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The death of a mammoth was both a blessing and a curse. The male that broke its leg as they trudged their grueling march through the heavy rolling drifts of thick snow today was a loss that the tribe would feel for a long time coming, Satin knew. He had been a fierce thing, the mammoth, loyal and headstrong, who could easily carry two dozen men and another dozen tents upon the massive expanse of its back. The rocky crag that had sealed his fate had been concealed in fresh snow, and the trumpeting bellows of pain he’d let out had echoed through the hearts of the tribe as much as it had the valley. Jon had done the beast the honor of slaying it himself once the protruding bone sticking from the beast’s leg made it clear it would never rise again. He’d thanked it and put it out of its misery with the slice of a bronze sword across its wooly neck. The mammoth’s caretaker, its master, had wept.
They would have to split the weight that mammoth had been carrying among the others now, without overloading them. They were down one breeding male, too, and down a fierce mount during skirmishes with wights, Others, and other clans. The loss stung. But it also meant meat, the warmest furs, sturdy leather, ivory and bones for tools, and countless other things. Not a piece of the beast would go unused. Not an inch would be wasted.
The mouthwatering smells of roasting meat hung heavily in the air. The smell of woody smoke from their campfires wafted around him as Satin and two dozen others worked tirelessly to cut, thinly slice, smoke, salt, and dry what could not be eaten tonight. Their tribe was large, but even a hundred or so hungry mouths could not eat the tonnes of meat their departed mammoth would leave them behind in one night. Satin scraped the flat end of his blade of sharpened bone along a large patch of wooly fur-covered hide, stripping the bloody flesh from the pelt until it was clean and ready to be tanned and dried. His hands were red and sticky from the process, and sore from holding the blade for hours, but Satin did not falter. This was work that needed doing, and it needed doing before the meat spoiled and rot set in. The sharp cold around them, the icy wind and deep freeze of the Long Night would buy them a little longer than they might have had back in the summer of Oldtown that had once been his home a lifetime ago, but they still needed to work fast. So Satin pressed on, scraping and cutting until the flesh was clean, and passing it to one of the tribe elders, Grandmother Holda, beside him to do the next step as another piece of bloody pelt quickly found itself into his lap. The work was repetitive, tedious, but he got to sit by the fire so he would not complain.
His companions for the task sat around him, chatting and laughing as they worked. Most were the women, the wives and the young maidens who kept the tents, prepared the food, and kept their tribe functioning smoothly. Some were the older women, the grandmothers and crones, all wrinkled and wise and yet still strong enough to survive the march and the harsh reality of the life they lived. But Satin was not the only man among them. There were some elderly men who could no longer do as they once had, though still productive and capable in other ways now that age had caught up with them. But there were others like him, too. Softer men, men who did not hunt or range, men who carried weapons but were not true fighters, men who cooked and cleaned and sewed and foraged what little could be foraged, and kept the tents the way a woman did. The way a wife did. They were no large group, certainly, but the three of them joined the women and older men in their duties without the blinking of any eye from anyone. The thought still boggled Satin’s mind.
Hearth husbands, they were called; men who fulfilled the domestic role for their partner. Where – when – Satin had come from, that had been the woman’s place and it would be a shame on any man who dared to step into it. Here, it was simply not so. Here, now, you did what you were best at. A woman could be a warrior, a spearwife, and a man could be a hearth husband and keep the home for his partner, if that was his strength. It was simply accepted, allowed, normal. It was the role Satin had fallen into when he had fallen through time and found himself here. The jarl’s... he did not want to say hearth husband. Tent keeper? Helper? Back in his time, he might have called it ‘steward’. But he would not say he was Jon’s hearth husband. That term was so... official. So formal. So romantic. Sure, Satin kept his tent and his hearth. Sure, Satin prepared their food and drink. And, sure, Satin warmed his furs. But they were not lovers. Jon had never had him, though not for Satin’s lack of offer nor Jon’s lack of desire. He’d felt it, that desire, pressing against him in the night as they huddled for warmth and seen it in his eyes from time to time, something hot like the hearth Satin fastidiously kept burning in their tent.
