moment, his hand still resting against Titan’s neck as the horse grazed on in patient ignorance of the weightier parts of the conversation.

“It was practical,” he said at last, his voice low and even. “But where I come from, practical does not mean empty.”

His gaze stayed on the field ahead rather than on her. “A union like that was never only about two people. It was about family. Stability. Duty. What kept the village strong when winter was cruel and the world outside your walls wanted something from you.” He drew a slow breath. “So no, I did not bristle at the idea of others having a say. Not then. To be chosen for something like that was not an insult to freedom. It was trust. Responsibility. Honour.”

That said, there was a subtle shift in him then, a small tightening at the corner of his mouth.

“But…” he continued, quieter now, “that does not mean I would have accepted it blindly. I am not a man who takes well to being handled. If I had felt no respect for her, no strength in her, no sense that we could stand beside one another properly, then I would have said so.” His eyes dipped briefly to Titan’s mane beneath his fingers before lifting again. “Duty matters. So does the person sharing it.”

Only then did he glance at Kennedy, and there was something steadier, warmer in the look than before.

“I think, in time, we would have grown into more than duty. That is often how it begins for my people. Not with passion first, but with trust. Shared burdens. A life built side by side.” A faint pause. “Sometimes that lasts longer than the other kind.”

He let the words settle before adding, with quiet certainty, “So I did not need others to decide what was important to me. But I understood that I was part of something larger than myself. There is a difference.”

“Oh, of course… it’s just…” Kennedy hesitated, she bit down on her lower lip as if she could hold the thought there and keep it from spilling out. She knew she shouldn’t say more, knew she was already saying too much but something restless and yearning in her refused to be quiet. “It’s just so terribly unromantic.”

She pressed on before he could interrupt, her voice soft but lit with a passionate intensity. “There’s no flutter in your chest, no breathless knots in your stomach. No spark.” She shook her head faintly, as though mourning something invisible.

“There’s something extraordinary about being chosen. In a world overflowing with people, someone looks at you and decides you are the one they want above all others.”

Her gaze became dreamy and distant as she recalled the hundreds of love stories she had read. “And not just that… they would do anything to make you see them the same way. To earn it. To deserve it. That kind of love… it’s magic.”

He was quiet for a moment after she finished, her words hanging in the damp morning air between them.

Kennedy had gone a little distant as she spoke, not in body but in the eyes, as if she were looking at something beyond the paddock and the mist and the wet spring grass. Skjoldr watched her for a beat, then reached without making a show of it and took one of her hands in his.

His hand was much larger, rougher, built by work and weather, but the touch itself was careful. Gentle. Just enough to draw her back from wherever her thoughts had gone and anchor her in the moment again.

“That sounds like magic to me as well,” he said quietly.

His thumb shifted once against the side of her hand, more grounding than caress, and then stilled. “And maybe I would have wanted it, if I’d been born into a world wide enough to imagine it. But I wasn’t.” His gaze held hers now, steady and open in a way it hadn’t a little while ago. “I had my island. My people. The life in front of me and the work expected of my hands. There was no great sea of faces, no hundred roads crossing, no sense that somewhere out there was a person meant only for me. There was just the world I knew, and the place I had in it.”

He let out a small breath through his nose, not bitter, not regretful exactly. Just honest. “So when you speak of being chosen like that, don’t think I fail to understand the beauty in it. I do. I think any man with blood in him would.”

His eyes dropped briefly to their hands, then lifted back to her. “Maybe that’s the part of it I understand best,” he said, his voice lower now, steadier somehow for having softened. “Not the stories. Not the dreaming. Just… the wanting to be looked at that way. Properly. As if, for all the people in the world, someone’s eyes still found you first.”

His fingers shifted slightly around hers, careful with the smaller shape of her hand in his. “I didn’t grow up expecting that kind of choice. But I can hear it when you speak of it.” A faint pause. “And I think it matters to you because you’d never give your heart by halves. You’d want to be met fully, or not at all.”

There was no smile in it now, only warmth. “I think that’s a rarer thing than you know.” His gaze stayed on hers a moment longer. “And I think the right person would feel very lucky to be chosen back.”

