Archive of Our Own

"Perhaps to love is to learn to walk through this world."

(Octavio Paz)

***

I.

He isn’t even sure if he is awake when he hears it, isn’t even sure he makes a decision. He just does.

The world is a smudge of grey around the edges of Bjorn’s vision, the center of his focus like snow-blindness with dark splotches morphing and popping in hot little bubbles that squirmed out of every hollow cavity of his head. All he can do is move forward, his feet as heavy as if the stony earth had him by the ankles. But Bjorn moved forward, grasping for the next tree-trunk to use as a crutch, relishing the vague roughness of bark as he pushed off to the next, dragging along with him his still-breathing weight.

Sweat down his back, but he could swear that he was cold? That numbness on his fingers that makes them feel big and itchy, and a burning furnace in Bjorn’s heart keeping him going, keeping his grip on the tree and onto the reason for all of this, the reason he couldn’t fail now. Oily warmth behind his lids. Tongue like a lump of burnt bread sticking in his mouth. The world around him is crinkling and bold.

The sound of men. Low gruff urgent. A horse’s shrill whinny like a jagged rip, lifting up. A shout ending abrup—

Bjorn pivots, pushes towards the road he’d been trying to keep parallel to, past the dry brittle branches raking at his gambeson and onto the banks of half-melted snow along the sides of the muddy road. No trees help him upright or give him meager cover: Bjorn wavers in the open, shudders, feels every pore weep with the effort. His stomach is an empty pit he almost stumbles into. But he remains standing. Blinks away the remnants of that dreamy, unreal trance.

Can’t fight like this. He sets down Askeladd’s weight gently down on the side of the road, cringing at the muck that he sits him in. No time. Can’t be helped. The hilt of his sword is already gripped in his hand and it propels him onward with familiarity— Bjorn could fight in his sleep, and this wasn’t so different from the potent haze of amanita and henbane, from the will of the gods possessing his flesh. Bjorn just sinks back, letting his body do the work.

He just does.

Three men. Small cart, a woman thrown off into the filthy, slushy snow. Horse neigh, snort, puff of hot breath in the cold air. Two of the men digging through the cart for anything of value, dreary brown shapes on a brown shape in the brown landscape. She struggles against the one who threw her down, but for some reason Bjorn can’t hear her scream even when the silver bolt of his blade bites into the bandit’s neck, even when a fount of gushing red spills from the wound and over the pale surprise of her face.

Bjorn feels a bee sting his shoulder, only bees were dormant in the winter? It cleaves through him but doesn’t affect him, like a mist that parts for an intruder but closes back behind just as quickly. He turns and even though he’s already parrying one of the remaining bandit’s lunges it seems like he’s still back there, looking down at the woman’s wide eyes and the blood running in a vibrant spray over the front of her kirtle. 

It's over quickly. The last bandit makes a gurgling noise and clutches his side as the blood streams on the ground, melting little fjords into the snowbank. Bjorn can feel his limbs like cold blocks of stone, suddenly stiff and inelegant as he sheathes his weapon and lurches forward to clutch onto the cart. The world tips like he’s standing on a longship in the heaving sea, but he isn’t done yet so he pushes off of it and stumbles back.

Weight in the snow, sinking. Good— still warm. Good— still breathing. Rapid, dry, chapped. Bjorn barely manages to haul Askeladd up, slinging an arm over his shoulder only for his vision to go all black-white-hot-cold-dull-squirming. He grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches but he takes some small steps and that’s all that matters. Leans back against the living weight of Askeladd’s body, against the feet dragging in the soft horse-clopped mud.

The woman holds a dagger to her blood-soaked chest, like a wet red shawl. Her knuckles are so pale from the grip they look almost blue, like hoarfrost. Bjorn drags himself closer and she doesn’t scream, doesn’t run away. Just watches him with wide eyes and half-open mouth like a tender pink cut. Terrified but level-headed.

Good, Bjorn thinks. It’s his first discernable thought in a long time, and it echoes through him with relief. She is his last hope. He is at his limit— his vision is black and swarming with flies, sound comes to him as a muted dampness, all of his movements seem to sway even if they’re leaden— he will not be able to remain standing soon. It was this woman’s kindness and reciprocity or dying of exposure. And Bjorn was an obvious Dane just over the border of Wales. 

This or nothing.

“I saved your life.”

He starts in Norse. Pauses. The wind picks up and he shivers, shifts the weight slung against him and repeats again in English as best he can. The words are shaped oddly and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. Hopes she can understand. 

“I saved your life.” Sound of broken glass, gritty sand. “Save his.”

Hoarse breath. Teetering. The world is a blur of grey-brown-grey. Fingers struggle to hold onto Askeladd limp against him. Still breathing, still breathing. Still warm.

“He’s Welsh,” Bjorn rasps. “So help him.”

The woman stares at him for a long moment, or what seems like one. The wood of the cart grounds him as he holds onto it again, clings to it like a raft in the heaving sea. She’s still holding onto the mean little dagger, her knuckles are still a range of white-peaked mountains. Blood, blood all over her clothes. Bile rising in Bjorn’s throat, dry slick-sick. 

She nods once, strands of pale hair in the light. Bjorn can barely make out the sound of her voice over the ringing in his ears, the sound of—

“...et in… cart…”

Pulse in his temples. Sweat down his neck, tunic plastered to his back. Something makes it difficult for Bjorn to move his shoulder, like he’s being pinched. He takes a step. One. Two. Lifts the weight of Askeladd against his side— still breathing, still warm— and sets him down into the cart as gently as he could. Sways. His head drops, heavy. Coughs. Blood? Bile? Water. Need water.

On a longboat in the heaving sea, it’s too dark to see the horizon, so they need to wait for the signal. Blinks, lids sticking together. Askeladd’s still breathing… warm…

***

II.

