CW: Trans!Hytham, Male!Eivor, historically inaccurate top surgery.
“Where did you get those scars?”
The question came casually, somehow expected and yet unexpected, one summer afternoon. A sparring match had turned the Wolf-Kissed and the acolyte into sweaty heaps longing to wash off and relax, and a moment of bravery (or, perhaps, foolish adrenaline) had made Hytham agree to Eivor’s proposition to wash off together. It was a normal thing for Norsemen, after all. Hardly something to bat an eye over, despite what he hid under his robes.
Eivor was already in the water, stark-naked, lounging in the rocky hill pond which eventually trickled down to Ravensthorpe, and then into the river Nene. He leaned his arm on the edge and then his face on said arm, watching Hytham as he undressed. It wasn’t perverse, mere curiosity, they both knew. But Hytham was fiddling with the straps of his boots, and was therefore not focusing on wherever Eivor was looking.
“I’m afraid you will have to be more specific, my friend.” His voice came out as a light hum in the summer breeze. The life of an assassin was one filled with danger and injuries, and no amount of training could make one avoid wounds and scars, especially so when their training sometimes involved inflicting or being inflicted with injuries. Not deliberately, but one could hardly become a warrior if you never got to draw blood in even the safest of environments. He saw from the corner of his eye how Eivor angled his head to, supposedly, get a better look.
“The ones on your chest,” Eivor clarified. As Hytham looked up — his torso straightening with the movements of his head — the scars became even more prominent. Two thick, jagged but largely straight lines right under his chest, by his breasts, if one would use such words. In Eivor’s eyes, it seemed like such deliberate scarring, so parallel to each other, that it was hard to imagine them being the result of a battle. “Under your...”
He didn’t necessarily have to clarify, as the southern man looked down at his own torso, as if he had entirely forgotten he had such peculiar scars. In truth, he hadn’t, but he still seemed unprepared for Eivor’s questions. The awareness of them were always somewhere in the back of his mind, or in a proud corner of his heart, but Eivor had never questioned the scars he had seen on him before — the ones on his face, the cut to his ear, or the jagged ones on his hands — and so he had simply not assumed he would question these, either. Sometimes it was hard to know what things Norsemen would point out, and what they would silently forget.
“Ah,” was the single sound of acknowledgement that he let out. He gazed vaguely skyward for a moment, his face — unintentionally, as usual — showing clearly that he was hesitating. His nose wrinkled slightly, brows furrowed. He had come to terms with himself, and he knew Eivor better than to assume that he would not be, especially after his apparent friendship with Azar. What made him hesitate was more so actually explaining. He didn’t necessarily feel like going into detail with everything, his childhood, the Hidden Ones... The prologue to a story he was, frankly, too lazy to tell today. “It’s a long story.”
With that, he finished undressing. Both his boots were placed neatly by his tunic, gambeson, surcoat, and his hood, and his socks were then added to the pile. He removed his breeches too, and the only thing he kept on was the shorter, lighter pair of drawers he wore under his trousers. Why he kept them on or what the drengr might have seen if he had taken them off was yet another thing that he didn’t wish to explain.
Eivor’s gaze was undeniably curious, and Hytham did not find it in him to be offended by the intrigue. Perhaps it would have been forgiven if he felt it perverted or offensive, but his own gaze had roamed over the bodies of the Norse people before — simple curiosity of their tattoos, their builds, strength and muscles that was so different from the people back home — and so he could not blame Eivor for being equally curious about someone from so far away, with such a different culture and standard of living than he was used to. Either way, Hytham stepped carefully into the pond, letting out a soft sigh of relief as his overheated body cooled off, even in the summer-warmed water.
“If you do not wish to speak of it, I understand,” Eivor offered then. Understanding as always, a drengr like him knew to tread carefully in the matter of scars and wounds. “But I cannot deny that I am curious.”
Hytham eased himself further into the water, until it was up to his shoulders when he sat down on one of the many rocked edges. Not as comfortable as the seats of a Hammam, but not bad, either. He considered his words for a moment, what he might be willing to reveal.
“It is the result of a battle fought with no-one but myself,” the Hidden One explained cryptically, deliberately so, and obviously so, as a smile tugged on his lips. “Where a part of me was reborn, and came out the victor.”
He turned to glance at Eivor, who was looking at him blankly.
“You speak in riddles,” the Wolf-Kissed accused plainly. No bite behind the words, though, of course. Hytham smiled even more.
“I learned from Valka.”
Eivor huffed.
“You spoke in riddles when you taught me the leap as well. Will you claim that that was Valka’s doing, too?”
Hytham laughed, bright and clearly.
“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “But like the leap, this may be a riddle you will solve in time.”
“And what trial must I succeed in to learn this riddle?” It was mostly jest, but there was something serious in Eivor’s eyes; that of a true wish to learn the answer.
As much as he would have liked to tell him plainly, Hytham just shrugged.
“It is a battle few fight, perhaps it is a riddle few will solve, then, too.”
His words were teasing, and Eivor caught on immediately. The viking’s short, but charming laugh was more booming than Hytham’s.
“If you ever feel like sharing the answer,” the drengr suggested then, knowing there were considerably few questions Hytham willingly answered, “know that I am ready and willing to receive it.”
Hytham huffed, amused.
“Perhaps one day, my friend. But until then, know this;” he looked at Eivor intently this time, a small smile still at his lips. At ease, but fully serious. “The battle which caused them was one I knew I would win, and I did. These scars are the ones I am the most proud of.”
Eivor looked back at him equally intently. He felt the weight in the other’s words, and knew that there must be more to them than he could ever know.
A battle fought with no-one but himself, Eivor thought, where he was reborn. A battle he knew he would win, with scars he is proud of.
A riddle indeed.
“You sound like a skald, yet your metaphors seem much more hidden.” He couldn’t even begin to think what they could mean, and he considered the words Bragi and Alvis used; swan-roads, feather-fall, shield-thunder, blood-ember... Tricky for those that may not know their meanings, but undeniably clear which words were meant to mean something else. Hytham’s riddles all seemed like a big metaphor, like every word could be changed, twisted, and traded into a thousand different meanings.
“Like everything in my life,” Hytham mused simply. “And yet I have revealed more to you on this day than I have to most of my brothers and sisters in creed.”
To the acolyte’s surprise, Eivor’s eyes widened.
“Truly? Hytham, I...” The drengr moved, sitting up straight again. As if the other had just confessed a grave secret to him, something of deadly importance. Eivor grasped Hytham’s hand on his, held it over the water’s edge, cradled in both of his. “I thank you for trusting me.”
It was almost silly how serious his tone and expression had turned. Hytham had to admit, he had not imagined such a reaction: it surprised him and, frankly, flustered him. It must have been terribly obvious, too, what with how his cheeks reddened and he cast his gaze away from the other.
“It’s... Not that serious...” he mumbled weakly. “But...”
He scrunched his nose again. What was he supposed to say? ‘Thank you for taking this earnestly? ‘Thank you for saying thank you’? It was just awkward. Eivor, to his credit, seemed to wistfully ignore that.
Finally, Hytham sighed.
“You are a good friend, Eivor.” He forced his gaze back to the other, despite how flustered he felt. His smile was sheepish. “Thank you for that.”