Kennedy forgot how to breathe the moment his hand found hers. His gesture was simple but it still managed to quietly steal the air from her lungs. He pulled her back into the present, but the starlight lingered in her eyes as she listened to his confession. Skjoldr was unguarded in a way she rarely allowed herself to be.

Without thinking, she drifted closer until Kennedy could feel the heat of him bleeding through the chill from the damp, clinging fog. It was ridiculous how quickly she leaned into him, how desperately she wanted to be close to him. Skjoldr was kinder than she’d expected and he was more than she deserved.

She found herself wanting to kiss him and the thought bloomed across her cheeks in a vivid flare of pink as if her body had decided to betray her thoughts. Kennedy dropped her gaze, suddenly very interested in anything that wasn’t him.

“I…it…” Her voice faltered while her chest tightened and reality came rushing back in a sharp but familiar way. She eased herself from his touch in a careful, almost apologetic manner though she couldn’t quite make herself step away.

“It can also hurt,” she said softly, her words were heavier and sadder. “A lot.” A small, self-conscious breath escaped her, something like a humorless laugh at her own expense. “And I’m… exceptionally good at ruining things.”

Skjoldr felt the change in her before she pulled back.

The way her breath caught. The warmth that rose in her cheeks. The sudden drop of those bright blue eyes, as if looking at him had become too much all at once. She was all poise most of the time, tall and finely put together in a way that spoke of good fabric, good breeding, and a life that had once expected certain doors to open for her. But in that moment, with the mist clinging to her golden hair and colour blooming across her face, she looked younger. Softer. Frightened of her own wanting.

He felt the pull of it too.

For a moment, he wanted to follow.

Instead, when she eased her hand away, he let her go. No tightening of his fingers. No attempt to keep what had not been freely given. He stayed close enough that it did not feel like rejection, but far enough that she could breathe. Honour was not only something men carried into battle. Sometimes it was as simple as knowing when to leave space.

“Aye,” he said quietly. “It can hurt.”

He did not try to argue that away. There would have been no honesty in it.

“But ruining things?” His mouth softened, almost a smile. “That’s a hard thing to say about a woman still standing after all the world’s tried to take from her.”

He let that sit a moment, his gaze steady on her without pressing. “Where I come from, a person worth standing beside is not the one who never stumbles. It’s the one who rises, looks at the road again, and keeps walking. Even when the road has been cruel.”

His voice lowered a fraction, warmer now. “So if you’ve made mistakes, Kennedy, then you’ve lived. If you’ve been hurt and still want beauty, then you haven’t been ruined. Not to my eyes.”

A faint trace of humour touched him then, gentle rather than teasing. “And if there is someone out there worthy of being chosen by you, I doubt he’ll care much for a perfect path behind you. He’ll care that you still have the courage to choose at all.”

From the mist nearby, Varðbjörn gave a low rumble, pale shape half-seen beyond Titan’s shoulder.

“Broken ground still grows.”

Skjoldr glanced toward the bear, then back to Kennedy. “He says it shorter.”

Then his attention settled on her again, more open now, the warmth not quite hidden. “You are not a thing ruined,” he said. “You are someone who has been hurt and still reaches for something bright. That is not weakness.” A small pause. “I think it is beautiful.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say and it means more to me than I think you realize.” A touch of that fragility remained as she spoke, like a part of the polished veneer had been scratched away and now Skjoldr could see what was hidden underneath. “But it’s not me that I’m worried about…”

Kennedy picked up Titan’s reins and with a single, graceful motion she returned to her mount on the leggy horse. She pulled the horse’s head away from Skjoldr, creating a bit more distance between them.

“The men I care about end up in terrible places. Sometimes it’s with a bullet in their skull, or a cruel demise into another person, or forever frozen in a casket. But the end result is always the same, they die.” Titan began to paw at the ground now that it appeared they were getting back to riding, the warmblood was eager to move once more. “And I don’t know if I can stomach seeing another person’s downfall, if I can continue seeking out the things that make me happy knowing that it will all fall apart in the end…” She shook her head and tightened her grip on the reins. “I’m tired of ruining people.”

