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People are affectionate.
It could be words interactively woven into a rug on which they could rest, tales spun and laughter shared. It could be actions, it could be gifts, it could be time spent up late at night in search of another soul. In his travels around the Mediterranean, Hytham had seen many forms of affection between a variety of people, as individuals and as a shared culture. It fascinated him as much as everything else, to observe the cultural norms and social behaviour of people different from himself. It was another piece to the puzzle which came with blending in with the populace. It was only natural that he would observe the same signs when he travelled north.
When it came to tale-spinning, the Norsemen were legendary. He often listened to Sigurd weaving fantastical stories of his home and his family, dripping with an affection as warm as a hearth on a cold winter night. Tales of bravery and courage, heroic deeds and mystical conquests, that painted quite an image of his life before his travels. Beyond his warm and honeyed words, Hytham watched the way Sigurd slung an arm around the shoulders of the men on his crew, or grabbed the other’s cheeks in his hands and placed their foreheads together in what seemed to be such an intimate gesture. It was entirely usual for them, it seemed. And the Jarl-Prince seemed to like him and his mentor just as well, for soon in their travels, Sigurd put his arm around their shoulders, too. And as if that was not enough, he grabbed every opportunity to place his hand on their shoulders, their arms, their backs, a surprisingly casual gesture that still made goosebumps appear along his body. At first, the acolyte had thought that it was merely Sigurd, a quirk shared by no-one else but him, or some sort of mistrust, a need to keep the strangers close so he knew where he had them, keep your enemies closer... But then, when they had first docked in Fornburg, he had properly seen how wrong his assumptions had been, seeing the crew reuniting with what he had assumed to be friends and family. Easy affection easily reciprocated. The Norsemen seemed to be a people largely running on that physical sort of affection.
It was sweet, honestly, and a welcome change for what felt like years on the sea and many months that he had spent alone with his mentor in remote locations in their own, personal travels. But Hytham kept himself far away from the rest, whenever that had been possible. He preferred his solitude or the companionship of his mentor, Basim may have made up his own plan but Hytham had not yet decided if he wished to properly befriend the Norsemen. That wished-for solitude only became amplified with the days spent in the healing hut...
But in Ravensthorpe... Things changed.
He had kept to himself, of course he had. He knew no one and they all had reasons to mistrust him, especially after many of them had witnessed the holmgang. Yet he had only met a lone few who actively seemed to... Well, dislike him. Who watched him with wary gazes and quieted from their conversations when they saw him near. The majority, instead, greeted him with easy smiles and even invited him to their conversations, on occasion. It was as if he was a part of their clan, or at least perceived as such. His own walls were still built high, though, and so he kept to those he could relate to maybe a little bit more. Yanli, the only other true foreigner in Ravensthorpe, and Rowan, the first Saxon to join them.
That wasn’t to say that he shut himself away from the Norsemen entirely. Or, as it more commonly seemed, it didn’t seem like he was able to. The Wolf-Kissed seemed especially friendly, suspiciously so, even after what had gone down in that pit in Norway. But he guessed that if there ever had been bad blood between them, a bitter taste lingering in their mouths, it washed away easily after that night on the fjord. They had come to an understanding, and an agreement. Eivor helped him hunt the Order and brought back their medallions to him, and the drengr, like his brother, clasped his large and calloused hands over the southerner’s legs when seated together, warped his arm around his shoulders and ruffled his hair when he felt particularly playful. And when the settlement had been attacked, Eivor had insisted on staying by his side, despite the fact that he was not injured, and he had cleaned him up from dirt and grime...
Sometimes, it was hard to not see something else within that type of behaviour. Something hidden and something that was their own, belonging solely to the friendship they were nurturing together, but then he would see Birna throw her own arm around Eivor’s shoulder, or how Petra would be wrapped up in his arms, and so he realized that that is just what it is like here, in Ravensthorpe. Norsemen were affectionate people.
It was late, and the evening had worn on quickly. Their first winter was approaching and Eivor had just returned with the rest of his crew after an onslaught of raids — none which he really approved of, of course — which had warranted a feast. He wouldn’t say that he disliked attending the feasts, though he still preferred the quietness of his bureau, but Yanli and Rowan had dragged him out on the basis that he rarely attended the feasts, so he should start attending them regularly now. In the end, he couldn’t really protest.
