snakes and spells

“Do not be afraid,” she says. He can see her breath faintly in the cold air. It has been hours since the king’s men left them here, shut them up in a cave away from Bebbanburh and Sihtric and home. Perhaps longer. Without the light, it is hard to tell.

“Sihtric will come,” he says with more bravery than he feels.

He feels rather than sees her smile. “Yes. And my Finan. And then we will have to ask them what took them so long.”

If they still live. The thought is a treacherous one, seeping into the corners of his mind and turning everything dark inside. Lord Uhtred is banished, perhaps dead. Who is to say Finan and Sihtric have not suffered the same fate?

Deor closes his eyes to pray. The words will not come. What good are they? All that is left of his former calling is the cross around his neck, a cross that now hangs there alongside the Thor’s hammer Sihtric had gifted him several Yuletides ago. Deor had given him a cross of his own, and Sihtric had smiled, a precious thing for how rarely it appeared. “Your God watches over me, as mine do for you.”

Please, Deor sends the thought into the cold, dank air. There is no sky, no sun. They are hidden from everyone. If God cannot find him, how will Sihtric?

He must have made a noise, because Ingrith holds his hand tighter. “Sihtric will come,” she says, soft but firm.

Deor lets out a shivering breath. The dark presses in. “Sihtric will come.”

~

More time passes. Hours, days… It is hard to breathe. The darkness seems to have taken on a life of its own. Right now it feels like it might swallow Deor whole.

Ingrith squeezes his hand. Weaker, now. Deor tries to turn his head, but his limbs refuse to move.

Don’t let me die in the dark, he thinks numbly. If I am to die, let it be in the light. And please let me see Sihtric again, if only for a moment.

Their faiths will separate them after death. Even if he shared Sihtric’s belief in the Danish gods, he is not a warrior and never has been. Yet perhaps, if there is mercy, there will be a moment, a pause…enough time for them to say goodbye before their paths diverge forever.

Don’t let me die in the dark.

~

Scraping noises. Voices.

Deor’s eyes flutter open briefly. Still dark. Ingrith's hand is lax in his. Her skin is so cold.

The voices make him frown. They seem oddly familiar, and yet he still cannot move. There is a heavy rock crushing his chest and all he wants to do is sleep.

His eyes close just as the first stone is removed.

~

“Deor.”

Someone is calling his name.

He is frozen.

“Deor.” Hands cup his face, calloused and familiar. “Please.”

Deor breathes in. It stabs right through his chest, but the air is clean.

Is he dead? Is this the moment?

His eyes open.

Light. Too much of it. He whimpers, flinches away. It is as if he is being run through.

“Breathe.” Sihtric’s hands, Sihtric’s voice. He is here. That soothes Deor somewhat. “Breathe. You are safe.”

And then, quieter: “Do not leave.”

Deor wants to reassure him, to ask him how it is he is here, but the dark pulls him under again, away from the light and the cold and the pain.

Away from Sihtric.

~

When Deor wakes again, he knows he is alive.

Everything hurts, from his fingers to his toes. Opening his eyes is a battle in itself; the light he has loved now more like an enemy than a friend. But it’s enough to show him where he is.

Bebbanburh. A bedchamber. Fire burning in the hearth. Furs piled around him. Outside he can hear the sounds of early morning: hens clucking, footsteps, quiet voices.

And next to the bed is Sihtric, head resting on his chest as he sleeps.

Deor watches him carefully. He knows he is alive, and yet a part of him still wonders if this is some kind of dream conjured up by his own longings.

Sihtric looks tired. Thinner. There is a new scar across his cheek that was not there before. His clothes are muddy and stained. But he is breathing. Alive.

They both are.

Relief floods Deor. Tears run down his cheeks. Those hurt too, but he does not mind.

Sihtric’s eyes open then. His gaze—one brown eye, one blue—goes toward the bed instantly. “Deor.” He crouches by the furs.

“Sihtric,” Deor says, and then he is crying, really crying. He sobs until the breath is all but choked from his lungs, and Sihtric holds him for all of it.