“All I have ever wanted is to be loved and wanted. To be adored and needed by someone as much as I need and want them. But I don’t think that future is meant for me, at least not in the way I had always envisioned it. I know I want and deserve happiness, I’d rather die myself than give up on that dream. But I’ve come to the conclusion that I have to do all of that alone… that the greatest love story in my life is one that involves me and no one else.”

She let out a heavy, loud sigh formed by her frustration and sorrow. It punctuated her words as it created a puff of steamy vapor in the chilled air. “And it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Skjoldr did not follow when she pulled Titan’s head away.

He felt the distance for what it was. Not rejection exactly, not in the simple shape of it. A defence. A wall raised quickly because something inside had become too exposed to the weather. He understood walls well enough not to put his shoulder to one simply because he wished it open.

So he stayed where he was, hands low, posture easy, giving both woman and horse the space she had chosen.

For a while, he said nothing. Kennedy had given him something heavy, and it would have been poor treatment to toss easy comfort back at her as if pain could be swatted away with the right words. His gaze moved over her for a moment: the fine red cut of her riding jacket, the straightness of her back in the saddle, the gold of her hair against the grey morning, the way she held herself as if pride alone could keep all the cracked places from showing.

“You’re not cursed, Kennedy,” he said at last, quietly. “And you’re not death walking in a pretty coat.”

There was no teasing in it, though his voice stayed gentle. “People die because the world is cruel. Because men choose violence. Because sickness comes. Because bad things happen faster than we can put ourselves between them and the people we care for.” A beat. “That does not make every grave your doing.”

He looked down briefly, thumb brushing once across the edge of his bracer, then back up to her. “But I won’t argue you out of fear. Fear doesn’t loosen because someone stronger tells it to. And I won’t step closer when you’ve asked for distance, even if you didn’t use those words.”

That truth sat there between them, plain and unforced.

“I like your company,” he said, and there was something careful in the admission. Not shy, exactly, but respectful of the wound she had just shown him. “More than I expected to. You’re sharp, stubborn, too hard on yourself, and kinder than you seem to want people noticing. That’s a dangerous mix for a man new to this place.”

A faint warmth touched his expression, but he did not push it further than that.

“So I’ll give you the room you’re asking for,” he continued. “Ride. Breathe. Be angry at the sky if it helps. I’ll not chase you down and demand you hand me trust before it’s ready.” His eyes stayed on hers, steady beneath the low grey light. “But if one day you want company without someone trying to take from you, or fix you, or make your sorrow smaller than it is… I can do that.”

He stepped back then, one measured pace, enough to make the offer real.

“My door is open,” Skjoldr said. “That’s all. No debt. No trap. No promise you have to answer today.”

The morning mist shifted behind him, and somewhere beyond the paddock Varðbjörn’s pale shape watched in silence, saying nothing for once. Skjoldr gave Titan a small nod, then Kennedy.

“And for what it’s worth,” he added, softer, “a woman who still wants happiness after all that pain hasn’t ruined love. She’s kept it alive in a place where most would have buried it.”

“I…” The words dissolved on her tongue, smothered by the glow of everything he had just given her. Heat crept across her skin in a polished flush that looked almost intentional as her stomach tightened into a delicate, nervous knot. Kennedy wanted to go to him, to step into that bright, intoxicating rush she’d always chased. Those feelings made life feel gilded and effortless and she wanted to experience them all once more.

But she knew better because the fall always came after.

For a fleeting second, she remembered what she had recently done with someone far safer. Someone she had told herself she deserved. Someone who was safe, because he required nothing real.

“I like you too,” Kennedy finally replied, he had given her so much in this conversation, she couldn’t deny sharing this much with him. “And that terrifies me.”

Titan felt the tense shift in her before she moved and he turned and began to trot away, each step lifted high and deliberate in an elegant performance of dressage precision. The animal moved with all grace and show and it suited Kennedy. The American princess and her polished horse, both dazzling on the surface, all shine and spectacle, but beneath it the truth showed through the cracks.

