Chapter Text
Aslaug was not a normal child.
She had known that from the very beginning. It started with her ‘imaginary friend,’ as her nanny called it. He was always talking to her and she could talk to him aloud or in her mind. He sometimes made her move without her consent, and sometimes he did things that got her into trouble.
‘ He’s dangerous. ’
‘ No, he’s not, ’ Aslaug protested.
‘ I wonder if he has anything valuable on him .’
Her imaginary friend liked to steal things that seemed valuable and he was also very aggressive when he didn’t get his way. He threw objects at those he didn’t like, objects hurled from an invisible source; he made her afraid and skeptical of those he felt she shouldn’t be associated with. Aslaug was far from helpless though. She fought off her imaginary friend when she realized he was being troublesome. She could suppress him and release him when she so chose, and sometimes she did need his help with fights. Sometimes she did agree with him and found joy in harming others. Then, she pulled herself back and her guilt and conscious returned to give her a punch of dread for when her uncle found out.
Aslaug loved her uncle. He had taken her in after something happened to her parents - something that he promised he would explain when she grew older.
‘ Don’t trust him ,’ her imaginary friend warned.
She ignored him. Aslaug’s uncle was a wise man who always looked after her, keeping her from going out of control while also encouraging her to be who she was rather than scolding her for things that her imaginary friend was responsible for. She looked up to him, she didn’t care that she didn’t know everything about him.
Aslaug lived in her uncle’s mansion all her life. She always liked going outside, running as far away as she could, but she always returned home eventually. Though her uncle was hesitant about it, Aslaug grew up learning how to fight and working out to become as strong as the boys around her. She had a private tutor for her education, but she had to go to playdates with other nobles along with her uncle’s daughter and son - Aslaug’s cousins who were more like her brother and sister. She had another cousin on the way, but for now she had a baby brother and a sister two years younger than her and two years older than their baby brother.
Many people mistook Aslaug for her uncle’s eldest child, and often that made the adults judge her every move. She didn’t like being expected to do things, but even when they learned she wasn’t her uncle’s child, they always gave her an odd glance before changing the subject that she should be setting a proper role model for her sister, her brother, and her sibling-to-be. Aslaug had a feeling there was something else they were thinking about when they heard she wasn’t her uncle’s child, and yet she couldn’t find any direct answers just by asking. No one took a little girl seriously, and her uncle was determined to keep things a secret, obviously.
Aslaug was said to have an…explosive personality. She was quick to temper, and she got what she wanted or everyone in a ten-meter radius would know her wrath - quite literally. Her uncle tried to hide it, but when Aslaug got pissed off, she allowed her urges to get the best of her and listened to the voice inside her head telling her to get revenge. Her imaginary friend would say he would help her, lifting objects within a certain range and even being able to slice through things within that range. The range started small at a couple meters, but as Aslaug grew and her tempers became greater and greater, she ended up being able to use her imaginary friend’s power and her range expanded to ten meters by the time she was ten years old. Her imaginary friend was a separate mind from her since Aslaug could lift things she concentrated on while her imaginary friend acted independently. Aslaug got exhausted from her powers at first, but she wanted to make sure that no one ever saw her as weak, so she worked her powers and her body alike in her free time.
On top of that, Aslaug could accidentally activate invincibility, preventing her from feeling any pain. This skill could be useful when she was fighting, but it could also have the adverse effect of pissing her off. She liked feeling pain, the sting of being alive and surviving the harsh circumstances. She quickly taught herself how to turn the invincibility off at will, while at the same time she learned to turn it in within microseconds so that if ever she needed it, she could have it as a quick reaction. So far, there had been nothing that could harm her, internally or externally, when she activated her invincibility. She wanted to keep working to test the limits of her invincibility, but at the same time she wanted to build up her collection of scars. She found scars beautiful, and though her uncle protested, she enjoyed making those around her afraid when they say the destruction she went through with glee.
Despite her occasional brutal nature, academics were very important to Aslaug. Studies were something she took seriously, but her imaginary friend less so. He was always trying to distract her and whined to her when she was trying to work. She wanted to make sure she was smarter than everyone else and so no one ever knew more than her. Her imaginary friend said that was impossible, but that didn’t stop Aslaug from accumulating all the wisdom she could.