Jostling darkness. Something pushes a hot thorn into his shoulder, the pain making Bjorn see faeries spark and flutter under his eyelids, disintegrating into the pulsing ribbon of an aurora. He groans.

There's a horse’s clop, the sound of wheels that needed to be oiled turning in soggy ground. Not a ship then, a cart. The sun drapes a threadbare blanket over his body and its warmth is torn with dappled shadow cast from the long fingers of the bare trees. 

The cart comes to a halt, but Bjorn feels like he’s still moving. Skin crawls. The sound of people talking but what do they say? He can’t make the words out…

His eyes are lanced with the late winter sun, but he catches a glimpse of Askeladd laying next to him when he forces his eyes open. The voices get louder, shrill and close, like a woman’s or a young boy’s. Bjorn slides his hand over the wood, finds the frayed end of Askeladd’s sleeve. The light hurts. His eyelids glow scarlet with blood when he closes them. 

***

III.

Bjorn didn’t realize it, but he’d opened his eyes.

It’s dark, not too dark. The room he’s in is made of velvet shadows and dimly glowing warmth, firelight picking out the wood grain of the walls and the texture of daub. Small cottage. Thatch roof. Smell of drying herbs and just-baked bread. 

Nothing but the barest fact of sensation reaches Bjorn for a time: the pounding within his skull, the sound of his own breathing cut from his blistered lips, the blanket tucked around his shoulders. When he turns his head, the gummy way the world moves is like bone gelatin, or the skim of fat on a good soup. Nausea gushes like a tidal wave, cold and rousing within him. His eyes feel like they’ve been peeled. Bjorn groans. 

He’s on a pallet. Under his head is a folded skin that does little to cushion the soreness at the base of his neck. The other side of the room is simple— table, chairs, chest, shelves with bottles and jars and other clutter that fades into the shadows. Bjorn turns his head, more slowly, to his other side.

Another wave breaks over him like panic, shattering into the wind. Bjorn sits up, but his head takes a moment to catch up and he clutches onto the blanket as the small cottage tips and ripples. His hand gropes blindly for the shape of Askeladd next to him, finding an arm even as he’s blinking away the black from his vision and the gunk clinging to the corners of his eyes.

Warm. Breathing. Pulse. Bjorn grits his teeth through the cavernous echo of nausea swelling bitter up his throat, can’t tell if he’s hungry or sick but knows he’s relieved, even as his muscles ache with the effort of remaining upright and a woodpecker drills into the back of his head.

“You’re awake,” a voice sounds, softly but suddenly. Rustling.

A woman is kneeling at his side even before Bjorn finishes registering her voice and making for the sword that should have been at his hip— not there, hand closing over the shape of nothing. Her face surfaces pale from the vivid dark glow of the cottage, watching him wearily, mouth in a small pressed frown.

“Your sword is in safekeeping,” she says quietly. Her voice is low for a woman’s, doesn’t grate so much. “You will not need it here.”

Bjorn blinks. Tries to keep her in focus, like a reflection in a pond. He’s still holding onto Askeladd’s arm, he realizes. Holding too tight. He tries to relax, but his shoulders sag and a sliver of pain embeds under his skin, making him swallow a thick wave of bile. He groans and she watches him, the look in her eyes inscrutable.

A hand? Bjorn feels that he is guided back down onto the pallet and realizes she is pushing him, a small and gentle pressure on his chest. He pushes back and she frowns.

“Your friend is resting,” she urges. “You should be too.”

He shudders through the next sickness.

“Need to check… his arm,” Bjorn grits.

She shakes her head firmly.

“His arm is newly bandaged. I will change the rest later.”

She removes her hand and puts it on her hip as he teeters, forcing himself to breathe through his nose. He’s raw, bare like a hairless cub without his sword— he was in no position to put up a fight without it, probably even with it, and Bjorn seethed, trying to parse his options. But the woman just quirked her brow.

“Sit back then before you fall,” she huffed, getting to her feet and turning with a swoosh of her skirts.

Good idea. He could see better that way, wouldn’t need to crane his neck or strain his overtaxed back. Sweat beads his forehead along his hairline as Bjorn slides back, breathing heavily as he makes it flush to the wall, vision swimming and darting. He can make out her light step in the room and other such small sounds. His back is cold against the wood. 

She appears again, floating back into his vision from the blind distance.

“My name is Rhiannon,” she offers, kneeling back down at his side.

Bjorn stares at her, heavy-lidded. Feels the sweat on his skin and the sickness churning in his stomach. 

“Bjorn,” he grunts when he realizes why she was patiently waiting.

A bowl is in her hands, and she hums as she brings it up, as if to show it off to his hazy vision.

“Well, Bjorn, it seems like we both have some luck— I’m a healer.”

Flies, buzzing and swarming in his head. The woodpecker’s back but the smell of broth makes the nausea recede, and he can’t help but lean closer to the bowl in her hands, the savory, salted, delicious smell. When was the last time he ate something warm? 

“And your friend’s name?” Rhiannon questions, watching him closely.

Bjorn shudders, clammy sheen on skin, on his vision, on the cottage. His mouth waters. Her hands are small and she holds a spoon of broth just over the bowl, poised. Fish-lure. He grimaces, clutches onto the blanket. Her eyes are placid and blue as they level with his. Unwavering.

“His name is… Lucius.”

She nods once, but her expression remains inscrutable. 

***

IV.

Later— how much later? Bjorn didn’t know, but he watches Rhiannon later when she changes the bandages around Askeladd’s legs and shoulder. 

