Chapter Text
Laufey sat at the middle of the board at the feast in celebration of the anniversary of his accession day. Lifewater flowed freely, the meat was dressed and sauced with the greatest skill, and the conversation was animated, his lords in high spirits.
Laufey had much to be grateful for. Not least that his dam had conveniently died as soon as Laufey reached adulthood, giving him the all the glory of kingship while he was still young enough to appreciate it. His realm was prospering – as much as could be expected in such a harsh climate – and he had both the loyalty and goodwill of his subjects.
And yet he was not grateful.
His brooding was interrupted by the arrival of his flesh-sibling, Nàl.
“You’re late,” he said.
Nàl laughed softly and squeezed the back of Laufey’s neck before easing down into his seat. “I was in the far North, my king. Heidr begged me to take him hunting.”
“You indulge that child’s whims far too often.”
“You are exactly right,” Nàl gave a good-natured smile. “Yet I dare say you will be the same when you have your own.”
“I doubt it.”
“Oh, you are in a dark mood. Is the celebration not magnificent enough?”
Laufey took a deep drink of his liquor. “The same idiotic faces, the same trite sentiments.”
“Ah, surely you don’t think so.” Nàl nodded down the board. “Look, there is Thrym and his two fine youths. I hear they are both very accomplished.”
Laufey gave a curl of his lip. “The elder is a cheap conjurer and the younger has no more imagination than to fancy himself a soldier. As for their dam, his wit and attractions were spent long before we were born.”
“Ah, is that how it is?”
“Don’t try to be arch, Nàl, it doesn’t suit you.”
“Well, I seem to remember a time when you sought his attentions.”
“Did I? It must have been boredom. There is little else to do at Thrymheim than take a turn between the host’s thighs.”
“I remember he made you laugh.”
“Then you misremember.”
“If you say so.” Nàl was gazing at Laufey with a speculative look. “I’d very much like to see you in love, sib.”
“Why?” Laufey swallowed his mouthful of liquor. “Would it improve me, do you think?”
Nàl smiled and shook his head. “People love as they are. And I would never dare suggest you could be improved on.”
“Then why bother?”
“I don’t think I have ever seen you feel joy, Laufey. Not since we were very small.”
Laufey’s expression held limitless scorn. “Well, I have already tired of the court. I highly doubt I’ll be overwhelmed with joy any time soon.
“Ah, but I did hear tell of something that might interest you.” Nàl leaned closer. “When I was in the North, the people spoke of a wonder that dwells in a village on the foothills of the mountains.”
“A thing with two heads, perhaps – is that what you would have me paired off with?”
Nàl’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “No, no – a beauty they say. The fairest of our kind that ever lived! They go so far as to claim that this paragon has a touch of the divine about him.”
Laufey snorted in derision. “I lay you a bet, Nàl, there is no such thing. It is a hog they have shaved to gull the bumpkins out of their bent copper coins – depend upon it.”
Nàl smiled at his sibling’s acerbic wit. “I will take that bet, Laufey. The victor shall have the pick of the next great hunt.”
Laufey offered his arm. “Done.”
*~*~*
Little Golnir was in the middle of his nightly routine of rubbing his eyes and crying.
“I’m not tired. I’m not. I’m NOT. I’m not tired.” The child’s high, repetitive whine was interspersed with heartfelt sobs, as if there was no more cruel or inglorious fate he could imagine than being made to lie down and close his eyes.
Fárbauti’s dam (Golnir’s sire) watched the child with increasing irritation from his place at the table.
“Ah, little one,” Fárbauti’s sire (Golnir’s dam) appealed, “will you ever hush? Your poor sire is trying to eat his supper.”
“You will catch a smack in a minute,” Fárbauti warned him gravely.
Fárbauti’s dam gave a grunt of assent. “Then you will have something to howl about. Get on that bed and stop your noise.”
“I’m not TIRED,” the child insisted, jumping up and down on the earthen floor of their house.