“Get out of my sight, little boy,” Aslaug growled. Ironically, the boy she had just beat up had been at least twice her size and was the leader of an entire gang of boys. “And if I ever see you again, you’re a dead man. Especially if you catch me when I’m pissed off - or worse, when you yourself piss me off.”
The entire gang had run.
Aslaug enjoyed hanging out in the slums of the city where the noble families dare not tread. The middle and lower-class citizens were always more fun. She gained a bit of a bad reputation. Some people thought she was a spoiled brat for presiding over the weaker kids, but Aslaug made sure to prove that she hated being in a noble family and she had gained her strength on her own. Her imaginary friend always liked to help her and encouraged her violence, but Aslaug always had a bit of pity left in her and refrained from going too far, no matter how her imaginary friend pushed her.
Aslaug was always confused about her emotions. It was exhausting keeping her imaginary friend’s urges in check. Sometimes she did wonder why she resisted him, but she just figured it was because getting in unnecessary trouble might attract the wrong attention. Then again, she and her imaginary friend both did want to find some challenges.
Aslaug faced more than just her imaginary friend, of course. She learned that she could do something no one else could: understand most animals that she came into contact with. No, the birds and the bees didn’t speak English to her or anything, but she often understood the messages they were trying to send. She just had a knack for guessing right. Some called her imaginary and delusional, and as a child that could be excused, perhaps. She once suspected that the reason a bird had attacked one of her visiting friends was because the bird had something to protect - babies maybe. It had felt like nothing but a daydream, a hypothetical fantasy, but in the end one of the adults had said that she’d been right and there was a bird’s nest nearby where the attack happened. Aslaug had shrugged it off, but next time she had fed a squirrel some food because she had just known it was hungry, and she felt its gratitude without hearing any real words. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she had never been wrong before. Of course, that was just a small little quirk, nothing special, nothing supernaturally powerful. She certainly didn’t want to make it seem like she was some sort of damsel princess who needed to show kindness to other animals so that they would fight her battles for her. Nothing that she sometimes didn’t enjoy the quiet of peaceful resolutions. But she much more enjoyed a fight.
Aslaug had her first blackout when she was eleven. She had been traveling in the more dangerous areas of the slums, enjoying herself after a few fights. She had met some other supernaturals today. Her powers had always been chalked up to the gods and such, but it wasn’t like there weren’t other rare cases with blessed or cursed children or even just empowered by some kind of rare magical item such as a powerful sword or a magic shield or an enchanted gemstone. She had faced just a few so-called heroes who had thought she was some kind of danger to the city and had tried to kill her. Dumb shits didn’t know what they were doing, just rookies with no experience trying to explore a world they didn’t understand.
Aslaug rubbed her eyes. It was getting late. She was sure it had passed the middle of the night already. Her imaginary friend always exhausted her, but she hadn’t had food in a while. She donated a lot of gold to the slums and the bazaar since she had money to waste and she liked the gross food of the slums. After growing up on nothing but posh food that made her and her imaginary friend want to gag, they both found the raw meat delicious in particular. Some said that wasn’t healthy for her. Aslaug often gave them a middle finger.
She finished some kind of meat on a stick - she didn’t care what it was, but it was good - and twirled the sharp stick between her fingers as she walked. No one was awake at that hour, not anymore. She enjoyed the quiet. Even her imaginary friend seemed to be napping at that time. Maybe he’d fallen asleep from the serene atmosphere as well.
“Hey little girl. What’s a sweetie like you doing out here at this hour?”
Aslaug used her stick to pick some meat from her teeth and then ate it. “You talking to me?”
Aslaug couldn’t tell if she was excited to hit puberty and for her voice to deepen. She wanted to sound more intimidating, but at the same time she loved it when she was underestimated when she could activate her high-pitched, sweet, squished, baby voice and convince her enemies she was just a little girl.
“Yeah. You wanna come home with us, little one? We promise we’ll give you a nice night.”
Aslaug recognized the lecherous tone in his voice. Three men, idiots. She’d been warned about unsavory men by her uncle and her tutor and her nanny and such, but rarely ever did Aslaug face troubles because her imaginary friend or she herself could kick any man’s ass without even lifting a finger with their powers. Aslaug wasn’t sure if it was planned or not, but her imaginary friend did not respond when she told him he was free to kill. Often her imaginary friend’s bloodlust was sated and kept in check because Aslaug let him loose on those who deserved some retribution and the world would be better off without them.
