(no subject)
I walked in the cold place between the worlds. Nothing but a steel sky above my head and a featureless wasteland of frozen snow in all directions. I did not know whether I stumbled toward the warmth of the great hall or back to the blood stained battlefield yet I pressed forward without pause. To stop now would be to succumb to exhaustion and an icy burial mound. Still, my way was not easy. My armor weighed me down like a stone with every step, my sword a battered and clumsy thing clutched in my numb hand. My brothers and sisters would chastise me for taking such ill care of her, just as they would cluck admonishingly at my sheared braids, but I did not care. I would see my family again, all of the einherjar and waelcyrge reunited in the world beyond the battle; nothing else mattered now.
The wind whipped ice daggers into my eyes as I fought onward. Through tear blurred vision I glimpsed a moving shadow, a wolf half again as large as any I had ever seen and black as ravens' wings. “Brother!” I called, and it turned back to me. I stood still as it approached, great paws splayed across the snow pack while my own boots sank deep. I held out my hands to the creature and it laid its heavy head against my cupped palms. Its eyes were chill and blue, the color of the winter sky, but its breath burned my skin like it had swallowed the sun itself. The beast said nothing, but held my gaze a long moment. Then it turned away again and tracked off through the snow. I sheathed my sword and followed.
[ If you haven't read Elizabeth Bear's By The Mountain Bound, I suggest you do so post haste so it can inspire awesome dreams for you as well. Oh, but be prepared to have your heart ripped out of your chest. In a good way. ]