“You can have me.” Satin had whispered back when his Old Tongue was still stilted and broken, staring up at his savior with hooded eyes and parted lips. To thank him, for all Jon had done for him. Protection, food, knowledge of the language and how to survive instead of leaving him to die out in the snow, Jon had given them all to him freely and asked for nothing in return. Still, Satin had to give something in return. That was simply the way of things. “I won’t say no.”
“I don’t want you not to say no.” Jon had told him with a stern and yet not unkind look. “I want you to say yes.”
“Are they... not the same thing?”
The way Jon’s face had fallen echoed in Satin’s mind even now. “No...” Jon whispered. “No, they’re not.”
He had not had him that night. Nor any night after that. But he’d kissed him when Satin had asked for it, wanted it, for his own in the weeks that followed. And so they had fallen into something tender, something slow, and something altogether foreign to Satin. Not-quite-lovers, who shared a bed and a tent. Not-quite-lovers, who woke entwined in a tangle of limbs and warmth and drowsy kisses. Not-quite-lovers, who shared horns of pine needle tea by the fire each night as they curled up together wrapped in furs against the large radiating warmth of Ghost at their back as Jon talked of plans for the future and Satin told him of the sun that would one day rise. They were something sweet, like the first sip of summer wine he could still remember from his old life, like honey, like a fresh mango. Those things were little more than dreams to him now. But Jon was real. Solid against him and present, and sweeter than all those things combined.
But not... lovers. Not husbands. That was the word that always tugged on something in his chest. Two men could not wed, his mind still told him, it was just not done in the light of the Seven. But there is no Seven here, he reminded himself, and no light. Only the Old Gods who are not even old yet, and a night that never ends. Two men, he’d come to learn, could love freely in the dark. Could wed freely in the dark.
He’d seen it with his own two eyes, though he’d scarcely believed it. One of the tribe’s best warriors and wargs, Olmyr, had taken a hide tanner, Dargrim, as his hearth husband at a communal supper many long moons ago, not long after Satin had first arrived. Will you tend my fire? Olmyr had asked before the whole clan without a drop of doubt or fear in his voice. Will you keep my tent? They had exchanged their vows – vows of devotion, warmth, protection, and love – at a meal like any of the countless other weddings between men and women Satin had seen before, and his mouth had hung open like a dumb fool until Jon had nudged him.
“What is it, Faen?” Jon had asked with a curious expression as he studied him.
Faen was the name Jon had given him when he, so accustomed to the sounds and styles of the Old Tongue, had struggled to say ‘Satin’. Just as he had taken ‘Jon’ from Bréanjainn when his own tongue had fumbled it over and over. Faennag. Little Crow. For the black of his hair, Jon had told him, a hair color he’d never seen before.
Satin had hardly been able to tear his eyes from the two men who had finished their vows as Olmyr pulled Dargrim into a fiery kiss. “But...” He whispered. “They are men...”
“Aye, they are.”
“Two men.”
“Aye, I know.’ Jon had chuckled. “So?”
So? That word haunted him. So? It could not be that easy. So, so, so? Two men could only kiss and want and desire and fuck behind a locked door. Their ‘love’ could not be a marriage of all things. Their love could only be a secret, could be only a lust to be had in dark corners or lumpy brothel beds before they returned home to their wives. It was the way of things. It was simply the reality. And yet Jon’s so? stayed with him. It stayed with him as he and Jon grew from strangers to friends to not-quite-lovers, as they took it slow and kept their innocent, closed-mouth kisses to the privacy of their tent. So? Still, well over a year into Satin’s new life, that so? was not quite something he could comprehend.
“You’re staring, Faen!”
Satin blinked. From across the firepit, Dargrim and another hearth husband to one of the spear wives, Isvar, were processing a piece of the fallen mammoth’s hide in a boiling pot. Dargrim laughed and waved his stirring stick in a playful greeting.
“Sorry...” Satin said sheepishly.
“Need help?” Dargrim asked, motioning to the piece of pelt in Satin’s hands.
“I’ve got it.” He assured with a shake of the head, scraping the flesh and fat from the hide with the flat of his blade. The viscera sloughed off into the gory pile at his feet. “I was just tired and needed a moment.”