Perhaps it was because her imaginary friend was genuinely asleep inside her, perhaps he was toying with her, perhaps he had done it on purpose. Aslaug faced fear that night that she hadn’t felt in her entire life. Because she didn’t have the voice in her head, she felt like she’d lost a piece of herself for just that night, a small, subtle difference, but enough that she couldn’t use her power. She was pissed off though, and helplessness only made her more frustrated. After all her preparations and planning and effort, she was reduced to a weak little girl just like every other little girl her age. She wasn’t like every other girl; she would prove it. She didn’t need help, she wasn’t just a toy to be played with by any adult who thought they knew better than her, and she didn’t care if she had to tear someone’s throat out with her bare teeth to prove it.
So that’s what she did.
She feigned paralysis from fear, she nearly let the men do what they pleased, and then she struck. She bit the first man’s wrist and tore at his forearms where she knew he had a lot of veins. He released her with a scream, and while they were distracted, she kicked the other in the jaw with everything her small foot could muster. She didn’t feel any pain as she struck hard enough to shatter her own foot but instead snapped the second man’s jaw. She had her right arm and her legs free, so she had the mobility to lunge right at the man who had been containing her left arm - now loosening his grip from shock at what happened to his comrades.
Aslaug remembered tearing into his throat, biting down into the soft flesh as her teeth sharpened to become strong enough to rip muscle from bone. After that, things became blurry. After the fact, she would mostly remember that first bite into the man’s neck - the blood pooling in her mouth as her tongue drank up the satisfying tang, the delicious feeling of her teeth easily puncturing flesh, and the feeling of the man’s terror surging through her as she relished his last moments living in fear.
Her imaginary friend later explained he had taken care of everything, washing her clean of any evidence of that night. She had woken up soaking wet in her room and had just gone back to sleep, deciding she’d deal with it later.
Her imaginary friend would do it again, take over everything when Aslaug lost all control. She was accused of things she genuinely didn’t remember, and while there were those very adept at seeing through lies, there was often never proof left to fully accuse her. Her other half was very thorough.
Aslaug quickly became isolated with her destructive personality warding off any potential friends. There were some who wanted to be her friend to avoid getting on her bad side and to be known as Aslaug’s friend to ward off any potential aggressors attempting to challenge them, but Aslaug knew it was all selfish. Some people would use Aslaug’s name to intimidate innocents, and Aslaug personally didn’t believe in harming or challenging those who hadn’t crossed her or didn’t deserve it. No matter how much her imaginary friend pushed, she wouldn’t allow him to hurt those who didn’t have a reason to be taught a lesson.
Aslaug grew up faster than most children. She had a rapid growth spurt around her 13 th birthday and easily looked 18. She was taller than most girls both her age and fully grown. She was as tall as her uncle and she was slowly overtaking him. The man was getting old and many assumed Aslaug would be taking over his position at the head of the house. There were some cultures that women were only useful for being married off, but the majority of societies valued a woman’s power even without a husband beside her. Women - even ones that weren’t as manly and chaotic as Aslaug - were known as equally or even more important than men. They were intelligent, cunning, unpredictable, and often valued if a man wanted to get anywhere in the world. If a powerful woman took interest in you, you knew you were just as blessed as any wealthy man.
Aslaug had no intentions of becoming the head of her family. She didn’t want that kind of responsibility and though she didn’t need to get married, she knew she’d be pushed to be wed once she became head of a house. Her little sister was still a regular, small, child, and so she could hardly take over in Aslaug’s place should something happen to their uncle. She made sure that she watched him carefully to make sure the old man didn’t drop dead and screw her over in her plans to remain a free spirit. Aslaug wasn’t going to risk being tied down, and despite her unwavering attitude, she didn’t like having to be asked to do something and having to deny someone something. Overall, she liked to avoid being questioned in the first place.
“Fáfnir…”
‘ Finally, ’ her imaginary friend murmured.
“That’s his name,” she agreed.
She didn’t need a verbal communication. She just knew. She and Fáfnir were always together inside her, sharing feelings and emotions and though they often conflicted, it didn’t make either of them immune to each other’s thoughts and feelings, even if Fáfnir didn’t understand Aslaug’s sympathies and Aslaug didn’t understand Fáfnir’s constant paranoia and obsessiveness.