Fárbauti’s dam threw down his spoon with a clatter and got to his feet, catching Golnir’s arm and yanking it to twist the child around, then giving him a single, hard slap across the back of the thighs. Tears sprang into Golnir’s eyes and he began to bawl, falling onto his behind with a thump. Fárbauti’s dam cursed and stalked out the door, slamming it behind him.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Fárbauti’s sire lamented with a sigh, rising to scoop the child into his lap. “Hush now, stop all this foolishness.”
Golnir’s yells quietened into sobs as his dam held him close and rocked him. “How is there such woe in such a little thing, eh?” When the child had finally ceased his noise, the elder giant called out: “Fárbauti, will you go to your dam and bid him come in again?”
Fárbauti shook his head. “Let him come back in his own time.”
His sire gave him a penetrating look. “You seem melancholy, my love.”
“It’s nothing,” Fárbauti played with the silver rings on his wrist – gifts from his petitioners, carved with their names in trust of remembrance in his prayers.
“You used to trust me to keep your counsels.”
Fárbauti looked away, not wanting to see the hurt in his sire’s eyes. Golnir’s deep breathing had become a very soft, childish snore.
“Was I as troublesome at that age?” Fárbauti asked.
“You?” his sire smiled and shook his head. “No, you were a treasure. Fair and smiling, always.” When Fárbauti continued to look distant, his sire asked: “have you quarreled with your sweetheart?”
“Who could quarrel with Holt?” Fárbauti rose, crossing to the cottage door. He found his dam sitting on the frost-rimed tree trunk that they had yet to chop for wood, hands on his knees as he gazed off into the forest.
“The little terror is asleep and your supper is waiting for you by the fire.”
His dam nodded to acknowledge his child’s words, continuing to stare ahead. “I heard wolves again tonight. Golnir must not go wandering on his own.”
“Yes, dam.”
“Well?”
It was the closest Fárbauti was likely to get to an invitation. He eased himself down next to the older giant, crossing his arms over his chest. “Someone came to me today – a great, rough-handed smith. He reminded me of you.”
“And what was his complaint – that he is unloved, or that he cannot conceive?”
Fárbauti ignored the scorn in the other giant’s tone – he knew well enough what his dam thought of his vocation. “Neither. His belly was swollen with a child.”
“Then what ailed him?”
“He had birthed two already. One lived five days, the other a bare handful of hours.”
His dam tilted his head in assent. “Aye. That is hard.”
Fárbauti tilted his head back to look at the stars. “I cannot forget his words. He said... he could be easier if he knew only the outcome. He asked me if I had that power – to know what will be.”
“What reply did you give?”
“I laid my hands on him and told him all would be well. He was so grateful that he wept.” Fárbauti played anxiously with his bracelets. “I suppose I will never know what becomes of it.”
“What do you want of me – to tell you you did right?”
“No. I just thought you would understand better than sire – he has always said that I give hope.” Fárbauti glanced up at his dam’s implacable face. “Now I wonder if hope is not cruel.”
“We are born to a hard life in a hard land,” Fárbauti’s dam rose to his feet with a grunt, joints clicking. “He who cannot bear his share of woe has no right to count himself a Jotun.”
“Dam, would you like it if I went to the fields with you tomorrow?”
“What would you have to do in the fields, child?”
Fárbauti shrugged. “I could help. I want to help.”
“Eh, and ruin your fair hands? Get your hair all tangled up in knots? What good would that do?”
Fárbauti bowed his head, staring at his own toes as he flexed them on the hard-packed snow. “I don’t want to be a disappointment to you. I don’t want to be useless.”
“There, child,” his dam’s voice softened, almost imperceptibly. “Golnir is a stout lad – he will work the fields when I am gone, and you may ply your sire’s trade, if a trade you must have.”
Fárbauti looked up sharply. “What do you mean, ‘if’?”
“Holt is a goodly youth, and well-skilled. He’d be glad to have you dwelling beneath his roof – I dare say he’d ask nothing in return.”
