WHO: Hakkon and Samandriel WHAT: Hakkon finds a neat thing in the woods and takes it home to fix it up and put some food in its stomach WHERE: The Woods/Hakkon's Cave WHEN: This Past Tuesday Night (because if things go wrong well it must be Tuesday) RATINGS: Some mention of Samandriel's torture, light swearing. We'll go with PG-13 just to cover all the blood STATUS: Complete, thread drop
Samandriel knew on the grand scale of things that he hadn’t been in captivity that long. Weeks. Months, maybe. He knew all that, but it still felt like eons with few thoughts beyond the pain Crowley ensured he was put through day in and day out.
At the beginning, he’d tried to keep Alfie from it. At the beginning, there was still a soul in his vessel to protect.
That wasn’t the case anymore. It hadn’t been the case for a while.
He didn’t know where he’d gotten the strength to flee like he had, where he’s gotten the Will to live. He flew once- just once- before his wings gave out and he found himself kneeling in snow. Just a rest, he reasoned. Just a short rest. Heaven wouldn’t bother following him here. He closed his eyes and let the snow fall slowly, slowly on him.
Hakkon was surrounded by far too many weak mortals who couldn’t stand the cold. It made his walks lonely but it didn’t stop them, he liked the snow and the exercise and for the moment he hadn’t found anyone he liked well enough to grant his gift of cold resistance. He hadn’t anticipated finding anyone else in the snow beyond the animated snow creatures, so when he first saw hints of red under the falling snow he thought it was an oddly-colored rock.
He approached the rock, looking over it until he spotted hair. With a slight flick of his wrist the snow flew off the young, assumed, man, then crouched down to get a closer look. The boy was alive and yet he seemed hollow, like something else was living inside him, though Hakkon couldn’t tell what. “You’re not dead.”
Samandriel didn’t know how long he’d been laying there. He’d guessed it hadn’t mattered since as that very deep voice noted he wasn’t dead. He smelled a little bit like slightly wet bear and...and sweat on metal. Just a little, though he wasn’t sure if the latter was just his own blood in his nose. He opened his heavy eyes halfway. Tall for a human body. He let them close again. “Only just,” he said, voice a little rough. A lot rough. Screaming tended to do that to a throat.
“The best way to show that is not laying there like a corpse. You should get up if you don’t wish to be robbed. Make a show of defeating potential death and crawling back from the brink of it. It will bring honor to you and your gods, showing such strength.” Hakkon tilted his head, not offering him healing unless he asked for it.
“There’s nothing on me worth taking,” he said, listening to the world around him. For a breath, he could feel pinpricks in the air, could hear that he wasn’t alone before he shut himself off completely from whatever brothers were here. He couldn’t be found. Them finding him was going to end in them killing him. He wasn’t useful anymore. He’d had too many secrets carved out of his head, carved into his own consciousness. The last thing Imagination needed was to know concretely how angels, how heaven worked, but there it was. “I’ve spent my life bringing honor to Him and He left centuries ago anyway.” That was anger he hadn’t expected. Samandriel was too weak for any true heat in the words to manifest as much more than words. Abandoned and betrayed. He was allowed. “Honour. Dishonour. Makes no difference to Him and most any others would kill me on sight just to say they did.”
“You serve a weak god then.” There was fire in there, or rather the creature that was living in the boy’s body. Instead of offering to heal him he offered his hand instead, fire was rare enough to preserve and while he could be accused of being thick, he was curious enough not to let something new die in the snow. “Come, I know of a place where you can have a restorative.”
“Not weak. Just gone.” A beat…”Maybe a little weak...just not lacking in power.” It didn’t matter. Splitting hairs at that point. His Faith was a shattered thing. There wouldn’t be any repairing that. The rest of him, maybe, but not that. He took the offered hand and felt small. Instinctively, his wings started to flare a little to remind himself he wasn’t as small as his vessel and then stopped as he winced and curled in on himself more. There weren’t bones to break, but it still felt like every one of them had been snapped if there were, his feathers torn out like he’d been dragged back to a hunter by an ill cared for retriever. His escape had cost him more than he’d thought. “I’m not sure that’ll help much, but thank you all the same.”