When Aslaug could finally put a name to her imaginary friend, she started to get curious as to why when she told her tutor about it the woman seemed on edge. After Fáfnir showed Aslaug what book in the library to investigate, she found out that Fáfnir was a dragon. Not much was really gathered about him, but he was somehow important. The dragon part explained Fáfnir’s temper and inhuman nature, but she still didn’t understand why no one would answer her about Fáfnir in her home. Her uncle had probably forbidden it for his stupid ‘protective’ reasons, so, she decided to seek out answers outside of her home.
The city was the best place for Aslaug to find her answers. In this world, storytellers were valued for both entertainment purposes and myth-seekers. Stories like that of Fáfnir were bound to be told, even if it led to nothing but a wild goose chase. A tale such as Beowulf was still famous from farther north, and often the only way to learn of a tale was through oral tradition. Aslaug and her friends had laughed over the idea that they should write down the stories, but the bards would probably wreak havoc when they no longer had jobs.
Aslaug went down into a tavern called “ The Hanged Raven ” where only the roughest would ever survive. The first time Aslaug came here, she had known the place was only for the rowdiest. Her first day she had gotten into a barfight and kicked the asses of at least a dozen men. She had quickly been welcomed afterwards. Apparently barfights were common and even expected of visitors, since all of the furniture was reinforced and there was an entire backroom of backup furniture just in case. Money was far from an issue since only crooks ever came here with plenty of coin to spend or else they were thrown out without a second chance. It was also a great place for gambling money, secrets, and stories.
“I want to know about the dragon Fáfnir,” Aslaug declared.
Like most dragons, Fáfnir was known to have a large treasure under his protection and was a bit of a hoarder. Aslaug rolled her eyes and realized that was why Fáfnir was so attracted to anything valuable and shiny. She should’ve guessed when she’d learned he was a dragon. She also learned about the man who managed to slay the dragon, best known as Lord Siegfried. Now that was a tale she already knew. She returned to her home and locked herself in the library as she researched the tale of Lord Siegfried. She had once read it before, but she didn’t remember the true details.
Among the long tale of Siegfried’s background, Aslaug found he was also called Sigurd, Sigvǫrðr, and many other names depending on where in the land the language depicted his name. Best known for slaying the dragon Fáfnir and being cursed by the ring Andvaranaut. That is the newest information Aslaug could find documented in their library. Everything else went back into the mythos of the dragon Fáfnir, and the only reason the man was even documented at all was because Fáfnir’s slaying was monumental enough to be considered document worthy.
Fáfnir’s family had been given a treasure from Odin and Loki and Hœnir - Aslaug remembered him as maybe one of the gods that helped Odin create humans? For some reason, the gods had wronged Fáfnir’s family and therefore repaid them with wealth. Fáfnir had killed his father to take all the gold for himself and ventured into the wilderness to keep his fortune because he had become so ill-natured and greedy. He somehow transformed into a serpent or a dragon - sources disagree because no one who came into contact with him ever came out alive. He breathed poison into the land around him so no one would go near him and his treasure, wreaking terror in the hearts of the people. Then, Fáfnir’s brother, who both wanted the treasure and the glory of slaying a dragon so powerful as Fáfnir and reaping the benefits, plotted his revenge by instructing Sigurd - Aslaug’s father - to come up with a cunning plan to defeat the dragon.
‘ I think he was your father. It’s hard to keep track, really, considering the last time we met he plunged a blade through my heart .’
‘ Gee, that’s super helpful, Fáfnir. ’
Sigurd, like most men of this world, had been born into a very destructive life, where it was near impossible to have a family that went beyond your parents. Always there was some kind of family killings or revenge plots going on somehow. Sigurd was known for being a descendant of a family of greatness, prophecies and stuff. He was known as an almost invincible warrior, and so Fáfnir’s brother had conscripted him to kill Fáfnir. With a little advice from Odin, Sigurd did just that, collecting Fáfnir’s blood and carving out his heart. Before Fáfnir died, he warned Sigurd that all who held his treasure were fated to die, but Sigurd had simply said that all men must die one day anyway, and it is the dream of many men to be wealthy until that dying day, so he would take the gold without fear. What Sigurd and Fáfnir both did not deduce was that the treasure - particularly the ring Andvaranaut - cursed the wearer to not only die, but to ruin their lives in the worst way possible and die in the most painful of ways. Even Loki himself had feared the curse of this ring, which was why he gave it away so eagerly when he had a debt to pay. Fáfnir’s brother planned to kill Sigurd once he had cooked Fáfnir’s heart to be eaten, but Sigurd tasted Fáfnir’s blood while cooking the heart and gained the speech of birds, learning of the plot to kill him and instead killed Fáfnir’s brother instead, eating some of the heart and saving the rest for later when he would marry.