So there they sat, close to the door and the smouldering fires, squished together on benches that were now a little too small to house the entire clan. After the impromptu speeches by the warriors, the feast itself had begun, and while he had heard his companions complaining — Yanli about the flavourlessness of the food, and Rowan about the Norsemen’s table manners — they both dug in with such fervor that he was nudged back and forth between them on the bench where the three of them sat.
It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to being touched, the people of the Abbasid Caliphate were just as eager to show affection and compassion physically as the people of Norway, and occasionally, they were equally unaware of supposed personal space, but it still felt a bit… Unusual, after all these years. Still, he waved off the thought as he instead, like his companions, began to eat.
Before he knew it, Yanli — who was sitting by the end of the bench — was pulled along for a contest of drinking, leaving an open and very available spot next to him. The spot was quickly filled by a large, familiar drengr.
“Hytham!” Eivor seemed surprisingly straight-tongued for someone who reeked of mead already. As was his habit, it seemed, he threw his arm around Hytham’s shoulders, accidentally nudging Rowan a bit in the process. “I am happy to see you here, my friend! I worried you wouldn’t attend.”
Suddenly being squished against the viking, Hytham felt a bit... Small. Then again, he often felt as such here. It was not like there was an obvious difference in size, but the Norsemen often knew how to make themselves appear... Larger.
Before he could attempt to reply, however, Eivor furrowed his eyebrows and moved his arm. In a swift movement, his hand was placed on the back of Hytham’s neck, warm and calloused skin against the back of his head. Hytham tensed, practically feeling the hair on his body standing on edge at the sudden movement, still as a hare caught in the jaws of a wolf.
Eivor didn’t acknowledge the way the other tensed, seemingly deep in thought as he observed the other.
“You’re cold,” Eivor stated. “Are you sick?”
He hadn’t noticed that his breathing had hitched until he tried to take a deep breath and untense. The cogs turned and turned in his head as his mind desperately tried to catch up with the situation at hand, the fact that he was just allowing Eivor to grip his neck in such a way. Eivor wasn’t moving an inch, either, grip not tight but not faltering. Hytham swallowed dryly, feeling the warmth of Eivor’s hand travel up and down his spine like warm water or Hammam steam. He couldn’t believe the audacity of Eivor, to grasp his neck and state that he was cold.
“N-no—?”
He didn’t get any further word out, for it seemed Eivor had made up his own mind the moment Hytham had attempted to speak. The Wolf-Kissed removed his hand and stood up as abruptly as he had sat down. Hytham barely had time to turn his head to look at him before the clasp of Eivor’s fur was unclasped, and the weight of the cloak was laid against his shoulders, heavy bear furs around the shoulders encapsulating him while the thick woolen fabric draped down his back. Eivor seemingly ignored the fact that he was already wearing a hood. Like a mother dressing a stubborn child, the Wolf-Kissed straightened the furs around the smaller man, moving the back of the cloak around his arms and the rest of his body, before he clasped it again, practically tucking him into the fabric that remained warm from the drengr’s own body heat.
Much to his chagrin, Hytham was certain that said heat was not the only reason he was suddenly feeling so warm.
The act itself had lasted only a few seconds, so Hytham, naturally, normally so reactive and quick, had managed to do nothing but tense and freeze once more and let Eivor do whatever it was he was doing. Then the drengr sat back down next to him, and the arm he had kept around his shoulders returned, and Hytham was pressed against his large, warm body again.
“That’s better,” Eivor mused. While Hytham was still looking down on himself and the cloak, he could hear the grin — or perhaps merely smile? — in the other’s voice. “I might have feared you’d freeze to death.”
While his cheeks remained warm and surely red, Hytham huffed, and nudged Eivor with his elbow. Attempting to seem... Normal.
“Hardly.” He ignored the way Eivor seemed to pull him even closer. “I have survived a Norwegian winter, I will not perish in a warm longhouse in England.”
“You survived a week of a Norwegian winter,” Eivor countered, voice teasing.
The problem with Eivor, as Hytham had realized, was that he — or his actions, more like — were complicated. When interacting with the drengr, he was consistently thrown between fluster and annoyance, compliments and teasing, humility and arrogance. In one moment Eivor treated him with a type of kindness that Hytham had not been privileged enough to experience often, he helped him hunt the Order and he brought back their medallions for him, knowing how much it meant for him and his work. And just a moment later, Eivor could almost affectionately mock him for seemingly being small and fragile, perhaps a type of jest thinly veiled over actual concern, but teasing nonetheless. Hytham did not think for a moment that Eivor actually considered him small and fragile, but now, as in many other moments, he struggled to know whether this was kindness or teasing.
