Torvald Ulfsson is fourteen years old when he loses his left eye in the Test.
It's early spring, and the weather is still cold, with ice and snow covering the ground. The young man is dressed in the ritual clothing given him by his father; tunic, trousers, and boots, all in dull shades of blue. Tall and broad for his age, blond with brown eyes, Torvald stands clutching his real-metal sword in front of a walled-in stone ring in one of the last rural parts of Sweden.
He's known the Test was coming of course, though he hadn't expected a live bear. His father's been training him for a similar trial as long as he can remember.
And now it's here.
The blond youth looks up briefly to see his father Ulfram and the few helpers he's brought. Torvald growls quietly to himself; the only thing his father cares for today is that he passes the Test. Ulfram, he knows, doesn't think he can do it.
The fighting blood stirring in his veins, the Old Man's voice in his heart, argues otherwise.
Behind the ice-coated gate to the ring there echo a few angry snorts and then a low growl, more chilling than the weather. At a signal from Torvald's father the gate cracks and creaks open, revealing a heavily implanted bear chained at the other side of the enclosure.
The creature will be taller than him when it rears, he thinks. Its dark fur is set here and there with red-glowing implants, meant to prolong the life of the thing - bears are vanishingly rare these days, and even the wild ones need such help as they can get.
One of its eyes has been symbolically replaced, a gesture to Odin he knows. Torvald bares his teeth in something that's no more a smile than the bear itself is capable of and steps forward, sword hilt clutched in his hand so tightly that his hand aches.
The gravel and ice crunch beneath his feet when he steps forth. The gate creaks and then slams closed behind him, leaving him alone in the ring - save for the bear.
One brown eye and one red eye look up at him - and whether the thing is implanted or not he gets the primal feeling of danger stirring in the pit of his stomach such that he doesn't usually get with the robotic enemies his father likes to pit him against.
They're not usually this big though.
Perched at the top of the gate his father watches impassively, hand raised. Torvald hides the bitterness; to be Tested this intensely was not his choice. It isn't the way things are usually done. But Ulfram, pride stung by his own son's perceived abilities, insisted.
Someday Torvald's going to clear out of here altogether. But for now, he has no choice but to face this thing.
Finally the balding man atop the gate calls an order for the bear's chains to be loosed. Torvald raises his weapon - paltry as it is against such a beast - and drops into a cautious fighting stance, waiting for the creature to come to him.
The bear's chains clatter to the frozen stones. It takes the thing a few moments to realize it's free - and once it does it rears up and faces him head on with an angry growl rumbling in its furry throat before lunging forward.
He meets it with an equally angry snarl.
The blond teenager's sword flashes, slashing across the bear's left forepaw as it attempts to swipe at him with dirty blunt claws. He dodges the blow and whirls, ever keeping his face towards his opponent. To fail to do so is death; and despite his affinity for the Old Man, he is not yet ready to die.
And yet as he whirls so too does the implanted bear, faster than he might have imagined, huge hindpaws sliding through the gravel.
The beast growls and charges, spattering gravel and ice in its wake. Torvald dodges again - only this time his foot catches on a stone. The blond loses his footing and goes down hard, landing on his chest but still keeping hold of his only weapon.
In bare breaths the bear is upon him. It slashes his back. He screams at the blow, half pain and half rage.
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Torvald is accustomed - more than accustomed - to pain from his training. But this time? It calls forth something from his core, something as fierce and full of rage as the bear he's fighting.
He can't deny his heritage as one of the ulfhednar - Odin's wolves -now.
Torvald doesn't remember later what he does to gain the upper hand, the memory of it fogged with madness and agony. He only remembers pain and fury and the half-organic, half-electronic stink of the bear. The cloying scent of his own blood.
The white-hot rage still burning inside him.
He comes back to himself missing an eye, clinging to his sword with one hand and with the bear's raggedly hacked-off head in the other. Barely keeping his feet despite his wounds. The gate is opened for him and he staggers forth, coming out of the ring just far enough before he drops to his knees.
The last thing he hears before blacking out is his father shouting for the medics.
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The teenager wakes in a muted haze of pain cut by painkillers, thoughts distant yet still there. He doesn't remember for some moments why he hurts so much and why he can only see out of one eye.
Oh. The bear. He's...in hospital too.
Some muted echoes of the fury of that battle pass through his heart but even if he wanted to he wouldn't be able to rise. And truly he doesn't want to.
Torvald passed the Test, he knows. He survived where many have not. But passing seems - has always seemed - hollow. He thinks in this moment of leaving this place. Perhaps of leaving the country altogether. Of going somewhere his father has no influence.
The only ambition left him.
Some time later Ulfram comes in with his hollow words of congratulations, of pride in him for "overcoming his flaws". Torvald hides his disgust, pretends to be proud that he's passed. He knows his "flaws" are nothing that could be overcome or helped.
Once Ulfram leaves, Jan peeks his head in, and Torvald's thoughts grow softer. Jan's his age, though more slender - not built, perhaps for battle. His grey eyes always seem to conceal more than they reveal anything, and his face is framed by his shoulder-length dark hair.
Torvald hasn't dared pour his heart out to anyone before this, not even his lover. But now he manages to find the courage - or perhaps it's the painkillers.
Jan's face shutters when the blond mentions leaving town. He isn't exceptionally good at reading peoples' expressions, but he likes to think he's gotten adept at this particular person's. His heart sinks at the other teenager's expression; and Torvald knows, before the other says anything at all, what he's going to say.
"If you leave," Jan says quietly, "I won't go with you." A soft, bitter ultimatum.
So that's the extent of their feelings for one another. Torvald feels a hollow final feeling settle in his middle, even though he hasn't any intention or ability to leave this place at the moment. But in the future...
"I see." The injured boy takes a deep breath, knowing that the decision's been made for him long since. Knowing that he won't be able to bear being subject to his father's will even after he comes into his majority. "If that is what you must do, then you do it," Torvald replies quietly.
Jan doesn't say anything, simply looks at him for a moment before kissing his bandaged forehead. Then he leaves the room.
Torvald's future presses in upon him. It isn't here just yet of course; he's only fourteen, not nearly old enough to leave home just yet. But whatever the Old Man decrees as his fate is...what must happen.
But he still feels his youth, his inexperience, upon him like a heavy shroud; as if he's one of the draugr his father speaks of. Still weak from his treatment, he moves a hand to his chest and sighs, wounded far more deeply than the bear ever could have done.
Torvald's father...disapproves of him and Jan. Says that it's one of his "flaws". Perhaps circumstances have born him out, distasteful as the youth finds it to admit to himself. Their...whatever they have seems to have brought him only pain in the end.
That is the bitterest pill of all he finds as he settles into the bedsheets for a long and likely difficult recovery.
