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Aelflith owned one thing in the world. Her clothes were not hers, nor was her single thin blanket. The bowls she ate from were not hers, nor even was her life. But tucked away in a dark corner, where no one would see it, she kept her one possession, treasured above all else. Her statue of the Hawk.
She had made it herself, carved it from a stolen piece of firewood, with a knife that she had been beaten for even touching. You could buy statues of him, the stall in the market that sold shrines and sacred statues carried a few, small things of wood or iron, cheap enough that a slave might afford one if his master ever gave him tips. She couldn’t even dream of being able to afford one, and had her master been the kind to give gifts to his slaves, she would have spent every coin on food. But she thought the Hawk would not mind that her little figure was poorly made with stolen tools. He, of all the gods, would understand that.
Every night, before she slept, she would creep up into the rafters where she kept it, and pray. When she could, she bought gifts, pretty flowers or stones she had found when her work took her to the garden. It was traditional to offer food at shrines, but the lore whispered in the barracks said that he did not take gifts of anything that could be needed. That he understood that slaves had nothing and would not deprive them.
She was hiding up there in the rafters, too afraid that the master might come for her a second time to risk returning to her palet. Up here at least she could feel safe, lick her wounds in private.
She wasn’t asleep, the precariousness of her perch keeping her from falling into true sleep, but nor was she really awake, to exhausted to be really aware of her surroundings.
“Nice. Good hiding spot.”
She would have fallen if it weren’t for the strong arm which wrapped around her shoulders and kept her in place.
“Careful kid, it’s splat city down there.”
He didn’t look like his statues, not really. He was shorter, more heavily muscled, and the bird’s head of his carvings was a gleaming silver helmet rather than part of him. But he carried with him an aura of power, and age, and sympathy. There was no mistaking him for anything other than a god.
She tried to kneel, but she was already sitting and his arm was still around her shoulders. She settled for averting her eyes and lowering her head, like she did around nobility.
The Hawk laughed. “You can look at me you know, I’m not going to put out your eyes or anything. Seriously, I don’t know why you people refuse to look at me. You can’t even see my ugly face!”
“You’re a god,” she pointed out doubtfully. He wasn’t acting like she’d expected a god to act.
“I’m a slave. The Slave God. The clue’s in the name. We’re all slaves here. So how about you stop averting your eyes like you think I’m going to hit you, and we talk about why you’ve been calling me, yeah?”
“You’re truly a slave?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking. She knew the legends of course, but she hadn’t really believed them. After all, who could enslave a god?
“I truly am. You know, most slaves have a Loki figure on their shrine as well.” He crouched, picking up the tiny wooden figure and turning it around. “It’s weird seeing a shrine to me alone.”
She wonders if she’s done wrong, if she’s offended him, or his master. If he’ll get in trouble for this. It’s an odd thought to be having about a god. She wants to laugh at the sheer incongruity of it. “I didn’t want any masters here,” she admits. “And I never really believed…”
“That a god could be a slave? I’d be a pretty useless god of slaves if I didn’t know what it was like, wouldn’t I?”
“You’re god of archers too.”
“Yeah. A lot of people weren’t happy about that.” He grins. “Archers, mostly. And Tyr. Tyr was not happy. Loki thought it was hilarious.”
“I meant, why not… why not fight? Free yourself? You’re a warrior. You carry the greatest bow in the nine realms.”
He came and sat beside her, heels drumming against the rafter as he stared down at the hall. “I wasn’t born a slave. I chose it. I chose my master, and I chose to bow.”
“Are you going to tell me I should be glad to have a roof over my head, or that it’s not my place to judge my master?” she demanded, heart sinking.
The Hawk pulls back as though he’s been struck. “Fuck no. I just said, I chose to bow. Just ‘cos I like being a slave, doesn’t mean I think it’s okay for anyone else to be, not if they’re forced. If they’re a criminal, that’s different, but you’re not a criminal.”
“My father was. He committed the terrible crime of trying to defend his homeland against the All-father. That’s crime enough.”
“Not for me. I’m here to help.”