“Up late, were you?” Isvar teased with a grin. “I think I saw the jarl yawning, too. Did you keep his fire burning all night, hearth-brother?”
Satin glared at him, but there was no heart in it. “The jarl was up late.” He said flatly. “Working. Planning.”
It was not a lie. Jon had been up late working, scratching plans and diagrams into birch bark parchment, preliminary designs of the castle Satin knew would one day be Winterfell when their long march to their destination was finally complete. But Satin had coaxed him to their plush pile of furs before long where they had shared many a sweet kiss until sleep had claimed them.
Isvar laughed. “As you say, Faen.”
Satin rolled his eyes and refocused on his work. Once the pelt in his hands was stripped of its flesh, he passed it to the elderly woman beside him and took another piece from the pile. The blood and sinew were half-frozen and hard from the chill, and the encrusted ice made his fingers ache, but he took his blade to it anyway. His hands were harder than they had been once, calloused from a year of relentless survival and bitter cold, and stronger from daily manual labor. These weren’t a boywhore’s hands anymore, perfumed and softened with lotions he bought from the apothecary. These were a man’s hands, and they knew what it was to work.
The sound of a child’s voice calling his name drew him from his thoughts, and Satin glanced behind him. A little girl dressed in so many layers of thick furs that she could not even lay her arms flat at her sides trudged toward him through the snow, coming up and wrapping her mitten-clad hands around him as she pressed her pouting face into his shoulder with a dramatic sniffle. Satin could not help but chuckle.
“What’s wrong, little cub?”
Mora was her name, and she was a wild thing. Fierce, stubborn, and strong for her age of only five, her personality was big but her heart was even bigger. She felt everything and felt it deeply. She’d be a hell of a spear wife one day, a warrior like her father, and a powerful skinchanger like him too, if her growing bond with her snowbear companion was any indication. Satin glanced over his shoulder to see her familiar northern complexion, long face, brown hair, and grey eyes as she pressed herself to his back in a hug. Her mother’s features – copper hair, blue eyes, and pale skin – had been lost on her; she was the spit and image of her father and her father alone. Of all of Jon’s children, she was the one who liked Satin best. Of all the tribe’s children he often helped the women watch and tend, she was the one who liked to climb into his lap and listen most attentively when he told his tales of the south, the summer, and the sun.
“Sad.” Mora muttered into the furs upon his shoulder.
“And what are you sad about, child?” He asked, letting the pelt and the knife rest in his lap.
“Ailbhean died.” She sniffled sadly. “I miss him! I used to pet him and ride around on him...”
Satin recognized the name of the mammoth who had passed and wiped the blood from his hand so he could give the shaggy mess of hair on her head a gentle pat. “It’s alright, cub.” He soothed. “He’s still with us.”
“He’s gone, Faen!” She cried, the tears in her big grey eyes beginning to spill over and freeze on her cheeks. Satin quickly wiped them away. “Mama said so.”
“He may be dead, little cub, but he’s still with us.” Satin promised. “His furs will warm us, his meat feed us, his bones and tusks will be the tools that help us survive. We'll carry him with us, you see. Just because you can’t pet his trunk or ride on his back anymore doesn’t mean he’s gone.”
That seemed to lighten the child’s spirit and she gave him a little smile. “Really?”
“Really, Mora. And you should be excited, little one. There is a feast tonight in the Long Tent with all the food you can eat. There’s to be music and drums and dancing, too. You’ll have fun. There’s no need to pout and cry. We must celebrate Ailbhean tonight, okay?”
“Okay!”
The girl was gone as quickly as she’d come, scurrying off to gods knew where as the hulking form of her snowbear trailed ever dutifully behind her at a distance ensuring she was safe. Satin shook his head and laughed under his breath as he watched her silhouette disappear into the gloom of the dark.
He took the pelt back into his hands and began to scrape it clean once again. The elderly woman at his side eyed him for a moment and then smiled a nearly-toothless smile. She was one of the oldest in the tribe, with her hair grey and stringy, her face wizened and wrinkled, but her hands, her mind, and her tongue remained strong and sharp. She was one of the most respected people in all the tribe, having earned her place riding the largest mammoth in their herd even well into her seventies.