She pushed him around carefully, practiced— she wasn’t lying about being a healer, she had that kind of steady motion to her hands. Askeladd was limp and wore nothing but a wrap of bandages under the covers, the strips of linen wound around and around and around… Bjorn watched dizzily as she worked, lifting his leg up and unwinding with the other hand. The arrow-wound there was tender and scabbed, no abscess. Would probably be healed by now if he’d not been dragged across England with barely more than a satchel of supplies…

She spares him a look but continues to work as he reaches out, pressing a hand to Askeladd’s forehead. Trying to stay awake with something to do. Bjorn sighs after a held breath— fever’s gone down and his colour is better, less pale. Rhiannon hums again, tying off a bandage around his leg, making to change out the one looped around Askeladd’s chest and shoulder, covering his legs back up in a swath of wool and fur. 

Bjorn’s hand has dropped, eyes small covered crescents under a fringe of lashes. The broth sits hot and filling in his stomach, an unsettled lull pulling him into the warm embrace of sleep, like a hand urging him down. The taste lingers on his tongue of herbs and celery, and Bjorn blinks rapidly to stay awake, to keep watch.

“His wounds were well cared for considering your condition,” she comments.

Her voice comes from far away, like it's falling from a cliff or being yelled under water. The blanket around him feels nice and he has to think hard to understand what she’s saying, her vowels stretched, her r’s undulating. The broth makes his blood warm, soothes. Tension uncoils from him like a snake, leaving behind a last shed of consciousness.

“‘ve practice,” Bjorn mumbles.

Vision fades.

*** 

V.

The next two days thin and stretch into a haze of dizzying pain dulled by sleep and food. He’s not sure of anything but the taste of broth and springwater, but the feeling of hands sitting him up and prodding at the sting in his shoulder, but the sounds of people moving in the room around him, of people talking.

Bjorn surfaces. Begins to watch more and sleep less, especially Askeladd’s deep and steady breathing, the slack in his unconscious features that somehow made him look older, devoid of that intelligent spark that animated him. What was a fire without flame? Sometimes Askeladd would become half-lucid enough to drink but no recognition of any kind shone from his glassy eyes. He remained far away. It was like a barb tangled in Bjorn’s chest— that Askeladd was too weak to move, that he himself was too weak to sit Askeladd up and tip the cup to his lips himself, to call out his name. Was stuck watching Rhiannon do it for them both. 

He watches Rhiannon go about her day.

People come into her cottage young and old, injured and sick, aching and bleeding and bruised. The lucid ones peer at him with a mixture of curiosity and horror, and their voices are too fast and foreign for Bjorn to cling to anything they say, just the tone. He wants to tell them to fuck off, but bites his tongue because he wouldn’t ruin the only chance they had to get out of this mess.

Usually he just turns around, leans on his good shoulder so they can stare at his back.

When it’s quiet Rhiannon bustles about the room doing the housework, a child pulling at her skirts until she yells for a young boy to come and take her off with him. They leave with just as much commotion as they arrive, and she shakes her head, almost sadly, even if soon her hands are busy making poultices and medicines and dinners. Every once and a while she checks over him, and Askeladd more often, but mostly she leaves them be as if they weren’t there.

Bjorn dozes off.

On the third day he sits up and against the wall. It feels like he’s landed on solid ground from a long stormy voyage, and Bjorn can see clearly what he couldn’t before— the oils and herbs and bottles lining the shelves. St. John’s wort and feverfew and mallow-root, sage and yarrow and chamomile. The cottage is bigger than he’d thought— a bed on the far wall, large hearth and shiny cauldron. Plain but thick blankets hang from the walls, keeping the heat in. Well enough off, even if he’d yet to see the man of the house. Rhiannon pauses when she catches him staring.

He can’t bear it any longer, watching and waiting.

She sets him up with easy work— in his lap he pulls the dried leaves off of various stems, grinds them into a powder for a medicine. She watches him for a moment, nods at him when she’s satisfied he seemed to know what he was doing, turning back to the young boy— Rhys— who had stormed into the cottage with his little sister in tow. Bjorn can’t understand his squeaking, but when Rhys gestures to him, turns and catches him staring, his glare tells Bjorn all he needs to know.

At least his looks weren’t nearly as bad as Thorfinn’s.

He peels the leaves, brittle and crumbling in his fingers even as he drops them into the cup of the mortar. Difficult to imagine Thorfinn and this kid were likely of similar age. Rhiannon guides him out of the room, taking their argument outside with them, the little girl looking at Bjorn with wide eyes before being dragged by her brother out with them. 

Bjorn wonders, idly, listening to their voices fade, how Thorfinn would’ve turned out if his father hadn’t died. If the bitterness didn’t fester him from the inside-out like a heartwood fungi. What was he doing now that Askeladd had escaped beyond his reach? Likely searching the whole world for him, upturning every rock.

He began to grind the leaves. Rhiannon entered back in the cottage with a huff, ignoring the clinking of his work, stone-on-stone, occupied with her own. She bent over the cauldron and stirred something within that smelled like cabbage, a hunter’s pottage for dinner. He went back to work. Askeladd stirred next to him but didn’t wake. The fire crackled in the hearth.

A feeling creeped up on Bjorn that he would see the kid again someday. He hoped he was wrong. He hoped Thorfinn would just move on.

***

VI.

“He will be charitable, you saved my life,” Rhiannon remarked.

Bjorn sat at the table, sliding a blade along the underside of the sea trout Rhys had caught, brow furrowed as he focused on her words through her accent. Talk had inevitably spread throughout the humble village about the bandit-attack and Rhiannon’s unlikely aid— the village Master would call on them soon. That he hadn’t yet spoke volumes as to the standing Rhiannon enjoyed, and Bjorn’s luck.

“Your situation would be more dire,” she continued, chopping carrots. “But your Welsh friend helps a little.”

