Björn

by The_Chill_Author

Fången

He could swear he smelt the sea; the smell was familiar to him: It smelt like home. The next sense that came to him was hearing; the sound of the waves crashing onto the rocky shore, it was distant, but so loud that you could hear it from across the island. Swish, swish, swish. It was soothing on some days and annoying the next. It was definitely on the list of the things he missed most about home. On that same list was the wind. Feeling the wind caress his body was the best feeling in the world. It always seemed to carry his worries and fears out to the sea. It was the one thing he could count on to lift him up when he's feeling down.

He adjusted his eyes to the cloudy but bright day and saw a vast open field of grass, the wind blew the blades of grass to one side. The grass fought it's hardest to stay upright, but the wind would always come back full force and overpower it. However, grass wasn't the only thing he saw, he saw a distant silhouette off near the edge of the island, but he couldn't yet grasp what it was, it could be a lost yak or a lost sheep that wandered off from the herd. He had to go see.

The wind picked up and he had to raise an arm to block it, it was almost as if the island was trying to prevent him from reaching the being, but he pursued. Step after step, he marched forth and fought the wind. He peeked through his eyelids as he drew nearer and nearer to the figure. The island shook, the wind fought against him and forced him back. He stumbled and was nearly blown away like a leaf, but he dug his heels in and clenched his teeth. Using every muscle in his body, he fought nature itself and went closer and closer. His eyes finally manage to recognize a color despite the wind trying to keep them shut - black. It seemed to have been coming from the top of the figure, maybe it was hair?

The figure began to move, almost as if it was turning around to face him. The simple action caused the wind to grow stronger ten times greater than normal. It was apparent that he could no longer continue this fight against the wind on his feet and fell to his knees. He placed his left hand on the ground and grabbed onto a fist full of grass, with the right, he held it horizontally over his eyes in front of him to protect his orbs of vision from the roaring winds just so he could even have the potential to see what stood before him.

"WHO...!" He flinched at the wind's ferocity. "WHO ARE YOU?!" He yelled, hardly hearing his own voice over the wind - the wind was so powerful it was making his ears pop. The figure didn't seem to respond to him and only offered him it's glance, "WHO ARE YOU?!" He cried out once again, as the grass' grip on the earth threatened to fail in his fist and be one with the sky. "WHO ARE YOU?!" He repeated once more, as he got lower to the ground in an attempt to get closer to it.

He was sure the figure smiled at him as he saw the blackness on its top half tilt to the side coyly. The wind finally had enough and with a push of a thousand men, he was blown off the ground, forcing him to let go of the blades of grass in his fist and let it scatter across the wind. He was to join them, however, as he was pushed away at the speed of light. All he could do was outstretch a hand to the figure as he was blown off the island and out to sea. He couldn't help but scream as he saw the island go further and further away from his view, the waves beneath him crashing intensely across the ocean. It seemed like the wind had sent him somewhere intense as black clouds filled the sky and lightning fought the sea. At this point, the island was nothing but a speck and soon, it was out of his field of vision. His hand was still stretched out in front of him as if he could still reach the figure, as if he could still hold its hand. He heard crackling behind him and turned around to meet a wave bigger than any mountain he's ever seen. He didn't have it in him to scream as he looked at the behemoth of a wave with wide eyes and a slack jaw.

The wave seemed to have something inside it, a monster, perhaps? But what it was didn't matter.

He was heading right towards it.

---

Bjørn woke up with a jolt as he felt cold water splash against him, his eyes opened wide, and he gasped for air. After filling his lungs, he began to steady his breathing, his body shivered as the cold water went down his body. He felt his hair stick to his forehead because of the water on his face. He couldn't help but cough as he inhaled some of the water accidentally; getting it out of his system, he attempted to try and make sense of his surroundings.