Another thread complicating this tapestry was the drengr’s hand, which kept inching closer and closer to his actual skin, until the large palm was once more against the back of his neck, a gentle but secure grip around it. And he just held it there, with the hood of his robes and the cloak pushed aside.
Eivor didn’t seem to feel the need to speak, and as he turned his attention elsewhere, two thoughts swirled in Hytham’s head. The first was a consistent ‘why?’, why was he doing this? Why was he touching him, holding him, cloaking him? The other was a dreading reminder that they were in public, that no matter Eivor’s intention, anyone and everyone could see them and draw their own conclusions—
He hadn’t even noticed that Rowan had left his other side until he looked around the longhouse again. The stablemaster, too, seemed to have been lured into one of those infamous drinking contests, this time against a boy who would soon met his 15th winter. Yanli was next to him, although it was hard to tell who she was cheering for. Probably the winner, who would definitely not be Rowan. And despite the subject of the feast sitting next to him, having wrapped him in his cloak and letting his hand sneak under his robes, no one seemed to see them. Or perhaps, more accurately, acknowledge them.
Was this normal?
He could not imagine anyone back home doing this to him, or he to them. It would be inappropriate and, frankly, a bit perverse. Sitting so close, touching bare skin—
Stuck in his own thoughts, he did not notice Eivor leaning closer, until he heard the hoarse voice and felt the warm breath against his neck and ear.
“Are you uncomfortable?” the drengr whispered, sending some shivers through the younger one’s body. “You’re tense.”
There it was again, the behaviour which Hytham couldn’t read, concern he didn’t know where to place, constant confusion and mixed signals that no lesson and no book could ever have prepared him for.
“I don’t... Usually permit hands around my neck,” he murmured instead, not really daring to turn and look at Eivor. Nearly intimidated.
“Yet you permit mine.” Stating the obvious, Eivor’s soft voice felt all too comfortable in the lingering firelight. “Do you trust me so?”
He did, strangely enough. No creature permitted close proximity to their necks unless they trusted the one getting closer, and he trusted Eivor. He did not care to think whether this was true trust, one Eivor deserved, or if this was all another part to a larger puzzle, a tale which would undoubtedly end in a less pleasant way. And yet, wrapped into the drengr’s furs and kept warm and snug against his body... He felt… Safe.
“...Should I not?”
When he finally turned his head, when his eyes met Eivor’s, he felt the warmth seemingly spread throughout him again, from the pit of his belly and upwards. He knew he was blushing and he desperately hoped that Eivor wasn’t noticing that in the warm firelight. Face to face, it felt as though the loud noises around them quieted, and their surroundings seemed to wash away in a type of haze...
“You should.”
He couldn’t ignore the way it seemed like Eivor licked his lips, but he saw the way his eyes traveled over his face, the way his grip seemed to tighten only a little...
He remembered a moment a while ago, some weeks, months away, when the settlement had been attacked; he remembered how, despite everything, Eivor had placed his focus solely on him, despite the fact that he hadn’t been injured. He remembered sitting on his desk in his bureau, he remembered Eivor standing between his legs and carefully scrubbing off dirt and blood from his body, he remembered the look in Eivor’s eyes and he remembered how he had cradled his face in his hands. And he remembered how close they had been. He remembered how close their chests were, how it seemed like their noses almost brushed together, how their calm breathes mixed together as one, and he remembered the way Eivor had tilted his head.... Placed a soft, fleeting kiss on his forehead, and… He had merely left. Left him alone in the bureau that felt darker and colder without his presence.
Perhaps, in that moment, when they gazed into each other’s eyes, saw the reflections of the smoldering hearthes and the candlelight, they both remembered. As the air they breathed became one, feeling the warmth radiating from each other, both thought of what would come next. Perhaps, in that moment, neither seemed to shy away. Perhaps, in that moment, Eivor leaned in a little closer.
Perhaps, in another life...
“Eivor!”
Birna’s voice rang loud and clear throughout the longhouse, startling them both out of what might have been.