“Nonsense, it will help your wings and, are those supposed to be eyes? Grow back, perhaps in time if my magic cannot do the job in full.” He reached his other hand out to steady him. The boy was fragile and the thing inside him was wounded, both looked ready to fall. “You look as if you need to be carried.”
“I see no way of stopping you if that’s what you decide I need.” He could see him then. Samandriel wanted to say that wasn’t normal, but he was distracted by how much more massive the man seemed once they were both on their feet. No fight. Not anymore.
Hakkon could lift pretty much anything he wished without much trouble, the boy with the creature inside him was less than a grain of sand to him. He easily carried him in his massive arms, and started back toward the place he was living these days. “What are you supposed to be? I mean the creature that speaks to me, not the boy.”
He didn’t know? How could he not know? “They killed the boy months ago,” he said, “There is only me.” It wasn’t safe to give his name. He could hide himself for a little while, but not if the man (not man, Samandriel could feel he wasn’t a man now that they were this close all curled up in his arms next to the wild smell of him,) went blabbing his name anywhere. “Muse,” he answered instead. His siblings would decide Greek if they heard it and probably none of them would care. “You? You sound like an Asgardian but you’re not.” He knew them. Knew of them. It wasn’t like the Host went out doing whistle stop goodwill tours of other Faiths and even if so his name was never spoken loudly enough for anyone to recognize it. Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe the siblings he had here would have no idea who he was in the first place.
“They might have killed him but his body lives around you. Don’t spirits usually return to the fade when their hosts are killed?” The thing was closer to a spirit than a mortal but Hakkon wouldn’t have wagered on him being a spirit. He didn’t remark on the strange name or ask for clarification. The magic box could explain it to him later, it was ever so helpful. “Ass-gardian? No, that is a rather unfortunate name though. I am Hakkon Wintersbreath, lord of war and winter. I come from the Frostbacks.”
Asgardian. Basically. In function if not name. “I’m not a spirit,” he said. “His passing was a mercy anyway. A blessing that he did not live to see the rest of it. Human souls are fragile things. Even a roughly wielded blade can kill one without the other and at the time even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t’ve.” He stayed partly because he didn’t have the strength to leave just yet and partly because even now he couldn’t abandon Alfie. It seemed wrong when the boy would’ve born up against it if it hadn’t been Hell doing what they did best. Anyone else, he might’ve survived. “Where are we going?”
“Sounds unpleasant.” He said, making the snow part in places so it didn’t make carrying the muse difficult. “We’re going to where I sleep. It is quiet and should be able to grant you some rest while you recover. If you are here you likely have a place arranged for you but it seems you haven’t happened across the welcome committee. Let’s make sure you can stand on your own before you have to present yourself to anyone.”
“Why are you being this kind?” he asked, focusing on the man’s breathing, on his presence and the strangely comforting cold that rolled off of him. That, he was sure he was imagining. At least he could still be that much of himself.
“Kind? You survived which means you won, I grant my blessing to the best warriors and the best warriors are the ones who win.” Hakkon said like it was obvious. “Would you rather I leave you in the snow?”
“I’m not a warrior.” A lie, sort of. He could fight. He had been trained. He was skilled at it. He could Imagine a great many ways to end someone. It just wasn’t him. He’d always been too soft for it all. “I’m not refusing your gift.”
“To live is to be a warrior. Life is a constant battle, be you god or muse or man.” He pointed out, carrying him not toward the town but deeper into the forest. Eventually the cave he was heading for was difficult to miss. “And I am glad to hear it, I don’t take kindly to my gifts being refused.”
Samandriel opened his eyes a little as he felt Hakkon’s stride change in preparation to be done with this all. “It seems odd that they would arrange a place for me and leave you to a cave.”
“I asked not to be made to live in a town like a lowlander. They do have a place for me but I have chosen the cave instead, it suits me.” He said, ducking down to go into the cave. It was warmer than one would have thought, with a large central fire with a cooking pot hanging over it. Instead of a cold stone floor there were thick furs, similar ones hung from the walls along with axes of various shapes and sizes, and mounted beast heads from hunts he’d gone on back in Thedas. He carried the muse over to the large bed, it covered in the finest and softest of furs, and gently laid him down.