Bjorn doesn’t speak— what could he say? He focused on gutting the fish, spreading the flesh and removing the entrails. She looked up at him with a frown, setting down her own knife. 

“I need to know why you’re here, Bjorn.”

His hands stilled and he exhaled slowly, meeting her eyes. Placid blue, so unlike Askeladd’s. Askeladd— the one who usually handled talk, had his talent of peering through flesh and into the soul of things. Of getting what he wanted. Rhiannon’s face remained patient but stoney; Bjorn had never seen a woman with such an unwavering stare.

‘Every lie has a kernel of truth, Bjorn,’ Askeladd drawled, a memory of long-ago.

They still needed her help to survive.

“He… saved my life,” Bjorn began. “I’m returning the favor.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes searching for any snag of deception but Bjorn hadn’t given her enough to find anything. 

“Seemed to me like you were on the run.”

Bjorn felt his lips twitch despite himself. The quiet of the room stretched on in an uncomfortable note.

“He hates the Danes,” Bjorn said quietly, continuing with his work even as he felt her eyes on him. “They don’t much like him either— killed a warband.”

A long, hard look. She picked up her knife: the sound of chopping carrots.

“What about you?”

Bjorn shrugged, inhaled sharply when it jostled his shoulder wound, courtesy of those damned bandits. 

(How could he boil down their bond into something she could understand? Twenty years of following Askeladd everywhere, of guarding his back, of conversations shared and meals together and nights spent? How could he explain that he would follow Askeladd to the ends of the earth? That killing a warband of his comrades was nothing in comparison?)

“I helped him kill them,” was all he said.

Beat of silence. Her chopping only hesitated for a moment, then picked back up again. Bjorn moved on to the second fish, slid the blade through shallow and clean. 

Quietly: “Don’t wanna be in that life any more.”

She stopped and Bjorn felt her stare at him a little while longer.

***

VII.

‘I’ve hated every last one of you with every fiber of my being.’

Bjorn curled around Askeladd in the dark, savoring the feeling of warmth against his chest and the expansion of his chest; even if the smell of sickness and injury clung to the other man, at least his fever had broken. But it had been five days and Askeladd had yet to say anything coherent— just took sips of water with a blankness to his normally piercing eyes, as if he was really somewhere else.

He wondered how much Askeladd hated him. If he would despise him even more now that he’d dragged him from certain death back into the chance of living. He’d scraped together enough tenacity to survive on the road and was likely helped along with some of Askeladd’s infamous luck— it must be by the will of the gods that they made it free from Jorvik’s royal gaol. Bjorn huffed, pathetic attempt at a humorless laugh— Bjorn’s one master plan, and it worked. Maybe Askeladd knew it. Maybe he’d banked on it, played the long game in manipulating Bjorn like he’d done his father, his half-brothers.

Rhiannon poked at the fire, sitting just in front of it with her feet propped up on a stool. The kids snored from the other side of the room, and Bjorn rolled his aching shoulder, hugging Askeladd closer as a chill seeped up from the floor.

Well, Askeladd couldn’t hate him any more than Bjorn was ashamed of himself. He hadn’t been there, after all, when Askeladd had gone mad and killed the King in front of all those Lords. The one time he’d needed him most and he’d been so blinded by his own anger that he stormed off, sulking when the commotion came to him— nearly too late. 

“Twenty years,” Bjorn spat, like it was a curse. “Twenty years and you don’t say shit and now—” he clenched his jaw shut until it cracked, nails biting into the meat of his palm. Askeladd’s expression remained unchanged. He said nothing— all this talk and now he said nothing.

“I’m not some fucking mastermind like you! So you tell this stinking Danish whoreson: why now, Askeladd? Why?”

Bjorn knew now. Or, partly— Askeladd hadn’t been so sure he would make it out alive. It had been his last chance to say anything, so he said it.

But Bjorn didn’t have Askeladd’s ability to tamp everything down. Couldn’t stop the way a hand had gripped his heart and squeezed, wringing from him all the longing and restlessness and worry until he was on fire, until his veins sang with the heartache of knowing him and not knowing him, an enigma he couldn’t reconcile. The truth was— Bjorn couldn’t take Askeladd’s silence after, an indifferent look set on his face like a mask— was it?. So Bjorn turned and left. Away from the schemes that Askeladd didn’t care to let him in on, away from how easily he used everyone, away from the ache of being right next to him but being nowhere near him at all.

Rhiannon shifted in her chair and the wood protested. She was darning one of Rhys’s trousers from the look of it— Bjorn could see her hands work despite the low light. Askeladd shifted in his sleep, sighed.

No. Bjorn wasn’t thinking straight again: Askeladd had no more schemes, that was why he told his story. Bjorn had to keep telling himself this, that he had managed on his own, repeating it like a prayer, a chant. He couldn’t lose hope and would seize it like Askeladd had done in the King’s court where he had planned to die: just as Bjorn would have died if he had been there. But they didn’t.

There was no plan now but the gods' plan, and they would live. Even if Askeladd hated himself for surviving.

Rhiannon murmured, drawing him from his thoughts. She leaned down as if to get a better look at the tear in the fabric and shook her head, her hair nearly white in the glow of the fire. Probably annoyed at how fast the boy grew or how he’d ripped his clothes— it must be endless, the mending. Both Rhys’s clothes and all the people who stopped by at all hours, looking for a cure for their hurt.

Askeladd pressed closer to him. 

He needed to come up with a new gambit, something that Askeladd could latch onto once he was finally coherent enough to realize he’d survived beyond all expectations. Bjorn heard how he’d gone mad, proclaiming himself to be the rightful King of Britannia, but he’d wager that he had just wanted to secure Canute’s place on the throne. Madness would only come now that he was adrift again, Bjorn was sure of it.