It takes a moment for the words to really sink in, for her to really understand, because for all her faith and her prayers, she never really thought her prayers would be answered. Prayers don’t truly get answered, not when they’re the prayers of a scrawny slave girl who gets beaten for inattentiveness and hides from her master. But the Hawk is here, ancient and powerful and kind, sitting beside her and listening to her, like no master ever listens, listening like they’re equals.
“Now I could kill your master,” the Hawk says, conversationally. “But that son of his looks like a nasty piece of work, so probably that wouldn’t help much. I suppose I could appear to him in a divine vision and tell him to lay off, but since he’s not a slave or an archer, he probably wouldn’t listen. And Loki wouldn’t do it for me, because he’s a dick.”
It’s casual, the insult to his divine master dropped into speech like it’s nothing, and Aelflith draws in a breath of surprise.
“What, did you not know that? He’s the god of mischief and trickery, the dickness is pretty much inherent,” the Hawk says, sounding amused.
“Won’t he hear you?” she asks, and he laughs, real and full of warm amusement, nothing mocking in his tone.
“Oh, Loki knows exactly what I think of him,” the Hawk says cheerfully. “I make sure to tell him regularly, stop him getting big-headed. After all, as I keep telling him, without Slaves, Masters are completely useless.”
She covers her mouth with her hand, coughs to try and keep from laughing. The last thing she needs is for the Trickster to know she mocked him, but it’s so hard not to relax with the Hawk sitting beside her. She can’t see his face under the helmet, but she knows he’s grinning, can hear it in his voice.
“You’ll teach the child bad habits,” a voice says, low and drawling, coming from everywhere and nowhere. “Anyone would think I’d never bothered to train you at all.”
“Evidently I need a reminder, Sir,” the Hawk says, and Aelflith freezes, her whole body going rigid with terror as she realises the Trickster is there with them. “I thought you were spending the day bitching out Malekith?”
The Trickster materialises before them, standing on nothing, arms folded and a quietly amused smirk on his inhumanly perfect face.
“I grew tired of his pathetic whining. He really is the most odious creature. I think I’ll have to do something about him soon. What do you think, dearest? Shall we stage a coup?”
“It’s been years since we last destabilised an intergalactic government,” the Hawk says. “I was starting to think you were going soft in your old age.”
“Watch your tongue, Barton. You know how I hate having to gag you.” Despite his words, the Trickster doesn’t sound angry. He sounds amused, like this is banter between friends, or even a lover’s game. There’s real affection in the way he looks at the Hawk, and Aelflith thinks maybe she can see why someone might choose slavery, if their master cared for them the way Loki obviously cares for his slave.
“Sorry, sir,” the Hawk says, sounding genuinely contrite, and the can see that for all his jokes, he was serious when he said he was a slave. This man, this god, is his master, and yet they love one another. “What are you doing here though? You said I was allowed out for, you know, god shit.”
“You are. But I’ve been watching this girl for longer than you have. She stole from her master, took a beating, just so she could carve a shrine to you. She has… potential.”
The Hawk pats her arm in what’s obviously meant to be a comforting gesture. “Don’t worry, that’s probably far less ominous than it sounds. He won’t hurt one of mine.”
"As I just told you Barton, I staked a claim on the child long before you took an interest. But you are quite right, I have no intention of harming her. In fact, I intend to give her a gift."
She doesn't want anything from him, not when he sounds like every other master, speaking about her as though she's not there, as though she can't hear him, but she's not stupid enough to say so, gritting her teeth to keep the words inside and staring down at the where the Hawk's hand rests warm and solid on her arm.
"Last time you gave me a gift, I couldn't walk for two days," the Hawk remarks, though he doesn't sound truly worried. She tries to reassure herself that if he really thought she was in danger, he'd warn her. He seems like the kind of slave who'd risk a beating to protect his fellows.
"Jealous, my pet?" the Trickster smirks. "Three hundred years without looking at anyone else, and still you turn into an insecure child at the slightest hint that I might desire another. No, the gift I intend to give this child is one I would never give you. The power to win her freedom."
Aelflith's heart skips a beat, but the Hawk's hand tightens on her thigh, and his voice is tight with worry.
"What are you going to do?"
The Trickster smiles, sweet as honey and sharp as razor blades. "You remember the bilge snipe?"
The Hawk shakes his head. "No."
"I'm disappointed, Barton. How could you have forgotten..."