Gentle as the massive man was, the shift still hurt a little and Samandriel found himself wincing some with it. “As you wish,” he said tiredly. “If your healing fails, try not to take it to heart.” Just in case. His vessel might be fine, but he had his doubts about what this being could do to improve the state of his Grace.
“I’m not generally a healer.” Hakkon admitted, leaning over him and putting a hand on his chest. His cool healing energy spread out through Samandriel, or rather the body that contained him, healing it easily. The rest of him was different though, a magic that he had never seen before.
That his vessel was healed helped all the same. It insulated his Grace well enough that at least he could focus on where to start knitting himself slowly back together. “Thank you,” he whispered. It wouldn’t do to offend anyone more than he already had just yet. There was still dried blood and bits of snow all over him. Maybe Hakkon didn’t mind so much, but Samandriel did. He could feel it in his lashes, feel it pulling the boy’s skin taut in places. A little energy, that was all it took to clean himself up, though he didn’t bother with the clothes. That was too much. “Is it alright if I sleep?”
Hakkon waved away the question, going to sit on a fur covered chair closer to the fire. “Yes, yes. Go on. I’ll wake you if something important comes up. I have mead that will help you feel better, let me know when you’re ready for it.”
Sometime later, Samandriel woke again feeling somewhat stronger than when he’d slept in the first place. His wings were slowly knitting back together, but the core of his Grace was still what he needed to work on. He could feel Hakkon somewhere, but he wasn’t standing in front of him and the angel hardly felt like looking too much for him.
Hakkon had busied himself with figuring out just what a muse was and preparing for the one in his bed to wake again. He didn’t know what muses ate and drank but he assumed that whatever nourished the body would do the same for the muse inside. He’d willed together a warming, comforting soup of rabbit and winter root vegetables, letting it bubble over the fire as he downed some of his mead while he stood at the mouth of the cave and watched the snow fall.
Sore yet, Samandriel pushed himself to sit up. He didn’t require food, but guest right was guest right and it was only polite to take food if it was offered for the sake of making sure the peace was kept. “How long was I out?”
“A few hours,” Hakkon said, turning to move closer to him and the fire. “You needed the rest. Are you hungry? I have rabbit soup. And that mead I mentioned, which is very good I have to say.” He raised his flagon a little as if that proved it.
“I’ll have a little, I think if that’s alright.” He didn’t dream. Small blessings. He wondered if that was his own doing after cutting himself off so abruptly or if somehow the tree of a man before him had managed it.
He went over to the keg in the back and poured another flagon, warming the mead with magic as he brought it over. “There you are. And you’re looking better, that is good to see.” He said before having another drink of his own. “How do you feel?”
“Getting there,” he said softly, “Slowly. It’ll take more time and more rest, but I’ll not die any time soon.” Hopefully. He took the mead with a small nod of thanks and had a little sip of it.
“Excellent.” He finished his mead and went to fix a small bowl of the soup for his guest. “So, what kind of muse are you? I have never encountered one myself before.” He said, trying to hide the fact that he hadn’t understood most of the explanation or the music the box had played for him.
“Imagination in general,” he said, too tired to come up with more than that and not wanting to be asked to sing. He adjusted himself on the bed.
“Hmm.” He said, brining over the bowl. The soup didn’t need a spoon at this point, something Hakkon had seen to in hopes of it being easier for his guest to get down. “I’m sure the skalds are fond of you.”
He set the flagon down between his cross legged to accept the bowl, bowing a little as he accepted it. “Oh?”
“They go on and on about imagination and inspiration. I used to insist they just be honest about my great deeds when they wrote songs in my honor, but then a few of them had ideas of their own. Imagination. They made me and my songs sound better.” He nodded to himself. “Not my area though, the arts.”
“Imagination covers more than the arts,” he said quietly, sipping at the soup and letting it comfort him. “Invention in general. Smiths use it quite a bit when forging a piece. Battle commanders who tend to succeed instead of just rushing in onto things.”
“I suppose that is true.” He said though he was of the opinion that warriors had him to give them strength and didn’t need much beyond him. Of course the lowlanders likely needed someone like Samandriel, after all, they needed all the help they could get when fighting Avvar.
“Things are always more complex than they first seem, it’s my job to unwind that complexity again. To guide in a way between what someone wants and how to get it.” Sort of. Close enough.