He couldn't see a damn thing, it was too dark, and he doesn't have the patience to try and adjust to the darkness. So, what do you do when you can't see? You feel. Bjørn placed his hands on the ground. The ground felt rocky, was he in a cave? He rubbed his hands across the ground.

Clink, clink.

He heard the sounds of chains coming from his hands. He blinked and tried to readjust his eyes faster, narrowing his eyes, he peered into the darkness. Was this how it's like to lose your glasses? He shook his head, focus! He needed to focus! Concentrating even more, he found a donut-shaped silhouette wrapped around his hands, the silhouette seemed to be attached by chain.

Attached by chain...

'I'm in cuffs.' Bjørn realized as he looked behind and finally found the wall, he was resting his back on, the chains attached the cuffs to the walls. Looking at his feet, he noticed that they weren't cuffed, strangely. He tugged on the chains in an attempt to break free from the wall. Wait, was he forgetting something?

"So, thou art finally awake." With a fearsome growl, Bjørn lunged towards the foreign noise with a fist outstretched to nail the target in the nose only to be just out of reach. The chains had done their job and successfully held him back. He stood nose to nose with the being, his teeth bared and muscles bulging in effort as he tried to reach his target.

The being revealed itself to be a pony as he saw its horn light up, the horn was glowing a dark shade of blue and provided light for him to see the being who he assumed splashed water onto him. The pony stared back at him with large blue eyes, slightly lighter than his. The pony's coat was a darker shade of blue, a color that stretched across her body. Bjørn quickly glanced upwards and caught the pony's cool dark blue mane, it had a strange partially translucent and rippling effect where he could swear, he saw stars in it. It kind of reminded him of Celestia's mane.

'Oh.' He realized with raised eyebrows, the pony caught a slight change in his face and remained stone-faced.

"Thou know who we are, dost thou not?" Bjørn's glare returned, he growled and showed her his canines. The pony didn't react and stopped talking, waiting for his response. This made a pregnant pause between them, where both refused to speak out of pride, and possibly out of defiance in Bjørn's case. "Very well." The pony's horn glowed brighter, forcing Bjørn to squint his eyes to prevent himself from getting blinded. "We art the Princess of Equestria, Princess Luna. Thou may know our sister, Princess Celestia."

"Who?" Bjørn huffed sarcastically, and for the first time, the Moon Princess changed her facial expression and narrowed her eyes.

"Thou know who she is. Dost not play coy with me, beast." Their eyes locked together, their eyes telling different stories respectively. One was contempt and scorn, the other was defiance and rage, and a small amount of fear. Fear that the Lunar Princess took notice of. "Thine art scared. Thou should be, after all, thou made the blunder of disrespecting royalty and our sister."

The barbarian let out a snort and chuckled, dropping his gaze to the dirty prison floor and shaking his head. "Well, you see, Princ–" He was cut off by a cough that brought him down to a knee, "-Pri–Princess... I do not give... A single fuck about you, your sister, your kingdom, your people, and whatever product you put in your hair to make it smell nice. So, get out of my cell or I'll shove that horn up your shiny röv!"

Luna glared daggers into Bjørn, her eyes nearly boring into his face. "Such insolence!" She stomped her hoof on the floor as her horn lit up and started to gather energy. "We shouldn't even GIVE thou the grace of a public execution! We shall deal with thee RIGHT! NOW!" Right as her horn was about to fire off, her ears flicked for a brief moment which brought her to stop. This brought Bjørn confusion until he noticed ponies in vaguely familiar black armor having appeared behind the bars – or were they there the entire time?

“Princess Luna,” A masculine voice started to say but paused when she didn’t immediately face him. The Alicorn was glaring daggers into Bjørn who in turn glared right back, she looked like she wanted to say something to him one last time, but she held off on it.

‘For now,’ Bjørn assumed.

Luna depowered her horn and finally turned to face the pony who had spoken her name, “Yes, guardsman?”

The pony cleared his throat, “Princess Celestia has requested that you speak with her immediately,” He noted. This brought out a sigh from the Princess of the Night.