"I'll never forget that," the Hawk says. "I meant no, I won't let you do that to her."
"You cannot stop me!"
"She is mine," the Hawk says, rising to his feet and taking a threatening step forward onto thin air. "She prayed to me."
"You would defy me for this mortal child?" the Trickster demands.
"I'm her god. If I won't speak up for her, who will?" The Hawk is tense, shoulders stiff and voice full of fear and anger. Aelflith wants to disappear into the earth, terrified of being caught in the middle of a fight between gods.
"You will pay for this," the Trickster says, in a voice as cold as blizzards.
The Hawk relaxes, his shoulders dropping and his head tilting. "I'm counting on it."
The Trickster laughs, apparently delighted at his slave’s defiance. "What did I say, Barton? You will never stop fighting." He smiles, warm and affectionate. "I will see you at home." And he vanishes.
The Hawk slumps back beside her with a sigh, and unbuckles his helmet, pulling it off to reveal an open friendly face, attractive in a very mortal way that's a relief to look at after the Trickster's godly perfection. "Like I said, he's a dick. But he means well, believe it or not."
"Will you be in a lot of trouble?"
"Oh, probably. But you don't need to worry about me. I wouldn't have agreed to be his if I didn't think I could take everything he could throw at me. Now, I’ve got an idea for how to help you, if you’ll let me."
She nods, and the Hawk takes her head in his hands, bending it gently towards himself, and placing a quick kiss on her forehead. It tingles, strange rather than unpleasant, and then suddenly there's a flair of light, like lighting a candle in the darkness.
She blinks, disoriented, as her eyes gradually adjust. The room looks the same, dark apart from the fire smouldering in the hearth far below, no apparent source for whatever had blinded her.
"What did you do?"
"Back on Midguard, before I was a god, I used to be called Hawkeye," he says. "I've given you the gift of sight. You will see truly, no matter how complete or clever the lie. Loki himself couldn't deceive you now. It was him who gave me the idea. Never stop fighting. And what's a slave’s weapon? Secrets. Whispers. All the things we see because people think we don't have eyes or brains."
She looks at him then, really looks, sees all the little things she'd have missed with her old eyes. The pale tracery of scars peeping out from below his shirt, too even to have been put there by an accident, obviously deliberate, torture or art. The calluses on his right hand and the disparity in the muscle between his left and right arms that marks him as an archer. The warm light in his eyes and calm in his face that shows him to be truly content. A million small things, that together paint a detailed picture of the kind of man the Hawk really is.
“This is amazing,” she whispers. Her forehead still tingles, and she wonders if she’ll have a mark there now, a permanent sign of where she was touched by her god. She can feel tears welling up in the corners of her brand new eyes, blurring her perfect vision. “Thank you. So much. What do you want me to do with them?”
“Whatever you want,” he tells her with a warm smile. She’s been imagining his smile the whole time he wore his helm, but now she sees she got it slightly wrong. It’s a little wider than she’d imagined, revealing slightly crooked teeth, and almost unbearably warm and affectionate. She has to turn away, fearing she’ll be blinded if she continues to look at him. “Hey.” He catches her hand, interpreting her glance away as fear or reluctance. “This is a gift. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. You don’t have to do anything at all. It’s up to you.”
In all her seventeen years, no one has ever given Aelflith a choice before. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and wonderful to think that a god, her god, trusts her enough to give her this freedom.
“I won’t let you down,” she says, her voice so quiet even she can barely hear it. “Whatever trouble you get in with your master, I’ll try and make it worthwhile.”
“Look at me,” the Hawk says softly. He’s still smiling, but smaller now, less blindingly bright. Baked embers rather than a lit torch. “Smile.” She does, the corners of her mouth twitching up to match his own. “There. Now it’s been worth it.”
The Hawk stands, slotting the bird-faced helmet back into place, and looks down at her. With her new eyes he glows like starlight, unquestionably divine, powerful and timeless and kind.
“There’s nothing wrong with bowing,” he tells her. “But it should always be your choice. Remember that.”
And then he’s gone, stepping out into nothingness, swallowed up by the Universe, returned to whatever magical realm he and the Trickster call home, leaving Aelflith alone on the rafters with her new eyes, and her home-made shrine, and for the first time in her life, hope.