Serpentine of a Man
Summary and content: Snake falls in love with Reader prior to the fanfic time setting, while reader learns to love Snake during the story. Reader, Arnied, Einar, and Thorfinn are friends. Enemies to lovers? One use of [Name] in the beginning. She/her used on reader. Mention of reader knowing Thorfinn prior. Reader works as a nanny for the kids on Ketil's farm.
Warnings: Age gap, but no mention of it. (Snake is 37. [Hinted] Reader is 24-26). Nightmare scene - hinted at PTSD.
Dictionary at the end for any unfamiliar words.
Requested - Anonymous on Tumblr and cccchofi on wattpad
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The wheat kneels. People, slaves and retainers, cover their faces as the loose dirt dances with the wind. Women's dresses lightly joining. The sun showed mercy at the close end of summer, but one was still most likely to sweat.
"Water! We got water fresh from the spring!" A young boy yelled, dragging a barrel filled to the brim of cool water atop a small wagon.
"It's still cold!" A younger girl spoke loudly after. The other kids joined with giggles.
Spinning, facing the opposite way of the kids, "Y'hear that? Fresh and cold! Come get it before someone decides to be greedy!" You cry out. Trying to let your voice carry to the ones farther away.
Einar's head turns to you as he passes the trail on the other side of the wheat field. "Hey, Thorfinn?" He calls out to the other man beside him, "who is that?" Einar points to your eccentric figure, arms coneing around your mouth before being thrown out above your head.
"Huh?" Thorfinn turns to look at Einar, to then look at where he is pointing- at you. "Oh, that's [Name]. She cares for the slaves and farmers' kids when they're working the fields."
"Ah," Einar sounds in acknowledgment. Einar zones in on you, lost in thought and wonder. Are you a slave? A free person who just works for Ketil?
Thorfinn looks back to Einar. He thinks only for a moment before speaking again, "Do you want to talk to her-" Einar quickly flickers his gaze back to Thorfinn, shaking his head quickly. "Okay..?" Thorfinn questions his friend's quick rejection.
Einar rushes past, "Not right now anyway. We have work to do!"
Thorfinn replies to his sudden enthusiasm, "Uh- Right!"
Well, he is going to see you again anyway. Really soon, actually. It is almost lunch time, afterall. Just an hour more until the sun marks it as noon. Hours do tend to pass by quickly, though.
"Thorfinn!" You popped out from behind one of the trees. Both of the men's shoulders stiffen, rising, before looking towards you. You smile at them, "Lunch time," you bring out the thin, fabric bag from behind you. It seemed more full than when the retainers brought them food. That's for sure. "Cheese and bread, as usual, I fear." Handing off the bag to Thorfinn.
"Thank you," Thorfinn looks at the inside of the bag. Two, full boule loaves, and two things of triangle cut gouda cheese.
Thorfinn is really starting to think you are a Hamingja. Sent straight from beyond the sky.
Einar looks to Thofinn and the exposed goods from the bag in his hands. "Yeah, thanks-" Einar is interrupted with a grumbly voice, clearing their throat.
A loud yawn erupts from the man emerging from behind you. Irked from the noise, and presence he brings, you glare at the man. Snake. All you do is argue with one another. Why did Master Ketil put you two together? He could've sent a retainer down with you instead.
But, no. You two need to learn how to get along. It's not good to have fights with someone you're going to spend years with on the same pot of land. Then again, you don't have any favor for the retainers either.
"All right. What the hell am I suppose to be doing with this thing?" Snake refers to the horse, tugging on its curb rein. It huffs, taking short steps alongside Snake.
Staring at him, eye twitching, you breath exasperatedly at his words. "Tie any fallen trunk to the horse's harness. Pull it over to the river. Do that same thing with another trunk. You're done when there are no more loose, fallen trunks." Snake looks at you, tired. He always sleeps until mid-late afternoon. We guests do our jobs at night to keep you safe! You can hear his egotistic- annoying- womanizing- self-certained- patronizing- conceited- narcissistic- casanova- bitch ass voice echoing in your brain. You hate it. "Go," you gesture to the land behind Thorfinn and Einar. Your voice isn't sharp or graining with hidden half-witted insulting remarks. As it could've been, but just wasn't. Just a small go, hoping he does.