“Of course,” She muttered to herself before standing up straight, “Very well, lead the way.”

“Yes, Princess,” When the pony turned to lead her down the hall, Bjørn noticed on its side that there were wings. And yet, they weren’t wings like Princess Celestia’s or Luna’s, they almost looked like bat wings.

‘Wait a minute, they’re horses, why do they have bat wings? Wait, why do they have wings at all?’ Bjørn thought to himself as he watched Luna and her ‘guardsmen’ go by, and yet, he had a feeling that he wasn’t quite alone yet. He peered directly in front of him, which held the darkness. He rubbed his eyes in an attempt to try and further adjust to the darkness or even spot what he felt, but all he saw was pitch black.

“You can detect me, my compliments,” The darkness spoke back to him, which brought the Viking to slightly jump, having not expected the darkness to speak. In response to his startlement, it chuckled and moved closer to the cell walls. He saw two round dark blue eyes, ones he had recognized from the…

Bjørn blinked, how did he get here? He remembered fighting a minotaur but he knew he didn’t get knocked out. The darkness with eyes took notice of his bewilderment and spoke, “Ah, you’re struggling to remember, aren’t you?” Wordlessly, he glowered at the eyes, “You don’t need to feel embarrassed at all, we did use a lot of advanced sleeping spells on you.”

“So that’s how you got me here,” He noted, while pulling his arms over his chest to cross them.

“That and getting yer arse on the carriage,” Admitted the darkness as it drew closer, “See, you have me curious, bear man.” Following its eyes, Bjørn noticed its head had tilted to the side. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“Fight like what?”

The darkness rolled its eyes, “Like you did against the minotaur.”

It was then that the memories started to flood back as he remembered the fight that took place that day. “My home island.”

“And by whom?” The darkness inquired, making Bjørn’s eye twitch a little bit.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I just told you; curious.” It said simply, as if it was a child wanting to know more about the world.

A soft growl escaped his lips before letting out a loud sigh, “My Far mostly,” he answered.

“Your Far?”

“My father.”

“Oh, you mean your Da. I call my parents a different calling too,” It nodded in understanding, “So, you said your Da mostly, what do you mean by mostly?”

“When my Far was away, I would be trained by the village Chief,” Bjørn explained.

He had felt the darkness smile after he said that which brought a bead of sweat to roll down his forehead, “Hm…” It hummed, seemingly curious as to where it could go with its questions before ultimately deciding, “The reason why I’m asking you is because you caught my attention. Especially with that transformation magic you did on your arms.”

Bjørn raised a brow, confused by its words, ‘Transformation magic? I don’t have any magic,’ He thought to himself before realizing what it meant, “You mean me tapping into the strength of the Björn?” He asked, the darkness nodded.

“That, whatever you call it, and from what our scouts have reported, you can transform your head and your rear too.” The darkness noted, “How can you do it?”

Bjørn started to scratch the back of his head, “I don’t know, it’s just a part of me.”

“Interesting,” Mused the darkness, “Can you do it at will or only when you’re pissed out of mind?”

“Pissed out of my…?” It was right then a migraine swept over his brain and forced him to clutch his head. Memories of him seeing the spirits of his bear family reemerged, seeing an out of body vision of himself thrashing around in a pool of his own blood. He snarled in pain and instinctively brought his knees closer to his chest to try and curl in the fetal position.

The darkness had noticed his distress, “Bear man?” But Bjørn appeared to have ignored her. The migraine had brought him the memories of his full fight against the minotaur. He saw flashes and visions of him getting punched across the chest, he felt the cell get colder when he imagined himself being tossed around the snow. Yet that wasn’t the only memory that was brought to him. He had recalled the day Mama Bear and her cubs were killed by the Manticore. His heart swelled up as he remembered the fear in his body as he ran back to the cabin, running through the forest at breakneck speed, the sheer panic and worry made him clutch his chest.

