The morning mist clung low along the cliffs, veiling the half-built frame of the future hall. Workers arrived at dawn expecting the Wolf to remain distant, watching from shadows as they built in fear of his gaze.
Instead, they found him already there.
No cloak draped his shoulders. He wore only rough furs at his waist, arms bare, skin still carrying faint river-cold from his dawn washing. His hair was damp and tied back, braids falling over his shoulder. His eyepatch sat firm, and that single storm-tinged eye watched the timber like he was measuring a battlefield.
He didn't wait for anyone to begin.
He stepped forward, gripped the length of a heavy beam in his arms, and lifted.
Two laborers hesitated, then scrambled to help balance the other end as Ragnar carried it toward the cliff façade where the hall's entrance would form. They expected him to grunt or strain, but he moved with a quiet certainty—as though he'd carried burdens heavier than wood long before this day.
When they set the beam down, one worker glanced at him cautiously, unsure if helping had been offense or duty.
Ragnar did not glare nor growl.
"Next," he said simply.
The rhythm began.
Hakon directed with cool precision, marking the positions for support posts. Eivor moved among the workers, steady and composed, showing where the future walls would meet. Her voice carried calm order. Brynja pushed a group hauling stone into faster motion, barking with savage encouragement that made men move faster rather than break. Sigrun, watching from above on the path, folded her arms, recognizing the shift: this was not exile reborn. It was a foundation.
Ragnar moved as though he remembered this work—not as Thane, not as warrior, but as something older. When a young laborer nearly crushed his foot under a slipping beam, Ragnar stopped it with a swift grab, bracing it before it fell. The boy stared, breath caught in terror and confusion.
Ragnar didn't scold him.
He only said, quiet but certain:
"Lift with your legs, not your fear."
The boy nodded mutely, unable to speak. But before midday, others were murmuring the phrase among themselves as they worked.
By mid-morning, the first of the small homes began to take form below the ledge—a simple rectangular foundation laid with rough-cut stone and timber framing. Ragnar helped haul the supporting pillars upright, ropes straining against raw muscle.
A carpenter hesitated, voice cracking. "Thane… you don't need to—"
Ragnar had already stepped into place and pulled the rope firm with them, grounding the pole until it stood straight and true.
For a moment, the carpenter simply stared. This wasn't the savage one-eyed wolf spoken of in fearful whispers. This was a man who built what he claimed.
As Ragnar stood there, breathing steady, hands pressed into raw rope, the morning air turned oddly familiar. The weighted timber. The strain in the shoulders. The smell of churned earth and sweat.
Something old flickered in his chest.
He remembered fields. Mud. A wooden plow twice his size. Blisters that bled no matter how tightly he wrapped them. His mother's voice saying, "Again." His own breath burning in his lungs as grain rose golden around him each harvest. Eivor laughing when they collapsed from exhaustion among wheat stalks taller than her.
He was not born a Wolf.
He had risen from furrows.
A hall without roots was just wood waiting to fall.
One of the carpenters muttered it under his breath: "Never thought a Thane would dirty his hands."
Ragnar rose, adjusted the beam, and said without looking up:
"A hall without roots is just wood waiting to fall."
The carpenter froze. Those around him went still. They felt it—not a threat, not a boast. A truth.
By sundown, someone bowed their head slightly when he passed and said, "Thane Ragnar."
This time, it did not sound spoken from fear.
He did not smile, nor boast, nor dismiss it.
He simply paused, met the man's gaze with his single eye—
—and gave a short nod before moving on.
Behind him, Eivor watched him walk, her expression unreadable—but there was something steady in her gaze. A quiet understanding.
This was no longer a den.
This was a hall being born.
And the roots had begun to take hold.
The storm broke just after dusk.
Wind howled along the cliffside like a choir of wolves, and rain hammered against unfinished beams, turning the dirt path slick as blood on stone. Workers scrambled for cover beneath half-built structures, unsure whether to flee toward the village or seek uncertain shelter in the Wolf's Den.
