(Ages 19 → 20)
Saga Opening:
"In the second year, the wolf no longer limped—he stalked.
And the raven flew at his side, her cries echoing like battle-songs in foreign dusk.
Steel met flesh in forgotten villages,
and the world began to whisper of hunters cloaked in silence."
---
Ragnar's body no longer trembled under its own weight. His breath no longer broke with pain. His movements, once forced, regained purpose — and then sharpened beyond what he had ever been before.
He trained with Eivor not to recover, but to dominate.
Their sparring sessions grew fierce, sometimes brutal — steel against steel echoing in the hidden forest glens. Brynja occasionally joined them, laughing as she hurled herself into their drills like a storm given flesh. Hakon, calm and steady, took up the role of their tactician — correcting their formations, pushing Ragnar to think of war not as one-on-one survival, but as packs moving as fate-willed storms.
Ragnar did not speak much. But when he did, it was with direction.
The pack began to move outward.
Not as raiders — but as hunters.
They crossed rivers, entered unknown borderlands, and struck small warbands who preyed on weaker villages. They offered no names, no allegiance. They killed swiftly and vanished before reinforcements could come. They left only bodies half-buried in crimson snow… and whispers that a one-eyed warrior and his raven-haired shieldwalkers were cutting down those who dishonored others.
Eivor changed more obviously during this year.
Her movements grew fluid, balanced — never one style, always many. Axe, spear, shield — she shifted through each as needed, dancing on the line between fury and precision. Her hair, once kept loosely bound, now flowed in a battle-braid Ragnar had woven for her during one quiet evening by the fire — a silent ritual that neither spoke of after, but which Brynja smirked knowingly at.
Brynja herself became the embodiment of terror — often going ahead to break enemy morale before Ragnar and Eivor arrived to finish. She laughed through battles like she was tasting freedom.
Hakon stayed at Ragnar's right hand during strategy, though when Ragnar fought, Hakon remained just out of direct combat — always watching, analyzing, shifting plans when necessary. Ragnar did not need to say it aloud — Hakon had become his mind in war.
Sigrun's role deepened.
She taught Ragnar old rites — not of prayer, but of understanding the weight of fate. She did not tell him to serve Havi — only that the High One watches those who carve truth from lies with blade and will. Some nights Ragnar dreamt of lightning striking a great tree… and ravens watching him without judgment.
He began to think less like a wounded man wanting justice — and more like an executioner waiting for the right stage.
By winter's first breath of their second year away, Ragnar no longer checked his bandages in the morning. His strength had returned fully.
He had become sharper, quieter, and far more dangerous than the boy who once ran blind with rage in a training yard.
And Eivor… did not stand in his shadow.
She walked step-for-step beside him, eyes cold and certain.
People in distant villages began to whisper titles:
The One-Eyed Wolf.
The Raven Fury.
The Shadow Pack.
Whispers spread like frost across frozen ground.
One night, as snow fell quiet and steady around their campfire, Ragnar spoke for the first time in weeks:
"Soon."
No one needed to ask what he meant.
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Saga Closing:
"Thus ended the second year,
with the wolf's claws sharpened
and his raven taking flight
before the kill was even named."