Chapter 2 - A Price
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A Price
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"Anything?" Rask rose to his full height, towering easily over the impertinent human as he curved his lips into a cruel smile. "Be careful, little man. Vague offers very dangerous dealing with fae. Easy to twist words."
Not that bergsr?r were true fae. More like…cousins. Sten was in no danger for the foolishness of offering his name so freely, for one. But it had been a risk, and the human should know better. For if Rask had been allied with the Winter Court…
The man blanched gratifyingly and took a small step back, before setting his shoulders, his jaw firm as he turned to Rask once more.
"Anything," the little fool repeated, his voice so strong and steady Rask might almost believe it.
Amusement at Sten's stubbornness washed through the bergsr? as he studied his persistent visitor.
With a grunt, Rask sat down on a nearby bit of deadfall.
Idly, he wondered if the human was considered attractive or ugly for his kind.
Rask hadn't seen many humans up close, but he vaguely remembered them being generally smaller than the one now trailing after Rask's goats, watching the bergsr? from the corner of his dark eyes.
He wasn't nearly as big as Rask, of course.
Comparatively sickly, really, at least by a bergsr?'s standards.
With his relatively short, skinny limbs and that pitifully flat belly?
Made Rask almost want to take Sten back to his cave and make soup for the scrawny human.
Feed him good brown bread and honey and goat's cheese; see that Sten put some proper meat on his bones to ensure he'd survive the bitter seasons.
His dark, close-cropped beard was odd, Rask decided.
It went all the way up his cheeks and even into his hair, so that there was no means to tell where one started and the other began.
Was it as soft as it looked, or closer to a hedgehog's bristles?
How would it feel against the inside of Rask's thighs?
Rask shook his head, trying to banish the thought. It lingered anyway, as stubborn as the human who’d spawned it.
Bergsr?r didn't generally grow hair on their cheeks as Sten had, not unless they were of such an ancient vintage that it’d wandered down from their heads to their chin like rocks in a landslide.
Rask was nowhere near that old. His own beard made for a respectable braid, just thick enough to cuff below his chin with the carved stone wedding bead Hjarta had given him.
Rask sighed. The wound of Hjarta's passing was long scarred over now, but that didn't mean the dreams they'd shared had altogether faded away.
He'd barely grown into his tusks when Hjarta had agreed to be his mate.
They'd dug their cave together with their own bare hands, sure they'd enjoy centuries of happiness here on their mountain.
Thirty years hadn't been near enough time for them to even begin considering the children this brash human had asked about; their song cut off before it'd ever gotten to the chorus.
"And what if Rask say Sten must pay for that help in Rask's bed, hmm?" Rask pointed out. "That Rask would claim Sten as Rask's new mate?"
The human stiffened in surprise, attention jerking sharply to the bergsr?.
Rask chuckled to see understanding finally bloom across the little human's face; those dark eyes wide, the human’s lips parting with a sweep of a tiny pink tongue.
“Many fae couple with humans.” Rask smirked, spreading his legs meaningfully and gesturing to his loincloth, just to be sure the stubborn human didn't miss a crumb of his meaning. “What if Rask wished to find out why? Demanded to have that puny mouth on Rask’s cock? Or to take Sten right now, on hands and knees, fast and hard in the dirt?”
"You — " Sten bit his lip, the human's attention focused on the ground rather than face such a fate as Rask had painted.
Rask scowled, at himself as much as at the stubborn man. He… may have taken his teasing too far. The bergsr? shifted carefully, resisting the urge to reach down and adjust himself for fear of scaring the human more than he'd probably already done.
"Is that what you want?" Sten asked softly. "To… To use me, in exchange for your help? If that is your price, then…"
To use him? How absurd. This tiny, scrawny little human?
"No,” Rask lied, shaking his shaggy head so hastily the tiny beads woven through the bergsr?’s hair and horns clinked with the movement. "That not my 'price.'"
The man's eyebrows furrowed, his face a mask of shocked outrage now.
Hilarious.
"B-but you just said…"
"A warning," Rask sneered. "Between friends," he added, echoing the human's words back to him with no little amount of mischief.
"Some warning," Sten muttered.
"Do not fear," Rask reassured him. "Rask not take unwilling partners. And Rask not yet so lonely to Bargain for a mate."
"So… you are lonely, then?" the obstinate human persisted.
Rask scowled. "All humans this rude?"
One end of the man's mouth tipped up in what Rask supposed could be a smile — provided one allowed for the lack of tusks.
"No," the human answered with a sharply hiccuped laugh of his own. "You just got lucky."
"Rask not feel lucky."
All the man's good humor vanished as he glanced away.