In the quiet dark the idea of a future began to form in Bjorn’s mind, like a ship tossed by the ocean, like leaves turning, like a stone worried smooth. An idea beyond waiting, beyond merely surviving, beyond fighting for death.

***

VIII.

Bjorn’s just beginning to walk without aid when Askeladd finally sits upright of his own accord, groggy and confused, a bit of straw sticking to his cheek from the bedrest. He blinked mildly about the room without his characteristic keenness, as if he were seeing only the surface of things and not their inner workings as he was wont, skimming even over Bjorn who stood dumbstruck in the far corner.

He’s at his side in an instant, holding Askeladd upright. He doesn’t seem to realize what’s happened— his brow furrows but he leans into Bjorn’s touch— knowing without knowing who steadied him. Rhiannon kneels at his other side, bringing with her a cup of water. He looks between the both of them with a waxing surprise.

“Drink, Lucius,” she urges softly in English, then in Welsh.

Askeladd opens his mouth as if to say something, falters. Not like him— he looks back over at Bjorn, back to Rhiannon, and Bjorn can see his mind turning, shaking off the rust. For a moment, his eyes are sharp and meticulous as they used, cold and hard as ice, but they thaw into exhaustion and the words, whatever they would have been, die in his throat.

Askeladd reaches for the cup instead, and Bjorn steadies him for the inevitable— he stops halfway. Surprise dawns fully on his face and Bjorn didn’t think he’d ever seen him so unguarded in all his time knowing him, didn’t think he could take the way he looked down, back up at Rhiannon, then the cup, then back to Bjorn as if for an answer, searching. Looking back…

To his missing right hand.

He shivered as if in a cold draught and there is a glimpse of madness in his eyes now, glittering. He makes a strangled noise that turns into a laugh, growing louder and more hysterical the more he looks down at his bandaged arm, ending abruptly above the wrist. It was all Bjorn could do not to join him. All he could do not to pull him close and hush him as he looked back up.

“Ah! Bjorn,” he laughs, recognition flooding his face. The Norse made Rhiannon quirk her brow more than the laughter. “I thought I was finally somewhere else, but I’m still here!”

Bjorn takes the cup from her hands, nods at her in thanks. She gives him a long look but gets up, dusting her hands on her apron and leaving them quietly as Bjorn tries to get Askeladd to drink through his dying laughter. He manages a few sips before slumping back onto the pallet, still rumbling.

Bjorn stares down at what’s left in the cup, the distorted reflection of his own scruffy face.

He predicted something like this would happen, hadn’t he? But he’d expected anger… Bjorn could practically feel the disappointment in Askeladd’s words, that yearning for somewhere else, somewhere but this shithole of an earth. And no matter how much Bjorn wanted to protest, he couldn’t blame him much— how long had he himself spent yearning for somewhere else, for Valhalla? Anywhere but here… Even after he met Askeladd, those two decades, he had still wanted to die with a sword in his hands. Askeladd’s bodyguard, his second-in-command, his right hand. To die with him, for him, not just for the gods and for battle and for the good death, but— 

To die for him.

Wasn’t that what those Christians called blasphemy?

Bjorn downed the rest of the water. Askeladd had settled back into a fitful sleep, clutching his arm to his chest.

Well. Bjorn felt his fate still wasn’t going out asleep in his bed, but he’d decided already: he— they— would live quietly until the time came. That was the new plan. Making battles had been pointless when the battles ended up finding them most of the time anyways, and the gods had wanted them to survive, so survive they would. They would make the best of this escape. And one day, if Askeladd’s luck hadn’t run out, after they had lived— really lived— Bjorn would answer the call of Valhalla.

But for now…

Bjorn would carve out a place as quiet as this cottage, a place where Askeladd would scoff at his own disappointment at being alive. That was their new battle.

***

IX.

Askeladd woke in the night, sitting up slowly, groaning as he did. Bjorn just watched the way he looked down at his left hand, examining it, moving each finger. Compared it to his bandaged stump in the dark, blue eyes like icicles, turning the forearm this-way-and-that as if still flexing the fingers. He seemed far away as he did so, brow furrowed, mumbling.

The kids stirred in their bed across the room, and Bjorn sat up next to him.

“Drink, Askeladd,” he whispered quietly as he was able.

He met Bjorn’s eyes, sighed. Took the water.

“How tedious,” he muttered, sinking back down after a few gulps, hissing when he knocked his shoulder-wound— courtesy of the newly-crowned King Canute. 

Thank the gods he’d missed anything vital.

Bjorn remained sitting up until he felt Askeladd relax, stilling into a deep sleep.

It had been nearly a week. No sign that Rhiannon was going to kick them out— no signs from the other villagers but gawking, which they could endure. Bjorn had originally been making for Morgannwg but they had to be somewhere east of Rhos— far from Gratanius and his aid. But leaving now would disturb Askeladd’s healing and any more information about them could tip off their real identities, something Bjorn couldn’t risk.

He laid back down, chewing his lip. 

Even if Rhiannon had her suspicions, there was no reason for her to think they weren’t just some nobodies on the road, perhaps defectors in the war.

There was hope and Bjorn clung to it. Tedious yes, but worth it.

***

X.

It’s late in the afternoon the next day when Bjorn sits down at the table and helps Rhiannon make a balm— the Master had a nasty arthritis, she explained, and he was running low.

Rhys and Ceri— the little girl he’d seen tugging at her mother’s skirts— were playing just outside in the garden where they had a swing on the boughs of a large oak, and her laughter was young and infectious so that Rhiannon had a small smile, the first Bjorn had seen in the time he’d known her. She was still curt and cautious around him, but it was clear she no longer considered him a threat— no doubt she realized that Bjorn had no other options. 

