Author's Note: So I was gonna do Stig next, but...this happened instead. Enjoy.
Thorn's mind was a house.
A pine-log hall with warm fires roaring in the hearths. There were people milling about, talking and laughing and enjoying themselves, and all of them were him, at some point or another, with a specific time in their faces. He could speak to any of them if he chose, or simply watch and listen and drink his water. A hall where all were welcome, no matter their faults, and the men he sailed with now laughed and joked with those he'd sailed with Before. A hall where the shadows were kept at bay by roaring fires and everyone tried to forget about the mad old beggar who'd stumbled off into them one day, never to be seen again.
Each person was a memory or someone he knew, and every fire was a reminder of his own worth. Tiny embers once, they now blazed as strongly as they ever had, making faces in the flames and keeping him - for all practical purposes - alive.
And yet, wood and fire are a dangerous combination, as any sailor would tell you.
Thorn's heart was a ship.
A strong, proud wolfship, with every upgrade Hal might have made to her - the raked, triangular sail, the fin keel, the whacking great crossbow set in the front. It responded to his thought rather than his touch, and she sailed effortlessly across endless blue seas. Her crew was more a part of her than anything, but he could speak to each of them, and often did. She sliced through the roughest waters with ease, and weathered the most violent storms without a scratch. But she fell into disrepair so easily, and constant effort was required to keep her in shape.
Her sails and hull were made of memories, of lessons he'd learned and refused to forget. His heart-ship was a chest of things more valuable than gold and jewels, more precious than life and limb. His heart-ship was his last defense if his mind fell.
Thorn's soul was a field.
A field of bloodstained grass and too-red dirt, with the faceless dead strewn about, ugly wounds leaking blood, sightless eyes staring up at the sky, mouths ever so slightly agape. The field of the warrior, the hardened campaigner, the old soldier who knew little else - and was fine with that. There was always another foe to fight here, always another demon to be slain. Thorn killed them all here, slew everything in his path for another night of peaceful sleep.
There were no memories stored in the blades of grass or in the cloudy sky. Thorn's soul-field was not a vault of precious things. It was a battlefield, his battlefield, a battlefield he ruled over with axe and club and sword and shield. The weapon in his hands would shift and change, but now it had a heron carved into it, and it always contained everything he needed - twelve people. Nothing more. The weapon held them all - Mikkel, Hal, Stig, Lydia, Ingvar, Edvin, Ulf, Wulf, Stefan, Jesper, Erak, and Karina. No matter what, he refused to lose them.