“Lady Aslaug?”
Aslaug looked up from the book of myths to the doors of the library. “What is it?”
“Your uncle wishes to speak with you. Right now, my lady.”
She sighed and stuck a bookmark into place, closing the book and hiding it in a small alcove filled with books. She didn’t want anyone else taking the book before she could finish it, and there was no way she’d remember where it was supposed to be placed. The library staff would have it in their inventory for weeks if she let them attempt to sort it out. They were slow to reorganized checked out books. There was one book that Aslaug had found, read, and returned, and it still hadn’t been replaced to its proper place over a year later.
“You must be married, Aslaug,” her uncle insisted. “There is no more getting around it. You’ve nearly reached twenty years of age without any interests, and I’ve allowed it for as long as I could.”
“For the hundredth time, I don’t want to be married. Who says that I need to be? I’m not the head of this house and I don’t want a husband. It shouldn’t even matter! Just because it’s tradition doesn’t mean I need to follow it out of peer pressure.”
It wasn’t the first nor would it be the last time Aslaug and her uncle argued about her fate. There were certain things that were to be expected of her because she was raised by a noble, and that included marriage. She wasn’t expected to be simply a housewife and follow her husband’s every command, her uncle assured her, but she wasn’t sure that being tied down at all was in her best interests. Any husband would just be an annoyance. She didn’t tie herself down with many friends , let alone lovers. She has those she’s fond of, but she wouldn’t be too down if she lost them.
Relationships weren’t easy when she had a constant voice in her head that she talked to and dealt with on a constant basis with no breaks. She barely had enough sanity to keep one person (person- ish ) in her life at every moment of her existence. She didn’t have the time or the effort for someone with an actual body to bother her rather than just in her head. If Fáfnir had a body and she had to physically interact with him, Aslaug had a feeling she’d chuck herself off the nearest cliff and hope she could have a quick death.
“At the very least, look for suitors who match your interests,” her uncle urged. “There must be a man who will marry and fail to impede your daily routine.”
She sighed. “I’ll try, uncle, but I won’t make any promises. If such a man could possibly exist, it’s highly unlikely we’d ever meet.”
She agreed to at the very least look at other men during the parties she attended rather than hiding in her usual corner warding off guests attempting to make contact with her just by glaring at them. She observed how men interacted with others - elders, men, women, children, the servants, etc. Many of them were generic, put together, respectful. Some looked just as tired of social interaction as Aslaug felt on a constant basis, but then again, they were still making an effort to try. Others were pure assholes flaunting their social skills and using their family name to get their way in the world.
‘ We should vaporize that one ,’ Fáfnir growled.
“No vaporizing,” Aslaug chided under her breath, making sure no one could see her speak. It was far easier to speak to Fáfnir out loud because in her own mind Fáfnir was stronger. A mind was a complex thing, and Aslaug would need more practice before she was ready to speak with Fáfnir in her mind on equal terms. “In a public setting,” she added.
‘ No one will know it’s you if you use your power. ’
Fáfnir and Aslaug had recently been working on concentrating Aslaug’s more deadly power with a 13-meter radius to be more precise than just a destructive force. Aslaug was learning to lift objects within her range without moving the rest of her body. What she liked to do was imagine an extra pair or so of hands that lifted and moved things as she commanded, feeling the objects in range that she had control over. Fáfnir, on the other hand, wanted to use the power more destructively. He could slice anything within the range, any number of times, no resistance no matter what material his target was made of. He could instantaneously chop a man to a million pieces from 10 meters away and still have 3 meters left in the radius. That’s why Fáfnir was becoming harder and harder to control, and why Aslaug once again didn’t want to even consider marrying someone and having to confess Fáfnir and his odd circumstances. She also didn’t want anyone innocent to get hurt. Anyone Aslaug managed to care about, she knew Fáfnir would purposefully target just for the sake of irking her.