Bjorn leaned back into the chair, at ease, feeling much better since he’d finally gotten to bathe and shave in the local stream. His shoulder was beginning to have good movement again, and the wounds on his back were sore but nothing he hadn’t dealt with before. The work busied his hands and his mind, and Askeladd was still safe, sleeping through most of the day but finally eating a solid meal.

Rhiannon hummed.

“I got called on by the Master.”

Bjorn mashed more leaves, not looking up despite his heart jumping.

“What did he say?”

She’s quiet for a long while, listening to Ceri’s giggles. Something makes the hair on Bjorn’s neck stand upright.

“News from the east,” she said quietly. “About the Kingkiller.”

The pestle nearly slips out of Bjorn’s hands but he plays it off as best he can and continues working. He chokes around the lump in his throat.

“Oh?” 

Rhiannon doesn’t look up but when Bjorn glances at her, her lips are in a tight frown.

“Says the man who did it is missing his sword arm, goes by a slave’s name.”

Sweat glistens on his temples, he can feel it. He can feel his heart beat in his ears and the heat of the room and the wind on the walls and roof and the sounds of Ceri giggling and nausea dry in his throat. It’s as if the world closes in on him, like it's swallowing him whole. 

“And what did he say about us?”

He’s relieved— his voice didn’t waver.

She sets down her tools and wipes her hands on a rag, looking at him directly. As always, she seemed to have an unflinching expression— parsing meaning from him like Askeladd. Perhaps it was the blue eyes.

“He was planning on asking your leave since you are well enough to return to Danish territory.”

He breathed slowly from his nose, hid the shake of his hand with a twist of his wrist, grinding hard the leaves in the mortar. The drop in his stomach yawned, teeth gleamed. She returned to her work like it was nothing.

“But,” she begins again, voice low, waiting for the sound of the kids outside to continue. “Vikings were responsible for killing the Master’s sons years back, and it was no great sorrow to hear of the King’s untimely passing.”

She was quiet. Bjorn couldn’t help it— staring at her wide-eyed, sweat on his temples, mouth gaped.

“And the reward… for the Kingkiller?”

Placid blue. Delicate bird-like features. Faint smile.

“Nothing this humble village is concerned with. The Master is adamant that it would only bring undue attention from all parties of the war, especially with all the drama over the contenders for England’s throne.”

She sighs, returning to work.

“But he’ll call for you soon,” she says, ignoring his stare. “I do believe he’s decided it isn’t too much trouble for you to stay if you make yourself useful. After all, you’ve shown goodwill to his people and know a thing or two about healing. We’re in need of such skill.”

She scoffs, mixing some ingredients into a thick paste.

“Lord knows I need help with all the hurt and sickness even in just this village.”

Bjorn can feel the relief sag every muscle of his body, the tension seeping from him like a wrung cloth. The sound of Ceri laughing returned, bright and airy. The wind coming from the sea bombarded the little cottage, but the fire kept them warm.

“Thank you,” Bjorn whispers. “For putting in a good word.”

She nods.

“Anyways,” she waves off, “According to the news, the Kingkiller is being helped by several of his best men, a veritable army. How else could he have escaped from the royal gaol and evaded capture?”

***

XI.

It seems Rhys couldn’t keep up with Ceri’s tenacity— it had been eight days and curiosity had gotten the better of her, and in the quiet of the house, Rhiannon out and Rhys nowhere to be found, her little face peers out from behind a set of drawers, staring at Bjorn as if he couldn’t see her. 

She still had baby-round cheeks and big eyes— the innocent, striking image of her mother, her pale hair in plaits and wrapped around her head with invisible pins. She squeaked, ducked back behind the furniture when he looked up and grunted, setting down the sewing-work he offered to help with.

Rhiannon had been surprised, but she was more than happy to let him tend to it and confident in his neat hand after seeing the stitches he’d given Askeladd while on the run. Women’s work, but Bjorn didn’t mention anything about not being around women for months on raids when he needed his clothes mended the most.

Ceri peeked out again.

“Come on out,” Bjorn sighed, “Since you’re so curious.”

She peeked out further, blinking.

“That’s right, not gonna eat you,” he grumbled.

She stepped out fully, little face twisted with unabashed confusion before beginning to babble on in a flurry of Welsh, putting her hands on her hips in a striking resemblance to her mother, giving Bjorn her best stern look. He just stares, brows lifted, unsure of what to say as she stomps up to him.

She points at herself.

“Ceri.”

Ah. Okay.

“Bjorn,” he says, pointing to himself. 

He tries to find it in himself to be annoyed but the situation is absurd enough that he stifles a laugh, especially when she says his name: “Bee-yorn” and nods, pointing at the shirt in his lap that he’d been mending and saying something incomprehensible to him. He just stares.

She points, repeats herself two more times when he finally caught on and tries repeating the same string of syllables. She nods sagely, seemingly satisfied, and then moves on to pointing at the spool in his lap.

So begins: pointing at the shirt, the thread, the needle, back to the shirt, quizzing him on the new words until Rhiannon finally saves the day, opening the door and interrupting the lesson— her tiny daughter chiding a rather large, hunched Dane for not learning his words and did he not listen to his mother when he was little? Why didn’t he know the most simple phrases?

Rhiannon smiles again, the second time he’s seen, coming up behind Ceri with her hand crooked on her hip and scolding her lightly in Welsh, pointing to the back door. Ceri sighs dramatically, waves at Bjorn, then dashes out of the cottage and into the chilly early-spring air.

“She’s a good kid,” Rhiannon says after a moment. Somehow, she looked impossibly tired and even a little sad, as if she hadn’t been happy just moments ago.

“Yeah,” Bjorn agrees.