~

“Is anyone else here?”

Deor waits until he has finished crying to ask the question. His voice is a little hoarse, leftover tears still clogging the back of his throat.

Sihtric does not answer him immediately. “Lord Uhtred. Finan. The queen too.”

“And from the cave?”

Sihtric has never lied to him. He says nothing, and somehow that tells Deor all.

They are gone. Everyone else in the cave is gone. The dark stole them away.

He does not realise he is crying again until Sihtric sits down next to him. “I need to see Finan.”

“When you can walk,” Sihtric says. Quiet as ever, and yet Deor knows there is no moving him. “The blame lies with those who advised the king. Not you.”

It is the most distant term Sihtric has ever used to refer to Aethelstan. Truthfully Deor has no idea if he will be able to look the boy he’d once known in the eyes again without seeing Ingrid and everyone else who had died in that cave.

“Is he here?”

Sihtric nods. “There was a battle. King Aethelstan’s advisor Ingilmundr was working for the Danes. We pushed them back. I heard the king took Ingilmundr’s head himself.”

“Good,” Deor says, and despite vengeance being a sin he cannot bring himself to regret it.

He does not want to sleep. But the dark is coming for him again.

“Rest,” Sihtric says. “You will be better when you wake.”

“Can you stay?” Deor asks. He knows with the aftermath of a battle there will be a hundred things to do. But if he has to lie alone in this room, as spacious as it is, he fears the walls will close in and crush him, blocking out the light forever.

Sihtric runs a thumb over his forehead and then rests one hand over his heart, where the cross and hammer lie. “As long as you will have me.”

Perhaps Deor is imagining it, but the shadows seem to retreat a little at his words.

He settles back under the furs, Sihtric’s hand in his, warm and alive. There will be time to mourn, to pray, to perhaps…try to forgive, one day.

But for now he sleeps. And the light follows him down and keeps the dark at bay.

* Secret Santa: This means you will fill out a gift exchange on ao3. You'll have the option to say what you'd like to read, tell your squicks/triggers and what you love, as a guideline for the author. Our authors will tell us what they love to write, but also what they don't want to write. We will take all of this info into account as we pair readers with authors. You will be the reader of one fic created especially for you, and you'll also be the author of one fic you'll create for someone else! It's a lovely exchange between readers and authors for the holiday season.

** Zero Comment Challenge: This challenge has piqued our interest last year. We thought it would be a nice way of giving back to those who create for our fandom and may not have gotten a huge fandom response to their work. As one might instantly notice, the Vikings fandom is vast and there are lots of fics on AO3 that did not get any comments. Even those who've been there for years. We think it's a little sad that some authors never received a kind word for their work. It would be ideal to strike them off the list of "zero comment fic". It is important to note, that a proper comment for this challenge is one that is structured and longer than five sentences. This can be achieved by following a comment guideline we would post for you. A How To if you will. Also, the knowledge of making an author smile is such a reward! Spreading love is important.

*** Fic Bingo: This one's a bit like a collect 'em all. You will get a Bingo sheet with varying tropes and other fic characteristics listed. Every time you read a fic that fits an entry on the bingo sheet, you get to cross that entry out. You have to comment in some way for us to track it, i. e. reblogging with a comment in the tags also counts, or you comment on AO3. Obviously we will need to get the links to the fics you read (and where the comment will be visible to us) to check if you actually did read them. Hence why the comment or reblog is necessary.

To make both the Fic Bingo and the Zero Comment Challenge a little more interesting, there will be 3 prizes to be won. This is where artists and writers come in. For all three places you can get a reward of differing value.

3. Prize will be a art of any kind: edit, gif, moodboard, digital art of something the winner can prompt (i.e. specific theme or character it revolves around).

2. Prize is a ficlet of max. 1k words that the winner can prompt with explicit guidelines on what they want and/or not want

1. Prize will be a combination of a fic and art of any kind by two different creators that will come together and collaborate for the winner.