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The hall was hot and stuffy, the press of celebratory bodies within and their combined noise and merry making having turned the air thick and stifling. It had been pleasant at first, but now did little more than incubate Thorfinn’s irritableness. After the third confused drunk of the evening had attempted to tackle him─ whether they had been looking for a fight or had simply mistaken him for someone else he neither knew or cared─ he’d sought out Canute in the vague hope that he may provide a shred of sanity at the heart of the hubbub. Instead, he was tackled successfully by the fourth drunk of the evening.
“Did nobody water your wine, or are you just that much of a lightweight?” Grunting as he helped steady the swaying prince now clinging to his shoulder, he shot a wary glance around the room. The last thing he needed would be for Bjørn or Askeladd to see this and draw conclusions. He’d caught them watching before and he didn’t much care for what that might imply.
“You’re rude.” Canute spoke with his head leaned in close to Thorfinn’s neck and shoulder; close enough that his breath, hot and wine scented, hit his skin like a blush. Although he’d made an accusation, he didn’t sound especially displeased. Thorfinn didn’t feel he had the same gift for words as Canute seemed to, but if he were forced to describe it the word ‘content’ seemed like a probable fit. Not having much to dispute with this analysis of his character, Thorfinn frowned as he adjusted his grip on him and began to steer him out towards the cool air of the outside.
They made for an odd form sidling through the packed hall, Canute slumped awkwardly over Thorfinn’s shoulder, him being a good few inches taller than his current protector. Regardless, they made it out relatively unhassled, and Thorfinn made very little show of depositing his highness into a snowbank. The cold air hit them like a storm wave upon exiting the hall. After the initial shock it became refreshing, although Thorfinn knew that before too long the cold would start to bite and they’d need to move indoors again. For now though, it could hardly do Canute any harm to cool off and, with any luck, sober up enough to move without Thorfinn’s aid.
Not feeling the need to talk, Thorfinn let him sit for almost a minute in relative silence. The noise from the hall drifted out to them as a low background thrum; nothing more than a slurry of conversation coloured in warm tones, the vibrant and drunken joy having seeped into it like honey into bread.
“You know I hear them.” Thorfinn looked down to where Canute was sprawled, inelegant in the snow. He looked smaller than usual, his big blue eyes radiating an odd kind of vulnerability that Thorfinn wasn’t comfortable with.
“Hear ‘em what?” He had no idea what Canute was talking about.
“What they call me. What they still call me.” Letting out a heavy sigh, Canute let his head drop back into the snow with, not seeming to care about getting his long golden hair mussed or damp. Thorfinn felt an odd urge to correct this behaviour, the source of which he couldn’t satisfactorily pin. Something that perfect shouldn’t be ruined so readily, but it was Canute’s hair and Canute’s doing, so what did he care?
“What, Freyja?” He’d stopped listening to that line of conversation a while ago when it had veered away from crude jokes into cruder speculation. Cannute nodded, letting himself relax back into the snowbank as his eyes slid shut. He would have been very beautiful if it weren’t for his rumpled hair, his remaining drunken flush, and the knowledge that he’d most definitely be wet and cold when he eventually stood up. “How much have you been listening.”
“Enough.” The lazy contentedness was gone now, as was the tiny smile Thorfinn hadn’t properly registered was there until it had gone. Now he sounded nothing but morose. “I’d laugh if it weren’t so fucking awful.”
The casual profanity made Thorfinn start, having never heard the prince use that kind of language before. He hadn’t even been aware he knew that word. Then again, if he’d been listening to Askeladd’s band he would have picked up that much, and more besides.
“I don’t think they would, y’know. They’d be scared shitless to actually try.” That much was true, at least. The men were mostly talk in this department, as he’d found out and perhaps enforced once or twice over the last year with a few of the fresher recruits. Unlike him, however, he was more or less certain that any attempt to tamper with Canute would earn more than a stern word from Askeladd himself. Canute was business, after all.
Canute made a non-committal noise. Opening his eyes, he gazed up at the sky, the stars reflecting in the pale blue of his irises in a way that caught Thorfinn’s attention like nothing ever had before.
“I like men.” He spoke flatly, dispassionately, as if admitting a deep grievance. Thorfinn thought this over for a moment, letting the admission hang in the air, much like the foggy form of the sigh Canute heaved into the night shortly after. He thought about all the men he’d ever known, about how they had acted, both towards him and in general terms, how almost all of them had caused him some kind of grief, or injury. He thought long and hard about every ounce of his own mistreatment, and everything else he’d seen forged by the hands and minds of men, and came to a clear conclusion.
“I don’t.” he said gruffly, shrugging his hood closer around himself.
“Oh.” Canute stiffened, turning his head away as if ashamed, his wet hair sticking to his cheek to create an untidy loop. “I thought… Nevermind.”
Thorfinn felt lost at this response, unsure what Canute had taken from his words which he hadn’t intended to put there.
“Help me up. I wish to go back inside. I’m cold.” The change in tone to something approaching a clipped and impersonal order after experiencing something more human and personable felt like a slap. Wordlessly, he helped haul Canute up out of the snow, where his clothing had indeed started to soak unpleasantly. His hand felt chill in his palm, and he strongly wished to hold onto it until it was warm once again. Canute tugged himself free once he had regained what was left of his balance, still nowhere close to sober, but no longer quite so far gone either.
“Don’t speak of this.” He warned. His head ducked, he pushed his way past the bewildered Thorfinn and made his way back into the hall.
Standing alone, out in the cold, under the bright night sky, Thorfinn tried desperately to find an anchor on his thoughts. He didn’t know why he felt so wounded by this interaction, especially as no blade had been drawn, and no blood had been spilled. Not so much as a threat had been leveled, and yet his chest ached. Something in him demanded he go after the prince, grab him by the arm and shake him until the answers to his unformed questions came tumbling out… but he contained it. Instead, he simply stood alone, out in the snow with nothing more than stars and nebulus questions.