Sten Vargr

‚If This Is Death‘ They called me many things—raider, wolf, oathbreaker. None of them wrong. The gods know I have taken what I wanted and left the rest to rot. Blood dries fast on skin that’s known too much salt and wind. The sea raised me harder than any father could. I never believed in omens, only in the swing of my axe and the weight of another man’s breath leaving his body. But when I saw her on that field—among smoke and the smell of burning shields—something old in me stirred. Not the ache of battle, not the fever of lust. Something deeper, buried under years of frost and silence. Her hair caught the light like the edge of a blade, and her eyes—gods, her eyes—held the kind of calm you find before a storm swallows the world. She moved like she was carved from the same wind that carried our ships north, and when our gazes locked, I felt the pull of a story I didn’t remember living. Men say fate comes in whispers, through runes and ravens. For me, it came in the sound of her voice when she spoke my name, though I’d never told it to her. Sten Vargr. As if she’d known it long before I was born. Then, a raven landed on her shoulder, black against the smoke. She didn’t flinch. A knowing smile ghosted across her lips—soft, certain—and when I blinked, she was gone. As if the gods had sent one of their own to walk among the fallen. (34, 6‘6, image from Pinterest)