She looks down at him, a distance to her expression.

“I’ve been a healer for a long time,” she begins quietly, almost hesitant. “But it wasn’t until I had children that I really appreciated…”

She’s quiet, looks over at Askeladd, shakes her head.

“Life is precious,” she mutters, turning to leave.

Bjorn just sits there, the clothes half-mended.

***

XII.

Bjorn can hear them doing chores outside later while he’s sitting at the window: Rhys with two water pails slung over his shoulder and Ceri struggling along behind him with another. He encourages her it seems, quietly slowing her down to patience so as to not spill the water that sloshes over the rim.

How many children had Bjorn cut down over the years? Too many to count. And he didn’t have it in him to regret much of it, it was all so long ago now and it had been work. It had been worship. But there was no appetite for that kind of life again, for raiding, for riches. 

What did any of that get him anyways?

Twenty years of throwing himself into battle and the gods hadn’t yet claimed him for their halls— and how much blood had he spilled in their names in supplication? And yet, now, removed from the cycle of his past life…

Had it been for the gods?

Ceri set down the bucket, half-empty, half-full. She looked up proudly at her brother and he smiled, just as proud.

Bjorn had betrayed his fellow countrymen for Askeladd, had slain his comrades for him with glee. All the blood on his hands… twenty years of trials, but were they the gods trials? Or Askeladd’s? Was there a difference to him? Well, Bjorn was done waiting now— he’d defy spilling more blood to give Askeladd a new plan, putting Valhalla in jeopardy. All those years of fighting and Bjorn finally figured it out.

His real fight was here, now. Realizing his feelings and acting on them, forging something beyond endless fighting. Fighting was so easy, it was second-nature, instinct. He could cut down this village if he wanted to, but what challenge was it to continue on like that? 

No, it was no challenge. The real challenge would be this, this living, carving out a place in this world that made you not want to leave.

***

XIII.

Bjorn made his way back to the cottage from the back footpath, the smell of the sea in the wind, spring just beginning to scent the air even as it remained bitter and cold. He was glad to be outside where the wind could whip his cheeks and there was green peeking up from the snow, glad for the work.

He stops outside the door, enjoying any warmth the pale sun offered when a familiar voice seeped through the cottage door and struck Bjorn with such an intensity of longing it smarted like a slap.

Askeladd is sitting up when he hurries in, speaking in Welsh and damn it all that Bjorn couldn’t understand him, couldn’t even understand much in tone with that voice so devoid of its usual mirth, flat and damp. Rhiannon didn’t look up at him as he sat next to them, just held out the bowl for him to eat and frowning.

She sighs.

“Tell your friend that he needs to eat before he begins to worry about other things.”

She hands him the bowl, turning with a swoosh.

Askeladd’s expression is inscrutable but utterly exhausted. He’s holding up the arm of his missing hand as if he didn’t know what to do with the limb and it stings Bjorn’s heart, knowing how unbearable it must be to have the capability taken from him. He spares Bjorn only a meager glance, looks away.

“A true warrior needs no sword, eh?”

The beat of Bjorn’s heart throbs in his throat. He grips the bowl, pretends he doesn’t hear.

He’d heard that before, hadn’t he? Thorfinn’s father had sucker punched him so hard he’d gone flying, and he’d lain there with his head ringing, faces of his crew peering down at him, his eye swollen shut. Askeladd had been prattling on, taking nothing seriously. Bjorn remembered vaguely, Thors deep voice. Remembered even better how he’d jumped ship, grabbed onto the screaming runt and held a blade to his throat.

(He thinks that’s why Thorfinn didn’t have a problem with him so much as Askeladd— he understood what it meant to love someone so much you’d do anything for them.)

He nudged Askeladd to eat and the other man just slumped.

Well, Thors had won in the end, and Askeladd had too. And now neither of them would wield a sword again— at least Askeladd wouldn’t with his right hand. But he wouldn’t need it, would he? Wales was safe, the English were rebelling and Ireland posed more of a problem then these small kingdoms anyways. If they could even decide on a King of England. 

Askeladd had done the impossible, just like Thors. 

Bjorn helped him eat the stew, trying not to bring attention to the way his cheeks burned in humiliation. He set aside the bowl when he was done, took his remaining hand and squeezed it, afraid that Askeladd would mistake all the swelling, overflowing pride Bjorn felt for him as pity.

After a long while, Askeladd squeezed back. He always had a good read on people, and Bjorn most of all.

***

XIV.

How simple it had been to choose Askeladd again and again. Bjorn didn’t even need to give it a second thought— killing anyone in their way was his life’s work, the delight of his hands and blade. He’d slain village after village, enemies and comrades, gaolers and soldiers, innocent and guilty. It didn’t matter then.

And even after Bjorn learned how much Askeladd hated him, after all the things he wanted the other man to open up about was finally spilled into the quiet of the snow-covered landscape of Gainsborough with Thorfinn groaning and beaten to the ground and the Princling held rapt for his lesson— even after all that, he’d gone back for him. Broke him out of that filthy gaol and trudged all the way to Wales.

(He’d never seen Askeladd so furious. Thorfinn never learned, even in their last duel before Ragnarok. Bjorn understood now that he hadn’t learned either, that maybe this was why Askeladd hated him so much, even more than his filthy Danish blood.)

It had been his lesson too.

But all he could think then was— twenty years and why hadn’t he been enough? Why now? 

Then it all snapped together.

Askeladd was his fight , but not his enemy. Bjorn had no enemies: just Askeladd. Friend, lover, comrade, purpose, conflict— he was his everything. All the men he killed and it wasn’t for the gods. All the longing for Valhalla was prefaced with it being a death worthy of Askeladd’s schemes and no other.

