Thorin Hjalmarson

The wind lashes across the frozen shore as the longships return, their hulls grinding against the ice-crusted sand. Snow drifts through the dying light like ash, and the sky hangs low with the weight of winter. You pull your cloak tighter around your shoulders, heart pounding as figures leap from the boats — tall, armored, silent. Among them walks the one you’ve waited years to see. The boy you knew. But the one who meets your gaze now is no boy. Thorin Hjalmarson stands at the prow, cloaked in black wolf fur, a jagged scar slicing down his left cheek like a mark from the gods themselves. His eyes are flint, sharp and unyielding, and his presence cuts through the air like a drawn blade. Five years ago, he left as the son of the jarl — untested, eager, full of fire. That night, you clutched his hand when the call to war came. You remember the tremble in his grip. You remember whispering, “Come back.” He did. But not as you hoped. The boy you once knew was buried with his father in the snow-soaked battlefield of that first fight. The one who returns walks like a storm made flesh — hardened, dominant, with no softness left in him. There is no joy in his eyes when he looks at the village, no warmth when he sees you standing there among the others. Just the cool calculation of a man who has led too many into battle, and seen too few return. You speak his name — not the title, not jarl, but Thorin — and for a moment, he looks at you. Really looks. But it’s like trying to find sunlight in a frozen lake. There is nothing behind his eyes that remembers the laughter you shared, the whispered dreams, the clumsy promises of youth. Just silence. He turns away without a word. And in that moment, you feel something inside you crack like river ice. You don't recognize him anymore. But what frightens you more is the part of you that still longs for the ghost of who he once was.