“Is that what I am, a prize to be carried off? A trinket or curiosity?”
“Nay, take it not so hard! He loves you well, Fárbauti.”
Fárbauti stalked back towards the cottage, leaving his dam grumbling in his wake.
*~*~*
Golnir had been laid upon the large bed and Fárbauti’s dam had finally eaten the rest of his supper when the peace of the household was interrupted by a rap upon the door. Fárbauti’s sire answered it, his lined face breaking into a smile as he stepped back to admit Holt. The young hunter was carrying a brace of hares over his shoulders, which he presented to Fárbauti’s sire with a respectful bob of his head.
“I thought, you could use the skins as well as the meat.” He looked acutely embarrassed, uncertain as to whether his gift would be welcome.
“Thank-you, Holt,” Fárbauti’s sire smiled warmly as he received the offering. “Though I am sure I am not the one you came to woo.”
Holt lowered his eyes. “Fárbauti... I know it is late, but I wondered if you would care to walk out with me?”
Fárbauti forced himself to smile, to rise and go to the door with seeming alacrity.
He strode down the path ahead of Holt, who had to break into a jog to catch up with him.
“Fárbauti, is something amiss?”
“Nothing, Holt. I was just quarreling with my dam.”
“Ah, it must be hard, all four of you dwelling together.”
Fárbauti knew well enough what Holt was driving at, but refused to catch the end of the offered thread. “Where’ve you been these last few days?”
“Over on the western ridge. Snaring the hares, as you see, and a few of the woolly goats. They fetched a good price in the village.” Holt caught his arm, drawing Fárbauti towards him. “Did you miss me? Oh, I could think of nothing but you.” His fingers trailed their way up to Fárbauti’s shoulder, the shadowy hollow of his clavicle. “Your eyes and your mouth, and the woodsmoke scent of your hair. My love – my only love.”
“Would you love me if I were ugly?” Fárbauti asked him. “If my hands were rough and my features course? If no-one thought I was special?”
Holt looked up at him with a startled expression. Fárbauti realised he had been too sharp, too angry – Holt would not hear his question, only his displeasure.
“Fárbauti, are you vexed with me? Have I neglected you?”
“No, no you have never–” Fárbauti shook his head. He had no words for how he felt, even if Holt would hear them. A tight, strangling feeling reached up from his solar plexus to his throat. “I am in a strange mood – heed me not.”
Holt took him to the great cataract in the foothills, a magnificent spectacle in the safe, cold seasons, but now on the point of melting for Jotunheim’s brief growing time. The huge mass of suspended ice had begun slowly breaking free from its moorings. Eventually it would slough off to crash down upon the riverbed below, shattering into huge ice-boulders and tiny needle-like slivers before melting.
It made loud cracks at intervals, bursts of sound Fárbauti found both startling and ominous.
Holt smoothed a circle in the fresh snow and beckoned Fárbauti down with him. They kissed, Fárbauti on his back with his hand curled loosely around Holt’s shoulder; Holt on his side, leaning into the other giant, but not pressing him down. Fárbauti closed his eyes and let himself be lulled by the simplicity of it, the shifting join of their mouths.
Holt’s hands were always gentle, skimming reverently across the expanses of Fárbauti’s skin.
“I wish your heart would pound like this for me,” he said, a smile keeping it in the realm of a joke as he spread his hand over Fárbauti’s chest. “Easy, my love. We’re safe here, far from harm’s way.”
“It’s late... I want to go home,” Fárbauti looked back at his lover, thought about Holt’s long trudge back to his own cabin. “But you can come back with me, if you like.”
“Will not your parents mind my staying?”
Fárbauti shook his head. “They like you.”
“You dam doesn’t.”
“He doesn’t like anyone. It is his way.”
“You’re like him. Prickly and stubborn.”
Fárbauti laughed. “Am I?”