“You speak like one of us now, young crow.” She crooned in her raspy voice. She paused as if she was evaluating him, seeing him for all he was worth, and then she nodded. “Very good, Faennag.”
Satin’s eyes widened and he beamed with pride. “Thank you, Grandmother Holda.”
The old crone bowed her head. “I remember it like it was yesterday when you would trail behind the jarl like a pup with its tail between its legs, shivering and shaking with fear each time the wind so much as blew. I remember your tear-stained cheeks and your frightened childlike eyes. I remember your bewildered stare when you could not understand our tongue. I remember how you needed to be taught everything from how to properly tend a fire to how to string a bow to how to skin a hare like you were little more than a babe in arms. I remember how you could barely walk under the weight of your furs and how Ghost had to carry you for many an hour as we marched. I remember that little boy. But he’s gone now, isn’t he?”
Satin felt a tug on his heart. He thought unbidden of that old satin robe, the one he’d been wearing when he had fallen through time 8000 years into the past, his name sake, that was stored away forgotten at the bottom of some bag and he thought of Jon. He thought of so many things. He thought of their hearth-fire and their tent and all he’d had to learn and change and become to survive.
“I... I don’t know, Grandmother.” He admitted.
“You will know.” She said with the flippant certainty of age and wisdom. “You will.”
_____________
The Long Tent was filled with the thundering rhythm of drums, the cacophony of a dozen conversations all happening at once, and the echoing laughter of joy as the feast wore on. Satin sat cross-legged on a square of plush furs at Jon’s side at the head of the tent. Jon’s was a place of honor as the jarl, looking out over his clan with pride. They ate, they drank deeply from jugs of fermented mammoth’s milk, and they lived. Satin, ever at Jon’s side as was his place, smiled as he looked out amongst those who had become his family.
He saw the men and women and children he’d come to know. Grandmother Holda was telling tales to a small gathering of rowdy children who climbed all over her as she spoke. He saw Olmyr in the midst of a wrestling contest with one of the clan’s strongest spearwives, losing handedly as she put him in a chokehold to the thunderous applause of onlookers. He saw men and women dancing, laughing, kissing, fucking, and no one batted an eye. Satin didn’t either, not anymore. He saw Mora sitting in her snowbear’s lap and feeding it strips of meat from her plate. He saw her mothers at her side, sharing steaming horns of pine needle tea and the occasional sweet kiss. Satin’s gaze lingered on them, and he thought of Jon beside him.
There was a gentle touch on his arm. “Are you alright, Faen?” Jon leaned in and whispered, his gaze following Satin’s as a knowing look settled on his expression.
He nodded. “It’s just... very loud and warm in the tent.” He said in place of an explanation. “That’s all.”
“Warmth is life.” Jon answered, raising his horn of fermented mammoth’s milk. He was always saying that. Satin had lost count of how often Jon had told him that. “And food.” He continued with a small smile. “And there is much life in this tent tonight.”
Even in the depths of the Long Night, where death was around every corner and the dead rose as wights, where the sun and the temperature never rose, and there was life and light and joy. Survival was hard but spirits, especially tonight as meat was plentiful, were high. Life was good. Satin returned Jon’s cheers with his own horn, and gave him a gentle smile.
“That there is.”
Jon eyed him for a moment. “Have you had your fill?” He asked, motioning to the numerous wooden bowls filled with heaps of roasted mammoth and thick milky mammoth stew. The meat was tough and gamey, but he enjoyed every bite of it. It was an acquired taste that once had made him want to gag, but he had most certainly acquired it by now.
“I have.”
“Good.” Jon said. “It’s making you strong.”
