Chapter Text
858 AD
The first thing he felt was the cold. The terrible, bitter, cold that was gnawing on his limbs, and that nearly convinced him that he would find his skin dusted with frost as soon as he opened his eyes. There was even a fear there, that his eyes wouldn't open when he tried, but it was only fleeting, swooping through his head too quickly for him to be able to catch it. Instead, his eyes were opened out of habit, and he was suddenly blinking in a fading light.
His back was pressed against a wooden wall, the rough boards suddenly obvious as he moved to an upright position, and he could feel the icy wind wafting through unseen cracks and crevices in the dark timber. The cold in the room was a fact, and the sight of an unlit fire made him realise that whoever had placed him in there, had no intention of wasting precious heat on his small body.
The realisation that he was a captive came as he tried to move to a standing position, and found his hands and feet in heavy shackles, the metal so cold against his already icy skin that he hadn't noticed their presence until he had tried to move. Had it not been obvious with his unknown location that he had been captured, the shackles now made it all too clear.
The sound of someone clearing their throat pulled him from his thought, bright eyes quickly rising from the metal that kept him in place to find another boy staring at him from across the room. He had been sat so still that he had melted into the backdrop, dark clothes almost enough to make him vanish, had it not been for his flaming red hair.
“Ek... heiti... Malarkey.” The words sounded unfamiliar and clumsy as they tumbled from the redhead's lips, his brow knitted in concentration as he forced them out. It was clear he was unsure of how to speak them, and it was enough to make Skip realise that he was probably not alone in being captured. “Hvat... heitir... þú?”
The obvious question was met with silence and a shake of a blond head, Skip making it clear for the other that he hadn't understood a word of what had been said. There had only been what seemed to be a name that had stood out, and after a moment of hesitation, he decided to try and repeat it.
“Malarkey?” Struggling against the heavy shackles, he managed to make a gesture in the other boy's direction, and he was met with a nod and a smile, which encouraged him to try something else, and repeat something else he knew he had heard shouted, in the midst of a burning chaos. “Normanni?” The world was unfamiliar on this tongue, coming from a language he had never spoken before, but it had been clear from the moment he had heard it called that it was one referring to the men who had come to his village and set it ablaze.
A look that almost resembled horror swept across the redhead's face as he heard the word, and he furiously shook his head, making it all too clear that he had no affiliation with the people Skip had mentioned. The Northmen. The Vikings. Their kidnappers.
Silence filled the room, and the two sat studying each other through the gloom, their breaths emerging as clouds in the small air, both pairs of lips wanting to speak, but both unable to find the right words.
It was Malarkey who ended up breaking the silence, asking the same question which he had already asked once before. The only difference was that this time, there was an answer.
“Hvat heitir þú?” A gesture was made in the blond's direction, the motion riddled by the sound of metal against metal.
“Skip.” The name was followed by a smile, which was soon imitated by the redhead across the room, at the same time as the name was repeated.
“Skip.”
–
860 AD
There was a howling in the air, floating towards him where he lay on his stomach in the dirt underneath a bush. He could still remember the days as a child where he had hated this game of hiding and seeking, where he had used to prefer running away from his playmates rather than take any part in the game of theirs. Now, however, things were different. Now, he was laying in the dirt, barely even daring to breathe as he stifled giggles and the urge to howl back. Had any of his old playmates seen him at that moment, they would probably not even have recognised him.
The howling was slowly coming closer, together with the crackling of leaves under bare feet, a sound Malarkey was all too accustomed to after the long hours they had spent working in the very same forest they were now playing in.
“I am the great Fenrisúlfr, the one the gods could barely chain. I am here to eat you, so fear me!” Heavily accented Norse was ringing out now, followed by more howling as the person in pursuit approached his hiding place, and Malarkey had a hard time keeping the laughter at bay.
However, the laughter got stuck in his throat as something suddenly grabbed hold of his ankle and yanked him out from his hiding place. The force was unexpected, and it was accompanied by fear as Malarkey for a moment expected the angry, bearded face of his master to be waiting for him as he rolled onto his back.
Instead, he found a victorious Skip.
“The great Fenrisúlfr has acquired his pray, and now he will feast.” Baring his teeth, the blond shot Malarkey a toothed grin, which was soon followed by laughter.
“That was not fair.” Had it been anyone else than Skip, Malarkey knew he would have been angry, but now there was instead only a worried smile on his face. “I thought it was the vikingr, here to give me a beating for running off.” He was well aware they were both going to suffer a beating as soon as they returned to their master's house, but he was soon to push it out of his mind.
“Then you should be glad it was only Fenris.” Seating himself on the ground next to Malarkey, Skip shot his friend another smile. “At least he will not beat you. He will only swallow you whole, unless you grow big enough to force him to chew.”
“I am very glad it was only Fenris. Because at least he is not a savage norroenir seggr who keeps thralls.”
“That is very true. Fenris only eats anything that moves.” Skip's words were followed by laughter as the two lay on their backs, eyes turning towards the sky where the sun would soon start to set. They knew any sensible child would have returned home already, but neither of them were sensible, and neither did particularly count their master's house as home. Perhaps because it wasn't theirs, and would never be...
–
875 AD
The sun was unusually hot, casting its burning rays onto the earth with such force that it felt as if it was all drying up before his very eyes. The earth they had been turning on the fields lay in dry heaps, awaiting the seed they were to sow, and to him, it felt almost as if Sol was mocking them for the work they were doing.
Running the back of his hand over his brow, Skip allowed his eyes to travel the field, taking in the other thralls working around him, sweat running down their faces from the physical labour. No one there was unused to the hard work, but with the unexpected heat, most had been left still in their thick woollen garments with no chance of a change until the day was over.
Some of the men had stripped down to their waist, their tunics hanging over the rickety fence separating the field from the pigpen, but despite that, sweat was still running down their chests and backs after the hours they had spent at work.
While the work in the field had only been going on since late morning, most of the thralls had still been up since before sunrise, a few of the women preparing the breakfast for the master's family, while the younger men had gathered wood for the fire located at the heart of the big house. It was rare for it to ever be unlit, and on the coldest of nights, someone would sit by it to make sure it did not go out. It was a task no one wished to be given, as it not only meant a sleepless night followed by a hard day's work, but also that there would only be the wind to listen to for all those long hours. The wind, which during the winter nights would make it sound as if Fenrisúlfr was approaching and scare even the strongest of Vikings into hiding.
However, for the thralls, the howling of the wind did not scare them as much as it had during the first few winters. They had become used to it, and knew that while the darkness was thick and unyielding until dawn, there would be no wolf waiting outside the door, was the poor thrall on guard forced to make a run for more wood in the night.
“Don't slack off now, Skip. There is still at least another hour until sundown.” A nudge from a dirty shovel made Skip turn, his eyes falling on the owner of the shovel for a moment, before they turned to where dirt was now clinging to the fabric of his tunic.
“I was just taking a moment to breathe. You don't have to cover me in dirt for that.”
“You're already dirty as sin, Skip. Don't blame me.”
Malarkey's comment generated a low chuckle from the blond as he brushed the dirt off, well aware that neither of them was the cleanest. They rarely washed, neither themselves nor their clothing, and he had long since grown used to the grime and dirt which seemed as much a part of him as his own skin.
“You're not much better yourself.” A smile flickered across Skip's lips, before he gripped his own shovel a little tighter and allowed it to sink back into the ground. He was well aware that if they were found dawdling, there would be a whip awaiting them within seconds. Their master had never been a kind man, and both Skip and the red head by his side carried the scars to show it...