“We’re not killing anyone,” she muttered, taking a sip of her alcoholic drink.
Alcohol, like most poisons, went through her extremely quickly because her metabolism and immune system were apparently also hyped up with power beyond any of her peers. Her healing factor was related to her invincibility, meaning she had learned to separately turn it on and off for the sake of gaining a few scars.
Most of her events went like that, arguing around with Fáfnir and waiting out the night as best she could. Hell, most of her entire life went like that when she was home. That’s why she left so often, but her uncle and the staff always knew that she’d be back.
“I’ve arranged for you to meet someone,” her uncle announced. “Now before you protest-” Aslaug’s mouth had already been open with an argument forming between her lips “-he has agreed to do this only in title and hopes that you’ll understand he is just as reluctant for marriage as you. Your lives can and will remain relatively the same except you will have to interact on occasions in public. He’s not intrusive, but he’s a hard worker, and he trusts that you are the same.”
Aslaug scoffed. “Like anyone around here doesn’t know about my reputation and handling myself.”
“Just give him a try, Aslaug. He’s a good candidate for the kind of marriage you and he desire - one with very few strings attached. It will also end the hunt for a suitor as well.”
Aslaug couldn’t deny it’d be a good bargain if this guy was truly what her uncle was saying. A man who’d leave her alone most of the time and who’d be just as uncomfortable in social settings as her. They’d get the whole marriage thing out of the way and maybe even get along with each other by the prospect of rarely interacting. She just hoped he wasn’t a dick about when they did have to interact. She knew the aristocratic men who were all work and no play, who were inhumane in their efficiency and boring as ever. She’d accept a neutral man, but if he was a jackass, she might just let Fáfnir free to kick his ass. Aslaug knew she was basically describing the male version of herself, but hey, some psychologist doctor peeps said that the person you hate the most is often yourself. Aslaug didn’t know if that applied to her when she technically had two personalities, but she found that mostly to be true in her case.
As Aslaug prepared to meet her potential husband, she found herself pacing. She couldn’t quite tell why. She’d known about their meeting for days now, and she’d pushed it to the back of her mind up until the few hours she had until he and his entourage arrived. She began to speculate about what he’d be like for her uncle to be so insistent that he was the closest thing she’d get to a perfect match. It wasn’t so much that she had butterflies in her stomach, but she was disturbed by the lack of butterflies in her stomach. Maybe Fáfnir in there ate them or something.
Speaking of Fáfnir, he was hardly being of any use.
‘ If he’s ugly, can I kill him? ’
“Stop it,” Aslaug muttered.
‘ Stop what? ’ Fáfnir asked innocently, but his tone betrayed his true feelings.
Aslaug sighed and ran her fingers through her hair one more time. The servants were rightfully terrified of Aslaug and had been since she was a child. Her nursemaid had been positively traumatized when Aslaug was an infant, she was told. Because she was already anti-social and she had Fáfnir to deal with, she often preferred to be alone, and so she had learned to both dress herself and do her hair and makeup should it be necessary. She was already in a hand-made dress that she’d had to put together because she grew so fast and she’d learned to make clothes that fit her body-type. It was built ready for combat should it be necessary. She put her hair into a braid to keep her hands and mind distracted. Fáfnir thought her hair was stupid and unnecessary and encouraged her to cut it off, but Aslaug enjoyed having it to keep her mind distracted at times. Sometimes people liked to pull on it during brawls, but she made sure to keep it tied up and it never became a real problem since if they were close enough to grab her hair, they were close enough to get punched.
Because the braiding had been so easy, Aslaug began weaving flowers into her hair just to pass the time. Why was she so on edge? Usually this kind of feeling came when she had a bad feeling about a fight - which wasn’t very often. It only came when she was doing something for the first time and worried she got something wrong. Even then, Fáfnir usually encouraged her to punch her way out of any situation, so anxiety was a rare thing. Perhaps it was because this wasn’t a situation she could punch her way out of. She just wanted things to be over with. Pleasing other human beings was stressful, to be sure. Her uncle and the servants were just used to her, and even then, she wasn’t technically pleasing them, only tolerating them, and making sure Fáfnir didn’t kill them.
‘ Perhaps we should eat him if things don’t work out .’
“No.”