It had been become strong or die. Jon had told him so. He would not survive if he was weak. But I am weak, he’d cried to him. Then you must grow and learn, Jon had answered. I will help you. But you must try. He had. Every day, Satin had tried. He worked and he learned and he did not stop no matter how tired, how weak, he felt. He could not stop trying; he could not disappoint Jon. And somewhere along the way, Satin’s body had changed. He had a proper man’s body now, not the waifish slim slip of a body he’d once had, all delicate and dainty. His shoulders were broader now from training with the bow, his frame stockier from eating hunted game and mammoth’s milk soup instead of crusts of bread and watery porridge, his legs thicker from leagues upon leagues of marching through the snow. When he caught his reflection in bowls of water or pieces of glassy ice, Satin hardly recognized himself anymore. He had a feeling that his old black satin robe would not even close around his chest if he tried to wear it now. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He plucked another hearty chunk of roast mammoth and popped it in his mouth. More meat was more strength, and he needed to be strong. Every bit was important.
Jon chuckled. “You are strong, Faen. Very strong, already.” A small, soft smile bloomed on Satin’s face as Jon continued. “Here, let me see you.”
With gentle fingers, Jon took his chin in hand and looked long at his face. He turned it to the right, hummed appreciatively, and then turned it left. Satin grinned as he let Jon inspect him with his keen grey eyes, thumb softly stroking at his jaw. Seemingly content with what he found, Jon regarded the rest of him, too; his curls braided out of his face, his bulky clothes of sewn furs, hides, and leathers, and his strong hands marred with callouses and nicks and small scars, inspecting each part with solemn attention. Jon adjusted the neckline of his fur wrap-tunic and hummed again.
“Well?” Satin prompted, grinning. “Your assessments, jarl?”
Jon huffed in amusement. “There’s something missing.”
His smile faltered just a bit. “Oh?”
“Aye. Here, this ought to do it.”
From one of the many pockets sewn into Jon’s clothes, he pulled forth a small something. It was a clasp, knife-carved into the shape of a crow from ivory. From mammoth’s tusk, Ailbhaen’s tusk, and polished until it shone. He recognized it as one of Jon’s designs – impeccable, mathematical, elegant – and its craftmanship was exquisite. All of Jon’s work always was. The tribespeople often adorned themselves in ornamentation like this, of an animal they’d taken as their own, when they reached adulthood. Jon’s was a direwolf, but others wore the bones and symbols of bears, of shadowcats, of mammoths, and more. And now, a crow. A quiet gasp fell from his lips as Jon brought it to Satin’s breast, slid the ivory pin through the furs there, and clasped them more securely closed.
“There.” Jon murmured with a smile, running a finger along the ivory. “You look...”
Satin’s body felt warm and alive, and his heart sang. “Look what...?” He asked. “Like I belong?”
“Beautiful.” Jon answered and Satin’s cheeks flushed.
“I...” He floundered for words, a thousand-thousand things he wanted to say but did not know how to say them. “Thank you. For all you give me. How can I ever thank you?”
For the life you saved and the new one you gave me. For the gentleness you didn’t need to show to a useless foundling you discovered in the woods. For the warmth you’ve shared and the happiness you’ve given me. How could I ever repay that in kind?
Jon regarded him for a moment, a softness in his grey eyes. “You can.” He smiled. “By dancing with me this night. The drums are beating. And if it would please you to dance with me, I would have you dance with me.”
It was all Satin wanted. He felt the rolling rhythm of the drums, of the singing, and the woodflutes echo through his bones. People moved around them in wild blurs, and the roaring fires cast their dancing shadows along the expansive Long Tent’s walls around them. He wanted to rise with them, to dance with Jon before them all, but something pulled at him and caused him to hesitate. A man could not dance with another man, a voice in the back of his mind whispered, not where others could see. The septons would come to scream their sermons and threats of damnation and hellfire. It was punishable by hanging, for a man to love another man and be caught. He’d known a boy who’d died for that, in Oldtown on the steps of the Starry Sept. He’d watched him swing from the noose and knew he was one wrong step from taking his place. It was—
“It’s alright.” Jon reassured with knowing eyes. “It is allowed here.”
His voice was a balm and Satin felt the tension in his muscles slowly begin to lax. He wasn’t in Oldtown. There was no Starry Sept, and there would not be for 8000 years. Here, there was only Jon and his kind eyes.
“I will dance with you.” Satin finally whispered.
“Only if it pleases you.”
“It does.” Gods, it does.