*~*~*
They crept quietly into the darkened cottage, the dying embers of the fire providing just enough light for them to pick their way between the two pallets.
On the larger bed, the rest of Fárbauti’s family lay in the shaft of moonlight coming through their single ice-block window. His dam (the shorter and stockier of the two adults) lay nearest the wall on his left side, one arm draped across his lover’s middle. Fárbauti’s sire lay on his back, while Golnir nestled against him with a head on his shoulder.
Fárbauti and Holt fitted together in the smaller bed only with difficulty, trying not to laugh and stifling the yelps from misplaced elbows. Fárbauti was just beginning to settle when he felt Holt’s questing fingertips in the crease between his his hipbone and thigh.
“Holt, If we wake my brother–”
“I can be quiet.”
“No you can’t.” Fárbauti felt the huff of frustration against the back of his neck.
“You are very cruel to me.”
“Go to sleep you ridiculous creature.”
In the morning, Fárbauti extricated himself from Holt’s embrace and sat up, beginning the laborious process of separating out the strands of his long, wavy hair. After some minutes Holt stretched and grumbled, blinking up at him.
“Stay for breakfast?” Fárbauti asked, reaching down to brush his thumb across his lover’s cheek.
Holt yawned and grasped his wrist, stroking the sensitive spot at his pulse-point. “I should get back to check my snares.”
“Alright, I’ll walk some of the way with you.”
They rose and put on their garments. As they were turning towards the door, Fárbauti was arrested by the plaintive tones of his sire: “Take your brother with you if you’re going out.”
Golnir was no more than half awake by this point, rubbing his eyes and fussing, so Fárbauti reached down to pick him up, hitching the sleepily protesting child on one hip. “Come on you little terror. Oof! You are getting heavy.”
“Why can’t I stay in bed?” Golnir whined against his ear.
Fárbauti caught the amused glimpse in his sire’s eyes as his dam’s hand twitched on his hip. “Give your poor parents some time to themselves, hmm?”
“Do what your older brother tells you, Golnir.”
“He’s only my spirit brother!” the child protested, making a face over Fárbauti’s shoulder.
*~*~*
Fárbauti had to hold Golnir steady while he pissed to stop the sleep-giddy child from splashing his own feet. He then trailed him down the path to where Holt waited, making apologetic eyes at his lover.
Holt crouched down to be at Golnir’s height and pointed to the yellowish shrub poking through the partially melted ground.
“What’s that?” he asked the child.
“Crowberry!” Golnir snorted. “Everyone knows that.”
“And what do you use it for?”
“For eating, when the berries are ripe. And... my dam says the leaves can make a tea for stomach ache.”
“Right, but what else can you see that you could eat?”
Golnir looked around “Nothing else!”
“I can see... five things. Five things we could eat, if we were very hungry.”
“Crowberry,” said Golnir to himself, folding down his thumb to count it off. He tugged at his bottom lip and looked around himself.
“Perhaps it’s easier if you’re higher up.” Holt crouched down and let Golnir climb onto his back, arms clasped around the hunter’s neck. “Look at the trees.”
“Lichen,” said Fárbauti, pointing to the bark of a dwarf willow.
“Fárbauti, you’re not allowed to play!” the child protested. Holt laughed and ran down the hill a little way, Golnir shrieking in delight at the bumping and lurching. When Holt put him down again the child reached up and grasped the elder giant’s hand, so absurdly flattered to have an adult’s full attention that he listened with every sign of attention to Holt’s lesson on edible plants.
Holt smiled at Fárbauti, showing his crooked teeth. He was a homely youth, but Fárbauti had never minded that.
He is a good man, Farbauti thought.
Perhaps that would be enough.
*~*~*
Fárbauti reentered the cottage (with Golnir in tow) to find his sire sitting up at the table with his work laid out before him. “Has dam gone down to the fields already?”
“Aye, it’s the time for delving, now the surface frost is giving way. There’s root mash for you both by the fire.”