Eivor recoiled, and suddenly, the distance felt colder than any winter. A moment so warm and intimate, lost to the tides, like a fall into a glacier lake. Before Hytham knew it, the drengr had been pulled away from the bench where he sat — where they sat — and his warm hand had left his neck, leaving behind the ghost of a trail of warmth on his skin. Hytham could do little else but watch as the drengr got another horn of mead thrusted into his hands, echoed by Birna’s loud demands to best him in drinking. She hadn’t even noticed what she had interrupted — if there even was something. Hytham didn’t even get time to process how fast the moment between them was lost until Eivor looked at him with an apologetic smile and disappeared into the crowd.
The rest of the feast seemed to pass in a haze, where little else filled his thoughts but the warmth of Eivor’s body next to his, the touch that he no longer felt, a moment he was not yet sure he had imagined.
He was ashamed to admit that he had been drinking. A vice he had refused to allow himself earlier, now a lone comfort when he felt more alone than he had in years. Sometime after Eivor had been whisked away, he had been filled with such an indescribable melancholy and dejection that he found little choice but to remain in his seat and accept a tankard of mead when offered. Leaving felt rude, but he had lost his companions and his appetite to the crowd. Eventually, the evening rolled on into the darkest of nights, where it seemed like not even the yellow and orange fires still smoldering could make him feel any better, and a handful of the town-bound people of Ravensthorpe began to take their leave; some tumbled, some attempted to crawl, and some made their home on the benches and furs spread out over the longhouse. But the majority were still going strong on their feasting, their drinking. From across the downed crowd, Eivor seemed surprisingly sober, and surprisingly upright.
He looked smaller without the furs around him.
Whatever seemed to grip him made guilt follow suit as he became even more aware of the weight around his shoulders, the warmth around his body.
In a not so graceful move, he rose from the bench where he had been seated all evening. By the table he had stayed by, most of the Raven Clan were still eating and laughing and drinking despite the hours that had already passed, so his presence was not necessarily out of place. Sigurd was still seated — seemingly half slumbering — on his throne, and Eivor was leaning against it, seemingly trying to hold a conversation with his brother. Sigurd’s presence made him momentarily wonder where his mentor could be.
Hytham hesitated.
He debated merely unclasping the cloak and leaving it near Eivor’s room in the very longhouse the feast was still being held in, but before he could attempt to make such an escape, Eivor spotted him having made his way halfway across to the brothers, and he smiled.
“Hytham!” Eivor’s loud exclamation made Sigurd wince, although he didn’t seem particularly bothered either. “I am surprised you’ve stayed so long, my friend. Have you enjoyed yourself?”
My friend, he said. The nervosity only worsened.
“I— I have, indeed.” He did not mean to stutter, but it seemed like the mead made the words get stuck in his throat, and he felt his cheeks turn warm. While he hadn’t been drinking much, he had never been drinking before, and so he was not as agile under the influence as most of the Norsemen seemed to be. “Your… Uhm, your cloak?”
He had never really been good with words. It was one thing when he was working, a Hidden One, when he was infiltrating, persuading, and it was an entirely different thing when he was just... Well, Hytham, when he had no mask or disguise or hood to hide behind. He could wax poetic in certain moments, those moments when he could not really think through his words as they flowed like honey from his lips, but now, the words seemed to have a mind of their own, clogged somewhere in the back of his throat, because they were his.
Eivor seemed momentarily confused, until his gaze landed upon the large furs that Hytham still wore. The cloak of thick wool and the fur of a bear he had slain personally, the fur which Petra and Wallace had prepared for him, a testament to his vigour and strength and courage that he previously could have worn on proud display, now wrapped around someone else.
Few in the settlement wore bear fur. Many had seen the impressive cloak the drengr sported during the colder days. They knew who it belonged to, as did Hytham. There could be no mistake on where Hytham could have gotten it from...
“Keep it,” Eivor said finally. “It suits you much better.”
Perhaps it was the alcohol, or perhaps it was the words themselves, or perhaps it was something else entirely, but Hytham’s eyes widened, hands still around the buckle, already prepared to hand the cloak back to the man who rightfully owned it. Hytham merely stared at the drengr in front of him.
“Keep it?” he repeated.
“Keep it.”
Hytham blinked.
“I can’t just keep it,” he said, like it was obvious. “It is yours.”
“And I am giving it to you,” Eivor countered, voice as soft and gentle as it always had been when he spoke to the other in quiet moments. True, and genuine. He smiled kindly, still. “Keep it.”
He stared, and Eivor didn’t budge. He did not smile brighter and laugh and exclaim that he was just joking, he did not seem to be testing him, he looked entirely serious about the proposition, which is what confused Hytham the most. How could he be giving his prized cloak to him, just like that?
