After spending so long tending the soil, Billy Bob decided to spend some time seeing how the Njords tended their herds. He made his way to the ranching village of Haedepor. He was immediately struck by the similarities to the pasturelands he knew back home, but also immediately noticed the significant lack of fencing. He greeted the shepherd with the same grunt he used with the farmers, and received it in kind. A few simple gestures, some broken Gothic, and he was being introduced to the herd.

The sheep were smaller than the ones he knew, their coats coarse and dark. Different from what they had at home, but it should be good wool, if less of it. He wondered how Rowan would feel about working it, what she’d be able to turn it into. Given that cold biting arrival in winter, he wondered if this wool would have helped his hands, still remembering the bitterness of that wind. It was clear he’d missed the shearing by a month or two, but he saw some of the younger hands rooing, so there was still wool to recover.

He looked up to the foothills of Haedepor, leading up to the towering mountain in the distance – the Last Sentinel, he’d been told it was called. Síðasta Vörður. He looked back to the sheep calmly grazing as a gentle wind swept across the hillside.

He was really looking forward to not having to move any more rocks for a while.