Greenland, Present Day

Walking through the endless polar landscape--reminiscent of the bare lunar surface--I lose track of time and place. Everything looks and feels the same. That the sun hangs high in the sky no matter the hour doesn't help my perception of the passing minutes. Perhaps I've missed my flight home already. But such things seem unimportant in comparison to seeing this saga unfold. As if in trance, I follow the wagging stubby tail of the giant polar bear, which may hide another entity beneath the thick white coat of fur.

Am I crazy? Following a bear into the polar tundra, thinking it's actually a man who died six hundred years ago, certainly sounds like the actions of a mad-woman. Perhaps my colleagues were right to be worried about me.

But yet, I'm not convinced my mind is failing me. Although I suppose most mentally ill people might feel the same. Insanity is in the eye of the beholder, not the holder of the warped mind.

If I was crazy though, would I not already be bear dinner by now? I've walked behind this magnificent beast for who knows how long, and the animal has shown no inclination to strike. It just walks at a leisurely pace, sometimes looking back to make sure I'm keeping up. Not exactly predator behavior.

And those eyes. Light with a dark ring. Those are not the eyes of a beast but of a man. A man I've seen in my dreams for days now.

Eventually, we arrive at a cave in the rugged rock, perched between ice and wilderness. The bear looks back at me, as if begging me to come along, before ducking its huge head to fit through the opening.

I'm really taking a gamble here, walking into an enclosed space with a ferocious predator. But bears aren't prone to luring prey into traps, are they? Not unless they're starring in a silly cartoon.

I touch the beartooth in my pocket, asking it for guidance. The response comes in the form of children laughing. The artifact holds faint memories of this place. Happy memories. Memories I can trust to not lead me into danger, hopefully.

Reasoning that I've come this far--all the way to fucking Greenland, across a frozen wasteland, and to the edge of sanity--I take a deep breath to gather courage before I enter the den of the beast. I shudder as a drop of cold water, melting from the ceiling, hits my neck. The air between the cramped walls chills me to the core, at least the outside is heated by the never-setting sun, but here, the warm rays of summer can't reach.

The bear can no longer be discerned, hidden by the claustrophobic darkness of the cave. Knowing the animal may lurk around a corner, I stumble my way deeper inside, hoping not to fall and injure myself on sharp rocks. I carry my phone but surely the service is non-existent here in the middle of nowhere. No help would be able to locate me. I would be gone forever. Perhaps newspapers and podcasts would cover my mysterious disappearance into the Greenlandic wilderness, never to be seen again. They would chart my last days in detail--my arrival at the island, the bear attack, and my entanglement with a certain whale safari guide--wondering why I left so hastily this morning. Perhaps Stefan would even get to do a tearful interview, telling the world he doesn't know what possessed me to go to Greenland in the first place.

But no one would know the real story. It would be too unbelievable to ever figure out. I would be lost forever.

I guess there are worse things to leave behind than an epic mystery though. Just like the vanishing Vikings of my dreams, my unexplained disappearance would live on in infamy.

But I refuse to give Stefan the satisfaction of getting the last word on my legacy. That just isn't acceptable. So I better survive this adventure.

Luckily, I am not lost yet. No bear has eaten me and no jagged rocks have crippled me. I am alive and prepared to follow this saga, and this bear, to the end. Whatever that end may be.

As my eyes adjust to the light, or rather the lack of it, I meet another pair of eyes in the furthest depth of the cave. The bear looks at me, beckoning me to come closer. Needing to see the path in front of me, I grab my phone from my pocket--ignoring the onslaught of messages on the screen--and turn on the flashlight. The artificial light appears odd against the rough walls, untouched by human hands, but it works as intended.

Holding the light downward, I advance through the cave step by step. My hands grab at the walls to steady my trajectory and my eyes are focused on the other pair of eyes in the backend of the cave, making sure the bear isn't planning a sneak attack.

The eyes are still there, following me. But something seems different with the animal. The gaze is less wild and the unwieldy body less sizable. I turn the light toward the beast.

I find a man.

A man with scared eyes and dirty hair, wrapped in a bearskin. A man I recognize from my dreams.

Björn.

I gasp, dropping the phone in the process. The device lands on a spiky rock and the screen goes dark. Everything goes dark.

But I can still see his eyes. Eyes that have seen it all. Six hundred years of hardship.

"Are you real?" I ask into the black void.