Jon smiled, offering him his hand to help him rise, and Satin, as he always did, followed Jon’s lead. There were no steps to the dance they danced, only the impulses of their bodies and the rhythm of the music. The beat was fast, so they were too. Jon pulled him close, spun them, twirled them, and bounced them. It was a dance of exhilaration, of unabashed joy, and closeness. They moved together with ease, swaying and spinning to the music on whims and instinct, their bodies pressed close and intimate. Satin’s smile was as easy and open as their dance, and Jon’s was warm and fond. It was freeing. To dance with Jon the way lovers did. The way a husband and wife did. Or two husbands did. Gods, he thought, I’m allowed to have this. I’m truly, truly, allowed to have this. To have him. Satin’s heart raced in his chest, thundering away in time with their steps and the beating of the drums.
The music was still playing when their dance came to an end. They each gasped for breath, their bodies still thrumming from the frantic, wild dancing. The strands of Jon’s hair were a mess, falling into his face and into his eyes, and his cheeks were flushed from exertion. He looked disheveled, and yet he’d never looked more beautiful than he did right then. Those grey eyes of his were soft, gentle, and Satin found he could not look away. But he was allowed to have him and so he didn’t have to look away. They were surrounded by a hundred sets of eyes, many of them no doubt on them now. Yet, he didn’t feel them. He only felt Jon’s. It didn’t matter if they were watching anyway. Because Satin was allowed to have him. He simply stared up at him, breathless and smiling, and let his arms come up to wrap around Jon's neck to pull him down and closer until there was hardly an inch between their noses. Jon’s eyes widened ever so slightly.
“Yes.” Satin whispered.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Jon closed the final distance between them without a second’s hesitation. The kiss was sweet and slow, like a thousand nights worth of longing spilled from him in a single moment. He poured into it every bit of desire he’d felt, every fond memory of waking next to him content and safe, every time he’d wanted to kiss him and touch him in public yet talked himself out of it in the sea of his lingering doubts and fears. He deepened the kiss, pulling Jon closer and holding him tighter. A thousand kisses he had given Jon before in the privacy of their tent, but this one was different. This one felt real. This one took hold of a seed of shame buried deep in his gut and cast it out at last. Satin almost wanted to cry in relief. Instead, he only sighed happily into the kiss.
They broke apart when the need for breath was too great, but they did not go far. Jon’s hand found its way to Satin’s hair and held him close. He could feel the force of the smile on his face as he looked up at him, could feel the love pouring out of him, and he was too enraptured in Jon to even register the cheers and calls of fucking finally! echoing around them. All he saw was Jon. The moment he had his breath back, Satin pulled him into another kiss.
They shared half a dozen of them, standing right there in the center of the tent. When they finally pulled away again, Jon cupped his cheek and stroked his thumb across the warm flush there. There was a soft fondness to his expression. Something sweet and warm, without even the faintest hint of doubt.
“Faennag...” Jon breathed and stared into his eyes. “Will you tend my fire?” The phrase set Satin’s heart ablaze. He knew what those words meant. A shuddered breath fell from his lips as Jon continued. “Will you keep my tent and warm my furs? Will you be mine?”
His vision blurred with the welling of tears. “Yes...” He vowed, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper and his smile so wide it made his jaw ache. “Yes, Jon. I will tend your fire, keep your tent, and warm your furs. I will be yours. If you will be mine.”
“Aye, my Faen, I will be yours.” Jon promised, and the words were sweeter than honey. “And in return I will guard your heart and body, keep you safe, and warm your furs. From this night until my last night.”
Jon kissed away the tears that spilled down his cheeks and held him close. He could find no words to say. There was no word in the Old Tongue or the New for the joy he felt. It was an overflowing of love and joy and relief and rebirth all at once. It was pure, unadulterated feeling. A purging of something rotten and a filling with something fresh. He was Jon’s hearth husband, bound in vow before the entire tribe. He could have him and be had by him. He could be loved and wedded and bedded, and he could do it freely. He could do it all with Jon.
“Husband...” He breathed as he pressed them nose to nose, his voice a gentle sigh of bliss, a quiet sound of revelation and rapture.
“Husband...” Jon echoed sweetly, and Faen smiled.