As they held each other’s gaze once more, Hytham became increasingly aware that he was too exhausted, and perhaps too drunk, to deal with this, deal with whatever overwhelm and whatever games Eivor seemed to be playing with him. His body felt heavy and the warmth made him sleepy, and so, he finally sighed.
“You’re drunk,” the Hidden One stated, equally obvious. “I will return it to you tomorrow, then, when-... When you are in your right mind.”
He didn’t yet know if he was making the right choice, but based on Eivor’s grin, the drengr clearly seemed to think that he had.
“Whatever you say, my friend.”
Hytham watched him for another moment. He wished to know what kind of puzzle this was, what pieces he was missing, what it was he was not understanding, what was hiding behind Eivor’s grin, but it was late…
“Well…” he mumbled, “... Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight, Hytham.”
With that, Hytham turned, and left the longhouse, as confused as he had been that night many weeks ago. Eivor watched him leave, grin slowly turning into something softer. Perhaps, in the end, a bit more melancholic...
“...What was that about?”
Eivor had almost forgotten that Sigurd was right next to him, not as unconscious as he seemed. Sigurd, no more than a mere inches away from both of the men, had not made his presence known at all during the length of their conversation. When Eivor looked back at his brother, he was met with a raised eyebrow.
“What was what about?”
He didn’t necessarily mean to try to play dumb, but Sigurd’s eyebrows knitted together as he reached a hand out and gestured to Hytham’s silhouette disappearing into the night.
“That. Since when were you in a—” he hiccuped, clearly not yet used to Tekla’s brew. Two years was all it took to lose the resilience he had built his entire life. Still, Sigurd continued to wave his hand around to continue to gesture to the space the other just had left. “Since when... Since when were you in habit of givin’ out your clothes?”
For what felt like the first time in his life, Eivor hesitated. Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely sure why he had just...
“He needs it more than me,” he said instead, settling on that as the only explanation needed. “Winter is coming swiftly and he is not equipped to handle the English winters.”
‘Not equipped’, none of them were, in the sense that they did not know what to expect. This would be their first winter in this land and no one could really be sure what would await them, even if the unforgiving winters of Norway seemed drastic in comparison to the mild and dewed autumn that had just been. But Hytham, from a dry and warm land, could not be as used to the wet and cold weather like the Norsemen were. Sigurd just continued to make half-coherent faces.
“Really?” He hiccuped again, then groaned, clearly feeling the mead more than he wanted to, yet he was not merciful enough to drop the topic. “You disi- dec- decide, to give him your cloak, just ‘cos of that?”
As much as he loved his brother, Eivor didn’t particularly enjoy the questions he was throwing at him. Only partly because he, himself, had no answer to them.
As he remained silent, Sigurd continued to think and think, face scrunched in thought as it was clear the mead was hindering his theories. Eivor had half a mind to just leave him here and return to his room when his brother visibly came with a solution. His face unscrunched, and his expression was replaced with a dastardly smile. Sigurd leaned back towards the armrest on the opposite side of where Eivor stood, looking up at his younger brother with a perceived nonchalance. Eivor knew where this was going before Sigurd even opened his mouth.
“You’re fond of him, ain’t you?” The Jarl’s eyes glimmered with mischief, like he had found something to hold over his brother’s head. “That is why you sni- sneak out to him!”
“I don’t sneak out,” Eivor immediately refuted, feeling uncharacteristically defensive. Now, why would he be defensive? “You know that we work together, for our clan and his”
Yes, of course, Sigurd knew about that. But that still didn’t seem like a good enough of an answer to throw him off his tracks.
“Mmhm, his clan.” He had never been against Eivor helping Hytham with his mission, of course, and he never would be. After all, Sigurd himself worked towards a common goal with Basim, and so it would be hypocritical to forbid Eivor from doing the same favour to Basim’s acolyte. On the contrary, he was happy he had agreed to let Eivor do as he pleased, as long as he did his duties with Ravensthorpe as well. “Lucky him you- hm, offered, to help.”
Sigurd did not let his gaze leave the drengr as Eivor thought over what he was saying. Eivor squinted.
“... And just what are you implying?”
Sigurd shrugged, seemingly still trying to play nonchalant and uninterested.
“Nothing,” he lied. “Just seems like you are very good friends.”
Yes, friends. Eivor was helping Hytham because they were friends, and they had been since that night in Norway. Still, he could not help but take offense with the tone his brother was using. He was not naive enough to think Sigurd actually meant his words, that they were just friends in his eyes, and he did not like that he was painting the situation as something other than what it actually was.