"Whatever you say, angel," Snake's voice chimes, slinging the rope that was on the horse's saddle over his shoulder. Snake had no smirk or grin when speaking. He walks to the nearest trunk, tugging the horse with him. He began to tie the rough material over and under the trunk. Snake anchors the rope to small, cut-off branches, too. Taking the excess rope to where he left the horse to stand, wrapping it over to the harness, as well, and tugging the other end to wrap around his own torso.
One pull was enough for judgment. Snake needed help. It was a two man job to pull it over to the river.
"Hey," Snake looks back to where you three stood. Looking at him, he continues, "a little help, here. Someone needs to push."
Einar speaks up first, back to Snake, "Uh-Right!" Einar jogs over, putting his hands on the tree, "Ready." Einar's voice was stern and loud. Suppose that's just what he talks like when it comes to someone of a higher class than him.
After four interesting hours of Snake grumbling, you staring off into space while sitting awkwardly on a frayed stump, and Thorfinn and Einar switching off who pushes while the other eats, you praise the two other men before leaving. Rubbing random spots near the resting place of the harness, you walk alongside the horse, Snake on the opposite side of the creature.
Taking the final step out of the patch of forest, Snake takes a moment to wonder before leaving the question to hang in his thoughts. You two never really spoke to each other because you fought. So often. Snake saw no reason to punish you, so he never complains to Ketil about it. That is who your master is after all.
That does leave for complaints to continuously leave the bastard's mouth while he eats heaps and lumps of food old man Sverkel prepared. Least to say, though you and the old master never truly met, Sverkel knows you roughly well. From Snake's perspective. Which is, "an enchanting witch who only complains like a spoiled princess."
To mention again, though you and the old master never met, you two can agree on one thing. Snake is a parasite mimicking a serpent's tongue. But he is needed. Terribly so. All the guests were.
You read the difference in mood, even slight, coming from your companion. "There's something on your mind. Spill it, Snake." Sensing just a small change or detail was a gift you possessed. Snake always wondered if it was something you developed or just a talent you always had.
Snake looks to where he heard your voice. The horse's neck blocks his view of you. "Have you and Thorfinn known each other before coming to the farm?" Snake finally asks. He has held that wonder since only a few seasons ago. "Even before becoming slaves?"
Tightening your fist around the horse's reins, knuckles showing paler, and crescents dig themselves into your palm. "Perhaps. What's it to you?" You sound.. Desperate? Desprate to end the conversation. To have no more questions to answer. That was a mere four years ago when you two last saw each other just to be reunited. Just four years ago since you last saw a warrior you visioned as your own family. It was a time you did not miss filled with the few people that you did.
You sound irritated and annoyed. Doing the same as Snake, you look towards where his voice carries from, despite the horse being in the middle of you both. Snake grunts in annoyance from your tone.
"Just wondering is all. No need to have unspoken words," but he doesn't know what those words are. Not for this particular exchange.
Inhaling sharply, you speak again. Quieter. "I did." Before Snake can ask any more questions, you let out another sentence, "Let's just hurry. I need to get to the younger kids on the farm," you try to redirect the subject.
"Do you not trust my men?"
"Not with my kids." You are quick to backhand his question.
"Hey, dumbasses!" Snake yells out as he enters the fort. Screams and giggles come from kids, and groans and complaints come from men.
Side eyeing Snake, you walk farther than him, beyond the first building. Young kids are spread out everywhere. Running from each other and Fox. Possibly the only man who thought it necessary to take care of and indulge them. Taking one last step, you position yourself in the middle of the grounds. You clap your hands twice, and loudly. "Hey, my wonders!" Putting on a smile, you yell out. "Guess who's back from a long and terrible journey," you spread out your arms for your usual theatrics.
The kids run to you from their places, screaming and crying out your name. There weren't too many of the younger and smaller kids, only 4 or 5 of them. Even still, it was enough to have a need for you to readjust your footing while they knocked into and jumped on you.