"Sorry," he muttered, sending a pang of guilt curling through Rask's chest.
“Go home," Rask growled, ignoring it. "Leave Rask be."
The man slumped. "If you don't help us, people will die and the quarry will close. Then I'll have no home to go back to."
"Then move," Rask said. "Make new home."
Sten just smiled sadly.
"As you said: 'Where would I go? This is my valley.
My heart is here,'" he echoed, throwing Rask's words back at him.
The little human sighed. "My whole family works that quarry, Rask.
My friends, my neighbors, my parents. Lars's accident was bad enough.
What if next time it's my sister? Or Ma?
She's the thane's clerk, so she's always on site.
My youngest brother starts as a water boy in a month; it's all he talks about.
Makes him feel all grown up, joining the family trade, but…
He's only eight. He can't see the danger like we can. What if the vaettir go after him?"
"They're only humans, Rask," the memory of Hjarta's words echoed in Rask's ears over the thunder of an oncoming storm. "They can't hear the Song like we can. What if the thurs goes after them?"
"Name your price, Rask," Sten said quietly. "Whatever it is… If it's within my power, I'll do it. Just — say you'll help us. Please."
"Hjarta cannot stay here, and watch so many be killed. Help me," he'd begged, Hjarta's hand so warm and firm against Rask's chest. "Please."
"It dangerous," Rask told both human and memory with a grimace, looking away. "Little human does not know what Rask may ask."
"Little human does not care," Sten snapped sharply, but then both his shoulders and voice fell. "Not if it means I can keep them safe."
"Hjarta not care if dangerous. Not if we can keep them safe," Rask's mate had snarled when he'd given the same warning. "Come with me, Rask. Together, one thurs stands no chance."
An ache bloomed in Rask's chest; eyes squeezing shut, he rubbed it absently. For in the end, Rask hadn't gone with Hjarta, had he? No, he'd been too fearful; too concerned with his comforts. Too blind, too cowardly, too stubborn, too —
He sighed.
"Please…" Sten repeated softly, a note of desperation hanging in the air.
"Please…"
— came Hjarta's voice, as if carried by the wind.
Rask blew out the deepest of breaths and stopped, ignoring the sounds of the milling goats bumping into his legs. Closing his eyes, he searched out the faint notes of the Song, and listened.
"Cardinal's gold, a baby's breath, and fire that not burn out," Rask spoke into the stillness, tongue prickling with the taste of magic.
"What?" the little human asked, surprise writ clear across his face as he turned to Rask.
"Three things Sten must give, for Rask to help."
"But those are impossible!"
"Sten ask bergsr?'s help with vaettir. Did Sten expect easy?" Rask asked, watching the man gnaw his lower lip as he considered Rask's offer.
Rask wanted to tell him to stop it. That he would damage those lips. That the way it made them redden was strange and unnatural. Unseemly. They were ugly, tuskless, thin enough things as it was.
Rask didn't know why he cared.
Sten blew out a breath, looking down the mountain. "Alright then, I’ll do it. Just tell me how."
But Rask could only shake his shaggy head, the beads in his hair clinking. "Rask cannot help. Sten must do task alone."
"But — "
Rask held up his hand to forestall the little human's rebuttal. "That what makes it price, not gift. This how things must be."
For a gift from a bergsr? to a human would create a bond Rask couldn't imagine the man standing before him would want.
Sten seemed to have enough sense to recognize the dangerous ground he'd strayed into as well. He gave a sharp nod, his eyebrows drawn low as he grunted a simple, "Alright then. Give me a day."
"Sten take all days. All nights, too." Rask shrugged, before whistling at Scar-Hip to lead the rest of the herd into the mouth of the cave. "Rask be here."
There was an anticipation humming around them, like an expectant pause in a song just before the chorus comes crashing in. For a moment, Rask thought Sten was about to say something more.
He did not. Instead, Sten drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders, before setting out down the hill. His pace should take him back to his village by nightfall, provided he didn't run into any problems.
Watching the retreating form, Rask pursed his lips.
With a sigh, he reached for the Song, weaving notes of Permitted and Protected into its harmonies.
It wouldn’t save the errant human if he did something truly foolish, of course.
But it would be enough to make even the hungriest creature on Rask’s mountain think twice before attacking something the bergsr? had marked as his, and that would have to serve.
White-Foot tried to follow after the man, providing yet another entry in her long history of poor judgment.
Breaking away from the milling herd, she headed for the tree line until Rask caught her by the horn.
She bleated at him as he turned her once more towards his cave and the comforts of the goat pen that awaited her inside, clearly unimpressed.
Only once did he look down the mountain, back in the direction the strange little human had gone. But it was too late, of course, and Sten was long out of sight.