“Bear man?!” The darkness called out to him again, but he couldn’t hear it, too overwhelmed at what his mind had forced him to remember to even recognize the outside world. Bjørn closed his eyes shut, trying to block his vision but to no avail as he was forcefully shown the corpses of his bear family by his mind’s own wishes. He clawed at his temple and kicked his feet, he turned his head left and right but nothing seemed to have helped. He was shown himself brutalizing the manticore. Like a beast.

Like a monster.

The darkness narrowed its eyes and turned to the cell door, knowing that it didn’t have the keys nor the strength to buck down the door. So, it could do nothing but watch as Bjørn let out a primal growl and opened its furiously bloodshot eyes, a look that resembled the darkness’ encounter with him before he was captured. It was thought that they might have to call back up but then, Bjørn did something unexpected. He clutched his head and brought it closer to his stomach and far away from the wall behind it before suddenly springing himself towards the wall and bashing the back of his head against the material. A loud BANG could be heard across the dungeon on impact and immediately, Bjørn slumped down.

The darkness’ eyes were ones of pure horror.

The bear man was so distraught by whatever that freaked it out that it knocked itself unconscious just to get away from it.

---

Captain Eventide walked out of the dungeon and as she did, she went and held the door open for the paramedics to trot inside. She watched them with her usual stern look, hiding concern behind it perfectly. She continued to hold it open, waiting for them to come back out with the injured bear man. The Bat Pony let out a sigh before her eyes darted to the side, spotting the minotaur clad in iron standing next to her with his arms folded over his chest.

“Ye pure hud tae chap him aroond lik' that, didn’t ye?” Captain Eventide's sideways glance turned into a glare, but the minotaur stood unflinching. “‘Och I’ll juist beat him wi`in an inch o' his lee 'n' it’ll a' be braw 'n' dandy’. Glaikit metal skulled buck.”

“The Beast was strong and I learned some valuable intel from it. It knows martial arts, that’s for one,” The minotaur seemed to have ignored everything the Captain had said, which only seemed to tick her off. “And it can take quite a beating.”

Captain Eventide turned to him completely, sticking a hindleg in front of the dungeon’s door to hold it open. “Mibbie th' rammy wid hae gaen quicker if ye used yer magic at th' stairt 'n' beat him doon afore he lost his shite!” The paramedics finally carried the bear man out of the dungeon, leading to her pulling back her leg from the door and allowing it to close. She turned away from the minotaur and trained her eyes on the unconscious beast. His pupils weren’t even there, only the whites of his eyes remained, it almost looked like his eyes rolled to the back of his head. As they carried him off and out of sight, Captain Eventide turned to the minotaur with a frown, gesturing to where the paramedics were.

The minotaur let out a groan, rolling his eyes behind his helmet, not that she could see them. “Okay, so maybe you were right about that. I should have dealt with it immediately, cut the small talk, punch him around, then knock it out. But… I couldn’t just do that, not after what it had reportedly said to Celestia.”

“Prince, ah ken you’re a' buddy-buddy wi' Princess Luna, bit ye hae tae shaw sel restraint. Whit if that lest attack ye did oan him murdurred him instead o' knocking him doon tae a' fours?” Captain Eventide asked. The minotaur turned away from her, glancing to the ground, “Ye hae tae think hings thro'.”

“You’re right,” The minotaur nodded before bringing his head back up, “Well, I guess I’ll look around the place while I wait for Princess Celestia to get done scolding Princess Luna.”

A tremor was felt throughout the castle.

“You’re gonnae hae tae hauld yer apples a lang time.”

Author's Note:

Thanks for the advice, this time around it's a lot more slower.

Comments

[dar88]

Is this chapter a rewrite

[The_Chill_Author]

11836181
Yes

[ShortCaveman]

Will there be a bear Spirit patron of some kind or something else? Well I can't wait to read it?!