You laughed with them, having joy in that moment.
A gruff whisper of your name is repeated. It is fading just to get louder. A pitch black place slowly coming into focus. Screams getting closer. Seeing it now, clearer, there's blood. Everywhere. Bodies hanging on branches. Arrows shot right through them.
"Why..?" Your voice is meek and fragile. To be brought back to this forsaken place, who wouldn't want to scream out for help?
The whisper a whisper no more. It speaks right in your ear. Right behind you. You freeze. Stiffen. The voice bubbles around liquid. You slowly turn around, holding your breath. Your irises shake as you find the man behind you. The very dead man.
Sunken eye sockets where there are no eyes. Gray and blue skin of decay. Bones showing proudly through fallen muscle and torn clothes.
You choke on a scream. It stays in your throat. Water lines your eyes. Hands trembling. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry," whimpering out, you slowly fall to the ground. Your knees dig into the dried dirt and exposed roots of the trees. Your head is just a few inches away from the man's feet. Shaking hands shield your head. "I didn't want to. I promise. I was just doing what I was told-"
"Weak excuses. What else was there to take your anger out on but a stranger you titled 'enemy'?" How could you ever forget his voice? You raise your head to look at where the voice came from. In front of you. Where the rotting man was, there stood Askeladd. The man you served for more than half a decade alongside Thorfinn. "What's with the staring? Miss me that much?" Askeladd grins. His crows feet wrinkles deepening with it. He has his sword swung over his shoulder. Wearing what he wore the day he died. The day you saw him die.
You never hated him, despite your somewhat close relationship with Thorfinn at the time, you never did. You hated his men. Your hate did not drive you, but orders did. "Askeladd..." You whispered, one last tear crawling and tickling its way down your cheek. Trying to grab at his bloodied white sash, he dissipates into the rotting man that was in front of you before.
The man swings his ax down to you, at your neck. You are about to yell, or even beg, but just then, you feel something latch around your left forearm.
Arnheid holds your arms as they reach out for nothing. She looks at you, deep into every detail of your face. "Are you ok-"
You pull your arms out of her grasp, sitting up, you push yourself away from her. "I'm sorry- that I woke you."
"Oh..." Arnheid reaches out for you again, resting her hand on your knee. "I wake you every night in hopes to rid you of whatever hell greets you close to every night. Please, do not feel bad for it," you stare at her hands.
Gently, you let your legs fall from your chest to the bed, placing your hand atop hers. "Thank you, dearly, Arnhied."
Arnied takes her other hand to your cheek where a tear almost falls from your water line, wiping it away.
"No need to thank me," bringing your head closer to her chest, she rests her own on the crown of your hair. "We're close as family."
Family... The word almost feels bitter and leaves you to shiver as it rings in your eardrums. "Of course," you mutter into the practically diaphanous, white fabric of her sleeping gown. Arnied soothes over your unexposed skin, hidden under your own excuse of a sleeping gown.
Though, for unfortunate, as you classified it, reasons, Arnied had to leave back to her own room. Soon enough, you did fall back to sleep. Even without her to pacify your terrors. They didn't persist for the rest of the night, thankfully. A mother's effect, despite it not being your own.
"Terrors you call them. Have any more, and you'll sleep in a damned barn! Understand that. You are nothing more than a slave. It is a privilege for you to even have a proper bed." Of course by the morning, the mistress, Ketil's wife, greets you so sweetly. And before her nickering, she welcomed you to the new day with a stinging hit to the face.
She goes to the inside of her home, which she often says, regrettably sharing it with the likes of slave women. You watch her leave with no portray of annoyance, relief, or regret.
The moment the door closes, however, you exhale, and make way to the well, ready to wash your face. Already done with the words and complaints from the mistress, you wish to rather work the nets for old man Sverkal. You've never done it before, but Thorfinn and Einar have. You much rather be his slave rather than Ketil's poor excuse of a wife taking advantage of your very existence to quite literally kick and slap you around.