Fárbauti’s sire put down the complex piece of leatherwork he had been busy with (the side panel of a girdle) and took Golnir onto his knee, stroking the child’s arms as he babbled on about the things Holt had told him.
“He’s very clever, isn’t he? Isn’t Fárbauti lucky to have such a sweetheart?”
“But Fárbauti doesn’t love him!” the child declared, proud at knowing a secret.
“Why do you say that?”
“He doesn’t smile when Holt kisses him. I would, if Holt was my sweetheart.”
Fárbauti’s sire laughed. “You’re a little young for all that yet, Golnir. Now listen – eat your breakfast like a good child, and then I want you to run to the village and bring some of that good rabbit meat to your grandam.”
“I don’t want to go to grandam’s – it smells!”
“It’s a tannery, child, of course it does! Go on, and stop being so difficult, or your sire will hear of it when he gets home.”
When Golnir had obediently sat up on the table and started to eat, Fárbauti’s sire turned his attention back to the elder of his offspring. “Your hair will be a thicket again if you don’t have a care of it. Why don’t you let me have a go?”
Fárbauti huffed in frustration. “I should cut it all off and have done.”
“It would only grow back again. Come on now,” his sire rose and placed the stool he had been sitting on in the centre of the room, gesturing for Fárbauti to sit and making him feel like the more unreasonable child.
His sire had long, deft hands, perpetually stained brown at the tips from handling fresh hides. Everything he did he did with patience and sureness – untangling Farbauti’s hair was no exception. The motion of it had almost lulled the seated youth to sleep again, but then the elder giant spoke up: “well, if Holt doesn’t please you, I suppose that’s that. Still, he’s a kind and mannerly youth – it would be a shame to cast him aside without good reason.”
“I never said I’m going to cast him aside,” Fárbauti snapped, annoyed that his sire was unprepared to let the subject drop.
“... I mean, it’s not as if he’s cruel, or a drunkard. Is he unfaithful? Is he an unskillful lover?”
“No,” Fárbauti admitted, “none of those things.”
“Is there someone else you like better?”
“No. I just... I can’t make myself love him, that’s all. Nor do I think his love for me is so very deep as he claims.”
“Why so?”
“What does he know or care of me, but that I am called fair? What does anyone, but my kin? I would rather be here trying to reason with my spiteful little brother than listening to all Holt’s mooning flatteries.” Fárbauti drummed a restless tattoo on the floor with his toes. “I am sorry to disappoint your hopes – I know you and dam are anxious to have me packed off.”
His sire pinched Fárbauti’s shoulder’s painfully. “Oh child, why would you say such a thing?”
“He said as much himself. He thinks I am a shiftless burden, good for nothing but to be someone’s prize.”
“No, no, no, Fárbauti! Your dam has lived a hard life, he does not want that for you. He wants to see you well cared for. You are his only treasure, he would not see you broken and old before your time.”
Fárbauti gave a dismissive grunt. “You always speak as if he thinks like you.”
The older giant crouched by his side, his gaze anxious and searching. “You don’t know him as I do. You don’t know the youth he was, or how want and sorrow hardened him. You cannot remember the tendernesses he gave you as an infant. I may be mistaken about many things, but not this. Fárbauti, you must never speak to him of these thoughts – such uncharitable words would break his heart.”
Shamed, Fárbauti turned his face away. His sire clasped his hand and squeezed it.
“We would rather keep you here with us than anything – its is no matter to your dam and I that were are squashed together like fledgelings in a nest. But you are grown now, and it is natural you should want to choose a companion, and have your own household and a little space to raise your own children.”
Fárbauti’s gaze flicked downwards. “What if I don’t want those things?”
“This life is a hard journey to take the whole way alone, child. And you...”
“What?”
“Don’t be vexed when I say this, Fárbauti... but you are a special person. Your dam and I have always been afraid for you, that if you should stray and find yourself friendless...” his sire closed his eyes and shook his head as if to banish an unwanted thought. “There are those who would use you to their own ends, who would see your gifts as a means to profit.”