How was it that a man’s struggle could be with the one he loved so much? Bjorn didn’t understand it, but he didn’t need to. He’d been waiting for Askeladd to trust him, to tell him what it was he fought for so he could fight harder for it, but Askeladd hadn’t known— he spoke of Avalon as a place but Bjorn understood: it was a person.

Askeladd was his Avalon.

Bjorn had found it in this world, the peace and warmth and ease from suffering, within a man. A man so violent and conniving and stained with blood that it was a wonder that there was something other than the hope of death buried within the cruel landscape of his exterior, something tender and vulnerable and ignored and hated. Askeladd shunned that part of himself so much he couldn’t recognize it for what it was and Bjorn’s waiting, waiting, endless waiting had done nothing but stagnate their relationship.

Bjorn needed to act.

Because there was something there, he’d seen it. It was a potential that Bjorn was going to draw out of Askeladd even if it killed him because he could no longer sit by and wait, let him fester. Gods forgive him for abandoning their will… but it had been years since he’d truly served them anyways.

Getting to Valhalla was easy anyways, any brute could pick a fight and die with a sword. Avalon was the tougher— making Askeladd see it, that both Avalon and Ragnarok existed in every man… that would be a labor of love. 

And it had been in front of them this whole time: Danish and Welsh, Artorius and Askeladd, slave and king… warrior, manipulator. Lover, hater. Son of Olaf, son of Lydia. Askeladd thought he’d given this world his all, but he was wrong.

All Bjorn wanted now was the man.

***

XV.

Bjorn drags Askeladd outside with him one morning when the sun is up over the treeline and the rocky cliff-face has baked a little in the warmth. It smelled greener today, like new growth. The sea rolled in, the wind mild for this time of year. 

He spread a blanket out and Askeladd sat without a word, gazed through to the horizon, turning something over in his mind as usual. He carefully folded his legs, enveloped them with his arms and cloak. Bjorn watched him for a moment, waiting for that sharpness he knew and loved to well, even if it quickly dulled into emptiness.

But it was there: Askeladd would step up to a new struggle, should one present itself. He smiled, slipped onto the rock next to him.

“Why did you bring me here, Bjorn?”

(Why did you risk yourself to save me?)

The sound of the sea and the gulls. Bjorn wanted to get it right this time, wanted to make sure he said the right thing.

(Because home is with you. Because the only time I feel at ease is at your side. Because without you, the world is foreign to me.)

“Didn’t have any other place to go and we had to escape,” he looked over at Askeladd, at his sharp profile. “After your last duel you said you brought your mother home. So, I brought you home.”

“You brought me here to die.”.

“No. I brought you here to live, Askeladd.”

He barks out a humorless laugh, bitter as the winter. The wind shreds it.

“Look at me Bjorn,” he says, exhaustion creeping like a blight onto his syllables. He gestures with his arm’s stump. “I’m nothing more than a ruin. I should’ve died in Sweyn’s court, that was my Ragnarok and—”

“You went through life rejecting everything and hating everyone, even yourself,” Bjorn interrupts, voice growing from a low growl to something with conviction, something that couldn’t be ignored.

“I’m done, Askeladd. I shouldn’t have waited so long but I was too chickenshit to say anything to you ‘cause I thought you’d just throw me away like any other liability, but now I have to be the one to act. Isn’t that what your lesson was all about, back in Gainsborough? That you can’t wait for Artorius to appear?”

“Bjorn—”

“You know how much I look up to you?” Bjorn asked, meeting his eyes. “You think a missing hand changes anything? You think anything that was done to you could change how I feel?”

He didn’t even care, blinking back the sting in his eyes, Askeladd’s own eyes wide and his mouth half-open. The world-weariness in them was on full display and Bjorn wanted to wash it all away, the bags under piercing blue, the scar across his brow from fighting off his own men. Bjorn shook his head.

“All those years I wanted… you knew I wanted to be your friend. You knew I wanted to follow you but didn’t know why and couldn’t accept that—”

(This was strength: opening the lion’s maw with bare hands, running fingers along the dagger-size teeth. This was more difficult than killing a man, spilling blood, and raiding villages.)

“I did it because I love you.”

Askeladd looked away. No surprise— but there was nowhere for him to run now. No status to uphold, no plans to spoil, no wars to fight or thrones to secure. Just them on the edge of the cliff, wrapped in blankets against the early spring cold.

He looked back up and met Bjorn’s eyes. A weight seemed to slip off of Askeladd’s shoulders and into the sea, a dropped sword falling to the sea-bed, bright and flashing for a moment before being swallowed. It was an acknowledgement of Bjorn’s challenge.

“You are Bjorn,” he admitted quietly. “The only one… my only friend.”

There was no give in his eyes— hard and cold like ice. Bjorn wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Then let me be,” he whispered, taking his remaining hand, weaving their fingers together, nudging him with his elbow.

“You’ve tried every other way to get rid of me, haven’t you? And I’ve tried to die in battle. So let’s do this.”

Askeladd looked up at him like he held the very world in his hands, like he’d been the one to paint the sky blue and set the sun, moon, and stars to turn. Bjorn felt heat rise to his cheeks and he was the one looking away now, down at the foam hemming the waves.

Coward, Bjorn calls himself, looks back to see Askeladd’s small smile. Of course he’d done it on purpose, shrewd bastard. But now Bjorn was sure of it now— it wasn’t a lie, what they felt.

“Hey, Askeladd?” he said softly, breaking the quiet. “Let’s live. Can you do that for me?”

Askeladd looks back out at the sea, seemingly entranced with the rhythm of the surf for long moments. But he eventually leans over, resting his head on Bjorn’s shoulder and relaxing— really relaxing— melting against his side.

“For you, Bjorn, I can try.”

***