You firmly believe that that woman is deprived of any short of empathy and sympathy from entering her heart and soul the day she was born. Maybe she was possessed by a frog demon? A malevolent spirit in any scenario. Your thoughts are filled with conspiracies and your throat produces grumbles and complaints of the mistress. You have never been so sick of a person breathing in your life. Coming from the deepest depth of your heart, you distaste of her more than your hatred for Snake and praying to all gods from many on his downfall. Yes, I fear. More than that.
Speak, or think, of the devil and he shall appear. A message of temptation or just to anger one shall no doubt greet your ear. A slithering fool on a horse, but it is not Snake, but only one of the retainers. Now why is he here? Who is to fully know. Now, neverminding that, you continue to the well, looking back in front of you from the direction of the man.
"Good morning," you yawn out to Einar, Thorfinn, and Arnied. Arnied smiles, repeating your words back to you, as well as Thorfinn.
Einar waits, eyes directed behind you, and mind in an endless void. "Morning," Einar then speaks only minutes after. "What was the mistress.." he leaves his question unfinished, unaware of how to finish it.
"It was nothing. She is always salty, believe it or not," you rather not answer. It was not due to embarrassment, but a genuine belief that if you don't, in heart-of-hearts, truly know a person outside of their name, why burden them with the such things that haunt you? They can't fix something that, no matter how hard you try to forge or stitch together, can't be fixed.
Yet there is truth to your statement. No matter how one pleases the mistress, the salt on her tongue and bitterness in her actions, she will, without a doubt, remain to be such a wicked person.
"Hey!" You turn to the man's voice, after dowsing your face with water bowled in your hands. "Hurry up. The kids need their mommy," he laughs at his joke. "The crops need work, and you're holding them up."
I just woke up. Your eye twitches slightly at his attitude. "Of course. I'll get to it as soon as I can," you bow your head as you hold the draped over hand towel, just about to dry your face.
"Soon," he adds, much more sternly, before pulling on the reins to turn his horse around to gallope the way he came.
"I'm so tired," you cover your face with the towel in your hands, gently patting at your skin. Turning around again to face the others, "Arnied! Make my misery no more, I beg!" Walking around the well to where she stood, you clung to her with mock desperation.
Arnied only chuckles at your words. "Go on. Those kids do need you, and the farm-"
"I know, Arnied," you step away from her. "Work must be done." The pads of your pointer and middle touch your forehead. Your head hangs, being held by your fingers. Only seconds later, you drop your hand and straighten your neck, holding up your head. "Now, I shall get dressed to fully greet the day! A temporary goodbye," you face the three, smiling, before heading back to the mansion to clothe yourself in your overdress.
You feigned temporary excitement. You love the children you care for, but the people you often find yourself with, it's simply uncommon to find someone who doesn't try to simplify you to one mere word. No matter what it be.
You pivot to face the opposite way of the house at the final step, going on the deck, you wave a temporary goodbye to your friends before heading inside.
You smile at the children, teaching them flowers and herbs. All the ones that line the border ending Ketil's land, "Yes, and this is called a-"
Whistle. "Pretty close to the forest, huh?" Snake's force rattles behind you.
"Snake," you greet him with his name slipping from your tongue. Standing up, dusting your buttocks from the spare grass blades and clinging dirt, you turn to look at him. "Is there anything you need?" Sickly sweet is your tone.
Gods, you are a contradiction. Snake knows he annoys you. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. "No, nothing. Just wanted to keep you company with the... kids," but one is to guess that's something he likes most about you.
"Is that right?" You know it's some poor excuse to drive you insane.
"Yep," Snake confirms. "Can't leave you all alone with only kids around," he steps closer to you. "What if someone decides to take you?" Snake jests. A pitiful joke it was.
The kids watch on at the scene you two play out in front of them. Some snicker, some gag, and others 'ooo'. One quips their thoughts aloud, "Are you two gonna marry? Miss said she was unwed," the small girl, height only reaching a few inches above your knee, points to you, looking at Snake.