“I see.” He didn’t. “Hopefully it served you well and will continue to serve you well in the future. Perhaps next time it will help you avoid what befell you.” He wasn’t a warrior in the strict sense but if he was clever that could be just as effective as strength.
It had been a mistake to go to the auction in the first place. He knew that now, obviously. Perhaps someone else would’ve been a better choice. Perhaps not. Perhaps someone else wouldn’t’ve been able to know and connect dots the way he was Made to in the first place. He finished a few more sips of his soup and looked down at his right hand contemplating whether or not to manifest his blade just to see if he could. It’d been...it’d been eons since he had. “I’ll fall on my own blade before I’m taken again,” he whispered.
“That is not the way of my people, but I can respect that. Confounding and frustrating the enemy is a powerful move in battle.” For Avvar the goal was always survival, but he wasn’t as narrow minded as he seemed.
“You smell like bear,” he said softly, deciding against worrying about whether he could or couldn’t bring out his blade. “I’m not well enough yet to see why.”
“I can become a bear.” He said with a shrug. “Bears are important to my people, scared, I suppose though we don’t worship all of them. My father’s bear, he is as large as a mountain and is our god of wisdom. We are tied to the bears.”
“May I see?” Samandriel asked. He always liked animals and a bear seemed less imposing and threatening than anything vaguely human looking on the outside.
He nodded, getting up onto his feet. “I’ll do it outside then come in, not enough room to change in here and I try not to disturb the earth by adjusting the size of the cave too often.” Out of respect for his father, even if he wasn’t on a mountain. He walked out of the mouth of the cave, returning less than a minute later though this time he was a large brown bear. It had been a fight to come back in to his guest, especially when he smelled a fox close, but he was largely sure that wasn’t Imhar. He moved to the bed, sniffing at Samandriel. “I’m larger outside.”
Samandriel ran his hand over the bear’s broad head before he settled a little closer. Much less worrisome like this. Mead and soup didn’t matter and he sent both away in favour of being able to scoot forward and press his forehead to Hakkon’s.
The bear blinked up at him but didn’t stop or show any displeasure at what he was doing. “You find comfort in animals? Or do you have a fear of humanity, or those shaped like humanity?”
“It’s just easier not to look at anything with hands right now,” he whispered. The bear stank. He didn’t care.
“I won’t hurt you.” He assured him, letting him hug and pet his bear form as much as it comforted him. Hakkon sat down on the floor, “As far as I understand it, you are safe here. And if not in this place then in this cave.”
“I may be. I may not be. It depends on who can see,” he seid, nestled close to the bear. He almost offered to show him what he’d been through, but it didn’t matter and would’ve been a very unnecessary use of his limited energy.
“Well, now you have a friend who can become a bear if the situation calls for it.” He said, shifting a little so they could both be more comfortable.
“Is that what we are?” he asked softly, not fighting it or arguing. Warm and good.
“I don’t see why we wouldn’t be.” Hakkon decided to stretch out on the floor, giving Samandriel room to lay on him or beside him more comfortably. “You trusted me enough to eat my food, drink my mead, sleep in my bed.”
He wanted to point out that he didn’t have a whole lot of choice when it came to sleeping. “You’re making it sound like we’re two steps away from ending up married,” he joked, curling up on the floor with him, nestled against the great bear’s side.
“I don’t sing, and your hands are likely too weak to untie knots right now, so I think we’re an no on the potential marriage.” He tried to smile but it was a difficult thing to do as a bear.
“At least I know not to sing for you then,” he said, wouldn’t want to end up accidentally married. He was going to fall asleep again. He could feel it. He didn’t mind. “I hope… I hope you don’t mind my being close.”
“You’re safe, there is more involved than singing.” The bear assured him. He didn’t mind that the muse or whatever he was, wanted to sleep. He’d often slept on Sigfrost when he was a young god, the warmth and fur around him, along with the smell, was rather comforting. He lifted his head a little and glanced back at Samandriel, blowing air through his nose strong enough to mess up his hair a little. It was the bear’s way of telling him not to worry.
This might not have been the complete Safe Haven Samandriel had hoped it would be, but for now he could pretend it was close enough, could pretend that...that he was actually going to heal. He managed the barest sliver of a smile at the feel of his hair being ruffled and let himself shut down again for a while to focus on recovery.