“You both worry too much. Dam thinks Golnir will be eaten by wolves.”
The child squeaked in indignation. “A wolf wouldn’t eat me, would it?”
Fárbauti’s sire laughed, rising and leaning over to kiss the top of the child’s head. “No, little one. A dinner as troublesome as you would surely give it indigestion.”
*~*~*
After breakfast, Fárbauti made his way to the shrine, as it was called, although it was nothing more than a large standing stone. Jotnar long-dead and forgotten had carved it with the image of Ymir, smaller figures emerging from the titan’s great bulk.
Fárbauti had heard that in the royal city there was a temple big enough to hold all the houses of his village inside it, and that generations of Jotunheim’s most skilled masons had carved every inch of its vaulted ceilings. A score of priests tended its lights and presented the offerings of the citizens with all manner of ceremonies.
The single stone was all Fárbauti’s people had – that and Fárbauti himself, who was not a priest of a healer, but a listener. He made his way down the steps cut into the hillside, curving around the hind-side of the stone. A small crowd was already waiting at a respectful distance. He beckoned the first of them forth and took his place on the flattened boulder that was his habitual seat.
The petitioner unfolded his woe and Fárbauti offered what comfort he could. With reluctance he accepted the giant’s offering – a small medallion of silver, stamped with a simple design. A trinket in the eyes of a lord, but of great price to a farmer such as this. Fárbauti did not like offerings, but there were those who could not be dissuaded. Perhaps they thought blessings more efficacious if they were paid for.
He went home in the late afternoon when the crowd had dispersed, stopping by the fields where his dam was delving to offer him the cakes a petitioner had brought, a mix of suet, sweet sap and the same precious grain the workers were now striving to make the ground fit to receive.
His dam gravely divided the first three cakes among his fellow labourers, then wrapped the last of them back in its cloth and handed it to Fárbauti.
“Take that home to your brother and share it with him,” he said. “See if it buys us a peaceful night for once.”
“Yes, dam.”
The older giant touched Fárbauti’s cheek in farewell. “Stop staring at him, you layabouts,” he chided the others. “He’s not for the likes of you.”
“Oi, gaffer,” one of the youngest called, “how did such a divine creature spring from your shriveled old womb?” There was a low ripple of laughter from the others.
“I don’t know what alchemy it was that took place in my belly, but I do know I’ll give you a belt in yours if you don’t stop gawping and get back to your work.”
The labourers laughed more heartily at this, and even Fárbauti’s dam quirked a smile as he turned away.
*~*~*
Fárbauti slept fitfully that night. His heart pounded and a strange feeling of dread gripped him. He woke to find Golnir staring at him and prodding him with a sharp little finger.
“You stink, Fárbauti!” the child crowed, wrinkling his nose.
“I do not, you little horror!”
His sire came over to drag the child away, but paused, frowning at Fárbauti, then laying a hand on his brow.
“Fárbauti, are you coming on?”
Fárbauti shifted and felt that maddening rush of sensation through his lower half.
“Oh, it’s not fair!” he cried, carding his hands through his sleep-ruffled hair. “Why am I always out of season?”
“What’s wrong with him?” Golnir pried, tugging anxiously on his dam’s girdle. “Is he sick?”
“No child, he’s quite well. Go on, run to your sire and tell him to fetch Holt.”
“No!” Fárbauti protested, sitting up and gathering the furs over his lap.
Fárbauti’s sire pushed at his child’s shoulder. “Do as I say, Golnir. On with you!”
“You had no right to do that!”
“I would not see you suffer, nor have you waste an opportunity to get with a child of your own.”
“It is my choice, sire.”
“Who said it wasn’t?” the elder giant began to gather up his leatherwork and headed towards the door. “Discuss it with Holt and then make your choice.”