... Whatever it actually was. He couldn’t truthfully say that he would have shared the moment they had previously with just about anyone. He would simply not have cared that much, but with Hytham, it was... Different, in a sense, because Hytham was different.
In the back of his head, he still saw him, the ways his eyes reflected the firelight. He could almost feel the close proximity they shared, how close they had been. He could almost smell the teas and spices that Hytham still smelt of, even after all these months...
As Sigurd waited for an explanation, Eivor would have loved to explain exactly what it was that was going on, explain that there was nothing more to it, that he was just being kind, and making sure that Hytham was taken care of, but he knew that Sigurd had seen the way he had slipped back into the longhouse after the raid on Ravensthorpe, the way he seemed to orbit the bureau the few times he was in the settlement, and he had clearly seen the way they interacted, they way Eivor seemed to linger. And he knew that Sigurd knew that he, in the matters of the heart or the loins, did not discriminate between men or women. Perhaps it would be easier to justify the situation as Sigurd merely misunderstanding based on that fact alone. He was not sneaking out, like Sigurd had suggested, but, well…
“We are just friends,” he said instead. Because in the end, for now, that was the truth. “And you are too drunk for your own good.”
Sigurd groaned.
“You sound like Randvi…”
Eivor rolled his eyes and scoffed. While he had originally planned to help Sigurd back to his bed, he now decided his brother could do well with spending the night on his throne. He was not usually in the habit of merely walking away from his brother, especially when they were not arguing, but continuing this discussion would do no one a favour. Perhaps, if he was lucky, Sigurd would have forgotten about this in the morning.
Merely walking away from his brother, Eivor was now faced with another dilemma. He could return to the feast, and be forced to seem happier than his mood actually was, or he could return to the solitude of his bedroom, which would barely give him privacy. Neither seemed appealing. His mind felt hazed and he could hear the echoing of his heart in his ears from the drinking, he was good at acting sober even when he certainly wasn’t. And when he was not sober, it was harder to wave away the thoughts which came to the forefront of his mind. Hytham, of course. His small frame and wide blue eyes who had stared at him with such shock when he had placed his cloak around him, so impulsive. And Sigurd and his damned assumptions... Or perhaps, his mere observations.
He needed some fresh air, that much was for certain. And as he stepped out of the halls of the longhouse and out into the would-be winter, where the snow had not yet covered their settlement, but the dew and rain still clung to the still night air, his eyes almost involuntary came to rest upon a small, familiar green building. Like his heart and mind or the Gods themselves lead him back to the things he tried to avoid. It was then that he saw the lingering firelight glowing in the windows of the bureau. Despite the hours that had passed and the hours he had spent with them in the warmth of the longhouse, Hytham was still awake, letting candles be lit and the chimney smoke rise as he warmed his home to beat the cold of the darkest night.
The reminder of his presence was… Comforting.
He leaned against a pillar by the longhouse, continuing to watch for a little longer. He knew that he was selfish, in a sense. Did he abandon his cloak to make sure Hytham was happy and warm? To be certain that he would survive the winter when his body had continuously fought against him? Perhaps. A part of him was selfless and caring. But he could no longer deny that he didn’t also know that he had done it for his own gain, too. A deep-seated selfishness that had burrowed deep in his chest, nearly as indistinguishable as the Midgaard-Serpent’s form slithering within the darkest depths of the ocean. When the winter came in its harshest steps, and if the Gods allowed it, Hytham would walk the settlement wrapped in the cloak of bear and wool which had once belonged to the Wolf-Kissed. It was possessive. And he knew already that the sight alone would make him feel a warmth no fur, no hearth, no fire could ever match. Would it be satisfaction, perhaps, to see his gift come to use? Would it be relief, knowing his friend would not suffer through the winter so unfamiliar to him?
Would it be something else, a reason he could not yet guess, which had caused him to act as he had done tonight?
Eivor shook the guesses off of him. He had not meant to circle around the Hidden One as much as he had lately, as if compelled by something he did not understand, something that had made him act without thinking, yet not against his own will. Even now, with his gaze having been fixated on the bureau, where even the candlelight was slowly getting snuffed. As the last light left the windows, Eivor moved from the pillar he had placed himself against, and with a last glance towards the view, he returned inside, where the longhouse had turned quiet and the fires were merely smouldering.