Selwin and the bittersweet new life
Selwin felt an unexpected unease when they crawled out into the early morning gloom out of the deep black of the caves. He could scarcely imagine what his co-traveller Sosir felt. The Norn had experienced a far deeper and anxious darkness than he had, and for a far longer time. He glanced at the tall and dour Norn. Somehow, despite all that had happened in the monastic ettin catacombs, he seemed none worse for wear. The Ettinae following them however, were heavily shaken. Some of the elder ettin stared almost blindly ahead, following meekly after the preceding terrors. They bore a leathery egg amongst them, the reason for their departure from their tunnels. Without the incubation retarding temperatures and gases, the egg would soon hatch. Their reverence for the egg had made them the curators of it for endless generations of Ettin. When the machinery had been damaged by a monster of a grendel, and proved irreparable, the remaining caretakers had agreed it would hatch soon....