Her beauty was a careful arrangement, a shield lacquered in charm and poise, hiding the small, frightened girl underneath. And just like Titan, she was trained to perform, to move when asked, to avoid what she did not understand. In this moment, Kennedy chose the easier path of flight because she couldn’t bear to hurt him, she didn’t think it was fair to pull him into the messy, broken person that she had become.

She turned away from him not because she didn’t feel enough, but because she felt too much and she didn’t yet have the strength to stay.

Kennedy rode away with the sort of grace that made leaving look like part of the performance.

Skjoldr watched her go, hands loose at his sides, jaw set with the quiet restraint it took not to call after her. Titan carried her across the field in those high, deliberate steps, polished and precise, until the trees began to take them both in pieces: first the flash of Kennedy’s hair, then Titan’s pale movement, then nothing but the shifting green where they had been.

He remained where he was.

There were moments when pursuit was courage. There were moments when it was only pride in a finer cloak. This felt like neither. Kennedy had not fled because she felt nothing. She had fled because she felt too much, and Skjoldr was not such a fool that he could not tell the difference.

The air beside him changed.

Not with footsteps. Not with any mortal announcement. One moment the field held only wind, grass and the shape of Kennedy’s absence; the next, Varo was there, vast and pale at the edge of Skjoldr’s awareness before the eye accepted him. A great polar bear wrought from old snow, iron patience and soul-deep instinct, his white fur catching the light as though winter itself had stepped close to inspect the matter. He did not appear from the trees. He did not need to. Varo arrived the way a truth arrived: already known before it was spoken.

Skjoldr did not look at him.

“No.”

“I have said nothing.”

“You were thinking loudly.”

“That is because you are feeling loudly.”

Skjoldr’s mouth tightened. “Careful.”

“There. That is better. Threats. Simple ground. Would you like me to become an enemy so you can be comfortable again?”

Despite himself, Skjoldr’s expression shifted by the smallest degree. Not quite amusement. Not quite irritation. Something older and more familiar than both. “You are already difficult enough.”

“I am exactly as difficult as you require.”

“That is a lie.”

“It is a truth with better posture.”

For a moment they stood in silence, though silence between them was never truly empty. Varo was his own being, his own mind, his own pride, but he was also bound through Skjoldr in ways no ordinary companion could be. Skjoldr’s confusion had already reached him. So had the ache under it. So had the warmth, the concern, the sudden and inconvenient desire to protect a woman who had just ridden away from him.

“She is frightened,” Skjoldr said at last.

“Yes.”

“Not of me.”

“No.”

“She thinks she ruins the men who care for her.”

“She said as much.”

Skjoldr’s jaw tightened, but there was no anger in it. Not at Kennedy. “Then someone taught her a cruel lesson.”

“Many lessons are cruel. The deep ones are usually repeated.”

“I would not be another.”

“No. You would rather stand in a field looking wounded and noble until the grass pities you.”

Skjoldr finally turned his head and looked at him.

Varo’s black eyes were bright with that unbearable, ancient smugness that seemed to belong only to him. Great white head slightly lowered, paws planted as if the earth itself had agreed to support his opinion.

“You enjoy this.”

“I enjoy accuracy.”

“You enjoy my discomfort.”

“Your discomfort is often very accurate.”

A reluctant breath left Skjoldr, almost a laugh.

“She said she liked me,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Then she rode away.”

“Yes.”

He spread one hand slightly, as if the contradiction should have been obvious to any creature with sense. “You see the difficulty.”

“I see a woman who wanted to stay and could not. I see a man who wants to follow and should not.”

That struck cleaner than he liked.

Skjoldr looked back to the trees. Kennedy was gone now, but not absent. Not really. She had left a shape behind in him, bright and fragile and infuriatingly real.

“At home,” he said, quieter, “a woman would say what she meant.”

“She did.”

“She fled from it.”

“So have you, in other matters.”

His eyes narrowed. “Name one.”

“Must I stop at one?”

Skjoldr gave him a look sharp enough to split oak.

Varo looked entirely unmoved. Polar bears, even soul-bound ones, were not greatly troubled by masculine indignation.