There was no discussion, of course – by the time Holt arrived Fárbauti was starving for a lover’s touch. He barely waited for Holt to get the latch fastened behind him before he was scrabbling at the catch on the hunter’s girdle, covering his neck and jaw with bites.
“It’s like that, is it?” Holt said, his voice a rumble of amusement as Fárbauti dragged him across the room to the rumpled bed.
Fárbauti threw himself onto his back and eagerly spread his thighs, fingers parting his labia to dabble in the wetness there and spread it up to the base of his prick. Holt obligingly wrapped his fist around the shaft and squeezed, giving Fárbauti an openly worshipful look (which Fárbauti was too far gone to care about in the least).
“So,” Holt asked, kneeling over Fárbauti and rubbing their pricks together, “will you let me have a turn underneath you this time, or am I to work myself to exhaustion as usual?”
Fárbauti tilted his hips to press their cunts together, then ground his pelvis in a slow circle. “Exhaust yourself first, and then we’ll see.”
“You’re very cruel to me,” Holt said – yet this time it sounded oddly admiring.
*~*~*
The melting snow made the land passable again to those from beyond the realm, bringing to Fárbauti’s village the merchants of Svartalfheim, on their way to the royal city to trade their ceramics and finely-worked metals. They stopped for the night just outside the village, setting a great bonfire and swapping their wares with the locals in return for food and company. One small group had instruments – a pipe and skin-covered drum, and something a little like a harp, but wooden and rested on the shoulder, played with a curious stick-like device. The sound it made was high and tremulous – Golnir shrieked with delight to hear it, tugging at Fárbauti’s arm as the family made their way towards the merry gathering.
Fárbauti basked in the light of the fire and watched his sire teaching Golnir to dance, holding the child’s hands as they both stared in concentration at their feet. His dam stood further off in a knot of his fellow farmers, tossing out their familiar complaints about soils, seeds and weather.
All of a sudden, Fárbauti felt hands brushing through his hair. He jerked around to see one of the visitors regarding him with keen interest. He opened his mouth and spoke in that odd, rasping tongue of theirs, blinking his large inky eyes.
“I don’t understand you,” Fárbauti said.
The elf was only as tall as Fárbauti’s elbow, so at first he almost took it for a child. His skin was of a paler hue than Fárbauti’s – closer to grey than blue – and his hair was a startling white like starlight. His chest was rounded as if milk-laden beneath the fabric of his fur-lined cloak, but when he turned to call over one of his fellows Fárbauti could see that he carried no child at his back.
The second elf to approach acted as a translator. “My spouse says he did not know your kind could be handsome.”
Fárbauti stared between them – the first elf was somewhat shorter and slighter than the other. “But... why are you wed, if you are not lords?”
The merchant smiled. “It is different for our people. We come in two kinds, and we like to make up a pair.”
The first elf spoke again, his voice high and melodic. His spouse once again relayed the stream of words: “he says that one of your ancestors must have played a trick with one of ours.”
Fárbauti laughed. “Perhaps so. My grandam had hair, too. He always said his sire was a stranger.”
“My spouse says he has something for you.”
The first elf reached into the folds of his long garment and produced a curious, dainty object, holding it up to Fárbauti. It was a pale orangey-pink colour and made of something like stone, finely carved on the upper portion and then tapering into a series of wide-spaced tines.
“What is it?”
“It’s a comb. Made of ocean coral.”
“What is it for?”
The merchant seemed amused. “For grooming, lovely giant. How else do you untangle your hair?”
“Oh, I use my fingers.” Fárbauti suddenly felt very foolish. “It... it takes a long time.”
The elven pair had another softly murmured conference, this time punctuated with laughter. “He says the price of it is a kiss.”
Fárbauti got down on one knee to allow the first elf to put his plump little arms around his neck. The kiss caught the corner of his mouth, as soft as the fluttering of a moth’s wings.
*~*~*
It had grown late when Fárbauti’s family climbed up the hill towards their dwelling. Golnir was whining in over-tiredness and knuckling at the corner of his eye, his other hand clasped tightly in his sire’s.