He laughs. But it's not a laughter of joy, but one of suffering. "What is even real?" he replies, in an unfamiliar tongue that yet my mind somehow deciphers. Perhaps the beartooth is connecting us in a manner that allows us to understand each other. "I've wondered that many times... I've had a lot of times to think of such matters and I still don't know. Perhaps I died and this is my punishment. Perhaps I didn't and I'm punished for that." He coughs, the sound rattling eerily between the cave walls.

"I saw you die," I mumble, slowly walking closer. Perhaps if I can touch him, I'll find out the answer to my question. "Your father killed you."

"So he did," Björn confirms, a hard edge to his voice. Another cough follows as if the mere act of talking is straining his throat. "And yet I'm here, so many moons later. While he is long gone. Everyone is long gone. Everyone but me."

"How?"

The question hangs in the cold air while I take the last few steps to stand in front of Björn. In the darkness, he does appear real: made of flesh and blood. Warmth radiates from his body and I can sense his chest rising and falling as he breathes. Surely the dead are cold and in no need of air?

"Who knows..." he finally answers. "Magic. Fate. Some bored god in their palace laughing at me. Look at the fool who wanted nothing rather than to leave that frozen island. Now he's stuck there for eternity, walking in the pelt of the animal he used to hunt."

Wanting to confirm he's actually there--not another dream of a mirage created by a deluded mind--I reach out my hand, touching the worn fur that hangs over his shoulders.

He's there. He's actually there.

My hand continues downward, tracing the scarred skin of his chest. Perhaps, this is where the fateful dagger struck.

He's dead, but yet not. Instead, he seems to be stuck in the borderlands forever. Not dead, not alive. Not man, not beast.

"You were a... bear out there?" I ask, or rather state, unsure of how to refer to this shift in shape.

Björn sighs and the walls reply, multiplying the sigh in a choir. "In the sunlight, I turn into something else. I'm still me, deep down, but the urges of the beast take over. Only in darkness am I truly myself. That's why I dwell here most of the time, hibernating as I wait for spring."

"So what happened after your father... stabbed you? I saw it, in my dreams." I stick my hand into my pocket, pulling out the beartooth. "I found this, and ever since, I've seen your story in my mind. You and Gudrun. Ivar and Aakku. Your father. I saw you all."

His hand catches mine, wrapping around the artifact. As we stand there, both our hands clasping an object that has fallen through time, I feel every single joy and heartache this man has been through the centuries--emotions so intense that tears well up in my eyes. I see him wake up, confused and disoriented in another body. I see him walk to this cave. But then, the story ends as the tooth is lifted from my palm.

My eyes have adapted to the darkness of the cave and I can make out Björn's features more clearly. I see him grin as he holds up the object in front of him. "It was a long time since I held this... such a long time." he coughs again, deeper this time. Talking seems to be a bigger struggle with each word. "I sensed it... I sensed you finding it."

Something dawns on me, making a few more puzzle pieces fall into place. But I still barely got the edges of this puzzle. "You were there when I found it?" I ask. "You were the bear, I mean?"

He nods, seemingly not wanting to use his voice more than necessary.

"What does it all mean? Me finding the tooth, I mean.

"It means it may finally be time..." Another cough makes his body convulse. "The tooth, the eclipse, you. It's all coming together."

"Time for what?" I ask.

Having recovered from the cough attack, Björn smirks at me. Even after all this time, there is a shimmer of hope in those dreary eyes. "Time for her to come back for me," he says. "Just like she--" a cough attack interrupts his words--"promised." More coughs take over his body.

I realize I have a water bottle in my backpack, so I bend down to extract it.

"Gudrun?" I ask, handing the bottle to Björn. He greedily let the drops of cold water still his aching throat.

Björn nods faintly nod as his body still shivers from the coughs. "I'll... tell you more tomorrow," he squeezes out in a hoarse voice. "I'm not used to talking anymore." He takes another sip of water, looking at the plastic bottle in confusion like he's never seen such a thing. "Come back here and I will tell you everything that happened after I... became what I am now. I will tell you the whole saga, Saga." He smirks again, blue eyes filled with equal parts mischief and sorrow.

"You know my name?"

"I know that the saga will save me. That's what she promised, several lifetimes ago."

Author's Note: I'm struggling a bit lately as work is taking a lot of my mental energy. This means I have less energy left over for writing, as I don't want to risk pushing myself over the edge. But I'm still aiming to write a chapter of this story a week, as that feels like a reasonable speed right now (I used to be able to churn out so many more words). 

This story is also at a very tense stage, so I want to be sure I execute it properly. So much were-bear lore and timey wimey-ness to unfold! Hopefully, it will be quite a ride :)