“She is braver than she believes,” Skjoldr said after a while.

“Yes.”

“She could have laughed. She could have hidden behind her beauty, or her horse, or her fine manners.”

“Instead she gave you the truth and fled before you could hold it.”

“Yes.”

“That is still a beginning.”

The words settled in him.

He did like her. Not the polished version alone, not the dazzling surface that announced itself first and dared the world to look no deeper. He liked the fracture beneath. The stubborn courage. The girl who wanted joy and distrusted it. The woman who spoke of ruin because she had mistaken survival for damage and fear for prophecy.

“I would protect her,” Skjoldr said.

“I know.”

“Not because she is weak.”

“I know that too.”

“Because she should not have to stand alone simply because she has learned to.”

Varo’s amusement quieted then. Not vanished, never that, but softened into something steadier.

“There. That is the thing beneath all your noise.”

Skjoldr’s gaze remained on the treeline. “I would give my life for her.”

“You are very hard to kill.”

“Yes.”

“So this is less dramatic than you imagine.”

Skjoldr closed his eyes for a moment. “You ruin everything.”

“No. I prevent you from becoming unbearable.”

“I am not unbearable.”

“You are standing alone in a field after a beautiful woman confessed affection and fled, while composing silent vows of deathless protection.”

Skjoldr opened his eyes.

“You are at risk.”

This time, the laugh came properly. Low, reluctant, dragged out of him against his will.

“You speak too freely.”

“I speak from inside the fortress. I know where the doors are weak.”

That was the terrible truth of him. Varo was not merely beside Skjoldr. He was woven through him. Separate enough to challenge. Bound enough to know. A guardian, a mirror, a smug old beast with snow in his bones and Skjoldr’s heart held between his teeth whenever Skjoldr tried to hide it from himself.

“I will not chase her,” Skjoldr said.

“Good.”

“I will not make my affection another demand.”

“Better.”

“If she needs distance, she may have it. If she needs time, she may have that too.”

“Careful. At this pace you may become wise before sunset.”

“Do not grow proud.”

“Too late.”

He shook his head, but the tension in him had eased. Not gone. Kennedy’s leaving still sat beneath his ribs, an ache with no clean remedy. But it had shape now. He understood it well enough not to wound her with his own confusion.

“She may come back,” he said.

“She may.”

“And if she does not?”

“Then you will still wish her well, because you are not a boy who mistakes wanting for owning.”

Skjoldr was quiet for a long moment.

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

Varo’s great head tilted, the faintest suggestion of approval in the movement.

“There is the man she might trust.”

The words struck deeper than the teasing had.

Skjoldr looked toward the trees one last time. He would be here if Kennedy needed him. Not looming. Not pursuing. Not demanding that she turn around before she was ready. Simply here. Steady. Difficult to kill. Harder to frighten away.

“If fear tells her to run,” he said, “then I will remain where she can find me.”

“That is better than chasing.”

“It feels less satisfying.”

“That is how one knows it is probably right.”

He gave Varo a sideways glance. “Must wisdom always be inconvenient?”

“Only for men.”

“Women are no easier.”

“No. They are merely less surprised by feelings.”

Skjoldr considered that, then made a low, grudging sound. “Perhaps.”

“A mighty concession.”

“Do not tell anyone.”

“I am part of you. Your secrets are poorly guarded.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“For you, often.”

Skjoldr turned away from the treeline at last, not because the matter was settled, but because standing there would not bring Kennedy back and he had no wish to turn patience into theatre.

“Come,” he said, starting across the field. “Let us go be confused somewhere with food.”

Varo moved with him, or perhaps the world simply made room for the idea of him beside Skjoldr. White as old ice, vast as winter’s patience, smug as a brother who had won an argument before it began.

“At least food is honest.”

Skjoldr’s mouth curved despite himself.

“Yes,” he said. “And unlike women, it rarely flees after admitting it likes you.”

“Give it time. You have frightened stews before.”

His laughter came low and reluctant, carried off into the grass as the wind moved through the field and the trees closed gently behind Kennedy’s path.

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