By the light of the moon they could see that there were soldiers in the doorway of their cottage.
Fárbauti had never seen soldiers before – but he knew that to be what they were by the scars cut into their bodies. They were no taller than himself, but grim-faced and thickly muscled. Although they were yet to move, something in their stature spoke of violence.
Fárbauti’s dam caught Golnir up and pressed the child’s face to his shoulder with one large hand, seeking to protect him either from seeing or being seen. Fárbauti’s sire grasped his elder child’s arm and tried to pull him backwards towards the woods.
“Do you really think to out-run us, you stupid peasant? Stay where you are.”
“What business have you with us?” Fárbauti’s sire demanded. “This household pays our lord’s tithes.” His voice quavered and it was apparent by the look on the faces of both of Fárbauti’s parents that they were absolutely terrified.
“We have naught to do with you, beldame – it’s with your stripling there.” It was the left-hand soldier who spoke. This giant had a narrow, malicious face, while the second soldier was square-jawed and as impassive as a glacier. “We have come for him by order of Laufey, high king of Jotunheim.”
Fárbauti folded his arms over his chest. He was surprised to find that he himself felt no fear - only a bright, swiftly mounting anger. “If King Laufey desires my intercession, then he should have sent more civil petitioners.”
“King Laufey does not petition.” the second soldier growled. “He reaches out and takes what pleases him, and we, the royal guard, are his arms!”
“Then you take me fighting and screaming the whole way. And every field we pass I will call for aid, and the honest laborers will rush to batter you.”
“You think yourself of such high value?”
“The people of these lands believe that I am a sign of favour from the gods. If you had a divine gift, would you allow a couple of savages to carry it off?” His sire’s grip tightened painfully on Fárbauti’s arm. The second soldier hissed in indignation and made as if to lunge forward before a sharp gesture from the other stayed him.
The first soldier seemed entertained by Fárbauti’s insolence. “I think it would surprise you, lovely stripling, to learn what men are prepared to lose before their own lives.”
“Enough of this!” the second barked. “Come with us willingly or we’ll have to amuse ourselves with your kin here.”
“Oh yes,” the first affirmed, craning his neck. “My companion has been spoiling for a brawl since we set out, and that tall one,” he indicated Fárbauti’s dam, “looks like he would be a bit of sport. I wonder who would win if Skrymir here played a little tug-of-war with that brat that cleaves to him, hmm? Now my vice is lust. Laufey said we might not interfere with you but nothing was said about the ones who spawned you.” He cast a glance over Fárbauti’s sire, who seemed to shrink in disgust beneath it. “Is it this one that’s your dam? There’s a faint resemblance, I fancy, and I don’t mind a loose cunt.”
Golnir chose his moment to begin to cry, his high-pitched wail making everything infinitely more terrible.
“Then,” said the second soldier, “perhaps we’ll take a stroll through the village.” In the palm of his hand there grew a pikestaff of ice. “I bet you have cousins and loved-ones there. How about I decorate the shit-strewn streets of this backwater with their heads?”
“Enough!” Fárbauti cried. “I will go with you, and quietly. Only leave my family and the village untouched.”
The first soldier twisted his lip, looking faintly disappointed by Fárbauti’s acquiescence.
“Ah well,” said the second with a regretful purse of his lips. “If that’s how it must be.”
Fárbauti’s sire turned to him with wild, pleading eyes. “Run, child - we will hold them back long enough for you to get away. Run!”
“Oh my sire,” Fárbauti felt tears spring into his eyes. “Do you think so little of your own life, or that I do? I will go to the king if it takes these bloodthirsty ones from our hearth. Aye, and dwell gladly in captivity forever if it only keeps you safe.”
Fárbauti heard a strange choked sound and turned to see that his dam was staring at him with tears standing on his cheeks.
“Look on the bright side,” the first soldier said. “The king may well tire of you soon enough – he’s easily bored.”