‘ Are you afraid he won’t like you? ’
“Of course he won’t like me. There’s very little to like, unless you want a bodyguard intimidation factor from a wife.”
‘ You’re right, perhaps. Abandoned from birth, your uncle’s eager to get rid of you. No one truly values you, Aslaug. Not like I do .’
Aslaug pushed Fáfnir down forcefully and followed her servant out of her room and down the hall. It wasn’t their fault that Aslaug was born into this world how she was. Her parents abandoned her and ended up dying, and now she was being raised by a noble man who just wanted to help her. Unfortunately, existing itself meant she had responsibilities if she wanted to get by in this unfair world. Meaning she needed to get married. Meaning all her hopes of freedom could be sucked away from her in an instant. And Fáfnir didn’t like being contained. Honestly, neither did Aslaug.
Though she’d been to the dining hall on countless occasions, Aslaug found herself nervous to push open the familiar doors. She forced herself to go forward and just get this meeting over with. If she said the world to her uncle after the meeting was over, she’d never have to see this guy again. If she found him acceptable for the marriage, they’d meet each other a couple more times and put up a front of dating before they’d marry.
Only two people were in the large dining hall. Aslaug waved off her servant who bowed and left with the doors banging closed behind her. After all, Aslaug didn’t need a bodyguard to protect her from threats. She was her own bodyguard and had been since she was five.
She walked over to the table and took a seat across from her guest. The head of the table was for the head of the house - two seats for her uncle and his wife. Aslaug and her guest sat on either side of the two seats at the head of the table. Her guest had a servant standing beside him at attention, staring at Aslaug with trepidation. He wasn’t overconfident, but he wasn’t giving away any - or very many, at least - signs of fear. Her guest himself was dressed formally, but the look on his face contradicted the warm tone he should have been holding for their meeting. Aslaug didn’t smile, but then again, she rarely looked very glum either. This boy looked like he’d been chosen to walk into a den of snakes.
He looked younger than Aslaug had expected. No facial hair, but he had clearly surpassed puberty, so he was just well shaven. Hair was brushed back, perhaps a quick attempt at fancying him up, though clearly not done by himself. Perhaps his servant, perhaps his parent who arranged this. He looked up at Aslaug and then down to the table in front of him, as though wishing there were food there so that he’d have something to do.
“Let’s make things quick,” Aslaug said, taking pity on the poor creature. “Why do you think this will work out between us?”
In the large dining hall, her voice echoed against the dead silence that had pervaded the air a moment ago.
Her guest jumped. “I…well you see…we both…” He pursed his lips. “This isn’t coming out right. Ugh, I…where do I start-?”
“From the beginning.”
He shrunk down in his seat as though thoroughly chastised. His servant put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and nodded for him to go ahead. He nodded back to the man standing beside him and sat up straight again.
“My name is Finnegan. I…well, honestly, the only reason I offered to come here is because I heard that if you were to ever get married, there would be no love involved.”
“That’s true. Why would you no want love though? Aren’t most men eager for a wife and children?”
“I…not me.”
The poor thing couldn’t possibly be in Aslaug’s position, closed off from the rest of the world around him. He was too shy and meager and innocent for that.
“You love someone you cannot love then,” she deduced. “And you need me as a stand in so that we have married officially but you can still have your lover without any concern over my feelings.” Both Finnegan and his servant seemed surprised by her quick assessment. She shrugged. “It was the only logical response. I’ll accept those terms, now that I know who you are. Only, however, if you prove to me your love is true, and that you can both handle me and my household.”
“In…what way do you mean that?”
Aslaug used her power and grabbed a fork from across the table at the other end - opposite of where her uncle and his wife would sit. She flung it towards Finnegan, watching his reaction time. Both he and his servant turned their attention towards the small projectile at the same time, much faster than Aslaug predicted. Finnegan’s servant pulled him out of the way and reached to either grab the projectile, or in the worst-case-scenario let it hit him rather than his master. Finnegan, meanwhile, seemed to know his servant’s intentions and knew he was protected. He instead reached for the knife at his empty table set and flung it underhand towards Aslaug with pinpoint accuracy. She stopped it easily with her power, letting it hover right in front of her forehead, aimed well and true.
Aslaug couldn’t help her smile. Both offensive and defensive reactions, automatic, teamwork, protectiveness from both parties. They clearly knew and fought together well even in unfavorable circumstances.