They hesitated—until the hall's great unfinished frame creaked open and Ragnar's voice rose through the storm.
"Inside," he ordered, not shouting, but cutting through wind like a blade. "No man sleeps in the rain while this hall stands."
There was no menace in it. No threat. Just certainty.
That was enough.
One by one, workers crossed the threshold—tense, dripping, unsure whether entering was rescue or trial. Inside, the firepit in the center of the hall burned bright, flames licking upward and filling the new timbered frame with heat and light.
The interior was still raw, but transformed. Wooden flooring had been laid over stone in the main space, grains of fresh pine still showing saw-marks. Support beams carved with early wolf runes rose like the ribs of a great beast. The back half was still stone where the den had once been—pelts and woven mats laid out as sleeping alcoves. Rough slabs served as benches, and stacked timber hinted at future walls to come.
And over the fire, a great boar roasted slowly on a spit—the hunt of Ragnar and Brynja from the day before. The scent of fat and charred crackling filled the air.
Eivor knelt beside the firepit with Brynja, mixing a crude brew of mashed wild berries, crushed herbs, and honey in a carved wooden basin. The mixture bled deep crimson under their stirring hands. Brynja tasted it, winced, then grinned. "Strong," she said. "About as subtle as getting hit in the teeth with an axe."
"Good," Eivor replied. "Then it will work."
Hakon moved quietly among the benches, handing out rough-carved cups without a word. The workers took them cautiously, waiting for permission to drink.
Ragnar stood beside one of the beams, watching the way firelight flickered across wood, catching on the carved wolf rune near its base. The storm raged outside, but inside the hall the noise dulled, replaced by breath, crackling fire, and quiet uncertainty.
When every cup was filled and the boar turned slowly on its spit, Ragnar finally spoke.
"This hall grows beneath all our hands," he said, voice steady as thunder's echo. "So tonight, we drink as one."
For a moment, silence lingered like smoke.
Then a young worker tentatively raised his cup.
And drank.
One by one, they followed.
The boar was carved, meat distributed. Workers hunched over portions, chewing quietly at first. Then, slowly, voices rose. Jokes whispered at low volume. Hakon allowed himself small nods of satisfaction. Eivor ate calmly, occasionally sharing a quiet word with Ragnar. Brynja sprawled on a bench with predatory ease, her cup raised in one hand, watching faces like a wolf choosing which sheep might someday grow teeth.
She spotted a familiar face—the young worker she had kicked earlier that morning for moving too slowly with a beam.
Grinning wickedly, she leaned forward and called out loud enough for all to hear:
"You!" she barked. "Little ox!"
The boy stiffened mid-drink.
"You haul timber better now than when I kicked your arse," she smirked. "Another night like this… and I might let you haul me next!"
The boy choked hard, sputtering berry brew from his nose as he coughed in panic.
The hall exploded into wild laughter—hers first, loud and feral, then the workers', half-horrified and wholly relieved. Even Hakon raised an eyebrow with amused resignation.
And Ragnar… let a quiet breath escape. A low, brief chuckle rumbled in his chest—barely audible, but real.
Eivor's lips curved faintly at the sound. Brynja spotted it, pointed, and cackled louder. "HA! Even the Wolf found that one sweet!"
The workers looked at Ragnar not with terror now, but with stunned, growing respect.
Thunder cracked outside.
Inside, warm laughter rose beneath the unfinished beams.
That night, as the storm raged, no one called it a den.
They laughed, drank, and slept under a roof they now believed might one day be a hall that would endure storms far greater than rain.
And Ragnar stood last at the entrance, watching the storm break against stone and timber.
Eivor joined him without a word.
"They are no longer afraid to breathe near us," she said softly.
Ragnar nodded once.
"Fear makes men obey," he said quietly. "But belonging makes them stay."
Inside, Brynja's laughter still echoed, and Hakon had already positioned himself half-awake near the entrance, like a wolf guarding the den.
No—the hall.
The first of many.