(no subject)

[thewidewideworld]

{from here}

Sinric leads Athelstan back to their room, stopping at the bar to have a quiet word with the bar before they go. When they arrive in their rooms, the bed has been spread with a large, warm bear-fur and draped with silk. There are candles on the table, at bedside, on the windowsill, bathing the room in soft, warm light.

Sinric smiles and leads Athelstan towards the bed. "This night is for you, beloved Athelstan. We'll go only as far as you're ready for."

Comments

[thewidewideworld]

"Athelstan, beloved," Sinric smiles, kissing Athelstan's cheek. "You can ask me anything. What can I do for you?"

[athelstanthescribe]

"A question, not a request." He hesitates. "What did I say to you in my delirium? I hardly remember."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric nods, he has a good memory for such things. "You called out in your native tongue in your delirium. Two names I didn't know; Aedrea and Modor?"

[athelstanthescribe]

His eyes close briefly, and there's an old and calm sadness in them when they open.

"I must have been dreaming of childhood. Modor means 'mother' in the language of Northumbria, and Aedre... Aedre was my older sister."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric frowns sadly and strokes Athelstan's hair. "It brought back long buried memories of your family?"

[athelstanthescribe]

"Not buried by any harm in remembering them, only by time. I was very young when they died."

The blaze of grief he first felt when the brothers told him has long since died down.

[thewidewideworld]

"Will you tell me about them? What you remember of them?" He asks softly, trying to find happy memories behind that grief.

[athelstanthescribe]

"The memories are distant, but there are some things... when I was no more than three, I do remember my brothers and I trying to stand up to a boy from the town who was bothering Aedre."

[thewidewideworld]

"You were fierce in the protection of your family, even then?" Sinric smiles, playing with Athelstan's hair.

[athelstanthescribe]

"Like a little puppy", he says with amusement, "trying to growl and be terrifying."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric giggles warmly. "A wolf puppy still learning how to howl. I can just imagine."

[athelstanthescribe]

"I think possibly my brothers had more effect", he says with a smile. "Or all five of us as a united force. We always played together as well, a great tumble of boys, when we weren't scrapping - again like puppies."

[thewidewideworld]

"What were their names, your brothers?" He asks, his voice low as he pulls the furs around them.

[athelstanthescribe]

"From oldest to youngest", he recounts, snuggling into the furs, "Alnoth, Osgar, Cynbert... and Wulfrys. And then me."

[thewidewideworld]

He repeats the names to himself, tasting the strange shape of them. Northumbrian names have an odd tone to Sinric who grew up with Greek and Persian names.

[athelstanthescribe]

"I was always a little the odd one out. The others were good strong farm boys and I - I wasn't weak or sickly, and they weren't stupid, but I was much more inquiring. I'd be caught every week or two sneaking away from chores to find something to read."

[thewidewideworld]

"Your thirst for knowledge was deeper. There's nothing wrong with that. But I can see how that might as set you apart from the others."

[athelstanthescribe]

He nods. "So, when we had two bad harvests in a row and everyone looked like going hungry... everyone knew my tendencies, and the lord said... he said he'd speak to the monastery on my parents' behalf."

[thewidewideworld]

"They sold you to the monastery with your lord's permission?" Sinric asks, uncertain of the protocols with such things.

[athelstanthescribe]

"I don't know if it was a sale, if money changed hands - it may have been a matter of one less mouth to feed, and sending me to a place that suited me well into the bargain. But it couldn't have been done without our lord's help, peasant boys don't generally become monks."

He remembers the joy at being allowed to go away and learn, mingled with the sadness of leaving his family.

[thewidewideworld]

"You were happy as a monk? Because you have access to learning and helped your family care for your brothers and sister?"

[athelstanthescribe]

"I didn't take vows for many years - children aren't permitted to until they reach an age to make a proper decision - but I was so very happy to be in that place of learning. They told me on the first day they would teach me to read and write and I would learn to be a scribe, so that I could have a trade even if I chose to leave later."

[thewidewideworld]

"It sounds like it was a good place for you. Even if it would deprive the world of this." He presses his lithe body against Athelstan's stronger one, their skin warm where it touches.

[athelstanthescribe]

"I might have learned to be happy as a farmer", he says with a small shrug, moving close against Sinric. "A little plot of land, a wife and children... but I would never have seen the world."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric ducks his head, hiding his pretty eyes behind the fall of gold. "I don't believe in God, Athelstan. I've tried but I can't. But I do believe in fate, and this place, meeting you as affirmed that belief."

"Which means this," he takes Athelstan's hand and pressed it over his heart, "Was meant to be. Just as this," he presses Athelstan's hand gently back to his own heart, "Was meant for Ragnar. I don't believe you would have been happy as a farmer."