“I like you two. I like you both very much. Clearly, you’ve traveled a long way to get here, because no one I’ve ever met has been through enough to have your level of experience.”
Both of them seemed to snap out of dazes, surprised by her words.
“What are you?” Finnegan asked, his aggressive demeanor instantly gone and replaced by his regular meekness.
Aslaug couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a façade or if he was just genuinely so bi-polar. “It’s a long story, most of it even I don’t know. If you’re willing to listen, I’ll tell you. But first, tell me about this lover of yours. I won’t accept someone who could potentially be a threat to you or I if we’re to continue this arrangement.”
“Oh, um…right.”
Finnegan carefully sat down, his servant tense at his side as he allowed them to resume their conversation. The fork Aslaug had thrown was still in his hand. Aslaug remembered the knife she was holding at her forehead and let it drop gently to the table, an equal distance between the two of them.
“You see…how can I say…the thing is…”
He looked up to his servant and waved his arms, mouthing words he couldn’t seem to fully form as he desperately asked for help. His servant simply nodded for him to tell Aslaug the flat-out truth. Perhaps about the secret behind his forbidden lover. There were so many options; Aslaug was going through them all in her head.
“Ah! Your servant!” she realized.
Both men jumped at her excited outburst. Admittedly, she rarely raised her voice ever, let alone with any enthusiasm to speak of.
“Say no more. I shall make the arrangements. My uncle suggested a dating period. Would a month be proper, do you think?”
Finnegan blinked. “I…did you…um…yeah, that’d be fine.”
“Excellent. I’ll arrange occasional meetings for us to mimic a relationship. If you’re from far away, please, feel free to request lodging in our household. We can integrate it into the story of our meeting. Your servant will, of course, stay with you at all times. If the need should arise, we will buy a separate house under the guise of our family unit so that you may pursue your relationship freely and I can have a home mostly to myself. I have brothers and sisters - cousins, in reality, but I refer to them as kin nonetheless - who will continue my uncle’s line, so there is no need for children. Do any know of your relationship? I must know if I can allow the knowledge to be passed on to my uncle. If not, I will make sure none pry the knowledge from my grasp.”
Both men seemed surprised by Aslaug’s shift in tone.
“How did you…?” Finnegan began.
Aslaug chuckled. “I’m very observant. In any case, I believe this arrangement will work out nicely.”
Finnegan’s servant chuckled. “I told you there was no reason to be so nervous.”
“She nearly killed us with a fork!” Finnegan protested. “Besides, did you see her when she first came in? And what if she hadn’t been so forgiving, huh? A million things could’ve gone wrong!”
His servant just pet the sulking Finnegan on the head, running his fingers through the boy’s short, curly red hair fondly. “What matters is we were lucky enough to have you, Lady Aslaug, be so supportive.”
“Yes, thank you,” Finnegan said. “Oh, and this is Fionn, by the way.”
He bowed. “If we’re sharing tales, I’m not really a servant of his family,” Fionn admitted. “I haven’t been one for long, anyway.”
“He’s actually a prince,” Finnegan said eagerly. “But he ran away because he’s got this terrible family. Our meeting wasn’t very formal…” Fionn shared a fond smile. “…but in the end, here we are. If you’re willing to help us out of this…tough situation, we’ll find a way to repay you in full. I promise.”
Aslaug waved her hand. “Just help me with all the details of our fake marriage and you will owe no such debt. The sooner we can fade into obscurity, the better.”
“Agreed,” Fionn sighed.
Aslaug finally got a good look at the servant and realized he was much more experienced than she’d first assumed. He had a warrior’s build, he had an ancient wisdom in his eyes, and something that perhaps wasn’t entirely human, just like Aslaug. While Aslaug had grown up in a relatively good situation in comparison to any other lifestyle she could’ve had, she knew that Fionn had probably gotten much worse, survived something that he perhaps wasn’t prepared for. Aslaug had never faced a challenge she was truly afraid of. Perhaps the first time Fáfnir had taken over, but even then, Aslaug never had anything happen. Her assailants had died painfully, she had come out without a scratch. Abuse was something she knew existed but never experienced herself. She had made orphans out of many kids who had terrible parental figures.
“So,” Aslaug announced. “Shall we begin?”