Sword and Spice (Askeladd x OC)(Vinland Saga)

20. (May 1010) Their Game

Askeladd
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Fiadh’s hands worked the man's bare skin with a skillful touch, fingers digging in with just the right amount of pressure to have the fool groaning like he’d never felt a woman’s touch before. Askeladd watched from his seat at the front of the boat, his gaze half-lidded but keen, the way a wolf might observe a rabbit squirm. He could see what she was up to—what game she was playing—every calculated movement of those hands of hers.

“Ah, gods… that’s good,” the man sighed, voice thick with relief.

Fiadh’s smile slid into place, slow and deliberate, as if she were savoring each syllable. “Isn’t it?” she replied, her tone sugary enough to rot teeth. There was a hint of something else there too, a soft edge that made it sound like more than just idle chatter. It was all part of the act, of course; she knew exactly how to wield touch like a blade, it would seem.

The poor bastard let out another groan as she quickened her pace, her fingers working it loose with a practiced touch. She’d learned to play this kind of game well—too well, Askeladd thought. But then, wasn’t that what made her useful?

When her thumb pressed into a tender spot, the man jolted slightly. “Fucking hell, that hurts.”

Fiadh didn’t miss a beat. “Aye, it does,” she said, her voice like velvet, “but it’ll feel better soon.”

And just as promised, the man’s grimace melted away, his expression easing back into something near bliss. She didn’t bother rubbing it in; she didn’t have to. The silence told Askeladd everything. The man was too far gone to notice anything but the sweet relief washing over him.

Fiadh was good at this sort of thing—too good, perhaps. But it was always the useful tools that had the sharpest edges.

Fiadh’s thumb found a knot in the man’s forearm, and he winced as she kneaded it out with just enough force to draw a pained hiss. “There, that should do it,” she said, letting his arm drop like a discarded rag before turning to grab the real one beside her. Without so much as a glance at the man as he got up and walked off, she wiped her hands clean, quick and thorough, as if scrubbing away the very touch of him.

Askeladd didn’t miss the subtle disdain in that little ritual of hers. She always did it—never could stomach the feel of his men on her skin for long, even a slight graze of an arm in passing. Her nose would wrinkle up whenever one of them leaned too close, like she could smell the stink of the battlefield still clinging to them.

A sharp nose, that girl. Or maybe just a sharper sense of superiority. It wasn’t just dirt she was wiping away; it was the trace of the world she thought herself too fine for. And Askeladd found it all too amusing—how she could play at being useful, while keeping herself just distant enough to remind him that she was never quite one of them, no matter how hard she tried.

Most of his men fell for her games, every last one of them dancing to her tune without even knowing it. Fiadh had a way of wrapping them around her little finger, spinning their heads with a smile that never quite reached her eyes. She’d play the part well enough—touch here, a kind word there, a promise of something more but wording it in a way that benefitted only her—but it was all just a game to her, and they were too blind to see it.

Askeladd, though, he saw through the act. He always had. It wasn’t that she fooled them because she was particularly clever—though she was, he'd admit—but because they were fools who wanted to believe it. That was her real trick, wasn’t it? To give them just enough of what they wanted to see, and they’d fill in the rest with their own wishful thinking.

He watched her with the same amusement one had for a fox sneaking into the henhouse—let her play her games. So long as it served him, he’d let her keep at it. But he kept a sharp eye on that fox all the same.