"Hopefully it'll remain that way," you grumble so lowly, no one makes out what you said. You cross your arms while tilting your head, suddenly finding the ground all that more interesting. Hoping to avoid more questions by ignoring their wonders.
Snake is only taken aback by the girl's question, not knowing how to respond, only for a moment. Regrettably. "Oh, no! I can't stand her. Always nagging and complaining. Who would want that? Tsk-tsk," by all that is mighty, you loath this man.
You walk up to him, not face- to- face, but just past where he stands, "I'm not a dog," you whisper in Snake's ear.
In one more step, you bring your heel down to his toes. "Hmph!" Snake huffs out in short pain.
"You'd leave your wife waiting out in the rain if you had one," You look back at Snake over your shoulder. "Who would want that?" You throw his words back at him before calling for the kids, walking away from the forest lining. "Let's go look at the horses!" You cheer out for the children running by your side.
Snake is left behind, staring at your back.
The weird thing is, he has done that before. A fling. He didn't feel any attachment to that woman, and he wanted that to be mutual. He even told her that. Explained to her why. They both thought she wouldn't grow to need him. It was at his old home. Snake only found out after he ran away by a passing word from a drunk, old merchant. 'The poor thing,' he called her.
You gave the past right back to him in that one sentence and didn't even know it. How ironic is that?
But he wouldn't do that with you. Snake has long since came to that painful conclusion just months ago. He doesn't know how you did it, but you unlatched his heart and pulled it right from his chest. The worst part? It wasn't that you basically hated him, though he knew why. It was that you didn't even know you did it.
You would spit on him if you could. Break his neck and legs, just because.
That's why Snake decided he'll work for you. Even if it turned out to just be a small change in opinion about him. He would do it. Before sunrise to after sunset, Snake will do it. Just because it's you. Even if he doesn't understand just why it had to be you. Of all people. And now of all times, too?
You put a curse on the man. That must have been it. Definitely.
"Damn. She has me," Snake walks to one of the trees, pressing his back up against it, and slides down, keeping one leg up- bent, and the other tucking itself under. Snake puts his right hand on his forehead, his left, digging in the dirt beside him. "Man, I'm fucked," Snake almost cries out, dragging his hand down his face, stopping when the weight of his palm tugs on his stubble.
Snake stays there an hour longer than intended. He just sat there thinking. About you. What to do. If he should apologize. Apologize about what? He has done too many things to you, just for the sake of a reaction. How would an apology even go? "I'm sorry for basically torturing you every hour of every day since you first came here. I actually fell in love with you, oddly enough, and didn't know how to act around you, so I treated you in a way I would typically treat my men. Please forgive me!"
Maybe... but this is Snake we're talking about. He just has to look at it from every angle. But he can't figure out yours. You always have a mask on. Snake knows a facade when he sees one. He has never known you to be vulnerable.
Though, on those rare nights where he just so happens to be patrolling near Ketil's mansion, he hears you scream.
He knows it's you. He pays far too much attention to you, including your voice, for either of you two to be admittedly comfortable with. If he did tell you, that, of course, is. He even notices how you often sound so raw in the mornings due to your nightmares. Your terrors.
Snake knows Thorfinn has them, too. More often than you, in fact. He can't even imagine what the hell happened to you two to cause such dread.
Snake may be venomous more often than not, but you were poisonous. Like a budding flower begging to be eaten, just to leave your victim dead and waiting. Poison can not dilute just because its carrier is dead. You're deadly, and your beauty just drags an endless string of unknowing individuals to their graves.
Maybe that's why Snake prefers to admire you from afar. And when he does get up close, he sprays you with his own venom before you can lure him in with yours.
Time went by fast. A week. All seven days. All one hundred and sixty eight hours. All ten thousand and eighty minutes- Well, you get it. Just a few days filled with a lot of time. Until you two, Snake and you, talked to each other. One could even say he was avoiding you. It gave you both time to think, in the most simplest words to say it. The most summarizing word to use for this, however, would be taking a respite. Close to synonyms, I suppose.
You were so used to Snake's persistent teasing and mockery that its absence felt strange. You'd never admit that to anyone. It may be mistaken as missing it. Which you don't. In all honesty, no part of you has changed in wanting to kick his teeth in from his threads of words.
The soft crunch of leaves and ruffling of grass brings your attention back to the world. You were sitting on your knees on top of a short hill, overlooking where the kids played in a small field. If it could even be called that. Filled with grass and flowers it was, but most of it was dried, hardened dirt. It being so from no shettler from the sun.
One last kick from a horse's hoof finally makes you look back. There sat Snake on the saddle. "Can we talk?" Is all he asks. He waits for you to answer, or to even move.
"Yes," you relent, finding it best to agree. "What about?" You give your wonder to him as he dismounts from the sand colored horse.
"I guess..." Snake pauses. What was I going to say? His words left him. Not only that, but his tongue refused to move as well.
"Well, Snake?" Your voice is soft and patient, like how you are with the kids on the farm. Not like how you usually talk to him. Not in the slightest.
It takes him a moment to talk again, left just looking at you. Just you. He was a little surprised, to say the least. "Uh- I- I wanted to-" Snake sits down beside you, his legs slip in front of him, leaning forward slightly, his elbows on his knees, and his hands dangle between the gap his legs created. "I wanted to apologize. For how I've been treating you," Snake lets out a breath. The sound like someone being greeted to the day with a stubbed toe and a mess already needing to be cleaned.
You're quiet. Too quiet for Snake to be comfortable in it. Snake tilts his head in a way to look at you, just to find you already looking at him. "I... forgive you," you mutter to him. "However, never, and I do mean never, do that shit again." You demand him with your words, and the pointed stare you have towards him.
Snake only chuckles, waving his hand near his face in a forget it motion. "God," Snake lets out. I have to tell her. "To be honest," he begins again.
You wait, "What?"
"I've long since came to the conclusion that I liked you. Quite a bit, actually." He looks away from you, rubbing the nape of his neck, Snake looks towards the children. He cringes at the thought of having one of his own. Maybe he wouldn't mind having one, but he never understood why someone would want to have kids. Sure he could stand them, but he doesn't know how he would handle his own.
"You don't even know me," you laugh out pitifully, "and falling in love with a slave? How pathetic of you," you tease him. Readjusting where your hands rested, you left one, the one nearest to Snake, to be placed behind you, leaning back on it.
Snake looks over at you, then down where you rested your hand. He reaches out to it, "If falling for a woman like you makes me pathetic, then-"
"You're idiotic. Nothing would save you from any words that you are about to speak at this moment."
Snake only finds that he can look at you as you look off to beyond the farthest stretch of land. He can only wonder what you dream of doing. What you dream of doing outside of the chains that a few coins placed on you.
"Snake," you speak his name, staying close to a whisper this whole conversation. "If you love me so much," that part grabs his attention more than his name leaving your lips does, "then you will wait. This is not a question, but a demand," you glance towards Snake one last time as he moves your hand to below his chin before looking off again.
"I will. I will wait forever if it ever comes to be at that point."
"Your words don't woo me as much as you wish for them to. You are but a serpentine of a man that wrapped himself around my arm, but never saw me as prey. Maybe an equal, then?"
"Definately it."
You hum at his response, smiling, but you aren't sure why. It was not because you were happy, even though you were. It was not due to smugness either. Contentment? You don't know. What kind of person doesn't know their own emotions?
You aren't even sure how you feel about Snake in return. Yes, you never liked him. He was, well, annoying and a bully, for a lack of better words, but you just don't know. Maybe, just maybe, you could finally see a different version of him. One that you might actually fall in love with.
How odd. The thought of falling in love with Snake. A man that you don't even know the true name of.
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Hamingja - A guardian spirit, depicted as a woman, that guides people to happiness. From Norse mythology.
Casanova - A man who has multiple female lovers. Synonym to womanizer.
Conceited - Someone who overestimates their own abilities and importance, leading to an unpleasant degree. Synonym to egotistic.
Diaphanous - Of fabric, so light weight and shear, that it is practically see through.
Respite - A short period of rest or relief from something that was seen as unpleasant or difficult.
